Yesterday evening around 6:00 my family and I went out to the high school to take over the tennis court, since my sister was home for the day and we could all go. There had been a storm on its way, and those dark clouds loomed ominously over the court even before we actually got to it. We played for maybe ten or fifteen minutes (Britt and me vs. Nick and Mom, with Dad playing fetch) before the rain came. By the time we gave up, the balls were soaked and hardly bounced, our racket handles were slick, and the court went from slippery patches to puddles. We played in the rain, even, until the first flash of lightning and rumble of thunder. We weren’t out there for a whole hour, but… I think we had about an hour’s worth of amusement. It’s one of those family moments I don’t think we’ve had in a long time, and that we may have very few of in the future.

Things are changing.

Six months ago today I learned that my friend DiGi had passed away in a car accident. Derek Pence was eighteen years old, the same age as me, when the car he was in (he was a passenger) went out of control and flipped, throwing Dig’ through the back windshield..

18-year-old dies in I-81 accident

Derek Allan Pence was pronounced dead Sunday night at City Hospital
By EDWARD MARSHALL / Journal Staff Writer
POSTED: January 15, 2008

MARTINSBURG — An 18-year-old Martinsburg man was killed late Sunday and three others were injured as a result of an accident on Interstate 81 in Berkeley County.

Derek Allan Pence, of State Circle, was pronounced dead by the Berkeley County medical examiner after being ejected during the accident.

According to police, Pence went into cardiac arrest while being taken to City Hospital in Martinsburg.

The driver, John Michael McFadden, and two female passengers were taken to Winchester Medical Center.

The accident happened at 11:08 p.m. in the southbound lanes of I-81 at the 19 mile marker, according to police, who arrived on the scene shortly after fire and emergency units. West Virginia State Police troopers P.S. Kennedy, J.J. Bowman and N.K. Campbell responded to the accident.

According to police, McFadden is believed to have been driving a 1992 Toyota Corolla south on the interstate when the vehicle left the road and struck a guardrail before going into a spin and flipping over three times.

Pence, who was sitting in the driver’s side rear seat, is believed to have been ejected from the rear of the vehicle following the first rollover. He slid for about 120 feet before coming to a stop on the interstate’s west-side shoulder.

The vehicle came to a rest facing north in the left-hand lane of I-81 South.

The accident was under investigation as of Monday afternoon.

Pence was a 2007 graduate of Martinsburg High School and was employed by Game Stop at the Martinsburg Mall, according to his obituary.

A memorial service will be at 4 p.m. Thursday at Brown Funeral Home in Martinsburg.

Memorial contributions can be made to the American Cancer Society, 122 South High Street, Morgantown, WV 26501, in lieu of flowers, in honor of Inge Lynch, Pence’s grandmother.

And his obituary:

Derek A. Pence

Derek A. Pence, 18, died Sunday, Jan., 13, 2008, at City Hospital, as the result of an automobile accident.

Born March 5, 1989, in Montgomery County, Md., Derek is survived by his father and step-mother, Eric and Shannon

Pence , and his mother, Doris Marion.

He was employed by Game Stop at the Martinsburg Mall.

Derek was a 2007 graduate of Martinsburg High School.

In addition to his parents, he is also survived by his brother, Kurt Pence, of Martinsburg; sister and brother-in-law, Amanda and James Tyeryar, of Frederick, Md., sisters, Tiffany Sanders and Amber Sanders, of Hagerstown, sister, Kellie Holman, of Gaithersburg, Md.; two paternal grandparents; two maternal grandparents; two step paternal grandparents; one niece, two nephews, a number of aunts, uncles, cousins and numerous friends.

A memorial service will be at 4 p.m., Thursday, Jan. 17, 2008, at the Brown Funeral Home, 327 West King St., Martinsburg.

In lieu of flowers, and in honor of Derek’s grandmother, Inge Lynch, a breast cancer survivor, memorial contributions may be made to the American Cancer Society, 122 S. High St., Morgantown, WV 26501.

I was told about this through a 4am text message from a friend, who was on the phone with Digi’s girlfriend Becki. I wrote this in my Myspace blog on the Friday after DiGi’s viewing and after-party:

11:32 AM - A Day so New the Past is Dreamlike.
Current mood: renewed

So yesterday was Digi’s wake and party. It started to snow in the morning and it was still snowing when we got there. There was no school, I didn’t go to work because of a migraine, and we left around 3:30. When we got there we were actually kind of late.. the line to get into the room was long already. As soon as Nicci and I got in there and in the funeral home my body just started trembling inwardly from all the emotion.

When we got up to the guestbook I signed and walked some of the way into the room… and then I went back to wait for Dominic. I held his hand as we walked in and went over to John, Krispy, and a few other folks. Eventually Nicci and I went to sit on the other side of the room with Chris and in a cluster of my friends (like Becki, Danielle, Ming, Munchie, Justin, Mike, Emma, Billy, Faye, Andrew, Terry, Brandon). There were so many people they had to open up another section of chairs; and there were still people who didn’t have chairs out in the hallway; and still some outside who couldn’t fit in that hallway.

The service began and I actually took a look at the table at front and center of the room. It was covered by a red tablecloth and on either side was a standing lamp with a red tinge, and a cross behind it. On the table there was the picture of Digi I took at graduation, standing in a frame to the left of Digi’s urn. The urn was a red colour, too.. On the right was a picture someone else had taken that had his name shopped onto it.

Seeing the photo that I had taken was what made me crack. I just started bawling and shaking uncontrolably. Dominic held me until it subsided some, when people actually started talking at the podium. I think his grandmother or step- grandmother was the one who was talking at first. Then Joker came up, and sang this song “Please Don’t Bury Me” .. that made me cry again some, too. Parts of it made us all laugh. Digi’s dad went up to speak, and he broke down before he could say a lot..

When they opened the microphone up to whoever had something to say, Terra, Scarecrow, WaffleZ, Munchie, Pudgy, Chandra, Mike, Morgan, and Brandon all went up to speak. We were all crying and sniffling and laughing at the same time to the stories we all had about Derek. Had everyone who wanted to share a story gone up, we would have been there all night. But we had to close at 5:00, and so we all filed outside and scrambled to get rides to the Comfort Inn for Digi’s party. When we got outside I saw Gnorski drop to his knees in the slush crying… I stood by him and rubbed his back to try to comfort him. It was such a sad thing to see..

The party was just the way he could have wanted it. It was downstairs at the Comfort Inn with lots of food (although nothing really of substance) and a DJ. Nicci, Sophie, Nikki, and I all bummed a ride from Krispy. The deejay had a mist machine and flashy lights and techno.. Digi would have loved it. It was so much fun, too.

The first song the DJ played when we got there was a slow song.. and Wendell and Brandon danced together to it. Then when the dance music came on everyone got in a circle on the dance floor (there actually was a dance floor) and were having like a moves contest. Apparently Scarecrow won with some fancy hand moves (I couldn’t see because I’m short).

I saw Katelynn there, Pockets, Ron, Gnorski, Joey, Andrew, Mike, little Jeff, Becki of course, Danielle, Ricky, Morgan Brett, … well. Almost everyone was there. At some point I was left with Joey’s jacket, hat, and drink, and I was like “Oh jeez, now I look like Joey from the back.” And they were calling me his mini-me. Dx !

A lot of people picked me up. I swear I probably got picked up more often than the little kids there did. Rawr. But oh well, lol. Uh, Gnorski hugged me a lot. And I partially did that on purpose, to avoid being caught unmanned. Haha. And little Jeff came back from the bathroom after one of the moshes and like dragged me out on the dance floor and tried to dance with me.. but in his sweatiness he dropped me on the floor trying to dip me. XDD

Uh, I think the highlight of the night was probably all the juggalos getting to the middle of the dance floor and yelling along with “Homies.” It was funny ’cause there was a circle of guys and then us four girls made our own line because the guys wouldn’t let us in their circle. Haha. I’m sure that’s not really the case, but whatever. It was amazing.. and unifying.

I tried to join in the mosh thingy for “Bodies” but whenever the chorus started and the bashing started people were just moving me out of the way instead of ramming into me. I went over to Danielle afterward, put my head on her shoulder, and whined, “Danielle, they wouldn’t let me playy.”

Nicci and I had to leave early, because the ice had started and mom and dad didn’t want us that far out there during the ice. I stole some hugs and took my dyed green rose and a remembrance sticker with me.

The whole day was really.. liberating. I’m not so sad anymore. Scarecrow was right, Digi can live on in all of us if we embrace ourselves. That’s what he always did. He was always himself all of the time. And that is the key to being truly happy. I woke up this morning feeling like it had been one long nightmare… and that I was okay. Saturday is going to be hard but I think I am okay.

And I had been okay, more or less. And I have been okay, except every once in a while I hear a song, or do something, or someone else does something, that reminds me of him. Then I break down. I have a bit of a shrine to him on the wall behind me, which has yet to really set me off except, of course, when I was actually putting it together immediately following the accident. It still amazes me how quickly we all pulled together, probably over half of Martinsburg, really, some of us total strangers, to memorialize DiGi. Everyone was really supportive to each other, and we all got through thanks to that..

