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Posts Tagged ‘high school’

Some days working from home sucks complete ass. Those are the days where there’s not enough work coming in to even justify being remoted into my work computer, yet I can’t feel arsed to do anything productive around the house except those things that are in line of sight (I sit at the dining room table, so that would be anything kitchen-related).

I know, I shouldn’t complain. Working from home is a rare gift for the bulk of the population. And most days that I do work from home, I’m either busy enough with projects to occupy my time or I at least have the wherewithall to roam the house doing random housework if my projects have hit a slow patch. Sunday mornings were also good for that back when I was more organized with my schoolwork schedule. Obviously THAT little ritual has fallen to the wayside. Some days my ability to be organized and let my Type A half shine through is just plain spooky. Some days the completely scattered, creatively random half takes over and everything goes to pot. I wish I had a calendar outlining which half would appear when so I could plan accordingly. You know, only invite friends over when Type A has had a three-day jag that included whisking the couch and scrubbing baseboards.

Some Photos to Share

Rather than tell another story from my youth today, I thought I would share with you some horrifying pictures of my high school days instead. Trust me, this is worth the effort. At the end of the day, I was just plain frightening during my tenure as a teenager. I never once had a sense of style. If it wasn’t for Debbie, I would probably have wandered through my adolescent years in a gunny sack. (which, to be honest, would have been just fine considering the number of issues my clothing choices caused me over the years. ask me sometime about why I don’t wear white pants. GO AHEAD, ASK ME)

Freshman year, 1989

There are times that I try to pretend I wasn’t the most horrific ninth-grader on the planet. And then I run across this photo and I realize that yes…I really did suck that much.

This particular hairstyle is one that I invented all by myself. I was never that adept at the big poufy Jersey mall hair that everyone else seemed to figure out just fine on their own, so I had to come up with a Poor Man’s Mall Hair. All I basically did was aim the hairdryer at the hair just above my ears, and as it fanned outward, I sprayed the FUCK out of it with a can of Aqua Net. It would of course dry instantly in that position. I would then fold that big stiff wing of hair back over and around the side and spray again to hold it in place. I’d repeat with the other side and voilá! Big-ish hair. The bangs were another story though. Had to use the curling iron and hair pick and just try my best to make a pouf-ball. I was rarely successful, but at least I tried.

I’ve heard tales that there were guys who had crushes on me that first year of high school. I look at this picture and all I can think is “Oh my god, why?!” Then I remember that I had exactly one boyfriend that year whom I dated for all of three weeks before he threw my slam book in my face and dumped me in front of the entire school. (yeah, he’s that guy) And I spent the rest of the school year so in love with him, that I kind of shut other guys out. So. On top of being hideous, I was also emotionally inaccessible. Good way to start out four years of hell.

Sophomore Year, Christmas 1990

Now, by my sophomore year, I had my shit together, so-to-speak. I could finally rock the big bangs if I spent a considerable amount of time at it. Most of 10th grade involved sleep deprivation as this meant I had to get up for school extra early to get tidied up. Unfortunately the result is what you see at the right. I think we can all agree that THAT is not worth getting up early for.

Yes, those are acid-washed jeans, by the way. If the picture went low enough, you’d see the ankles were pegged and I was wearing layered slouch socks in white and hot pink, with pink, black, and white LA Gears. Technically the shoes weren’t mine…they were my mom’s. LA Gears were WAY too expensive for me to afford a pair and mom found hers on extreme sale. Plus my feet were still growing at the time and it didn’t make sense to buy expensive shoes if I’d just grow out of them in a few months. So. Yeah. Borrowed designer shoes. I sucked.

This year of high school, I re-dated freshman year boyfriend for a little over four months before he got his driver’s license and dumped me for someone in his own grade because she had a later curfew and was more likely to put out. That same night, Debbie’s boyfriend dumped her and we spent the evening getting drunk on screwdrivers made with Sunny Delight. The next morning we ate Burger King as hangover food, brought to us by our friend John who worked there. Debbie’s mom told us that if she ever caught us drinking again, she’d take our licenses away. She never told my parents. I love that woman still to this day.

Junior Prom, March 1992

Junior year saw considerably maturity in both dress and style. And that’s about it. Inside, I was definitely still a high schooler. Which would explain why I was pissed off when I found out that the couple my boyfriend and I were doubling with for the prom were ALSO wearing blue. We looked so planned-out and matchy-matchy, it was embarrassing. On the plus side, they were very lovely people and good friends, so it wasn’t as big a deal as one would think. I went for this rather natural Donna Hayward-in-2nd-season flowy hairstyle, and it worked well. I LOVED that dress and believe it or not, I still have it. It’s absolutely gorgeous even to this day. If I were to ever get married, I would have my bridesmaid dresses based on it.

The suck thing about prom night that year were A) I was on the rag *ahem*, B) I lost my gorgeous one-of-a-kind corsage my mother made for me, and C) prom itself was absolutely boring. We skipped out early and went to play mini golf but it was too cold, so instead we parked in an orchard and made out for a while and then went to Denny’s for breakfast. How very preppie teen of us. (after story: Boyfriend pictured above ended up dumping me two months later, and then a short time after that him and the other girl in the photo got together.)

Senior Year, June 1993, Last week of school

Ah, senior year. Well, suffice it to say, the one thing that came out the other end of the high school experience relatively unscathed was…well…NOTHING. By this point even my dignity had been gang-raped and left for dead.

Despite that, I still managed to smile for the camera in this picture from my last week of school. (signing a yearbook, natch) By this point I’d pretty much put the damn curling iron and Aqua Net down (in fact, I’d switched from Aqua Net completely, instead using…um…crap, what was it? At that point I’d given up LA Looks as well. I think it might have been Salon Selectives…perhaps…) and was more about just letting my hair hang loose. Well, except for the time I tried to dye my hair deep auburn and it instead came out black with purple highlights. I know. I KNOW. Trust me, I didn’t try that one again for many many years. (in my defense, I’d been peroxiding my hair prior to that, so…yeah)

Senior year was by far my worst year of high school. In fact, to date it’s been the worst year of my life altogether. And if you know me well enough, you know that that’s quite a statement to be made, considering the plethora of other potentially soul-destroying things that have pranced through my life. The depths to which I sank are simply unfathomable to this day. Even the depression I went through several years ago pales in comparison. I know, this is all weird to hear coming from the person who says she’d go through high school all over again if given the chance. The thing is, high school as a whole experience is relivable. I would gladly go through all the terrible shit all over again to experience all the good stuff.

Last day of Senior Year, June 10, 1993

All in all, high school was a great big kick in the pants. Sometimes I wish I’d had enough balls to stand up for myself more. I wish I’d had greater self-esteem. I wish I’d spent more time with certain groups of people and less time with others. I wish I’d taken more chances academically, joined more clubs, expanded my circle a bit. I should have been a part of AFS. I should have remained with Mathletes and also joined the International Club. I should have taken part in yearbook much earlier than I did. I know I would have loved ASB. I was probably better off ignoring FFA entirely. (which I did eventually, but not until after wasting two entire years of my life) I should have enjoyed my opportunities more. I never should have taken those stupid damn honors classes my junion year…what a waste of time and energy.

But do I regret any of it? Nah. It is what it is and I wouldn’t have so many ridiculous stories to tell if it hadn’t been. Like, for instance, see that pic on the left? Believe it or not, I had a boyfriend who constantly told me I needed to lose weight and how I’d look better if I somehow dropped a bunch of waistline and thigh and gained more ass. You wonder why teenage girls are so fucked up? Look at that picture again, reread what I wrote, and then go “WTF mate?” Because that’s what’s wrong. The worst part is I believed him 100% and spent a lot of time hating myself and how I looked. Now I look back and go “Jesus christ, I had a really good body…I want it back!”

Oh, and I want that purse back too. ‘Cause it was SWEET.

This is my biology professor’s favorite word. Swear to god, she says it at least thirty to forty times per class session. In her world, biology is just really fucking enormous. Every last bit of it. ENORMOUS. Gah!

