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