Why It's Better At Home Than At Josh's

1. My sisters are there. It is weird to wake up in the middle of the night and not hear them breathing. It scares me until I remember where I am.
2. I don't worry about breaking something expensive.
3. I don't worry how I look when I get ready for bed.
4. Everything is within reach.
5. I know where everything is at home.
6. I don't get nervous.
   
7. When I'm home I don't miss my sisters.
   

Which is why they came over after school and had dinner here. Josh helped me make homemade whipped cream to go with dessert. Okay that's a lie. It was my idea but he did all the work because I had to work at the diner until 7 pm. Dani and Alex got to Josh's house before I did. When I walked in they were all just hanging out. I could hear them in the kitchen and it was nice.

Why It's Better Here

1. It's not smokey here.
2. The tv gets turned off and the house is quiet sometimes.
3. There is so much more space in Josh's room than in my room.
4. There is tons of food and if you get hungry you can eat whatever you want.
5. Nobody is watching and waiting to see if I do something wrong so they can yell at me.
6. I can stay in the shower as long as I like.
7. It is quiet and calm here.
8. There are flowers throughout the house.
   
9. There are no drafts coming in through the windows or cracks in the walls.
   

At Josh's House

A massage has been promised and I am trying to stay awake until Josh is ready. His parents are in France on some cruise, so he invited me to stay here for the week. I have keys and everything. I like that the kitchen has more counter space (I made us dinner).

Thank you for the college help. My college HAS to be in the city, THIS city. Danielle's in a special high school and she has to stay until she graduates. I am glad to know the colleges won't expect me to have tax stuff yet. Listening to everybody else it feels like I'm way behind and have missed deadlines.

I feel weird being here without Josh's parents. It feels weird to open the linen closet to look for a towel after my shower. I felt weird opening cabinets in the kitchen, like it's poking around someone else's house. A very little part of me wants to leave because I don't feel right being here. But when I woke up this morning my throat didn't hurt. And last night Josh washed all my clothes and none of them smell smokey at all.

Crazy College Crap

Hello, and welcome to my full blown sheer panic. It turns out that you have to pay money to apply for college. Did other people know that? Just to apply. If you don't get in? They don't refund the money. Everyone says you should apply to nine schools. Three safe schools, three probably schools and three reach schools. There is no way in hell we can afford that. My thinking is that I'm going to apply at three schools, total.

Hunter, Queens, and I'm not sure where else yet. A CUNY school will cost $2,000 for each semester for just the classes. Then there's an activity fee and the cost of all the books. I am going to have a panic attack. Then there's like, living. So overwhelmed.

I registered with Families of Freedom but Craig is helping me with the application forms for the scholarship. He said I should assume that I'll get nothing just to prepare for a worst-case scenario. Even though they keep saying they have enough money to give scholarships through 2030. I stole Aunt Elaine's tax stuff for last year to fill out the forms but then realized I'll need this year. And I can't get that until next year. I am scared that there won't be enough time. I want my mom to just swoop in and do everything for me because I know she'd get it all right.

Edited to add - before anyone goes suggesting the guidance counselors please know they are useless and the biggest joke around here. Maybe wherever you live they are actually smart and helpful people but here they are one more obstacle to work around. Here is an example that proves my point -

GC - have you considered Rutgers?
Me - I hate New Jersey and have to stay in the city for my sisters
GC - you'd be lucky to get into Rutgers
Me - then why'd you bring it up?
GC - have you considered applying to it as one of your reach schools?
Me - I can only go to schools in the city.
GC - My son goes to Rutgers
Me - your son has a parent who has a job
GC - you should think about Rutgers

see? guidance counselors are retarded.

Yes I Would

If Danielle and Alex were babies, I would definitely give them to Obama to kiss. We voted for Aunt Elaine over the weekend and sent in her absentee ballot. She hasn't said anything about voting. Alex asked her a few weeks ago how she was going to vote since she hasn't left home in months but Aunt Elaine didn't have a plan. Maybe she forgot you can do an absentee ballot? I don't know.

On the Road

We are leaving to go "for a drive in the country to look at the changing fall leaves" very soon. In an SUV that has a DVD player! Alex is in their kitchen helping to pack a fucking picnic. A real live honest to goodness picnic. Like with homemade iced tea and cookies and brownies made from scratch and everything.

Sometimes it is really very hard to believe there are people who like actually live like this.
*******************************
Update:
The leaves were pretty. It was kind of boring. They were a little more excited and into it than we were. It was fun to see so much grass and trees you can climb. We got bored after a while though. Maybe you have to be a grownup to fully appreciate autumn properly.

