What if I died tomorrow and someone read this journal?

Obsession.  For real.

April 12, 2000
"Tomorrow evening, around this time, I will be thinking about how wonderful my new ar is.  Then I'll be able to do all the thing I've wante to do all week, like just drive with the windows down, or go to Carrie's house and talk while laying on her bed.  That is one of my favorite things to do- just lay there, eyes closed, talking about everything under the sun.  I wish I could be doing that right now.
I realized something important: what if I died tomorrow and someone read this journal?  Surely they would think I'm completely obsessed with Greg.  NOTE TO READER: Greg is my love and just happens to be the exclusive person I write about.  A friend told me today that she can't believe how hung up on him I am...she, as well as other, told me I need to move on.  How, I'm wondering, just how am I supposed to do that?  There's no one else to move on to.
Everytime I wish, I wish for someone.  Ok, usually Greg, or some stupid little fling that lasts for a few days.  But tonight, at 10:10 PM, I did not wish for someone, or for Greg.  I simply wished to move on - for my own sake.  And i wished it'd be soon -- but I always wish that.  So, yeah, I need to stop...or at least I need to not talk about it so much, then everyeone will think that I never think about him.  That'll just be my little secret.

The Algebra teacher (poor thing)

Sometimes I was a little frustrated.... especially when it came to math.

12/14/98
"She's quite homely.  She has an ugly smile and she doesn't ever seem to know what she's really talking about.  She's not even a very good teacher - she doesn't want to help me get better.  She just want me to keep quiet.  She has an impatient crockyness about her.  But I'd like to see her outseide of school, to see if she's any different.  Sometimes she comes out with her almost Brooklyn accent, which I hate.  When she calls me Ambah I want to rip out her voice box and hit her with it, saying, 'Am-ber.  Am-BER.  AM-BER!'.  She needs speech classes or something."

College won't want me...

May 20, 1999
"...It hit me today that I won't get into Honors Society.  What college is going to want me??  But I have a plan.  Over the summer some time my braces will come off, and I want to start taking guitar classes again, and my hair will grow long again, and I'm staring to see a dermatologist.  I'm getting comfortable with myself and I'll grow into this beautiful person.  I'll be like an ugly caterpillar shedding my old skins.
I'm thinking about dropping out of band.  I'm just really nervous about that.
What I really want to do is go to a private school - a boarding school.  I could focus on education instead of all this bullshit.  And it would be private and advanced.  And it's absolutely hopeless.  Everything's so hopeless right now."

A folk song, or something....

In keeping with the current mood...

November 3, 1998
"O, Sweet Misery

'They can no longer cover or hide everything we've fucked up.'

All our excuses, our alibis
have slipped away unnoticed
they can no longer stop
the bleeding
from the scars we thought had healed.

My eyes have faded gray
And I see him
look from the grass to me
telling me about our bad habits
why we do the things we do
or
think the things we think.

Because we know no better way.
We don't know how to change.
We love our sweet misery."

Heartbreak hotel.

May 30, 2001
"Tonight was like a movie.  It all began like this...
I drove up to the Speedway to pick up my pet pig, Smokey, from Nate, who had kept him for the night.  We exchanged hellos and said our goodbyes.  He wished me luck on finding an apartment, I hoped he wouldn't get too fucked up at Paul's house.  I wanted to tell him [that I want to break up with him] but the words clung to my throat.  I went to the apartments, found one, put down a deposit.  Before all this, and before I go on, I called Paul's house and asked Nate to pick me up from work at 9:30 because I wouldn't have a car and I knew then that he was already blazing.  I worked the whole night and was surprised when he didn't show up at 9:20 or 9:25 or even 9:30.  At 9:35 I called his phone and asked him where he was.  At Paul's.  Did you forget about me?  What?  Picking me up at 9:30?  What time is it now?  9:40.  Oh baby, I'm so sorry.  I'm on my way right now.
Five minutes later his drunk ass shows up.  I know instantly that I don't want him to drive.  He can barely talk straight.
He's telling me what he did tonight.  Now I'm crying.  He smoked.  Drank.  Took two zanis...just like everyone else, all those pill poppers.  He told me just the other day that he didn't do that anymore.
He's apologizing.  I cry, hard.  Drive off the road a little.  It's pouring rain.
He's apologizing but he's drunk.  This has got to stop.  I tell him never to be fucked up around me again, that it's breaking my heart.  He says he'll do anything for me.  He loves me.  So much.  More than anything in this whole world.  He'd give up anything fro me.  And this drug stuff, this has got to stop, it's pulling us apart.  Please forgive me, baby, please, I love you so much, I would kill myself if I lost you.  I tell him I forgive him.  He can't stop apologizing.  He's crying.  I pull up to the gas station.  It's pouring rain.  We stop and talk and cry in the jeep until I tell him what time it is.  He's supposed to be at that job, unloading boxes at a warehouse, at 10:30.  It's 10:24, we're driving down the road to my house.  I just want to blurt it out [that I want to dump him].  He keeps repeating himself.  Right before he leaves, we're standing in the rain.
The manager at the warehouse calls his cell phone twice, he has to go.  I'm scared to death, it's pouring all over town, he's drunk and I know he's going to speed.  I don't want to tell him now because I'm afraid he'll forget by morning but I have to tell him at some point.  He promises he won't forget, but I don't say anything.  He says, I love you more than anybody in this whole world.  The phone rings again, he has to go.  I love you, he says, as he rolls out of the driveway.  I love you, I mouth, but I don't think he sees me.  He drives off; I stand in the same spot, holding Smokey, in the rain, in the night.  I wish you were here."

Playing it cool.

1/4/99
"Wow, I"m still not getting used to the transition of this being 1999.
I actually talked to my friends today.  I had quite an interesting conversation with Carrie.  I told her how I loved Indiana and why I hadn't talked to anyone until then (they thought I just got in town).  She ask what I was planning on doing tonight.  I told her about Greg's surprise party, and I asked what they were planning on.  She said, oh, we don't know.  Mike was just curious.  I was like Mike?  Yeah, you know Mike...Mike P.  I knew all along who she was talking about, I just didn't know why she was talking about him."

