Silly nostalgia

Today, something possessed me to look at one of my old high school yearbooks, and once I started, I couldn't stop until I'd read through all four years.

Presented now for your reading pleasure are the following quotes, totally verbatim (except for a few egregious grammatical and spelling errors I could not abide), written by my friends. (Technically, these quotes span all four years of high school, but actually, none came from sophomore year, because for some reason, no one signed my sophomore yearbook. I can't remember why, but I like to think it was because I lost all my friends that year, then gained them all back junior year. Or maybe they just didn't issue the yearbooks till after school was over. I don't know.)

Each one is from a different entry and taken completely out of context.

La lune est pleine, oui?

YEAH DUDES! DUDETTES!!! YEAH!

Eat lots of spinach.

I would love to tell you have a nice summer and I'll see you next year but 50 years from now, you won't care.

Thanks for just being around.

That's one of my better skills - just being around.

I don't have your clip right now. Actually, I've lent it to Molly to wear to the prom. She'll give it back soon though. Someday you'll get it back.

And the next year, she wrote:

I still owe you a barrette!

It's pretty amazing that she had enough awareness to remember it a year later, yet not enough to remember to give it back to me in the intervening year.

I'm a sadist so unless you're a masochist, I guess we're not compatible.

I'M FEELING SO HYPER!

The true effect of this can only be appreciated if you imagine it surrounded by all sorts of crazy scribbles. It was no accident that her nickname was Spazz.

Why do I always get middle-aged ladies?

Keep eating!

Ed and I will probably be calling your brother this summer.

Of all the things people wrote, this is the most bafflingly nonsensical. I cannot for the life of me remember, nor can I conceive of any possible scenario, where those two would have any reason to call either one of my brothers. I mean, they were a seventh-grader and a six-year-old at the time, and suddenly I'm feeling like my friends are creepy predators that I need to protect my brothers from, nevermind that they are adults now and it is not actually happening in the present.

You are a nice person to sit in front of.

I hope Avery Ashdown lives in your heart for as long as he will in mine.

I hope I don't get pizza on your yearbook.

As DJO would say, "Do me Wednesday."

Keep on cradling!

And stay off the chowder.

I've only seen you hysterical twice in my life - that time when we put the hairball in the telephone at field hockey camp and the time I put the orange behind my knee at lunch to hide it from Jeremy and you saw it and we both went crazy.

Oh look, let's see if the flower burns!

PULL YOUR PRINT OUT BEFORE YOU PULL THE BLADE BACK!

Have fun at Harvard!

Clearly not a close friend.

...Twister at midnight with half the guys naked...

This occurred during an overnight college visit with this friend, and my mother only found out about it because she is nosy and read my yearbook, and boy, is it ever fun trying to explain to your excessively prudish mother why your friend wrote in your yearbook that you were playing Twister with naked college guys.

But let's get something clear. It was not half the guys. It was one guy (name of Grant, native of Canada, and kind of scary and kind of sad that I still remember that). And he wasn't so much naked as he was wearing a very loose pair of boxers, which, as you might imagine, are not the best attire for playing Twister. But to our innocent, high-school-aged minds, even the slightest glimpse of an actual, real-live penis qualified as "naked."

Your presence only added to that tingling.

"Nervy" is a state of near drunkenness caused by apprehension or giddiness, though considering what a drunkard you are, this is probably a perpetual state for you, right?

Don't forget the important grammar lessons! Or the leather pants!

That's it, kids! I'm off to Mexico on Saturday. See y'all in a week!

Some thoughts

Have you ever noticed how common it is in movies and TV shows to have one character make another character dig their own grave, after which the grave-digger is murdered and buried in said grave? First of all, do you think that really happens much? I doubt it. But more importantly, if you were the person made to dig, why would you do it? You know you're going to get killed anyway, so why not just tell the murderer to fuck off? So they'll just kill you sooner. Big deal. And actually, probably preferable, if you ask me. Plus you've made more work for them. I mean, if someone's going to murder you, they might as well have to work for it, right?

*****

It's not a new idea to notice that Corey Dillon looks like Ludacris. But I don't think I've ever seen it pointed out that Rodney Harrison is almost a dead-ringer for LL Cool J. I think it's a fair bet to say the Patriots have cornered the market on rapper look-alikes.

*****

I was poking around some political websites yesterday, and somehow ended up at The Volokh Conspiracy. This is not a blog I have ever read before, so I was surprised to see that someone I went to high school with is one of the contributors there. (I won't name names, the better to keep anyone from finding this post, but it may or may not rhyme with Willya Bowman.) He was in a different grade, so I didn't really know him. But his locker was right next to mine, and despite that fact, I don't think I ever spoke more than two words to him in the (three?) years we overlapped. Because, seriously, dude was weird. The one thing I remember about him was that he used to spread his books and papers all over the floor in front of his (and thus, my) locker and do his homework right there on the floor.

