2002-04-06 - 10:12 a.m.
I was reading Say's entry, yesterday, and it's something I think about sometimes. Kids are so cruel, so horrible. Those games of exclusion, of children turning on each other in order to find their own identities, or something. I remember it, from elementary and junior high. I always had friends, but I was on the outskirts of the cool kids, not really one of them. Of wanting that acceptance so badly. And earlier, in late elementary, when your group of girl friends would turn on you, leave you out of their lunch table, or whisper and look at you. And when it wasn't being done to me, I was doing it to the victim of the moment. Equal opportunity meanness. No one was really immune to it, but some got it worse than others. And me, I had four years of high school popularity to dim the memories.All kids do it to some extent, it's some sick ritual of growing up. And it's terrible. If I could go back and talk to the then-me, I'd tell me not to do it, not to give in to that for acceptance from unformed little girls.And when I think about it now, it makes me feel awful. Makes me want to find every kid I was ever mean or dismissive to, and apologize and hug them and tell me that wasn't really me, I didn't mean it, I was wrong. I'm sure they don't really think about it, either, all these years later. They have lives and accomplishment and families, and it was a long long time ago. But I still wish I could do it.
I had dinner on Thursday night with my high school friend J. I haven't seen her in YEARS, and it was as if we'd never been apart. It was an absolute blast, and after we caught up on the serious stuff we just laughed for hours. She's such a character, I don't have the words to explain her to you. But she is goofy and juvenile, and a little bit straightlaced and stuffy at the same time, and she has a rare abilityt to really laugh at herself. Over coffee, we started talking about sex. And the conclusion we came to, after much discussion, was that she should get a vibrator. So we paid the bill, and headed to the sex shop down the block. We walk in, and she bursts into a fit of giggles. I am embarrassed, tell her to shut up, and move her along the displays. Initially, she was shocked by the suggestion. "WHAT? Oh, God, I could never! Do YOU have one? Do alot of people you know have one?" But she was game once we got there and she regained her composure, so we picked one and I started heading to the counter. "Trouble!" she hissed. I turned around, and she mouthed, "I'll be outside!" I roll my eyes, and get to the counter and ask for batteries, which the clerk (a young, long haired guy wearing a puka bead choker and a cool retro shirt) puts in to test. I pay, and walk out, and laugh at J. And she says, "What must he THINK? He'll probably be telling the story later, 'these two women came in..' And I stopped and said, "J. It's a sex shop! Did you take a look at the kind of shit they have in there? They have a RUBBER ASS in there. You buying a generic vibrator is not raising any eyebrows. They probably sell a hundred a day.It's not like it's a grocery store with a special section for perverts." And she said, "And what were you DOING? I peeked in the door and you were talking to that guy and you had it OUT!" I said he was testing it, and she was overcome by a laughing fit. On Friday morning I got an email from her saying that she tried to surprise her husband by turning it on when they were already in bed. He thought it was the alarm clock, and they spent the next two hours, you guessed it, laughing. Which might even be better.
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last five entries:
done - 2005-09-16
playgroup, my ass - 2005-09-15
late, but heartfelt - 2005-09-13
she lives - 2005-08-18
cheese me - 2005-05-20