Who the fuck do you think you're kidding?

Today is a bad day for me.  A really rough, open-a-vein-bad kind of day, you know?  

So I found this entry appropriate.

12/15/98
"Bruce told me the other morning that he's tried to figure me out.  I've re-read the letter a thousand times, trying to see why he thinks I'm perplexing, why I'm so 'distant.'  He calls it my 'safety mechanism' - my mask.  He tells me that I'm causing myself a great deal of heartache and that I'm missing out on something great.

From Bruce: 'It's not like I wouldn't have told you anyway, had I the time, and you weren't so distant.'

And then, part of his poem to me:

Did you paint you windows purple to hide a
multi-colored madness?
To shelter cold-confusion from distant eyes
that see your sadness?
It's easy to keep your mouth closed,
It's easy to stay away
Until your heart swells much too large
for the mask you've given it."

What if I'd been a ...cowgirl?

March 25, 2000

"What if we'd moved back to Texas and Mom had had a kid?  Hmmm....maybe I would be living in California or Japan right now, if she had married a Navy guy or any sort of military man.  What if we had stayed in Dallas?  I would be so different.  Maybe a cowgirl.  And I'd drive a big Chevy truck and blare Garth.  Maybe I'd fall into a rock-n-roll crowd there too.  Are you who you are always?  Maybe I'd be sitting on the floor in my room at 11:50 on a Saturday night writing in my journal.
I wonder what I'm going to be like when I grow up.  When I'm an adult out there doing all that responsible adult stuff.  I hope I don't get caught up in the hassles of life.  I want to remember how to have fun - I want laugh a lot and be true to myself.  Maybe I'll still be into art and music and the beauty of this poetic world."

Today I am in a bad mood.

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed....at least, that is one way to describe it.  But this isn't a modern day journal, so I'll get to pulling up the old stuff.

9/16/98
"Last night I was sitting outside on my Granny's porch writing, when, out of the stillness of a warm autumn night, I hear my [step]cousin and her about-to-be ex-husband and his momma screaming at each other in the middle of the road, throwing around lots of F words and other obscenities.  The cops came.
I tried to remind myself that they are just rednecks, mean ones, but they just wouldn't shut up."

Yes, this is them, the two on the left.  No blood relation (important note).

Uglier and uglier...

6/20/99
"I made a dermatologist appointment and the doctor was impatient and craggy, and he smelled like cigarettes.  Mom wanted to come with me to make sure I didn't say anything that would make her look bad.  It's her fault that my complexion is as bad as it it. 
I finally convinced her to let me go to the dermatologist by saying that my braces would be coming off soon and I would wanted to have professional pictures done [Glamor Shots].  She gave me bullshit but I stuck to what I really wanted.  The crotchedy doctor gave me a perscription which seems to have only made things worse.  Now I feel like I can't look people in the face anymore because I think they're only comtemplating how ugly I am.  I even made arrangements to not get together with my friends because I don't want them to see me so ugly."

A bulleted list.

8/10/99

• "I'm thinking back to when I missed everyone I now loathe.  What about them was I missing?  Everything about them in  some way annoys me and everything about me ends up annoying them.
• I'm thinking of the fleeting thoughts that always weakened my knees.  Why does that still come back to haunt me?
• H.!  H.!  A dagger in my back!
• Bando: why this jealousy?  Jealousy is such a cruel emotion.  I heard smiles were free.  Why do I count each one greedily?
• I allow myself to be disappointed by someone's disappointment in me.  I am disgusted in myself and it seems like I can't stop it from reoccurring."

More thoughts on people I didn't know...

This partial-entry is mean...seriously, it's pretty bad.

12/14/98
"People:
Colin is the nicest boy out of the 'cool' group on the bus.  He honestly is sweet.  He's very attactive and when he gets on the bus, all the fat girls stare.  He's also very superficial and shallow (and he hates all the fat girls).  Sometimes I just hate all of them, the 'cool' group, and all the annoying fat girls and ignorant redneck boys.  I just want to put them on a bus full of dynmaite and watch them sweat."

May I introduce Amber, the storywriter.

It's not a secret: since I was a kid I wanted to be a writer.  I know that a lot of people say that and think that and it's probably true for many.  It's just getting there that's the problem.  I'm still working on that part....Anywho.  I knew that I couldn't make it as a full-time writer, even at a young age, so I had several plans.  One was to be an explorer.  An archaelogist.  An anthropologist.  A field reporter for National Geographic.  A music writer for Alternative Press.  A soap opera writer (which I still wouldn't mind).  And so on and so forth.  Because I always had that burning passion to be a writer, a lot of my journals are filled with stories.  Ridiculous, horrible, indulgent stories where I am the heroine and everyone thinks I'm cool or I get my way, and by that I mean that I mean the boy I want to pays attention to me finally does.
I won't include the story that I read today that made me laugh because it was particularly dumb and long, but I will write about it. 
To set it up: I was working at a nursery in Pensacola called Floral Tree Gardens.  I knew nothing about plants and I pronounced many of their names horribly, so I worked the cash register.  I had braces.  I had a terrible hair cut.  I mean, it was really bad.  A won't-go-back-again bad hair cut.
Since I worked the register I often answered the phone.  It was mostly the other stores calling us to see if we had something a customer was looking for or it was a landscaper calling about a big order or something.  I don't really remember.  This was a long time ago so I'm kinda making things up.  Anyway, there was one guy in particular that seemed to call my store a lot.  His name was John and he was from the Gulf Breeze store.  That was his title, to me, John from Gulf Breeze.  I don't remember this dude at all, but apparently I had a mad crush on him, even though we only talked on the phone a couple of times a week, and it was only him asking if we had any Hybrid-T roses, etc. I think he was an "adult" - maybe in his mid-twenties - and I was sixteen.  I don't remember what he looks like. 
If you haven't realized it yet, I was pretty lonely.  I really wanted a boyfriend but the dude that I was into was into me.  (Yes, that dude was none other than Greg.)
So I invented.  That's what today's story was about.  In this particular "gem" my friend Amber was going to throw a weekend-long party at the beach.  I was planning on going but I knew that Greg would be there with his new girlfriend, so I had my backup loverboy come with me.  (Remember, this is all pretend, I didn't have a backup loverboy, even though that would have been pretty sweet.)  But before I go to the party a big group of my friends and I go to Fast Eddie's Fun Center, a go-cart track, where I apparently run into John from Gulf Breeze and his friends.  I'm stunned he's there and I guess I'm shocked with how handsome he is in real life (or maybe that he was real at all) so as I'm stammering my friend Carrie (everyone, apparently, went by their real names in this story) invites John from Gulf Breeze to Amber's big weekend-long party.
I go to Amber's rented beach house, apparently forgetting about John from Gulf Breeze, and my plan of making Greg jealous by hanging out with my backup loverboy isn't working because he's hanging out and enjoying his girlfriend's company, which made me 100% miserable.  So, what did I do?  What the present day, real-life Amber would do.  I got fucking drunk.
Then John from Gulf Breeze shows up.  Great timing.  I'm drunker than hell and trying to climb some stairs unsuccessfully so John from Gulf Breeze comes to my rescue.  He takes me to a bedroom and puts my drunk ass to bed.  As he's practically carrying me up the stairs, I kiss him.  Because every guy wants to take care of some drunk girl, right? I mean, what's more romantic?
Well apparently John from Gulf Breeze thought it was a Hallmark moment.  I kiss him and he falls in love with me.  He has a girlfriend, but after the night of taking care of drunko me, he decides to dump her so that we can be boyfriend and girlfriend.
The end.