But every once in a while it still tears me apart. And I guess the pain never really goes away when you lose someone. You can set it on the back burner so that life goes on, but every once in a while it comes back to the forefront, and it’s a different kind of pain–duller, if anything–but it still hurts just as badly. To this day I would do anything to bring that man back, tell him how amazing he is, and tell him to be more careful that Sunday night…

亲爱的日记,

Yesterday morning Nicci came in my room around 11:00 to ask me if I was going to get up and go play tennis with Mom, Dad, and him. Of course I jumped out of bed, got dressed, and we left with nothing but tennis rackets and balls. We got out to the high school and hit some balls over the net and just practiced, only for about an hour before we all got really hot and dehydrated and had to go home. It was fun, but we were totally unprepared for the weather. We got home around 12:30 and even though I had only gone to bed at 4am I stayed up and worked on my Madcactus art. Around 4:00 pm I woke Mom up and she and I went out to Inwood to get Candace for dinner, Harpers Ferry, and a sleepover.

When we got home Mom made pasta for dinner. After dinner, around 6:00, we all got in the car and went on our way to Harpers Ferry. It took forever to finally find parking, and we ended up by the train station around 7pm. The ghost tour started at 8:00, so we walked over to the Potomac and went less than halfway across the bridge into Maryland (not all that interested in going so far; we were in for a lot of walking anyway). After the bridge we walked down toward the engine station (John Brown’s Fort) and then walked up by the wax museum and back down toward the general store and the train station. We stopped at the ice cream stand thing to get slushies and ice cream, and by the time 8pm rolled around the ghost tour woman was there and we were on our way around the Ferry.

There were some very interesting stories. There was one about a captured Union drummer boy who was killed by his jailers while they were drunk, who accidentally threw him out off the balcony and over a cliff; one about a strange medical doctor who wished to be buried standing straight up and who paid for a man to sit by his grave for 9 days and 9 nights to help him when he rose from the dead; one about a park ranger from the ’70’s who heard a baby whimpering and buildings collapsing in his ranger’s quarters to learn from a booklet written by an Annie Marmie (or something similar to that) that a baby had been killed in its mothers arms on that land from Civil War fire; even one story about a malignant soldier’s spirit in the Harper house, alongside a slew of harmless ghosts that supposedly reside there; and one about a priest who haunts the only surviving church from the Civil War Era (they struck British colors so that neither side would shoot at them).

The tour lasted about an hour and a half. Once it was over we walked by ourselves (Mom, Dad, Nicci, Candace, and me) to the Saint’s church so that I could take some pictures. I took pictures of some of the other places, too, on our way back to the car. The trip was well worth the $5 a person. We got home around 10 or 11:00 and Candace and I stayed up until midnight talking and eating from orange. I was peeved that I had a dream about Tyler; I can’t imagine what I had been thinking before I fell asleep last night.

This morning I woke up to Brittney’s door (I sleep in her room while she’s away) flinging itself open after I had already woken up once to have oatmeal. I got up and eventually Candace got up, and around 1:00 Mom dropped us off at the mall. Candi bought cigarettes and we got 20th Century Masters CD’s (they were 3 for $20) and she got Motley Crue and Pantera CD’s, then basically after that we went to drop her back off at her house, where she lives with her maternal grandparents. After we dropped her off it was looking like an ugly storm, so Mom and I stayed home to have tea and wait for the rain to pass until about 3:00. Then Mom took me to JD’s house for his birthday cookout.

I got there after food but before cake. Krispy, Hambone, Ron, and Gnorski were already there, as well as some of JD’s extended family members and a few other people I didn’t know, like Hystry. So we sang “Happy Birthday” and ate cake, then Raymond and his girlfriend showed up. JD wanted to show them his drum set, Ron showed Raymond Assassin’s Creed, and then we all went outside for the yearly water balloon fight. This year I brought extra clothes, so I didn’t feel too bad getting soaked. And I did indeed get amazingly soaked. At first just the boys were playing, but eventually it came my turn and Gnorski dragged me up out of my chair. The first balloon was so big that they didn’t want to actually hit me with it ’cause they thought it’d hurt me, so Hystry got the task of popping it over my head. But he missed and somehow got like the backs of my legs.

Ron filled up another balloon and someone threw it at me (granted, they had my attention), and the thing popped me across the face but it didn’t pop. It actually landed on the chair next to me. The side of my face was almost numb, and we were all laughing. Raymond’s girlfriend asked me if I was OK, and I think so did everyone else, ha ha. That one they popped over me too. I was not actually hit with a single balloon that popped. Then again, none of the ones I actually threw popped, either. They went through a lot of trouble to get Raymond’s girlfriend ballooned, and when they did all kinds of hell broke loose. It turned into a free-for-all and everyone got really soaked. I didn’t get to pick up a single balloon, and I actually hurt myself kicking one, but I still had fun with it.

After that Ron brought out his orange and they tried that while Hammy and Gian were filling up more balloons. I just kinda watched them do that, ’cause I’ve never had amazing luck with putting water balloons down. That seems to be the only time they’ll pop for me. Anyway, Raymond and his girlfriend left before that battle broke out, and Krispy had had to take Hystry home before the second battle. JD’s mom had gone to work for like an hour (hence the orange) and so we were free to create chaos. Which we did, including Pockets with the hose, which he had accidentally shot into the dining room, not knowing the window was open. By the end of this one we were all drenched, and we finally cleaned up and went in to change and warm up.

We just kind of kicked back after that and played on the computer, watching videos, listening to music, and saving pictures. Ron and Krispy left around 7:00. I had to leave at 9:00 but I made sure to get Gnorski all wound up (about whether a Jeep was a Jeep or an SUV) before I left. I was thoroughly amused by this.

I’m just kind of sad, now that I realized that this could be the last time I see any of them before, you know, next summer. Total bummer. Then again, it probably would be really the only time I’d get together with them all anyway. It was definitely a bang of a way to say goodbye. This whole weekend was worth the effort and planning.

送别,

Lindsay,

the Madcactus.

Mom and I left for New Jersey at about 8am Wednesday in the Prius. The drive to Aunt Linda and Uncle Chip’s house is about four hours, and many interesting things ensued. We talked about doing a rock cover of “I’m a Little Teapot” with our band Rubber Roadkill, which stemmed from a random donut somehow rolling across the lanes of the highway. We had McDonald’s for brunch and were stalked by a Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield blimp. We got to Chip & Linda’s around 1:00 in the afternoon. Linda was at work and Chippy had to go out soon after we got there, so Mom and I played around in his music room until he got back. After that we continued to play there until dinner. Basically dinner was the end of our night.

On Thursday we drove to the train station.. found out there was no parking after we got lost on our way to find it, then went back to the house and woke Chippy up to drive us there. We got into the city around 2 o’clock and checked in at our hotel at 2:30. The first thing we bought in NYC was hotdogs from a street vendor. We took the subway (all day basically) to Chinatown and shopped some. I got a pretty wooden fan for Candace there. Then we had more issues with figuring out the subway and had to walk nine blocks back to our hotel. The hotel room was amazing. It was small, but the beds were soo comfy. We fell asleep around midnight I think? and got up at six the next morning.

We headed out around seven in the morning and had breakfast at a place called Junior’s. They gave us a lot of food. After breakfast we got on the subway around seven in the morning and went back to this Halloween costume shop we found on Broadway and 11th Street while we were getting lost looking for Chinatown, that we’d stopped near at Grace Church to take a rest. I found the ruby slippers for $30. And so I bought them. There was one out for show, and it was the largest size they had–and it was the one that fit. I wore them around for maybe 15 minutes before I got blisters on my already-hurting feet and had to go back to my sneakers (ick). We went around the Empire State Building looking for Macy’s, and instead we found a GameStop with Wiis in stock. We bought one of those, too. It came out to be $315 with insurance, and we mailed it back home to Britt & Nick. (It’ll be there after we are, but we didn’t want to carry it around the city.) After that we had to go back to our hotel room and check out.

Then we found Macy’s; Mom got a carrying bag that says Macy’s on it, and I got a red Macy’s shirt and a blue Rocawear halfy thing. After that we took the metro to Chelsea Piers, and lo and behold it’s GLBT pride week or whatever in New York, so there were a lot of gay men walking around with their boyfriends and rainbow flags flying on the street. It was cool in a slightly awkward way. After we left Chelsea Piers we got on the subway back to the Red Lobster we’d passed on our way to Macy’s. We had a half-hour wait but the food was amazing. After Red Lobster we found our way to Penn Station, it took us on to New Jersey transit which took us back to Edison, where Chippy picked us up. We got back to their house and were up for only an hour or two before we went to bed, probably.

I called off work for today, so we have a fourth day for whatever. I’m so happy we went on this vacation. We totally forgot to take pictures, though.

Sacha Lynn

Please excuse the emotional style of writing that follows.

I am miserable lately. As soon as high school ended everything went to shit. My identity was stolen that day and I spent the whole week after that stressing to death over it, and then for graduation I got a nice cluster migraine that literally made me cry. For graduating I got two cards and $45 all together. My letters from Marshall just started coming in and they’re fucked up, the envelopes are taped shut and I still haven’t gotten the letter with my username and password to sign up for orientation yet. All but four of my friends have abandoned me, and I’m pretty sure Candace is upset with me because I just haven’t felt up to hanging out lately and I’ve been half making up lame excuses. I do want to hang out, because I know it’d help me get over this bout of depression I’m in, and it would help me want to want to hang out, but.. things have been going well for her and I just don’t have anything positive to talk about, and the last thing I want to do is drag her down when she’s finally on the ups.

I’m finally getting my “senior week” vacation, and of course it has to be during the week where I only have three days off instead of four, so I’m going to have a 3-day vacation instead of a 4-day one, which really pisses me the fuck off. We were supposed to go before graduation, but my fucking identity was stolen and we had to stay in town and, oh, not get any of that fixed. I’m hoping that maybe my trip to New York will be a turning point.. but even the Today show concert the Friday I’ll be there isn’t going right–Coldplay is playing there. It just figures that no one GOOD would be there when I actually could go see the damn concert, that I’ve wanted to go to for like a freaking decade.

