Diary Friday

Here, for Diary Friday, is a tragi-comic rendering of a Sadie Hawkins Dance (did you all have those, too?) in my junior year of high school.

I read it, and thought: Jesus. Thank God high school had an end. ICK.

October 14

Sadie Hawkins Day. Pretty good. I wore jeans, wallaby’s, a huge flannel shirt of Dad’s, I painted freckles on my face, wore a straw hat – only to find that almost NO ONE else dressed up!!! A few did, but not many. I looked like a jackass.

Assembly was fun. I had my camera. I took pictures of the sack race relays, wheelbarrow races. We’ve got some great kids in our class. Got a great picture of Keith standing there in his Blues Brothers sunglasses. And I took one of Donny McNulty, the cutest little NUT of our class – riding around on his unicycle, screaming, “WE’RE NUMBER ONE!” That’s when I love school the most. It felt so – school-y, and together-ness, and everyone is so nice and normal – not like the bitches and assholes they normally are. [Ed: Oh, shit, that makes me laugh. The truth comes out! “Everyone is so nice except when they’re being total assholes.” HAHAHA]

Watching the popular kids bouncing and falling around in the sacks, and the whole football team dressed up as cheerleaders, with little blue and white uniforms, wigs, makeup, and HUGE boobs. [Ed: Damn, you’d never get away with that now. Some overly-sensitive girl would feel that this was “hostile” and made her feel “uncomfortable” and the parents would sue the school because their delicate daughter couldn’t take a joke.] They all came bounding out, with their pom-poms, Richard Beatrice took a made flying lip and did FOUR back-flips across the gym. They did a cheerleading routine together, and it was absolutely hysterical. I couldn’t breathe.

There was a pie-eating contest, too. Pumpkin pie. It was so nauseating. Poor Mitchell Healy, our pie-eater, has a cold so he had to eat and breathe with his mouth.

The seniors won.

Crissy Judge, the cutest, nicest, normallest girl in our class, I really love her – was Mitchell’s own personal cheerleader. Mitchell, looking really sick, came back to our bleachers, and she pounded him on the back, braids bobbing, crying out, “All right, Mitch! Good job!!” It was so fun.

As it turned out, I did go to the dance. I didn’t feel like staying home alone, so I called up Kate and she had decided to go to the dance with Beth and Regina. I started to get psyched. I hadn’t been to a dance for so long. And for the first time, I was nervous. I felt my heart pound, as I put on makeup.

The gym was all decked out with clotheslines strung with overalls, hankys, flannel shirts, there were piles of pumpkins, and haystacks, everyone was wearing cowboy hats, boots, fringed shirts. I felt very out of place being alone. I felt like I was the only person who went stag to the dance.

Then I saw Kate and Pilar, our Spanish exchange student, and Beth, and a lot of people had gone alone, turns out.

I didn’t really dance that night, maybe I danced to five songs. Really, I just talked with people, and it went by so fast. Suddenly Kate said, “There’s only half an hour left!!” Pilar and I were standing there, talking, and Jimmy McNulty came over and said to Pilar, “Would you like to dance with me?” She did – and that moment struck me as so nice. Nothing like that would ever happen to me, probably, but he was so nice! It seemed like asking her to dance was so easy for him.

John was there. [Ed: I think I am referring to a guy I was madly in love with, from afar, having never spoken to him, ever.] HE WENT STAG! Oh, well. Fuck him. [Ed: That may be my favorite couple of sentences in this journal entry. Thrilling excitement: “HE WENT STAG”. Then immediate apathy: “Oh well”. Apathy turns to rage: “Fuck him”.]

Brian was there, cute cute, overalls, cowboy hat, straw in his mouth. It was during a slow song, I spent most of the dance with Kate, but she had gone to talk to someone, so I was by myself on the bleachers. Brian and Moira McCool (his date) were sitting at the other end, talking, and Moira got up to get a drink or something, and Brian stood up, it was kind of dark, he looked enormous to me, I mean, because I was sitting down. And he came in my direction, I thought he would pass right by me, but then I realized he came and sat next to me, his big feet stretched out in front of him, leaning his elbows back on the seat behind.

He sighed, “Drab. Drab.” [Ed: Now that strikes me as very amusing, being all bitter and “over” the un-happening Sadie Hawkins Dance. Love it. I am not sure who “Brian” is. I’m thinking Brian Records, one of my brother’s best friends. Brian would be 14 years old, at this point.]

