Interview! Part One

Bine did this interview thing, and I signed up for it at her blog. So now I'm doing the interview.

#1. You wrote that Craig recommended you start a blog to have an outlet for your thoughts and feelings. Can you describe if and how this has helped you?

I don’t feel like it helps. But maybe it does because I haven't gotten in any fights or suspended since I started it. And it’s one more thing to do that keeps me out of trouble, I’ve gotten better at paragraphs because of blogging (which I used to get in a lot of trouble for in school), and I’ve never heard of anyone ever saying, “I wish I hadn’t kept a diary” but I have heard people say they wish they had.

#2a. Your Aunt Elaine sadly doesn’t feel responsible for mothering the three of you. Irrespective that you love your two little sisters very much, how do you feel about having to fill the mothering role ever so often?

I can’t answer this. I don’t feel anything, this is just how it is.

Second attempt at No. 2 because (as you can see above) I couldn’t answer the first No. 2.
#2b. Your home with Aunt Elaine is not always what you expect of a home. What would you like to change (even if it meant changing Aunt Elaine, like making her quit smoking or something like that)?

I am all for quitting smoking. But really, I would be happy to just somehow have our own apartment. In Brooklyn. A one-bedroom apartment. With beds for each of us. Screw all the “a minor can’t be left home alone overnight” bullshit laws. I think a lot of those laws are for dumb people. I hate age-related laws. If I’m 17 and 364 days old, am I REALLY less smart than someone who is 18 years and 1 day old? I know what to do if there’s a gas leak, I know not to open the door to strangers, I know what to do if there’s a fire. Why do we really need adults? Aunt Elaine makes our health worse by being around. She was useful when I was littler and couldn’t always reach things or open the spaghetti sauce jar, but now? No.

I would like to be able to spread out more, and put up our pictures of our mom and grandma and my brother. We have everything in bags and boxes and sometimes we close the door, take out one and look at it for an hour and then put it all back. It would be nice if everything was out, like all the time, all over the house. I would like if we weren't made to feel bad about stuff so often. Like using up shampoo or eating the last piece of fruit or whatever. I would like an air purifier from Aunt Elaine since she won't stop smoking.

Saving Face

Mama,

Alex was climbing at a playground after camp tonight and took a header off the top when a boy pushed past her. She sort of did a face-plant and has a lot of bruises and scratches. Some strange boy we don't know walked her home because she was crying and he felt bad. Turns out he just moved here and then was lost once he got to our house. So I gave him a popsicle as a thank you and Danielle walked him back until he figured out where he was. I gave Alex Tylenol right before she went to bed.

Aunt Elaine thought the whole thing was stupid. That Alex is too old to be at the playground anyway, but you'd think she'd be able to avoid falling if she was there. She just said that to Danielle though, not in front of Alex.

Dani asked me if Alex is going to camp tomorrow and I said yes. Because why wouldn't she?

Love,
Sam

P.S. The kitchen sink is still broken and keeps flooding onto the floor any time it gets turned on. Tonight I taped the handle to the faucet so hopefully everyone will notice and remember not to turn on the water.

Sundays Are Hard

Mama,

This morning the fire family we were supposed to have dinner with called to see if we wanted to go see the Chuck and Larry movie with them first. First of all, I thought they were cops, not fire fighters, so that was the first slam in the chest.

Then, I thought it was all about them pretending to be gay and didn't know we'd have to watch them running into burning buildings, looking through buildings for dead people, and getting stuck in a building with the roof/ceiling falling on them.

Geez. What a great fucking movie for us. We stayed through the first fire. I saw Dani holding Alex's hand. But when they started looking for bodies in a burned building I walked out and they followed me. Like five minutes later the wife came out and told us it was over and we could come back.

The rest of the movie was funny and good. I wish we'd known about the beginning though - I thought I was going to puke.

We had Mexican food for dinner.