Great story, right?  I know, I know.  I have a million of 'em.

My thoughts on people I didn't know.

Man, I was kind of a jerk.  Just a little bit.
I won't mention the names of the victims I wrote about.  Because 1) I still know them and 2) I'm embarrassed to admit how mean I was about them, even if it was just to myself.  Jealousy will do that to you!

12/7/98
"I guess if you wear enough make-up, the right clothes, and are bubbly, it doesn't matter if you're cross-eyed."

"I saw you today, in the same stance you're always in, same clothes you always wear, and the same facial expression plastered on your face.  I noticed your braces are off, your perfect white teeth catching the sunlight through the tiny gaping expression your mouth is always in.  I've never heard you speak; you always seem buried in your own quiet world.  In a sense I feel sorry for you, that you couldn't have at least attempted to worm your way out of your shyness.  But that's your own damn fault."

"Hidden beneath her layers of makeup and her hauty, better-than-everyone attitude, there has to be a little girl drowning in there somewhere.  Somewhere inside there is a real person."

*"She's a stupid girl, ugly with her wannabe sex kitten personality, doomed by the fact that she's just a dork.  She used to tell me of how she would have sex with her boyfriends of only a few days, in the woods, in her kitchen, anywhere.  She brags about thse ugly guys as if there was something to be jealous of. Whatever.  She needs to get over it."

 This is us in '98.  I don't know whose shirt that is that I'm wearing.  I knew I wasn't cool - but I had accepted that long ago.  I thought everyone should know their place, and if they didn't, I was deathly judemental and jealous of them.  Oh, age fifteen!

Also in this picture are: Brandi on the far left, Stephanie, and Sarah.  Amanda in the background - Sarah, whatever happened to her?

The shield....

People - 12/14/98
"We used to be so close, me and that girl sitting across from me.  Now it seems I hardly know her, it seems either of us hardly care.  Even though it hasn't been that long since we were real tight, she looks so different.  Her face seems rounder, her eyes seems to have faded, not being as blue as there once were.  She has a look of thinking too many thoughts all at once.  Either that or she's just always really tired.  She doesn't like me as much as she use to....I heard that she thinks that she's not "free" enough (spiritually) for me anymore.  I guess that's okay; it's the truth.  She never seems to have an opinion of her own, and she appreciates being stereotyped.  Also, she has a 'boyfriend' now, so her and I aren't on the same level anymore.  I don't care.  It's not like we were on the same 'level' anyway."

It happened often.

March 18, 2000
"He was telling me about how he was adopted and I thought he was joking, so naturally I laughed.  I felt bad when I realized he wasn't joking."

High expectations.

Dude.  I had NO idea what I was doing - in any regard.  LBR?!!

April 22, 1999
"Just the other day I was like, 'I saw him four times today.  And once, he turned around and looked at me.' Or, 'He waved at me today.'  And this meaningless bullshit would make my entire day.  I'm such a dumbass.  So he apparently has Marie now, which is good beause she was always nice to me last year.
[Some more bitching about another guy I liked.]
I'm not pretty enough or have enough personality to be invited to prom.  I just want to talk to Bruce but I don't think I can.  This life is a rolling snowball going downhill and I coudln't intercept it if I wanted to.  Greg has changed.  And Ken, God, he makes me want to just die right along with him.  Above everything, I can't seem to write at all.  No poems will come and all my stories are shit.  I just was rejected from the London Review of Books.  I must've read that slip they returned to me a hundred times."

I wrote a lot of notes and letters to people.

But I have so many of my own letters and notes that I'm wondering if I ever gave anything to anyone.

I have no idea to whom this letter is addressed...maybe Gary?

Undated
"Hello...
I just got back...We went to Gran's and they were watching racing (surprise surprise) so I read.  After that Mom and I went to B&N and I read from the Philosophy book that I was looking at last night.  I had a nice cup of tea and contemplated my life, the pros and cons, and what the greater meaning really is.  I wonder if I have a meaning and if I do how do I go about succeeding?  What if success is like a path that forks in the road and I have to choose?  One path leads to the answer, the meaning of why I am here; the other is just a life, not necessarily trite but yet not fulfilled.  Hmm.  I just want to be awake.  With open eyes I want to see the world in its truest form..."

Somewhere in between.

