After this, the rest is all bullshit

(Lyric from Mindless Self Indulgence)

I would just like to go on a teensey, tiny little rant about how my prom tomorrow has, before even beginning, gone down the tubes.

I ordered a dress from a company called Drac-in-a-Box stationed in Scotland about two months back. They have some of the most beautiful clothing I’ve ever seen. Their service, however, is about the shittiest I can have encountered. Prior to my ordering said dress, I contacted them to ask if they could have it to me by April 1st. I was assured that it would be no problem if I ordered from them soon.  I placed my order the next day. Time passed, I heard nothing. I contacted to ask how it was going, “Dorian” replied that he would talk to seamstress and get right back to me. More time, nothing. More time? Nothing. For weeks. Finally, I contact him again, he says he’ll be sending it out that week. Liar-liar-pants-on-fire didn’t send it for another five or six days, then spouted some shit about it being “tied up in Customs.” …It’s a dress. They can pull it out and look at it. Just a dress. My mother asked for the tracking number. He insisted he would find it himself. No word for two days. April 3rd, and Mister Dorian finally coughs up the number, my mother plugs it in, and receives a message that they have “no record of this item.” Meaning he has either given us the wrong number or it is still not in the American Postal System. So after paying in excess of $350 to get the perfect dress here on time, it won’t arrive in time. I likely won’t get any of that money back, and I will not get to wear the dress to my senior prom.

FURTHERMORE, today, I went to buy my ticket anyway, despite my main reason for going being the dress itself and was told that I was not allowed to purchase my date’s ticket. Not because my date graduated two years ago, oh no, but because my date was a girl. Whoa, hold the phone. I’m playing an overprice $25 for each ticket and they’re saying my date, who is an upstanding alumni, can’t come? Other people are bringing older dates, or even dates who never went to our school, but because “it’s too nontraditional,” I can’t bring mine. I tried to explain that she’s my best friend, we wouldn’t be doing anything lude, neither of us are bi/lesbian, I just wanted my best friend there. Same answer. So I go to talk to the teacher in charge of the Prom committee. She says she can’t see it as a problem with it. I ask one of the Assistant Principals, again, she sees no problem and advises I just go have a boy buy the ticket for her. Seems easy enough. So I send… let’s just call him B. B’s a good guy, but not so bright, so he forgets her name before he can even give it to the lady selling tickets. (For some reason, they need a name for every ticket. Whatever.) Okay, so, second try. An acquaintence, who happens to be bisexual, currently in a fairly serious relationship with a girl, overhears my ranting. She texts our mutual friend… C. So C comes down to the lunch room and (his mother being a lesbian) is rightly irritated. He takes the money, marches up to the office, argues with them, and ultimately succeeds in buying her ticket.

So in the end, I get at least one thing that I wanted in dealing with my prom, but I just wanted to point out a little something….

- Preventing someone from bringing a date to a funciton because they are the same gender is illegal. It is unconstitutional discrimination. -

They can’t say it was because of her age, older people are coming. She has no bad record, she was a stellar student, they had only one reason and it in every possible way the very excrement of a male bovine.

In short, I’m writing the Head Principal and the School Board to explain to them the blatant dumbfuckery of this. I can only imagine how pissed I’d be if my date actually were my girlfriend.

Hurricane Jane

    Yesterday morning, my sister turned to leave the house, but paused a moment and turned to face my mother. “Three years ago today,” she murmured, and nearly began to cry as she hurried out to her car.

    For the life of her, my mother couldn’t recall what anniversary it was. Granted my sister’s notable instability that occurred three years ago, she was tremendously worried over what she might do. The fateful drive to the hospital, clutching my sister’s slashed arm together had taken place in December. She wasn’t committed to a mental health facility until July. What had happened between those two dates? What did March 18th, 2005 mean?

    It wasn’t until later that evening that my mother realized and came to tell me. On March 18th, 2005, I had been called out of class by a tearful sister and lead to a side-closet of the guidance office where some of our collective friends sat, all in tears. I couldn’t understand why they were all so sad until my sister choked out two little words through her tears. “Sarah died.”

