As an overthinker, I'm back.
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I'm writing a final, hybrid paper about my education, using an autobiography format and looking critically at Rodriguez and Obama. The focus is on how my sister and I, in identical situations, managed to turn out so differently from each other. To help me understand, I pulled out my painfully embarrassing high school journals -- the books I kept with me during school and wrote in at every possible moment. It's like getting slices of brain shaved off to read this stuff, but it definitely provides a good window into my soul. My soul then was about 100 times more insecure than my soul now, if possible. Additionally, I was then about 40 times more boy crazy than I am now. If I continue on this current trajectory, then my highly scientific deductions conclude that in about 20 years, I will be roughly negative 1,000 times insecure and negative 400 times boy crazy, making me some sort of mental super hero.
High school was an incredibly weird experience, and since I write mainly about my strong emotional reactions to things that happened, I cannot determine if there was a legitimate reason for me to be upset, or if it were all only in my head.
Here's a gem. It's dated 3/29/03, and is part of my first, very long entry:
And I knew that if indeed she asked me about our 'friendship,' I would smile and say that everything was fine. What an accomplished liar I am. For she's a liar too. I asked her a couple months ago if anything was wrong. She told me no, then proceded [sic] to tell me that she considered me a friend-- not a best friend. I told her I didn't expect her to be anything other than a friend.I can't believe that all this was five years ago. It's really not that long ago, but enough events have been crammed in between to make it feel like a lifetime: my sister had three kids; I went out to California and back; my parents divorced; I moved to Brooklyn. Through all of that, I somehow discovered what I didn't know in high school: how to be a friend and how to keep friends. (Also how to spell. Or at least, use a spell checker.) My experience with that girl was one of the strangest experiences I've ever had, and I don't understand it completely to this day. What I do know is that I was an outsider, and she didn't want to be one.
I cried.
I realized that all those obvious hints she was dropping were saying "leave me alone."
She hurt me, through various instances. I realize that some of it she couldn't avoid (like the fact her mother didn't want her to go shopping after a peculair [sic] Sunday), but there were things she could have done (like ask for a # I could be reached @ on Sun. so she could tell me before I traveled out of my way to get to her church (just to learn that she couldn't go), or NOT go out to eat afterwards--after telling me that she + Esther couldn't go anywhere, but when to a restaurant anyway). So just little things.
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(Last Tuesday)
I wanted a bottle of water, and I had enough time before my next class to find a drink machine. I was dressed up, wearing high heeled boots that were rubbing large pieces of skin off, because I was the proud recipient of a short story award. I'd hesitantly entered the contest some weeks before with a story that I'd written based off a dream. It was a futuristic drama, exploring what people would care about if they had nothing. It was an unnerving dream, but not a frightening one, with vivid colors and clear characters. With a few creative tweaks and the help of a friend to edit, the story won. I felt I needed to dress up for the ceremony, but no one else did. English majors are artists and artists need to dress in ways that do not inhibit them.
In my heels, I hobbled down the stairs in search of a drink machine, finding one on the third floor. There was a girl at the machine right next to mine, trying to buy a pack of regular MMs. I inserted my money ($1.25), pressed the water button, and watched as two bottles blopped into the dispensing tray. I retrieved the bottles, and then, as I precariously straightened out, $1.25 in quarters spit themselves out of the machine. Good luck! I thought. Two bottles of water for free! What a good day.
Looking for someone to share my happiness with, I turned to the girl at the other machine. Her MMs were hanging from the row she'd selected, in a blatant move of definance. She was from two of my classes, including the one I had next, so, in a generous mood, I offered her one of the bottles. There, good deed accomplished for the day. She took it, a bit awkwardly, as I explained what had happened to me. She in turn explained her situation, and asked if she should try again. "We could shove it," I suggested, but I didn't move toward the machine to try. People were stirring around us now, with the change in classes, and I realized how ridiculous I would have looked, throwing my body into a snack machine for the sake of a bag of MMs. I mentioned something about snack machine deaths, caused by drunk individuals rocking the machines until the machines fell over, crushing the unfortunate creature. "Yeah," she said, staring at her bag of MMs. "Should I try again?"
"Sure," I said, offering the use of my coins. After all, I'd gotten two bottles of water for free, and in the spirit of that young chap in Dickens' novel Bleak House, that meant I was credited $1.25, and must now spend it as quickly as possible. "Oh no," she said. "I have money."
Failure, again. One bag of MMs fell, but one bag remained in limbo, clinging to freedom.
We gasped in horror.
"Shall I try again?" She said, after stabbing the machine half heartedly with her umbrella. By this point, I wanted to get to class, but I had inserted myself into her problem, and I felt responsible to seeing her to the bitter end. I again offered the use of my coins, which she declined again. After inserting another dollar, both bags of MMs fell, leaving her with a total of three bags. She offered one to me, and I half-heartedly declined. She insisted, asking rhetorically when she would eat three bags of MMs. I saw her logic, thanked her, and we headed up to class.
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