The good part was that we stopped at some house where this guy who is friends with them live and he had a BBQ and instead of eating sandwiches for a picnic dinner we got to eat all kinds of cooked food that was hot.

This is my question about roasting marshmallows - if you're not supposed to be eating food that falls on the ground outside and branches from trees fall on the ground why is it okay to eat marshmallows that have been stuck on a branch?

All that fresh air is not healthy. It is exhausting. Alex fell asleep on the way home.

Note From Danielle

i will now proceed to tell you all of the reason my life sucks:
1) i lost my phone and am suffering from phone withdrawl
2) i still have not started my chem project
3) i failed my English test
4) i most likely failed my math test
5) my email account just like shut down
6) i have detention tomorrow
7) i have to go to chorus night tomorrow
8) i dropped my binder and it totally exploded everywhere
9) i don't have enough time to watch the office at Margot's house before coming home
10) basically I FAIL AT LIFE.

Bloodied

I am so pissed off! Danielle's friend bled all over her pants at school today. Danielle changed into her shorts from her gym locker and lent her friend her jeans. Then her friend bled all over those too! Danielle only has five pairs of jeans so she really can't afford to lose any.

So she called and said her mother is going to take Dani's jeans to the drycleaners. If it doesn't come out Danielle better make her buy a new pair of jeans for her.

Sunday Slow

Don't feel like writing. Fire dinner was really good tonight. This is all I have to say now.

Enthusiastic Two ...

shoulders shrugged. How the fuck do you get lost in a school that you've been at for over a year? How can you be qualified to skip a grade when you're too retarded to find your classroom in a school you know?

At least Alex came home excited about doing her homework for the first time in ages. Aunt Elaine thinks it's ridiculous that Alex is supposed to take a spelling/vocabulary test tomorrow when she was just given the words today. Alex is excited and stayed up until 10 o'clock studying.

There Was a Cake Involved

Alex had told me that if she was going to change grades she also wanted to change schools. Specifically, to Bronx Dance Academy. But when Craig and Alex and I talked with her teacher yesterday, Alex got talked out of that decision with three simple words. They. have. uniforms.

We do not believe in uniforms. At all. Like vehemently against them.

Plus that school is only like 2% white and over 70% hispanic. It turns out Alex is in a major love affair with her teacher, who loves her right back. I bet half of that love is simply pure relief over the disaster that was last year's mean teacher. This explains why Alex was hesitant to skip into seventh grade. What if she got another mean teacher? Don't mess with a good thing. Plus seventh grade is when you get a different teacher for each class. That's so many opportunities for mean teachers. It's like Alex has post dramatic stress from fifth grade.

Her current teacher said she could always keep getting lesson plans from her 7th grade teacher friends for Alex while she stays in her class. Except she gave Al a math packet for the entire month of October and it got done in one weekend. And then what would Alex do next year? Get eighth grade packets?

Alex's teacher showed us a mock 7th grade schedule she had asked the guidence counselor to make for her. I think really it was based on just which classes had space for another kid but Alex all but made her promise all the teachers listed are the nicest ones of the grade.

Craig offered to go home with us to talk to Aunt Elaine. They met in the hallway and the speed freak yelled at her not to sign the "skip a grade" thing Craig showed her. I think the only thing that propelled Aunt Elaine to get out of her chair for Craig was the fear that otherwise he'd come in and our promise that this would get Alex out of her house sooner than she thought. Luckily Aunt Elaine ignored him even when he licked his fingers and rubbed his nipples at her.

Tomorrow Alex starts seventh grade under the condition that she visits her sixth grade teacher before the end of the month to check in and let her know how it's going.

Not Much

I read somewhere that gasoline prices are going down. That's nice, but it doesn't help me. When are the food prices going down? We are doing terribly with the food the last few months. Not everyone has cars but everyone does need to eat, so food prices should be lowered since that's more important.

Danielle told me Alex asked her for a cell phone. Because she knew I'd say no. Thank goodness for Danielle taking one for the team and saying no for me. Alex is good at keeping track of her things despite being a packrat. It's not that I think she'd lose her phone if she had one. Honestly if she could come up with the money for it each month I'd be all for hooking her up. Just to be clear because in the comments it seems like it's not the reason Alex can't have a phone is because of how much it costs not because danielle and i don't trust her to be responsible with it. we do.

We have decided that Aunt Elaine is going to vote by absentee ballot. Danielle and I offered to do all the work, which of course Aunt Elaine was all for. Who says you have to be 18 to vote?

Free is Our Friend

Some woman on the street was handing out free passes to a pilates studio and she gave me two by accident.  Josh had to do something jewy today and couldn't meet up with me so the three of us went to the pilates place today.  I figured it would give Alex a solid chunk of time to use my computer without being interrupted to do her homework. 

