Thursday, June 23, 2005

Oh my God ...
Hey, all ... I'm actually updating from my local library computer, and I'm really hoping I don't get cuaght/kicked out, because I'm pretty sure that this goes under the list of stuff I signed I wouldn't do, like emailing and IMing. Of course, everyone does this stuff, and I work here, so I probably don't have a whole lot to worry about, but it's really awkward to be sitting here, not having been online all week and be checking up on all my favorite webcomics while every adult who works here walks by and either tells me I forgot to log in my hours or that I shouldn't have walked up from the high school.

Which I only did because it takes longer to walk than to ride up, and I have another good hour to kill before I start working even though I walked, had lunch, read about 30 pages of Gone with the Wind, and have been online here for about half an hour.

So yes, because finals means leaving school over an hour early, I am sitting here at work, reading webcomics.

Which, actually, is really kind of embarassing, but it'll probably be the only free time I get, since I have to either be working or be being nagged about working to serve a purpose.

Whatever. I only have one final and one day of school left, which is so nice, though it doesn't feel like it at all, since it's no longer 85 and humid, but 70 and crisp.

So, I really like watching the AFI movie countdowns. I watched the top quotes one on Tuesday, and I have to say, I was surprised by 2 Casablanca related items:

1) that "Play it, Sam. Play 'As Time Goes By'" was so low on the list and

2) that a quote from Casablanca did not win.

Because they always have Casablanca, and it nearly always wins.

Though I am very happy with the winner being, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn," because that really is a superb line. "Frankly" was not part of the orignal line, but Clark Gable adlibbed it, and that's the only reason that anyone remembers the line, because for his comment to be frank is just so Rhett Butler.

Though, as I am reading the book, I am shocked by what a creep Ashley is. He is really disgusting, but perfectly socially acceptable, unlike Rhett. To Rhett's credit, he is the only man in the book who is not a Klan member. Yes, every man. That includes Ashley, Frank, the 3 old guys, the young guys, everyone.

Anyway, I'm done for now.
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Sunday, June 19, 2005

They neglected to tell anyone until Friday that there was summer work for History. Haha. Thanks a lot, History Department!
To get a jump on summer reading, I read The Stranger. It may just have been the weirdest thing. If you haven't read it, let me summarize.

Court: He didn't cry at his mother's funeral!

Mersault: I was too tired! And what does that matter?

Court: He smoked a cigarette and had a coffee! And he didn't look at his dead mother before they buried her!

Mersault: I was tired! It was hot! What does that matter?

Court: So, obvisouly, he killed this other guy in an act of premeditated murder!

Mersault: What????

Me: Oooookay ... That was odd.

But really, it's about a guy Mersault who has a friend who beats up another guy's sister. So they guy gets in a fight with his friend, so later Mersault takes away the friend's gun so he can't shoot anyone, then winds up just up and shooting that guy on the beach. Then, he gets executed, convicted because he didn't cry at his mother's funeral.

And I am going, It is very obvious that this is a post-war novel. And it is freaking me out.

I have been finishing everything. I finished my tuning chart today and all I have left are 6 finals, the band final (which is kind of a joke), and an essay on what I think about the atomic bomb and the decision to drop. Which is hard, because I'm kind of a hippie, and I don't really need anyone to know that.

How come all the singers I like have really weird given names? It makes it so hard to explain them to people, since you have to stop and go, "No, really, that's her name."

I'm done now. I watched like, half of Princess Mononoke and half of Four Weddings and a Funeral today, and clearly, this has me wiped.
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Tuesday, June 14, 2005

You would be shocked what the marketing world does to you.
I was flipping through my summer packet for AP Statistics, and going giving it only a perfunctary glance, I have so far learned that companies often do not draw their pie graphs to scale and that when you tilt a pie graph, give it some depth, and separate the wedges, it is not only "pretty" (quote from the text), but it is impossible to tell just how big the wedges are, even if they are to scale.

So, in conclusion, do not trust pie graphs unless they are flat, whole, parallel to your face, and known to be to scale. Unless there's more treachery to discover upon actually reading the packet.

I feel a lot better today, sorry about the other day's rant. It looks a lot better from here.

My acne was fine, it was just that my face was peeling and red from sun; having finished bombing my English poem, I have only my tuning chart left; my friend's parents are giving it another go; I got some sleep last night; I got a haircut; the temperature will be down to 60 by Thursday.

All of these things are temporary, as my acne will flare up again, I still have a ton of summer work, her parents will probably separate later when they aren't so freaked out by my friend being so upset, I've still got finals to keep me up, my hair will grow out, and it'll get hot again by the weekend. But I feel better right now.

My teachers are all cop-outs by now. WIthout cop-outs, a student can't read 60 pages of Gone with the Wind in a single school day.

