Meanness, Part II

(Or Meanness and Mortification) I WAS TWELVE!!! I feel the need to shout this before you read any more. H, K, and I got into songwriting in 7th grade, right about the time that we saw a presentation on Covenant House, also known as Under 21, a refuge for runaway teens. Our parents were so unbearable we felt the need to sing about it. I have a twelve year old now, and I'm sure he's somewhere writing nasty things about me as I type this, since I'm so unsympathetic to drama that is his life.

At least I had the good sense to censor my own work. Odd, given the atrocious language I used in my notes from that era. And here we have the songs written about our victim at the time, a former friend on whom we had turned. The "diapers" thing was because she once dared to wear sweatpants, and she was very skinny, so they drooped in the butt. I think we should just round up all the sex offenders and turn a group of middle school girls loose on them--worse than prison, worse than the death penalty, I tell you. Those of you out there with middle school girls of your own, be on the lookout. I'm sure our parents would have never imagined we'd have been so nasty.

Meanness.

As Matt Groening said so well in Childhood Is Hell, "The cruellest group in the universe: A roving pack of 11 year old girls." I'm not proud of my nasty middle school self, but I will say that I was seldom this nasty.

An 80's Staple: Sr. Christian's Guide to the Perfect Mix Tape

Having a big garage sale cleanout this weekend, and I'm parting with my cassette tapes (I know no one will buy them, but it's the first step to throwing them out.) It makes me sad, because, although I'm making note of the songs I want to download, and even digitizing a few of the tapes, listening to the odd song coming up on my ipod mixed in the the 40's-current stuff just isn't the same as listening to them in a particular order chosen by a friend or boyfriend. If you ever wanted to turn me on to your music, all you had to do was make me a mix tape. I not only saved every tape made for me, I have a bunch I made for my husband in our early dating days.

But this post isn't about choosing the perfect mix--that's up to you. This post is about the art of the mix tape.

1. If possible, choose a cool looking tape.

Or my personal favorite:

2. Be sure to give your tape a toally random, cool sounding name. If necessary, pull from ain anside joke between you and the recipient.

3. Don't forget your list of songs. I can't tell you how many mix tapes I have with unidentifiable songs on them. Thanks to Sound Hound, I can finally identify them, but remember, it's the 80's--way before the internet. If you had no idea what the name of a song was, you had to hope the DJ might announce it. Can anyone guess what was done wrong here? No artists!

Now, I always liked to decorate the tape, but since I was lacking in artistic ability, I'd simply cut a nice pattern out of a magazine to fit the tape case, or, in some cases, trace something.

Et voila--a personal gift your most nostalgic friends will spend an entire weekend mourning giving up twenty years later!

The Hungriest Girl In The World Doesn't Like Turkey

We worked at a grocery store. This note isn't all that until the P.S., which is hilarious because I remember it happening to me more than once. Remember when grocery stores had salad bars?

As I haven't blogged in quite a while, thought I'd post more than one today, since I have tons of material. If you check out Sister Christian's mugshot in the previous post, it will match up quite well with this award. Most Phone Calls Home refers to the fact that I spent about 25% of my middle school years in the principal's office, mostly for mouthing off. My poor teacher.

And in that vein, I vividly remember this day. In 8th grade religion class, and I got into some verbal jousting with a boy I clashed with often and we both got kicked out of class. Then, I believe we ended up fighting in the hall. The amazing this is that this guy now lives around the corner from me and has kids that go to school with my kids, so I see him every once in a while. He's the nicest guy!

BACK TO SCHOOL!

The end of summer scramble is kicking my butt. Less than ten days till school starts, and I'm counting down as excitedly as "N" is counting down to the end of school in this note.

The Hungriest Girl In The World

This weekend, we have no big plans. We're just sitting at Two Pesos.

I swear, I don't think I have one note from C that doesn't mention food or being hungry. She was teeny! (And still is.) Did her parents not feed her at home?

Oh, how I miss Two Pesos. In Houston, Two Pesos was around before Taco Cabana, but Taco Cabana eventually sued them for stealing their idea, and Two Pesos was no more. I don't care, they might have stolen the concept, but they made it better. Many a late night party postmortem was help at Two Pesos in the 80s.

My senior year Christmas Dance rent-a-date and I. He may have been holding me up.

Goosebumps Are a Form of Punishment

I agree. I have vivid memories of being in a freezing cold classroom.

Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave...

That's a lotta planned deception!

It's party time!