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?

Waffles Are Awfully Hard to Butter.

i feel the need to write a blog post, since i have to tell you that evan's not leaving and i want to rant at you about other things as well.

what have you been doing lately, dani?

well, i've been playing a whole lot of Pokemon, as i am apt to do. currently i am playing Pokemon Diamond, and i have reached Victory Road, which is the cave leading you to the Pokemon League and all that jazz. i don't want to go through the cave, so i'm not going to.

instead, i am trying so very hard to catch this Pokemon:

and it's really starting to piss me off. it's name is Uxie. it's a legendary. it's not all that cool. but i must have it, along with the other two similar legendaries, one of which is being a dick and flying around all over the place and then fleeing battle when i find it. Uxie's just in a cave, but i can fucking paralyze it and get it to FUCKING ONE HITPOINT and i still can't catch it! it breaks free of the pokeballs and it PISSES ME THE FUCK OFF. the other two are Mesprit (pink) and Azelf (blue).

Mesprit's the dick who thinks it's funny to make me chase it all throughout Sinnoh, which is the, um, region? i think? that this game takes place. Azelf is also just sitting in a cave like Uxie. anyway, that's just about all i've been doing, and now that i've started this post, i don't really want to continue it. i've just been wasting three to four hours on Uxie and not being able to catch it and it's starting to piss me off.

on friday, i went to watch the musical A New Way of Syncing (i really hope that's what it's called), which was written by a bunch of high schoolers. evan, galen, and auriel were in it, so of course i had to go see. they had all said at one point or another that it was a really sucky musical and that i shouldn't go to see it, but i actually liked it. maybe i only liked it because i had NO idea galen could sing that well and because evan was a sexy guitar man, but i liked it.

on saturday, i actually got the nerve to go swimming. i haven't really done so since 2006 or something, so it's exciiiiting. i wasn't going to swim at all, but i somehow ended up dropping my pants and jumping into waterworks. poor evan had to swim in his pokemon boxers (kickass) and was freezing the whole time. i made him hot cocoa when we got home. ^^

well, i have to go KICK UXIE'S ASS. bye. or, wait! tell me which one of these legendaries you like best and i'll pursue it. THANKS.

Excessive Worrying: Evan's Leaving?!

i'm a moron. evan's joining the national guard band, and it didn't even occur to me that that means he's going to basic training. so when he told auriel and samm today, i was appalled. crestfallen. heartbroken, even. my first reaction: get sad. second reaction: get mad. third reaction: get apologetic and very sad.

but it's okay. it doesn't even matter right now. i kind of wish that i hadn't found out that he's leaving, because i don't want to be sad over something that's months away. dwelling on that would just make our relationship no fun at all for now, when i should be thinking, okay, he's leaving. guess we'll have to have twice the fun now, then! and obviously i've thought about that, too. i'll be perfectly fine with all of this tomorrow; i always am. tomorrow's always better for me. i let my mind get crammed full of scenarios and tire itself out, and by the next day it's perfectly satisfied.

would you like to hear some of the scenarios it has come up with so far?
1. the long-distance thing doesn't work out for us.
2. he and some sexy band geek with perky tits will lock eyes from across the room, and later that night they will be drawn to a supply closet or something where they will accidentally meet and have wild, rough, unprotected sex.
3. he gets all uber sexy muscular and finally realizes that he is too good-looking for me.
4. all those sexy sweaty man beasts all fall in love with each other and have a six-hundred-and-four man wedding.
yeah, i haven't come up with much. the only thing to worry about is that he'll leave me. he's not going to die or anything, he'll just leave me and it will be sad.

but it's okay! it's okay! i have proven that i can live without a relationship, and after a long time of mourning the loss of sexy army man, i will get on with my life.

or, you know, he'll stay with me and we will continue our relationship?
i suppose that is also a possible scenario? maybe? hopefully? please? he'll only be gone for a couple of months, and then he'll come home and we'll be fine! right? maybe?

you know what's terrible, though? when evan started to notice how upset i was, he tried to comfort me by saying, "there's still a chance i won't get in, you know." how terrible is that! is his failure supposed to make me feel better?
evan, if you want to be in the national guard band, be in the national guard band. i'm certainly not going to wish for the opposite. if you really want to be in the band, your agnostic girlfriend will even pray that you get in the band. i'm terrible to you, i know it, but i want you to do whatever makes you happy. (CHEESY, CHEESY, CHEEEEEESY.)

