thilly, thilly girlth

so i was at debi's a couple weeks ago and we were going through one of her old scrapbooks (that might be redundant). as luck would have it, she saved the last five or six columns that val and i had written as 17-year-olds for the albion news.

somehow (i have no idea how) we were chosen to be the northwestern high school reporters for the '93-'94 school year. maybe it was our wit ... our charm ... our good looks. but probably it was because our mothers were best friends with the editor ... who, in another twist of fate, gave me my first real job after i graduated from college and once yelled at me at work for not helping my mother around the house more.

our column was widely known for being particularly silly and packed with inside jokes that hardly anyone outside the school community (and, often, outside our own little clique) could have understood. but still, i think we had good readership ... and we were damn good that the occasional interviews with school personnel. we asked tough questions like, if louise the lunch lady could be in the winter olympics, what event would she want to compete in? we totally had the elementary school reporters beat.

i'm pretty sure we were the last set of reporters to write an extensive yet unbelievably ingenious christmas poem, and the first to ever submit our column written on toilet paper. we were also the first to write an article completely with a lisp. by the time i got to this one in the scrapbook, debi had disappeared upstairs. she should definitely go back and read it.

i clearly remember the day val and i wrote it. we were at my house. it was a sunny day after graduation. and my aunt grace was visiting. val and i were on the back deck sounding out 300-ish words, carefully replacing every "s" (and "s" sound) with a "th." i swear it took us two hours to finish. nearing the end we asked grace how to spell "auf weidersehen" with a lisp. turns out it's "auf weiderthehen."

"are you making fun of one person in particular or everyone with a speech impediment in general?" grace asked.

hmmmm ... everyone.

somehow we lucked out and never got a letter to the editor for anything we wrote ... at least not that i remember. even tho i'm sure some things deserved it. that must be how you know you're good at something.

last week i wrote about stupid high school girls ... thanks to mandy and val, i'm remembering just how stupid we were and how we paraded it in front of a town week after week after week. but at least we were clever. and by senior year i wasn't wearing a headband anymore ... well, not regularly.

my trip to target

all i needed was a box of envelopes. what i got was a box of envelopes, nail polish, mouthwash, a card, and "the big lebowski." come on, it was only $7.50. you would have done the same thing. i could have gotten "snatch" for $10, but i had to draw the line somewhere. who do i think i am? aaron?

so, what was fun was following the mini-gaggle of obviously high school girls into the store. if the requirements were height and weight, i could have fit in. but as it turns out my hair wasn't brown with blonde highlights, i didn't have it pulled into a pony tail and tied with a claire's bow, and i wasn't wearing a short jean skirt, exercise shorts, or a tank top. and i wasn't completely unaware of my surroundings.

i was, however, wearing sandals ... but they weren't black flip flops. and when i was driving, i used my turn signals. and i didn't stop where there wasn't a stop sign. and i didn't walk up to the non-automatic door and stand there for a second expecting it to open.

apparently they were there to check out coolers in the only way a high school girl knows how. "let's hang on to this one and see if we can find anything prettier." fortunately a lot of coolers were near the entrance, so i could get around them quickly.

now i'm left wondering. was i ever really like that? i mean, sure, i did a lot of giggling in my formative years. hell, i do a lot of giggling now ... depending on who's around ... and these days it's plainly called "laughing," thank you very much. i spoke with a lisp in public every now and then for no apparent reason ... participated in synchronized midnite bowling a lot ... made prank calls ... stuff like that. but at least it wasn't stupid. and i didn't have a bow in my hair.

flight 2564

leaving newark, i could have sworn i was looking at the New York skyline. how many empire state building look-a-likes could there possibly be outside new jersey? then i saw the statue of liberty.

her size (from take-off) paled in comparison to the already seemingly small skyscrapers, yet she appeared so big. so striking.

i couldn't help but think of 9/11. how could i not? this was physically the closest i'd come to it. and i was in a plane.

suddenly i didn't feel like reading skymall magazine anymore.