I had my interview yesterday at 3 PM and got a call this morning at 9 AM, offering me the job. I start January 12. Wow. And luckily for me, no thoughts of Sammy Davis, Jr. entered my mind during the interview. Woo!

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Now, onto something more interesting and bizarre: I went to my junior high school tonight and it was freaking me out. It was actually the first time that I stepped foot in the building since my last day of ninth grade in the spring of 1989. It was really, really weird. My mom had to go give a short speech to some people there, so I took off and wandered around a little, successfully avoiding the night janitor at every turn. It was extremely strange, though. The things I was remembering just from walking in certain places were both amazing and freaky. They're mostly things I haven't thought about since they happened.

My mom had to go to the gym, so I made my way over to the locker room, but it was locked. Damn. I remember having these teeny tiny baskets to keep our gym clothes in. We'd all be wearing wrinkled clothes because you had to shove everything in to fit in these ridiculous things. We'd have wrinkles mixed with a checkerboard pattern from the metal on the baskets. It was highly fashionable. I also remember that most people wouldn't bring their gym clothes home and wash them, so the smell in that area was always, er, pleasant. Sweaty t-shirts and rank socks - such an enchanting potpourri. Add to that a lesbian gym teacher who would play her bagpipes while you were changing, and you've just got some good, good times going on. Woo! Anyway, since the locker room was a no-go, I headed over to the bathrooms out in the hallway. These particular bathrooms were never unlocked during school hours. They were only open for night functions and dances. I'm talking, of course, about the infamous toilet dancing bathroom. It had been fixed up quite nicely, with new paint and a bunch of new doors. However, a new color scheme will never take away those glorious metal bars above the stalls that made toilet dancing so fun and yet so sturdy. Ah, those were the days.

Seeing that I was right outside the auditorium, I made my way over there next. It had all new comfy seats instead of the wooden jobs we were stuck with. When I was in ninth grade, I was lucky to be an usherette. There's a certain 8th grade English class that becomes the usher core for the next year, and I just happened to be in it. The ushers were responsible for seating everyone during all of the assemblies. I just liked it because it meant I got to get out of class to perform my duties. I also made sure I got the sweet spot, which was standing right outside the auditorium doors, just pretty much watching the people walk in. Tough work. I just stood there and looked at all the boys. Not much different than anything I do now, really. Anyhoo, I hit the auditorium tonight and headed towards the stage. I forgot that chorus rehearsal was earlier on Wednesday nights. In seventh and eighth grade we had two choices for music class: either take music education, where you had to take tests and listen to boring lectures, or take chorus, where you had to show up for an hour every Wednesday night and lip-sync to stupid songs. Being in chorus also meant you got to get out of school to sing at the mall and you also took a trip to New York City every year to shop and see a Broadway show. It was a pretty easy decision to make. I saw Cats twice. I also don't think most of the other people were lip-synching, but I was. I only sang one word the whole two years I was in chorus, and it was during this ridiculous Christmas song that we sang one year, called 'Christmas in Tahiti.' What's even more sad is that I can remember almost all of the words. That song had a verse in it that contained the lyrics, "Snoopy, Lucy, Charlie Brown...." I remember I used to stand on the riser right above Lucy, and I would always yell out her name in the weirdest voice. Hey, I was 13 - how cool do you expect me to be?? I went and stood in my place on the top left riser tonight and started to hear that damn Tahiti song in my head. I then looked at the piano and remembered what song we used to sing as a warm-up song at every rehearsal. Two years. Every week. The same song. The Rose. GAG. If I never hear that song ever again in my life, I will be a happy, happy woman. But, I must admit, in the spirit of nostalgia I did sit down at the piano and play the first few bars of it. Then I started having some mini-post-traumatic stress symptoms and stopped immediately. I'm cringing right now just thinking about it.

