Fresh, Hot Wastes of Time

Sometimes I’ll encounter something that totally brings back a period of time. A smell, a song, the feel of the air against my face. Tonight I heard Heartbreak Beat by The Psychedelic Furs for the first time in around 10 years and it brought back my junior year in high school. I was very into the new wave side of music back then – no hair bands, please. The Cars, Psychedelic Furs, The Smiths, U2 (back when they were cool), Cactus World News (anyone even remember them now?).

I attended a very cliquish high school, and although I was “expected” to be in the popular crowd, they would have nothing to do with me and eventually I spurned them even more vehemently than they pushed me away. My school had a reputation in town for being snobbish, and I had several occasions when in UIL competition or something of that ilk people would actually just walk away from me when I said what school I went to.

The summers before my junior and senior years in high school I went to classes at a local university and earned college credits. I met up with a bunch of people, good people, from high schools all over the city. They liked me for who I was, not for my Louis Vuitton purse (the girls in my high school had Louis Vuitton purses, holyshit) or any other material possession. We were the best of friends and called ourselves The Lunch Bunch because we’d go out to eat every other day.

Nef and I kept in touch until we drifted apart completely about 5 years ago. Weirdly enough and unbeknownenst to me, he dated a friend of a friend briefly here in Austin.

Tara and I drifted apart, too – the last time I saw her was about 10 years ago after I found out she also lived in Austin. We got together and started drinking and unearthed Eldridge, who had also moved to Austin, called him up at midnight and pestered him until he came over to visit.

Kevin was in a band and he hooked me up with cool music. Back then about all we could do was a tape to tape recording (mp3 wha?), so I stocked up on dozens of high quality chromium cassettes.

J.C. was my unrequited love. I was so totally stuck on him for 3 or 4 years. He ended up going out with one of Nef’s old girlfriends and none of us heard from him again. Last I knew, he and Kevin were at UC Berkeley, but that was 14 years ago.

God, I really miss them. Nef, Tara, Maria, Kevin, J.C., Eldridge, or anyone else from UTSA’s Honors Program for Young Scholars… if you read this, drop me a line. Let’s do lunch and listen to 80s music and do Breakfast Club quotes.

Posted General, Rants |