What I Learned in St. Louis

"...dwarfs are, in a real sense, the Jews of the freaks..." Psychology Today, August 1977.


Yep. I got a stack of free copies of Psychology Today from the library in De Soto, Missouri. They're dated from 1974 to 1977, and they're pretty amusing. People thought weird things in the 70s.

I really wish I was taking that above quotation out of context, but I'm not. Here's the entire excerpt concerning dwarfism:

"Every child knows what a dwarf is long before he meets one; and it therefore remains hard for us ever really to see one past the images first encountered in stories our mothers told us.

"Monstres per défaut they may be; but the lack that distinguishes them stirs only subliminal horror in the ordinary beholder. Sentimental onlookers want rather to kiss or cuddle creatures who remind them irresistably of children; and who combine, at their best, the wit of adults with the charm of a child.

"Jew and dwarf! How often that conjunction has occurred. ... [their ellipse, not mine] Looking back over their 5,000 years of recorded history, it seems to me that dwarfs are, in a real sense, the Jews of the freaks: the most favored, the most successful, the most conspicuous and articulate; but, by the same token, the most feared and reviled, not only in gossib and the popular press, but in enduring works of art. ... [their ellipse] They have been, in short, a 'chosen people,' which is to say, a people with no choice."

So, yeah. Pop culture, old pseudo-intellectual magazines, and the most racist stereotypes I've seen in ages.

This is hilarious.

Oh, and before I forget: that's the last post you get for the next week. I'm in St. Louis until Saturday, and I've got no Interweb there. Take care of yourselves and have a holly jolly last-week-of-May. I heart you and I will be back Sunday night.

I am freakishly, deceptively strong.

You wouldn't know it to look at me. I'm a reasonably skinny bastard. I'm lanky as all hell; I have longer-than-average arms and ridiculously long legs. If someone meets me when I'm sitting down, they're always surprised when I stand up and I'm only 5'7". I'm just long.

I have what's known as a dancer's physique; I'm long, narrow, and my power is concentrated in my legs. I'd be lying if I said that I actually have much power in my legs. But my arms are so freaking skinny that I appear to have "dancer's legs." My wrists are 5 and 1/2 inches in circumference, and my arms aren't much bigger. There's just no muscle there. Some people have chicken legs; I have chicken arms.

Now, when you're lanky, people don't expect you to be strong. In my case, the judgment would seem pretty fair. I have no athletic tendencies whatsoever. I'm a scrappy little bitch, though. When you grow up short and skinny (by seventh grade, I was 4'11" and 68 pounds--yes, people thought I was anorexic), you have to become scrappy. I call it Short Guy Syndrome; see Curley in Of Mice and Men for the SGS stereotype. Certain monsters used to observe incredulously, "You are a lot stronger than you look." Anyway, I can hold my own.

Case in point: the bathtub. About six months ago, I was taking a bath. My ankles crack like crazy, and my left (I think) ankle hurt. I stretched out a leg so that I could crack it against the far side of the tub, and instead, I cracked the bathtub.

Today, I was taking a shower, and I moved the shower head. It snapped off in my hand. The shower head is stainless steel; it's meant to be movable. I move it all the time. And today I accidentally, without any physical exertion whatsoever, snapped the damn thing off.

Conclusion? I am either an amazingly strong superhero, or we just have really crappy bath fixtures.

This is my gift. It is also my curse.

Dear Corporate Pizza Joint Waiter:

You are going to be a junior in high school. That's totally cool.

You look like Vincent Kartheiser. O, how I lust after thee.

You quote Monty Python and the Holy Grail. You have captured my heart.

Let's elope.

Very sincerely and with much love,
Allison

+ I got that secretary job I applied for ($7 an hour ain't bad for a 16-year-old.)
+ I'm guaranteed to never work Thursdays at the new job (Thursday is my favorite day).
+ My car has gasoline now.
- It cost me 20 bucks.
- My car still needs an oil change.
? I'm leaving for St. Louis on Monday.
+ I think I forgot to mention it, but remember Frank, the lizard I gecko-sat over Christmas break? He belongs to me now--the physics teacher moved and gave him to me. Now I get to rename him.
+ John Kerry was a Wave.
- John Kerry is a douchebag.
- I still haven't cleaned my room.
+ Which keeps my mother out of it.
? Uncle Sam wants ME to join the United States Army. (Not going to happen, but I'm flattered.)
+ I went to the library and spent three hours reading a book about 1000 artists' masterpieces.
- I only did that because I still don't have a library card.
- I'm broke now.
+ I passed two little old ladies in a Volkswagen Rabbit on the highway.

Conspiracy, I say! I have just made the biggest political discovery of EVER. Namely?

Ok, first off, do you remember the song "Walking on Sunshine"? Yeah, now who sang it? If you guessed Katrina and the Waves, congratulations, you're correct.

Here's the great part: John Kerry was the bassist for Katrina and the Waves. Seriously. Check it out:



(By the way, I stole that picture off the band's official website. If it's copyrighted, then, um, well, sorry. Oops.)

More evidence? Check out the bottom left corner of this. And the real kicker is the video for "Walking on Sunshine." I can't find it on the Internet, but it's apparently on some album they released recently. It also gets played on VH1 Classics all the time. Seriously, if there's any way you can get your hands on the video for "Walking on Sunshine," you will immediately know what I'm talking about. About halfway through the video, the bassist pulls of his sweater and the secret's out. He is John Kerry.

It's so freaking weird to watch John Kerry bouncing around and playing bass guitar and going all 80s-pop-new-wave headbanging. It's so bizarre. Find the video if you can and watch it. It's crazy.

Now, pardon me while I go buy the domain "www.kerryandthewaves.com".

(For the curious, I've also got a conspiracy theory about the Strokes and KatW. If you listen to the guitars and drums on "Walking on Sunshine," it becomes quite apparent that Julian Casablancas was heavily influenced by Katrina and the Waves. Heavily--he just won't admit it. The whole Strokes sound is directly comparable to the guitar of "Walking on Sunshine." For further proof of the Strokes/KatW theory, check this out. If you're not familiar with the Strokes, their first album was called Is This It, as the European cover shows.)

Yes, now I've got to stop with my Katrina and the Waves-centric conspiracy theories. But John Kerry was a Wave!

I've been ordered to post, so...

First off, you guys are freaking crazy. The one post I tell you not to comment on is the one you choose to flood (yes, Dooey, that means you). The sentiments are appreciated, but you make it so hard for me to quit. And I want to quit. But you make me think twice. Which, I suppose, is really the point.

Anyway..it was posited (is that a word? I think so) that perhaps ovaries are to blame for the decision. Jesus Christ, I wish it were that simple.

I suppose I ought to explain what is to blame. I guess it's just a lot of things right now. Things just aren't good. You haven't heard much about any of it...I have been purposely avoiding posting about a lot of things. But I guess I owe you an explanation for last night's promise. It all has to do with my friends in Brookings.

Remember the Brookings Army friend? Well, he got incredibly angry with me, and I felt horrible about it. There was a religion conversation and he found out I was Catholic, which didn't sit well with him. There was a bit of Catholic-bashing (lots of mentioning the "whore of Babylon") on his part, which didn't bother me. I'm good at arguing religion and politics without getting my emotions into it. But then he tried to go after me about my church's founder. It went like this:
"Do you even know who founded the Catholic Church?"
"Yeah...Christ."
"Wrong. You don't even know about your own church."
"Uh, no. Christ founded the Catholic Church. St. Peter was the first Pope."
"Yeah, sure. Well, maybe you should explain to me how Peter managed to be the first Pope of a church that was founded in about 100 A.D. There's this guy Constantine; you might want to read up on him. He founded your church."
"Look...Point A, Constantine wasn't even born by 100 A.D., so that knocks off that theory right away. Point B, Constantine was the first Roman emperor to embrace Christianity. He ended the persecution of Christians, so Catholicism had to exist prior to that for him to do so."

Brookings Army friend started getting really mad (and kind of mean). At some point, I asked him what religion he was. He's Mormon. Now, if Mormonism works for you, great. But, as I told him, "Don't slam the founder of my church. Joseph Smith--" I didn't even get past that (I was only going to say "has a pretty weird story behind him"). He got really angry and started yelling. I couldn't get a word out.

Then, out of the blue, he started going after my Army jacket. "Every time I see you in that I just want to yell at you. You didn't earn it, you didn't train for it, you don't deserve it. It's fucking disrespectful." Yeah, that really hurt. If I had known that the jacket bothered him, I would never have worn it around him. To clarify, the coat is not a "statement." I don't even think about it; to me, it's just a coat. I felt horrible to find out that it bothered him. I have nothing but the highest regard for the military. I tried to tell him that, but by this time, he was freaking out.

Then came my biggest mistake. As he's yelling at me, he is standing up, and I am sitting. Uncomfortable with being at a lower level, I don't think. I stand up. As I do it, I recall that he's 5'5" and extremely uncomfortable about it. He just froze and stalked off. He doesn't smoke anyomre, and he asked someone for a cigarette. I made him so angry, which I felt awful about. I respect him so much, and for him to think that I didn't...that really hurt.

I'm sitting there with my friend Jason, and I feel awful. Jason is friends with BAF, and Jason's the one who started the religion talk, so he's pretty uncomfortable at this point, too. I feel horrible. Jason and I have this conversation:
"So..."
"I feel so bad. I didn't mean to make him angry. I barely got a word out, and now he's mad at me."
"Look, I know him. He's not mad at you, he's mad that he got trounced in the argument. He didn't have a leg to stand on, and he knew it. I didn't know he was so uncomfortable with his religion."
"I should apologize to him. I should go over there."
"Don't. I know him; he'll come back. He's got a temper. You stayed really calm during the whole thing. There's nothing more frustrating for someone than when they're freaking and the other person just goes pale and stays calm and even. He'll come back when he's cooled down, and he'll be sorry, and you can apologize then."

BAF doesn't get angry. Some of the people there, people who were close to him, had never seen him like that. Later, I mentioned that I didn't understand how I could have made him so livid. Someone points out:
"Well, look at it this way. He was wrong, and you proved that beyond all doubt. He made the mistake of going for facts and getting the facts wrong. You knew the facts, and he knew that you knew. People hate being wrong. But I think what really got to him is who you are."
"What is that supposed to mean?"
"Look at it this way: first off, you're taller than him. He's self-conscious about his height, and whether or not you meant to make it an issue, by standing up, you made it one. Then you've got to take into account that you're four years younger than him and, well, you're a girl. His pride got hurt, that's all. He's not mad at you. He just felt humiliated."

Sure enough, he came back about ten minutes later. I'm sitting on one end of a bench, and Jason and another guy are sitting next to me. BAF sits down at the other end. After about ten seconds of uncomfortable silence, Jason and the other guy start having a very loud conversation about nothing in particular.

I go over and sit next to Brookings Army friend. I start:
"Look, I'm really sorry."
"No. Don't say that."
"But I a--"
"No, seriously. I'm sorry. I'm the one who should be sorry. The stuff I said was a lot worse than anything you said. A lot worse."
"...I am, though. I do respect you, too. ...Are we good?"
"Yeah. We're good. I'm sorry."

It still bothers me, though. He couldn't even look at me.

Ok, I'm sick of typing. I feel crappy again. Anyway, as if that weren't bad enough, the night ended with Chantel getting really mad at me. I said something that wasn't intended as a criticism, a mere observation.

She came over after the whole BAF thing and found out that we were talking about religion. She got all self-righteous and refused to talk to us. She said something about how she took unpopular stances on controversial issues and everyone attacked her for it. I made a comment along the lines of, "It's not the stance that gets people, it's how you defend it. You attack the accepted position so thoroughly, and that's hard for them to deal with."

Anyway, Chantel freaked out and started making snide little comments. I hadn't meant to hurt her, so it really bothered me that she would go for the throat the way she did. The things she said were very expressly meant to hurt. Eventually she decided she was so disgusted with me that she couldn't even be in the vicinity. She left for awhile.

(Side note: at this point, Jason asks, "Isn't she an atheist?" I confirm his suspicion. He looks vaguely confused and half-smiles before offering, "Well, if God doesn't exist, why does the religion topic bother her so much?")

Yeah...the night ended with Chantel telling me that I was a hypocrite and a "cold-hearted bitch". (Sadly, my first thought at that comment was, "Someone's been listening to too much Jet...not the same, but close." It wasn't until later that I was really hurt.) I also found out that she's been keeping a scorecard on me. Every little thing I've ever said or done that made her angry: she remembered them all, and she made sure to bring every single thing up. That really hurt. I was at a loss; I tried to think of something she had done before that had really hurt me. Believe me, she's said some really mean things. The difference? I had forgiven and forgotten. Literally...I couldn't think of anything. To find out that she'd been keeping this big grudgefest was tough.

I don't know, supposedly Chantel and I are good now. I apologized. She didn't forgive me, and she never apologized, but she insists "we're good." While it hurts that I never got either forgiveness or an apology, I'm prepared to just let it slide. I don't want to cause problems.

I don't know. There's been so much in the past few weeks. I've really been finding out that people I respect don't actually like me very much. That hurts.

I am a bad person.

I'm thinking about taking some kind of break from Supernouveau. I don't know. If I do, consider yourselves forewarned. I may just post less frequently...it's just become such a chore at this stage in my life. I don't know. I realize that the cardinal rule of journaling is that you can't just quit when things start sucking, but I don't care. I don't. Shit's just not good right now.

