Spoonfuls of Angst

Essays

Aug 19

I skipped school one day in tenth grade and went to the beach. I thought I was being slick. I didn’t wear sunblock. My face blistered. My mom made me go to school the next day with a smattering of yellowish pus nozzles drizzling my face. This kid turned to me to kind of say, “We’ve all had rough zit days.” And it was true. Almost every day was figuring out how to hide my acne from a mirror and a classroom full of girls in scantily clad outfits staring at my red specks all class. But that day it was sunburn. It felt like a win.

Going to a public high school in the San Fernando Valley was crazy. Thousands of kids. Classrooms jammed with desks, wall to wall. Abject mayhem in all classes. 12% of the kids trying to pay attention. Unqualified and overmatched teachers. Hallways jammed with adolescence and misplaced bravado. High fences to cage us in, but they were still climbable.

When I moved from Brooklyn Heights to North Hollywood for eighth grade, I was a fish out of water. When I moved from North Hollywood to boarding school in New Jersey for eleventh grade, I was a fish out of water, lying on the sand, hoping they would just throw me back in the water instead of filleting me before eating me. To know how introverted I am now, I am impressed with myself for even showing up.

My teenage years were a constant hustle. Hiding pimples, eating junk food, writing letters to girls, sports, warm beer, and spoonfuls of angst. I don’t know how I ended up with a flat top, but I did. My barber in Hightstown had shaky hands and smoked heaters the whole haircut. I don’t know how I survived. I think it was the freedom. I walked there from boarding school when I was off class. Then, maybe I walked and got pizza. I was drifting with the wind.

I wandered as a youth as well; I walked to and from school from first grade on with a key around my neck. I don’t think I actually ever had it around my neck, but I was a latchkey kid because my mom worked. I probably just had it in my pocket on a Yankees keychain. I was free then, too. I didn’t really have rules growing up. My mom was a hippie. My dad, whom I only saw on weekends, was a nondisciplinarian. Free range.

Getting rejected by someone you want to date as an adult is pretty brutal. When you are a teenager, it's like a jackhammer to the testicles in an ice storm while wearing a tank top. It happens to all of us. It feels so humiliating. You walk with the shame through the day and lay it down at the edge of your bed that night. The best lesson I ever got was before my sophomore year in college. My girlfriend from the previous summer told me, “I am just not attracted to you anymore.” I halted my precious ego. It made sense. I couldn’t argue. I still think about this.

Being a teenage boy can be a constant game of hide-and-seek. You get more erections than one could even fathom possible, and for more reasons than conceivable to a young mind. Warm breeze. General boredom. The one you like. The one you definitely don’t like. Almost anyone. You spend much of your day using your binder, gripped tightly at your waist, to hide. You seek cover. Day after day.

If I had a tiny computer in my hands, I would have failed out of high school. I almost did anyway. I just had other things to think about besides History and Science. Typing was a fun class. My burgeoning mind would not have been able to comprehend schools allowing you to have your own personal phone at your desk at all times, and on that phone was everything the world has ever created. Educational insanity.

Conference calls were the group chats of my youth. Extended games of telephone with a longer and longer string connecting us. We used to have a party line, too. You just call the number and randoms are on there. An early chat room. I remember being scared and excited at the same time. I only did it with friends in the same room. Sometimes, I wanted to hide under my bed.

We used to go to Westwood, where UCLA is, and just drive around all night. It was called cruising. Sometimes, you would pick up some people and drive them around. You were always hoping a supermodel would want a ride and be hot as a microwave on ten minutes for your sixteen-and-a-half-year-old skin mirror. The rise and fall of humanity happened in those car rides.

I used Retin-A. I hope you don’t know how bad this acne treatment was. It basically burned your face. You looked ridiculous and flaky, and still had pimples. Cleocin T was much better because it had a roll-top and you kept it in the fridge. You thought it worked because of how it felt. That cool icy glide across your bumpy face. Every day was a choice between which portion of angst you wanted to carry.