Excessive Worrying: Road Trippin'

Bethany, Ashley and I are going to Minnesota today. BY OURSELVES. Needless to say, I'm scared out of my mind. Think of all the things that could go wrong! We could get in a car accident (it's much more likely that Bethany's GPS will lead us to a black hole in the center of the state), we could be murdered by vicious Minnesotans, terrorists could decide to blow up the Mall of America while we're there... Worst of all, I wouldn't have said good-bye to Evan! I wrote him a letter, but I'm all out of envelopes and stamps. My dad has my car today, so I can't go buy any of the letter-sending necessities.

Imagine how terrible he will feel if I die while he's away. He hasn't seen me for five weeks, and then he would never see me again. At least he wouldn't feel responsible. I can't think of a single way that he could feel that me having my throat slit by Ashley's grandma (who we are staying with) is his fault. Guess he'll get over my inevitable death eventually. Maybe he'll be relieved to escape my evil, loving caresses.

While we're in Minnesota, we'll be going to Music Man, the Mall of America, the Spam Museum (what the heck is that?), and the Mayo Clinic (pffft). I am bringing $459 with me, just because I can (being employed is great!). I'm going to buy my brother, Jace, a treat, which I will only give to him if he successfully keeps Lieutenant Prurient alive while I'm away. Hopefully I'll spend way too much on something related to an anime I love. A giant stuffed Kon, perhaps? I doubt I'll find one, but it's nice to dream. I can at least buy some CDs at the FYE that the mall must have. I would also like some really, really, REALLY high socks. Maybe a swimsuit, too, since I don't actually own one.

I wonder if we'll even enjoy ourselves? Even though we're best friends, we often hate each other quite passionately. The last time I stayed with Ashley for more than one night, I was ready to rip her throat out. I'm sure the feeling was mutual. But a whole week with them? Sheesh. Bethany's refusing to spend any money, so I'm worried that she's going to be upset, and if she is, we won't be able to have any fun. I'm sure I'll be quite the fun-sucker, too. I've been known to complain incessantly. I'll probably moan and groan about not being able to check my Pokefarm (there's no internet at Ashley's grandma's), and I'll whine about not getting letters from Evan.

The amusement park at the Mall of America is no longer an option, since Bethany said, "If you go on the rides, I'll just sit on a bench while you have fun." I don't especially want Bethany to get kidnapped and raped in a bathroom somewhere, so I'm not going on the rides, either (though I would really like to).

My walls are lookin' pretty bare... I think I need some more Pokemon posters. A Bleach poster or two would be nice, too. Maybe Soul Eater as well? I'll have to look for some!

We leave in an hour and a half. NERVES, NERVES. I'm scaaared. Even if Ashley's a good driver, we don't know what the hell we're doing. GPS systems are notorious for being completely inaccurate, so I have a hunch that we're going to get lost and have to sleep in Ashley's car. Urk.

Well, if I die, I'm sure Evan will check my blog eventually, so here:
I DIDN'T MEAN TO DIE. PLEASE FORGIVE ME. I HOPE TO BE REINCARNATED AS A WALRUS. Love ya, soldier.

Blogger? What's That?

erm, hi there. did you miss me at all? i'm sorry. i wasn't avoiding you or anything, it's just... nothing exciting (or is it nothing appropriate?) is happening, and so that's why i haven't been talking with you lately. i know that we used to be the best of friends, and i know we've grown apart... i am sorry. maybe we can hang out for a bit today, just you and me? but it has to be quick... i have plans with bethany and ashley in a few minutes and then more plans with evan after that. yes, i know... i know i'm unreliable... but please, blogger, let's just relax and try to have fun for the short time we've got together.
the marching band has been working very hard for quite some time now. mr. edgeton says that the march that we're currently learning is the hardest to ever have been brought onto the field. i feel special. and i feel even more special because i was one of seven people to be tapped on the shoulder by mr. e. while marching. the people who get tapped are the people who he catches doing something right, and we get to rush up into the bleachers and watch our band march without us. i don't know what he caught me doing right; i believe that he just really likes my red satin pajama pants.
bethany and ashley are no longer friends with (SECRET FRIEND). it's really quite disconcerting. i still love all of them, but now it's kind of difficult to talk to them without bringing the other friend too close. i have to walk away to go talk to either bethany and ashley or kahlise. it's strange, but it doesn't bother me. if being apart from each other makes their lives more peaceful, then they should be apart.
evan and i are continuing our realistic relationship. what i mean by realistic is just that we know for a fact that we are going to break up at one point or another. we don't try and pretend that we'll be together forever or anything silly. when he leaves for basic in the summer, it'll be the end of our blissful little fling. sometimes it's disheartening to think about, but it would be worse to believe that i would stay with him and then get my heart broken. being realistic is safe and easy. besides, marriage is damn creepy.
i've been told that i am turning into a nerd. the elite group! am i truly becoming more like my beloved rulers of the world? sure, i like pocky. it's tasty. how does that make me a nerd, though? i like the anime Bleach, but you don't become a nerd from watching 207 episodes of one anime. do you? as thrilling as it is to believe that i could be undergoing a wonderful transformation, i can't accept that becoming a nerd is so simple. i still don't like D&D or Munchkin or any of those silly board or card games. i find Lucky Star completely worthless, and Samurai Girl is a random, half-assed show that appeals only to lonely loser boys that like the panty shots.
well, i've had fun chatting with you, darling. however, my friends are on their way and i must be going. i hope to talk to you again soon, blogger.