Now Mom is saying that I probably won’t get a laptop for college (even though I heard her talking to Brittney about getting her a new one), which was something my parents had talked to us about since I was in middle school. I’m not getting a car, either. So while everyone else is “Oh yay, I got so many hundred dollars and a new laptop for graduation!” I’m.. well, sending back orders that weren’t what they were supposed to be and making sure that no one is stealing my identity information through my college mail, and wondering how I’m going to get to/from anywhere outside of walking distance when I go to live on campus. It’s like everyone else is still in happy teenager land and I’m in the adult world getting my teeth kicked in.

I feel like I’ve gotten the short end of every stick that’s come my way since May 16th. More than a whole month of the world fucking me over. So I guess I really did have bad karma, huh. And I feel like I can’t talk about it with anyone, not that I have a lot of people to talk about it with. I never really had but at least sometimes I could think I did. I can’t even talk to my mother about it; we’re together a lot lately, but she just isn’t as understanding as I wish she was. No one in my family is, really. So everything is just kind of steeping inside and piling up and I’m starting to grind my teeth, which is a precursor to breaking or crushing or hitting something. There have been times when I’ve had to force my hands to stay in my pockets when around Mario (the cat).

I’m lonely, I’m frustrated, I’m angry, I’m depressed, I’m hateful, I’m stressed. I’m tired. I’m leaving “the internet” for about a week, maybe longer if I don’t miss it; this includes MSN, AIM, RealChat, Refuge, Myspace, and Facebook. Not blogs or Neopets, though, and not LiveMocha (even though I haven’t been active on there lately). Not that anyone reads this, especially not anyone affected by these leaves of absence. I don’t foresee anyone needing me through any of these media, anyway; and if they do, I guess that’s too bad for them, huh? It’s not like they’ve ever wanted me before, and it’s not like they’ve ever been there for me when I needed them. I feel like the only person left with a heart, and yet I feel heartless. I hate my inability to not care, and my habit of hiding my own feelings to the point where no one cares about me. And when I spell it out plainly to people, they brush it off, and the hint approach doesn’t seem to work either. I can’t believe some of the people I know don’t see the hypocrisy in their actions.

Sacha Lynn

So today I said goodbye to Jeremy for the last time. It was really long overdue, considering. I let him treat me like a body instead of a person for way too long, and I decided that now, while he’s not angry (I hate parting in anger under any circumstances) and I’m filtering out all my good-for-nothing relationships, was a good time to cut ties. He thinks I’m going to “come crawling back” and whatever, but, no. Last time he was angry at me and that upset me, and I wanted to set things right. Now the anger–if you can call it that–is on my side, and in that instance I have no desire to try to make up. It’ll be kind of hard, not having someone to talk to while I’m falling asleep at night, for a little while. But I didn’t really need him, anyway.

So now I’m down to ten contacts in my phone. Down to three friends.. Nelson (who also stands in for Tara), Jake, and Candace. Then I have two work contacts and my family. That’s totally copacetic, A-OK with me. And so today I am going to drop off the Mountain Dew at Pockets’s house on my way to the mall to hang out with Tara. Around 7pm we’re going to go see Kung Fu Panda. And I am going to have fun.

Update

Well, okay, so I didn’t drop the Mountain Dew off–again. I’m starting to feel bad about it. I got to the mall around 2:30 because I saw a storm on its way, and I didn’t want to wait until it hit so my parents could refuse to take me. So I got there, and there was no one there. Mike was working, Casey was working. I went to Walmart and got mouthwash and a soda and threw the soda out on my way back to the mall. I ended up going back to Walmart for a snack, and found those blue corn Tostitos, which I love (they’re purple!), and got a Sprite Zero–no sugar, most importantly, and also no carbs. Well, it was nasty, but I drank a lot of it anyway. I also bought León: The Professional, the deluxe version for $20 at FYE. My mission is complete, after about four years. Huzzah!

Tara, Brandon, and Fernando showed up when I was sitting in the food court drinking my Sprite Gross. We sat there for awhile, and then I threw my drink out and we went to walk. The four of us went to the Dollar Tree to get some candy. After that we were going to go to Hibbett Sports for Brandon to look at stuff, but he decided he wanted to play a game of DDR first. It had started storming before they got to the mall, and it was still going. So while Brandon showed off to Fernando his mad skills, Tara and I went back to the Dollar Tree and bought four little umbrellas.

When the two of us got back to the DDR machine, lightning struck the aluminum awning of the Par for the Course place. You could see everything outside turn yellow for a second. A bunch of people rushed inside, and the DDR machine froze. Brandon and Joel went outside to check out the storm, and lightning struck again, on the other side of the doorway, and hit the tree. I think it was the wind that actually knocked the tree halves apart, one of which apparently landed on the security truck. Everyone stood gaping for a minute, then we headed over to Rex to check the weather channel for tornadoes and whatnot, and Brandon and Joel (of course, the two people with the most metal in/on them) went outside to have a smoke.

There was nothing alarming on the weather channel, so the five of us headed off to Hibbett. On our way we passed Waldenbooks and Brittney was coming out after her shift was over, and she stopped and put her index finger up in the “Aha! I just remembered something!” gesture that maybe only our family does?, and I in return stopped in mid-step and returned the up-pointed finger. She went back into the back room and came out with a little bouquet of flowers and a story about how she had held a book (the last copy about Tim Russert) for less than an hour for this woman, and the woman had brought her the flowers. It was a pretty amusing story. I was like, “Oh. I reminded her of flowers. Ha!”

After we actually got to Hibbett and left we hit Walmart and got Tara her Trolli gummy worms and got Brandon a double cheeseburger from McDonald’s. We went back to the mall and Tara ran into someone she knew, and we all stood around talking for a bit (this is when I went to get the father’s day card). Then we went in to GameStop to make fun of Casey (not really), and after that we left for the theatre. It was barely raining but Tara and I used our umbrellas anyway. The movie wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be; Tara apparently didn’t like it as much as she thought she would; Brandon wouldn’t have given it a chance anyway; and Fernando was indifferent, really.

We were thinking about going to the mall after the movies, but it was already 8:40 by the time we got out of the theatre. So Tara and Fernando called home, Brandon walked, and I called home and waited last. Candace texted me at like 8:45 asking me if I still wanted to hang out, and I was a little irked. Unless I’m already out or busy, I don’t do anything past dinnertime. 7:00 is generally my curfew, unless I’m going to Justin’s or going to a bar. I told her I was going home to eat dinner and have time to myself after being out in public all day.

Mom and I swung over to Nick’s friend Tyler’s house to see how Nicci was doing over there with a bunch of kids Mom didn’t know (don’t know if Nicci knew any of them other than Tyler), and I was surprised by Tyler remembering my name. I had an Aww moment but then I was dizzy thanks to the car being tilted to the left. We got home around 9:00-9:30 and I went to bed around 11 o’clock. I hardly even thought of Jeremy. Had some really weird-ass dreams that I don’t feel like writing about, and thus begins day two.

Xiuhcoatl Izcalli~

Sacha Lynn

Life as I’ve known it for the past two weeks has been just what the doctor ordered for my sociality-induced insanity. Since the week after my identity theft crisis, I’ve listened to/read books, run errands with Mom or Anthony, spent time with my family, gone to work, talked on the internet, watched television (which is strange for me) and cleaned my room like my life depended on it.

I’m down to about four friends: Candace, Anthony, Justin, and Jake. Then there’s Jeremy, and Kyle, Michele, Jeremiah, and company online, as well as the infamous Captain Kyle who’s on very seldom and I’m always happy to see. Then there are my coworkers, like Kris, Ginny, and Wayne. I’ve seen Justin maybe once a week since graduation, going to his cousin Ryan’s to play with them and my sister. The first time it was poker and pool, the second time it was Monopoly and Yahtzee! (both of which I lost at, imagine that; but I kicked ass at pool). As for everyone else (except my co-workers, of course), I talk to them online, other than Jake who text messages me more or less every day, and Jeremy who texts and calls me. Jeremiah is probably my best online-only friend nowadays–he almost knows too much about me for comfort (ha ha).

My room is completely re-organized. I threw out most of my childhood artifacts, like bad writing and drawings, notebooks and binders that I wrote stupid things on, old shirts that made me look fat and pants and bras that didn’t fit (well, they, along with my old radio, were taken to Goodwill), and a bunch of stuff that could only be classified as junk. I’m getting rid of a few of my old toys and posters, as well as my Pokemon, Magic, Harry Potter, and Digimon cards, although I’m totally keeping Yu-Gi-Oh! so that my brother and I can play again (now that I’ve looked and realized that my deck kicks a good deal of ass). I also kept good drawings and some interesting pieces of bad writing. I got a shoe rack, a book shelf, vacuum bags, and a little paper drawer thing to help in my organization, and now that my books are all in one proper location, I have room for other things. I can get to my chalkboard now and now that I’ve moved my alarm clock and my DVD’s I have a little table-ish thing to set the chalk on so that I don’t have to bend down to get to it. All that’s left to do, really, is vacuum.