    Sarah Jane Parchenski had been suffering malignant cancer for over a year. When the doctors had told her she had two weeks, we had been at the hospital, clutching her freezing hand and sobbing together until we were nearly sick. She lived another four months after that. In that time, she named only two things she really, really wanted. The first was to marry her boyfriend, the second to graduate from high school. The ceremony was small, but beautiful. The tears were ones of joy, and for a couple hours at the reception we all forgot how sick she was as she danced with her husband, to have and to hold, for however brief a time.

   “Now we’re expecting a healing,” Sarah’s mom had told him. “So you’d better be prepared to stay with my girl for a very long time.”

    “God, I hope so,” was his only answer. And he stayed by her side until she passed away shortly after.

    Sarah was one of the most incredible people I had ever known. She was delightfully unorthodox, indefeatably bubbly, and loving in every aspect. She was honest and benign until that which she was treasured was threatened, at which point she could whip herself into such a mood as to send the offender running.

   I remember once a friend of hers I hadn’t known was in emotional agony and set to run away from home. Instead of standing back and watching her go, Sarah ran with her. They aimed for Canada and made it nearly to the border before the police brought them home. Sarah had no reason to run away, but she would never leave a friend to face pain alone. In return, we didn’t leave her.

   She never asked much. Perched on the hospital bed they moved into her house, we would sit and play video games or watch bad movies for hours on end. Once while visiting our house, she and my sister got the odd idea to make themselves pants. I wasn’t present to find how the idea generated, but while my sister carefully followed the pattern, Sarah Jane just threw out a bolt of fabric, flopped down on it, and drew her outline with a marker. She argued that she wanted to try it her way, cut the pattern out, and sewed it all up.

   As it turns out, Sarah Jane’s pants fit better than my sister’s so-carefully planned pair did.

    Sarah was one of the remarkable kinds of people who can be friends with both sisters and never offend either. Belligerent as we are to one another, my sister and I found a way to ’share’ Sarah. She spent most of her time with my sister, but spent much of her time praising me or drawing pictures in my honor. She called me the “Electronic Goddess” because once (and only once) I managed to fix her television. She even inked a portrait of me throwing lightning. Another picture she gave me just before she passed away featured a magnificent angel holding the hand of a tiny little girl wearing a hospital bracelet.

    She encouraged me to always write, no matter how discouraged I got. Someday, I’m going to dedicate a beautiful, breath-taking book to her. For now, I offer this rambling eulogy.

    You’re not forgotten, Sarah Jane. We did, and always will love you.

Sky – pt. 1

This is just a snippet of a story I began writing several months ago based on a series of oddly cinematic, continuous dreams. I haven’t written very much more, and it’s plausible to argue that I never will. This story is my own work, so please don’t go off stealing it or anything. It’s hardly worth plagiarizing.

