alabama, arkansas, i do love my ma and pa

Hey. Long time no see. I don't have any real reason, I haven't been, like, in the hospital or anything. I just haven't gotten into the mindset of writing much recently. Well, I have been writing a lot, but for the newspaper, not for this. Anyway.
I recently visited my family. My dad's family lives scattered across the country. I guess I should count myself lucky that they're currently confined to the continental US because for a while in the 80s several of them lived in various middle eastern countries. At our most recent family reunion, over Labor Day of this year, we talked about where everyone was when they were 24 (sparked by my 24 year old cousin's recent move to New York and fabulous new magazine job). My aunt talked about how she was living in Dubai and was forced into her first of, at my most recent count, five marriages, because she was nearly raped by her boss and living with a man who wasn't your husband was frowned upon. My mom was dating the anarchist that was murdered later, but she was getting her Master's degree. My dad was doing depressing work laying fiberoptic cables in Texas. I remember he told this story about putting bookshelves in front of his shitty apartment's door, but I don't remember the reason. My grandma was married with three kids. One of my aunts talked about how she had just started dating my uncle. He's the one who's dead now. I was glad that she talked about him because it was the first time we all were able to reminisce about how funny he was. My dad and another uncle talked about how wasted they all got at his funeral, which made me laugh. My dad drinks a lot but I've never seen him drunk. We hold our liquor well. I like my dad's family a lot. I see them once every two years and I miss them inbetween.
On my dad's side, we hold our liquor well. Now, my mother's family all live in the state that we live in, but we only see them, with the exception of my aunt, every six months or so, at my grandmother's birthday and at Christmas. So naturally we just visited them and wow! They are fucking insane. My mom has four siblings. She's the youngest, and then there's my Auntie, who used to be a dancer and is now a singer. She and my uncle used to take care of me a lot when I was small, and she and my mother are very close. We see her around once a month.
And then there's my mom's only brother, who is schizophrenic and a born-again Christian. I didn't actually know that he was schizophrenic because my mom has a tendency to avoid the discussion of unpleasant things until I started learning about it and mentioned it to my mother, at which point she said, "You know your uncle is schizophrenic?" No, I didn't. Of course, I should have known because he occasionally talked about his delusions while around me. I think my mom tried to limit my exposure to him, though I wouldn't think she would feel... like she had to do that, since she's a therapist.
And then there's another of my aunts. She lives with my uncle, grandmother, and her two kids, one a senior in high school and the other a freshman in college. So, I always knew that we didn't all get together at the holidays because my Auntie and she don't get along, and I never really liked her. I always found her to be... kind of callous. (When I was younger, we would normally have Christmas Eve dinner with my Auntie, then have everyone except her come down on Christmas day to open presents, and then have my uncle and grandma stay with us for a few days after that. Christmas Eve was always my favorite. Now we normally have Christmas by ourselves and go down after Christmas to clean their house.) Anyway, I was explaining this whole thing to my friend the other day when something occurred to me. "You know, I think she might be an alcoholic," I said to my friend. I really had never thought of it before, and I don't remember seeing her drinking but when I looked back at her behavior, it seemed to fit. I thought about asking my mom, but then thought better of it when I considered her tendency to avoid unpleasant topics. On the drive down there this Christmas, my mother did, for some reason, mention to me that my aunt's ex-husband, the father of my two cousins, is currently in prison for cooking meth. WELL.
When we arrived at the house, it was absolutely filthy, as always. I notice it more now that I'm older. Anyway, my grandmother lives in the house too, and she's 88 and can barely walk. I always wondered why my aunt didn't clean very much until I realized, oh yeah, SHE'S A RAGING ALCOHOLIC. Honestly, the second she came out of her room and started talking I knew. I really can't believe that I never drew the rather obvious conclusion earlier. Anyway, my mom was passive-aggressively annoyed because she thought that my aunt would be at work. So we all talked uncomfortably for a while. My uncle gave me a twenty-dollar check because he lost my giftcard. I think my mom would have been happier if we didn't have to socialize at all- really the whole purpose of the visit was to fix their house. Last month my dad visited there himself to look at all the problems so that he could bring the right tools this time. He ducks out on our weirdly formal family conversation to fix their dryer.
My cousins were asleep but then they woke up and joined in the uncomfortable conversation. The one who's a senior is a boy and he's not particularly interested in me. During the course of our visit he had two friends over, both of whom simply walked into the house without ringing the doorbell. (Later we are told that the doorbell is broken.) My other cousin still lives at home even though she's in college now. She used to be pretty weird and anxious, but she seems a bit better now. Anyway, she presents me with a Pat Benatar CD (I've come to the conclusion that I hate Pat Benatar). I can tell that she feels bad that we barely know each other and halfway proposes that we go to the mall, but I didn't really want to because she's still pretty weird and really likes anime, so I politely found a way of deflecting this suggestion. We talked for a little while though. It was okay.
At 5, we left, supposedly because we had dinner reservations but actually because none of us could really stand to spend any more time with them. We came back the next day, though, early in the morning, after stopping at the hardware store and buying them a new dryer. We get there, and my uncle and grandma are awake, he reading the Bible and she yelling at him to make her some tea. My grandmother doesn't really understand that my uncle is mentally ill and basically expects him to wait on her, which he mostly does. This, I note, makes my mother uncomfortable and is the main reason why we sometimes have the two of them to our house, so that we can serve as substitutes for my uncle and he can be in a quiet, clean house. My uncle is more agitated than usual, and we learn that this is because the garage has flooded. My dad goes off to investigate, and my mom makes grandma some tea. Grandma nearly does a spit-take when my mom says that we've bought them a new dryer. My mom insists that it's no big deal and my grandma sadly says to us that "it's [her] fault," because she always puts things off. My mom agrees with her.
My dad comes up a while later and tells us that he has fixed the leak in the garage, caused by the washing machine. (I suspect that it's due to whatever he did yesterday but don't say anything.) He sets to work clearing a path in their Hoarders-esque garage for the people to deliver the dryer, and my mom and I go upstairs to clean my grandma's room. My grandmother saves basically every piece of mail she receives, some of which seems to be important and most of which isn't. My mom throws basically all of it out, and my grandmother slightly freaks out but is too tired to prevent her from doing so. My grandmother tells me a lot of stories about distant family members who I've never met, most notably a 3rd cousin of mine who is, "a Down Syndrome." My mother tasks me with matching seemingly identical socks, at which point my female cousin walks in. I feel like she's kind of hurt not to be included, but she's also kind of annoying and my mom sort of ignores her.
We tell my grandmother that we are taking her to Burlington Coat Factory to get her a coat. "I'm always cold," she tells us for the umpteenth time. I looked forward to this outing as there is very little food in their house, and my mother has passed on her germophobia to me. I decide not to take my chances in their kitchen and wait to get some Subway when we go out. My grandmother has also picked up on my cousin's somewhat hurt feelings as she tells my mother that she will be "absolutely crushed not to be included". My mother basically ignores this and we leave. My other cousin is still asleep, and my alcoholic aunt is in her bedroom with the TV blaring.
Burlington Coat Factory is, it turns out, in a very bad area of town. I walk by several drug deals in action on my way to Subway, and on my way back I am almost not unreasonably concerned about being gunned down in a tragic drive-by shooting. Obviously, I escaped with my life.
When we come back, we all sit in the very dark and dusty living room. My dad has not left the garage, still heroically clearing a path through old clothes, Christmas decorations, and broken appliances. My mother escapes to go 'see how he's doing' and my grandmother is basically an inanimate object. This leaves me, my cousin, and my alcoholic aunt alone in the living room (my other cousin is still asleep). My aunt proceeds, apropos of seemingly nothing, to tell a pretty horrible story about this one time where she was petsitting for her neighbors and, in an unstated span of time, managed to let their cat out, presumably kill their pet tarantula, and definitely kill their iguana by leaving its heat lamp on too long and, ahem, "frying it". She's completely oblivious to how upset this story is making my cousin, and to a lesser extent, me. I excuse myself to talk to my mother in the garage, where I passively aggressively ask her to come back inside and she passive aggressively refuses.
I go back to the living room and we all sit there blinking at each other for a while. Later, when my mom was cleaning my grandmother's room and my grandmother and I talked to each other alone, she told me a little bit about her childhood (they sucked on ice for fun. [it was the great depression). My grandmother is a first-generation Welsh immigrant. Apparently her mother missed Whales very much, particularly a specific beach that she used to visit when she was a girl. After my grandma's father died, her brother sent their mother back to the beach that she missed so much but arrived to find that it had been completely built up and the charming little town that she loved so much was erased. She wished that she had never gone. I almost cried.
She also asked me to copy some addresses that she had into her new address book. It turns out that "some addresses" meant "an entire address book" and "new address book" meant "the one that we gave her last Christmas". The old address book was the one that she shared with my grandfather. He died shortly before I was born of lung cancer. My mother that this nearly destroyed my grandmother, and I think she's right. It sounds like they were very much in love. Anyway, we went through the address book, but I actually didn't have to copy too many things because as my grandmother went through, she realized that 75% of the people in it are now dead or "in a home". It made her pretty sad, understandably.
Tangentially, my dad has been secretly working on a project where he's transcribing all of the letters my grandfather sent my grandma and his mother while he was fighting in World War 2 and researched where he was and what battles he was involved in. He's really quite a nerd, my dad. My mother rescued the original letters from my grandmother's house a few years back and they both read them. I would like to read them but no one ever offered. My dad unveiled this project on Christmas Eve with Auntie. Both my aunt and my mother cried a little and talked about how sweet their dad was to my grandmother and how much he thought about her while he was gone. In one letter he mentions that he bought something at their most recent location for her younger sister's birthday. They talked about how mostly he tried to put on a brave face for my grandmother, with whom he was engaged, but also how scared he seemed and how young he was (18). I wish I had had the chance to meet my grandfather.
My grandmother gave me her roll-top desk, which we will retrieve at some later date.
After we left crazy-house, as it has been unaffectionately named, we went out to dinner with my 3rd and oldest aunt, my oldest cousin and my uncle. I really like them but we don't see them that much as a visit with them generally means a visit with the rest of my family. We share a similar sense of humor and mostly exchanged stories of how insane the rest of our family is. I also received confirmation that my aunt is a raging alcoholic without having to ask. I wish we saw them more.
Then we came home and sat in our clean house quietly. It was very pleasant.