Love,
Sam

Little People, Big Words

Mostly I bitch here. But I'm in the mood to say something good. So a mommy story it is. My mother didn't mean to have me. Or Danielle. Or Alex. Christopher was her absolute favorite*. She LOVED him. She loved having a boy. She wanted to have another him. Just one more boy. But she got me. So she gave me a boy name and tried again. And got Danielle. And then Alex. Finally she gave up. My mom didn't really want any girls. She definitely didn't want prissy girly girls. She decided to make us into the most badass girls she could. We were the only babies in Brooklyn wearing black. She also decided she was too old to be doing the whole baby thing again, and lazy, so she wasn't going to fully get into it, since babies grow so fast anyway. So there was no baby talk, no making all conversations about dumb things like pigs and lambs and all that. Other mothers do "this little pig." My mother held our hands and twirled us around really fast, so it felt like we were flying, and only stopped when she was going to fall down from being too dizzy. Other moms use small words and won't talk about a lot of things in front of kids. My mom just talked about whatever she was thinking about, and used whatever words made the most sense to her.

So she taught us big words that we weren't old enough to be saying out loud, and let us do all sorts of things we weren't old enough to do. She just couldn't be bothered, especially by the time she had Alex. There were just too many of us and she was too busy and lazy. So she didn't care that in front of Alex she told Dani that Dick Cheney looks like a pedophile. Alex knew the words "child molester" and "pedophile" before she was three years old.

And that was ages ago. And all three of us have agreed that not only does he totally look like a pedophile, but you know how they try to teach you that you never know what a "bad guy" looks like, because it can be anybody? Well, it turns out we all imagine a bad guy in our heads looking exactly like Dick Cheney.

*We didn't mind that Christopher was the favorite. My mom did it in a way that made him our favorite too. Dani was his favorite, and Alex and I didn't mind that either.

Blood and Towels

Mama,

Alex cut her leg two weeks ago. I don't remember how, but she did, and it bled. She wants to pick the scab off, but she keeps not waiting until a scab forms, so it keeps re-bleeding. If she'd just left it alone then she'd have the scab by now.

Danielle told Alex yesterday she'll get a quarter for every day she doesn't pick, but she'll have to give a quarter back if she does.

Alex had a quarter last night. Now she doesn't.

Unrelatedly, Wendy wanted to clean out her closet today and she gave me a whole shopping bag full of old towels. Bath sheets. From Lands End. Don't worry - we're not throwing out yours for these new ones. We're just adding these so now we don't have to do laundry as often. Work rules.

Love your very clean and dry daughter,
Sam

Run Away

Mommy,

I was so angry last night that I couldn't go to sleep. I read a book for a while and listened to music to try to calm down but it didn't work. I hate it here. If Aunt Elaine just left us alone like she used to it would be fine. But she's always finding something to be upset about, and she lies to other people. Saying we don't include her in our lives. I mean, we don't, but that's because when we try she's never interested. So we give up. How many times are you supposed to bang your head against a wall?

Early this morning I took Alex over to Josh's house. He set her up with breakfast and I went to sleep, finally. Danielle was at Sasha's house and Alex called her and said to stay there for the day, and we'd meet up with her in time for fire family dinner. While I was in bed Josh sat with me for a while rubbing my back. He asked if I wanted to talk but I was too tired.

At some point Alex came in and I felt her petting my hair, and I had a dream about you - it was like watching a montage of you doing my hair all these different times. Did you realize how often you did my hair outside? On the stoop or train or whatever? I have no clue what the hell Alex did all day, but when I woke up she seemed happy, and crawled onto the bed to snuggle with me. Josh's mom came in and asked if we were safe going home tonight. Alex looked at me and I said yes. She asked Alex to give us some privacy, and then closed the door and told me that because Alex didn't know what to say without looking at me, it told her there's something not kosher going on. So she asked me again.

It was really tempting to tell her everything. But I don't want her to tell Josh, so I said we just got in a disagreement and needed to be apart to calm down for the day. She nodded and said we're always welcome to come over.

Josh was kind of ignoring me - he got the Harry Potter book, so I took a shower and then Alex and I left. We picked up Dani, told her what had happened while she had her sleepover at Sasha's, and went to dinner.

