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Insecurious elephantitis

Justin looks at me blankly and says "Are you serious? I loved high school. Well, not the school part, but everything else. High school was THE BEST."

This coming from a guy who was MVP three years running in volleyball, soccer and basketball, and who dated the most stacked girl in school two years his senior.

"Didn't you play ANY sports?" he asks, incredulous.

"Sure I did," I insist. "Badminton intramurals. For about a month in grade eight."

(then, not surprisingly, he pantzed me in front of everyone.)

Guess jeans with a zippered ankle. Curled bangs. Benetton rugby shirts, TUCKED IN. And try as I might I can't convince Justin that, at my school, it's what all the cool kids did: BAND. Piling geekitude upon geekitude, I played the string bass.

The only instrument you can sit on in the parking lot.

With ten of your band friends.

If you have band friends.

Which I did, more or less, miraculously, in that decidedly fickle, faintly humiliating, please-oh-please-oh-please-like-me way of junior and senior high school girls.

Year after year of fruitless curling of what is hopelessly straight, desperate to be anyone else. It took me a long time to grow up. I've only been a moderately functioning social being for… (checks imaginary watch)… well, it hasn't been long.

+++++++++

She comes over for a playdate with her little boy, a reconnection made in the initial facebook flurry. All the while I'm a little more than sheepish, overcome with past intramural awkwardness every time I meet her eyes. I felt this way coming back to Halifax, to face the same streets I walked when I was a complete dork, agitated at the comically unfunny memory of what I was.

Then as we venture into the territory of 1989 she says GOD. I was such a complete asshole. I don't even like to think about high school. It's too mortifying.

Something dissapates in the air between us leaving a pleasant, open space. And I smile to think it:

But she was, like… totally NORMAL.


Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 by Registered Commentersweetsalty kate in | Comments43 Comments

Reader Comments (43)

One of the best conversations I ever had in my life was with a girl, post-high school, who had been uberpopular. "I always wanted to be you," I said, "Even after your car accident," the car accident that left her paralyzed from the waist down - there were daily updates about her on the loudspeaker announcements, everyone rallied around her, she was the homecoming queen (in a wheelchair) our senior year. "Really?" she replied, her face sincere, "I always wanted to be you. Everyone scrutinized everything I ever said or did or wore. I just wanted to be normal. I hated being popular. I'm just like everyone else."

I was stunned, and it changed the way I saw a lot of things about my past. I realized that while I was on the outside looking in, there were also people on the inside looking out.

And I went on, years later, to have a great time at our 10 year reunion, which further healed all the wounds. After 13 1/2 years, I can finally say I am completely cured of high school.
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterAmy
Damn, I did not know we were that close in age. My 20 year reunion is next year.

You descibed me to a T. Only...I was in Color Guard. I twirled a flag. And I was BAD. ASS.

I'll have to scan some band photos to share with you. We'll scream with laughter. At me. I promise. :)
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterHMFT
Amy: 'cured of high school'... love it.

HMFT: sounds to me like a throw-down, a flickr showdown! Time to dig out the yearbooks.

Anyone else have some geekitude to share? Link to it here, and consider yourself absolved of mall bangs forever. Mine to come...
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered Commentersweetsalty kate
Geekitude? How about chorale. Not choral group. Chorale. For seven years running. And plays. As a badly permed member of the chorus, of course. Ah high school. Could barely live through it, now look back in fond memory. OK, not really. I rarely think of it - the benefits of living 3000 miles away, now, and not having to walk down those same streets. I feel for you, Kate. :)
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterLisa B
All I can say is: 1989 - rolling the cuffs of jeans. Oh dear God, we actually DID that. I was in Theater. Acting, at first because all sports eluded me; later, because I adored it. I actually played the lead role in our version of "Father of the Bride." It pretty much rocked; not so much I, but the experience. Before that, though, I had my Homecoming dress MADE my sophomore year: a cobalt blue bubble dress, stiff as hell. I swear to grief I looked like a clown. The coifed and sprayed bangs, the blue dress, and color-dyed-to-match shoes: priceless work of high school art. I am still *not* cured from that dreadful time. It's going to take a few more years :).
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJoanna
The memory of a note palmed to me in the hallway between classes (intricately folded - wasn't that a huge part of notepassing etiquette?) sums up the horrendousness of our fashion-victim status: "My hair is SO flat today. My bangs are like touching my forehead. He must think I look SO gross."