I had some quiet house today, so I watched Two Weeks Notice, as it was on TV. It was okay, mostly because I like Sandra Bullock and I was in the mood for a chick flick. Then I pulled all the tiny little anime pictures off the walls so I don't have to keep collecting them off the floor. Inuyasha, the ALA, Chad Michael Murray (Tea puts him back when he comes down, so I give up), Darth Vader, and my favorite, The Illustated Head, my phrenology poster, stayed up, though.

But seriously, how old is Hugh Grant by now? He looked very funny with his hair all kerploo because he has to be older than the character ...

I need to go find all my favorite comics and stuff again and get them up on my walls. And a large picture of Puss in Boots. He always makes me happy. Antonio Banderas hacking up a hairball ...
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Sunday, June 12, 2005

It's really hot out ...
So, I went in the pool, which makes you feel better for a moment, then you get out, feel sticky, get this chlorine-fastened-to-my-skin feeling, and decide to put in contacts for the first time in 3 months, forgetting that you have chlorine adhered to you fingers, burn your eyes, and give up to spend the afternoon on romantic comedies and the crappy anime on Adult Swim right now. (Can anyone honestly watched s-CRY-ed without fastforwarding through half of it out of sheer "argh, shoot me!"?)

Though, I am better at putting in contacts than I remember. It's just that who cares about getting them in the first try when your eyes burn so much you can't get them out without prying your eyes open rather roughly?
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Intended for post yesterday.
I probably haven’t slept for more than about 3 consecutive hours in over a week.

It’s gotten suddenly hot, so, without an adjustment period, the heat is impossible to take at night. I’m still working on getting all my schoolwork wrapped up, my inferiority complex is flaring up again, I haven’t had acne like this in about a year, I’ve been on-and-off sick for nearly a month now, and no one ever gives me good news.

Every morning, someone tells me about the minor crisis they’ve had recently, so I can’t tell them what really worries and bothers me. It’s flattering, being confidant to about 3 people with a lot of incidental confessions from assorted people in addition, but it’s something that I guess only people who help carry a lot of other people’s problems really get what it’s like. There are some people who are confidant to one person, some people who find out when it’s all over, and some people who listen to a lot of problems. For some reason, I end up hearing the problems of a lot of the people I come in frequent contact with.

And, like I said, it’s flattering, but once you’ve heard everyone else’s issues, you can’t really tell them what bothers you. You can’t listen to why she’s in a fight with her parents or the reason she doesn’t know if going away this summer is a good idea and then tell her what’s bothering you. It’s like, you don’t let someone unburden, then burden them all over again. And when you get saddled with a lot of issues, you end up never telling anyone. I used to have a journal to take care of that, but I’d stopped that when my wrists got weak. During that time, typing was easier, so I really got into blogging to unburden. I think I’ll have to pick up journaling again next year, because the way things are looking, I’m going to be very busy and things are going to get worse.

On the day of the rotation that Friday was, my friend usually stops for me at my locker and we walk down to band together. I didn’t see her, so I headed down, and realized at the bottom of the stairs that I had beaten her down. I laughed, since it was the first time all year I’d done so, and she kind of smiled at me and was really quiet, so I asked her if she was okay. I’ve known her since she was 7 or 8, so I could kind of tell she was either sick of hurting. She glanced around really fast, like she wanted to make sure someone wasn’t there, and there was this kid behind us she was trying get further away from before she whispered, “Promise you won’t tell?” so I thought he’d asked her out or something, so I thought it was a repeat of last year, except this kid might have made a half-decent boyfriend (compared to the last one).

She whispers to me that her parents are getting a separation and she starts tearing up.

I’ve known her for 9 or 10 years and I’ve known her parents almost as long. And even though I’ve been drifting away from a lot of people I used to be really close to, I guess the two of us never really fell apart so far as I’d thought, or maybe she just needed to tell someone she really knows. We all kind of grew up together, the 5 of us. Or at least, we started to.

I’m a horrid counselor, especially when it comes to touchy subjects (I can do the whole, “Well, it’s your homework to do, you wouldn’t let her copy yours because she was too busy watching OnDemand, so does it shock you that she won’t for you?!” type spiel quite well), but I can listen, so I said something like, “Oh, God …” and hugged her, and then band started.

During class, the director was a little rough on her section, and she’d found of the night before, and I guess I’d just reopened the wound, and afterward, before I could even unhook my seat strap and set my instrument down, she came over and sat down next to me and was crying on my shoulder.

