Filed under: My Day | Tags: alone, bitter, black, bob marley, camry, cd, changing, clutter, coffee, competent, cozy, day, daydreaming, driver's license, dunkirk, empty, fair, family, friday, friends, happiness, happy, home, honest, house, license, mark and karen, melodies, moments, nerves, nervous, niches, overwhelming, passions, points, proper, red, respective, road test, steaming liquid, sweatpants, sweet, ten, the avett brothers, thirty, three, thrill, time, tired, today, truthful, warm, weary, worn-in
Finally home: and I guess I didn’t realize it before, but this has to be one of the best feelings in the world. Coming into a house that’s empty of people but filled with coziness and clutter; changing into my most worn-in pair of sweatpants and a thermal; putting up my hair and my feet and blasting the music with a warm cup of black coffee before me. The steaming liquid might be bitter to the taste, but to my weary self it’s oh so sweet.
I’ve checked in with all of my immediate family members: they’re all in their respective, proper niches for this time of day. I’m all alone here, just soaking in the melodies flowing past my ears.
I’m so tired.
I passed my road test today: I officially have my driver’s license. For all of my daydreaming, playing my celebratory Avetts’ CD on the way home and driving around didn’t feel as joyful as I’d expected. The instructor I rode with was extremely competent and not altogether unpleasant. He was a middle-aged, moustached man who was polite and understanding of my overwhelming nerves. I only got ten points on my test: thirty points will fail you. The happiness has only struck at me for a few moments so far. I don’t care if it trickles in slowly or swamps me in a tsunami. I just want to stop being down.
There’s homework, and practicing, and illness. Obligations to my passions, family, friends, and school. I’m exhausted. As Mr. Bett so intriguingly phrased it, I’m running around “like a chicken with it’s head and butt cut off.”
I love to be busy, and when the pressure’s on I normally excel. Failing my road test yesterday was a bitch for me. I’m going to be completely honest: I struggled with humility and hopefulness all day on Thursday and all of that focus on my “feelings” came back to bite me in the ass: I concentrated more on what the instructor thought of me than I did on my driving. Thus, failure.
Luckily I was able to reschedule, and miraculously in Dunkirk there was an opening for today at three. Rush hour Friday traffic ended up being the last concern on my list as I parallel parked, three point turned, and manipulated Mark and Karen’s little red Camry with intensity. I was so damn nervous. The man in the car with me even asked me, as he had me pull over to begin my three point, “I know something’s got to be making you nervous– your heart nearly stopped when I had you pull out back there instead of parking [for my parallel park].”
He was observant, and honest, and kind. He wasn’t a dick. I told him quite truthfully that I had flunked yesterday, and then hurriedly protested that he please shouldn’t count that against me. He told me that he only judged driving based on what he saw, and that I could pass the test today and fail it tomorrow, and that didn’t mean I was a bad driver. He told me that I was doing fine so far, and that although it wasn’t over yet, I was doing just right.
I told him with all sincerity that he was my favorite.
I did pass today, thank God. I am waiting for the thrill to completely set in, but for now I am entirely satisfied listening to Bob Marley serenade me with reggae and sipping my now-lukewarm coffee.
Filed under: My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: all day, anything, attitude, befuddled, binder, blog, chill, chilling, Christmas, cleaning, clue, cold, day, december, done, dream, Dreams, early, excellent, exhaused, find, folder, freezing, friday, friend, friends, frigid, frustrated, frustration, fun, good mood, hallucination, hamster, happy, haze, hectic, hope, house, later, location, lost, marvelous, misplaced, monday, national honor society, nhs, night, no, outline, panic, pen, possibilities, procrastination, ready, restless, runaway, shitty, sleep, sleeping, snow, snow day, story, today, tomorrow, vanished, voila, wheel, winter, work, Writing
I feel a little like writing. Maybe not just the blog today; mayve I’ll pick up a pen or a story outline and set to. Who knows?
Anything’s possible today, though… we have a snow day.
Ha, don’t think I haven’t noticed my own change in attitude toward the days off. Friday was shitty; today is marvelous.