It's funny to me how I can read something I wrote when I was fifteen and think, well, you know, sometimes I still struggle with that.  Being comfortable with myself will probably be something that I always struggle with.
Sunday, May 17, 1998
"I'm looking back now
at how far I have come
from being that shallow,
identity-seeking, confused
girl
Those words barely cover it.
But they give an idea.
now I can't even imagine
myself as I was
even a year ago.
I never thought I had
changed
but I'm definitely not
the same.
Somehow I'm neither here (the person I should be)
or there, that little child I was
Now I'm just a soul
waiting to be inspired.

At this point in time, I try to see things as clearly as I can.  I've found I suffer from fearlovehatefrustration, especially from frustration.  I have seen I am not like most people.  As for my identity, I've decided I will not create a search party for it, for it will come to me.  Right now I'm absorbing, unlike the girl who was desperately observing."

This was from Halloween or some sort of hippie dress up day at school or something...but...yeah, you get the idea.

Alone and lonely.

Ok, I had a crush on my cousin.  So what?  I was fourteen and the crush lasted about a week.
I discovered some pretty heavy stuff in this entry.  It doesn't end on the light haha note as some of the others do.  But I've been feeling melancholy lately, so I think this is appropriate.

December 28, 1998
"I finally finished Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter at about one this morning.  I found it coincendental that he married Aunt Julia then after eight years they divorce and he marries his cousin.  His cousin of all people.  I found that ringing a bell or two (of the future?).
Today we left Indiana.  I cried almost all day.  When I hugged my grandma she whispered that she loved me in my ear and I kissed my dear old grandpa goodbye.  I was able to put flowers on my daddy's grave and I couldn't stop crying then.  I wanted so badly for my mom to put her arm around me, but she didn't.  I cried myself to sleep in the van until Edinborough, where a shopping mall that mom likes is at, then we ate and I took some really strong headache medicine.  I slept some more, woke up again when we stopped to go to the bathroom and eat at a Bob Evans.  I asked my mom why we leave Indiana and never stay very long.  We had a good conversation in which both of us tried to force ourselves not to cry.  Mom said she feels like an outsider at her parents' home, how I wouldn't understand, how her life isn't fair because no one understands."

Jealousy, jealousy.

Septemeber 4, 1999
"Bonnie had a friend that died last weekend.  She told me the story and I watched her quiver and I thought, God, would anyone do that for me?  Then I imagined myself saving Jennifer's life; I pictured her falling into a volcano and me pulling her to safety.  Would that changes things?  I thought about this on my way to class.  Then I saw Eric, and I thought he would've been in jail, so I forgot about Jennifer."

A backwards glance.

Every time I got a new journal I felt I had to explain myself, as if the reader would be dealing with a total stranger.  Here is a high school recollection of when I started middle school.
July 9, 2000
"I used to be the second smartest [in elementary school].  I used to have this competition in my head with a girl named Shawndra.  The fourth grade teachers loved her.  I hated her.  She may have been a better reader than I, but I had the best penmanship.
In 6th grade, back in my dork days, I was the "weirdest" girl.  I had a plastic backpack, big glasses and parted my hair on the side.  The tranformation from a private Christain school to public school was hard.  I couldn't belive the way people talked, everyone dressed so differently (I always wore this white cotton shirt with airbrushed fish wearing sun glasses, it was my favorite, I wore it every week.  My parents bought it for me on their honeymoon to Panama City Beach and I was so proud of that shirt).  I couldn't believe my eyes the first time I saw a boy and a girl kissing. In the hallway!  At school!  Around that time I learned what a 'hoe' was and I thought those girls, those 'kissing' girls surely were 'hoes'."

 

Here's just a little glimpse at the transformation from 6th grade (left), when I had one friend, to 7th grade (right), when I became "cool".

A poem.

Most of my journals are filled with poems- many terrible poems.  I wrote a lot of poetry that reflected what I was reading or listening to at the time.  It wasn't until my junior/senior years that I started to find a voice of my own.

January 2, 2001
"Tonight I drove into the orange crescent of the moon
with my hands on the wheel
of my little gold Saturn
and a love poem
an ode
a song (quicker and longer
than that of a forest full of song birds)
caught in my throat.
I hummed a little hum
and thought of the blue clouds
you flew through a few days ago
you know, I'm going to be poor
oh yes, I want to lay my bohemian eyes
on a fresh world
and like a butterfly I want to
capture it, catalog it, and put it on display
all with my new pen and this notebook I tote around
I want to be a writer
and you say yes,
nod your heavy blonde head
and your hair lazily drifts in your eyes -
your teeth glow
yes."

More great thinking...

March 6, 1999
"Ken and Amber broke up.  It's such a shame.  Right after the break up, things were really hard, for everyone.  But things are much better now.  Amber asked Michael on a date.  She surprised him with flowers and then asked him.  I admire her so much for that - she seems so brave - almost like she can bounce back from anything.  As for me, I'm still wondering how long this single thing is going to last.  I'm going to start blind double-dating with as many friends as I can.  I'm creating what I so long to be a part of.  But there's Bud.  I have the hugest crush on Bud right now - even though I rarely see him and even more rarely do I talk to him.  But I have a plan...I have this "friend" named Juliana who I weant to set Bud up with.  So, if it works out the way I want it to, I'll pick Bud up or meet him at a cafe and we'll wait for Juliana and the date she's bringing for me.  But Juliana doesn't exist!  Neither does the other date!  So we'll talk while we're waiting, then I'll recommend that we go somewhere or do something and I'll see where to go from there."

Amber was my foil - happy and positive when I invariably was not.

The bad times.