Feliz Dia de Madre! (or something)

happy mother's day! i don't speak to just the mothers who may pass by my blog, but to all women who may ever be a mother as well. today's for us! todays' for those of us who have to live through seduction, and then the heavy, hungry, moody nine months that follow said seduction, and then the unbearable, agonizing pain of childbirth, and then we have to raise this child, through all his/her life - smelly baby stage, reckless toddler stage, annoying child stage, awkward, smelly preteen stage, angry, wronged-in-some-way teenage stage, even the struggling adult stage.

suuure, men deserve their father's day, i suppose... they have to endure through those terribly moody nine months as well, and they have to help raise the kid, i guess, but we've got it harder. that creature grows in our body, not the man's. that creature rips through our reproductive organs, not the man's.

so, here's to us, women. may our maternal days be full of just as much happiness as they're full of misery, if not more. a nosotras!

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.

You Want A Blog Post? I'll Give You A Blog Post.

bethany told me that i don't blog enough anymore. well, fine! i'll take time away from my obviously busy schedule to type up another halfhearted blog post. here goes it.

i've started driver's ed. today was my first day to actually drive for the class, and since i've only driven three times before, the class was nerve-wracking. ashley was my driving buddy, and she went first. her only mistakes: the instructor told her to take a left and she took a right, and she wasn't the greatest at parking. i wasn't confident about my turn at all, so for the first twenty minutes i only had to do figure 8's in the high school parking lot. ashley said she had never felt like she was going to die in a parking lot before today. yeah, i'm that bad. after doing backwards figure 8's (that would be pretty cool if someone who could actually drive did it), the instructor directed me onto the road. my turns are too sharp, i don't slow down enough before stopping at stop signs, i'm not confident, i don't use the hand-over-hand thing that i should, i don't give parked cars enough room (the instructor cursed at me!), and according to ashley, i mumble to myself at all times. for my last turn, i started losing focus and ended up taking a right turn onto the highway when i was supposed to go straight, so all of our hearts were fluttering and the instructor was angry. ashley's second turn had been perfectly fine, of course. they went on the interstate and she listened to him and paid attention to everything and was fine with going sixty-five miles per hour and you suck, ashley. but it's not all bad! i am very happy that i didn't kill anybody. my goal was to only kill one person, hopefully myself (i wouldn't be able to live with the guilt of killing someone else).

hmm, what else? oh, i'm grounded. i didn't to a paper in weight training, so i'm failing the class. first off: who does papers for weight training? secondly: who cares what my grade is? it's weight training. thirdly: the paper isn't worth anything anymore; how am i supposed to raise the grade? hmm, i guess maybe i could get half credit at the most if i begged, but that's still an 'F' on the paper. of course i've tried to convince my mother to not ground me... i tried the obvious "weight training doesn't affect my GPA," but she doesn't care. weight training matters, apparently. so i tried "even if i do the assignment, i'll still be failing. will you unground me anyway?" of course not. "i won't start screaming, 'i love him, i love him!' at you, but i do enjoy hanging out with evan and i will be sad if you ground me from him." nothing. mom's more stubborn than i am, and that takes a lot. but the fact that we're both stubborn as hell doesn't make this easy on either of us. i've got a more easy-going way of confronting her, with chuckles and smiles and heaps of my sense of humor, but she doesn't understand that kind of humor and thinks that i am going out of my way to make her angry (who even does that?). she, on the other hand, just gets pissed off. there are no chuckles or smiles, and there's only humor if she's laughing at my misfortune. she said something along the lines of, "danielle, if you steal from a gas station, you go to jail. you knew the rules, you broke them. this is jail. there are consequences." oh, isn't she clever. so of course i told her, "yes, mother, if you steal from a gas station, you go to jail. but you only stay for a fair amount of time and are released accordingly." but she thinks this is fair. you want to know what i'm grounded from? i'll tell you. the computer, the phone, my friends, walks, favorite snacks. mom says that i'm grounded from "whatever makes you happy." nice, right?

