I'm back.

The last few days have been rough. I don't know why. It's just been a bad week. I have been sleeping more than I should, and I am having a hard time gettting interested in anything. I am apathetic to the extreme.

On Monday, I came home from school and went to bed, not bothering to get up until the next morning. I did the same thing Tuesday. On Wednesday, I came home, set my alarm, and went to bed. I got up at 6:00 p.m., went to my CCD kids' Stations of the Cross service, posted briefly, and went back to sleep.

Thursday was the day before the prom. All the juniors were required to go to the gym after school and help decorate. Being the good little child that I am, I did so. I ended up being deputized to make a glitter-and-lightbulb run to Brookings. I got back at 8:30, and didn't get to come home until 9:45. I went to bed at 10:30.

And now I suppose I should tell you about the prom. As you know, I wasn't going to go. I didn't want to go. But when a bunch of girls show up at your house the night before toting dresses, what are you supposed to say? They were girls I didn't even know cared (including a girl who I know for a fact hates me). Most of them weren't even my friends. They showed up around 10:00, and they wouldn't leave until I had tried on the dresses and grudgingly agreed to attend. They chose the green dress of the ones they brought, and I agreed just to get them to leave.

Of course, I worry about their reasons for forcing me. Did they pity me? I hope not. I don't think so. They all knew damn well that I was going under protest; the prom just isn't my thing. But then, am I to assume that the action of a small-town girl not attending the prom rocked their little worlds that much? Did it really affect them so much that they felt the need to make me go? That's sad if it's true. Or, on a more pleasant thought, do they just like me more than I thought? I don't know which option it is. They insisted that "it wouldn't be the same" if I didn't go, and that I was "such an important part of our class." I don't know. Teenage girls are manipulative almost by definition.

By the way, who got to name our prom? Who was asked by the Prom Nazis (a.k.a. the Heathers, a.k.a. the Popular Girls) to choose a name from submitted suggestions? Who ended up throwing out another choice and having it picked? Yes, indeed, it was yours truly. The one girl who didn't care about the damn thing ended up naming it. The theme was "Paris at night," and they had decided that "A Night in Paris" was too trite. They were correct. They wanted the name to be translated into French, and they asked me to do it. I received suggestions from several other girls, and I dutifully Google-translated "April in Paris," "A Walk through Paris," and "Paris in the Springtime." On a lark, I threw in "On the Outskirts of Paris," the title of a Van Gogh painting. Much to my surprise, "Sur les Périphéries de Paris" was the unanimous favorite. I win.

On Friday, we got out of class to decorate for the damn thing. I built cardboard lampposts and helped write and cut out the title lettering. I spraypainted, taped, and did all kinds of useful things.

I did indeed go to the prom last night, and it wasn't awful. It wasn't great, but it wasn't mind-numbingly horrible either. I went stag, so I had to do a lot of mingling and idle joke-making. I managed to start 13 mock-fights, and I have 13 people to beat up on Monday (mostly guys). I hung out with Chantel and her date, Cal and hers, and Bob and his. I spent time talking to a couple of my former coworkers. Number Four and I argued about the duties of sophomore representatives. I complimented Rachel's date, a boy from a different school, on his shoes (black Chuck Taylors), and he seemed quite interested that I had the same ones. I talked to him for awhile longer. I also complimented his suspenders (yes, he wore suspenders). I even got to snap a suspender, which I probably enjoyed more than I should have.

I went to the after-prom part out of necessity, since my parents hadn't told the organizers that I could leave. If your parents don't tell the Prom Schutz-Staffel that you can leave, the SS assumes you're out drinking. The SS calls the sheriff, and the sheriff calls your parents to make sure you're at home. Rather than deal with that, I just went to the party. I won handsome amounts of fake money at blackjack. I also won drawings for McDonald's, Godfather's, Dairy Queen, and, rather ironically, a free haircut. I got home at 4:00 a.m., and I went to bed.

I wish I could care more about the things I do. I just don't. Things suck lately. Chantel is cruel without realizing it. Cal is distant. Jessie is a diet-obsessed bitch. Monster appears to have fallen off the face of the earth. Decorating for prom includes a lot of being yelled at by shrill teenage girls who don't like you. I'm planning on dropping my independent study art class that I scheduled for next year. A semi in front of me threw a rock and now my windshield is cracked. Gasoline is expensive as hell. My balsa wood bridge needs building. My English teacher says that my writing for her has "an excellent command of grammar and spelling, but lacks any interesting style." I can't seem to care about anything right now.

I also had a small epiphany this week that I've been thinking about a lot. I've decided what I am going to do with my life. I think that I will honestly go to college as long as I can, get into debt so that I can get a Masters degree in business or the like, and get a desk job. I want to work in a big corporation and make lots of money. I'll settle for less, live in a yuppieville, and keep nonfiction best-sellers on my coffee table. I think that that kind of existence is probably better than spending a lifetime trying to do something you'll never accomplish. It's less wasteful in a lot of ways.

I am bothered by this fact: I am good at things I don't like to do, and I enjoy things for which I have no talent.

Right now I feel very young and childish.