I keep forgetting to take my DVR with me to class to capture lecture snippets so you can hear her awesome accent and snappy sense of humor and all the ENORMOUS you can handle. Everyone else has their DVR’s there, lined up along the front podium. Reminds me of Real Genius. One day I’ll show up and it’ll just be a recorded lecture playing while a platoon of DVR’s are the only ones in attendance.

I Have a Message…

To the guy I drove behind in the middle lane on the freeway today whose red Volkswagen beetle was decal-ed to look like a goddamned ladybug: DIE. kthxbai.

What I Wouldn’t Do For A Larf

I was in ninth grade. It was sixth period and drama class had just gotten underway. Sort of. Mr Q was nowhere to be found, and we were just hanging around the stage looking for shit to do. Which is when someone suggested we start passing each other out.

If you don’t know already, this little game of passing each other out involves one person speeding up their breathing to the point of hyperventilation while bent over at the waist (standing, of course), and then when they reach that point, they stand up quickly while another person standing behind them wraps their arms around the breather and pulls tightly against their chest in a sharp jerking motion. This causes the breather to momentarily pass out due to lack of oxygen to the brain (usually the “passer-outer” is a guy because they have the strength to do a proper chest compression and then hold the person up from collapsing to the floor in a painful heap). Usually unconsciousness lasts about five to fifteen seconds. Longer than that should be cause for alarm. And then the person regains consciousness and is all dazed and confused, and feels really funky for a bit. It is a slightly less harmful version of the death-causing antics in Flatliners. (You can search “passing each other out” and find lots of YouTube videos of crazy young punks engaging in this adolescent pasttime)

In other words, seriously, don’t try it yourselves. It’s stupid and bad.

But we were teenagers. So it was OK.

So there we are on the stage in the theater, passing each other out and laughing like idiots. Each person reacts differently (one guy used to go into near-epileptic seizures. We refused to pass him out anymore after he punched someone in the face by accident) and therein lies the source of much lolz.

My turn comes up, and I get passed out. I come to and I find myself leaned back against a wall in a crouching position. The only person still there is my best friend Debbie, and she looks like she’s waging an epic internal battle between laughing hysterically and voicing extreme concern. I sit there for a minute, trying to get my bearings…at which point I become aware of a really strange sensation taking place in my nether-region. I glance down and there’s a sizeable puddle underneath me.

While I was unconscious for those precious few seconds…I’d pissed myself. A lot. I didn’t even know I had to go. Shit.

Debbie is a superstar and helps me up and then ushers me off to the bathroom in the quad outside. Along the way, we pass our good friends Steve and Josh, both of whom had been there to pass me out and were now trying to hide backstage while they laughed their asses off. Thanks for the support, dudes.

Once inside the bathroom, we had to use some quick goat-thinking to figure out a plan of action. In one of the stalls, I remove my jeans and underwear and pass them over the door to Debbie, who throws them into a sink and thoroughly drowns them in water. Hey, really, it was the only option. There wasn’t any time for things to air-dry. I put my sopping-wet clothes back on and we go off in search of someone to take us back to my house so I can change. Ah, yeah…the bell for passing period rings, and there I am standing in the middle of the hallway in wet pants, dripping like a whore.

It’s difficult to not stand out when you’re forming a puddle in front of the arts & language wing.

As luck would have it, our friend Bryan strolls by on his way home for the day. We stop him and ask for a ride to my house. He sees my wet jeans and refuses. Debbie tells him we really need to get me home so I can change, and Bryan demands to know what happened before he’ll take us anywhere. So I am forced to let him in on my dirty little secret. At which point he begins to laugh hysterically while I turn fifty shades of crimson.

He agrees to drive us home and I’m finally able to put on clean, dry clothing and we end up skipping the rest of the day, instead choosing to eat cereal and watch Supermarket Sweep. My dignity was already shattered. Might as well go for the gusto.

I thought we’d managed to pull it all off well. No ill effects, like social annihilation.

Oh, except for the fact that for the next six months, the running joke amongst my friends was “Watch out for Amanda. She gets pissed really easily.”

I’m still biding my time until they are all old and incontinent so I can show up at their houses and laugh while they piss on themselves with alarming regularity. Vengeance will be mine. Oh yes. It will be mine.