*throws balls of paper at your head, ducks as you return them with better accuracy!*

<3 you. Can we skip to Thursday together?

Boy howdy, your school experience sounds painfully familiar. Social interaction from grades 1 through 11 were what formed my World's Shyest Redhead Disappearing Act. (I finally said f*ck it in my senior year of high school and decided that if I was going to be classed as a mutant no matter what I did, then I was going to take my cues from John Hughes movies. A cross-country move a few months after graduation sent me right back to being painfully shy, and I didn't come back out f my shell for years.)

To this day, I'm not keen on Hallmark Day; if it gets observed at all, I prize things that I have gotten on the day that are different. Best Feb. 14th gift ever? My Grad Student bought me a black felt, snap-brim fedora.

So yeah -- bring on the zombies! (Neat bit of trivia: The Return of the Living Dead is set in my hometown of Louisville, KY; and while the credits don't seem to list Louisville as a filming location, I recognized several locations as not being in California. )

Kids are assholes. I was "that kid" too, I have no idea why. The one no one would sit next to, never had a partner in group projects, always got picked last for teams. Actually I guess it is not the same - no one went out of their way to pick on me, it was more like I was invisible.

TO this day I am not pick on Valentines Day, I think The Man is a little puzzled by this. He is getting me a subscription to a monster/zombie magazine for V-day, so that is sort of appropriate, right?

Yup-another one of those geeky kids-even though Im decades older now-people used to get in fights as to who would have to pick me to be on their team for gym class...and finally,one day when I finally(for the first time) hit the volleyball over the net, even the other team yelled)

It's kind of weird, because even though it's decades later now, the 'angst" of the outsiderenss remains to some degree.I HATE a lot of group activities that have an athletic emphasis, and only feel secure in hiking or other situations if Im with soemone I trust.

And I hate competitive sports, and I clearly remember how mean kids can be...and it seems it can take a toll on us....

However, this weekend Im gonna do something I havent done since college(attend a B movie marathon) YEAH-and Im going on my own(how brave)let's hope I can stay awake!!!!!!!!

here's to all our slhockathons!!!

I was that kid in school too. I was the geek that was even shunned by the other geeks. I wasn't even good enough for their standards. It sucks. When I was in high school I was talking to this girl who made girl scouts a living hell for me. She told me that every time she and the other girls would choose a younger girl to make cry. Most of the time, she said, they choose me because it was so easy. But what got me was that she was laughing the whole time she told me this, like it was just a big joke. It wasn't like she was apologizing or even sorry about it. It took everything I had not to shove the flag pole I was holding up her ass. (At the time, we were on the marching bad color guard together.) She was the reason I dropped out the girl scouts.

Mr Man and I barely celebrate VDay. We get each other joke gifts, if we even get each other anything. I remember one year I got him South Park: The Movie and shiny heart boxers - b/c nothing says, "I love you" like South Park and boxers.

And sometimes - even after 4 years and an engagement ring - I still worry that he'll figure out that I'm broken inside and leave me - even though he insists that I'm not broken and that I'm not getting rid of him.