Suddenly, I'm making use of my phone, like, actually trying to figure out how it works. And you know what, leaving messages suck, cuz no one ever calls me back. Trying to get everyone together is dumb too. If they're going to make it this hard, I don't even want to see them.

Another thought: I'm trying to make Gelato. I watched Tuscan Sun last night, learned Italian real quick, and now I just need to eat their icecream and have an Italian guy say he'd like to go swimming in my eyes. On second thought, that's weird and I don't like that. But I'll keep the ice cream.

I really love my life. And little headaches aren't as bad as big ones.

I changed my mind again. I do like nature. In the right context, not even on my wall.
Well, all we really wanted to do was go climbing, but we hiked for three hours over dirtbikes paths, private neighborhoods and boulder fields, behind waterfalls, over rushing rivers, and through the woods. We never found the wall, so we went somewhere else.
But it was nice, and I liked it, and I don't even know how.

This morning I woke up late and didn't go to morning church, cuz I definately went last night. I cleaned and read my Bible, and listened to music really loud (cuz I can only do that when they leave). God saw that it was good.

everything takes so long to wait for.

I don't know what else to do, so I try to pick up a book. or paint a picture.

but dang it, why should a cheesecake take all night.

I started crying about key lime pie. I'm officially freaked.

I also realized that I REALLY miss Pinky and the Brain.

I need a scholarship.

Most of this summer (well almost three weeks) has been an experimentation of being deaf. One ear, or the other has pretty much been out of function for a long while now. I have an appreciation for deaf people now, and I'm ready to go back to normal. I find my constant "what?s" to be quite embarrassing, and consequently annoying.

This has also been my 4th experimentation of the all church camp out. I really try to like it, I mean, it is beautiful. Nature is the kind of thing that you want to be framed on your wall as you are walking towards your bathroom with working toilets, or your bedroom with a nice comfy bed...or perhaps your living room, where you sit down to watch your favorite movie. I like nature, on the other side of the window. Mostly. That's all I'm saying right now.

Am I tired of summer? I keep thinking about these picturesque snowy scenes where I take my gloves out of the glove compartment, and walk into the house to the smell of gingerbread. Maybe, I just need another few hours of sleep.

the stupid rat dog got into our yard, and there was uproar. I was just wondering when I will ever be able to hear and taste and smell again. (it is really unfair that a cold can knock out three of your main senses in one blow) thinking that I rather like coughing syrup though. thinking I might be addicted. planning on taking my new bike for a spin, once I stop suffocating on tissue/toilet paper/ papertowel. hoping that I will write just the right thing on my scholarship applications. driving home in fogginess with fish in the passenger side (on emma's lap of course). knowing I'm wholly not the person I set out to be this summer: acknowledging that I am indeed, five pounds too heavy, and my hair is, unfortunately, no longer.

the stupid soda cans sit on the counter, and there is contemplation. deciding that they look good, but knowing they do not taste good. elbowing my way through my dreams. trying to find one to match my current state of...unpreparedness for the rest of my life. realizing that this is the last year that I may sit and eat popcorn and watch movies with the folks. realizing that I might want to stay home? making coffee with my own coffee maker and painting a picture that I'm fond of. (FOND OF!) oh.....who shall help me do the math.

seeing that I am not an economist like I thought I was.

It is weird, to be back, in the west. I feel like my personality has changed 9 times for 9 different types of people, and now I'm trying to make it normal again. I drove for 7 hours. Starting at 4 am. That feels very ......surreal. And now I'm back at home, and Jack is here, and the stairs are nice and cushy, and the bed I'm sleeping in is my own, and the paint on the wall is paint that I put there. I just want to smile and be all usual again. Because the usual is nice.

Anything you Want
Spoon

If there's anything you want
Come on back 'cause it's all still here
I'll be in the back room drinking my half of the beer
And if you and me is so right
Why is it the same thing every night?

It's just a matter of time
It's almost measurable
Imagination ain't kind on us
Tonight

You're at you best when you got the guns turned 180 degress
And finding out if it adds all up right
We go through the same lies
to sell out
to appease
But go to sleep in a bed of lies
I've made my own, more than once or twice

And now time is my time
Time is my own
I feel so alive, yet I feel so alone
'Cause you know you're the one and that that hasn't changed
Since you were 19 and still in school
Waiting on a light by the corner by Sound Exchange

I guess I haven't written in a real long time.

I'm still alive.

