Ten years ago today the OJ Simpson verdict was announced. I guess I could go on about the verdict, whats happened since and some diatribe about race and... but I won't. What strikes me most, is that the OJ Simpson verdict was announced TEN YEARS AGO. This past weekend was full of people from the past, real kind of retrospective on the lifetime that these first 24 years has been building. Ten years ago I was sitting in Honors World Studies, Ms. Lindstrom's class. I was a freshman in high school.
This weekend I went to the Brooklyn Museum, a bar and a party with some people who were in that class. Most of them I hadn't seen since they graduated in 1998. We had never really been friends, more acquaintances. When my contact-friend called on Saturday night and said she was at the museum with them, they wanted to see me, the fourteen-year-old that lives in my heart was surprised. I was rememberable? I don't remember when I was like then. I have no idea. As we were hanging out, I realized that they weren't especially funny. Or, at least, not funny in the ways I have come to expect from my friends. Was I funny when I was 16? Am I funny now? When did that happen? If you're reunited with someone you had a crush on when you were 16, or who had a crush on you... what is supposed to happen? How can you not find yourself wanting to ask, "why did you like me?" "or I like you?" Why did I have crushes on people? Because they seemed different or cool or because I was bored? I don't remember how I was, but I remember being angry and confused a lot. Or being really, really sure of things I now think are stupid and irrelevent and not representative of the person I am or I want to.
The high school theme continued through the weekend when I went to a friend's birthday barbecue. On the way, I ran into a friend from Wesleyan who had moved to the neighborhood. She asked where I was going and I started to respond when I remembered that she and the birthday boy had gone to high school together. I told her it was his birthday. She said, "oh, I used to have such a crush on him... when he'd draw in Spanish class instead of pay attention." Walking to his house I thought more about high school and how as far away as it feels, seeing people from that era can bring a lot of weird feeling back. Like you can smell it all again or something. But, for me, it smells better the second time. At the birthday party his friend from college told me I should carry the candle-in-a-muffin out to him, since I was his oldest friend there. We were campers together when we were sixteen. Part of what I think I do value about that friendship is that while I may not remember what I was like when I was sixteen, our friendship proves there was enough good then to attract good people.
OJ Simpson makes me feel old. Which makes me feel young because I know 24 is not old. But ten years ago, OJ was acquited. Until September 11, OJ Simpson was our JFK assasination. It was a touchstone of popular culture, it was a "where were you" moment. We are alive, we were aware, we were what would become the people we are now, we were learning about the Reformation (maybe just my class) and it blows my mind that it was ten years ago.
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we watched the verdict come in on CNN in my novice spanish class. at that time, my spanish vocabulary was limited to speaking about carnival rides and ski accidents. go figure.
by the way, i told my 10 years ago that you saw your 10 years ago and now the former wants to talk to the latter because he remembered he was in that same world studies class.
maybe it's just the fall. i always get nostalgic for things that never were in the fall. in any case, we were still funny 10 years ago. remember when we dressed up as a camel? funny shit.
what is the traditional gift for a 10th anniversary? wood? china? notes from history class?
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