I finally got around to watching 10 Things I Hate About You the other night. The movie apparently came out when I was a junior in high school – prime target audience age for that teen cult classic. But despite being repeatedly being told over the years that I channel the female protagonist – I had never actually seen it. And now, after seeing the flick, I can kind of get how appropriate that is. I mean, would Kat (Scowling Intellectual Main Character) have watched some dumbed-down version of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew? Bet she’d have decried the desecration of literature and turned her nose up at the idea she had to see it because everyone else was.

Would the 17-year-old Owl have done that? Haha, probably. I was, and still am, a brat. But then, you’ll have to take my word for it. I don’t think anyone who knew me as a bitchy teenager – beyond Abez - reads this blog, so we have no objective comparisons to go by. But yes, I have kicked guys in the groin, been thrown out of class for my “smart mouth”, been the terror of annoying teachers, and scared silent attempted bullies. But no hunks were paid to knock me off my high horse nor did anyone really ever try. May have something to do with the fact that I also wasn’t anything near as cute as Kat. ;)

So after finally sitting through the movie – which is a rare thing for someone with my short attention span to manage – I asked my roomie if she thought the Kat tag was still apt for me. “Oh yeah. But you know, you’re more like the girl from She’s All That - way more emo.” Oh great, another teen flick I haven’t seen. It’ll probably be another 10 years before I get around to it either. So I Googled it and found another “anti-social smartass girl gets the guy” type plot. Uh thanks Hem.

But hey, if the shoe fits. Folks like Knicq Bhai, Anjum, and Zainab would have you believe that I’m actually kind of… nice. Sweet even. *gag* I guess I can be, particularly compared to High School Owl. You wanna make something of it, punk. Do ya? But I’m also still angsty as all hell. I’m constantly raging against some machine or another – mainly myself. I am not angry like I used to be, but I’m still fairly tempestuous – to quote Kat. If there is ever any stillness in that storm, it’s only from serious application of will.

So I'm not as Kat-like any more. But yes, I still contain that tempest. I am just better at managing it but I haven’t gotten rid of it – as if I could. I guess I’m ok with it. It’s kind of useful. Being dissatisfied and angsty gets me places - like Peco Bill hitching his lasso to a tornado. And I can even steer it at times. So quit worrying about me and my angst. It’s part of who I am. Makes me ambitious, productive, funny and yes, at times fictional-character like. Ah well. I is who I is. Kat needs to quit tryna be like me. I was this first. ;)