year 14

At the beginning of the ninth grade I got braces and shaved my head. The latter of which I blame on my friend Josh who is tall enough to sport a shaved head with style. In deference to these two appalling decisions I don't have any pictures on hand from my ninth grade year. I'm certain a basketball picture is lying around somewhere, but the coaches that year were jerks, and I'm glad I don't have to see them even in a picture.

You don't remember much about ninth grade, but you do remember the summer in between eighth and ninth. You would wake up every day at about ten A.M. and playing Dark Wizard for roughly ten to twelve hours before hitting the sack. It was a great existence. However, at some point two of your good friends started stopping by your house every day and inviting you to hang out with these girls they knew. The two of them would excitedly tell you stories about going into the girl's houses. And every day, without fail, you would look at them in despair, because they hadn't yet found something to truly love. And there you were, playing Dark Wizard on Sega CD like a yogi about to attain nirvana. "No my friends," you'd say. "I have put away such childish things." And they'd walk dejectedly out the door to hang out with girls knowing that you had gotten the best of them again.

You also remember being vaguely in love with about ten girls and listening to this song, which is pretty much the greatest expression of love created during the whole course of human history exceeding Shakespeare's sonnets and Love in the Time of Cholera by a pretty wide margin.


You also started to like other kinds of music that don't make you seem like such an assclown. And you still think that August and Everything After is the best album ever made and Raining In Baltimore and Sullivan Street are pretty amazing songs. But this was the first one that you liked. The first song that you said, "Yeah, these werido's might be all right."
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The first quarter of your ninth grade year you record a 2.5 G.P.A. You can't really remember what happened, but it was probably a combination of math and something your parents did to you in your childhood, or the teacher's not being effective, or the sun being in your eyes during tests. It certainly had nothing to do with you being a bit lazy. Mainly, I blame my English teacher Mrs. Smith who often wore berets to class. You can't expect me to take any teacher seriously when they are dressed like a Frenchy.
Here's a list of other people who were at fault:

Girls who didn't like me.

Tests that weren't rote memorization of vocab terms.

Bears. I hate them.

The term home room being used in conjunction with my first class. Guess what, I was a dude. I didn't give a crap about taking care of no home! (Insert more sexist remarks here).

Whatever other teachers I had, who I can't remember today but who were clearly out to screw me.

City traffic.

The migratory patterns of sea birds.

Pythagoras, Zeno, pretty much anyone who thought of or used the term math.

Mr. whoever that gave me a C- in algebra who had a weird mustache.

The moon.

The list could go on forever really. Yeah, so apparently I was lazy at first. Or having a hard time adjusting. This is pretty much a catch all for anyone not doing well, be sure to use this in jobs, schools, marriages, any kind of relationship or encounter. Use the term, "I'm having a hard time adjusting" and everyone will nod sympathetically.

Positives-Video games.

Negatives-Not being old enough to drive, but close enough to know that it is something you'll eventually have.

Positives-Nobody asks you how you did on your PSAT or where you are going to college or what you are going to do.

Negatives-You've no earthly clue what you are going to do. You are too old for those childish dreams of NBA stardom but too young to know what comes next. I kind of just keep going don't I?

Positives-You can leave campus for lunch.

Negatives-Everyone who works at the local Safeway assumes that you and the other four hundred freshman constantly steal from them. You consider stealing from them to at least make the angst justified.

You remember the day that everyone went to Phantom of the Opera in San Francisco and you chose to stay in class. You remember the previous year that you'd chosen not to raise the money to go to D.C. over the summer, but had chosen to stay at home. You remember how much you loved Dark Wizard and how you started playing it again a couple of years ago obsessively, until you broke it in half because you understood that a love like that would consume you.

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