I'm somewhere east of the Mississippi. (Where the SAT's are important I suppose)

I made a shirt. I tried out DDR. I didn't do drugs. I can't really check my email. It doesn't work. I guess I just baked about 6 loaves of bread. And I drove about 1000 miles.

This feels sort of like running away.

Well, today I perfected my really bored face. I stood out on the lawn, trying to prepare myself to hang laundry for probably the 23rd time since vacation started, and I just knew that I had established the glazed "I'm not really alive" face. I stood there. Devoid of motion, and I knew that I was suddenly an expert at being bored.
Then I started monologuing. "Get a hold of yourself Rachel! Do you know how pathetic you are?" and so I accomplished three things today,
-I found my library card and
-I went to the library and
-I primed a board that I will paint a picture on tomorrow. (assuming I finish my first one)
*oh, and I finished the day without taking one single nap
p.s. I'm wearing a workout headband
p.s. I think it's hard to go jogging in the morning if you are addicted to the late show and watch it everynight.
p.s. I'm not addicted to the late show. the last time I watched it was last summer when Lettermen had the Strokes play. I watched the whole episode just to see those darling Italian boys. (but I am addicted to SNL, which makes it just as hard to go jogging Sunday morning but I don't do that anyway)

"I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?"
-Hamlet

One time, I asked Jordan what color his jeep was going to be and he said
"Well it wants to be gray."
Now I'm thinking about my internet connection
"It wants to be on"
but maybe I'm giving it more merit than it deserves.

YOU KNOW WHAT! I DON'T CARE IF ANYBODY'S LISTENING ANYMORE. I'M GOING STIR CRAZY AND IT DOESN'T COUNT BECAUSE THEY WON'T LET ME OUT OF THE ARMY UNLESS I'M CRAZY, BUT IF I'M CRAZY THEN HOW ARE THEY GOING TO KNOW? ALL THEY THINK ABOUT IS THEIR CRACK HABITS.

I feel like
writing a story, but they all end up so tragic and desperate and sad

I feel like
singing but I can't remember all of the words

I feel like walking up to Rob Thomas and asking
just what is he thinking

I feel like
having some one look at me for three seconds
instead of two
(cuz that's when they look away)

I feel like
disappearing into a white puff of smoke that would land
on that boy's shoe (the one he scuffed on the door jam
as he walked in) and I would just keep floating until I
was mostly oxygen, only to be breathed in and breathed
back out.

Everything is over, and it's so WEIRD.

I turn off the radio when they play those songs about being alone. Except if it's Spoon. Then I just dance.

"I feel so alive yet I feel so alone."

So I was throwing back bottle after bottle of water. I met Steele's brother again, and now I sort of know what Steele would look like if he had short hair and glasses. And I was in the swimming pool at the party, and I was the only one there my age, which is awkward most of the time, but I sort of know what it's like to LOVE people. Because I loved them, and I didn't see their faults, and I didn't see the tattoes and the cigarettes and the alcohol, because we were just laughing and loving each other. (besides, I don't really think there is anything wrong with those three things)

Oh yeah. I LOVE JESUS.

should we
ever recover
this whole thing will look so funny
all the things
we think we need to chill about
are really not that
BIG
but we drink coffee to make them go away
we shout at Jace through the window
and we hide from the authorities
(when we don't have our licenses on hand)

I don't know if I'm really living in this body
is this my brain?
she says to me, that everything is crashing down around us
but I don't know, really.

I don't know if that boy just said
what I think he just said
I don't know what I'll do

Is this it?
or do we brush things off and take a new page...
I'd be willing to hide my head in the sand
even while they call my name
because I don't know what I'll do. (for a while)

so I'll sit (for a while) and wonder
and I'll know, (in a minute)
what to do. but it's so hard (for a minute).
just to sit here.

Jesus and so much rock and roll

Today I bought three pairs of shoes in 15 minutes. For fifteen minutes I was like some real girl who carries a purse and has a boyfriend and cheats on her boyfriend and texts people she really doesn't care about. ONLY, I don't date, I was wearing a tie dye shirt, had smart glasses on, and I didn't really have a purse. Some strange moments.

I also have nice sunglasses, but you can't really wear them in the dark unless you're Ray Charles and I'm not.

