Category Archives: best of

18 again, but without george burns

Posted on by

a (thankfully short) list of silly things i said to people at my high-school reunion:

1.  “hey, do you remember when the christian club had a pray-around-the-flagpole day at school and you staged a one-woman protest?  i was in the club myself at the time and even i thought that was really brave of you.”

(not brave in a “how dare you try to keep out the christians” way, but brave in a “taking a one-person stand against anything in high school is brave” way.  you know.  anyway i haven’t really been a christian since i was 17.)

2.  “your mom was a really good girl scout troop leader.  i remember she used to brush her teeth with baking soda.”

“yeah, she still does that.”

(i also remember the troop leader’s daughter in her role as model for a “here’s how to layer your clothes so you don’t get cold on a camping trip” demonstration.  i can still see her standing in the middle of a circle of girl scouts with her mom saying, “here’s c___’s t-shirt, and now she’s putting a turtleneck over it.”  ta-da!  layering.   her mom is the reason i know that you should put the next day’s clothes in the sleeping bag with you so they’re all toasty warm when you get up the next morning.)

3.  “i most definitely remember your in-class essays, mrs. f______.”

(they were torture, but she was one of the best teachers i’ve ever had.  i made terrible grades on those essays until mrs. f______ pulled me out into the hallway and told me that, since i only had an hour for each one, i should write down everything i wanted to say about the topic as quickly as possible without trying to make every single sentence perfect.  she was totally right.)

4.  “you and l____ used to sit on either side of me in the fourth grade, and you guys would unbend paper clips and poke me in the arms with them.”

“oh, i’m so sorry.”

“hey, don’t worry about it.  if i was bitter i wouldn’t be here, and i probably wouldn’t have come over to say hi, either.  i think it’s funny now.”

(it’s only a little bit funny now.  he seemed genuinely sorry, though, so i kind of feel bad for bringing it up.  the thing i am still bitter about is that i talked to the teacher about it and she wouldn’t let me change seats.  her “suck it up” philosophy did nothing for the marks on my arms.)

5.  “when i see your house now i always think about when i would sleep over in the fifth grade and you made me read my nancy drew novels aloud to you.”

(it embarrassed me to read out loud the parts where nancy and her boyfriend would kiss, so i’d skip over them.  “did you skip something?” s____ would ask.  “no,” i’d say, and keep on reading.

s____ was popular and i wasn’t, so we were mostly just friends in the summertime.  we spent one afternoon picking out the clothes she thought were going to be cool in junior high.)

6.  “you lived in [UT dorm] freshman year, didn’t you?”

“i did.”

“yeah, i remember seeing you in the cafeteria.”

(i didn’t tell him about the schadenfreudean pleasure i derived from seeing him eat lunch by himself in that cafeteria.  in high school he was surrounded by cheerleaders.)

initially i’d been surprised at the large number of people there who still lived in houston, but then i realized that those were the people for whom attending the reunion was the most convenient.  i was also surprised at how almost everyone was married, but people who are married and (ostensibly) happy are more likely to attend, too.  so everyone looked pretty good and had decent jobs and/or wives and kids and such.  which of course made me wonder about the people who weren’t there.  do they just live too far away or did they hate high school like i did or are they prison wardens or janitors or on welfare or something?

from what i heard, only two people from my class are dead.

after the reunion jessica and i met the solo protestor and her husband at the harp.  we didn’t tell anyone else where we were going, but half the reunion showed up at the harp, too.  while we were all there someone on the nearby street crashed his motorcycle into the curb and landed on his back on the median.  several of my fellow high-school alums rushed over to help him.  l___ gave her cell phone to jess so she could call 911.  s____ held the injured guy’s hand until the ambulance arrived.

i’d like to say that at that point all the lines of high-school popularity were blurred and everyone banded together.  but really i think that some people are just good in a crisis.

