Kick Drum Heart


Choking on futility

How to Control Myself so I Don’t Respond to Infuriating Situations Like a Complete Teenager
A Guide to Stupid Thoughts, by Kim

Mr. J’s disagreement lessons don’t really come into consideration when it’s an argument in Real Life. Obviously.

It’s hard enough to keep the bile from my throat, let alone really ponder the reasoning behind the raucous shouting.

Strangely enough, my head is clearing as the headache gathers. The sour ache at my temples and in my chest congeals as rational thought stomps through and fury pumps as if from a bellows through my veins.

Really, I’m ungrateful? I suppose I am. Sincerely and honestly, I take for granted everything I possess and the love I receive. I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t trample over the world as if I owned it.

And so she asks, “What do you take the world for? What do you take me for?”

I take the world for a heartless and cruel universe in which life could end at the drop of a hat. I take her for an angry woman whose temper makes me want to vomit. I still might.

But what is life if I don’t live it like it’s mine? I take my existence for a precious thing, and shit, I wouldn’t work so hard all the time if it meant nothing to me. It means so much that I can’t help but try to live.

So, you know. Naturally I didn’t argue back. I did ask, politely, I thought, if she would like me to. If she’d agreed I might have obliged, I don’t know. I’m not some child she can push around anymore.

Not that she was ever physically violent. But if there are any speculations about my own temper, and why I never really lose it, that’s why. I know it’s kin to hers, and it’s oh so very ugly.

I’m sorry for being ungrateful. I’m sorry for asking for more than she was willing to pay. It’s about a new phone, by the way. Mine won’t charge. At two years old (never having been replaced) I’m genuinely surprised it’s still alive. The Droid Eris seemed perfect, and we almost upgraded, until the “Internet and Data Use” option appeared. Thirty extra dollars (per month… expensive, I understand), and there goes the lid. Flipped.

Oops. I realize I don’t get annuity, thanks. Why didn’t you just say you were broke? I wasn’t aware that I was sharing such a dirty look, sorry. And hell, I’ll keep my eyes down and veiled now and refuse to open my mouth, I suppose.

I did tell her that I wouldn’t work so hard and give so much if I didn’t want to match all that she gives me. It’s so stupid, and I guess I’m not strong enough, because yeah. My voice was thick and pathetic with emotion and I wished I didn’t care so much. I hate conflict. It makes me sick.



I give up on trying to understand

It’s my last day of tests this year. I’m done. Finito. I’m still going to be busy, obviously, but aside from going in next Thursday to roll on the snare for an hour and then practice the senior song with chamber choir, I’m done with school until September. It’s finally summer.

So I’m mostly sitting here harmonizing with the great Avett Brothers and wasting the day away. I figured as long as I was online and in a mellow, tranquil mood, I could try and write.

While I’m thinking of mellow and tranquil, I still am wearing my red bandana. I didn’t know Daniel, but the fact that he never got to do all he needed or wanted to do inspires me daily to get out there. To improve myself, to make some kind of effort to do what I want to before my time is done with. I look at the bandana and I think it. I look at the bandana and I can see his face: I know it from pictures, I know it from the wake. I look at the bandana and replacing the red is white skin and blonde hair, blue eyes and the peaceful face of the cousin I never knew. I don’t see him sleeping, as he appeared in his coffin. I see him smiling the truly excellent smile everyone says they will miss. I never knew it to miss it. I wish I had known him.

Well, I guess that’s what the mellow mood produced. Faint melancholy and a regurgitation of my thoughts from the past few months. Here’s another interesting thought: I went to Medusa’s the week after Daniel died, to get my hair done for prom. I’m going there next Thursday to get it cut. It’s interesting to think that everything revolves that way, or maybe it feels like it does. The world keeps spinning even when something so unthinkable happens it seems to stop. But life goes on, turning, turning. So interesting.



Update

Correction, about a post a few days ago. I didn’t do my english project on Marilyn Monroe. I changed it to Sarah Palin, she got ridiculed twenty times more than Norma Jeane ever did, even if she never bj’ed JFK.



Cloudy, grey

I did not go skating. It was exceptionally chilly, so after two trips back indoors for extra clothes and an iPod and phone deposit, I made my way outside to freeze with the dogs. We couldn’t find a ball, so we made do with randomly galloping around the backyard. Over stumps, rocks, and piles of accumulated bramble we went, me, then Grizz beside me, Potter lagging slightly behind. Molley would run for a moment or two, then something would catch her interest, and off she’d go to explore an intriguing scent, shape, or movement. After about a half hour we went back into the garage, where I fed them dog treats, harrassed Grizz, praised Potter and ignored poor Molley. Out of the three of them, she has the least dominant personality. A little snippy, shy, and protective, she tends to roll with whatever her brother and mother get up to. The lowest-in-the-pack role extracts a sweet and submissive nature, though. When she was a little puppy we called her Sweetie, not knowing that we’d be keeping her. The nickname suited her then and now. She might be the quietest, but she’s easily the calmest-natured.

The dogs’ stories can wait for another day, however; I’m tutoring in about eight minutes. The lesson’s nicely timed out on paper, and I’m all energized and ready to hammer out some math facts. It might be break, but the mind always needs exercise, right?

After teaching, Katie’s coming over and then we might go see Rod’s puppies before heading to Chelsea’s with apple fritters. Fun stuff.

Tomorrow’s New Year’s Eve, which might mean even more fun stuff. Or it could mean Katie and I drowning in ennui all by our lonesomes. Hrmm. We’ll see.