Ah, youth

Here's an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a close high school friend the 3rd week into my freshman year of college (1992). Luckily back then I wrote letters on my computer and I found this last night when searching my archives. Items in [brackets] are, of course, edits from today.

Be sure to note the prohibitively high cost of cereal in those days.

***
Later...
I am back. I went to Rhetoric [class] and talked to my friend Chris, and came back and ate dinner (it was whipped cream night, my favourite [sic - pretentious spelling!]) and then I went to the grocery store with Bindu and Jennifer, who are both very bizarre. So now it's practically 8 'cause the grocery store is far away and we walked. I bought orange juice, water, and bagels. I meant to buy cereal but it was $4/box!! Yikes! So I'm going to try to get my parents to buy it this weekend. My parents just called. They are assuming they will find a place to park in front of my dorm. Good luck. I think they should go to the hotel and walk over but if they want to create stress that's their business I guess.

I saw Chris in the laundry room (living in the basement, or Cave as I like to call it, has its advantages, one of which is always knowing who's doing their laundry) so I taught him how to do his laundry free. We have to buy tokens to put into the machines instead of quarters but there is one machine that you can put the token halfway in, and pull it out and the washer will go anyway. Needless to say, Chris was pleased with my little laundry tip. I feel proud and heroic.

Something scary has come about. One time I saw [weird person from a year ahead of me in HS] in the [dorm] lobby, so I went and looked on the directory, but his name wasn't there. But today I saw him again in the hall by food service and he was looking at me like he might know who I was. I was thinking he wouldn't recognize me or remember me if he saw me but maybe I was wrong. Anyway I looked at the directory again and he does live here in my building. Maybe he looks like that at everybody. I don't even know where his room would be, the room number started with an 'N' and they're supposed to start with 1,2,3 or 4. Strange. Is he a booger? Let me know. Do you know him? I don't but [our journalism teacher] Gonzo said he was kind of boogery, and so did [random HS classmate]. I figured Gonzo would know. Oh well, maybe I won't run into him again. If I do should I be nice and talk to him? I probably should but maybe he doesn't like me. Who knows. Maybe he hates everybody. That's the impression I got at [our high school].

I think in the last letter I wrote you I was pretty pissed at my floor, but that was only for that night. Most often, everything is pretty cool. Although still, I can't really find anything in common with the people on my floor. But they're nice. And I'm still getting along with [Robeanian] (that's my roommate).

Now I think I'm going to go read my geology book (fossils—memories of [our 4th grade teacher] —yeccch.) and maybe do French homework. Talk to you soon scoober.

Love,
[Bladio]

***
I ended up riding back to college once with "weird person from a year ahead of me in HS" and we didn't even speak 2 words to each other. The radio in my parents' car was broken so I sang to myself the whole time and he didn't even say one thing. It was really odd.