Yesterday I began reading Moby Dick, which was one of my summer to-dos. After I finish reading it I’m going to pick up the other two Dexter books and read them. I also have the DVD’s of the first season coming in through Netflix sometime eventually (my parents like to continually move my things down and off the queue). I may actually start haunting the television, and I think I’m going to take myself to see the new Indiana Jones movie this week (if it doesn’t suddenly leave theatres the day I want to go). I actually would really dig a trip to a pool (as much as I hate public pools) or the beach (even though I hate the beach). I feel like being engulfed in water. Mom said that we will be going to New York sometime in June, otherwise we won’t be going. And I have made it my personal mission to buy one thing from Macy’s, the one that does the parade every year. Even if it costs me $100+, I will do it. And I have to go see Andrea at Sonic in Winchester on Thursday. I’m also starting my summer study of language, with LiveMocha.com; I’m taking a course in German, one in Spanish, one in Chinese, and one in Portuguese. They are all very interesting. German is the easiest (I’m in Spanish 202, it’s a little difficult. Longer sentences to remember, ha ha), although Portuguese isn’t exactly hard since it’s so similar to Spanish. The hardest part of Portuguese is the weird pronunciation.

Really things have been uneventful, pretty calm. I’m thinking about maybe getting my eyebrow pierced, and maybe doing something different with my hair. Maybe tips again, but a different color. Or maybe a few different colors. I have to buy some new clothes, especially bottoms, and maybe some feminine tops… I’m kind of tired of looking like a blob, but the t-shirts I have left are not up for discussion. Anyway, I wouldn’t like to have my breasts sticking out in public all the time. Sometimes it’s nice to look feminine, but I don’t always like men staring at my chest. And some days I just don’t feel pretty enough to dress femininely.

I’m going to start being more active, and my next house project is to clean up the pavement in the backyard and set up at least one of the basketball hoops. Basketball is ultimately to blame for the cyst in my foot, but alas, it’s one of the few loves of my life, and I couldn’t give it up for anything. I’m probably going to fix up my dirt bike and sell it. We bought it for about $1600, so I don’t see why we couldn’t get at least $1000 out of it if I fix it up nice. It needs an oil change and the brake handle needs to be repaired. A power wash couldn’t do it any harm, either. I’d also love to find our tennis rackets and start playing that again. Badminton isn’t a bad game either, but we’d have to get the shuttlecocks for that, and it uses different-sized rackets. I’m going to try to walk a few miles every day I’m not at work on my mom’s treadmill (I’m sure I walk at least half a mile at work every day, so no worries about those three days), maybe I’ll actually lose a few pounds and some yuck from my stomach. Who knows. Maybe I’ll humor Dad and take up a little bit of golf.

So in about an hour I’ll be getting ready for work. After work I’ll probably straighten my hair or take a shower, then read some Moby Dick. Tonight Justin’s going to be singing karaoke at Tony’s and Britt and I are going to be his audience. I love my new life. Oh, and! I got accepted to Marshall University. Huzzah!

Caóticamente la tuya,

Sacha Lynn

Today was the day I had been looking forward to since this day last year. On this day last year I went with Danielle, Brett, Krispy, Hambone (Steven/Waffles), DiGi, Pockets, Joey, Ronnie, Josh, and Gnorski. I got to the school with two fridge packs of pop in my backpack: one Mountain Dew and one something else, and I had Lime Cokes for myself. I went with Joey to Pockets’s house and we waited there for a few hours. Once Pockets was ready, we headed out past the school, behind the U-Haul, and into the woods to get to the quarry.

The quarry is a really pretty clearing. It’s huge, and there’s a giant rock wall to the left of the entrance by the U-Haul. On the right there’s large rocks that we all sat on, and directly across from the entrance there’s a little pond with contaminated water. All the rocks, the ones on the side where we sat, had names. There was one called Fuck Rock, and Piss Rock, which were both on that right side. Shit Rock was on the completely opposite side of the clearing. We blew things up in the fire, retrieved a snowboard Joey found back behind the water, drank soda, and Brett and DiGi threw Joey’s shopping cart over the edge of the cliff in honor of his leaving us for Pennsylvania. When Gnorski, Krispy, Joey, Waffles, and I went over on the other side of the water to get the snowboard (I don’t know why all of us went; to catch each other, maybe), Krispy found a ham bone and decided he really liked the word and wanted to give it as a nickname to somebody. So Krispy dubbed Steven to be Hambone instead of Waffles and he gave him the ham bone. (Hammy actually wore the thing on a string like a necklace for a little while, until somehow he lost it.)

DiGi almost fell over trying to get the cart back up after they dropped it and it got caught on a tree. When he got it back up all of us down in the quarry clapped, and the sound echoed so it was like the quarry was clapping back. So we clapped some more just for the sound. Brett pissed over the edge and they threw this roll of paper down and it stretched out like a flying accordion. We burned school papers, binders, and a cap and gown, too. And everyone was smoking something down there except for me. Gnorski was going around with a 3 liter filled with pot smoke telling people to shotgun the bottle and take a sip of the soda.

After we were done, we all went up on the park side. Krispy had parked there, and Gnorski took the front seat, Hambone sat on one side of me in the back and Joey sat on my other side. Gnorski was wearing a red bandanna around his head and when we stopped at a red light a black guy came over holding his bandanna out and asked Gnorski if he was a Blood. Gnorski flipped out after we started going again so bad that the bandanna ended up getting thrown out the window by Joey. When we got to the house Gnorski tried to get Joey’s new snowboard out of the back of Krispy’s trunk. I think Krispy hit the gas, and Gnorski ended up somehow hitting his head on the half-open trunk door. I wasn’t completely watching, since my bladder was distracting me and I wanted to get in the house and use the bathroom.

Pockets put Gnorski in charge this year, since this year he was the one in that group graduating (since Pockets and Joey had graduated, and Ron, we found out, would never graduate, since he dropped out this year). As the year progressed I kind of figured he would screw it up or completely blow it off, because he’s amazingly unreliable and is always so “busy.” But the quarry had been something to look forward to the entire school year for me, and I had decided it would be the last hurrah before I cut ties completely with most of the people I know. Yesterday I was text messaging Gnorski and he said he would meet me before we got into the woods so I wouldn’t get lost, and then I told Danielle that she should meet up at the library with me so she could get there, too.

Well this morning at 7:30 Gnorski sends me a message saying he can’t make it. I asked him who was going, and he said he didn’t know. So I assumed the whole thing had fallen apart, but my optimism led me to send Hammy a message and ask him. I asked him if anybody was actually going, and he said he didn’t think so. “So basically, it’s not going to happen and I can go back to bed?” Yes. I asked him to call Danielle and tell her the thing was off but he didn’t respond to that message. I was going to call her but I fell asleep. I woke up at 9:32 and was freaking out for a second, until I called her. Her tonsillitis had flared up and she was still at home, so there was no harm done. I just told her how it fell through and then went back to sleep. I’m more pissed than anything that Gnorski shirked this one thing that he was supposed to do. He had an entire year to get it together and couldn’t even take a day to figure it out so that we could do it without him. And I thought we were supposed to do something special, some dedication or memorial to DiGi, but if no one went then it obviously didn’t happen. That upsets me.

But as far as I know, maybe the others did go. Maybe just Danielle, Gnorski, Hambone, and I didn’t go and Pockets, Ron, and maybe Krispy did. I won’t know until Pockets answers my MySpace comment eventually (if ever; he usually doesn’t). I had wanted to get some pictures of the place and the stuff we were going to do, but of course it wasn’t going to happen. Nothing amazing ever happens twice, especially when you hand down the responsibility to a home-wrecking polok. (Yes, it bothers me just a little bit, I admit it.)

So today instead of hanging out at Pockets’s house right now with him and Ron and maybe Hambone, I’m here, writing this. And after I’m done writing this I’ll be back to cleaning my room and seething. I am so pissed, but I am so done with him. The only people from that group I don’t want to completely cut out are Joey, Ronnie, Pockets, and Brett. The rest I couldn’t really care less about even if I tried. (Okay, Josh doesn’t count, because there’s no way for me to get in touch with him regardless. And of course DiGi..) Unfortunately, none of them talk to me, so it would be hard to not cut them out, as unintentional as it may be. So this whole group is basically, for me, going down the drain. And I guess that’s OK. Today was an end to these relationships that hardly hold enough water to be called friendships.

Back to my mess with me,

Sacha Lynn

I have declared this past week to be the first week of my summer vacation. It’s been really only two weeks since I got out of high school but it seems like it’s been forever. I spent the whole week between this one and the last week of school working on getting my identity straightened out, and it just dragged on and on… Definitely was not my idea of a vacation beginning. So I declare this week the beginning of my summer vacation, and a nice beginning it was.

On Monday I put the knee board back into the Jeep for Dad and he paid me $10 for a little bit of screwing nails in. That was pretty sweet. I also had listened to Darkly Dreaming Dexter, which was pretty sweet, I have to say. Thanks to the holiday we had grill food, which was delicious. I helped put up some bamboo shades on the porch so that we didn’t feel like the neighbors were watching us all the time. I definitely felt handy. Then I walked about a mile on Mom’s new treadmill and went to bed around eight o’clock.

I woke up naturally at about 7am on Tuesday. I wrote some, and went to work, basically. Went to bed around 8 o’clock Tuesday night and woke up really early Wednesday morning also. On Wednesday Anthony asked me to help him with some possible identity fraud on his end, because he tried to get a bank account with SunTrust and they denied him an account because of an apparent open mortgage under his name from January 2007 (he was only 16). So he picked me up and we went to my high school to get my diploma reissued with my name spelled correctly. After that we headed over to the mall so that I could close my bank account. I acquired $14 and some cents, I was happy. Then we tried to find a SunTrust mortgage office, and finally found one but the lady wasn’t there. So Anthony got her business card from the little table outside of her office and called the next day. Still no word back from her yet. After that I coerced him into buying me McDonald’s, since he had all this graduation money on him. Later that night I walked 3 miles on the treadmill and went to bed at about midnight thanks to Law & Order.