I had a lot of bad times in high school.  I don't mean 'oh, I don't have a date' bad times, even though there were plenty of those, I mean 'I want to kill myself' bad times.  Suicide was something that was always on my mind.  I had a hard home life and was so insecure and jealous and disappointed all the time that my depression really got the best of me sometimes. 
There are a lot of entries in my journals where I contemplate death at my own hand, starting from when I was probably fourteen. I think about that now, so many years later, and I wonder why my mother never helped me?  How could she not see?  I remember telling her one time that I wanted to kill myself.  I was crying and heaving - it was a very bad moment - and she told me to stop being so dramatic.  I was often ignored in this way.
This is an entry from the end of 10th grade.  I was still battling with my feelings for Greg - he had a new girlfriend at the time that played drums and I was horribly, bitterly jealous of her.  I was best friends with Amber Roux but she was more available to hang out with our friends and she was more easy going than me, which totally killed me with envy.  I constantly thought that everyone hated me and was out to trick me - and that is something that I still (unfortunately) deal with today.  Here goes.

May 25, 1999
"Monday happened.  I skipped out on hanging out with him - I knew what that would lead to.  But I ended up talking to him Monday night.  It was incredibly hard for me to tell him everything.  I regretted saying anything.  He didn't get angry like I expected, but he didn't want to talk about anything.  He told me before I even began talking that he doesn't care about anything I say.  I means nothing to him.  That confused me and hurt me -  terribly.  It's like I wasn't even his friend, like I wasn't anything important.  Him saying that made me feel like shit.  Absolute SHIT.  He is my best friend, or he was at one time, and everything he ever said made a difference to me.  He doesn't seem to understand that everything I've ever done, anyone I've ever been, has all been for him.  And it hurts me so much to know that he can just disregard everything I've said.  But I've tried not to think about it. 
I went bowling on Friday night and Bruce was there.  I wonder if in some weird way he think I'm going after him.  It seems like I make him uncomfortable and that confuses me also.  I just want someone to talk to.  But not Bruce.  Truthfully, I'm feeling excluded and not-well-thought-of by the way everyone's treating me.  Greg's treating me like he doesn't give a fuck about anything that has to do with me.  J. replaces all.  Then Bruce and James have to make asolute sure the other Amber is also coming.  Like I'm not good enough.  Everything's just blowing up in my face.  And - this is small, but it really bothered me - I paged Bruce yesterday to see if we could hang out, but he told me that he had plans for after the awards ceremony he had to go to, and he gave this smug little I'm-going-to-go-get-fucked-up laugh and I said okay.  As it turns out, Amber Roux hung out with them all last night.  They can't forget Amber.  I'm tried of being shunned.  It's bad enough the vibes I get from Greg, but then to feel shunned.  Everything, every goddamn thing is blowing up in my face.  I want to die.  I want my life to be over.  I'm tired of all the diappointments - and my life has been one big diasppointment.  It's weird because this friend's of mine's parents are here - this friend attempted suicide about a month agao, and they're trying to cover it up.  They don't recognize me.  But I've seen so many reactions to this type of thing.  How will my people react?"

The names are changed (sorta) to protect the innocent.

Sometimes it's a challenge for me to find an entry worth sharing.  I was overly dramatic, self-consumed, and idealistic, and it gets to be a little much.
But here is an entry from sophomore year.  It is about boys....yet again.  It's entitled "You Left Me Far Behind".

August 12, 1999
"I thought that I would no longer suffer, that times would have changed my state of mind. But tonight, everything came back to me - a whirlwind of memories, all at once.
J: It was a build up of remembering those times.  But I miss him, even though I never had him, we as a unit never happened.  He gets on my nerves and he's rude to me sometimes, but I miss him a lot.
Twice I was slapped in the face by this feeling.  I stopped his mom tonight, mainly because I desperately wanted her to recognize me, but she didn't.
2: When I saw the look of pure tolerance on J's face when he was talking to my mom.  I had searched for him practically the whole night, and finally, towards the end, I found him.  When I saw that look, I felt this being inside me sigh.  All of my efforts were in vain.
What exactly was I trying to cling to?  Unconciously I was grasping those memories as if they would save my life.
When I heard that song: after I had convince myself that none of that matter, that it never did; I saw everything again.  I saw myself riding in his car, the first time he got brave and asked if he could call me, the time we at McDonald's at his house and I had ordered 20 chicken McNuggets and ended up only eating five, when I showed him where Orion was and he put his arm around me, and so many other thing.  And the irony of him and C.  She, his confidant about all the crap we went through, now his girlfriend!  Irony, pure irony.
The most plagueing memory: when we were all at the hotel in Miami and the drum major was playing on the piano and Greg (he later told me this) was watching me, wanting badly just to talk, and I was thinking the same about J.
J seemed so far away then.  Too hurt and confused by the way I treated him to have even noticed how confused I was.
And I thought everything was past me; so much time had gone by.  Tonight though, I'm tired and intrigued by tonight.  How could everyone have moved on so quickly, changed so fast, and me staying the exact same - same mindset, same view, same situations.  How can they leave me so far behind?
'And they sit back and watch
You crumble to the ground'

I was fine before I saw Greg tonight - fine before I knew he was there.  It seems like everytime I see him, no matter what, I become so unhappy.  He was my best friend.  I thought so anyway.  But, in all truth, I barely know him.
Of everyone I know, he left me the most behind.
Sometimes, on rare incidents like tonight, I feel completely void of two worlds: the one now and the one of what used to be.
Where am I now?"

Will my self-esteen ever return?

And the answer is...sorta not really.

June 20, 1999
"I talked to Greg.  I saw his mom in Blockbuster and when I came home my mom told me he had called.  I was excited to hear his voice again.  Its like five years have gone by.  I had so much to say, but very little time to talk.  He said, 'I want to see you again,' and I wanted to throw up.  I'm at such an awkward stage: braces, acne, and hair that was once cut too short.  But eventually, come August, the braces will come off and my face will clear up.  Will my self-esteem ever return?  Probably not. 
Work hasn't been so great.  I was stocking the other day and somehow got a black mark on my face.  It was there on my face all fucking day.  I felt like the big dummy that everyone laughs about behind her back."

A picture is worth a thousand words.

There is no entry for this.  All I can say is....what the hell was I thinking?

The first kiss.

I was in 8th grade when I got my first kiss, and here's the tale recalled a few years later.