___________________________

      Stars. It’s not like they’re anything new. They’ve always been there, just the same. Distant, shining… even when the sun comes and hides them, they’re still there, still watching. So why is it that humans have always been so fascinated by them? Always thought of them as something so mystical and amazing? So from square one they started making machines to get closer to them, to look into their secrets, and they traveled out to space to see them up closer. But from where I was floating, the stars didn’t look any closer, and they certainly didn’t seem like guardian angels watching over me of any sort. The truth about stars is that they’re made of fire and gas. They aren’t meant to guide your way, or grant your wishes. They’re made to burn. Still, from where I was floating, they seemed cold, and mocking. Like spectators to a murder they won’t do anything to prevent. Still, if I could’ve wished on one of those titans of gas and fire, I’d have wished for air.
       While I was floating there, watching my breath make little fog clouds on the glass in front of me and wondering how many more breaths I had before I was dead, I stared back at those mocking stars not with defiance, but pleading. “God, please let them send me someone. I don’t want to die. Not yet. Not ever.” It was a selfish thought, but it was mine, and one of the only real thoughts I had left. It’s funny how quickly suffocation limits your brain. Not funny like a good joke or watching someone else fall down the stairs, but funny in the way that makes you want to vomit or cry, but somehow you can’t find it in you to do either. I think I did laugh at myself a little, then, if only because I couldn’t breathe enough for tears. The chances of anyone finding me in this floating body field were so small they could hardly even be considered, but I clung to them. “Maybe someone saw the explosion,” I thought, but I knew it wasn’t likely. Fire doesn’t go far in space. Just like me, fire needs air. Maybe I was made to burn.
     In a way, I guess I’m glad what little breath I had kept me from seeing much but the pinpoints of light so far away. I knew all around me that other bodies had already run out of air and that now space was stealing their heat, discoloring them, and bloating them into forms that would barely be recognizable. I didn’t want to turn blue and twist like that. Already my lungs felt stretched, my throat was tight and burning. There, in that graveyard of twisted metal and floating bodies, I gave into death. And just as I was breathing my last, counting my last regrets, and whimpering out my last pathetic tears, a star came closer. To be more exact, it burst to light before my nearly sightless eyes, and the darkness surrounding that star blotted out all the others and drew me into itself.
        When the light came back, there was an angel holding me. At least, at the time he was an angel. Future knowledge would prove him more to be a fox or perhaps a horse’s ass, but for then, he looked perfectly like every picture of an angel I’d ever seen. His hair was as pale as moonlight on new snow, though he couldn’t have been more than a couple years older than I was. His features had the same sharp, icy quality, even through the fog of my dying mind. He was breathing for me, his lips pressed against mine, forcing air into my exhausted lungs with all the insistent gentility of a lover. As we breathed together and I breathed him in, I slipped away again. In some strange way, this angel smelled like a planet – a real planet – one with dirt and trees and musky, untamed places. In that moment, I thought I was dead and Heaven was an untainted world.
      ”Breathe,” the angel murmured, calling me back to myself as my lungs filled themselves with cool air. “You’re safe now.” Behind him someone snorted in suppressed amusement. He turned his face and stared coldly at the indistinct person until they were silent. Turning back to me, he lifted me from the floor as if I weighed nothing, even in that clumsy suit. I sank against his chest, drawing in his heat and gazing up at his dark eyes. I remember pleading inwardly that he would look at me again, just to assure me I was alive. As he laid me on a cot, my hand found his and I clung to it, but I couldn’t bring myself to speaking. He pulled free slowly and turned away. Within seconds, I was asleep in the metal bowels of the ship that had answered my prayers.
         

______________________________

And now we all know why Xae doesn’t write sci-fi.

Pet Peeves

So everyone has those things that they really just can’t handle. Even if it’s something petty like people who smack their gum or overuse the words “like” or “really,” it can drive you completely up the wall. Well once upon a time I thought my top pet peeves were…

1. People intruding upon my writings without express permission.
2. People playing with my hair.
3. Blatant forms of hypocracy (e.g. – my sister yelling at my dad for most of my young life to quit smoking and yet now she is, herself, a chain smoker. Or people say they hate serious conversations, then insist on starting them at every conversation. Etc. etc.)

Lo and Behold I have found one that takes the cake. Perhaps this will sound ungrateful or like I simply cannot be pleased in one fashion or another, but this new annoyance takes the cake.

I hate, hate, HATE boys who ruin a perfectly good conversation with proclaimations of undying affection.

Seriously, how is it necessary? When I am talking to a fellow about choice in colleges, or the finer points of using a bazooka vs. a semi-automatic in some spontanious video game, or better yet the prime choices in plans for Z-Day (the zombie invasion) the absolute last thing I want to hear is “I love you.” Or perhaps in not so many words “you’re amazing” or “we’d be perfect together.” Pardon me, but do I have no say in the state of my own ‘perfection?’ Believe it or not, four incidents have of late spawned this onslaught of Amazonian man-hating.

Incident 1
      An ex-boyfriend with whom I am still very good friends has spent the last month beating around the bush about breaking up with his estranged boyfriend (yes, you read it) for me and dropping not-so-subtle hints about prom. Now looking logically at the fact that I broke up with this guy before (and being the “frigid bitch” that I am, “turned him gay”) why would I be holding my breath for him to come crawling back? When we were dating, he all but ignored me anyway, so how has this even become an issue?

