Jamie (MichaelJames) Dunlavey:
CLASS OF 1988
Walter Johnson High SchoolClass of 1988
Bethesda, MD
Franklin High SchoolClass of 9999
Los angeles, CA
Grant High SchoolClass of 2004
Van nuys, CA
Maret High SchoolClass of 1988
Washington, DC
Mark Twain SchoolClass of 1987
Rockville, MD
Jamie (MichaelJames)'s Story
JAMIE Dunlavey, for those who actually knew me.
Attended WJ my senior year; had been at Maret downtown for years before that [Steve Watson, Gavin Avery anyone?]. Close friends? Other "one-n-dones": Virg Santos; Steve Jarosak; Pete Schorr. Classes/Teachers? Only Pignone/Law impressed, although the reading selection for English was kickin' (Emerson/Thoreau). 'C' in Fall Calculus was the next-to-last gasp for my tech career. Should've stuck with it. Extra-curriculars? Nada; would've played football (I'd started at MLB 2 years); but found out after it was half over that public teams hold summer practice for a MONTH in the summer. With WJ/Woodward teams merging, probably would've been the only year in school history that I'd have zero chance of starting, so I blew it off.
Post-HS? Spent two years in no-attractive-female, rednecky Salisbury (okay, once I turned 21 it was great); two fantastic years at College Park; one year in Colorado towing cars, driving buses and skiing; 3 years in Chicago performing/writing sketch comedy & improv, performing with Fey, Pohler, learning from Flynn, Koechner, McKay et al; moved to Los Angeles in '97, contimued comedy for three-ish years.. Married the lovely & brilliant Doris in '04; had Zach 6/05 & Jake 6/06; I am an inner-city public high school English teacher and program coordinator (kindof a charter within a public school), live in the Highland Park area.
Still get back to DC 1-2x/year, although rarely at the holidays anymore. Big-time Bullets/Wizards fan (subscribe to the package for them), Terps fan. Way too painful watching Angelos' tax write-off and The Danny's fantasy league team.
Memories of WJ? Typical high school stuff - just trying to hide, mostly. WJ was a major reality check for me - I had been in a tiny private school for 5 years, and tiny special ed programs (ADHD when ADHD wasn't cool) for 4 years before that. I was amazed that there was ZERO "new kid in town" syndrome - nobody cared a bit about me. I guess a lot of it was the merger, every WJ peep thought I was from Woodward and vice-versa. I was happy with the anonymity and 'start-over', but it quickly old.
Totaled my first car (not even officially mine yet) as school started (boyfriend of a co-worker from the movie theater totaled his car into mine); probably would've gotten a lot more play (okay, some play) had I been able to keep it together. Happened during hangover the day after a tropical storm drunk-driving episode in which the soft-top faltered and I was drenched and could hardly see the road. Had it not been a jeep, I could've easily died, so social estrangement should've been the least of my worries.
Knew Virg from the 'hood; one of the finest folk you'll ever meet. Met Sak-n-Pete through him at the bus stop - always capping on me because a down syndrome gal kept flirting and opening doors for me at lunch.
Had a computer class, was accosted/adopted as a partner by an overly-friendly scary Goth chick, was saved by the neighborhood irritant (resembled Jerry Seinfeld...?) who ridiculed her mercilessly until she left me alone. Later partnered with a cute Korean girl who always smelled like toothpaste. Cultural and language divide scared me off, but she knew I thought she was minty-fresh.
Went to Montgomery Mall for lunch with the cool, cute gal from Calculus class (Ellen Chiazze) who was way friendly. Made the wise move of not smoking up (why would anyone EVER want to be faded in school? Drunk, maybe....); however the paranoid stoners thought I was a narc for the rest of the year, I later learned.
There was the girl in freshman (government?) class who kept sparking up, knob-gobbling her boyfriend in the Safeway woods, letting him nut on the front of her shirt right before class. She only lasted at school a few weeks.
Often hung out with my old-school (Maret) friends, but enjoyed partying/bonding with Virg, Sak & Co. (Pete, Vassili [Petrakis?], Jason Coberly from this site rings a bell...) Many midnight basketball games & pool-hopping. Tried WAY too many times to merge new friends with old.
