“I’m sorry for all the trouble we caused you,” my mom had said to Maria as she hoisted one of her massive suitcases into the trunk of the car, “We’re all really sorry you’re leaving.”

 

Maria frowned and glanced over at Abby and I, who were sitting innocently in front of the garage.  We smiled at her, each smile so fake that it let off a cheesy angelic glow.  She forced a smile as well; however, you could see it in her eyes that she wanted nothing more than to slice up each one of our limbs and feed them to a pack of famished wolves.

 

“They are just angels,” she said to my mom before she got into the car, “Just beautiful children…I could eat them up…”

 

Mom let out a fake laugh and hopped into the driver’s seat.  And as the car pulled out of the driveway, we saw Maria stare at us from out of the window.  Her smile quivered as she gave us one final wave, glaring at us unblinkingly, accusingly for a solid ten seconds before the car was completely out of sight.

 

After a moment of silence, Abby and I looked at each other.

 

“Well, that went well,” I said after awhile, “But I think for the next person we should put more eggshells in her coffee.”

 

          

 

When inexperienced people think of the word ‘nanny’, their mind probably takes them to the image of an old, grey-haired lady that bakes cinnamon sugar cookies and walks around the house reciting Mother Goose nursery rhymes.  But, to be quite frank, it’s all crap.  My nannies were young.  Not only were they young, but they probably poisoned the few batches of cinnamon sugar cookies they ever made.  And Mother Goose? Horse shit.  These people read Mein Kampf.

 

Abby (my sister) and I made the best of the situation we were reluctantly placed in.  We really did.  We even tried to cooperate. And although a few of the nannies did leave due to our obscene behavior, the majority of them were fired for their own.  Unfortunately, all the decent ones left either because of expired visas or health issues.

 

In total, there were eleven of them.  Some were wonderful people that permanently changed my life in a positive way.  Others led me to the local psychologist.  Either way, they all managed to not know how to work the grill.

 

The Truth About Mary Poppins

 

Susan: Actually, the truth about Mary Poppins is that there is none.  No nanny will ever be so perfect that she can magically sweep down from the sky from an umbrella and randomly break into song at any given moment.  Nor will she be able to talk to birds and suddenly turn into a professional tap dancer as she does the bunny hop with ten thousand Chimney Sweepers on your rooftop.  However, Susan Gokool came rather close. 

 

She was my nanny from the time I was only three weeks old until I was in first grade, and even to this day we still keep in touch with her.  Sadly, I don’t remember that much about the time I spent with her.  I can still hear her voice, though.  And whenever I smell detergent, I always feel like I just watched the Lion King and Susan is right behind me, telling me I really need to make my bed before my mom gets home.  I remember picking strawberries with her in the summer.  But that’s about it.

 

She left after she got into a car accident.  Her back was badly injured.  Not long after, her sixteen year old daughter got pregnant and had to get married.  That lady had a lot on her hands, but she could handle it. 

 

Aunie:  Aunie rocked.  No, I mean literally.  She was a rock climber.  And once a week she would take me to the local rock climbing gym to help me conquer my fear of heights. 

 

Although her intentions were good, I still can’t be fifteen feet off the ground without feeling that unwanted urge to puke.  However, it was during one of these rock climbing experiences in the first grade that Aunie helped me in discovering my pastime.

 

She was taking on the tallest wall in the entire gym when I first found it.  As Aunie climbed upside down, I went through her pocketbook.  My hand grabbed onto a velvety rectangular shape, and I pulled it out.  The item was a tiny little book full of blank pages.  Excited, I shouted up to the ceiling, “Aunie!  Can I have it?”

Trying her hardest to look down without her head turning entirely purple, she told me I could keep it.

 

I’ve been writing ever since.

 

Kelly:  She had a strong British accent.  After she returned home, I had a strong British accent.  I also was highly influenced by the Spice Girls.  Needless to say, the teasing persisted.

 

Natalie:  Young Natalie made beautiful angel food cakes.  She would spend hours on them, decorating each one with strawberries and whipped cream. 

 

“Natalie!  Can we have a piece?” Abby and I would ask after we came home from school.

“Ehm, no.  This one is for a friend,” she would say, flipping her shiny blonde hair.

 

By the time she had been our nanny for almost an entire year, we still had not one bite of her angel food cake.  Something, although we had no idea what it could possibly be, was wrong.

 

We found out about a month later after Abby came out of the bathroom crying hysterically.

 

“Mom!” she was screaming, “Mom! There’s blood and gross stuff all over the toilet!”

 

As it turned out, the angel food cakes were not for a friend.  They were for Natalie’s nightly binging sessions. For some reason, she never mentioned anything about bulimia on her resume.

 

Beth:  Usually, thieves go for the valuable, significant items.  Like diamond rings, scientific calculators, iPods.  However, Beth was not like every other thief.  Beth was special.  Not because she was crafty and cunning, but rather because she put those wily skills of hers to use by stealing the most useless crap in our entire house. We found it inconspicuously hidden in her backpack, where she said she “put it while she was cleaning.” 

 

Yes, because life preservers are always in the way of vacuuming the kitchen floor.

 

Maria:  Singing in the shower is a relatively normal habit. In fact, I do it all the time.  But the thing is I sing good songs.  And my voice is a gift from god.  So much that it makes the house shake.  But Maria.  Maria was another story.  Not only did she scream every riff to an entire Spanish opera, but she did this at three o’ clock in the morning.  And even after Abby and I warned her that if this continued, she would have to suffer the consequences, the screeching was never silenced. 

 

Now that I look back on it, I regret putting all those crushed eggshells in her coffee and hanging her monstrously huge underwear in the kitchen.  It was just morally wrong of me.  I mean, the eggshells should have included the yolks.  And that strappy black lace thong should have been tied to the mailbox.  Ah, oh well.  I was pretty crafty for a third grader.

 

Meena: Often abbreviated to a mere ‘Mean’, this nanny was nothing short of a psycho bitch. She was the one who read Mein Kampf in an entirely Jewish household.  She was also the one that was too busy taking a shit in the bathroom to come out and extinguish the fire that had consumed my hand and the toaster oven.  She was also from Trinidad and therefore could not pronounce a ‘th’ sound no matter how hard she tried.  After realizing this, I took the liberty of making her life a living hell.

 

“Meena?” I called to her from the living room.

“Yeah…what d’you want?”

“Meena, how many trees are in our backyard? I’m drawing a picture and I keep forgetting.”

“Go over and look.”

“Ah, I’m too lazy...could you just tell me? You’re right next to the window.”

Meena glanced over at the backyard.

“Tree,” she said a moment later.

“Yeah, the trees.  How many are out there?”

“Tree!” she said.

“Yeah! I know! The trees! How many are there?”

“TREE!” she would scream, holding up three fingers, “TREE TREES!”

“JUST ANSWER THE GODDAMN QUESTION!”

“TERE ARE TREE TREES! TREE!”

 

This would go on for about five minutes.  Up until the point where she finally realized that I was just trying to piss her off.  Then, I would have to lock myself in my room for about a half hour to avoid getting brutally spanked.

          

Angie:  She was pretty much normal.  Then she married a guy named Daniel. During the baby shower, my mom came up to her husband and gave him a friendly hug and kiss on the cheek.  “Congratulations, Daniel!” She said, beaming.

 

The man looked at her with utter confusion. 

“I’m not Daniel,” he said in slight disgust, “I’m Daniel’s identical twin brother, Tom.” 

 

Actually, that still doesn’t sway Angie of her normalness.  In fact, it just makes my mom look socially awkward.

 

 

The Polish nannies:  Margaret, Joanna and Kasha were my middle school nannies.  They all cooked well.  They were all nice.  There was nothing outrageous about them.  We were just experienced nanny pickers by then.  We had learned from our previous mistakes, never hiring someone who referred to me as a ‘daughter of Jesus’ or made me watch The Shining in order to know what ‘real nightmares felt like’.  And after Kasha, there was no need for nannies because mom worked at home.

 

 

As I said before, none of them were Mary Poppins.  For some of them, the closest they would get to adding a spoonful of sugar to my medicine would be by lacing it with arsenic.  Nonetheless, I appreciated each and every one of them.  Susan gave me some semblance of organization.  Aunie fired up my writing passion.  Natalie saved me from gaining a few extra pounds by causing me to not crave any form of cake for several years. And Maria taught me how to break glass without actually touching it.  A little bit of each nanny became a permanent part of me.  

 

And that, my dear friends, is the sole reason as to why I am now a raging psychopath.

I decided to switch to ‘party shuffle’ on iTunes.  It played a series of good songs for awhile.  Up until it reached “Walk On” by U2.  “Ew, it’s the exceedingly commercial band, U2,” I thought as the images of the silhouetted ipod advertisement creatures materialized in my mind.

 

My hand instantly stopped typing to one of the instant messages popped up on the screen and moved toward the mouse.  Being that every single one of my body parts has been programmed to make sudden motions of disgust whenever a horrible song comes on, my hand made the mouse scroll down iTunes to pick out a different song.  An understatedly hip song.  One that makes any of its listeners subconsciously crave drinking very black coffee and write some poem about how much they miss childhood.  One that makes its listeners want to try and discover some interesting, new conversation starter, like “Where do the fish really go after you flush them down the toilet?” only because the song was just so special, so inspiring, that you felt compelled to inspire others with its deep and intriguing randomness.

 

One that is so different, so unique, that it probably sounds identical to every other different song I own.

 

But before my hand has the chance to click on something as unprecedented and original as a song by the Shins, before I have a chance to once again return to that oh-so indie, I-eat–from-the-sweaty-palms–of- the-Garden State-soundtrack type of conformity that I know, secretly love, and forever live by, my hand goes paralyzed.

 

“Walk on,” sings the red and black iPod carrying Bono, “Walk on.”

 

And rather than die of having a song that had in fact been transmitted through radio waves at one point or another contaminate my brain cells and cause me to break out into a fatal seizure, I instead do the unthinkable.  I listen.

 

And all of the sudden I’m graduating from middle school.  I’m only just leaving eighth grade.  I’m wearing that white strapless dress I had been lusting over for the past two weeks.  And I’m sitting with my entire grade in the Papermill Playhouse. In a few minutes, we’re going to be called up, one by one, to walk onto the stage and receive our Completion of Middle School certificates.  “I hope I don’t trip” everyone is thinking as they readjust their rigid loafers, their dangerously high-healed shoes that could easily stab someone to death if aimed in the right direction.  However, before the official graduation begins, a screen rolls down, a projector turns on.  Mr. Oppel has prepared a slide show.

 

An electric guitar sound. And there goes Bono, singing away as images of the past year flash before everyone’s eyes.  Lunch time. Auditorium.  Eighth Grade Dance. That field trip to the place where we all reluctantly witnessed the doughy rolls of Mrs. Beck's body exposed in a skimpy one piece bathing suit.  It is all there, each image changing with every other beat of the song. 

 

As much as I try to fight it, tears begin to swell up in my eyes.  I would have let them go, too, had it not been for the fact that no form of emotion seemed evident in anyone else’s facial expression.  Instead, I merely sit there.  Quietly crying inside, knowing that things are going to change, that everyone in this room would change and grow up and grow old and forget about the intimate details of the day they graduated middle school.  A day that, in the grand scheme of things, is equivalent to the significance of a negligible speck of dust. 

 

In only the course of one year my entire world has flipped and twisted in all sorts of directions.  If I were to write a letter to that eighth grade self of mine, as I stepped off the stage, diploma in hand, half the stuff on it would be incomprehensible.  “You did what?” I would think as I read the letter, “What the hell is going to be wrong with me?” But sometimes I look back, reminisce, and ask myself the same questions.  The truth is, there is always something wrong.  There is always going to be that glitch, that flaw, that tragic flaw that can potentially weigh you down or seize you from moving at all.  

 

But if there wasn’t anything like that, there wouldn’t be any room for improvement.  Everyone would be perfect and no one would change or ask questions because all questions would already be answered and all answers would be solid, logical, forever correct.  Life would be placid.  Life would be pointless.

 

It’s only been a year, and already I’m an entirely different person.  Sure, I talk, act and look the same way. But my values have changed. They’ve twisted into this distorted, mutated version of what I know is reality, mixing it with what I want reality to be. 

 

And as the song “Walk On” by U2 comes to an end, I can’t help but realize how much it doesn’t matter that U2 is mainstream.  I can’t help but remember liking that song when it was played at my graduation, aware of who sung it, but indifferent just the same.  In a way, the artist doesn’t really matter in the end.  What matters is the art the artist makes.

 

Realizing this, my hand came back to life and instinctively began scrolling up and down iTunes.  It went passed all the acceptable songs, too.  The ones I’m usually proud of ‘discovering’, I’m proud of listening to.  The mouse’s arrow stops on Smash Mouth’s “Allstar”.  I double click, instantly transporting myself back to the fourth grade, rollerblading at Villanova skating rink.  And, to be quite honest, I truly don’t give a damn.

