Erin's spring formal last night, an effort to give homeschoolers a promish event. Erin was buffed up in his suit, looked great. he has a properly matched tie but chose to where one of mine, derived from a painting by Henri Rousseau. of course he couldn't possibly button the top button for fear of asphyxiation. no age restriction really to this event, as befits homeschooling philosophy, so it wasn't so valedictory as I imagine (never having prommed) most proms are. the parents seemed generally giddier than the kids. in essence the parents put the show on, cooking and decorating and what not. the theme was Mexican, which I didn't get until I realized that it was Cinco de Mayo. anyone ever hear the Coronas radio ad with the jingle that proclaimed "it's the drinko of Cinco de Mayo"? man, you've got to have a finger on the sensitive button to limn lines like that. the dj was playing fairly drippy Mexican music. not likely to inspire. we left before much blending began, and the dj did turn on the real music eventually. one boy wore a t-shirt and had his tie on backwards. another wore a tux and vampire teeth. there was one girl, expressly boho in jeans and I think beret, and a few goth types. a cool, drama club boy with long hair, he played Mercutio in the recent production, wore a dark green jacket, navy velour bellbottoms, a deep green polo shirt and shades. we picked Erin up at midnight, with "Stairway to Heaven" properly loud. I used to think it was a mighty song, but it doesn't hold up so well. Jimmy Page sucks as a soloist, for all his other genius, and squeal me no Robert Plant, I'm afraid. I don't know how many of these kids would go to their proms were they in public school. many, I believe, would be marginalized in the public school hierarchy. think of Janis Joplin going back to her high school ten years later, as Janis Joplin. the most common question by public school parents is about how homeschoolers socialize. in fact, homeschooling parents spend their time finding ways to get their kids into social situations. and not just dumping them off to sports teams, clubs and other organized configurations, but much more varied possibilities. there are fewer compartments into which homeschoolers are put, nerd type, cheerleader type, jock type, victim type. I didn't have a gruesome time in public school, but I didn't flourish either. in the 7 years in which Erin has been in my life I have been able to reexamine the experience. my last 2 years of high school, I was a serious if not adept writer, yet I had no sense that what I did was anything but extracurricular. the school's literary journal was for those who joined in. it was a club, and those imitative scrids that were published were part of a potlatch economy. it demands a step back to see the burden of the social complex on public school students, how so much of the school experience is about normalizing kids. well, I've orated enough. Erin's a unique, wonderful young man. we should honour the idiosyncrasies not try to erase them, which I believe is what homeschooling aims at.