Fuck Everything

  Thanksgiving was so bad this year. Let's just leave it at that. Good night.

Bad Habits

   Sometimes I feel like a living breathing train wreck, but sometimes I feel like I'm just a giant poser. I supposedly have all these problems with my brain, but then I see so many other people struggling a lot more with their shit, and it makes me feel terrible. I feel like I'm making excuses for being a bad person.
   Today I made myself a bag of popcorn and was doing just fine. But then my brother came bumbling in and just dug his hand into the bag, touched every piece, and took a fistful. I mean, that's his thing, he acts obnoxious but it's not like his goal is to honestly bother people. He just wants to annoy you a little. Trademark brother personality. No, trademark sibling personality. But it really did bother me. I couldn't eat any more popcorn. I just put it in the fridge when I was sure he was done with it.
   My compulsions have always been weird. They're sporadic, and they are triggered by weird things. Some people I'm completely fine around, but others can unintentionally drive me nuts in less than a minute. And it makes me feel awful because some of these things that I have to do to counter whatever somebody else just did, they aren't very flattering or polite or discreet. Another thing, they change. It seems like they take shifts. One day I can't touch doors, another I have to tap the sink faucet about forty times. The one thing that's been consistent though, is that whenever my AP Euro teacher passes around something for us to look at (he travels a lot so he enjoys sharing his souvenirs), I can not touch it. Under absolutely no circumstance can I touch it ever. It doesn't matter what it is or where it came from, I just can't do it.
   Help.
   I seriously cannot wait until I can take care of myself, and then I can go and get cat scans and be psychologically analysed to my heart's content.

Hey

   Everybody is ugly when they are faced with the glaring rays of the sun. That's something I always try to keep in mind because really, how easy is it to be nice when something terrible might've just happened to you? Of course there are always those people who are just miserable all the time, but I'm not in this to hurt anybody's feelings.
   Just a little blurb that's been bothering me.

"I Am the Girl You Know..."

   I went running for the first time in forever, the day after our school's esteemed Fitness Friday gym class, and my thighs are killing me. It feels good though. I'll take the pain in my muscles that screams "Improvement!" over making myself throw up every five seconds. It seems as though my subconscious revolves around finding ways to inflict the most hurt on my body that it possibly can at all times. This method is inarguably the healthiest. Bulimia was awful and disgusting and although the recovery process is almost pretty much over and that is a huge relief, I can't help but feel a little panicked. My self-destructive tendencies have seemed to get worse over the years... I've consistently kicked one bad habit for another since I was thirteen.
   Ugh, it's a little embarrassing to admit these things, but I'm a firm believer in talking it out, and this blog is more or less supposed to help me by voicing my frustrations. Most of my frustrations stem from my poor decision-making skills.
   Ok, with that little introduction out of the way, I'm going to list the few pastimes I've successfully carried out and pushed aside over the past four years without getting caught.
   It all started in middle school when I would huff pretty much anything I could get my hands on. I was in seventh grade at the time. I cringe every time I admit that. Not only does that habit make me look like a total dumbass, it made me act like a total dumbass. Yeah, yeah, the highs only last fifteen seconds at most, but the chemicals eat away at your brain and turn you into a living, breathing dumbass. I'm just banking on the fact that it only lasted a little less than a year, and I was so young that maybe my brain cells recuperated perfectly and now I'm totally fine.
   After huffing came alcohol. That lasted from eighth to tenth grade. It was more sporadic than the huffing, but it got out of control extremely fast. It went from stealing a can of light beer from the surplus in the fridge that would appear from time to time, to taking an entire bottle of 70-proof liquor and downing it in less than half an hour. The last drink I ever took was enough to put me out and mercilessly let me wake up in a puddle of my own vomit. Luckily, I didn't piss or shit myself, but I spewed all over my bed and headboard. I don't get hangovers, I just sleep a little more. But Jesus Christ, that one night I drank enough to keep me drunk for the next two days. It went way too far, and that was enough for me to just stop drinking altogether. I am so relieved that I stopped when I did though, because I started experiencing some of the withdrawal symptoms when I gave it up cold turkey. They weren't that severe, and honestly it was probably just some sort of placebo effect, but it scared me a little bit. I was sixteen and nursing an alcohol addiction. Holy shit. That actually still terrifies me. What if later on in my life I take it up again? I just really don't want to end up like so many of my family members. I don't want to be a failure.
   The bulimia and the drinking overlapped a bit. It was just a bad time for me. But the disorder really didn't get worse until later on. The funny thing is, my family actually did catch me with it, but they only threatened me and stuff like that. They didn't really do anything about it. So it carried on until maybe last month. I've been pretty solid with recovery since the summer, but this school year has seen a couple week-long relapses, but now it's just like I have no desire to do it whatsoever. Which is amazing and makes me really happy to think about.
   Anyway, I've started exercising vigorously again because I finally found a way to listen to music on my runs since my phone broke. I have this really old ipod, and the charger was broken, so I gave my mom some cash and asked her to get a new one for me and she did! Now I can listen to all of my emo tenth-grade jams and power through my neighborhood jog. I ran five miles today, and "Miss World" by Hole came on. I love that song. It has a weird meaning to me. The one line she sings goes, "I am the girl you know, can't look you in the eye," and it seems that it's about this chick that's super hot and super shy and super cool, but whenever I hate someone so passionately, I can't look them in the eye. I don't talk a lot either. Am I calling myself super hot and super cool though? Hey, that's miss Courtney Love-Cobain doing that, there. But joking aside, maybe she's talking about being too good for these people around her who think that they have the right to judge. I like that a lot. I'm glad that I made that connection. Even if it doesn't make a lot of sense to other people, it makes me feel a little bit better about everything. It's like I'm not going it alone, you know?

The Requested Burden

   I don't have a lot of pet peeves. Granted, if I'm annoyed, I'm annoyed and there's nothing to be done about that. But there aren't very many specific behaviors that can really ruin my mood. I'm sure that on this blog I come across as this belligerent and powerless force of aggression, attempting to break through to the aging society that threatens to drown my people with their tightening authority. That is on purpose. I portray myself as such on purpose. This is a blog about teenage angst; what else did you expect? Don't get me wrong, the subjects that I address are ones that I care about, but real talk here, I'm usually pretty calm and probably seem a little lethargic at times. My brain is always going a mile a minute, believe me, but it isn't as though I'm constantly fighting the urge to leap up onto my desk and preach the pleas of the misunderstood masses. I'd rather just express myself through a platform where it is your choice as people to decide whether to listen or to peacefully disregard me. I really don't have a problem with being ignored. Yeah, attention is awesome, but not when I'm just doing me, trying to get through every day without keeling over and dying of boredom. I like to perform, and I like to write, and as long as somebody is watching or reading, I'm totally fine.
   Anyway, back to the matter at hand: pet peeves. I most likely would not be able to name at least five of these. We've established that. But I was thinking in the hallway while heading to the library that there is one thing that bothers me far beyond the point of politely forced apathy, and that is the use of frivolous, unimportant questions so often resorted to to start a conversation. There are different degrees of this frustration; I actually love those conversation-starter flash cards that people bring to parties and stuff. They are delightfully awkward. No, my frustrations are directed towards the mundane inquiries asked persistently by people who should by now realize I don't enjoy answering them.
   That sounds a little shitty, I know. But it bothers me so much and I've been nice about it for at least the past twelve years.
   Yes, readers, the infamous, "How was your day?" Asked by my mother, of course.
   As someone dealing with clinical depression, I figuratively have to slap myself around eight times to keep from saying, "I hate everything that I am forced to do. How the fuck do you think my day was?" Obviously, this has never been used as an actual response, but it's getting harder and harder to avoid it.
   I am sick. I am very, very, excruciatingly sick as a result of reckless parents. My father used to bring me with him to bars and smoked around me and let his brothers and friends smoke around me as well. This pretty much resulted in my lungs being utterly destroyed. It's not so huge a problem now. I get around. But it's enough to hospitalize me  for about a week once every two years. This year, I need to be hospitalized again. It's going to turn into something ugly and devastating, but of course, it is going to be pushed off until next year because I apparently "have a problem with being one of four." My mom basically just told me to get better because we don't have any medical until January first, in spite of the fact that she's had a doctor's appointment a week for the past month-and-a-half. That is not an exaggeration, I promise you.
   She knows about my excessive lung issues and my completely fucked to shit brain chemistry, and she wants to know how my day went. This is coming from the woman who explicitly declares that my problems are nothing compared to hers, and also that I'm just a greedy little shit that always needs attention, and the hypocrite needs to know what I learned in class today. The hypocrisy dripping from those words disgusts me. See, despite how much of a burden I tend to be (you know, just the fourth fucking child that she decided to have), she is so desperate for my approval that she needs to pretend to care just a little bit, and then she knows I'm absolutely sold, and my opinion of her is ranking higher than that of Queen Elizabeth I and Madame Curie, right where it's supposed to be. I am appalled at this half-assed attempt at an interest in my life.
