Less Than A Week

Currently Listening To: Forgotten Works by Klaxons
Sure, posts about my upcoming birthdays are uninteresting on a cosmic scale, but I still felt the need to talk about it.

In less than a week, I will turn seventeen. This means that I will have ceased to be sixteen, and will never return to that point ever again. That seems obvious, but ti's still mind blowing and depressing. I like sixteen. Sure, seventeen has its perks (er, perk; R-rated movies... and NC 17 movies), but I still like sixteen. Seventeen sounds too old. Too old, at least, to spend my afternoons playing N64. Now, instead of being eccentric, I'll just be pathetic. That's no good.



AAAAND I got on homecoming court, which is even weirder than turning seventeen. I mean, really, of all people, me? But I've decided to just roll with it. I even commissioned the design of some campaign posters (even though you don't campaign for homecoming king, or so I'm told), but they were deemed offensive and promptly ripped down during some teacher's planning period. But it's all gravy. AAAAND there was this whole ordeal of the school expanding homecoming court from six to nine girls (and subsequently boys), supposedly because of a tie, but I heard that there were some notable omissions, and so edits were made. SCANDALOUS. But then there's this one guy who, despite being on court the past three years and I think winning it once, didn't make it this year, even though the odds were better. I like to think that I was number nine, and he's number ten. Not that I have anything against him personally; it just makes me feel better about my sad, sorry self.

I still don't think a picture of Conan with my mug on it is that offensive; I didn't even have that little herpesmudge on my lips in it.

P-P-P-P-Pneumothorax is a word that is long;
Nah, just trying to put the punk back into punctured lung

Definition

Currently Listening To: For Us by Pete Yorn
I was just watching a video on CNN of a Senator (I think it was the Senate... I'm ashamed to say I can't tell the Senate from Congress) condemning Columbia University for hosting Iranian President Amamammenajabadroflmaobbq, when I heard one of the many words used in the media today of which I haven't the slightest idea what it means:

TERRR.

What the hell is terrr? I mean, this guys talks about it, Bush talks about it... Everyone talks about terrr. Me? I don't talk about terrr. What's terrr?

Oh, I see; terrr is how you pronounce terror if you're a backwoods, ignorant redneck who hasn't the slightest idea what he's talking about.

Ain't nobody talking 'bout terrr on Heroes, which starts once more in just one hour and 28 minutes... I am ecstatic. Time to find out who lived and who died... Apparently Claire is in witness protection! And boyfriended! EXCITEMENT ABOUNDS. Maybe some studying will too; we'll see how the night goes.

Rock Bottom

Currently Listening To: No Cars Go by the Arcade Fire
Just a little FYI, this song will be playing at my funeral. I'm not entirely sure how one goes about designating that (maybe carry an envelope with me at all times declaring it as such? or just flat out telling people), but if ever you find yourself being asked, "What song is to be played at his funeral?", you know.

I fell asleep on the couch last night. I woke up around 5ish (having fallen asleep hella early; I'm thinking 10ish) and looked at the floor, where I saw one of our dogs. It was strange; they don't usually go down into the basement unless there's food or a storm. Still, I called to her. She didn't respond. It's okay, I thought, she's sleeping. So I called her some more, and she did nothing. I rolled off the couch and dragged myself over to her and reached out to pet her (I was pretty delirious), only to find out that it was a pair of pants.

If I had to describe "hitting rock bottom" as anything, I'd say shouting at a pair of pants sums it up.

Desperation is something pretty well summed up as someone jumping out of their car at a stop light and pressing the pedestrian-walk-whatever button. I mean, just how bad do you need to get somewhere? Those things don't even work. REALLY.

Just thought I'd check in.

Currently Listening To: A Question of Time by Depeche Mode
While I lack something of actual substance to post, I thought that I would let any interested parties know that, were I to chart my emotional state over an extended period of time, the chart would look like mountain range or the heart rate monitor thing at the hospital, and right about now, I'd be down at the nadir (that, my friends, is a good vocab word; write it down). School isn't getting me down or anything (though I am welcoming this weekend eagerly). I'm just not happy. That's the worst kind of sadness; nothing's actually wrong, you're just sad.