I said, “It’s drab, especially for us stag-people.”

“Yeah!”

I grinned over at him. “Did she ask you?”

He nodded. “Yeah.” A silence passed. Then he shrugged. “Well, dinner was good, at least.”

(The girls always treat the guys to dinner before. It’s a tradition.)

I laughed, and he pulled himself up, grinned at me, and walked off. I started breathing again. No, I am only kidding. [Ed: I have no idea what I am talking about here. Did I have a crush on him? No idea.]

Kate and I talked for a long time. She was considering asking Jan to dance, a terrific terrific person. I said, “Go, Kate. He is so neat.”

She sighed. “I know … but … I don’t think I could stand being turned down again.”

I know!! But she did ask him, and they danced for a while, and after they were done, she and I talked. She said, “Well, I guess he didn’t feel like dancing anymore.”

I said, “Well, at least you danced with him. He didn’t turn you down—”

“No, Sheila! I am so SICK of this happening to me! I really am. I don’t just want one dance with someone. I want something to happen!”

For the rest of the dance, I madly searched for Brian. It would be so easy to ask him to dance cause I know him so well. No heart attacks or long meditations. I could just go up and say, “Are you tied down with Moira, or do you want to dance?” [Ed: Jeez, Sheila, I hope you could be a bit more tactful than that.]

But just my luck, he had left early. Damn.

And depression began to seep in almost immediately, and I battled it off. I did. I tried to fight it off. Because I am depressed altogether too much. It was the end of the dance, everyone was getting their coats – I felt this Melancholy. I’m fed up.

Suddenly, I felt so fed up. Jimmy McNulty, and say, “Want to dance?” I’m 16! No one has ever asked me to dance. what the hell is wrong with me? I’ve never slow-danced with anyone, except for Kevin See, and that doesn’t count. [Ed: For my friends who know Kevin See, this will make total sense. I laughed out loud when I read that sentence.]

Kate saw me, I looked at her and said, “I hate my life right now.”

Firmly, she took my arms and shook me. We looked at each other for the longest time. She said, “You do NOT. You have all of us, we love you.”

I sighed, “I know, but—”

She dropped my arms and nodded, saying softly, “I know. I know. It’s not enough.” [Ed: We were 16 years old, and we were talking like tragic women of the world, who have been around the block a couple times. However, it was deadly serious, so I can’t mock myself too much.]

“It really isn’t enough anymore. But you know what, Kate? I would NEVER drop my friends for any boyfriend. I need my friends more than I need any boyfriend. But still – having a steady guy – it just would make all of this, and everything else, so much richer!”

When will it happen? It just seems like life is so much easier for those gorgeous popular girls.

See what going to one stupid dance does to me?? Dances are hell. Except for the toga dances. I love the toga dances. [Ed: Hey, a girl has standards.]

So anyway. There it is. My first Sadie Hawkins dance. it wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Wow, you can see that I am brimming over with excruciating endless ecstasy, huh? No really, though. I was surprised. For one of the first times, I didn’t go home and cry myself to sleep. [Ed: Ouch. I don’t remember doing that. That’s horrible.]

By the way – I’m getting contacts in 2 weeks!!!!!!!!!!! [Ed: Sorrow, apparently, doesn’t last long when one is 16.]

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30 Responses to Diary Friday

  1. Emily says:

    When I was in high school, dances were reserved solely for having our picture taken and then skipping out to get drunk or high or both. That way, you have actual photographic evidence to account for your whereabouts for the evening. This is what I learned from my first Sadie Hawkins dance.

  2. red says:

    Wow. I missed the memo on that one.

    I didn’t learn defiant secretive behavior until college. When, basically, I didn’t need it anymore.

  3. Alex says:

    Emily, did u and i go to high-school together??
    That was what we did..show up..get freakin’ crazy high and then go and do ur own “cool” stuff. Of course we were raging geeks but we all thought we were living it up! Have u ladies seen Mean Girls??? GO Go Go!! It will be the Sixteen Candles for this generation!!

  4. Mitchell says:

    actually that last post was from me..Mitchell..im on Alex’s computer..we’ve morphed into one person!!!

  5. Emily says:

    Hawthorne High School, baby. But the only Alex I knew was the newspaper editor.

    Haven’t seen Mean Girls, but I hear it’s tons of fun.

