I am pretty sure we're discussing who's going to the Bon Jovi concert.

21/40

So, there's a lot going on in this casual snapshot of the gals of the class of 1992 lounging about by their lockers before school on a ... spring? day of ... 1989? Possibly fall '88? Anyway. That's me, second from left, on just about the worst hair day of my high school career. And I'm not kidding about the Bon Jovi concert. That really was what we were probably babbling about.

White History

10/40 

A little filler item I am 90 percent sure I wrote, from the February 8, 1983 edition of What's Up Elementary?, produced by me and my posse in Miss B.'s 3rd grade class,* a class-time-eating project I'm certain we badgered the kindly Miss B. into:

George WashingtonGeorge Washington is the Father of our country. From the time he was 20 to the time of his death, Washington was a great man. If Washington had not had the courage he showed, we would not be here today.

Now, it's not the writing I'm annoyed with -- I've seen worse by college-degree-holding adults who are paid to produce content for a living, right? (Although it does kind of make you wonder, hilariously, what kind of lesser-man shenanigans GW was up to before the age of 20.) No, it's the one-sided, whitewashed version of history it presents. Kids, then and now, are/were taught such white-hero-worshipping bullshit, completely lacking in nuance and perspective. And I don't know how to resolve this, even as it's becoming an issue with my own kids. 

For instance: The other day, Kid Gleemonex asks me on the way to swim practice, "How do you get to be Native American?"** I say it's not something you do; it's a matter of being a descendant of the peoples who lived on this continent before European "discovery" (yes I used air quotes) and colonization. "So they're still around today?" Yes, but in much smaller numbers than they would have been otherwise. "Because the Europeans killed them?" Yes ... "On purpose?" Well, yeah -- "But WHYYY?" [Ten-minute monologue on how the Europeans decided they liked this land and wanted it for themselves, and it didn't matter that there were already people living on it, and they said to get out and if the native people refused, they would fight and kill the native people, and they won most of the battles because they had guns and the natives didn't. Also smallpox, which may or may not have been on purpose.] Kid Gleemonex ruminates on this in silence. 

Then she has to go join her class in the pool, and I think I've just had a brilliant idea: A series of Real History books for kids. We don't have to go deep on the genocides, it doesn't have to be gory, but I'm deeply uncomfortable now with e.g. the "story of Thanksgiving" that they are taught, as if that's the whole story and everything was jake forever afterward between the colonists and the native peoples, la la la. I hate the lauding of Christopher Columbus (eeesh), the uncritical presentation of Manifest Destiny, the entirety of the way that the Civil War is taught. Gaah. These are the kinds of things I felt like such a fool, such a dupe, such a naive chucklehead about when I got to college, and lots of people never are forced to confront other ideas and narratives, so they keep going through life all "Christopher Columbus was a brave explorer! Wheee!"

Annnnnd ... I'm done writing but have made no point. Go fetch Gramma some more bourbon. 

---------------------------------------------

*Incidentally, in several ways revealing a lifelong tendency to put me and my posse front and center in whatever journalistic enterprise I undertook, from this slim news volume to the high school yearbook to this very blog.

**At least now they're teaching them the term Native American, instead of Indians like back in my day.

"I like to have people over." Yes, for weeks at a time. OMFG.

8/40

Gosh, this was nearly twenty-two years ago ... makes me feel old to think of that much time gone by!

Presented Without Comment: A Few Cherce Lines From the Letter My Randomly-Selected Roommate-to-Be Sent Me the Summer Before Kollege

I feel guilty after stagnating all senior year.

I'm Chinese, although I prefer to pass myself off as Hawaiin since people think I'm Filipino.

I like to train, & plan to install lots of sports equipment & a pullup bar in our room.

And don't worry, I've taken the trains for 6 years & only been mugged once.

I'm a pretty intense person.

I'm bringing rollerblades, a softball glove, sewing machine, ice skates, tennis racquet ... I think that's it.

But I can sleep thru anything.

Since I hate beer, I like to keep a bottle of blush wine around.

I'm going to kiss you now, Gerald.

