When school started for me, my junior year in high school, I was gainfully employed, and I was close to getting my keys back, though, that didn't happen until about my birthday, which was about two months after school started. The only way that I actually remember this is because when school started, I had to ride the bus to work after school and then wait for my parents to come get me when I closed. Otherwise, if it was a weekend and in the day time, I got to walk to work. Awesome!
This was the first time in many years that I wouldn't be doing band. It was so strange to me. I hadn't not done band for so long that it seemed like a foreign thing. I still ate with some friends in the band room, but mostly not. I was taking wood shop again, this time building a roll top desk, which I still have. I also took German I with Lexi. I don't think I did track this year in school, I was too preoccupied with working to do much of anything else. Besides, with working, I could talk to the guy that I was totally in love with, since my mom's birthday party. Aaron.
The first time that he talked to me, I felt like I was walking on air. In fact, I think that the song that was playing on the radio at work with Walking on Sunshine. I was so into him, that I couldn't even think of anything else. I mean, school, friends, church, they couldn't do anything for me the way that thinking of him all day would do. It was kind of scary and more than just puppy love. I would talk to him and just beam. I tried really hard to hide it in front of him that I really liked him, and that was hard. Everyone that we worked with knew that I liked him though.
So for school, I wasn't in band and that was really strange to me. I didn't have a lot of friends stay the night, though I do remember it being October sometime and me and Shannon were at the football game and it was really cold. I was wearing my dad's army jacket and I was still super cold. We had the ACT's the next day, so I stayed the night at her house, and I was so tired. I barely got sleep, mainly because I have a hard time staying at someone else's house. In fact, still, I have a hard time staying somewhere new, it usually takes about three nights for me to adjust to a different place and to get a good night's sleep. Anyhow, I remember getting the scores back and being so disappointed in myself, knowing that I could have done so much better.. I never took the test again though, guess I knew that I really didn't want to go to a major college like everyone else.
By this time, of course, I had my keys back and Lexi and I drove to school everyday. What was awesome was, we drove a 1972 Chevy long bed. It had no power steering and no power brakes. It had a simple tape player in it and sister and I would blast that all the time. The speakers were pretty worn out on it too, but we loved it. We would get to school in the morning, and sit in the parking lot and rev the engine, knowing that for whatever reason, the one who had the loudest vehicle in the parking lot, was driving the best vehicle. I was up against all these cool guys who were seniors, they didn't like me, and I sure as hell didn't like them. They all drove old trucks and cars, it sometimes looked like the parking lot of the movie Dazed and Confused. They listened to country, and Lexi and I didn't. We were, for sure, the rebels in the parking lot. Hanging in the rearview mirror, there was a pair of fuzzy dice and a little key chain guy from an old Domino's ad campaign. It was Avoid the Noid, and he was this little red, white and blue dressed guy with long ears. He was cute.
I did a lot more speech and debate and that was still fun. I still ate with my band geek friends, though I do remember going out to lunch more than anything else. I think this was the year that Romeo + Juliet came out with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes in it. The theme song played everywhere you would go. Love Fool... great song, still hear it every once in a while and I think of going out to lunch with Jessie and Shannon and Jessica. The four of us seemed to go to lunch on a regular basis together, though I always felt out of place and that they just tolerated me. Like I was some sort of uninvited person that just came along for the ride. It's entirely possible that I was, but, I could be just remembering it that way.
At the store, I worked at Safeway, we started to go through a renovation that year. It had started around Halloween time. I remember being up in the break room, because it was a two story building at that point and I told Matt, another guy that I worked with, that I was going to marry Aaron. That really didn't go over so well. In fact, it didn't go over well at all. He came up to me, I don't remember how long after I had said that, and said, So you're going to marry me huh? and was so mad at me for saying it. I remember feeling like I had just had my heart literally ripped from my chest. I think it was a Sunday when it happened and I cried and cried and cried all night long. It was the first time I really knew what having a heart broken meant, because that's exactly what had happened. I spent a whole week living in a dream. It was like nothing that I had ever felt, and it was done to me on purpose. I was desperate for relief from this pain that I had never known. I couldn't stop the hurt. My thoughts were only self-loathing and anger with myself, how could I have been so stupid and tell anyone what I thought!! What a total moron I was!
