I've been sick and sleeping for the last couple of days. I'll start posting when I can actually think again.

I've been calling around in an attempt to find something to do today, and I came upon this startling discovery: I am the only teenager on the planet who doesn't drink.

It's frustrating. I'm at home and bored out of my skull. I've called a bunch of people, and they're all hungover. Everybody wants to sleep, and I am wide awake. Everybody has a headache, and I'm healthy as a horse. Everybody is bitter and cranky, and I am in a good mood.

I don't understand the appeal of drinking. I know, I know; I've never been drunk, so how could I? I just don't get it. What's the point of happiness if you have to put mind-altering substances into your body just to achieve it? What's the appeal of losing self-control? I like control and familiarity. I like my brain having a say what I'm going to do. I'm a shy person, and I don't want to lose my inhibitions and do something stupid.

Stupidity seems to be an invariable effect of booze, and that bugs me. People who are normally smart and interesting turn into interpretive-dance-obsessed zombies. Drunk people are sometimes violent, often whiny, and they only stay funny for an hour or two. The rest of the night usually turns into some big sobfest as they tearfully recall the tragic death of their great-aunt's cat Mr. Jinglewhiskers.

While I'm ranting about stupidity, let me say this: Certain Friend of Mine, I cannot believe you got yourself drunk while babysitting a two-year-old. That seems like a recipe for involuntary manslaughter or like charges. Booze and babies do not mix. That's like Bad Ideas Illustrated or something. I'm tough to shock, but that little anecdote left me reeling. I hope you realize how lucky you are that nothing happened, because that could have turned out incredibly badly. You, my friend, are a fucking moron sometimes.

I can't seem to figure out why people my age would drink. Six hours of fun, sure, but it's followed by six hours of headache and hangover. Alcohol withdrawal turns people into nasty, irritating jackasses. It bugs all hell out of me when everybody's surly on Mondays. I can understand "Christ-it's-Monday" surliness, but "I-have-a-headache" surliness bothers me. It's your own damn fault. Don't take your idiocy out on the rest of the world.

I'm not a teetotaler or a temperance-preaching feminist by any means. I don't have a problem with other people drinking. I don't want to do it, but if you want to, it's absolutely your prerogative. However, if you're going to drink, remember the rules: 1. If you get caught by the cops, don't whine about the injustice of it--you knew it was illegal, 2. I don't care about your fucking hangover (it's your own damn fault), and 3. stories that start with "Ok, so we got so wasted" aren't really funny for people who weren't there.

That's all I want to say. Go ahead, get drunk, but just remember that I don't feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for myself, dammit, because I don't have anybody to hang out with on Sundays. I guess a little alone time never hurt anybody. Grr.

Disclaimer: I absolutely do not mean to be preachy. If that's how this comes off, then I didn't do a very good job of writing it. All I'm saying is that your hangover is not my problem. I personally don't understand alcoholic appeal, but hey. You do what you do, and it's ok.

That's odd. My IP address has changed for no apparent reason. I only noticed because Site Meter had started logging my own visits. Curiouser and curiouser.

Today I'm feeling down. So it goes. I don't have any particular reason why; I'm just burnt out. I hate being busy. I also feel very sweary...the obscenity gods may yet feel my wrath.

In the next four weeks, I have a Grand March to attend. I have two math contests in which to participate. I've got physics and Spanish quiz bowls to lose. I have an optometrist appointment on April 6. I have a choir competition to fake my way through. There's a band trip to Chicago and a band competition that I need to not screw up too badly. I need to register for the ACT. I have to finish my application for science camp (say no more).

Remember my friend Cal? She hasn't been mentioned in a long while, and the reason is simple: I don't really enjoy being around her anymore. I guess there's part of me that's loyal to her since we've been friends for 11 years, but most of me is really beginning to dislike the girl. We have less and less in common as the years go by. What's more, the things we do have in common are things I'd rather we not. She has a terrible habit of seeing me do something or finding something I like, publicizing that she does/likes it, and taking all the credit for it. Personality quirks, preferences, opinions, styles; if I do it, she's sure to steal it. It gets irritating.

I'm sure my vexation will be shortlived, and I know that I'll probably like Cal again next week. The fact remains: for the past two months or so, she's annoyed all hell out of me.

Long ago, I remember having free time. I remember being bored out of my skull. Now I actually have to do stuff. Goddammit; all these little high school things like "school" and "homework" and "friends" and "family" and "responsibilities" suck ass.

I am one self-absorbed teenaged fuck.

Ok, ok, I'm getting desperate. I have to build a truss-type bridge out of balsa wood and glue by April 25th, and I have no idea what a truss does to make a bridge stronger. I honestly have no clue. I don't know how the physics works. I'm not a civil engineer, and I don't know any. I think I'm doomed.