honey don't you love me

well. today is homecoming.
I won homecoming court, for sophomores. Which means I am one of two female winners for sophomores. The other female winner is my second best friend and one of the male winners is baseball boy. When I first found that we were both nominated, it became kind of a secret dream for us to both win. And then we did, and maybe, I guess, I thought it meant people liked me? Because that's what that means, right? People vote for you because they like you. But now it feels like no one I really crave the approval of even like me.
Baseball boy avoided me the entire night. I think he found out that I like him and obviously doesn't feel the same way and I feel a little bit horrible about it. Which is stupid.
It's amazing how I can have statistical proof that I am one of the most popular people in the school and yet somehow I'm not getting what I want. I never get invited to parties or to hang out. I don't understand how those two things are compatible.
Here's something horrible that I do. My second best friend is a member of this social group that throws all the interesting parties, like that one I went to that one time. And I just want so badly to get to go to those because I feel like it's what high school is. The red plastic cups and boys and gossiping and laughing kind of parties. So sometimes I feel like I completely un-subtly hint to second best friend that I wish I got invited to these (because of course she always does). And it seems as though she doesn't hear me. Which actually means that she does hear me but doesn't want to hurt my feelings.
I think a lot of people feel like I don't care very much about social things. Everyone thought I was mad that I won. I was actually thrilled. I wish I had posted before today because then you would get to see how excited I was without this tint of disappointment over everything.
I feel stupid that I care about this. Sometimes I feel stupid when I care about anything. I think it's something that we do now, as a culture. We make fun of people who care about things.
everyone is at an afterparty now. i have the SAT at 7 tomorrow. i think that describes my life pretty well.
sorry for being so horribly typically insecure teenage girl. this is probably one of the least interesting things you will ever read.