Anyway, it's always strange to see someone you "knew" way back when become, well, I suppose "famous" isn't the right word, but at least marginally prominent, I suppose, if you can call being a law professor and posting at a big-name (it is, right?) blog prominent.

*****

Oh, and Landru's most recent post reminds me that I need to do a whole lot of linkage updating. But I don't feel like doing it now. I know you always appreciate it when I tell you what I didn't do. So, you're welcome.

About Me

It's always hard getting back to the blog when you've been away for a while. I have stuff I want to say, but I'm having a hard time putting anything together into something coherent. In fact, I've written several versions of this post and erased all of them because I hated the way they sounded. It's not looking good, people. Anyway, while I'm still working my way back into blogging mode, I thought, as a transitional post, I might tell you a little about myself:

I enjoy almost any vegetable in the pickled state. Currently, I have a gallon of pickled celery in my fridge.

I have a friend who looks like an 85% scale version of Carl Everett, but without the crazy.

I love thunderstorms. Last night, we had one of the most violent storms I've ever seen. The cat, normally not afraid of much, was so terrified he went and hid under the bed until it was over. I, on the other hand, went and stood outside on the balcony.

I am distantly related to "musician" Kenny G, Hall of Fame jockey Chris McCarron, and sportscaster Rich Eisen.

I have never seen any of the Star Wars movies, or read any of the Harry Potter books, and I have no plans to ever do so.

I went to high school with two people who have been on TV.

I will watch almost any movie that takes place on an airplane.

I have two-inch scar on my leg that is the result of an injury sustained while shopping in Bloomingdale's.

I live in the same neighborhood as a former presidential candidate, and I have seen him at the supermarket.

Dolly Parton is persona non grata 'round these parts. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

I almost forgot this thing was still here

Okay, not entirely true. I'm just in another rut. Can't think of anything to write about. I thought that once that thing that had consumed the last four years of my life was over, I would have more motivation to write stuff here, but it's been exactly the opposite. I'm not sure what's going on.

My life really isn't very exciting, so it's not like I can find much inspiration there. I did have a massive allergy attack all weekend, so there's that, I guess. Granted, this is the first time in my life I've ever had one, so "massive" is perhaps relative. It was a little scary, though. Not scary in the sense that it was life-threatening or anything, but in that I'm worried this is the beginning of a lifetime of allergies. Both my parents have them, and my mom's didn't start till she was an adult, so I hope the same thing doesn't happen to me. Ugh.

I did do something moderately interesting on Friday. I spent a few hours volunteering at the campaign headquarters of one of candidates running for governor. This is a rather big deal for me - despite having very strong opinions, I am pretty passive when it comes to politics. I vote, and that's about it. I always feel like I should do more, but I've just never had the energy. I think the last time I did anything actively political was when I was fifteen and went to this huge pro-choice rally in Washington, DC (which is a whole other story in itself - I still can't believe my parents actually let me take a bus down with a bunch of other high school kids and no chaperones).

Anyway, this governor's race is a big deal here, because the guy currently running the state (and I use the term "running" loosely here, because he spends most of his time preparing to run for president) is a major fuckwad. There are now three declared candidates for the Democratic candidates. I'd be okay with any of them - they're all certainly orders of magnitude better than what we have now - but with two of them, I can't manage much of a reaction beyond, "Eh." But I really, really like the third guy - he's a true progressive. And I really, really want him to win. His big problem is that he's a total unknown, so he doesn't have nearly the amount of money or name recognition as the other two. There's still plenty of time to change that, though.

God hates AT&T, MCI, and Verizon

This is really funny. Over at Wonkette, there are a couple of posts about this Christian telephone company (I'm not going to link to the actual posts, but I think you're all smart enough to find them). The guy who taped the calls from this company's telemarketers is someone I knew in high school.

(And ew, speaking of things I read on Wonkette today, I will never look at the indicator light on my Blackberry the same way again.)

Well

Apparently, I need to stop blaming my problems on drinking, and start blaming them on what's really wrong with me, which is that I am an idiot.

What I'm really trying to say is that I didn't lose my cell phone after all.

See, I had my phone and my keys in my purse, and I was holding the purse backwards, and it's really hard to describe in words, but just trust me that at some point during the night, I came very close to dumping its contents out because I tried to open it from the wrong direction. I remember this very distinctly, because I remember worrying that I had almost dropped my keys out. What I couldn't remember was when or where exactly it happened. But I assumed that that must have been when the phone fell out.

