I had a hard time fitting in during high school — I hadn’t gone to school with the same people for middle school and elementary, and my interests weren’t necessarily the same as the people I knew. Also, and this is true today, I took myself too seriously and wasn’t always willing to laugh at things that were funny. Missy Frazier, who drove a Oldsmobile 78 in 1988 and who was one of the first people in our class to get her drivers license (sorry so many of the stories center around cars: This was Houston in the 70s and 80s, people — the bike stories will come, but, they gather speed slowly). As such, she had power and style — the Olds 78 was not only incredibly big engine with an unbelievable beige paint job, it also had power windows and locks that were controlled by VACUUM TUBES. Gather round children, and we’ll tell you stories.

Anyway, Missy Frazier and her car were the source of much joy for me in 9th grade. She let me tag along many places, she invited me over to watch her very sophisticated and funny parents playing cards with their friends (and her older sister create her awesome aura of awesomeness). This was the era of Love Shack from The B-52s, and the memory of driving down the empty roads between our school and our suburbs with the song at full blast, laughing and singing, is a joyous one.

Missy and I started designing outfits for holidays — painting boxer shorts and t-shirts with an entire rainbow of puffy paints. This was a way to declare our friendship with each other, to stand out in the crowd, and to while away the hours after school. We’d start with an idea, and then riff on it and add to it until we felt the outfits were sufficiently crazy, laughing all the time about how silly we’d look. In this classic outfit, although Missy wasn’t a vegetarian, I had just become one, and we painted “Gobble Gobble Save the Turkeys” on the front. 

Those days were hard ones, figuring out how to fit in at Westbury, learning how to be a proper Rebellette … just wait for an upcoming story … and mourning my friends from middle school many miles away on the other side of Houston. If it weren’t for Missy’s unbridled joy for life and her open-hearted acceptance of my odd ways, those days might have shaded into impossible. I’m grateful for her love of silliness, which sustained me and encouraged me in those long-ago days.