But, it's been the best weekend ever, and I don't know how it could get any better unless I could win the lottery and give it all to my favorite church, but I don't have a ticket. ( I might keep some money to go to Westminster and buy my parents a house with some land )

Also, I can't believe school's almost over and that I'm happy about it. I can't believe rock and roll in a parking lot with people I love. It's been fantastic and I know that everything is just barely starting and it freaks me out because it's so amazing...

My family, it seems, has a small obsession with the three hole punch. They always want to know where it is, and somehow in the 35 minutes before they all decide they need to three hole punch something else, it is misplaced. I don't understand it, but I bet if you came over in say an hour in a half, and walked through the door, somebody would be yelling up the stairs "Where's the three hole punch?"

I like this whole vacation thing. I forgot what its like to look at myself in the mirror and not see all my worry stenciled out in my eyes. And I smile, cuz it's that great to forget about math assignments for a minute, and to not think about kids at school that I don't want to think about, and have dreams at night that don't involve someone ruining my life, or me finding dead bodies in the cupboard. Its nice to be able to wake myself up because I have, ahem, an alarm clock. "Time" has entered my bedroom, so now I can't be late for work.
Really, the only thing I want to worry about is putting enough moisturizer on my face for the sunburn.

driving home from the Garden of Eden and we're sitting in the car, listening to Tom Petty, and I really really like his song Wildflowers, because I think he's singing it to a feminist. It's nice, and I think that all boys should hear it.

I can't have imagined a happy 24 hours, because I didn't spend one minute thinking about my problems, it was like they didn't exist in the pool, in the car, in the mountains, in our gaudy apartment complex. We sat in the sauna and laughed in the steam, we made fun of the boyfriends and girlfriends, and the fat women kerplunking into the pool outside the sauna doors. We walked around in t-shirts and shorts, like the rich people do and slept in beds that were 4 feet off the floor.

I don't think I'll forget, and I like this happy radiation we all have now. It's so familiar...

This life is kind of funny. Actually, its mostly funny, unless you don't want it to be.
And I thought the 60's were sort of clean. I get you now, Pete.

The boy next to me in History class sometimes leans over, and he whispers things like we're accomplices. Like we're best buddies. Like he used to when I saw him 4 hours a day, and ate pizza with him at parties. He says things that he doesn't say to the boys next to him. To his friends. Maybe he forgets, for a moment, that he quit me? I don't regret him, just don't understand him. All he talks about is cars. So I sit back and take in only half of Vietnamese wars. Only half of hippies. Only half of the clock spinning its wheels til it makes my life 8:50 a.m. and none of us talk to each other. I'm on a caffeine high, pounding my desk. Who is he? And I'm in second period now. My bright green back is being videotaped by the girl who's last name probably stars with E or F because she sits to the right of me. My teeth start chattering. Who the heck are these people around me? I DON'T LIKE THEM. Except Carrie who sometimes whispers to me. (she's losing her voice)
and Heidi who wants to cook with me and I always walk her cousin Steve to seventh period. Just because its tradition, and also because we like the same concentration of music. I also eat with Erin every once in a while, but who are these other people? And why don't they see me banging my head on my desk? Maybe they can't hear me LAUGHING at them. Laughing at their midnight walks through the snow. Laughing at their prom dresses. Laughing at their parents, who pay for their gas. LAUGHING, because they don't know what the real world IS. They don't understand what it's like to be sitting next to people who think that you're crazy because you don't date. They don't know that what I do on the weekends, or that I'm really not a freak ( I'm trying to be somewhat normal) and that I DO rent movies from Blockbuster, and I do eat chocolate when I need it. (they don't know that. They think I have a crush on Sam Waterston. They don't know me.)

And now. I'm sitting in my hot truck, and she's telling me that she said it, for me, and I nod, in a stuff-mart parking lot, realizing I will never fill my photo album cuz I keep losing money at the gas station (I can't live without some freakin' coffee). I know that half an hour ago, I didn't have enough to say, but I've said it all, now, haven't I?

"Well, I call that a scratch."
"Why?"
"Because it went off the table, that's why."

Oh God, please don't tell me this has been in vain
I need answers for what all the waiting I've done means

I feel like a cripple. I walk like one at least. Zealous excercise. Sundays are so strange. Saturday nights make them strange. Everything is so surreal these days.

"Hey, I think we should try this new thing at our house, like sleeping at night. You know, I'm instituting a new rule. We're going to sleep when we're tired. That sounds nice." -my dad at 9:30 last night.

It takes a lot to laugh, and it takes a train to cry.