Friends, the image on this magazine cover is everything I wanted to be, look like, and do with my life at the age of 16 (almost 17), which I was when it arrived in my mailbox in December 1990. EVERYTHING. I didn't even care all that much about Johnny Depp -- it's not about Johnny Depp. It's about wanting to look like her. This version of her -- I'd've taken any version, honestly, but this is The One. It's why I made the tragic decision to wear a hat in one of my senior portrait poses. It's why I wore blazers and pearly things, and experimented with weird lipsticks and haircuts to try to get this way -- it's why I stopped using Sun-In, for Shatner's sake! Fuhgaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh I still want to look like this.

Sounds major.

An excerpt from A Student's Handbook to The History of  [Cowburg] County: EVERYTHING you need to know!, by Winona Louise Gleemonex, Mrs. L's Fourth Grade Class, c. 1984.

VII. Social Life - and - Amusement
The early settlers were always hospitable and friendly to visitors and neighbors, as was their custom. Cowboys were always, always welcome.

Horseracing was very popular. [Cowburg] County had many tracks, on which very famous horses raced. 

Barbecues were held, and dance contests and singings. In other words they were very social and friendly people. 

I mean, it's no LAMBORGHINI DIABLO, but it's pretty fucking quirky.

I am using context clues to determine that this was made (by me, alas) in about 1990. One lesson you could take from this is that it might be a good idea to get your own goddamned ideas and stop romanticizing a time that was over before you were born and which you have no real clue about. Another is, you have a lot of time on your hands and some very vague, uninformed thoughts on "freedom" and "revolution."

Also: is that Edie Brickell, hugging her knees like this is a tampon commercial? WTF?

I was quirky before that was even a thing.

OBVIOUSLY, riiiiiight? No one could put ME in a box!

Proof: Collage made in ... I want to say, 1991?

Well, I coulda had a payin' job / workin for some fucked-up slob

So here's the front cover of one of my textbooks -- it doesn't say, anywhere on here, which book, but I obviously loved my own art so much that I thought it worth keeping at the end of the year. (There are more of these, o lordy.)

Clearly I was going through some ... conflicting themes in my many influences. Revisiting the Chronicles of Narnia,* quotin' some Calvin & Hobbes, some Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and some rad buttons I saw at Spencer's in the Golden Triangle Mall, and pretending that in my free time, after church, youth group, National Honor Society, 17 nerdy school club memberships, tennis team, acing the PSAT, and holding on to second place in the class rankings, I might just possibly be a "Wasted Rock Ranger." Good times, tenth grade. Good times.

-------------------------------------------------
*In retrospect, I realize that I was trying really hard, one last time, to make sense of the whole Jesus thing, after believing without understanding at all my whole life -- I gave up about two weeks into my freshman year of college, but I did really try.  

Well, at least we got Samantha Mathis goin' for us.

Shatner bless the teachers, parents and administrators who put up with my ungrateful bullshit back in the day.

This was my nametag from the UIL Academic State Meet in 1991 (with my actual name redacted to protect myself from dying of shame). I wore this for two days straight, throughout the competition, the social events, the actual contest, the awards ceremony. It was my way of givin 'em the what-for, showing my speshul youneekness, letting everyone know how badass I was -- I might be competing in an extremely nerdy academic event at the state level, it snarls, but I am an iconoclast who cannot be contained in your straight, uptight, matchy-matchy little boxes! I'm destroying the System from the inside! Look on my nametag, you sheep, and despair!  

This and a thousand letters from my far-flung correspondents with, like, They Might Be Giants lyrics all over the envelopes

Found this in the olde home place:

It is my attempt at a "comic," undoubtedly drawn during some other class when I was supposed to be doing something else (as I am coming to realize is my lifelong M.O.), in about 1990. We of the Honors Chemistry class were all supposed to have been doing a Big Project for the Major Science Faire, and as you can see, I ... hadn't been, and ... was pretty much fucked. I'd had six months to work on it, it was due soon (next day? christ what was the matter with me?), and I had -- as you can see -- no sprouts, no detailed notebook logging the effects of whatever third-grade bullshit "experiment" I'd half-assedly come up with, no tri-fold posterboard thingy to show my work, and it kept me awake nights -- though not, apparently, in the actual doing of the project. Just obsessing about it and having the fantods from the anxiety of it. Jesus Fucking Christ I hated chemistry.

PS: new label for all these posts: hantavirus treasure trove