Eighth grade Algebra was a breeze. I was often the first one in class to complete a pop quiz. One day, I finished so far ahead of everyone else, I jumped right up to turn my paper in. I didn’t even bother to check my work; I’d been looking forward to spending the rest of the class sneaking looks at my biggest crush from across the room. So there I stood with my paper in hand. I slid my pencil…
My junior year at high school, varsity cheerleading, circa 1989-1990. Nadine was a senior, and she had the biggest, brightest smile out of all the girls on the varsity squad. Her teeth looked super white against her black skin, and her braces always gleamed in the sun. She and I were about the same height and the same build, so we were often paired as bases in a stunt. That fateful day, Nadine and I were practicing a high ‘vator…
Appearances can be deceiving. Take, for instance, Mike Tyson—ear-biting rapist who boxes. He’s a menacing, grimacing, muscle-bound meat-head you don’t ever want to meet in a dark alley alone. Yet when he opens his mouth, you’d swear it was Dr. Evil’s Mini-Me talking. With a voice like that it’s no wonder he went into boxing; he had to defend himself against those who assumed he was as mousy as his voice. Key lesson? Never assume. I used to work as…
Seventh grade was scary. It was bad enough that I had to go to school at an entirely different campus and that I had to have six teachers instead of one. Worse, they threw in kids from other grade schools and neighborhoods, and everyone else was bigger than me. The worst yet, P.E. (physical education) was a required class on which I actually had to be graded, which took the fun out of all the sports. To top it off?…
Heather was an alto with dirty blonde hair and crooked teeth. She wanted to be a pop star. One day, she came by one of my dance classes and watched. It turned out that she was choosing four of us to approach later, and I was one of the four. The other three were Tanya, Latrina, and another girl whose name I completely forgot. Tanya once dated a major league baseball player who gave her a super expensive formal dress…