Don't get in the way or screw up, but do more

On Friday, I went to ask the guy who hired me if I was doing okay. He asked what I thought. I shrugged. "All I was told was to help people who ask, and I do that."

He looked at me for a few seconds. I tried to not look nervous, like somebody who's terrified the person will go, "Actually Sam, now that you bring it to my attention, you're doing a terrible job! Please leave now."

That's not what happened. Thank god. Because even though I hate the fancy clothes, I'd be really upset if the reason they were no longer needed was because I got fired. Instead I got told that the two most important things were taking initiative and doing a perfect job of every task given. He told me to go home and think about how I can apply those to the work I do.

So I did. I made a list. It's kind of a short list, because my job is to like, fetch people's lunches and alphabetize things, or double-check math on expense reports. But it proves I thought about what I was told, and hopefully that counts for something. Work is really fucking hard sometimes, even if all you're doing is buying birthday cards for somebody's husband.

I just want this to turn into a real job when I graduated. Everyone is saying that they'll only hire one intern. Everyone else seems outrageously confident. Everyone else is always really confident. Any time I am racing around the office, rushing to get a document back to someone, everyone else is sitting around chatting, finished with their work. I am worried I do everything too slow. That I was only given this job as a favor to someone.

Sometimes it just seems like it'd be so much easier to be a hooker, or one of those girls who dance in a cage suspended above the people in clubs.

Planning

So thanks to this site, I am now sort of getting all the Wall Street protesting. I don't really get what Wall Street does, or why it's responsible for all the horribleness everyone is going through rather than the government, but it's better than nothing.

While my sisters and I were reading this week's latest entries Danielle asked if I thought it'd have been smarter to just learn a trade and work full time doing that. I haven't had to take out loans yet. That, combined with working around 30 hours a week makes me think I'm doing okay, but maybe it just hasn't hit yet. Or maybe I'm missing something.

Josh suggested to Danielle that she should do that instead of going to college. She got all huffy and told him that of the three of us, of course she should go. He got all huffy right back and asked what made her so special. Danielle explained, like he's an idiot, that everyone knows I'm the street smart one, she's the book smart one, and Alex is the people smart one. Later, privately, Josh told me he disagrees with those categorizations and was surprised that Alex and I didn't. He made me promise I wasn't going to let Danielle talk me into quitting school. Spent the rest of the day ignoring her, telling me it was so he wouldn't say something he regretted.

It seems like the trifecta is to avoid student loans, getting sick without health insurance, and not having a job. Life is really scary.

The road not taken

When we were in Cambridge we went to the Harvard campus. It was very much a Gilmore Girls moment, except I wasn't Rory; Josh was.

Josh is outrageously smart, in that way where he can put in minimal effort to get impressive results. During finals, I'll stay up until 4am studying, and then review on the way to school. Josh will study until maybe 1am and then claim the important thing is to be well-rested for his tests.When Josh's GPA dropped to a flat B one semester he decided that wasn't good enough, so he just studied an extra few hours each week to bring it up. If my GPA drops, I lose scholarships, so I study about five hours a day.

He didn't have to go to the #4 university. I asked Josh if he's sad that he didn't go to the best school he could have. "No." I asked if he'd tell me if he was. "No." I didn't want to push him; I'm scared the real answer might be yes. Later, Josh told me that his school will look impressive enough on a resume, and more important than that will be the connections he has, so that's why he doesn't mind staying home to go to school. My life is a thousand times easier because Josh stays, and I really hope he never resents his decision.

Three times!

Did you know there is a World Science Festival? I wouldn't either, if there wasn't a certain a geek of a sister who has been counting down the months to this since last year. Dani went a total of three times. Once with friends from geek school, once with Alex and a friend, and today she wanted me to go see so we went before our fire family dinner.

It was ... not horridly boring. It's not your typical kind of interesting, but they shoved famous people in there, gave out swag and made things interactive to make it more exciting. The thing is, it's just really not my thing. I can't get excited about science, and there are only so many times I can nod and say, "Cool" when someone is geeking out over something sciencey. I brought sunscreen and a book. I wish I'd brought Josh.

By the time we got home, Dani's face hurt from smiling so much, and she was too hyper to go to sleep, even though we'd had a couple of hours doing dinner in Brooklyn to come down off the science high. Even though we ran into a bunch of her school friends there, ever since we got home she's been online talking to everyone about it. I really do not get her.

Big school

My semester starts Friday, but Josh's started today. I tried to get work until Friday but Arnie said things are slow (they are) and he doesn't need me to put in extra hours. Josh asked if I'd come meet up at his school for lunch, and then he'll show me around.

So in the freezing cold I headed in to the Village. You can spot all the tourists now because they're wearing turtlenecks. I hate the look of turtlenecks.

We just went to Tartine for lunch, then got hot chocolates and raced over to Josh's class. I thought it would be super hard to follow along in Sociological Theory and Josh's english class would be all about types of grammar I've never heard of or deeper meanings of Shakespeare but everything made sense.It wasn't too hard at all. Maybe Josh is kind of dumb and only takes the easiest classes they offer, but I could totally do NYU.

Well actually ...

Joe came up to me today to say if he didn't know better, he'd think I've been avoiding him. I didn't respond, just kind of smiled at him, and it totally set him off. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am he's somehow mentally unbalanced. Joe kept mumbling things at me under his breath all through class. At one point I am almost positive he called me an eggplant in Italian. This is not weird because it's weird to call someone an eggplant as an insult. It's weird because the Italian word for eggplant is a derogatory term for a black person.

This girl in one of my classes is from some other state, is super smart to the point it's a little intimidating, and she has a Jewish last name. So I went up to her after the lecture and asked if she was, in fact, Jewish. She gave me a weird look but said yes. I explained my boyfriend's jewish too, I'm making a special dinner for the first night of Hanukah and asked if she wanted to come join us since she's away from her family. She thanked me profusely and told me her mom will be so happy she's going somewhere to celebrate.

At the time of the invitation I didn't realize Joe was right behind me, but he was. When I started walking off he caught up and asked why I hadn't invited him too.
Me: Are you Jewish?
Joe: Are you?
Me: Since you listened in, didn't you grasp that this is a celebration of a Jewish holiday?
Joe: Whoa, what's up with the hostility?

Is he kidding? Yet again he listened in, tried to insert himself where he wasn't wanted, and then played victim when he wasn't received well.

You know what you should do?

You should shut your mouth any time you find yourself about to start a sentence to someone with, "You know what you should do?" Becca and I got in a big fight on Friday. Basically she thinks I should dump my sisters with a fire family and just live my life. Of course she is an only child and nobody close to her has ever died. Even when I felt the can of rage starting to dribble rage through my body and I warned Becca to just shut up about things she doesn't really get, she didn't.

So I may have gone psycho on her. I must have, since I can't remember what it was I said to her. But it wasn't pretty.

However. In pretty news, I taught a little girl the concept of fractions today! If teachers just got paid more I would consider majoring in education or whatever it's called.

Schooling

There are rumors about college when you're in high school. Like that you don't have to ask permission to leave the classroom. That one's true. Like that if you do it creatively, you can drop a curse in an English essay. That one's true too, though it may depend on the specific professor.

What's not true is that you can take any class that interests you. You can't. Firstly, there are all these pre-requisites to the interesting classes. Secondly, there are all these core classes that like, everyone has to take, no matter what direction they want to go in, major-wise. So when I thought there would be different people in each class I take, that's not really true. There are some people who are in three or four classes with me.

I am embarrassed to admit that not only does Danielle help me with my biology homework, but she laughs at how easy it is. Ugh and same thing with my math. Bitch is wicked smart. She's going to wind up at like some crazy smart-people school. Like MIT or something.

What's nice is that nobody gives you shit over little things, like how you're dressed. I mean, other kids might, but nobody's going to kick you out of class for a t-shirt or whatever. My college uniform is all my ripped jeans, a tank top and a sweater. One of the girls who is in four of my core classes wears a business suit and every day her hair is up in a tight bun. She hates me because of how I dress and always looks at me disapprovingly and makes little comments under her breath.

Also, as long as you're quiet and neat about it you can eat and drink in classes, which I really like. It's hard to believe some people gave themselves a two-hour break in the middle of each day for lunch. I plow through in as little time as possible.

Having friends over is as awesome as I remember it

This morning when I was at work a guy named Rory called me to see what I'm doing this summer. He is being a sports camp counselor at Chelsea Piers for the summer. We talked for a while and then he asked if I want to hang out. It got busy and I told Rory I'd call him back. It took over an hour for things to calm down. It goes in waves.

When it was quiet again I called Josh's mom. She is so sweet - the very first thing she said was, "Are you coming home sick? Just get in a cab and we'll pay the fare." No, not sick - I just wanted to ask if I could invite Rory over for dinner. Josh's mom did such a mom thing. It was so anti-Aunt Elaine that I couldn't say thank you right away. She said, "Of course, we would love to meet a friend of yours."

Calling Rory back and being able to say come pick me up after work and come home with me for dinner was so awesome. I don't even know how I made it almost eight years without having people over. When my mom was alive there were people at our house ALL the time. People would just pop by, or I'd come home from school to see who would be there to eat snack, it was great. When I was little I could invite people over all the time.

Rory finished before me so he waited around in the reception area until I was ready to leave. He made faces behind people when they were standing at the reception desk talking to me and it was hard not to laugh. We got to Josh's house and I introduced Rory to Josh's mom. She offered us veggies and dip because dinner was soon and we took the food to my room.

It was fun hanging out and bullshitting at home for once. I kept listening for footsteps coming but Josh's mom kept my sisters away somehow until dinner. When we sat down at the table Josh's parents asked Rory questions about where he was going for college and baseball and stuff. He talked about how his girlfriend is also being a camp counselor but at a sleepaway camp. When Rory said that Alex audibly exhaled and was like "Oh thank god! All this time I thought Sammers brought a boy home to her boyfriend's house."

She can be so freaking embarrassing. Rory was really nice about it though and just told her "No, we're not hooking up, we just like to hang out and talk about everyone else who's hooking up." I felt like it was kind of ... not appropriate dinner conversation in a fancy house you know? After dinner we hung out watching tv for a while and Rory went home around 10.

Today was a little bit awesome.

White House Is Getting a Puppy!

This is the best thing about Obama winning! Okay it's not. Definitely a good thing. I am so happy that we contributed to making him president, even if it wasn't entirely legal.

I can't wait to see everything Obama does as a president. I'm so glad Sarah Palin isn't going to be in charge of anything at all that's going to affect me and my sisters.

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.

Food - Self Conscious

I don't know if that's spelled right. Ever since the anon person posted about how I eat it feels weird to list it, like I'm waiting to get shit for my posts.

We went food shopping today and spent $65. I am happy - the stuff we got will totally last through the week. Danielle has decided to hide things that don't need to be refrigerated in our room so Aunt Elaine can't eat them. But, we are paranoid about it attracting roaches so Dani stole a box of those ziplock bags and we're keeping everything in those. Hopefully that will work.

Today was a shitty eating day because I only had one meal. Around 4:30 pm I was leaving to go meet up with friends and kind of thought a snack was in order to eat on the way but didn't stop in the kitchen. Big mistake because between the heat and not having drank anything or eaten I almost passed out on the bus. It got all sweaty and I didn't feel right and almost asked the bus driver to just pull over so I wouldn't throw up on the floor. But then a stop came up, a seat opened up and I grabbed it and felt better. When I met up with Heather the first thing we did was go to a pizza place and flirt enough to get free slices and then I was fine.

When I got home there was a note on my pillow from Alex to look in this bag. So I look and there's all this fancy clothing. Like North Face and shit. Excellent. Except then I looked at the sizes and it's all children's extra small and small. That's for like a six year old or something! Al is 10.

I am too tired now but in the morning we need to go through the bag in the light and check all the sizes just to make sure. Maybe we can sell the fancy brand stuff.

I'm a Slut

Figured I should tell you in case you didn't know. You know, in case you want to slap me across the face too. Want to know what I do that's slutty? When boys lend me their sweatshirts, I give them back. What a fucking ho.

All last week I've been looking for that boy and haven't been able to find him. Today Alex called me to say she found him and he lives in the next building over and he'll come pick up his sweatshirt. I wrapped up an extra big cookie at work to give him as a thank you and went home.

Alex told me she arranged we'd meet in the lobby since he just lives next door but nobody was there so I went upstairs. When I walked in he was just standing in the living room and Dani was staring at him and Aunt Elaine had her Glare of Death look going.

So I said hi and went into my room to get his shirt and made a really big point of thanking him for lending it to me last week and making sure Aunt Elaine heard exactly what we said. The guy left and she totally bitched me out and said I'm slutty and going to end up with AIDS and pregnant and I'm very sorely mistaken if I think she's going to take care of me because she's not and I told her not to worry - I will never make the mistake of thinking she'll take care of me since it's always the other way around.

I'm so pissed. I always get so embarrassed when she says I'm slutty in front of my sisters. I left and now am at my friend Kimber's house and we are going to smoke a joint and watch Garden State and I'm sleeping over. Ugh, and at some point I guess I should eat some food so I can take my medicine too.

Poor Barry Tessler

I'm torn. Usually when I hear about something I know right away where I stand. Abortion? All for it. Death penalty? If I had more faith in the judicial system, I'd be all for it. Gun control? All for it. But I'm not sure about Barry Tessler.

This kid from Staten Island took the same high school entrance exam Danielle took a few weeks ago. He couldn't finish his test because other kids were being noisy and distracting and the proctor couldn't / didn't control them.

This is retarded. Any kid that made noise (aside from sneezing or something) should have been kicked out right away. Dani thinks after one warning, but I say no, because everyone knows to say quiet during a test and anyway, they shouldn't need to be personally told to be quiet - every proctor reminds kids to be quiet and not look at other people's scantrons during tests, so that's their one warning.

Anyway, I'm thinking I might be on this kid Barry's side. Even though he looks like he'll be getting beat up. Guess I'm a sucker for the underdog today. But I just know how different taking a test in track 3 classes can be from taking them in a regular class. Kids *are* loud and annoying if they don't care about their grade, and they won't be quiet for other kids who do care about their grades, even if those kids are their friends.

I'm bummed about the article in the NY Post, where it says Barry bombed the test. Scores aren't out yet, so he can't possibly know if he bombed or not. Also, I think it's rude that they called him fragile. Just because he looks like a total geek and he cried ... well, that does make him fragile. But he's a kid, and they're a powerful newspaper distributed to like millions maybe, of people. It can't do anything helpful to call him fragile.
****************************************

Edited to add: Hey, all of a sudden a bunch of you are coming here about him. At this point, it's done. He's in. If he can't do it, he'll fail out. I don't think he should have gotten in the way he did. But it's over. For the Anon who's pissed that he's slow and holding back your class, that sucks.

Bragging and Halloween

Danielle is dressing as Britney and her boy-best friend Marco is dressing as K-Fed for Halloween. I thought it was extra funny, because Dani would probably never make any of the retarded mistakes / decisions Britney has made.

This weekend, Dani took her test to see if she can go to Bronx Science for high school. I hope she can - it'd be like her idea of heaven, being all geeky, surrounded by other geeks, all day long, being geeky together. I think she finds out in February.

P.S. Alex is going as Pippi Longstocking, but swore this is the last year she'll let us talk her into it. I have pipe cleaners all ready for her braids, and she's got striped tights and everything.

A Fight By Proxy?

Sometimes my friends are so loyal that they go overboard. Somebody saw Josh talking to this random girl last week. And without even telling me, they walked by her later and bashed her head into a locker and kept walking. It was in between classes. She didn't even see who did it, but I totally got blamed. And when the Assistant Principal hauled me into the office, it didn't help that I may have smiled when he told me it had happened. I'm such an idiot.

This girl Ivie is swearing up and down that I did it, that I'm angry because Josh was talking with her, and I'm like, "Look at your locker, and look at the class I was leaving and the class I was going to. NOWHERE near you!" She brought her little freshman friend to swear it was me also.

I never saw either of these girls before we got hauled into the office though. So we're going back and forth in front of the AP, them against me, and then maybe I accidentally dropped the F-bomb. "Who do you think I am? Tony Fucking Soprano, that I can order a hit on somebody?" Whoops. And maybe I accidentally made it worse, by umm threatening to beat the shit out of Ivie if she didn't stop screaching that I'd been the one to slam her into the locker.

The AP yelled at me then and said he was trying to believe me, but by threatening people I was making it hard for him. "It goes against school policy for you to threaten people on school property." Whatever. Let's go for a walk down the block so I can bash your head against the sidewalk then. Because that'll be okay. The AP shook his head at me and was like, "You were doing so well, what happened?" Beats me. All I did was tell my friends Josh broke up with me.

Magali and Stefania were waiting outside for me to see if I got suspended. Ivie and her friend were walking down the hall behind us and Magali turned around and glared at Ivie's friend. What a fucking mess.

Then later, Eleni told me that when Ivie was about to go into the bathroom, Stefania yanked her away from the door and told her if she valued her life she wouldn't go into any of the bathrooms. It's like a fucking tsunami of revenge. So I have a bad feeling that I may wind up getting suspended soon, for somebody else. Great. Somebody told me colleges don't find out about stuff like that at all - that it's not like they get a list of how many times you were suspended or anything, but I'm not sure.

This morning I talked to Heather, and told her I didn't do anything to Ivie and didn't ask my friends to either, and asked if she thought I should talk to Josh. So she's going to talk to him and find out if he's mad at me. Then she hugged me and said, "We still love you, even if Josh doesn't." Which made me feel so good I almost cried, because I kind of thought all my smart friends would drop me.

Today and Future

Ma,

Last night I stayed out with Josh all night. We had a really good time - it was so nice to not have to be on the phone or have D&A around bugging us. Josh asked me what I want to do for my birthday. That's like ... five months away! I have no idea. What am I gonna do - have a super sweet sixteen? Obviously not. I was touched that Josh is thinking ahead so much and wants to plan something nice for me.

Anyway. He had to go home to put in some face time, and we're meeting up at 1pm to go into the city. We're going to hang out, then go to dinner, then we're meeting up with Makesha and Bryan to watch fireworks.

Remember when I was little and Danielle was still a baby and you and Chris took us to see fireworks and he stayed with us while you went to get the car and when you came back we'd fallen asleep because it was so late? You miss a lot of stuff being dead.

Love,
Sam

Most. Awesome. Day. Ever.

Ma,

May I just say, holy shit. Because listen to how freaking awesome my weekend has been.

A couple of weeks ago a teacher gave me a $10 gift certificate to the Gap. I hadn't bothered going shopping because the Gap is always so expensive I figured $10 wouldn't buy me anything at all. Oh, how wrong I was! Gap Body had underwear on sale for $1.99 each and I got four pairs of those boyshort cut ones and it was only $8.46 or something. I gave the rest of the card to Dani to use.

Last night I went to a party thrown by Makesha, who is in my English class and a friend of Heather's. Josh was there too and after a few drinks we totally made out for a long time. I didn't get home until like 2:30 a.m. SUCH a good time. Even when I got a really weird compliment it was funny. "I used to think everyone was just nice to you because of your 9/11 thing, but you're actually cool aside from that." Josh walked me home. I don't know if we're going out now or it was just for last night or what. But I had so much fun I don't care.

Then, this morning I was woken up by Alex bringing me pancakes and fruit in bed. When I looked at the clock it was 1:15 p.m. but she claims she woke me up a little earlier to ask a cooking question - I don't remember that. Mama, her pancakes were so cute - she used cookie cutters to make all these shapes and used fruit to make funny faces and designs and stuff. I really loved her a lot for brunch today - so much that I cleaned up the kitchen for her.

