Knocked Up

There's this whole thing in the news about all these high school girls in New England who all got pregnant on purpose, like in a group. I'm not really understanding exactly why they thought it was a good idea - they want to like, have a playgroup with their babies or something? Somebody said it was the whole "have somebody to love" them thing, but that's retarded. A baby doesn't even know how to love itself, how can it love someone else? It's not like the baby will say, "I see your mom won't let you watch America's Next Top Model because you haven't cleaned up from dinner, so I won't scream now for you to feed and change me. Because I love you."

Why is it always the girls who don't have good families who are profiled? I mean, why are they always the ones getting knocked up? If you have a bad home life, isn't it like a sure thing that having a baby will just make that home life worse? Like if your mom already is always yelling at you, isn't she just going to yell at you even more if you have a baby around screaming and costing money and stuff? And, if you do have a bad home life, why would you want to bring a baby into that mix? I mean if you love the baby wouldn't you want better for it than a shitty home life like you have?

I don't think these girls really thought this whole pregnancy pact thing through. We were talking about it the other day while we were eating dinner and watching tv, and Alex goes, "I bet some of these girls will wind up on Judge Judy. They just seem like that type."

Posting Every Day

oh my god the new topic for july is FOOD! I am definitely gonna do this - i can just write down what I ate each day. this is going to be so easy.

Overheard In My World

Tourist Guy: Do you think that's a girl or a woman?
Tourist Girl: ummm....
Local: That's a dude.

Alex: Hello?
Girl In Her Grade: Hi, what are you doing?
Alex: Watching tv. What are you doing?
GIHG: Playing Polly Pockets. Want to come over tomorrow to play?
Alex: Dolls?
GIHG: Yeah
Alex: Umm .... I think I'm busy.

Freshman Boy: Want to see me do a trick with this breadstick?
Juniors get up and walk away: No.

Clueless and Perky Mom: What's that?
Druggie Friend: A scale
Clueless and Perky Mom: Oh! I haven't seen that before. Is it new?
Druggie Friend: Been here three years.
Clueless and Perky Mom: What do you use it for?
Druggie Friend: Weighing shit. Duh.
Clueless and Perky Mom: Oh! ...
Druggie Friend: Okay, bye bye now.

Dani: Then what?
Friend: Then he peed in my mouth!
Dani: Ew! Are you sure?
Friend: Well yeah, I mean I was there.
Dani: Yeah but ... I mean, maybe it wasn't pee?
Friend: What else would it be?
Dani: Okay if you're really saying that then I don't know how to have this conversation with you.
Friend: What?
Dani: Seriously?

The Death of Me

School will finally end this week and it can't come fast enough. I have had non-stop headaches from all my studying, and my eye is twitching like a motherfucker. Four times I have gotten shit at work for studying at the register. Twice I have been kicked out when they decide it's too late for me to sit in a booth trying to memorize a year's worth of shit I will probably never need to know once I finish school.

Hanging out with friends hasn't happened since ... shit, like last month. Alex has asked if we can do something fun and I haven't gone anywhere with her. I am getting fat from doing nothing but sitting, studying and eating. I have little piles all over my room (on top of our regular piles) of study materials for different Regents and finals. My friend said she is throwing out all her notes and stuff for each final as soon as she gets home from taking it, but I am scared to do that. What if I fail and have to re-take the class and need all that for next time?

All of the rich kids have tutors and are all, "You are so brave to go through finals season without a tutor; I would die if I didn't have help!" but really dying is not an option.

Must go cram my brain full of more shit to be spewed out tomorrow.

And Due To Finals I Screwed Up Writing About Home Every Day Too

Two hits. Nobody reads. Nobody comments. Nobody loves me.

20 June 2008:
2
Today forecast:
2

Home - Never Ends

Should have picked February to do this - shorter months are better.

Our home is less messy now. Garbages were thrown out, fridge cleaned out (more garbage thrown out), all the laundry was done. Okay not the towels. That will be done soon though. This week is kind of crazy. Finals are coming. I am up studying until all hours. Stole a ton of index cards from school to help.

I am trying to study places other than home because my sisters bitch about the light being on. Just Danielle really but it's either annoy her, or sit at the table and breathe in more smoke. So I have been doing a lot of hanging out at McDonalds lately, even though I won't eat there.

