16 is 80

Tonight I spoke with Lars, who reminded me of numerous things I seem to have forgotten.  (Perhaps also some things I wasn't aware of when they happened.)  We were together in the Nerdroom in eighth (or maybe ninth?) grade, when four of us were singled out for special attention from the school's resource program teacher.  I think she was meant to provide some sort of enrichment for the nerds, but as far as I can recall, she did not.  At best, it gave us some sense of normalcy to house us and our great big brains all together in one room.  We normalized each other's intelligence, I suppose, but we also normalized each other's neuroses.

AB was hands-down the craziest.  All through ninth grade she had pretend fainting spells.  In high school she flooded her father's house intentionally to punish him for divorcing her mother.  Later that year she tried to light the same house on fire.  I wonder what their insurance company did with this situation.

BG was angry and bitter and pretended to be a motorhead so his brother wouldn't call him a pussy.  His mother was verbally abusive, and not just in private, but right out in public where we all could be impressed with her vocabulary.  She once called me a whoreslut when I kissed my boyfriend in front of her house.  (I was thirteen.)  BG slumped around trying to be invisible, trying to blend in with the industrial arts crew.

Lars was probably the brightest star in the Nerdroom.  He was blond, of course, and handsome and well-spoken.  The sort of boy who teachers wanted in their classes.  The sort of boy who we knew would be a professor (he is) and do impressive things (he does).  Except he was also angry, secretly angry.  He quietly hated his father.  And sometimes he pretended to have lost his voice when we knew he hadn't.

And me.  I do not think I was as smart as the other three.  I was chosen for my reading skills, but they must have forgotten to test me in math.  If they had checked my math skills, they'd have known I was subordinary.  I was the token artist, maybe; the others were all far better rounded.  I may well have been as angry as my three co-nerds, but I do not think I was quite aware of it yet.  I was moderately well behaved at this age, and respectfully frightened of adults.

Lars reminded me of weird class projects he paid attention to, and I did not.  It was interesting to me that he could remember the projects, but not the names of the people with whom we shared them.  (I remembered all the people, but not the projects.)  He remembered all the pavilions at Expo '86.  I had clearer memories of the travel - and the personalities of my classmates.

And after a little wade through these memories of the past, I poked a bit at the present because I cannot resist asking personal and inappropriate questions.  And we talked about his separation from his wife, her addiction and mental illness, and his life as a single parent.  At this point I probably overwhelmed him because I specialize in that.  And that was how we ended our reunion.

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