Incident 2
    A different, and immensely more recent ex-boyfriend has begun to finally put the pieces of his life together. Hoorah!! Now granted, this was a long-distance relationship carried out via email and IM (a brash moment of stupidity. See prior posts regarding to breaking up.) In discussing his plans to finally begin his college career, getting a job, and really becoming a productive member of society, he begins to spout some bad imagery about climbing out of a hole and hoping I’ll be the one to pull him out and then “walk beside him.” Now as much as I am willing to help him out as a friend and encourage him when things suck, I’m only 17. I do not need nor want a boyfriend who I would have to babysit, pat on the head, and work on. If I’m going to have a relationship, how about an actual relationship instead of a project?

Incident 3
     Another good friend of mine over the internet who has made it no secret that he is fond of me has once again been ranting on about my perfection. Flattering as this is, I can see where it’s going and now possess an intense averstion to online relationships (refer to Incident 2.) I try to hint at this so as not to upset my dear friend, because he’s had a rough track record. Now it’s not that I’m not attracted to him, because believe me he fullfills nearly all the qualifications of my “type,” but the boy lives halfway across the country and wants me to move to his state. He promises on and on about “putting me up and supporting me,” but who says I’m ready to be “kept?” Besides, this is a little bit insane to ever picture it working so I’ve accepted the fact that he is a friend who lives in a very, very cold climate who I might visit once in July, but no other time, lest I freeze. I gripe at 65 degrees, I won’t even consider – 20.

Incident 4
    This one really takes the cake. My best friend’s … fiance’s…. best friend (got that?) is a really, really nice guy. He’s great fun, gentlemanly, sweet, and I have no complaint with him in the world as a person. Until Friday. Now I know that he is a clawing, plotting, guilt-tripping, pitiful fool. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, but I’m still rather irked. We made a run to good old Wal-Mart partway through an evening where the four of us were hanging out, partly to give best-friend-and-fiance some alone time, and partly to procure another bucket of addictive cheesecake bites. Big. Mistake. For the entire trip, he rambled in 3rd-person hypothetical ways about the 8-million reasons why I should date him. I kind of deliberated just opening the door and kicking him out of my car into the freeway. Alas, I have short legs, and he is no small individual.

So anything I’ve said about being unattractive and having ‘no options’ is evidently a lie, so allow me to rephrase: I am somehow able to repel anyone of whom I would have even the slightest interest that falls into the ‘available’ category. Slightly lengthier, but a bit more accurate.

Thus far the only solution presented to me is that I flee to Canada to be in a three-way lesbian relationship with a long term friend of mine.

It’s oddly more tempting than I would have imagined.

You know, except for the part where I’m not really into girls.

Is it real, son? Load it up and kill one if it’s really real.

So I’m while I’m sitting chilly in the Photography room, there is a gun threat presently dominating my school. Evidently yesterday there was some kind of racial class between four white and four black students, and now the word drifting around is that one side is going to come in armed and kill everyone who isn’t wearing black, especially those wearing red. Exciting no? Sounds like gang activity to me, but then, my school - nay even my county - has never had an issue with gangs. Probably because there’s nothing really for them to do. Nowhere decent to bother fighting, no vandalism to commit unless they feel like spray-painting their symbol on the side of a cow and proceeding then to tip it over. Really, my town’s so quiet and so sleepy that the idea of any real violence outside a short fist fight is unheard of. Sure, people get murdered once in a blue moon or die in horrible wrecks, and there’s the occasional freak incident of a corpse being beheaded by a passing train in order to cover up the real cause of death, but what town doesn’t have that?

Anyway, I’m lounging here in my lovely outfit of black… white… and red. (Go figure. What are they going to do? Half-shoot me?) I can’t go out to take photos, I can’t even go to the bathroom because of our “modified lockdown” where everyone must stay in their classes until the bell rings, speak to no one in the halls, etc. etc. Honestly, it’s so ridiculous that I want to go home, not because I feel threatened but because I simply don’t want to put up with all the bullshit that spawns from this kind of threat.

