High School Lunch, Part 2: Origins

The simple things are very fulfilling when you are young. When I was really young I love Guy Smiley. At my grandparents' house, they had a chain curtain in front of the fireplace that I would pull open, as if it were a stage curtain, and I would have my mom or aunt go "It's Guy Smiley!" Then I would take the pulley of the curtain in my hand and use it like a microphone. "Thank you, Thank you!" I was odd. I don't know how I became odd, but it worked for a while. I know it worked because in kindergarten...I was cool.

There I was. Walking into PM kindergarten at Monsignor Bove like I owned the place. I was cool. Confident. Well-liked by all of my friends. We had races in the playground. I would win those races and the other would cheer. They girls went wild for me. Especially Jeannie. Jeannie Riley, with her big poof of hair and wide grin. She had the hots for me and everyone knew it. But that wasn't my scene, man. I had to break her heart. Didn't want to, but a man knows what he wants. But Desiree? Desiree Hamilton was a different story. The cute, quiet, blond girl that kissed me at graduation, me wearing my little grey suit, her wearing her white dress, both of us in paper graduation caps. I had no problems there. Life was good, my friends. Life was good and then we moved. Out of Providence, from the little duplex where my aunt, uncle, and cousins lived right below us for a time. We were only a little ways away in Cranston. Nicer house. Nicer neighborhood. And no kids.

People take kindergarten for granted. It's where you meet your first friends. I had to start my first year of Daniel D. Waterman School in the first grade. This is the worst possible grade to start. My sister was lucky enough to start in third grade, but I didn't realize she was lucky at the time. You see, by the time you are in third grade, there is a good chance you know most of your classmates and you are sick of them. A new student is a breath of fresh air. A new student in first grade is an intruder. In my case, a weird intruder. "Does he honestly think he is funny?" "What's wrong with you?" But it's ok at that time, because no one is smart enough to start little societies yet. It's not until the leap to middle school where things begin to change. That's when The Rules take effect. We don't know who created these rules. We have men working on it. But I do in fact know the story of the first person to write them, and I'd like to share that now.

In the beginning, there was Kent, England. And within this town lived two boys, Michael and Steven. Michael was a creative young child, Steven was a studious pursuer of academia. It was perhaps for this reason that Steven found Michael unlikeable. So he would tell Michael "Yes, you can sing and draw, but can you name everyone in the Queen’s bloodline? I didn’t think so? No one wants to hear from you. Just shut your stupid mouth." The masses didn't know what to think. Is Steven right? Does Michael have a stupid mouth? There were no societies. No order. Chaos reigned in Mrs. Wilbur's seventh grade class. Michael didn’t like the fact that Steven simply didn’t like him because he was more creative than academic. He thought that Steven wouldn’t like it if things were flipped. Until one day, where Michael had a vision. A vision that would provider order in the midst of destruction. He envisioned...The Rules. He wrote them, and brought them to the class. He presented them on two stone tablets, and there was a fire in his voice as he proclaimed these rules of society. The class was in awe, and they parted two different sides of the room. They knew where they were supposed to be now, because Michael would lead the way. From that day forward, Michael had the world at his fingertips, while Steven was nothing more than a crapface. And just what happened to Sir Michael Phillip "Mick" Jager? I think history tells us the rest.

High School Lunch, Part 1: Take a seat

Welcome to high school lunch.

Let’s get the first question out of the way: what’s for lunch? I’m having the same thing I’ve had since I was little: a peanut butter sandwich. You would think I would be sick of peanut butter after all of these years, but really I am just sick of jelly and Fluff. I also have some sort of cookie product. Oreos are a good choice. You can’t untwist a Chips Ahoy. Finally, I have milk. I used to buy milk, but now I just bring something like a Hershey’s or Yoo-hoo. If you couldn’t guess, I like chocolate.