letters to people i’ll probably never see again *

Posted on by

dear a)
at least, i’m pretty sure i’ll never see you again.  it makes me sad, because i think you might know me better than almost anyone else out there.  it may not matter now, but i’m really sorry i hurt you.

dear b)
we had our falling-out almost nine years ago, and i still miss you.  a lot.  i think that if one of us had done things just a little bit differently, we might still be friends today.  i often wonder if you’re happy, if you’re where you want to be in life.  i also think about how good it would feel to be more successful than you.
hey, i never said i was mature.

dear c)
remember when i wasn’t ready to sleep with you on our second date and you told me you were “used to the wham, bam, thank you, ma’am”?  that was awesome.

dear d)
remember when we met for drinks and you said, “do you think of me as a friend or as more than a friend?” and i said, “a friend,” because that’s what i thought we were, and you said, “alison, i’m a horny guy, and i only get one night off a week,” thereby indicating that you were only spending time with me because you thought we were going to have sex?  that was even MORE awesome.

dear e)
i still resent your apparent decision to stop being my friend so you could spend more time hooking up with girls.  i still get angry when i think about the time we ran into each other at a bar and you were rude to me because you didn’t want the girl you were there with to think you had too many female friends.  you were my BEST FRIEND.  and i MISS YOU.

dear f)
the number of dreams i’ve had about you is much, much larger than the number of times we’ve actually seen one another.  i don’t know why this is.  maybe it means we’re meant to run into each other again.  if that ever happens, please disregard this letter.

dear g)
you were sweet and strange and interesting and smart, you made me laugh, and you always knew what i was talking about.  i hope someday we can walk through the streets of a big city together.  if that ever happens, please disregard this letter.

dear h)
for a first love, you weren’t half bad.  i didn’t think it was funny at the time, but eight years later i find it HILARIOUS that you called to break up with me at 7:29 pm on a sunday, just as the simpsons credits rolled.  don’t let dumping your girlfriend get in the way of a new episode, eh?

dear i) and j)
there are two reasons i haven’t kept in touch with you:
1) i’m not very good at it.
2) when things in my life don’t go well, the last thing i want to do is talk about it.
which is a shame because i know you would have listened and empathized and not judged me at all.  i wish we still knew each other.

dear k)
i’d never have done anything about it because it would have been bad for both of us, but i was always, always a little bit in love with you.

* i wrote this in my head four months ago, during a ben folds show.  something about seeing live music makes me think weird thoughts and write them down in my head.

happy birthday, baby.

Posted on by

today bluishorange is five years old. i looked through my archives and decided that the best thing i ever wrote about my web anniversary was from 2002. this is rather interesting in light of something someone said in the comments recently:

“I’m struck by a difference in your writing style from the 2001 bra-cookie entry to now. Your writing then seems to me somehow more breezy and breathless and more full of optimism.”

i don’t think the comment was intended to be disparaging, and either way that’s not how i’m going to take it. but it’s true, isn’t it? i’m a little bit harder now than i used to be. maybe it’s because of all the things that have happened to me since i started this website:

dogs: 1
cars: 1
broken bones: 1
surgeries: 1
secret-at-the-time websites: 1
college degrees: 1
nervous breakdowns: 1
awards: 1
nominations: 2
webhosts: 2
apartments: 2 ½
cameras: 3
jobs: 3
anti-depressants: 3
therapists: 4
foreign countries: 4
sxsws: 4
long road trips: 5
breakups: 5
boyfriends: 6
hair colors: 6
flat tires: 6
20×2s: 6
email addresses: 8
designs: 11
haircuts: 15 (four of which were self-inflicted)
u.s. states: 15
hours in jail: 16
friends lost: 18
college courses: 26
hours of community service: 40
photo essays: 59
daily photos: 178
friends gained: hundreds
hours spent on this website: thousands

i’d say more, but as with any birthday or anniversary it’s best not to sour it with too much evaluation. happy fifth, bluishorange.