Finally

Finally the assistant principal found me today in between classes and said he could meet me after school. He asked me to get all my papers (thank god they were in my locker and not home) and give them to him to look at before our meeting.

When I knocked on his door my English teacher was sitting there and the AP was reading one of my papers with the stack of them on his desk. I did NOT want to walk in and talk with him while she was there.

When I sat down the AP said he'd been reading my essays and thought they were definitely on grade level and that based on his understanding of the assignment should be graded anywhere from a B to an A+. Then we both looked at my English teacher like, "So .... what's up with your nutty grading system?"

She said a whole bunch of stuff that amounted to nothingness and then basically said she thought I could do better. I hate that kind of answer. If a teacher thinks someone can do better then they should talk to the student and encourage them. They shouldn't give them shitty grades and make it impossible for them to get good grades and make them think they're going crazy.

The AP asked her why, if she thought I could do better, did she just say I didn't follow the assignment? Why didn't she ask me to write a better paper? She didn't really have an answer except to say she was trying to inspire me to rise to a higher level.

I said, "You're not doing it," and the AP cut me off, told her he'd appreciate if she graded my essays from this quarter and going forward for what they are, not what she thinks I'm capable of and she said she'd be happy to review them.

Then on the way out he told me to stop by with my next essay. My English teacher heard that.

Grind

Maybe staying at Josh's isn't a good idea. The smoke seems worse than ever, I screamed for so long at Craig about Aunt Elaine that by the time our time was up my throat hurt, our bedroom seems smaller than it used to be a week ago.

We are not in trouble over the kitten scratches. Josh is all tan and pretty. He said his parents really liked that we left them breakfast and his dad ate two bagels the first morning. I am glad we didn't screw anything up really big. It would be so awkward if Josh's parents were angry at me.

Danielle asked if we can leave here at the end of June when school ends instead of at the end of August. She is noticing how horrible it is here now that we stayed at Josh's too.

Rihanna

The rumor is that Rihanna gave Chris Brown an std and that's why he beat her up. I was told this picture is totally photoshopped and not real. A lot of people are saying Rihanna deserved it.

Maybe I'm spoiled (Josh definitely spoils me) but I don't think anyone deserves to get beaten up by their boyfriend. Not even if they gave him an STD. Sometimes I am embarrassed by my friends. If you're a shitty girlfriend you deserve to get dumped. If you give a boy an STD you deserve to have him warn other people you might fool around with. You don't deserve to get the shit beat out of you.

Pledge

Today we have to go back home. Josh's family comes back very early tomorrow morning. I am working tonight, so we are leaving in a few hours. No more bubble baths. No more fancy meals. We spent $38 of the $100 Josh gave me for food. I don't know what the doorman's friend did, but you can only see the cat scratches if you're right there at the couch looking for them. No more doing homework at the dining room table. No more Wii. No more Tivo. No more dishwasher.

Alex and I did a huge cleaning job this morning while Dani is at work. Oh you know what else is nice about being here? We sent Alex all over the place by herself. This morning I gave her $10 and sent her to the corner store to buy milk and orange juice. She brought them back with a big bunch of flowers and change. Dani is supposed to bring home lox and cream cheese and bagels so we can leave breakfast for Josh's family. Alex wanted to bring home some of the flowers for us but I told her no. There's no point - they always die within like a day.

We changed the sheets and towels out and did a load of laundry. It looks like Danielle cleaned all the mirrors and sink faucets in the bathroom. In a few hours we go home to our smokey dump, leaving this beautiful house smelling like fresh flowers and Pledge.

Cooking Fancy is Exhausting

We did the cooking with wine thing tonight. Alex tasted the wine and didn't like it. The chicken came out really excellent. It looked very pale and sickly so I thought it was going to taste awful but it was really moist and yummy. Danielle found a bread machine and made a loaf of bread, and I did asparagus. We had Alex-made walnut brownies with strawberry ice cream for dessert. It was probably like the best dinner I have ever participated in making ever. Why does food cooked here taste so much better than the food cooked in our house? I don't want to go home.

I spoke to Josh about the couch. He said to ask the doorman to get someone to fix it and he will pay for it. His parents know we're here. We didn't ask if friends could come over or if they could bring kittens but it was ONE person. It's not like we threw a party or anything. Josh didn't think his parents would be too upset but he is not going to tell them if the couch can be fixed.

Time to Go Home

We broke something. Alex is friends with this boy from school who came over today. He's in sixth grade, and got a new kitten a few weeks ago. He brought it over so they could play with it. They sat it on the leather couch while they were playing Wii. The kitten got spooked and flew off the couch. There are kitty claw scratches in the leather now. You can totally see it. You can feel it with your fingers.