oh my god, she meant a lot to a lot of fools

Every day this week I have come home and either:
A) burst into tears
B) taken a nap
C) Both!
The answer is C. I started sophomore year last Monday. I was not expecting to hate sophomore year, though I was not excited about starting school as I have been in the past. Spoiler alert: I hate this year. I half of my teachers, 90 percent of my classmates, and 75 percent of my classes.
My classes this semester are Civics Honors, English 2 Honors, Journalism, and Spanish 3 Honors.
Today, in Civics, we had to continue 'translating' Patrick Henry's 'Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death' speech. Already, it's an idiotic assignment. Apparently because it isn't written in modern English, it's COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to understand. Or so thinks my Civics teacher and my entire Civics class. And it's not like this is fucking 1200 or something. We aren't at a fucking Renaissance festival learning fucking Old English. THIS WAS THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR YOU STUPID FUCKS.
Everyone is terrible. Our Civics teacher gave us 40 minutes yesterday to complete the assignment. The speech is 2 pages long. I've written longer blog posts. I finished it in ten minutes. Today, he gave us 45 minutes. At the end of class, today, no one was finished. That's 95 fucking minutes where apparently everyone is so goddamn stupid that they just sat there and drooled on themselves the whole time. I just don't understand how that is even possible. I just don't fucking understand. And, of course, too stupid to use the fucking internet. Or ask our stupid fuck of a Civics teacher who sat there, the entire class, on his fucking laptop. I swear to god, the entire fucking time. The lazy fuck didn't answer one question. Meanwhile, I'm trying to read my fucking book. Today in those 45 minutes I swear to god I answered 40 questions. Some of the most memorable:
"What are chains?"
And, near the end: "Wait... is he talking about the British?"
Both of those questions happened, today. I just don't understand how this is something that happened.
So, imagine this experience, but every day. For the rest of your high school career. Which happens to feel like forever. And, hey, don't get me wrong here. It's not like I expect people to not be stupid. I just expect teachers to not be lazy fucks. And maybe. Just maybe, if all teachers would actually teach the entire class, people wouldn't be so goddamn stupid. BIG IDEAS.
Every year when I start school my main motivation is not, like normal people, the desire to get good grades and go to a good college to get a good job. My goal is to impress my teachers. This probably suggests that my parents didn't love me enough when I was small or something. I guess it's just a matter of thumos. BUT ANYWAY, I've found that it's nearly impossible to do this because a great majority of teachers just don't give a fuck. None of my teachers give a fuck, except for my journalism teacher, who reminds me of John Green and is amazing. My English teacher is always a person I particularly want to impress, but somehow they always end up hating me. It remains to be seen whether that will be the case this year, but I can say that my English teacher definitely has a streak or five of not giving a fuck. Though one thing that was good was that on the first day, I wrote a thing about how one of the things I value most is my sense of irreverence, and somehow I was forced to read that, and he seemed to like it quite a bit. I'm willing to cut him a little slack for not showing that he gives enough of a fuck because this is his first semester teaching, but I am going to be annoyed if this goes on the entire semester. He's definitely a step up from last year's English teacher, so I guess that's a bit of a plus.
Journalism is quite a bit of fun, though I don't imagine that I'll be able to do it again because, in my never ending quest for valedictorian, I have to take the most challenging classes available. I like journalism, though. I just wish it was a club or something. And I also wish that there weren't so many kids that did it last year in the class, because they all seem to think that people who are new cannot possibly write well, and that everyone who took it last year is THE BEST FUCKING WRITER. When actually, some of them are really quite shit. But hey, I don't really give a fuck about what they think.
And then Spanish is a complete clusterfuck. In 8th grade, we had this Spanish teacher who was completely crazy in five senses of the word. All her worksheets are completely disorganized. Her "instruction" consists mostly of her shouting at us the entire class period, and her lesson plans are non existent. She likes to spend some of the class talking about her divorce/her dog/her son, Pablo/her greencard/generally innapropriate information about her personal life. And to top it all off, she actually has an extremely poor grasp of the English language. So of course, the high school would hire her, and she is now my Spanish 3 teacher. DISASTER.
Also, there is kid in there who apparently feels the need to get a teacher to verbally approve every word that he writes on his paper; every move that he makes. I spend much of the class hoping that our Spanish teacher will someday flip the fuck out on him and he'll cry. I genuinely hope that happens. And he is also one of those types who constantly feels that he has to respond to rhetorical questions out loud, or even just general statements that a teacher might make to the class.
I realized today that the ways that I deal with my problems generally fall into the categories of:
-bitching
-being a bitch to other people
-crying like a bitch
I wonder what that says about me?

you be the book, i'll be the binding

I go to this summer camp called TIP every year. I got back last week. That's why there was such a long hiatus. Anyway, you go for three weeks and stay in a college dorm and take a class. I enjoy it. I don't think I enjoy it as much as other TIP kids, though. Some of them say things like, 'We're all nerds, so we all love each other.' Which is bullshit, of course. I've encountered some of the most unlikable people on the planet at TIP. I've also met some pretty great people, but it all varies. Just because we're all smart doesn't mean we all like each other. I think people say this kind of thing because perhaps they haven't learned yet that intellectual companionship is not the only way for a friendship to be fulfilling. I know this is something I grappled with when I was younger, around 4th to 6th grade. I loathed people who weren't as smart as me, which was nearly everyone. I'm substantially happier now that I don't live in a little tower of intellectual superiority. It's absolutely imperative to understand that people who aren't as sharp are often quite marvelous people. I think it is, perhaps, the overwhelming need to feel special that causes these really smart kids to eschew people who are not as smart. They view intelligence as the most important personality trait because that makes them the best.
Some people who go to TIP think, 'Wow, I'll never make friends like this out in the real world. TIP is the only place where people really understand me.' For me it's kind of the opposite. Going to TIP makes me realize how lucky I am to have the friends that I do in the real world, partially because a lot of TIP kids don't have real, close friends at home and partially because I have never made real, close friends at TIP. I have made fun friends, kind friends, interesting friends, but never intimate friends. It makes me realize how rare friendships like the ones I have are. My best friend and I will have been best friends for 10 years when school starts later this month. I bought her a card. I was thinking I might write, 'Cheers to another 10.' but then I thought about it. And in 10 years, we will both be working or in graduate school, somewhere (hopefully) far away from here. And I'm excited for my future, but at the same time it's sad to think that we will inevitably grow apart.
I tend to feel a bit out of place at TIP. Everyone, it seems, is from a nice neighborhood and an exceptional school. I live in an okay neighborhood, and I go to a crappy school. The amazing thing, though, is how everyone who goes to good schools looks down on mine, like, 'Oh, you should come to Georgia,' or, 'Oh, why don't you just transfer?' And it pisses me off. I thought about that a little bit because I call my school shitty all the time. And I think it's something like the way some people view their family- I can make fun of them all I want but if somebody else does, I take it personally. And I do, take it personally. Because I have lived here all my life. I love here, I love the people here. I used to think I only like going to school here because I'm the best. And I am, I'm second in the class and I'm fairly confident that by next year I'll be first. But more important than that are the people. I love my high school, and I don't think I want to leave it for somewhere that might be better. I feel safe at my high school, even though maybe, yeah, we have some crime. I don't know if I would feel that way if I went somewhere else.
We walked through the city and everyone in my residential group was scared of the homeless people, or the traffic, or something else stupid. I have never been afraid of these things. I have always thought- these people are living their lives and I am living mine. If I don't fuck with them, they won't fuck with me. This philosophy has served me very well. Sometimes you read about how teenagers think they're invincible. I have never thought myself to be invincible. I know that I could die at any time in an infinite number of ways. I was thinking, though, and to some extent I do think I'm invincible because I have never been afraid of people or places. I can walk through any city, any dark alley or seedy club. I can walk by homeless people and drug dealers and crackheads and evangelists without feeling afraid. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. It feels good to not be afraid, but maybe sometimes I should be. I know, though, that being afraid of everything wouldn't do me any good. I don't feel brave, really, but I don't feel like a coward, either.
Maybe thinking about my future a lot is a form of imagined invincibility. I have a very set idea of how things are going to go. I know that there is a very real possibility that my life will be cut short before I've managed to do everything I think I'm going to do, but at the same time I don't live every day like it's my last. Perhaps that's good, though. Because then if I actually do make it into old age, might I look back on the way my life went with regret? At least with a plan, I can never admit to myself that this is not what I wanted. Because I dreamed of it ever since I was little. I don't even know. I guess I just think I should live a bit more in the moment if I know that my long-term life plan might not happen. So maybe on some level I am not aware that I am not invincible.
A lot of teachers at my school are quitting. Including our quizbowl coach/english teacher, who I adore. It kind of crushes me, I think partially because I hate not being able to say a proper goodbye. It's probably due to my deep fear of change. I know that when I go back to school, it won't be quite the same. I'm a very nostalgic person, and I am prone to yearning for things that have passed even though perhaps at the time they didn't even seem that good. I feel that way about my childhood as a whole. Interestingly enough, I have never lost anything of significance, but I can't help but miss the way things were, even though I am very happy now.
I feel bad for not writing for so long. I know that when The Peter doesn't write for a spell, I feel a bit confounded. This is perhaps because I often find that his writing makes transparent things that previously mystified me. It's kind of like a window to his thoughts.

