"I'd think we were snobs, if we weren't so much damn better than everyone else"-Beth Marshall
More memories of Sara (the late great)
She and Martha B used to have a huge collection of paper back romances purchased from supermarkets and gas stations. They would dog ear the "good parts" and then we would all go to Jess P.'s summer house at the beach and read them out loud or two each other while eating raw cookie dough (pillsbury-back when metabolism was on my side and I could eat fries and ice cream and drink coke four times a day and not try and make carrot sticks appealing). We used to joke abouther name being Sara Dumblonde and tease her about so many jokes going over her head that she should have an airport in her hair. I remember her auditioning for some of the school musicals with that terrible singing of hers (the directing teacher, who I will name, Mr. Nields thought open auditions or more accurately collective humiliation was a good idea. Welcome to the antithesis of teenage psychology 101.)
I have two pictures of all the NEO rats up in my cubicle now. One is a picture from graduation, and the other is the cast of Knight of the Burning Pestle ( In the words of Metafilter WORST.PLAY.EVER. based on the WORST.IDEA.FOR.A.PLAY.EVER.-All you aspiring playwrights out there, don't worry. The worst play has already been written, the best you can hope for is second best.) I have gotten all nostalgic for high school and college recently. To be sure, I don't fall into the trap that many of my friends fall into, forgetting that I was miserable back then. To be sure, I just wanted to be over. I just wanted to get through it to get to the elusive, and now hallucinatory, "good stuff" that lay beyond. But comparitively the misery I am in now is far worse than the misery I was in then, which makes me fear ofthe misery of the future. (I am the ghost of depressions passed.) But I look then, I had a place. I had a social group. I knew the function I was supposed to serve. Back then there was a plan to follow:school and then college. And now, no friends (not in the same city at least) no boyfriend even, no plan. Just fear and misery. Not a particularly good place. I look back at the NEO and it was home for so long. Later there was the courtyard at third north where we would all get together and bitch about "Chuckles" our drunken speech teacher (who inspired Kevin's epic poem "Chuckles Do Not Fuck With Me Today"). Often we would gather with our fourties of hard cider (tactfully disguised in brown paper bags) and complain until two in the morning about his comments ( the same three no matter what you did "You aren't fully in touch with your chest resonance", "You're holding back", and our personal favorite "You aren't dealing with the place?" how are you supposed to deal with the place with your voice?) I didn't have a boyfriend then, but at least I had things to distract me from that. I had friends who made snarky remarks and parties and movies. We had rehearsals and plays. I used to think I didn't have a boyfriend because I was always busy doing work, now i think I was doing work because I didn't have a boyfriend. And now I do work because I don't have anything else. This was not where I wanted to be.

I'm trying to get out and do stuff to combat this depression. I'm going to a party tonight and then on thursday I'm going to go see a band play.I'm trying to be positive, but it is very difficult. The thing is I look back at where I was in high school and very little is different. I still don't have a boyfriend. I still feel like I'm behind where I'm suppposed to be. I still feel have massive anxiety attacks about things, both invented and real.

Yet I still maintain my problem is that I'm not crazy enough. If I was totally crazy I would have a boyfriend already. If I was totally crazy it wouldn't even be a problem.