The Hive

I went to boarding school in Colorado. When I got there, I joined a really edgy group of "cool" girls, who introduced me to Bad Religion and Green Day. The grunge movement was at its peak and I had completed the first of many hair dying cycles with purple Kool-Aid while sporting thrift store flannels and Docs. This group of girls was nicknamed the "Hive" by the rest of the freshmen during a special class meeting, where the other freshmen complained that the clique was far too intimidating. The entire Hive would later be suspended (included yours truly) for getting wasted at a Japanese habachi restaurant.


Before I went to high school and joined the Hive, I was a preppy Southern honor student who wore boat shoes, polos, and Clinique almost lipstick. But freshman year at boarding school, though I continued to take honors classes, really released that inner rebel trapped in my soul. And by rebel, I mean poser.

And now I bring you the greatest poser moments of my freshman year of high school:

1. Lying about previous drug usage. I'm pretty sure that I told a few of my Hive friends that I had experimented with acid all throughout middle school. The real bute though was when I told them that I had bought cocaine from a one-armed homeless man in L.A. and did it in my hotel room. Clearly, they knew that I was lying, and unfortunately for me, The Fugitive was a really popular movie at that time. So, whenever it came on, everyone would be like, "heh, there's Lang's dealer." This, of course, made me take to my bed with shame.



2. Tattoo and ear piercings -- self inflicted. It was only natural that I, a severe hypochondriac and pussy galore, should try to pierce my own ears and give myself a tattoo. I got my second set of holes at Claire's in the mall -- hard fucking core!! But I thought being symmetrical was douchey, so I gave myself (with a tetanus-laced needle) another hole on one side, which I still have, and which is totally not in line with the other two. The tattoo was another story, two of my friends and I tried to give ourselves tattoos by using pen ink and a needle. I ended up giving myself a tattoo of a...can you guess?...a circle. That's right. A circle. And not for reasons of pain, mostly I just couldn't come up with an idea. So, for about a month, I had a stupid circle tattooed on my foot. Idiot.


3. When I smoked but didn't inhale and pretended to be stoned. The first time I smoked pot, I had no idea how to inhale, but I certainly method acted my way into "Mary Jane's Last Dance." As a grown up, who has been stoned a time or two, I now realize that being high is more about chillin' and watching reruns of Cagney and Lacey, whereas freshman Lang thought it was more like a Pentacostal zealot in the middle of a visionquest -- lots of hootin' and hollarin' and gymnastics.

4. When I seduced, made out, and ran away from the cutest boy in the freshman class. It was a dream come true, when young M told me that he liked redheads (thank you Glintz Raspberry Fantasy -- hair dying round #2). I confidently grabbed his hand and said, "wanna take a walk." We walked from his dorm to the #1 school bus and there, in the 11th row, we frenched our brains out. I got to 2nd base for the first time, which means nothing for a girl. (Do you really get to a base if someone feels you up?) And then, my future flashed before my eyes...what would people say? I can't be the school hussy (P.S. this would've been impossible due to the extremely slutty, anorexic upperclassmen). Will it show up on my transcripts? I wanna go to a good school. Does Columbia accept sluts (yes. yes they do.)? Anywho, I jumped up and said, "I can't do this. We're not in a relationship!" (Ugh, I hate when teenagers use that word). And then I ran off the bus.

Oh freshman year, so far away in my past...so comfortably far away in my past.