I love it too, but that was about my sixty billionth attempt at something that didn't sound like a 14 year old being angsty.

Parker says, "Teenagers don't have the patent on angst." and they don't but I just couldn't get anything good. This, I'm mildly happy with. Not my best, but I got something I actually wasn't ashamed to share.

Well, mine was only tangentially about being a teenager - as in, I happened to be when when the core thing was going on. But that's completely not what mine was about.

Plenty of angst available as a heartbroken "loved and lost", you know?

Oh yeah, I know. I, myself, just couldn't past the crappy angst.

Crappy Angst. Sounds like a band name.

Mine's a little more about breaking out than fitting in.
Not the type(F2f Shopping, 2003)

I’m not the type to wear a blouse that shows my shape. Not the type to purposely make a spectacle of myself, and definitely not the type to court the camera. I put the pleather pants back three times before I got out of the store with them. Then I bought them because they were so “not-me” that it was like screaming “Fire” in a crowded closet.Anything modest, sweet, or “You could wear this anywhere” got put back. I have tons of it at home. Sometimes I am the type: A bookish liberal turned Raymond Chandler blonde, with the power to make smart people get a little stupid.Poison in a C-cup. You just wouldn’t recognize me.

raises glass of "FOAD, Conformist world!" to internet wife #1

You'd Hardly Recognize me

I pass you on the street, marvel at your porcelain skin and coltish bare legs beneath the miniskirt, and shudder at what lies ahead of you. I want to take you aside and pat your hands, stroke your pretty hair and gaze into those wide, frightened eyes while I soothe you with assurances that you will be strong, you'll do well in crises, you'll learn self-discipline to temper your compassion.

Perhaps I could steer you gently away from disasters, and toward the difficult but more rewarding path. I could change things for us both, if I had the chance, if you had the courage.

20th Reunion Committee Meeting:

Now: I look younger than my age, Maureen looks older, and Laurie looks exactly like she should at three years shy of forty.

Then: I was obese, weepy and slovenly. Maureen was a brassy, beautiful bitch. Laurie? Laurie was popular for all the right reasons.

Now: My body is smaller, my skin is tougher; I dress to be seen. Maureen's perfect smile is kinder, and the crow's feet and laugh lines are far more beautiful than cheerleader perfection. Laurie is Laurie, and while Maureen and I blink at each other in confusion for twenty minutes, Laurie knows us at once.

Oh, man. This is such a good topic; the drabbles have been stellar.

I was just about to say, Deb -- really wonderful topic.

Drabble:

I was always the good girl. Good student, good daughter. Responsible. Capable. Reliable. Blond, too, with big green eyes. That didn't hurt. I played the angel for everyone who mattered.

Inside my head, I was a different girl. Screaming, raw, defiant, made of hot lush flowers and the darkest vines, a tangle of need and resentment that took root early. There's a T-shirt now that says "I wear black on the inside." That was me, but they wouldn't have recognized it for all the money in the world.