I am a bad person.

I am not fishing for compliments. Don't tell me otherwise. Just let this pass as a warning about future inactivity. Don't bother commenting on it.

I am a bad person.

I was thinking today about the wastefulness in speech and writing. This is my 329th post in six and a half months, and how much have I really said? Think about it--think about how much you talk, how much you write. Think about how much you chatter. Have you really said anything?

I have grown more talkative in my old age, and by "old age," I pretty much mean "in the last year." From about third grade to the beginning of junior year, I never really said much. Consequently, when I did talk, people tended to take me much more seriously. Now nobody ever listens--it's just Allison going off again.

The increase in my chattiness is nice in some ways. I meet more people; I have more options. But you know what? They don't stick around. Of all the people I've met in the last three months or so (30+, I'd wager), there are maybe two or three who have stuck around. And the ones that did stay weren't the ones I thought would. I didn't expect all the acquaintances to last; whether it was distance or a simple lack of common concerns, most seemed rather trivial. But the ones I expected to be around...they're not. And I didn't do the leaving. I never do the leaving. I'm always the one being left.

Hey, friends: I miss you.

The incessant chatter on my part has also created much more laughter. I make people laugh often, and I laugh, too. But eventually it hollows out. You start realizing that you're laughing at your own jokes because no one else is. The stuff that makes them laugh? It's all trite, easy, predictable humor. There's no invention in it; it's all a matter of taking a sardonic shot or creating a cheap catchphrase. The stuff that makes me laugh, the stuff I like? It's all so obscure and thought-out that the only place it's still funny is in my own head. And that just annoys people. And maybe that's why they keep leaving.

Yeah, I've got a clique now. I've got a regular spot at the lunch table, I've got people who want to hear my stories. I've got people who never liked me before asking me for advice. I've got people who never would have paid attention to me giving me their cell phone numbers. I've got places to go on the weekends, I've got people to run into at Wal-Mart and Hy-Vee. I've got people all around me. I've got people.

So why am I still alone? Why is no one ever home when I call? Why doesn't the phone ring, why is the inbox invariably empty? Why am I the leftover when we partner up in class? I'm still by myself. I've made a ton of acquaintances in the last few months, but not a single one of them has really become a friend. And in the process of making those acquaintances, I lost some of my old friends.

I've known Cal for eleven years. She was my best friend for the longest time; maybe we didn't always get along, but at the end of the day, we were there. She's barely spoken to me since the Chicago trip, and she won't tell me why. She insists she's not angry with me, but the loyalties have shifted.

Yes, I'm still lonely. I've done the best I know how. I, the Shy Kid, have Gone Out, Met People, Gotten Numbers, Made Acquaintances, and still, nothing's changed. I have tried my hardest to alter the situation, and nothing has come of it. I really expected it to. I tried my best to be a catalyst, to be the person that Makes Things Happen. But nothing ever changes.

So...anyway, wastefulness. I'm so long-winded...couldn't this whole guilt-trip have been summed up with "I'm kinda lonely right now"? I've gone and broken my own new rule. That didn't take long.

You should choose your words carefully, and you should keep it concise. Shut up and seize the day, 'cos tomorrow you might be dead. Which brings me to the single thought that started this entire spiel: No matter what you tell your friends, yourself, the world...say it like it's the last thing you'll ever utter.

And that's it. May you always remain Bright Young Things.

I don't know what's up with my last post. It's one of those about-my-life posts that's all about people you don't know and don't care about. It's the kind of post that bugs me when I see it on other people's journals because it leaves me incredibly confused.

Anyway...trimmed the Foxy New Haircut today. My hair grows ridiculously fast, so I got two inches taken off. Two freaking inches in two freaking months. It's laughable.

My fingernails are the same way, and it bugs the crap out of me. Other girls envy my fingernails because they're strong and they grow so fast that they're easy to keep long, but I hate them. I like short nails. Long nails (especially manicured ones) creep me out.

I forgot to mention it, but a couple of guys I knew died the other day. They were seniors when I was a freshman. One was homecoming court; the other was the son of one of my mom's coworkers. They got drunk, tried to drive home, and died.

I made a new friend after I got my hair cut today. Her name's Kate. She's cool.

I don't feel like typing anymore. The end.

Cal, Tiff, Bob, and I went to the late showing of Mean Girls tonight. It's good for teen fare. See it.

We crashed Hy-Vee (can one really 'crash' a supermarket?) afterwards, and it was de-lovely. I saw my friend Trish there, and I went up and tapped her on the shoulder. She was all happy to see me, and I felt special. We chatted for about five minutes, and as she was about to leave, someone taps my shoulder. In a bizarre coincidence (Hy-Vee at 11:30 on a Friday night), it was my Brookings Army friend (yay).