Home - Where I Am

Hello, this is a total cop-out post because it's late, I ain't got shit to say, but I don't want to screw up my run. So I am posting from HOME. Right now.

Oh, look wait I have an idea.

H - H is for hello, I'm home!
O - O is for the smokey odor that fills our home.
M - M is for Me, mine, my, which is all Aunt Elaine thinks about when filling this home with the smokey odor
E - E is for everyone else who has to deal.

Home - Homey Eats

There are all the foods that remind me of home because New York is famous for them.  Nathan's Hot Dogs, the pretzels, Ray's Famous Pizza, all those.  Then there are the foods that remind me of home way down deep in my soul - where you walk into a house and whatever's cooking smells so good that you want to just lay down on the floor and let the feeling hug you somehow, even though that can't happen.

Any and every Italian dish, between my grandmother and my mother, they knew how to make it.  Minestrone soup.  Homemade pizza.  Shrimp scampi.  My mother would start cooking dinner when we got home from school in the afternoon.  She'd only stop to help with homework or deal with customers dropping by to pick up their clothes.  

We had this red step-up stool in the kitchen  - I would drag it over to the counter and stand on it to reach the stove.  "Stir, Samantha!  Don't stop.  It'll just take a minute to pin this dress" my mother would tell me as she rushed over to a girl wiggling into her dress over her jeans.  

Leaning over so I could look at the big girls going to prom, going to Sweet Sixteens, going to be bridesmaids, I'd stop stirring.  The big girls would see me and wink, and without looking up my mother would know.  "Samantha, you better be stirring!"

I'd yell that I was and resume the slow circles.  It made my arms hurt, but it was worth it to make the house smell that good.

Home - Fire Family on Father's Day

There is no fire family dinner today, because they canceled for Father's Day. Everyone is home with their fathers, giving them ties and gifts from Home Depot. We are home today too, but not with a father. I paid bills this morning, explaining to Danielle as I went to enter each amount. We cleaned the bathroom and got yelled at for singing It's a Hardknock Life too loudly. There was food shopping and a few peaches may have been stolen. And maybe a container of blueberries also. When we got home Alex was thirsty and in her hurry, spilled water all over the floor. Rather than waste paper towels, I hurried to empty the shopping bags and then used them to absorb the water.

Meat that was half-off got marinated and I cooked it in the frying pan before wrapping lettuce leafs around it. I overheard people on the train talking about lettuce wraps which was why I tried it, but I must have done it wrong. Didn't really taste very good. Later I will look up how they are made to figure out how it's really supposed to come out.

At the supermarket the cashier said, "So you girls making a special Father's Day dinner for your dad?" We stared at her blankly - she must not be a native New Yorker. A real New Yorker would never ask that.

Scared Straight For Drunk Driving at a High School

There's this school in California where they told all the students a bunch of their friends had died in drunk driving accidents. Then the students got so upset that the teachers felt bad and told them it had all been like a hoax, to scare them into not drinking and driving. Now there's all this drama around it because people are saying it was too harsh of the school to psych everyone out that way.

Obviously nothing like this will be done at my school since it's in the city, and pretty much nobody drives here, but I think anything that keeps people from like driving drunk or getting in a car with someone who does is a good thing.

Some people are really just too sensitive.

Home - What It's Really Like To Live Here

(Again, thanks to Stacey for helping with ideas.)

What comes to mind first are that it's crowded, polluted and noisy. That's for both inside my house and in New York City, although it's less polluted outside.

Our house always smells like smoke. Except for when Aunt Elaine was in the hospital - then we washed everything and aired out the apartment. It's always noisy because the television is always on. Sometimes I stay up later than Aunt Elaine, and then I'll go turn it off, but I guess she wakes up in the middle of the night because when I get up for school it's always been turned back on. On top of the tv noise there's also the hallway noise. People who do drugs don't sleep normal hours, and a lot of people do a lot of drugs here, so somebody is always having a big fight with someone else in the middle of the night. Then somebody else calls the police or an ambulance and so we fall asleep listening to sirens.

It's not that a two-bedroom apartment is too small for four people, because it's not. It's that one bedroom is not enough space for three people to store all their stuff. One closet for three people is not enough space. So that's why it's crowded. We get in trouble for having anything outside of our bedroom. Dani, Al and I each have a little basket with our bathroom stuff that we take in and out each morning and night. The first time Craig came over and saw that he said none of us will have any trouble adjusting to dorm life in college.

