Recently, I've been thinking about Fery. She was one of my best friends in high school. Alas, we have drifted out of touch (last I knew she was in Japan teaching English). But she played a large role in my personality and I miss her a lot. Perhaps I will try to track her down again.
She drove an old Volkwagen Beatle convertible. True to form, it had no heat and no power steering or other luxuries like that. She was not tall by any means, but this car fit her well. We used to go driving around filming stuff with her father's camcorder in the VW with the top down. The film was theoretically for projects of hers but it was mostly just a good excuse to play.
She was on the yearbook staff and I was always a little envious of that. I wasn't willing to sacrifice my other activities (music, choir, dance) to spend every afternoon working on the yearbook. But it would have been very rewarding I'm sure.
She and I wrote an underground magazine for the school entitled "Harriet Spy" (yes, we left the "the" out on purpose). We typed it all up on my mother's typewriter and would leave them in the bathrooms of the school. It was not easy getting to school early to depostit your anonymous collaborative works like Easter eggs around the grounds. We felt very sneaky. Very smart. I still have a few copies of the zine somewhere. It's not bad for the work of two teenagers.
I went to my first Henry Rollins spoken word with her. It was a small forum at Old Dominion University and we were so close to the front that I could smell him and had it been a concert I would have been covered in his sweat. As it was, I just basked in his glow and was overjoyed to be there with Fery. I think I had a small crush on her because she was so cool.
Her dad always seemed very intimidating to me. He's Iranian (the whole family is) and had very clear definitions of how women should behave. But you could tell that he was also very proud of his kids. He was an eye doctor and Fery dressed up as an eyeball one year for Halloween. She made a perfect optical orb (she wasn't round herself, the outfit was) and the costume was rather elaborate. Again, I was amazed by her.
One of the best things she ever said was in the parking lot of school. Her sister and I were walking with her out to the VW. I was complaining about another friend of ours and Ladan (Fery's sister) piped up with, "but I thought So-and-So was you're friend?". Fery whirled around on Ladan and yelled out, "Don't you know? Our friends suck!". Gotta love Fery. She rocks.