I also was really skinny and remember the horror that Steve (Burns--I didn't even know he had a last name, but apparently that was it) referenced on his Twitter account, according to this article. And in all honesty, Steve Burns:

Yes. Those pants did make your butt look big.

I had my first boyfriend in 2006. We were terrible together. He was tall and awkward and so was I and I made the mistake of telling him that I loved Trader Joe's Australian strawberry licorice. The day after we broke up (I spent an hour on the phone crying, apologizing that I just didn't have feelings for him anymore, that I was sorry, so sorry, I just couldn't do it any more), we had class together. He'd brought in a bunch of Trader Joe's Australian strawberry licorice. We avoided each other's gaze, like proper sixteen-year-olds (or was he seventeen?), as if we would explode if we by mistake had the misfortune of making eye contact. He passed the licorice box around to everyone else in the class; I got the distinct feeling that he didn't actually like strawberry licorice. I might have asked at some point, but I've long since forgotten.

He did not sign my senior yearbook. The white space in that yearbook is plastered with teenagers' graffiti, illegible signatures and inappropriate jokes, some obligatory and some heartfelt. None from him. I wonder what he would have said if he had indeed signed my yearbook. "Gabby: I can't believe your dad actually cornered me and told me not to say inappropriate things about you and your BFF"? "Gabby: Watching you make out on the prom dance floor with your too-short-for-you sophomore boyfriend was gross. Talk to you never." 

"Gabby: Have a great summer."

​I always wondered how genuine people were in signing yearbooks. I felt like yearbook signings were the one time of the year I had permission to talk to people I didn't ordinarily talk to--the popular, pretty girls (we had those, even at Nerd High) who radiated confidence wherever they went, the stars of the school musical I secretly hoped I would one day be as talented as, the boy I'd had a pathetic crush on for four years. I wondered if those people ever thought about me outside of awkward social exchanges and yearbook signings. I wondered if those pen scratchings on those white pages meant anything at all.

Here are a few actual excerpts from my senior yearbook:

• "It was interesting being involved with creative writing with you." 
• "We've had some pretty interesting times in middle school and UHS!" (This was actually the entirety of what this person signed.No other sentiments followed.)
• "Been an interesting few years, have good summer and fun in college, get sleep and do something different."
• "Jeeze I remember the 'dorky' Gabby with braces, now you're just 'less dorky' (the best you can get at UHS). Represent us well."
• "It's been a great run since Mr. Santana's 7th grade P.E. class. You're a great person, and I can't wait to see how great you'll turn out in ten years. Have a great time, buddy."
• "Don't fear the reaper."

Fine Brothers Entertainment recently created a YouTubers React video about Lonelygirl15, and it made me realize that this was ten years ago. I couldn't believe it. I remember when I started watching LG15--I was totally inspired, and even thought about starting my own video webseries about twins who had been separated at birth and were about to meet up again. Of course, I got too lazy to actually do that, and realized that the production behind that was actually quite complicated. 

I didn't start watching LG15 until I was in college, and even then didn't start watching it until the second half of my first year (2008). So I had quite a lot of catching up to do, and by the time I started watching it, it was already revealed that it was a fake. I was already familiar with the concept of a YouTube series. What was revolutionary to me at the time was the concept of an interactive YouTube series, where you could be actively involved in the story. It was totally awesome. I was so engaged with the story, despite the massive amounts of plot holes. It was the Chosen One story before Chosen One stories blew up the YA literary/film scene. And it was independent.

Like most old videos, LG15 didn't age horribly well. Looking back on these videos, it's got all of the epitomes of Teen Drama--the overly beautiful teenagers, the overdramaticism, the bloodletting, the cultism, the sexual tension. There's hardly an explanation of how they get their money when they're on the lam, and there's SO MUCH focus on teen sex/relationships. 

Totally stupid. But totally profitable.

Do you believe in ghosts?

Are they the monsters under your bed, or are they the stuff you feel peeling the hairs off your neck to stand on end? 

Or are they Samara's long, stringy hair leading the clay-mation way out of a television screen?

Or are they the silence itself at the end of time?

Ghosts, to me, are closely linked to religion. There's a physical aspect to them, but there's also a dogmatic aspect to them. Some people get swept away in the stories, in the threats that haunt them; some people taunt the legends and dare them to come out at night and do their worst. 

I like to think that I stay firmly in the middle.

I remember when I visited the Winchester Mystery House--I must have been something like thirteen or fourteen, or maybe twelve--but I was a kid, still religious and still certain that magic could be real. I was sure that I could talk to the dead, if I really listened. I believed in mystical spontaneity. If I waited long enough, if I blinked my eyes in a certain way--I could control the weather. I could make something levitate. I could hear God.

My oldest cousin is fifteen. I can't believe he's fifteen--I feel so ancient by comparison--and he hasn't let me forget how much older I am than him (albeit not necessarily intentionally). 

The easiest way he's not let me forget it: the drastic differences in our social media practises.

My first experiences with social media were the early incarnations of it, way back in The Day: Xanga, LiveJournal, MySpace, and then, of course--once I was about to graduate high school and had a UCI e-mail address, back in the days when you needed a college e-mail address--Facebook. Long before Twitter and Instagram and Pintrest. One of the last times I saw my cousin, he was texting incessantly and using various apps, and his parents were admonishing him for texting in the presence of other people. It was funny to witness because my parents told me the same thing when I was his age, but my generation was the first generation to experience such an admonishment. My aunt and uncle never received any such lecture when they were teenagers. For reference: e-mail exploded when I was in middle or high school, which was at least ten to fifteen years ago. That was back in the days when you asked people "do you have an e-mail address?" and either answer was commonplace. 

In this interaction with my cousin (back when he was fourteen--this is about a year ago), I asked him whether he was on Facebook, and he kindly informed me: 

"Facebook is for moms and old people."

And then proceeded to send his girlfriend a photo on Snapchat.

Automatically, the title of this post makes me sound young to about half of you, and the other half of you haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about. My twelve-year-old cousin has a smartphone and knows--very thoroughly--how to use it, and just this year she took a coding class at school. 

This is my concept of coding at school at 12 years old:

(notice it's not even coding)

(also notice the floppies)

(vintage, baby.)

When you're new, you're soft--pink, rosy, fresh out of the eraser womb, ready for anything You smell like fear, or comfort, I'm not sure which. Like rubber, like sand, like a photography dark room. Like air conditioning and the resulting goosebumps. Like my time is running out and I only have half of the answers bubbled in; like the stories I've been daydreaming about while ignoring the math problems on the test.

Like my elementary-school cafeteria, where I sat with my back to the entry door (the one connected to the wall I felt once with my lips, just to see what it felt like, because I had gloves on my hands and they had textured palms and I knew someone would make fun of me as I heard the kid talking--"ew, she's kissing the wall!"--but he didn't understand it; my hands were cold) and tried to fill in the bubbles at the beginning of the test. I always felt dishonest picking just one of Hispanic or White--both seemed wrong, and I wanted to make a note on the side saying that I was both, but also neither. But another part of the directions said not to write outside of the bubbles. That wasn't how the test worked. You did what they told you to do: