Truly, a man ahead of his time! :D

Oh, and I was certainly into boy scouts, too. If you know what I mean, nudge nudge, grin grin, wink wink, SAY NO MORE!

I’ll say it – I had a great time in High School. Oh I wasn’t a cheerleader or homecoming queen or anything. I had friends in all the different groups. I lettered in Track & Field Hockey, was editor of the school paper, was on Student Counsel. I also did lots of horribly stupid things. I was never where I was supposed to be, snuck out, oh all kinds of insane stuff but gosh it was a whole lotta fun.

Going to a smaller school – I think we were 800 students total, my class is 184 – the cliques were a little less defined. The captain of the football team was also in band. Cheerleaders were in plays. Since we were smaller you could play sports if you weren’t a superstar and have a decent chance at other activities as well. We also had some really great teachers. One of our English teachers was such a Shakespeare fan that senior year we all signed up for an elective class in Shakespeare in which we spent the entire year just reading plays aloud.

I also sort of lucked out in an odd way. My best friend, starting in 6th grade, spent the fall at another school. Then when we were sophomores got sent to boarding school. So I always had a best friend she just wasn’t ever actually there. I didn’t need to try and fit in with a clique because I had that connection. I hung out with whoever I wanted to. Also J went to school in Palo Alto which was an entirely different world from where we lived. So I got exposed to all kinds of different music, movies, even the beginning of the Aids epidemic. Stuff that I never would have if she hadn’t gone to school there. Also I must say the advent of MTV. We had one AM radio station. And at some point the Junior College had some sort of underground FM one. Your exposure to different kinds of music was really limited. And one movie theatre meant they only show one at a time. Lots of things never even played there.

I apparently had a totally warped view of myself. I always thought I was kind of a goober. I didn’t think I was ugly but not anything to write home about. I didn’t try all that hard in class. I just didn’t’ get it. Example in AP English I’d get up the day a paper was due about 4:30 and type it up, first draft/last draft. My grade would usually be a B+ (cause the teacher was an ass and knew I only just wrote it). My over achieving friends would do multiple drafts, have conferences with the teacher, and they would get an A-. I just didn’t see why I would bother with all that effort for a half a grade point.

I put together our 20th reunion and it was really fun. I learned that apparently I was popular, people did like me, who knew? Another oddity of the small town is a large group of us have been in school together forever. I think 20 started at Pre-School. So even if you weren’t bestest buds at some point in 14 years you had classes with almost everyone. Or you played Bobby Sox, or were in Campfire Girls, or swim lessons. I had a classmate call me after the reunion to say that he was glad he went. Most of his “buddies” weren’t there but he said it was so great to catch up with guys he was friends with in younger grades that he hadn’t really talked to in High School.

I’m now working on our 25th for next summer. I realize that reunions aren’t for everyone. I have a few friends who wouldn’t attend if you kidnapped them. And that’s fine. I know why they feel that way, although in one case good lord let it go – no one cares anymore.

One of the more interesting things in listening to conversations at our last reunion was it wasn’t really about high school. It was “remember in third grade when…” or “what about the time in cub scouts.” And people just catching up. I didn’t hear a lot of snarky “good lord look how fat she is” or “damn he’s let himself go”. More just what are you doing now, how old are your kids.

I seem to have managed to harvest the best people from my High School experience and plant them here. A tad different, more experience or worldly, but still among the coolest folks I know.

More reflections later

I was a total jerk user womaning self absorbed arrogant ass.

I'd like to think I'm not any of those anymore, but I have no doubt there are those who would use at least some of those adjectives on me from time to time.

I went to my 20th, and honestly was surprised at how many people were happy to see me. I had kept in touch with a few very close friends, and others I had expected to have no desire to talk with me were some of the ones most genuinely interested in talking. I was quite fortunate to have friends and acquaintenances who were better people than I was.

I'm less absolute.

I was into punk and new wave music and felt nothing else had merit - well, except maybe some classical. Now there isn't a genre I can't take some interest in or appreciation, even country.

I was all for reason and rationality, got downright mean spirited and nasty to the religious, but have since learned to respect other beliefs - though when hit with unyielding dogma I can still hit back. On the other hand I've also come to realize that reason is the tool people use to justify doing the things they feel are right, so I've learned to trust my gut and be okay with that.

I was all about creativity, but mostly that meant storytelling, it wasn't until I saw the collection of modern works in my college museum, going with the intent to ridicule them that I learned how spectacular they were, and that visual art was way more that representation.

While I still tend to lean left, particularly when it comes to social issues, I'm mostly apolitical. Being involved in the formation of a PAC taught me that people get into politics to serve their own self-interest, they love single issue voters and idealists because they are easy to manipulate to meet their own goals. I still admire the political idealists, but I hate the nastiness politics seems to spawn, so avoid it as much as possible.

In high school I reveled in being on the fringe, and so made myself belligerently so, now while I still like being in the fringe, I'm more confident with my place there so less belligerent (i.e. threatened).

I finally grokked art appreciation in my senior year of high school, when Academic Decathlon had us learn about certain classical pieces and various types of visual art. What a fantastic thing, to be opened up to a whole new world of expressiveness. They took us to my first art museum, a life-changing experience. I ended up medaling in Fine Arts.

**HUGS** There was at least one person in high school who did truly care about you. She still does - so much so your entry made her cry.

Ugh. High School.

I went to two high schools, in two states, and I felt a great deal of pressure to fit into not only with some preconceived notion of my parents' making, but also my own struggle to belong in two very different cultures.

My two years in NJ stunted my growth for years to come.

In MA, I was a member of the gay-straight alliance, I played two sports, held a chair in the drama club, had my own BBS, and I had a tattoo artist boyfriend. I was beginning to discover things like piercings, wearing too much black for effect, art, and a good number of other things which would later become staples of my interests and identity.

In New Jersey, I felt like a sqaure-egg, a fish out of water, a freak. Instead of having enough confidence to know I had a right to be myself, that I had worth, I tried to fit in to the culture while outwardly rejecting that culture. I was angry, had an "attitude", and a home-life worse than anyone could imagine. I stopped playing sports, didn't get along with the art or drama teachers- or Social Studies, as I got kicked out of that class, copped an attitude ( why I got kicked out of AP US history II), and found myself in with (but not to say friends with) a very strange group of misfits who I didn't much like. The more hateful I was on the outside, the more I hated myself on the inside.

I also grappled with my sexual orientation - keeping a toxic friendship that was essentially my first same-sex relationship.

By the time I got to college I was utterly confused about my sexuality, and I hated everything about myself. I thought I was a hideous monster, unfit for humanity.

How wrong I was, and I am repairing myself to this day.

All in all, high school sucked.

barring the more modernized aspects, this (represents) HS as I remember it pretty well.



:(



well...that one...and this one