Current Music: Undone (The Sweater Song), Weezer (stuck in my head)
Current Thought: Two and a half hours until this day is over.
I've discovered a new hobby-- therapeutic writing. After one of the worst days of my life, I came home and wrote the entire thing, from start to finish, leaving nothing out. It helped. I'll post it here now, because I have absolutely nothing better to say. Enjoy.
Written at 11:00 last night: "Okay. It starts, as all things should, with a dream. The dream took place at approximately 7:00 a.m. (Approximately because I was, after all, asleep.) In it, I was some sort of Samwise-ish thing to a pseudo-Frodo and a Gollum. Gollum led us all over the place, through a wooded/gravelly area and around a fountainy lake, where lived a large, aquatic ape that was thereafter the antagonist of the dream. There was lots of other stuff, too, but that's really all I remember.
Then my watch alarm (which is far more pleasant than my alarm clock, and thus I use it more) woke me up, and I proceeded immediately to get ready to go fundrasiing for Bible Quiz. It was an extremely dreary morning, which was fine with me. The problem came as I drove to Wal-Mart. Our new (old) car has a strange tendency to get water in the gas tank when it's particularly humid, and at these times it bucks and stalls and even shuts down completely. We had a perfectly awful time going down [street name censored]. At last we stopped and Mom drove, and somehow we made it to Wal-Mart alive.
Preparing to sell coupons brought back bad memories of art shows. The McC_____s have a nifty canopy tent that we assembled in the cold and mist. Mike loaned me a hat that was rather similar to the stocking caps everyone has been wearing lately, and I found I rather liked it. Later, I bought one inside Wal-Mart for a dollar and cut the annoying pom-pom off the top. (Jokes were made about loose threads and unraveling the hat, and later that evening I heard the Weezer sweater song on the way home in Natalie's car. Fit my mood perfectly, for other reasons that you will see later.)
We had to make numerous signs while setting up, and much of that task was entrusted to me. Meanwhile Mom and Mike McC_____ tried to motivate the others to be agressive, but friendly, salespeople. (They were talking to Spike, Matt G_____, and Eryn. At that point in the morning, they might as well have been a brick wall.) The first three hours were dismal. Almost nobody came in the entrance (we were on the food side). Our one source of entertainment was offering people cards and free samples, and then watching as they got distracted and tried to walk in the exit. This happened so many times. Two people in a row actually pulled the exit door open. Another was in such a hurry that she squeezed through just before they closed, resulting in random humming of the Indiana Jones theme by those of us watching.
Even when traffic picked up, things weren't much better. The few Wal-Mart customers that actualy bothered to acknowledge our presence did so in incredibly rude ways. Several went so far as to give excuses that were obviously lies. (Lying Woman: "I already have four cards." Me: "Well, they make great gifts, too." LW: "Yeah, that's what I did, I gave them as gifts." Me, under my breath: "Then you wouldn't have four anymore, would you?") And on top of all that, at one point Matt was accused of swearing at a customer. He said "Thank you." THANK you. Matt does not swear. However, he does mutter. He has to work on that.
There was also a woman who hung around our booth for quite a while, talking about cigarettes and how she found Christ within and things like that. I don't think she was entirely stable. I was the only one in our group who would actually reply to her questions and statements. Funny how Evangelical Christian teens generally have no idea how to respond to people that don't fall into any other categories.
But at least I got a cool hat. And Karyn McC_____ wrote me an absolutely glowing recommendation letter on a scholarship application that I had to send off today. (Said application contributed to the added crappiness of this morning, but that's an entirely different story.)
Finally, around three, the sun came out, and suddenly people were nice to us, even when they wouldn't buy the cards. After about ten minutes of that, two assistant managers came and informed us that there was a problem, as we were selling Krispy Kreme products in front of a Wal-Mart store, and that, even though we cleared the whole thing with Wal-Mart's managers four days before, we would regrettably have to pack up and leave. So we did. We barely made a profit.