I called Josh to ask what to do because this is like totally completely beyond me. My fingers are crossed that he says there's some easy way to fix it and not like "Well, go buy my parents a new couch and matching chair and chair foot rest thingie." Shit.

Wine is Fine

I talked to one of the cooks at work about cooking with wine. He said to talk to the other cook, the scary one who yells at everyone. So I did and he yelled at me for being a stupid girl who wants to be a cook when she's just a pretty face. At least I think that's what he said - sometimes Spanglish is hard to follow.

Who needs that shit? I told him never mind and left the kitchen. Then it got busy and I forgot about the whole thing. Then there was a shift change and I kept working. Half hour later the mean cook is sitting at the counter furiously writing. I keep seating people and working the register and refilling coffees.

The mean cook is leaving - I see him while I'm holding a full pot of decaf and trying not to spill as I pour. When I go back to the register later there's a brown paper bag next to my backpack. With two bottles of wine and a recipe for making chicken simmered in wine. Across the top of the recipe he wrote to never buy cooking wine. "Es bull-sheet."

I will tell Danielle it's cooking wine and that it tastes as bad as baking chocolate so she won't drink it while I'm out. She had a very unfortunate experience with baking chocolate once.

If This Is What It'll Be Like, We'll Be Fine

I am sleeping in Josh's room and my sisters are both sleeping in the guest room together. When I went to bed the first night I felt something under the pillow. It was a little note he'd left me. Okay, a dirty limerick and then at the bottom Josh wrote that I should make myself at home, he'd left notes all over his room for me. So cute.

We had to get up early for work, or at least I did. My sisters did too though, so we had breakfast together. Nobody yelled at us to be quiet. We had kind of a big breakfast, and there's still tons of food left for the rest of the week. I opened the refrigerator just to look at all the food a few times since we got here.

Danielle is coughing less here. She has like a permanent cough that we think is from Aunt Elaine's smoking. Not so much these days. We hauled all our laundry here to wash everything. My laptop is in the living room. Alex's science book is on the dining room table. Stuff is spread out all over. Three people's things aren't all crammed into just one bedroom.

I am just really happy here. Even though we should just have fun and enjoy the week it's hard to not panic at the thought of having to go home at the end of the week. Can't help but wonder if this is how it is all the time for other kids. I hope they are enjoying it.

Free Week

There's no school this week. Josh is away on vacation with his family. He left my name with the doormen and gave me his key. We have been here since Saturday morning. At one point we thought we'd lost Alex, only to find her taking a bubble bath. You could barely see her eyes over the bubbles. Josh's parent's shower has two different shower heads. It's a little ... unsettling. Maybe it takes a while to get used to.

I love staying here. When you have a dishwasher it only takes like five minutes to clean up after eating! Josh gave me $100 and then asked if that was enough for food for the week. Sometimes his spoiledness comes through a lot. There's all this fancy food here that I don't even know what it is, let alone how to cook it. There are cornish game hens! We will be spending a lot of time on Epicurious this week for sure. It's not wrong for us to cook with wine right, since the alcohol cooks out and just the flavor is left, right?

My crappy diner couldn't give me too many extra shifts for this week but luckily Danielle's bagel shop had someone going away on vacation so I'm going to work there and at my diner too. It should work out to 53 hours in total. This is going to be a big money week, and a good living week. Totally excited.

When we move out I want to get fancy towels like the ones at Josh's house. These are so thick and soft and fluffy. Not thin and scratchy at all. Danielle was laying down on the floor today and she told me she wants to die here. I kind of do too.

How It Should Be

Alex once got shit for using the word reciprocity in school. Her teacher said she was too young to know what it meant, and demanded to know how she'd learned it. We'd seen Chicago, and Queen Latifah sang a song about it - that's how.

We always make fun of that any time someone uses a big word now. Dani will get all up in my face and yell, "You can't know that word! Who taught you that? How dare you!"

Yesterday Alex was supposed to meet me at work after school and then I'd drop her off at home before I went out. She was late. Alex is the only 7th grader without a cell phone so I couldn't call. I just kept watching the door and checking the time.

Finally Alex showed up an hour and a half late with the biggest smile on her face right as I had to seat people. Then all of a sudden it got busy and I didn't get back to the cash register for a good five minutes. When I did, I saw Alex eating an ice cream sundae a waitress had given her.

I went over to her and took a spoonful of ice cream. This is my second one today! I got the first one at Carvel! Alex couldn't stop grinning. I don't think she's ever had two ice creams in one day. So I asked how she got the first, and got to hear the most awesome thing ever.