Which nearly made me cry too, but I didn’t think that would help her any, so I didn’t. I just kind of hugged her while a bunch of her friends patted her shoulder and awkwardly said something like, “Hey, it’s okay,” which may not have made her feel much better, but it made me feel better for her. In a couple minutes, everyone had cleared out. Awfully fast, too. The director was really nice about her talking to me in there for about 15 minutes about it, too. I guess she saw it coming but didn’t think it would, and then she found out. She said her mom wants it because her dad still has faith in the church, and her dad was really upset, and she was crying the whole time, and we’re just sitting there, in this hot, stuffy, smelly room, kind of hugging with one hand and holding up our instruments with the other. When she’d calmed down a little, we went and got passes to go back to class, and the director was really good about it. For all that everyone complains and hates him, I guess we all know that he kind of looks after us. I don’t think he lives with his son, so I guess I kind of get it. We went in, asked if we could have a pass, and he offered to listen as an adult who won’t judge if she needed and ear, she said no thanks, he said okay, she stepped outside with her pass, and he wrote one up for me and just kind of asked if it was home related, so I kind of nodded and said yeah and thanks and took my pass. I couldn’t walk all the way with her, so I kind of hugged her and went to class.

Needless to say, I couldn’t stop thinking about her all day, and I just felt crappier than I had before, when all I had was a knot in my gut. But I guess that numbed me up enough to give my ecoproject, which was one of my ulcers that day. I managed to talk for 30 minutes on shooting bison over the hum of three fans and a hallway without any of my typical almighty stutters on about 5 hours of broken sleep. (I stutter when I talk in front of people. Not so much talking in front of people or talking to people but giving a prepared speech. Unless I’m numb.)

I guess she’d only told one other person before me, another one of the 5 of us. And when I saw her later, I think she was telling the other girl. I don’t know when the girl in Minnesota will find out. I can’t tell her, though I want to, because she’s the only person I can really tell things now, because I always could tell her better than anyone else and she’s removed from the action, because it’s not my place to tell her. I’m kind of surprised that we’re the first friends she told though. I know that my friendships with them have changed a lot over the last 2 years, but I’m sure hers have too, at least a little. And I hate to say it, but it almost made me feel good to be a confidant to one of them again. I feel so bad, but I almost felt like things were the way they used to be when we were in fifth grade.

But after all that, I went to the home of one of the growing numbers of casual friends I have to work on a math project, and it was really hot, but we got work done anyway. Also, I bought from an ice cream truck for the first time in my life. Yes, I’ve lived almost 17 years and never bought from an ice cream truck. I also went to the library book sale and picked up 10 paperbacks and a hardcover for 3 dollars. Which kind of made me feel better.

After we got home, I told my mom about my friend. It’s like, I can’t keep that one to myself and have my mom find out later. I spent a week depressed over my friend’s dad finally finding a job in Minnesota so they’d have to move before my mom found out (partly because my friend told me while on a three day school trip), and she just kind of said, “You know, you could have told me.” So I told her this time, because someone in the house has to know what the hell’s wrong with me at the moment.

Then, today, when we were at Kohl’s, I kind of had a lapse and I started crying. I have been wanting to cry all week, you know, have a catharsis, but I don’t think I meant to do it in the middle of the swimsuit section of a store where people I know shop. I was thinking about how swimsuits don’t actually stretch, my acne is disgusting, my friend is going to have to go through who gets the house then who gets custody, and the last time all 5 of us were in my pool, and my mom was there if your suit is a little too big, you really need a new one and I just had a moment of you don’t need a suit that actually fits right if you don’t have friends because then the only place you’ll wear it is in your pool with your siblings because you won’t be going anywhere swimming or having anyone over.

I think a lot of that actually had to do with me, in addition, having spent all week up late in the heat reading chick lit because it’s really too hot to try to sleep till about midnight and having a cruddy month really makes you want to read books where the scumbags get sued for all they’re worth and the ######## get married.

So, after a stop at Old Navy (mental note to go back to check out the skirts when summer stuff goes on clearance), I’ve watched the edited for TV version of The Breakfast Club, which is even more fantastically poorly edited than the edited for health class version.

I need to stop talking about now, because I’m sick of spending my time making myself sad.

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Thursday, June 9, 2005

Observe, as I, in my unspeakable awesomeness, print out 35 crossword puzzles about why people kill bison.
Which, incidentally, no one will do because I am not motivated to give anyone a prize for paying a minimal amount of attention while I stutter through my project.

Though maybe I should, to keep them all jazzed enough from the sugar that they can't focus on the kid after me's forty-minute long presentation on alternate power sources. It is really that long and done gruellingly as a slideshow a la PowerPoint with annoying sounds, tons of irrelevent facts, and narrated not by his recorded voice, but the computer's voice simulator.

I nearly had to stab by ears out, but that's never as effective as stabbing your eyes out.
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Monday, June 6, 2005

"So, I figured, we'd never be this close to Corn Palace again, so we had to take the detour."
If you don't believe I ever heard a grown man say that, do you really think I could make that up?

The week of MCAS, the schedule was all screwy, so my math class met 4 times and everyone else met only 1 or 2 times, so we spent a lot of time playing assorted party games like Crack the Case and Four Ways. (No Pictionary, thank God ...)