Aaron avoided me like the plague. If he had to come to the front for any reason, you could feel the anger when he looked at me. Diane, one of my only friends that I worked with, had called him up for something and I was bagging for her. When he walked away, she looked at me and was like, WOW, I could feel the hate. I wanted to make it right, but, nothing was going to make it right, so, I tried really hard to bury myself in work and go on. I hated closing at night, especially if he was working, I had to go through his department to get to the trash can outside. They had moved our break room to the back room by the produce department, and I would take my break outside if he was there because all I felt was shame and hurt. I couldn't deal with that in front of him, and if I had to sit there while he was there, I would bury my head in my arms and cry. I was feeling pretty low.
Life moved on slowly and things at school seemed more interesting that at work. I would still, form time to time, cry myself to sleep, however, there was a large scandal involving two members of the band, one being a close personal friend of mine, that was unfolding in front of all of us. Both of these people were also involved in Speech and Debate, which was something that I was still doing at the time. I remember the team going to River Valley for one of our tournaments and it was a nice break from school and work and home, though, I really had nothing to complain about with home :) These two would hang all over each other and it was hard to watch because I liked this other guy. Not in a, I want to date you and marry you and have lots of sex and babies, but, more like, I like you and I want to see you happy and she's not going to do it for you, this is only a passing thing, kind of way. My friend Terry was also on this trip and I do remember him playing an acoustic guitar. He was walking around playing Stand by Me, all afternoon. I think I was ready to hit him with that thing by the time that we left there.
By this time, it was spring. I can't say that I remember much from this year, but, it wasn't a bad year. Work was starting to not be so horrible. I can't say that I enjoyed going to work, but, Aaron wasn't shooting daggers out of his eyes at me when I would walk by. After renovations were done, the break room was moved again, and I didn't have to see him as much. I will admit that in my moments of desperation, I called the Psychic Friends Hotline... that was a bad idea. With a $700 phone bill. And I called twice... I did get into trouble for that one, and none of what they told me came true either.
For classes, the best one that I took was German I. Lexi and I took it together and there weren't a lot of us in the class. I do remember Phillip though. He was a very tall funny guy, in sister's grade. He and I talked a lot and he was funny. I did develop a crush on him, but, since he was cool and a football player, it wasn't meant to be... Which is cool, it was nice to talk to guy and not think of sleeping with him. He and I would sit next to each other and for one project we had to design a house. He said that I would be the one with the special secret room for power tools and their specialized attachments... I think he knew me better than I knew myself :) It was a good time. Lexi and I made this huge deal of the sentence, Das ist mein hund, Der Beppo. Which means, that's my dog, Beppo. Mr. Beste said no one had ever made such a joke out of that sentence, since Crystal had taken that class, and she was the one who found it highly entertaining too.
One Sunday, I had come home from church with Lexi, on a Sunday where I didn't work, which was strange to start with. And I knew that my dad was home because the ambulance was parked in the driveway. When I came in though, it wasn't just an average day. My mom was having some serious issues and she needed to be taken to the hospital. So, dad and whomever he was working with took her to the ER and sister and I followed. I remember holding my moms hand while they were doing an ultrasound, finding cysts that needed to be removed. That was a bit scary, but, we took her home and took care of her. That Friday, she went into surgery to have a full hysterectomy done. I showed at the hospital and my dad asked wasn't I supposed to be in school. Yes, but this is family, and family trumps school today. Besides, it was Friday. Surgery went well for her. I came home and that night, it snowed and Lexi and I went to her friends house for a while, taking my moms truck... she didn't need it if she was in the hospital. We got it stuck and had to call Larry to come get us out. No damage to the truck, which was good, but, a little bit to my pride.. Oh well.