Thursday I got up late and went to work around 2 o’clock. That night Brittney and I went over to hang out with Justin Barr and his cousin Ryan, and Ryan’s aunt Martina. We played pool, which I smoked everyone at, and we played poker, which Brittney totally owned, even though Mom said that Justin told us how to play with more cards than you use in Texas Hold ‘Em. We got home around 3am. I had almost pissed myself from laughing so hard at the guys’ reactions to losing to me at pool. Ryan actually broke a pool stick in half after losing the second game we played one-on-one. It was HI-LAR-I-OUS. Especially the incredulous argument between him and Justin immediately afterward.

On Friday I paid for lunch at Dairy Queen for Brittney and myself. Then around 7 or 8 o’clock we went to see Iron Man and I paid her back $10 of the $17 the two movie tickets cost us (I was supposed to be paying, but I don’t have a card anymore and there was no way in hell we were going to stand in that line for tickets). Iron Man was pretty freakin’ sweet. I know when that comes out on DVD it’s going to be added to the family collection. And I’m excited for the sequel with the Avengers. Oh, and on Friday I got my book The Secret Life of Laszlo, Count Dracula also.

Yesterday we didn’t do much of anything until six or seven o’clock. Then we all went to Kobe for dinner. Mom and I got one of the most expensive things on the menu (she told me I could)–shrimp, lobster tail, and scallops. I decided I don’t like bouncy food so I gave Mom the two scallops I hadn’t eaten out of the three I had. Their “cherry Coke” was actually just Coke with some cherry juice in it, which was actually pretty nice. The soup was great, the guy’s show was great, and the reactions of the little boy sitting across from me were so cute. I just ate what little bit of leftovers I had this morning. Lobster, shrimp, and lo mein for breakfast? I sound pampered. Oh and last night I went to see if I could fix the Jeep’s new problem with the instrument panel not lighting up. But I found out that this requires disconnecting the battery, removing the airbag, and removing the steering wheel, which requires marking where it lines up and a shitload of other things that a) you cannot do in the dark, and b) you cannot do with a set of half-missing generic non-automotive-specific tools. I spent most of last night talking to Jeremiah and Jeremy and Michiru.

I was up last night until about 3am, so I slept in today until about 11am. And today I will go to work, then I will probably come home and get back on RealChat, because that is the kind of lifeless nerd I am. Today my new schedule begins (since it’s June now), so I’ll be working Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday from 1pm-5pm. Hopefully this schedule won’t be too much of a pain in the ass. The idea is to get all my days lined up so that I have time between Tuesday and Sunday to go on trips and whatnot. Plus it’ll help me keep track of what day it is. I also took two extra hours a week, and I may take more if I feel like I can do more time. I’m going to start learning the ways of the librarian (ha ha) if/when I get extra time for the rest of the time I’m working there so that I’ll have a transferable skill for if I want to move on to another library that maybe pays librarians but not pages. I wouldn’t have the degree but at least I would have the skills!

So off I go to get ready for work. Ciao!

Nothing more has happened with my ID theft since Thursday, so I’m happy. No news is good news in this case. Friday was graduation and I woke up around 7:40 with the worst migraine I’ve ever had in my entire life. It engulfed the whole left side of my head and ran down the side of my neck. I felt like I was going to puke and it hurt so bad I was crying. I waited an hour before I went downstairs to see Mom, because I didn’t want to wake her up, and by about 8:00 she and Dad were getting out of bed. I had taken aspirin, which did nothing, and then Mom gave me muscle relaxers. Those kicked in around 9:00 or so, and the pain was completely gone by 11:00. Then I went upstairs and went back to sleep until about 4:00.

When I woke up, I took one more muscle relaxer, and got ready to go to graduation. We got to Shepherdstown at exactly 6:00 and I was herded into line-up pretty soon thereafter. We all went and sat in our rows, it took about an hour to get to the second half of the alphabet (K through W). After everyone went, we did the recessional, and we went back to get our diplomas. I had gotten a medal for being summa cum laude, which is a 3.8 to 4.0 GPA (which I wore through the ceremony, but whatever). My diploma had my name misspelled on it. The name on it was Lindsey. I was so pissed. Of all the things to go wrong this past week. . . well, I should have known this would be one of those things. My migraine came back around the last names beginning with H, so after I got my diploma we hightailed it out of there.

We got home around 9:30 I think. Everyone else was getting something for dinner and I just went to bed. Despite having slept all day I was wiped. And I’ve been waking up between 5am and 8am thanks to Mario, who comes in my room asking for breakfast every morning. Yesterday I went to work (whoopee) and then came home and did a lot of nothing. Mom made me a Bloody Mary (heavy on the tomato juice) and after I drank that I pretty much went to bed. I don’t have to work today, so I might go to the mall. I don’t know about tomorrow, either, but Tuesday it’s back to work. Woo! And then I have to go to the high school and get my diploma fixed. There was something else I was going to do on Tuesday, too, but I don’t remember what it was.

In the next week or so I should be getting a book in the mail, as well as several new sets of bindis. I really hope I get a letter back from Marshall, too, because I’d really like to know what all is going to happen come August. It’s irritating that there will be no mail until Tuesday. Well . . . off I go into a free-time Sunday. As a parting gift I leave this link: Bleed American - Jimmy Eat World in celebration of an American holiday.

As you may or may not know, Friday was my last day of high school. All well and good. I came home at like noon, took a nap, woke up and was on the computer for a little while. Then the phone rings: It’s someone from my bank calling, asking me if I sent a wire. I didn’t even know what a wire WAS, so I said no, and the bank teller said that she must have the wrong member, and we hung up. After about a minute she calls back, and Mom answers. Mom talks to the lady and the bank lady tells her that I supposedly wired my $700 savings to “my cousin” in Eagan, Minnesota.

We hurried to the bank and found that whoever it was has my social security number, my home address, my last name, phone number, everything. They even got my signature because they requested my last check (which was my second to last check really), and it turns out they lifted my signature off the FAX of the check and copied it onto the wire request form. The person apparently used a relay for the hearing impaired (the hearing impaired person types to a person who’s making their phone call for them, who is typing the other person’s responses to the hearing impaired person–hence, relay) to hide their voice or make their call untraceable, leading me to believe they either have practice at this and/or are male. I’m thinking they probably got a hold of my information from an unsecure information transaction from eBay, but I can’t say for sure.

I took all my money out and closed my accounts, except for the $26.40 that my last check was written for. I really lucked out in that the ABA routing number that the person gave the bank was incorrect by only the last digit, and once the wire reached my bank’s main office in Parkersburg and hit the wall between there and Eagan, MN, the wire bounced back and the money came back into my account. The bank called me after the bounce, and I was able to recover all of my money. When we got home I called the SSN fraud hotline, Experian, Equifax, Trans Union, and the Federal Trade Commission. You can do close to nothing on a Friday evening, let me tell you. But luckily the wire form has the name and address of the fraud’s credit union, which I verified online, and a name of this supposed cousin, whom we think is either the thief, an accomplice, or another identity theft victim.

On Saturday Dad took me to the county police department to file a report. Turns out since the crime happened in the mall, it’s under the city department’s jurisdiction. They also couldn’t find any record of this Carole J. Pearson person, but I assume they checked a criminal database specifically, and if they’re still stealing identities I doubt they’re in that database anyway. After that I went to work, and Dad did some research at home. He found the name Carole Pearson, and their address and phone number. So we know that she exists, although not so much her role in this issue. At least for that..

On Sunday at work, I had nothing to do, and so I went to check my e-mail. I had nothing in Gmail, because in the middle of the day I usually don’t. I decided to check my Yahoo account for lack of anything better to do, and I have one new e-mail. It’s a notification about having forgotten my Gmail password from May 15th (Thursday), telling me how to go about resetting my password. I have never forgotten my password for Gmail, so I was a little confused. I went back to Gmail and double-checked that that’s how you get that specific e-mail, by saying that you can’t remember your password. I knew this was too close to the wire incident chronologically to be a coincidence. I vaguely recalled getting another password e-mail elsewhere that I hadn’t asked for, but I didn’t check that one until I got home.

When I got home around 4:00 I checked my Gmail account, and sure enough, there was an e-mail from Paypal from May 12th (Monday) that gave me a link to a password reset page. I remembered not knowing why I had gotten the e-mail when it actually got in my inbox originally, and it also being chronologically too close for comfort I first called Paypal’s 800 number. It was basically a waste of a call, so I went downstairs onto Mom’s computer and printed out both the Paypal e-mail and the Gmail one, and put them in my ever-growing folder of identity theft-related paperwork. Then off we went to the city police department’s office in City Hall. I talked to Officer Bettis for maybe ten to twenty minutes; he said that he was going to go talk to the tellers at the bank for clarification and that he was going to call the local FBI. He gave me his card and wrote the report number on the back of it, and Dad and I left.

Monday morning I woke up to find Dad lingering around the house phone, and Mom talking on it. A bank teller was on the other line, saying that the person had tried to gain access to my bank account again this morning, but they had told them that their computers were down. They asked them tons of security questions, even my mother’s maiden name, and the person knew all of it. The teller couldn’t outright say no to someone who knows so much of the account information.. But they did give the wrong birth year, if not just by typo’ing to the relay operator.

After that phone excursion Dad took me to our local Social Security Administration office in hopes of getting the ball rolling with changing my social security number. We waited for maybe half an hour for the chick at the counter to tell me “No, we don’t change social security numbers for that,” even though the Social Security Administration’s brochure on identity theft says that they do change social security numbers if other means of protection fail. I was livid. Dad and I made a run to the bank so that he could check on his account (and, as he says, to see if the tellers knew who I was; which of course they did, they had just called our house an hour or two earlier), and then we went home to make more phone calls to the credit bureaus and to the social security fraud hotline, none of which were ANY help whatsoever.