Add that to the oversize buttondown shirts and Levi's 501's that we had tapered so tightly at the ankle that it took two people to get them off over the feet, and I start to shudder. But not as visibly as when I think of the volatility of popularity and the endless nightly reviewing of what I uttered, wondering if it was quite cool enough.

Cheers to thirtysomething and finally finding our feet enough to play with the big girls - on our terms.
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterPN
How about BODYSUITS?! They were like gigantic onesies! Ghastly. Or was I the Only One? (slinking beneath my desk as I type this...)
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJoanna
Oh yes Joanna, there's nothing like snaps at your crotch to make you feel racy. And I have to slink even further down than you because I actually had one of those in UNIVERSITY.

(shudder)
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered Commentersweetsalty kate
in 1989 I was in sixth grade at this ghetto elementary school (ghetto in the literal sense) and my english textbooks were from the mid-1970s. I used to sit there horrified at the very idea of bell bottoms; how do you dutch roll freakin' bell bottoms? I thought the shaggy hair on all the boys looked so dirty and lame. I thought the 1970s girls looked foxy, but then again, their ankles were not completely constricted by their guess jeans, so there was something a little off about them.

freakin' 1989.
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterdutch from sweet juniper
ooh, ooh, pick me, pick me! i was a gigantic nerd, but it started much younger than high school- more like grammar school! my mom dressed me like such a tool- i'd probably be considered cool or hip or somesuch bullshit these days, but back in the 80's, wearing crappy shit from the 70's just wasn't cool on long island. not even a little bit.

what a friggin social pariah i was- i think it made me such a tough-guy on the outside (on the inside i was a gelatinous mass of fear and self doubt and loathing) by the time i got to high school i think i gave off a vibe of "go eff yourself" to anyone who looked at me twice. it seems to have been mistaken for self confidence, and got me through hs, not as a popular girl (thank god) but cool enough to dodge some of the usual bullshit.

i think it still lingers- i've been told by people that when they first meet me i scare them a little! that makes me so sad! no wonder i have such a hard time finding friends.
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterpnuts mama
In 1989, I was in junior high and had just discovered the wonder that was Sun-In. And that's all I'm going to say about that.
October 19, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterAurelia
Class of 1988....living in a New England coastal town...NOTHING TO DO...Need I say more! :) LOL
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterchristine
Oh, Kate, your post and every comment so far takes me back - far back - to those glory days. My personal shame? I used to taper my own jeans, with a needle and a thread. Suffice it to say, I did not do it well. Thankfully I could hide my handiwork with leg warmers.

And my yardstick of a good day? "How symmetrical is my hair?"

This is what I love about being this age. My 20th reunion was a year or two ago and it was wonderful. No one cared who used to be what - we were all just people with a common history. Aging has its benefits.

Glad you reconnected with an old friend.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterKaren
I just recently found out that one of MY good friends is BEST friends with a high school classmate of mine. We hung out in the same circle, but never just the two of us.

At first, I was so weirded out and excited to find this connection. But then I got all insecure, just like back in high school. What if she tells my friend that I was a total dork/looser in high school? What if her stomach didn't do a happy flip to hear about me?

It's so foolish; I never did anything unkind to her, have no bad memories or anything. But? I was so different then. I've grown so much. And I don't want to be defined by who I was then, ya know?
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterMarie Green
Kate - 1989 was likely around the time you babysat me...and I never once thought you were geeky. As a kid I wanted to be just like my babysitter...and that is the geeky truth!

Loving the reminiscing about bodysuits, tight jeans, benetton rugby shirts...How about florescent colours, Hypercolour shirts, and the revival of tie-dye
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered Commentermichelle kostya
Ah Chip & Pepper, Vaurnet (am I spelling that right?)

