# Jr High Reunion

## Notes

I don't remember how I got the invite.

Maybe this was the night I picked up Gina Monti in that Plymouth
Reliant.

I think that's right.

I could write a lot about my twisted relationship with her.  Fat girl
with amazing music taste and a cruel personality.  I would get weed from
her and bring it back to the kids I knew from the debate team (before I
got kicked off -- that's another story).

We went together to the party.

I remember three of the Black girls, Christal, Kim, and Zara, all had
kids.  In high school.  That was a shock.

I remember my teacher.  In junior high, people called me Matthew.  Mrs
Michel called me Matthew.

Maybe it was while talking to her that I described where I was going to
college.

I remember my Jewish former girlfriend, Alyssa, looked HOTT, and she was
into me that night.  Like she stood a little near me.  I liked it.

Maybe I had a girlfriend at the time.

Maybe this was when I was dating Christina McFall, and so I wasn't
interested in her.

Maybe I had no girlfriend and I was too scared.

Like, she was out of my league now.  I was so
unhappy with my body at this point.  The only people I felt safe with
were other "loser" types.

I remember sitting in Edwin's car.  I listened to him list different
piano chords he liked.

Later that night we went to that party and Gina ignored me, I told her I
wanted to leave, and she wanted me to stay, even though she was ignoring
me.

I remember not feeling happy about how selfish she was showing herself
to be.

I left anyway but I felt like I was the asshole.  Now I don't see it
that way.

### Dramatic arc

Maybe the dramatic arc is that when I replay this memory now, there is
tension between who I was then (so scared, so shy, so self-conscious)
and who I am now.

And so the conflict is me now wanting me then to be different. Two
characters:

* me now, aka "now"
* me then, aka "then"

But me then was that way for good reasons, and I think me now has
forgotten just how depressed I felt.  How much I hated myself.

So, the resolution is for me now to somehow emphathize with me then.
Give him a shot of a vision of the future world where he doesn't feel
this way?

Like, me now has to remember WHY I was so miserable, rather than just
wishing I could have stuck with a weight lifting program and eaten more
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, or whatever.

And me then needed to have raises his hopes, come out of a pattern of
cynical nihilist ranting.

We now has to listen to me then cry and wish he wasn't so goddamn
lonely.  Me now has to keep his mouth shut and listen while me then says
how he hates himself for being so ugly and weak and lazy etc.

and then at the end, somehow, me now gives me then a shot of hope, that
if he keeps at it, someday shit will be better.

Is that too corny?

Maybe if I say "oh all this will be worth it."




## Screenplay

### Scene: at the apartment pool party

Some people are in the pool, in swim suits.  Not me!  I HATED my body
when I was 18.  I dressed in oversized shirts and baggy jeans.  I felt
ashamed of my body deeply.

Like it revealed how i was a lazy person.  I believed if I were more
ambitious and disciplined, i would have done more workouts, and i would
have bigger muscles.

I remember listening to where different kids were going to college.

I realized how the Black girls with kids were on a different life path.
They couldn't go to college like I was.  Even if they got a free ride.
With a kid, how would it work?

I think at this point I had chosen to go to Texas Lutheran College
(TLC), but I wasn't really excited about it.

It was just far enough away that I wouldn't be within reach of my
mother.  That's why I couldn't go to UH.  She would likely show up at my
dorm to take me to church, whether I wanted to go or not.

That woman was domineering and I wanted to get as far as I could from
her.

So, TLC was the choice, because I got a fat scholarship.  It wasn't a
free ride, but it made the cost down to a few thousand dollars a year,
and I could earn that in the summers, and my mother said they would
split the cost with me too.

### Scene: sitting in Edwin's car

He lists blues chords he likes.  i realize he is talking at me and not
checking if i am interested.  i realize he is assuming i care.



### Scene: at party with Gina

I'm sitting on floor, in a crowded dark apartment, people around me are
passing around a joint.  loud music playing.

joint is done.  i'm sitting there, feeling alone, bored, not seeing
anyone to talk to, not knowing anybody.

i look for gina.  she is in the back of the kitchen, with a whole bunch
of people between me and her.

maybe she is laughing, trying to get the attention of some guy there.
maybe she is watching somebody tell a story to the group.

it doesn't feel easy to get her attention.  somehow i do, and i'm
telling her i want to leave.


### Scene: outside the party in the parking lot


Maybe the scene where i tell gina i'm leaving now and she can come with
me or not -- that could be like a turning point.

she said she needs a ride home.

I think I remember something like she turned nasty and said i'm a
friendless loser and she doesn't ever want to talk to me again.

and that's when a cold dead voice tells me then something like "just do
what i say and go -- she's using you and this will just get worse".

And that cold dead voice is me from the future.

I drove home.  Back out to shitty ass Katy, almost 40 minutes out of the
city.