In other news, with prom approaching I am glancing at a few dresses now and then and making a point of mass-avoiding any guy who looks at me for two long. I feel mean for saying “not on your life even if I was promised your firstborn child to sell on the Bolivian black market,” (No offense to the Bolivian community, just went with the first country that came to mind) I can only think of one person at this school I would be even mildly compelled to go with. That’d be the Fox, not because I’m attracted to him, but because I know I’d be entertained, not harassed or pressured to be any certain way, and because he’s still a dear friend of mine. (A subject of some annoyance, one might note, to other “potential suitors” who do not grasp aforementioned Bolivian response.)

In all likelyhood I’ll probably just go by myself again and leave halfway through. No harm in that, the music and the people really aren’t my thing. I love dancing, but it helps me somehow to have a melody, and the overwhelming aura of cattiness that lingers on prom night can be a little exhausting, so my darling band-dork friend from the previous post and I might slip out partway through and high-tail it to the nearest ultra-touristy town to haunt away the weekend and meet some potentially interesting people. Of course, still have to work this out with the lovingly paranoid parentals first.

Sorry to ramble, but really, I have no other way to occupy my time. I promise there’ll be a coherant post soon.

Oh Here It Goes Again

   So I’ve been neglecting to write at all and a lot has happened to catch up on. I’ll need to be fairly brief, since I’m writing this during my European History class, so here we go.
    I got over my ear infection, things are staying back where they’re supposed to now.
    My charger got fixed, I got my laptop back, my charger fried again this weekend and will have to order a new one. However, my laptop still seems to be partly at fault.
    I tried not to talk my way out of All-State Chorus Screenings (namely because I’m 4th alternate, so what’s the point, right?) and in return was told that I am “self-centered” and that it genuinely “doesn’t matter if it makes you happy or not” (so says my director.) Personally, that pisses me off like whoa. It is an extracurricular thing and should matter entirely in relation to my desire for it. So I was dreading going, and true enough I spent four and a half hours sitting in an audotorium, running on only an instant shake for breakfast and half a bag of tasteless popcorn, waiting to be called to go sing. The chairs were uncomfortable, I was nervous, and there was a basketball tournament going on in the next room over, filling the lobby and audotorium with the smell of sweaty socks and gooey concession stand food.
   All in all, it was a miserable undertaking but for one notable uplift. If I were to have described, previously, my “ideal guy,” sauntering into screenings, I saw him. “Well that’s fun, at least I shall have a nice view,” I think to myself until I end up in line with him. We talked a bit (rather I talked and he stammered in the most endearing of ways and fidgetted and blushed) about the music, voice parts, waiting, etc. All in all, it wasn’t so long, but standing in such close proxy to him, I could better appreciate the acute loveliness of his bone structure (his long nose and strong jaw accented by the sharp geometry of his “emo” glasses, countered by the shape of his eyes and the soft, feminine or perhaps even feline curl of his lips) and even so much as his smell. I’m not sure if it was some form of cologne or whatever, perhaps just his natural scent, but he smelled like drying herbs in a wooden house. Maybe that’s an obscure reference, but he smelled like good woodwork, spices, musk, and flowers, and more than anything I wanted to just hang around him. Instead, for four and a half hours, we played glance-tag (he glances at me, I glance at him, we blush, we look away) and I gushed in an uncharacteristically girly fashion to my mother. Soonafter, I discover that his mother is occupying the chair directly behind mine, and has thus heard me so graciously describe very countour of her son’s face, down his gorgeous sawn neck and storkish shoulders right to the accent to his hips and legs (among other things in such proximity) granted by his snugly-fitted jeans. She seemed chiefly amused and continually called him up just behind me as if trying to force him into conversation with me to no avail. I was afraid I had misinterpretted signals, and he was too shy, and thus neither of us has the other’s phone number or email, or anything of the sort. He doesn’t know my name, and I know his only be eavesdropping. (Naturally he would just-so-happen to share the same name as my biological father. How awkward! How many people are called Trey!?) I glanced on the All-State site later that day, just to see if I could determine whether or not he’d be in my choir in the unlikely event I got to go, and he was. From that I was also able to learn what school he goes to, though it is a bit of a way off. And so, I feel almost certain this is the end of the story, at least ’til April and All-State, by which point I likely wouldn’t be of interest to him and we’d both be too rushed to even exchange another of those awkward glances and giggles.
   It would appear I am mistaken.
   Upon further gushing to one of my best friends (who is an intense band dork,) she lights up as soon as I so much as breathe the name of his school. “I have a ton of friends at M- High!” she squeals. “From band clinic! I have friends in the music department! I bet one of them knows him!!” …Oh dear. I made her promise no names or clear descriptions, but it would seem she is bound and determined to… “hook me up.” I’m not sure if I should be excited or purely dreading it.
   All the same, he was lovely…