 

Okay. This isn't going to be one of my typical Daryl entries.  In fact, completely disregard this post as an 'entry' . It's merely a question. 

See, I've been asked (or in other words mildly begged) to enter some writing into the school's literary magazine.  Apparently not enough things have been submitted.  So, being the desperate editors that they were, they came to me.  Not because I write, but because I write for fun.  I swear.  Ten years from now you will find me working in some stuffy cubicle, doing everyone else's paperwork.  And enjoying it. 

And when at 4:30 in the morning I arrive home...at my parents' house, I will be greeted by my mother who would say something like

"Daryl, you really need to stick up for yourself.  Don't let the bullies have all the fun!"

And then I would probably wipe the lipstick off my teeth and respond with something along the lines of

"Oh, no, mom. They're my friends.  Even Wally, the fat one that still calls me Dariel and laces my coffee with deadly chemicals."

Yep.  That's my future alright.  And it will all start with this literary magazine.

Anyway.  Back to the question.  Since I'm feeling a tad bit lackadaisical at the moment, I don't feel like writing an entirely new entry.  Therefore, I plan on using one of my previous entries to submit into the literary magazine.  The only question I have for any loyal readers is....which one? 

Please, pick anything but the one about the ten commandments.  I don't think that would go over too well with....religious people. 

After her mom got out of the mini van and started to pump the gas, my camp friend Zoe tapped my hand.

           “I have something important to tell you,” she said under her breath.

           “Yeah…?”

           “You have to pinky swear you won’t tell anyone though.  Not even your mom.  Not even your cat.  Especially not your cat.”

           “Alright…I promise,” I said.  Because, you know, I always told the latest, juiciest gossip to my house pets.

           “Alright,” she sighed deeply.  After a brief pause, she leaned in and muttered in my ear.

 

           “I’m a….witch.”

 

I snorted, letting out an obvious fake laugh.  The kind of laugh that has its own designated ha’s.  Ha Ha Ha.

          

“No really,” she said, pointing to the abnormally large freckle on her leg, “See that? That’s not a birthmark.”

           That got my attention.  “Well, then what is it?”

           “A wart! And not just any wart.”

           “What kind? Hairy?”

           “No!” she said with a gleam in her eye, “Magical! My wart has magical powers!”

I continued to stare at her.  But this was no joke.  Zoe’s face was as solemn as stone.

          

“And what’s more,” she continued, “You have one too.” She jabbed her finger at the noticeably large spot on my leg.  I rolled my eyes.  “I’m telling you, Daryl.  We’re witches.  You have to believe me.”

          

I had never seen her so serious.  This girl clearly knew what she was talking about.  I questioningly looked down at my freckle, and all of the sudden it didn’t look like it was potentially cancerous.  It just looked somewhat….possessed.

          

My thoughts jumbled around in my mind.  How could I possibly be a witch? I mean, I was pretty average. Pretty normal. Not a single aspect of my character or lifestyle seemed to stand out in any way. Except for my black cat. And my ability to form one-sided conversations with snakes.  And that time that I was air-born on a broomstick for a good five seconds.  And that other time when I talked to five dead people at once.  And that day when I befriended a centaur.  And the way purple laser beams tended to protrude from my pupils whenever I was angry. And the fact that I had this strange instinct of exclaiming ‘Alohamora!’ in a British accent whenever I magically used my hand to turn the knob of a door and…open it. 

 

           It was no wonder I had few friends.

 

           “Hey, Zo…” I said just before her mom got back in the car, “You might just be onto something.”

          

 

 

I was nine when I came to that first realization that I possessed magical powers.  Living at the very start of my awkward adolescent years. However, at the time I denied it.  “I’m not awkward!” I’d say as I didn’t shave my legs, “You’re just jealous because you can’t move inanimate objects with your eyes!”  People just didn’t understand that I was gifted.  They’d merely turn up their noses to me, taking one look at my scrawny appearance and shaking their heads, constantly asking each other why I’d go around school muttering things like “Abra cada…bo! Abra cada….wobblegoober!…abra ca.…squickembozzle...no! stupid stupid stupid …..”  

 

By the time I was about to turn eleven, I had already managed to convince my sister that she was in fact a ghost.

 

“You mean….I’m dead?”  She had said, awestruck.

“Well, sort of.  I mean, you can walk through walls.  And people."

 

Because my sister tended to believe every word I ever said, that story ended with several bruises and trips to the principal’s office for ‘attempted suicide’ and ‘battery’. 

          

I had also found a unique little spot to practice spells without being taunted by my peers.  Accompanied by my best friend Andrea, we would hide behind the largest tree in the cul-de-sac and mutter incantations.  When we really got into it, we would even jump around in circles, trying to resurrect someone from the dead.  “CAN YOU HEAR ME?” we would scream to our great grandparents, our great-great grandparents, Aaliyah. 

 

As it turned out, our special ‘spot’ happened to be the backyard of some old lady’s house.  And after one of our intense games of “kill the squirrel using your laser vision”, she quite kindly told us to ‘get the fuck off her property’. 

 

Because I really had no place to work without being suggested I meet with Dr. Judy, “a very…understanding lady”, I decided I would instead try to get everyone to follow in my foot steps.  Although I said I did this because I wanted to spread the fun, I really did it so that no one would be left to tease me.  However, my plan seemed to lead me in the exact direction I did not want to be heading in.

 

Dragging along the first three Harry Potter books like they were the Bible, I often referred to them and lent them out to my peers with the hope of converting at least one other person.  By the middle of fifth grade, I was bringing tarot cards to school and told anyone who was not interested in what I had to say that, according to the cards, they would live their lives alone in the woods, develop some unpronounceable type of sexually transmitted disease that would be obtained due to intercourse with some homeless drug addict, and die early.   

 

Despite my threats, people still didn’t believe.  “Oh yeah?” they would say, “Then turn me into a toad!”

My response to this was always “No can do…if I do magic out here in front of all you ignorant muggles, the Ministry of Magic will flip a lid.”

 

I was about ten years and three hundred and fifty-five days old at around that time.  My eleventh birthday was well on its way.  To any normal person, this just meant their second year in the double digits.  To me, it meant an acceptance letter to Hogwarts.  Therefore, for the ten days prior to receiving that fateful letter, I performed deeds that might be considered as desperate as the ones done by say…aspiring Princeton students.

 

Gryffindor, I would say to myself.  I have to get into Gryffindor.  I would take tests on Harry Potter’s official website, screaming at the virtual sorting hat as he told me that no, no. You belong to Ravenclaw, Daryl. Ravenclaw.  And no, no, Daryl.  Hufflepuff.  The best part, though, was when I took the Quiddich test and the results read “Maybe you should try something safer…

 

 

 

…like pulling those screaming naked babies out of dirty pots.” 