July 9th, 2000
"He didn't know he was my first kiss.  I was too intimidated to tell him because, hell, he had sex when he was in fifth grade.  Surely he'd kissed a thousand times.  I had no idea what I was doing.  I read the kissing articles in Seventeen [magazine] thousands of times but couldn't remember a single thing except to put my right hand on his chest.  I didn't know I had to open my mouth.  Tim asked me if I knew how to kiss, if I knew I was supposed to open my mouth, and I told him it was just because I was nervous.  Did he want to go on a walk?  We held hands and chewed minty gum as we walked down the road.  Under a street light, next to a ditch filled with the songs of frongs, as Valerie and Leigh Anne looked the other way, Tim gave me my first real kiss.  I was scared, mouth open, right hand correctly resting on his chest.  His tongue was skinny and long and eager.  I didn't know when to stop, how long it was going to last, how long it was even supposed to last, and just how was I supposed to breathe?  That night I didn't brush my teeth, that's how impressed I was.
The next week Tim told me he loved me and I hung up on him.  Then I broke up with him on the bus.  The bus driver thought less of me, but oh well, she was old anyway."

This is 8th grade....with Bonnie (see entry about us being "gods") and Brandi.

I forgot all about you.

The worst haircut EVER.

This is a day that changed my life.  I'm not exaggerating.  I was so upset about this shitty haircut that I think I actually became more feminine.  Never again did I want someone (even a child) to question, "Mommy, is that a girl or a boy?"

I was 15 and wanting to be cute.  This was a popular haircut at the time and I thought that it might look good on me.  I was dead wrong.

Instead of going to a salon to have it done, I did what many super poor jobless 15 yr olds do....I had my mom cut it.

Below is what resulted.  YUCK!  Keep in mind that this is many months after the initial hair cut.  My hair grows horribly slow - much to my dismay.

The corresponding journal entry is from my creative writing journal and it includes comments from my teacher.  I blamed my mom for the whole gig, but really, I wanted the hair cut, and once it went down the toilet I needed someone to blame. 

I entitled it, "I Learned the Hard Way."

9.22.98

"I let my mom cut my hair.  That was a huge mistake.  I told her I wanted it a little shorter so she whacked off all these layer on the top and did the haircut inside out!  Then, after an hour of crying about my square-head-shaped haircut and calling ound to see if anyone would be able to fix my hair and being rejected, I asked her to try to fix it.  "Try" was the key word.  She ended up cutting it so short I look like I'm wearing a helmet or I look like a boy, whichever the hair's in the mood for.

People tell me it's ok, that it doesn't look that bad, all except for the very few that gasp, "You butchered your hair!" which makes me feel really great. 

I guess I didn't learn well enough when my mom cut my sister's bangs two inches from her scalp.  But I know now."

Teacher notes:

"For what it's worth it really doesn't look that bad to me."

Fifteen and filled with great ideas.

December 10. 1998

"I borrowed James' most favorite CD in the whole entire world yesterday.  I was listening to it all night - and it's really good.  So I wanted to read the lyrics on the bus this morning.  But the bus was full and Colin had to sit with me.  I thought I put the CD cover back in my backpack.  But when I was getting off this morning, I looked down and saw the cover - completely folded in half from where I sat on it!  And it's James' favorite CD.  I feel so bad about it - so I'm just not going to tell him until I can fix it.  I'm thinking that maybe if I iron it...it's worked before so I don't see why it wouldn't work now (but I've never ironed a CD cover)."

Day 7: I grabbed some guy's crotch.

I was maybe 16 at the time so don't judge me on the bands that I saw.

May 16th, 1999
"I went to Springfest, an annual music festival, last night.  At first it was not fun.  We were there early and no good bands were playing and the people I was with just wanted to sit at the grassy knoll for forever.  Carrie and I left to got to Alex's house, picked him up, then came back to Springfest.  After that it got much better.  Bonnie and I pushed our way up to the front to see Bare Jr.  Carrie and Alex and Amber and Michelle left me, and I ended up losing them for hours.  There was a lot of just slow, hanging out bullshit, but afterwards we went to see this old 60s band, Reunion, and danced like crazy.  By the end of their show, almost all of the audience was dancing.  And Amber and I were so goofy.  Everyone thought we had been smoking bud, but we weren't high.  Then we went to see Collective Soul which was the best show.  It started out as all of us in the back together, but Carrie and Alex had to go act practical and grown-up so Bonnie and I left them behind. 
As soon as we got up the front, this guy vomited in my shoes (I had on Birks.  Not very smart.).  But the crowd was so thick, it was hard to breathe and everybody was sweating like maniacs.  The music just did something to people.  Girls were on top of guys' shoulders showing off their titties and people were crowd surfing and everyone was so close to one another.  During that show I had my chest grabbed, my toes crushed, my waist held, my butt grabbed several times, sweaty legs rubbed against me, I grabbed some guy's crotch, and again when some guy was crowd surfing, but all by accident.  There was some stupid-ass girl who crowd surfed with a skirt on, and I could hear all the guys yelling about touching some pussy.
After the show Bonnie and I walked out all hot and sweaty, with our shirts rolled up and tucked under our bras.  People looked at us like were were gods.'

Day six: the first real boyfriend.

September 1, 2000

"I have missed so much!  My life has changed so much since the last time I wrote!  The most important even that has happened was Gary B.  Here's the story.  Right after I met that really cool guy (Jonathan - the one that reminded me of Peter Pan), I dated for two days this JERK named JERRY.  A week later Jasmine and I planned on going to paint pottery together, only she backed out last minute.  I decided I would go to Barnes & Noble (the only place I could hang out by myself without looking like #1 nerd).  I wanted to call Mom and tell her where I was, so I jetted towards the payphones.  I was digging in my bag for change, not paying attention, and almost ran right into Gary.  I knew him in high school, but I thought he was a jerk and that he was gay.  Anytime I ever talked to him, he always answered in this JERK-TONE, so I had a low opinion of him.  All the [color] guard girls loved him (because he was a surfer...woohoo) and I didn't think he was that attractive (and I thought he was kinda fat).  Back in the bookstore, when he was talking I thought to myself, 'He is SO beautiful.  Is he gay?'  He asked me for my number discreetly...it was such a friend thing.
A couple days later, he wore a grey shirt, and we went thrifting and went to Tom's [record shop].  Then we hung out some more, and I went to North Carolina.  When I came back, Gary and I hung out practically every day.  We watched The World According to Garp the night of our first kiss.

Gary is an explorer, dreamer, writer, surfer, Jeep driver, newly-made-over vegetarian!  He's a good shopper and he likes to drive fast, wash laundry, show off his injuries, and change clothes 50 million times a day.  He smokes cigarettes slowly - he's the slowest smoker I've ever seen."

Bonus entry: I get high for the first time.

I loved Greg and he loved weed.

March 7, 2000
"I spent all of last weekend with Greg.  On Friday, I went to his cousin Chris' house and he was so high.  Him and Chris both.  We all were sitting at the table, Chris and Greg playing with a McDonald's toy, me sitting there wishing I was somewhere else, when Chris leans forward and says, "Dude, I can't stand this anymore.  I can't stand to be around someone that's not high when I am.  Plus, I want to see Amber fucked up."  So we all go outside, but it's windy, so we go in his tool shed.  There we smoke a pipe of weed.  Nothing happens.  We go to Baskin Robbins, Blockbuster, Waffle House - back to Chris' to smoke again.  They rented the movie The Red Violin but I fell asleep on the couch.
The next day we go to Monterrey's with Chris and his girlfriend Melissa (they're high again) but Greg barely talks to me.  They want to go bowling, but first we go back to Chris' house to smoke.  Greg tells me that it's a gravity bong, there's no way I won't get high off this.  I don't feel anything until I feel everything - I smoked way way way too much weed.  My fingers were burning and I coudln't form words - I coudln't think about anything other than the fact that I was going to DIE.  If I could have talked, I would have begged Greg to take me to the hospital.
At the bowling alley, I see a girl I know, but I'm way too messed up.  I don't bowl - I just sit there, dying, with my eyes closed.  Everything seemed to be a television show.
I saw Greg and Chris and Melissa completely different.  Greg seemed so terrible to me, and his laugh was annoying, and he moved so weird.  I didn't want to be around him, but I coudln't do anything.  Occasionally I was able to get up and get some water, but that was only when I was absolutely going to die.  And my legs were trembling.  Finally we went back to Chris' and I laid down and slept.  At 11 Chris woke me up and I went home and crawled into bed.  I awoke at noon the next day, knowing that Thank GOD it was a dream.  That is until I noticed I still had my clothes on from last night."

This is Greg out near the grassy knoll-ish area.  He's with our friend Jasmine, this rocker hippie chick .  I don't have many pictures of us together even though we had a weirdy relationship from 8th to 12th grade.  I went through periods of hating him, especially in the later years when my enemy G. got involved, so most of the pictures of us probably got ripped up or burned or something dramatic.

Day five: I've done everything pretty I can do.

November 16, 1999
"Gary, the drum major, said something about the hottest girls in band.  I knew right then and there that I was no where near that list - that I would never come close.  Then, later on, as I was sitting on the floor, lost in my world of thoughts, Stanley made a comment that I didn't quite know how to take.  He said, "I think you're pretty, Amber."  I didn't really believe him.  I've done evertything to be pretty that I can do: I got contacts, braces, and I'm now on Accutane to clear up my acne.  I guess there's not potential for me."

Day four: he would never go out with you, ever.

Ok, so maybe my teeth were a little crooked, I dyed my hair too much, I didn't have the cool clothes.  But I wasn't THAT bad.  A little shy, sure.  Ok, really shy, terrified and horrified of boys, and desperately wanting to be liked in general, and especially to be liked by a boy. 
So most of these entries from the early high school days are about boys and my unfortunate luck with them.

This is me, with horrible hair, and Sarah (love you!) in the green shirt behind me and our friend Brandi looking snuggly.  Amazingly we're all still friends (for the most part).  This picture is from 9th grade, I believe.  I think we were at a pep rally or something...no matter what, we were always together during our band gatherings because we were...cool.  That's right people, we were cool.


Sept. 4, 1999 (Saturday)
"It was Bud again, because he came up to me and put his arm around me (what was I thinking?) and he was so handsome and soft and I just wanted to touch his skin.  His eyes are always so blue and bashful.  I had to retain myself from touching him by holding the straps of my backpack.  So that entire experience was maybe five minutes long.  Then ideas started brewing...after all, I had liked Bud on and off since eighth grade; it was about damn time to make a move.  So I was going to call - but his mom is remarried and I don't remember the name, though I do believe it's Warren.  I planned on talked to him at school; I was way too busy with classes and work to even make time to see him.  On top of it all, a boy in band was talking to me on the matter.  The same day I saw Bud, I told Stanley about the venture.  Only Stanley.  Then Garcon [code name that is lost to me now] tells me that afternoon that he had talked to Bud that same day.  "I told Bud that some girl in band liked him, and he said he didn't care."  Surely Garcon overheard me on the matter.  I didn't think about the fact that if Garcon truly had overheard me, that he wouldn't have been able to talk with Bud that day.  Friday comes along and at the pep rally, Garcon turns to me, a mimicking look on his face and tells me, "Oh yeah, Bud said today that he would never go out with you, ever."

Day three: making that money.

Feb. 25th, 2001
"This is the new Amber...
And I have suddenly become someone new and more exciting...just by reading a book.  I read Dreaming in Cuban by Christine Garcia and learned a little bit about listening to myself.  The day I finished it, I drove to PoFolks, applied, and was hired.  I applied to FIU and I have a vibe (...) that I'll get in.  And I stopped pursuing Matt and guys in general and just hung out with my thoughts.  I picked up my guitar, fell head over heels for Gary (it's really weird how that only kicks in when I'm around him - otherwise I try to get as many guys' attentions as I can. Weird.)  Started waiting tables (the tips are rocking so far) and I got my prom dress stuff all in gear.  Speaking of prom, this guy named Juan asked me but I don't know...he's a cutie, yes, but kind of short, and I don't really know him.  So we'll become friends!  Then maybe...so for now he's waiting and I'm thinking...
There's this other guy at work...but from here on, I won't even think twice about him...
So for now, I'm just trying to go with what I know - just feel things out and go from there.
I'm excited!  Graduation is only about three months away!"

