Polly Takes a Turn

Is it my turn yet, people?

I swear to Hank I've been waiting for it to be my turn for maybe a month. I keep looking at the calendar, wondering when it will be my turn. And it never is.

Until today.

And now that it's my turn I realize I don't have a whole lot to say. Coincidentally, that's the precise reason I decided to implement the turn taking and transform this blog into a collective of writers. Which I think is working out beautifully, if I do say so myself.

This is what I'm going to talk about: high school. But only because someone once told me they love all the veiled references to high school that I put in the posts. And because, well, even though it's old news, somehow it's strangely apropos.

Because that's the last time I really felt part of a group.

I remember high school, people: the fun parts and the not-so-fun parts. I remember it in excruciating detail. I thought I'd be over it by now. I really did.

I'm not.

I'm years past graduation. I mean, I was graduated with the class of 1993 for Hank's sake. I really was. In spite of that recurring dream I have where it turns out I failed PE and have to go back to high school. I freaking hate that dream.

But it's just a dream. Because I really did get my diploma. Diosa and Bookgirl were witnesses. You can ask them.

Go ahead. I'll wait.

Anyway, my kid is running around buck naked and dripping wet. The shower is still running. I am the only adult on the premises. Clearly this is my responsibility.

And yet I'm still typing.

Sheesh.

Did I mention that I'm tequila impaired. Well, I prefer to think of it as improved. I'm tequila improved. But I might not have mentioned it and I think it's worth mentioning. Because being impaired is a handy excuse for not making sense, and I'm not sure I have much intention of making sense right now.

As a matter of fact, in the event that I do make sense, I assure you it will be entirely an accident.

Whatever.

Back to high school. Figuratively, thank Hank. Not literally, like that terrible recurring shame dream. Because that would suck.

But figuratively: back to high school. Because I'm pretty sure in some ways, I never left. Just like, in some ways, I was never really there in the first place.

That last was meant to be all existential and moody. The tequila may have impaired that. I apologize if that's the case.

But the thing about high school is that it happens at a particularly terrible hormonally charged point in life, a time when most everyone is both so judgmental and so afraid of being judged that the whole thing ends up being a communal hazing experience. Everyone is the person being hazed and everyone participates in the hazing. And some fair better than others.

I faired okay.

I had really great friends. I still have them. I hope to have them until I die. And I think I will.

And yet there are still people I wish I had never met. There are still memories that make me cringe. And, quite frankly, there are a couple of people I'd like to backhand just for the joy of it. But only if they are tied to a chair and can't possibly chase me down and return the favor.

There was this one girl, she was so mean. Absolutely the quintessential mean girl. She would suddenly decide she loathed a girl and then spread the most awful rumors about her. Something involving anal sex and saran wrap in lieu of condom springs to mind. And then, just as suddenly, she would decide she liked the girl she'd previously hated and want to be all BFF with her and for some reason the girl would total be friends back.

What, I ask, besides hazing accounts for such a turn of events?

Only it turned my stomach and I still can't stand even the thought of that traitorous wench. She's dead to me. Only she still walks around in my head sometimes. So maybe she's zombie to me.

Sometimes I wish I was handy with a machete.

Anyway, there were other things. Like boys. We all kissed the same boys. With a surprisingly communal laissez-faire attitude. Like a cookie swap. As in: you have to try this one! seriously! amazing! And then the boy would be kissed as recommended and the girl doing the kissing would report back to the group.

Side out! Rotate!

Just like volleyball, only, at the risk of bragging, I kind of knew what I was doing. I cannot say the same for volleyball.

We had these monumental, historic, crazy crushes that achieved a level of obsession that clearly must have been more about us than the boys in question. I mean, I've perused my yearbooks since I left high school and there's not one boy in them that would actually stop the world to melt with you. Or even one I'd particularly die to melt with. There's just not.

Only we didn't know that then. We were insanely wrong about those boys. With the notable exception of Diosa--who married Blackstone--and from all accounts is still melting.

I think back to how early we had to be up for school. I can't for the life of me figure out who came up with a 7:05 start time. That's just wrong. And bad planning.

I mean if they had started school at closer to ten or so, I would have--I'm sure we all would have--slept in and then had to attend classes until my parents got home from work. I would have spent more time being supervised. I would have spent less time being sleep deprived. Because let's face it, with as hormonal charged as I was, it's not like I could really afford sleep deprivation.

My judgment was plenty impaired already. And back in high school I needed not even a modicum of help from my old friend tequila to make poor decisions. I could make poor decisions on my own in the dark. Okay, maybe not alone. But then again, my poor decision making wasn't limited to the dark, either.

What I'm saying is that I did not have to be lead astray. I knew the way to astray. No map required. I had astray on autopilot.

Ah. I remember astray fondly. Like a foreign country I was once a foreign exchange student in, a country that almost felt like home, but was ultimately too exhausting and exotic to spend my life in.

I can only be thankful that I took pictures because I doubt I'll ever see astray again for as long as I live.

Even back then, astray wore me out. I remember fondly those mornings when I would kiss my mother goodbye, trudge out into the snow, walk around the block and come in through the backdoor in my room, where I would hide out until she left for work.

Note to self: having a door to the exterior in a teenager's room is a terrible idea. I don't care how idiosyncratic and quaint New England-y a house is: board up the door.

