Ebola

Am I the only one shocked and mortified by this? The number of people who marry high school classmates? Or worse, Junior High School classmates?. Oh, not the obvious (and sooo adorable) high school sweethearts. No, people who hadn't been the least bit close thirty years ago. They had to seek each other out. Ew, yuck. Now, I'm the worst person in the world to comment on this. Being such a serious outsider, I didn't know dong about anything in high school. Maybe these couples were couples back then. Who knows? Back then who knew shit? "I (was) only an egg." I sure as hell wasn't ready to choose my mate. I just wanted to mate.

Perhaps entwined people were better equipped to make such life-altering choices. Or maybe it was just easier than looking for someone new and give up the comfortable and familiar. Hey, comfort and familiar is all well and good, but if that's the best you can say about the love of your life, that's pretty pathetic.

And horror of horrors, these people might have actually liked Port Washington and Paul D. Schreiber High School of The Port Washington Union Free School District. I spent every day for least three years waiting for those precious words, "Houston, we have lift off."

Ten, yes ten, of my classmates were headed off to Penn. Some of whom seemed to be very lovely people: Amy, Carol, Carlo, Karen...I'm sure they're more I've forgotten, so please forgive me for my involuntary exclusion. (sub rosa) "She's a little slow." My brain was scrambled by the ebola that ruined my lungs. Perhaps the eight-week medically-induced coma fucked up my brain. Or the shitloads of medication the doctors needed to keep me in that coma. (I proved difficult to make and keep me comatose, so I've heard.)

During Freshman week, a former Schreiberite found me and said that we're all to get together the next day in who remember who's room at whatever time. I thought to myself. Like I'm going to hang with (some) people I never liked in the first place and the rest were virtual strangers. I liked the people on my hall. We were already a crew. I couldn't see a purpose for this get together. I came here (to Philadelphia) to meet new people and forget that I was ever a student at Paul D. Schreiber High School of The Port Washington Union Free School District.

I didn't go. Are you kidding. I never even thought about it. Not once. This was a total no-brainer. Well, you could've knocked me over with a feather with this one. I bumped into one of the nice ones or she, I think, sought me out. to let me know that I was the only one who didn't show up. Whoa! Say What? I sure as hell didn't see that one coming. I must have been born missing some sort of homing gene. Why would they do such a thing?

Penn held a pre-freshman year party with classmates from Long Island's North Shore. The party was held at some extremely wealthy person's home associated with Penn. Maybe the family had a kid starting freshman year. I recall that the pool was gargantuan. The party was filled with, you guessed it, the type of people I'd been looking to escape. I got home went into my bedroom and cried my eyes out.

I needn't have worried. I felt like the normal human being I was the second I snagged a laundry cart to drag my crap to my room. Thank the lord, the world is not Paul D. Schreiber High School of The Port Washington Union Free School District. Got tsu danken.