Once home, Mom and Dad went to Valentine's dinner at an Indian restaurant, while I watched Judge Judy and the Simpsons, petted my cat, got allergies, and tried to figure out why our DSL wasn't working. When Mom and Dad came home, I ate their leftovers (yummy curry) and went upstairs to practice guitar, only to find that a) my guitar was hopelessly out of tune, and b) the tuner had either run out of battery, or finally died. (That tuner is older than me.) So I went downstairs to get a new 9-volt battery, and before I got go back upstairs, Mom made me quote about 135 verses. Finally I got to practice guitar, which didn't go very well anyway as the tuner still didn't work quite like it should, and the guitar still sounds very off. (Note to Sam: Next lesson, ear-tuning or some such thing would be nice.)
Then I watched two hours of TV, which was nice and boring. Then I went upstairs to take a shower, but before I got ready, my parents shouted that Natalie has just arrived. Suddenly my day was looking up. And--joy and wonder--she wanted to go to the bookstore! Could it be? Was this awful hell of a day going to end on a high note?
It appeared not, for once we were within Natalie's car going down [other street name censored] at 35 mph, she broke the news that by bookstore she meant Borders, not Barnes & Noble. Oh, pain. Oh, agony. "It burns! It freezes!"
I went anyway. What choice did I have? Leap from a moving vehicle to the street below like Bono in so many U2 videos? I think not. Bono had padding. And you couldn't crack his skull with a sledgehammer anyway.
Borders was, as always, mediocre. However, we did discover that the fully illustrated (Alan Lee, no less) editions of Lord of the Rings were being released one book at a time... in hardcover. We tried not to drool on the pages, but I think some might have slipped through.
One thing I will say: Borders has a fantastic DVD section. There. That's it. I've said it.
I was then faced with one of the hardest decisions of my life: Coldplay's A Rush of Blood To The Head, or U2 At the End of the World by Bill Flanagan, the biography that picks up where Unforgettable Fire left off, and is about twice as thick. (It helps that the lettering is about twice as tall, too, but that's beside the point.) Nevermind that I had no money-- there was an ATM for my bank just down the street, and Natalie would cover her purchase and mine until we drove over to withdraw more cash.
I chose U2 At the End of the World. I can download Coldplay.
So after that we wandered aimlessly around Borders (which is almost as impossible to navigate as Branson Missouri, for all it's expansive grandeur), and drooled again over the Illustrated Brief History of Time. What is it with us and illustrations? I guess people just can't use their imagination anymore. How depressing. Anyway, at last we finished our foray into the ninth circle of Borders hell, and off we went to the ATM. (As we drove, Natalie told me amusing stories about her friend Courtney, a kleptomaniac who stole a loose Astrovan logo off the van, and set a wooden sink on fire.) That's when I remembered that I don't really have my PIN number memorized. I know the four numbers, but not the order in which to put them. I decided to try it anyway. Why? Because I'm an idiot. After trying three combinations, the machine returned my card and recommended I come back when I'm not an identity thief. For some really weird reason that I still haven't quite figured out, I stuck the card back in and tried again.
If you've already guessed that it ate my card, give yourself a pat on the back and me a smack in the head.
So home we drove, two penniless white girls with a Bond CD (Natalie's) and a U2 book (mine). At [censored street name] and [censored street name], as Weezer's Sweater Song blared over the speakers, we stopped at a red turn light with the [censored street name] lanes to our right green and no oncoming traffic, and Natalie ran the red light. Natalie. Ran. A red light.
I still haven't figured out whether she meant to, or even realized she did.
Anyway. Came home, told Mom and Dad about ATM incident, changed into jammies, got pencil and notebook, and started writing. I knew this would be cathartic, and maybe I'll actually sleep tonight.
But first I have a U2 book to read."
So yeah. That was my crappy day in a very large nutshell. I think that's all the therapy I can handle. Goodnight, and namar.
Current Thought: To the list of sites I can't visit in class, add another: MST3K's Caption This!. Sigh.