I'd ask Monster about it, but I keep forgetting. He's good at that kind of thing. I think mechanics and engineering and all that technical crap just comes naturally to him. On Saturday, he explained to me how lightbulbs work, ways to light steel wool on fire under water, and what a spark plug does. He also attempted to teach me what the third and low gears were on my car; he got as far as "applies torque," and I had to tell him to shut up. Torque is evil, and it's just one of those things that I will never understand. It's kind of like the infield fly rule or what constitutes a first down in football; I've given up.

I've discovered that there are certain things you should never say around a group of guys, and one of them is, "There's more than one spark plug on a car?" I'll be paying for that one for ages.

But I digress. Bridge-building. Doom. Fiery pits of hell and whatnot. I think I'll just hide until the project goes away.

I am trying to think of interesting things to type here.

Today Chantel and I went to Brookings and there were two 20-something guys playing accordions outside a frat house. Very strange. We hung out at the mall for awhile, but bought nothing. Then we went to Burger King. We ate, and we came home. It was a rather boring trip.

In stuff-I'm-going-to-do-this-weekend news, we're totally having a Monopoly tournament tomorrow night. Yep. Cal, Rachel, Sarah, and I are all going to hang out and play Monopoly tomorrow at 8:00. It's going to be freaking awesome. Not pathetic at all, no sir. What's really sad is how excited Rachel is; it was her idea, and she and Sarah are skipping their respective boozefests just to do it.

Sarah and Rachel don't know what they're in for. I play a very corrupt game of Monopoly. I go the Slumlord route; I buy out all the cheap properties and hotel it up. I've got a good head for arithmetic, so I'm usually the banker. Cal and I have a longstanding Monopoly partnership; we bail each other out of tight spots and usually crush the competition. Cal and I have also perfected "no holds barred" Monopoly, in which it's understood that he who cheats best wins. (As the banker, there's a unique advantage in that you don't have to rob the bank. You can just embezzle.) You can kick my ass in chess, Battleship, or Life, but I've got damn good luck when it comes to Monopoly.

Dum de do...school sucks out your soul. Teenagers are foul people. English teachers are loathsome. Homework is the gravest of the Very Grave Evils. Et cetera.

I need a job.

Everything sucks, and I don't know why. It just does. It's especially frustrating because everything that sucks is beyond my control.

Deus vult. (Hey, God: stop it. You're making my life a real pain in the ass.)

Something I've just realized: I have loathed every English teacher I've ever had.

One of the many things I hate is hypocrisy. Example: today I was distracted, and I was pacing up and down the sidewalk before algebra. I went up to the corner curb, looked at the houses down the street, and as I walk back, I hear El Pollo making a nasty little observation. Namely, "God, Allison's such a freak."

That part didn't really bother me. As I've noted before, I don't like El Pollo either. What bugged me was what he did after his friend motioned for him to shut up. Once El Pollo realized that I'd heard what he said, he plastered a big fake grin on his face, looked at me, and declared, "I love you."

I replied, "Okay. Good."

Adolescence is one giant suckfest.

...take that any way you like...

Things that Suck, But You Have to Do Anyway
- fill out an SAT I form
- fill out an SAT Subject Test: Writing form
- fill out an ACT form
- decide on your top 3 college choices
- research construction of balsa wood bridges
- answer the "why aren't you going to prom?" question (every day!)
- finish algebra homework
- try to find the first album of your Sandinista! LP
- listen to a close friend sob over the phone about her ex-boyfriend
- write a synopsis of your evening, even if said evening really sucked

A halfway amusing Croc-related note I just remembered: On Croc's first day of school, my friends and I introduced ourselves. Jess took an immediate interest in him (she's the mutual friend mentioned in the last entry). What I enjoyed most about the introductions, though, was Bob's greeting.

"Hi, I'm Bob. [pause] And yes, my name really is Bob." (It is.)

It had never occurred to me that there were people who had to offer a disclaimer every time they met someone new. Poor Bob. Poor Fred. Poor Hortense.

You'll think I'm morbid (and you're right), but the big accomplishment of the weekend was this: I wrote my new epitaph.

I have a list of instructions for my parents in the unlikely event that I should die. I've been keeping it since I was about ten years old, back when I went through my paranoid "Oh-dammit-please-don't-kill-me" phase. (Moral of the story: don't watch late-night History Channel specials on the In Cold Blood murders.)