I’m So Dizzy, My Head is Spinning

So evidently this time it’s a “labyrinthial infection.” In other words, I have a virus in my inner ear that is putting me through some intense vertigo. Previous diagnoses include sinuses, an inner ear disorder, blood pressure, blood sugar, atypical migranes, and a brain tumor. All of these proved incorrect. At any rate, I’m on medication for it and fighting to even be able to stand up straight. I’ve been out of school since Monday. A couple days ago, the port on my laptop broke and it’s currently at the shop for repairs, so until her return, likely very few or very short posts. Such as this. Be back soon, we hope.

Place all your bets and watch me lose

” The life that I got, but never used.
Dream every night that one will come true,
But only bad ones every do.”
               – “Out Through the Curtain,” The Hush Sound

   Sorry for the stall in posting. Things have been a little chaotic here. I started school up again to the exact same schedule as last time. I’m not really sure how it’s going to go, most of my classes seem to have taken a turn for the worse in regards to my classmates, with the exception of Photography II. There are a grand total of eight people in the class (as opposed to the 20-something in Photo I) and eight enlargers, meaning the darkroom is mine any day I want it. We’re also planning a trip to the nearest zoo! I’m just a tad bit excited. I haven’t been to the zoo in years! So, I am somewhat filled with childish glee, but on the other hand, things kind of suck.

For the first time in three weeks, I got word from my “boyfriend.” In short, he said something about “just being friends who love each other a lot,” seeing me as some kind of “goal to strive for,” not being good enough, and followed it up with “All my love, Your R—–.” Even though I was doubting it and considering doing it myself, it stung a lot more than I had been anticipating. Actually, not so much a sting as like someone had clawed a hole through part of my chest like it was paper and continued perpetually scratching it wider. I think this is a pretty good indication I still have feelings for him. I didn’t know how to cope, I couldn’t be openly sad, because I’m not supposed to be dating him to begin with and thus could not mourn the dumping, so instead I went to my “comfort zone.” I just went to sleep. I was anticipating maybe a half-hour nap and set my alarm for just that, but when I woke up, the hole was still there, so I rolled over and closed my eyes again… and again… and again… for nearly three and a half hours. The hole didn’t get any smaller, but at least it wasn’t growing so fast when I woke up, and my body felt better for it. I spent some time with my best friend, the only one who really knows and knows about R—, trying to cheer myself up, but it didn’t quite work. Not that I could let her know that. We went out to dinner the next day, as well, with her fiance. If anything can shred at that nagging hole, it’s a happy couple. They didn’t do anything so particular… hugging, a couple kisses, a light hand over hers, a glance exchanged for just a second that speaks volumes… It’s beautiful, between them. Normally I can sit back and smile and admire it like it were one of the finest masterpieces sculpted in the world, but last night it just made the empty seat beside me painstakingly prevelant. Fortunately, our waitress was an extra-inattentive, anal icequeen, so I could distract myself by critiquing her and building “Monuments to Thirst” (as N— (best friend’s fiance) put it) from all the empty cups at our table.

Another complication spurs from a guy we shall merely refer to as “Puppy.” Technically, I lost the right to call him that a while back, but we need to keep things simple. I called him that for a number of reasons – he fishes for attention, whines and paws when he doesn’t get it, obeys for treats, and furthermore reminds me vaguely of Neil Gaiman’s character Shadow from American Gods who goes by the same nickname. Anyway, Puppy lives up North and West of me by a handful of states. Met him over my game and he got rather obsessed with me. I didn’t want to be mean, he was a sweet guy, but I was kind of going gaga over R—. Still, my niceness must have “lead him on” and when he found out I didn’t have the feelings for him he wanted, he exploded, said a lot of the cruelest things I’ve ever heard in my life, and we couldn’t speak civilly for weeks. Not sure why, but just recently we’ve been able to talk again. Probably a dumb move on my part, but he distracts me from numerous unpleasant things. Tragically, he’s up to his old tricks again, and I’m not sure how clear I can be that he still stands relatively no chance. The long distance thing is clearly harder than I had thought, and I’m not sure I ever want to try it again.

