To Old School

Writing Papers

Step one was making the margin line for the top and the bottom of the paper, one discreet pencil mark to be erased in the finishing touches: begin here, end here. 

I had to know what I wanted to say before I wrote it. I couldn’t, halfway down the page and midway through a paragraph, realize the main idea is actually a different point and just backspace to fix it. I had to take the paper out, write down the new idea and make sure that it can connect to the final words from the page before, otherwise I have to retype that page. And then the page before.

Re-reading it, finding a “your”  when it should have been “you’re” on page two?.The right one didn't ’t fit in the space. I got out the little bottle of liquid paper. Paint the mistake away...but when I go to re-type it, the liquid paper isn’t dry and soon I have a 3D mess where there was once a simple typo. I decide to go to bed and take the grade hit.

The professor has no tolerance, thinks I’m lazy. The evidence is obvious.

Changing the Channel

A knob on the front panel of the TV set. Every turn sounded a small clunk, as if in the tv set, there were weights and pulleys dragging a set across the screen. It took a full two minutes to accurately assess what was on all seven channels.

By Housing Works Thrift Shops
(Flickr: Orange Retro Philco TV)
[CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.
org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons

If several people were watching with you and they were farther away from the set, they also had a remote. It was called [insert your name here]. Also, if you have older siblings they also had one. It was called [insert your name here]. They don’t even promise to hang out with you later. They think they’re so cool, sitting there stirring their Nestle Quik into their milk. It doesn’t feel like there’s a choice. You stay and watch what they want.

Some day, you think, some day I’ll have my own TV.

Social Networking

Noelle passes me in the hall as we walk in lines during the change of class. Her line is going one way, mine is going the other. She passes me a little paper triangle, note origami. We don’t make eye-contact.

I unfold it during Mr. Kerlick’s class. Math. I can’t bear to watch him shake his hair like Vinny Barbarino anymore. I keep it in my lap and glance down every now and then. No names are used, in case the note will be found later. The Boy likes someone else. She heard rumors. She thinks it’s BK. I should meet her before lunch in the restroom. I should destroy this note when I’m done. I spend the rest of class slowly, silently tearing up the evidence of the other life we live in school.

Leave no trace. Tell no one but your best friend. And don’t be surprised when next year, after sharing your deepest secrets, she pretends not to know you.