Gave a shot at socializing with popular WJ folk. Chiazze ended up being a great friend for years, despite my being torn about the role. I was attracted, but she had a boyfriend, so sponsoring a single male 'friend' to parties to meet new folks didn't happen much. No other upperclassmen wanted anything to do with me, save for locker-next-to-mine Dawn who wanted to get together, but at the time I only wanted entry into ...Expand for more
clubs that wouldn't take me, if you know your Groucho Marx.
WJ with no car meant being a 5th wheel and wingman to Gavin Avery, whom I had known for years. No spare ladies around to speak of, which was more fodder for my bored alcoholic binges, at its height at this point. Lots of blackouts and vomiting. Okay, Margaret Talev was around but was idolizing some Backstreet Boy 10th grader. She had a chrome grill that Flavor Flav would envy, but was down to earth and had a bod developing nicely. She remembered me as the guy with shaving cream behind his ear in our carpool; no loving the one you're with there.
Worked at the Congressional Plaza movie theater in summer before at $3.35; quit when I started recognizing folk from WJ; another in a long line of humiliations - extra money would've helped, however.
There was my bad judgment call in the government class, reciprocal flirtation with Irene the spinner cutie (a little TOO cute as at 14; might've had a Hello Kitty backpack had they been around at the time); the exotic Persian girl (name?), and the cool, cute white girl but didn't close the deal. Didn't realize that since I didn't know anyone, hooking up with freshmen was a-okay. I ignored the cutie-Latina who within two months had a senior boyfriend and was putting out in a volume my 17-yr old hormones only dreamed of. Irene and I went out once - she had matured into the cutest/hottest girl on the planet, but we had clearly segued into Friends bin; oh well, I still had no game yet anyway. Jennifer and I bumped into each other and we went out for a spell. GREAT person, but we both had major issues; it didn't go anywhere.
Got suckered into a ego-trip chest-thumping by some dude from BCC looking for a fight as a home football game ended. He was 6'1", 210 - my new buds let me know they didn't have my back; I chose to be called a sissy in front of the crowd rather than have my head kicked in with an audience.
Ha! The kick-back that looked like it would lead to more with Chiazze was the 2nd in what appeared would be an ongoing series of sneak-outs to wilderness to spark up. Started on a beautiful Fall afternoon with a boy and a girl kicking it on a blanket next to some woods in a state park, ended up in an arrest by Park Rangers, me handcuffed to a bar in a cell for four hours next to a meth-head with metal stuff protruding from his face. Let's decriminalize, folks.
Memorable moment while pool hopping - sophomore teenies I knew appeared for extremely loud skivvy-dipping. Moonlit water dripping off their luscious tight bodies and see-through cotton made it well worth sticking around as well as the detainment by police.
Tried my best to host a combo party with all the disparate groups of people I knew in the Spring ended up being a disaster. Elitist element (no idea from where - Georgetown Prep?) getting down with Metalheads from WJ IN MY HOUSE!!! Vague flashes: moshing knuckleheads rolling the coat rack against the wall, making 1,000 holes; getting blind-sided (stray shot?) while holding my hands out like a cop stopping traffic and shouting, "CHILL OUT!" - blood pouring down my face, my septum never grew back right; Virg saving my stair bannister from snapping as three meatheads brawled into it; my (Dad's) townhouse turning into a mosh pit, the wave of humanity pushing toward the living room, when someone picked up Virg and threw him onto my Dad's dining room table, collapsing it; having the worst morning of my life the next day, contrasted with the greatest comeback banding together of friends I've ever experienced as we renovated/fixed the house in record time; Pete blacksmithing the table-braces back into shape - took 6 years for someone to notice the crack in the side wood connector; hairdryers curing the spackling on the walls; the 5-gallon can of paint left in my Mom's closet HAPPENED to perfectly match my Dad's hallway; my Dad noticing the ONLY thing not fixed - a small window pane - okay, I still smelled the new paint, but....
Getting a ride home from some mystery person after a graduation party (vaguely remember Craig Gautschi deciding he'd kill me - gentle giant type when sober, right?) Driver passed out in my basement, left a coat when he (?) bailed in the morning (XL), to this day have no idea who it was. Anyone?
One of my favorite things in life is honoring the moments of life that have gone before and those I've been blessed to spend time with; I have an insanely good memory for faces, okay with names - please send an e-mail to say whassup! JamieDunlavey at yahoo dot com.
JD
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