My Plan

I'm not going to be old enough to vote this fall. For the next election I will be though. My plan is that we'll move to some state where it's mostly Republican, so my vote will count more than it would in New York.

Free Time

Danielle flipped out yesterday. She's not mother's helpering anymore for Craig because his family went on a vacation. They gave Dani a bonus of $150 on her last day. None of her good friends are in town. Mine either. Alex's camp is over and she had been going with Danielle to Craig's, but now they're both hanging around. Wendy's family is off on vacation too, so I'm not mother's helpering Nora this week either.

Luckily, my friend Idalis is on vacation, and she works at a corner store. So I took over her hours while she's away, and between that and the diner I have almost a full time job if I put them together. Everybody else goes on vacation and that leaves me with less hours. If people are not around to do their jobs, and I am then I should have more hours right? I must have the wrong jobs if I have fewer hours.

Alex and Danielle come to the corner store with me and read magazines and then go off somewhere. They've been going to Brooklyn and wandering around, I think. Oh, or going to the pool. But it closes on Monday, and then on Tuesday school starts.

Crappy Old Navy was having a 40% off sale for two weeks so now we all have new flip flops. Alex didn't get any new clothes except one thing for the first day of school, and I had to get a lot - all my jeans were too short and too tight. I wish I could have gotten these - they look so cool. When I go to college I'm going to buy a non-sale pair of pants at a nice store. I don't care if I take my sisters money to do.

You Are Not Welcome Here

Alex has never watched 9/11 footage. When some of Topher's fire guys came over to talk to us that day it was on the news and one of them took her out of the room and said she didn't need to be seeing that. Al stopped talking that day and it took months for her to talk again.

In school one time this boy asked what the point was of like learning all this boring history. Our teacher said so we're not doomed to repeat it. I guess the point is to remember forever. The three of us won't ever forget so we don't need to watch 9/11 footage and reinactments.

I expect a lot of documentaries around September 11th. People are really into anniversaries. We kind of avoid tv then. I didn't expect one today. But after dinner we realized what Aunt Elaine was watching - some show all about it. With people who were there and actors pretending to be them in burning highrise buildings. With a firefighter walking down a smoky hallway. I don't want to see people in business suits covering their mouths. I don't want to see clouds of smoke rolling down the streets covering people.

I felt chills go up and down my body. Danielle asked Aunt Elaine to put on something else. She wouldn't. She's such a bitch. We can hear the tv from our room, even with the door closed. So we left. Alex had some money with her and we got an ice cream to share. Danielle went up at 10pm to see if it was over, but it wasn't.

We went into a corner store and read magazines until they kicked us out. We went to a pizza place and hung out for a while. There was a boy there I kind of recognized with his friends and we talked with them. Then we got kicked out for being too loud even though we weren't really that loud.

I waited until ten minutes until 11 and then told Danielle we should go home - by the time we got there and were ready for bed it had to be over. I was right.

There should be warnings or something if they're going to do 9/11 stuff ahead of time. We could have gone into the city for the night or something.

When It's Good, It's Very Very Good

The awful thing about having dead family members is that people outside the family can never handle it when you bring them up. They freeze, scared that you'll cry or freak out on them. It's very frustrating. Aunt Elaine doesn't want to hear about our mom or grandmother so we can't talk about them in front of her. Alex doesn't really remember Topher - he'd moved out before she was born, and barely remembers our mom and grandmother. Some of what she says she remembers, maybe she just remembers hearing stories for the last several years.

When we go to fire family dinners it's the best thing, because it's always somebody who worked with Topher. They will sit there and tell us story after story, and I never care if we've heard it before. They never worry about making us cry, and if something accidentally does, it's okay and not weird.

Hearing about how Topher was with people at work is great and awful at the same time. It makes me miss him more and feel closer to him. If he could come back to life, I'd love it, even though I'm sure he'd give me shit about a lot of things.

Like the weed.
Like Dani's stealing.
Like the wife-beaters.
Like the mild skull obsession.
Like the whole Tristan thing.
He wouldn't mind Josh I don't think.