 

On my eleventh birthday, no letters came in the mailbox, the fireplace, the window.  Only bills and People magazine and advertisements.  “Ohhh, they’re probably just waiting for the right moment,” I would lie to myself.  But by the time I was eleven years and five days old, I knew it was no coincidence that I was still in Lower Gwynedd Elementary School, teaching Palmistry to my moronic peers.

 

There I was: alone, magical, and rejected.

 

Needless to say, I spent half of sixth grade cursing the injustice of it all and jumping off of steep hills while sitting on mops.  People would nudge me saying “Hey, Daryl…turn this pile of shit into a million dollars! Ha! Ha! Ha!”  And I couldn’t even blame it on the Ministry of Magic.  Clearly not special at all, I kept to myself for the remainder of the year.  "Muggle!" people would shout at me in the hallways.  I'd hold back the anger, telling myself "C'mon, Daryl.  You can do this.  Whatever you do, control your powers.  Problems can be solved without the assistance of telepathically eletricuting the organs of your classmates into blackened piles of ash.  You don't know your own strength..."

 

That summer at camp, I reminded Zoe of the scene we had made in her mother’s car so many years ago.  “You weren’t really a witch, were you?” I had said.

 

“Well, no,” she responded, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

 

I looked down at the magical wart that still inhabited my leg.  It no longer looked possessed, though.  It actually looked somewhat...cancerous.

 

“Oh,” I said as I inconspicuously kicked away the invisibility cloak I had designed in crafts a few hours before, “Same here. I can’t believe we actually fell for that Harry Potter crap.”

It’s no news.  I’m bad at many things.  For one, I can’t canoe without putting at least three other lives in danger.  I also can’t listen to rap music without dying of a concussion, eat eggplant, or go through an entire day without humiliating myself.  I can’t make waffles, I can’t show up on time, I can’t not laugh at dead baby jokes.  I am physically incapable of saying things such as ‘lol’, ‘ttyl’, or suffocating already brief words such as ‘you’ into a sickly ‘u’.  I can’t lie without chewing on the insides of my cheeks.  I can’t help but laugh during awkward situations.  I can’t find my cell phone. I can’t use electric toothbrushes without spraying toothpaste and water all over the bathroom. 

 

Oh.  And I can’t go a day without breaking at least one of the Ten Commandments.   

 

Honestly.  If there really is a god, not only would he condemn me to hell, but he would probably tell all the rabbis across the world to hang a picture of my corpse wearing a shirt bearing the words ‘I Went to Hell For Sinning My Ass Off and All I Got Was This Stupid T-shirt….and a sentence to three million years of lifting massive boulders for no apparent reason while in the presence of Hitler’  just to scare everyone out of flicking chewed gum at their Sunday school teachers.

 

Kidding, I’m actually not that horrible.  I do celebrate the holidays.  Not all of them, though.  Like, on Tu Bishvat I wouldn’t go out of my way to rip up the test Dr. Citrin might hand out, start screaming “TREE MURDERER!” and proceed to attacking him with a chainsaw.  However, I do attend Seder and recite the four questions.  I do sing the prayers on Chanukah.  I even take the time to meticulously watch the gripping and inspiring film “A Rugrats Passover” whenever I feel the need. 

 

But out of the few things about my religion that I follow or at least take into consideration, the Ten Commandments are not one of them.  Which scares me.  Even as I write this, the words ‘ten commandments’ are underlined in that green squiggly line because it was not grammatically correct.  Apparently, the Ten Commandments are so important that they must be capitalized. See?  Even Microsoft Word is more religious than me.  When a machine has more wholesome values than you, then you know you must be dead inside.

 

The ten commandments: proof that rules probably weren’t meant to be broken

 

Commandment # 1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

 

I wish I could get away with saying that I long believed in God before I found faith in anything else, but then I would be lying.  Actually, I did believe in God as a young child.  However, after I lived a few more years and experienced a few more horrors, I began to turn to science for answers.  Rain was no longer God’s tears of grief, but instead just another day in the life of the water cycle. The macaroni we had for dinner wasn’t awful because God decided to curse us, but because my mother possessed the ability to burn anything she laid her hands on.  The science phase lasted for awhile.  Up until about two weeks ago when I came to the distinct realization that science sucks. So now I believe in Snapple.  Undoubtedly the best stuff on earth. 

 

Commandment # 2: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

 

Oh my god. That is totally not just my goddamn problem.  I swear to god, everyone does it.  It’s become so common that it’s usually abbreviated into a mere ‘omg’.  And who says omg? Anyone reading this can name at least ten people that do. It’s actually come to the point where you can see the words escape from someone’s mouth, as if they were sparkly pink smoke rings. Omg omg omg! A girl might exclaim after a brief encounter with her crush.   ‘OMFG’ if he says hi back.  Conspiracy against the second commandment? You’d think so.  But in all honesty, I think ‘omg’ is just another one of those unintentional valley girl words. One day, some popular school girl must have broken a nail and started crying hysterically.  After she realized people were teasing her, she probably shouted ‘Oh my god!’ in order to prove that it was no laughing matter, that she was in severe pain.  And then everyone pitied her and started saying ‘oh my god’ in order to mutate the pettiest issues into life-altering horrors.  Just like one must insert an incorrect usage of ‘like’ into every sentence he or she utters, ‘omg’ is sort of the caution to start that sentence off.  It’s supposed to warn the listener, subconsciously telling him or her that ‘Yeah, even if what I’m about to tell you is about as important as the fungus growing in between my toes, I want you to listen intently as if you actually care.”  It’s sad, really.  What would be a powerful stab at religious beliefs is now nothing more than this sound programmed into just about every teenager’s daily conversation.  Besides its cautionary use, ‘omg’ really has no meaning.  It just is.  And for that reason, we are all probably going to hell. Jesus Christ, it is going to be crowded down there.

 

Commandment # 3: Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.

 

I’m not entirely sure what this means, but I’m pretty sure I’ve violated it.

 

Commandment # 4: Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

 

Truthfully, the last time I celebrated Shabbat was about two years ago.  My Bat Mitzvah was coming up and my family and I were getting really into the whole Hebrew thing.  Now, the holiest thing about my Friday nights would probably be the bread from the pizza my friends and I leave hanging around in the living room as we watch The Notebook for the seven-thousandth time. 

 

Commandment # 5: Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long.

 

I am a teenager. 

