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. 

kill your darlings

My internet is fixed now hopefully for good. It's been an arduous ten days.

Today in world history we talked about the nature of good vs. evil. I pointed out such a dichotomy’s flaws- nothing is really ever good or bad. We’re all just sort of amoral beings drifting through a universe filled with amoral things. (I feel like I couldn’t come up with the word amoral and instead said something inane like ‘abenevolent’.)

            Sometimes when I tell people I want to be a therapist they laugh. I guess it’s because I have a sort of very unnurturing and possibly even stony persona. It kind of sucks because, you know, this is sort of something I actually care about. It could be that I’m prone to antihyperbole- as in, tempering the language that I use. It’s sort of like, I don’t want to seem too excited about anything. I’m not really sure what the purpose of that is. We’re reading lord of the flies in English and I’m pretty excited about it because Lord of the Flies is one of my favorite novels. I’m a little worried everyone will hate it. I sometimes feel like people are hesitant to talk about things they really like for fear that someone will criticize it. I feel like it’s almost criminal to genuinely, unironically like something. Sometimes people think that I ‘hate everything’, which simply isn’t true. Someone who hates everything must lead a very unhappy life.

            I have a tendency towards word crutches, but only sometimes. I guess (see?) they’re sort of an expression of uncertainty, but I almost feel like it’s sort of a deliberate effort on my part. I don’t really know.

            Today I was angsting about not getting into a good university. I really only have one friend I can commiserate with about this- perhaps because we have similar dreams. Anyway, I was doing this, and my Spanish teacher- with whom I am on good terms- says to me, ‘Frances, you know something I learned in life? Everyone gets tired of the smart kids worrying about failing.’ And I see his point. But at the same time, it feels to me like somebody saying, ‘Gee, I hope I get MVP on the baseball team this year.’ And me saying, ‘Yeah, well, I suck at baseball, so I don’t think you should complain.’ Because that’s really not how things are. Some people are good at some things, and other people are good at other things. My commiserating friend is really, really good at baseball. He wants to be a doctor for the airforce possibly, and go to Stanford, and be valedictorian. He told me today something along the lines of, ‘I used to think I was smart. Then I met you.’ And of course I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t flattered. But then I thought about it some more and I felt like a prick. Because why, you know, am I making everyone else feel like they can’t be good at something? I don’t know. What I do know is that commiserating friend is really good at baseball, and really good at making friends and making people like him. And so I guess what I’m saying is that everyone is good at something. But I sometimes feel lucky that I’m good at this thing, this intangible sort of smartness thing.

But other times I don’t, because, people sometimes say, ‘well, what did Frances get on this?’ And it’s like, well, Frances failed this because she’s not actually a minor deity. She’s just a person who sometimes fails things, just less often than other people might. And sometimes people ask me my opinion on things I know nothing about, like, ‘how do you conjugate detener in preterit tense?’ or, ‘how do I find the cos of a triangle?’. And I don’t know at all. I don’t know why people think I know. I think people agree with me a lot more often than I agree with myself.

            What I’m saying is I often worry that I won’t be able to achieve MY dream. And that feels like a failure to me.