Year Nine (A Prompted Reflection: Part Two)

Tonight, I compiled all of my blog entries into a single chronological word document. Keeping my crazy spacing intact, it was 119 pages long. The word count was 34,022.

To put that in perspective, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about 120,000 words. That means I only have one-fourth of the angst required to be a success in the mope genre. (But I'm much better).

Because I love you readers, and for some reason, every night in the appropriately named "witching hours" (I don't know if there are actual "hours" or just one "hour," it's been some time since i read the Big Friendly Giant), appropriately named because this blog is magic, and I am a modern day wordlock. I get the desire to type words into a little white box surrounded by a larger beige box with all manner of colorful buttons.

I have to imagine this nightly writing sesh (sesh = session) won't continue all week, what with the working MWF, but I think summer is probably just conducive to extra blog attacking.

So, four months after her inception, I have decided to continue my brief history of trinity. Here, I will attempt to document various and sundry important parts of my Freshman year of high school.

You can read the first bit here.

If you are a longtime reader (you all are) then you will remember that my basic prompt, from Meagan, was "You should write more about people I know and times I know. Maybe things will start to come back to me."

I will do so admirably.

My freshman year marked my first major swing at adolescent romance and the arts of love. I have already detailed the Jenna saga (less of a saga, perhaps telenovella?) but that lasted all of three weeks so I don't believe it really impacted me.

No, the real heart destroyer of years fourteen and fifteen was Chelsea.

Chelsea was attractive to other fourteen year olds. The kind of girl that, in retrospect, you realize had nothing on the interesting looking girl that everyone overlooked until it was too late. She had bleached blond hair, bright blue eyes (i am always attracted to women with striking eyes), an american eagle wardrobe, and an ultimately immature view of attraction.

She was the girl that would be cast as the lead crush object of the younger quirky son in a tv show that prided itself on being a realistic portrayal of youth. (Think Sam's crush in freaks and geeks).

Chelsea intrigued me. Coming from the strictly regimented caste system of public school, and unaware that trinity was, in a rather positive way, a melting pot. She was shallow, self-obsessed, and catty; the recipe for popularity in the school I was accustomed to. (Please don't take this as an indictment of her present character, I never really talk to her anymore, but no one is who they are going to be at fourteen.)

Allow me to digress for a moment. As I wrote, "I never really talk to her anymore." I realized that this was my main strategy for girls that I perceive as rejecting me. I haven't spoken to Chelsea since I was maybe sixteen. I only recently reconnected with Susie, mostly because she is unrelentingly sweet and forgiving. And, more often than not, when I am irritated with claire, I flat out avoid her, as we have documented in the MB with my mall dodges as little as two months ago. I think I just like to pull a third eye blind and cut ties with all the lies.

Regardless, after high school retreat, I started chatting with chelsea via AIM. (the club for people without photo ids and frumpy sweatpants). I still remember her screen name (sn) but i shan't share it because God knows what kind of creepers read this blog, I wouldn't want them to travel back in time and harass her.

As almost any female can attest, when my visage and flop sweat are hidden and my mumbles concealed by pretty text, I manage to be moderately charming.

With this e-ace in the e-hole, i worked my magic on chelsea. She liked fashionable things, and by that i mean, things that are fashionable to other fourteen year olds. This consisted primarily of sweatshop manufactured clothing and gifs of cutsey phrases that could be plastered on a xanga. I showed her my sensitive side. Quoting lyrics from oasis, yearning for my own personal "wonderwall," totally getting john lennon's message of peace and understanding (massively marketable at that), and sharing her desire to be kissed in the rain. Coupled with my bad boy persona (my xanga picture was me holding my stratocaster); this onslaught of sensitivity overwhelmed her.

I was staying at a friend's house with my mother in Colorado Springs the first semester of my Freshman year. I was in Colorado because I was getting my braces off and my parents would rather drive ten hours than just have some orthodontist in lubbock do it.

I stole away to the computer and hopped on aim.

There is a certain piece of courtship that is very specific to our generation. You can have your drive-ins, your football games, communes, etc.; but for me, there was nothing as exhilarating and exciting as seeing the screen name of the girl you had a crush on lit up in black on your buddy list. As the program loaded you waited in anticipation, hoping beyond hope that she would be on, but never letting yourself get too excited, because she might not be, and then you were stuck just talking to sebastian.

But when she was, it was so wonderful.

This particular afternoon, Chelsea (who was "spazy" and possibly ninety-seven) happened to be on at the same time as me.

She was the only one on my buddy list that was online. It was fate, it was like we floated alone, tethered together in the vastness of the internet.

We chatted. I played it cool, describing my trip, asking about volleyball, standard friend stuff.

Then the conversation took a turn to the flirty. At first of the innocuous type, but it drifted into serious "do you like me" territory.

(i told claire this cute anecdote the other day, but i've been trying to work it into the magi b for a little bit, just never gotten around to it. Plus she never reads this. possibly because she has become a villainous character. i even call her voldemort)

We chased each other tails, like kids do (also dogs), neither of us ever actually confessing to being attracted to the other. So in the end, the ever pragmatic miss chelsea devised a scheme.

"ok," she typed, "how about, we do a countdown together, and if we like each other, at the end, we type '1' and if not we type '2'."

A bead of sweat ran down my side. I ran my dry tongue over the dry roof of my mouth. I thought.