The list changes every year or two. Originally, I wanted to be cremated. Now, it states very explicitly that I want to become a shrunken head. My hometown's cemetery has two sections; one is wooded and shady, and the other is a huge treeless expanse of grass. I refuse to be buried in a football field. I don't care how much a shady plot costs, Mom, Dad; think of all the money you're saving with me being dead.

I've also gone through several epitaphs. The original was from "First Fig," by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends,
It will not last the night,
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends;
It gives a lovely light.

Copyright whoever and whatnot. The second was the first/last stanza of Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky":

'Twas brilig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The next two choices were both Vonnegut references; the first was "Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt," and the second was "One bird said to Billy Pilgrim: 'Poo-tee-weet?'".

My new epitaph, though, comes from a conversation I had with a friend. Somehow, this seems fitting for a description of my life as yet:

LACKS POETRY, DOESN'T IT?

I'm in a good mood. A really, really good mood. A mood so good that I can't remember the last time I felt this great.

The Foxy New Haircut has had its status officially changed. No "horrible'''s today, no sir. It was a big hit among my classmates. I got assessments that included "nice," "pretty," and "cute." There were even gasps and "Oh my God, I love your hair!"'s. I think I can live with that.

And then I, uh, smoked some crack and offed a couple of rival gang members. Just because I have "cute" hair doesn't mean that I don't have street cred...does it?

People always notice when I cut my hair. I guess that makes sense. I'm way ahead of schedule this year. The last three times I cut it were September 7, 2003; October 13, 2002; and September 11, 2001. After the September 11 deal, I figured that it probably wouldn't be a good idea for me to get my hair cut too often. I don't want to give my alibi away or anything.

Forget al-Qaida, it was all me. Me and the crack.

While I'm still on the Madison contingent, I might as well explain why I switched the word "huggable" from She Is Not to She Is on the sidebar (if anyone reads those).

I am not a huggable person; I don't like to be touched. It used to bug my mom. When I was little and she tried to hug me, I'd just kind of lean into it.

I got hugged yesterday, though. After I got up to leave, the Blue-Eyed Boy grabbed me, asked for a hug, and hugged me. It was kinda sweet; probably pot-influenced, but sweet nonetheless.

I guess I'm huggable now...not that I want anybody else to try it. If you can't blame your actions on drugs, don't touch me. Hell, even if you can blame your actions on drugs, don't touch me. (That's almost always good advice.) The only reason the Blue-Eyed Boy got away with it is because of how incredibly nonthreatening he was.

No more hugging. I mean it.

Things I forgot to post yesterday, with lots and lots of parentheses:

- I finally got a haircut. I think it's reasonably foxy, although a little girl at church today told me it was "horrible." If I ever find my digital camera (it's vanished again) and the connecting cord (haven't seen that in weeks), and take a decent picture, I'll post the Foxy/Horrible New Haircut.

- Andylad makes things very complicated indeed. I won't go into too much detail; suffice it to say that he's a friend of Chantel's. He's never met me, but he has made one huge misjudgment of my character. Hell, I might as well go into detail: no, Andylad, I'm not a lesbian. (I have no idea why he thinks this. From what I know of Andylad, he's insecure about certain facets of himself, and he tends to project that onto other people.) You can stop thinking that, and you can stop letting your own misinterpretation bother you. Anyhow, I don't swing that way, sir; I like the fellas.

- Bald eagles are really, really big. I drove past one sitting on a frozen-over lake, and it was huge. I'd never seen one that close up before. The thing was massive.

- God is out to get me. I was driving 65 mph down the highway, and a huge tumbleweed smacked right into the side of my car. God is very ineffective.

- Chantel's mom is a heinous bitch.

- In my experience, stoners are generally much nicer and more accepting than other people. I've got to give them credit. The blue-eyed friend (the one who later stole Chantel's phone and talked to me when I called) proffered a pipeful, and when I declined, nobody seemed to mind.

Ok, so I actually just wanted to use a little alliteration. Truthfully, it happened more like this (compacted for your convenience):

"You've never smoked weed?"
"No."
"Well, if somebody offered you some, would you?"
"I don't know...my dad would kill me."
"He wouldn't need to find out."
"You don't know my dad; he's psychotically overprotective. Besides, I've got to drive home."
"Oh, yeah. Parents always find out that shit. You know, that's the thing about them--as long as they don't find out, you're ok, but when they do, you're fucked."

Stoners 1, Most People -463,285.

I just woke up, and apparently it's a quarter after seven. This seems very wrong. It means that I have no fucking clue what's happened in the last three hours. My head's all fuzzy.

My hair's damp, so at some point I must have taken a shower.

The events that precipitated this? I remember driving down to Madison with Chantel, and I remember hanging out on her ex-boyfriend's porch. I remember McDonald's. I remember going to one of her boyfriend's friend's trailer house. I remember people smoking pot. I remember not smoking pot.

