Whither Scenes?

I feel like I've told this story before.  I've never been part of any "scene."  At best, I've been involved at some radio stations but never with the well-liked group at the center.  I did what work I could, but mostly I worked alone, & that's still true.

Never part of the scene, never one of the cool kids.

In actuality, I would never have been part of any of the cliques in high school because not only was I a fat nerd, but also I naturally gravitated toward loner status.  So I didn't even really have any nerd friends.  It's no surprise that the only people I am in communication with from my high school is a fellow who moved to Austin after ninth grade (where we reconnected in my college years) & a friend who was in the grade above me, another loner who I rarely saw at school.  My best friend in high school went to a different school in a different city; we met because of (nerds) our comic book collections.

(My loner status did keep the bullies away from me.  Attached to nothing & no-one, I wasn't much fun to pick on.)

Flash forward to sometime in 1994 or 1995.  A pretty girl who did a show at my first radio station, & who was obviously well-liked, was chatting with me about another girl at the radio station, who was involved in management, but was unattractive & overweight.  The unattractive girl had just started dating someone, a kind of clumsy, & yes, overweight, fellow, who was not well-liked.  I didn't know either of them very well.

The pretty girl said to me, "Isn't it hilarious that they're dating each other?"

I didn't get the joke.  Was something wrong with either or both of them?

"No," she said.  "She's so awful & he's so awful.  & they're dating!"

I asked for more clarification, & the pretty girl got more specific: she was referring to their weight & their general unattractiveness.  & then something hit me.

"Oh no!" I said out loud.  "I've become one of the cool kids!"

The pretty girl didn't know what I meant, so I explained: I used to be the sort of person that people like her talked about behind my back, & now I was talking about people like me behind their backs!

She quickly backpedaled, & tried to explain that she meant that they were not nice people, or kind people, or anything besides their physical unattractiveness, but I was lost in a kind of daze.  I never thought that I'd be on the other side of that world.

& I really never would - the pretty girl & I never became friends, & in fact, while I remember her first name (& not her last name), she probably doesn't remember me at all.  & she wasn't part of a scene, anyway, so this story is only peripherally related to the show this week.

Which is on tomorrow from 7am till 9am.  You can hear it live in Lexington at 88.1 on the fm dial, & live anywhere at wrfl dot fm on the computer dial.  I'll put the show up later that day on the Self Help Radio website like I do, in case you're not up early.  Because the sleeping-in scene is the one I wish I belonged to these days.