Waldo Update

hello, there! yesterday, i bought some sharpies so that i can properly draw and color Waldo. by the way, i feel that it is necessary to remind the world that i am fully aware that Waldo doesn't belong to me. WALDO IS NOT MIIIINE. it's not illegal, now, right? since you know i'm not claiming him as my own.

the first Waldo drawing is temporary, and it moves.

if you find it, i might kick your ass.

so, since i don't expect you to find it, i'll just tell you where Waldo is this time. he's on evan's back.

i'm practicing drawing Waldo lots lately, but i don't think i'll be drawing his body just yet. where can i draw a huge, striped man without getting caught or without ruining property? a little Waldo head here and there isn't going to hurt much of anything.

by the way, friends, a man's back is a perfectly harmless location. because i drew on evan's back does not suggest anything awful about evan and me. we are virgins. i would draw on your backs, too. does that mean i'm having sex with you? no (maybe).
just thought i would remind you of that. not that i'm suggesting that you don't trust me.

the next Waldo update will be a real one, i promise.

I Get Paid to Play Wii and Sims 3!

kind of. one of my main babysitting jobs is for a ten-year-old girl, and it's not that easy. i mean, it really is incredibly easy, and i really do get to sit around and play video games for a vast majority of the time, but i also have to get beaten physically and emotionally. my mother has suggested that i have some sort of problem that encourages children to insult me. i guess my pores just scream, "I AM INSECURE AND IT IS FUN TO MAKE ME SQUIRM." i guess it isn't really just kids that like to poke fun at me, it's everybody. including myself. i've been told many a time that my reactions are incredibly fun.

i've also been babysitting my kid brothers, jace and teague, a lot lately. teague is only two, so i have to change diapers. and recently jace has been eating rolaids like candy, and has been having some problems internally. i'm babysitting them right now, and jace spent around an hour in the bathroom. he came back downstairs and flung himself on the couch without a word, so i immediately began to interrogate him. i had to ask more than once, but he clogged the toilet. we've been trying to prevent him from using excessive amounts of toilet paper, but he's a brat and never listens. i'm going to make believe that i don't know that the toilet is clogged, since he used the upstairs bathroom and i only use the downstairs one.

i got paid a while ago for babysitting jada, the ten-year-old, so i immediately got evan to take me to the bank to cash my check. we had some troubles because i'm an idiot who had never been to a bank and because he had only ever used one bank, but eventually we had sixty dollars to waste! he took me to wal-mart and i blew fifty-three dollars of my paycheck on the Sims 3. it's not a bad game, it's just... lacking. it'll be better when they have some expansion pack thingies to add on. it's a little overcomplicated as well. you have to have just one main household in a town. you can switch to other ones, but then the household you were just on loses its wants and wishes. it's not like the Sims 2, where you could very easily switch to another household without any trouble.

you know, it's really quite fun to compare blogs and what they're about. from what i've read of ms. nelson's blog, it talks an awful lot about theater, whereas my blog talks an awful lot about video games. that's not all i talk about, but when i do, i go on and on and on. i've talked about paper mario, pokemon, super smash melee, and the Sims 3. maybe i talked about kingdom hearts eons ago, i don't remember.

bethany's blog is updated every sunday and talks about her entire week, whereas mine updates randomly and talks about nothing at all.

evan's blog seems to mostly talk about work, galen's bitches about everything and occasionally says something too scientific for me to understand. though i've never read auriel's blog, i assume it is mostly about theater.

i feel almost kind of guilty about bitching about theater all the time when my friends are so involved with it. i just honestly don't think that it's something i should be doing. what does it do for me? i suppose it's supposed to help with my socialization skills and confidence, but i only talk to bethany and ashley and i don't really feel anything on the stage. after i get over the initial stage of complete humiliation, i mean. i'm not denying that it can be fun at times, because it can be! i know that. but it's just being with my friends that makes it that way. if bethany and ashley hadn't have been in Children of Eden with me, i would have been completely miserable. that's not to say that Children of Eden wasn't great... i had fun, i did. but i could have had more fun doing something else with my friends.

besides, it's not like i could possibly do anything with theater in the future. what are the odds that anyone i know will have a career in drama? it takes serious talent (or serious good looks) to be an actor or actress. i don't see the point of getting practice in something that will mean nothing to me later on. i want to say something like, "i should be taking an art class instead," but, truth be told, i probably won't have a career in art, either. that's what i want, more than anything, but there is little to no chance of that. then there's writing, which would also be nice, but that also probably won't happen. i'm not sad about it, though. i'll always draw and write, even if i don't get paid for it. so i'll always be happy.

i'm getting slightly bored with summer. i've only hung out with bethany and ashley a couple of times, and kahlise has spent the night once. evan's here almost every day, but it's not like we do anything different. it's nice to snuggle up on the couch, but there's only so much of that i can do before i'm itching to do something. we go to the park sometimes, but there's not too much to do there, either. i hop on the swings, and some instinct tells evan to push me, but then i'm up high and my butt's in his face so i get down. we ride on the springy animals, but i'm always worried that i'll be the next kahlise and i'll break the duck.

last time we were there, it started pouring. i was infinitely happy about it, and i wanted to get completely drenched, but evan is not so hot on getting wet. we headed back to the car, though i was definitely taking my time. it was wonderful! it had been so hot and humid, and the rain was the sweet relief i had been craving. of course, my room has been getting awfully flooded with all of the storms lately. one of the worst storms cracked one of my trees in half and covered the entire basement in rainwater. by the way, the basement is my room. it flooded again this morning. i'm going to have to clean out under my bed and on the floor of my closet to prevent mold, buuut there's just so much mold down there already. i honestly don't care. there's this one bottle in my bottle collection that i filled with water, and now there's this huge mold in there. i'm trying to come up with a name for him.

i know i'm gross. i'm a total and complete slob, and when i have my own place, it'll be repulsive. i'll clean it for guests, though. and i intend to have guests all the time! my friends and i will make feasts together. we'll have "girls' night" all the time, but you can't expect us to do regular girl things. we're too cool. though this might not actually happen at my place, since i'll probably only be able to afford an apartment and my neighbors might get angry with our loudness. no matter. we'll have fun when we have our own homes.

i can't believe how very soon we'll be out of our parents' homes, though! we're going to be juniors in august! evan will be a senior! i don't even have a real job. i don't even have my license. i just don't want to grow up. i'm a kid at heart, and i hope to always be that way. i hope to always be entertained by sidewalk chalk and bubble soap. oh! that reminds me: i need to learn to draw Waldo so that i can draw him randomly in town and then maybe have my friends find him when they're out and about. i'm going to go practice drawing him. i'll tell you when the first Waldo is in town.