   I told her the other day that when I have children, I am always going to help them with their homework and she just laughed at me and said, "Good luck with that." And I just looked at her and said, "I'll make it work." I know that by the time my kids are in eighth grade, they'll probably be learning calculus and fucking physics, but I will learn it with them and call whomever I need to call to ensure their success. To this, she gave the most bullshit answer I have ever heard pass anyone's lips in my entire life. She shrugged and told me, "I never helped you kids with your homework." I fucking shit. I had to leave the room. Her point was one of those and-look-where-you-are-now points, and it made no sense whatsoever. No sense. My sister is a doctor now, yes, but my two brothers are fucking college dropouts that still live at home, and I am a fucking basket case. How the fuck can you use that as an example of your shining exhibition of parenting. She literally does not care what we do at all. When I was sixteen, I walked around the house drunk for two days straight, just blatantly drunk, and she ignored the whole thing. (I've been sober ever since, I promise, haha... That experience was unpleasant to say the least.) She does not address any problems with me, and she never cares where I am as long as I don't miss a major family event that has something to do with her.
   Ugh, I'm sorry. This whole blog has just been bitching about my mother for a couple posts now, but I'm seething with rage at the moment, so... this is probably the last one for now that's about her, though. I'm just so upset with everything. As always. But still.

Nature vs. Nurture

   It was my brother's twenty-third birthday last week, and since everybody had work and such that night, we celebrated yesterday (Sunday). For some strange reason he has this fascination with my hair, and he'll pull on it and/or just touch it. So I was sitting next to him at the dinner table and he put his arm around me. Going to be honest here, that actually made me really happy. We used to be super close and then something happened and we grew apart, but now we're finally getting to that super closeness again. But then he put his hand on the top of my head and just started scratching it for a solid thirty seconds. We're weird with our expressions of affection.

   I was thinking about this, and I came across the realization that my brothers can toss me around like a hot potato, but as soon as my mother reaches out to fix my collar or rub my back or something, I freak out. It's a squirmy uncomfortable feeling whenever she tries to touch me. I'd always been like that for as long as I can remember, until I really sat down and thought about it. I used to climb all over my mother when I was a small child. Then I have this memory where I guess I made her mad or something, and she slapped me. Ever since then I don't have any recollection of cuddling with her or holding her hand. I was about five or six years old.

   That really clarified things for me. It takes a lot to break that trust in me, but that one instant was probably the biggest disappointment I've ever had in any of my family members. I thought she was perfect, and that she was capable of ever hurting me kind of ruined my image of mothers. I talk to her a lot, and if you were to ask her, she'd most likely tell you that we have an excellent relationship, but just because I talk to her a lot doesn't mean that I ever tell her anything about myself. As a result, she has no idea of who I am as a person. Every time I try to ask her for some kind of help, she becomes angry and defensive and gives the impression that she's aiming to hurt my feelings. 

   I'll never understand that. I never want to hurt anybody's feelings. The only negative reaction you could provoke from me is one that stems from my strong desire to be left alone. In that case, I'll be mean, but if I care about you, I know how to apologize. In all of my seventeen years as her daughter, I have never heard that woman tell me she was sorry for anything. I'm just so sick of this place. Every time she sees me upset over something she immediately leaps to the offensive and makes a big deal out of trying to get me to understand that whatever happened wasn't her fault. I've recently started responding with, "Did I say I blamed you for this? I'm allowed to be upset."

   It kills me having to be around her, because she is one of the most two-faced people I have ever met. If I'm sad then she transforms into the world's most loving mother, but as soon as I tell her why, I transform into the world's shittiest daughter. I don't know what to do. I just really don't want to be here anymore.

Misplaced Teenage Apathy

   I don't buy into the whole discovering-your-sexual-orientation-at-a-really-young-age thing. Yeah, sure, if you like a specific gender, then you like that specific gender, and I'm not going to fight you on that. You can love whomever you want to love. I just think that if you're a teenager or child or young adult really super young person, spend this time exploring your preferences and such, and avoid labels like the plague. Labels are a dangerous, permanent thing that can be detrimental to your growth as a person. Of course you can always turn around and say, "That's not me anymore, I've changed." But the people in your life are always going to have those memories.

   Ok, that being said, I am going to share something that frightens me. I am afraid that I am moving closer and closer to the definition of someone who is asexual. I just-- none of that interests me. I mean, obviously I think about sex and dating all of the time, but only when I'm imagining it's me and some attractive celebrity in some impossible situation. But that's because it's safe. I'm alone inside my head and I never have to worry about being in that situation because the celebrity is dating someone, or is married, or gay, or another reason. But when I look at it realistically and try to imagine that actually happening in a realistic setting, I just get so grossed out. It makes absolutely no sense to me. I don't want to date anyone. I don't want to touch anyone that way.

   Now, if you're asexual and you're happy with that, then good for you. This realization about myself scares me because I want to have a family more than anything else in the world. I want a lot of children. And I want a husband! But do I really want a husband? God, I hope so. I just want to end up rich with a big, beautiful family. 

   Well, maybe that's not all I want out of life, but I guess it all comes back to the primal human need for company. I don't want to be alone.

   It's just so shitty because I really don't want anything to do with any of the boys around me. I don't want anything to do with any of the male population around me. I really don't care for men. Or women. Or people in general. I see these bizarre exhibitions of the mating ritual occuring all around me and it is so off-putting. Is that just me...?

The Luckiest Little Girl

   I am an extraordinarily lucky youth. It's to the point where I feel like I'm either a cocky ingrate, knowing that if I don't want to do an assignment, I won't have to face the reprecussions the next day through some strange turn of events; or I'm being tossed a bone by some higher power that wants to make up for dealing me such a lousy hand in regards to my living situation. But it's absolutely nuts.

   Today I walked into my AP Biology class and sat down in my seat. I looked to my left at the weekly chart of assignments on the chalkboard, and my heart dropped as I saw that we had a Latin prefix and suffix quiz planned. However, before I could finish scanning over my classmate's study sheet we were all shuffled into the lab to spend the class period making up an experiment that our teacher had botched yesterday. But alas, she botched the preparations again and now our quiz is pushed to Monday. I hadn't given any thought whatsoever to that quiz and I cannot believe everything worked out the way it did. Now I have all the time in the world to worry about it, after I give adequate thought to the AP European History test I have tomorrow and the quiz I have in Analysis.

   I can't help but think that these things are all happening because I'm meant to succeed. I've got to be saved up for something great. That gives me hope. The depression is back 100% and this possibility of grandeur keeps me motivated to do some things... I'm trying really hard, ok? I am. It's absolutely amazing that I've made it this far with my reputation for losing it at some point during the school year. I am incredibly unstable. Completely reliable in a professional setting, but coming apart at the seams just below the surface 24/7. I always make it through the year with a cumulative GPA of 3.5 or higher, and that can only be attributed to sheer luck. Something is looking out for me, and you know what? I am so grateful.

   Now for a word to those who aren't so lucky: please, don't give up on anything. My luck only makes my acheivements seem sporadic and something that I didn't work for. But your perseverance magnifies everything you do, and makes you a stronger and more admirable person. 

   Sometimes the guilt drives me nuts. I don't deserve the extra help, but I'm so dependent upon it. I still need it.

The Inebriation Placebo

   You can never really tell that you've hit rock bottom until it happens full force. You go through a hard time, you think the world is over, you keep existing and you recuperate and either get past it, continuing on with your life, or you get used to it. Pretty soon you're back in your usual moods and your behavior is consistent with what it was before. But when you really do hit rock bottom, it just kind of drops you off of a cliff, and when you splatter all over the rocky land below you look around and go, "Oh, this is what it's like."
   It's like getting drunk for the first time. You just wander around, trying to tell if you're buzzed or if it's some kind of placebo effect. Then you go home and go to sleep and in the morning your head is pounding, and you know right at that moment what it feels like to be inebriated. That was it the previous night. That's what it feels like when you realize that everything you've built up around you has crumbled. You're surrounded by the debris of your life, and there's nothing that you can use to fix anything. You have to wait. You have to wait for the grass to grow and new saplings to find some way to cling to the ashen soil and bury their roots deep in the ground. The things that come back are things you had before, but they were too strong to be swept away, or they were hidden in some safe place, only to be revealed in times of hardship. They are familiar but they have changed. They bask in their newfound resilience, but only if you can find the motivation to stop pussy-footing around your problems and face them.

Journal Insincerity

  Permit me to bitch for a bit, please. I don't usually complain, at least not straight to people. Over a blog or in a journal is different, though, because it's not as though you're expecting a sympathetic friend to give an understanding nod, even if they're secretly tired of your bullshit. Yeah, real people see this, but it's not like I'm making you sit and read it; if you're interested you keep scrolling, if not, you can just keep clicking through other blogs. Of course I know that everything you put on the internet is there forever for the whole world to see, but really, I'm not going to post anything harsh about someone with their actual name and such. Hm, I guess the real point of this project must be revealed: as stated earlier somewhere on here, I love to write, and one of my goals is to land an agent by the end of my high school career. The only way I'm going to do that is if I put together a bitching portfolio. I have a wattpad (groans with embarrassment but has to admit acutally enjoying the site) and I have some other stuff, but I figured that wouldn't be enough, and so I came up with the idea to start another blog.
   You gasp!
   "Another?! Where is this glorious first blog?!" you ask in excitement.
   There is no fucking way I am sharing that with you. I ended up deleting it because I realized my mother had access to it, and while she hadn't known she had access to it, or even that it existed, I couldn't run the risk. It was super personal about my struggles with bulimia. It was really sad and when I look back on it I ache for that girl who felt so alone. I am a completely different person than I was when I was her age, and it just makes the hurt so much more pronounced. That girl still exists somewhere, and I feel like I just hid her away and have decided to ignore her for the sake of my well being and the well being of those around me. But she didn't have to be pushed away. And the fact that she's still there to me scares me a little because who knows she won't try to come back? The fact that she is so different but still very much a part of me scares me a great deal. I need therapy. That girl needs to become happy and morph into my personality or some hippy shit.
   Anyway, back to the topic at hand:
   My final point is that even though this is for work purposes, this is still the one and only Teen Angst Blog. I knew I wanted to do a blog, and I thought about what I could do. Could I still cover the topic of bulimia? Yeah, it's super relevant today and would probably draw a bigger crowd from the get go, but the thing is, I don't think I need this blog to be famous to be impressive. Yeah, I could cover bulimia, but I'm in recovery and I don't think I could do it justice at this point. I had that relapse last week that was on-and-off for about a month, but I don't think that counts (of course it does from a doctor-patient-y standpoint or whatever but not storywise) because altogether I'm doing pretty well right now. In regards to the eating disorder. I'm making good progress, and I feel that the most tumultuous period of my life concerning my mental state, where I could have given the best insights and captured some hearts, is ultimately over. Which isn't a bad thing at all. It just means that I have to find a new topic to write about and new things to document.
   So I thought about it and thought about it and eventually came up with this. Being a teenager sucks, and when you grow up a 90s stereotype in the age of dubstep and internet porn, why wouldn't you want to write everything down. That being said, I do keep a journal, but that's more for really, really personal matters. I mean, I'm pretty much an open book, but like I said, once you put something on the internet it's there and anybody can see it. I don't need anyone prying into my purest thoughts and opinions. This is more for general stuff. And it's to hopefully help some people out there who feel the same way I do about certain things, and who may have some similar problems or something. The motive behind this may be to get an agent, but the real goal is to provoke and hopefully inspire.

Reverent Clairvoyance

   Gerard Way came to Philly this weekend and I got to go to the show. He is pretty much my idol; I really look up to that baby-faced 37-year-old. But the thing is, I was more excited in the hours leading up to the show than I was when I was in that beloved pit being shoved around and waving my arms and grabbing the shirts of strangers so that I didn't fall down. (That wasn't sarcasm in the word "beloved" used in the prior sentence. I really do like that violent and powerful exhibition of anger and affection.)
   Instead of being filled with that starstruck ecstasy that I was expecting when he took the stage, maybe about twenty minutes in I felt kind of disgusted. Not with Mr. Way, of course. He was absolutely radiant with his orange hair and super sweaty alienation suit. I was disgusted with myself. When I listen to his music, or anybody's music for that matter, I genuinely enjoy it. His music especially fills me with the most intense urge to create and write and bring something important into this world. Since the moment I first heard it, it's made me feel that way. But in that crowd it wasn't about the music for me, and I don't think I was the only one. When I was there in the crowd I was consumed by the need for any little fleck of his attention, so I could go home and say he made eye contact with me or that he pointed to me singing the lyrics or brought me onstage or something. I felt a very high level of disappointment in myself; I mentally threw myself under the bus. But a very strange change came over me.
   I stopped smiling so much unless he was looking in my direction (because I didn't want him to think I wasn't enjoying the show or something). I didn't move so much. I didn't sing so much. As much as I could, I just watched him. I wanted to see if I could glimpse that something special, and I wanted to really send some mental rays of respect his way, because that guy is a true performer.
   It was in that crowd that I really realized what I wanted to be, and what I wanted to do. I want to spend the rest of my life creating. I want to glance at some chick and catch her waves of reverence and clarify her dreams. There was always that nagging feeling of doubt I felt gnawing at my stomach whenever I told somebody that I want to be a musician when I grow up, it was a doubt that asked, "Can you really see yourself doing that forever? Is that really what you want? Will that really make you happy?" I got my answer on Friday night. I want what he has more than anything else in the world. I want to make music and provoke people and bring them hope and make them think beyond themselves.
   Before I sign off I want to add one more thing: Mr. Way said something onstage that I will never forget. He made a pretty compelling little speech about the women's rights movement, which was really inspiring, but it's what he said about control that really made an impression on me. I can't quite recite it vebatim, but it was along the lines of this, "It's all about control; people who want it, people who take it, and people who give it away, and don't ever give control away for free." That stuck with me, and it will stick with me for a long time.