  6. red says:

    Mitchell/Alex:

    I don’t have … a generation.

  7. Mitchell says:

    “Well..we think you should get one”

  8. Emily says:

    We should ask Sheila’s readers: What generation would you put her in? Flapper? Hippie? Pioneer?

  9. DBW says:

    Emily–I say angst-ridden Flapper. She dances herself silly, but senses its all inane. At the speakeasies, she never realizes that most men are scared off by her looks, brains, and that scary energy.

  10. red says:

    DBW:

    Damn. You have me pegged.

    But my body is not a flapper-body type unfortunately. You have to be a boyish stick. I am more of a flamboyant hourglass, more 1950s.

    But I have always wished I lived in the 1920s. I love the rebellion, the decadence, and the literature.

  11. Anne says:

    God Sheila – there’s something about reading you that brings up all these intense memories.

    For my 10th grade Sadie Hawkins Dance, I asked an incredibly beautiful boy named Andrew to go with me – he was prettier than I was but I felt I could dare to ask because he was a mere 9th grader, and could not match my whole extra year of worldliness and sophistication. Still, I was amazed and thrilled when he said yes. I remember running at one of my friends to pass on the good news and almost knocking her down because I was so excited.

    After school on the day of the dance, but before the dance itself, this same friend and I were wandering around the Upper West Side, and there must have been some kind of street fair on because I got to talking to a new agey woman operating some kind of booth. She had reeled me in by looking intently at me and saying “This is a SPECIAL day for you. You have a GREAT WISH today, don’t you?” Of course I did have a GREAT WISH, that Andrew would like me and we’d dance all night and kiss and make out and then be boyfriend and girlfriend. So I said, “Yes, yes I do have a GREAT WISH.” And she gave me a mantra to say, “nam myoho renge kyo” telling me if I repeated it over and over I would get my wish.

    So of course I repeated “nam myoho renge kyo” a gazillion times like a total idiot, and I was still saying it to myself hours later at the beginning of the dance. I stood with my friends, wondering when Andrew was going to show up, and every few seconds looking anxiously at the door. I waited and waited, checking the door the whole time, my friends peeled away dancing with the boys they’d asked or among themselves. I couldn’t bring myself to dance because I was first so expectant and then so completely, horribly crushed. Just as I was about to give up and go home, I said to myself, with all the irony I could muster, “nam myoho renge FUCKING kyo” – and then there he was at the door, looking apologetic. He came over to me, explained that it was his mom’s birthday, he went out to dinner with his family and couldn’t get away, &c. &c. But I didn’t believe him or didn’t care, I danced one dance with him quite listlessly. He did kiss me, but I didn’t give a toss at that point (I remember thinking analytically about the sensation). And then I shook my head and said “Never mind,” grabbed the friend I’d arrived with, and split.

  12. Anne says:

    Sorry to ramble on in an anti-nostalgic haze. You could tell me to get a blog of my own – but oh wait, I have one already.

  13. red says:

    Are you kidding me, Anne?? I can just hear the “ironic” pissed off Buddhist chant … it’s hilarious.

  14. Ash says:

    Re: Sheila’s “generation”:

    If she says she doesn’t have one, I’m not going to force her into any box, but it’s like saying you don’t have an astrological sign.

    That is, of course, you DO have an astrological sign, but astrology is bunk.

    Defining “generations” is pretty arbitrary.

    If someone held on gun on me and made me answer, she’s an X-er, of course. Who else would even remember “Free to Be You and Me”, etc?

    Generation X: Born ~1963 to ~1983 or so. If you’re going to be silly enough to define a “generation”, it should be at least 15 years long, if not 20.

  15. red says:

    Oh, Ash –

    that “I don’t have a generation” is a quote from Postcards from the Edge. Heads up.

    Shirley Maclaine, Meryl’s insane mother, is saying, “Honestly, your generation doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

    Meryl Streep says in a tired voice, “I don’t have a generation.”

    Streep’s manager chimes in, “Then I think you should get one.”

  16. red says:

    Mitchell and I just re-enacted the scene from that film, here on my blog.

  17. Ash says:

    RE: “But I have always wished I lived in the 1920s. I love the rebellion, the decadence, and the literature.”

