...why I'm a misfit and damn proud of it.

So I suppose I’m liked. I mean, we have this thing called the otto awards, where there’s categories like “most likely to go to the Olympics” or “most energetic” and it’s really cool because every year, from people pulling my name out of air, I get nominated. So freshman year I was nominated for “most likely to win an MTV award”. The girl who was also nominated is our weird little “miss popular” (I’ll probably have a post explaining the weird dichotomy of my school) and we’re friendly, we did theater together when we were little and were always up for the same part (she always got them). But the day of the otto awards freshman year, she told me congratulations. She thought I was going to win, but she did. Sophomore year I was nominated for most artistic, which just wasn’t going to happen, and I wouldn’t have deserved it. The cool thing about the otto awards is I always play and sing a song I’ve written. This year I’m up for “most likely to write a bestseller” and I kind of really sort of want to win it.

But anyway, this post is about me loving being a misfit. I went through my “I want to be popular” stage when I was seven. Actually. When I was in second grade I ran with the popular crowd. Instead of like drinking or staying out late, we would curse and watch PG-13 movies. I then moved out of the popular stage, and decided to try everything else. Some people never out grew it, and are still there.

See popularity, which is COMPLETELY different from being well liked, is a game. It's being the best at what everyone else wants. and I suck at that. I've been literally friends with everyone at one time or another, and I still don't have a clique. Mostly I hang out with the uber smart girls, the bands-you-never-heard-off followers (they're sweet, in middle school they used to be the materialistic simple plan heads, but they grew up a bit.) and the Jew Crew. Even the Jew Crew (which is so freaking weird it will probably get its own post), I don't actually belong to. My best friend Anya who I see literally everyday of my life (she goes to temple, camp and school with me) is my in, but I really don't fit in. I'm applying for scholarships while they're playing with light sabers on their iPhones. The Jew Crew is one of many sub popular cliques, and even has it's own dating rotation and weird bad ass ways that I just don't want to be a part of.

And I would never want to be "popular". Popularity is like this hot guy that everyone's obsessed with and wants just because they're supposed to, and I kind of feel like one of the few that can see his pimples and dick ways and isn't all that attracted to him. I'm not popular because I don't want to be. I don't care if they'd let me in. I'd rather hang out with everybody else, because those are actually the cool kids. Trying to be cool automatically makes you not.

...bullies actually do suck.

I have an unusual relationship with bullying. When I was small and went to a pre school where they pretty much let everyone do whatever (which is fine for like teenaged Jew hippies, not exactly for 3 year olds) But so there was this roving gang of five year old bullies, and naturally as I was super girl, decided someone needed to save the day. So that someone was me. So every time they attacked someone, I, a small three year old, would kick all of their asses. Which apparently was quite a sight.

Even when I was little, I was the type that everyone knew. So naturally, being in the "public eye", I was liked, and not so liked. (still kind of rings true) When someone made fun of me, I stood up for myself. For example: One day a girl we'll rename is Gertrude told me my hat looked retarded. So, being raised on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I drop kicked her.

When I was little, there was this boy that would pull my pigtails and be kind of rude (more on that and my fleeting flirt with popularity next post) and would tell me I was a terrible singer. Mostly I'd out talk him.

But so today someone in my class was humming, and my teacher (who I like but is at least all over the place and at most bi polar) was making fun of the kid he assumed was humming. So tired of him making fun of people, even though it wasn't me, I told my teacher to play nice. He said "What?" and I said "You're a bully." "What?" "Were you a bully in middle school?" He proceeds to tell me that he stood up for kids who were bullied in middle school. So I asked why he was making fun of that kid. He said he wanted to know where the whistling was coming from. I replied I doubted he was concerned for the welfare of the kid who was whistling.

At which point the kid that used to make fun of me goes "I think [insert whatever name you think would suite me here] needs a time out." I told him I think he needed to shut up. Gertrude proceeds to tell my teacher that she had been fat and bullied in elementary school. WHICH WAS A LIE. She made fun of me repeatedly until I drop kicked up, and she was not fat she was (and still is) freakishly tall.

So then the kid that used to make fun of me says something snide about me under his breath. So I asked if he was six (though he might have been smarter back then). My teacher thought I was talking to him, and although I made sure "we cool" I don't want my B to go away.

So bullies better watch out, because I do not like you. And Imma kick your ass.

...I'm sorry I laughed, but you're still wrong.

So I was in English and we were talking about getting into college, or pretty much repeated the same shit we do every day, and this one girl started going on about how us rich kids from westchester have a disadvantage because the colleges know their rich and can get help with their applications.

At this, I laughed outloud.

And then immediately appoligized for laughing, and right after the girl called me rude and looked shocked. So I had to explain myself, and explain to the class that there is no disadvantage when you can pay for five SAT classes and a tutor for every subject and someone else to write your college essay. My teacher, avoiding conflict, said there were pros and cons and ran away from the conflict.

What I didn't say was that some kids can't pay for those classes. Some kids are trying to do homeowork in between jobs so they can pay for college in the first place.

...it's different up close.

So in my English class we were talking about death. Which sounds easy enough. Like, it was very abstract, and from far away, death feels like something that a person can fully understand. A person was living, they've stopped, and everyone was going to die anyway, so it's not so hard to explain. Nothing so cosmic. Nothing so complicated. Literally nothing at all.

Later, one of my best friends told me that the Rabbi's kid from the next temple over had died. He was 19, and a freshman in College, and was either hit by a car or fell off a building. And that was merely weird.

But, understandably, one of my friends from his temple who had been friends with him was freaking out, so I spent lunch with her. She showed me a video of him, and fuck, it turns out I had none him, I just hadn't connected the name and face.

Suddenly it was real. His family would never see him again. He would never grow up to be anything, because he would never grow up.

The amazing thing is that the entirity of the north eastern community of jews is freaking out. Pulling together. They all felt it, and it was actually something inspiring out of something so bad; this one person affected so many people.

It turns out my friend had been friends with him, and they had hooked up one night, and then he ignored her for literally the rest of his life. and then I realized it's not saints who die, it's people. But he's rather think it's the other way around.

All at once I saw jokes about death everywhere. I think there's a difference from death as a character, and death as actually, the absence of life.

Watching my friend, I know death isn't simple. It's not about the end of the life, it's everything about that single life all at the same time, and it's overwhelming.