Lastly, today's fire family called and said they were in the city seeing relatives and I thought they were going to cancel dinner. But instead the wife asked if we wanted to meet them in Chinatown for dinner and then go to Little Italy for dessert. I haven't been to Chinatown since like sixth grade! They brought some of their extra family to dinner and all the other kids were in college and junior high and I thought I'd get stuck with the little kids but I didn't.

So it worked out perfectly for all of us - Alex and I felt the same - we both had so much fun with the older kids in like our respective groups (she was the youngest one there), and Danielle liked just being in the group of junior high kids. All the college kids were asking me where I think I want to go and I was like, "I'm only in 10th grade!" and they were like, "So?" Aside from going to a SUNY school because it'll be kind of inexpensive, I don't know where to go. I've heard good things about Geneseo but I'm such a hardcore city girl that the culture shock of being in some small farm town with one traffic light might kill me. But they were really nice and totally encouraging of college, and one girl and two boys gave me contact info if I want to meet up to talk about where to apply or anything like that. It was so weird - they talked to me like it was a total given that I'd go to college.

We stopped at a bakery because the husband guy wanted to bring stuff home. We were waiting outside for him and then they drove us home, and as we were getting out he gave Dani something. We opened it as soon as we got inside and it was a box full of rainbow cookies from the Italian bakery!!

I am going to bed now because nothing else can make today any better and I don't want to wait around for anything bad to happen to change how good today was.

Love,
Sam

Friends

Hi Ma,

Today I was talking with Eleni and Christina and they both want me to do something to get back at Stefan. They want to see if I can still put a boy into the hospital. When that fight stop following me around already? I think I'm going to let it die. People just want to see me fight, and be involved in drama. Not me. Craig said that's the mature way to go.

It's hard to make friends with the smart kids. Firstly because they know me as being a retard in track three classes. Secondly because I kind of hate making new friends since eventually it'll be my turn to invite people over, and I can't ever do that and I feel bad not being fair. Thirdly because my old friends are not cool with me having new friends.

People STILL will come up to me and say "what are you doing in my geography class?" like they think I got lost in there or something. Every time we get tests back I try to hide mine so nobody sees and asks how I cheated to get a decent grade.

Somebody should tell Aunt Elaine she has to let us have friends over. The entire time we've lived here she's never let us have anybody come here. Not even on birthdays. It's retarded. She really hates kids. Even the two years this girl Jenna at my school lived here and we walked to school together - she had to meet me in the hallway; she was never allowed to come in. You can't always sleep over at somebody else's house and never invite them back.

Today this gay kid in my english class came up to me and asked if I wanted to see pictures. He gave me this stack of pictures of him and his dogs at the beach. In one of the pictures he looks like Nick Lachey. I told him, and he was really happy, and said it was because of his hat. Whatever the reason - he looked hot. He asked if I want to come with him, he's going again on Sunday. I think he goes way out - like to Long Island or something. I don't know about leaving Alex and Dani for so many hours. I told him I want to, but I have to check and let him know. He has a boyfriend who's a senior that I don't know.

Love,
Sam

Weekend

Hi Ma,

Sorry I haven't written for a few days. I don't have any good reasons. Can I just tell you that before I graduate from high school I want to get a manicure and pedicure? Everybody else always goes, and I want to also.

Dani switched to a different dance class, and I went to watch today. It was fun - it made me want to take dance again. Alex watched too and they let her go in the back. She did really well.

Alex has been in a bad mood (I blame it on our lack of beds) lately and keeps asking me if we can do something fun. But when I ask "like what?" she doesn't know. The sucky thing is everything that's fun requires either a car, money, an adult, or time and we don't have any of those. The only thing I came up with is going to the library in the city tomorrow, but Alex said that's not special enough. Tomorrow I'm going to call the Stanley Cup people and ask if we can dog-sit for the day. I think Alex would really, really like that. And we would take really good care of the dog.

I'm not in a good mood either. Bad moods are contagious. I did six hours and fifteen minutes of SAT studying today Ma. That's like a full day of school on a Saturday. That did nothing to put me in a better mood. I don't feel any smarter. You would have liked studying my flashcards with me. You would have gotten so excited at finding things you didn't know before and at realizing how much I know. I miss you a lot today.

Love,
Sam