1995 — THIRTEEN
Eve,
Hey beautiful. What is up. My queen, motha
of the earth-n-shit. Any way. Me +
my dad got into such a big fight last night. He was
being such an asshole. He fuckin got pissed at
me, because my bed wasn’t made.
I was like, what the fuck, I’m goin’ to bed now
anyway, he said well that’s not the point, I was
like then what the fuck is And he said, watch
your mouth. I just said whatever, and he
fuckin grabbed the fire extinguisher and threw it
at me. I swear, I was so scared, I thought it was
gonna hit me, but I turned + it only got me in
the arm. I swear he’s gonna kill me one day,
any way, back to more important stuff, whats
up nothing much for me, I think it would be so
snazzy if Jarrett and Cadence went out, and then
if me + you went out, the four of us could hang, it
would be so groovy its out of sight. It would be a….
Psychedelic Freakout!!
Don’t ya think?
After 1st period meet me by Mr. Black’s office,
if possible.
Later man,
Gabep.s. keep it real G-chill
I don’t think I went on one single double date in my entire four-year span of high school. Well… that’s sort of not true - I went on a single double date in eighth grade, which didn’t get covered in any of the notes posted here. I was going out with Jarrett for about two minutes, and Kirsty Scholtz and Stephen Jones went with us to the mall and a movie. No recollection of what I saw but I do remember making out with Jarrett a lot. I know that in ninth grade Jarrett liked Cadence, but she wasn’t into him in the same way that I wasn’t into Gabe. We liked them on a strictly platonic level. Poor boys, I hope we didn’t lead them on too much or anything. We couldn’t help being irresistible with our little lunchboxes, short plaid button-down dresses in clunky mary janes with kinderwhore lace ruffled white socks and plastic baby barrettes.
I was amazed at the size of Gabe’s father whenever it was that I went over to his house for the first time and met his folks. His dad was tiny compared to Gabe. I mean, at this time, Gabe probably hadn’t spent too much time in his new taller self yet, so he wasn’t well-equipt enough with his body to understand its capabilities. But even if he reached that point sooner than later, I don’t think he would have ever raised a hand to his own father. Not that I can recall at least. And his father had some temper as well, from what I heard in Gabe’s next day reports. He shared a lot in common at home with Jackie, and the two of them were also good friends and note-sharers as well.
On another note, how much does the word “whatever” piss parents or other forms of authority off? Sooooooooo much. They really do not like to hear ‘whatever’ as a retort. The year this note was written was the year after the movie Clueless came out, which skyrocketed the popularity of the brief write-off. And then it made its way onto the daytime/late-night trash talk shows, like Ricki Lake, Jerry Springer, Montell Williams and Jenny Jones, where one could hear a fifteen-year-old methamphetamine-addicted mother of two throw it back at her abusive alcoholic boyfriend/mother/stepfather after being called a slut. For Gabe’s father, it was the boiling point at which he had to throw the fire extinguisher on him.
I remember meeting people by Mr. Black’s office. It was placed at a major four-way intersection in the hallway, right by the library, the auditorium and the boys and girls bathrooms. In the center of the intersection was a painted white brick column and a large garbage can where underclassmen would congregate, as their lockers were generally placed in two of the connecting hallways. This exact same set-up could be found a few hundred feet down, at the end of one of those hallways - except it was right outside the main office and was where upperclassmen and obscenely popular underclassmen would congregate. You could also say that the different areas of classrooms helped this arrangement - for the most part, the 11th and 12th grade classes were on one side of the school and vice versa for the 9th and 10th graders. But that layout theory could easily be thrown out the window when one realizes that very often the ages of students were mixed because of failing classes or getting left back. I was in 9th grade math until I was a junior, for example. I think senior year I was also in three gym classes to make-up for all the years I never attended. I don’t know what I would have done with myself if I didn’t graduate on time because of gym. Fast forwarding a little bit - I didn’t even know or think I was going to graduate on that fine June morning of 1999. I skipped rehearsal, didn’t pick up my robe and cap, and slept in because I honestly didn’t think it was going to happen. My mother came into my room with the phone and woke me up, telling me one of the administrators was on the line. It was my favorite one, the one whom everybody hated for the first two years of her writing our detention slips, but loved eventually after realizing her liking you was almost a status symbol and that she was actually cool, deep down. I took the receiver from my mother and sleepily answered hello. “Eve!” she hollered. “Get up! You’re graduating today!” “No way,” I said, shocked. “Yes, get dressed and get down here NOW!” I probably squealed with glee before even hanging up the phone, and jumped out of bed to get ready. That was a pretty awesome moment. My final average wasn’t even like, a 66 or anything, one above FAIL. I think it was 84 or something? So to actually graduate high school was amazing for a girl who made a point to make monthly visits to the main office and get her attendance reports printed out so she could know exactly how many days she had left to skip miss in a certain class. By the end of the year I had used up every single one of my 31 allowed absences per class. I still have so much of that outlook in me today, which isn’t really a very sensible mentality for an adult, buuuuut then again in the end i guess it comes in handy when at your future corporate office job you have to use a human resources online attendance program to schedule and manage your requests for personal, vacation & sick days.
