Hangouts Schmangouts—A2A: The Teen Years

Tip of the Day: If you need inspiration for your YA novels, just go through your old keepsakes from High School. Ideas and character help will pop up everywhere.

Growing up in a small town you learn to get creative with your entertainment, especially on a limited budget. So when my friends and I were in high school, we rarely went and hung-out at a specific place.

More often than not, we were at a friend’s house making videos. Most of which my friends would disown me if I admitted to making. So all I can really say is that they may or may not have included everything from exercise videos followed by music videos of the formerly-chubby Spice Girls, hideous beauty pageants with uniquely-talented contestants, and extreme sports commentary on the non-sanctioned Olympic events of bed diving and shoe tennis. And then there were the times when we decided to leave the video camera at home, but take our “characters” out in public. But I definitely shouldn’t discuss those…

What? How did this picture get here? Clearly, I have no idea who these people are that high jacked the blog.

We also liked to hang out at football games. A lot. Like we are talking driving two hours to games, never missing one, panting on war paint, type of support. Most schools had cheerleaders; we had the additional Camo-Gals…

Um…can you blame us for wanting to hang out at football games, with players like these?

And then there were all the border-line illegal activities of TPing we did. Which went way beyond traditional TPing. Which of course, I have no pictures to document said activities.

Then there was college, which filled up the remaining teen years. And well let’s just say I was amazed to find even crazier friends there.

So I guess you could say any place my friends and I were together was our favorite hangout. So much so that now I love to write about teens, because I had such a blast during my teen years I like to revisit them. Pimpled-face cheesy photos and all.