I've come to the decision that I'd previously been planning to put off until college.
I must get a job.
Before that, I must get my working papers.
And before that, I need to get an appointment with a doctor so that I can get my working papers.
I want to get a job somewhere...I don't know, cool, like, Old Navy or somewhere at the mall. Spencer's would be awesome, but because of the phallic symbols and naughty toys everywhere, you've got to be 18 to work there, and at the bookstores. I think the only reason you have to be 18 to work there is the Kama Sutra and other assorted sex works in stock. But, it's not like I'm going to be reading it aloud like a bedtime story to passerby! I just love the bookstores and it'd be great to work there.
Instead, I'm going to end up in either fast food restaurants or in the grocery store. I'd much rather work around Grocery stores than hot grease-than-can-burn. I'm just afraid that if I don't understand something, or don't know how to do something, that no one will help me, or, if they do, they'll just be rude or mean. And I, being a fragile creature underneath my even more fragile exterior, fear I will collapse and quit in a huff.
Oh, I'm never going to get a job. I hate talking to people. I should just do the inevitable and take to the woods and become a hermit.

Ah Gad! This Friday I wanted to have my friends (you remember, kleptos not-so-anonymous) Jackie, Brianna, Helene and Tania come over and have the little See-Saw Party at my house. I am the only one who has never seen to gore-fests called SAW and SAW 2. Frankly, they looked like the kind of movies that I despise--gory beyond comprehension, things that fuck with your head. I hate horror movies, and I am the only person I know who is like this. I was the only one at my friend Kayla's birthday party who was afraid of the scary movies and, seeing as everyone else wanted to watch it and I was the only one who objected, I felt bad and said it wasn't that bad and that it wouldn't bother me.
I was wrong. It did bother me. Badly.
I started freaking out the minute their dad flipped off the lights in the basement and we were plunged into darkness. I kept going back to the terrifying (to me, anyway. Everyone else was fine with it) events in the movie and eventually started crying, and got laughed at. As usual. Then I started crying harder because I was so god damned embarrassed, and Jackie pulled a tiny flashlight out of her backpack and gave it to me. It was really a nice gesture, but the damned thing went out the minute everyone else had fallen asleep.
Figures. Just my lousy luck.
I was up forever, and when I finally fell asleep, it wasn't for long. I decided to go upstairs and "use the bathroom" to kill a few minutes and see the light of day (well, the bathroom lighting, but close enough). But even before I took three steps I had a problem.
I was stepping on my friends' heads. I eventually made my way through the virtual minefield of their unconscious heads and reached the stairs, but not before walking straight into the birdcage housing the family parrot, which started squawking loudly. I abandoned it and continued toward the bathroom without further incident, and proceeded to spend the next forty-five minutes sitting on the toilet seat, biding my time. I would've stayed longer, but Kayla's dad (whom I feared, and still do, seeing as they are in foster care now because he, apparently, tried to strangle Kayla's older sister) discovered me and had to use his john. I reluctantly went back down and slowly went back to sleep, and this time, when I woke up, everyone else was awake, but unmoving, for we were all too busy observing an odd phenomena.
People were watching us as we slept.
Kayla's older stepsister and her boyfriend were watching us, and smoking cigarettes, and I started to cough, I know, because I always do because of my asthma. (That's voyeuristic, isn't it? I mean, they didn't even know any of us except Kayla and her sister, and yet they were watching us as we slept! That's very disturbing.)
Anyway, yes, that probably the most comprehensive reason why I despise that movie genre.
So why are the SAW movies any different?
Well, truthfully, they aren't. I'm just curious to see what all the hubbub is about. Besides, it's a chance for someone (besides Kristen) to come to my house and for me to see my friends in their outside of school (and, in the case of Helene and Jackie, extracurricular) states of existence.
But, because my mom is working two overnights in a row, I can't have my friends over. The only reason is that my dad doesn't want to be alone with four girls that aren't his. He thinks its inappropriate.
I don't--I know my dad, and I know he'd just be his usual reclusive self and hang my himself in his bedroom watching whatever sporting event was taking place. It's not like we would be sitting in our undies on the bed with him! That's just...icky. And I am worried that if we don't do it this weekend, we won't ever want to do it again, at least, at my house. They'll probably get bored with the idea and it will never happen, and they might get mad at me for having to cancel it and not invite me to do anything with them again.
