"I brought my pencil!" Tomorrow is my first day back in school. My name is stitched into my underwear, my lunch is packed, I've got a fresh haircut, and my schoolbag has my home address and phone number pinned onto it. I don't have the latest fashions from Sears though.

Because my family had a home video camera in 1981, we have on tape the morning of my first day of kindergarten. My mom fixed french toast, and because I woke up at 7:00 to catch the bus at 7:25, I'm on tape stuffing a whole piece in my mouth. The tape then cuts to us walking down the hill to the bus stop with my older brother and older sister. Fashion disasters all of us with the striped knee socks pulled up, short shorts, and unruly heads of hair. I know what you're saying, "Everyone looked bad in the 80s." True. But we were one fucking motley looking bunch. I don't exactly remember anything from that day other than through the video tape.

I do, however, remember my first day of junior high. As if the occasion weren't stressful enough, I was given the wrong locker combination. For some reason, this wasn't rectified until the third or fourth day of school, and luckily my friend Mike let me share his locker with him until the locker wizard got things straightened out. But for that first day, I was stuck carrying around everything in my bag. And it only got worse from there.

After lunch, because I was fiddling with my locker, and because I didn't know where the hell I was going, I arrived to 4th period about five minutes late. Everyone had their Language Arts and English classes back to back, and according to my schedule, 4th period was to be Language Arts, and 5th period was to be English. I walk into class and sit in the first available seat that I see. The teacher had already handed out books, so she handed one to me and told me what the rest of the class was already reading (so much for first day orientation). Once I started to calm down, I looked around the class and didn't see any of the people I expected to be in class with. Thanks to the social hierarchy created by the tracking system, I knew that some of the other kids in the room weren't generally in the advanced classes. So I go up to the teacher's desk (I guess she hadn't even asked who I was), and I tell her I'm not sure if I'm in the right place. She looks at the roster and says, "Oh, they made a mistake on everyone's schedules, you're supposed to be in English right now in the room next door." Gee, thanks!

And it gets worse. I had been keeping my schedule in my pocket all day. And because we kids tended to wear our stonewashed Lee blue jeans a little tight back in 1988 (and b/c shorts were against the dress code), my schedule had torn from going in and out of my pocket all day. And it had torn just so that I couldn't read the classroom assignment for my social studies class. After wandering the halls for 5 or 10 minutes after the bell, I saw the principal (-pal because he's your pal!), and he told me where to go. The teacher, Mrs.Lang, was having everyone introduce themselves and then give a grade for how their day had gone. When it came to be my turn, I said, "Hi, I'm James, and oh my god has this day sucked so bad, it absolutely deserves a F+++! I fucking hate junior high, I hate that my locker doesn't work, I hate that you goddam idiots can't get the schedule corrected before the first day, I hate that there aren't enough seats in the cafeteria, I hate not knowing where I fit in, I hate that half my friends went and got tall over the summer but I didn't, I hate your stupid icebreaker activity, and I hate all of you!"

Okay, so I told the teacher that I gave it a "C", and upon being pressed to explain why, I really did almost break down in tears. But, I didn't. That's not to say that I didn't when I got home. Because I did.

But there will be no crying tomorrow. The only possible way that I would cry tomorrow is if I were to punch the wall after watching the craptacular coverage of the opening night of the RNC. And that's why I have decided that no matter how much I want to watch the coverage to see just what a false face they put out there for themselves, and how much they distort the GOP's record, and how much they play to people's most base fears and hatred, I'm not going to allow myself to watch. It's the healthy decision. Anyway, I've had "American Splendor" from Netflix for a month, and I would much rather watch that.