The husband guy thought it was great that Alex and Danielle are at camp, and he gave me his email address and told me to let him know when their dance recitals are, and he'll drive me to them and back to work, even though I told him they're probably going to be on different days. That was really nice of him. I need to find out when the recitals are and ask for time off from watching Nora those days.

I am tempted to try to just go move in with Josh, even though his parents would never go for it. Oh, and his mom said she'll take me to the bank next Saturday, and it's absolutely an okay lie to tell the bank I'm 16 even though I'm not yet. So yay.

I wish we could call you.
Love, Sam

Eat Shit and DIE

Dear Aunt Elaine,

While I understand that you feel that we have ruined your pathetic life, and that you hate us all very deeply, and want to make our lives miserable so we'll leave immediately upon graduating from high school, none of us are stupid. Alex is naive because of her age, sure, but even she is not stupid, and knows how you feel.

So please stop reminding us of how huge of a sacrifice our living with you is. We know. And if we were guaranteed to be able to stay together, please be assured we would consider getting the fuck out of this smoke-filled hellhole you call home. We NEVER forget how much you hate us, and I'm sorry you can't see or appreciate how much we try to not piss you off.

Also, when Alex has a freak-out and is hysterically crying, your screaming at me to shut her up does nothing to actually help her shut up. You must know it only scares her when she's already upset and just makes her cry harder. Oh, unless you're stupid.

Telling me to TAKE HER OUTSIDE until she could be quiet and go to sleep tonight? Yeah, thanks for making my night fucking suck. Teasing Alex when she said she misses Mommy? Saying "why don't you ask Sam to call her?" is really fucked up of you. REALLY. Seriously, I consider that mentally abusive to Alex.

I know you never go outside, so maybe you don't realize or remember how shady our street is, but having Alex sitting in my lap at 10:30 at night watching junkies fight, smoke crack, and turn tricks, while distracting her from what she's upset about, is not the way to get her to calm down.

Oh, and because you said not to come back in until Alex was completely quiet, I stayed outside with her until she fell asleep. Carrying a nine-year old up all those stairs? NOT EASY! And fuck you for making me cry while I had to tell Alex over and over that Mommy is totally dead and we can't call her.

I hate you. I hope you fucking die. And since nothing we do or don't do is EVER good enough for you, consider this my notice that I officially give up. I will no longer try. You get PAID to keep us. You smoke the money you're supposed to spend on us. People who are not related, who have no obligation, care much more than you do.

Fuck you very much from the bottom of my heart,
Sam

Am I Broken?

Ma,

I'm writing this from Josh's house. Last night I was in a weird mood. Not really a bad mood, but like I'd lost myself within myself and couldn't figure out where my personality was or something. It's hard to explain. It was like I was slightly bummed out but couldn't figure out why or what would make me feel better? Restless? Not a good feeling, whatever it was.

I asked Josh to give me a massage, and he looked at me all surprised. He said he thought I didn't like it. Okay, see in the magazines they always talk about how communication is so important in relationships, but they also talk about how guys never want to have to talk. So how are people supposed to know which one to follow? Because I totally did like it. I just feel weird asking people for things I don't need. Well even stuff I do need sometimes.

So we wound up talking about that, and Josh said I can always ask for a massage and that he likes doing them. That he feels good about making me feel good. Who knew? So I got a massage. It was better than last time, probably because I didn't get nervous each time Josh touched me.

Then later we were talking about weekend plans and I said that this morning I have to meet Grazel and do laundry but other than that I'm not busy. Josh said he's going to see Transformers with this kid Freddie. And that's when I CRIED. What the fuck is that?! It came out of nowhere and I was as surprised as Josh was.

Josh asked why I was crying and I said that I want to go to the movies with him but don't want to see that one. And then I cried even harder. SO FUCKING EMBARRASSING! What the hell is wrong with me?

You know that tone of voice you use with a two year old, when you're about to give them bad news that you know will set them off? That's how Josh said, "Well, you can come WITH us if you want. Or we can go see a different movie later."

