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my turn, although the less creative of the pair...

oldest child of two working-class dying-industrial-city-native types, i moved around a lot before finally graduating from a high school in which the teen pregnancies outnumbered the college bound. naturally, i fit in fabulously, by which i mean was just plain obstinate. i decided that i would only read modern literature that nobody else had read and which i really only pretended to understand, refused to pollute my mind with mass media, etc. god forbid i might watch football. it would have all been fine, really, except that goths don't exist in a town where everyone works at the truck factory. which is probably for the best; i've never been very good at make-up and the white face paint would have just stained the black clothes.

10 years later, here i am, reading cosmo, watching sitcoms on the wb, and calling my girlfriends in crisis because i don't have the perfect pair of shoes for a party this weekend.

what 8 years of higher education will do.