The plans instead of the See-Saw party are as follows: coerce my dad into going with me to see "V For Vendetta" and make my mom and sister go see "She's The Man", then, later, go out to Friendly's, my favorite restaurant. I love it so.
Friday is the half day I've been awaiting for so long, and I'm so giddy I could cry.
Well, no, not really, but you get the idea.

I'm tired of getting yelled at because I don't want to do things with my sister. My mom always says things like--"She'll be your sister longer than your friends will be your friends," or simply "She's your sister".
Yes, I've realized she's my sister. It's rather hard to forget when you are reminded of it every twenty seconds.
This weekend, my sister said she wanted to go see a movie, "She's The Man", that stupid, unbelievable chick-flick where Amanda Bynes pretends to be her brother for some reason concerning soccer, I think. Anyway, I don't want to see it, but mom said, "You should go with her."
I'm not going to see any more movies with her. Why? Simple: because I hate going anywhere with her. She is embarrassing, obnoxious, disgusting, loud, and generally a pain in my ass. I dread going places with her. I don't care if it sounds bad, I don't like her. And I definitely don't want to see a movie with her--especially one that I don't even want to see in the first place.
Even on my birthday, when I wanted to ask Kristen to go with me to see "Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire", my mom just assumed I wanted Chelsea to go with me. She was wrong. I did not. I wanted Kristen, who is my best friend, to go with me, and I got yelled at for saying so. "She can hear you!" Mom said angrily. I don't care if she can hear me, ever! I'm not going to lie to you, I'll tell you if I don't like you and don't want to associate with you. And at school, she tries to talk to me in the hallways--no. I am at school, and at school, I want nothing to do with you. I'm not at school to talk to someone I see all other hours of my life--I'm there to learn, obviously, and secondarily, I'm there to be with my friends. The key word being MY friends. She tries to make them be her friends, and I don't want her to have anything to do with my friends. There are my friends, I have known them longer, and she should just talk to her own friends, because that it was they are there for.
My mom thinks this means that I am jealous of her. Why would I be jealous of a big, obnoxious, loud-mouth cow who makes an ass of herself all the time and who has shitty friends who would dump her in an instant if someone else came along? (Although her new friends seem to be better, but, with her horrid luck, they might turn on her, too)
That is not the case. I just want her to stick with her friends, and I want to isolate her from my friends. I don't like to share things--my hairbrush (which is gross--everybody has their own hairbrush, so why do they feel the need to use mine?), my shoes (mom only buys me shoes so that she can wear them, and it's ridiculous! They're mine and I don't want you touching them), and my clothes (also mine. I shouldn't have to share them, because they only fit me. Only me. Not mom, not Chelsea, no one except me). I should not have to share any of these things--or my friends. Just because you know their names does not make you a friend of theirs! You can't make them be your friend because you know me!
Most of them think she is weird. And I have told her such, and gotten, again the jealous thing.
Again, not true. They really do think she's weird, from both things that I have told them she does (licking my feet, farting all the time, peeking at me in the shower, flashing and mooning me and half the god damned neighborhood) and from their own experience (Chelsea barreling down the line of buses and leaping on Jackie, sitting naked in her bathrobe next to Kristen on my bed when I was in the shower).
Moving on: after I told mom that I didn't want to go anywhere with her because I don't like her, and I got screamed at. Sorry. I will admit I can't make myself be un-related to her, but I can't force myself to like her. (Sometimes she does something funny and I laugh, but this does not a friend make)
Dad and I were going to go to Barnes and Noble, and Chelsea was going to with mom to the grocery store so that they could have some, in dad's words, "together time". But the next morning, Dad and I were getting ready to go and Chelsea asked where we were going and when we told her, she wanted to go, too. I was pissed. And when I brought up the whole "together time" Dad said her said that. Yes you did! I tried to convince him earnestly, but it was no use. I never win these things. I always end up getting so completely pissed off I want to kill Chelsea so that I don't ever have to have this problems. (Well, now if she gets hurt or something I'm first in line for main suspect.) I never get to spend any time alone with Dad--that little asshole insists on going everywhere with me and him, so, to get back at her, I then insist on going wherever she was going to go alone with mother. I will not be bested by my little sister, no way.
