Journal

one day after last quarter
june 14, 2001 ~ 6:08 pm

Today as I walked by my old elementary school, I saw that the sixth grade class of 2001 was graduating. It really took me back to ten years ago, when I was in 3rd grade, and we watched the graduation out of our classroom window, and 4th grade, when I sat with my parents in the courtyard as my brother graduated, and 5th grade, when our whole grade sat along the back wall of the courtyard like the 5th grade class does every year, and, of course, 6th grade, when I graduated myself.

And there were other graduations: my brother’s 9th grade “promotional exercise” as the principal called it, when all us 7th and 8th graders were kept outside on the blacktop for fear that we would somehow endanger Hillary Clinton, who was coming to speak; my own 9th grade “promotional exercise”; my friend Melissa’s sixth grade graduation from my same old elementary; my brother’s high school graduation in a class of a dozen or so at his tiny high school; two graduations at my old high school, including the one that I should have been part of had I stayed there; and then my high school graduation last October, where I was the sole member of the graduating class, where my mother handed me the diploma that had been mailed from my home schooling organization.

Somehow, seeing this graduation at Lafayette brought back all those memories. It’s really weird seeing childhood places and events now that I’m older, like my perceptions then were all out of whack, and seeing it now, I notice things I never noticed then.

And, oh my gods, the funniest thing happened today at my bookstore -- I swear, it was just like what happened to Devi in I Feel Sick:

Man: I’m looking for a book.
Devi: Okaaaay...
Man: I think it was blue.
Devi: *groan*

This woman called today looking for a book, and she didn’t know the author or the title, and she expected me to just know what book she was talking about from her vague description. I mean, christ, there’s hundreds of books in our store and millions in the world. Does she think I know every single book? And here’s the funniest part: she even mentioned that it was blue. It was hard not to laugh.

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