Dourtney

One of the (too) many shows we watch is Couples Therapy on VH1. My sisters don't really like it, but as half a couple, I kind of do like seeing how other couples treat each other.

The most painful couple to watch is Courtney Stodden and Dough Something. She was 16 when they get married, and she's like an ugly Barbie Doll. Her looks are so extreme compared to everyone else's, that it's hard to even see past them to judge her on any sort of intelligence or personality.

Josh is almost 22, and he watches my sisters and their friends traipse in and out of the house, and I can't imagine him looking at any of them as anything but little girls. The idea of him looking at a girl and thinking of dating or marrying them is totally ridiculous. This Doug guy is like three decades older than Josh. It doesn't get much more creepy than that.

Tonight we were watching and I made some comment about Courtney, and Dani suggested that maybe I was slut-shaming her, then asked if I would still hate her if she wore normal clothes. I don't think she would be who she was without her clothes. He wouldn't have been attracted to her; it would all be a moot point.

I'm pretty anti slut-shaming, and Dani knows that which is why she phrased it that way. I'll sometimes wear my skirts really short to school and then roll them down when it's time to go to work. Courtney flirts with every guy in the Couples Therapy show, not just her husband. She can't walk without shoving some tits or ass in someone's face. I can.

Courtney's not a slut. She just leads and follows with only her sexuality, and it's the one-dimensionalness that seems gross.

Sympathy and suspicion

I am so disappointed. Jackie and Becca got in a huge fight. HUGE. They broke up, and Becca kind of just struck out on her own, but Jackie went and got a different best friend. I could have been friends with them separately except that Jackie's new best friend is shady. She is a total shit-stirrer but is the worst kind, because she pretends she's totally innocent.

This sucks because now I can't trust Jackie at all. So I've pulled away from her and she has no clue why. I don't really want to tell her why because it'll get back to the other girl and then I'll have to deal with her shit. But somebody told me today that Jackie had to put her cat that she's had since like middle school to sleep and so now ...

Alex and I were making dinner together and she was pointing at me with the knife. "You know what your problem is? You're getting soft. You need to toughen up." And she was jabbing the air with the knife to help make her point. I really thought Josh was going to come home to find me with stab wounds, bleeding all over the kitchen floor.

Jackie's a little insecure. She will totally let the other person drive a friendship. I just don't want to be on this other girl's radar at all. She's the type to ask a ton of questions pretending to have concern but really she's nosy and will tell everyone. And not only that, but she won't tell everyone the truth  she'll just say whatever she wants.

Josh listened to as much of this as he could stand before running out of patience listening to girl problems. "Just go old school and send her a sympathy card in the mail!" Okay, do people even DO that anymore?

How NOT to be welcomed back

Alex and I are alike when it comes to friends - we are friends with any random person we decide we like. Danielle though, she was always firmly ensconced with her geek squad. We'll see what happens in college.

The good thing about the way Alex does friendships is that she can make friends anywhere. The bad thing about it is that when she asks to have a sleepover you never know what type of person you'll be getting in your kitchen.

Almost all of Al's friends are from her performing arts school, so it's really common for them to be weird and highly dramatic. Usually it's funny. This weekend it wasn't. Josh got a cold and gave it to me earlier this week, so we spent the weekend passing the tissue box back and forth while bringing each other chicken soup, reading Maxim magazines and trying to recover.

Yesterday Alex asked if since we were almost better, she could have a friend sleep over. Yes. Huge mistake. They went to a party and came home a little after 12:30 in the morning. I heard Alex unlock the door, but just in case I hadn't, her friend basically screamed, "WE'RE HERE!" Oh. Thanks. I could hear her flitting around, being super loud, and Alex stage-whispering at the friend to be quiet.

This morning Josh got up when the girls did, and he offered to make them pancakes. I was sitting on the counter eating red grapes and keeping Josh company (okay and making sure the pancakes came out right) when the girl yelled from the dining room table about her food. Really? Josh had already put out peaches and blueberries for them to snack on while they waited.

