"It's a low budget film!"

This is probably going to be the happiest and most cheerful entry I've ever posted. For real. This is happier than that time I found out about the Mae concert or wrote about the Jack's one, because that was more like excitement in the form of pre and post concert highs. Right now I'm truly happy, completely content with most everyone in my life and grateful for the three day weekend. On Friday night, I went out to Starbucks which was really convenient considering if I wasn't invited anywhere, I would have to go to my sister's softball game or stay home alone. Either way I would have felt somewhat pathetic, stuck with my family or home by myself on a Friday night when most teenagers are out of the house. So thank God I was invited somewhere. Kinnari was the one who came up with the idea and sent out the invites on Facebook. She invited nine people not including herself but three of them couldn't make it; it ended up being me, her, Em, Meg, Sophie, Ellary, and Brian. We took up a good section of the cafe and bombared everyone's quiet evening with our loud talking and giggling. At first we all talked but by 7 PM or 7:30, there were separate conversations going on. Kinnari, Megan, and Sophie were having a camera fight and I don't remember what Brian and Em were doing because Ellary and I got to talking and we just couldn't stop. We talked and talked for over an hour and I can't even tell you what we talked about because we jumped from topic to topic every minute or every fifteen or whenever the hell we felt like changing topics. I thought two hours at Starbucks was going to drag on forever, but the time flew by. I didn't want to leave because as inviting as an empty house was, I wanted to be with them more than I wanted to be alone. I haven't felt like that in a long time.
Kinnari gave me a ride home and I was planning on watching Milk, but I saw that Let the Right One In was available on Charter, so I rented that instead. I'm sure Milk is better but I wanted to see Let the Right One In simply because I read the book and as much as I hate it at times, I'm a critic. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. The movie followed the book generally speaking, but it left out details that would have been confusing or unclear if I hadn't read the book beforehand. The book was gruesome and intense throughout the second half, but the movie completely lacked intensity until the last minute or so. Anyway...I honestly don't feel like talking about that movie right now. Maybe later. I want to talk about Saturday. The first half of Saturday went as usual, but after guitar I went to Stop & Shop to meet up with Emily and Sophie. I didn't need any community service hours but I know that if I was in her position, I wouldn't want to stand outside a food store and hand out flyers all day by myself. I would want people with me. So I went with her. I didn't want to go at all, really, but I only had to stay for an hour but it was, as so many recent events have been, better than I expected. Normally I choke on my words around unfamiliar people, even if I'm doing something as impersonal as handing out a flyer, but I got over that fear quicker than I thought. Sure it was monotonous, but it was also amusing. Someone should have brought a camera so we could film the odd reactions people had. Some people take the flyer and nod with their mouth hanging open stupidly, others mumble incoherently, and there are a few that flat out say no or do the whole "talk to the hand" diss. The best part was when Em's older sister asked a middle-aged woman if she wanted to donate to the Trumbull Food Pantry and she said, "No, Obama's going to take care of it!"
What's scary is that I don't know if she was serious or not. But we laughed all the same.
I ran to the library and then went to church as usual. I figured I could rent Milk that night since I had nothing else to do, but I came home from church to find a message from Em on the machine. I called her back and she invited me to Sophie's house to watch and mock Twilight. Even though I don't know Sophie that well and haven't been to her house more than once or twice, I agreed. I don't know what's coming over me that is making me more open to situations that would normally cause me to cringe in discomfort, but whatever it is I hope it doesn't go away. Anyway, I went to Sophie's around 7 PM, 20 minutes after Emily and Megan were supposed to show up. Neither of them were there so it was just Sophie and I. I thought it was going to be awkward, but as soon as I walked in the house Sophie turned to me and said, "I'm watching the Black Entertainment Channel!" The ice was officially broken. Maybe our personalities are too conflicting for us to be close friends, but at least we can be comfortable friends. I would be content with just that.
Em and Megan arrived a few minutes after me and even though it was pretty dark outside, we went in the backyard to play badminton. I couldn't say why because I don't really know. Em decided she wanted to play badminton so we went outside. That's one of best parts about hanging with them: they're so spontaneous. They do whatever they feel like and it's no big deal if five minutes later they don't want to do it anymore. They'll find something else to occupy themselves with. Everything is no big deal and sometimes that's exactly what I need.
Badminton ended once it got too dark to see anything and the Clipper, a huge golden retriever, chewed through two birdies. We went down to the basement and played a few rounds of air hockey. We all freaked out a little when someone tapped on the window, but it ended up being Kinnari trying to get into the house. None of us were answering calls because our cells were upstairs and we were deaf to the doorbell and any knocking on the front door. We kept alternating teams for air hockey while Emily sprawled on the floor across from Clipper. They were lying in the same position facing each other and I made a few comments about what a romantic moment this was and how "Edward and Bella" the two of them were. I didn't mean anything ominous by it, but all of a sudden Clipper got up and jumped on top of Emily. Everyone grew silent at this point and Clipper began humping Emily. There was another second or two of silence before Emily realized what was going on and started screaming. She jumped to her feet and kept screaming, running around in useless circles while I fell off the exercise ball laughing along with everyone else. We were all on the floor laughing, Megan started crying with laughter. For the next half hour, Em yelled about how she'd been raped and stepped nervously around Clipper whenever he came too close. I joked around that she should have heeded my warnings and Megan accused her of being a tease. Em proceeded to run into the bathroom yelling, "I was an accomplice to my own rape!"
After a bit we managed to calm down and turned on Twilight. We giggled at all the awkwardly funny moments and Kinnari excused every flaw by saying, "It's a low budget film!" She said it over and over until Sophie yelled, "If you say it's a low budget film one more time I'm going to throw something at your face!" That was when it turned into a joke to annoy Sophie; all of a sudden everything made it a low budget. Bella dropped her backpack on the floor instead of the chair but "no we can't reshoot...it's a blank-blank film!" Megan would say, "Woah, Bella's not wearing any pants," and I said, "That's cos they couldn't afford any." We collapsed into a fit of giggles as Kinnari choked out, "It's a...BLANK...BLANK...FILM!"
I haven't laughed that hard in a long time.
Hell, I need to laugh like that more often.
I hope it wasn't a one time thing.

Almost Spring!

There's only a few more hours left of winter. I'm so excited. Even though the temperature won't change drastically overnight, it still makes me happy that it's going to officially be spring. Because spring means warm weather and warm weather means...almost SUMMER! I can't wait for summer to start and school to end, but in the back of my mind I'm aware of the whole 'you never want it until you can't have it' thing and I might miss my schedule once I'm handed a new one in late August. So I am trying to enjoy myself and appreciate sophomore year as best I can, but I can't help wanting it to be over with. Oh, well, I've made it through almost seven months of the school year. I'm confident I can handle the last three.

Second Topic

This is the second topic that I was going to talk about last night but didn't. Not for the first time, I had worn myself out rambling unrelentlessly about Tyler. This is something different though. This is about my uncle, the one I avoided in his life and even ignored in his death, not going to his funeral or shedding a single tear. I know it's selfish but it's the truth. I thought about him the other day because I was telling my mom about how we spent a week talking about the assassination of JFK and how it's really interesting to hear about the crazy conspiracy theories and all. She told me that my uncle was really into his assassination and if only he was here again, we could talk about it. That would have been nice. I almost wish it made me sad though. Because it doesn't and I know it should. I know I should miss him a little bit but I don't know. Selfishly, I just want to have that conversation with him, and I was only a little pissed off for a minute after my mom told me that. It was like when you make a minor mistake and you're mad for a minute or so, but then the feeling fades as quickly as it came. Except this is someone's life we're talking about, not the fact that, oh darn we missed the turn and now we have to take the long way around. This is so serious and I don't find any sadness in it.
That in itself is kind of sad.

Content With Being Alone

I had originally written "Content With Loneliness" as the title, but then I changed it because that didn't sound right. The term "loneliness" seemed to imply I was stranded without wanting to be that way, or I was longing for a way out. Loneliness, in itself, is a very lonely word. But today I chose to stay home alone while my parents and sister went to a double header up in...somewhere far away. Usually, the farther away in CT the games are, the more likely I am to go because I have an addiction to car rides. There's some cliche about how people are so focused on the destination that they forget to appreciate the journeys, but I feel the opposite. I tend to embark on journeys without a destination in sight. I don't know if that is good or bad, but I guess it depends on the particular situation and the perspective.
Anyway, I stayed home today and spent a solid six hours by myself, but I didn't feel lonely or unwanted. I got my homework done reasonably early, so I had tons of time to read and do whatever on the computer. I stayed in the front room because that's where the most sunlight was. I go into figurative hibernation during the winter, meaning I huddle in hoodies and blankets and hide out in my room since it's the warmest area of the house. Because of this, when the sun finally does peek out from between clouds, my head is practically stuck outside the window to catch its warmth. I can appreciate winter for a short period of time, but I am a sunshine & summer addict. Aren't we all. So I didn't move from the window because it was bright and I could feel the warmth of the sun without having to deal with the wind. This is probably the worse time period for me, weather-wise, just because I'm ready to spring from my hibernation cave and into the sunlight, but it's not yet warm enough. Therefore I'm stuck absorbing secondhand sunlight through glass doors and windows.
After finishing my homework, I read Jodi Picoult's The Tenth Circle until I was tired of reading...which means I flew through about 150 pages in addition to the 75 I read in the car yesterday. Taking into consideration my awesome Friday night, spending Saturday running errands and ending it with a movie at Marisa's house, and my day of sort-of relaxation today, I'd say it was the best weekend I've had in a long time. Not much happened that was different from any other weekend, but I think I went into it with a brighter attitude and that changed my experiences a lot. The only downside was that I ate a lot because during the week I had almost nothing except Special K...meaning I was fucking starving all weekend and nothing could fill me. Except maybe that deeelicious chocolate chip muffin I ate at Marisa's house. Sorry about that, Katie. :)
Not to rain on my own parade, but since this blog is for releasing my inner thoughts...I feel I should talk about these two topics, neither of which I really want to discuss. But I will anyway. The first thing is about Tyler, obviously, because no one else gets under my skin as much as he does. I'm familiar with the concept of falling in love with the idea of someone rather than the person, because I've watched it happen to people, and I just...know about it, I guess. My friends and I have talked about people and how they don't really like who they claim to like, they like the idea of that person instead. But I've never had someone say that to me. Honestly, it feels weird to have my own words thrown back at me and my first instinct is to become defensive. Even now I'm getting defensive; I can feel it. But I don't think I would have been told this if the person telling me didn't believe it. So maybe they're right. I don't know. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, but it's kind of difficult because, well, I'm biased. Obviously. I thought I had moved past falling in love with ideas of people because that was what happened when I liked my neighbor for a long time. He was the first real crush I had, and I was young and hopeful and imagined himself and I in all the scenarios you see in movies and read in books...you know, the typical walk-into-the-sunset-holding-hands type of happy ending. Pretty soon it wasn't even his face I was imagining in these imaginary happy endings...I realized it wasn't really him I liked, it was the idea of someone liking me back that I was falling for...and that's when Tyler came into the pictures. And that's when I spiraled downward, falling further until I hit the ground with no one to catch me and no one to even offer a hand to help me up. Or at least, no one's hand that I was willing to take. I considered that I had fallen in love with the idea of Tyler. I thought about it a lot because he was the spitting image of everyone I wanted in a boy. It would be all too easy to attribute all the characteristics of my dream boy to him and make it seem real, since I didn't know him the first time I saw it. I didn't know him for a long time. I still don't really know him, not the way a friend knows someone. But I also think that if I fell for the idea of him, I would have been able to drop him like I did with my neighbor. I would have been able to stop thinking about him when he went off to high school and I would have been able to shrug him off my shoulders when I got there too. You know? It wasn't the idea I was antagonizing over, because there have been other people I could have transferred that longing to be loved to match. There have been other people and other faces I have left behind because I couldn't and still can't see any other but his. I think I would have given up after I cried over him for hours and then cried some more because he would never know that I was crying like this and if he did, he wouldn't care. He could never think of me as much as I did about him, and then that would make me cry, and the cycle would never ever break. I wouldn't latch myself onto this sick idea that I would die for him just because it's him and despite the fact that he sometimes forgets my name.
I don't know and I'm so confused.
This sort of feels like a drug addict trying to be their own doctor, so I need outside opinions on this. I learned a long time ago that I can't completely trust my own thoughts...so tell me yours, if anyone is reading this. I need feedback.
There was something else I wanted to talk about but now I don't feel like it. I can't get my head straight or my fingers steady. So I'm done.