So please, what the fuck is wrong with me, and how do I stop scaring my boyfriend that at any random thing he says, I'll burst into tears before he dumps me?

Love,
Sam

Banks Suck

Mama,

Somebody better get me a boxspring, and quickly, so I can just hide my money under my mattress. Fuck banks - it's way too complicated. I have gone into two so far and they ask me four hundred questions when all I want is an answer to "I am fifteen. Will you let me open a bank account with you and put money into it and maybe sometimes take a little of it back out again?" But no.

These retarded bank people with their fake smiles and fake flowers try to talk to me about all this other shit that makes my head spin like interest and checking accounts and tell me to come back with a parent and force me to say I don't have one and it all goes downhill from there.

Remember, fuck banks. Happy payday.
Love,
Sam

Things I Learned Today

1. It's fucking HARD to entertain a little kid who's used to swimming for three hours a day when it's raining.

2. Going outside to play in the rain with water guns is fun for any age.

3. When you have a job, you can only be friends with other people who have a job. Because your friends who don't have a job won't take it as seriously as you do, and will get pissed when you don't want to let them inside the house, causing a big fight. By the way, fuck you Stefania.

4. Even though it's funny to be called both a prude AND a slut in the same moment, it's still sleazy to be hit on by pimps, even when (or maybe especially when) you know them.

5. You will never win with a pimp. Everyone to him will always be a slut or a prude (or apparently, both).

6. Saying you have a boyfriend when a pimp propositions you is meaningless.

7. Talking about Adventureland makes you want to go back.

8. It makes people feel good to know when you miss spending time with them.

9. When you work for two people and need a favor, always ask the one who likes you best.

What I Taught Nora Today:

1. It's okay to play in the rain.

2. Floaties are for pussies.

3. How to fold your pizza.

4. How to play War.

Aftershocks

Too much like 9/11 for my comfort. Even though it wasn't terrorist related. Still felt like someone slammed a bowling ball into my chest when I first heard about it.

Havin' A Milk, Watchin' the Game

Ma,

Dani got promoted to a higher level dance class at ballet. Her dance teacher sent home a note saying Danielle needs to be taking classes in the city at least three times a week. I told her to go back and ask if there are scholarships because otherwise there's no way in hell. She is too embarrassed, so I'm going to call.

Aunt Elaine said Dani should find something more productive to do, that it's not like she's going to be a professional dancer to earn a living. So of course Danielle was all pissed and said, "Maybe I will" and now she wants to prove her wrong.

Yeah, so basically, nothing new is going on. I don't know why Aunt Elaine always gives Dani the hardest time out of all three of us. I feel bad for her. I think maybe Alex gets the "little and cute" vote, and I get the "you're the oldest, so at least I can talk to you" vote, but Dani's got nothing. Which is retarded, because you can TOTALLY talk to her.

Love,
Sam

I Am So Rich You Should Mug Me. Except Not Really

Ma,

I got PAID! In CASH! With a BONUS! I am so glad the dad guy drove me home because walking around with so much money would have been scary. That is more money than I've ever had in my entire life. I need a good hiding place, but the problem is there's no freaking privacy here.

Tomorrow I'm going to ask Craig about getting a bank account or something. Josh said he's almost positive you have to be 18 to open one. There's no way in hell I'm writing down Aunt Elaine as a second person on my money. Why are all the good people too young? Who made up that rule? Probably somebody old.

I decided that each week I'll break one twenty but save all the rest until the end of the summer. Maybe I can make the twenty last longer than one week. We'll see. I bought Nora a happy birthday banner and a birthday card.

Love,
Sam

Not Covered In the Books At the Library

You're not supposed to have sex until you're ready, and you're magically supposed to somehow just know when you're ready. If you get an STD or pregnant, then you know you weren't ready, but then it's too late. What does that say about all the adults getting accidentally pregnant then? I'm just saying.