Home - Visitors, Thanks To Stacey

Welcome to my home, New York. The truth is, yes we do talk faster, move faster, do everything faster, but we're not as mean as you think here in New York. If we're rude, it's really just because we're in a rush and you're slowing us down.

When you come to my hometown, I know it's exciting for you. You've never seen building so tall, you've never seen so many people in one place, you've never dreamed of this much traffic or garbage.

But you really just must cut out this shit of coming to a dead stop when you were walking down the middle of the sidewalk. That's why everyone looks so hostile. Not because we're mean, but because we're angry you almost made us run you over. While you stopped to take a picture next to a homeless person.

You want directions to lame places like the Empire State Building. Fine. I'll give them to you. But don't ask me if I've ever been, tell me I should go, invite me to go with you, invite me to come out to visit you in Idaho.

Stop asking if I've ever met anyone famous. Of course I have. No, New Yorkers don't keep a list of all the famous people they've met in their back pocket in case some random tourist is curious. While we're talking about it, also stop asking if I know "where the famous people hang out." Do you realize how much self-control it takes to not answer you with, "In your ass"?

Another thing. Stop littering. You see garbage in the gutter, and then think it's okay to just drop stuff on the floor. No. Not okay. Stop coming all the way to New York just to go to TGIFridays and Macy's. Stop asking me if Central Park is safe. Or if the subways are safe.

You know why that annoys me? You dumb tourists are worried about going to the park, but are too stupid to hold onto your bags of precious I Heart New York t-shirts, or to put away your money before walking out of Starbucks clutching your very special because it was made in Manhattan grande latte.

Welcome to New York. Now get the fuck out of my way.

Home-RRRRRRR

Yeah I know, it's a stretch. I'm desperate here though. Somebody leave me a comment on how to write about home. I gotta do the whole rest of the month.

Yeah so Homer. Like Homer Simpson? I was not allowed to watch the simpsons for the longest time. My mother thought it would be a bad influence and she didn't want my sisters seeing it either.

Topher used to sneak and let me watch sometimes and so would my grandmother. "I'm going to visit grandma!" and we'd run downstairs, yell hi to her, and flip on the tv.

Weekends and summers were when cartoons were allowed. That's why it was good to live so close to a grandma who believed in spoiling little kids.

Home - Away From Home

Your house is your home, but you spend a big chunk of waking hours in other places. I could close my eyes and walk around my high school. I could close my eyes at the back doors, and walk to the locker I had last year.

There's the good bathroom - the one where the mirrors aren't cracked, where the windows are not in line with the door, so people can smoke and have time to get rid of their evidence before the security guards get in.

I know the exact places in my school where I was standing when I got certain phone calls.

In a way, school is just like home. There are people I seek out and people I hide from. Just like home, I can't wait to be finished with school.

Home - The Clothes On The Floor

We have piles and piles of clothes all over the place. One pile is clothes I've grown out of that Danielle hasn't yet grown into. Another is a pile for Alex to grow into. There's piles of clean clothes. Piles of dirty clothes. Piles of clean but tried on clothes. Piles of clothes given to us that will never fit any of us that we have to give away. Piles of clothes that need to be fixed before they can be worn. You can barely step in our room without standing on something.

I have a pair of sweatpants that say the name of a high school across the ass. Last week I saw these KMart pants that say "True Love Waits" on the front. Did anyone else notice it says it across the ass also? Alex asked if she can get them. Dani's "No" was faster than mine. Alex was angry - she likes my sweatpants and wants ones that say something across the ass too.

That makes sense, but it's not going to be some bible-thumping phrase that Christians like to promote. I won't let her wear shorts or sweatpants that say "Princess" or "Flirt" across the ass. That's totally asking for trouble.

When Alex is tall enough she can borrow my pants. Or she can get her own somewhere. The name of a school is fine. Branding herself a flirt and promoting via her ass is not fine.

I don't understand these KMart pants. Why do people need to promote whatever they're claiming to do? Should I get pants made up that say "I hostess at a diner" or "I am getting a B+ in AP English"? So you're waiting. Big deal! Waiting until what, a really cute boy wants to take those pants off? What happens when you stop waiting? Do you have to give the pants away?

And how come there aren't any for boys? How come it's up to the girls to wait? Why isn't KMart pushing boys to wait too? That offends me.