Around noon Mom took me back to City Hall so that we could get the written police report, but the people at the desk said that I had to wait for Officer Bettis to come on duty at 4:00, so I went in to work around 12:40 this afternoon. After work, Mom picked me up, and we went back again, waited about twenty minutes, and talked to the cop about what happened this morning. He really couldn’t do much of anything, but we did get a copy of the complaint to show the Social Security Administration office in Winchester, where they said they could get me a new social security number with the right documentation. I have to wait until Saturday at least, though, which really bothers me.

Today after graduation practice Mom took me to the bank to get a typed and signed statement from Suzy at the bank, who told us that the bank in Eagan had called to ask about the wire on behalf of Carole J. Pearson. After that Mom and I went to the FBI office in Martinsburg. We went up to the U.S. Attorney General Office (apparently) on the fourth floor, and eventually got to talk to an FBI agent. He was well over six feet tall and had a Snively Whiplash mustache. This guy knew what we were talking about and actually seemed concerned. He was the first person outside of my family to realize how sophisticated this theft is. He gave me his business card and told me to call him if anything happens, and told me to submit a complaint to IC3, which I did when I got home. After that I put all the paperwork in order by date and by order of receipt, then I put the little papers in a little envelope and now everything is in chronological order for the next time I have to show someone those documents. This way I’ll have plenty to show the SSA in Winchester, and I can get a new social.

After I get my new ssn, then I can get a new bank account, and now I find that this is really all I can do in hopes that this never happens again (see LifeLock article from Yahoo.com). Until then, my identity is still stolen, and they could still ruin my nonexistent credit. I am 18 years old. I just finished high school, literally. I’m going to have to change my social security number, I had to close my bank accounts, I’m honestly surprised that I don’t have to change my name since they have all the information they need to get my new social security number (if they persist.) I really hope the police catch them, or at least they stop using my information. This is an absolute nightmare.

Original Post Date: May 16 (Friday)

Update: May 19 (Monday)

Around 11:00 last night, I got a text message from Steve asking me if I had any money. I thought that was amazingly ironic, but it was also out of the blue so I asked him why. He invited me to go laser-bowling with him and a few of his friends from Hedgesville. This was also ironic because I had told Justin that he, Alberto, Steve, and I should go bowling together sometime. So I got dressed and he came with two of his friends to pick me up and back up the street we went. We used a free shoe rental card that Hedgesville apparently gave their tennis team, which I thought was rather funny because I was wearing my bright green bulldog sweatshirt (but the lady behind the shoe counter couldn’t see it, because the counter is up to my chin). We went over to lane 19 and Steve and I bowled two games before we dropped out for lack of feeling in our wrists. Halfway through the first game I had to go grab a Mr. Pibb to stave off the shaking in my hands. I always came in second or third but I never was the loser. Words was, actually, so… ha.

Anyway, after Steve and I dropped out of the bowling, we went into the games section. I spent $2 or $3 at the Slam Win or whatever it’s called (basically, you press this red button to drop a bouncy ball, and the bouncy ball goes into one of the holes that are all labeled with different amounts of tickets). I actually ended up spending at least $5 on that machine altogether. I dropped the ball straight in three times, once into 3, once into 8, and once into 25 (after I dropped it into 3, the first time, Steve said, “I bet you couldn’t do that again if you tried.” And after I dropped the 8 he stood corrected.) I actually went and bought curly fries so that I didn’t have to put a straight $5 into the coin machine. The fries weren’t very good anyway.

We had 333 tickets when all was said and done, and I got a plastic little dartboard with two darts, Steve got a Laffy Taffy, and I got myself a green Tootsie Roll. After that we piled in to the one girl’s old Caddy and Steve and one of his friends tried to give her directions to my house. Amazingly enough she didn’t miss it the first time. When I got home I went downstairs to see Mom, then I came upstairs and got comfortable. I lost my emerald green bindi taking off my sweatshirt, which makes me really sad because it is an awesome color. It’s on my floor somewhere, the trick is to find it in the mess of where it came off.

I talked online for a little bit and at 2 am I went to bed. (This morning at about 6:40 Mario decided that I should wake up and pet him and give him milk, but that’s another day and another story. Not that there’s much more to it than that.) And so today I have to go to work and then go fill out a police report about my identity theft. It’s going to be a long weekend.

Your one and only,

Sacha Lynn

So today was the last day of my high school career. It was alright, I guess, overall. When I got up this morning I sent Gnorski a text message about what we were supposed to wear, and instead of txting me back he actually called me. We talked for five or ten minutes about the graduation stuff and about orange. Then after we got off the phone and I had all my stuff in tow, Nicci and I went out to catch the bus. I ended up wearing my graduation cap, and it was drizzling/raining out (of course, because God hates when I straighten my hair). I had also forgotten my headphones for my phone, and I had nothing to play with or munch on. That made the bus ride very boring, and parts of the rest of the day, too, actually.

I stood out with the group in the morning and Gnorski brought me a hat to cover my hair with like I asked him to when I was on the bus. I did a lot of just standing, as usual. After the bell rang Danielle and I went to check in with our first period/homeroom teachers, then we headed up to Mrs. McLaughlin’s room for the breakfast that she’d made for the seniors. I eventually found Gnorski and got him up there, too, and Danielle and I kind of ninja-forced him to eat something. After breakfast the three of us went downstairs to make lock returns, and we picked up Robert on the way (the big diesel kid who meows). I had a tough time getting someone to take my lock, let me tell you. No one seemed to want the stupid thing. Once we finally got rid of my lock (thanks to Mrs. Demick), Danielle, James, Gnorski, Robert, and I went to the auditorium where they were taking individual pictures. (Aside: I saw Jeff with his new hair cut. He looks amazing. I am so happy he cut that off, he doesn’t look like a girl anymore!)

After about ten minutes Gnorski decided that today was pointless, so he changed into his sweatshirt and left to be with his married girlfriend. I was sad, because I knew I was either going to be annoyed by everyone or ignored by them. It turned out to be the latter, actually. Danielle went off with Shannon, James found Erin, Ben and Sara were together, Candace was with maybe Jen and someone, and so.. I went to sit in Pockets’ seat in the auditorium–the one that’s different from all the other ones there. I think it’s a seat seven. Anyway, so I just kind of sat there and watched everyone else. Jeremiah was the only other person in the row a bit away from me and I don’t think he noticed I was there, even when we were all supposed to be getting up and going, and I was standing there waiting for him to change and get out of my way. (I eventually went the other way, cut through another isle, and got way in front. Win.)

When we were herded into the cafeteria to figure out where we were supposed to be going for the class meeting at 9:30, I met up with Cortney and Ben. We just kind of stood there until the announcement came on that Knight through the end of the alphabet were supposed to be in the auditorium, where we came from, of course. So we headed back that way, and I sat down in the row that was Erin, James, Sara, and Emily. I sat next to Emily and Ben sat next to me, for about a second, if even. Then he got up and went all the way back around all the seats to sit next to Erin instead. That just kind of hurt my feelings a little.

So I got up and went and sat by myself until I saw Leann. I went up to grab her (since she and I sit next to each other in line-up anyway), and we sat together and waited for our names to be called. She changed into her cap and gown and went to get her individual picture taken just as we were getting our seats. I sit in seat 4, Nathaniel sits in seat 5, and Leann sits in seat 3. Jeremiah sits in the seat directly behind me, between an Ian and Viral, and Chelsea sits in front of me. While we were sitting in line-up they talked to us about graduation practice, about things we may or may not owe the school, and all that. It was really boring except for the people I was sitting around. Nathaniel said he felt like he was a member of a cult. I felt like I was at Hogwarts and Jeff and Ben felt like Jedi. Jedi at Hogwarts maybe, there we go!

Once we got out of there we all went to the field house for pictures. Brittany Levardi wasn’t there today, so I was the shortest person in line (I’m about the second shortest person in our graduating class. Ugh!). It took a long time for us all to get up in the stands, and somehow I ended up in the fifth row behind someone who was taller than me even when I was on a riser. So I had to stand up on the actual seat of the bleacher to see over her hat. I was a little miffed about that, but oh well. We probably stood just setting up for a good 45 minutes, and they took probably 20 pictures. It felt like forever, really. And once they were done taking pictures there was a bum rush to get off the bleachers and get the hell out of Dodge.

I called Mom and waited for her to show up. Ben came up to talk to me while I was waiting, I don’t know why he bothered. I asked him if he was going to that cook out thing that Erin and Phoebe and James were going to, because he mentioned that he was getting a ride home from his mom, and he said he wasn’t going because Sara wasn’t going and because Erin “would act weird.” Which I thought was hypocritical, after he went through all the trouble of going all the way around the middle section of seats in the auditorium to sit next to her. I just kind of humored his conversation but I really wanted him to leave me alone, I was amazingly irritated. He had been a part of the group that was going yesterday, and so suddenly he has a change of heart because Erin acts weird? Yeah, right.

