Whatever happened to Monrovia van Hoose?

When I was in high school, I was, to put it mildly, something of a high-profile individual. I was the "teen columnist" in the newspaper, so everybody's parents knew who I was. I was class president one year, and I was just kind of known for various campaigns of smug, vociferous, geeky mayhem.

One day in high school, the principal called me to his office. He wanted to question me about a letter I had written pseudonymously to the administration. I had no idea what he was talking about. He showed me the letter, which was a well-written complaint that the school wasn't doing anything for Women's History Month.

I read the letter. "I wish I had written this!" I told the principal. "But I didn't." The letter was signed "Monrovia van Hoose." The principal had seen this somewhat ridiculous name and assumed it was a pen name I had adopted for protest purposes.

Turns out, Monvoria van Hoose was a real girl at our school. She had red dredlocks with pop-tops embedded into them, and she and her girlfriend were the only out lesbians in the whole school (they were both rather physically intimidating, and the girlfriend was kind of a scary goth, so I think they did okay).

Apparently I had such a reputation that, upon receiving this letter, the principal immediately thought of me instead of bothering to look up the name on the roster of students.

I remembered this story today and thought to Google Monrovia and see what she was up to. Turns out she likes Le Tigre, has read letters from her death row pen pal at an anti-death penalty rally, and is selling an unwanted cemetary plot.