Excessive Worrying: Getting A Job.

i just read bethany's newest post in her blog, and it made me think. i'm not ready to grow up, i'm really not. but summer's fast approaching, and i have to get a job. i passed driver's ed, so that means i'll be expected to get my license soon. i don't want to, but i'll have to eventually, and then i'll have to pay for a car and gas and so i need a job this summer.

my driving instructor made one of my driving partners drive to Chapel Studio, and then he made me get out of the car, walk down the path that i grew up walking down, and go into the building that i spent hours and hours and hours sitting in, bored as hell, as a child. i then had to ask the girl at the front desk for an application. she stared at me like i was a crazy person before handing it over. maybe it was my expression - a mix of humiliation, disgust, and amusement - or maybe it was my bright orange shirt and mario pajama pants, but i don't think she found me suitable for the job. well, i don't want to work there. my mom worked for that shit hole for seven or eight years, and i spent most of my childhood sitting around doing nothing there.

so it seems i've only one other choice, since i refuse to work at a food place. i'm going to have to babysit, maybe four days a week. for the whole summer. i'm really going to miss lazy summers full of runescape, pokemon, and spur of the moment escapades with bethany and ashley. i suppose i will still have plenty of time to do those things, though, if all goes according to plan. mom says that the mother of the four girls i might babysit works from nine to three, four days a week. there's still plenty of day after three. but. i might not even be able to babysit them. there might be some other babysitter already. or maybe that babysitter works a few of the four days and i'll work the rest? i don't know; i haven't talked to the mother yet.

mom says she'll pay me to babysit my kid brothers for two or three days a week, so long as i take them outside and keep them completely entertained instead of sitting on the laptop while they fall and crack their heads in the other room. i think that would be cool. sometimes i really adore my kid brothers, and i wouldn't mind spending more time with them. if i could honestly help them develop their own personalities, that would be great. i mean, i don't want little dani clones; i like myself too much to let anyone else have my personality, but still. i want them to know that it's great to have fun - they should probably definitely have fun all the time - but there are boundaries. and i want them to know that their sister supports them fully and wants for them to be individuals in all they do, and that they don't have to be what mom and dad want them to be. granted, i know that my kid brothers are way too young to understand any of life's secrets, but i like mumbling truths at them every now and again and then laughing at the absurdity of it.

besides, i really like spontaneously deciding to blast the music and dance around the house with my brothers.

there's another thing i've been worrying about, and that is that maybe i've changed too much in too short a time. i feel guilty constantly because of my relationship with evan. i mean, i like it. i really, really, really like it. but that may be the problem. i feel like i've abandoned my friends, though i still love them just as i always have and i think that if bethany and ashley called me and asked me to do something at the exact time that evan called and asked the same, i would choose the escapade with bethany and ashley. i love hanging out with evan, but i do it often enough. besides, there's nothing better than running around with bethany and ashley. you know that, right, guys?

i wouldn't cancel plans with evan to go hang out with my friends, and i wouldn't cancel plans with my friends to go hang out with evan. my grades didn't drop because i'm with evan - did you ever notice my grades before now? they're just as they've always been. i'm not wilder than i was, and i'm not making bad decisions. i'll admit that i'm excessively cuddly when evan's around, and i'm sure that's annoying as fuck, but i don't know. i got used to (SECRET FRIEND) and her beau - i actually think they're really adorable - so i assume that you guys could get used to evan and me, if you wanted to. but i know you don't want to, and i understand.

i just really hope that you don't feel abandoned. maybe i'm being silly; maybe i act like this relationship is my entire life. but it's not! i know that. i'm not so engrossed in romancin' that i can't think clearly or make rational decisions. i'm not so lost in evan's eyes that i can't have fun without him. i still dance around the house when i'm alone, i still go on walks and have long discussions with myself (and they're not all about him). and bethany, since you're a persistent little bugger, i sometimes have fun in children of eden, but only because you and ashley are there. i guarantee that i would not have any fun there if evan was also there.

and i like going on drives with you guys, singing loudly, and laughing wildly at god only knows what. i'm still the same dani! i promise! please don't start to avoid me because you assume i would rather be with evan.

i'm sure that i'm making a fuss over nothing, but i worry. i don't want to lose my friends because i have a completely different kind of relationship with someone else now. it's not like tons has changed recently - we didn't hang out all that often, it's always a random decision at a random time - but some has changed. myself included. i'm not trying to play the victim. there's nothing to be the victim of! but i'm worried! i'm so very worried that i'll lose you over one boy. he's just a boy... just a boy that i like a great deal, i admit... but still. you guys have been around for years and years and years. he's been around (i mean, really around, not like before, where i barely acknowledged his existence) for only about three months now.

i don't think i have to choose between you, because they're entirely different relationships. i can have both, though my intimate relations may irk you at times. but i know (or at least i think i know) that you're not going to blow me off just because i'm too cuddly with evan and i spend a shit ton of time with him. YOU LOVE ME LIKE I LOVE YOU, GUYS. I KNOW IT. I KNOW IT.

