It’s junior year, last week of school before summer break. I’m happy, I’m not sure why, just in a really good mood. I think my grades were good, I didn’t have a boyfriend at the time but I had many friends and I was having a lot of fun. I actually enjoyed my classes that year, especially Honors AmTrad - a hybrid that satisfied both our American History and American Literature requirements. Every day there was a lecture in the main auditorium in the morning, then smaller group sessions in the afternoon. It’s no wonder this is one of my biggest memories of junior year - it took up so much of each day! I did like it though, even though we had to read some real snoozefests like Thoreau’s Walden. (To be honest, I think I only read the Cliff’s Notes for that one.) We had to do an independent study project on a prominent American and give a big presentation at the end of the semester. I did mine on Stanley Kubrick.
Best. Class. Ever.
Anyway, back to that last week of school. A friend named Mark carried me piggyback down the hallway in a race with another friend, also carrying a girl on his back. Mark had a pencil in his back pocket. When I slid down off his back to get back on my feet, the pencil stabbed me on the inner left thigh, right through my pants. Hurt like a sonofabitch.
And now, over 20 years later, I still have a little gray mark on my leg from the graphite where it got under my skin. It’s a tattoo - in pencil!