And, as the older sibling, there are some things I think should just be law. Like getting the front seat in the car (if only one parent is going, otherwise they get the seat. Is it really so hard to get in the back seat? We have to sit there, and so did you at one time, remember that?), and getting more money--which never happens.
And I'm tired of her coming downstairs when I'm down here. I don't ever want her watching what I do on the computer, and I don't like her being so close to me. I want my privacy, but that's almost impossible in a house with a kleptomaniac sister and a nosy mother.
She is a kept--she's stolen my purses and given them to her friends, she's taken my bracelets and, again, given them to her friends, taken books out of my room when I'm at someone's house (including my yearbooks. Why would you want a yearbook that you aren't even in, I ask?), my body sprays and lotions, and she even stole my inhaler and glasses once.
She doesn't have asthma and she doesn't wear glasses. I think she thinks that wearing glasses makes her look smarter or cooler, but if if that were true, it would have to be your own personal glasses, would it not?
Chelsea is also known to log onto my name and download her music to my folders, and deleting my files. That's why I have a password and have locked all of my files so that I am the only one who can view them.
I'm getting tired of locking all of my files and keeping them in hidden folders. I can't wait for college.

I hate the bitches in my school, especially the ones in my astronomy class. All through the movie we watched yesterday, those assholes kept talking and giggling, and would not stop. The sub even yelled at them, and, yes, they continued to talk, even louder this time. I was so close to going off on them, but, dammit, my shyness (or something, I don't know, all I know is that I couldn't make myself say anything) kept me from letting loose all of the pent-up fury I hide deep within my unassuming person.
Everyone at school wants me to go to the Youth For Youth Lock-In. Now, I ask you, why would I want to spend my free time in locked in school with a bunch of people I don't know, and who could steal my things, attend three classes that I don't want to go to? Why waste my $20 on that when I could spend the money on something I want, like a book.
Helene, Tania, Jackie, and Brianna are going (the latter two only to see Tania and Helene strap on Sumo suits and fight and have the loser roll around on the floor), and Kristen wants to go. They've all asked me, and I told them my reasons I repeated above. I don't care if they're going--I'm not. Why are they so into this? You have to join Youth Council to go free, and you have to play corny games, like hitting someone before they say their names.
Oh, whoop-de-do, you've won me over! I'm most definitely going to go now! Voot voot!
No, people, that was sarcasm.
No way in hell am I going to that god damned lock in.

Oh, God, mother, why must you pain me so?
Every time she takes me driving, she screams at me for something completely unimportant, like crossing my arms when I turn, or taking a hand off the wheel! What the fuck, lady, you do it even more than I do!
"I've got my license, I can get away with it."
No you can't! If you get caught doing something stupid, you'll get ticketed too, with no special treatment just because you have a god damned license!
And she yelled at me in Fashion Bug. I hate that store, all it carries are fat clothes and old lady ensembles, and I was saying it, too. She said to shut up because I was embarrassing her. Oh, I'm sorry, since when does having an opinion create an embarrassing situation? She was the one fondling the bras, not me! She was the one playing with thongs and G-strings, not me! And, when I complained about how slow the cashiers were, she told me to shut the hell up, that she was tired of hearing it.
And yet, five minutes later, she said the exact same thing.
Hypocrisy, that's what this is.
Anywho, my driving expedition to the state line was a roaring success. When I'm driving with my dad, I'm much more at ease, and I seem to perform better. And I can tell you the exact reason this is so--
He doesn't turn into the Driving Nazi the moment I put the key in the ignition. I'd much rather drive with him, but mom always insists on going with me. I want him to go with me more, but, he's kind of groggy because he (in a way completely unknown to me) runs on six hours of sleep a week. And I don't understand how he manages this feat, and I fear I never will.

