Now, I readily concede that I\’m close to the upper age limit for Facebook. Anyone older than me, and it gets pretty creepy. But I have to say, Facebook is kind of freaking me out.

You see, more and more of my classmates are coming online and adding me as a Facebook friend. And in a lot of cases, I have no recollection of who these people are. When I do remember them, there\’s generally a reason I haven\’t spoken to them in 17 years. Although admittedly, in a lot of cases, it\’s neat to find out what some people are up to.

\"\"But it is strange – there\’s a reason I wanted to get out of high school so badly. I hated it with every molecule of my being. (Stuff white people like #83: Having Bad Memories of High School. #106: Facebook.) Now that I\’m being reunited with all these high school people, I\’m having flashbacks of all the stuff I abhorred. I was completely content to live the rest of my life not worrying about what certain people from high school thought about me. Now, all those problems are coming back, just fatter.

Anyway, when I see some people online, I admit I have to look them up in my yearbook. And as I was leafing through my senior class today, I was noticing all the horribly awkward senior quotes people had next to their pictures. Here\’s a sample – and I swear, these are all actual quotes meant to inspire my classmates:

\”The uncertainties of the present always give way to the enchanted possibilities of the future.\”

\”Today my world it smiles. Your hand in mine we walk the miles. Thanks to you it will be done. For you to me are the only one.\” – Led Zeppelin

\”I\’m on a mission from God\”

\”There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.\”

\”I am the Lorax. I speak for the trees, for the trees have no tongues.\”

\”I can accompish anything as long as I put my heart and mind into it.\”

\”Always give a hundred percent in the things you do, because everything you do depends on your future.\”

\”It\’s not what life gives you, it\’s how you use it. Don\’t hold back.\”

\”Let us die young or let us live forever.\” – DM

\”Peace and chicken grease, cuz homey don\’t play that!!!\”

\”An eye for an eye only leads to blindness.\”

\”I am a traveller of both time and space.\”

\”The pesimist (sic) only sees the red light, the optimist the green, the true wise are color blind.\”

\”Two paths diverged into the woods I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.\”

\”Left a smoking crater on my mind I\’d like to blow away, Heat came round and busted me for smiling on a cloudy day…\” Grateful Dead

\”He who lives in the future, pasts the past, but doesn\’t past the future, then has to futurely live in the present…\”

\”Don\’t be yourself if you\’re a nobody.\”

\”The paths of glory lead but to the grave.\”

\”Homework is simply mind over matter; if I don\’t mind, it doesn\’t matter.\” (ed. note – every yearbook in America contains this quote somewhere.)

\”I have my ship, and all her flags are flying. She is all that I have left, and music is her name.\” – Stephen Stills

\”Take your passion, and make it happen\” – Irene Cara

\”It takes both rain and sun to make a rainbow.\”

\”I SEE SAID THE BLIND MAN\”

\”We don\’t need to education, we don\’t need no thought control!\” – Roger Waters

\”Together we stand… Divided we fall.\” – Pink Floyd

\”I have two major weaknesses: tall black men and food, but not necessarily in that order.\”

\”Live alone and Free, like a tree, but in the Brotherhood of the Forest.\”

\”I see said the blind man.\” (ed. note – a popular one, apparently)

\”No hero in your tragedy, no daring in your escape, no salutes for your surrender, nothing noble in your fate. Christ, what have you done?\” – N.P.

You get the idea. And it goes on and on with quotes that you just know these guys thought were some totally deep stuff at the time. You always hear teenagers complaining about how adults don\’t take them seriously – and about how they deserve to be heard. But looking back, given our infinitesimal frame of reference, if teenagers ran things, there\’s no doubt the world would be a horrible, horrible place.

And mine?

\”You can only be young once, but you can be immature forever.\”

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(My apologies up front to the commenter who doesn\’t like pictures of me in my posts.)