I was never included in all the girl crap, so after awhile I didn't bother trying-I went the other way and let my freak flag fly. Although I can't for the life of me remember why I thought polyester was a good fashion choice. Aside from irony.

I dabbled in sports, but never band. I was a drama kid actually.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterthordora
I played string bass in high school orchestra. I was president of the orchestra even. Hah.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered Commentermelissa
I didn't do band. I didn't do sports. I suppose I was an uber-dork. :p
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterLuAnn
Delurking -- you know -- reading this makes me wonder if we ever ran into each other at s Kiwanis fesitval or something. And I know what you mean though -- band WAS kind of cool at my school. But that's because we really weren't a sports school. Or in Band were just at least distanced from race riots (I am an almnus of the "notorious" Cole Harbour District High School). You know how they say some people peak in high school? I kind of only feel like I am peaking now-- sixteen years past graduation.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJenn
I was in the Gen X, CBGB & OMFUG going, flannel shirt wearing, Nirvana listening (I remember going into a dark depressed place when Kurt Cobain died), grunge period. I was full of angst and had absolutely nothing to be pissed at, which made me even more broody. I wanted to grow up, live in Seattle and write complaint rock. I remember trying so hard to be an individual but not wanting to stand out AT ALL. What funny memories! Thanks Kate!
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterWendy
High school was pretty much the most unbearable time in my life. I teetered between prep and bat caver (I think today's equivalent is "goth"), unable to choose an identity. I was neither popular nor unpopular. I fake smoked because I wanted to hang out at smoker's corner but didn't want to actually degrade my asthmatic lungs. Ugh.

I had to laugh at the "onsie" comment. I, too, was in university when those were in style. All the better to tuck cleanly into our high-waisted jeans. We called them 'bar shirts.' Again, ugh.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJanet
Class of '88. I have two words: acid wash. The jeans were pinned to the the knee and the jacket was 2 sizes too big, with the sleeves rolled and filled with pins...And Kate, at least you were capable of curling your bangs on your own - I got a horrendous perm that took maybe 4 years to grow out. High school was a disaster. And I have the photos to prove....
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterSteph
I'm one of those annoying people who loved high school. I was on the student council all five years, only played sports in grade 8 (basketball) then found drama. I was very involved in organizing school social life and loved it so much. I had huge bangs that would always fall by lunch and I remember coming to school the first day of grade 10 and I had decided over the summer to ignore The Claw (as we called it) because none of the girls in Sassy had sausage hair, but my homeroom teacher looked at me aghast and asked what happened to my hair...and back to the hairspray I went. Good times. I wasn't cool but I has so much fun.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterm
I remember all the cool girls at school when I was 14 wore blue eyeliner. So willing was I to look remotely cool that I wore it every day, religiously. Couldn't afford a spiral perm which made that year a miserable one. Everyone and their dog seemed to have a spiral perm. Not me.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterTracy
Class of '89 here. I was a brainy dork (salutatorian), a jock (swimming, which never counts among real jocks), and an avante garde punk (I should send you the photo as proof).

High school sucked. It's been 18 years, but I still can't fathom actually going to a reunion.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterAlison (in OH)
i can't stop laughing... and times they do change and now i am counting on my kids to "keep me cool". crazy stuff. so, 1989 i was in 8th grade. oh dreaded jr. high! i was so much a tom-boy still playing soccer on the boys team (there wasn't a girls one yet). i was going to mention the spiral perms... my big ol' soccer calves wouldn't fit into those tight guess jeans with the zippers. so i opted for the stonewashed bonjour jeans and rolled them SUPER tight. remember penny loafers and k-swiss shoes... i am pretty certain i had united colors of benetton posters all over my bedroom. OH, my dad had a pair of BRIGHT yellow parachute pants that we thought were SO cool! totally NOT - i graduated high school in 1993 and that's when j crew started to get big! and remember wool socks with berks! ohhh wow.
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterHeather ~ Traub Tribe
Ahh, the awkwardness! 1989- grade 9 and wearing HEAD GEAR to school and trying to be as invinsible as possible walking down the hallways with my braces done up in rainbow elastics. I even saved up hard earned cash for one of those awful spiral perms which did not change my life as anticipated and was so awful I ended up cutting my hair. Yes, 30-something is a great place to be.

