Fifteen Minutes: Editor's Note: Double Entendre

When I was very young, I made the best bunch of friends I've ever had. We were a crew to reckon with, Meecissi, Monica, Hanukkah and me, Mica. Together, we lived under the dining room table. Of course, I also had a bedroom. This is how I learned to inhabit two places at once. Later, when I reached the Age of Math Class, I found this skill invaluable. While my eyes never left Miss Robinson's face, I was quite decidedly somewhere else. But after many years of such duality, not to mention of crumbs in my pajamas and an idea that a fraction's denominator was utterly superfluous, I decided to put an end to my double living. I could only be in one locale at any given point in time, I told myself. Like most bad habits, however, this one lurked around the outskirts of my consciousness, just waiting for the right moment to return.

Last week, it found its in. Last week, Anna and I joined another generation. And this week, FM brings our foray unto you, oh gentle reader, in a scrutiny concerning the kids at Cambridge Rindge and Latin---which, for those who don't know, is the high school right around the corner from Harvard Yard.

Thus, while the Fifteen Minutes machine itself struggled to be two magazines at once (the Crimson's Head of the Charles supplement you'll see tomorrow was also an FM production), its two associate editors jumped ship to hang out with some kiddies. And though continuing my residence in Dunster House, I left most other aspects of my college life behind as well. I chilled in the Pit. I tramped through the Yard with people not wearing cargo pants, button-downs or DHA sweats. I passed people I knew who didn't even register my presence, what with the posse of homies I was traveling with. A boy named Crazylikes wanted to know if I was a cop; a guy at the pizza place wanted my phone number. All my new friends want a copy of this magazine.

It was great, being in high school as a college student. But as much as I loved the kids--and every kid who appears in this scrutiny was indeed a sweetheart--I couldn't throw myself into another life the way I used to, onto the blue-and-white rug under the dining room table. I am old, I am cynical, and I am tired. I learned last week that I am a Harvard student much more than I had guessed. I cannot separate myself from this identity the way I used to float away from long division. In the fourth section of the scrutiny, Christy and Tamika decide that they don't like Cambridge because it's full of hypocrites. I was there then too, but I didn't have the heart to tell them that it's like that everywhere. Just look at me.

And so, dear professors, editors and friends, please excuse my recent absences. I've been with you in spirit.