 

That should be self-explanatory.  Teenagers rarely get along with their parents. Why? Because we’re dealing with the whole “I hate you…but can you drive me to the movies?” type of relationship.  However, I do have it better than most.  I’m friends with my mom.  She’s sort of like my nerdy best friend.  When she looks fat in those pants, I tell her.  When I’m acting like a class-A bitch, she tells me.  When she starts singing to Rod Stewart, using a fork as her microphone while at the same time showing off her nonexistent dance skills, I let her.  Sometimes, I even join her. But that’s what friends are for, right?

 

 I’m nonetheless a horrible kid.  I never clean my room, I never pick up after myself. The most common response my mom might get out of me after she yells at me to set the table would be a “Yeah, m’kay…in a sec…” My role in this house is pretty much that of a lazy blob who wastes oxygen by spending her days instant messaging her friends and eating everyone else’s fruit gushers.

 

Commandment # 6: Thou shalt not kill.

 

Before I confess anything, I just want you all to know that it was an accident.  I didn’t mean for it to happen.  And I really don’t want the police getting involved.  So just keep it on the down-low, alright? Thanks.

 

It happened last year.  I was in camp, sleeping.  And then the three of them just started bombarding me and yelling in my ear.  They started circling around me.  And all I wanted was for them to just go away.  They didn’t though.  Even after all my cries of frustration, they continued to circle around me, taunting me.  So, I quite accidentally sprayed them with a deadly gas. Honestly, I don’t know how it happened. One minute they were yelling in my ear, the next they were one the floor, gasping for air.  And I swear I don’t remember how I crushed their mangled remains with my hiking boot.  It all happened so fast, really. 

 

Seriously though, I wouldn’t intentionally hurt a fly…

 

Commandment # 7: Thou shalt not commit adultery.

 

In second grade, I married The Rugrats.  I dedicated my heart and soul into that show, memorizing practically every episode and quoting them constantly. Sometimes, I would even voluntarily lock myself in a playpen just for the thrill of trying to escape out of it. 

 

Then, Deedee spawned Dill Pickles, and the show died.

 

But the thing is, it didn’t physically die.  It just lost its initial spark.  The show actually continued on for a few more years, haunting Nickelodeon, telling everyone that "I'm not dead! I'm alive! Look! I have Kimi!"  But no matter how loud the Rugrats’s cries for understanding echoed through the channels, everyone was thoroughly convinced that the show was dead.  “C’mon, just because the grandpa’s voice magically changed overnight doesn’t mean you don't still love him!” the show would cry.  “What was that?” its former viewers would say, “Eh, probably just the wind…”

 

Needless to say, I felt too guilty to file for divorce of my slightly dead companion.  Instead, I just stopped watching it altogether without any legal document to entirely sever our relationship. I pretty much left the show for dead. Trying to muffle my guilty conscience, I changed the channel to Boy Meets World.  And I never turned back.

 

Commandment # 8: Thou shalt not steal.

 

I stole a bagel once.  I ate the evidence.

 

Commandment # 9: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

 

Luckily, I have not yet been arrested.  However, I did just ‘bear false witness’ to you.  See, I lied before.  About commandment number six.  I didn’t kill three flies.  I killed four.  And two mosquitoes.  It was all very coincidental.  The machete wasn’t mine, though. I swear.

Commandment # 10: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

The first thing I thought after reading this commandment was something along the lines of “Hahahahaha. The holy man said ‘ass’!  He said ass! I’m going to covet someone’s ass! Hahahaha.”  After that, I didn’t think much.  In fact, all I did was realize that my existence was entirely pointless and proceeded to watch the rest of Family Guy. 

 

 

 

So there you have it.  The confessions of one of the worst Jews ever. Although, I did leave out a few of my faults.  For one, I never fast on Yom Kippur.  And being that today is the sixth day of Passover, I’ve already consumed enough yeast to start my own private bakery.  And during the Seder this year, I found the afikomen.  And that’s only because I cheated.

 

But hell doesn’t look so bad. I mean, there’s heating...

There is only one thing worse than waking up to the conventionally horrible musicial stylings of some R&B/ rapping boy-band that nickname eachother after their physical sizes. (i.e: Heavy D, Puff Daddy, Pudgee Tha Phat Bastard, Fat Joe, Fat Pat and the late Big Punisher). 

And that would be waking up to a bunch of illiterate contractors blasting the horrible musical stylings of some R&B/rapping boy-band while slicing the nearest bathroom away with a chainsaw. 

Thrashhhh. Booooom. Crackkk.  Yeah, uh dat gangsta shit! Crackk. Thrasshhh. Booom. "Yo Joey wouldja passs me them sledgehammas? And maybe anotha hoagie?"  Screechhh. Git a ride in mah Cadillac, babay. Crunchh.

But really, guys.  A mere "Good Morning" would suffice. 

We both walk out of the stalls at the same time. And I, being the socially challenged idiot that I am, look over at her.  This allows me to walk in her direction and end up stealing the sink she was heading to.  “Sorry,” I say as she nods and walks over the other sink and washes her hands.  Moments later, she reaches over for a paper towel, coincidentally at the same exact time I do.  She totally steals the paper towel I had planned on using.  “Sorry,” she says as I take a different one and head over to the mirror.  She heads over to the mirror.  And, in all honestly, there are few things harder than trying to completely disregard the reflection of another person in such a small mirror.  Try as I might, there is just no way to fix my hair or see if there is anything unwanted in my teeth without totally breaking the whole unwritten law of girlhood that would be titled something along the lines of  “I Don’t Give Two Beans About What I Look Like…My Lips Are Just Glossy Because I Kiss Transparent Glue in My Free time…Swear”.  Not to mention, I would be covering up her reflection, which is definitely unacceptable.  Therefore, I just sort of wait by the mirror and pretend I’m getting something out of my bag.  What I’m really doing, though, is wishing she would leave so that I could see if the aspiring zit on my face finally decided to surface and conquer my nose.  Ten seconds...twenty seconds.  By thirty seconds, I know for a fact that she is waiting for me to leave, too.  At forty-five seconds, she lets go of her bag and looks into the mirror, clearly going for the gold. Her fingers are moving toward the humungous pimple on her forehead.  She wouldn’t, I think as the pimple is set between her two pointer fingers.  She wouldn’t dare.  But before I become entirely traumatized, I quickly seize my bag and head toward the door, defeated.  I look over at her once more, only to see a faint, triumphant smile etched into her face.  The door hits me on the way out.  “Bitch,” I think as I head back to class, “She stole my paper towel and my mirror time.”

 

Why do girls travel in packs every time they take a trip to the bathroom?  To avoid situations like that.

