John O'Hara

Middle school was pretty traumatizing. I had big cheeks, a Super Cuts haircut a la Tom Sawyer, and wore a buffalo nickle necklace I got on a family camping trip to Yellowstone National Park. None of this necessarily made me popular. And despite (or perhaps with concurrance) the logic and irregular mathematics of adolescence, I was determined to hang out with the cool crowd. They were mean, obnoxious, entitled. I was desperate to be like them. Of course, in hindsight, I should have run for the hills. Had i done so, I would be writing this blog in Mandarin or Portugese or one of the other five languages I had picked up in the excruciating time of my young lonliness. Instead I had my mom buy me a Nash Skateboard for Christmas and a plastic guitar from JC Penneys so I could attempt to woo people like John O'Hara. I would talk to him on the phone for hours in my bathroom about to Voo Doo Glow Skulls, pretending I knew who the fuck they were. My version of good music in 7th grade was Third Eye Blind and Everclear.
We never actually dated, but I thought we were en route to something magical. I thought after 762 phone hours he would ask me to the movies or kiss me in the girl's lockerroom like Chad and Samantha did when they were dating. But I lost the battle. In between classes one day during the social anxiety frenzy that occurs between history and science class, I found out he had started dating Melissa Mandel. Blonde, short, big boobed, loud mouthed Melissa Mandel. I was temporarily crushed, as I remained for the most of that time in my life...a span that lasted from approximately 1997 to 1999. And I never did learn how to skateboard.