One of my all time favorite sounds is pinecones crunching. It's kind of like the sound of stepping on a bee, but less morbid because a pinecone is already dead. It's a sound you get to hear only once per pinecone, because you can't resquish them.

Here is what I dream of: I step outside, and I walk along a road of pinecones, and they all crunch. It's never winter, except when I want coffee. And my mailbox is full of chocolate, because somebody sent me some cuz they know I like it.

If you want to know a secret, it's too late. Unless you beg on your knees. I might tell you.

sign up: the picket line or the parade

ONE TIME

"Well, I've never gotten anything below a D. Well, I got a couple F's. But I'm saying I've never actually gotten a D." -Philip

I like Audioslave, and any songs that sort of sound like Audioslave, I attribute to them. It's kind of nice when people do that to you.

"I asked Elaine if she was depressed about the pope, but she's not catholic. Jess, do you have the Pope?"
"Yeah, I keep him in my pocket."
-Alison and Jess

we have style, charisma, we have pronounciation....

I think that I will write a story about a family who eats nothing but soyburgers. Oh, they cook it different ways. Barbequed or microwaved, in a box with a fox. It's like spam. Its all purpose.

In leiu of the Valentine's Day, I'd like to take a moment, and I think we should all wash our hands real quickly. I mean, unless you think germs are nice.

Even though it's Valentine's Day, I still had to scrub the little toilets at work. But they gave me seven pounds of those Necco hearts. Even though I only eat the white ones.
Even though it's Valentine's day, I'm not in love. But oh baby, I'm in love. The rain does something to your brain. Kelsea and Jordan and I took like, 99 red and white and pink balloons to Andy's house for fun, because we just had the balloons tied to our hands and we were gonna float away. Andy's brother didn't even blink 9 times when we just left the balloons in the stairwell and left. And then we ran through the ghetto, in the rain, and it was so fun. I was practically in love.

I have to book it somewhere.

Have a fantastic day.

This one time, I was like, trying to read your xanga, but I couldn't because the colors were blinding me. I'm sorry, that's just the way it was.

I'm rolling my eyes, because I just deleted a bunch of crap so you wouldn't have to read it: isn't that sweet of me? Oh...cute.

I used up all the words. I keep them all inside of me, in Mrs. Johnson's class. I keep them inside of me when Jordan isn't listening, and people interrupt. I keep the words inside when I walk down the halls with buddies who give me high fives. And I keep my words away from blue notebooks, when I feel like writing them down. They are still in my throat, and they won't come out, because they don't need to.

Grandparents in town. I shut myself in the bathroom to count to ten; I pray I don't kill my sister for wearing blood red lipstick on her white face and twirling in my skirt at Village Gardner or whatever, eating sandwiches as I am at school. I've been rather good, considering. I got amazing beautiful grades (even though I missed a total of 14 classes this quarter) and I am on my way to physical well being (meaning I'm keeping up with yoga and cutting down on my coffee/dr. pepper/empty calorie intake. Computer crash. We got a new hard drive. All my best stories were lost. Shoulda made hard copies, or published more of them on secret blogs. I might cry. It's like somebody stole my memories, not to mention my art. Dang Gina. Oh yeah. I think I had the most passionate anger outburst in my life. Yesterday. It was like, everything I've been mad about for a long time just came out as I watched Jordan's face give me these looks I've never seen before like, "Is this you? Are you going to beat me with a stick?" This is a really good apple. I swore to my mom that she couldn't make me go to prom, and that she could forget about having grandchildren because I'm never getting married. I'll join the Carmel nuns, right here in Utah. I'll just pretend to be Catholic, and I'll pray about you guys, even though you don't deserve it cuz YOU NEVER LEAVE ME COMMENTS. I'll sneak out for a good movie now and then, but otherwise, don't bother. After nunning for two years, I will move to Belgium and live in a Waffle House. The native boys will ask me if I'm a cowgirl, but I will not go out with them. Don't. Stop. Wait. I am sleeping on the couch. My head hurts. Goodbye.......I'm not coming back.

B-day stands for amazing. I really love these things:

- Jennifer Neddo (she always get Mrs. Johnson going on some whacked subject and wastes all class time so we don't have to do anything but sit there and make faces at each other when Johnson goes crazy)
- the fact that Kelsea doesn't even really do school anymore, she just shows up, then sits in other people's car til the bell practically rings
- milk shakes and chicken soft tacos (food in general)
- Mr. Pinnock's class, I don't get it, it just works
- chinese food ( I'm hungry, okay)
- April (it's coming)
- rock climbing, let's go

if the medication works, could i be the way I was?
in control...
you painted a picture
i'm the worst type of sinner you know
you painted a picture
happier than I could afford-
nobody can save me...
-sugarcult


Friday with the fam. I come home and their is pizza, and pop, and my family is lovely, and I remember why I still live here, why I didn't run away when I felt like it.