My Brookings Army friend is a guy I met a couple times in April. He's 20 and just out of the military; his brother is my age. Anyway, he's pretty cool, and I hadn't seen him in a month, so it was nice. We talked for five minutes or so (he mocked me muchly for seeing Mean Girls).

Anyway, Trish left, BAF left, and Bob, Cal, Tiff, and I started heading up the produce aisle. We were about 3/4 of the way up when Bob commented, "You know, the only reason we invited you this time was because you had the nicest car."

He was kidding. I knew that. I froze anyway. (Background: last Movie Night, I was very purposefully excluded, and I still don't know why. They organized it, talked about it constantly in front of me, and made a point not to invite me.) I was suspicious, needless to say.

In mock irritation, I started walking away. They called after me, asking where I was going. I told them they could all walk home. They didn't follow, so I decided to test them.

I made it out to the parking lot, where Brookings Army friend was still loading up his car. He was confused, so I explained what Bob said and that I'm letting them walk home. Suddenly I heard Bob, Cal, and Tiff running through the lot screaming. I jumped in my car, and Cal and Tiff managed to vault in before I locked the doors. Bob's trapped outside, and I can hear BAF and his friend dying with laughter. What do we do?

I pulled away, of course. We drove around the block a couple of times, and eventually I doubled back to rescue Bob. BAF was gone by that time. Bob was cold and cranky and made his irritation known. We assured him that he absolutely deserved it. Cal, Tiff, and I all found it wildly funny. Bob hates me now.

It just goes to show: don't mess with me, bitch.

Eh, news. Studied like mad. Took some finals. Passed. Have officially graduated from junior year of high school. Went to a job interview. Did well. May become a secretary. Will find out Tuesday. Feeling off-color. Enjoying summer thus far anyway. Hate subject nouns.

People who talk about their honeymoon are weird. "We spent lots of money to go have sex!" Doesn't mean I want to hear about it.

Ok, Dooey just did a big post on the evils of Fundamentalist Christians and their Jack Chick crap. I feel like doing one, too. She even mentioned the hypocrisy of the teach-love-except-towards-gay-people tactic they use. I've a story about that one.

I used to have an acquaintance--we'll call her Jamie--who was always trying to "witness" and "save" everybody. One day, she tried to pull her crap on me.

"Allison, have you been saved?"
"No, I haven't been 'saved,' and believe me, you're not going to be the one to do it."
"But don't you want to go to Heaven? All you have to do is accept Jesus as your personal savior."
"Look, Jamie--I'm Catholic."

She was immediately aghast. I swear, I could have told her that I was an unrepentant murderer of bunny rabbits and she would have been less disgusted.

"Well, Catholics can be saved, too, you know."
"Don't even try. We don't believe your crap about 'saving.' Just because you're all 'Praise the Lord!' doesn't mean you can be a self-righteous bastard and still go to Heaven."
"But don't you believe in Heaven?"
"I don't know. But if I do, I believe you get there based on actions, not blind faith. You have to be a decent person. God doesn't want you to go around annoying all hell out of everybody who doesn't walk, talk, look, and think--or really, not-think--just like you."
"The Bible says that faith alone is what gets you into Heaven."
"Yeah, well, maybe Hitler was a really good Catholic, I don't know. Doesn't mean he gets a free pass into eternal paradise and whatnot."
"But if you don't act in God's love, you haven't really accepted Jesus as your savior."

They're so frustrating. All Fundamentalist arguments are hypocritical, lack logic, and go in circles.

"Jamie...what do you think of gay people?"
"Homosexuals are deviants. God will punish them for their actions." (I'd just like to note here that Jamie's best friend was a closeted gay kid.)
"Have you been saved?"
"Of course, and I want you to be saved, too."
"How is the condemnation of a good percentage of the population 'acting in God's love'?"

She paused, and thought a second. It appeared to be something she didn't do often.

"But they're deviants, and they're going to Hell. It says in the Bible--"
"'Judge not, lest ye yourself be judged'?"
"No, in Leviticus--"
"But it says that, too, doesn't it?"
"It says so in the Bible."
"Do you believe everything the Bible says?"
"Yes. The Bible is God's word."

Mistake.