I was trying to not be naggy by telling Josh he was doing everything wrong, so I hadn't told him the frying pan he'd chosen was too small and he should have used the bigger one. It's because he was using the smaller one that he was only cooking three banana pancakes at a time. I turned on the oven so the cooked pancakes could stay warm but Josh turned it off. "I'll just give them three at a time, and we can eat last." Oh. Okay. 

He stood there cooking three at a time for like a half hour. For the entire half hour that stupid girl was yelling to us from her seat. Alex was the one running over to us with her friend's plate, then running back with a fresh stack of pancakes. Normally when we make pancakes we also warm the syrup but this girl irritated me so much that I didn't want to do anything nice for her. I just wanted her to leave. Finally she did, claiming she knew we'd miss her.

After she did, I told Alex she's not welcome back. I wish we hadn't wasted such good food this morning on such an ungrateful bitch.

Slipping

I hadn't realized how different this summer job would be. That every single afternoon at the end of work, people would be going to happy hour. It seems kind of weird - some of these people are kind of mean to me at work, and then they want me to party with them? I almost think they want me to get drunk and make a fool of myself just so they can gossip about it the next day. It's why I decided to never have more than one drink. Even though I think two would be fine, three if I ate food.

It is probably really bad of me to be getting home at 8pm so only sitting down to dinner at 9pm right when my sisters are gearing up for finals. Maybe I should cut it down to half a drink to get home earlier.

Lately I am so tired from the power plays and always being on my best behavior that I keep just stripping out of my fancy clothes and tossing on a t-shirt to go to bed.  Screw the fancier stuff - I just want to be totally comfortable.

This is my new plan: tomorrow night I'll go out. After that though, I'm only going if someone kind of higher up invites me. The people going out every night are not the people I'm going to make friends with anyway. I'd rather hang out with my sisters anyway. They're slightly less fun, but a hell of a lot nicer.

Being an intern

Arnie was promised a warm body to fill my position in the form of a sister but I forgot that my sister gets out of school like a month after I do. Which means she's not available to work for Arnie for most of June.

This guy from school is going to Finland for two months this summer and he doesn't leave until July 4th weekend, so I talked him into taking my Arnie job for June. Dani was all worried he'd be really good at it and Arnie wouldn't like her, but he has already made comments about how being a receptionist is a girl's job and he's only doing this for the quick money and stuff. Yeah, he's a little macho/chauvinistic. But that's okay because I think he'll do a good job and then leave on his trip and that's what matters.

Being an intern is weird. I mean, being an intern isn't weird in and of itself. Just being an intern in a place with highly driven people in such a competitive environment is weird. I will give Laurie this: she dressed me right. I have not worn my hair in a ponytail once (yet). No cleavage has shown. I only show as much leg as a slutty Amish girl might. I smile at everyone, say yes to everything, and act enthusiastic without being cocky.

That last one is already proving to be important. There are other interns. One girl seemed to size me up right away. When we were getting a tour, I was writing down random stuff that I was scared to forget. It felt stupid and I was embarrassed. The other girl smirked at me a bunch of times, and once I caught her looking at the person giving us the tour and rolling her eyes. The guy asked her, "Do you want a pen and pad to take notes too?" and she waved him off. "Oh, I have a great memory - I'll remember it."

I worried they were making a note. Samantha: poor memory, can't remember shit. This morning, I got sent to get something copied. While I was standing there copying, the girl came over, also to copy something. I finished, and as I walked away, she all of a sudden got super friendly, and was like "Don't leave me! Show me how to do this!"

What?! Fuck you What happened to your whole perfect memory? "Beats me - I just pressed all the buttons until it started, sorry." I can be a bitch too, Bitch.

Slaps

Sometimes, most of the time really, the three of us are chugging along at such a fast pace that there's no time for bullshit. There may be little blips here and there about who should clean up from dinner, but mostly all it took was one broken arm and the majority of those petty arguments fell away.

Then Josh got an iPad. It began with polite and reasonable requests. "If I get home first, can I play on it?" "Can I use it to follow a recipe for cannolis? I'll give you some." Then it morphed into made-up and vague reasons why it needed to be used, over the regular computer. "No, I need to finish this thing I was doing on it last time." Then it turned to bargaining. "You can use it if I'm in the shower or not home." Next, laughingly body-slamming each other out of the way, racing to our bedroom pick it up first.

The time Josh saw my sisters wrestling on our bed screaming at each other, we agreed this wasn't going to end well. Yeah. It didn't.

It ended with a slap and a scratch across the face that drew blood. A slap that resulted in torn clothing (not in the good way) and huge insults that are probably truths but harsh ones that hurt deeply, ones that can't be taken back and forgiven. It ended with two sisters who now aren't speaking to each other and won't sleep in the same room and glare at each other when forced to sit at the table for meals. I think our triangle might be permanently broken, that their relationship will never be as good as it was.

Can babies have nervous breakdowns?

Since Alex started at her special school, she has become bestest friends with two girls. There are a lot of people who will say three girls can't be best friends without one always feeling left out, but obviously my sisters and I disagree with that. I got home last tonight, so Al had already told Dani and Josh the whole story and didn't want to go through it again for me, but this is what I've pieced together:

1. The three girls were bestest friends, and then in February the other two went on a trip together and obviously Alex didn't go.
2. Alex noticed after the trip that the other two were closer and leaving her out a bit, so she spent more time having deeper friendships with her other friends.
3. The other two noticed Alex not telling them every little thing, spending free time with other people, and then purposely froze her out in retaliation.
4. Alex tried to talk to each of the two separately to say she still wants to be friends. One said if that wasn't the case she shouldn't have pulled away, and the other basically said nothing.
5. Alex moped for a little bit, then rallied and moved on, focusing on her other friends.
6. The other two got in a HUGE fight. Their entire grade took sides. Then they both asked Alex whose side she was on. Alex tried to be Switzerland, and say she was on both their sides.
7. They both like bonded together to turn on Alex for not choosing a side. They got other girls to agree with them and now Alex feels like everyone at school hates her, and she's being picked on for not picking a side.
8. Alex is devastated.

Josh told me when Alex was explaining this she wound up crying so hard she had a tough time breathing. Alex said she doesn't want to go to school tomorrow. But when we talked about it she admitted she wants to be at all her classes, it's just the walking through the halls Alex doesn't want to deal with. Poor, poor puppy. I arranged with Dani that she'll pick Alex up tomorrow. I feel so outrageously bad for her.

Me talk pretty today

Josh's friend's girlfriend called a few more times after that initial phone call where she planted the seeds of doubt. It was hard to not wonder if maybe she wanted me to be anxious because she was anxious. Company in her misery and all that?

When Josh goes on trips, after he comes back he immediately sits down and tells us all about them. He goes through each day, and lists all the highs and lows. "... then on Tuesday we got room service before heading out. Usually we leave our dirty dishes on the floor outside our hotel room door but that morning we left them in front of the door of our neighbors who woke up really early and were way too loud..." Josh did this Monday night, sitting across from me and my sisters as we were all lined up on the couch. He left out a few parts, like the stuff going on with that girl, when I called all paranoid, and when he and his friends discussed dumping her.

But after we sent my sisters off to bed Josh and I talked about it a lot. We went into the kitchen, and while I made chocolate pudding and whipped cream, we talked. We went into the bathroom, and while Josh showered off the ski sweat and boy sweat, I sat on the vanity and we talked. Somehow, since my mother died, I have not had a lot of girlfriends. Which means in all the boyfriend years I've missed out on girl perspective. Except the one that comes from someone three years behind me.

