Teenage Nostalgia

Superbowl Sunday held so much love and heartache. It had nothing to do with football or the crazy half-time show everyone's talking about. Well, sort of.

Chris had a Superbowl party at his house and invited Andrew and I. Most of the party goers are church friends of Chris', so I had to do some coaxing to influence Andrew to come. Church people are all too nice but they freak Andrew and I out. It's a generalization, of course, but you get a room full of people that believe a crazy thing and anybody who does not believe in that crazy thing will, of course, be a little weirded out. Nothing personal. We would never let that influence our behavior towards that person, it will just linger in the back of our mind. It was a cute party, with cute people, and cute food (a cake that looked like a football!).

The fun part had to do with Cynthia purging her home the past week or two and finding old notes from high school. Ohhhhh, yes. Holen, Cynthia, and I left the party to retrieve Holen's NOLA souvenirs and then returned to Chris' bedroom (away from the party like the anti-social beings we are) to look through ancient teenage notes and pictures from over ten years ago.

Yes. We went through most of this. Thanks, Cyn. 

This is Cyn. A beautiful quiet Asian creature that loves sleep and chocolate.

Most of it seemed to be from me. I don't know why, maybe because I avoided more school work and wrote notes instead of paying attention in class. Maybe I was more of a spaz and wrote entertaining (and mean) notes, like the one below. I'm not sure. But it was like a glimpse into a peephole of my teenage years. I forgot what an asshole I was. I forgot the hurt that I went through. I forgot the good times too. It made me appreciate how far I've come and the positive people and experiences I have now. The good things stuck. The bad ones left. The way it should be.

 I didn't mean most of the below, but I definitely had a sailor's mouth.

I was a turd.

A dirty mouthed turd.

An really rude terrible dirty mouthed turd.

Yet sometimes considerate. 

I was obsessed with Adult Swim. You know, back when the intro was adults swimming in an actual pool. "All kids out of the pool!"

We were reminiscing for hours. So long that Chris cleaned up the entire downstairs (good dude) and eventually joined us with old yearbooks. 

Freshmeat.

I remember this picture as "Bobby's Doppelganger". 

Andrew as a Chicago something fan. Look at those 13 yr old cheeks! I could pinch 'em.

Chris, also, brought down old photos. Mostly, teenage snapshots of random events where everyone was looking away from the camera or discussing some revolutionary new form of teenage torment. Then, there was this beauty:

Senior year at some seedy bar. Probably, North River.

Love it! We've been friends for over 14 years. THAT'S HALF OF OUR LIVES, MAN! Now my mission is to find photos of me with Holen and Jane. It may take a while but hopefully there are some floating around in a Sketchers box in some musty attic somewhere.

Just proves that I may want pictures of my dear friends and I in decades to come. I need to be more attentive about taking pictures. I feel like it's an annoyance but after looking at all these old pictures, I know it will be worth it in the long run.