Good Times

Last night and this morning were so great. I didn't think I'd end up saying that but I'm happy I am. I guess Kinnari felt sort of bad that the plans for Starbucks fell through this week and I couldn't go last week, so she set up plans for the mall. I picked her up right before 5 PM and we went to meet up with Megan, Sophie, and Brian outside Starbucks. I wanted to go because I never go out with anyone really, but I was worried that I was going to feel out of place or uncomfortable. Emily couldn't go because of a procedure she had done earlier in the day that drugged her up, but usually her and everyone else go to the mall on Friday's. I felt like I was invited out of pity and no one really wanted me there, but it was actually more fun than I thought it would be. It was nice to hang with Brian some because I never see him anymore besides a few minutes before first period. And I didn't feel uncomfortable at all. I had a good time without forcing myself to, and for me to have a good time at the mall for over three hours...well, that says a lot about the people I'm with. :)

I took my sister's FYE gift charge and gave her the cash for it so I could get CDs. I wanted to get three, but I guess FYE downsized a bit when they switched locations, because a lot of stuff just wasn't there. There's no other excuse for not having a Coldplay album. Really. But I wasn't that annoyed because they had the Vampire Weekend CD, and that eliminates one of three or four I was looking for. We went to Target for a little while, walking around at first and then playing hide and go seek. Except it only lasted half of one full round because Brian, Megan, and I took over a half hour to find Kinnari and Sophie. We all got Starbucks & dinner, pizza for everyone else and a salad for me. We had changed our plans earlier in the day and decided to go to Kinnari's house instead of Sophie's. I didn't mention this but I was happy about that because I don't know Sophie that well and I think it would have been weird going to her house. I've been to Kinnari's house tons of times. So that worked out in my favor. At Kinnari's house, we played electronic Clue, which I failed at because I never even played the original version. But it didn't matter because fifteen minutes into the game, Sophie stole a peek at Kinnari's cards and while they were wrestling with each other, Brian opened the confidential file. 

I wasn't planning on sleeping over, but at the last minute Kinnari invited me to stay over, so I called my dad and he brought my pajamas and stuff. We watched Jumper, which was horrible, but I was half asleep during it anyway. We stayed up till 2:30 AM just talking, which was nice. I like talking with people I can have actual conversations with.

So now I'm home and it's 11 AM on a Saturday. I'm seeing Marisa and Katie tonight.

I think it's going to be a good weekend. 

Answer

This is what I need to tell people when they ask why.
Why him.
What's so special about that guy as opposed to...everyone else in the world.

Speaking of him...he was in my dream again last night, but I don't feel like writing about it because it was uneventful. He was just there. It was exponentially better than being screamed at. Oh, and in my dream he was wearing the same sweater he wore today. How bizarre.

Flustered Rant

Are you serious. For real? I am a sophomore in high school and not only have I been taking CAPT tests for the past two weeks, but you're giving us tons of CAPT practice packets. Why do you find it necessary for us to have SAT practice packets on top of that?! The first one wasn't so bad, but my friend (who is a mathmatical genius, let me tell you, although I shouldn't have to because you had her as a student already) spent two and a half hours helping me. And we still didn't get all of those problems. We must have left 10 or 15 blank. It got to the point where we'd start reading the problem aloud and burst out laughing because we had no idea what was going on. I keep hearing ridiculous things from other students like, if we get five wrong or leave five blank, we automatically get a zero as a quiz grade. What the fuck. It's bad enough that I have to waste hours and hours doing this, but the pressure of it being a quiz grade makes me want to cry. I know that in itself sounds ridiculous, but I have an A in your class and I'd really like to keep it that way.

Oh and I might have possibly fucked up on my bio quiz today.
So I really really need an A in your class. If I don't get it, I doubt any of the other sophomores do. Except maybe Heather.

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow.
The warm weather needs to come back if I'm going to be the least bit happy.