The Catcher in the Rye

I guess it started this morning when I woke up fifteen minutes before my alarm. Half day for AIMS testing. I'd never admit it out loud, but good thing there's standardized testing so I can sleep in 2 hours four days a year. Take that, state.

Then I went and paid $12.56 for coffee at Starbucks--one hot chocolate, one white mocha, one peppermint mocha. For me, P, and L. Forgot J. The other two paid me back.

My left arm sunburnt from sitting out in the Sun for 2 more hours waiting for classes to start. S wasn't there, so there weren't any cards to play 31 or Bullshit with. We sat there a while on the red bench and talked about nothing. It's amazing how much nothing there is to talk about. 2 hours' worth.

Classes started. I had TA--teaching assistant. Mrs. L doesn't like assigning work after testing, so she had each student sing the "Quadratic Song". Then they had to sing Happy Birthday to a girl in the class. Her face turned pink and she was shy. I laughed too hard.

Lunch was a similar waste. 40 more minutes spent staring at a tabletop in the hope that something exciting will happen. Maybe the fire alarm will go off--but no, that would mean going back into the Sun. My arm was turning redder by the minute. Maybe this would be the day some emo druggie kid takes out his self-hatred in the form of a gun and a bullet. That would be exciting. Anything would be fine. Anything at all.

4th, I learned how many people died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. Then we watched color footage. A man watching the mushroom clouds called them beautiful. I guess they were, even if they peeled your flesh back.

More preparation for standardized testing in 6th. Signed up for the ACT again. Signed up for a test I care nothing for beyond the number it will assign to me, and I will prove faithful to. The number that categorizes me, so I read easy on paper. It's an important number.

I ate Chinese food with E, EA, LN, and P after school. The whole restaurant was empty but for us. The server folded napkins the whole time we ate sesame chicken and lo mein. He almost meant his smiles. I meant my laughs. It was a good time, if short. Maybe all the good times are short. Maybe, like death, they make things more precious, if bittersweet. Like the quote, "All great and precious things are lonely." I forget who said it. They were precious.

Then I find out from Facebook that N, my brother, dropped out of college, got kicked out of the house, and joined the Army. I register a complete and utter lack of surprise. We are the sum of our past and our intentions. He had neither. No one told me what he'd done, so I guess they aren't surprised any more than I. Never get so low as to be unsurprising. It's the worst thing.

I read a while. Then I got the urge to give away everything unnecessary in my room. I don't want these bracelets, or books I read once, or empty pens, or notebooks. I don't want the stuffed animals or awards or birthday cards. I'm not sure, but I don't think sentiment means much anymore. I don't want my emotions invested in tangible things. I think that makes them unchangeable. So I want to get rid of them, all of them, even the plastic cube puzzle and 8th grade painting. I don't want anyone to have the ones that matter the most, but the rest, they can take. I want someday to be able to stand up and lace up my sneakers and leave out the front door. I want to be able to walk down the street past the slumbering houses and it won't matter then, all the things I've left behind. There will be just pillows and pens left. I don't hold stock in pillows and pens.

The Catcher in the Rye, because anyone who's read it understands. And if you don't, you haven't really read it.

Shh

Dear Sara,

There is a lot of what we do that is formed from preconceptions of what we should do. I would never have done that if I didn’t think you or even he would do the same. But then, whoever I am thinking of at the moment doesn’t even do it so I get a little angry. Not like I want to throw that pretty floral vase against the wall or anything but angry like I want to just sit in the fetal position and get pissed off at he world.

What’s the opposite of cynical? Whatever word that is - it’s me.

Not that I’m mad at anything or anyone right now.

I’m just a little frustrated.

Remember when the rain used to come down and I had my best ideas. Well, I don’t. I haven’t had a creative twitch in such a long time and it is making me sick. Maybe, the only difference between now and then is that my ego has been deflated. When I used to write - type away in the morning hours before the sun rose - it felt good. I knew I was rambling but the thought were pure.