Thank You For Fixing Me

Mama,

I feel better now. Wendy's husband drove me home and I went to sleep right away. Then Josh called asking if I wanted to come over for dinner, so I went. When I got there we were all hanging around in the kitchen and Josh's parents asked if I like salmon. "I don't know; I've never had it before." Mr. Josh's jaw dropped - he was totally shocked, like how could I possibly have gotten through more than a decade of life without eating salmon.

Anyway, they offered me a turkey sandwich or fish sticks instead, but I said I'd try the salmon. It was okay. I couldn't finish it, but it wasn't because of the taste. During dinner Josh said we haven't been doing very many fun things, so for the rest of the summer, each week we'll do one really cool thing. I asked what we're doing this week and he said it's a surprise but his sister mouthed to me "He doesn't know yet." Cute.

Thanks for making me feel better.
Love,
Sam

I Wanna Go Home

Mama,

I feel sick. Last night I woke up around 12:30 a.m. to puke. For like an hour I was awake feeling nauseous. This morning I thought I was fine but halfway through the morning I started not feeling good again and puked some more. I told Nora it was time to go get lunch a half hour earlier than I'm supposed to and ate some saltines. Rushed her through lunch and started her nap early.

I've been laying down too, but that taste is in my mouth and I still don't feel good. I want to go home now.

Love,
Sam

State of the Job Address

Dear Wendy,

So it's been a couple of weeks now that I've been working for you, and I really appreciate the job. Your daughter is really fun and cute (so is your husband, for a grownup), she's only cried once since I met her, and overall, it's going really well.

However. There are two things that, well ... have had me awake since 4:26 a.m., and I'd like to bring them to your attention because they're obviously bothering me.

1. Can we just address the elephant in the room? I'm poor. Government assistance-style poor. Yeah, I know that. You're kind of rich. Belonging to a country club in Long Island-style rich. And I'm cool with that, really. Rich lifeguards in Long Island are hot - I like the perks of this job. Your air-conditioned house, your entire wall of books in the study, the never-ending supply of Poland Spring water, the shopping we do at fancy stores in Manhasset and Roslyn, etc. It's all great, and thanks for bringing me into your world.

This does not mean I'm going to steal from you. There are so many reasons why I won't, but it should suffice* that I am telling you I won't. No offense, but if you didn't trust me, you shouldn't have hired me. Every time you give me money for something, I give you back the receipt with the change, so you can see exactly how much I spent. There was even that day last week when I found a dime Thursday night deep in my pocket and brought it to you Friday. Since they're not mine, I suppose you could claim I steal by reading your books during naptime, but I don't take them out of your house, and it's not like I use them up or anything. I don't even fold down the page I'm up to - I stick a tiny piece of paper inside to keep my place.

So you don't have to close the door to your bedroom, and yesterday? You didn't have to ask me if I was uncomfortable with you changing your jewelry in front of me. I wasn't, but I was uncomfortable with your question.

And sort of in the same area, please stop encouraging me to buy things when you want me to wrangle Nora while we go shopping. And please stop telling me what's cheap. What's cheap to you is not cheap to me. Even if a cute pair of socks are only $4.50, my money is already allocated and I don't need socks. And stop telling me "You can never have too many..." of things like pajamas and socks. All my clothes except my shoes fit in one laundry basket. (And it really hurt when you said you would never buy your clothing at Old Navy or Target. Almost all my clothes are from there.)

Perhaps you are not aware, but we have a storage unit for all the stuff from our Brooklyn house that we kept. It's called Our Bedroom Closet. If my sisters and I have too much stuff, we won't have room for our Brooklyn stuff. A pair of fucking socks is not worth throwing out stuff from my mother. So stop pushing me to buy stuff that while it would be great to have, I don't need. I am perfectly happy to help you shop for you, or Nora, or your friends and relatives who you always seem to need to buy presents for. But let's stop pretending we're shopping for me. And NO, I don't want to "just try it on." I already know it'll look good, and I don't need to see it to believe it. That just makes it hurt even more.

