Power Trip

What the hell is up with teachers thinking they're better than god? Today my math teacher was screaming at this girl Zlaikah and threw a chair at her. She didn't do anything except ask him to explain better. He thought she'd been talking and that's why she didn't get it, but really nobody knew what the hell he was talking about.

Then in between classes near my locker this teacher was yelling at somebody - some kid I don't know. I think he's in 11th grade. Anyway so the teacher is yelling and the kid backs up and the teacher goes totally apeshit and is like "Get over here! I'm talking to you!" and the kid was like, "No way, you're spitting on me." Seriously, I thought that teacher's eyeballs were going to like pop out of his head, and his whole face got bright red. I couldn't stay to see what happened because the bell was going to ring, but on my way down the stairs there was a security guard running in the direction of my locker.

Some teachers seem to hate kids and I wonder why they keep teaching. They should quit and just tutor. Then they could pick only kids they like.

In other news, I accidentally stabbed my hand with a really sharp knife tonight making dinner. Tomorrow before I leave for school it needs a bandaid. Hope I remember.

Birthday Baby

Alex is now 11. She wanted all three of us to go see a Broadway show together as a present, but that's just way too expensive. Instead, Danielle and I pooled our money and got Alex the holy grail of birthday presents - new clothes. Between Limited Too and the Gap, we wrapped up seven different things, and it was like Christmas this morning. Every piece of clothing may have been off the clearance racks, but every single thing Alex got was completely brand new, complete with tags.

It's not even my birthday but I'm floating on air because seriously, nothing is better than clothes nobody else has ever worn. Plus, we haven't even done the birthday dinner yet (courtesy of Josh who chipped in his own $40 when we realized we forgot to save for tonight). I barely even need my own birthday, since I can have so much fun celebrating someone elses.

Big Talks

I don't want to be one of those girls who says, "We have to talk," to her boyfriends before launching into a big speech about how she wants him to style his hair or what socks he should wear. Those girls suck, I hate those girls. They're the kind of girls who slap their boyfriends on the arm in front of other people, who don't let their boyfriends make or laugh at jokes about them cheating. They "offer" to help their boyfriend go shopping but it's really to make sure he dresses how she wants. They only give their boyfriends blowjobs on his birthday and spend the rest of the year reminding them to be grateful for it and threatening to go on strike if he steps out of line.

Then eventually he wakes up and cheats on her so she'll break up with him, because he can't nut up enough to break up with her, but he believes her when she screams at him that he's a pig, since he cheated. All their friends secretly side with him, even though they have to act like he's the asshole, because he cheated, and she's louder about laying blame than he is.

These girls have perfect lives, but think they know tough times, because their childhood cat died and they cried all night. The Official Baggage Committee would agree I have real baggage, and give me a pass on being a high maintenance girlfriend, but I hate them and don't want to be that. I am determined not to be that type.

When Josh asked me out tonight (yes, again) I told him all this. He said he likes my baggage, and he's wanted my help buying new socks for a long time. It's not the being together I'm scared of, it's the breaking up next summer that worries me.

Aftermath of Breakups

Who the hell has a party at a shitty diner? People are so fucking weird. Josh had said he'd meet me at the end of work but they wound up asking me to stay late to help with the party. I took dessert orders and helped prepare them to be served and poured coffee.

Had to call Josh and tell him not to come. He showed up later anyway. He's good like that. That's why I'm writing this from his room. Okay, that's not true. I mean it is - this is his bedroom, but we'd made this plan yesterday.

Supposedly we're broken up. Hooking up with other people is totally legal. Except neither of us are dating anyone else. I didn't tell Josh about Tristan and didn't ask what (who?) he did over the summer. I don't know what we're doing. I don't know what's supposed to happen when we graduate.

My goal is to be all "live in the moment" and just have fun now. That's really hard when everything about this year is about planning for next year.

Maybe Somebody DID Hit Me

in the head with a hammer and I didn't notice. That's how much my head hurts. Maybe my ponytail was too tight? I was going to write a whole thing I wrote out in my head on the way home from work but I don't think there was enough room in my head for both my headache and my blog post. Sorry.

Everything hurts, not just my head. That's what hurts the worst though. Maybe I have the flu. Maybe I'm dying. Maybe it's a college-induced headache. I am so stressed out on trying to pick which schools to apply to, that my head wants to explode. Can you get an academic scholarship for four years? I mean, will they let you know it's for all four years at the start?