he doesn't look a thing like jesus, but he talks like a gentleman like you imagined when you were young

I'm reading 'A Shining Affliction'. It makes me want to cry a lot and it also makes me feel like becoming a therapist is the right choice. At one point the author said this, more as an afterthought than anything. "I wonder if this is a hazard of being a writer: a sense of detachment that sometimes makes the present seem like it is already past."
I sometimes too often ask others what they think of me. I want, more than anything, to know myself and what others think. I do not think that I am particularly insecure, because I do not think I would change myself for someone else. I am happy with the person I feel that I am, I just wonder if everyone views me the way I do. I sometimes wish i could see a therapist just so that someone would tell me who I seem to be. I want to understand myself more. I think it is more vanity than insecurity. But then I guess I am insecure because it pains me to be less than someone else at the things I feel I am good at. It is very hard, sometimes, to get people to tell me the thoughts I want to hear. People are always too afraid of hurting me, I think. Sometimes, when people do say things that are not really positive, though, I am surprised by how much their words can hurt me even though I feel that I should let them roll off my back. The best impressions I get of myself are the ones that come unexpectedly. Yesterday Peter got very upset with me and I knew why, but I felt that he was being irrational. Later he told me some things that I already knew and then some other things that I did not know, that he feels sometimes that I am better than him because I know a lot of words and I am a vegetarian. It was interesting to me to hear because I have never really felt like a good person. A smart person, maybe sometimes. It was interesting to hear those words from someone telling me how they feel and not how they think I want them to feel. I hope.
It has always been difficult for me to verbalize the reasons why I became a vegetarian. I think it started as an attempt to annoy my grandparents, but after I thought about it some more and read some literature I realized that it was because I did not feel good about being indirectly responsible for death. I still ate fish for a while, and I used to tell my dad it was because I did not look at a fish and feel that it had a soul. I don't really believe in souls as I did when I was younger- as a kind of smoke that lived in your chest until it flew into the sky when you died. I used to think about that a lot. (god was a man who lived on a planet. Angels lived on their own planet. Jesus lived on another one. I was kind of like a Mormon in that way. I guess I never thought about how terribly lonely they all must be.) I do, though, believe in the idea of a part of you that makes you an individual. And I think you can call that a soul, separate from our calculating brains. I don't like to eat fish much anymore, partially because my best friend became a vegetarian recently and refuses to eat it, so I feel like a bad vegetarian when I do. But also because all those humane society newsletters I used to read really got to me. I hate the idea of factory farming and I know that it is particularly bad for fish. Without getting into the gory details, I would only feel comfortable eating a fish or any other animal if I knew where it came from. I do not feel this is something that it makes me better than anyone else. Perhaps more squeamish.
I always try to do my best in school because it pisses me off when people are better than me. Secretly, I'm very competitive. 
I think I learned a lot of words from a young age because I wanted to be able to express myself as precisely as I possibly can. I re-read some of the reading responses I wrote to my teacher in fifth grade and it became clear to me that I was, at least sometimes, very unhappy. When I look back on my childhood, I tend to forget those unhappy patches because after all, I had everything I should have wanted. I think my childhood was very happy, but, like everyone else, things were sometimes hard. To my teacher, I described myself as depressed and I was surprised to hear myself use those words. Sometimes looking back I feel like I've forgotten parts of myself like these and it makes me sad. I have never dealt well with change and as time moves on I inevitably lose things. I gain so much, too, though. Just the other day an old friend looked at me and said, 'you seem a lot happier now.' and though I had never thought this, I knew it was true.
I do not feel like a good person, but I guess I try. 
I am at my grandparent's house with my best friend. They live at the beach. We visited a graveyard today at my request. It was beautiful. I also saw some pictures of my parents when they were young.

this is where we are, for miles and miles. interrupted only by a huge house rising out of the swamp along the horizon every so often. a house like the one i am in.

this  is my best friend standing on a surveyor's thing. i don't know what it's called.

this is my best friend sitting on the end of a bridge that we trespassed onto. 

this is a dead tree.

this is that same bridge walking back home.

this is the back of a tombstone. many of the stones were so pious it almost sounded hopeful. some of them were very wistful. others were grand and somewhat boisterous. still others- mostly of kids- were just sad. a lot of them said 'our darling baby'.

there was a quiet kind of peace here. i don't think it would be a bad place to spend forever. my mother explained to me that she never visits her father's grave because she doesn't feel like he is there. i think if she died i would want to go if only because i feel like i ought to.

the graveyard was founded in 1792. what a terribly long time ago.

here are my parents. 

sometimes, people try to convince me not to live where i do. friends who live other, richer places. i used to hate being here but now i'm glad because not everybody gets to help a drug dealer write his memoirs. i'm glad because i feel like i am able to become a better person by being exposed to different, but not neccessarily good people. i feel it's important for me to get to know people who are different than me so that i can view them as people and not, i don't know, gangsters and drug dealers. it helps me developed a more well-rounded world view, i guess.
Anyway. this is a silly and not well thought out post.