Alex used the word audacity in an English paper recently, and her teacher asked her at the end of class how she'd learned the word. So Alex explained that after Obama won the election she read his Audacity of Hope book. The teacher got all excited and said she's reading it now, and asked if Alex wanted to go get coffee after school to talk about how she liked it with her.

So Alex spent her whole last period of school wondering about if she was really supposed to drink coffee or if it would be okay to ask for hot chocolate instead and after the last bell she went to her English classroom. When they got outside the teacher just stopped walking and asked how she felt about getting ice cream instead of coffee. Who's going to argue with that?

That's how Alex wound up getting her first ice cream sundae of the day while having a grownup conversation about the president. She already did her thank you card and put it in her bookbag for Monday.

Writing About English

Oh, the irony. Finally was able to talk with my assistant principal about my crappy English class. He was in a rush and we talked in a hallway of the main office with other people walking all around.

It didn't go well. I forgot to show him all my essays. I got flustered at having to talk with everybody around us and it came out like I was whining about getting a C when I thought I deserved a C+ or something. He said he'll look into it. I'm not expecting much.

Guess I'll be in 12th grade again next year.

Still Five Months Left

People are already discussing their graduation presents. So far I haven't heard anyone say they're getting boob implants. Mostly the kids who don't have an iPhone are aiming for that. The ones who already have one are aiming for a big trip somewhere.

People are getting excited and already buying stuff for their dorms even though only early decision acceptances have gone out. One girl told me her parents rented extra storage space for all her college stuff.

I don't belong here. Not with these people. I feel numb when people get all excited about college. Some friends aren't going of course. They are excited anyway. To rent a house on the Jersey Shore for the summer. Or to move to Miami. Nobody's goal is to move to Brooklyn with their dumb little sisters. To spread their mother's stuff out all over the house.

No joke, I heard two girls talking about how they already told their mothers they will only call home once a week after they've moved to college. I can't even ... I want to talk to her fifty times each day.

English

There's a head of the english department? I never heard of that. Whatever, tomorrow I will pay a visit to my old friend, the AP who helped me get out of my track three classes.

I Already Speak English, Isn't That Good Enough?

My English teacher seems to want to fail me and not let me graduate from high school. People talk about this senioritis thing like it's real. Everyone walks around joking about all the assignments they're blowing off. Everyone but me.

Because of how awful my grades were in ninth grade I have to get really good grades for the whole rest of the year. My English teacher loves to assign essays. She talks for 25 minutes about a topic, then gives us like five minutes to write down a few different ideas for what we'll write about. Then she walks around talking to everyone about which one they should pick.

Sometimes she tells people to come up with some more ideas if the ones they have won't produce a good essay. Each time she looks at my ideas, she tells me one or two are good and I take one of those and crank out an essay. I turn it in on time and each time she fails me and tells me my idea for the essay didn't work. Every single time.

She's making me feel crazy. I even asked Josh to read one of my essays and tell me if it made sense AND if it made the point of the beginning sentence she approved and he said it did. I am so frustrated. Plus I am so tired of re-writing these stupid things over and over.

Stupidbowl Sunday

Josh had a Super Bowl party. I worked until 2pm and really wanted to go. My sisters were invited but Danielle had plans after bageling all morning. She wants to quit - hates having to be at work at 6am on the weekends. If she can find another job that pays the same then fine, but until then she has to keep it.

We had a fire family dinner tonight, with ... let's just say not my favorite family. They don't have kids (which is fine) and are really uncomfortable with us. It's always really awkward and we spend a lot of time sitting around on the couches in silence. Then they ask us something lame, like "How's school girls?" and we all say "good" and they nod and we nod and then we all sit in silence.

They are also really religious and have a lot of crosses and Jesus statues and are really uppity. Once Alex brought cards and asked if we could play and they said they didn't think betting was appropriate, especially for children. They kind of think everything is inappropriate.

Today they invited us to come over early to watch the football game but (luckily) because of working we couldn't get there until like 4 which isn't really early. So we got there and then we spent way too many hours sitting on the couch in silence pretending to watch football. It was very boring. "Are you girls enjoying the game?" "Yes, thank you." I almost fell asleep.

They ask if we made it to church this morning. No, we were working. They look at Alex. I willed her not to say her truth - that she's not sure if she believes in god. "I had a lot of homework." The wife spends 20 minutes telling Alex to manage her time more productively. Alex nods enthusiastically and doesn't roll her eyes.

You can tell they mean well, but completely miss. I am so glad they're not all like this.