After I was done playing around in the auditorium, I headed into the stairwell and made my way to the next floor. It was at this time that I was reminded of what kinds of torture I was exposed to in the way of stair climbing and back-breaking at that school. For some grades, the lockers and homerooms were on the top floor. The bus dropped you off at the bottom. You were expected to walk up 5 flights of stairs while carrying 10 pounds of books while half awake EVERY day. And the whole book carrying thing? For some odd reason, and it still exists as a rule now, we could only go to our lockers once in the morning, once in the middle of the day, and once again before going home. That was it. We had to carry around everything for the first three classes and the last three for hours. No wonder these kids have back problems these days. And in seventh grade, we had to share lockers, so everything got crushed, including my PB&J sandwiches. Speaking of lockers, when I hit the next floor of classrooms, I noticed the still empty space in a row of lockers. There had been two lockers there at one time, but it is still just a cement space. And I know how it got there, because when I was in seventh grade someone put a smoke bomb and a cherry bomb in Scott Buontempo's locker and it blew up and damaged the one next to it. Oh, it was a biiiiiiiig scandal. It's so strange, because I'm only 29, but I can say that 'back in my day' we didn't really have to worry about guns or stuff like that. Smoke bombs were our biggest concern. It's sad things aren't that simple anymore.

After that floor, I crept back out into the stairwell and made my way to the floor with the library on it. Like everyone else, I pretty much never went there, so I just kept on moving. (We had the weirdest librarian who would come on the morning announcements and do these little skits to try to drum up business. "Good moooorning, Space Cadets!" Yeah, it didn't work.) I then reached the top floor and stood by the railing overlooking the stairs below. I immediately thought back as that being the exact spot where my ninth grade boyfriend kissed me and a teacher commented on it. It was humiliating. And my ninth grade boyfriend was short. And we didn't go out for that long. And I have no idea what his last name was. I'm usually really good with names, but I have no idea. It began with an 'S.' That's all I got. Hey, he was a year behind me - I was making him cool enough by going out with an older woman, why do I have to bother with remembering last names? Sheesh. After that fleeting memory, I remembered a better one to replace it. Right in front of that railing I saw one of the best junior high girlfights ever. Hair pulling, lots of profanity, teachers not able to pull the girls apart, and Lee Press-On Nails going all over the place. It was good stuff. *sigh*

While reminiscing about such wondrous things, I caught sight of the janitor's cleaning cart, so I high-tailed it back down to the gym. My mom asked me if I was weirded out, and I had to say yes. Then I looked around the gym and had one of the worst memories ever. That gym was where I met a really-bad-don't-mess-with-him transfer student. He came to our school after leaving two other ones, leaving the last one for putting two kids in the hospital. I've never seen a volleyball hit so hard in my life. A year later he was arrested for breaking into a house and brutally murdering a woman and her two kids. Yes, these are my brushes with fame. Some people run into Adam Brody all over town - I have gym class with a psycho killer. Gah.

When we finally left the gym, my last stop was the cafeteria. Instead of reminiscing about lunchtime hijinks, I glanced at the back corner of the room and I immediately pictured a cheesy DJ stand there, with 4 blinking lights. All of a sudden I could hear the opening throngs of You Give Love a Bad Name in my head, and I just wanted to stand in a circle with my friends and jump around like a spaz.

Junior high - there's nothing like it. Also? Thank God it's over.

CD Pick of the Day: Marry Me Jane, by Marry Me Jane.
I was so sad when this band broke up. They made two awesome albums, (Tick being the other) but never caught on. I discovered this CD from it being the soundtrack to one of the few crap movies that Ben Stiller has appeared in, If Lucy Fell. Great band, and an even greater CD. As I always like to say, chick rock rules!
Highlight: Secretly Waiting

before & after





2007-09-26 - Follow Me!
2006-09-30 - Site Move & Favorite Entries
2006-09-25 - Evil Easter Bunnies & Rock Climbing!
2006-09-22 - Shameful-Purchase Hiding & A New Dentist Plan
2006-09-19 - Birthday Picture/Video Diary & The Wheelmobile





Copyright 2003-2006 by Sockgirlie. Stealing is wrong.