Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns)

by Mindy Kaling

Unlike other athletes, Frisbee people won’t let it go. My theory is that this is because there’s a huge overlap between people who are good at Frisbee and people who do Teach for America.

For every realistic My So-Called Life, there were ten 90210s or Party of Fives, where a twenty-something Luke Perry was supposed to be just a typical guy at your high school. If Luke Perry had gone to my high school, everybody would have thought, “What’s the deal with this brooding greaser? Is he a narc?” But that’s who Hollywood put forth as “just a dude at your high school.”

As it is, I guess I find “Jack & Diane” a little disgusting. As a child of immigrant professionals, I can’t help but notice the wasteful frivolity of it all. Why are these kids not home doing their homework? Why aren’t they setting the table for dinner or helping out around the house? Who allows their kids to hang out in parking lots? Isn’t that loitering?

When we graduated high school, she went to the Cooper Union in Manhattan to pursue her love of set design, and I went to Dartmouth to pursue my love of white people and North Face parkas.

As my mom has said, when one person is unhappy, it usually means two people are unhappy but that one has not come to terms with it yet.

Sandy hadn’t realized how unhappy she was until he was gone. She told me that her husband’s leaving her was the nicest gift he ever gave her, because she would never have seen clearly enough to do it herself.