Sadly, Josh had to struggle through explaining what I should have picked up myself. About jealousy. About insecurity. About drama. About how boys feel about all these things. Turns out I have equated baggage with drama. Which means I have been thinking, all these years, that I am high-drama. Turns out I have been wrong. Apparently one of the things Josh likes best about me is that I am low drama. He explained that nothing ever phases me. He suggested I have had enough to last me a lifetime and that is why where other people would flip out, I stay calm. Who knew?

I sat Indian-style on the bed, watching Josh unpack (which pretty much consisted of him taking a laundry bag full of dirty clothing out of his suitcase, and dumping it on the floor) while we talked. I let Josh know I'd rather he dump me than cheat on me. If he wants to cheat on me, just say something, so I can walk away. I begged him to promise me, even though we had this talk ages ago, the summer after I graduated.

After a couple of hours, I felt a little better. Shrugging his shoulders, Josh gave me a funny look. "What's going to convince you and make you feel better Sammers?" Well yeah. After we had sex I felt better. When I told Josh he laughed, and teased me that's a boy way of doing things.

I don't care if it's a penguin way of doing things. What I do care about is being over a little insanity vacation. And knowing I can lose the directions for how to ever go there again.

Bitter bike messenger girl

Becca and I made up ages ago. She brings out the hardcore Italian in me, where you get upset a little bit - get all loud, scream at someone, and then two days later you're completely over it and are shocked they think you're angry at them.

Thank you all for explaining the other side of how she might have seen it. And more about a clothing swap. I have to be honest - it really pissed me off that she gave me such a big paper cut. Wait, that's not even really being honest. It really pissed me off that she hurt me and I didn't hurt her back for it. I haven't fought in a long time - think I've lost my edge.

When we got a delivery first thing in the morning, a different bike messenger came, and I couldn't help but think it was like totally on purpose, that she didn't want to see me. It would be nice to be able to say I didn't spend the next two hours wondering why she didn't come, thinking about what she might say to me when she finally did, what I might say to her, whether I'd become a lesbian for worrying so much about seeing a girl.

Then work got really busy and I forgot to stress about the whole mess. When I came back from lunch one of the real estate agents had left stuff on the counter with a note for me to have it messengered out. It took me almost ten minutes to work up to calling to have them send someone. It wasn't her. I decided it was getting ridiculous and forced myself to stop thinking about it. At almost 5pm she showed up with a package and threw it on my desk. It slid across, pushed other things onto the floor and then fell on those things.

There was nobody in the lobby so I came out from behind the desk and stood in front of her. "What the hell was that?" I told her I hadn't meant to hurt her feelings yesterday and really don't have any extra clothes that I don't wear - that was the only reason I said no. That if she hadn't gotten all bitter I would have liked to do something else with her.

She glared at me, and was like, "Don't do me any favors." So fuck her.

Almost a friend

There is a girl who's a few years older than me, who is a bike messenger for one of the messenger services we use at work. We wind up seeing each other a few times a week, plus I once ran into her on my lunch hour and we wound up talking for a little while.

Friday she came in and told me she and her friends are putting together a clothing swap and invited me to go. I had to ask what it is. Turns out you bring clothes you bought but then decided you don't like and no longer wear, and give them to the other people who are there, and you can pick from what they brought.

I kind of get it, but also kind of don't get it. It seems like this is a thing for rich people. The clothes I don't wear are my sweaters and winter coat right now. The clothes in the winter that I don't wear are the ones I'm wearing now. So I don't have any clothes I don't wear. If something doesn't fit, it's given to my little sister.

When the bike messenger invited me I asked if I could get back to her. So I thought about it and then today when I saw her said thank you for the invite but I didn't think I could contribute in a way that would make it appropriate for me to go. Her face got really dark, her whole demeanor got really cold towards me. When I handed her the envelope, she yanked it out of my hand so suddenly that I got a really deep paper cut. She doesn't know that because she just spun around and walked away. I had to wipe blood off the counter, and leave the phones to go wrap my hand to stop the bleeding.

I don't understand. She's got to know I don't have a lot of clothes - I mean, she's made comments like "Oh, you're wearing your Tuesday dress" and "If I ever get confused about what day of the week it is I can check your outfit and know." Every time I've laughed it off. I'm just thrilled to have five nice outfits that are appropriate enough to wear to work each day - I don't care if somebody wants to make fun of it.

So why is she so offended that I couldn't go to her clothing swap? I told Josh about it after dinner when he asked why my hand was bandaid-ed. I asked what he thought. He shrugged and told me some girls are just bitches. Still don't get it. If someone's nice every single time you see them and then one time they're weird does that make them a bitch? Or are they just having a bitchy moment? My hand really hurts.

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.

Fill up my cup, mazel tov

Alex went to a bat mitzvah today for a camp friend out in Long Island. We gave her Danielle's cell phone and she took the train out by herself.

Call 1 - from Penn Station, double-checking which train to take on the LIRR

Call 2 - from the LIRR station to ask if it was okay to get in the car with a man who was not the father of the girl because even though the girl was with him, he was not the father but an uncle (yes)

Call 3 - from the girl's house, in the bathroom, to tell me the girl and her mother were screaming at each other and she felt very uncomfortable being there and wanted to leave

Call 4 - from the parking lot of the temple after the service to ask if it was okay to get in a car with a random relative to be driven to the reception with other camp friends (yes)

Call 5 - from the lobby of the reception place to tell me she didn't get kidnapped and that everybody else was giving the girl much bigger presents than she did and she's embarrassed and wants to come home

Call 6 - to tell me the uncle drove her back to the girl's house, she had a great time after all, the cake was amazing, she danced the whole time, and can she sleep over because the girl is having an after-party (yes)

Call 7 - to say good night and that the girl lent her a nightgown to wear and she brushed her teeth with her finger and asked the mom if she could hang her dress overnight so it wouldn't get wrinkled being folded up. And to reassure me she'll call as soon as she wakes up in the morning.

Seriously, we talked more today than we normally do when Alex is in the city. I don't know how she is going to function in high school next year. Days like today make her seem so immature.

Dying of guilt

Alex is not just the baby of the three of us. She is a baby. An 11 year-old baby. Al doesn't just need to sleep with somebody to fall asleep, she needs to touch something of theirs too. When Danielle goes to bed she always finds Alex with her hands reached over and entwined in her blanket. When I am about to go to sleep, first I always pick Alex up and haul her back onto her bed and off whoever's bed she's squirmed over onto.

Alex has never gone to the doctor by herself. I don't thinks she's ever put on her own bandaid either. Several months ago we started pushing her to cook dinner herself once a week, and she still can't do it without both asking for help and crying. Alex also doesn't go anywhere by herself. Maybe a couple of times a month she leaves school and comes to meet me at the diner on her own. This is always a big deal and Alex arrives looking shocked that she made it and didn't accidentally wind up in Jersey.

Today was supposed to be one of those days. Alex had a thing after school and then was going to leave and come to the diner. It was busy and I didn't realize she hadn't shown up until it was an hour after I expected her. In between seating people I checked with Danielle.

Me - Al's not here. ?
Dani - u should lev urly.
Me - ?
Dani - blood not broken.

I almost threw up right then. Why was there blood? Totally freaked out. I left work early for like the first time, saying I had a family emergency. The owner's wife was there, took over for me and I raced home. I couldn't decide between calling Danielle and staying on the streets to have reception or going on the train and not having reception but getting there faster.

When I got home Danielle and Alex were sitting in the bathroom and Alex's shirt was ripped, her hair was all messy, her face was all bloody. I couldn't even tell where it was coming from. I mean, clearly it was from her face but it was all over and Alex wouldn't let me touch anywhere. After like 10 minutes of yelling Danielle and I finally convinced her to put on a different shirt and Alex screamed through the whole process, and we took the train a few stops away so I could get us a taxi and go to an emergency room.

Four hours later we are home. Alex has two black eyes, a split lip, a broken cheekbone, and a bloody nose. They did not like me for an adult and called Aunt Elaine. I am not sure what she said but the guy nurse who came back was not happy. Of course I made things worse by standing in front of Alex and telling him not to take out his anger on her face.