2. You always seem really relieved to get away from Nora. She's whined twice since I've met you, and cried once. She's funny and smart and generally happy. Why don't you like her? It makes me feel bad that I leave her with you when I go home, and I console myself with the reminder that your hot husband is a good parent. Remember the night when he came home after I'd spent the whole day with you, and he was taking Nora out to dinner and you were going to stay home and Nora said "We're going to dinner so I don't drive Mommy crazy" and you turned to me and laughed, saying, "Whoa, guess I should make another donation to the therapy fund for that one"? Yeah, it wasn't funny - it was sad. Literally every single day, you make a comment about how annoyed you are by her mere presence. You're totally regular when you talk to Nora, but you talk about her right in front of her, and she understands what you're saying, or at least, the theme of it.

You always apologize if you think she's annoying me. First of all, it's my job, and second of all, I'm not annoyed. If anything, I'm more annoyed by you. You always encourage me to get Nora involved in a project so I don't have to personally do whatever she's doing. Kids aren't stupid you know - she can tell when she's being pushed away so often. I don't mind baking brownies with Nora, or reading to her, or having a water fight. It's fun. Your kid is fun. And I'm no professional, but I think you're going to fuck her up by treating her like she's such a pain in the ass when she's not. Not to mention, you're losing out.

So yeah. Everything's great, except those two things.
Thanks,
Sam

P.S. I'm giving Nora a cupcake with an "N" on it, and stickers for her birthday this week. All she's talked about is wanting a cupcake and cake.

*SAT word during the summer!

Aunt Elaine Hates You

Mommy,

Craig hasn't come through with beds yet, but starting next week, twice a week for four hours each, Aunt Elaine will, as Danielle put it, "have a bitch." Really a home health aide, but how much more fun is it to say "When's your bitch coming?" and "Leave it - the bitch will do it." Okay it's terrible and cruel. But kinda fun too.

The first thing Aunt Elaine said when she found out was that this is good, because she'll send the bitch to go food shopping. Implying that will stop the fights she has with us every week for buying stuff she doesn't want us to. Like the milk that doesn't have hormones. And organic orange juice. And the cage-free eggs with omega 3. Deep down, even though Aunt Elaine would never admit it, I think she'd be really happy if we just ate McDonalds every night for dinner.

I tried to explain it to her. How if she buys us milk with hormones, in the long run it will cost Aunt Elaine more money, because then Dani and Alex will get their periods earlier and she'll spend a lot more on tampons than on hormone-free milk. But Aunt Elaine doesn't believe in any of this stuff. She thinks you totally screwed things up by taking those nutrition classes and teaching me what you learned. Screwed things up for her.

Alex is such a drama queen that she got all upset and started crying this morning when we were talking about this. We only had two eggs left today so I poured milk in them to make it seem like more (it didn't really work, and made them watery - I don't know what went wrong). Alex dropped her eggs on the floor and Aunt Elaine was so angry she told her to eat them anyway.

I just called Craig and left him a message telling him what's going on. He needs to fix this shit. What kind of grownup is against kids eating healthy? Oh, well duh. The kind that wants to save money. But that's shitty. We would all rather be short on food at the end of each week if we could eat healthy all the time, rather than eat junk food and have more money (for more junk food).

Anyway. Good thing you're dead because if you weren't, I totally think Aunt Elaine would whack you in the head with her walker.

I get paid today!
Love,
Sam

Today and Future

Ma,

Last night I stayed out with Josh all night. We had a really good time - it was so nice to not have to be on the phone or have D&A around bugging us. Josh asked me what I want to do for my birthday. That's like ... five months away! I have no idea. What am I gonna do - have a super sweet sixteen? Obviously not. I was touched that Josh is thinking ahead so much and wants to plan something nice for me.

Anyway. He had to go home to put in some face time, and we're meeting up at 1pm to go into the city. We're going to hang out, then go to dinner, then we're meeting up with Makesha and Bryan to watch fireworks.

Remember when I was little and Danielle was still a baby and you and Chris took us to see fireworks and he stayed with us while you went to get the car and when you came back we'd fallen asleep because it was so late? You miss a lot of stuff being dead.

