I'm always amazed at what 15-year-olds are supposed to know. I was a clueless, amorphous lump until I hit college, when all the anonymous facts finally got a framework to relate to.

College was an ephipany for me; I met people who actually thought I was interesting and smart and funny.

High school was a fiery pit of hell and blunder.

What Erin said.

High school was why I immediately saw the metaphor in Buffy. I would have rather dealt with a giant snake.

Maybe I was just a late bloomer, but I don't remember any hormonal dramas associated with high school, at least on my part. The high school Peyton Place shows and movies just boggle me. Maybe my classmates were seething in a cauldron of sexual urges and activities, but all I ever felt was an odd sort of detachment with the suspicion that I was missing something. It never occurred to me that guys and girls were getting up to anything together.

I actually don't regret this. By the time I hit college I was able to rationally consider what I wanted to do with guys instead of just getting washed away in a flood of lust.

Blood Drabble

By the time I sit down, half of the party is there. These are women you hear before you see, especially when it's time to celebrate.

They all order without restraint- wine, beer, a cocktail. This is a party after all. My mother's eyes are on me.

"I'll have a margarita, too. Salt, on the rocks."

I don't want to look at her, but I know what she's thinking. Blood always tells.

I was like Connie, probably. Except looking for people who Would Appreciate Me...maybe this is it? I haven't changed as much as I would like.

The "school epiphany" thing always fascinates me, because my life was so very much down a different road. By the time I was eighteen, I was a hundred and three. In certain ways, I had to make myself get younger as I got older. Travel helps with that, a lot of it.

One thing I was very naive about at eighteen was suicide. I didn't know you were supposed to slash vertically, so I went horizontal. Deep, but it slowed things down. The water got pretty frickin' pink, though.

Sail, I can't donate blood for that same reason, even if they'd take my blood without the other reasons to not take it (allergies, et al). I moved back to the States in 1981, but we were back and forth to Europe seven or eight times between '81 and '93. And we're carnivores.

I was still fairly naive at 18. But not like this little girl -- damn.

I couldn't be a cutter. OD'ing was the way I tried, and it was accidental. I (morbid much?) crack myself up remembering my friend J. telling me about how I froze the ER doc out: "Even fucked up, I am smarter than you! Don't PATRONIZE me, you asshole!"

Of course, then I walked into a wall, so maybe the impact was negated.

I'd quit donating blood even before they came down with that rule for other reasons (namely, I tend to get very woozy unto passing out) so it didn't have that much impact on me. Still, it kinda sucks to have the option totally taken away.

But, that doesn't mean I don't have scars from life. Some of them aren't visible.

Bloodless

They’re called Rocorro racing seats. They curve around your shoulders and seem like they’re sheltering you in a velvety embrace. This time, they were my prison. I flailed beneath him, unable to get leverage. In that tight space you wouldn’t think he’d have been able to get my pants off, but he did. It didn’t matter how many times I said “no,” he just kept on. I don’t remember it hurting. There was no blood, no wounds, no bruises, just a puddle of vomit on the asphalt outside when it was over and I could open the car door again.