I think that the longing I have for a boyfriend is making me do stupid things. Well, actually, only one thing, because there is only one boy I talk to, and that would be Xzane, the gorgeous guy who sits next to me in American Lit. Baker, the crazy lady, told him that he was incredibly behind because he was out of school almost all of last week with mono.
Well, lady, in Xzane's defense, don't you think you ought to give him a little more time to catch up? This isn't his only class, you know.
So, the student teacher gave him his quiz he was missing, but he didn't know the answers.
Oh, god, I'm ashamed to admit it, but I helped him cheat. Me! The paragon of academic honesty! I helped a guy cheat! Is this what is going to happen when I start to talk to the guys I sit next to?
I guess I can sort of (weakly) defend myself by saying that I felt bad for him for not having time to adequately prepare, but, then again, for the case against him, he did have all of last weekend and the four previous days of this week to study.
Ah, god, this is horrible! I can only defend him because I think he's sexy!
Lord, I've just realized it, but I think I may have a touch of shallowness about me!
Anyway, there was a fire drill today. This in itself would not be noteworthy news, except that it occurred duing period 5/6--a lunch period. They aren't allowed to schedule fire drills when people could be in the lunch lines and being served because it'd waste food. Anywho, yes, we are currently under the assumption that a moron (most likely a freshman) pulled the fire alarm. I felt so bad for Katie, because she's on crutches and needs to use the elevator. Since they couldn't be sure it wasn't a real fire, they made her hobble down the stairs, on her good leg. That's only going to make it worse.
Ouch. That's smarts.
When I got home today, no one was home, so we figured that our parents went to get groceries. They did, and they bought an unexpected gift: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
Oh Hell yes!
They were going to let me drive to the state line today, but by the time we got all of the groceries put away, it was dusk, and they didn't want me to drive around in the boonies in the shadows. So, they're letting me drive tomorrow. To make up for it, mumsy let me drive to the mall, and then to the shoe store by Old Navy. It was very satisfying.
I should be doing the research and note cards for my Roaring 20's presentation. Now that the student teacher clarified it for us (8 words per bullet per slide, unlimited slides and as many note cards as I want with how much I want on them), it won't be nearly as bad, and it won't be due until next Tuesday or Wednesday. Honestly, I'm thinking that when he leaves and the Bakenator takes over, we're all going to fail. She is such a lousy teacher! She doesn't explain things well enough and she always accepts personal calls and questions about the upcoming play when she should be teaching her class! I hate her. I'm going to plead with the student teacher and try and make him stay as long as he possibly can.

I cannot ride the bus any longer. I despise it and, if I lived closer to school, I would refuse to ride the bus ever again. And, again, Kristen left me alone to be exposed (against my will) to a kid who was so greasy you could send the Space Shuttle to the International Space Station and back on his bodily oils, and who smelt vaguely of possum (I know, how can I compare someone to something I've never smelled? Well, simple--I just did, and that's the end of that), and then we he got off and we transfered at the middle school, a small, equally undesirable child plopped down next to me. I can't stand the bus for one reason, and one reason alone--I could care less about the conversations they're having. I don't want to have to try and tune out 50 peoples' conversations: I want to go home in silence, sans my own thoughts and maybe the radio station of my choosing.
I have to research Calvin Coolidge's quote "America's business is business" and its' meaning. I'd really rather not do that. I don't want to give a presentation, especially not one where I'm limited to 8 words per slide, and note cards containing only 10 words (and I can only have as many cards as I have slides!) What is the point of this exactly? We aren't going to remember anything when we get up to present it, even if we did memorize most of it(Well, I won't. I don't know about everyone else).
So tired. Must sleep. But first, must print out my research.
Happy dreams to me...Happy dreams to me...

I've decided today that, no matter how nice guys may seem, they're all really arrogant pigs. My partner in American Lit (who is, I'm not afraid to admit it, a sexy beast), commented on a girl sitting on the other side of the room, saying that she was fat and that her thong was out. I'll give him the thong one, because that's always disgusting, but the fat one? Hardly. If she's fat, then half of the school is obese by his standards. It's just absurd how these people can be just so...so mean, I guess is the word I'm looking for. I'm telling you, if I wasn't sitting next to him, he'd probably have said the same thing, if not something much worse, about me to his buddies. And while I'm on the subject of guys and girls, I really wish I had some guy friends. Everyone else I know has boy friends--not the romantic kind, but the friends who just happen to be of the opposite gender. I am the only one lacking in this department. The closest I think I've ever come in this department is with the kid who sat next to me in 6th grade math and science, Pat, and that wasn't even anywhere near being friends. That was just a smart kid (not me) helping one so far in the dark (that'd be me) try to pass math.
