That image up there - which I found
here - is a page from my high school yearbook with my picture on it. I actually don't have many pictures from when I was 18, which is what I was in 1986. & though I do have that yearbook mouldering in a box somewhere, I have very little desire to open it & scan a doubtless embarrassing picture of me for this dumb blog. & the site where I found it wants money for something I have in a box. So squint, you might make me out! It's all you're getting.
For the past few years, I've been using this blog as a way to talk about my past around the time of my birthday, but lately I've just been committed to other projects - including another radio show, which is recorded, not programmed live - to spend writing about my dumb life. It's a shame though - I think I enjoyed my eighteenth year, although if I could do it all over again, I would've done it without person I called my "best friend" & with a lot more humility. I was an arrogant ass more often than not. For no real reason. With no real achievements or accomplishments to back it up. Just absolutely full of shit.
Two major things happened to me when I was eighteen - I got my first kiss, & I left home to go to college.
The first was almost a fluke. I fell in love with a girl in the high school library. I introduced myself. She seemed to like me. Then a week later it was over. & then she moved away. In truth, I was wholly unprepared, but it did give me a chance to pine for her for two years. I was already pretty good at being lovelorn. & of course my favorite music was made by broken-hearted boys.
Going to college was almost an accident. No one talked to me about it. No teachers or guidance counselors & no one from my family, none of whom had attended college. I kind of just went along with folks. I took the SATs & I think my high school teacher recommended I send the results to several colleges (I think this is in the application). Three of those colleges I would never have been able to afford. I did apply to the University Of Texas At Austin, & I got in (it wasn't hard in those days, especially if you were a resident of the state) but I didn't know about getting on-campus housing so I missed that window. If a classmate I only barely knew hadn't called me out of the blue in the summer & asked if I wanted to live with him, I would've been fucked.
No one told me about financial aid, either - I was in line at UT (this was long before computers) when someone asked if I had applied for any. She was kind & saw my application through the different steps. & I am so glad this nameless heroine did - because I was very poor, & in the 1980s the government still gave you free money to go to college. Even though I did take out loans, I wasn't left with tremendous debt after college thanks to work study & Pell grants.
What ended up happening is that I lived with two fellows that I barely knew, who weren't very much like me, while the person I called my "best friend" - who not very secretly despised me & belittled me at every opportunity - lived in the dorms. It was classic behavior from him - we talked regularly - every day! - in high school, & yet he never said a thing about living together in the dorms. Anyway, it wouldn't have mattered, he dropped out after a couple of weeks, but because I loved him, & this wouldn't be the first time, I offered to let him live in my apartment. He did for a few months. Then he moved back to Garland. Oh how I wish I hadn't stayed in touch with him! When I write about my life in a few years - assuming I'm still doing so - you'll understand why. His utter contempt of me allowed him to betray me on the most fundamental of levels, in a way that almost destroyed me.
Oh & the third thing that happened in 1986 was I became a vegetarian. Yes, it's because I got into the Smiths. I got
way into the Smiths. I don't know if I loved a band as much as the Smiths before. I had been gaga about Bowie, & I adored the Beatles, & I thought Elvis Costello brilliant, but nothing resonated with me on a personal level like the Smiths. So I paid attention. & the song "Meat Is Murder" had a profound effect on me. I've not eaten meat intentionally since - I'm happy to say it's been decades!
The show tomorrow will have lots of music that I discovered in 1986. It was almost like every album I grabbed off the new release rack at Record Exchange on Guadalupe in Austin was an album I would love. That seems almost impossible to think of, but once I was able to buy records with money I should've been spending on things like food & my rent, I did so. There was no one to stop me!
One foolish thing I didn't do is open a bank account in Austin. I trusted my sister Pat to deposit my checks into my bank account in Garland. & I was stupid & imagined just mailing them made it okay, & I bounced a lot of checks.
There are so many things I could talk about with me in 1986 but they would probably only be of interest to me. I discovered six weeks before the school ended that there was something called "class rankings" & was stunned to see I was number 8. A blond girl whose name I don't remember failed an AP Calculus test & I got moved up to 7. She wept openly at graduation at her academic misfortune. I told her that if it would make her feel better, I'd go back to 8, but I think she thought I was mocking her.
That summer I didn't work or do anything. I would often spend the night walking around with my "best friend." My car died that summer, & I didn't have any money to - or really any interest in - getting it fixed. I sold it to my brother-in-law for a hundred dollars, which I promptly spent on comic books.
At college, I was immediately surprised how unsupervised we were. Taking twelve hours a week meant you were actually in class for just twelve hours a week - what the hell were you supposed to do the rest of that time? I learned I could just drop a class if I didn't like it. & I learned how to read a syllabus & to attend study sections so you could figure out if you needed to go to class at all.
But I remained alone & unlucky in love. I wrote letters to people who didn't really want to write letters to me. I tried hard to be friendly & asked for phone numbers of people with whom I thought I could get along, but I stopped doing that when one of them called me, just to sell me something. It hurt my feelings.
& I did some stalkery things of which I am not proud. I was never going to cross any lines, but at least one girl made it clear she didn't want anything to do with me & I discovered where she lived on campus & sent her letters. I hope she threw them away. It was dumb & creepy & I should have known better. Now that I think about it, that was crossing a line. I truly hope she wasn't afraid in any way. I truly do.
All in all, there was the excitement of discovery & the chaos of freedom along with the desperation of being lonely, & young, & completely unsocialized, & also fat & ugly. That's some of what I could say about my eighteenth year, in 1986.
