It should have started with a semi-famous actor who currently appears on the show House. I went to junior high with him. And I had a HUGE crush on him. Maybe because of the crush, it actually started with a writer I'll nickname M.D. I went to elementary school - and junior high and high school - with M.D. She was a year ahead of me, quiet and well-behaved. I knew her vaguely through drama and the fact that her mother was in charge of the drama department. I never thought much about her, even while we were in school together.
But then in my early twenties I discovered that she had her own column in Self magazine. And her career grew from there. My dad would mention seeing her articles in the New York Times while I hoarded my personally written rejection letter from Cosmo. Then she wrote a book. And I could hide my jealousy no longer. I told everyone how much I'd hated her book - which I felt should have been my book, since it was about a woman from the northeast who learns a lot upon relocating to the mid-west, something I was doing at the time - not that it mattered. Everyone else liked the book. Like the LA Times, where she now has a column. (BTW, I recently reread the book and I can now admit that it's pretty good.)
Anyway, not two weeks after finishing the book, I watched Mad TV. And there was someone else I'd gone to junior high and high school with - we'd actually been friendly - on freaking Mad TV. Since I'd always thought he was funny and since I'd never had aspirations to be a comic, I genuinely enjoyed his performance. And I still do, whenever he shows up on Comedy Central, Chelsea Lately or a Will Ferrell movie.
But even though I like my life as a mom, like my little blog and would HATE to live in LA, I still feel inadequate when I run across M.D.'s work or see the comedian on TV. It's just a momentary thing, but I'd like it to stop. So when several friends started bugging me to join Facebook, I gave in. I thought being reassured that most of the people I went to high school with are not famous and/or powerful (I went to school with some political types too) would make me feel better. . . even though I knew Facebook would also cause me to spend inordinate amounts of time catching up with people I haven't thought of in fifteen years.
For the most part, Facebook has been reassuring. Many of my old classmates are on there and they all appear normal. But last night, after throwing myself a little pity party on the couch (I cannot stand for more than five minutes without my back hurting, my fingers hurt all the time, blah, blah), I went on Facebook. I wrote a whiny little bulletin, too. Then I checked my Facebook messages.
One message was from a girl I was friends with in junior high but not high school. She was writing about another junior high but not high school friend who is also on her third pregnancy. Except that she is pregnant with triplets. Triplet boys. And there was a picture too - of a smiling woman (who I swear looks exactly the same, why is it that no one aged but me? Why?) with NO SWELLING except for the biggest belly I've ever seen. (And that includes those pictures they show on Jon and Kate Plus 8 ) While on the one hand the idea of this woman - the woman who taught me to drink and shoplift back in the ninth grade as well as teaching me what "backstab" really means - having 5 children under 5 including a set of TRIPLETS seems like a sort of karmic justice. On the other hand, I can't exactly whine on Facebook anymore, not with a mere singleton pregnancy that will only result in 3 children under 5.
It's not the same sort of inadequacy I feel when I see my famous classmates, but not being able to whine may actually be worse. I thrive on sympathy.
Anyway, is there anyone from high school that haunts you? Or am I the only one with a famous classmate complex?