The police came and Alex gave descriptions but one of the cops pulled me aside and said nothing was going to happen. Between not knowing the girls who did it, and not even knowing exactly how many they was, she said they did not have enough information. They asked really good questions though, even if any of the girls were in a uniform of any kind, if they were in junior high or high school.

We got some pain killers and Alex is not to eat anything salty or sour. I know it was free medical care so I shouldn't complain, but I will anyway. They didn't even clean the blood that had dripped - I had to clean Alex when we got home and she was half asleep. I don't think we're going to school tomorrow. I also don't think Alex will be going anywhere by herself for a long, long time. Okay excuse me I am going to go cry now.

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.

Done For the Weekend

there are no favors granted here
to a girl like me

keys are held tight
cans are not kicked and bottles are not thrown

after school dance classes are rigid and unforgiving
dirty hands are never dirty and not wiped off on jeans

and to the people here
with their Chloe Paddingtons bags
and professionally manicured nails
worried about blowouts
and fancy spring break trips
pleased with their impressive choice of boyfriend
and stores they shop in

what you suspect is true
I hate your fucking guts

i hate your low-rider jeans and poor choice of lip liner
your cellphone charms flashed to flaunt your horridly unimaginative vision
of life
a life that carries all of your preciousness
a story told in cell phone photos
desk hutches and shadow boxes full of precious trinkets
making out in your bedroom
things in the bottom of your backpack
your arrangement of nail polish
and makeup from Sephora

I will smile silently next to you while we take prep tests
and say hello in the hallways
tell you when you drop your metro card
and for all my benign courtesies
you will return no favors

you will murder me slowly prancing around wearing cashmere sweaters
and you will remain indifferent

Jamie Lynn Spears and Juno and Me

First, I saw the movie Juno. Then, yesterday Jamie Lynn announced she's pregnant.

In both the girls are sixteen. I'm sixteen. Something about it was bothering me but I was too busy dealing with all of us leaving next week to figure it out. But now I've got it - they're the opposite extremes. Both girls got pregnant and one is really smart and one is really stupid.

What I don't understand is, how can two situations be so different, and I can't relate at all to either one? With Juno, nobody talks like that in real life. We throw in smart things here and there, but Juno was talking like she was in the Gilmore Girls or something.

Also, I'm so over everybody acting like every single kid is all off the beaten path, like that's the only way to be cool. It's overdone.

How old is Britney? Like 24 or something, right? How is it that Jamie Lynn doesn't look at her sister's life and make sure to go in the opposite direction? Isn't that the whole point of having an older sister? To watch what they do and not make their mistakes?

I've heard some people say they feel bad for Britney, but I don't. She has every single opportunity in life and one by one she's thrown every single one of them away. And if she were honestly too stupid to like actually know what to do (show up in court on time, don't drive), she has enough money to hire somebody smart who could manage her life for her. Hell, she could have hired me!

The Juno movie was kind of funny. I liked it - you should see it. And I really respected that it didn't give the happy ending of having the adoptive parents get back together at the end. Just the talking bothered me. I liked Michael Cera's awkwardness. That felt the most real.

I feel doomed to get pregnant if I have sex. I want to ask Jamie Lynn and Juno (even though she's not real) what happened. I mean obviously, but what went wrong that they got pregnant? What did they use that didn't work? Really, totally doomed.

The Megan Meier MySpace Thing

So here's what happened: you have to be 14 to use MySpace. There's nothing to enforce that, but it's the rule. So this girl somewhere out in the Midwest who was NOT 14 had a MySpace page. It's only fair to mention that all three of us have them - Alex mostly so she can see the pictures our friends post.

Anyway, this girl Megan Meier had this depression thing going on for a long time. She gets MySpace, and a boy friends her. She gets all happy. Then after a month, he drops her, saying she sucks and the world would be better off without her. So she kills herself.

