Things I Thought Were Cool When I Was Younger But Am Now Realizing May In Fact Not Be

• Pretending to sleep at parties where no drinking was taking place because I thought this made me “cooler than the party”

• Drinking a lot of orange juice (“Oh, what am I doing? Just listening to some music, drinking orange juice.” -Me, feeling fly, circa 2002)

• Wearing candy necklaces until the color started to wear off on my skin

• The band Mest

• Sneaking up to people’s houses in the middle of the night (before curfew, of course) and sidewalk chalking up their driveways (That wild, unpredictable suburban life, you know?)

• Pretending I had never heard of various pop artists

• Pretending to be afraid of E.T.

• Coughing when someone made eye contact with me because I thought that made me more mysterious (???)

• The three foot marionette I insisted on bringing to parties (There was the occasional clumsy performance)

• The cloak I wore for two weeks

• The fact that I had never eaten Cookie Crisp

• The mushroom cut I got in fourth grade that I so desperately wanted (My hair looks like a botched circumcision and I love it! Take that haters!)

• My imagined alter-ego as a sexy, wisecracking, American exchange student in the Harry Potter universe who had alternate affairs with both of the Weasley twins

• “Practicing” my softball pitching skills in front of people with no ball or mitt so as to display my immense talent

• “Playing” the piano on the gym floor while waiting for warm-ups to begin (Note: I did not know how to play the piano)

• Memorizing Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “El Dorado” and proudly forcing people to listen to me recite it

• Smoking cigarettes

• My Fine Arts degree