basically, all i've got left is television. i hate television, and she knows it! goddamn her! see, it's just her that is the problem. dad doesn't really care. he was the first to tell me that i was grounded, but he went, "you're failing weight training, so you're grounded, starting next week." when mom found out, it changed. "what? she's not grounded next week, she's grounded now. evan shouldn't even be here." so evan sat in the other room while mom and i went at it. i know i've done wrong, i do, and i understand that there are consequences. but being grounded for the rest of the school year, because of weight training? it's WEIGHT TRAINING! and i told mom, "do you know what they do to you when you fail weight training? they put you in the class every day the next semester. isn't that punishment enough?" but she ignored me completely. no acknowledgment. i just love it when she does that, and she does it often. she told me once that my opinion doesn't matter because i'm a teenager. because teenagers are just so much different from everyone else, you know.

yes, i'm aware that i'm sounding quite melodramatic, but keep in mind that i have been just about the happiest person alive recently and most of what i say is laced with sarcasm. i am still quite euphoric, and i intend to have a plan at some point. i can still have fun, regardless of what my mother wants. maybe i'll convince her somehow. maybe i'll turn in the paper and then clean the whole house, and she'll let me be ungrounded for a weekend or something. maybe i'll bribe her. i've thought about pointing a gun at my own head, but i don't think that's very convincing, so i've thought about pointing one at her head, but i haven't got the nerve and she would send me away (because she just doesn't get my sense of humor, ha-ha. that means i'm kidding, people). i'm sure everything will work out just fine. i have a good feeling about this. i'll do what i can (and some of what i can't) to enjoy myself. i guess i'll be playing a lot of super smash brothers until i'm grounded from that, and then i'll... i'll... I WILL NEVER COMMIT TO WATCHING TELEVISION, GODDAMN IT! I ONLY WATCH IT WITH FRIENDS, AND I DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO IT. I WILL NEVER USE IT FOR ENTERTAINMENT, AUUUGH! i'll read a book or something. :D

Can't Wear Pants, Will Not Dance, Arcade Romance.

just a warning: this post may be boring and written with very little detail on account of i'm very tired and sickly.

good morning. i've been without sleep since 6:14 yesterday morning. it's 11:27 AM now, and i normally can't pull that sort of thing off. granted, i did have a nap or two, but they hardly helped anything. the reason why i eschewed sleep? it was PROM! that's right. dani actually got permission to stay the night with her prom group at her buddy duncan's house after prom, and she actually attempted to pull an all-nighter.

evan came and picked me up at one so that we could go to duncan's and get our pictures taken by a huge crowd of parents with cameras. our prom group stood awkwardly, plastering fake smiles to our faces, as the room filled with flashes and clicks and all matters of "oh, don't you look great!" evan himself had said, "wow," at me enough that i didn't need another compliment, and i had awkwardly muttered about how he looked pretty spiffy, too, so i hope he felt good about himself as well. we stood around for way too long as those relentless parents snapped photo after photo after goddamn photo, and then the parents began to slowly disperse (evan's mom hugged me!), and we were finally allowed to head off to the civic center to wait for our party bus.

the party bus wasn't at all what i was expecting. it was just a smelly, gutted-out school bus with sideways seats on one side, regular seats on the other, a space cleared out in the back for dancing, a nice lil' balcony outside of the back door, and another platform on the top of the bus. there were pictures of a line of people mooning the camera, which was weird but funny. i actually kind of liked the bus. the music playing was usually of no interest to evan or me; we're more into "indie" music, not the shit that plays on the radio all day. well, actually, he's into indie music, and i basically just listen to whatever he or galen throws my way. not always, of course; i'm a tad bit picky, and i'm devoted to the bands i already listen to. anyway, i grumbled at evan the whole time to Fun City, and played silly games with (SECRET FRIEND) after she caught me kissing evan.