Well. Twenty-six minutes 'til class. After Writing Center training, I went to my favorite spot in the main building and ate lunch, then tried to do math, gave up about halfway through, and came to the computer lab. Visited Caption This! and made a fool of myself, unable to keep from laughing hysterically. Side note: this screencap kept showing up on the gallery and in the caption menu. Methinks SciFi.com is having technical difficulties.
Anyway, yeah. Yesterday was... okay. Today, so far, has been decent. I get to have a Gardenburger for lunch after this class. I'm listening to U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind album. I have nothing of any particular interest to write.
Dangit! I just clicked on the picture in yesterday's post and started to chortle again. What's wrong with me?!
I'll move on to Neil Gaiman's journal. That seems safe enough.
Current Music: Something weird that was just playing on the Writing Center's stereo that involved the repetition of "bah bah bah," over and over.
Current Thought: Every time I see celery, I think, Boy, that looks tasty. Then I eat it and want to barf. Stupid celery.
So the weekend was a middling mix of good and bad. Went to quiz in St. Louis on Saturday. Tsunami had a fantastic first quiz, but the rest of the day went downhill from there. Blech.
Yesterday, somehow managed to get myself out of bed and into church. Went to Hannah M.'s new house afterwards and hung out there for quite some time before Natalie and the M.'s had to leave for the grandparents' place. The rest of us stood around for about a half hour in the street outside trying to come to some decision about where we all wanted to go. It took so long because one person seemed to have trouble being a seperate and exclusive entity, and instead of giving us a straight answer, would turn and walk away and stand for a while looking at the slushy snow.
Finally we went to Churchill's Coffee and sat there for another two hours as I begged everyone to go to Barnes & Noble instead, because I was dying in the absence of books. Meanwhile, one friend was becoming more and more depressed and infuriated with the behavior of the aforementioned friend, and I listened to the venting of frustrated friend on the ride home. I didn't really mind, as frustrated friend is still a friend, and frustrated friend needed to articulate frustrated friend's feelings. I hope it helped, but I'm not sure it did.
Have I mentioned that I was mooned yesterday? Oh yes, indeed. I suppose I shall tell the story now. You see, Hannah M.'s house is in a neighborhood under construction, and there's a bit of land behind the house that's undeveloped and still woody and lovely. So after about an hour of sitting around playing Halo, Hannah M., Natalie, Matt W., Joel D., and myself all decided to go for a walk. So we slid our soggy way down the hillside, and found two blue gloves sitting rather conspicuously in the snow. Nearby we heard the sound of rushing water. There was an open manhole half-hidden in the trees, and from within we could hear talking and laughter. Joel and Matt tossed a few snowballs down, and after a bit of screaming, two youngish boys appeared and stood before us, saying very little. By this time Natalie and I were both talking in our crappy fake British accents, and I think we somehow managed to convince them that we were, in fact British. (Something about lesbians may have been thrown in there as well.)
So after Natalie gave a little lecture about how unsanitary it is to play in raw sewage, we moved on through the open field and up a hill. Halfway up, we heard shouting behind us, and saw one of the sewer-boys, accompanied by an older, pudgier youngster. They were several hundred yards away, so I couldn't hear anything in particular, but the pudgy fellow proceeded to moon us. "Bravo!" I shouted Britishly. "Encore!"
We kept walking, and the American piglets followed us, shouting that they owned this land and didn't take kindly to British lesbians walking all over it. ("King George owns this land," I shouted back.) As we grew closer to Hannah M.'s house, Matt seemed to grow concerned that the hoodlums might actually do something violent, which is rather funny when you consider that Matt is taller than both boys stacked on top of each other, and he knows several ways to kill a man, to boot. Meanwhile, Joel hung back a bit to speak to said hoodlums, and convince them that no, Natalie and I were not British lesbians. ("Yes, that's exactly what we are!" I contributed helpfully from my place up the hill.) Finally Joel, great negotiator that he is, convinced the boys that they may own the hill, but they certainly didn't own the street, on which we were now walking, and they turned back to go home. Natalie and I laughed all the way back to the house, and proceeded to tell everyone who didn't come along what they'd missed.
So yes. I don't believe I've ever been mooned before. If I were actually British, those scallywags may have started a war.