Tonight I might write a story. Watch a movie. Take a vacation from my problems. I'll probably go to bed.

"Okay Todd, tell me all your deepest darkest secrets."
"Are you going to make me bleed?"
"You think I've snapped!"

"welcome yourself to this world: hope you enjoy your stay.
help yourself to this world: its rapidly passing away..."
-steele

I was going to write a song for you, but I forgot the words.

My head hurt till I took some strong medication, then it hurt less, and I got out of all of yearbook for newspaper loveliness. Newspaper is the only reason I really woke up this morning. My head was floating around, and Mrs. Johnson went off on some creepy tangent, so I pulled my sweatshirt up to my eyes, and hid under it, as much as I could without actually "having my hoodie on", and tried to block her and her strong perfume out of my bubble.

Must watch something Jane Austin or Shakespeare, I feel a sudden lack of English in my world. Good day.

"take heart, take heart...as if I had a heart..."
-girls singing by my car

parties at the Porters

Jeff and Brenda Porter are quite possibly my very first nomination for "Interesting Couple of the Century". We were just sitting there, at their party, and he gets up and gives a word or two, and says, "Honey, do you have anything to say?"
"Amen," she replies.
"She has nothing to say?" He is puzzled, and is handing out Christmas Carol sheets. Apparently we're going to break out in Silent Night right in the middle of the party. I'm getting lightheaded because there are alot of people in the room using up my oxygen, plus I'm singing very long notes. So I'm already goony, and Mike Lemonjello is shouting, "Sell it on ebay! What do you get for that Norm?"
"Is it new?"
"Mint in the package."
"$800." And I can't stop giggling, which makes me more lightheaded.
I'm standing around the soda-table with three sound-guys and a few bassplayers, and it's nice, because me and Kelsea fit right in. I'm like, "How unusual to have us music people all around one table," then I realize that it is a musically-themed church party. And I get it. Mike Lemonjello is whispering to me secrets about how to trick the soundguys into letting me be louder.
Lee is mad that I would even think of touching my amp, and he is telling me to move to Europe so I can listen to techno and loud bass. And I spill my 6th cup of Pepsi under a chair, and feel bad cuz the Porter's have nice carpet.

Forgive me if I'm unchronological. I'm going backwards.

I sat in the car with her, like I always do, and the music is loud, so we are screaming at each other til she turns it down to get really passionate about the song. "How long, how long, will we live in a place called Vertigo?" and I am smiling, because she wants to rock like U2, forever, and I think that our music will be played on movies during the important parts.

I just remember taking walks with him, after I'd had a breakdown, and he would tell me what life was, and we could see our breath as we walked through the night down Del Clair Road, and sometimes I miss that. I remember that J.D. said that the world was all wrong, and Dad would nod and say it's all gonna burn.

I remember being six years old, being pretty sure I had lung disease when the car windows were shut, and how that progressed into a hypochondria that I've recently tried to murder.

Life is funny sometimes when you can't get back onto the chair you were so sure of. Sorry for a long post.

"I like my wife. She's pretty."
"You don't have a wife Noah," Philip tells my seven-year-old brother who is unaware of the fact that he is not married.

As I was cleaning toilets and thinking about what kind of story I was going to fabricate about my life, I slowly realized I had no idea where the keys I was suppose to lock up with were. They were gone. So I looked all over, and the night soon became long, and I still didn't have my keys, and there was no one left after Jordan was gone, except Kelsea. So we began to search the school's secret files, and look through compartments we weren't suppose to know about to find the spare key. At one moment, while I was on the phone with an information supplier (a.k.a. one willing to leak intell), Kelsea found the keys, and turned off the light. She hung up my phone, and we walked out of the office, trying to go unseen by the security cameras. We were sneaking along walls, and trying to not set off alarms. I was moving a cart so it wouldn't trigger a reaction with the sensors, but it was scraping too close to the wall, and I watched as I blew the face off of an outlet. I watched blue sparks and smelled smoke, and Kelsea and I set the alarms and ran. It was the most fun I've had at work since I stole Jordan's mop bucket and ran right into the wall and water splashed 10 feet high.