I'm going to an 80's themed halloween party next week and having a tough time deciding which of the many super styles I'd like to sport. Leaning towards Peg Bundy but Annie Lennox was pretty cool too...
October 20, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterD'Andrea
I was a band geek. And a speech geek on top of that! And I didn't drink or date boys from my school. What a freak! :)I would have loved you in H.S. Just as much as a I love you now.This post was an awesome flashback, a peek into your past life.xoxo
October 21, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterLeigh
class of 89 here too...clearly you're touching a chord with all of us in recovery from the hideousness of that era.

i was actually very proud, in high school, of the fact that i had 'outgrown' the bad perm and snowplow bangs and asymetrical haircut of junior high, and prided myself on the long straight "timeless" hair in my yearbook photo. the long straight hair pulled back in a clip and puffed up over my crown like a snowdrift on helium, that is.

the howwor.

in curious timing, one of my own high school friends posted a facebook photo yesterday of me, in the band room. i wasn't even IN band. i was a band groupie, who hung out there because my friends did. check it out...i'm the one who looks like i have six gerbils stuffed in my chipmunk cheeks, with the snowdrift hair.
October 21, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterBon
Yeah, blue eyeliner and pink champagne lipstick - not a very good choice for someone with olive skin and dark hair ... ah, the things we do to fit in. I am so happy I am a grown-up now. You know what I saw the teenage girls coming off the schoolbus the other day wearing?? Gym shorts over thier jeans ... what's that about?
October 21, 2007 | Unregistered Commentertanya
Two words: Model U.N.No, really. I was the president of the club.

And, horrific as the memories of Benetton rugbies and zippered Guess jeans are, imagine what it was like for a kid like me, whose parents could never afford those labels. The other kids had Reeboks, and I had Balloons from Thom McCann. Quelle horreur!
October 21, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterSadie
Okay, this delurked me. My 20-year reunion is next year and we've put together a message board for our class. As emails fly back and forth, we see that surprise, surprise, the cool kids and the nerdy kids have finally met a common ground-parenthood! It doesn't matter who you were in high school. No parent will ever be cool enough for their kids approval. I recently had lunch with the MOST popular girl in school. I changed outfits 5 times before our lunch date, and I'm 37!!! It was so great to hear her talk about her kids and their trials and tribulations. It made me feel so....normal. Does this mean I've grown up? Finally?
October 21, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterdayatthebeach
Oh high school! I loathed it. I did solitary sports (track, etc) until changing in the girls' locker room became too humiliating (grade 9). The band kids were all super-religious-Christian, and I was all into "modern witchcraft" and Wicca and crystals and candles, so band was out. Drama was ruled by drama queens, so I took art classes, where I could show up stoned in my Doc Martens (actually knock-offs) and thrift-store layers of black, and talk about what melancholy "really meant" (I was sure I knew).

Ahh, how I now love being a comfortable-in-own-skin, secure and happy 29! Who rarely wears black.
October 22, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterlauren
Class of 90! I suffered through all of the fashion disasters here... all of them! Including not being able to afford the real thing and wearning knock-off fashion disasters! I went to HS in Phoenix, and all us poor white girls had to compete with all the fabulous Latinas with AMAZINGLY huge hair. It was an Aquanet throwdown in the bathrooms between every class. Al Gore should have listed us as one of the causes of global warming!

Kate, put me down as wearing a "onsie" in University. I actually may have (gulp) worn it a few times, with a broomstick skirt, up through 1994. I'm cringing here, but I'm in the midwest now, so cut me some slack.