The next morning, I got a call from Larry. He was at the hospital, still working for the NCSO at the time, and had left his patrol car running, and locked it. Could I please go get the other set of keys from the house and help him out. I told him it would take a while to warm up the truck but I would be there in a bit. Mom was pretty out of it, but, she insisted that she come home that day. So she did, though, I was at work when that happened.
About this time, I had gone to lunch with a dude from class, AJ, nice kid, a bit off, stoner kind of friend, and I was driving, and before we even got out the parking lot, the transmission for my truck went out. I was so bummed, so, for the next 6 weeks, sister and I drove the Blazer. Now this was my mom's truck. A 1981 K-5 white Blazer. It was a monster of a vehicle and we loved it!! For party tricks, we would be driving and I would take the keys out while driving to freak people out. Or we would push in the wing windows and pop the locks if we needed to break into it because we locked the keys in it. Lexi and I had a great time in that thing!
One day for lunch, I took a friend, also a guy, named Kenny, home with me for lunch. He went to church with sister and I so he knew my mom. Lunch time at school was from 10:45 to 11:25. Before I went back to school, my dad and one of the guys that he worked with Jessie (who happened to be Aaron's older brother) came home to check on my mom. They put on Star Wars for my mom to watch. When Lexi and I got home from school that day, they were all sitting in the same place as when I left, watching Return of the Jedi. It was a Star Wars kind of day. I just laughed at it.
Some other random details about this year in school. I dyed my hair for the first time about the time I turned 17, blonde. It didn't look really good, and coupled with a bad hair cut, I was not cool looking. For my birthday that year, we had school pictures and I wore this really awesome Mickey Mouse sweater. It was green and I loved it. My dad took me out for my birthday dinner, since mom was out of town. So we, including Alexia, of course, went to El Rancho, and I they sang and gave me free fried ice cream for dessert. It was pretty cool.
When graduation came around, I don't remember if I went or not. Most of the cool kids went to the Salt River for the day, and I remember thinking that if I ditched I would be suspended for the first days of school next year, and that wasn't a good idea. So I stayed. I might have gone, I don't remember.
The summer was then upon me and I just took it as it came. Aaron was not really speaking to me, but, he wasn't angry anymore and he had to talk to me for work, they had made him the one to train all the carry-outs. I had taken the truck, which for all intensive purposes was really my dad's truck, but sister and I had taken over it, up to the fire station, where I would learn to rebuild the engine due to some small oil leak. That was the high light for me, for sure. I loved working on that truck! I could sit in the engine compartment and take it all apart and not worry about anything, it was so great. This was also the time that I started to call my dad Kelly. There was a good reason for this too. While at the station, where he worked, I would need to ask him a question and I would yell Dad. And someone else would turn around. I would yell and second time, Dad. Still nothing. A third time, Dad, and he was still not hearing me. Finally, after the other three men that were there turning around when I said Dad, I yelled, Kelly! Sure enough, he turned around and would come help me. I don't think he likes it if I call him Kelly even now, but I still do. I learned a lot that summer about fixing the truck. I spent a lot of my own money on working on it. For a surprise, my dad bought me 24" glass packs for the mufflers. It was so cool. He said that he refused to get the 12" ones because he thought it needed to have some sort of muffler.
I went to church when I could, and that was ok. I went to Cashier School for work right after school got out too. Five nights of all nighters learning how to be a cashier. It was kind of brutal, but I passed! And then, I was given cashier hours, which meant that I would be making more money. And that was good! I started to realize that this was to be my last year in school. I still had never been asked out on a date, and I hadn't really experienced much in the way of relationships, but, that was to be something coming up in the next year. And what a year it was.... :)
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