I've had a decent-ish Monday. I did wake up late, and that sucked. Morbid dreams. But all around....

"I was thinking, this one time, that this girl evolved from a dandelion. You know, just in case."
-verbatim of what Jordan said to me when I was checking myself out in the mirror. (my life is not in sections, it is all one piece that scares me.)

lets face it, we don't even know him that well. I turn my head, and he paints this on my wall. I wrote the words. 

the end has no end. 

"I was in fourth grade, and my teacher called my parents to tell them he thought my jokes had double meaning."
-Dad

the spanish armada
is unexpected
the holy grail
is in the cupboard by the dollar store wine glasses
the chicken pox
are for the chickens
stop breaking down, and get a drum set
stop crying and take a picture of a giraffe
quit making me want to kick you hard.

WORDS

"Look at Matt."
"He's so full of himself."
"I'M JUST DANCING!"
(kelsea, me, matt)

"Um, but I don't want to be like a creepy old guy."
"You are a creepy old guy."
(matt #2, kelsea)

"It's not everyday you see you ex-sports marketing teacher in the bathroom."
(zach @ movies 9)

"I think he said something funny in his language."
-Stephen Young

Today was one of those. I think I would sell my brain for $1.93 so I can buy some gas for that life sucker sitting in the garage. A band practice that I want to pretend I don't know what a bass guitar is. Watching five little boys, and trying to put on my mean face, so they could guess that I mean business. Secret conversations...

Now that you know what my dad was hiding all this time, I can emphasize that it is hereditary. Yes I got it from someone. He really does use those big words all day long, and he really is that impatient, and he sometimes does pretend he is his own harmony/melody mixture. Too much creative genius being suppressed behind his lefthandedness and perpetual sobriety?

I like how Jess and Karly left me alone in Yearbook with Josh. Except NOT. Josh sits down across the table from me and says:
"We need to have a little chat, Rachel. Lets talk about why you dislike me so much."
I laughed in his face until he laughed too, and then I lied.
"I don't dislike you," crossing my fingers underneath the table. What is a little white lie now and then, I can't stand yearbook drama.
I contemplated joining Alison and Allene in whatever they were doing, but they looked to busy, so I put on my headphones and started drawing. Then I just put my head on my bag and sniffed.
Haslam could sense my newfound lifeache, and she told me to go lie down. So I did.
But I couldn't sleep because the couch smelled like marijuana, and people kept coming in to ask me what the matter was. They are not very good at this.
I woke up when the final bell rung, and everyone thought I was a red stoner. And so I went home and did more pretend sleeping, and then Kelsea came over and gave me an envelope and we took a walk through White City to say hi to someone with a dirty black poodle.

She climbed the stage in her slippers. She'll play you a song with one electric string.
I sit in the back, and I play my heart out. Benerawk.
Last night, it was hard to fall asleep with a lack of creative genius around me. Nobody even knows what to put on a pumpkin, and they think I am crazy when I hold a knife. There she goes, saying she knows everything, and walking away to get a class of green motor oil to swallow. All I need is a scuba diver to walk in the room, wet and dripping, and tell me that things can be just fine. But Kaylee is left-handed so I rest my head under some table, and rest on the floor for a few hours.

"Love is a fire. But whether it is going to warm your hearth or burn down your house, you can never tell."
-Joan Crawford

Duh. It's disco. 

click on it to make it big and be amazed.

don't you wish you had some of this? 

"If you ever meet my friends, and they say something weird about you, just kind of act like it really happened, or nod your head or something."
"What are you talking about!"
"Well, I may have exaggerated alot of the things you did."
"Oh boy."

Happy Monday. If you can call it happy, (some of you have to work :-p ) I think I'll bake a cake, wash my jeans, find where I hid that money, watch a good old movie, (raising arizona? probably.) go to work for an hour, call a buddy, break something, fold all that laundry in the livingroom, and buy a hat.