These True Love Waits Kmart pants will NOT be gracing the floor of our bedroom any time soon.

Hot House

These days it's over 100 - even hotter in our house - and my shirt sticks to my back all the time, even at night. The fans are going nonstop, the icecream is being eaten round the clock, and we look at each thing we're about to eat and one of us says, "How would this taste partially frozen?" To spare you the experimentation time I'll just tell you that almost every fruit tastes good partially frozen.

Going to sleep is hard. We have one fan in our bedroom and each want it pointed at us. It can oscillate, but we all want to be greedy and have it all to ourselves. Alex goes to bed earliest, and sets it up pointing at her for an hour before Dani comes in and switches it. In the very early morning it's not too hot yet, except then I shower and so does Dani, which makes it humid and steamy, even with the window open.

Alex has talked Dani into taking the shirt she's left out the night before and putting it in the refrigerator when she gets up, so Alex can put on a cool shirt each morning. For me the worst part of the day is after school. Going home before I go to work is not working for me. It's a sauna at home and even with Aunt Elaine keeping the lights off all day there's still a stenchy wave of heat when you open the front door to walk in.

We are all set for the summer. I am going to watch Nora again during the day, and then work at the diner at night. Since there's no school, they are allowed to have me working more hours. Craig invited Danielle to mother's help his wife and their baby, which Alex is very jealous about, so much so that she offered to give up camp to mother's help also. But ten is too little to mother's help, and that would just mean less money for Danielle since she'd have to split it with Alex.

Danielle was going to be home alone in the morning until it's time to leave for Craig's house, but when I pointed that out she quickly said no. She is going to give herself $10 each week from what she earns and has decided to leave when Alex and I do, and go sit at Starbucks each morning.

Excuse me now, please. I have to go put my shirt in the freezer.

(Clean Up My) Home

It is a wreck! Yesterday I cleaned out the fridge, but nobody emptied the garbage so there's a neat stack of stuff to be thrown out on the counter. Nobody has done dishes in a while either, so there's a stack of those in the sink, and a few things soaking on a different counter.

There are papers and magazines all over our floor. Plus piles of clothes everywhere. Three of those piles are mine - one is a laundry bag full of dirty clothes, then a pile of stuff I tried on to wear to school but didn't so it's clean, and a pile of dirty clothes.

From my bed I can see six bags on the floor. There is a scarf half falling off the dresser. It's summer. This picture up above? Take each thing you see, add about five or six things on top, and that's what our bedroom looks like kind of. But no hardwood floors.

It's hard to believe people have bedrooms like this one. How do they keep it so clean? Are there drawers under that bed? I am so overwhelmed by my homework and quizzes and work and friends and sisters and I really can't deal with cleaning up a fucking messy bedroom.

I wish we could just move to a different home.

(At) Home

Last night I worked and then went out with friends. Today I have done nothing. Well that's not true all the way. I have done things, but none of them involve getting out of bed. At home, in bed, reading through all Alex's latest catalogs all morning long.

Being cozy at home in bed is sometimes better then being out having fun. This is reading like a third grader's essay.

"My home is blue and white with gray shutters. I like my home it is cosy. Sometimez my mom sez we have to klene up our home and then I go and play."

Home - Wrecker

Every single night when I go to work, at least one guy tries to touch my ass, or gives me his number, or asks me out. Tonight was not any different. I can never understand guys doing this, especially when they're married and their wives are with them.

I wonder what would happen if just once, I encouraged it. Would these men really truly really cheat on their wives for me? I don't get it. How do they think that's okay? What if they have kids? Would they want their daughters cheated on?

A homewrecker. It sounds old-fashioned but girls I am telling you. Your husbands are being sleazy when they think you don't know.

Home - Made

All my "home" posts are involving my mom I noticed, but I can't help it. Living with her was totally home. This, now? It's just where I live.

Anyway. My friend Felicity, who I've been friends with since second grade when she cried in line on the way to gym, told me after the first time she came over after school that my mother was crunchy. When I asked what that meant she explained that my mom was into the earth and things that were pure. I assured her it was just a phase - she didn't always make her own soap. Felicity and I are still friends, and she still says my mom was crunchy when we talk about her.