I finally settled in as a punkish skater grrrl, best friends with a cheerleader and the student body prez, and I remember spending every lunch hour talking with those girls and laughing so hard I cried. I was dating my now husband at the time, so HS mating was one horror I didn't have to suffer. :-)

I actually have fond memories of the time, but I'm glad to be 35 and maybe (maybe) finally figuring out who I am. I'm still a fashion disaster most of the time though, I'm sure.
October 22, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterjavamama
Guess jeans with zippers! I wore those with bright Esprit sweaters. Yikes. And I raise you a level in geekdom: Debate Team AND debate camp.
October 22, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterandrea_frets
I'm ashamed to admit that at college in the early 90s my freshman dormmates hosted a jean-rolling intervention for me. With their help, I finally saw the light and stopped rolling the jeans.
October 22, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJAK
I was an '88 graduater. I was on the periphery of the art people (punk, pale, black-wearing, mohawk sporting types) and I used to draw vines on the side of my face. VINES. Hello?! WTF? But I wasn't really one of them, because I never wore black. I had short hair that was frosted with a highlighting cap, I tried like hell to STRAIGHTEN my curls out (and got the same sausage roll bang effect, ew!). I was a language nut, and on the periphery of the "smart group" because I started one year later than they all did at the high school, so I wasn't part of their clique either. But truly nothing beats the humility and shame in retrospect than junior high. I wore the tapered jeans with two polo shirts in coordinating colors, collars up, tucked in, with a bandana around the outside of the collar, knot tied in the front. Matching earrings, eyeliner, socks (which were pulled up OVER the pegged jeans, mind you), little keds without laces (or worse, my little elf boots!) and a ribbon belt. HOLY TOLEDO 1984! YIKES!The really sad part is that even though there were people who seemed confident (and many who probably were), so many weren't, and wished they were in another spot. I wish it were easier to impart to that age of kids not to worry, people totally get over themselves and you come into your own eventually, just chill.Thanks for a hilarious post!
October 22, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterTrasi
speaking of interventions in college, my fm yr roommate (still great friends, just attended her wedding) sat me down with some tweezers after telling me that the fuzzy caterpillars crawling across my face weren't doing me any favors. she was right! i cringe to see pictures of those things now.

i totally wore a forest-green onesie turtleneck with a forest green patterned broom skirt and docs in HS. i saved my $ to buy those docs and wore them out!!!
October 22, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterpnuts mama
Oh my GAWD, I, like, TOTALLY loved all your bad fashion. And guilty as charged of just about all of it.

The only biggie not mentioned that I kinda want, again: Tretorn sneakers.

My parents are away this week and I need their navigational expertise for old photo albums, but I am totally going to post some oldies as did HMFT (AWE.SOME).

So if you Flickr, stick 'er here. Let's all come back to check and laugh at ...errrr... WITH each other.

You know what else I totally still dig? Vintage Go-Go's.
October 22, 2007 | Unregistered Commentersweetsalty kate
Oh the ether that was high school. I can nod my head in shame, as I was that kid - the one with the docs and the floor length black skirt or plaid dress, paired with the bomber jacket with patches sewn on. Since I knew I was never going to be a cool kid I did everything in my power to pretend I didn't want to be one of them.

High school - you couldn't pay me all the money in the world to go back and do it over again.
October 23, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterb*babbler
ugh ... highschool ~ the mid eighties, i did the orange hair punk version of pink longjohns and black boots (which did not go over in my small town) and there was the wacky eighties colors for a while but i never was cool enough to have zippered jeans, oh wait ... i do remember jeans so tight i needed a coathanger to get them on and there was the crazy metal phase which i am trying to block out of my memory still ... sigh. i was a total misfit in a teeny oil boom town and everyone i have talked to in the flurry of facebook frenzy says they always knew i would leave as i never really fit in. looking back, i suppose that is a blessing. highschool was not a fun place for me though, nope, not at all ~ it all felt so very awkward and painful ...
October 25, 2007 | Unregistered Commenterdaisies
I played string bass, too -- and tuba. Double the awesome.
November 11, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterNora

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