I suppose that's just part of being a teenager. When I'm an adult, periods of unhappiness won't necessarily be periods of sadness. I just won't be either, which is fine by me.

It's weird that I'm feeling like this, because yesterday morning, I was riding on the biggest high I'd ever felt. Everywhere I went, it was like a chorus of people was whistling a happy tune and birds were chirping and the sun was shining and everything was well.

Maybe my being raped by a clown last night has something to do with it.

Mystery illness strikes after meteorite hits Peruvian village

Currently Listening To: Black Holes & Revelations by Muse (THE ENTIRE ALBUM... ISN'T THAT COOL?)

More like, "Mystery Illness strikes ME After I Hit Your Mom Last Night". Oooh, burn.

Sorry, I thought that was clever.

That's a link, by the way.

Know what isn't clever, and is in fact quite annoying? The answering machine on our home phone. It's a combination of two things: Down in the basement, I can totally hear that loud-ass phone when it rings, and then when no one picks it up (we're all pretty lazy), I have to sit and listen to the whole message-leaving schpiel. Secondly, our outgoing message is not someone people would actually be calling the house for saying "We're not here right now". Instead, it's my sister, who (incorrectly) thought it would cute/clever/scene to record her own outgoing message, just so people know she lives here too.

I think it's more annoying when I'm calling the house and I have to sit through that. Outgoing messages are annoying. I just want to leave you a message, not hear your fucking life story.

That's been bothering me for ages. Nice to get it off my chest.

Rampant Lesbianism

Currently Listening To: Violent Pornography by System of a Down
So this afternoon, I saw The Brave One (I'm going to skip over the part where I visited yet again the college that I've realized is almost as awesome as the other one I want to go to). It was a reeeeeeally good movie (the ending was a tad cheesy, but I'll let it slide).

But while I was walking out of the theater, I realized something:

I am a lesbian.

I'll shout it from my computer chair: I am a lesbian. I'm currently downloading the complete works of Melissa Ethridge.

Why am I a lesbian? Because I'm a sucker for movies about how men are spineless and the only people capable of taking control of a bad situation are women. Panic Room, Red Eye, Flightplan, Resident Evil, Nightmare on Elm Street series (Jesse had to get his gal-pal to do all the work for him)... All movies that could end up on Lifetime, which is now the only channel on my satellite; I called DirecTV and told them to cancel all the others.

Anyways, my love for these corny women-kicking-ass movies obviously means I'm a lesbian. Or a radical feminist. Or a chauvinist.

Or it means something completely different. I know it means something.

Wait, do you have to be a chick to be a lesbian?

Got all worked up for nothing.

Bitch

Currently Listening To: Build Me Up Buttercup by the Goops
As of my writing this, at 9:49 on September the 12th, 2007, I have a little more than three weeks left of being 16.

I like 16. It's young to the point of not having a whole hell of a lot of responsibility, but still not too young.

In three weeks, that's gone. I go from teen-teen to old-teen.

In the department of "making me feel even more anxious about turning seventeen", my mom pointed out that 17 is the age when I will start college. On October Fifth, I will be the same age as when I pack up all my shit and move to some place that, as of right now, I have no idea where it is.

(insert a gunshot sound effect, or some other "boom" type sound, here to signify my mind being blown)



Pray for my getting a license. Hopefully it'll be sometime before Bush is unemployed. And if that's the case, hopefully he'll be expelled from office sometime this week.

If I could go back to the spring of my sophomore year and just live then forever, that would be great. I think that might be the happiest I've ever felt. Secure, too. Everything was very certain, you know? Robert's graduation was more than a year away, and my graduation wasn't even a thought. I still had my love seat, my crappy WalMart TV, my upstairs room, my viking bed... I never had to explain why I didn't drive...

Goddamn, I'm emo. I wasn't emo then. All the more reason to go back.

