Task: Yearbook and scanning photos

One thing I really wanted to accomplish before the reunion was going through the various yearbooks and seeing if there was anyone I was missing among my Facebook friends, and see if they were on there. Just by keeping in touch with multiple people from school, you tend to see posts by other people, or that multiple people have become friends with someone who has just joined Facebook, but there is always the possibility of missing someone. Also, shortly after the last time I scanned photos in, I found more, and I was not up for another scanning session, but I promised myself that I would get back to it.

I was moderately successful. I could not find the other photo stash, and then I did find more photos, but I am not sure they were the same ones. Still, I scanned those in, and the brilliant thing about this batch was that I had actually written the names of people on the photo backs. That was really helpful.

For going through the yearbooks, I just could not be as thorough as I had originally envisioned. I thought I would be really meticulous, and there is just too much data. I did submit some new friend requests, and saw that some old friends remain stubbornly off Facebook, but I probably missed some people, and I will have to accept that.

I could not find my yearbook from 8th grade, or my class pictures from 3rd and 5th grade, which is a little weird, but I took some nice trips down memory lane. There were the pictures, but also seeing what people signed in the 7th and 9th grade yearbooks, and then in the literary journals for 10th – 12th grade. (At our high school, the yearbook did not come out until the school year had ended, so everybody signed the literary journal, Day by Day. Also, at the time it was a 3-year school, but it is 9th – 12th now.)

Of what people wrote to me, I would say about 10% is random and individualized, and another 30% is “I didn’t really get to know you that well” (is that code for “Why are you having me sign this?”). Anyway, where it really gets interesting is the other 60%: half are about how sweet I am and the other half is how I need to quit ripping on people.

Well, it’s not as contradictory as it seems. I am very much a people pleaser, and I love helping people and doing things for them, and I remember coming up with some very thoughtful gifts and doing nice things.

At the same time, I have a very mean sense of humor. Looking back, I think it goes back to my 9th grade humor. I may have taken it to heart that I was a joke, but I didn’t accept it enough to not be angry about it. I did use humor as a shield, and it worked, but there was probably some bitterness there, and that was always the conflict for me. I was happy in a lot of ways, but I had a secret pain that I was not going to deal with, and it made me a little mean.

Also, there was just the issue of boundaries. A big part of growing up is learning where the lines are. Saying this will be funny, but saying that would just be hurtful. Some of my more excruciating memories are when I got the balance wrong and hurt someone, or came off as immature, or just did not get it right.

Even as I have gotten more mature, and dealt with my baggage, and grown in all these ways, my sense of humor is still pretty cynical. For my last year of college I worked at the Science Library, and I remember my supervisor saying he could never tell if I was joking, and the reason was is that what I was saying was absolutely true, and it was a pain, but I was just treating it as funny. That’s still pretty much the case.

The thing is, except when I am doing my stand-up (which is not all that often), I am not usually trying to be really funny, I just throw in humor and maybe it is more than I realize because I am often surprised at how hard people will be laughing. I remember when I first started writing screenplays a lot of people assumed I would be writing comedies, and, no, the sixth (Coulrophobia) was the first one that could be considered a comedy, and even at that it is not a straight comedy—more of a comic thriller.

They do all have humor in them, but it is something that is lightening the drama. Whether the issue is dealing with espionage and paralysis, or choosing between comfort and passion, or vampires, or abuse and manipulation, or a devastating injury, there is humor to lighten it.

That’s pretty much how I handle life. And it certainly isn’t always right. Generally on the way home from church, my sisters and I make fun of people, and then we go back to work praying for them, and thinking about how to help them. It’s our stress relief. Someday we may have a better one, but yeah, for now it looks like the way I can be sweet is through recharging by ripping people. It’s fun if you don’t have any real malice.

(Well, it might still be fun if you have real malice, but I don’t recommend it. We’re sketchy enough as it is.)


28 minutes walking outside
Wall-sits
Jacob 6 - Jacob 1