"Ok, Jamie, first off--Jesus didn't write the Bible."
"The Bible is God's divine word."
"Then perhaps you can explain to me why you don't use all of it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"It's called the Apocrypha. It's several books that are included in the Catholic Bible but are omitted from most Protestant versions."
"That doesn't sound right."
"Look it up. It is. You guys don't use the entire Bible because of the fact that the Apocrypha didn't have an existing Hebrew or Aramaic text at the time of the Reformation. Luther used the Jewish canon of the Old Testament and included the Apocrypha in a separate section. I've looked through the Bible you use, and it doesn't include the Apocrypha at all. Our Bibles are different--how can both be the whole truth?"

She's gotten squirmy.

"The Bible is true. It's God's divine word."
"You believe in Creationism?"
"Of course. Evolution can't be proven."
"And making dudes out of dirt can be? Ok, question: is incest wrong?"
"Yes."
"Would God force someone to commit incest?"
"God doesn't force anyone to do anything. People have free will."
"See, that's one of the many things that gets me about Creationism. Who did Cain have to sleep with to continue the human race?"

She frowned.

"It doesn't say that Adam and Eve were the only people God created. He could have created more."
"Yeah, but that's the weird thing. That's a pretty big leap of logic you're requiring. As I recall, Cain kills Abel, gets sent to the land of Nod, and bam! In the next sentence, he's having 'relations with his wife.' Where'd she come from, and why didn't we hear her background? I mean, the Bible's usually pretty fond of begets. Why don't we get the whole story on Mrs. Cain?"
"You can believe whatever you want, but the Bible is true."
"First and foremost: we're having this discussion because you wouldn't let me believe whatever I wanted. Secondly, is God just?"
"Of course."
"You know the story of Job? Where Satan takes all of Job's stuff and destroys his house and kills his wives and children?"
"Yes."
"You believe that? God and Satan make a bet to make some guy's life miserable?"
"It's true."
"But I thought God was just?"
"Don't you know how the story of Job ends? Job stays true to God and God rewards him."
"Yeah, well, you know what? At the end of Job, his wives and kids are still dead. If you think it's true, maybe you should explain your whole 'God is just' theory to them."

Needless to say, she didn't like me much after that.

Addiction. I taught myself how to play it on Monday night (when I was supposed to be studying for the Spanish final I took today). I was playing it with pennies and a sheet of graph paper in study hall the other day, and there was quite an audience. Since then, I've taught it to Sarah, Rachel, Bob, Amber, and Cal upon request.

We've come up with a really simple turn-based way to play, and it's fun. Amber got really good at it; she comes up to me whenever we have free time and asks to play with me. We enjoy.

Once you get the hang of it, Life is a really cool game. The patterns you end up making get really interested; yesterday, Amber and I ended up with a huge six-pointed star. But, God, we're Life junkies now.

I'm addicted to a 34-year-old mathematical logic puzzle. Fortunately, I'm quite comfortable with my loseryness.

I would just like to note that today I got googlehits for:
"him where it hurts"
"goddamn frustrated"
"conor oberst" communist

...Well, that explains the secret political agenda of Bright Eyes. I should have known he was a Red with all his references to "public action figures and cowboy presidents."

Fuckin' pinko Commie rat.

...no, I don't know where the accents go...

Izquierda, derecha, delante, detras,
Cerca y lejos y algo mas.
Arriba, abajo, sobre, encima,
Y ahora, muchacho, se acaba la rima!

Finals suck.

Speakers: my father and me. Places (respectively): stairway, my room. A shouted conversation...

"Allison!"
"Yeah?"
"Where's the Tivo remote?"
"I don't know."
"You had it last!"
"I was on the recliner. Look around there."


About ten minutes later...

"Allison!"
"What?"
"What the hell did you do with the Tivo remote?"
"I told you; I was on the recliner."
"Well, it's not there, now, is it?"
"I guess not."


A pause...

"Allison!"
"What?"
"Get down here and find that remote!"
"Dad, I'm busy."
"I'm sure."
"No, seriously, I've got a history project due tomorrow. I'm working."
"Well, I want to watch TV!"
"All right, all right."
"Come down here now!"


About five seconds later, as I'm unlocking my door...

"Oh. Never mind. Your brother found it. It was on the bed [in the downstairs bedroom]."
"I was never there!"
"Yeah, well, I must have done that."


Is it just me, or is that a serious role reversal? The Working Person who Hasn't Touched the Remote in Four Hours versus the Whiny Person who Lost the Remote but Wants to Watch TV. Seems to me that the latter isn't usually 41 years old.

Well, well. Blogger's looking all revamped and OS X-y, now, isn't it? Purty.

As for the last post? Fastest broken links ever. I'll fix them later; photobucket says it can't connect to the database, so maybe it's a problem on their end.