 

For girls, bathrooms have hardly ever been just about actually ‘going to the bathroom.’ Sometimes, they are going to the restroom.  Or the toilet.  Or the potty.  Or the powder room.  The worst though, by far, is the ‘lavatory’. Sounding way too much like ‘laboratory’, this word makes going to the bathroom sound like it involves a microscope and latex gloves. Try saying it one day.   “I’m taking a trip to the lavatory.” Your science teacher will adopt you.

 

However, no matter which word is said, the overall term is so misused nowadays that sometimes I even get confused with its various meanings.

 

“Can I go to the bathroom?” a girl in my class might ask the teacher.  And as that teacher lets her go, I can’t help want to ask that girl…what are you really doing?

 

And although I do not possess the knowledge and logic that could determine an answer to such a question, I do, on the other hand, know the story of the evolution of the purpose of my bathroom visits.  If you are up for it and have a sick amount of time on your hands, read on.  If you have a social life, I would suggest exing out of this site right now.

 

“I Just Have a Small Bladder” and Other Insidious Lies

 

First Grade: There are three negative things to be said about the bathroom of my second year in elementary school.  For one, we were not allowed to ask our teacher if we could go.  “No,” she said to us on the first day of school, “Instead, you must wave one finger in the air if you have to tinkle.  And make a peace sign if you have to well...do number two.”  Because we were naïve, stupid, and unaware of the fact that this was both unhealthily cruel and completely unnecessary, my classmates and I accepted this rule and followed it accordingly.  However, no one ever did the peace sign.  It was a cardinal rule.  If you had to do number two, well then by golly you held up number one anyway.  Mainly for the preservation of your dignity.

 

The other wrong of our girls’ bathroom in first grade was that it was nonexistent.  Nope.  Our class, boys and girls, shared one bathroom which was located in the classroom, with one toilet, one sink, and one massive poster of Monty the Mushroom that hung directly across from the toilet, smiling sinisterly at us as we tried to do our business and not make eye contact with it at the exact same time.  Honestly, what type of drugs was Mrs. Bergman on? It’s just a known fact. Nobody likes to look at happy mushrooms while they’re taking a shit. 

 

Unless you like the idea of obtaining a persistent eye twitch.

 

But out of all the issues that bathroom and everything related to that bathroom possessed, there was only one that truly managed to screw up the remainder of my school year and perception of restrooms as a whole: There was no lock.

 

This fault meant practically nothing to me up until May of that year.  Our class had just came back from a long, tiresome Field Day and was now retiring on bean bag chairs, listening to Mrs. Bergman read from the extremely abridged version of ‘Great Expectations’.  Eventually, I raised my pointer finger and she allowed me to go.

 

So there I was, sitting on the toilet, staring everywhere but at the fungus, and wondering when we would be getting our ice pops when…..ssqqueakk.  The door opened wide.  I screamed as the entire class turned around, only to find me in utter shock, pants at my ankles, on the toilet.  There was an eruption of laughter as I began to cry, the opener of the door firing useless apologies at me as he abruptly slammed the door.  Leaving me alone to sob and ponder how many wrongs one has to go through in life to be trapped in a small room with no pants on while in the presence of a giant mushroom. 

 

Third Grade:  After the Pantsless Incident of 1996, bathrooms were used to come in contact with the dead.  The ghost of Bloody Mary, to be more specific.

 

I think this all started after a friend of mine came into school one day with a nasty scratch on her neck.  “Howdja get that?” we asked her.  Frowning grimly, she sat us down, telling us “It was her.  I said her name three times in the dark and then all of the sudden this freaky dead lady came out from my mirror and scratched me.  I almost died.  Honestly...that’s how it happened.”

 

Minutes later, all five of my friends and I were crammed in the handicapped bathroom stall, lights turned off, eyes glued perplexedly to the small mirror that hung above the sink.  Bloody Mary.  Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. 

 

Actually, by the second Bloody Mary we were halfway down the hallway screaming our legging-clad butts off. Sure, none of us had actually seen any rotting dead lady pop out of the mirror, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t say we did.

 

Thanks to us, our entire grade transformed into a ghost buster cult.  People began to ‘hear voices in gym class’ and noticed that the mystery meat at lunch looked somewhat ‘possessed’.  Paper cuts were symbols of an upcoming death and no one ever played tetherball after they saw the ball swinging on its own.  However, the best part was that mirrors were just about completely abandoned. Which basically resulted in a 45% higher probability of leaving the bathroom stall with a large strip of toilet paper inconspicuously tucked into your pants. 

 

“No, you aren’t a raving psychopath.” Our concerned parents would say as they drove along, now double-taking as they passed the local insane asylum and wondering what size we would be in straight jackets.

 

It was not until one of our daily meetings in the handicapped bathroom stall that we finally uncovered the truth. 

 

Bloody Mary Bloody Mary Bloody Mary.  We had mastered the art of saying her name three times without wetting our pants.  But, as usual, nothing happened. 

 

“But that cut…” we had said to help us believe that there was in fact some lady that would willingly jump out from a quarter-inch thick layer of glass and a penetrate one of her jagged nails into our necks.

 

After a brief pause, our friend with the healed wound on her neck spoke, blushing. 

 

“Oh that?” She turned her back to us and quickly made her way towards the door.  And just before she ran away, she muttered quietly. 

 

“My cat did that.  He doesn’t like it when I feed him Meow Mix.”

 

Seventh Grade:  Considering the fact that I spent the beginning of that year at a new school, and then I moved to New Jersey at around Christmastime and started another one, bathroom stalls were exceedingly helpful: they were where I ate my lunch. 

Now:  SALLY IS A WHORE SLUT    JRS <3’s AEL<3<3

nice girl    PEENISS!!                                ^BITCH

 

 

I know what you’re thinking.  But you’re wrong. The above text is not a written-out spell performed by a cult of schizophrenic Satan worshippers.  It’s actually an accurate imitation of the graffiti that is carved and written on the insides of doors in the girls’ bathrooms.  Some look at this and cry.  Especially girls named Sally.  Others, namely me, look at this and smile.  Thanking god we are not named Sally and that we have the privilege of seeing the greater, classier side of Short Hills girls expressed through contemporary works of art.

 

I’m only being slightly sarcastic. 

 

However, because of a series of carefully mastered drawings located on the first bathroom stall in the art wing, I now know the penis size of about five people.  Including girls, if that is even possible.

 

Really, guys.  Thanks.  If it weren’t for your profane graffiti, I would be so much more unaware of obscene amount of transsexuals that inhabit our school. 

 

 

 

Bathrooms, as you may have realized, are not just toilets with sinks and tile.  If walls could talk, the walls of every restroom that exists would immediately scream for a highly respected psychologist to soothe their aching heads and clear their minds of every pimple popping situation they had ever witnessed. 