Now I feel stifled and every time I try to write all that comes out is colors of grey.

I also feel rather superficial.

When I speak of colors I lack sensory of feeling a pencil rattle against textured paper. Instead I see mannequin dolls lined up through out a concrete jungle. If I where to add color it would be the form of a scarf that everyone else is wearing instead of a splash of angry water color.

Alas, grey is my favorite color. Not quite black - a color that nothing shows up on but grey - the color of Atlantic coast beaches and a hazy Los Angeles morning. I like it because it made all the other colors glitter.

I don’t know why I’m writing angry. Am I writing angry? It certainly feels like it. I had a pretty good day today.

I listened to music and talked to friends.

But that’s it. I tried to write a poem to perform at a slam poetry shindig at my school but it was no good.

So, I’ve been working on some essays - fiction. Yet, they are going no where. My freshmen ramblings deciphering the meaning of ‘carpe diem’ sound more sincere then my recent skirmishes of real life - events that can’t be summed into two words of Latin descent.

Or any saying at all.

In all actuality, I should be riveted that the people I love the most can’t be summed up in one expectation.

Last year second semester, I came to school really early even though I didn’t have a zero hour so I could just think about things and sometimes a few people would sit next to me and we would never really say anything - it was just company.

But, one day the silence was too overpowering so we spoke about something. Obviously, not important things but what I remember was trying to find the words to describe something. I feel like I’m always searching for words but they’re just like the grey I love so much…a floating background color.

I settled on something like a tesseract. I think that’s what they’re called? It was in A Wrinkle in Time and how you traveled from dimension to dimension.

Well anyway, the words I chose that day were that people are like that and every time you learn something new about that person, they get another dimension so soon your best friend is multilateral but I digress because I don’t much understand math terms.

Speaking of math, I think it’s beautiful and yet I can’t bring myself to truly sit down and study it.

I was looking at an electronic version of a graph dealing with sin, cos, tan and all that jazz and how the circles unfurled themselves. It was quite mesmerizing.

Oh look, I managed to ramble and that was a very nice feeling and finally my fingers are slower than what’s going on in my head.

All things equal (what’s the Latin word for that? Ceritus pleribus? No…I hesitate to include such a guess at words, for all I know I could be saying F U! But, I‘m not) it does make me a bit crazed to know that once something becomes beautiful to me I stop understanding it. Perhaps, that’s what beauty is. Something so different that it blows your mind and all you can do is stop and stare.

Economics, the bane of my junior year existence, probably has some merit to it and yet these simple concepts continue to allude me.

I feel like caring about school is really superficial and picking the college you want to go to is the most selfish decision you can make. Not that it’s a bad thing - throw out your connotations!

But right now, superficial is feeling bad.

But I’m tired..

Well, indoor percussion is over and it’s sad but all good things must come to an end - besides…life is getting crazy. I’m kind of freaking out because I need track to end too since these coming up days are always hellish.

The end of school is so welcome and yet I distain it as it is when I must work harder than ever before.
Stupid letters on a paper.

Eh, perhaps I’ll see you tomorrow or today, depending on when you read this. I just really want a school day where I can sit and relax instead of consistently doing homework.

Next week, because of AIMS (which I finally got all figured out…CHS thought I didn’t exceed and I’m like…why do I have papers that say I do??? Way to fail…) we get a late in so our schedule is block period with Friday being full schedule. I hate full schedule on Monday…but if I finish all my homework over the weekend I get two days of relaxation since we are on block schedule.

That was confusing I’m sure.

I have a friend who does periods 1 - 4 at CHS and 5 - 6 at Empire. Seems like it would be rough because your classes don’t coincide with our schedule but I will be writing angry letters if they switch us to your schedule.

Full schedule hurts my back I have like 480450384 books but I guess if it means less homework I can invest in a chiropractor. Small price to pay for a normal circadian rhythm.

-Anne

Shh - Frou Frou