When my mommy showed up, we left and got home around noon. When I got home I sat on the computer and played games for a little bit, and then I went to sleep. I woke up around 3:00 and listened to some Dr. Phil and found that I’d missed a call around 2:00 from Danielle.. But she didn’t leave a message, so obviously it wasn’t that important. And basically now here I am writing about the last day I ever have to see the inside of Martinsburg Senior High School. I have the rest of today and tonight free, then Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I work, Tuesday morning is graduation practice, and then Tuesday afternoon until Friday afternoon Mom and I are going up to Jersey and taking a train to New York City. Huzzah!

pxc,

Sacha Lynn

Dear pinkie toe on my left foot,

Please stop bleeding. I didn’t mean to smash you into that door, and although I did mean to cut you open I didn’t mean to miss. I got it the second time and got all the inner bleeding out, what more can you expect of me? I didn’t realize there would be no painful sensation from the knife when I slid it across your skin. I’m sorry, please stop hurting?

So I’m getting better now. I spent the beginning of the week in tatters, but now I’m adjusting. I guess it just takes time to readjust when your whole world seems to shift just a tiny bit. Monday was the JRTI end-of-the-year picnic, which was loads of fun. Then on Tuesday I went to work, and voted on the Republican ballot (whoop whoop?). On Wednesday Mom, Britt, and I went clothes shopping, and then that night Mom and I went out in the backyard and made up a fire, and had some wine coolers and orange. At about 10 o’clock we went inside so that I could watch Law & Order and Mom could do the same, as well as mend the skirt that I stepped on and ripped the back of probably way back in August.

In other news, today was my last day at James Rumsey Technical Institute. I wore my: skirt with the jingles on it, skull bell earrings, six bangles, bell Tyler bought me from China Town in New York when he went in like 2005, and, of course, my backpack and keys. I was the loudest thing in every hallway through which I went. Indeed, I was very pleased with myself. Then when I got to Rumsey the guys were just getting on my nerves today. Especially Alberto, not letting me take pictures of him! Argh! I did get one decent picture of him, though. I also got one of Steve and two of Justin (because he’s the only one who’d sit still; he’s such a photowhore). But Alberto and Justin were really getting on my nerves and I actually had to change into my steel-toes in case I had to kick one of them. Jeremiah, Jairo, and Casey were getting a kick out of how close I was to kicking their asses, especially Berto. And Jeremiah said I could be a gladiator because of all the weight I’ve carried in my backpack. That was pretty comical.

On the way home from Rumsey, I got a text message from Justin. It was almost sad, like I had just left a puppy behind who could not only make puppy-dog eyes at me before I left but could cry at me afterward. He said, “I guess I will never see you again. See you later.” It was just the saddest thing, I swear! I told him maybe, but I’m thinking I might try to get my boys back together for a game of bowling or something. They are my pals, even if I do have to hurt them every once in a while to maintain my alpha status. Haha! I’ll definitely have to get together with them sometime over the summer, so they don’t think I’ve abandoned them. Poor puppies. (Just kidding!) Also, Gnorski laid down in his bus seat and had his head out in the aisle facing upward, and I just couldn’t help but laugh. I told him it was different, and he of course asked me why. I told him: “It’s just weird because your hair’s actually up here,” and I ran my hand over his beard for emphasis. I don’t think he got it, though. I thought it was hilarious.

After we got off the bus we emptied out my locker to find out that my mom was coming around 2:45 by my locker so we could take my stuff out.. so Jon and I had to stuff all that junk back in. We went and stood in front of the school as usual, and it was pretty much like normal. Nobody acted sad, and I don’t think any of us really were, except maybe some of the juniors. Gnorski went back to my locker with me around 2:45 to help me clean out my locker (again) and carry stuff out to the Jeep, and oddly enough he took most of the stuff that was in the locker. I totally wasn’t expecting him to step up like that; I meant for him to pick up what I couldn’t, not the other way around! But that was okay too. After that Mom took me to work, and thus, well, I worked.

When I got home Mommy made calzones, and as usual I only could eat about half of mine. Not that I hadn’t had Tostitos and salsa and strawberries before dinner, but I probably wouldn’t have eaten more than half even had I not eaten beforehand. After dinner I got on my computer, and that’s basically been my night. Then a few minutes ago (maybe; probably 15-30 minutes now) I came out of the bathroom and stubbed my toe. I stubbed my little toe bad enough to have a little bit of bleeding under the skin. Sergio gave me the bright idea to cut it open and bleed out the blood pocket, so I grabbed my knife and cut. Unfortunately, I missed the pocket and just cut my toe open. After sopping that mess up I tried again and actually did it that time. But then it seemed like it wasn’t going to stop bleeding.. but of course, as soon as I put a Band-Aid on it, it decides to stop bleeding. Right, thanks God. Once I was satisfied I wasn’t going to need stitches (I’m kidding, I did not seriously think I would) I went downstairs and poured some rubbing alcohol over my toe so it wouldn’t get infected by my amazing knife that I use to cut anything that happens to need to be cut when scissors are not handy.

And now it is almost 12:30 in the morning, and tomorrow is my last day of high school. We’re taking pictures, and I already know I’m going to look shitty. But that’s okay, because most of these people will never contact me again. Whee! Oh and tomorrow I get to see Jeff with his hair cut short again! Excitement! Alright, time for me to hit the hay. Goodnight, WP.

xoxo,

Sacha Lynn

Last night I found out that my best friend Ryan has a girlfriend. It was kind of a rude way to find out; she signed on his MSN in the middle of a conversation he and I were having. Rose and I talked, and of course it was about him.. I definitely spilled my guts to her. She’s apparently a law student who speaks Japanese. I’m sure she loves him.. but so do I, and that’s what makes it hurt so bad. It’s not just that he never told me, or that I had to ask her for certain things about him that are more factual than personal (i.e., his last name; sad, right?). She knew who I was, which I found really weird in the first place.. Then she said that he talks about me a lot, and that he once actually said he felt like calling me (not that he did, obviously. I would remember).

Rose asked me, “Anata.. daisuki Ryan-sama?” which means You.. like Ryan? or love. So I told her: “When we were about 13 or 14, I thought I was in love with him. I wanted to move with him to Singapore and have lots of pets, lol. But now I can be satisfied with just being friends if he’d let me in a little more. He’s been my best friend for a long time and I wish I could be that for him too.” She also asked me if I want to date him, and I told her that I don’t consider it because it’s impossible. He doesn’t want to meet me in person (and I imagine now I know why?), so dating is nowhere near the radar. There wasn’t too much more to the conversation. Then she signed off and he came back on, and.. I guess someone had said something rude or mean to her, and Ryan was pissed. But he did say that she was indeed his girlfriend and her name was Rose. (I had my suspicions that a cousin of his or his sister might have hacked his account. I don’t know why, really.) Other than that he wouldn’t talk to me anymore. And I was shattered, and I’m still not entirely sure why. I’ve been pondering the fact, and I’ve come to only one probably inaccurate conclusion.

For one thing, being in love with someone for somewhere between five and seven years is a lot of emotional energy. Then you add the elusive behavior, but the perfect complementary personality, and.. I’m not sure what that makes, except I never really let go of the idea of him. I have an image in my head of this dorky, kind of cute dark kid in glasses that I would love to meet, but I’m sure he isn’t what I imagine he is; not that it matters, because I don’t think he’ll ever show me what he looks like, much less ever meet me. And if there’s been anything I’ve really wanted in my life, aside from getting the hell out of this town, it’s wanting to meet him. I really wanted him to come to my graduation, too.. But I realize that isn’t going to happen, even though he could if he really cared enough.

And you know, having no sexuality makes you feel really different from everyone else (well, you may not know, because apparently this isn’t all that common in people who already hit puberty nine years ago). I thought that maybe because I was so in love with him that if anything ever did come of him and me, I guess that maybe my sexuality would come awake finally, for real. But of course, that was dumb, and I’ve always known it was. I knew it was dumb to have any feelings toward him in the first place, but what could I really do? So I feel like somehow I’ve lost my chance at becoming human. And I just feel amazingly empty. I don’t know, I guess I thought he could be my knight in shining armor or my ninja in a dark mask or whatever. I always thought that someday he would come around and live up to that “when I meet you.”

I remember in tenth grade I went to this Chispa festival, a Spanish thing at Hedgesville, and they had the most amazing mango lollipops. Ryan was the one who got me into mango in the first place, so I got one of the lollipops for him, and planned on saving it so that I could give it to him when I met him. Well, obviously it’s still sitting in a drawer waiting for him. I had hopes at first, then I realized how foolish it was. But it’s kind of like the spoon you put under your pillow in hopes of snow, you know? I’ve kept it there for two years now, and I know I will never eat it.. It’s kind of like a pathetic symbol of my desperation and my rejection. It kind of has the same sentimental value as the songs “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)” (he had to sing that at his 8th grade graduation, and he hated it, but I thought it was cute..) and “Middle of Nowhere” and “For the Longest Time” (he randomly started singing that after I said “woah” once on MSN; yes, even e-singing is a surefire way to my heart, I admit it) and anything by Asian Kung-Fu Generation or Bond or Hot Hot Heat.

It’s hard to explain falling in love with a boy over the internet without looking a fool. But there’s still the element of conversation there, and there’s still a level of intimacy that comes from only ever talking to someone, without the contamination of physical attraction or repulsion. Also with Ryan and me, when I moved from Florida to West Virginia he was the only friend that stayed with me through the move; that made him very important to me. He’s been my friend for almost half my life, and really was there for me when I came online just needing someone to talk to. The fact that he lives no more than six hours away from me now makes it hurt even worse that he doesn’t want to hang out with or even meet me. At first I thought that was amazing, and that sometime when my mom and I went to visit my grandmother I could go see him, too. The joke’s on me, though.

