Rant: Class of Who Cares.

Oh, dang, it's a rant.

Subject: High School Reunions.

I don't really understand the concept of reunions.

Firstly, 2008 was not that long ago. Therefore, no reunion is necessary. Nothing significant has happened in the last four years that would need sharing.

Secondly, what the hell is the point?

Idealists say: "Ooooh, it's for reuniting with your buddies from high school and sharing how much you've grown and how much you've accomplished!"

This is how I see it:

You leave each other for an indeterminate amount of time, usually about 5 to 10 years––something most people are almost crawling out of their skin to do, despite the tearful good-bye's at graduation.

Then, someone gets the idea of summoning you all back from remote corners of the world, only to have half the people show up. There are, also, the inevitable few who are forgotten, who find out about it after the fact. (These people end up being serial killers.)

After being badgered into going by high school "friends" who then leave you dry by not actually going, you don your semi-formal attire and meet in the smelly gymnasium to which fond memories of sweating like a pig are attached.

Then, when you're all drinking cheap wine and "socializing," meaning bragging about what you've accomplished (most of which are lies) or what you're going to do in the near future, you find out unsavory things about your classmates:

- Who has married who, which never really interested you anyway, since being married this early usually spells disaster.

- Who died. That's a really inspiring topic.

- Who's in jail or has gone off the deep end, the only topic of any interest at all, since you had bets on who would tank when you were still roped together as a unit.

- Who's made it in the world, which only makes you realize how little you've accomplished.

Then, after three hours of awkward half-conversations and way too much wine, you realize you hated all of these people anyway.

Of course, I didn't always think like this. 

When I was in high school, the thought of a high school reunion was a happy thing!

I would come back and everyone will have changed significantly, and they'd all be mature and more well-rounded.

You see, then I went to college, and I kept my F*cebook. After four years, I went back and browsed through the photos of those people I knew in high school.

Turns out, they haven't changed at all.

The drunks are even more drunk, the stoners are now hipster stoners, girls who were morally aligned are now skanks,  the skanks are wearing even less clothing and more spray on tan than they used to, and the geeks have leveled up into basement dwelling, blue-skinned WoW freaks who don't shower.

It's a crying shame. Well, not really. I'm not terribly surprised by this. Disappointed, but not surprised.

Of course, there are the select few who redeem the class, but those types generally avoid reunions or go for a short time to humor those who threw it.

Personally, I hope to end up in the "forgotten" category. I don't want the guilt of having to refuse a reunion of a class comprised of loathsome people.

So, if you hear a story about how a woman in Kansas snapped and there was a recent high school reunion followed by mass murder, then you know what happened.

Bleh. It seems like when I start these rants I know exactly where I'm going, but by the end, my brain shorts out, gets bored and whines about doing something else.

I'm going to go to bed now. This has been entirely too pointless and unnecessarily negative. But, a rant is a rant.

Peace off.

A Clockwork Orange aka Crazy Town.

If you've never read A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, you won't understand what I'm talking about so I suggest you tune in another time when I'm not talking about depressing novels. OR You can stick around and read my "totally awkward entertaining" rant review on it.

Well, for those of you who have read it (and those of you who don't care and are reading this because you're bored), I have to say A Clockwork Orange is probably one of the most memorable stories I've come across. I think a lot of people would say that though.

What other author writes in a dialect as confusing and intricate as this one? I mean, other than J.R.R. Tolkien (and every other devoted fantasy writer alive).

It's not just a few words here and there. It's a LOT of words, all the time, from the very beginning.

When I first opened the book, I died a little.

The first line wasn't that daunting.

It was the following that made me want to curl up in the fetal position with a copy of the dictionary.

It took me until the third or fourth chapter to finally catch on to some of the more frequent one, but even after finishing the book, I still don't know the meanings of some of the words.

On top of trying to get the hang of the lingo, I also had to drag my eyes through pages of unspeakable, unforgiving horror. Drugs, violence, theft, more violence, rape, more theft, killing. My fragile constitution almost collapsed under the darkness and crime.

After all that crap, Alex is put through horrible rehabilitation methods that make me twitch.

Certain types of psychology and the whole idea of hypnosis frightens me. The description of what they did to Alex (that's the protagonist for you n00bs who haven't actually read it) were a little unrealistic, but just realistic enough to keep me from being like, "Yeah, that's stupid."

The shot that made him sick and weak was the portion that really scared me. I know there are medical drugs that can do that to people. Combined with horrible images of violence, I just shudder. Shudder, I say.

I mean, have you ever eaten something and then, either because it was rife with E coli or because you had the flu, you ralphed and then ever after that you always get a queasy feeling when you think about or smell that food?

It's the same thing with this horrible reformation. Makes me tense!

Don't drug me, Doctor. Prease.

<segue> </segue>

Anthony Burgess is a genius. He really is.

I think he is the only author that could fashion a story that dark and confusing and still have it be fascinating, powerful and mind-blowing. Of course, the darkness and confusing-ness of this book might be the reason it's all of those things.

After finishing the book, I had to sit and breathe for a little while and just focus on not crying. I'm usually not stirred up by violent and malicious things. Hell, I write stuff like this.

Something about the protagonist character makes me want to just give up hope for humanity.

I'm sure most who read this post, if any at all, are going, "Lady... it's fiction, calm down."

But fiction holds Truth. Truth! Just ask Nathaniel Hawthorne. He'll vouch for me.

Well, this has to be the lamest post ever. I have no more steam to write this. I'll probably come back to it later.

I go back to school tomorrow. So, you may or may not ever hear from me again.

My apologies. See you at the end of the world!

Peace off.