Fandex:

Punkie: Thank you so much! I am blushing, that's the best praise I have had all year! Or last year! :)

Punkie: So TJHHST took away Mrs. Lodal, huh? Damn, talk about a mixed blessing. I hope the new guy is a better principal. We used to have this guy named Mr. Price (before Mrs. Lodal) who was like our Ed Koch. He kept going around the hall asking, "How am I doing?" We thought he was a goof, but I don't think anyone actively disliked him. He got promoted to Area III Supervisor, and he might still be there.

Not going to the prom is a personal decision. I read an article two years ago where a group of teens in Texas protested their Senior prom by holding a rival party directly opposite it. I think in their case, it was a some sort of political problem between what the students asked for and what the teachers told them was acceptable. I still do not regret what I did, and over the years, it has gotten even better with letters like yours, plus my own classmates coming back and saying, "Yeah, the prom really sucked. You didn't miss anything, and probably had more fun at the sci fi convention than we did."

One of the things I have come to realize is that your life is your own. You will come across many customs and rituals in your life that you are expected to participate at. Homecoming and Prom in high school. Rival football games in college. New Years parties and seeing fireworks on the 4th of July. But if you don't get anything out of them, why go? My father used to drag my mother and myself to parades, even in cold, harsh, rainy weather. I never saw anything but the back of the person in front of me. All I heard was the din of the crowd and my mother complaining she wanted to sit down. It was at one of these parades I decided that I would never go to ANYTHING I didn't have to or didn't want to go.

Every year, I get invited to parties. This last New Year's, I was invited to three of them. All of them sounded interesting, one was at a sci-fi convention, one was celebrating Chinese New Year, and one was just to get drunk (or something, but it was catered). But I spent New Year's with my wife, my son, and one of my best friends, Jason. We lit a fire in the fireplace, watched Dick Clark, and talked until we couldn't stay awake anymore. I had a great time.

You are right, you may get a lot of crap. To some people, the prom is the peak of the social circles. It is where memories are made, good and bad. The idea of not showing up is a clenching fear that they will "miss out" on something highly important, that they won't be cool, and won't be accepted. But I find proms to be catty, boring, and noisy. And honestly, looking at the whole thing, the prom is nothing more than a sort of goodbye to everyone. You won't see these people next year. You will also realize later on that all the social gossip and status in high school won't mean diddly in college or the real world. I don't know who the King and Queen of the prom was, and I doubt I know where they are now. And it's not like getting anointed as the popular choice did anything for them than a fleeting moment of being the center of attention. Heck, I can do that now. Anyone can.

Heck, I dare you to king yourself as "Anti-prom King!" Send me photos. :)

Thanks for the letter, and take care or yourself.

Punkie: You know, to this day, I still can't see someone with a knife without wanting to know what kind it is. Before then, I didn't give a hoot about the knife industry, but you are right, it gets into your blood. I didn't lose much blood there, but oddly enough, I had a Buck Titanium close on my knuckle while cleaning it. Those lockbacks are strong! I still have a small scar from that.

No, they made me sell those crappy Valor knives! Ugh. I got a butterfly knife from them and the rivets kept coming out.

May all your knives be Hibben and Randall...

Punkie: I understand some of your points, and some people have also explained this to me. However, how did our parents and their parents deal with the problems? Many of them had many more kids than we did. Take the multitude of farm families in the 1800s and first half of the 1900s. How did they keep them from wandering off and being trampled by horses? I guess you could argue that they didn't, and the incidence of horse tramplings and wildcat snatchings was much higher then. But we all made it through somehow. I have known a few people who had leashes as kids (it's still a relatively recent thing). I don't know one person who looked back on that as a good idea. One girl said it nearly strangled her twice, and I heard many incidents involving the leash getting tangled or caught up in someone or something else (often store clothing racks). I just think it's one more thing that separates us from our children, and God knows we have too much of that as it is. Peace out. :)

Punkie: Sun spots.

Punkie: Hey, thanks! :) The M&M's weren't so bad, our Sci Fi club sold a lot of those. Ms. Lodal banned them from being sold in school, but we rebelled and sold them under the counter and from our backpacks. Hell, we even had a kid *at another school* sell them for us. It was like crack, and people knew we were the dealers. Even teachers bought them from us (and we always claimed that if caught, we'd plead entrapment by an authorized adult, but we never got caught). I don't know if we made any records, but we had to re-order twice, and we got enough to pay for three sci-fi conventions (with hotel rooms), and a glorious Chinese dinner at a posh restaurant for our graduation.

Punkie:

I receive fan mail
Someone named "The Manitou"
Replied to it late

Tried to be smartass
Flunked poetry in high school
So my haikus are bad

Punkie: I think they don't so much as breed them as they grow in vats near Martha Stewart's estate. Some of those women would have even made the Pod People go, "Okay, live a little!"

In my neighborhood, at least, those types of women came from families that never really had many worries. It's funny, a majority of rich families never produced offspring that contributed to their wealth, only spent it recklessly. Part of this came from the fact that they shielded their kids from all of life's little woes. So they never learned sympathy of those that suffer a little more.

I had a friend's mom from that time who when she wanted to loan me a VHS tape, I had to say, "Sorry, I don't own a VCR." Her response was, "Well, why not go buy one, sweetie, they sell them everywhere now." I told her I didn't have the money to do so, and this quick look of confusion washed across her face, like she didn't understand the concept. To these people, "Broke" meant you had to sell one of your summer homes and had the maid only come in on alternate weekdays.

I don't hate them as much as I used to. Now that I am older, I see what struggles they do go through, and how their lives will never quite be as interesting as those Jackie Collins books they read. I think in some ways, they never identify with people because they never had to depend on them very much.

Oh well. At least there's Hissyfit. :)

Punkie: I recall a conversation at an anime con about a year ago. I recall thinking how fitting it was that Cubanate's "Oxyacetylene" was playing in the background, because these two were arguing over whether it was punk or techno. The conversation went something like:

Dude1: It's punk. I mean, the guy's yelling and junk.
Dude2: It's not punk, that is a techno, thus disco, beat.
Dude1: DUDE! Don't call them disco, man! Disco is for your Mom.
Dude2: Shut your puppyhole, dude! It's disco. Classic 4/4 beat.
Dude1: So??? The Ramones used 4/4 beat!
Dude2: Oh, yeah, bring the Ramones into this. What have they done recently?
Dude1: Hey man, this song was in Mortal - f**king Kombat, n'kay?
Dude2: It was not! You are on crack, man, this song came out after MK ... your Mom watches Mortal Kombat.
Dude1: Shut your puppyhole, man. It's punk. Pure and simple. Listen to how loud it is!
Dude2: Your mom's loud!
Dude1: Your Mom is louder, but my [described an act of oral sex that would gag someone] shut her up.
Dude2: You are a loser.
Dude1: You are! It's punk you dickwad!
Dude2: Diiiisco...!
Dude1: I am going to wipe that f**kin' smile off your face if you don't'n shut the hell up!
Dude2: Diii-hiii-scoooooo!

Then they started to swing at each other. To the beat of the music. That is so messed up. I had to pretend I was laughing at someone else. I wonder if they ever got that settled. I still can't listen to that song without thinking of those two. Bwah haw! What the hell is a "puppyhole," anyway? Hey, guys? Cheech and Chong called. They want their act back.

Thanks for your letter! :)

Punkie: The site it was on is down, but I think you can find them on: