Experiences with the male gender.

There are a handful of relevant things I could write about at the moment. This Christmas day, for instance, was one of the more traumatizing events of my young life. I could write about it, but in discussing it at any length I feel obligated to justify myself. I am conflicted, but I am not wrong.

Instead I'm going to write about boys, because I am a teenage girl and this is what teenage girls write about.

A boy named Kelvin decided to visit with me during lunch one day in eighth grade. He was in my seventh grade English class, styled his dark hair with gel and had a particular fondness for cats. My recollection of our conversation is blurry, but time has left me with the impression that he a) told me I needed more friends and b) needed to be romantically involved to be whole. I also recall him patting himself on the stomach and noting the fact that I could afford to "lose a few pounds." My response concerned my "imaginary friends" and how awesome they were.

I have always been clever.

A few days later Kelvin found me at my locker (which, for those interested, featured posters of Hilary Duff) between classes. "Hey," he said, "I thought we'd gone over this. Black makes you look fat."

For the next few days he followed me from class to class, insults at the ready, and I would shout at him to leave me alone as I stalked off.

Then, as I tucked into my spaghetti at lunch later that week, he appeared again. This time he had backup; a few friends stood in his wake. I turned in my seat to face him.

"Would you go out with me?" he said, sitting down next to me.

Half a beat was skipped. "No."

He appeared not to hear me, smiling creepily. "Hey," he said, rubbing his leg against mine. "You know, I'm a professional slut."

"Wait," a girl in his entourage said finally, "you said no?!"

"Yes," I said carefully, "I said no."

Kelvin was up in a flash. He rubbed his face with one hand, mumbling something like "Oh, I was kidding anyway."

I never heard from him again.

I have had only two long-term crushes in my lifetime. The first was named Cameron, two years previously. I fully embarrassed myself with that one, even going on to sneak pictures of him with my micro-digital camera and nickname him "Camcorder." It lasted all through sixth grade. He was a jerk.

I guess I have kind of a thing for jerks.

The second boy to win my attentions was named Zephaniah, one year and one move following my encounter with Kelvin. He and another boy, Sidney, befriended me in my ninth grade American History class. We sat together and, after months of prodding, they convinced me to join their church youth group.

I am both embarrassed and pleased to say that I have footage of this boy for you. I also have blog posts regarding him hidden away in my very first blog, but there is no way I'm going off to find those.

Just no.

Zephaniah was roguishly attractive. I still get a little flustered thinking about him. However, as was intended to be my point, he was a male chauvinist. He was also self-centered and considered himself to be the source of biblical knowledge.

He also looked like Jesus.

Jesus.

He flirted with me at length during American History, though it was obvious nothing would come of it, and eventually went on to date another girl in the youth group. At that point he joked that he should "probably stop flirting" with me.

He didn't stop. Not that I minded.

As I often say: I have the best taste in men.

Dream state.

Cute Guy asks me to meet him outside. I am sitting across from him on a patch of grass outside of school; he leans closer, kisses me quickly. I close my eyes and I am back in school, rushing from gray hallway to gray hallway.

Nothing is the same. The lockers have been moved around and I can't find mine; I desperately search for it as the bell rings, finally bursting into tears. I can't, can't, can't be late and everything has changed.

As I find it I work the lock in frustration, wanting only to knock my head against it.

Later, as I leave school, Voldemort tails me.

Part of me is amused. The other part is frustrated with myself.

Giving thanks.

My excuses are the same, varying in their frequency. I'm tired. I'm overwhelmed by the slightest of changes and expectations, and the fact that there is so much ground I could cover in this blog leaves me wanting to curl up into a ball and nap forever.

So I won't. I won't try to explain it all.

I haven't seen or heard from my father in six months; word on the street (I amuse myself) is that he will be at my grandparents' on Christmas day, which is where my brethren and I will be on Christmas day, which positively thrills me to bits. (And I may use "six months" as a great divider of time and responsibility, but this visit in and of itself was coincidental. Fun story.)

My first instinct here is to go into defensive mode and attempt to justify every action or decision I've ever made regarding my father. I realize that this is impossible, however, and will leave you with this instead:

I am, understandably, bitter. He left. I have never been treated as I deserve to be, and it still hurts me. I am in counseling, and that has helped. I am facing my problems. I am beginning to believe in myself. But this isn't a "Get Rich Quick!" scheme. This is my life, and the process is slow going. In the mean time, I have a mother who loves me. I have friends who care for me, as I do them. I have a house to live in and a best friend I'm grateful for.

I have a "promising future." I have a job working in my school's library until the end of the school year; I have grown to love it, and each day is an opportunity to prove to myself that I am a useful human being. I am continually amazed by the fact that I have this job and my bosses are awesome and I am useful. I may gripe about it occasionally (generally when I'm tired), but I'm truly grateful for my job and what it has brought me.

I had considered scrapping this post, having no grand moral to impart to you, but a few moments ago I ventured out of my housecavelandofcomputer to check for today's mail, and my first college acceptance letter has arrived. I know it is expected. I know that I am an intelligent young woman with excellent grades, and there is no reason I shouldn't be accepted to any college I apply to. Knowing this is different than feeling it, however, and to have tangible confirmation of this is relieving.

And for this moment, there are good things.

I have difficulty giving thanks. I am a generally overwhelmed human being, and holidays make me mopey. But I am, in a roundabout and work-in-progress way, thankful.

Thank you, all of you. You have become my friends, and for that I am always grateful. Thank you for you.

The crossing of paths.

The science wing is separated from the main building by a gated courtyard and double doors at each end, and one of each is locked from the outside. This equates to congestion between classes until someone has the sense to open the other door from the inside and the fact that, unless I make a point to reach around and pop open the other door (which I have done), I am forced to let my ex-boyfriend hold a door open for me on occasion.

I dislike the fact that I still see this boy as a major source of trauma in my life. Granted, I'm much better off than I was months ago. I am, largely, past it. I am no longer a wreck as a result of his general idiocy, and I have passed the point where I notice what color shirt he is wearing every day (it thrills me).

Still, it frustrates me. I want to be over the fact that I let this boy into my life and he hurt me. I want it to dissipate magically, and worse, I find myself thinking about myself in relation to the opposite sex. I find myself thinking that I want that again, that feeling of elation and hope.

And I do, of course. I am a teenage girl. I am also human (yes, you are rightly shocked).

There was a moment this morning that we rounded a corner at the same time, and in the second that we crossed paths I could have sworn I felt the inches hovering between us. A split second, I thought.

It's silly, maybe.

I find myself wishing I were more than I am, and that just doesn't work.

Without.

I have spent my day furiously trying to edit essays for college applications, and while I suppose I could be worse off, this hasn't left me in the best state. Not content with writing a cookie cutter essay waxing poetic on the gloriousness that is my granny/first pet/second cousin Albert, I singlehandedly chose to delve into the deep grove of my soul and pull out what might or might not be meaning. And as if the process of applying to colleges were not frazzling enough, the fact of this alone would be enough to unhinge me.

I don't regret writing the essays, exactly, but the subjects are so difficult for me that even thinking about them makes me dizzy.

Words are like pieces of a puzzle to me. I don't know that I have any concrete control over them, but it is only as I locate and rearrange my words that I begin to find my own meaning. Too few and I am blank, too many and I am furiously scribbling in margins already filled. Balance and I are either unacquainted or jolly well pissed off with one another.

I really don't want to muse on life and bewilderment right now, but this is all I can find. I wish I could feel within myself that everything will be fine.

It has never been fine. It will be fine, but it has never been fine.

"Because we hate each other so much?"

It is on my usual bench at lunch that I find myself wanting for words.

I face away from the crowds, groups magnetized and reminding me of television specials focused on penguins in winter.

But it isn't winter, even. We're working on autumn still, only just cold enough for a sweater in early morning.

Clear blue sky finds its way around parked cars and through trees, and fallen leaves (there are very few, as trees don't shed for the winter here) are tossed by the breeze.

I have to turn to see what's going on, but it isn't anything I can relate to. People are situated in their groups and I merely sit here, my sweater folded beside me. Every minute or so someone turns the corner outside the cafeteria and passes me on a patch of sidewalk.

I don't have the courage or desire to join the group I try to associate with across the quadrangle; Dobbin is close at hand, and this is my only alone time all day. When it gets colder I may have to relegate myself to the library at lunch like last year, but I'd like to avoid it. I'd like this weather to stay, because it helps me feel alive.

I can use all the help I can get.

In Psychology the desks have been realigned into rows and I have to navigate where I will sit.

"Am I chairless?" I ask the members of my group, thinking I may have to sit on the other side of the room.

"No," one of them says, "Gerry isn't here today, you can sit behind Ruth."

"Best day ever!" I say as I sit, making little of the fact that Dobbin is directly behind me.

Meanwhile, Bowl Cut Boy waves in my direction.

"I know, Peter," I say mournfully, "you're so far away from me."

"I was just saying hello," he says, a little defensively. He sits in the next row, a few seats ahead.

"Hey Peter," says Dobbin, "you want to trade seats?'

"Why?" asks Bowl Cut Boy (aka Peter, though his name is not Peter either).

"Because we hate each other so much?" I say as I swivel around to face Dobbin. I smile tightly and turn back around in my seat, busying myself by putting my sweater back on.

A minute later he gets up and moves across the room, closer to the television that will soon play a fascinating video on blood circulation (demonstrated by tango dancers!).

"I was too alluring," I joke to the Ruth, who sits in front of me. "He hated himself too much so he had to move."

"No, don't make him feel bad. You're just too awesome." She goes along with it, but she's friends with him too. They all are, and though my words make me feel better, it unnerves me that he will say nothing to me directly.

I realize that I am more than this.

I would like to understand this boy. I would like to let go.

I would like a lot of things.

Lost and Found

I haven't fallen out of step with blog writing so much as fallen out of step with blog posting; ideas sprawl across pages every which way in unfinished pieces, and I feel more comfortable commenting on my observances of human behavior than my own feelings.

Only fragments surface and the smallest of things serve to make my heart hurt.

A table to my left is discussing a possible case of incest and my advisory teacher asks them to change the subject; they continue on in quieter voices.

The boy sitting next to me is a transfer student from somewhere I've never heard of (as amusing as it is, my tiny town is a bit of a metropolis when compared to neighboring cities. I mean, we have a mini-Walmart and everything) rumored to have moved here to be near his girlfriend. The truth of this is suspect, but I won't deny my having seen a lot of canoodling going on between classes.

It is easier to make observations than ink of my emotions.

Cute Guy, who I unfriended on Facebook long ago, sat behind me during a (reward!) viewing of Toy Story 3 on Friday, leaning on the back of my chair the whole time in order to chat with the boy to my right. Every once in a while he would say sorry for bothering me while continuing to take up my personal space, and at the end of the movie both of them burst into fake hysterics.

catlovingmathteacher moves a cocky, sweet faced boy to a different desk. On his journey he brings with him a plastic ziploc of cheetos. As he sits down he plucks one from the bag, sets it between his lips and sucks. For a moment I think he wiggles his eyebrows at me.

I am a lost and found of moments.

Group Dynamics

"This," Dobbin says, handing a piece of paper to the girl who sits across from me, "is not a love poem."

She reads it and her eyes widen, a hint of amusement in her voice as she says "wow, man, that's... not creepy, but dark. Dark."

He takes it back from her, chuckles "yeah" and it makes its way around the table.

The boy who sits to my left, the only thing keeping me from having to ignore Dobbin with a passion every day, has a bowl cut that falls almost to his eyelashes. He reminds me of a little boy, his face cherubic and voice quiet but eager. He gets the page next and I read over his shoulder.

"I mean," says Dobbin, and I can hear the laughter in his voice, "gosh, it is dark. I don't really feel that way..."

There is enough blood gushing from veins and lines like "I cannot keep hold of love" and, oh, "she thinks she has felt my pain" for me to find it all vastly amusing.

I doodle on scratch paper as worlds spin around me; the boy sitting next to me asks me what I'm drawing 1, 2, 3 times.

"Is that a cage? Are you going to put a cat in the cage?"

"I'm just doodling," I insist. "I'm not drawing anything in particular."

The boy sitting next to me worries me. Beyond being a useful candidate for blocking my view of Dobbin, I have become fond of him in a way that one might be fond of a small child or little brother. Last week he nearly fell over himself trying to help me research my Psychology paper--

"You need a laptop."

"No, I don't."

"You need a laptop."

"Why would I need a laptop?"

"For research!"

"I don't need one."

He left our patchwork grouping of desks after this, returning with a laptop from the cart. He slouched close to the screen, fingers poised to type words into the mighty tyrant that is Bing (which he insists is better than Google--pah!).

"What do you want to type in?"

"I don't need help. Shouldn't you be writing your own paper?"

"Well..."

I am, tentatively, concerned.

One could say I have prioritized. Dobbin is in this group, as well, but rarely bothers me these days. He's annoying, absolutely, and I often think he's trying to dig at me.

But whatever.

And really? "She thinks she has felt my pain"? "I cannot keep hold of love"?

Lols.

To my right, at an angle, sits a guy who aspires to be a train conductor. Some symbols are tattooed on his wrist and he practices slacking as an art form. Across from me is a girl I know from last year. Her hair is cut distinctively, two long pieces at each side of her face; she invited me to join their group at the beginning of the year. She enjoys singing, Jesus (which surprised me, somehow), and is edgy in a way I can't quite distinguish. She wears clunky boots a lot (I am ace at this description thing).

The boy next to her works at a hamster farm. He's a big guy, very huggable looking; his guitar case is shaped like a coffin. I don't know much about the boy who sits next to him, at at an angle, besides the fact that he writes stories and, of course, sits next to Dobbin himself.

I don't know where I fit in this group, if I fit, but they have never questioned my right to be here and fitting isn't an issue I had considered before this moment. I just am. Maybe I'm nothing special, nothing glittering, but I am here... and I am okay.

This morning I was talking to the quick-speaking, oft unintelligible boy I know in Physics as we fiddled with library computers and a worksheet.

"You know," he said, voice high pitched and gesturing with his index finger, "I'm going to be named most important person ever to go to this high school."

I smiled. "Can I be the second most important person, then?"

"No," he said, "no you can't. Because you're not from here. You have to be here... be here your whole life. You haven't."

I smiled again, grateful for these words. "At least you're honest."

10/22

"I'm sitting in Pre-Cal class," raps The Boy With The Underpants, "over here it smells like ass. But it's gonna go by real fast. Gettin' out my iPhone, checkin' my apps..."

A preliminary glance counts six phones hidden behind bags on desks and in laps as catlovingmathteacher goes over last week's quiz.

The boy to my right asks "Who're you writing to?" and I slam my notebook shut, saying no one, they're just words. Just words.

"Thank you for the help, Winston," says catlovingmathteacher.

"You're welcome, sir."

"I was being facetious."

A cowboy sitting on the other side of the room, the one who threatened to kill himself when his girlfriend (an acquaintance of mine) tried to break up with him last year and admits to being racist and I shy away from, interjects: "Hey, no big words!"

I have been feeling wordless recently, and it scares me. Words do not bubble up inside me. I'm supposed to have my college application essays written. I'm supposed to be figuring things out. I'm supposed to attempt NaNoWriMo again and apply to colleges and take the SAT again and hope last month's scores don't prove my idiocy as a human being.

I'm supposed to prove things with my words.

But my words feel cold.

Wanting

I sit in Economics and pretend to review for a test that was supposed to be today but now isn't. Thoughts drift, thinking--the boy who sits behind me has nice lips, it embarrasses me a little that stupid memories of Dobbin make me smile sometimes, I think I might be the only white girl in this class, I wish someone here would just get me. The four white boys in this class group in one corner of the room, talking with the teen mom I know and her cohort, who wears a lot of eye makeup and seems to have a dose of sense about her. The guy who wears ironic t-shirts makes funny faces as the guy who sleeps grins drowsily and one of them takes on a silly voice--"spank me harder!"

The substitute comes around to the front of the room and a wide-eyed girl whose words string together very precisely, almost like questions, exclaims "my nipples are freezing!"

"Did you hear that, ma'am," one of her friends shouts across the room, "did you hear that? She says her nipples are freezing!!"

The substitute only scoffs.

"If you knew Sally," The Boy With The Underpants told me in math class today, as I helped Teen Mom with the worksheet we were doing under the orders of yet another substitute, "you would hate her. So nice, but dumb as a brick."

"Really," I said, noncommittally. A group of boys huddled around the desk to my right, deeming themselves The iPhone Club and discussing bandwidth or something equally Interesting.

"The other day," he began, "I said to Sally 'hey Sally, did you hear about the fire at the Eiffel Tower? It killed everybody in France!' and she was just all, 'Everybody?' And I said 'hey Sally, did you hear that everybody in France was also decapitated?' and she was all 'what's decapitated?' So I said 'it means everybody had their head cut off, Sally, everybody had their head cut off!' She believed it all."

"Yeah," agreed the girl who sits behind me, "really nice girl, so much fun to be around. If you are around her you will have fun, but she's as dumb as a brick. Dumb as a brick."

Today is nerd day at school, a theme child of The Opulent And Important Homecoming Week. In Physics I submit a personal tirade to the boy costumed in suspenders, plastic glasses and a set of (green) fake teeth. As I try to explain that I am firmly rooted in team nerd and do not find the term demeaning, my Physics teacher asks for my nerd credentials. I draw a blank.

And while this leads me to question whether I am a nerd at all, instinct tells me that I can be a nerd if I damn want to, no matter what my 'credentials' might be.

My words do not appeal to me as they hit the page lately, scattered and self-pitying and downright confused as they are. I question the very foundations on which I have always stood, write myself into loops.

I've been thinking a bit about want. Specifically in monetary terms, as I am now being paid for my time (what?!) in my school's library, but want can be such a big thing in many areas: What do I want? What don't I want? Why does all this wantwantwant have to make my heart hurt so much?

So much revolves around want, and I've never been sure. My hesitancy to choose has always brought about conflict. Oftentimes I just don't want things enough, and it worries me.

And it goes back to trying, too.

As a child (which I still am, but work with me here) I thought that if I tried hard enough, if I was Perfect, equilibrium could be reached. I thought I was the keystone in my family; only a handful of years ago I still believed this, that I was the only constant, and in some ways this still plagues my thoughts. I watched as my immediate family went through atrocities of their own and thought, ridden with panic, that I could not let myself fall apart. I could not make waves. Making waves was Bad. Making waves was Wrong and Not Allowed.

I still feel this way.

Eighth grade self wrote kept a journal in a word document. Eighth grade self, only just fourteen years old, was confused and hurting and arrogant. Eighth grade self felt like she knew everything and nothing all at once, keying words into her refurbished (see: used, 300 dollars, internetless) laptop.

I skimmed through hoping for inspiration, insight or magic sparkles and return here with only the impression that fourteen year old me was severely confused. She also feels distant. Only about four years have passed since eighth grade self wrote these words, but I no longer feel they belong to me. I am no longer that person.

I will not always be the person I am now.

I want to be more than I am, maybe. I want to stretch farther, be more than the words I will later cringe over.

I help my mom make pizza on Monday night and tell her about the journal, tell her that it scares me how far away my words seem. Encouraging words: It's a function of growing up. Will it always be this way? No. No, it gets less so as you get older.

It is all so distant and cloistering at the same time.

Sometimes I can draw no conclusions. This is scarier, I think, than it sounds. I am one to search for logic where none will ever appear, parse out reason and reach for truth. Which isn't to say that I am a lover of reason, either, merely that I look for it. It isn't even that I lack answers, though I grieve that too, but that my experiences muddle together in such a way that sometimes I just don't know that to make of them. Am I fourteen year old me, angry at the world without really knowing it? Am I the girl who tried so very hard to be perfect only to write that despite all this, her father was angry with her?

Despite the arrogance I see in that me now, I really did try. But trying doesn't necessarily equate to change, and the obstacles I was facing were insurmountable. There was nothing more I could have done--and maybe it isn't about being enough. Maybe it's about realizing that there are some things you cannot do.

Fixing the situation I've been placed in is one of them.

What do I want? I want a lot of things. I want to feel whole, feel (honestly?) perfect. I want to read more and sleep more. I want to smile, a lot, and I want to be happy. I want to breathe in clear, cold air on an autumn evening as the sky dims. I want an uncomplicated and exquisite love story, I want to hold someone's hand, and I want it soon. I want to hold a star in the palm of my hand. I want friends here in tiny town Texas, birthplace of the mother effing cowboy. I want to know exactly where I want to go to college. I want out of the box I've built around myself. I want to replicate moments as words and live within their immensity.

It is in Physics class on Tuesday that the teacher's aid says "so I can assume from the noise level in here that everyone understands the work and needs no help at all?" and I snap.

"No," I say, and it is unlikely that anyone listens, "because I haven't said a word." I want to rest my head on the desk and scream, I want to leave, slam the door to this classroom, and I want to slap words against the concrete walls they have built until they break.

Maybe I want justice. Maybe I want to feel whole and I want to be happy and I want to stop wanting for things so ill-defined and unreachable.

There is some beauty in chaos. That's all I can think.

Steam of consciousness.

"My sister, when she was born, she had blonde hair," said the girl sitting next to me, twisting in her seat to talk to a friend. "Now she has brown hair. That's weird, right?"

Tuesday.
"How old are you?" asked The Boy Who Invited Me To Sit There of the Chinese exchange student.

"Uh, eh, seventeen," he said. There was some ruckus over the age of his girlfriend.

"That's okay," The Boy Who Invited Me To Sit There assured him, with a wave of his hand, "I can do twelve, I can do twelve. This is America, after all."

Friday.
On Fridays the school serves us corndogs for breakfast.

I do not eat breakfast on Fridays.

Monday.
English presentations. Four girls lean against the whiteboard as a shoebox diorama with play-doh figures in it sits on the teacher’s desk beside them.

A girl with empty eyes goes first—she looks sad and lost, and I imagine that no one notices. I follow her words as they all work to unfurl her poster.

A girl with glossy teal fingernails goes next, reciting from memory until her “um”s and “like”s become cause to ask for assistance and she begrudgingly fishes notes from her backpack. I stop listening around now, plan to find information elsewhere if I have to. I can’t see her eyes due to makeup and her nails distract me to no end, and when she smiles it doesn’t seem real to me.

I wish I didn’t think this way, like everyone I meet becomes a character I try to pick apart, not imagining people complexly because all I can see are the shadows they cast. Like what I see is black and white when surely, hopefully gray is what ultimately prevails.

I can’t follow the rest of the presentation, an overview of Upper Hell in Dante’s Inferno. I rub at the blister on my thumb and consider how wrong I might be. I bite my lip.

Ye Old Initials tells us more and I scrawl ideas next to thoughts, juggle worlds as the girl next to me asks to borrow my notes and I oblige. In the hallway after class I study the pretty tulle skirt of another girl in that group, think that I have never spoken to her and wonder what she thinks of it all. She works in the office and I have never seen her smile, can’t remember what her voice sounds like.

I rest my books against my chest as I wait for my Economics teacher to open the classroom door. The cute, nerdy boy who sat behind me in English last year passes by. He wears plaid today and I wonder, like always, if he ever finds me in hallways too.

And I wonder—how do you do it? They are locked doors and I am fumbling with—maybe the wrong—key.

Tuesday.
We are moved into the room next door and presenters rotate. The second presentation involves getting into the groups, and I am guided into a group that includes a tall guy with definite puff levels and some semblance of perceivable knowledge. I think, quietly, that I would like to be his friend.

How to go about this is beyond me.

Wednesday.
The smattering of us without waivers line the walls of what is usually the volleyball practice area directly behind the bleachers in our shiny sports complex thingamajigger. Students in groups are sneakily tricked into sharing personal facts about themselves, and for some reason it makes me smile.

The groups are in circles, small voices rising from the quiet until, every so often, there is a burble of laughter.

And here I am, detached. I am more comfortable this way, finding words and observing moments that are not strictly mine. I am more comfortable borrowing memories, filling my blank space with this--with this.

Thursday.
With minutes to spare, music is blasted from speakers in the auditorium. A math teacher demonstrates a dance, slicking his hair back dramatically and bopping up and down with mad skill, and a group of students take the stage. They dance ridiculously and it makes me smile. It feels like recently I have made myself a character in my own life and I stand still watching people and lives move around me.

Like I have no place grasping for happiness when they all have their groups, their lives. I struggle with wants and their rationalizations; wanting to say words, move forward, carve some space for myself that isn't cold. Say words to the boy I would like to know and he doesn't respond and I tell myself that I don't need drama or wondering when I am just some girl and they all have their places.

Wednesday.
Cute Guy sleeps on the floor at the end of the gym, next to a girl with pretty red hair who I believe to be in a nursing program many students are in. She bends her knees close to her chest and rests an open booklet against them, reading.

A few teachers sit on folding chairs nearby, at the entrance of the space. Most of the others not participating line the next wall, three of the six wrapped in jackets and in various stages of repose.

The person nearest to me is about ten feet to my left, his head resting on a drawstring backpack, and I remember that he is one of the pranksters in my English class, a member of The Infamous Group Of Boys.

Friday.
Pep rally. I stand on the bleachers, periphery as the group I am attempting to cling to fill the seats just below me. The crowd of seniors stand on the seats themselves, the rows, and roar as we compete for the Holy Spirit Stick.

I crane my neck to watch the student conductors through small gaps between people. Their arms move up and down and just so.

They are smiling. This is why I watch them.

Wednesday.
Everyone cheers as a boy manages to carry three girls at once across the gym.

Cute Guy is roused and moves to sit along the next wall, observing. I click my pen open and closed until I decide to write this sentence.

I lament my lack of proper peripheral vision as Cute Guy catches me glancing his way. It's no big deal or anything. It isn't as if people throw stuff at me or anything.

This happens way too often, actually.

Wednesday.
But still, I shy away from what might be advances. I interpret until my thoughts spin circles around me.

I refuse to sign waivers.

Thursday.
English presentations. The Infamous Group Of Boys present their project; The Boy With The Underpants takes this as an opportunity to dress in a red spandex body suit. It is skintight and covers him head to toe.

I dearly hope you can imagine this.

Standing beside The Infamous Group Of Boys, The Boy With The Underpants does a brief jig before undoing the zipper on the back of his head and taking great (poised) gulps of air. He makes a funny face.

Thursday.
It strikes me, standing outside the school's performing arts center as we wait for the doors to open, how alone I am. A five foot radius stands between myself and any other person. My peers group together frantically, as if being alone is a disease they might catch.

The degree at which I am alone makes me feel antisocial.

Wednesday.
It is another beautiful day, one of three I can recall in ages, all of them stacked together this week. My disbelief grows. The weather is pleasant, so much so that I wish to bask in it, and I have never been on the best of terms with the out of doors.

My peers form groups in the shade and in the grassy-ish courtyard area behind me. The dirt here has the consistency of sand. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is sand. While this has been explained to me as the result of the prehistoric existence of some body of water, I choose to find it ridiculous anyway.

A girl my sister knows passes by and asks me if I'm okay. I am. She leaves, a carton of rice in hand, off to a doctor's appointment.

Thursday.
By sheer luck I land an aisle seat next to a boy I have a passing acquaintanceship with. He's very talkative and it's difficult to process what he means by the words he strings together, but he's nice and finds me in hallways to say hello.

Some might find this annoying, and I've had a share of that sort of relationship, but somehow it doesn't bother me. Maybe it's the fact that he cuts through the layer of not knowing and goes straight to words.

Even if I don't fully understand him, his presence makes me feel less alone.

Friday.
Drumline. They pour down the hall in a steady stream--ba ba ba BAH BAH BAH ba ba ba BAH BAH BAH--arms flailing as they pass. My peers rush to line the walls outside the classroom, to watch, enraptured.

I just sit here.

Thursday.
Stretching hurts. I come up short and want to crawl into myself, more so than I ever have. I feel antisocial.

I feel like hiding.

Monday.
My thoughts slip together like staircases.

Monday.
I want to split words, fuse them together, intertwined tightly—and mine. Strung together with breath.

Thursday.
The speaker is a zany scientist, an expert of drug effects on the brain with many a story to his name. A movie has been made based on his impact on history, and at several points he ferries various brains around the auditorium for our viewing.

At least they're frozen.

Wednesday.
If all goes as it is likely to, half of my face will be sunburned following this ordeal.

I decide that I don't care.

Monday.
Clear skies so bright and chill almost enough to call for a sweater, just, and thinking that everything might be okay because it is pretty outside. Good weather makes me happy in a way I cannot replicate, like some sort of mystery I wouldn’t mind living forever if they would just let me keep sitting here as people call to one another around me, a comforting scatter of noise and sunlight gleaming against parked cars.

It also makes me wish I understood things. Ye Old Initials passes by and I wonder if all these years of teaching have made him happy, though my feeling is that he would either question the definition of happiness or say, matter-of-factly, “of course I’m happy.”

Breeze wafts against my neck and I choke against the smell of cheap perfume, a scented wish gone terribly wrong. I stop to stretch my hand. People group together in pieces of shade, spill against a handicap ramp and huddle around the statue of an eagle (gift from the class of 1956!) centered in front of the flag poles.

It isn’t a memorable space of time, but for this reason I wish I could hold it forever—even Dobbin across the courtyard, today wearing a checkered red shirt. He faces away from me and wanders out of sight, and for this moment it doesn’t bother me. It is one of those moments that I like anyway.

Great Art Of Being Thrown Statistics, The

The guy who invited me to sit here is enigmatic mixture of slime and well-meaning. His skin is the color of cocoa but I feel like he must be Mexican for the simple reason that, let’s face it, statistics make it likely. His voice is laid back, promising, and I do not trust it.

"Are you just going to sit there and do work or what?" he asks, a few chairs away from me in the vast land of the school cafeteria. My notebook is open. I scribble.

"If they let me."

"If they ask you if you have your papers, just tell them you turned them in, that Mr. L has them,” he says. Then: “I got your back."

I didn't turn in the permission forms needed to see this presentation. I was handed forms and expected to sign them. These forms were not explained to me and made it clear as mud that the material could be a) scarring or b) kill me.

Well, thanks.

The presentation has started. We are being given the beauty of AWARENESS regarding teenage drunk driving. AWARENESS is important, and I tell you: we are positively riveted. The group beside me passes around a pack of gum and, if I'm honest with you, the only perk in this situation remains that a really cute guy from my advisory class is within eyeshot.

"The worst thing that can happen," says a trauma nurse on-screen, "is that he could go brain dead and die from this injury."

Blood is gushing from a hole in a boy's head as another nurse talks him through how many drinks he usually has.

He only had three drinks, he swears!

I really shouldn't be allowed to make commentary on this. I mean, I don't have forms or anything.

Every few minutes, though, I feel like crying. I am not completely immune to this HBO special on AWARENESS. I am not immune to that which is being pressed against me, not completely, though I do appreciate the fact that a neurologist has referred to a head injury causing the brain to "pooch out."

I love learning new things.

Cute guy has donned a jacket now. I do not know his name. Have you ever tried to find someone one Facebook when you don't know their name?

Ahem. Me neither. I did not spend thirty minutes of my life searching through The Boy With The Underpants' six hundred friends for his existence.

But just that idea--well, I thought it might amuse you. You're welcome.

I feel like I am over this bout of AWARENESS. There is blood and sadness and ruined lives—and oh, it's over.

Okay. Thank you, HBO special.

A few scatter as we are given a bathroom break. The Boy With The Underpants walks past on his way to be facilities, boxers (purple plaid) peeking slightly out of his Bermuda shorts.

I am not making this up.

The announcer pronounces documentary as "dock-you-meant-airy" and sprinkles us with Consequences, all the while mispronouncing our town's name. I am amused.

LOOK AT ALL THE AWESOME DEATH JUST LIKE ME!

"We don't have to show movies like this to my kids," she says, "because they have experienced it firsthand."

They probably mean well.

A retired police officer gives a presentation on nefarious groups. He's "tatted out" and seems okay enough, only now he is telling us about how gangs might kill us and I really don't want to be killed by gangs please thank you--how will I sleep at night?

He educates us on various tattoos now and I quietly fear for my life. This is why I do not watch the news. Duty shirker I may be, but I feel that if I did this I would never leave the house again. Priorities.

The other grades are taking ever-important benchmarks this week. They have to keep us seniors around or else Break The Law And Lose Money, so now we are being educated in various ways. I am disgruntled.

"The crime stats in this area are great," the officer says. "This is why it is up to you guys to be safe. It's up to you."

The presenters trying to decipher YouTube and give up, making d0.

"They're not just going to kill you, they're going to kill your family." A dead woman and baby flash onscreen.

I didn't sign my forms! Why do they have me in here?

Like, dude.

That felt appropriate.

Sexting is brought up by Announcer Lady. She waves her purple Blackberry around to prove her points. With a winning “Nothing is ever deleted!” my peers begin buzzing as if this had never before occurred to them—QUICK, WE NEED TO DELETE STUFF FROM OUR PHONES.

Maybe it’s the fact that I don't get the concept of secrets. Maybe it's that I am a horrible person who judges her peers harshly. But really?

I wouldn't be thrilled if my peers read this blog, I'll give you that much. But am I lying? My conceptions are just that, mine, and I am painfully aware how fractured some of them have been in the past. I hope to be right, but I am stumbling. I will stumble. This is all I can do.

The presentation ends without a bang and students begin to disperse. My advisory teacher stops for a moment as he passes by.

"What are you doing, writing a book?" he asks. He wears suspenders and a smile framing sincere eyes. He has an accent I can’t place.

"Sort of."

The Boy With The Underpants, a tale

We've spoken on the topic of my English teacher before now. While somewhere in the depths of middle age, he gives off the air of a crusty old man and is somewhat of a fixture at my school. He is addressed by his first and last initials, which I find endlessly entertaining, and he has a smirk.

Surely you know what I mean by this. When certain humans purposely make scenes for his amusement he smirks, sticks a hand in his pocket and makes some suitable statement that both tells them off and contributes to the general hilarity of the situation. Hawaiian shirts are his stock and trade, despite the fact that he is not really a Hawaii kind of person. Or maybe he is. I am just making grand and beautiful assumptions here.

All of these things manage to contribute to a slightly creepy feeling about him. Last week, for instance, we were taking notes on The Inferno and, as he read aloud, he stopped-- "...they descended upon the Mount of Joy. Doesn't that sound like a great name for a porno, 'The Mount of Joy'?"

He's either really cool or really creepy. I've been a student of his since last year and the only thing I'm pretty sure of is the fact that I (and, indeed, the world) will probably never know.

Last year I took "Team Sports" for a semester. The class fluctuated from three to ten people and, due to size and the beautiful soul of our instructor, our only requirement was to keep moving. I fully admit, with great spasms of pride, that I took this opportunity to navigate laps around the gym while reading a book. The instructor was a burly guy with a partial beard and I liked him because I generally like teachers and also because I was allowed to read books during gym class.

I tell you, I have had best high school gym experience ever. I took my first semester of gym freshmen year (which now feels like a billion years ago), when I briefly lived in the magical land of Florida. Here we had the opposite problem; the space was so crowded with people that they simply did not want to wrangle us all into submission. Instead they gave us the option of shooting hoops or sitting on the floor of the gym and using the period as a study hall. I spent many an hour masterfully dodging basketballs launched at my face. Worth it.

The gods of gym class have smiled upon me.

My burly bearded gym teacher went AWOL around December and we were given Ye Old Initials' son, at that point a long-term substitute, as our replacement. I'm pretty sure people have decided to call him by his initials, too, which I'm sure thrills him to bits. My sources cite him as a colorless, gangly creature who gives the impression that he might be toppled over by the slightest breeze. On the converse, however, I know of at least one girl who daily giggled over his existence ("he's so hot!!!"). In any event, he would ask after my books and I would give vague answers from my spot on the bleachers, hoping against hope that he would not make me perform physical activities.

Remember VoldeTread? I haven't visited with him since I completed the journey that is Supersize Me and fell into a slight state of panic that I might die of deathness. This was about a month ago. School is a valid excuse, OKAY?

I managed to skate by over midterm exams by throwing a frisbee to myself. I haven't really seen him since then.

In my AP English class, turf of Ye Old Initials himself, we have managed to partition ourselves into three groups. The boys find themselves on one side of the class and the girls on the other, with a few girls breaking ranks and scattering out towards the middle. The boys, of which there are approximately five, feel it necessary to pull glorious pranks on Ye Old Initials. Yesterday, for instance, one particular boy left a pair of his boxers in Ye Old Initials' desk chair before class. Ye Old Initials was unfazed upon discovering them. He picked them up and tossed them onto the corner of his desk-- "These belong to anybody?"

The boys cracked up and the owner got up to collect his underpants (sky blue with steam engines, for those wondering).

I could make jokes here, but I definitely may have had a discussion on breast reductions and a Venezuelan woman who chopped her abusive husband's genitalia off with my groupmates a few minutes later. This may have happened.

But I would like to take this opportunity to go further into my long and illustrious relationship with the boy with the underpants.

The Boy With The Underpants is a wide-eyed, excitable human with whom I occasionally exchange words. In addition to making himself present in my English class, he sits next to me in math class.

It occurs to me now, in the frantic editing stage of this post, that this sounds exactly like the beginnings of The Dobbin Situation. Not happening.

In math class, home of catlovingmathteacher, he sits next to me and alternates between words of confusion and the phrase "this is cake" accompanied by a chuffed sigh and rolling of shoulders.

I made the mistake of calling him out on a personal tirade/guilt trip last week by noting that some people (namely me) do not actually have friends. He immediately contradicted his assurances of friendlessness by informing me that I was his friend.

"You're not my friend," I said.

"Come on," he said, "we talked on the first day of school, we're friends."

"I think we have contradicting views of friendship."

He handed me his phone as catlovingmathteacher explained a graphing problem, grinning at his own brilliance. With the skill of an everlasting ninja, I hid the phone behind my binder and noted that he had brought up the dictionary's definition of "friend."

Apparently we're friends now. Like I have any choice in the matter. Now he attempts to get me to shake his hand every time we meet and dramatically shouts "friend!" in my direction at strategic intervals.

I'm going to go with the idea that my denial is a character building activity for his benefit.

The guy has over six hundred friends on Facebook. Yes, I am a stalker.

When he isn't declaring Precalculus to be cake (duh!), The Boy With The Underpants spends his time in math class calling the girl who sits in front of him "baby girl" and trying to braid her hair. I was asked to teach him the great art of hair braiding at one juncture. He's improving, I'll give him that much. His greatest accomplishment in life (or at least the summer) was reenacting a horror film at midnight with his friends for the benefit of a group of girls who, after finishing with their shock, joined forces with them and helped them repeat the ordeal for another batch of humans. Judgment. He appears completely earnest, yet acts in a way that suggests he is a slimeball. Or maybe he's a teenage boy. Who knows?

Last week he and his fellow male humans hijacked tennis shirts from Ye Old Initials' back room and decided to model them. Grand ideas were painted for us--they would join Ye Old Initials' tennis team and take over the world. Ye Old Initials wasn't convinced, noting he had two freshmen who could easily take them on. Soon they were planning a take-down.

"If I win state," said The Boy With The Underpants, miming a tennis racket in his hand and readying for victory, "you have to persuade Sarah Johnson, with your mad serenading skills, to marry me."

"I thought you were going with Brady's sister."

"Her too!" he said, eyes bright and words tripping up on the way. "I'm marrying Sarah and taking Leeann to prom."

This was all fine and well and amusing to me until a few days ago, in math class, when he beckoned to the boy who sits behind me (a slimeball, I feel, but here I am Judging The World). "Oh my God," he said, "Sarah Johnson likes my status! She touched my status. I tell you, we're getting married, dude."

The beginnings of a love story if I ever heard one.

"I feel ready to stay up for, like, two days straight, man," he says, in English class this time, rubbing his face. "Like, Jesus, man."

Now the class is discussing Halloween and attempting to coax one of my groupmates into saying vulgar things in Spanish for them.

Now he says: "Ye Old Initials you should, you know, shave the sides of your head."

"Earl is naturally white, dude, I mean." The boys lift up the sleeve of a Mexican boy's t-shirt to reveal a farmer's tan.

"It'll get better in the winter," he says.

One can only hope.

With The Force Of A Raging Ninja

I haven't Updated You in several many days, my friends, and for this I apologize. The problem is, I don't exactly know where to start.

So let's talk about penguins.

Actually, probably not. I do not have any penguin related news at the moment. However, in the event that you were wondering, I own a total of two stuffed penguins. One is named Herbert. The other is nameless and sports a Christmas-variety hat.

Since we last spoke I have become much more at peace with The Grand Dobbin Situation. Granted, I have not reached perfection. I don't expect to reach perfection in this, actually. I couldn't exactly tell you how I came to this point, this vague acceptance. Maybe it's a culmination of many things. Of saying my words to him and letting them sink in within my own self, of coming to the conclusion that he probably isn't going to say words to me (I've for so long wished for words to make sense of all this), of reading this book and working to accept good advice from friends. Of remembering to breathe. I still have to remind myself of this, breathing. I will tumult into the great mass of humans after a class and my mind will race and suddenly I'm walking, pressure rising in my throat, and I have to remind myself to exhale.

At times like these I wonder if I will ever be able to breathe again without thinking about it, thinking inhale-hold-exhale inhale-hold-exhale inhale-exhale. It will worry me for a few minutes and, eventually, the thoughts can be brushed aside.

I suppose the main change is that his existence upsets me less. It still upsets me. I still have to think my way through every encounter ("okay, Katherine, step this way. Don't give him the finger. Move away, look away, he isn't going to eat you. He isn't going to follow you to your locker. He's going to ignore you. Keep walking, breathe"). Maybe I will have to think myself through these things; maybe this is something that I have to let happen. The magnitude of the grief I have been experiencing for the past month is changing, lessening. Still an elastic ready to snap, still an elastic that may snap on occasion... But it hurts a little less, and I am able to function without every other thought dancing around his existence.

Please, let us speak in hushed tones. I think I'm making friends.

Did I just say those words? Slowly I am ingratiating myself with a vaguely nerdy crowd of a handful of humans. They aren't nerds, proper. But the idea is there. It leaves me, tentatively, hopeful.

Some people don't seem to think I suck. Maybe we're not meant to be BFFs, but they know my name and I know theirs. Which is kind of a big deal to me, actually, considering one of my failings has to do with names. I am really, really bad at names. If I know a person well enough to call them by their name without a shadow of a doubt that I am not slipping up, it is a big deal to me. Call it weird. That's just how it is. Sort of mostly.

I guess what I'm getting at is the idea that things are becoming... sort of... okay. This is another thing I fear, this great Land Of Okay. Okay, in my mind, equals the idea that I will soon be tripped up again.

I was paid for the first time last week. I do not know what to do with money. But... money?! I've been trolling Etsy for beautiful things. While instinct tells me not to spend money on things for myself and save it or donate it to humanity, I have been advised to have this Grand Idea that is called--you may have heard of it--fun. We shall see.

Last Saturday my brethren and I ventured out into the Great Land That Is Austin, Texas and visited a museum and the campus of the University of Texas. Both of my parents went there. It is an Option. My mother has a law degree but had to leave her job and move out of state when my dad decided it would be cool to join the Public Health Service when she was pregnant with me. My father was a dentist before he decided it would be a good idea not to be a dentist and leave, but I have no clue what kind of degree you need to be a dentist.

The thing with having a dentist as a father, I've found, is that all the Cool Kids then shun you or refuse to visit your house for fear that your father will Judge Their Teeth. It was particularly scarring when I was younger. I don't care if they were kidding. And, despite what you may think, I have not been blessed with beautiful Dental Care Skills. Ye Old Dentist Human (am I getting carried away with these titles? They're such fun!) always seemed ashamed of my teeth, despite the fact that I have never had a cavity and have missed only a handful of days wearing my retainer in the three years since my braces were removed. Have I told you my harrowing orthodontia tale? That's a fun story. Maybe someday I will grace you with it.

I was talking about the University of Texas at Austin. I don't believe my parents actually got their fancy advanced degrees there. It isn't really even magical of me to tell you about them, considering the job market is scary, thus my mother not yet being employed, and my father decided it'd be cool not to be a dentist anymore (and leave, not that it's particularly relevant to this either).