 

However, when it comes to witnessing a pimple popping, I’d say everyone within earshot of the incident can be considered a tormented victim.

It's just about my favorite time of year.  The weather is perfect.  The day stretches out till seven thirty in the evening.  People are being loose about life, caring less about work and more about enjoying themselves.  I even played tag yesterday.  I played for about thirty minutes and creamed every single kid that took part in the game.  I don't know.  Maybe that's because the kids playing were about three feet tall and said things like "My toof! My toof fell out!"

The overall symptom I obtain as a result of the spring fever would probably be that I develop this incredible way of annoying large numbers of people. 

For one, I smile way too much.  If you saw me in the halls at any other point in the year, I'd probably be walking really fast, accidentally knocking people over with my unforgivingly huge bag and looking like I just witnessed the mass murder of a handful of innocent bunnies.  But now?  It's like the pollen in the air decided "You know what?  Today we won't stuff ourselves up Daryl's nose and make her die of a fatal allergy attack.  Today we'll pull the corners of her mouth up so that she looks like she's experiencing perpetuating happiness.  Hooray.  Hooray."

Another thing about spring, for me, anyway, is that everything becomes personified.  Maybe it’s from the sunlight. Maybe the longer days.  All I know is that the flower over there is no longer just a flower….it is a flower with feelings.  Same with that blade of grass and that lamppost.  Honestly.  Any minute now I’m going to run outside, start whistling some Disney song, and instantly be surrounded by a bunch of sparkly woodland creatures pleading me to read them a mother goose nursery rhyme.  Then, I’ll change my name to Henrietta, shave off my eyebrows and re-draw them on the middle of my forehead, and talk to squirrels for the rest of my sick, sad, lonely life.

Kidding, but I guess that could happen if I took a variety of illegal drugs.

I honestly can’t point out exactly why I am so happy around springtime.  Probably because it is so close to summer.  And although I love the idea of experiencing two and a half whole months dedicated entirely to joy, it also bothers me in a way. 

The thing about happiness is that many people tend to blame it on something else.  I’m happy because you’re happy.  I’m happy because the weather is terrific today.  I’m happy because I just went to the Eagles concert.  And just like people do it for happiness, they do it for other emotions as well.  That goddamned test ruined my day.  That stupid teacher embarrassed me.  You are pissing me off. 

But for some reason, it is much less common to hear something like “Oh me?  I’m just plain happy.”

And this may sound slightly cheesy, but what people don’t realize, or just don’t acknowledge, is that they are in control of their own emotions.  They are the ones that determine whether they are happy, sad, angry, embarrassed.  Yes, that’s right. Not the weather.  Not the Eagles concert.  Not that test.  If you are currently happier than you’ve ever been in your entire life, well guess whose fault that is?  Yours.  But I guess when you are a teenager it is much more difficult to grasp and gain control.

In my old neighborhood, I used to go for a run a few times a week.  And as I jogged along, I began to notice a pattern in the buildings I passed.  Shop Rite.  Rita’s Water Ice.  Gas station.  Dunkin’ Donuts.  Starbucks. Deli. Dunkin’ Donuts.  Farmers’ Market.  Furniture Store. Dunkin’ Donuts.  My initial reaction was something along the lines of “Wow, there must be a lot of policemen living in this town.”  Then, just a few minutes ago, I decided to link it to something a teeny bit deeper.

You see, Dunkin’ Donuts and happiness have more in common than one may suspect.  Yeah, sure.  The doughnuts pretty much rule.  As well as the beverages.  And, of course, the pimply anti-social high school dropouts that tend to work there.  But what really rules about Dunkin’ Donuts is its location. 

 

If you haven’t noticed yet, Dunkin’ Donuts is well on its way to achieving world domination.

 

And that, my friends, is how the two relate.  Just like Dunkin’ Donuts, happiness is everywhere.  Whether it is screaming to be visited or hiding inconspicuously behind the local grocery store, it is always somewhere. Just waiting patiently for you to finally realize it’s been around the entire time.  All you have to do is take matters into your own hands and recognize that your emotions belong to you.  And that is when you will be fully capable of not blaming the cause of your joy on some external force, but choosing to be happy on your own.  Because happiness has been there all along.  You might as well stop by and treat yourself.

 

Just don’t get carried away.  If you dedicate your entire life to being happy, the only thing you will really get out of it is the desperate need for liposuction.  Happiness is important.  But it is just as important to experience negative feelings as well.  Like asparagus.

 

P.S: This entry may sound slightly familiar to all Fernwood campers, so for that I apologize.  Also, I would like to recognize Katie Welling for being an amazing, compassionate person, one that we will are miss deeply. 

“Thanks for trying Xanga Premium!”

 

 

 

….It wasn’t me.  I swear.  I just logged on the other day and there it was.  You would think I would be pretty happy about this, pretty appreciative.  But in all honesty, I was just freaked out.  When the message came up, I let out this gasp, turned my head, and saw my mom smirking over in the corner.  As if saying  “Mwaahahaha, I just gave you the gift of premium.  Mwaahahah.” 

 

So now I have the ‘enhanced’ xanga experience.  Which really is nothing special.  The only special thing about it, really, is that I now feel like a pure-blooded hypocrite.  I make fun of the Premiumers, and now look at me.  I have my own custom-effing-module. 

 

But I guess I’m not entirely a hypocrite, since this was all my mom’s doing. 

 

Anyway, this past weekend I went on a brief trip down memory lane.  The family and I drove to Pennsylvania for an old friend's bat mitzvah and to visit one of my camp friends.  And after driving past a few childhood landmarks over there, a few sad memories over there, a few happy ones over down that way, I decided to compile yet another list for this month’s set of entries:

 

Pennsylvania: The Good, The Bad, And The Hairy

 

1. Rita’s Water Ice:  For the record, Water Ice is just a cooler way of saying Italian Ice. And I spent about one hour every day in the August of my first summer living in New Jersey dedicated to finding out where I could find some. 

                     

“Hey, do you know where I could find some water-ice around here?”

          

 “Water ice?  Ehm, no.  But we got ice water…”

 

Eventually, I realized that once you pass the Pennsylvania border, the term ‘water ice’ is pretty much nonexistent. No, no.  New Jersey has Italian ice. And no, no.  New Jersey’s Italian ice does not come from Rita’s.  Ralph’s, man.  Ralph’s. 

 

It was just too much for me.  Reluctantly, I decided that being the Pennsylvania snob that I was, I would no longer spend every waking summer hour mourning over the loss of my favorite icy refreshment.  I had to move on whether I liked it or not. 

