as Amanda: Failure Princess steadily approaches it's year-and-a-half birthday, i am flooded with thoughts that i may or may not have already written about but am too lazy to go back and check on. don't get me wrong, it brings me endless pleasure a giggle to go back and read my previous posts, but these days i am so busy looking for jobs on craigslist and lamenting the current state of my wardrobe that i can't be bothered. sooo, if you find that i am repeating myself a bit, just smile and nod at me. i get very nostalgic in the summertime.
it's that time of year again and it seems i am spending another summer semi-living at home. it's about 20 minutes from l.a., but i could swear it was the middle of the wilderness. the only bars here are closed-down-looking chinese places, the night is totally silent except for birds chirping and the train whistle, and the bugs are the size of bats. i am in hell.
some things stick in your mind over years and years, for no good reason. for me, one of those things is the "shrimp and garlic pasta" song from a commercial CoCo's restaurant ran circa the mid-nineties. the song went something like "shrimp and garlic pasta…" blah blah, i don't remember the rest, but i remember the melody. it was supposed to be kinda 50s be-bop-ish.
another bit of information i can't seem to shake is each and every nickname my fellow nerd friend in junior high and i had for all of the other kids in our class. i pretty much remember them all, although i wish i didn't. it's not as mean as it sounds… well, the names were, for the most part, but also for the most part those kids made fun of us nonstop. i like to think of it now as a kind of counter-terrorism, albeit clandestine. anyway, i've been thinking of junior high a lot lately since my one of my other best friends from back then just had a baby. yesterday, one of the, shall we say, not-so-nice girls from back then added me on myspace. i was surprised by that, but pleasantly so, as i don't honestly believe most of us can be held accountable for things we did when we were thirteen at this stage.
also, as a lifelong outcast dork-turned-ultra-cool (HAHAHAHAHA), i have had to do a fair amount of forgiving my former tormentors. nothing says "water-under-the-bridge" like being wasted at a bar when i was 20 years-old and sharing an intimate apology and forgiveness sesh, complete with mutual tears, in the bathroom with the girl whose harassment brought me to the brink of suicide in freshman year of high school. i think she was really really sorry, and it's funny how intimidated i felt still, even though i was there with a huge pack of my friends and armed with years of subsequent validation that some of that teasing had actually made me into a better person. i was ready to forgive, and almost embarrassed at how regretful she was.
still, human nature being what it is, there is always that inclination towards targeting the weak. even though my nerd friend and i were definitely some of the cool kids' favorite targets, there was one girl who, though i would not say i considered socially "below me", was definitely a target of my scorn for many reasons, most notably how badly she wanted to be my friend. i feel sick even thinking about it now, but i remember the days in sixth grade on the playground when i decided i just didn't want to speak to her, so i wouldn't. my other friends and i would just walk away when she talked to us or hide in the girls bathroom, which was where we went to gossip. it was awful. i never saw her again for years after eighth grade, by which time i had successfully ditched her as a close friend but we were on friendly terms, so i thought. i finally ran into her several ago at the local kmart. i recognized her immediately, smiled excitedly and said hi. she looked startled, said a short hello, and nearly knocked over a couple of racks of sunglasses to get away from me. it was only then that i realized the impact of how i had treated her, even as we were becoming adults.
since then i have learned not to take being well-liked for granted. i try to be nice to everyone, even people i don't like that much because i know that there must be SOMETHING good about them. i'm not always perfect, and i definitely talk a lot of shit, but i try. i also know that even though we are not little pre-teen and teen monsters anymore, sometimes being in certain people's favor can be so fragile, and at the end of the day all that matters is that you treated the people around you with kindness and empathy and i want to be surrounded my people that think the same way.
i don't know what this is all about. i guess i have been thinking about being a better person and how i can improve myself. truthfully, what i need is years of deep, intensive counseling, but for now i suppose i will have to settle for crying about my dad when i get drunk and writing in this blog. good times, special times.
another bit of information i can't seem to shake is each and every nickname my fellow nerd friend in junior high and i had for all of the other kids in our class. i pretty much remember them all, although i wish i didn't. it's not as mean as it sounds… well, the names were, for the most part, but also for the most part those kids made fun of us nonstop. i like to think of it now as a kind of counter-terrorism, albeit clandestine. anyway, i've been thinking of junior high a lot lately since my one of my other best friends from back then just had a baby. yesterday, one of the, shall we say, not-so-nice girls from back then added me on myspace. i was surprised by that, but pleasantly so, as i don't honestly believe most of us can be held accountable for things we did when we were thirteen at this stage.
also, as a lifelong outcast dork-turned-ultra-cool (HAHAHAHAHA), i have had to do a fair amount of forgiving my former tormentors. nothing says "water-under-the-bridge" like being wasted at a bar when i was 20 years-old and sharing an intimate apology and forgiveness sesh, complete with mutual tears, in the bathroom with the girl whose harassment brought me to the brink of suicide in freshman year of high school. i think she was really really sorry, and it's funny how intimidated i felt still, even though i was there with a huge pack of my friends and armed with years of subsequent validation that some of that teasing had actually made me into a better person. i was ready to forgive, and almost embarrassed at how regretful she was.
still, human nature being what it is, there is always that inclination towards targeting the weak. even though my nerd friend and i were definitely some of the cool kids' favorite targets, there was one girl who, though i would not say i considered socially "below me", was definitely a target of my scorn for many reasons, most notably how badly she wanted to be my friend. i feel sick even thinking about it now, but i remember the days in sixth grade on the playground when i decided i just didn't want to speak to her, so i wouldn't. my other friends and i would just walk away when she talked to us or hide in the girls bathroom, which was where we went to gossip. it was awful. i never saw her again for years after eighth grade, by which time i had successfully ditched her as a close friend but we were on friendly terms, so i thought. i finally ran into her several ago at the local kmart. i recognized her immediately, smiled excitedly and said hi. she looked startled, said a short hello, and nearly knocked over a couple of racks of sunglasses to get away from me. it was only then that i realized the impact of how i had treated her, even as we were becoming adults.
since then i have learned not to take being well-liked for granted. i try to be nice to everyone, even people i don't like that much because i know that there must be SOMETHING good about them. i'm not always perfect, and i definitely talk a lot of shit, but i try. i also know that even though we are not little pre-teen and teen monsters anymore, sometimes being in certain people's favor can be so fragile, and at the end of the day all that matters is that you treated the people around you with kindness and empathy and i want to be surrounded my people that think the same way.
i don't know what this is all about. i guess i have been thinking about being a better person and how i can improve myself. truthfully, what i need is years of deep, intensive counseling, but for now i suppose i will have to settle for crying about my dad when i get drunk and writing in this blog. good times, special times.