So, a little note on this journal entry and the "new" Amber.   What a bitch!  I was totally dating Gary at the time, and had been for many months if not a year.  I actually have no concept of how long we dated.  I actually just remembered last night that he dated my best friend before me, and she dumped him, so he dated me.  Grod!

PoFolks was this shitty chicken restaurant - Southern style fast food, kinda.  I made probably $40 a night and I thought I was banking.

The "other guy" at work was Nate, the guy I ended up breaking up with Gary for, who turned out to be one crazy motherfucker.  For instance, I was 18 and thought he was 18 because that's what he told me, but found out months after we'd been dating that he was actually 21.  I thought he was at the junior college taking classes when he was actually a high school drop out.  He constantly broke into my house and stole from me, once brought a stripper over (she was "just his friend") and I wasn't even home at the time, and I walked in to them drinking fucking Smirnoffs in my living room....etc.  The list could go on, but that is a story for another day.

The point is, I had a great boyfriend that really cared about me and I totally blew him off because he bored me to death.  I was so anxious for a change that I didn't care who or what I shed in the process.  What a meanie.

"Dear you,
Why are you so mean?"

Day two: youth. The early years.

I didn't exactly have the easiest childhood.  There were a lot of things that happened to me that children shouldn't have to experience - but that's not the point of this blog. The point of it is that I was a pretty creative kid; you have to be when you don't have money or the latest POGs or whatever was en vogue at the moment.

So this is me in fifth grade before a music recital.  I'm wearing pantyhose that are too big and a homemade shirt.  I made that choker, too.  That thing was bad ass.

Moving on.  Let's go to the past, shall we?

I don't have a lot of my writings and drawings from childhood at my current house.  I think it's all at my mom's house, hidden away.  I know that I have some copies of a "magazine" that we wrote and distribute on our bus (4th grade) and some songs that I wrote for my dog that would constantly run away (3rd grade) amongst some other stuff that may be too sad for me to share with anyone except a therapist.

So here are some things that I found this morning, tucked into a folder that I had saved from the early church days.  On Wednesday nights I went to a program called G.A.s....I don't really know what that means anymore but I'm guessing Girls in Action because we learned a lot about missionaries and the world.  This was my first exposure to other cultures except for what I read in Kid's Discovery magazine, and I became impassioned with the planet even then.  Note: this was in the early 90s and there was a lot of talk everywhere about pollution, green house gases, oil, etc, so it's not that unusual that I wanted to save the world.

I chose a panda because my mom really liked pandas, and I thought this would inspire her.

Now, GAs weren't all sugar and spice.  There were several little girls in the class and a hierarchy was quickly established.  I was at the bottom of the social totem pole (surprise!) probably because I was poor, etc.  But I had a friend named Sandra, whom I cannot remember at all.  We were a team.  Us against the mean girls.  And this is a remberance of times gone by.

Right back,

A

Day one, day one.

Well goddamn.  Finally I'm able to get some sort of writing done.  It needs to get out of my head instead of being trapped in this brain, bubbling over.
Setting up this blog wasn't exactly delightful and I was easily bored with it.  I prefer Wordpress, but, this makes it easier to use since I can just log in with gmail.  And I don't really care anyway, I guess this blog is just something to do to take my mind off anything else that's going on (i.e. work).
So what's new?  As my computer was crashing and reloading I tried to think about what I would cover in this very first and yet still unimportant blog post.  I could write about:

• female orgasms - because they really are mysterious
• unemployment rate in Charlotte - because no one in my neighborhood seems to work, and it's rather distracting for me sometimes
• organic farming - a recent favorite topic of mine
• books
• fiction writing, or lack there of

But instead of any of those topics, or even the one that is weighing so heavily on my mind that I will not dare mention, I will recount some of my high school journal. Good times.

For the record, I was a pretty bigtime hippy/free spirit in high school.  We had a significant group (according to us) that we called "the society" (after Dead Poet's Society) and we always ate lunch outside on the grass, which was dubbed the grassy knoll. 

This isn't the grassy knoll, but it was near it. Maybe we got kicked off of it or something. This is my best friend at the time, Amber, and myself.

Here are some of my notes about the society members:

12/4/98

Bill

"I know I don't know him well, he's just some guy that sometimes came to lunch.  It took me so long to learn his name.  Bill - you'd think of a bald, middle-aged man not a long-haired dark guy.  He just has this blah personality; blah, I'll go over here - blah, I'll go over there.  I just want to ask him what he's thinking.  Does he have a problem with that?  Is there a problem with me?  What?  What the hell's he thinking?  The other day at lunch, he was laying next to me and he rolled over.  His back lightly touched my knee and I realized how badly I wanted to touch him.  Just to touch his back or his long dark hair - even if it was just to brush the grass off of his back.  But I didn't - I just avoided looking at all the stray pieces of grass on his back or looking at him at all and I quickly moved my knees so I wouldn't be jabbing it into his back.  Just all the sudden..."

12/6/98

Nathan

"It's so weird.  All last year I saw him in the lunch line.  I was shallow - very shallow a the beginning of the year, and I though he was so ugly, so very ugly, that he could only have ugly friends, if any friends at all.  But I see him at the society and he calls my name, and I feel so mean, evily mean for ever thinking that.  It's not about outward appearance - that's not what saves our souls in the end.  But it can't be overlooked."

[Picture note: I listened to a lot, lot of Jimi Hendrix in these days.  Also, Tori Amos.]

And, since this is the end, I should sign out in my typical high school way:

Blue skies,
A