We're Sick

Me and Danielle. Craig came by and dropped off two quarts of chicken soup for us.
It's very good. Although not that good because it hasn't made my fever go down. We got Alex to talk Aunt Elaine into letting us use the fan from her bedroom while she's watching tv during the day.

This helps because then we don't fight over who gets to be in front of the fan. Alex is doing such a good job doing ... everything. She even went to get the bus this morning by herself.

I am hoping Josh will bring us fudgsicles or italian ices or something. Maybe it'd happen if I actually mentioned it to him.

It hurts to type. Good night.
*****************************
Good morning. Afternoon. Whatever. It's like almost 2pm. Just woke up 20 minutes ago. Am sitting up for a while before I go shower so I don't get dizzy. Oh wait I woke up at 7 am and called Wendy to tell her I have fever over 100 and didn't want to get Nora sick. Wendy said she'll hold my check and give it to me Monday.

This is my plan for the rest of the day:
shower
get dressed
take a nap
go pick up Alex from camp
If I feel good enough, stop at store for food
wait not from camp. from bus stop for camp bus
go home
nap
maybe eat something
watch tv

Yay To the Tenth Power!

Josh is finally back from his four hundred year vacation with his family!  I'm so happy! All the stars aligned for me and I didn't have to work at the diner tonight.  It left me free to meet Josh for dinner - for once he let me take him out.  The waiter made fun of us twice for taking up his table for so long.  It was almost four hours, so I left almost a 100% tip.  Thank goodness I'd been saving for this AND that Josh chose a less expensive restaurant than I'd planned for.  

I can't tell Josh this, but I spent a lot more time looking at him than I did listening to what he was saying.  He's VERY pretty.  In a none gay way.  And then he walked me home and Danielle and Alex were so happy to see Josh that he got happy and he came up to say hi to Aunt Elaine and gave her a big hug and she was very shocked and didn't know what to do with that because it was so unexpected and she got really flustered.

So happy. 

I Am So Over You

Things I am totally over:

1. Adults
2. Adults who want to be treated with a higher level of respect than they deserve
3. Tristan's groupies
4. People who think Fight Club is not a good idea
5. Smoking weed being a terrible awful thing that will ruin your life
6. Extremes
7. Humidity
8. Having to hear about everyone's trips
9. Dumb questions
10. People who talk to kids like they (the kids) are idiots
11. Old men who don't respect personal space on the train
12. Aunt Elaine glaring at us for laughing when Danielle makes a funny joke
13. Worrying about everyone but nobody worrying about me
14. Pizza places running out of Italian ices

The Price of Tea in China

All this time I've thought Aunt Elaine was taking food money even though if she goes outside once a week it's totally a big deal. I don't know what I thought she was doing with all the money or what she was spending it on or whatever.

I am a fucking asshole. Aunt Elaine hasn't been stealing grocery money for the last six months. We are eating more and prices of staple foods have gone up. I am so embarrassed. We're too busy being heifers to realize how heifer-ous we're being and how much it's screwing up the budget.

Danielle's birthday this fall can not come fast enough. Then she can finally get a real job and we'll have more money.

Because I Know All Eight Of You Care

My finger still hurt a lot this morning but I didn't have time to ice it again and now it doesn't hurt any more.

Am I the only one tired of watching people count to three before diving off a platform at the same time? Danielle and Al and I can all do back handsprings in unison - should we be winning awards for that?

Maybe They'll Need to Cut It Off

That's what Alex suggested to me when I iced my finger tonight. At my first job, we were walking to Wendy's car and Nora and I were holding hands when she tripped and almost fell forward. The only reason she didn't is because when Nora's hand started sliding out of mine she grabbed my pointer finger. It didn't hurt and I was just relieved to not have broken Nora right in front of Wendy.

Then at my second job one of the keys on the register kept sticking so I was jamming it really hard with that same finger. That didn't hurt it either. But when I got home I realized my finger hurts if I curl it in, and Alex had left me a note to come wake her to talk so I took ice and sat on her bed for a while so we could chat.

When Alex asked what happened, I told her and she kissed my finger before suggesting it'd need to be cut off. So I smacked her in the face with my ice and said, "Maybe they'll need to cut off your face," and walked out. She is totally my favorite sister.