PLEASE DON'T EXCLUDE ME FROM FUN TIMES.
I NEED YOU.
I NEED YOU TO SURVIVE.
YOU ARE LIKE... LIKE GUARDIAN ANGELS, MANG.
YOU ARE MY GUIDES.
YOU ARE MY LIFE.
IF YOU DIED, I WOULD DIE.
OH MAN, IF YOU WERE A VAMPIRE, I WOULD TOTALLY WANT YOU TO BITE ME SO THAT WE COULD LIVE TOGETHER FOREVER (IN LOVE).
YOU'RE MY MORMON WIVES. HE'S JUST A PLAY THING, YOU UNDERSTAND.
I'M REALLY SORRY, EVAN. I KNOW YOU READ MY BLOG. BUT I ALSO KNOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT I WORRY ABOUT THIS AND YOU ALSO KNOW THAT YOU'RE NOT A PLAY THING AND THAT I LUURRRVVV YOU AND ALSO ENJOY SPENDING TIME WITH YOU BUT I REALLY LOVE SPENDING TIME WITH MY FRIENDS AND - AUGH. YOU HAVE FRIENDS. YOU HAVE ME. I'M SURE YOU GET IT.
I'M REALLY SORRY, BETHANY AND ASHLEY, FOR THAT LAST BIT. I'M SURE YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT MY AFFECTIONS FOR EVAN.

GODDAMN IT, SORRY EVERYONE. I'M STILL DANI, JUST DANI IN A RELATIONSHIP. I STILL WORRY THE SAME AMOUNT, CAN YOU TELL?

Green Grass! Lilacs! Swine Flu!

oh, how i love my silly adolescent body and mind. everything's so critical and explosive. oh, no! my friend got mad at me. it's the end of the world! but everything works out just fine. it always does. friends don't stay mad because they're friends, and they're not there to be angry with you. they're there to love you, and that's just what they'll do. and i love them, and i don't mean to make them angry, but it happens. i'm sorry that i upset you at times, friends. you upset me sometimes, too. mostly you just make me sad on occasion, but i don't mind. that's just how i know that i love you: even if you punched me in the face, i would still go back to you afterward.

there's something about spring that just makes me want to do everything. i want to go have that midnight picnic with bethany and ashley, i want to buy streamers with those two and whoever else and run around town with the streamers flying behind us, i want to have rubber ducky races, i want to go fishing, i want to enjoy myself!

i was grounded for a while because i was failing weight training, but now i'm not! unfortunately, i broke the rules the day before i was ungrounded. if i could have waited just one more day before deciding to have evan over, i would be free to go to the art walk tomorrow night with bethany, ashley, and (SECRET FRIEND), who is usually working during art walks. and my grandpa's band, Van and The Movers, is playing on the gazebo in the square! i've waited an eternity for him to play again, and now i'm going to miss it? i suppose there is the slightest chance that my parents will let me go, but i'm thinking that i'll have to agree to do a shit ton of chores before they even consider it.

school and i are fighting currently. he (school is a he because it is an asshole) decided to slam a bunch of projects on me at one time - history, biology, and spanish - and i just won't have it. he can kiss my ass. oh, well. it's not like i'm the only person doing projects. and i wasn't the only person who ran the mile, either, and i even wasn't the only person who ran it in a terrible time. i wasn't the only person to finish last in their class. granted, i was the only person to finish last in my class, but that's a given. i don't care about weight training in the least. the mile left me kind of comfortably in pain, and i even felt like i got to do it again after school, when i had to get to the radio station as quickly as possible to galen and evan's show (Midweek Songstreak - wednesdays at 4-5 on 100.1 KRUULP, Fairfield, IA) after i found out that i was ungrounded. everything's awesome.

everything is so awesomely awesome.

Understanding Adolescent Idiocy.

'lo, all. sorry i haven't been posting too much, though i'm sure you don't mind. i've just been kind of preoccupied with evan and i haven't been going on too many expeditions with bethany and ashley because spring hasn't quite decided on being warm yet. the three of us did hang out last weekend: we ran around in places that were probably quite illegal to be running around in, we sang creepily in a very echo-y tunnel that led us under the new bypass, we made plans to go back to these places in the summer, when it's warm. we've decided to have rubber duck races in this creek next to some sort of bridge thing. we will hang out under that bridge often, i think, and we've decided that it may be quite fun to draw on the concrete walls. bethany, of course, is hesitant about vandalizing it to the extreme, but no one will ever be under there but us, guaranteed. it'll be fine, bethany!
now, i don't mean to beat the dead horse or whatever that expression is, but it seems that ashley and bethany are getting very fed up with adolescent behavior and i feel the need to put my opinion out there (again and again and again). they're sick of the drama, they are. thing is, guys, you're no better than the rest of us because you are teenagers, too. i'm not trying to say that in a cruel way, it's just the truth. maybe you don't get all worked up over some of the more popular things that teens get worked up about; i don't think i do that much, either. well, for the most part. we all know that i enjoy talking about boys just as much as "normal" girls, but other than that, i think i'm on just about the same level of teen drama as you. well... maybe not. i'm very melodramatic. but hush! i'm trying to explain, here! you guys get more upset than you need to sometimes, too. we all do! bethany, do you remember when a certain clarinet player said a certain something that irked you, and you grumbled about it for a whole week or two (sorry if i'm exaggerating)? and ashley, you and i both - actually, all three of us - have been way worked up over other friends' decisions and actions. i'm not trying to make you look bad, i promise, i'm just pointing out the fact that we all do it. we all do, regardless of our age. i mean, look at all of our parents. i usually have it pretty easy, i know, but when my mom disagrees with me, she really disagrees with me. i mean, i'm banned from FML because she wouldn't even look at the site to see what it was! so difficult, so dramatic. and your parents can be awful. i've heard the stories. and hey, they're not teenagers!
teenage drama in particular is kind of fun to me. i mean, think about it. we've nothing better to freak out about, so we ('we' as in teenagers, not 'we' as in you and me) blow up the teensiest things, just to give us something to do. i know i enjoy going on rampages about random crap; you know i do, too. sometimes it's just easier, focusing on the petty things like that so that we don't have to focus on anything real. i mean, look at me! i couldn't tell you a thing about politics, the war, israel, or anything important going on in the real world. i tried paying more attention to politics, but it just worried me too much. i would go outside after the presidential campaigns and just talk to myself about how everything was going to be so messed up after obama changed everything. i got concerned about political parties and which one i supported more: i really did not want to be a republican, but i didn't want to be a democrat, either. i will continue to call myself an independent, because that's easiest, and i'm not going to worry about things i cannot help. real problems just aren't fun! we're young, we're healthy; why ruin our fun with reality? lock up that Reality Monster, and keep him locked up 'til you can't hide him any longer! take comfort in the fact that we can dwell on petty things at this age, that the Reality Monster isn't chewing our ass off all day. sometimes he takes big chunks from our cheeks, but imagine the asses on adults! they've got everything to worry about: work, money, houses, cars, spouses, children, time... i say it's best to just enjoy life while we can.
i'm certainly not saying that the only way we can have fun during adolescence is to blow up over the little stuff, but i'm saying that if the petty things are pissing you off, just lay back and bask in the simplicity of it. i don't know, maybe i'm wrong. but it makes sense to me. also, i know i'm a hypocrite sometimes. i'm just trying to help, and to blog about something, anythiiiiing.