My head and I are going to sleep.

Beyond Excited

Dear Heather Mills,

Sorry you lost a log. Also, sorry you didn't win on Dancing With the Stars. Oh and sorry about your divorce from some old rich guy who used to be like the Zac Efron of the olden days.

But THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for donating a million bucks of vegan food to us! I am not sure how you found the South Bronx but am very happy you did.

Love,
Sam

Two Things

1. After work tonight I went to Josh's house and we did something I'm kind of embarrassed about. Supposedly everybody does it, or has done it, but somehow I just never had. Until today. When I had cookies and milk. Isn't that lame? It's like the biggest cliche about coming home from school, right? You go home and your mama gives you fresh-from-the-oven cookies with a glass of milk. How did we miss that one? Of course with it being Josh's house, they weren't shitty Hydrox ones, but fancy cookies. I know they were fancy for two reasons. One, because I've seen them in the supermarket and they're always too expensive. Two, because there are like 12 in a bag. Pepperidge Farm - the mint milano ones are pretty good.

While we were at the table having our cookies and milk Josh's mom came and sat down with us. We were all talking and she like, petted my hair. I know since I don't have a father I'm supposed to have daddy issues but really I just have mommy issues. It made me want to cry. Like because on one hand it felt so good it was like crying with relief but then it was bad because I felt like that's for MY mom to do, and I was kind of angry. Like that's not her hair to touch, it's for my mom to touch. Which is dumb, I know. It was more good than bad, overall.

2. There is somebody who had a blog and she had a son older than me who is gay and moved to New York and had a problem with a beer truck. Dear Lady, I lost your blog, please comment and tell me who you are so I can read it and your gay son's blog too, thanks.

Are You New Here?

Danielle is the queen of one-liners. That's her latest one - anyone who says anything dumb that they should know gets asked that. Way hilarious. I went to shrinking with her today and she said that to her shrink. She snorted coffee up her nose. Way funny.

Emergencies

One of the good things about having older siblings is all the stuff you can learn. Not only is there all the stuff they teach you but there's also the stuff you just randomly pick up. Like you didn't sit down and try to learn it, but you just realize one day you know that, and where you must have gotten it from. Everything I know about first aid comes from Topher. In seventh grade science when we were going to start using bunson burners for experiments, I knew when my teacher left out something. While everyone else wanted lab partners who were good at science I wanted kids who wouldn't explore their pyro side and play with the fire.

A girl's bangs caught on fire in that class.

I don't know what my point is about all this. Sometimes I worry that I will become one of those crazy people who sets fires just so firemen will come because I like them.

Mine Ours

For years on tomorrow we always cut school and just leave and go wherever we feel like. Because it's our day. I have never been to the memorial. Because I'm scared I'd kill the tourists.

I hate the tourists. I know it was an attack on OUR country. But if you don't live in New York (or PA), it really didn't happen to you. It just didn't. Not like it did to me. You didn't watch YOUR city falling down. It's not yours to be sad about. I don't want to see some bitch from Montana with a camera and a sweatervest crying.

And don't tell me it did happen to you because your relative joined the Army because of it. People ask if I'm for the war since it was started after 9/11. No. Enough people died. Why don't we fix our own country before we go fucking up other countries?

So tomorrow we are going somewhere. It won't be to school, and I don't care.

My grandmother always smelled like good food and love.
My brother always smelled like leather and cologne and fall.
My mother always smelled like ... mommy. And Ahava. And flowers.

Huh?

I thought senior year was supposed to be all easy. It's not. Somebody lied. The homework never stops, the studying never stops, and my brain feels filled to capacity.

It makes me miss the dumb track three classes. There are not enough hours in the day to get everything done. Danielle finished her homework yesterday and I actually gave her my science homework to do. If somebody could please insert like four to six hours extra into the day that would help me.

Going to finish math and then go to sleep.

Cuffed

Three boys got arrested today at school. One boy beat the shit out of this guy for being friends with his ex-girlfriend who dumped him because he was too violent. The kid who got beat up walked through the hall Friday with blood pouring down his face from his head. He is still in the hospital today. I can't believe the other guy had the balls to come to school. Abra is so upset about the whole thing.