So anyway, I have a file cabinet next to the front door of my apartment (I'm all about the fancy, high-class furnishings), and that's where I throw my keys and shit whenever I walk in the door. And my purse and my keys and my scarf and my gloves were all there, but the phone was nowhere to be found when I checked Saturday morning.

Except it actually was there. Want to know where? Well, the top drawer of the file cabinet was open (because I am terrible and lazy and never bother to shut drawers when I open them*), and last night, I happened to look down into it, and HEY, THERE'S MY FUCKING CELL PHONE nestled in among the electric bills and last year's tax returns. GOD.

And here's an instance where being a slacker actually benefitted me - I still hadn't gotten around to calling the cell phone company to disconnect the phone, so it still works! Of course I am keeping it, what with it being charmingly old-school and all.

*When I was in high school, I took a drama class, and we had to do some sort of exercise that involved miming the opening of cabinets. I got yelled at by the teacher because I opened them but didn't close them. "Do you do that in real life??? No, of course not! You would close them!" "Well, no, actually, I don't close them, because I'm LAZY. BITCH."

A philosophical question of great importance

The local news just did a story about this kid who's a freshman in college, and who had so much fun at his high school prom, that he's auctioning himself off as a prom date so he can go again. So they show film of the kid dancing, and he's kind of dorky, and the anchor guy is all, "I don't think Denny Terrio has anything to worry about."

What I want to know is this: which is more disturbing - that a news anchor in 2005 would make this reference in the first place, or that I actually knew who Denny Terrio was?

I'm sorry, what country do I live in, again?

Apparently, the FCC's recent rampage has put such fear into the hearts of the broadcast media that Budweiser is too afraid to run an ad spoofing last year's Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction fiasco. It seems ridiculous to be afraid of being fined not for showing a boobie, but for merely conjuring up the idea of one, but there you go. Can you really blame Bud for being afraid, after all the bullshit the FCC has pulled recently?

And then, in other news, ExI tells us that nowadays, it's trendy for high school students to think the first amendment is quaint.

Oy.

Conversations with my parents

...or,

Who are you and what have you done with my mother, part the second

Last week:

My mom: (fangirl voice) Guess who I saw at the gym the other day!

Me: Uh, [D-list celeb who I went to high school with]?

My mom: Yes! How'd you know?

Me: Well, who else would it be? Do you know of any other celebrites likely to be hanging out around town?

My mom: Well, I think it was him, anyway. I only saw him from far away. Do you think I should have gone over and said 'hi'?

Me: I don't know. That probably would have been a little weird, seeing as how you don't actually know him.

My mom: Yeah.

*****

Yesterday:

My mom: So remember how I told you how I thought I saw [D-list celeb who you went to high school with] last week? It was definitely him!

Me: What, did you see him again or something?

My mom: No. I googled him. He was wearing this t-shirt with a slogan for [obscure organization] when I saw him, and the bios I read said he was involved with that organization.

Me: Haha! Mom, you're totally an internet stalker!

My mom: Hahahaha!

Me: Anyway, I'm sure it must have been him. He's pretty unmistakable.

My mom: Did you know there are all these websites devoted to him? Where people post pictures of him and talk about what he's doing and how cute he is?

Me: I'm not surprised. People do that on the internet.

My mom: Don't worry, I won't be posting on them or anything.

Me: Lord, I should hope not.

My mom: Maybe I'll take up knitting again and go join his mom's knitting group.

Me: Oh. My. God.

My mom: Kidding! Ha ha!

Me: Erm, can I talk to Dad?

*****

My dad: Yo yo yo, wassup? (Okay, he didn't actually say that, but I like imagining that he did.)

Me: Hey, guess what I'm doing when I go to Seattle over New Year's?

My dad: Going to a Sonics game?

Me: No. I hate basketball, remember?

My dad: Right. Um, going to a Seahawks game?

Me: Ding, ding, ding! I think we are in the last row of the upper deck. Hopefully we won't get blown over the edge.

My dad: (starting to get angry) Do you realize the Seahawks are are going make the playoffs????

My: Yeah, I knew that. I just hope they don't clinch the division next week, which I think may be possible, because I want the last game to matter, so it's more interesting.

My dad: But a .500 team making the playoffs??? THAT IS AN OUTRAGE!

Me: Well, that's the way it is. What are you gonna do?

My dad: But aren't you OUTRAGED???

Me: I don't know. I suppose. Actually, I think it's kind of amusing. Anyway, our team will make it, so who cares, right?

My dad: Yeah, I guess. Whatever.

Me: Whatever.