Sun and Sand... and Marching Band.

hello, all! i have returned from florida! it was fantastic, i can assure you. i didn't need to worry about anything. it was all really, really, really great. i spent the bus rides (all of them, regardless of how short the ride) snuggled up with evan, napping comfortably in his lap. the buses were wonderful! they were comfy and smelled good (my pajama pants still smell like our bus) and there was always a movie going for us. i usually just fell asleep during the movies, but still. everyone was quietly absorbed in their silly movies, so the bus was never almost never loud.
i think we went to the ocean on the first day in florida, which was kind of scary, and i didn't really like it, and then we went to see the Blue Man Group. the Blue Man Group was fucktastic. strobe lights flashed, music boomed, black lights glowed, people laughed hysterically. i couldn't even begin to describe the whole thing. it was just really terrific. i went ahead and got an "autograph" from one of the blue men: a blue thumb print on my ticket and fingerprints on my face.
on the second day, we got up bright an' early to go off to some instrumental thingy. maybe i'll remember what it's called later. anyway, we went to this thing where this Disney guy who had done so much for Disney music for twenty years taught us real quick-like how to play some Disney songs with emotion. i figured the whole thing would be a total bust - band class in florida? blech! - but it was actually really fun and i found myself wishing that we could stay longer. but the day had bigger, better plans for us.
so, off to Disney World we went. we were dropped off at the transportation center, where we immediately hopped onto a bus to Animal Kingdom - a regular-type city bus, with bars and straps to hang onto and everything. i couldn't get over the fact that we were on public transportation in a big city. in fucking florida, even. my balance on the thing was awful, of course, and i kept smashing into evan or the poles or almost falling off of the step i was standing on. then we arrived in Animal Kingdom. pretty much the first thing we saw was a little group of Disney characters, surrounded by crowds of kiddies and their parents. my first reaction was, "ack, they're a lot scarier than i thought i would find them," but i got over myself eventually and decided that i really wanted to hug Papa Bear from The Jungle Book. but nooo, i just got to hug Meeko, the raccoon from Pocahontas. when i went up to him, he made kissy noises at me. instead of giving him a nice peck on the nose, i just stared at him like he was a crazy person, and posed for a picture. when i was done, i rubbed his head and told him, "thank you." he rubbed up against my hand and made a funny purring noise. then we were off to the more exciting parts of the park. we went on a few rides... hmm, let's see. there was something from the movie Dinosaur: we were going back in time to retrieve the Iguanodon, who apparently held all secrets to the extinction of dinosaurs or something. the director of the time machine thing was like, "NO, you're not sending them to that time, that's the day of the meteor shower," but the dude who wanted the Iguanodon was like, "teehee guys, i'm sending you anyway, bye." so the ride was one of those dark ones in a building, with short little drops and turns, and there were plenty of roaring dinosaurs. bethany was screaming bloody murder the entire time, whereas i was screaming, "why do we have to stop in front of every hungry dinosaur, HUH?" to the talking time machine and that dumbass who sent us to the day of the meteor shower. well, of course the meteor shower started happening, and the dude's like, "GET THEM OUT OF THERE," and actually tells us that we're not going to make it, and we pass right by that Iguanodon and he says to leave it there, there's no time, but somehow, after all that screaming about us going to die, we end up back in present-day, the dude isn't even surprised, and somehow the Iguanodon, which was about twice the size of the little car we were riding in, hopped into the car when we weren't looking. okay.
after that, we discovered how expensive the meals were in Disney World. i paid maybe eight bucks for a mediocre cheeseburger and fries. i wasn't angry, though. i understand that they have to make enough money to maintain all of Disney World, and enough to make new rides and buy enough food to feed hundreds of thousands of people every day, etcetera, etcetera. after we ate, i think we went off to some safari. maybe. what's there to say about a safari? there were lions, giraffes, cheetahs, rhinos, hippos, wildebeests, warthogs, crocodiles, elephants, flamingos, antelopes, whatever. it was really quite cool. i think my favorites were the white rhinos that stood right in the middle of the road that we were supposed to be driving on. they were so cute.
next, i was somehow persuaded into going on a roller coaster. it was this Mt. Everest thing, the newest ride in the Asia part of Animal Kingdoms. bethany and i weren't going to go on it at first, because we've a fear of heights and speed and the air we breathe, but evan's just so damn good-looking, and i didn't want to be a total pussy when we were in Disney World, so i kind of went, "okay, bethany. we're going." i thought she was mad at me, and i was just kind of standing behind her, making sad faces and whispering to evan about how i felt really badly about it. but guess what? in the line for a freaking roller coaster, when i was finally starting to grasp the fact that i was about to go on a scary ride, i had my first kiss. well, kind of. i guess evan sort of kissed me the night before, in the hotel, but i pretended that was an accident and it didn't count because i was shocked into not kissing him back. anyway, Mt. Everest was splendid! it wasn't too crazy. it didn't have flips or anything, but it did go backwards at full speeds into the dark. that was the best part! i really, really liked it.