On a less melodramatic note, I’m having some story issues. Got an idea for a new one, trying to get some work on it, but I cannot seem to come up with adequate names for some of my characters or a motive for the killer. Taking a crack at a vampire/werewolf story that hopefully will not be cliche. Anyway, I have two very Nordic-looking twin girls who need names, the killer (relative young, handsome, righteous) needs a name, as does another boy of no distinct origin. The killer has lately escaped from prison and is after people again – perhaps for “revenge” or something – he is not the bad guy. Anyway, he needs a motive. Is he avenging someone? Who? Why? What else could he be doing this for?

I know that’s really vague, but if you can come up with anything, I’d really extra appreciate it.

And do you still remember all the time that has gone by?

Happy New Year. 2008 and another tradition broken. Instead of having aunts and uncles, cousins and various relations over to watch the ball drop, drink champagne or sparkling grape juice and have a hat-making competition from the various art materials around the house, I was the only one fully conscious in the last seconds of 2007. It would’ve been sad to carry the tradition alone, so instead I bundled up, took my flood lantern, a pair of swords (to appease my constant paranoia), and walked out to the only tree in our hayfield. I tucked myself in with the roots and called a friend on the cellphone. She told me when I had twenty seconds to go and we hung up. I tilted my head back and watched the veil of clouds chase across the few patches of deep blue and starlight, counting quietly to myself.

10… 9… 8…

What had I really accomplished this year? Nothing really to speak of. So I was a senior, no longer a junior, I had a niece… but really? Not much.

7… 6… 5…

Was anyone thinking about me while they were counting down? Three states away, was my maybe-boyfriend wishing he was talking to me, or was he too drunk to think of anything? What about the boys who’ve sworn their “undying love” to me? Was I on their minds? What about my beloved Fox, whom still I can’t be sure if I love? What was he thinking of? Even my best friend…. did I cross her thoughts? Did I cross anyone’s, tucked away in the dark beneath so big a tree in an empty field all alone?

4… 3… 2…

How would ‘08 be any different? I’d send off a book, I swore, as I have the last two years. I’d stop hesitating so much. That was a new one. When I felt like doing something rebellious or stupid, perhaps it would be best if I just did it. After all, if I’m going to take the time to regret things a year from now, they’d best be worth remembering. Even small rebellions. What about a New Year’s Wish? I want to be madly, passionately, and irresponsibly in love with someone, I decided. I want to think they’re the one for more than a couple weeks, when my logical side knows they’re not. I want to have to fight with myself to keep my hands off them, and I want them to lose the same battle. I want to even have the luxury of that battle.

1… 0

And just like that, ‘07 went away, and I hardly felt any different. I lay there a few minutes, talking to God, before deciding I wanted to sing to myself. It took me a little while. Thinking of an appropriate song was trickier than I thought. After a few more minutes listening to the fireworks, rebel yells, and howling dogs all around, my mind drifted to an old favorite RPG of mine, The Legend of Dragoon, and to its main theme. Things got oddly quiet when I started singing to myself. Even the fireworks seemed distant and I lay there, going numb one limb at a time and singing in another year.

Perhaps it’s not such a bad tradition to start. Now I think my seventeen-year-old liver and I will have some wine. As some tiny form of rebellion.

We are changing. No sleep, no gas, no excuses…

So evidently I’m titling my posts by semi-appropariate songs that come to mind. All righty then.

Sorry I haven’t posted, even though a lot has happened. Well, it’s particularly due to the fact that so much has been going on so I could hardly get a breath, let alone computer time.