it's what we needed to have a good time

I went to a party about two weeks ago. I wrote this a few weeks ago, but failed to post it. This is more for my benefit than yours. It was my first unchaperoned, boy-girl, alcoholic sexytimes party. It was hosted by my on-again, off-again friend in an effort to make a group of kids who call themselves 'The Crew' (douchey. yes. i know.) like her more. This is also the group of people one of my best friends hangs out with while not with me. So I wanted to get to know them better, plus I feel like this is one of the things a person has to do while in high school. When we arrived it was just a few girls and 12 bottles of mike's. I had half a glass, half wanting to get smashed but mostly endeavoring to keep my wits about myself. Boys- four of them- arrive with Bacardi in a Gatorade bottle. because we classy sons of bitches. We drink. I don't, and neither does my best friend. Our hostess drinks a bit but is quite capable of holding her liquor. The fourth girl, whom we'll call C because these titles are getting cumbersome, also abstains from drinking. I assume it's a religious thing with her and also with my best friend. We play card/drinking games, which are fairly fun. Things are getting a bit rowdier but I am not perturbed. Then... hostess informs me that her parents will be getting home at 11. They think the party is going to be happening at the neighbor's house. The neighbor girl, whom we shall refer to as P, has been a friend of our hostess since middle school. She's kind of a bitch. P, and her friend, an eighth grader whom we'll call vomit girl for reasons that will become all too clear, have managed to get rather drunk. So has a third girl, the only sophomore. She, however, is actually somewhat capable at drinking and so handles herself fairly appropriately throughout the entire party. Our hostess hasn't planned the party very well so she and I, at my urging, begin to clean up the snacks she has laid out. One half hour later. We all put on our swimsuits- I put on a too-small swimsuit that belonged to our hostess when she was younger, and get into the hot tub. I dislike hot tubs because it feels like I am in a person soup, but wanted to be sociable. After a few moments, I get out to check on everyone else. I find my dear baseball friend sitting on the floor of our hostess's parent's bedroom floor, with vomit girl sobbing into his shoulder. He looks up at me somewhat bewildered, and I assume, with a twinge of jealousy, that she is an ex-girlfriend of his. I smile and leave him to his duty. P and one of the twins, and sophomore girl and a boy who's name I'm not really sure of but I refer to as 'the large boy', are pretty much fucking in the hot tub. After a little while our hostess frantically informs me that her parents texted to say they would be coming home early and we need to get everyone to P's house, like, now. Everyone drunkenly gets out of the hot tub. Hostess runs around cleaning things up inside the house, and C, my best friend, and I are tasked with somehow getting the drunken people to P's house. The boys are all kind of drunk but not terribly so. They are still conscious and standing. P and vomit girl, on the other hand, are not. Everyone is being a douchebag, except for baseball friend, my knight in shining armor. He attempts to single-handedly carry vomit girl, who is still sobbing, but fails because she is heavy. We end up organizing parties of two- one person on either side- of both drunken girls. I, for some reason, take vomit girl, who I have actually before that evening never met. Didn't even know her name. Anyway, I and sophomore girl take her, and my best friend and C take P. We walk down the driveway and down to P's house with considerable effort and much falling down. And sobbing. At this point, P realizes, in a moment of clarity, that there is a car in the driveway. We all assume that it is P's mother and after some standing in the middle of the road; rush, for some reason, back to the hostess's house. At this point, vomit girl has hit her head on several rocks and C and I think it would be best if someone called her legal guardian. Sophomore girl insists that this is not a good idea, but C calls anyway. NO ANSWER. For some reason, we take vomit girl up to this weird attic our hostess has and used as a playground as a child. At this point I ask if we are going to be 'hiding her like motherfucking Anne Frank in there'. Even kind of drunk and panicked, I am a nerd. Apparently, hiding her like motherfucking Anne Frank was indeed the idea. At this point, we have been joined by a boy who I like to refer to as 'The Lesbian'. Our hostess is madly in love with him. She has never spoken with him. He is outrageously late and everyone is freaking the fuck out. With him has arrived has arrived his older sister, who has just graduated. She was homecoming queen and was in my gym class. Homecoming queen is actually fairly helpful. She assists us in getting the still sobbing vomit girl up and into the attic and onto a couch. Homecoming queen and sophomore girl seem like they've got a handle on things so I go downstairs to inform our panicky hostess of what has happened. I go back up, and sophomore girl has left to check on P, who was apparently escorted back to her house by my best friend. C is currently taking care of vomit girl, and vomit girl is unconscious. At this point, homecoming queen has gotten her boyfriend from the car, and he is standing unhelpfully in the corner. Now the real fun begins! Vomit girl starts vomiting all over herself while still unconscious. C, homecoming queen, and her boyfriend all start freaking the fuck out. I calmly request that someone go get some goddamn paper towels and help me turn vomit girl on her side so she doesn't asphyxiate. Someone complies with my orders. Unhelpful boyfriend stands unhelpfully in the corner, gagging douchily. Vomit girl is vomiting a lot, and even I will admit that it smells really, really bad. Now baseball friend has arrived and, ever the gentleman, attempts to help me in cleaning up vomit. The vomit is down vomit girl's shirt, in her hair, and on the couch. C comes back up and attempts to clean the couch with febreze and uses carpet cleaner as an airfreshener. C tries to help with the vomit but has a rather weak stomach. Secretly, I think baseball friend does too, but wants to feel in control of the situation. Vomit girl vomits more, I clean it up. We get her onto a waterproof sleeping bag onto the floor. She vomits more. Homecoming queen, hostess, baseball friend, C, and I, all carry unconscious girl down the steps of the attic and take her into hostess's parent's bedroom, which has a wooden floor and a bathroom. Homecoming queen and her unhelpful boyfriend leave after exchanging cell phone numbers with me, and baseball friend soon reluctantly follows. (The other  boys, meanwhile, have been socializing outside THIS ENTIRE TIME.) At some point, C has managed to get ahold of vomit girl's legal guardian. Apparently her father died in a car accident a few months ago and her mother is crazy, so her aunt is taking care of her. I grab the phone and shout at the aunt to pick her child up. I attempt to clean the vomit out of vomit girl's hair. I successfully take the runny mascara off of her face. She is still unconscious and everyone is freaking the fuck out. At some point, our hostess's parents arrive. Her father does not really do anything and stays outside the whole night. Her mother first removes her jewelry and then I guess realizes that there is an unconscious, vomit covered girl on her bathroom floor and decides to kind of help us. Actually, I continue to clean up vomit as she explains to us that this sort of thing happens a lot in college. It is not, actually, very helpful. Then I cry some and the hostess's mother comforts me somewhat. C has been crying the entire time. The aunt arrives and does not seem appropriately concerned at all, MUCH LIKE ALL OF THE ADULTS IN THIS SITUATION. The aunt tries to wake up vomit girl. She is unsuccessful because vomit girl is unconscious. I help her carry vomit girl to the car. The aunt is annoyed because vomit girl has ruined her night out. The aunt thanks me and leaves. We all cry some more and finally call my best friend, who has been at P's house since the 'standing in the road' portion of the evening. P has not vomited or passed out, but has cried the entire evening. Since my best friend is a saint, she feels reluctant to leave P even though P is so drunk she won't remember anything tomorrow. My best friend comes over, we bathe briefly and recap the night's events. My best friend wants to go and make sure P is okay, so I accompany her, clad only in someone's hideous green and pink fuzzy bathrobe. My best friend goes upstairs to P's room, and I am left standing in the living room of P's house with P's older brother, his girlfriend, and sophomore girl. The girlfriend is extremely nice and we chat about That 70s Show for a while. I am mildly in shock. After some time, I fetch my best friend from P's bedroom and we head back to the hostess's house, where she, C, and I will be spending the night. We cry, recap the night, then angrily tweet before going to sleep at two in the morning.
Here are the things I got out of this experience that was probably something you had to be there for and will be very uninteresting to read about:
C is now my friend.
Drinking is sometimes awful.
Baseball friend is a shining example of a human.
I would go to this party again if I got the chance. Is it the lure of popularity? I don't think so. I think I just like parties. I like that something sometimes happens so my life doesn't have to be so stagnant all the time. I also like baseball friend. Let's call him J from now on.