Yeah. But the thing is, that boy was not a boy. He was really the mother of a girl who Megan had been on-and-off friends with. The mother claimed she created the fake boy so she could see what Megan was posting about her daughter.

Nothing has happened to the mother. I guess it's not against the law to fuck with someone so badly that they kill themselves. I'd call it interfering with the pursuit of happiness, but I'm no lawyer.

I have so many issues with this whole thing.

First, this girl Megan was like totally mentally unstable. MySpace is not for the meek. Really, it's just not. People write really cruel things, and if you're sensitive, it's not for you. Megan's mother shouldn't have let her have a MySpace account.

Second, Megan was reading the last message the "boy" sent as her mother was leaving to take her sister to the orthodontist. Megan's mother left her home alone, just calling and telling her to log off. Megan didn't, because she couldn't. I totally get that - when people are talking about you, you have to stay and know what they're saying. The mother should have taken Megan with her, so Megan was forced to stop reading.

You'll say "but the mother couldn't have known she'd kill herself over this" and you're right. But, supposedly Megan was crying and freaking out over what some boy who'd never met her was claiming he'd heard. If a boy I didn't know was saying that to me I'd be asking him who he heard it from, asking why he believes what somebody else thinks about me without making his own decisions. The mother says she "monitored" Megan's MySpace usage and all this stuff, approving who she could friend. As if that makes it okay to break rules, because you're watching the kid do it? No.

For me, it just keeps coming back to that Megan NEVER should have been on MySpace. If somebody left me a message saying I suck, it wouldn't make me think I suck. If somebody told me I'm a slut, it wouldn't crush me, because I know I'm not. All I'd think is somebody's getting and spreading bad info.

But I'm not that sensitive. And even though I go to a shrink, I'm not really mentally unstable. Megan was.

Also, that other mother? Lori Drew? She said she created the boy's profile to see if Megan was talking shit about her daughter. Okay. Weird, but okay. So how is telling Megan she's a slut and that the world would be better off without her, helpful to her original thing of seeing what Megan's saying?

Because if that were me, I'd have de-friended that "boy" as soon as he said that. Who wants friends who call you a slut?

I feel kind of bad for the other girl, the daughter of the mother who created the boy's profile. She'll have to go through the rest of her life knowing that because of what her mother said, a girl she'd been friends with killed herself. And I feel bad for Megan's family. Because even if they made a couple of bad choices, they shouldn't have had to have their daughter die for them.

Giving Girls a Bad Reputation

This may sound kind of obnoxious, but I don' t mean it that way: I like myself. I try really hard to be a good person, and fair to people, and nice to them, and I hate drama and power trips and try to avoid those. And it's not like I'm saying, "Every day I try really hard to fly like a bird" because I think I AM doing a good job being a person I can like.

However. All those OTHER girls who are bitchy and play games and mindfuck people? They're making my life harder!

This weekend has been crazy busy. Friday night I got into bed at 3:35 a.m. - that's how busy things are. I can't help it. But, Josh wanted to hang out, and asked me to meet him and his friend at the movies today. I told him I had some Danielle-stuff to do and would have to be like five minutes late. Dani under-estimated though and a half hour after the movie started, I was finally able to start out. I didn't even really want to see this movie, so the idea of paying money for part of a movie made me decide to just not go at all. I went home instead and left Josh a voicemail explaining and apologizing.

It kind of worked out really well for me to not go, because Alex and I had agreed to clean our room today and do laundry and throw out all the old papers and garbage and stuff. So like as I'm writing this, there's only one more load of laundry left, which is really good.

But Josh wasn't as happy about the whole thing, and he called to accuse me of standing him up to get back at him for dumping me. This is why sometimes I hate girls - only another girl would do something like that. Not me. So I got all insulted and told Josh not to treat me like other girls who create drama and fuck with people, because I don't do that.

So Josh-wise, this has not been a very good weekend. Homework and clothing and room-wise, it's been highly productive.