I remember suddenly getting the very acute feeling that I was preventing everyone from having a good time. I had this inescapable idea that Chantel wanted me to leave. I remember leaving.

I don't remember driving home.

I remember calling Chantel and apologizing. I told her I was sick. I remember talking to one of the ex's friends.

...And from there, I've got no idea. I woke up in my bed when Chantel called.

I remember Chantel's phone call being really fucking insincere. I remember feeling like a burden--wait, I still do.

I am sad, but I'm too confused to figure out why.

Idle hands intrigue me. They do nothing, but they do it so well. (Apologies to Dave Matthews...I didn't realize the parallel until after this thought had crossed my mind. I am inherently derivative.)

Here's something I don't get: what's the evolutionary advantage of hopping?

Think about it. At some point in evolutionary history, kangaroos and bunny rabbits must have been given a reason to develop hopping muscles and bone structures instead of walking systems.

There must be some advantage to hopping. It wouldn't develop in two totally different species if there wasn't. Does it expend less energy? Is it faster? Is it easier to change direction quickly? I don't know.

Maybe they just do it because it's funny-looking. A hopping world must be infinitely more amusing. A lot of society's problems could probably be solved if everybody hopped around.

Oops. I kind of forgot about that whole "original poem in the style of the author" section of my poetry project. This would explain why it is 11:32 on a Wednesday night and I'm typing nonsense about sparrows and using "in Just-" for reference. I think it'll have to do.

I'd post it, but...you know, it's a whole "ten-minute-night-before-it's-due" thing. You're really not missing much.

This is where I went to school for three years. I kind of miss it.



This flagpole was in front of my school for as long as I can remember. Then, the building got condemned, they put up a fence, and they ripped out the flagpole. They tore the school down last summer.



They condemned the structure after discovering that the layer between the exterior bricks and the interior walls had crumbled. The building was "a disaster waiting to happen," and apparently had been for some time. I like this sign. It doesn't really show up here, but in the originals you can see the big happy petunia garden right behind it.



These photos were taken in August of 2002. I went to school in that building until May of that year. By June of 2003, the old building was gone. We go to class in little two-room houses now. The new building should be completed by this September.

Bleagh. I just ate far, far too much. My stomach hurts and I feel obese. It's no wonder fat people sue fast food restaurants. There's definitely a "power of suggestion" aura about portion sizes; that small strawberry shake was not very small.

It's weird how you grow up and people tell you to eat everything on your plate. It becomes so ingrained in you that you end up overeating because of some childhood urge to please.

In the words of Toothpaste for Dinner (back when it was good), "Pastries are tasty and muffins are stuffin' and I am obese." Well, I'm not obese yet. I'm working on it, ok?

I'm even later than usual in posting, so this will be a long one.

I think I'm sick. My stomach is absolutely killing me lately. It hurts to eat. I'm dizzy in the mornings, and I have no energy whatsoever. Today I had to hold up a Styrofoam ball in physics for two minutes, and I actually had to stop and rest my arm 90 seconds through. My muscles wouldn't cooperate long enough to hold up Styrofoam, for Chrissakes. I walk home from school every day, and today I was winded enough that I had to stop and rest on the curb in front of my house. It's a two-block walk, and I didn't have any books to carry. I'm either sick or I have the endurance of a three-toed sloth. I make Charles Atlas cry.

I felt especially blech-y during history. Fortunately, I could probably die during American history, have my corpse do all the assignments and tests, and still ace the class. History is ridiculously easy for me. I sit by the window, so I usually stare outside all period. We're right under one of the main routes to the Central Flyway, so I watch the geese migrating.

I like geese. Geese aren't racist. I've been noticing lately that the snow geese and Canada geese have begun flying north together. They share gaggles and even intermingle in V's. I don't remember it being this way when I was a little kid, but then I don't remember seeing a snow goose until I was ten years old. At any rate, the geese have desegregated.

There are ten geese that live at the city pond all year. There are six Canada geese, two snow geese, and two farm geese. The farm geese were a drunken prank; a bunch of seniors stole them from some farmer and let them go at the pond. They (the geese, not the seniors) joined the little gaggle and have been there for the past two years.

(By the way, I'd just like to note how proud I am of my goose terminology. Three cheers for gaggles. Also, just to clarify, I'm not being stupid when I say 'Canada geese.' They're actually not called Canadian geese; they're Canada geese. I don't know why, and I wouldn't care, but the hunters around here have hissy fits if you call them Canadian geese.)