The Shower Has a Pulse

   Our water pressure is fucked. I don't understand it, I'm not a plumber. But instinct and the fact that my mother has resorted to calling a plumber has me convinced that it is totally fucked. My brother called his senior citizen friend over to check it out.
   It's the weirdest thing, I swear. The water literally courses through the pipes like some sort of heart is pumping it to each sink, toilet, and shower. And it causes a power surge that runs throughout the entire house. We're supposed to get it fixed soon, since the senior citizen friend gave us an estimate on how much money it would take.
   Ugh, I really don't feel like writing today. I promised myself I'd write every day, though, so here it is. It doesn't have to be a novel...
   I got so sick this morning, you would not believe. I was woken up by the worst pain in my abdominal region. I've gotten this before, and I think it's some sort of allergic reaction prompted by some kind of season certain restaurants use on their chicken. Well, I ended up pulling myself out of bed at 5:30 and since the upstairs hall bathroom was out of toilet paper and baby wipes, I made my way to the powder room. We don't need to go into great detail about this, but it came out both ends. I stayed home from school today and accomplished literally nothing in spite of how far behind I am in my three A.P. classes.
   So, I'm going to wrap it up now... I'm tired. I just want to finish my episode of "American Dad" and, like, three more pages of my bio packet and maybe a couple chapters of Huck Finn. I'm supposed to be on chapter twenty but let's be real for a sec: I'm on chapter eight.

This Just In...

   Normally I only do one post a day (as of two days ago), but I just wanted to share: my cat, Jasmine, is trying to open a box right now and she just can't do it. Oooh my goodness. I want to help her but I also don't because that box is full of stuff she'll either shread or consume in entirety...

We Are the Cattle Drive

   I hate school so, so much. Don't get me wrong, I love learning, I absolutely love wielding knowledge as a weapon against the uneducated masses. It makes me feel powerful. But I hate, hate, hate having to get up at some ungodly hour to go some place with mediocre food and mediocre people. Yeah, I like a lot of the people I encounter there; they're not the mediocre ones. The mediocre ones are the middle-aged college drop-outs that get some sort of adrenaline rush by ordering around children less than half their age. They let the fragile whisp of power go to their heads.
   I find it kind of funny that they think they have some sort of authority over us. Really, if they tell us to do something we could just walk away. The only obligation we have is to show up at that hell hole every day. But it's not like any of us will go against them for fear of being inconvenienced. If anything, I'm afraid of being reprimanded by the grade-level principal or the head honcho of the entire organization: the actual high school-high school principal. You know, the one in charge of all four grade levels.
   But back to the subject of this entry, so boldly stated in the title, the part of school life that I absolutely hate the most is the fact that we are herded to and fro like mindless cattle. Passing through the front door you find yourself in the reception area. There's a huge, cubicle-esque desk in the middle of the room that's usually operated by two people at a time, and if you come in late you have to wait for them to buzz you into the actual school, a fairly recent addition to the security processes that were placed into action immediately following an attempted school shooting. When you walk by the sometimes friendly/sometimes cold receptionists and step into the foyer you are faced with a giant staircase leading up to the second of two floors. On either side of the staircase is an entrance to the cafeteria.
   When we first enter the building in the morning, if we set foot in the foyer at or after 7:10, the sheepdogs nip at our ankles and push us in through the door on the right side. This is a problem because there are roughly 2400 students in our school being shoved into this one room. Everyone congregates in the doorways and the path leading to the other door on the left side. I prefer entering through the left door because that's where all of my friends congregate. When I have to fight my way past a good chunk of the herd that consists of knucklehead wannabes that literally will not move until you start yelling, it just ruins my day. In the morning I just want to veg out for twenty minutes before my first class so I can drift into first period with a starting sense of peace and serenity. I'd rather not spend it facing the shameful and demeaning reality of the present state of the once promising and openly rebellious youth.
   It really makes me wonder just how much power those precious few cafeteria aides actually have compared to us, and whether or not anybody else realizes it's just one poorly defended argument or act of tyranny that could set each one of us over the edge... Frightening, but also kind of comforting. I am not an animal, and while I still allow myself to be treated like one since I'm a minor and I have no say, it makes me feel better to know that no matter what happens, I can always defend myself. I mean, good always triumphs over evil, right? If a situation calls for violence, I can rise to the occasion. But really, I only will if I know it's the only way to protect myself, or if I know I can win.~~

