Sunday
Hey look, the sticker off the back of my school ID!
This was a day of graduation parties, which don't register in my mind at all, I'm afraid. I have vague recollections of hanging out on Brandon's back porch for awhile, and that's about it.
Secret writing:
Brandon and I talked at great length about two problems I've been dealing with. I am most definitely not over Gabriela, nor do I believe I ever will be. However, this is not the bigger problem. I am not comfortable with my relationship with Nikki. She protects me from other people, something I do not need or want. At the same time, she showers me -- no, make that pelts me -- with compliments and doting looks, something(s) I don't deserve and cannot stand. The problem I have with Gaby doesn't help our relationship, either. And lastly, Nikki is so cautious of her body that if I so much as graze something off limits, she moves my hand to a different area altogether. I respect her, but I don't think I can be patient that much longer: I've already seeked out physical affection elsewhere. I know I should break up with her, but I don't know if she can be "just friends" anymore.
So there you go. The situation in a nutshell. Wonder what I'll do? So do I.
Monday
Yay! Graduation day! It led off with the senior breakfast at a banquet hall in Rolling Meadows, for some reason; Mike, Chad and I (and possibly some other guys? I don't remember) met beforehand at the Gold Eagle, a diner near the park district. We got to the mandatory(!) breakfast a little late, but didn't miss the explanation of how everything would go down later on.
Graduation was at Poplar Creek, an outdoor music venue in Hoffman Estates (on the edge of Barrington Hills) -- our graduating class was 512, so we needed a big venue to hold the families. Poplar Creek closed the following year, and I'm pretty sure we were the last class to graduate there. It was about as you'd expect: lots of excited kids in red graduation gowns, proud parents and extended families, lots of cheering. We memorialized the classmates we lost, and our co-valedictorians, John B. and Amanda P., gave good, witty speeches. We all walked across and afterward we hugged and laughed and celebrated in ever-shifting groups. Mike, Chad and I got together for a photo, and we got cigars -- I think from Mike's dad.
I was supposed to meet up with them and other friends later that night for a party at Heather F.'s house (which seemed odd, since she was a junior), but when I arrived nobody's car was there and the house seemed deserted. I went home sad, only to find out later that everyone had parked a block or two away to avoid suspicion, and they'd gone to the basement to party. I felt left out, but also sheepish and naive that I didn't realize I wasn't being left out on purpose. (If it were a few years later, we would have all had cellphones and it wouldn't have been an issue.)
Trip LeCheeseburger was the, to my mind, hysterical misalignment of letters on a McDonald's sign. Mike decided it sounded like a great alter ego name.
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