So, I guess my recommendation for teen girls would be learn Latin, smack a bitch, buy a purple bra and become bitter and sarcastic.

When I was about... um... 20? I was at a beach house over New Years with a group of friends and strangers including my one really adorable cousin. Maybe a dozen of us. One guy who'd heard Jenny's cousin would be there expressed disappointment (not within my hearing) with me along the lines of "didn't know she'd be such a big momma..." and was promptly frozen out pretty hard.

I didn't know it had happened, just noticed the shunning and asked what was up. I laughed and declared him a prick. It was one of the happier more liberated moments of my young life.

not popular, but not really bullied. but lots of my friends were bullied, and I got a lot of the fall out. I really didn't get the bullying, so I was baffled by it . I just didn't understand meanness.

I was probably a bit of a bully (in the bossy sense) in early elementary. But I was also painfully shy. Go figure.

Brilliant peachy orange sunset tonight. Weirdly enough, sundogs earlier, which I associate with winter weather. Given the wispy cloud patterns, I'm guessing it's from Earl. Aaaaand now I have Goodbye Earl stuck in my head.

It's confusing when they reuse hurricane names. I had to go look up the last Earl to get rid of some deja vu.

Actually, learning Latin played a role in my popular/not popular spectrum, too. The first time I was genuinely popular was when I went to Northwestern`s summer program and studied Latin. It was a great geekfest for me, the predecessor to college where I was suddenly not the smartest in the room. Everybody was smart and it was so liberating not to have my identity tied to that. So I could suddenly dance and goof around and flirt (with the one of two Caucasian boys there, go figure conditioning, accidentally landed the wrong one) and none of it was a big deal. I definitely was mean, though, in the way of kids who just now got the power. Because I could be, you know? If I had been able to carry the nonchalance (but not the meanness) back to school with me I would have been much better off. I loved learning Latin, though. They didn`t offer it at my school, so that was great.

About to go on my first long pubtrans foray since moving to LA. Gonna see Jerry Beck showing cartoons and Janet Klein & The Parlor Boys performing. It's pricey for my limited income (they have a discount for students but not disabled people, natch), but I'm hoping it'll be a networking opportunity. Gotta find musicians to work with down here.

Jesse, you can punch me in the face if you want. As long as you know, then it's on like Donkey Kong.

I would never!

Which reminds me, one time in high school, I was supposed to be someone's second for a fight she was supposed to have. The four of us met up after school, it turns out I was actually friends with the other girl's second, they postured a little, and there was no fight. Good times.

In total first world problems, my TV remote is apparently broken. I thought the batteries were dead, finally remembered to get new ones, and no! And my cable remote can't figure out how to work the TV, so I've already been using two remotes. Wah wah wah.

I need to do MAJOR grocery shopping, mostly for Grace. Protein powder, flax seed oil, coconut milk, apple cider vinegar. I should have gone today, but went, instead, to the Skirball for the second day in a row because Noah wanted to go.

I also just got my schedule for the next school year. Blessedly I still have the last period of the day off.

I've always known that English was a tricksy language, what with words sounding like each other and meaning totally different things. However, it took a 5 year old to teach me that "Please brush your teeth" and "Please spray yourself with bug spray in the house even though you JUST HAD A BATH THAT WAS FAIRLY TRAUMATIC FOR BOTH OF US!" mean exactly the same thing.

Is that my learned thing for today? Cause if so, I call shenanigans.

I was the weirdo throughout elementary school, though mainly tolerated by my fellow gifted classmates and only physically attacked by kids from other classes. Still the last kid picked for any team, etc, and people would mock my posture and clothes (swayback and old hand-me-downs), but things didn't get brutal until middle school, where the got brutal fast, and I don't really remember all of it. There's a blur of threats and violence and sick days where I couldn't stand being anywhere near the place. Traded my hand-me-downs for punky/gothish clothes (looked appalling, but had discovered through trial and error that attempts to blend in with the clothing THEY wore didn't work).

High school was better. High school was when I managed to mostly master the art of appearing human (it's hard work for me to do that -- lots of studying and mimicry, and probably why I do better with online interaction than in person). And I had some activities, and a few fairly close friends. My worst high school experience was actually outside of school, when my attire (army shirt and a skirt) and natural vaguely twitchy/non-neurotypical actions got me pulled in on suspicion of shoplifting.