so i tried, and i begged and i screamed and i sighed

I was thinking about middle school today. Evidently some other people were too, because a bunch of people commented on a friend's photo of us from late 2009. One of the girls who was in the picture, Katherine (I changed the name, but I felt it was important for her to have one), was not someone who you could call popular when we were young. In fact, she was extremely unpopular. She had a strange demeanor and poor social skills. She was never quite able to pick up the cues that for most of us come so easily. She was one of the unlucky few that were picked on. When people would pick on her, she would just explode. It was a reaction everyone predicted. She was so easy to manipulate. I was flipping back through an album, and I found these. I blurred out the names and pictures, but left the initial so you can see the recurring characters. I didn't include the actual photos because they are irrelevant to the story that unfolds.

these are all sequential on the same photograph. i'm proud to say that E is a close friend of mine. I remember thinking that C, the one with the warm colored photograph, was a mean kid even then. Sociopathic, I remember thinking. But the rest of these people? I considered them to be my friends. Not close, but friendly nonetheless.

Again, all casual friends. Not for a long time, but they were then.

Friends.

This one was the worst. 

You'll note that C and C are the main antagonists in multiple pictures. 

And here's where I come in. Obviously I'm Frances. 

I read these and I felt ashamed. I felt ashamed at my friends and ashamed at myself and embarrassed for Katherine. I almost felt physically sick. I knew, then, how troubled she was. I KNEW that she was adopted and struggling with it, knew she had emotional problems for which she took medication, and I still did it.
I sent Katherine a message a few hours ago, reading:
Hey, Katherine, I just went through that old album from middle school and I kind of realized how awful people acted towards you. And I realized that I was a part of that and I should have been kinder. I didn't think about how the way I acted affected you, and I feel awful about it. So I'm sorry and I hope you're at a better place in your life now.
-Frances


She hasn't replied and I don't know that she ever will. I know she's still not well but she is doing better. She has some friends from sports, and for the most part people have dropped their torment of her. I don't expect her to forgive me, but I want her to know that things are not the same as they were then. This whole thing reminds me of Salon's self-indulgent 'Interview with my Bully'.
I wrote all this down because I don't want to forget the person I was and how far I've come. I want to leave this person behind forever, but I can't, because this is who I am.

• 
  

homegirl drop it like the nasdaq

Today was my official last day of school. I took the English exam. My chemistry teacher was proctoring- the one who I like but find terrifying. When we walked in she said hi to me and I felt special. We took the exam, which was easy and boring. Then we sat for two hours doing nothing but sleeping. I can't sleep in public places so I usually write lists on the cover sheet they give you. Some of the lists include Possible Topics for Research: schizophrenia in children, schizophrenic hallucinations, quantum physics, primitive religion and its origins; a boring to-do list for summer, Things That Might Be Fun: Visit Snow Camp (an activity which I will be completing tomorrow); a list of all the nouns in the first story on the test, Things That I Learned Today: I am not a person who can fall asleep in public places, I am not a person who can entertain themselves using only their imaginations, High-fives are not allowed during standardized testing; Favorite [Chemistry teacher]-isms: "Madison, close your mouth. You are not a bear," and, "If I am a pedophile...". Later, the lists devolved into me marking the time every 5 minutes, drawing a flowchart of all the orders of matter from strings to the universe, and attempting to draw a sailboat by filling in the bubbles of the answer sheet. I included inside the body of the sailboat a brief paragraph about how once my cousin who is dead did this on a standardized test sheet. I thought it was an odd thing to say at a funeral. Anyway, the point of this is that my Chemistry teacher collected the sheets which were mostly blank or covered in vapid doodles. She sat at the front of the class and went through them until she got to mine. Recognizing my handwriting, she stops and looks up at me. She proceeds to read the sheet, glancing up at me every so often. I think she likes me more now.
Then my best friend and I went to a pizza place. Peter and I have rescheduled our bookclub for today at three in the morning. I'm already bored out of my mind and it hasn't even been twenty-four hours since my break. Deliver us from normal.