I tend to feel foolish for having fallen in love with him when I knew so little actually about him, but then the facts about a person aren’t what you fall in love with. You fall in love with them. And unfortunately I did, and I’ve held out in hopes that maybe someday he could love me back. And last night that hope was crushed, and I just feel empty. I cried for a long time last night, didn’t sleep well; I held back tears this morning, and slept all afternoon. Now I’m crying again and I was hoping that typing this out would make me feel at least a tiny bit better (not to mention make my mom feel better; she’s worried about me now). It feels like if Ryan doesn’t love me, the one person outside of my immediate family who knows close to everything about me, then no one ever will. I understand this is irrational but I don’t know how else to feel right now.

So I think I will start college in the fall. I’ve mapped out all the things I want to do over the summer, sans the month-long trip (I can’t really afford that… maybe next summer). I came to the conclusion that more or less everything was a 1-3 day affair, and that I could do that as long as I only work 3 days a week. Then maybe that leaves me one day in between, somewhere. But in any case. Skydiving will only take 1-2 days; our trip to New York, probably 2-3; a trip to the zoo is one day; a theme park would be one day; going to the Mutter Museum in Philly might be a 2-day trip; Moundsville and the Trans-Alleghany Lunatic Asylum might take two days each if I can even go; then the rest is reading Moby Dick and studying my languages and working on my writing.

Oh yeah, and I’ve also decided that before I leave the library I’m going to self-print one volume of my own poetry so that they can have it there. It would be amazing, I think. They have books on book binding there, so I can pick one or two up and figure out how much that costs. It’s really the printing the pages that’s a doozy for me. Although I rather like the effect of our fucked up printer, it looks nice on the edges of poetry. I’ll have to see if they could take it even, although I don’t see why not. It’s actually literary, not.. obscene. The good ones, anyway; I lost all the really bad ones when I switched over to Linux. It would definitely be called “Maps to Imaginary Places,” and if I could write a poem with that title it would be awesome. (But last time I tried to write a poem based on a title, it came out really pretty bad.. so I’m not so keen on that idea.) I think I’ll pick about.. 50 poems to put in my little book. I could probably make one for the school, but I don’t think they would want it, ha ha.

I had meant to do all of my government homework today, until I realized that it is indeed Saturday. That means I have today, tomorrow, Monday, and Tuesday to finish all that work. So there was no reason for me to waste all day doing something boring when I could be helping my mom pick out plants, making pasta, taking a shower, and editing a story of mine. Which I may go back and do more of after I’m done ruminating (once again) on the status of my life and the things I plan to do with it. I’m working on Jake Morrigan’s Story, which I started in maybe 2002 or 2004, and I really love the story but I hate how I wrote it, and certain things I included in it. There’s room for a lot of improvement there, and I’m going to do it paragraph by paragraph. Isn’t that just so diligent of me.

I think half a normal-sized post is decent for a lazy Saturday.

I’m going to go change the poem in my Featured Work page.

xoxo,

Sacha Bear

So there are four days left of school for the graduating class of 2008. I’m ecstatic that it’s finally here. I can finally cut ties with everyone I don’t want (which is, unfortunately, a lot of people here) and do some things I’ve wanted to do. I’m going to spend more time with my family–all of them–while I’m here and start to shape my lifestyle the way I want it to be.

On Monday I’m going to the all-day picnic at Rumsey, which will kind of be my final hurrah with the boys. Tuesday is election day, so I’m going to go vote, and then I’ll go to work. On Wednesday I’ll have to make up my objectives quiz in English, and that’ll be my final grade in that class, and we’ll have our last test in precal on circles, parabolas, ellipses, and hyperbolas. That’ll be my last grade in there, too. In government I’ll have to finish my test (if she ever shuts up about election day), and we’ll never get to the finance chapter. Automotive on Wednesday will be the End of Program test. Thursday’s the last day for seniors at Rumsey, and I’ll probably take [the contents of] my box home with me–or at least to my locker. Then Friday is cap and gown picture day, and we really won’t be going to any of our classes. It’ll be have a nice life, don’t come back to campus until after graduation.

The quarry will be my last hurrah with any of my contacts from Martinsburg (except maybe Candi, who probably deserves more of my attention than she’s getting lately, and anyone who happens to take the initiative to contact me and invite me to do something with them), and I’m sure it’ll be fun. I hope Mike (Krispy) comes again. And I’m sure we’ll do something special in DiGi’s honor.. After that it’ll just be my family, my co-workers, and me in my little world. Sometime in June I’ll be going skydiving, and for senior week this month I’m going to New York City with my mom. Hopefully I’ll get a letter from Marshall so that I know when to plan my month of travel.

I was talking to my mom yesterday (after I got done writing my last post, actually), and she asked me whether I wanted to go to the city, since I really don’t want to go to the beach for senior week. I told her I didn’t want to take Brittney’s and her beach trip away from them, but she assured me that since it’s my graduation time that things are about me. She asked me if I remembered how much time they had spent on Brittney’s graduation and trips and birthday, and I said, “No. See, from my point of view, it’s always been about Brittney. All this attention suddenly just seems like guilt [about me going away to college] to me.” She thought that was just the healthiest train of thought ever (but not really).

Today after school I was supposed to go to a young writer’s meeting, but I really needed to take a bath. By the time I got out of the tub it was 3:30, and by the time we would have been there it would have been at least 4:00. Since the meetings end at 4:30, Mom and I decided to skip out and hit the mall. I had to go deposit my $100 paycheck (I know, sad, right?), and then I needed some stuff for my hands, since I shed, and something for my feet, because they have a tendency to sweat a lot and stink horribly. I ended up with some shea butter cream and baby powder. At the self-checkout the guy behind us pointed out a $1 bill on the floor by the machine, so I picked it up. That was pretty cool. Then on our way home we stopped at the ROCS on the corner of Winchester and Wilson and got cappuccinos, my treat. I got a hot chocolate mixed with.. something I can’t remember the name of now. They replaced something with Jamaican Me Crazy, which wasn’t all that great, and the flavor they replaced had been to my old cappuccinos what hot chocolate had to be to the one today. I was kind of sad.

When we got home we decided that Chinese food was a good idea, and hopefully she, Nicci, and I will go to China City Buffet for dinner (because Brittney and Dad are killjoys). I haven’t had Chinese food for a long time! And it’s been longer since we’ve actually gone out to eat, not counting fast food stops after long days of school functions and failure. (Okay, I’m just kidding about the failure.) If we don’t go tonight, well.. I’m pretty desperate, I might just take myself. I only have $11, but the bank is just up the road from the restaurant.

Tomorrow is going to be riddled with American Readings for my AP Government class. If I don’t do it tomorrow I’ll never do it. I should also probably do some precalculus and study for my EOP a little, since my photographic memory is useless on the actual test. And I have to find out what languages are available at Marshall, since I’m sure they require two years of a foreign language for graduation, too. If Spanish is what I have to take, I’m definitely going to take a placement test. And if I can take anything else (other than French, German, and, God forbid, Latin), I probably will. Spanish is boring after you already speak it. I guess that goes for any language, really. It’s not fascinating to beat the dead horse, you know. I can build vocabulary on my own, and grammar comes easily enough with use and a little effort. A Portuguese program would be amazing.

In other news, I have to restart my computer. FrostWire froze up and I still have yet to figure out how to Control Alt Delete Linux programs, so to speak. Oh! Update on the language issue: “Students can fulfill their foreign language requirement by taking 12 hours of either Arabic, French, German, Greek, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese, or Spanish. The Department of Modern Languages offers a major or minor in French, German, Japanese, and Spanish.” Suh-weet.

xoxo,

Sacha Lynn

In automotive yesterday, during a suspension discussion, Mr. Brand asked if anyone could “find a rack in this room.” (Keeping in mind he had one sitting out on a table behind me..) J.D. Allman cuts a look at me and says, “Oh yeah I can.” I was beyond I can’t believe he said that. Only Pete, Steve, and I apparently even heard him.

Pete said, “Stop it, you’re making her self-conscious!” Which leads me to think Oh great, they’ve been staring at my boobs this whole year. No wonder. I hope I didn’t turn red. (I should be used to that kind of thing by now.) No one else said anything, though, so I was OK.

After Rumsey, while Gnorski and I were talking, he said he’d buy me ice cream at the mall after school. I got to the mall around 3:45, because all I wanted was an hour or so and then to go home and do my usual. I sent him a text message and he said he’d be out (from the back room at the Dollar Tree) “later.”So I hung out with my sister until she left. Then I went and got cheese fries, because I had started shaking. When I got up to go get a quarter-pop from Walmart I ran into Ron. He and I hung out for a while and eventually ended up at the DDR machine so he could play. Danielle’s brother showed up at the machine and surrendered his play money (all 75 cents) to Ron. After his two games (six songs) he went to the back of the Dollar Tree with Munchie and I went to sit in the food court, because I refuse to go back there any more.

At about 5 o’clock I texted Gnorski again and he said he hadn’t expected me to be there so early even though I had told him I was there around 3:30. Ryan even came by and offered to buy me the ice cream. Of course, I said no, that wasn’t really the point. Then at 5:30 I went out to wait for my mom. A lady came up to me while I was waiting for Mom and talked to me for a little bit. Some optimistic, cautionary stuff. It made me feel a little better and a little worse at the same time.

Then I went home, shut down my computer, and cried. Then I had tea and dinner with Mom, and did my homework with Dominic. I didn’t so much cry about this particular incident as about how often most of my “friends” do disappoint me this way. Is it because of me, or do I just pick unreliable friends? Is it something wrong with me? Sometimes I don’t know what to think about any of it. I like to think that it’s them who’s the problem, not me.. but it’s hard to believe when 98% of everyone I know is this way. Is it possible to have s