The Burrow

I have a Facebook friend I don't really know.  Do you? She connected with me when I was perforated back in 2011.  Among all the high school friends and acquaintances (there were 600+ of us in the class) she is one of the few who maintained the relationship.  I've watched her grandchildren grow, even as I wondered how I knew her.  The yearbook picture didn't help.  Who was she? Finally, I asked her.  It took a lot of courage to decide to say "I don't remember you from high school.  Why weren't we friends?  I think we would have liked one another." The pause she took before answering my question left me hollow in my heart.  Had I insulted her?  Was my carefully crafted questioning, developed over several days, shared and vetted with my closest friends, more annoying than we had supposed?  I didn't want to lose her, but I had to know. Just before it got really awkward, she sent a little laugh over the phone and into my ear. "...

We weren't friends in high school; I'm not sure she knew who I was back then.  I certainly knew who she was.  She commanded the hallways as she passed through them, her long straight blond hair swishing perfectly behind her.  We weren't in any classes together, but she was always in my consciousness.  She was, as they say, a presence. I hadn't given her a thought until we sat across from one another at a reunion dinner a few years back.  The conversation was random and wine fueled.  Stories were shared, most all of them flattering to the teller.  Hers was one of confusion and consequences and love, lots and lots of love.  It was personal and revelatory and I was hearing it.  At the other table sat the girls I remembered, the ones I sat next to in class, the ones who thought they knew my story as I thought I knew theirs.  Here at this table, no one knew me.  I was as foreign to them as they were to me.  So I listened....

From a Facebook Message Thread: So, why do you think that those I considered my closest friends in high school do not wish to renew our friendships? Either I made bad choices in friends OR I made good choices in walking away from those friends, right? ***** Oh, pal of mine, who's hurting you????? Are they not friending you? Ignoring your emails? Blocking your calls? I know you didn't get a reply to a letter ... even after you'd taken the time to track down a land address and written lovely thoughts on pretty stationary. Slighting someone who sends snail mail... now that's low. You are not alone, though. I've been shunned, too ..... and she was as close to a best friend as I had back then. At least it always seemed that she thought so. We spoke once on the phone when I was in California, and then nothing. I felt strangely bereft when my emails went unanswered. We'd been so much a part of each other's lives and now.... nothing. I wondered about it, too. Does ...

You just never know. In high school he was smart and funny and kind but never really stood out in a crowd. Now, you'd instantly recognize his name. Our parents were better friends than we were; he didn't sign my yearbook. He played basketball and he was good and tall (my favorite basketball coach's quote: "You can't teach height." ) and recruited to play D-I ball, but, after all, it was Marin basketball we'd seen him play. Not exactly The Bronx. Now he's playing right field in the Majors. She was literary editor of the yearbook, and as she inscribed in mine, .." there's always a certain person who we like to talk about." Now she's married to that certain person and her books are in Barnes and Noble next to Tolstoy and Twain. Some I expected to do well - the valedictorian who went on to be an editor of the Harvard Law Review, the hotel magnate's sons who run companies and produce movies. There's comfort in the knowledge that ...

40th high school reunion is coming up - do I type My or Our or My class's ? They are 3 very different things, and it is all very confusing. I'm going to skip over the whole "where did the time go?" and "how did I/we get so old?" stuff and get right to the nitty gritty - what will I wear? Actually, that's the easy part of the whole thing. It's the people part that's weirding me out. TBG is sending me off to The Big Apple alone, and I'm just as glad. We met years after high school was over ( so over ) and he's not a piece of that action. My date is My True Friend (MTF) and we've run out of ways to say that we can hardly wait. Her aunt's apartment or the hotel I found - it doesn't matter. Staying 3 days or 4 days or maybe even 5 is sounding better and better as the date draws nigh. Ours was an accomplished class (... and all the children are above average ..... ) and there are one or two really famous people who'll be a...

In elementary school and junior high and even into high school, I was known as "The Walking Dictionary." It was humiliating, in an intellectually superior sort of way. Luckily, I was able to recognize the jealousy underlying the title. I figured that I knew and they didn't so they got to make fun of me even while asking me what the word meant. It never really bothered me. I came by the talent naturally. Daddooooooooooo and G'ma were college educated and not ashamed to talk like it. Just like President Obama, they never talked down to their audience. Instead, they assumed that we would make the effort to follow the conversation, and that we would ask if we didn't understand something. I still have the Merriam Webster Collegiate (!) Dictionary I received as I started 6th grade. Did I ever like that title. No extra-large print, no concessions to childhood, this book was Collegiate. And this book was used. The colored tabs on the N and the A and the P fell ...

Facebook thread: she: "Odd that you are my oldest and truest friend from high school but I didn't even know you in high school" me: "That's because you were waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too cool for me then" she: "I wish I had known that then....." And believe me, she was very cool then. Long long long hair that hung straight down her back over her Go-Getter's booster club sweater that was every bit as wonderful as the varsity sweater the cheerleaders wore. She was never alone. She was always with the other fabulously cool girls, walking in their fabulously cool pack, laughing their ..... well, you get the picture. Social worries? Issues? Anxieties? Problems? No way those girls dealt with anything more horrifying than not having the exact right color grosgrain ribbon for their perfect pony-tails. It wasn't about money; we were all middle-class to one degree or another. It wasn't about anything discernible to my pubescent self, just on the...

Can someone explain to me why the SAT is advertising on Facebook? I'm really confused. Going to college - you know about the test. Live in a family that pays half an ounce of attention to the world around it - you know about the test. Attend high school - you know about the test. Have older siblings - you know about the test. You really don't need to be reminded. "The one, the only - the SAT". As if it were a fancy car - the Ferrari of tests - something to which everyone would aspire. It's cool. It's hip. It's your friend - "There are scarier things than the SAT - like having your Mom chaperone the prom" . And it's physically attractive. At least the ad is. So, I'm 15 and I'm hooked. Forget the ACT. I'll sign up. I promise. Is ETS using high school kids to pressure colleges to retain the test as an admissions tool? After all, if you've paid to take the thing, and studied for it, and stayed up nights worrying abo...