Now I'm feeling nostalgic, so I'm going to tell you a memory from my childhood. We didn't used to have geese at the pond. It was originally inhabited by mallard ducks. For a long time there was a man on my street whom everyone called Grandpa Sam. He had a real name; I don't remember what it was. Everyone, even adults, called him Grandpa Sam, and he was a rather mythic character to the children of the town. (Remember, population: 1008.)

Grandpa Sam was the unofficial caretaker of the ducks at the pond. Every single day he'd load a bucket of corn into the back of his golf cart and go down and feed them. He'd often have six or seven kids follow him down to watch. He'd let one kid ride in the passenger seat of the golf cart, and the rest would run or bicycle behind him.

Now, one day when I was about six years old, I remember Grandpa Sam had a goat trotting alongside his cart. It was tied to the cart somehow, and it was trotting with him. I have no idea why he had the goat; I do recall that it wasn't his goat. I assume he was taking care of it for somebody. Pet-sitting a goat and tying it to a golf cart seems a very small-town thing to do.

Anyway, he had the goat tied to the cart, and I was sitting on the corner of 3rd Street and Ash. I recall being on that street corner; I don't live there, so I don't know why I was sitting there. I don't remember what I was doing. Grandpa Sam pulled up his golf cart, and I got all excited. He let me pet the goat, and then he asked me if I wanted to come feed the ducks. I got in the cart with him (again, how small-town of me), and he and I went down to the pond and fed the ducks together. It was all very sweet and childlike.

Grandpa Sam died last year. He went to the nursing home five years ago. There was a big hubbub in the town a few days before he went. He had gone nearly blind, but he still drove his golf cart to the pond every day. A woman who ran a day care reported him, saying he was "a danger and a public menace," or something to that effect. His family took away his golf cart.

The next day he drove to the pond in his riding lawnmower.

His sister stuck him in the home the day after that.

Sometimes I think the world would be a better place if we just let the Grandpa Sams go on feeding their ducks. If old duck-obsessed men are Public Menaces, then we've got it pretty easy. For most of us, the ducks are the least of our worries. Let those kinds of Public Menaces be Public Menaces. It makes for good myths.

Today was not a day that should have existed. If the entirety of March 8, 2004, were banished from the space-time continuum, I would not be perturbed in the slightest.

I was frantically busy. It's the first day of the school year that all my teachers have decided to assign homework. Of Spanish, English, history, algebra, and physics, I only bothered to do Spanish and history. Oh, and band. Seriously--I even got band homework. Something is wrong with the world. I'll do English and physics during my independent study tomorrow; English will take about five minutes, and I just have to fake my way through the physics assignment. Algebra can wait...he never checks the homework anyway.

To make matters worse, I am swamped with paperwork for the goddamned PSAT. I use the term 'goddamned' because it turns out that since my guidance counselor didn't turn the forms in on time, my PSAT results don't actually count. I'm still in for the second round of testing, but I go as the dark horse. According to the NMSQT people, their records will not show that I ever took the PSAT. I guess I don't really lose anything. I've still got a chance at National Merit. But damn, it's frustrating when a 224 doesn't even count.

On a related note, I spent a good portion of my day filling out registration forms. There are six on my desk right now: ACT, SAT 1, SAT Subject Test: Writing, a waiver for the Heritage Music Festival (it's our band trip to Chicago), Girls' State, and the application for some namby-pamby geekfest science camp.

That's right, kids; I just might end up spending a week at science camp this summer. Apparently it's pretty competitive. Each school is only allowed to select one delegate from its highest-level science course, and only some of those kids are accepted. If I get rejected, oh, well. I mean...science camp.

As if I didn't have enough to do, for some inexplicable reason I decided to waste a bunch of time drawing a 24-panel cartoon. No dialogue, just a little story in pictures. It's about a little stick man who's sadly walking down the street one night. He sees a beautiful star, and he reaches up to try and touch it. He can't reach, so he finds a trash can and stands on that. He still can't reach the star, so he gets a stepladder. Even then, he can't reach high enough. He gets frustrated, kicks over the ladder, and pulls out a gun. He shoots the star, and is initially very satisfied with himself. Suddenly, the star starts to bleed. The star bleeds, and the little man starts to cry. However, because it's a star, it quickly heals itself, and the man is happy again. He leaves the star behind. The last panel is the star shining down upon the sidewalk.

I have no idea what possessed me to draw it, and I spent far too much time on it. It was very strange. I just divided the paper into panels and started drawing. I didn't have a plot set out when I started, and I found myself wondering what would happen next even as I continued to draw. The story wrote itself, which was a weird experience.

I don't know...I like it. It's sad. He's so upset, and he sees the one thing that can make him happy, and he can't have it. He gets so angry that he tries to kill his little bit of joy. At least there's a happy ending. Maybe my subconscious is trying to tell me something. Sometimes I confuse myself.

I've been so busy I haven't even eaten supper. I think I'll go do that.

My Diet Dr Pepper is talking to me. It's so carbonated I can hear it bubbling from three feet away. It's like Rice Krispies in soda form.

I was at Valentino's (pizza chain, for all you non-Midwesterners) yesterday, and the man in the booth behind me ordered "sodapop." He didn't specify a kind, he just wanted "sodapop." The waiter had to rattle off the entire drink list before the man decided on Pepsi. My immediate thought was that the man might be mentally disabled, so I surreptitiously turned around and checked. He wasn't. He was just a bald man in his early 50s who wanted a sodapop.

When I was a sophomore, my business teacher used to refer to mentally handicapped people as "mentally challenged." He did it all the time; we were studying the Americans with Disabilities Act, so he had plenty of opportunities. Finally, I had to raise my hand and point out, "They're not 'mentally challenged.' That's like saying a guy with no legs is 'physically challenged.' I'd be physically challenged if I ran a marathon; I am 'mentally challenged' when I take a test or do a crossword puzzle. Someone with Down's Syndrome is mentally handicapped."

I'm not sure why I shared that little anecdote. It just seemed to make sense at the time. Oh--the sodapop guy; that's what I was talking about.

[I deleted this paragraph before posting. It was originally a story about the waiter we had (Kevin) and how much he made fun of me for not getting my money's worth at the buffet. I reread it, and I decided it was too boring. You're not missing much.]

Dad and I went to the library today, and I came home armed with American Poetry and Prose and Choosing the Right College. We had an argument about where the Clash line "All the animals come out at night" comes from; he thought it was Ginsberg, I fought on the side of Taxi Driver. I win.

It looks like Cummings is still going to prevail on the poetry project front; I'll probably use either "the Cambridge ladies who live in furnished souls" or "'next to of course god america i." Now I've just got to buckle down and actually do the thing.

My grandfather has decided that I should go to Harvard. I have decided to begin failing all my classes and to bomb the SAT in order to avoid such a fate. I don't know how he got this in his head; he didn't even apply to Harvard because he was irritated that they charged an application fee. He went to Georgetown instead.

I have these visions of Harvard being this place where everyone talks about "caviah and Kennedys." Oops...I mean Havahd. It's kind of like my theory that at Brown, the only thing anybody ever says is, "Dude...hands are so fucking weird...I'm a semiotics major...hey, don't we have a protest to go to?" And at Columbia, everybody talks about Dickinson, Gloria Steinem, and the Evils of Men. Wait, no, that's my vision of Bryn Mawr. My vision of Columbia is Julia Stiles. I'm reasonably certain that she's the only student there.

Down with real college. I'm going to go to mime school.

Did Marcel Marceau have any siblings? If so, I bet they hated him when they were all little kids. He was probably really good at the Quiet Game.

Something I have just learned: this site looks much better on Netscape than it does on Internet Explorer, and I don't know why. Fortunately, since I don't use IE, I'm in luck. As for the rest of you? Heartfelt apologies and whatnot.

One of the odd side effects of keeping an online journal is that I find myself much more careful with what I say in day-to-day life. I've always been pretty terse (at least when I'm not being random), but now I border on laconic. I can't help but edit everything in my head. I used to think, "Well, what do I feel like saying right now?" and then just spit it out. Now, I think, "Who am I going to offend? When's the last time I complained about that? How often have I used that word lately? Has anyone else mentioned this recently? Is anyone going to care besides me?" As a result, by the time an idea has made it past the hurdles, we're usually on a totally different topic.

It's really pretty out tonight. The dregs of snow dot the ground and wispy clouds are flashing across the moon. It must be really windy because the clouds are moving very quickly. Even my neighbors' pigsty of a house looks less-than-awful in the intermittent moonlight. I wish I had a nicer view from my window.

I'm going crazy with the non sequiturs lately. No wonder people think I'm random.

I've been desperately trying to figure out something to type here, and I've come up empty. So, when in doubt, I talk about housekeeping.

New link #1 is under Learn to Do Illegal Stuff in the links section. It's the Temple of the Screaming Electron, also known by its super-catchy acronym, TOTSE. As you could probably guess, it's a website that teaches you how to do all sorts of hypothetically illegal things. I found it when I was attempting to pick my old Master combination lock. It's pretty cool, but very much a "don't try this at home" kind of site. And yes, there's a porn section. You can ignore it like I do, or you can check it out. I don't care, and I'm not the boss of you anyway. I am not responsible for anything you may do as a result of this linkage. (Linkage? Fuck, I sound like Pauly Shore.)

Link 2 goes to Rathergood, which you'll probably recognize as That Quizno's Commercial Guy. This is one that I've been meaning to put up for awhile; I first ran into it last year when I was trying to find crab animations for a bio PowerPoint. It's probably not the best website to look at when you're in school. Don't let the kiddies see this one; it's pretty foul. But, damn, I love the kitten animations.

I put a new journal up as well. Deviant is the journal of a 20-something (1 or 2, I'm not sure) gay guy in New York City. I haven't been reading it for very long, but it's interesting. Deviant is kind of a cross-section of his life and bits of pop culture, which is exactly what I find most fascinating. It's what's responsible for my little observation about Lolita the other day.

I have a feeling I'm forgetting some things, but my brain's shot to hell right now. I guess I'll figure it out later.

This is weird. Apparently there's a chunk of the new $20 bills that explodes if you microwave them. Curiouser and curiouser.

About four months ago, we had a study hall in history class, and El Pollo and I spent the entirety of it pulling the watermark ribbons out of various bills borrowed from classmates. I'm pretty sure that's illegal. What can I say? We're rebels.

Milk Duds are surprisingly inexpensive. $1.44 for ten ounces, which equals about 91 Duds. "Milk Dud" is an absolutely awful name for a candy.

I'm a loser. Ah, well. I'm going to go play Missile Command.

I feel special. The Infected Papercut (which used to be Don't Screw With Me, but hey, I keep up with the times; I'm hep to the beat) linked me after March 2nd's post about Sierra Mist. She even used the term "pure nirvana" to describe the statement. I'm glad I'm not the only one whose life that discovery changed.

All this nirvana talk, of course, brings me straight back to seventh grade. Even at the tender age of 12, I had no freaking clue what I wanted as a career. My default response became "the Dalai Lama." I still don't think that would be too bad a job.

Not the segue you expected, was it? Look at me all not-referencing Bleach or the video for "Heart-shaped Box" or something.

My neurons are firing faster than ever lately. As soon as I typed the word "Dalai," my brain started playing: "If you can find an Afghan rebel that the Moscow bullets missed, ask him what he thinks of voting Communist. Or ask the Dalai Lama in the hills of Tibet, 'How many monks did the Chinese get?'" (For the curious, download "Washington Bullets" by the Clash. The Sandinistan rebellion has never sounded so catchy.)

On a completely, totally, absolutely unrelated note, I'd like to say something very, very important. Namely, I think it's weird that Sting managed to create an entire generation and a half that hears any reference to Lolita and immediately thinks, "Just like the/old man in/that book by Nabokov." (I'm assuming that I'm not the only one who does that.)

Now I've got to go download "Money for Nothin'." Neurons, have mercy.

To break from the theme of today's posts, I'm going to engage in a little weblog/journal conformity. Everyone else is doing it, so I should, too.

You probably know the drill--open up iTunes, set it to shuffle, and write down the names of the first ten songs it plays, no matter how embarrassing. My results are pretty boring, but hey.

Ten Songs
1. “You Will” --Bright Eyes
2. “The Movement of a Hand” --Bright Eyes
3. “Something” --The Beatles
4. “I Feel Fine” --The Beatles
5. “Method Acting” --Bright Eyes
6. “Greater Omaha” --Desaparecidos
7. “Empty Canyon, Empty Canteen” --Bright Eyes
8. “Come Together” --The Beatles
9. “Ze Newie” --The Strokes
10. “Let’s Not Shit Ourselves” --Bright Eyes

It looks like I have practically nothing but the catalog of Conor Oberst on my iMac, which is actually pretty true. How Midwestern teenager-y of me. It's just that I never get around to uploading my CDs.

Consequently, the only songs I even have on iTunes are as follows:
-anything off The Beatles' 1
-Bright Eyes' LIFTED, or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground
-Bright Eyes' Fevers and Mirrors
-a bunch of Bright Eyes and Desa songs I stole off some website
-John Lennon's half of Double Fantasy
-"Creep" by Radiohead
-"Light and Day (Orchestral Version)" by the Polyphonic Spree
-"Mad World" by Gary Jules (this was the first mp3 I put on this computer)
-"Should I Stay or Should I Go?," "Know Your Rights," and "Rock the Casbah" by the Clash
-"12:51" and "Ze Newie" by the Strokes

That's it. Seventy-four songs. This coming from a kid with ninety CDs and fifty LPs. My computer represents a very tiny portion of my musical tastes.

