Tuesday, May 11, 2010

And I don't even drink coffee

When I was younger, not much younger than today, I had some friends that were desperately uncool. To put a face to a name, sweat pants and roosting chickens as pets.
I was in 7th grade and kids were cruel.

I wasn't cruel, or I was, but only to those assholes that watched wrestling and smelled poor.
That's hardly cruel, right?

But really, I had innocuous friends that sometimes hampered on how many drinks I was offered at parties
or how many parties I was invited to

or whether or not I was ever going to be invited to parties
(I wasn't).

I was socially awkward, then. Or I was too smart for my own good.
I love to hear that latter phrase. It was something that my teachers told me when they doubled as life coaches. It meant that I told jokes I didn't fully understand, liked music that wasn't in my generation,
and that I was socially awkward,

but I could write one hell of a worksheet.

I wasn't exactly an outcast with my braces and developing taste for girls with low self-esteem, back in seventh grade. I wasn't a pariah. I was geeky, sometimes bullied, sometimes violent.
I was sorting myself out,
but I had friends that in low places that didn't need me, but wanted to socialize with me.

And, of course, who am I to say no to friends?

It's a thought now: maybe I missed out on something then. Maybe I could've been a different person because of my choices. Probably, I wonder and sigh.
Then again,
It was middle school. There was nothing else going on. It's a joke to regret childhood.
Seriously.

But now,
I sit in a cafe, asking myself how shallow I've become.
How many of my friends are cool wastes of time and how many are those innocuous mouth-breathers and latchers-on?
Have I gone shallow?
At what point do I stop myself from embodying pretense?

I can't brush this off as I sip at my latte.

2 comments:

KurdstheWord said...

A lot of it has to do with French because it helps to free decision making. (Laughter.) Thank you very much. So let's have some coffee that you won't like if you look at how it was made. That would be like French phrases such as "et cetera, et cetera". But I should be more specific when referring to a milky weak coffee that is quite nuanced in the same way that our neurons are. Efficient trimming causes the brain to be creative all of a sudden. It's like a weekend in Rome that's full of coffee sponsored for by the administration of the United States. Who wouldn't agree that happiness is a partial divergence from pure pleasure. When you look at the interaction of these two, it's as if a little mirror of our lives quickly leads to metaanalysis. I'll give you my opinion: It has to do with French phrases such as "et cetera, et cetera". But I should be more specific when referring to a milky weak coffee - that really has to be said once and for all.

Joel Arken said...

Who are you?
I mean, Thank you for reading.