So, the teacher leaves his poker game, unlocks his cabinet, and pulls out at Mason jar of pickled corn. (Who locks up their pickled corn???) He orders someone to go find a Geometry book, reads off a problem about finding the surface area of the red kernels in the Corn Palace mural, and begins his story.

[Paraphrase begin] So, my friend was moving the California, and I was helping, and we were making a cross country trip of it. When we were in South Dakota, there were only 3 things on the map to visit: Mt. Rushmore, something weird, and Corn Palace. I remembered corn palace from this book, so I was like, we'd never be this close to Corn Palace again, so we had to take the detour. [End paraphrase]

The worst part? I think he was proud of this story.

So, I spent my whole weekend doing projects due this week except the part I spent sweating and burning at graduation because they really are not very nice to the band about the arrangement and how long we have to be there, playing for the people filtering in.

It was like 90 yesterday, and apparently, there are only 2 other people who sweat disturbingly a lot in the band, are we all suffered. Whereas the dude next to me had to be forced to accept a half pint bottle of water after 2 hours in the sun.
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Tuesday, May 31, 2005

ALMIGHTY KERSPLAT!
Okay, who wants to know everything there is to know about the debate over the killing of bison around Yellowstone?

Not me, and certainly not my bio class! Then why the heck did I just sort through hundreds of pages of internet printouts and make up about as many notecards on the topic?

Speaking of bio, my teacher was a nutcase today. The class before mine, she went mental. My class, she was freaking out all over the place and kept calling archerfish triggerfish. (It made me want to cry. I know a heck of a lot about fish, and if you know the difference between these two fish, you'll understand why I wanted to cry.) She, in the class after mine, went mental on a kid who didn't know that the skeleton in out classroom was so old, it was an actual skeleton (she wasn't just making this up, either - I was half-wondering before she said anything because it was yellowed, chipped in the right places, and was missing teeth). Granted, he was poking it at the time, but still ...

Also, as if this were something normal people know, I can now give you the plot of Big Fish in Spanish.

I know, my homework is so thrilling, I have to share it with people. *glah*

Oh, yeah, and apparently, unstable friend and nasty kid we all hate but put up with because she too is unstable nearly got into a fist fight over complaining about whose weekend sucked more. I kid you not. This also nearly made me cry.

Oh, and to top it off, guess what was supposed to be playing on Hallmark Channel today when they decided to sub in some movie about prairie people?

M*A*S*H.

Just don't get into a fist fight with me.
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Monday, May 30, 2005

*a small cough of acknowledgement that there have been almost no posts during the past few weeks*
Yes, well, I've been busy and sick. So there.

I feel as though I ought to say something about Memorial Day, but I shall refrain, because this is one day that no one likes to hear anything with an anti-war spin. So, I shall save the rant I thought about posting for another time, when people can hate me without feeling more patriotic in doing so than usual.

So, I am avoiding people online. It's great fun. Fortunately, the people I am avoiding are just as, if not more so, clueless online as in person, so they have no idea.

After a long and unduly rainy couple months, it's been warm. I wish it wouldn't do that, but it did. Oh well.

You know, it's weird. I am thinking about it, and I was literally sick every day for just over two weeks.

And I'm really not coherent enough to be typing. I'll go away now.
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Sunday, May 22, 2005

Humor Challenged.
My entire brand of humor is pathetic. You know how some people are just so funny, or so quirky, or whatever, they just make you laugh? I've had an epiphany. I depend on twisting other people's humor and vocal inflection in unhumorous phrases. Which is sad.

I only mention this because, I wanted to explain that my houseplant died of neglect and I need to replace it with something freaky so I remember to water it.

Plus, I love freaky plants.

So I thought of an email I got from an old friend about a year ago. The email was about how she was learning to drive a tractor (she goes to an agricultural high school), and many traffic cones were sacrificed to this end.

That was the funniest two-page poetic email I have ever read in my life.

So, my dead plant made me think of that. How creepy.

I've been away a long time. I blame band. (Who else?)

I've had a concert last night, and it went off horribly, but no one knows that, and it was wicked fun, and I realized something very sad.

Our seniors last day is Monday. By Friday, they'll all be gone.

Which leaves Rachel and me as the low woodwinds for the next month.

And by God, we are not up to this, I think.

But we're okay till Tuesday, because Monday will be "Feelings Day."

Feelings Days are funny. On these days, our intimidating and gruff director has us discuss how we felt about our personal and group level of acchievement. Which may not seem funny, but think of your toughest, gruffest, your-fault-for-not-working-your-butt-off-if-you-fail teacher, then think of him or her asking you the age-old question, "How do you feel about your level of acchievement on Saturday? What do you feel could be improved?"

Don't forget to imagine that you have to answer seriously because you couldn't explain what's so funny without being murdered by him/her.
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