Summer Drama

It's always either raining or about to rain these days. The air is heavy and you just want the rain to come already, so you can go for a walk in it and feel water droplets rolling past your collar while you think all kinds of deep and depressing thoughts.

Wendy wanted us to go to her country club despite the crappy weather so we hung out inside. She went off to do whatever it is she does - it always involves drinks and other mothers. I set Nora up at the art table and wandered off to find Tristan so I could ignore him where he could see me (see? I'm really good at the flirting).

We pretended to ignore each other for a couple of hours. I had a book and Nora - he had his lifeguard friends and the girls who stalk and flirt with him. They hate me, because he ignores them to pay attention to me, and they know I'm there because I'm working, and not because I'm a club member.

They follow me into the bathrooms and glare, trying to intimidate me. They glare and whisper to each other about how ugly I am, or whatever they've read to do in their Mean Girls manual. Except they're suburbs girls, and they don't know what to do with me since I pretend to ignore them. If I stepped up to one I bet she'd crap her pants for sure.

Tristan pulled me into an empty banquet hall and we made out against chairs up against the walls. We left to get Nora and bring her to a story time. She didn't want me to stay - she was the only kid who didn't have someone with her. Naturally Tristan and I walked off again, and it felt like only two minutes later that Nora came up to me. We were in the hallway across from story time, so while we were far, she couldn't have gone anywhere without walking past us.

Nora asked if I'm going to have a baby with Tristan and he choked on his drink. She wants everyone around her to have a baby, but only a girl baby. There is drop-in babysitting at the club and Tristan wants me to dump Nora there one morning when it's raining so we can hang out the whole time. Tempting, but it can't happen. Wendy would fire me.

Tired, going to sleep.

What Ifs

What if I get more and more tired until I am sleeping all the time and then one day I just never wake up?

What if I take all our clothing money and just get new clothes for me and fuck Alex and Danielle and I get really nice stuff that we always look at and touch but never buy?

What if I can't get an apartment for college and can't take them out of here with me?

What if they hate me forever for it?

What if when Josh gets back it's all different?

What if I'm developing rickets?

What if I break a leg or something and can't work?

What if fire family dinners stop for Danielle and Alex when I go to college?

What if I can't get in to a college?

What if I only get into a shitty one?

What if college is too hard and I fail out?

What if everything we worry about going wrong all of a sudden does go wrong all at the same time?

Less Tired

Though I napped with Nora today. So I cheated my tiredness. Sabine I will ask about being anemic next time. I don't have a lot of headaches but looked it up and will try to eat more iron-rich foods to see if that helps.

Tired

It's as if my battery is totally dying. Yesterday and today I have just been completely exhausted. I slept so hard last night. Today instead of playing with Nora I sat on the side of the pool while she was in it. Then after she woke from her nap I just laid on the couch while she played in the living room. I kept suggesting things that involve sitting quietly - reading books, doing puzzles, anything but running around.

Could not muster up enough energy to go out after work. Tristan asked me out and I had to say no. Normally when I work the dinner shift, I walk around the tables near the front to help, but not today. Today I sat at the register and did not get up.

Dragged myself home from work. So tired. Want to sleep for a week.

Planning Ahead

School starts in like a month. Danielle found her special calculator for sale on CL so she got it for less than 50% of the cost in a store. That saves us like $100 right there.

Today I went through all our old spiral notebooks from last year to see what we can still use. Two. That's all that's left. And our looseleafs? Nothing. Danielle's didn't even last through May. Alex cried at not getting a new one so I gave her mine, even though the front is kind of torn. She is not pleased but hers is in worse shape than mine so it's better than keeping her old one. I can duct tape the part that's ripped off and am going to try to find out if you can spraypaint duct tape. Because that will look kind of cool.

One of the guys Topher used to work with asked if he can give us his old school supplies - he went back to school for physician's assistant or something. We go pick that stuff up tomorrow. My fingers are crossed that he has a lot. Alex is torn between wanting Lisa Frank stuff and wanting to be mature and get more grownup notebooks.

I just want one of those messenger bags that closes with a seatbelt buckle.