They day after Christmas, my best mate (yes, I use the word mate) got sick with some gross dizzy/weak/nauseous thing. Of course, this was incredibly stupid of me, since I have no immune system what-so-ever, but I seemed to be fine for a good long while after, and thus didn’t think much of it. We just lazed around and watched Stardust (better as a book, but not an awful movie), I really wasn’t helpful in the nursing department at all. I don’t know where to find anything in her house, least of all medicine.

At 3am that morning, my sister’s fiance calls in a squeaky panic. She’s in labor, of course. However, my mother (having blissfully already been through this twice) declares that it will be a while, and that we will head up in the morning, hangs up the phone, and rolls right back over. Finally, a score against sleep deprivation! Except that I’m still reading Twilight, and it’s so incredibly good I can’t put it down until I’ve read the very last page at 4:45. I was tossed from bed at about 7:30, making for just short of three hours of sleep. And then we drove the two hours to K-ville, in which I managed to crash for about half an hour in the backseat. So we arrive at K-ville’s women’s hospital (lemme tell you, this place is snazzy, the hospital rooms are bigger than our kitchen/dining room combined) and we sit. And wait. And listen to my sister groan. And wait. I got a smidge of writing done on Blood and Feathers (extremely tentative title, I just can’t think of anything else to call it, yet) and listened to some Apocalyptica (my favorite music for writing, I highly reccomend it.) Eventually, after a couple hours of thrashing boredom, my step-dad offers to take me over to the nearest Borders. Containing squeals of absolute glee and clutching the $140-something in Christmas cash from various relations, I sprinted down to the van and bounced through traffic until we finally arrived. Containing myself as best I could, I blew $70 righta way. Picked up New Moon and Eclipse (sequels to Twilight) to keep myself busy, an edition of xxxHolic (yes, Xae’s a manga nerd, too), an album by The Hush Sound and re-bought a Linkin Park CD that mysteriously vanished after a visit from my sister two years ago. Returning to the hospital, I listened to my new CDs and chatted with my biological-dad who had just arrived, looking much like a cornered gazelle. Bio-dad relaxed after I was there and we talked a bit about the same things we always do, conversation can be sparse between us, until 5:00ish, when at last, Evelyn Faye made her appearance. 7lb., 6oz., and with a headful of auburn hair. I’ll admit, she cute, and was quiet the first two days of her existence. Mom stayed over, Dad and I went home and back the next morning. I curled up with my Hush Sound CD, headphones, and New Moon to pass the time. So much of the day passed in oblivion to me minus a few short conversations and minimal baby-contact. We went home again I applied for a job I don’t want, kept my nose into the book. I was done with the 550+ pages of it at 3:45 and went to sleep.

Waking up, my anti-immune system caught up with me. I was dizzy, my stomach rebelled into my throat with every movement, it truly felt like someone was crushing in my eyes, but the absolute worst of all was the sensation of falling apart. Now, when I say that I feel “like I’m falling apart” everyone assumes I mean emotionally. No. This was like someone had ripped the seams out of my body and that my skin was unravelling and tearing all the muscles with it. Nasty imagery, but it was an awful feeling. So I stayed in bed all day, no reading, minimal anything. Then Evie and Sis came home and things just got insane. Every member of our family had to come in, with me dizzy and stranded on the couch in my pajamas, looking like hell. After the parade ended, I fled back to my room and hid, writing some more.

Of course, sometime in the night, Sarah has to stick her head in my room and ask me to watch Evie for a minute while she goes to the bathroom. Post-pregnancy-pee’ing evidently takes 10 minutes. Evie started wailing and I had to pick her up and try to dance her back to silence. Being. Sick. How does no one get this? I’m dizzy, I might throw up, I’m weak as a kitten and you’re having me hold your newborn baby? Come on, people! Anyway, it didn’t work. She was hungry and I couldn’t find the pacifier to appease her. Mom woke up and came to the rescue thankfully, though Sarah kind of sighed when she saw me like I was an absolute disaster. Uh, I am. I don’t do child/baby things. I’ve been pretty clear about this since the first new baby in the family. Ah, well.

Which brings us to today, where I’m doing almost nothing at all. Woke up, wrote this. Sorry for the delay, and the ranting.

…I just noticed how incredibly long-winded I am. Sorry about that!!