    According to the theories of Strauss & Howe, Gen. X is supposed to be a sort of reborn Lost Generation. There’s a whole big old theory about cycles and stuff. Bunk, of course. But interesting bunk, and you learn stuff about history you didn’t know.

    http://www.fourthturning.com/html/fourth_turning.html

  18. Ash says:

    Eh? Streep? Maclaine?

    Sorry about that.

  19. red says:

    You’re sorry? Why? It’s one of my all-time favorite movies, and I know it by heart.

    Besides, I think Emily meant “emotionally” what generation I belong to … not literally.

    I don’t feel like I’m a Gen Xer – it feels like I missed that by about 5 or 6 years. I’m a strictly 1980s kid. Those were my formative years, high school and college. But who knows.

  20. Anne says:

    Thanks, Sheila. What was Jimmy McNulty like? (My mother’s maiden name is McNulty.)

  21. red says:

    We had a lot of McNultys in our school – I seem to recall Jimmy McNulty being a babe … perhaps when my high school buds who read this blog comment, they will be able to shed some light on his character. :)

  22. Ash says:

    No, I didn’t mean I was sorry about the movie. (I’ve never seen it, and can’t judge.)

    I meant, I was sorry about posting cluelessly.

  23. Ash says:

    “I’m a strictly 1980s kid. Those were my formative years, high school and college.”

    At the risk of running on about a subject I mistakenly introduced to the thread, being in high school and college in the 1980’s fits X-er-hood like a T.

    But, again, these are arbitrary distinctions. I think Time Magazine is in charge of defining these things or something. Nevermind.

  24. Beth says:

    Sheila, I am here to update you on your life. Brian was definitely Brian Records. He and Moira McCool had a thing going on for a while in high school. She is now married to a guy with longish hair who reminds me of Johnny Depp. They have one (or two??) kids, and are adorable together. Chrissy Judge is a fifth grade teacher and hasn’t changed a bit. She is a warm, happy , encouraging individual who always makes you feel terrific when you are in her presence. Of course you know that Mitchell had a heart attack and died tragically about 3 years ago. As for the McNulty clan- I have no idea what Jimmy is doing these days, but he and his brother (Donny the unicycle rider) were some of the nicest boys I ever knew. They were sooooo cool, in a James Dean kind of way. I actually remember chasing Donny McNulty around the playground at Wakefield School, trying to catch him and kiss him. Thank God I never caught him, because I don’t think any 7 year old boy needs to be subjected to sheer adoration. He was the Fonzie of Wakefield school- tough, sensitive and oh so cool. And seven years old.

  25. CW says:

    Red: you are SO Gen-X. I don’t even like that term, but I am unavoidably one also.

    “Pop culture” has totally mis-defined the whole generation by applying the disaffected “slacker” stereotype, which is fairly peculiar to the later cohorts, to all of us.

    “Early Gen-X” types, like you and me (from what I have observed) are REALLY conservative, REALLY cynical, and REALLY practical – determined not to make the same stupid mistakes and be identified with those worthless boomers, many of whom are only a couple of years older.

  26. red says:

    beth – I cannot explain to you how much I love and adore you. That update was brilliant. You’re brilliant/.

  27. red says:

    Re: Gen X:

    Here’s the deal: The media came up with the Gen X term (as far as I can remember) at the END of the era – as opposed to the beginning. My sister Jean grew up knowing, “Oh yeah, I’m Gen X, whatever, I cried when Kurt Cobain died” – because she is 5 years younger than me.

    So yes, it is only a matter of 5 years – but the media attention came at the end.

    I could TOTALLY be off base about this, because I wasn’t paying attention to what the media was saying about me, at the time. I was too busy falling in love inappropriately and jamming out to the Go Gos.

  28. red says:

    Oh and Ash: My bad! I thought you were saying:

    Streep? Maclaine? Really sorry that you loved that movie.

    HA!

  29. Beth says:

    Sheila- Even funnier than my last post is the fact that I attended Leo DeFeo’s daughter’s First Communion today. After the party was all said and done, me, Leo, his wife Jen and Timmy Lackie all sat in Leo and Jen’s living room with glasses of wine and went through our Senior year Yearbook, PAGE BY PAGE, of the senior pictures updating each other with all the information re:our classmates. I think we almost wet our pants with laughter- how we were so PROUD when one of us knew something the other one didn’t. Like, “Oh yea! I am WAY COOLER than you now, baby!!! I got top secret info!!!!”

  30. Pat W says:

    Both of the McNulty boys are fishermen. I see them often.

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