Of course, had there not been a door, I would have simply gone in through the window. That's what my brother did.

Anyway, I remember fondly those mornings I would sneak back into my own bedroom--instead of out of it--kick off my shoes and climb back into bed to get a few more minutes of precious sleep. So that I would be well rested enough to sneak out of my room later in the evening perhaps. Or maybe just for the sake of the sleep.

Sometimes--more often than not, maybe--I would still attend my extracurricular activities even though I'd missed school that day. After all, I lived closer to the school than the student parking lot and could hear the bell ring from my house. Which is why we so often ended up at my house after school. Or during.

I can remember a fire drill or two--maybe three--where Bookgirl, Diosa, and I just walked off campus rather than wait to be let back inside the building. 

Even then, we made our own rules.

Comments

[The Dol]

See now, I was hanging out with Mormons in high school. I only went very vaguely astray. And yet, I loved high school, too.

Thank goodness I met you in college and had the opportunity to experience a healthy level of corruption.

[Pandora]

I was so concerned about pleasing my parents in high school. I never once stepped out of line. Honestly, I never want to go back to high school because nothing substantial happened then. High school was boring. Plus, knowing at least half of your graduating class since kindergarden kind of ruined things. I would look at the cutest boy at my school and remember then time he wet his pants in Ms. B's class in second grade. Instant turn off.

Currently, I love college and I never want to leave it.

I'm in this alternate universe where I still don't have full adult responsibilities, but I'm allowed to do whatever I want. I forever want to have spontaneous bonfires on Tuesday nights. I want to stay up until 4:30 am for no reason at all. I feel like I've finally I've reached who I want to be. I'm so willing to take risk and push boundaries. Oh, the experimenting that I've done in college. It's definitely been a healthy dosage of corruption. So, I'm having the time of my life and I would never trade it for anything.

[The Model]

Ah, high school, good times... I don't have any memories from it. Oh right, I never went to high school (not just never attended--I was never enrolled). But I do have plenty of memories of astray. I lived there for a good while, and certainly never needed to be led. I might even go so far as to consider astray my hometown. I'm pretty sure that's what the A in L.A. stands for...

I think the reason high schools start so early has something to do with teenagers who have to work in the afternoons and with the school bus schedules, but nevertheless I couldn't agree with you more that start times that early are just wrong. As far as I'm concerned the Earth shouldn't even start rotating before 10am. But I never did claim to be a morning person.

[Diosa]

I do remember astray fondly, not so much high school, however.

[Sistah]

You write so well. It's like I can hear your voice except I've never actually met you so maybe it's not really your voice I'm hearing.

No astray for me in high school. I lived with Health and Safety, remember. I was 100% convinced that she would take me straight to jail herself if I did anything illegal or lock me up herself until I was 30 if I did anything immoral. Somehow we ended up friends despite the terror so I guess it worked?

I also was sick for half of high school so I didn't experience it in a traditional way. I did spend Junior and Senior year in love, though. Sigh. He was all sorts of awesome until freshman year of college and he decided that steroids were cool. Then all of a sudden he wasn't.

My astray-ness hit me late...post-college / pre-Mr. Sistah.

[how many times am i allowed to change my name?]

i laughed all the way through this post. you are just funny.
and of course, the laughter could have been a little bit brought on by the hooch the old guy from our church gave us.
i kind of felt like i was in high school again, as i thought to myself, "i could probably get this down if i hold my nose and chug."

[White Rabbit]

i was just reminiscing about the time i was driving w/ dad and he asked "Was your sister in school yesterday?" And i said, "i think so, why?"

"Cause i thought i saw her in another city"

"hmm, that's weird"

Apparently i had dodged behind that tree quick enough for him not to notice me. Did i give you a heads up when i saw his car coming? Sorry if i didn't. It was a panic reaction!

Good times indeed. i did appreciate inheriting your room after you left for college. That door made my girlfriends feel more respectable.

[Alice]

I, unlike the Model, was enrolled in high schoool. But just like the Model, never attended.
I don't really have many memories. there was the golf team and the car i loved.
I think the closest thing Ive got to high school is the stories of the three of you, actually, because if I was going to remember HS, thats what I would have wanted it to be.

[Bookgirl]

I tried to convince myself this was going to be writerly, and not all "insider joke-y," but let's be honest here. This is pretty much going to be the blog equivalent of when you and I left one another a full page to sign in our yearbooks.

There was very little time you spent astray, when I wasn't right there with you. And all of my best high school memories have you in them.

I don't care how terrible and worthy of really mean names that aforementioned Queen Bee was, I'll forever be grateful to her. Because her ostracizing me and your feeling bad for me and inviting me out to the movies so I didn't have to spend Friday night at home with my parents is how we became friends.

I like to pretend that I'm this worldly city girl who ran screaming from her provincial hometown the moment she could. But the truth is that I was wildly, painfully homesick. For years. I can remember freshman year of college, waiting for a friend in the mall, and thinking, "God, Polly. Hurry UP!!" and then bursting into tears right there when I realized it wasn't you I was waiting for. And probably wouldn't be any time soon.

I love living my own life, and being in New York, and yes, making my own rules. But I still wish I could be making my own rules with you, preferably within walking distance.