I hate my bus ride home if Kristen isn't there. I hate to sit alone (or to be alone, for that matter. I'm not joking when I think I have serious attachment/abandonment issues), but there is no way in Hell I am sitting with Chelsea. I know that there should be a sisterly bond between us, but, honestly, there isn't one. She just continually irritates me to no end, and is a public embarrassment the way she swears, kicks people of the male persuasion in the tender-gender-spot, and is just a general rude, crude person, and I can't even begin to fathom how exactly we are from the same family. Anyway, I hate riding the bus full of scumbags and annoying little children by myself, and I felt a strange, and entirely unfounded sense of betrayal at being left to stick it out by myself.
In totally unrelated news, when my mom was vacuuming the stairs today, she did something completely mother-like.
She dropped the vacuum on her head.
And how, you ask, did she manage this feat?
Well, she had the vacuum on the steps above her and was bringing them down to clean the lower ones, and somehow, the blasted thing went "splat" on her head.
I know it shouldn't be funny, but it (undeniably) is, because it is something only mother could do.

Today was better than usual, which is, all things considered, not exactly a great day. In American Lit, we finished reading "A Rose For Emily", which was by far my favorite short story ever read in an English class. William Faulkner is a sick little man for coming up with this premise: a lonely old woman finds love in a northerner, a man's man, not the marrying type (he says that he likes men, so you figure it out). One day, the old woman-Emily-goes to the druggist and asks for the strongest poison, and he gives her arsenic. A little while after, the man disappears, and Emily rarely leaves her house. The townspeople start to complain when a hideous smell starts to leak from her house, but goes away after a while. When the woman dies years later, the townspeople finally go into the house that has so long eluded them and make a gruesome discover-the body of Homer (the man who mysteriously disappeared years earlier) lying, decomposed, on a bed, next to an indentation of a head with a hair the same color as Emily's embedded in it.
It's a truly macabre notion, but, by God, I loved that story. It was most definitely not the normal, mundane affairs the school usually has us read. I was actually surprised the textbook would print a story like that--they usually print only boring and confusing tales.
My partner and I wanted to know this--Did Miss Emily have her way with the corpse? (Yeah we know it's disgusting, but if she was willing to sleep with a rotting, stinking body every night, maybe fooling around with it wasn't such a big deal)
In Astronomy we basically had a free period, so I looked up the adult images placed in the backgrounds' of many Disney movies (Rafiki's chant and the sex cloud in The Lion King, the phallic symbolism in The Little Mermaid, the breasty business in The Rescuers...). It made me reaffirm my belief that artists have way too much time on their hands.
After doing my mountain of homework, which included an essay comparing Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" to the Salem Witch Trials (which seems kind of redundant to me, seeing as the play is based on the actual events of the Witch Trials), an organizer for a Regents review essay about whether or not I think it is okay for treasure seekers to poke around shipwrecks (which I don't think they should be allowed to use, but I don't feel all that strongly either way, I just had to pick something to write about), three pages of math homework, and Astronomy articles (which I gave up doing on my computer because WordPerfect is a crappy program that consistently pisses me off, so I'll just wait until the next time the computer lab is open to do that particular assignment), I decided to hang out on the Internet--much like I am doing right now. I was interrupted by a case of...well, you don't really need to know what exactly, but as I sat on my pedestal, I asked myself this following question.
Do the preps feel insecure at all? And more importantly, do they fart?
No, seriously, have you ever heard a prep experience flatulence? I, personally, have not. It's like their bodies are wired differently, to protect them from the embarrassing "normal person" problem of gaseousness.
So long, and thanks for all the fish.

