May 14, 2004

[General] Me, at 18

Last night, I was talking about what it feels like, what it felt like, to be a teenager. I really don't remember all that well, or at least, I didn't remember all that well.

I do now.

I am leaving in scant moments to have breakfast with my friend John before he leaves for the Bahamas for a week. Because I actually have somewhere to *be* today, I got up earlier than I needed to, but to compensate, I awoke with a brilliant idea. I would dig out the diary that I kept inmy freshman year of college and share excerpts here. I would find the best 18-year-old me that I could and immortalize her in cyberspace.

Except, as I glanced through the diary, I was horrifed. There was nothing of any substance that I would feel comfortable sharing, lest you all think that I was a complete spaz.

OK, I might have been, but you don't need to know that.

I can summarize it for you, the entire thing, all 75 pages or so:

"I like (boy N). I wonder if he likes me? I think he likes me. He does like me! We had a fight. He is an ass. Ooh, I like (boy Y). I wonder if he likes me? He, too, is an ass. I have to write a paper. Writing papers is hard. I like (boy Z). I wonder if he likes me? Boy N is still an ass. My roomate had another fight with her boyfriend. He is an ass. Ooh--I'm in New York! New York is fun!"

I now remember what it was like to be a teenager.

Yeach.

Posted by Lori at May 14, 2004 8:16 AM
Comments

Do you truly think you ever got over the "spazz thing"?

By the way, you graduated from West Virginia in Linguistics?? That explains a lot!

Great to hear from you. Hope this finds you well.

Jim

Posted by: Jim Strickland at May 14, 2004 3:57 PM

Sweetie, I remember when you were a teenager. You were a spazz. So was your husband in a more sci-fi, gaming nerd sorta way. Me, I had the comic book spazz thing down pat.

So, twenty-something years later I look at our hobbies...

We're still spazzes. We have better social and communication skills than most, but still...

Loveya!

Wayne

Posted by: Wayne at May 14, 2004 4:23 PM

So many choices in those days!
(Even if they were asses now and then.)
New York was indeed fun.
Even the pastrami incident.

Posted by: Judy at May 14, 2004 4:30 PM

>> You were a spazz. So was your husband

I would like the record to reflect that I am not now -- nor have I ever been -- a spazz. Geek, nerd, dweeb? Yup. Spazz? Never.

Posted by: john at May 14, 2004 10:54 PM

Okay, I stand corrected. Now that I think about it John, while I can think of many people we both knew back then who were, undoubtedly spazzes, you weren't one of them.

I need to update my geek-related terminology. The variations among the sub-culture are staggering.

Spazzes stagger, don't they?

Posted by: Wayne at May 17, 2004 10:01 AM