Love,
Sam

Second Verse, Same As the First

Mommy,

Really, why bother going to college? This nanny thing is so easy.

Money is my friend,
Love,
Sam

Work Rocks

Ma,

Working is freaking AWESOME! The kid is so easy and agreeable to everything, and she takes this three-hour nap easy as piein the afternoon. And in the mornings I get to hang out at this swanky country club as if I belong there, and holy shit! It's all these stuck-up rich Long Island girls and the whole thing is just crazy!

All day I kept waiting for this girl to turn difficult and throw a temper tantrum. I mean, she's two, it's like her job, right? But she was cool the whole day. My teacher was cool, and every time I checked in with her, whatever I said we were going to do was fine with her. I got the impression she didn't want to be interrupted at all.

I need to come up with more stuff to do during naptime. Today I cleaned up from lunch, put back the toys we played with, called Josh and read part of The Devil Wears Prada. I almost took a nap too.

Alex does NOT like this working thing, because I leave in the morning before she does and get home after she does. But at least it's totally still light out so she can play outside. She played hopscotch with the crackwhore on our street who's more whorey than cracky today while she waited for me to come home. Isn't it nice that we spend quality time with our neighbors?

Love,
Sam

Stuff and Stuff

Ma,

I don't even know where to begin. Poor Alex is not your smartest child, let's just say that. I got the newspaper today and went through all the ads to see what's on sale and to look at the coupons and you know what? All the stuff that has coupons is junk food. How come there are never coupons for fruit? Okay wait, I did find a coupon for orange juice. That's fruity. And organic rice krispies. Alex always wants to get the kid versions of everything. They should teach marketing to kids - I had to explain about how they jack up the prices and market crap to kids and put kid food at kid eye-level and all that shit.

Alex did not want to hear about the "outer-edges" theory at the supermarket at all. I told her at Trader Joe's we could go in all the aisles but she was already angry and it didn't make her happy. When I grow up I want to take taxis everywhere. Can you imagine how easy it is to go food shopping and have a car bring you home?

Retardedly I forgot to clean out the refrigerator before going food shopping. So when we got home I had to do that really quickly before all our food went bad. I'm not sure how long stuff can be out for, but if we get sick and die this week you'll know why.

Dani grew last week and I told Aunt Elaine she'll need new clothes for school. Aunt Elaine always tries to make Dani fit into my old clothes but I seem to be stuck in the growth department. So I've got no clothing to give her. Aunt Elaine won't buy Dani anything until the end of the summer. But there are sales NOW so I'm going to ask Josh if he can lay out money for some stuff from Land's End and I will pay him back after I start this job Monday. Somebody told me Land's End is really good quality and will last a long time. So my thinking is maybe we can get Dani stuff from there that she and Alex like, so then Alex will wear it when she grows into it.

I am in a bad mood and want to go back to bed. I've had a headache since Friday night. Hey that reminds me, somebody from Philip Morris visited my blog recently. Just in case they come back:

Dear Phil,

You fucking suck. I hate you. I hope you rot in hell. Because of you, my eyes alternately water or get too dry, my throat hurts, and my clothes and hair stink. My sister's asthma is harder to control. I hope you fall asleep in bed with a lit cigarette and light yourself on fire. You would deserve it.

Again, rot in hell,
Sam

I am not so stupid as to think it's all their fault without also being Aunt Elaine's fault too. She's the one who chooses to spend money on this and smoke inside. However. Some people compare smoking to guns, saying you can't blame a gun manufacturer when someone dies from a bullet. But the thing is, sometimes guns are good. Not often, and not as much as people from places like Texas think, but sometimes. Cigarettes are NEVER good. For anyone. They have like no redeeming qualities at all. If all the people who worked for places like Philip Morris instead worked for green companies, we could reduce our footprint on the environment. You know, that might be the best idea I've ever had. Somebody should notice that.

More to say but I have to go get ready. We are going to dinner with the fire family who has Stanley, the cute dog.
Love,
Sam