But when we got there and checked in the guy was like, "There are three of you and two of these passes.  We can't leave such a cute girl out of the class."  Which meant Alex got to play too.  There were not a lot of people there and some guy was like a trainee dude in addition to the teacher. 

It was so good.  All three of us tried really hard and took it seriously.  Except Dani and I cracked up when we heard Alex stage whispering to the trainee guy "You're practically touching my butt," when he was helping her stretch farther.  

I wish we could take pilates classes all the time because I feel so amazing now.  All limber and stretchy.  I told the teacher that afterwards and they said often you can take pilates or yoga as a gym credit in college.  Hope I remember that next year. 

Asking Tomorrow

Dear Josh's Mommy,

You know how whenever I'm over (thank you again for inviting me over so often, especially to all the parties you throw - they are awesome and we all appreciate that you always send me home with leftovers) and Josh goes into the kitchen to get us a snack, you always come into his room and talk with me and when you're leaving you always say if I ever want to talk to come find you.

I'd like to take you up on that. Hopefully this is not one of those empty promises grownups make to kids in order to make themselves feel and look good.

Will you come to school with me please? Not mine, Al's. Because I don't know how to have a meeting with her teacher about her skipping into 7th grade. This is just like totally out of my abilities. I need a grownup. One who knows how to know when teachers are lying and who knows what the right questions to ask are. This is totally over my head and it feels like too big of a decision to screw up.

Thank you.
Love,
Sam

Alex the Skipper

Alex is freakishly smart. She plays up her cuteness more than her smarts but the smarts is like totally there. Her teacher last year hated her and made life miserable. We were sort of talking about skipping Al into 7th grade this year instead of going into 6th but her teacher was like so anti-Alex that we couldn't make it happen. Like you need the teacher to say yeah this kid should move ahead and she wouldn't. We wanted her to because the 9/11 fund will pay for college until they run out of money, so since Alex is one of the younger kids she needs to beat out as many as she can so they still have money by the time she goes to college.

Except today Al brought me a note from her assistant principal saying he wants to set up a meeting. Alex showed it to her teacher asking if she was in trouble and she said no, it's to talk about bumping her up to 7th grade.

Now I'm all pissed because if this was going to happen it should have been from the beginning of September. Not now, after she's already spent a month in 6th grade. Now there's no way for her to start 7th grade without walking in behind.
Alex said she doesn't care one way or the other. Except until Danielle told her the longer Alex is in school the longer she'll have to live with Aunt Elaine. Of course then Alex said she wants to skip which is retarded because the plan since I even started high school was always that when I finish we'll all move out together. We are like our own little army - we don't leave any (wo)men behind.

I talked to my shrink about it and he said we should probably have an adult there who cares about Alex's best interests and doesn't have their own agenda. Craig sucks, he always makes problems. Isn't my agenda for Al in her best interests? Danielle said we should just ask him to come to the meeting but I don't know. I don't know what to do. Really last year's teacher should have just set this up for the start of this year. Now I can't deal with it.

The Tired Facts

Alex seems to be allergic to being 11, as she had her birthday and then promptly got sick. Danielle keeps saying we all have fleas, and even though it shouldn't be possible she may be on to something. All three of us have little bites on different parts of our bodies (mine are on the backs of both hands). I don't know what to do. We already cleaned our whole room and then sprayed with half a can of Lysol and that didn't help. Maybe I'm imagining things but my throat kind of hurts now too.

Tonight at a party this guy Dorian was being weird. I didn't think he was flirting, my friends all said he was but then he asked if I wanted to hook up when Chanise asked if he liked me. When we were leaving this girl Aria followed us into the hallway and asked if I liked Dorian. She wound up threatening me to stay away from him and pushed Stefania down the stairs.

Hector was there and saw her and was like "Pay no mind, she's wasted," but I don't trust that - if she told all her friends there's no way they're all drunk enough to forget about me by Monday.

Better to be home being eaten alive by whatever this is we can't see and make go away or out with friends stressing over stupid fights?

Drinkin' and Watchin'

Gwen rules! so much better than katie couric at getting answers. you should not be allowed to graduate from high school unless you can spell and pronounce nuclear. palin and i both have vaginas but after that we have nothing in common. take your joe six pack and hockey mom and maverick shit and shove it. you're nothing like me.

why is palin so simple minded? she can't understand that right after 9/11 going on attack was the way to go but now it's time to be finished? Palin keeps stressing that McCain will know what to do. What the hell does she know? NOTHING.

So drunk. Throat so sore from screaming at the tv and it's not even over yet.