I suppose I could also go back and make bets using my current knowledge. The only flaw in that plan being that I can't remember who won the Superbowl/World Series/Final Four/whatever, so that would do me no good. Eh, whatever. I'd still be from the future. That would cool in and of itself.

Impulse Had Me Type "Tony Danza" The First Time

Currently Listening To: Tiny Dancer by Elton John
While viewing the flood of half-assed and cheesy sorrow unfold on Facebook, I was reminded of my September Eleventh experience. Two days or so afterwards, we were asked to do an entry about our thoughts in our English journals. Mine was about how I was tired of seeing 24/7 news reports on the subject. I was ten years old and I wanted to watch the Simpsons, dammit.

People got pissed. But could you really blame me for being so apathetic? Sure, 3000 people dying is no small thing, especially when it was due to a terrorist attack, but to a ten-year-old in the week immediately following that, I sure as hell had no idea what it really meant. I didn't know anyone who had died (Georgia=not close to New York), and didn't know I knew anyone who knew someone who died until about a year later. Thus, it was 100% abstract to me (until I saw the video of a guy splattering on the ground, which is a tad more tangible). Call me cynical, but whenever I see people (people at my school, not people in, like, New York) getting all teary eyed over it, I can't help but suspect it isn't genuine. Feeling sad about something that had a minimal impact on your life aside from hearing about it a lot just seems bizarre. Again, just being cynical. People die all the time. Large numbers of people. Often for seemingly avoidable things. Yes, terrorism is awful, but so is drunk driving. 1000x people killed a year in drunk driving/drunk-related deaths, no one sheds a tear unless it was someone in their family. Religious zealots not entirely different than some folks we've got who were born and raised in our country kill 3000 people and everyone writes a song about it.

Just a thought.

Iron Man (I had to change my pants after viewing this masterpiece)

Southern accents, not surprisingly, annoy me. I've never identified with the whole Southern 'thing', so that extra reminder of this shit, well, why would I like it? Anyways, both of my sisters have seemingly spontaneously picked accents up. Another reason to go to college.

And then this thought I had last night: People don't like it when I'm all open about my SAT scores (I did better than average), so I try to be modest, but it seems like people don't like that either because then it's condescending. Paradox? Quite.

Okay, so better than average is a gross understatement. Basically, any mention of those scores leads to a discussion of how I'm squandering my intelligence with my mediocre grades.

Weird Day

Currently Listening To: Out of Line by the Bravery
I had such a weird day yesterday.

It started out normal. Go to school. Take a quiz, turn in some homework, eat some greasy foodstuffs in the cafeteria (I'll likely be dead by the end of the year due to clogged arteries), yell at underclassmen for their seeming inability to not just stand there in the hallways...

Then 6th period happened.

Let me preempt a bit... This was not like the 6th period a few years ago where I irritated a scab and bled all over myself. This was not wierd like the 6th period the year before when my Spanish teacher illustrated the difference between ser and estar with my fatitude. This was not weird like Family Feud during sixth period last year.

What was it, then?

It was my Spanish teacher calling a Hispanic student a wetback.

It may be cliche, but the unfolding of said event was like in Children of Men, when there's a big explosion and all of a sudden you can't hear anything. You just look around and try and take in what happened. I didn't actually understand what she'd said (Clint explained later), but the look on the two of their faces was enough to see that a line had been crossed.

Needless to say, 6th periods are going to be quite different from now on. It's hard to defend her, but I wouldn't like to see her fired because the person they'd replace her with is not someone I'd like to have as a teacher again... The guy called me fat. But then again, she called a kid a wetback. That's no good. I mean, if you feel that way, I can't really force you to change your mind, but keep it to yourself, especially when you've got like three Hispanic kids in the class.

The next everything's-gone-mute experience I had yesterday was witnessing a little girl get hit by a car. I was with some friends going to a football game and, while my head was turned away, this little girl runs out into the street and get's jacked by the car facing us. I didn't see it, but I heard it. It was pretty fucked up. One of the kids in the car said it looked like she snapped her neck, but she's apparently going to be okay. That didn't stop her from screaming the most awful scream I've ever heard.