I don't feel that great today. Shitty, in fact, is about as accurate a word as I can give. I'm not deathly ill, but my head feels all clogged and heavy, and my nose is either constantly running or blocked. Pleasant business, I know, but, hey, what can you do?
Before school started today, the teacher whom I despise the most, Kurcoba, came into Mrs. Baker's class. Apparently, Kurcoba is making some of the costumes for Beauty and The Beast, and was coming to show them to Baker, because she is the head...whatever you call the head of the drama club. I was just hoping she would leave, because I cannot stand her, for reasons I am about to explain to you.
Last year, Kurcoba was my Archeology teacher. The beginning of the semester started out just fine, but then, as the semester progressed, she started to get on my nerves. Now that I think about it, I can't even remember what exactly made me dislike her--it was probably her teaching style, though. I am not a visual, hands-on person. I would much rather cart around a textbook and do bookwork than build a sugar cube pyramid. Anyway, she just started bugging me: she consistently told us to (politely, as teacher's tend to do) stop talking, even though it was usually the table of guys behind us, or the equally catty-I mean, chatty-table of girls on the other side of us. And she made no secret that she outwardly favored the seniors she had in her homeroom over everyone, especially me and my friends. (And Hetal, whom I do not consider a friend because she lies through her teeth all the time, the one that sticks with me the most being the one she told about her setting fire to herself) She even took Kristen's notebook, and held it up to the class, saying that this was not what your notebook should look like, and she almost made Kristen (who had gone up to ask a question) cry.
After that incident, we all sort of threw in the proverbial towel and gave up on the class--them more so than I, but I slacked off much more than in any other class I'd ever taken (even to this day). When it came time for us to turn in our final, a four-project affair, my other friends hadn't even bothered to attempt it. I had attempted it, but hadn't finished it as I was busy studying for my Regents-and therefore more important, because they are needed for graduation-classes. I didn't turn in the part I had done. At the time, it seemed like...not a good idea, but not the worst thing possible. I mean, it wasn't like I was turning tricks on the corner, I was just blowing off a final for an elective class, that I didn't even need to get my Advanced Regents diploma. But, in retrospect, it was a stupid thing to do. She told me that I'd blown my chances of getting National Honor Society, and that I wouldn't pass the class. (Well, she might have been right about the Honor Society thing, but I didn't-don't-really care about that anyway. I mean, the status is good, but I'm not paying you money, selling your poisonous flowers, or doing any community service just to get a little paper thingy saying I'm smart--I know that already; but she was wrong about the whole failing her class thing. I passed with a 72, which, not stellar, is still passing. Ha! In your face, beeotch!--I still think that, even though I do now realize I was being a stubborn, mindless follower of the group mind.)
Wow, yes, anyway, getting back to the present:
Once Kurcoba left, we handed in our rough drafts of our essay on "The Crucible". The student teacher told us that whoever did the assignment would get a free 100% in the grade book. I was amazed by how many people in the class didn't do it. I mean, Jesus Christ people, it's only the freaking rough draft! It doesn't have to be Pulitzer Prize material here! All you have to do is just outline what you're real final copy is going to look like. I admit, it wasn't easy, but not many things are, are they? Just do it and be done with it, for the love of God! Mrs. Baker, who, for a change, was actually in her class, looked at everyone without the assignment done with an expression that clearly said, Do this when I'm teaching you, and I won't be so merciful. And I buy it, too. The student teacher is far too lenient.
In gym, we started the CPR unit, and got to be bombarded with horrendous pseudo-actors who are so over dramatic it's pathetic (but deeply amusing). After that, we broke off into groups and demonstrated the Heimlich maneuver on a partner. Part of this involved bringing down the person, and I hate that because I'd really rather not have an anorexic twig trying to ease me to the ground. So, I just threw myself (gently, of course) to the ground for her.
Math was surprisingly easy today, meaning I wasn't utterly lost and bemused, with only minor misunderstandings.
My astronomy class is pretty interesting, when you learn to tune out the annoying freshman who miraculously got into this class, and the annoying jerk who sits behind you who insists on using the rack intended for my books to use as his personal footrest. The little bastard even kicks my stuff down so he can put his foot there!
But, other than that, a fine day. And the being ill part, obviously, but otherwise a good day.