Did somebody say cheerleader??

Well, technically I was a Pom. We were very specific on the spelling: it was pom-pon girl, not pom-pom girl, but everybody still got it wrong. We were the Laker Girls of Columbine High. We did synchronized dance routines at halftime — with the marching band during football season, and during basketball season we danced to a string of hits from “Jungle Love” to “Shattered,” with a little Evelyn “Champagne” King thrown in to show we had soul. Our skirts flipped up but you never saw a thing because Lori, Julie, Marcia, Annie, Rhonda, me and the rest were nice girls and we knew just how much it took to inflame your imagination.

Jack’s step-dad liked this picture so much that he kept it in a silver frame at his bedside when he was dying of cancer. He wasn’t what I’d call a dirty old man, but let’s just say he hid a few old copies of High Society in the back of his closet, which my brother-in-law found after the funeral. I think it’s a reminder for all of us to think very carefully about how we want to be remembered. Come to think of it, maybe being a Keeper of Old Porn isn’t the worst way to be remembered.

It’s not so creepy to drive by Columbine anymore. There’s a nice skate park right next to the school, where I took Jackson to watch the kids do their tricks. Half of them weren’t wearing protective gear of any sort, unless tattoos these days are made with special protective-force-field ink. No-gear skating would never fly here in Santa Barbara but Colorado still thinks it’s the wild west. (I can’t understand why everyone in that city hasn’t become an anti-gun nut.) Every time a motorcycle’d go by with a big hairy ZZ Top-looking muthuh riding it, Jackson would point and say, “no helmet.” They look scary but a lot of those guys are fairly polite and they’re good drivers, too.

And by the way, despite the light bulb joke I’m still NOT PREGNANT.