It was even weirder because I'd thought about people getting hit by cars a fair bit already that day. First, in graphic design, I decided to include "Jill gets hit by a bus" in my interpretation of Jack and Jill (Jack and Jill rode their bikes up an pyramid of elephants to compete in Mortal Kombat; Jack fell down, cracked his skull and Jill got hit by a bus), and a few hours later explained to Dane how the fact that I see Hyundai Tiburons everywhere I go means I'm going to get hit by one. I decided not to mention either once we got back in the car. That would just be douchey.

Did I mention I'm going to be killed by a Tiburon someday? I know this for certain. They really are everywhere, and I think it's got nothing to do with people really liking them. I'm having premonitions. Maybe I won't be killed/maimed by one, but one's going to be very important at some point. Maybe the president's going to be assassinated, and the killer will drive a Tiburon?

Eh, whatever. Hopefully it will hit me while I'm not looking.

I Feel Like I Haven't Done This In A While

Currently Listening To: B.Y.O.B. by System of a Down
So, we're two weeks into schooooool. Er, I am two weeks into school; I have no idea who the fuck you are or what your story is, so quit pretending you go to my school, child molester. I think Daniel summed it up best by describing this year as surreal--it's like going to a different school but on the same campus. At least half the students appear to be new (even a bunch of new seniors... weird. I don't know how I feel about people who go to a school for just one year when it's their last year... Sketchy), we're now mega-uniform (though it doesn't seem as evident to me anymore... Girls, on the other hand? Starla got a lecture yesterday for wearing, sin of all sins, a blue headband. The teacher was giving her some serious 'tude, like she'd murdered someone or something), a demerit system for God's sake (my dad was like, "Oh, I didn't know I was sending you to military school"; he says it's more strict than the actual military school he went to), and they've moved and re-named like everything. It's confusing.

Tomorrow I'm going to do some serious work on college applications after hearing from pretty much everyone of my teachers that I should be almost graduated from college by now... I seem to have fallen behind. It might be because I'm lazy, but I also feel like all these suggested deadlines that have come and gone were news to me when people were talking about them in past tense. Either I missed some big info session last year or didn't realize how serious it was, but I've just got nothing. And as I look at these various applications and the process for submitting them to school (not the one I'm applying to, the one I'm already at) and see how complicated they are, I realize that I spent the past 16 years being completely oblivious to the entire college-thing. I suppose I've just expected to get a letter from some magically perfect school somewhere where everyone is just like me and you can pay tuition with the change in your pocket and there are no majors or term papers and everyone just sits around in the student center, like on Boy Meets World. But no, I will not be married to Topanga or taught by the same guy who's taught me my entire life while at college, which will not be attended by everyone I hang out with.

Now, instead of teenage nostalgia and moping, how about some complaining?

Perhaps, complaining about something random (well, not really) and irrelevant (quite)?

Popped collars were bad.

Uniforms? They were worse.

But popped collars... On uniforms? Any attempt to describe the baditude of such a combination could only result in failure. And yet, people at school pop their collars. Here's my rationale: if you lack the maturity/intellectual capacity to decide what you want to wear in the morning, you probably should refrain from popping your collar. Besides, isn't collar-popping for brightly-dyed Polos and Lacoste shirts? Our school crest is hardly a substitute for that little guy on his horse or whatever the hell Lacoste's logo is.

And these kids look like absolute morons. I mean, they looked dumb when they popped their Lacoste shirts. They looked really dumb when they wore uniforms. But when they did both at the same time? It wasn't dumb plus really dumb; it wasn't dumb times really dumb; no, it was dumb to the power of really dumb.

In other news, I still feel weird alone in the basement and I lack the ability to do homework on most nights. It's rough. And football is really boring. People need to stop expecting me to go to those games. I only went the past four years because of my brother.