Now on to the more important question: where do we sit? This is a much more complicated question than we realize. So complicated that we can’t think of food at a time like this. What makes it so complicated are The Rules. These rules we just learn to follow one way or another, and if we are going to grow the balls to break these rules, then we better aim for the blue ribbon at the county fair. I’m talking Linus and the Great Pumpkin big. But right now we don’t have time to grow these “juevos grandes”, so we better just fall in line.

Basically, we need to find out what group we are allowed to sit with. Let's look at our options.

First, we have the Jocks. The captains of the school. A football in one arm and a cheerleader in the other. When it is time to go to prom, all they have to do is look at the women in their bed and go:

"Eeney meenie miney mo,
Catch a tiger by the toe,
If he hollers, let him go,
Out goes why oh you,
And you will be the one I take to the prom,
And sleep with later that night,
Unless my parents are up!"

Sorry, Suzy and Suzy's mom, but it looks like Jennifer is going to be the school slut this Monday. Up top Bret!

I don't think we are going to sit with the Jocks.

Along the same lines, we have the Cheerleaders, who are...like, totally awesome! They're so pretty, and energetic, and pretty, and awesome, and pretty...and if we want to sit with them we have to BE. AGGRESSIVE. B-E AGGRESSIVE. Unfortunately, the minute I go over their "spaz alert", which was implanted in their brains when they got their pom-poms glued to their hands, will go into the red. Besides, they're so fucking air headed. You just want to snap them back into reality in the back of your 85 Oldsmobile Cutlass Ciera.

We're not sitting with them.

There is a general "Cool" group as well, and they are sort of a collection of high ranked individuals. There are the Good Looking People, which could mean either normal good looking or "hot off the runway" good looking.

We also have the Class Clowns, those comedic martyrs willing to go to the principal’s office for a joke. You can hear the nails being driven in as they deliver the joke.

"Paul, please tell me what you know about Harold Pinter."
"Pinter, I hardly know her!"
CLUNK
"No, Paul, we are talking about 'One for the Road'."
"WELL IT'S...ONE FOR THE ROAD, TWO FOR THE SHOW, THREE TO GET READY, NOW GO, MAN, GO!"
CLUNK
"Paul, please go to the Principal's office."
"Alright, but, 'Ah'll be bach'."

There are others in this group as well. It's sort of a not-as-dysfunctional, yet not-as likable Breakfast Club.

We aren't sitting with them.

So who are we left with? We have Weirdos, who are generally nice people, but certainly walk to the beat of their own, fucked up drum. You look at them and you don't know what is looking back. Again, nice folk, so we'll say "maybe".

We also have Geeks, not to be confused with Nerds. Nerds are academic. They can tell you why you will indeed use trigonometry at the super market. Geeks are into more pop culture things. Date night is the Geek and his DVD collection of Battlestar Galactica. But like the Weirdos, they are accepting and we could sit with them, if necessary.

Finally, there are the Losers. The bottom of the barrel. They just don't seem to fit in anywhere right now. Maybe they never will. They would love it if we sat with them. And maybe we will. But maybe not.

I don't fit purely into any of these three, but I think a combination of the three will indeed work. We could be Leekdos, but that sounds like a side-effect of Viagra. We could also be Geirsers. Geirsers sounds like Geezers, and I don't consider anyone here ancient. Weekdos would work. It rolls off the tongue pretty well. But I think it should be W-e-a-k, not W-e-e-k. Weakdos.

Welcome to the Weakdos table.

High School Lunch: Intro

Hey all.

Not to anyone's surprise, I haven't posted in a long time. Grad school and the such is keeping me busy. It's not that I don't want to post, but I never know what to post as it is. However I really do want to get back in the habit of writing. Not to mention I have done some stuff for other blogs.

To hopefully remedy my situation, I'm going to be posting (in segments) a script I had been working on for a solo performance class. It went over well in presentation, hopefully people will get a kick out of the writing. If it helps, picture the delivery to be Spalding Gray in style.

I am still not crazy about the title, hopefully that will change.

Enjoy.