I'm really liking that string of words for the moment. "My father decided it'd be cool not to be a dentist anymore," that is. I find myself to be brilliant sometimes. Not now, but on occasion and possibly more than I actually am. Can you tell I didn't have a plan here?

But. The college campus thing. It was scary. And big. And all the people seemed cooler than me even though way too many of them were wearing burnt orange. Which, as my mother puts it, "doesn't flatter anyone." We're also visiting a campus in San Antonio somewhere this weekend. I may or may not be frustrating my mother with the fact that I'm refusing to be of much help in these matters. I struggle to take things one at a time, and if I attempt to make sense of one thing it's apt to get out of hand in my head.

Maybe some of that made sense.

Other bits: I dislike Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays and Thursdays equal twelve full hours in school/work. Tomorrow is Thursday. I hope I survive tomorrow. It isn't so bad when I have set tasks to do at work. I enjoy work when I have tasks, truly. When I do not have tasks I'm left to make work for myself (which makes sense, as they are paying me) and I end up straightening shelves, dusting, etc. Straightening shelves requires a lot of rapid stand, squat, stand, which makes me lightheaded. And frankly, I'm running out of shelves to straighten. There is only so much straightening that a shelf can handle before it's A-OK for a while.

I feel like I shouldn't be telling you this. Anyway, I really do like my job. It's more that I dislike Tuesdays and Thursdays for their length and general cruelty.

Part of me wonders if the Grand Discourse Of Boss Humans might search my personage on the Great Land Of The Internet. I really do try to conduct my internet affairs in a way that I wouldn't mind if I were (figuratively) frisked. I feel like I can back myself up. I am capable of being wrong. I am capable of being judgmental. But, soapbox moment: having judgment is important, friends. Were it not for judgment, you might very well be dead. Don't take candy from strangers!!

That is all.

My Peers, And The Wisdom They Share With The World

I do not understand my peers.

Really. I am confused by them half of the time, and the other half is spent annoyed at them. And okay, there is another piece of this pie that involves the times I find them hilarious.

You can't make this stuff up. Well, maybe you could. You probably possess these skills, but all I seem to come up with has to do with ninjas and glitter.

Which probably explains the fact that when I added a girl from school on Facebook last night she commented on a status regarding my creepiness with words of agreement, to think of it. I am going to go ahead and believe she was going along with my hilarity rather than commenting on my character and move on with my life.

I know I've mentioned this before, but I am taken aback by the number of teenage mothers at my school. And the thing is, I fully had a conversation regarding a peer's son and lackluster father yesterday. It was par for the course, or something. I'm just confused.

The bit of the conversation revolving around me lasted about thirty seconds and went somewhat like this.

"Are you dating anyone?"

"No."

"You don't text, do you?"

"haha, no."

"Are you talking to anyone?"

"No."

Are you talking to anyone? What does this even mean, friends? I can only draw lewd conclusions from this. Following this, the two girls I was sharing a group with began bemoaning the fact that they had been single for such vast amounts of time. Girl B dithered for a moment, saying "I've been single for four months! Oh wait, no... two... no, a month! Was it three weeks? No, a month, four weeks!"

This being said, they both seemed nice enough. I don't want to come off as if I hate them, because somehow I don't. This is merely an attempt to demonstrate my confusion and slight hilarity at the situations I find myself in.

(How am I doing?)

In fact, while I did some moaning of my own at having to do group work, the fact that they asked me to join their group at all was pretty nice of them. And, unlike a billion percent of my other encounters with the Great God Of Group Work, they did contribute to the assignment. Shock, I know.

I am somewhat of an oddity at my school, and not even for the Obvious Reasons (I'm creepy, remember? Represent!). The fact of the matter is that I was a sophomore last year and now I am magically a senior and quite several a few people have expressed confusion of their own. "Wait, weren't you a sophomore last year?"

It amuses me that anyone would notice me at all, but I digress.

I just wanted to say "but I digress" because this is a cool thing to do when you're a writer. Fact.

I am mystery woman (girl, person, human, ninja and glitter appreciator--pick your poison wisely, friends). Unfortunately, this also means I am vastly alone the majority of the time. Not that I'm complaining.

I am, actually. I hope you don't mind.

My math teacher has been mentioned here before. He likes to talk about his elderly-cat-named-Stubby, which I find endlessly amazing. For instance, upon explaining to us the fact that he would be collecting papers day by day rather than all on Friday, he graced us with the following words: "It's not like I have any plans over the weekend," he said, gesturing to the world with his wet erase pen, "I mean, I might wrestle with my cat or something, get the laser pin after her. She hates that thing, I think it hurts her eyes."

I wrote it down in my journal. (I'm not creepy I'm not creepy I swear it was the nearest thing to me at the time don't judge me!!!!!)

You really can judge me, actually. I will cry, but I figure I'll probably survive your Hatred And Roguish Attractive Quotient.

I don't even know.

But I have more wisdom! Here, have at it. Upon being accused of cruelty, my Cat Loving Math Teacher defended himself thusly: "I like everybody, I like the whole world. The only thing I don't like, the only thing I can't stand, is broccoli."

Our week one test involved a problem finding the circumference of a tin of asparagus. The same sentiment was duly expressed, right there on the test. I like this guy. It almost makes math class enjoyable.

Only not really. Math and I have never been on the best of terms.

My English teacher, ye old school fixture addressed by his initials, instructed us to outline our beliefs for him this week. Last year, upon learning he was teaching the granddaughter of one of his students, he immediately pulled out his phone to call his wife for lols.

I don't know why I'm using "lols" so much. I find it amusing. Pardon me.

On that note, I am somewhat under the impression that all of my teachers are divorced. It's like a puzzle. First period, divorced. Second period, has kids but no wedding ring. Third, divorced with cat. Fourth, probably not divorced. Fifth, Ye Old Initials, divorced and remarried. Sixth, divorced and remarried. Seventh and eighth I spend in the library, which adds at least two more divorces to my list.

I told you I'm a creeper.

I digress. But really, this blog is one huge digression or something. I'm pretty sure. I just say things, and sometimes they sound cool. Other times I press "PUBLISH POST" and ask myself what have I done.

You win some, you lose some.

As we conversed on the topic of belief (which somehow relates to Catch-22), we came to an argument over whether the earth is 9,000 years old or not.

"But there are 60,000 year old fossils or something, aren't there?" a peer questioned.

"Well," said Ye Old Initials, "the idea there is that 9,000 years ago fossils were created to look millions of years old."

"Who," said the peer, his tone a verbal rolling of eyes, "was bored 9,000 years ago, creating all these fossils?"

Lols.

Several minutes following this beautiful conversation we, AP English students that we are, attempted to wheedle Ye Old Initials into more points on our Frankenstein tests. One question involved the author, Mary Shelley, and whether her maiden name was Godwin or Wollstonecraft. Ye Old Initials would have none of the idea that Godwin was her maiden name. Her maiden name was Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin in the book's introduction, and we were all fighting tooth and nail for the right to have answered Godwin rather than Wollstonecraft.

"The girl takes the guy's last name, Ye Old Initials!" insisted the same peer, leaping up and gesturing to his book. "It's simple math!"

He gave us the points. I give you this verbose mess of a post. Mutualistic relationship, this.

Another exciting DOBBIN installment.

I hate pep rallies.

Or, to be precise, I strongly dislike pep rallies at my particular school. Football players and girls in ridiculous outfits paraded around as heroes, information irrelevant to me boomed over loudspeakers, the bleachers vibrating as my peers scream and bounce themselves up and down, "popular" music played loud enough to leave me nostalgic and teary before the whole thing even starts.

Really. I almost started crying.

I could continue on about how I feel like periphery, but that isn't what I set out to talk about here. I know, you're shocked. Katherine, with a purpose? What is this MADNESS?

Don't get excited. You're about to groan and smack yourself in the head as I again bring up your absolute most favorite topic.

Dobbin. Oh God. I know, I know. Please try to mask your excitement. This is why you love me; I regale you with tales of my heartbreak and you derive much pleasure from it. Or something. Where I was going with that is beyond me.

I talked myself into talking to him (let's take a break here to wince in unison). Or I talked myself into the idea that I could say something, that this would not cause my world to crumble and tear at the edges. And then, you know, I did it.

I feel like a stalker talking about this so much. As with anything, I guess this is a process. I was dealing with this ordeal much better before I was forced to see him several times a day. It's somewhat like starting all over on the "dealing with it" scale. Every time I see him I am catapulted into a state of semi-panic and have to work hard not to hyperventilate. I would also like to note that the dude is particularly conspicuous. He's really tall and ambles along in a goofy, charming manner and often wears striped shirts.

Yes. It is probably weird that I know this. It's kind of like I spot my target for the day and note the color of his shirt so I can divert my attention elsewhere when he comes into view. Somehow I am coming up with analogies to antelope right now. Okay.

Yesterday in our shared class (of love and sparkles and hate) I was sitting with my group as we discussed the proper way to convey psychological principles in a skit (we are so going to fail we are so going to fail I hope not oh why oh why panic time), and he randomly came over to us and I'm pretty sure I started having heart palpitations.