i think we left Animal Kingdom after that and went to Magic Kingdom (or whatever). that's the one with the Disney castle, of course you know it. we went on, um... let's see... Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain (is that three mountain rides we've been on already?), and, uh... oh, yeah! the creepy It's a Small World ride! i think that's it. to conclude our fun time there, they had a lovely fireworks show for us (do they do that every night?) where all the fireworks were perfectly choreographed to the music playing. evan and i didn't do the cliche kissing-beneath-the-fireworks thing, but there was really no need, because we had been stealing nervous kisses in the lines for the other rides. i was still pretty worried about kissing and i made stupid noises after each one or mumbled about how much i hated the world because i wasn't the greatest kisser ever or something stupid like that. anyway, after the fireworks, we tried to leave the park and return to our charter buses. griffin, bethany's beau, led us through the crowds. he had bethany's left hand, i had her right, evan had my right, and evan would have had matti's - (SECRET FRIEND)'s beau - but there was some awkwardness after evan accidentally confused matti's hand for mine (don't know how) and did this whole stroking thing with his thumb. so of course griffin, bethany, evan, and i got separated from (SECRET FRIEND), matti, ethan, lauren... and maybe someone else i don't know about. we ended up getting lost, had to take a ferry, and were totally late to the buses.
next day was our performance day, maybe. man, i couldn't tell what day it was all week, leave me alone. our march through Magic Kingdom was so very short, maybe the shortest march i've done except for wednesday mornings in class. after that pathetic, insignificant march, we were sent off to do whatever we wanted, so we did just that. i can't remember what we did, sadly. i think maybe this was our Hollywood Studios and Epcot day? in Hollywood Studios, we went on some silly Star Wars ride and the Tower of Terror or something: some scary elevator drop ride that i went on because bethany suggested it, and she's afraid of all the things she should be afraid of. she and i didn't go on some rock 'n roll coaster, but i went and found my elusive Donald Duck stuffed animal (i hadn't seen one in any other park) and she and i began a collection of trash for ashley, who was sad and alone back home. i also bought ashley a Chewbacca because her nickname is Chewie (her wookie impression is very commendable). at Epcot, we went on some car testing ride (meh) and then bethany and i sat around again while our friends went on a scary ride that had apparently caused some guy to die way back when. well, i guess our friends forgot about us, because we waited around for an hour and a half or something before (SECRET FRIEND) and her beau came out and told us that (SECRET FRIEND) had lost her phone. then they disappeared again and we waited some more. oh, well. the fireworks in Epcot were unbelievable. perfectly choreographed, and with giant explosions of flame, not just your average fireworks. it was ten times better than Magic Kingdom's had been.
we spent the last day at Universal Studios. bethany and i refused to go on some flippy, swirly roller coaster: The Hulk. we agreed that we would go on the Dueling Dragons instead, but when we walked halfway across the park to that one, we saw that there was no place to smash our feet into during the ride. dangly feet are not okay, so we immediately started to kind of hyperventilate and tried running away while evan held me much tighter than i thought he could and prevented me from leaving. bethany and i screamed that we would go on The Hulk, we would go on The Hulk! so evan let go, and we scurried off to the big, green and purple coaster. the wait was forty-five minutes or something, and half-way through the line, after plenty of nervous conversations, there was an announcement about technical difficulties. bethany and i decided that it was a sign from God, so we scurried away through areas we were not allowed to be in and broke out of that hellhole. we went to find our friends, but what do you know, we couldn't. they had all our money and bethany's cell phone and glasses, so we couldn't get ahold of them and we couldn't get anything to eat or drink. we were dying of thirst (florida's a lot hotter than iowa, if you didn't know), but since we couldn't do anything about it and we had noticed that The Hulk was working again, we gave up and got back in line. it was only a twenty minute wait this time, and when we got up to the front, all we could do was scream about "WHAT IF WE PISS OURSELVES," "WHAT IF THE TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES COME BACK AND WE GET STUCK UPSIDE-DOWN" (i added a "AND WHAT IF THE SEATS OPEN WHILE WE'RE UPSIDE DOWN, SO WE FALL INTO THEM AND BREAK OUR NECKS" to that one) and then, when we were in our seats, our voices got really high and cracked a lot, our entire bodies trembled violently, and everyone around us immediately hated us. when the ride started moving, we screamed and screamed, "WHY ARE WE DOING THIS, OH MY GOD THERE'S NO WAY OUT NOW OH MY GOD WE'RE GONNA DIE," and then, B O O M, the ride started and it was the. most. fun. thing. ever. we screamed with joy now instead of horror, and smiled and smiled and smiled.
well, it took us a very long time to find our friends, but we did, and we did not die of dehydration. we went on a Jurassic Park water ride twice, found another, more extreme water ride (only four of us agreed to go on that one), went on The Hulk again, and went on some silly "4-D" Spiderman ride. the whole trip was amazing. i couldn't have wished for better luck. whew.
oh, and by the way, i'm not so very nervous about kissing anymore. unfortunately, you can ask anyone who sat around us on the bus and they'll agree. eeheehee.

