I had commented in my Livejournal today that I wasn’t sure what to do with myself here today, and mine Heatherbat suggested that I write about one of our adventures. I’m not sure I could decode individual ones from my brain at whim, but I can pull up some various fragments, such as when we first met…

The meeting was almost storybook, in that it was our first day of high school. There’s probably a whole gaggle of tv tropes about how the people you meet your first day of high school will be your best friends for life, but I guess there’s some truth to it. In Heather’s case, she was sitting outside of English II, third period. She was in the snazziest bell bottoms I’d seen to that point – they were white with little reddish-orange mushrooms all over them. Her hair was the most awesome shade of red black, and I just had to make with the compliments. And, to add to the trope-i-tude, we were next to each other in the alphabet, and therefore, could make a nuisance of ourselves…

The other that was significant that day, who is still dear in my heart, would have been Zach; together, we gained the appellation of the Terrible Trio. We just… feed each other so much that our councilor was actually asked to avoid putting us in the same classes if they could help it; he rebelled our Senior year and piled us all together all over the place ’cause he loved us much much. ^__^

But this isn’t about Zach – our story came later. This is about Heather, who gave me my high school nickname while donning one of her own. About our first mutual outing to the school mixer at the Field of Dreams (which is now some disgusting Pretentious Artfagland-style high-rise crap, with more to come). Of wandering around downtown Dallas singing The Beatles, of walking barefoot to the grocery store, of Dr. Peppers and ABCs 123s, of fallout and reconciliation, of continued love and personal growth. It’s a story of so many fragments that it’s a miracle I can remember the fragments – after all, we’ve known each other more than half of a lifetime. And I’d like to pick a happy tale, but so many of our stories have tinges of sadness around the edges. These are tales that I’m not brave enough to share to the abyss, not yet…

As I sit here scribbling, I think I can recall one that is suitable, one that is light-hearted and enjoyable – the Tale of 101 Jostas.  Because of the nature of our school, Pepsi was very fond of coming and doing promotions for this soda when they could. On this one occasion, it happened to coincide with Heather’s birthday; this would have been her 15th, some nearly 14 years ago. Now, Josta was our favorite soda, and like hell we were going to settle for the ‘take only one’ attitude the promoters were espousing – no, we were going to go for fucking broke and get ourselves more soda than we could ever afford on our lack-of-allowance back then days. Heather, myself, Victoria, and a handful of others armed ourselves with sacks and clever use of other people to fill up said sacks, and then run them back to my band locker. As a French Hornist, I had a locker big enough to cram two Freshman into (in the test, it was Heather and our friend Margaret, both of whom are delightfully tiny), so it was ideal for stocking full of sodas. And so, across the three lunches and the 105 minutes plus passing periods they entailed, we laboriously worked to get more than our fair share. At the end of the lunches, amongst the bits of costume and instrument and apocrypha that lined my locker, we had the pleasing final count – one hundred and one.

Was the party on?  Ooooooh yes.

At the end of the school day, we had the awesome task of getting said sodas from the back of the school, to Heather’s mom’s car in the front. Heather’s mom, I should mention, is the absolute coolest – she is just the epitome of rock in every meaning of the word, and had nearly infinite patience for our various shenanigans. So she waited patiently in her tinycute red car while we filled up the trunk, and then the car itself with our combined mass of Freshmanosity. For lo, it was time to party, and the main course’s name was Josta. Well, and awesome Heathermom cake – that woman is tres talented. We discovered, much to the wooden floor’s horror, that if you chucked a Flintstone’s chewable vitamin in the Josta, you got a rather awesome fountaining effect that left the unfizzed beverage tasting like… Flintstone’s chewable vitamins. I also discovered than I can run across a wet lawn in nine inch stiletto heels… but only if they’ve got some built-in ankle support. I can’t remember much more than that, beyond the fact that Heather and I were amply provisioned with Josta well into the summer. But I’ll leave it there, as the summer brought its own woes…

I suspect I’ll try my hand at rezzing more of my history as time goes by, perhaps making it a weekly feature. It’s just a matter of slightly sanitizing it for the sake of the guilty that aren’t me; I don’t really have anything to lose by naming all my demons. 😉 My friends, on the other hand… I won’t shaft them intentionally.

<3