We appreciate your business. Your order will be ready momentarily; have a nice day! I promised photos, and I shall deliver. Now that hpphoto won't let you link from it, I'm trying out new photo storage sites. I'm thinking photobucket sucks. It'll do for now. Here's a big ol' mess o' pitchers fer yous. I warn you now, there are a lot.

This is my street. See the red car in the foreground on the right side? That's my Breeze.


This is the city pond where I feed geese.


This is the park where I fly kites in the summer.


This is Main Street. Almost every business here is situated on a two-block stretch of road.



One of two eateries in town, Dairy Mart is seasonal. It's an ice cream shop that's only open in the summers. Yes, those are cow spots.


Remember how my old school got condemned and torn down? Well, the new building is a work in progress.


In the meantime, I have physics, chorus, band, independent study, and Spanish here.

And English, algebra, and history in these.


This monument has been in front of the school for about forty years. As kids, we used to climb on it and play around it. I never thought much of it. When Chantel first moved here, though, we were walking past it one day. She looked up, glanced at the monument, and remarked, "Well, that's phallic."


Looking for somebody under 90 on Friday nights in September? Trust me, they're here.


And this is the not-so-secret way they get in without paying. As a pep band player and a pillar of honesty, I don't have to use this entrance.


Here are the Quonset huts on the edge of town. I don't know what's up with them. They've just been around as long as I can remember.


I was asked for pictures of "the surrounding area," but, well, this is the surrounding area.


In the surrounding area, all the roads are gravel. Legally, you can drive 55 mph on them. Legally, you can drink paint thinner. They're both death wishes.


You can't see it (damn photobucket), but this sign says: MINIMUM MAINTENANCE - TRAVEL AT YOUR OWN RISK. When my friends and I were young and foolish (14 is the restricted driving age in SD), we cruised minmain roads all the time. We're still young and foolish, but now we have cars we can't afford to wreck.


Last, and almost unrelatedly, will anyone explain to me why somebody duct-taped garbage bags to this fire hydrant?

"Nobody has a good day unless they're rich."

I am really good at this game. Either I'm a very good strategist, or I just have way too much time on my hands.

Really, though, I don't have that much time. I've been psychotically busy lately. Finals are next week, there was a big math test today, and the English reading project was due today. I spent every class doing something for another class--I read 300 pages from first to fifth period so that I could pass English. Then, I studied for the math test while my English teacher yammered about Of Mice and Men. Then, I took the math test. I finished early, so I spent the remainder of the time doodling contour line drawings. Somewhere in there, I quit reading my book so that I could get really good at Dots (was it Spanish?).

Ok, ok, I guess I do have ample time for screwing around.

The following are various interactions between a headphoned Allison and several friends in desperate need of Ritalin on the bus trip back from Milbank. All involve the lifting of one earpiece by any friend and that friend's attempt at an impression of James Earl Jones. Dude, I hate my friends.

"Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
"Ok."

"Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
"You too?"

"Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
"I must be a very murderable person."

"Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
"Wow, no one's ever said that to me before."

"Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
"If you guys aren't careful, this just might get annoying."

"Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
"You bastards."

"Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
"Dude...I'm losing the vocals."
"Oh, sorry." [lifts other earpiece] "Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
"Dammit, now the percussion's gone."

"Mookie...I'm going to kill you."
At this point I turned around, pulled Bob's shoe (he was the closest perpetrator) off his foot, and threw it in the front of the bus.

"Hey. You're violent. You made my shoe go away."
Then he punched me really hard in the ribs. Fortunately, he was clutching my seat with his left hand, so he got a Converse All-Star to the knuckles.

"Ow. Fu--wait, I promised myself I wouldn't swear."
"Fuck you, too."
"I didn't even do anything."
"You hit me really hard."
"You stole my shoe."
"You threatened to kill me. Four times."
"You need killing."
"...Yeah, yeah, that's true. So we're even?"
"Yes, but I'm still going to kill you."
"But of course."

I'm cranky and totally disenchanted with my life (isn't everyone?) right now, so I'll spare you the Teenagery Rant o' the Day. I'm in one of those "I-hate-the-world" moods, and if you want to read about those, go pick up The Catcher in the Rye.

Actually, for the love of God, don't pick up that book. I hate it, and I can't risk being responsible for any poor soul reading it and having the same reaction to it I did ("This sucks. Everything is in italics. When is this thing over? When is something going to actually happen? Holden's a jerk. God, this sucks.") I think that's a sin worth a couple lifetimes in Purgatory right there.

And no, I don't believe in Purgatory.

I like walking five blocks to the nearest pop machine at 10:00 p.m. to get a bottle of water and then walking five blocks back. Barefoot. Yes, yes I do.

