Man, why do one's thirties have to be this era of total fucking retrospective clarity? Why does it take an entire decade to see all those dumb choices you made when you were oh-so-young? The kicker in my case was that the choices I made when I was young were usually not dumb. I was the most intelligent and pragmatic fucking seventeen year old you'd ever hope to meet, which makes me the worst kind of idiot: the really smart idiot, the one who made the adult choice at the expense of youthful joie de vivre. I was a moron in high school and only occurred to me a few weeks ago, driving my car around town, doing my shit, which is writing and being married to Borpe and serving the Geegsters total love slave. I realized that though at times I might have bitched about not having a boyfriend in high school, in fact I did. We hung out all the time and laughed and went to the same movie over and over and ate disgusting things and made fun of the Cinco de Mayo Mexican tittie dancers in the sharpest way possible. We just never smooched or did the nasty. I regret this. I totally should have nailed Ray in high school. I didn't. For no other reason, we sure as hell weren't hitting other people. It was kind of hard to find anyone who was funny or spoke English at C-Juana High who was also SINGLE and in classic overly pragmatic teenage style, I failed to see what was right in front of my face. I had read some shit in Sassy or something and held fast to the notion that I should not make physical advances on my man Big Ray because I might "ruin the friendship." And I didn't ruin the friendship. Ray and I were in sporadic but consistent contact for twelve solid years after high school.
Senior year was a big year for me and Ray. We both held supervisory positions on the school paper and were totally kicking shit up a notch with our incredibly provocative pieces on the death of Andrew Ridgeley's career and which movie-promotional cereals actually tasted good. After reading about a penis enlargement clinic in the SD Reader, I commanded Ray to make an appointment for an article. We didn't have an angle. I just wanted to get a pass to leave school early to drive to La Jolla and watch Ray turn a million shades of red after whipping out his dingle for some two-bit doctor. He refused to do it, of course. Ultimately that evil cunt Elvia got the better of us and Ray and I were demoted to lowly staff writers. Ray and I went to prom together, then I went to Smith and he went to UCI and then law school. He occasionally called to ask if a back scratcher would be an appropriate gift for the girl he was too scared to break up with.
There was this moment at Denny's after prom, when we were eating cheese sticks and drinking coffee and I had partially dismantled my prom frock (which was described by aforementioned homophobic homosexual FDT as "chic with a chapeau") that Ray gave me the look. The kiss me look. He was scared, I was scared, we were tired after eating a gallon of marischino cherries from the prom sundae bar and not dancing once DJ started exclusively catering to the Mexicans. I saw it and could identify it, but I passed. It is only now, at the age of 31, that I realize that some relationships are meant to be punted. Abused. Crapped on. It's how you learn about yourself and other people. So what if it fucked shit up? I was three months away from Camp Lesbo in Massachusetts.
I haven't spoken to Big Ray in over a year. Rather than write him an e-mail to see how the man is doing, I'm instead writing this blog post. Why, I can't say. I don't really want to be 17 again so I can make retrospective right choices. No point in rehashing one's youthful indiscretions. Sometimes I wish that I had been the kind of teenager who drank and fucked and did stupid shit. I was so painfully good. I did everything right, so much that now, I know it was wrong. And now it's too late for that. I'm not young anymore. I never made the mistakes I should have and I regret it.
So, Big Ray, if you're reading this, I'm sorry we never made out in your teenage bedroom while your mother and grandmother called me a whore in Tagalog outside the door. It would have been a totally good time.
Posted by Zerd at August 5, 2007 11:38 PM