I keep forgetting to add stuff. Someday, when I'm feeling more ambitious, I'll get a little Bowie on there. I'll upload London Calling, Give 'Em Enough Rope, and Sandinista! (I've got all I need of Combat Rock). I'll get Is This It and Room on Fire uploaded fully. I'll find my old burned CDs with all my Napster conquests, and they can live on my hard drive, too.

This is the part where I lose interest and trail off. I could go on and on, but I'd hate to (shock!) bore you or something...

Once there was a boy who was so high that he flew to the moon...but I don't know his name.

Once upon a time there was a boy named Jonathan Fire*Eater. Unfortunately, young Jonathan was a literalist, and he really did eat fire. He suffered horrible burns to his face, mouth, and throat. Jonathan died, and nobody came to his funeral because he was "that dumb kid who ate fire." Not even Jonathan's family came because they were mad at him for being stupid enough to try to eat fire. It all would have been very sad for Jonathan, but he was dead, so he didn't know anything.

THE END

Some girl told me I was "totally random" today.

I don't know where she got that.

Maybe it was because of my demonstration to the class entitled "The Art of Tying Your Shoes Without Using Your Thumbs."

Maybe it was after I had declared myself President of my own leper colony. That was about five minutes after I had claimed that I had leprosy, and about thirty seconds after I started poking people and telling them that they were "my esteemed constituency."

I have a feeling it may have been a result of my short musical number. I performed my campaign song, namely, the old Dr Pepper commercial jingle, except I changed all the "Pepper"'s to "leper." Wouldn't you like to be a leper, too?

Perhaps it was caused by my long tangent on armadillo quadruplets.

They really shouldn't give caffeinated schoolchildren a study hall during the last period before spring break.

(And, no, I'm not "completely random." Here's a transcript of my train of thought: The girl in question had just shut the door with her elbow, prompting a discussion of weird things you can do with various body parts. I listened to most of the conversation before commenting that I could tie my shoes without using my thumbs. They didn't believe me, so I had to give a performance. Then, that whole body part discussion got me thinking about leprosy (because it's hell on your various limbs). I decided that I had leprosy, but I didn't want to be a lone leper, so I was recruiting for my colony. I decided to be President of my leper colony because...ok, so that part was random. The campaign song was just something stupid off the top of my head. Then, I got to armadillos because armadillos are famous for being able to get leprosy. Armadillos always have quadruplets, so that's how that got there.)

See? It all makes perfect sense.

Heh...I just realized that "Sierra Mist" is a play on "Mountain Dew."

I kinda feel like shit tonight. But that's okay. Subpar is the new par.

Another thing I just realized: why do we say that someone's performance is subpar if it's worse than expected? If subpar is below par, isn't that a good thing? Low scores are good in golf. So why is subpar a bad thing in casual usage?

It's probably just me. I've probably been going around telling people that things are subpar for the last six years, and they've probably been thinking, "Well, actually, that thing sucked, and 'subpar' indicates a good performance. You're an imbecile." I've been making a fool of myself, haven't I? Why doesn't somebody tell me these things?

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means..." Anyone who can name that movie wins a million rainbow-colored stickers with unicorns on them. (Maybe even scratch-and-sniff. No, I don't know how that would work with a unicorn.)

This is my letter to the world,
That never wrote to me, --

You can all just go to hell.

(Not you, Dear Reader, but everybody else. Fuck them all.)

I just got a Google hit for "I can't stand Dickinson." That amuses me. I checked, and apparently this is the only site that comes up for that query. Cool.

I'm feeling noncommittal.

On the heels of good news must come bad. C'est la vie. So it goes.

Apparently my Spanish teacher called Social Services for my friend Chantel today. Chantel's mom didn't come home for the entire weekend, and Chantel was left with her two younger brothers. Their mom wants to move into her boyfriend's trailer house; five people and two bedrooms just isn't going to work. I didn't catch all of the situation, but Chantel's mother is apparently blaming Chantel for "ruining her life" and trying to kick her out of the house.

I don't know what to say. "I promise that, one day, everything's going to be better for you..."

Eep. PSAT scores are finally back. 80-64-80.

Perfect score in verbal. Two incorrect answers in writing skills, zero points lost. Two omitted, six incorrect in math, one point lost. 99th percentile in verbal and writing. 90th percentile in math.

Score 224 out of 240=99th percentile overall. 99th percentile=qualified to possibly become a National Merit semifinalist. Eep.

First AHS qualifier in at least ten years. Maybe more. Faculty=excited.

Because of guidance counselor's incompetence, extra paperwork must be filed to explain lateness of scores. Deadline for the late scores to be sent in to the NMSQT people=today. Day counselor received and faxed the scores=today. Leap Day=godsend.

224. Perfect verbal. Eep. This is unexpected, to say the least. Eep.