Responsible Party Time!

it seems that dear old dani is a caterpillar: she's got the potential to be a social butterfly. yesterday was just such a nice day that i just had to invite a few people over (without parental consent), even though it was only monday. i started out hanging with only ashley and olivia, but soon enough a whole crapload of people - invited or otherwise - showed up. galen, evan, auriel, rachel, and marina all stuffed themselves around the television, where galen had assumed control over my worthless gamecube (i kicked his ass at least two out of three rounds on super smash brothers melee). sure, to some of you party people, seven guests isn't really much. but to me, the nervous girl who worries that she is neglecting certain guests, and that not a single person is entertained, it was a lot of people. especially since i had to keep them all contained in one room. oh, well. that one room is all spiffed up for tomorrow, for i have invited galen, evan, and auriel over again. auriel wanted to learn to play super smash without the boys, but, uh, i have a soft spot for the both of them, and i would love to have them over, regardless of how much pwnage they may dish out. i believe that i can kick both of their asses, and i live to kick boys' asses in video games. teehee.
sure, monday was fantastic weather-wise, but today was fucking spectacumazing or something silly like that. ashley, kahlise, and i threw ourselves out of the school into the sun, where i kicked off my shoes and uncomfortable, fuzzy socks and threw my jacket on the ground. even after my friends had left, i just relaxed in the sun, as comfortable as i could be, and then i walked home barefoot, which i have been yearning to do for so long now. during the summer, i didn't go a day with shoes on. shoes are like mini prisons for your feet - i'm sure i've told you before. i love my feet. they're not pretty, not in the least, but they get me around and they deserve the best. they're scarred and callused, my nail polish is chipped and ugly, but i love my feet.
and get this: today i went to my first ever high school band lesson. i was failing the class, so i was all "ack" and then kahlise was all, "you're going," so i went. it was a playing test for American Visions, and i got a ninety-two percent, which isn't bad, considering the fact that i've never been to a lesson and my saxophone was broken from during football season all the way up to last week or something. so, when i didn't have a working instrument, i couldn't work on articulation or proper breathing technique or anything. my ninety-two percent is pretty good. next week is The Beatles: Love playing test, and i will be ready to rock.
more surprising news: i brought homework to do, and i cleaned frantically when i got home. i already told you that the room where my friends and i will be chillin' is all spiffed up, and it's all my doing. and after i cleaned that filthy room, i cleaned my filthy fish tank. oh, yeah: Dictator Cadaverous and General Libido are still alive and kickin'. every morning, i roll over, expecting them to be belly-up, and every morning, i am surprised into blissfulness. i'm hoping the little buggers will be able to be my guests of honor at my birthday party; my birthday is on the nineteenth. meh... they'll probably die of shock, since i cleaned their home. i probably knocked their heads on the glass when i dumped them back into the tank or something terrible. they'll probably be dead tomorrow.
i also tried teaching my kid brother to play super smash, but he's only four and he started bawling because he couldn't get the pokeball. i'm pretty sure he started having a panic attack. i stayed as patient as i could, but it's really hard to be understanding when someone is bawling over a video game, especially when they're upset about not being able to do something irrelevant to the game's purpose. i kept telling him, "jace, the point of the game is to kill me, not to get pokeballs," but he just didn't get it. and then teague, my one-year-old baby brother, came in, rested his hand on my knee and pointed to jace's controller. "no," i told him, "you are waaay too little. you can't." so he hit me and left the room.
well, it's 9:50... i had better go do homework. ...god, that's weird, but i need to learn to even out work and play. right now i'm all play and no work, and i figure that's bad somehow, so i had better get my shit together! easier said than done, i know, but at least i'm trying for today.

Enter Dictator Cadaverous and General Libido.