To put it fancily, I had had enough. There you go. Justification. You're welcome.

As class ended I stood at the back of the class thinking to myself I need to do this if I don't I never will just get it over with you bastard idiot. So, against all the beautiful judgement I have been granted in this life (otherwise known as chronic restraint), I walked over to him as he stood over a laptop.

"Hi," I said abruptly.

"Hi," he said. He didn't look up, continued to study the Important Messages the laptop was apparently broadcasting for his viewing pleasure.

I would just like to interrupt this message to say that I find it particularly hilarious that he's ignoring me. Okay dude, stare at me and then look away when I look up. I'll pretend not to notice and I will continue to snub you because I continue to have at least two and a half ounces of self respect.

He wanted to "still be friends," remember? Had I reacted differently, this would be a whole different ball game.

"I'm going to walk away in a minute," I said, "but I just wanted to say that I'm not happy about being in a class with you. It's very upsetting for me." At one point he looked up as words spilled from my lips, as every muscle screamed at me "NO NO NO NO I can't believe I'm doing this." And then I turned and I was gone and I had to remind myself to breathe as I stumbled towards my next class.

The part of me that didn't spend the following eight hours I had left of my day inwardly screaming to myself the fact that I am an idiot finds a vague amount of poetic justice in this. He walked away from the situation in breaking up with me in a text message and what-have-you, and I fully admit to the fact that before he "asked me out" I was planning to accost him in much the same way. Only, you know, with better news that time.

Now I ask myself, did this help? Will having said this, simple and not EVEN YELLING AND CALLING HIM NAMES as it is, help me move on?

Move on. Actual lols.

I'm working on it, comprendo? I assure you that this annoys me more than it annoys you. Other happy bits: as I walked into class today, Dobbin began babbling on about something one of his ex-girlfriends did that really angered him to the teacher at the doorway. Was this about me? Who knows. Who knows, but really? Just as I walk into the room? Good job, Dobbin. Good job. He also made a point of staring at me until I looked up from my Engrossing Paper That Was Interesting.

Conspicuous Dobbin is conspicuous. I'd say pep rallies are ruined for me, but that would be a lie. Considering I hate them already. Or, you know, strongly dislike pep rallies at my particular school. Whether he was flipping me off or merely the world in my direction at this pep rally I am unaware. I don't necessarily care, either. He flips everyone off.

I have such great taste in men.

Storytelling.

I love that as soon as I consider writing a blog all my positive topics desert me and I'm left thinking... well. You may have some idea, knowing me. Depressing blog posts are easy, so easy, and plenty of depressing thoughts have befriended me lately. "Oh HELLO THERE," one will say as it pulls up a chair, "how are you doing today? I like you. Remember [awesomely depressing thing]? Yeah. That's just effing great, isn't it? Remember that time. . ?" Or I'll be accosted in the hallway by one, caught by the throat so that I have to remind myself to breathe.

I swear.

I don't even know what I'm swearing, but I guess I swear it. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It also seems like a good idea to tell you that I'm going to be okay and that I am dealing with these thoughts or trying to or something. They leave me feeling like a loser. I guess I'm not a loser.

This is what happens when I try to write cheerful blog posts. Geeze.

At the library I have been charged with the task of alphabetizing forms. My stack is going on five inches tall at the moment. As forms come in they are put in another stack, which I alphabetize by its lonesome and then check off names on a master list. Then it is time to merge the two piles, which I do one letter at a time and check against the list.

I am getting so good at alphabetizing, I swear. I swear. Apparently I'm swearing a lot today. I suppose it is to be expected, considering this is all I've been doing for the past week. I separated and alphabetized fifty sets of business cards for teachers early last week, then began the form debacle. What's more, the form has a formatting error on it that makes it impossible to tell students first names from their middle names, which gets interesting when you're dealing with fifty or so Garcias/Rodriguezes/Hinojosas.

The funny thing is that I really don't mind doing it. Now that I'm getting better at alphabetizing and am in possession of a master list of names it isn't as difficult, just time consuming. Which I'm all for, actually. I love having things to do. The not knowing what I have to do is what stresses me out.

Of course, it is still turning my head to mush somewhat, but I suspect I will survive.

Career Prep today was hilarious. We have a whopping five students in this particular class, two of whom were absent today, and the air conditioner was out in our room. I popped in for approximately two seconds, after which I joined my fellow classmates in the hallway. It felt like walking through soup. Being such a small class, we camped out in an empty-ish room across the hallway with the teacher and swapped sob stories about the male gender and life.

It was pretty awesome.

I really don't hide my story anymore, when it's relevant. Sure, I hide myself from the world most of the time, but I am largely transparent about my story. My story.

That was... was that dramatic? A pat on the back to me, why don't you, universe. Or not.

My story is a condensed handful of sentences I pull out at strategic moments. Okay, I'm going to take back my previous statement in favor of some magical clarification because I have been blessed with both skill and laziness. While I am much freer with my story than in the past, I am still somewhat loathe to share it.

This being because people don't care. Okay, lies. Probably lies, probably untrue in many cases, but my point is that often the reply is "oh, that sucks never mind let me walk away/talk about my cat/ignore you now."

I am definitely in favor of discussing one's cat. My supremely goofy math teacher talks about his cat constantly, and it is one of the better parts of my day. His cat is very elderly, named Stubby and holds claim to being a whole lot less bossy than his ex-wife. His cat is one of my favorite things. True facts.

However, my point (which may have existed once but grows fuzzy by each clacking of keys): once you tell your story, it's gone. Even if you have been prodded to tell it, expressly asked to hand it over, you have no control over the reaction of the party you've allowed to hold it.

One could argue that this holds true in every situation. Other Parties make their own decisions, in theory, and their reactions are not in your control no matter how well you remake your words to sound whole and strong and... certain.

This is something that I struggle with. That I have control over only myself. I can buff and polish and fill my every breath with despicable amounts of plastic surety, press my words so that they please me even in their imperfections--but no matter what I do, I cannot control the outcome or people involved or any small change in the wind.

My story is not who I am, though, and I struggle to balance fakery with transparency. I'm so often told to "fake it til [I] make it," and entertaining this idea is at any length mind boggling. If I've hidden myself for so long and found it so hurtful, how can I force myself back into this completely?

The answer is that I can't. I am imperfect. I am a work in progress. I will try my best, and that will have to be good enough. These simple phrases are so, so difficult to form and believe. They tangle in my thoughts, become indistinguishable, become lies to me.

I'm working on it.

As I have successfully confused myself with Deep Magical Thoughts sufficient to last me a few minutes, I leave you with a conversation between two male peers of mine I overheard earlier today.

"I just drank twelve pints of vodka, it just hasn't hit me yet."

"If you can do that, you're Irish.

"Or amazing."

"Or Russian, actually."

Oh, knowledge.

I am a public service.

The thing about my honorary godfather, RhodesTer, is that he terrifies me. That sounded really wrong. He's a cool guy. I do not lie terror-stricken in my bed at night fearing his imminent death killing. However, he has this way of telling me I'm really cool and giving potentially awesome advice that I then stare at thinking HOW CAN I EVEN DO THIS DAVE I'M NOT EVEN FUNNY GO AWAY.

Which is useful.

I almost feel it is my Great And Wonderful Duty to be blogging for you now, my great interland friends. The question being, of course, how do I even do it? I'm not actually asking you. That was rhetorical. Sort of. Unless you actually have a practical answer for me, in which case that would be cool.

I do not know how to blog. I've always hated it. Which is just peachy for you, I know. You appreciate this. You know my agony.

Here I am attempting humor for you. You're welcome.

I can honestly say that this is one of the worst weekends I have ever had. I'm not even kidding here, mostly, which is why I find it hilarious that I am now in a vaguely good mood and not posting the depressing blog I wrote for you earlier. There were Dobbin quotes. It was pretty beautiful.

I still want to post that a little bit.

When I think of truly horrific times in my life, a few specific strings of days come forth for viewing. I have long considered our transition from Florida to Texas to be the worst week of my life. Following this in horror was Valentine's Day weekend this year for reasons entirely unrelated to Valentine's Day. Next in line, the week Dobbin revealed himself to be an asshat. Then this weekend, for reasons that aren't well defined but mostly relate to my being very depressed.

Maybe I need to be busy in order to stay sane. But I hate being busy. Awesome.

As for something completely relevant to my life right now, I hate Facebook. Why do I even bother? I mean, I know why I bother. I like looking at pictures of myself. I enjoy confusing people by proclaiming myself to be a sparkly ninja. However, this is not enough for me. About half of my scant 100 friends can be described as "IRL."

And I hate all of them.

This is not a scientific calculation. I promise. And now I have absolutely no clue how to continue on with this clawing of my acquaintances in a dignified and mannered fashion.

Also I just realized I have a test over Frankenstein tomorrow. Oh.

I don't know how to be a writer. I also don't know how to do math or what I'm going to DO WITH MY LIFE (answer: glitter) or if any college will accept me.

It's really fun times 'round here.

My head is a tangled mess. A lot of the time I feel broken.

