when i was seventeen ...

savage love this week has advice for 15 year old girls. my two favorites are the one written by the 14 year old boy and the one written by the mother of a current 15 year old. too cute.

in its honor, how about some brainstorming? what i wish i could tell my 15 year old self:

- 26 really isn't as old as you think it is.
- hurry up with the contacts already.
- you will never date in high skool. let that soak in, and then get over it. bright side: you will never give birth in the bathroom during prom.
- the indigo girls, while wrenching and lyrical, will never ease your pain.
- let go of the grudges. you will, eventually, anyway, so why bother nursing them now? and be nicer to people. and do your damn homework sometimes. and would it kill you to put some gel in your hair?
- er, yeah ... and have more self-esteem.
- that thing you're gonna do, though? where you have the poems that you wrote about the guy you like, and you get up in front of everyone at your class's Coffee House and you read the poems out loud, even though the guy you like, to whom they're addressed, is in the audience and videotaping you? that's frikkin awesome. go you, self!
- the crushed velvet thing, though, is a bit much.
- oh, and junior prom, when kiki, your mom's hairstylist, will want to blow dry your hair straight, all forty acres of it, and the lady at the clinique counter will want to paint your face kabuki-style -- run.