and now the state line felt like the Berlin wall

I've had a pretty good week. School is pretty much over, except for the English exam I have to take tomorrow. I managed to make it out with my 4.0 GPA intact, though it's not set in stone just yet- our Chemistry Independent Research Papers and the English EOC haven't been graded yet. I could still be screwed! Things are feeling precarious.
On Friday, my best friend and I hosted a dinner party. We invited an assortment of people, and only one person (baseball friend) failed to show. It was pretty successful. Everyone liked each other as far as I'm aware, the food was decent and we walked in the rain around my neighborhood. Then after the two girls we don't know as well but still really like left and we (the best friend, the other best friend, our carpool buddy and his friend) watched Saw 6, which was surprisingly not that scary. I was pretty proud of myself, but I guess it helped that the color contrast was a bit out of whack so the blood looked pink.  People in horror movies are pretty fucking stupid. We all flirted shamelessly but it was okay because nothing could happen because both carpool buddy and his friend have girlfriends. Carpool buddy's girlfriend lives in Georgia. He met her at TIP and claims they're in love. I guess we'll see when we meet her on the seventh. Then, the other best friend slept over and we watched Paranormal Activity. Which was also not very scary. I think I like horror movies now.
Then, yesterday, a friend of mine and I went to her godmother's birthday party. Actually, the seventh annual celebration of her 40th birthday. It was quite nice. The thing about this friend is that her parents are extremely popular and hip. There were a lot of successful 30-somethings at the party. Her godfather told me my voice had gotten 'even more sophisticated', which I think means that it's gotten deeper, but I was still flattered because as we all know, my voice is a bit of a weak point.
Then I went and acted like kind of a cunt. I forgot... well, I didn't forget. I chose to forget about Peter and I's scheduled book club beginning time yesterday. Instead, I was at this party with no wifi and a whole lot of Southern Comfort. I didn't even read The Fountainhead. I kind of thought he was kidding about being mad because I was a little buzzed last night. Then I woke up this morning... well, noon. I woke up at noon and realized, wow, that was kind of a cunty thing to do and he's probably not exactly thrilled with me right now. And then I was annoyed with myself. I read the first chapter of The Fountainhead and thought about what Peter said and realized he probably just read the whole thing because he was mad. And then I was even more annoyed with myself because I was looking forward to this too and I went and fucked it up. He's never really ignored me before so I feel like it's a very bad sign.
I guess blogging is kind of a way for Peter and I to tell each other things we don't want to say. And I gotta say, I didn't realize how invested I was in us, or him, until I wasn't certain that he would be there. I guess Peter has been kind of a constant in my life so far. He's safe. But now I guess I realize we're both just people with feelings and a code of conduct. And I didn't really conduct myself very well. Peter is not a cat. His friendship is not unconditional. (I also cannot pet his stomach or call him obese.)
And here's another thing. Reality hit me in the face yesterday like a bucket of water. I realized when I was talking to my friend just before we both fell asleep that I am probably never going to see Peter ever again. He's not coming to TIP this year, which means I'll never see him at TIP again. Texas is a very long way away and I don't think I'll make it there for a long time. I felt sad about it, even though this is something I had known from the start, or very nearly. I realize that there's an inevitability here, that we will grow apart. In fact, it's surprising it hasn't started already. Or maybe it has and I haven't noticed. Without the constant reminder of a face it's easy to let things waste away until one day you realize that the relationship you one had is gone. This is a phenomenon that happens to a small degree each summer when we take a break from everyone. The summer is when we do things for ourselves. The relationships we were cultivating stop growing and only the ones that are solid survive. Each fall we come back to find that things are not as they were when we left. Couples have broken apart and friendships have atrophied. I realize that I don't want this to happen but I don't know that there's anything I can do.
Jesus Christ on a stick, what am I talking about?
At the end of the year the English teacher that hates me had us all write a letter to ourselves that she would send to us the June after we graduate. I thought it was an interesting assignment. I didn't spend a lot of time on it because I had that Chemistry paper due so now I kind of regret it. The letter covered goals for the future, classes and teachers, clubs, crushes, friendships, appearances, and miscellaneous relationships. It was hard to decide what to include because I don't know what I'll remember three years from now. That's all it is from now until then. Three long years.

i'm going straight for your thighs like the cake you ate

It's... half assed midnight Thursday post time! I haven't posted in a while. I think we sort of have a thing going on where we alternate posting. I'm sorry I broke the rhythm.
Sometimes there are some very interesting people that I want to get to know but they kind of intimidate me, because they're just so out of my social circle. This is often because they are very funny or pretty or nice and these are not usually things that I am so it's sometimes a bit intimidating. But I've found that when I go out of my way to be funny or friendly or something that I can actually make friends. I've found that people actually generally like me most of the time. And that's really very good.
I was talking to some friends (including baseball friend) about things today and we all bitched about our skin. I had the second best skin out of four, but the one with the first best skin had no acne at all. We wanted to murder her, but in a nice way because we adore her. Anyway, the other two (baseball friend and friend who annoys me now because I spend too much time with her), talked about going on Accutane. And it's this thing that will clear up your acne for a while but has tremendous and horrific side effects... like giving your children birth defects. And they wanted to try it. And I can't talk too much because I don't dislike an aspect of myself that much but I can't imagine how it would feel to want to change something so much that you would risk your actual health for it. I can't imagine what it would be like to look in the mirror and hate what you see there that much.
But then I thought about it a little more and I realized, yeah, I would probably sell my soul to fix my voice, which is pretty fucked up. I don't like the way that I sound and the second that I feel I've managed to fix it some douchebag goes and points it out again. And it really sucks. So I wonder, what it would be like to feel completely content with yourself? I feel like I'm at a good place with myself because, I like a lot of things about myself. I have great boobs and big eyes and long eyelashes and hair with natural blonde highlights. I have big lips and a thin waist and delicate hands. I like myself generally, but there are some things about myself that I hate.  I guess this is a pretty contradictory couple of paragraphs.
Additionally, I've been thinking about dating and that whole mess a lot. And I know a lot of people feel like, 'god, I hate it when disgusting people have a crush on me'. But actually not that many guys like me very often so even when it kind of is someone disgusting, I'm secretly still a bit flattered. Which is a little fucked up. I hope I won't have to be a person who has to settle for someone that is interested in me so that I won't be alone.
I hope that never happens.
I know guys have a lot of pressure on them with dating and being the first one to make a move and whatnot, but I also feel like it's sort of tricky for us girls because we have to wait and wait and wait and we can't ever do anything, can't ever make a move and just get it over with already. I think most people want to find out whether a relationship is going to work with someone or not and, if not, they can just move the fuck on. With being a girl, you never know if they're too shy to ask or something and you can't do anything about it, you just have to smile with your eyes and touch their wrist and laugh quietly and hope they figure their shit out.
I'm enjoying rap music now. That's a thing now. I enjoy Wiz Khalifa and Childish Gambino and also Kanye West. Is that a ridiculous thing to say? It makes me feel ridiculous. I like it unironically. Wholeheartedly.
I've also been giving some thought to books. Some of my favorite books are the ones that don't really have a plot or do, but it's not the point. The point is that they're kind of beautiful and generally terribly sad. Winners in this category includes The Virgin Suicides, Skippy Dies. Another way I judge books is by how much I think about them after I read them. Winners for this category recently include We Need to Talk about Kevin and The Lonely Polygamist. Another favorite aspect of books is how well they describe a situation. For these, I really liked This Is Where I Leave You and The Wild Things.
I also sometimes enjoy self-indulgent books about being a teenager. If it embarrases you to enter the teen section (as it does me), these books are perhaps not for you. But they are actually pretty awesome. For these, I adored Paper Towns and Wherever Nina Lies (which is about a girl who reminds me of a real girl I know who's life I want to live maybe for a little while. A life of sex and drugs and raves.)
Speaking of which, I thought somewhere in a stupid part of my mind that when I got to high school there would be a lot of parties with drinking and sexual activities in locker rooms. I've found that there are actually just a lot of projects and stress. New friends, too, and learning new things. But, as I close out the year, I am still waiting for my Project X. It's not that these don't exist, I know for some people they do. But there's something about me that repels parties. People think I don't like them, in the same way they assume I don't like children or boys or being touched. I do, actually, like all of those things.
Cynicism is hard sometimes.

