invisible me

so if you're on an empty street
and you hear the tapping of high heeled feet
or you hear a heart
like a phantom beat
or the scream of a woman
left incomplete

well, don't fear what you can't see
the odds are good
that it's only me
i'm invisible
i've vanished
in thin....


- from Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown

When I was in high school, I found my dopelganger. I didn't realize it when we first met. I think we must have been freshmen. We had a getting to know you thing in homeroom, and our counselor (a kindly old lady, played in the movie version of my life by Angela Lansbury) introduced me to Min (not her real name, short for "Mini-Me"). We got to be friends, and I guess we were kind of alike. Both small, petite girls, blonde haired (mine is more ashy, Min's is like crazy bright, you'd think she dyed it that way blonde) and quiet. We were both in honors classes (but we didn't have many together) so we were smart, and we had similar tastes in tv shows, music, clothes (we had a few of the same Express sweaters and stuff like that).

We didn't really look alike, but somehow, we started getting mixed up for each other. Or, more accurately, I was being mistaken for her. Constantly.

We had Theater Workshop class together. We had to act out scenes of our own choosing (don't get me started on this class. We learned exactly zero about acting. I took three years of this bozo's classes. And I am in theater - administration - but no thanks to him.) and she had one from the Secret Garden. He looked at me and said "How about the Secret Garden?" And I looked back at him and said "Do you mean me? Or do you mean you want to see the Secret Garden? Because I'm not doing that." And he said he meant me, but I really think he meant her.  (I knew then I wasn't cut out for acting, BTW, since I clearly wasn't memorable. No star qualiteee here, unfortunately. Plus, even though I can sing, I can't dance at all.)  Whatever. One teacher, a few times in one class. No big. He was burned out and kind of a dope.

But it kept happening. All four years, different classes, different occasions. I got cut slips when Min was absent. I have never cut anything in my life. I even called in on Senior Ditch Day. And then it turns out the cut slips weren't even for me. I had to have the teachers sign off on the slips to prove i wasn't absent. One time, the gym teacher looked at me puzzled and said "I thought you wouldn't cut!" through gritted teeth I agreed that I hadn't, in fact, cut, but Min, who sat behind me, had been absent. "Ohhh, right." she agreed and signed my slip.

My counselor/Angela Lansbury called us the Dolly Sisters (I don't know why) and then SHE started mixing us up, too. She asked me once how AP Biology was going. I wasn't in AP Biology. I got out of the sciences as soon as I possibly could. And I'm smart, okay, but not smart enough for that class. I gave her a blank look and was like "I'm not even in AP biology, you crazy woman! That's MIN you're thinking of!"

The worst part though? Was when our HOMEROOM teacher did it. He gave me a cut slip when she was absent.  Dude, come ON. You had us for four YEARS. You had me in CLASS. Arrghh.

Needless to say, I have a little bit of a complex about this now. Because, let me add, it always happened to ME. I'm the one who got called "Min". I'm the one who got the cut slips. It never, ever, ever happened to her.  Am I that unmemorable? Have I become invisible?

I'm better about this now than I used to be. I think it must have gotten to her too, though, because after high school we sort of stopped being friends. Creepily enough, we were both in education for a while, but she actually has a job as a teacher, I  think, whereas I jumped that ship a long time ago. I still kind of feel like I am not memorable,  or if I see people around, that they would not be interested in talking to me, and stuff like that but, as I say, I'm much better about it now.

Taaaa-daaaaaaaa!

summer time, and the livin' is...busy

Wasn't summer better when we were kids? School was over, so there was a feeling of accomplishment like, yes! I've finished my freshman year (or whatever!) and something to look forward to Hooray! I'm a senior (or whatever!) and you had several glorious months to do absolutely nothing. 

When I was a kid, the big thing was going to the pool to hang out. I'm not much of a swimmer, personally, but it didn't matter. You had to go. It was the Thing to Do. Everyone at our grade school/junior high school ended up at Harrer Pool in the summer - we even wrote about it in our yearbooks "See you at the pool. Hope you get some guys! XOXO!"  We all wrote the "hope you get some guys" bit, too. Not that we would have known what to do with the guys once we "got" them. 

So we'd go to the pool. We'd have the ritual of buying a new swim suit at the beginning of the season, we'd fill up little plastic beach bags with toys and towels and sunscreen. We'd swim and splash around and play and go down the water slide, until they blew the whistle for Safety Break. All the kids had to get out of the pool for 15 minutes or something, and that's when the adults would swim, and the life guards would change shifts (maybe? I'm not entirely clear about the mechanics of Safety Break, because I was out of the pool, see?). I'd go with my friends to the concessions stand and we'd get chocolate chip cookies warm out of the oven (or microwave maybe? I don't know that there'd be an oven, but the cookies were always warm) and an ice cold cherry coke. 

Looking back, it seems like the perfect time. We didn't care about the economy, or global warming (90 degree weather just meant it was perfect pool weather, duh!) or terrorism, or who was president, or the price of gas, or the unemployment rate or any of those things. It was the summer time.

Now that I'm OLD I have to worry about that stuff. I have a job, and I spend my days, 90 degrees or otherwise, in the (nice, cold) office. There is never any time to do absolutely nothing, not like there was then. Even if you take vacation, it is not as strings-free as it used to be. You make plans, you worry about your flight, if you're me, you worry about bedbugs in the hotel, getting lost, getting mugged, spending too much money.

I have not been to our local pool in years and years. I think I stopped going once we hit high school. Every so often I think about going back there and doing something I was not allowed to do back in the day - swim during Safety Break, obviously.