Play-by-play and pleasantries:

- Band Dude is psychotic. We don't need to start marching band the last week of school. That's what study halls are for.
- I take an independent study class in which I get earn credits for falling asleep. Every once in awhile, I take a book down to the kindergarten and read to a bunch of ridiculously overenthusiastic children. Then I go back to the library and sleep some more.
- We're making crossword puzzles for American history. Everybody is assigned one decade of the 20th century, and we have to make up 20 clues. My history teacher and I argued, but I'm still not convinced that 20 things of note happend during the 1990's. I mean, I was alive then, and I sure never did anything. That might have something to do with the fact that I was anywhere from two to twelve during said decade. Also, I'm a loser. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Trust me.
- Vote Bob for vice-president. He's a junior next year, so he's running for student body VP. Somehow, he appointed me as his campaign manager. He didn't know how to win it, and competition is pretty fierce, so he asked me to come up with a plan of action. I'm currently doing my best to split the votes between the front-runner (a Popular Girl) and another of the weird kids (who doesn't stand a chance). So far, it's working. Our official platform is "Vote Bob or Allison Will Blow Up the School."
- My Spanish teacher has rage issues.
- Electricity makes physics interesting. Let's electrocute stuff. And then we'll blow it up. Something to do, something to do.
- My English teacher is back from her matenity leave, so now we don't do anything in English. We watch the Gary Sinise version of Of Mice and Men for awhile, and then she tells stories involving baby feces.
- My math teacher says you can't use graphing calculators on the ACT this year. If that's true, I'm fucked. I don't really believe him; I took the SAT on Saturday, and they didn't care what kind of calc you used. Plus, there was hardly any advanced algebra on the thing. Half the math stuff was probability. I hope the ACT isn't psychotic with ellipses and such.
- Rachel and I are going to go to the Brookings and jobhunt. I will hopefully come home with a stack of applications. Either that, or we'll go to Pizza Ranch, stuff ourselves silly, and screw around in the mall all evening. Whichever works.
- I like sentence fragments today.

Finally, how are you? No, I really do mean that. 'Cos I'm okay. Are you okay? How are you really?

Oh.

Problem with America Number 438,000: it's easier for an alcoholic crack addict to get a job than it is for a 16-year-old trying to save some money for college.

I cannot find myself a real job. I have my typesetting job on Mondays, but that's only four hours a week. $96 a month just isn't going to cut it.

You have to be 17 to work at Blockbuster, 18 for Wal-Mart. I could apply at Hy-Vee, but Trisha works there and she says the managers are evil. Burger King isn't hiring, and Dairy Queen only employs ditzy blondes. All the other Brookings locales hire strictly by nepotism and ass-kissing.

I refuse to go back to my old cashier job at the local grocery store. My boss called me up and offered, but there's no way I'm going to work under my old manager (The Grand High Queen Bitch). No, no, no, no. For Chrissakes, I'd like to think I have a little dignity left.

Colleges are crazy. The cost of tuition and room and board keep going up, all while more and more corporations are raising the age limit on employees. How the hell is somebody supposed to afford college? (Oh, right, we don't. We get ourselves into crazy amounts of debt and go to our third-choice schools.)

God help me--I'm currently filling out an application for McDonald's. How am I supposed to lead the Revolution if I have a McJob?

Fact: it is May Day.

Today is the kind of day that is beauty in a basket.

It's beautiful out. The temperature is cozy warm and coolly breezy at the same time. The air is sweet and charming.

The sun is setting in an orange-flavored sky, swathed in patchy, grey-violet cirrus clouds. As I drive past the cemetery on the edge of town, I can see the dregs of sunshine reflected in the polished granite faces of the tombstones.

Fact: nearly all cemeteries are situated so that the gravestones face west.

Above the back row of pine trees, massive cumulus clouds hover in the air, puffed up with some kind of regal pride. These clouds are pale grey with pink tops. It's the perfect time of year; it's that season when the clouds are starting to get sharp again.

The grass is green again; the ditch by the cemetery is golden with dandelions, which are far prettier from a distance. The sky is powder-blue and somehow it manages to be gently crisp. The buds on the ash trees swish in the breeze, and the mourning doves coo to one another.

Fact: there were mourning doves in the graveyard.

Fact: mourning doves do not have the brainpower necessary to understand irony.

The world is a watercolor painting, full of pastel color and springtime shape. It is all very perfect.

And then, as I continue driving home, I notice that my neighbor up the block and around the corner has a washing machine sitting right in the middle of his front sidewalk.