Embracing the Stereotype

   This first post is going to be about just how young and dumb I may appear to be. Come to think of it, it's about how young and dumb the entire teenage population of this great nation appears to be. Now, let's be honest here: a vast majority of us are total knuckleheads, but I refuse to allow the vocal idiots to become the poster-children of a largely misunderstood sector of the youth.
  Ah, yes, that very fine transition sentence brings me to my first stereotype that I am willing to embrace: misunderstanding. But let's all keep in mind that I am only embracing this aspect of my every day life because the first step to solving a problem is understanding and accepting it. Ok, now that we're back on track I can continue. I have lost count of the number of times I have been placed in a situation based on the fact that what I had been trying to say or do was completely misinterpreted by my elders. This is the very communication break-down that has been the bane of every human being's existence since the cave men first roamed the great expanse of this planet Earth. "Why?" you ask. I will tell you why: it is because we are too fucking terrified to voice our opinions coherently. We are so used to being brushed off that we end up mumbling nonsensical statements on the mental status of our caretakers, which inevitably results in the dismissal of any thoughts that we may have had on the subject. It is this seemingly titanic generation gap that makes us hold our tongues until we are in the company of others in the same trouble as us. God forbid a boy wants to do theater, or a girl wants to do football.
   But hold on, I'm not finished. Before you parents that may stumble upon this whilst searching your child's internet history for porn rip me a new one, I do understand that some children just aren't meant to do certain things. But how can any one person know what they're good at until they have attempted everything they possibly can? By trying to shield us from the cruel face of rejection that is the human race, you only end up hurting us by saying that we're not good enough to pursue something. Yeah, yeah, that's not what you said verbatim, but it's how anyone on the receiving end of that dreaded lecture heard it all. Which is another part of the whole subject of being misunderstood.
   You see, every trait that I will list throughout the duration of this blog is not only applicable to us; it's applicable to everybody. The only difference is that teenagers get so frustrated over them because we don't accept the shittiness of life. We don't want to. And in case you haven't noticed, all the best people never really do. There's always a way to make things work or make things better. There really aren't any excuses.
   But really, adults are largely misunderstood as well. Just think about it: it's the basis of sooo much of our comedy these days. The awkwardness of conversation and physical reactions. Most adults hate it, but they accept it and move on. Teenagers hate it, but we can't seem to accept it and move on; we want to go back and try again and again, but the thing is, most of the adults in our lives will pretty much tell us to suck it up and give it up because to them it isn't worth it. That is unbelievably shitty behavior that is completely unacceptable. Yeah, there are times when you should have better things to do, but that's something that we need to learn on our own. Trust me, we will figure that out. It may be the hard way, but at least with the hard way we won't forget the lesson.
   To top off this lovely little essay of a peek into the mind of a defiant youth I will leave you with this: communication is key. God, I feel like I'm writing a parenting blog. I should retitle it something like, "A Parent's Guide to the Shitty-Ass Motherfucker They Call a Child." But for real now, everybody, the generation gap is just a piece of shit. There is no reason for you to not just open up and be honest with one another. And I repeat: that goes for everyone. If you're having a tough time having a real talk with someone, simply being honest and asking them to be honest back will work most of the time. Of course there's always going to be the person that just walks away and doesn't want anything to do with you for a while. But I've been there (I'm pretty sure my mother was filled with a special kind of seething rage for me for a while) and what I did was I got her a bit before she had to leave for work. I sat her down and said, "I need to talk to you about some stuff, and the only thing I ask is that I have no interruptions because this is really important to me and I don't want this to end up in a fight. I will answer your questions after I've finished." How pretentious of an at-the-time sixteen-year-old, right? Wrong. It's not like I was a total cunt about it. I mean, yeah, it sounds pretty shitty when you read it off in your head, but I was being honest, and I got my point across, and more importantly: my mother actually got where I was coming from, which was ultimately my goal. If you have something really important to tell someone, come clean. And think about it before you do. It may kinda catch the other off guard a bit, but if clarity is what you're yearning for, that's the way to go.
   Misunderstanding (or more accurately miscommunication), is a problem that can be fought. We just gotta stop being dicks about it, everyone. There's no way any one person can feel exactly what any one other person is feeling at a specific moment in time, so stop being a whiny bitch and try to help someone if you see they're in pain.