"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?

"See ya in a couple hours kid," he says to me as I stuff another dryer sheet in between the couch cushions as I fold laundry.
"Yeah, good night Dad."
As the door shuts I realize I'm sitting by myself on a white and green striped couch throwing somebody's underpants on another pile on the coffee table. My mind is full as I build a sky scraper of thoughts.
My hair is soft? My hair is short. My tastebuds are gone from sour "poppers". Will Val kill us tomorrow because we're among the unfaithful who did not take the test? When does the drama end? Why do I bite my finger nails off in the dark? When did the music in my head stop? Jack White, "white stripes", I get it now. Why does Ewan McGregor have so many bumps on his face? Why don't we remember stuff that happened when we were a baby? Who are we saving the whales for, exactly?

"Does your hair grow?"
"You think this is a wig?"
"Well, some people's hair just doesn't grow."
-two kids in spanish class

"What do you think of my hair Jordan?" I wanted to know.
"I don't know, I can't remember what it looked like before."
"Goldish-brownish-reddish."
"Oh yeah, it was ghetto."

Shaun brought pink-barbie walkie talkies to work today. Tragically, they didn't work more than 15 feet apart.