I couldn’t tell you exactly why. It is a long and harrowing story I am uncertain of myself. But, growing up, I formed quiet conceptions I am just now attempting to unearth. To deal with.

My head is a tangled mess.

I search frantically for logic in any and everything. I never stop, cannot stop, do not know how to stop. The thoughts buzz and hum, leaving me shaking and lost and wishing. If I am imperfect, my world will stop. I bottle my thoughts up so well that they are obscured even to me. I hide behind my silence, I suffer from an economy of words.

In some ways knowing these parts of me exist makes them hurt more.

Why shouldn’t I matter? I have gotten into myself the idea that I don’t, that what I am now discovering shouldn’t hurt. That I must continue to build up walls, lock myself within my conceptions. I have to pretend. I have to be perfect, whole. What might be a decision has for so long been a reflex, an impulse, a

These things overlap. I cannot be perfect. My imitation is passable, is carefully cultivated, is

Sometimes it will all just hurt and my desperate hope will grasp for that which I have come to fear. Okay. I want to be okay, but okay is that place I reach at the very precipice of shattering once again. I am not allowed to be okay.

But I have to be perfect.

And I have to be okay with living with all these tangled thoughts and small hopes and

Before I knew
that something was wrong I still thought I had to be perfect and
it still hurt. I spoke to a counselor who charted my happiness and told me, once, “we’ve charted this for months. You should be happier now.”

You should be happier now. You should be perfect. You should you should you should.

I do not fit into your mold, world. I have tried, with everything I have, my whole life. To please you. To find answers, to pull myself apart so I fit to your specifications. My identity is largely a result of the elastic I have made myself.

For you.

And I hope you’re happy.

FDSLFJGLADFGJDFG304-1243-24-432-40DFASL YES

Blogging: I can't quit you.

Today was Friday. afsdlkfjasldgfdslgladfgasldgjasldjfladfsjgo3wa4tr 2034ruef

That felt appropriate for some reason. There was a pep rally in the afternoon, meaning that our schedule at school was morphed into different proportional sparkles and everything was a bit off. Seniors sit on the away side/bleachers of the stadium, everyone else on the home side, which has always been construed to me as a Big Deal.

For me it meant screwing up the courage to sit (well, stand) with one of the few friendly people I know and inwardly seething over the fact that stupid, conspicuous Dobbin was in clear view on the other side of the stadium thing and bumbling around in his Dobbinesque manner. I have many, many thoughts. I'm trying to deal with them and they're messy and tangled and urk.

I wore a cute outfit today.

Also, I am cute. Just so ya know.

Work: alphabetizing millions of zillions of forms at the moment. As the nerd that I am, I'm kind of finding it fun. I worked 18.5 hours this week! SCORE FOR ME.

This tab has been open for several a few hours. I am so good at this. There are things I want to say, maybe, but I don't know how and I feel weird about saying them and... I'm not even entirely sure what they are.

Blurgh.

Three day weekend! What do I do with it? I mean, I'm so great at having fun and everything. It is a legitimate problem, really. The concept of having fun is foreign to me. I'm sure if I did have fun I'd feel guilty about it. I'm a mess. A charming mess, but a mess all the same.

I guess we all are.

Katherine Dislikes Titling Things

Oh, hello. Remember me? My name is Katherine, and I have graced you with my words each day for the past month. And while the month is now over and I am no longer obligated under Magic Code to scrounge for interesting pieces of information to put forth each day, many of my thoughts today have been blog related. I've grown to enjoy blogging quite a lot, even to the point where I feel somewhat comfortable with it... which is quite nice considering I have always strongly disliked it before this experience.

This is the point where I run out of things to say. Obviously.

I just have to laugh at myself sometimes. Let's take a look at today's pages of silly awesome poetry and doodles for guidance. Because this is what I continue to find myself doing as we continue "social contracts" in all of my classes.

Poetry and I are becoming bffs. Even if it's terrible.

There is a hope that

hangs in the air

coating every surface

in fine powder

we inhale

honey sweet

bitter aftertaste

hope

hanging

in the air

ignore it and it leans

over your shoulder,

breathes sugar lies

in your ear.

Then:

Answers

maybe

they

do

not

al wa ys

exist.

maybe they slink into corners and watch you, laughing as you stumble and beg. Shadows. Blur past you, disconcert, trip. Lost in the throbbing want for them.

Shining cloak promising answered prayers and serene dreams, that elusive fulfillment - however spelled - glittered, glittering, glossed with hope.

Lies.

Trembling bold unkempt for always never to deteriorate never never cowardly defiance slime hurtful wince wincing.

Finally:

They are talking about rules and

I am remembering

minute bells

and hand holding

and waiting in the empty hall

for him

Remembering hurts.

Lost in the hallways of memory

drifting

bumping against dusty

memories, coughing as it

rises, plopping down

on the floor

criss cross apple sauce

Breathing in dust

unpacking boxes shoddily

assembled to reveal

what was

or felt like it might be

something

Fog memories,

wondering if what was

ever existed

Because it is now all

so over

and the lines are so blurred,

chalk smudged over time

frame and breath

crumbling, confused, broken.

Without answers or solutions

aching, choking against the dust

over.

I am not particularly depressed, but these are the sorts of things that appear when I doodle. It's interesting considering various forms of writing. Journal writing, blog writing, doodle induced writing. They all draw different things from me. I write a lot more here than in my journal, though my journal has generally been for very emotional immediate thought and brief attempted updates (and other stuff, too, yes). While I try not to withhold or over-think things in that venue when I write, as over-thinking and withholding true feeling are things I struggle with, in some ways doodling is even freer. Lots of things have merit, I guess.

I am a teenager. This amuses me sometimes.

Today I took a scary test in English. It was less scary than anticipated, but it's being graded on the bell curve... so who knows how I'll do?! I wore a dark blue skirt with an orange top and kept thinking "surely this doesn't match. Surely." Orange and blue go together, right? RIGHT? Yes. Work was only two hours! Tomorrow I work six hours again! Sparkles all around!

Lots of rules have been switched around at school. They are confusing and stuff. Oh, and as for another topic of which I am not at all knowledgeable, let's talk about teenage pregnancy. For kicks. I am surprised by the number of students who have children or, in the case of this year, are now pregnant. The majority of students at my school are Hispanic, so while most of those I know to be pregnant are Hispanic, I suppose this could be mere statistics or some such. I'm trying not to stereotype. Maybe I am. I apologize in advance if this is the case. I will tell you that the most confusing case I've seen is that of a pregnant (Caucasian) peer of mine who I always see with her boyfriend. Why this confuses me I don't know; maybe because the other five or so pregnant teens I see around are never with such counterparts.

Here I am attempting a case study. Why.

First poetry, then teenage pregnancy. Whatever could be next?

Blog Every Day August: 8/31

I spent twelve hours at school today. Six hours of this was work. Now I lie on ye old love seat, wrapped in a blanket and letting British comedy wash over me. I ate food and now my stomach hurts.

I'm surprised I am somehow still quite alive after twelve hours of school work school ahhness. You'll never guess who came into the library today after school and hung around for way more time than I would have appreciated. It was fun. I really am trying not to care, but I just get so angry and stuff. Breathing becomes difficult and an absolute necessity.

This evening it was one of the librarians and I in the library. The head librarian/my boss left soon after school ended, and the two others around then as well, but I was left work to do and the majority of it could be done while in a seated position... which makes all the difference. I have a desk area. And wire mesh file holders and STUFF. There is also a laptop I can use, though I haven't done so yet, and I have a cabinet drawer where I can leave my bag. Things have been crazy busy, and I don't yet know how to do everything, but it is all so exciting. Nerd tendencies = score. The librarian I was with tonight is nice and doesn't make me feel nervous. Friendly. All of the staff are nice, but that nervousness is what gets to me.

But I was there for six hours on top of my school day and it was long and things. My eyes started to burn. I am allowed to take a break and eat something on long nights, though, which ought to prove a help.

Blog Every Day August has been wonderful. The fact that it is ending saddens me. Even if I continue blogging, part of the fun is sharing the experience with others, and I will miss that. So. Keep blogging, friends! I will catch up on your lovely blogs on a day when I haven't been out of the hour twelve hours ahh. Soon!

In all classes we have to write a "social contract" together, compiling words involving several questions to form a list of adjectives we should strive to embody. I will leave you with my own personal contract, scrawled on a piece of ruled paper I was "decorating" as we discussed.

1. Don't kill people.
2. Always be a ninja.
3. Glitter is always the answer.
4. Look to the rainbows!

Assorted quotes from my day also include:

Math teacher: "That's like the second largest chocolate bar I ever saw."

"Don't die in math class. If you have to go die do it in science, that's a science thing."

Male peer: "I care about my hair. I love it, it's so soft. That's what happens when you shampoo your hair twice a day, yo."

English teacher: "Interjections are [explanation], like 'Wow!' or 'Oh, peanut butter!"

I could tell you stories, interland, but I am tired and my words are not fitting together as I would like them to. I will be back, but: thank you for taking this journey with me, friends. Thank you ever so.