Identifying with Me

Here is the quote to go by:

"We accept that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was you think we had done wrong. But we think you're cray to make us write an essay to tell you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us; in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?"

I hated high school. I hated the people who turned a blind eye to the cruelty of others and I hated the peers who practiced that cruelty. I am glad I never went to my graduation - those hideous evil people did not deserve my time which is much more important to me than to spend it with them. I really disliked them.

I don't remember too many students' names (which is actually fortunate for them, as I would happily and easily print them in this blog with all the things that they did. In all likelihood, they may feel poorly about it if they recall it at all.

I do remember Douglas Brockman. I understand he went into the armed forces, very likely the one saving grace for him in my eyes. I hated him more than most. But he did go and defend this land, my land and his, and while he certainly did not do it for me personally, he did do it. But spitting on me in high school is the lowest form of life and expression. Use your words. And why did he hate me so? What the hell did I ever do to him?

Tara Phellan (I'm pretty sure that this is correct) was a moosy girl in the 8th grade with me (you think I disliked high school? Well, I positively loathed the middle school, George Washington Middle School. The teachers were good, the admin staff ignorant and the kids... well...). The eighth grade taught me just how truly vile children can be to one another.

Tara was enormously fat, which in the school system then was rather unusual. Kids now are fat in general, and it seems that society doesn't notice or care. I suppose that in her defense (and I am not sure that there is one...) she developed the top-bitch mean ranking that she had to deflect the abuse that comes with being an obese kid. However, treating me like shit to better her flagging psyche is not the way to do anything. I have no idea what happened to her, but with her outlook on life and others, well... I can guess.

I hear my ambulance!

Back to this... who else can I think of from the old school days? The bigger question: why would I want to?

Then again, how about the amusement factor? We are all between 39 - 41 and how did their lives turn out? Kids, an indifferent spouse, maybe a divorce. Maybe something else. A little misery to go with your childhood of abusing and bullying other kids? Whatever happened to you, you likely did to yourself. I don't mean karmic justice, although one always likes to think that Fate will step in to bitch-slap those you couldn't bitch-slap yourself. I mean that you were stupid enough to not think about your actions then and the bigger bet is on your having gone through life - at least a good portion of it - practicing the same poor people skills on others in your life. Relationships don't last long in the real world when you are a bitch or a bully or whatever you were then.

It's a funny world.