If there was something that could be made at home, my mother did it. She bought vinegar and baking soda in bulk, and made all our cleaning products at home. Pasta? Made at home. I'd come home from school to see pasta hanging on hangers all over the kitchen. Peanut butter? Made at home. Clothes? It's a given. Salad dressing? Never from a bottle at the store.

Aunt Elaine's idea of making cookies is to buy cookie dough in a little dish at the supermarket and put it in the oven and take it out a few minutes later. My mother's idea of making cookies involved things like flour and mixing and putting in time.

Nothing was written out. I think I could probably make some of it, if we had a blender and food processor and some other stuff. These days though, it's seriously all mommy memories for now.

No idea what happened to all my mom's kitchen stuff. When I grow up and have my own home I can't wait to make it homey.

Miss Mommy

I always miss my mom. Always. It's impossible to think of her without remembering I don't have her anymore. My shrink told me when people die, the people who remember them always forget the bad things and only remember the good things. But there were no bad things with my mom. I never told her I hated her, she never embarrassed me, and we never had a fight that didn't get resolved.

Every time I think of her I get happy and then there's this very fast punch in my chest when I remember. And that happy-sad thing happens so quickly that I kind of forget for a second what I was trying to think about that involved her.

At night sometimes I dream of her and the sad thing doesn't happen. It's like I get to spend hours with her again. I can never see her face, but I can feel her smiling and smell her and feel her touching me. In my dreams I get this rush of happiness when I see her and all the important things going on rush through my head. I want to tell her everything that's going on. But there's never a good time - I don't want to interrupt her, even though I can never remember what we talked about when I wake up. It's like we just gaze at each other happily or something. When I wake up I'm happy because I feel all warm and mommied and loved, for a few minutes. Then I remember, and then I try to go back and forget the real truth.

I wish the mommy dreams were every night. I wish there was something I could do to bring them. There isn't. That whole "think about what you want to dream of" thing does not work.

Home - Stove

This stove does have the coils, but there's also a little hole where things can fall down even further below those. I picked up the coils but still can't reach the food.

I really, really don't want to get bugs. I don't want to get bugs more than I don't want to cause a fire. I know that's totally wrong but it's the truth.

Tomorrow I am going to call the landlord and tell them there's just something wrong with the stove and it's stopped working.

Going Home

(I am totally going to be stretching the idea of 'home' this month because writing every day about home is going to be really hard.)

Probably everybody has heard by now that the polygamist mothers are getting their kids back. Because the state wasn't really allowed to take them I think. I'm not sure to be honest.

What I don't understand most about the whole thing is why none of the men were arrested. It was the men who raped girls, it was the men who abused children. So how come they never got arrested or got pulled out of the compound? They just stayed there.

Home - Food

In Italian families, once a week the family eats a big dinner together. Sundays. Sometimes Tuesdays too. In my family it was always every night. Topher wasn't always there once he moved out, but he often stopped by for dessert and to take leftovers home. My grandma got angry he wouldn't stay but it was that fake angry old people do.

My mother always set the table ahead of time for meals. Part of cleaning up from dinner was setting the table for breakfast. Part of cleaning up from after-school-snack was setting the table for dinner. The flowers got moved to the bookcase to make room on the table for all the food.

My grandma had a completely packed refrigerator at all times. Even though she was only one person. I remember asking her why it was so full, and who ate all the food, but can't remember her answer. You were never supposed to screw around in her kitchen. If you wanted anything you were to ask for it, and she would get it for you. This might take a few minutes while she moved dishes around in there, but it was always worth the wait.

You know those grandmas on tv who always let you taste from the stirring spoon whatever was being cooked in the big pot on the stove? Not my grandma. She kept a tasting spoon next to the stirring spoon for curious little girls.

Oh! And she had this way of talking you into doing things that ordinarily would not be things you wanted to do, like drying dishes or washing the table, but when my grandma asked, she somehow made you feel honored. I wish I remembered how she'd phrase it - it was like magic. Danielle and I used to beg to be allowed to help.

Home

I'm trying NaBloPoMo this month. Supposed to post every day about home. We'll see how it goes.

Right now my home is half neat / half messy. Danielle and I cleaned up the kitchen and she cleaned the bathroom. I cleaned up the clothes in our room this morning and we'll do laundry tomorrow morning. A piece of food fell into one of the burners in the stove and I can't get it out. Tried a fork, spoon, tongs, tweezers (too short) and nothing worked. I hope it doesn't burst into flames.