when we got to Fun City, i put on my most ripped-up pair of green hi-tops and headed inside. evan and i got twenty bucks onto our fancy little card and immediately went to spend seven of that on bowling. i am really bad at bowling. i lost. but evan got second-to-last... he still kicked my ass. after bowling, we ordered our food at a restaurant inside of Fun City and ran off to spend more of our arcade monies while we waited for our food. i'm addicted to that game where the light goes around in a circle and you have to hit the button just as the light goes under some arch thingy, then you win the jackpot. i got a shit ton of tickets from that, but i didn't win the jackpot. i played ms. pacman (evan kept saying, "wow," at this; maybe the one thing i'm good at is playing video games?), and soon enough we had to head back to eat. the food was tasty, and someone had ordered a freakin' pizza that had a... 28? inch diameter. it was fucking crazy. i didn't eat any, but it looked delicious.

after we ate, there wasn't much time to spend the last of our arcade monies. i ran off to the gamblin' machine, as i call it, and evan tried some Deal or No Deal game. i probably won around 150 tickets. he won eleven (damn Deal or No Deal). we pooled our tickets together and came up with 313, but evan still had arcade monies left, so we went to the gamblin' machine again, and he spent the rest there. he got the jackpot once (victory kiss), but he and i both swear that we won several other times but the game is rigged. anyway, we ended up with around 550 tickets. we waited around for service, chose our prizes (two inflatable bats; why the hell not?), and ran outside to find that the party bus was waiting all the way across the parking lot. we ran, bats in hand, as the bus driver pretended to drive away from us. my shoe fell off (that's how beaten up they are). the ride home was fun. we played old classics like michael jackson, and i could actually sing along this time around.

riding in the parade on the back of that party bus was great, but prom in itself was really not that exciting. of course they played pop music that i didn't care to know, and i don't dance. i slow danced with evan a couple of times, but there were probably only two slow songs! i don't know, if you're going to be all fancy and gussied up, shouldn't you preserve your lovely appearance for as long as possible instead of jumping around, tangling your $50 hairdo and stinking up your $300 dress? i don't know, maybe i'm the only one who feels that way. evan and i decided to leave a little bit early and went to duncan's house, where our prom group would watch movies and play video games for most of the night. evan and i left at around three AM to go get some funky energy shot, which kicked in almost immediately and, for me, caused a crash just as quickly. evan was fine, but soon i was sleepily curled up on the couch with a sudden stuffy nose and burning sore throat. evan did everything in his power to try and make me feel better (who says chivalry is dead?), but my sudden sickness is still with me now. he cuddled with me, he asked around for medicine, he took me to find my own couch to lie on, etcetera, etcetera. he was just being a total sweetheart and i appreciate it to no end. it's only a cold, but he seemed genuinely concerned for me. i was feeling sickly, tired, and giddy, and eventually i just kind of went, "aww, fuck this. it's not doing me any good to sit around and dwell on how awful i feel. i'm going to go upstairs and i'm going to do the all-nighter i told evan we were going to do." so i went upstairs and watched Dogma, and evan and i tried in vain to fall asleep on the floor, since all the couches and chairs were taken up by other members of our prom group. there were a bunch of us, and the majority of us got the floor. it was itchy and so was the blanket that evan and i had snatched from the couch earlier, but evan was nice 'n comfy. i could hear duncan's parents making us breakfast at around five or six in the morning, and in a few hours we all pulled ourselves out of our restless slumber and chowed down. over all, prom day was really fun. i'm glad i agreed to go, since i was never planning on doing so.

i stayed responsible, like i said i would. no alcohol, no drugs, no sex. i'm a good kid. i told my parents i didn't do those things, and they believed me. they let me stay at duncan's and i'm grateful that they trusted me, even if i had to go into an in-depth discussion with my mom about how i couldn't be doing anything wrong during prom night before she finally gave in and agreed that there was no time for me to get away with anything (even though there was time, but i still didn't do anything that i shouldn't have. for the most part).