Introducing Cassandra. Or Maybe Juliet. Or Sabrina?

Did you have a really common name growing up? I definitely did. Not only was I never the only Katie  in a class, I went all through grade school being one of two "Katie S."'s, and we were always in the same class.

If that weren't bad enough, by the time I got to college there were TEN Kate/Katie/Katherine's on my floor in the dorms. Including my roommate. Yeah. That happened.

So while I feel like being one of many encouraged my adolescent desire to change my name, I also think it is really common to want to change your name in your early teens. The feeling of wanting to be someone else, and that maybe, if you had a different name you'd actually be that other person. Someone cooler, or more feminine, or whose actually been to France and talked to boys.

I always saw myself as a Sabrina or a Cassandra - those girls sounded like they knew how to wear eyeliner and skirts and were probably from Europe.

What would you have named yourself at thirteen?

The Smokers

I learned to smoke my sisters freshman year of college. I remember this because a friend of hers was going to visit and asked if I'd like to come along. On the drive down she asked me to reach in her bag and grab her a cigarette and light it.

I pushed the car lighter in (do cars still come with those?) and grabbed a cigarette and said I didn't know how.

She talked me though putting it in my mouth and explaining that you had to inhale to light a cigarette. It never occurred to me before that every one lit cigarettes in their mouth because you had to, not because it took two hands to strike a match or shield the flame as you went to light it.

Memoirs of a Time Well Wasted

When I was in junior high and high school I had a friend who always had the most ridiculous things happen to her. In retrospect, they were pretty normal things, but she was just such a great story teller that they seemed ridiculous and hilarious and story-worthy. We always joked that we would pen a memoir one day to be titled

I Was a Teenaged Teenager

Memoirs of a Time Well-Wasted

Now she is a mom and a teacher and we don't see each other (circumstance, not any "thing") and I am certain our memoir will never be. But I hope large groups of people are still benefitting from her ridiculous knack with a story. 

An imaginary excerpt: 

SO there was this time when my best friend and I had a crush on almost the same boy. I say almost because they were brothers and not the same boy at all, but looked remarkably alike and existed as one unit in our heads, but we liked separate ones so there was no friend conflict. Not that there really would have been, because we were NEVER going to do anything about it (not ever. ever. never.).

So we nursed our collective crush. We knew their phone number. Screen names. Sports schedules. Knew how to play the cards games they liked to play (and how to cheat most effectively). Knew the best route to walk to totally accidentally run into them. I'm sure we were completely subtle. 

One day, in spite of our careful planning, there was an accidental, non-scheduled encounter in the library. He came in to the library, where Friend was working as a library assistant. She saw him coming and froze completely in anticipation of this unplanned rendez-vous. 

Will he talk to me? Should I talk to him? Where is he coming from? Where's K when I need her? What am I even wearing today? Does my hair look ok? Why is he here, he's not supposed to be here now. I wonder where he's going. Is he on an errand for the teacher? Is he leaving school early? I can't wait to tell K about this. His hair is amazing. Ohmigod he's coming up to me. Do I acknowledge him? Do I pretend to not see him? Was I staring?

All this in about 3 seconds (it was a small library). 

He strolls up and says with perfect nonchalance and a desire to waste time, "Whatcha' doing?"

And in that moment, form the vast array of options of responses to such an easy opener, she replied "Filing books," blushed, and turned back to the shelf. And that was that. 

When I found her 10 minutes later, melted into a puddle of shame and self-loathing, I asked her what happened. All she could say was "I carried a watermelon."

Three X Ten

“I don't want to repeat my innocence. I want the pleasure of losing it again.” 
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise

Three x Ten from 3by10 on 8tracks Radio.