"Um, hi. Sorry. I meant to make popcorn for you, but a mouse ran through the kitchen, and I got distracted and started to do the dishes, and I was wondering if you still want popcorn?"
"Do I live in this house alone?"
"Where'd the mouse go?"
"Into the stove, I turned the burner on, but it got away. Did you already tell me if you want popcorn and I forgot?"
"So much for the stupid cat that's supposed to catch mice."
"Yeah, make some popcorn."

a name indicative of my passion

I asked Jordan today if he hated other girls as much as he hated me. He told me no, but I didn't believe him till he said that, yes, he was meaner to me than other girls. "You just want me to be mean, don't you?" And I nodded.
I ran across the field with barefeet, because the shoes that Kelsea gave me (that have coincidentally been mostly every place you could not imagine) were giving me blisters by the end of work. I did make my chiropractors appointment, and he electrocuted me again.
I went to a Chinese Buffet, and watched Sophie drop napkins and fortune cookies in my mom's ice tea.
Its okay Karl, just don't worry.

SUDDENLY

Jessica bought 250 sugar cubes, and she hands me one. The fat guy in front of me is better at taking pictures, but my mind is young: I am ambitious. I decide I like the second string guys that don't get to play so much, they talk to me. They don't say sorry if they bump into me, like I have a disease and I'll give it to them if they near me. A kid in a FBall uniform walks past me, without a helmet. I remember he didn't play last time, and his cologne wafts in my general direction. Pansy. "Sean Taylor keeps the ball for -- yard gain," Again. Really good coffee.
The thought of an angry Yearbook teacher, and my library fines come back and kick my pants. I am smiling anyways. A tackle lands out of bounds, practically on my foot, but I got a good picture, so I don't care if they are laughing at me. You get use to that with pink hair.
I am picturing breakfast at 6:30 am with my classy friends. I am trying to comprehend the mushy words that came out of Mr. Morris' mouth. I think about how long it took me to track down the principal just to take one picture. I wonder how Trevor's mom knew who I was. I rewind to after work, folding laundry between loud music, and skateboarding in my living room with all the rugs tucked out of the way.
Half past nine, and I'm talking on the phone with a friend I met three days ago. We dream about jumping out of airplanes, and being rock stars. I fall in the sink.
Jesting with Jimmy (don't worry he's in the band) at 11:30, and I'm ready to study the back of my eyelids, because it has been a LONG week.

"These are disgusting."
"Then why are you eating them Andy?"
"Because I just can't stop."

Well the world is bright and sunny today! They've devoted 1/2 an hour just to reading whatever you want in most of the English classes, and it bloody well makes it easier to stand. And oh, yeah, I am THE photographer for the school newspaper! HOOT HOOT. Yeah baby. I get the special treatment from the editor (which is NOT a bad thing), and I feel all important when the big people tell me that I'm covering the assembly and the Jordan/Copperhills Football game tomorrow. I was so excited I could barely eat lunch. Okay, it wasn't hard, food is good, but still, it was hard to fit food through my grin. Then, during Yearbook, people that bug me just stopped bugging me, and flippin' Josh Pitts even asked me if I was covering the Stomp Saturday night. I was like, *sigh*, "If you want me too,". I'm practically famous. Then Rick invited me to a Single File concert, and I'm like, totally.Fabulous and amazing! I love life, and I read my Bible this morning. Coincidence? I think not.

"Uhf, I hate him."
"Yeah me too."
"Well...I don't really hate him."
"Yeah, me neither."

This is what insomnia is doing to me. I laid in bed last night, and I kept thinking, all those kids are going to be so cold at Warped tomorrow. I pictured them at an ampitheatre, and it was snowing, and their mohawks were freezing. Then I realized that I was laying in bed sweating, and that it is not winter, it is summer, and it was 100 degrees as we were coming into the valley. So, before I went crazy, I just redecorated my bed area. Now I have eight Beatles up there instead of just four, and I look at all of you before I sleep cuz there are like, a million pictures above my head. So, I took some steps to try to cure my insomnia. 1) stop drinking caffeine right before bed    2)wake up really early and don't take naps  and that's about it. I am so happy to just be back, and that its Saturday, that I don't even care that all my friends are at the concert without me anyway. Well, okay, the band is not. Zach is getting married today, and then we'll play at Saturday night. Happy days are ours again.

"Hey Garrett," I said to my six year old cousin.
"Hey, we're cousins. That means we can kiss all we want."
"Oh really?"
"Yeah. Have you ever seen Indiana Jones?"

Welp. I've been at this farm a pretty dang long time. I'm ready to go home now. I need to go somewhere dry that'll suck the life out of me. That's how bad the humidity is.

Hey guys, 18 days til my birthday. I only have 18 days to complete my year of firsts. I did so many things for the first time. It'll be hard to match that.
Another happy ending?