I thought, "Do i really want to do this, do i really want to be rejected by the most popular girl in my grade, maybe it's better to just live in mystery."

I was tense and adrenal, this would not end well. There's no way a sexy hoe like chelsea would ever be interested in my goofy ass.

"Ok," i typed, "let's do it"

"3"
"2"
"1"
...

"1" "1"

I was relieve and surprised and encouraged. "I am going to have a girlfriend."

I didn't know then what I know now. That for all her faults, she was still a nice girl who didn't want to hurt my feelings. When I typed one, i threw my fragile young heart into that white window, she typed one to keep it from getting too terribly damaged.

These days, I don't type one anymore. I live in mystery. It's better that way. I can have all of the pretend girlfriends I want. We talk online, we text, we hang out every once in a while, and I never have to worry about that sting of rejection. The best part, I never have to get to know them. Sure, I know their favorite bands, and foods, and characters on the office; but i don't have to deal with their baggage. I don't have to know the things that make them hurt, those things don't have to make me hurt; and it's better that way, at least for now. I can still be the fourteen year old kid talking to chelsea on the internet, not the fourteen year old kid staring at the pretty girl with green eyes and a potter puppet pals patch on her backpack across the room.

I was elated. This girl, this girl, who, in my adolescent eyes, was perfect, liked me; me!

I was back in Lubbock soon, footloose and braces-free; and my courtship was redoubled.

At first all went well. Just because we liked each other, it didn't mean we were "going out," no, that was a whole nother level, and it required finesse to get her to agree to such a formal arrangement.

It was weird, the first face to face meeting after our prime conversation. Awkward smiles and glances, each of us remembering, but neither of us confessing.

We started talking for hours on the phone. Like her screen name, I can still remember her number, a number that I haven't dialed in almost five years.

Phone conversations were nice. I could crack little jokes, play on words, feel clever, while she let loose the occasional giggle. The night would wear on and as i got sleepier, i tried less, my chipper conversation devolving into a languid drawl, as she yawned every few words. But it made me feel happy to be so connected to another person. Even when she was having a sleep over, she would ignore her friends and talk to me.

She loved the rain. She wanted a boy who would call or text her whenever it was raining, just to remind her that he was thinking of her. Since I didn't get a cell phone until my sixteenth birthday, I would borrow my mom's and call her whenever it drizzled; just so she knew.

A common topic of conversation was the fact that she had never been kissed, and the circumstances she wanted to surround her first kiss. It had to be nighttime and in the rain.

I wanted to make this happen. (spoiler: i did not).

Around december, the vinyl started to crack. She started ignoring my calls, paying more attention to her friends. I would get irritated, complain about her to jade, but I still pursued, john eldridge style.

She claimed she was into me, but she was talking to another guy. A baseball player from lubbock christian. (A school I would end my pitching career against undefeated). This was shocking. I was shocked that she would abandon sweet sensitive me for a better looking douchier guy. It was my first taste of the future.

She said she appreciated me, she understood that most guys wouldn't keep it up after she made it clear that I was her second choice. She never pulled the "let's be friends card." She kept it honest, she told me she appreciated me, and to make it extra gay, compared me to some stupid jesse mcartney song about a guy who never gave up or similar bullshit. I was like a feeding tube for her ego, a constant source of nutritious compliments.

(I wonder what it would be like for chelsea to read this, I bet it would be interesting at least. I wonder if somewhere out on the internet there's a thousand word dissertation on me?)

She was on a ski trip with lindsey, I was in my grandfather's garage, listening to Hot Fuss on repeat, quoting "Change Your Mind," at her. I made my last push, laying it all down on the keyboard, explaining that she was the only girl for me, and nothing would make me happier, all the things that you say with absolute conviction one night but bring the blood flushing to your face in the years to come.

It wasn't the same after that.

I asked her to homecoming, but she would rather go alone.

I tried my best to look good. I wore my new american eagle jeans, and my american eagle vertical striped pink shirt (she loved pink shirts on guys), and put a little gel in my freshly cut hair.

We rode in a limo, a mix of the dated and the dateless, we ate the same restaurant, tried to enjoy each other's company, I tried to pretend, but it was far from a date, it was a lesson in self pity.

Maybe that's where it started, my lack of confidence bordering on contempt with myself, in the ladies department. Maybe it was all born that january evening in a Carinos. Three and a half years later, i would almost throw up in that carinos' parking lot, anticipating what was, at the time, the most devastating thing I could ever hear.

Fuck carinos, i never liked it and it's overpriced.

The next semester was all angst and desperation. I tried as best I could to reclaim Chelsea, but it was useless. I became annoying.

I was spared further embarrassment when she transfered the next year. (i wonder what would have happened if she had stayed? Would it have been the same story, but with a much less worthy girl? It almost makes me happy to think about, it's so weird)

In a way I am grateful for the experience. Sure it set a rather crippling precedent when dealing with the opposite sex, but it did make me realize that i didn't want the popular girl, she wasn't worth it, and sometimes she wasn't that nice. But, i do have to give her credit, she was never mean and i don't think she ever intentionally meant hurt me, if not for my own sense of pride, it would have been a nice clean break.

She also got me to stop dressing like daria, for which i am eternally grateful.

And i also killed two and half hours writing about her, i wish they had been at work rather than at night-nap time.

It's fun to remember readers.