It’s exceptionally marvelous because I mayormaynothave lost my National Honor Society folder and binder, and my voice lesson materials… they are definitely floating around here somewhere, but in all of my hectic cleaning haze, I must have misplaced them.
You know what’s excellent? I have all day to find them. I looked for them last night amidst a cloud of panic, then finally resorted to sleeping and hoping their location would come to me in a dream or hallucination or something. As it is, I did have a restless night, which is why I was up so early today, but I still have no freakin’ clue where my missing materials might be. I am cheerfully planning to conduct a large-scale search for them…. later.
I think it was the addition to something fun to my schedule that put me in a good mood. All last week it was “go, go, go”– and I honestly felt like I was the hamster in the little wheel: trying to go but simply turning round and round in the same exact place. I didn’t think I was trying hard enough, but the more I tried to push myself to get things done, the more frustrated and exhausted and befuddled I became.
But then I cleaned the house, and spent some time chilling (literally) with friends, and voila. Good mood is back again. Maybe that’s key– the friends and fun thing. If it is, though, then why am I constantly being reminded, no fun until the work is done?
Oh, well. I’m happy this morning, and once I find my runaway papers, I’ll be happy tomorrow morning, too. So bring on the snow days, I’m ready for anything.
Filed under: My Day | Tags: angry, attitude, ball, bandanna, best, blizzard, bum, can't, cheerful, cheery, Christmas, comfortable, complain, day, december, doldrum, doldrums, friday, frustration, fun, home, hope, inside, issue, issues, madre, miserable, mom, monday, mother, no, no more fun, not anymore, past tense, pissy, pointless, ruin, ruined, ruining, ruins, sad, saturday, screw that, shit, shitty, sit, six-thirty, snow, snowday, snowy, stupid, thursday, tired, two, was, week, weekend, winter, winter ball, worst
The first thing I thought when I woke up this morning was: “It’s six-thirty. Oh, no.”
The first thing I said when I woke up this morning was, “No… shit.”
Today was going to be the best day of the week. Monday through Thursday sucked, but today was going to be a riot. Or, at least, I was going to be comfortable and cheerful because today was Tye-Dye day and I was going to wear a bandanna.
Tomorrow was the Winter Ball, and I was going to look amazing and have a good time.
Well Merry Christmas, obviously I can’t have it all. What a weekend this was going to be. And in comparison to what it is now, I can say with all pessimism, what a weekend this is going to be. The doldrums inside and a blizzard out. What fun.
And since my mom is home and somewhat pissy, I can’t even complain out loud. Well, guess what? I don’t want to sound “full of myself” (which is her most recent issue when it comes to my attitude), but I hope they know what they’re doing. If I don’t see snow by two this afternoon, I am going to be very, very angry.
This ruins my entire weekend. My family isn’t the kind where I can just make plans spur-of-the-moment. And if I hadn’t spent money and thoughts on it, I wouldn’t care so damn much.
However, my week has been shitty as it is. I’ve been exhausted and short-tempered and frustrated. I was counting on this weekend to be an anti-stress time. Just fun.
Well, screw that man, we got gypped, and now I can sit at home like a bum and do whatever my mother tells me to.
I will sit down and try to finish crocheting, and I can guarantee you within five to ten minutes I’ll hear a, “Hey, why don’t you unload the dishwasher. Come help me fold clothes. Your room is a mess. This house is a goddamn pigsty and not one of you care about it but me.”
Yeaaaah.
Happy weekend.
Filed under: My Day, Random Thoughts | Tags: ap, ap history, bed, calm, chaos, chorus, concert, english, exhausted, fatigue, focus, friday, going, help, hours, hump, itchy, michelle, pillow, red, saturday, schedule, shiiit, singing, sister, six, sleep, thursday, time, time management, tired, trapezoids, twelfth period, twenty, understand, wednesday, yawn
I am exhausted. My skin’s so dry it’s itchy and my eyes are searing with fatigue. I want to go to bed, but it’s not even close to bedtime.
