13, How I Miss Thee

I was listening to the soundtrack from 13 the Musical which is a surprisingly good show with actors all under the age of 15.  It got me thinking about myself at 13. 

This train of thought led to one realization only.  And that is that there were many, many things I thought were cool at 13 that I now realize are super lame.  Here's a few examples:

1) Val Kilmer... I thought he was so hot as I would've put it then.  Now he looks like he overuses spray tanner and is 50 years old (both of which are probably accurate).

2) Being a celebrity.... I thought I should definitely be famous.  It seemed like everyone should want to take pictures of me and I should spend my time getting Starbucks and hanging out with other celebrities.  However, it turns out I hate crowds and get mad when people invade my personal space.

3) Wearing Jncos and a flannel shirt unbuttoned over a 311 t-shirt... That's right.  This was my favorite outfit of all time.  I was street. (Oh, and a tool.)

4) Talking in chat rooms on AOL... This is single-handedly the most confusing way to attempt to communicate with someone.  I never had any idea who said what and would always get frustrated when what I was trying to respond to was long gone by the time my post got there.  Dial-up internet didn't help the process.

5) Writing angsty poetry on my word processor and saving it to floppy disks... Yeah, you can be jealous.  I got to keep our crappy old computer in my room. You could use microsoft paint and type in wordperfect.  That was the height of technology.

6) Trying to get people to think I was cool... I probably still do this, but at least I realize it's lame.

7) Sneaking drinks of Jack Daniels straight out of the bottle and then acting like I was wasted... I don't think I need to elaborate on this one.

8) Rolling my eyes at anything any authority figure said to me...  Don't even try to tell me to do my homework.  I will show you sass like you've never seen.

9) Using a big curling iron and an ozone-killing amount of hairspray to turn my bangs into one giant curl on my forehead... I'm actually going to bring this look back.  I think it was flattering.

10) Mini-backpacks... I had several of these.  My personal favorite was one that was black pleather.  Beat that.

It is really amazing what an idiot I was in middle school.  But at least I'm cool now, right?  Right?  Anyone?  (Who am I kidding, I'm going to make a list about what an idiot I was at 23 in another 10 years.)

Gotta remember your past to move forward.  That's my new motto.  You can use it if you want.