girl, you're looking like a lunatic

It's time for this week's HOT GOS. (Gos is short for gossip, not gosling, or Gosling, or General Operating Systems). Not really but kind of. Sometimes I feel very non-participatory in school gossip. I don't even know who is dating whom half the time. I have really no idea what's going on. But, this girl in my class cheated on her world history test and another girl told on her! Personally I feel like if I saw it, I wouldn't tell, but whatever. The interesting thing about it is, she's a super uptight, neurotic, straight A student. As in, she makes me seem like fucking Joe Boner. She's always been like that. Even when we were young, and I was more uptight, she really took things to a new extreme. Crying during tests, having her dad do her projects. Etcetera! We're tied for fourth in class rank (though I think this semester I'm pulling ahead.) She's also super goddamn annoying. She's that girl who asks questions constantly. But, I can't help but feel kind of bad. Because a while ago we weren't super different people, you know? And I just think it sucks for her that it's all going to come crashing down.
And then also, my friend's parents are getting a divorce. She's one of my newer friends but I feel like we've become pretty close. And I feel terrible. I know that would be devastatingly difficult. The crazy thing is, she didn't really see it coming. The only thing is I think she did, subconsciously, because these last couple months she's been telling me that she's had some weird dreams about her parents fighting, and her dad cheating on her mom. Which is rather interesting from a psychological point of view, but really who gives a fuck?
Do you ever look somewhere and are surprised by the beauty you find there? Today at whole foods I saw a startlingly attractive gentleman. (According to one of my friends, I'm attracted to 'sickly looking' men. But she is attracted to guys with "big butts", and that is a direct quote, so I feel she has little room to judge.) He had round glasses, black curly hair, an angular jaw and was rail thin. I THINK I'M IN LOVE. Of course, I was walking by and so did not have the opportunity to gawk. But other times it isn't a person.  There's a flash of pale decolletage, a single bright flower. Startling beauty, is, I think, better than the expected.
And in other news, sometimes, I'm kind of a bitch. Because, sometimes, when people say something I disagree with, I just straight-up call them an idiot. It's something I need to work on.
I'm running now. I know, I'm shocked too. It's really sort of a fear of getting fat, mostly, that's doing it. I don't know. It's not too terrible. I bought a neon green sports bra the other day. I've never bought a sports bra before. They're very comfortable. Other things I have never done include: drinking Coca Cola, eating at Lantern (the most classy restaurant in the Town). Hosted a dinner party. These are things I hope to change soon. I've also been writing more. I wrote a short story the other day and now I'm trying to illustrate it. It's hard. I like to write, though. It's very... satisfying.
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?

where would you go tied up to a lasso?

Can I tell you a secret? Sometimes I feel a bit sad that I don’t have a person. Just one person that I can tell anything to. I have a few very very close friends and even fewer very very close people, but I can’t talk to each of them about everything.

            I love my best friend very dearly. Sometimes, though, I feel like with her, I can’t care about something too much. I feel like maybe she’ll see me as weaker or not good enough if I tell her, for example, about what boys I find attractive. It’s just not something we discuss. End of story. I guess it’s because we both feel like we’re too good for such things. She, even when we were younger and more frivolous, always refused to say whom she thought was cute, who she liked. And I honestly don’t know if she just didn’t have those feelings, or if she didn’t feel comfortable sharing them. And so, I wouldn’t tell her about such things because I felt there should be some give and take there. That if she should know my secret I should know hers. So over time, we grew to a point where we just don’t discuss such things.  And it’s not that I think she would, I don’t know, be angry if I did bring it up. I just feel like it’s not something she… is interested in.

            And then with sex. I can’t talk to my friends about sex. (By the by, in the shower I was thinking about how I’ve become a person with a taste for BDSM before being a person who’s ever been kissed. What a fucked up thing that is! It’s a little sad, actually. Ah, for generations past.) I can’t talk to them about sex because I feel like they hardly know. Although it’s entirely possible, likely even, that they think the same thing about me. I’m not sure how likely it is that one of them, even just one, goes home and secretly watches porn and reads erotica. It’s certainly beyond the scope of my imagination. So that’s out. Of course, in some ways this pressure (hehe) was relieved by, who else, The Peter? But in many ways I’m hesitant to discuss such manners with The Peter, and I’m not quite sure if I’m worried I’ll scare him away, or that he’ll scare me.

            But of course there are some things I can talk to my girlfriends about. Clothes, for one. Shit (of the figurative variety) in general, actually. This sounds superficial, well, it is, but at the same time it’s something we’re all very consumed with, as teenage girls. This is one of the frivolous, self indulgently girlish things my best friend and I can have.

            Of course there is also my mom and dad. Whom I love very dearly. But obviously all of the above topics are entirely off limits, with the possible exception of clothing. But I do not really want either of my parent’s input on fashion. I’ve really got it, thanks guys. My parents are usually pretty good at easing my anxieties about school, whatever. At the same time, sometimes they aren’t. Like my mother expects that everything is easy for me. Not in a mean way, she just assumes. But sometimes it isn’t. Like, ‘I have a lot of English homework.’  And she says, ‘Well, that should be pretty easy, right?’ And it’s like, ‘no, it’s fucking not. Not everything is easy all the time, mother. I’m not a fucking genius, I’m a high school student.’ She tries, though. Of all the people in the world I care about my parents the most, but sometimes they’re very hard to talk to. I can also never criticize the way my mother does something because it upsets her. As a point of clarification before telling the story, my mother sometimes comes into my room while I’m not there and cleans shit. I don’t ask her to; in fact I’d prefer she didn’t, thanks. But anyway, today I said, ‘Mother, when you hang up the clothes, can you have them facing the way everything else is?’ And she gets upset.

            And I can tell, too, when I’ve crossed the line into some wrong topic of conversation. Like the other day, with The Peter, when I would not shut up about swimsuits. This was obviously a conversation best had with the girls, but somehow I managed to conflate the two in my mind. It’s also entirely possible that I sometimes exploit The Peter for a MALE PERSPECTIVE, which was certainly the case here. And while I guess I sometimes get what I’m looking for, other times not. Usually I’m just reminded that, as with women, there is no one thing that all guys like. The Peter has his own preferences and ideas, independent of the general male population.

Perhaps it's good not to put all my eggs in one basket... right?

            But anyway, blah blah blah angst angst angst I’m a privileged white girl. Sorry, I know, really. But no one ever complains about what’s going right! Maybe that’s the purpose of religion, right? Be happy that you’re not an ant? Be happy that you’re not in hell? Be happy that God doesn’t smite you right now? Maybe.