Another yawn comes on again as I sit here thinking over my busy schedule. All county rehearsal tomorrow after school, then I go home to tutor a girl at four. At five I get to shower, then rush around and try to make sure Michelle and I are ready to go back down to the school for the chorus concert at six. Hours later, I’ll finally reach home and have time to myself… which I will put to use studying for the AP History test Thursday and finishing any English homework we might have.
Tomorrow will most surely be a “hump day”– where you have to keep going and going until you’re over the hypothetical hump and rolling into Thursday, which inevitably leads to Friday, which then leads to…
Saturday. Saturday is my shining red beacon in the midst of this hectic, tumultuous week.
My focus right now is to just get through tomorrow, though. Then maybe things will calm down a little.
…or maybe not.
Now I’m going to go help my sister understand trapezoids. Now I’m going to go help my sister understand trapezoids.
Shit, I seriously just typed that twice. Ahhh, I’m leaving that. I need some sleep.
Filed under: Ranting | Tags: better, bum, busy, cheerful, cocoa, cranky, crap, crappy, debbie, downer, fake, finally, friday, harsh, laugh, laughing, laughter, lazy, long, miserable, monday, oedipus, pathetic, sad, sunday, tired, unhappy, Writing
What a week.
I’m glad it’s just about over. For me, weeks always start on Mondays. Sometimes Sunday feels like a new and fresh day, like it’s not connected, but Monday is the day when everything– routines, actions, classes– will begin anew.
But Friday is the last day of class, of routine, and the weekend might be busy, but it’s less rigidly structured, and a little more spontaneous.
So I’m glad the week’s finally over. The week of maintaining appearances, keeping cheerful… I realized this week that I laugh often, but rarely because something’s actually funny. I’m laughing because either everyone else is, or it’s habit, or it’s been something I made myself do on so many occasions that now I just automatically churn out a ha-ha-ha whenever something mildly humorous occurs. I felt a little ashamed of myself when I stumbled upon this… realization? Revelation? Whatever. But I felt sad that society, or myself, has/have ingrained such an unusual habit into my brain. Laughter should be unrestrained, spur-of-the-moment, beautiful in its unrefined release. It’s human, it’s cheerful, it’s positive. It’s supposed to be good for you, which is why, I suppose, I hadn’t realized I wasn’t finding much funny until this late in the year– I’d been feeling so good because of the positive hormones I’d been releasing when I’d choke out a chuckle. Or something like that.
It just makes me miserable, to think that maybe I haven’t been having such a good time as I’d supposed. Maybe I’m really NOT happy.
But now I really am feeling a little genuine mirth, because I know that THAT idea is just bullshit on my part. Of course I’m happy. I’m just in a negative mood… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I could whine and list off a variety of unpleasant things that have happened to me this week, but I doubt it would make me feel any better. They’re petty, lame things that have consistently worn down at my good mood until I ended up scraping along the bottom of the pit of cheerfulness. I hope something’s going to come along to lift me up soon; being positive requires a lot of energy.
I’m going to think when I laugh from now on, though. I don’t want to be a debbie downer, I want all of my friends to feel good, too… I’ve noticed that when others laugh you feel more like laughing? Maybe I’ve been trying to be that first giggle, to make everyone else want to laugh as well. I don’t know.
I’m exhausted, and I’ve had some long days. Aside from having a lame morning, I’ve been less social than I should have been, as well. And I’ve gone along more with the crowd than with myself, and what I want to do. I’m going to try to fix that. I’ll pull a Jane Eyre and listen to myself rather than follow the restrictions of society or the opinions or feelings of those I love. I don’t like being so crazy-dependent on what other people think.
So there was my vent/rant for the evening… I feel a lot better after getting it all down. I’ve been stressing and not getting much done, and then feeling really shitty about myself because I was being such a slacker. And a conformist. Ew.
Well, on that lovely note, I am going to bed. I have to be at Chelsea’s by nine tomorrow for the Oedipus party.
Until later. Hopefully.
Kick Drum Heart 