fish day was fantastic, truly it was. bethany and i went along with my mother to thrift stores, starting out the day by blowing my money on a little glass goblet (which would later be forgotten in ashley's van) and two bottles of jones soda. god, i love me some jones soda. i have this nasty little habit of shaking everything i drink, and i don't drink soda all that often, so, being as distracted as i was by the idea of fish day, i shook up my jones soda, opened it, and was sprayed with sticky crushed melon drink. great. we went to the bargain box, where i tried on some random crap and laughed hysterically at my image in the mirror.
then we were off to ashley's, where we flopped down to watch The Fantastic 4 while we waited for ashley's mom, tanya, to get ready. the three of us had different opinions as to which Fantastic 4 hero we liked the best. can you guess which one i liked? no, no, think about it first. do you really think ashley or bethany would go for the huge, creepy rock dude? that's right, i chose the rock dude. now, i'm not saying i'm romantically interested in the dude, i'm just saying i like him. he's so sad. i just want to hug him, cheer him up a little bit. bethany liked the awkward elastic guy ("imagine what else he can stretch!") and ashley liked the jerk-off flaming dude.
and away we go! we headed down the new bypass - which i had never been on before - to ottumwa. we gave tanya an extreme craving for cigarettes with all of our blabbering, screaming, and - on bethany's part - hysterical squealing. we hopped out of the car at aldi's grocery store or whatever, leaving tanya to smoke while we ran inside. we spent a fairly decent amount of time there while tanya collected her month's supply of groceries. the three of us ran around, leaving tanya to herself, but we saw her discussing us with strangers on more than one occasion. one dude was openly pointing at us and smiling broadly at her. yeah, we're awesome. after that, we went straight to THE DOLLAR TREEEEEEEE, the most amazing "everything-for-a-dollar-or-less" store i have ever been to. i mean, it's honest! dollar general claims to be a dollar store, but it's almost kind of a rare occasion when i find anything good for a dollar there. well, of course we had a grand ole' time at the dollar tree! we ran through every aisle, candy and toys alike, talking way too loudly about god knows what. the whole place was full up of "I LOVE YOU" balloons, which i made sure to kick when they drifted too close to the floor. ashley made me go into convulsions by playing with these nasty skull toys (there was even an Iron Man one, what the hell) that had little bubbles full of fake blood and maggots inside so that when you squeezed 'em, the blood and gore came out of their eye sockets. after that little episode, we ran to the holiday section, which even had st. patrick's day stuff already. i put on a tall green-and-white striped hat and pink-and-white oven mitt, and then i chased ashley across the store, chopping at her with the oven mitt and demanding that she give me back the dollar that i loaned her. well, it turns out that stores don't like pseudo violence, because soon the intercom came on with a panicked woman's voice saying, "security, please scan the aisles." ashley and i quickly turned our attention to the candy, exchanging a panicked look before beginning a discussion on airheads and warheads. bethany, apparently, was staring at holiday sunglasses and laughing at our misfortune. we didn't get into trouble - we never do - and we probably didn't learn a lesson. hurrah for ignorance!
FISH TIME, FISH TIME! tanya drove us off to SUPER WAL-MART, and we rushed to the fish aisle (taking a few moments of slow-mo for bethany's video camera). bethany and ashley had no trouble at all with picking out their perfect fish: $.28 feeder goldfish, each one maybe an inch long. bethany picked out a flashy one with a rad black horseshoe type mark on the top of his head: King Gabrielle, and a plain, kind of sickly-pale (in a cool way) one... uh, i keep forgetting her name. ashley picked an orange-and-white, koi-looking one: Cristoff, and, uh... a multi-colored one?: Gary. okay, i wasn't impressed with the teensy fish, though i did love my friends' choices, and i was panicking because my last goldfish died in less than twenty-four hours and i didn't want to kill anybody else. i was checking out all the prettiest, most expensive goldfish, with flowing fins and pretty scales, but every time i chose one, tanya would look at it and say, "no, it's sick." so i didn't get a cute, chubby little goldfish. i got the little feeder fish like ashley and bethany, and it didn't take me long to fall in love with them. Dictator Cadaverous is bright orange with a white face and, get this, an orange mustache. General Libido is... uh... i think he's multi-colored. he's small. i bought a new vase/tank thing for them: some awesome, tall thing, with walls instead of inhumane, vision-altering bowls. it was $15, which i didn't really want to spend, but i figured it would be okay, since my grandma and grandpa had shown up unexpectedly this morning to drop off my christmas present: $50.
the ride home was moderately quiet for some time, while we stuffed our faces with gummy worms and tried to make sure our fishies weren't bumped around to death. after a while, though, ashley put in her panic at the disco CD (yeah, yeah, hipster friends, grimace if you will) and we listened, me singing quietly, all my my lonesome. ashley doesn't sing in front of her mom, and bethany didn't know the songs. soon we were replacing words in the dancy songs with "FISH!" so that every song was about fishies, whether it made sense or not. it was pretty exciting, and i was sad to go home, but Dictator Cadaverous and General Libido needed to get settled!
it's amazing how quickly i lost my good mood. i swear, the moment i walked through the doors, waves of hostility hit me and knocked me over backwards. my kid brother, jace, didn't seem to notice how pissy the atmosphere was; i quickly concluded that he was the reason that mom was so "GRRR." he followed me to the kitchen and stood right next to me, which i do not appreciate, and when i told him to go away, he just scooted his chair a little bit. it ticked me off, it really did, because it wasn't like mom greeted me, or cared about the new members or our household or anything, and jace is just kind of a brat sometimes. i explained to him that i was rinsing out the new tank with hot water to kill the germs, and he said, "you can't kill the germs, because germs aren't alive." i told him that they were, ask mom, and he went to mom, who abruptly told him that no, germs were not alive. well, he was awfully glad to hear this, and came running to rub it in my face that "mom said," and i got really pissed. i asked mom why she would tell him that, and she said something along the lines of, "i don't want to get in the middle of your retarded arguments with a four-year-old," all angry-like, though i hadn't even started an argument with the kid, i had just told him to ask mom. why she had to lie to him to end the "argument," i do not know. telling him the truth would have had the same effect: someone would have been wrong and that's it. but heaven forbid that dani be right! oh, no, that just can't happen! eh.
anyway, during all of this, Dictator Cadaverous and General Libido were still in their bag, which was floating in my old tank, which had all of the room-temperature, already-cleaned water in it. i was letting them adjust, y'know. well, i decided they had been in there long enough, and took them out to pour the water into my new tank. i cut off the top half of their bag and poured some of their old water into the new stuff, then i crammed their half-empty bag into the new tank's water, for more adjusting. well, as i got ready to do the dishes, i heard a sickening POP, and all i could think was, "oh crap, how did their bag pop when it was cut open?" but then there was water gushing all over the counter, and i realized that the nice, new tank had snapped clear in half. i quickly rescued my little babies and put their bag in the sink while i desperately tried to avoid making even more of a mess. eh, it was definitely unavoidable. Dictator C. and General L. are fine, sulking in the old tank, which is safely placed on my nightstand. they haven't figured out that i've fed them, but they'll get it eventually. i'm just ticked off that i managed to cause my new, snazzy tank to explode.
i really hope my new fishies aren't dead in the morning. that would be pretty depressing. i might just cry. not because i'll be depressed about two, insignificant little feeder fish that lost their lives (though that would make me a little sad), but because i couldn't even keep something alive for a day. it will prove that i am a pro at killing fish, even when i don't want to. granted, this does make me a pretty wonderful fisher(wo)man, but i don't even want my gamey fish to be killed! i don't eat fish, so i just throw them back in the water to live their sad little lives. i don't want to kill them! so hey, if i'm crying tomorrow, that's why. everything i try to house in a tub of water dies. and my cats get run over, die of leukemia, get full up of maggots, or piss on my bed. waaah, i SUCK at taking care of things! do you see why i won't have children?! i would be such a downer that i would make them kill themselves, if i didn't accidentally kill them already.