Memory Mania #11

i was a drama dork, but i was a really cool drama dork and hung out mostly with the older kids. at the beginning of Junior Year, all of my friends were gone, graduated, moved on into the world, to community college and a whole 'nother life. they were Trace and Merrell and Michael S. and Amy, and at lunch the year before we used to pile into the back of Colin's van and snort No-Doz and smoke pot from a purple bong on our way to the Pizza Hut, and then again on our way back to school. (gym class was directly after lunch, counterintuitively, so I was stoned and numb, and today i'm very grateful to have so little memory of what went down there.)

one day at lunch, i skipped the Pizza Hut and smoked pot and cigarettes in the laundry room of the condo complex across the street from school with a new kid, Matt S. he was smart and sexy and cool, like Christian Slater or somebody, and he used a briefcase instead of a backpack and, at some point between gushing over Franny and Zooey and gushing even harder over Breakfast of Champions, I fell completely in love with him. he introduced me to Bourbon and Shaving and Talcum Powder and Rolling Your Own Cigarettes and I spent most of the second half of Sophomore Year trying to keep myself from jumping out of my skin and kissing his neck. but it wasn't okay to be queer, not even as a drama dork, not even as a really cool drama dork, so i turned up the volume on the Violent Femmes and the Pixies, and Morrissey and i smoked more pot and lived with the yearning.

but that was Sophmore Year. now it was Junior Year and Matt S.'s parents had moved him away, i think to philadelphia, and Colin and Amy and Michael S. and Trace were a thousand miles away up the street at Community College, and i was alone. at lunchtime one day about two weeks into the new school year, i walked to the nature reserve with a joint and a thermos of vodka i had stolen from mom and dad, and I got about as high and drunk as i've ever been. i remember a middle-aged officey-looking guy wandering down the path and offering me his sandwich because he thought i was homeless because i was sitting under a bush and i sneered or something and could not have felt cooler. when i heard the bell, i stumbled my way back to campus, feeling really awesome and cosmically lonely, and in the middle of fifth period i was called into the principal's office. i thought i'd gotten busted, but as it turns out he just wanted to censor my student drama-club production of the play "Nuts." i remember staring at him sort of vacantly and agreeing to cancel the production and, a few days later, not really caring anymore. and then, about a month later, i was in boarding school.

Memory Mania #10

Memory Mania #9: To be queer in high school...

Every kid knows that that they're not as young and naive as the rest
of the world makes them out to be, or maybe they don't, so that's why
they take advantage of that. I know I did. After hearing the line
"You're too young to know what love it" throughout high school I
started to believe it. But it only made me try to understand so much
more.

I never had the opportunity to "fall in love" in high school because
kids are stupid and believe what their elders tell them about the sins
of homosexuality. Because of this I got to grow up feeling dirty about
my desires, and staying closeted with the other folks that I much
later learned were queer too. My heart beat a little bit faster at one
point in high school when I saw two girls kiss and walk down the hall
holding hands, but my fears were confirmed weeks later when they had
to transfer out of the school (into separate ones) because they were
being physically and emotionally harrassed.

I was a stupid kid and let my community's stupid views keep my real
self hidden, causing me to feel completely alone. Because I did not
have the opportunity or courage to get even a little taste of what
true love was all about for me, I spent an entire year of high school
in a relationship with a man. I needed to not be alone and make myself
love a Man. Our relationship was the most "adult" relatonship I have
ever had. It was filled with meaningless sex, hateful words, tears,
police, and lies. He was the first person I told about my desire to be
with a woman. He didn't mind. He tried to find one for us to share.
Thank goodness that never happened.

High school was not about Biology or Physics, and dances were a
living hell filled with my visions that someday I could run away into
a queer haven filled with beautiful ladies that I could sweep across
the floor with. High school depleted the love that I had for myself
and the love I had for others. It made me angry at the world and at
myself for being so abnormal. However, because of all this anger and
self-realization, it prepared me to run away and truly lead me to
love. I now find myself hundreds of miles away into the land I always
dreamed of. The pain I went through in high school has fueled a
passionate and secretless life full of rainbows and dancing, honesty,
courage, the best nights of my life, broken hearts, and most of all
love. I love the queer culture, and all of the brave and happy souls
within it. I love the unhappy queers and enjoy sharing our pains
together. I love the haters because I have finally found a voice to
speak up against them, to defend my pride and my thousands of brothers
and sisters here. I love high school for fueling my fire. I can't wait
until our reunion to come back with a proud woman on my arm and
finally be myself.