Then these two other boys got arrested for dealing drugs at school. Everyone is talking all about how it's a violation of our privacy to go through lockers and all that. I don't buy it. All the people saying that are people who I know for a fact use.

The lockers belong to the school - they're just letting us use them. I don't keep ANYTHING in my locker except books. That's the whole point of a bookbag.

If this is what happens on a Monday, I can't imagine what's going to happen the rest of the week. Christ.

Diner Dayz

A lot of the waitresses and waiters left and new ones have been hired. I'm glad my job has nothing to do with tips because the new people are getting terrible tips. They're so stupid - they do a bad job, get shitty tips, and then bitch that since they were nice they should have gotten good tips.

You know what's going on here. They finally decided to take control of their destiny or whatever and moved to "The Big Apple" to pursue their dreams. Which obviously include working in a restaurant. They give big smiles and chat nicely but they are missing the point.

New Yorkers don't really care about being nice very much. Especially in a diner. They want you to be fast and accurate. The waitresses bring the wrong food or take too long to bring it, and they ask the wrong friendly questions. Like "how are you enjoying New York City?" Which is dumb, because these are all people who live here. Tourists don't come to neighborhood diners like this one.

When the people come up front to pay their checks they tell me everything that went wrong. If they have more than two complaints I always tell them to take an extra free cookie, because I don't know what else to say.

The busboys are angry at the waitresses, so are the old waitresses, and the new waitresses don't understand why everyone is angry at them since they have Southern charm or whatever they call it.

I am hungry. Should have taken more free cookies.

Golden Opportunities

Aunt Elaine is sick and (I've always wanted to say this) taken to her bed. Naturally this situation MUST be taken advantage of and that is why Josh is on his way over. He offered to cook me (us) dinner.

Living room has been Lysol'd and aired out. Alex is throwing out garbages and hopefully some of her retarded catalogs while she's at it. Danielle hung up the towels in the bathroom and wiped off all the water spots around the sink, and is now cleaning the kitchen counters. I am cleaning our bedroom. Or not, whatever.

Alex just came in to ask me if I forget how to have people over since it almost never happens. She can't remember what our house was like in Brooklyn with the door open all the time. With running home from school excited to see who had come over. Next year when we're in college we will set up house, Brooklyn style.

Nice To Know

Even though Idalis and I have known each other for years we've never been very close. To be honest I was worried about her really giving me all the money from working for her last week. At school I wanted to ask Idalis if she wanted to meet up at her store or what - but I couldn't find her.

Well that's not really true. Once in the hallway I saw her but my teacher was standing in the doorway of the class I was supposed to go into and I couldn't follow Idalis.

The later it got in the day the more nervous I got. I even called Danielle and told her to go to the diner for me in case I had to hunt down Idalis. My thinking was once she cashed her check I needed to be right there to get my money before she went walking around with all that cash.

But right as I was hanging up with Dani, Idalis called to say she was leaving her store and did I want to meet her at the bank, so I knocked some tourists out of my way to get on the train and hike over there as fast as possible. Got all my money. I am so relieved. Good to know which of your friends you can trust.

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There was a good NaBloPoMo topic, like a sub-topic that I was going to do, but I forgot to start so I'm not going to bother this month. Maybe in October.

First Day

Sunday night at our dinner we got almost $400 for school supplies for the three of us. This is great, because Alex decided she wants all her notebooks and folders to have a camo theme, with each subject being a different color. She had to keep everything from last year that still is useable but she got purple, green, gray, orange and pink just in replacing some stuff that was too worn out to keep using.

Today was Danielle's first day of science school and she actually has more homework than I do. But, she is happy and does not have her Angry Glare on her face, so yay for homework I guess. She is trying to change one of her teachers because he has a thick accent and won't answer questions.

I had to work today after school so Alex took half the money we got and she and Danielle went school supply shopping for me. As long as I have good pens and highlighters it's all good. Idalis is back from her vacation and I double-checked that she's giving me her entire check from last week when she gets it and she promised. Her store has nicer people coming in, but my diner gives free food.

This Sarah Palin thing has got Aunt Elaine all riled up and any time we made noise doing our homework after dinner she'd yell at us that we'd better never come home pregnant. She stopped when Danielle told her, "Don't worry - we would never come to you with any problem."