 

So I sold my soul to Starbucks frappucinos.

 

However, it wasn’t until October of last year that I tried New Jersey’s Italian Ice.  And maybe it’s because I grew up eating the stuff every summer day for about twelve years.   Maybe it’s because on the first day of spring, everything in there is free.  Maybe it’s because the words “Chocolate gelati, medium” have long been engraved into my dialogue.  Or maybe it’s because that’s where my dad used to take my sister and me every time he visited us prior to the divorce.  Whatever it was, I must say.  Rita’s beats Ralph’s by a mile.

 

2.   The Philly Phanatic:  Everyone can name a certain nightmarish figure that caused a series of sleepless nights during their childhood. Whether it was a slimy monster like the Boogie Man or a ghoulish one like the Grim reaper, monsters have been angrily shadowing themselves over happy dreams for as long as anyone can remember. For me, there was always just one menacing creature that managed to cause me to shiver in my sleep, to hug my teddy bear.  To question the presence of happiness in the world and live my life in intolerable fear.  He looked something like this:

 

          

 

Don't be fooled by his friendly wave and welcoming eyes. Deep down he is a ferocious beast. That circular mouth is used to suck the soul out of anyone that seizes to satisfy his desires and needs. That massive green lump he is sitting on is in fact his ass, made up entirely of the talent he sucked out of the Phillie teammates long before they made it into the big leagues. He's only waving because he wants to eat you.

               

              The Philly Phanatic has been accused of the following:

 

        

Exhibit A: Rape

 

 

 

Exhibit B: Soul Sucking

 

 

         Exhibit C: Identity Theft

                     "I swear I didn't spend fifty thousand dollars on automobile repair and  hide a huge stash of marijuana in my closet. That damn green thing stole my social security  number!"

               

One time, The Philly Phanatic tried to get me. He put his arm around me and all my parents did was whip out their camera and take pictures. Probably to send to the police so they'd know how I died. Eventually, he let me go.  Probably realizing that I wasn’t even big enough to satisfy him as a snack.  He moved onto the fourth graders.

 

A sick creature, that Phanatic. A sick, menacing being.

               

3. Montgomery Mall:  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  "You live in Short Hills? I LOVE YOUR MALL." Yeah, yeah. Every Short Hills/Millburn inhabitant has heard it all. The Mall at Short Hills is sanctuary for anyone who has a loaded credit card, a love for name brands, and a zest for shopping.  The con?

               

              No food court.

               

At Montgomery Mall, everyone hung out at the food court.  No one shopped.  The reason for this was not because the food court was fantastic, but because the greatest stores in that mall consisted of Limited Too and Talbot’s. 

 

Needless to say, the court was jam-packed with people.  Of all kinds. 

 

The favorite of spectacles was the weekly Goth convention that dwelled in the back of the court, next to Master Wok’s.  All of them wore black.  All of them had black hair.  And every last one of them had enough acne and grease on their faces to help produce McDonald’s fries for a year. 

 

I just remember watching them in awe as they examined each other’s purchases from Hot Topic and threw food at one another, laughing and referring to Satan every so often. Sometimes they even picked their noses and flicked the boogers at oblivious passerby.  Other times they just ate their findings.  At first I contemplated videotaping them and then sending the footage to the Discovery Channel for their latest documentary on cave dwellers.  After awhile, I just decided to never, ever become a teenager.

 

You don’t get scenes like that in The Mall at Short Hills.  You just don’t. 

 

 

There are many other things I could address about my old home, like Q102 and cheese steaks and Mardi Gras in South street.  I could probably go on for the next week or so.  But for your convenience, I'll end the list here.  Pennsylvania was and is currently an awesome place.  Phanatics and all. 

 

But, hey.  New Jersey's cool, too.  Despite the stereotypes, not that many people use hairspray.  This place even has an o-zone layer.

              

So there I was.  Looking out the window and typing up this new xanga entry about staring contests at the exact same time.  Some say that when I look away from the computer while I type, I’m merely showing off.  I’m just telling all the world that lookee here, I’m a computer-savvy nutcase.  And I want everyone to know it.  I want everyone to know that I’m so tech-smart, I can type and marvel at nature simultaneously. 

Yes, because that is such a wonderful thing to brag about. 

 

Give me a medal; I’ve spent three fourths of my life in front of a screen.

 

No.  I often look past the screen while I type to get new ideas.  And yes, marvel.  But only at the vast difference between the images on the computer and the real, living, breathing ones that exist just beyond that glass panel that separates me from the outside world. 

 

So there I was.  Looking out the window and typing up that new entry, marveling.  Thinking about how crappy the weather has been recently.  Not the actual weather, but the moody swings it’s been going through.  One day the sun's out, its light beaming on rooftops and dancing on cars.  And then twenty four hours later the man upstairs just sort of decided, you know what?  Fuck New Jersey.  And pissed all over the place. 

 

Honestly, if weather had a menstrual cycle, it would be ‘that time of the month’ Every. Freaking. Day.

 

Which led me into wondering about, you know, god.  I was still looking out that window, and the sky just looked so angry.  And it made me wonder if it was some intricate mathematical equation on the density of pollution that caused the sky to look like that, or was it something a little more sentimental? Like some greater force.  Some superior being.  Something that had a certain amount of control.  Something to have faith in. 

 

I’ve always wondered about god and religion and whatnot.  I was raised thinking that Judaism was merely three wasted hours a week dedicated entirely to decoding some mutated version of the alphabet and learning about Abraham Lincoln.  Who, to my knowledge, managed to be the first Jewish prophet and the sixteenth president of the United States in the same lifetime. 

 

Then, I got older and found it quite hard to get by without believing in something or someone.  Awkwardly, I’d stagger through each day, having nothing to keep me stable, having no support for my beliefs.  Because I really had nothing to believe in, honestly. 

 

And so there I was, looking out the window, thinking about god.  And then, just then, something fell from the sky. 

 

It’s a bird! I thought.  No, wait!  It’s a plane!  No, no.  That’s not it.

 

I stepped away from the computer and squinted out the window.

 

Ah, yes.  A bird.  A dead bird.

 

So I guess you could say that as of this afternoon, I’ve finally found something to believe in: technology.  And its ability to kill everything.

 

 

 

Speaking of technology, today marks my one year anniversary on this weblog. 

 

Hi dar89! It's been 365 days since you joined Xanga... won't you support us by going Premium?

 

Pretty cool, huh?  One whole year since I started this thing and what has changed? Mmm, let me think a second.  Oh, yes.  Nothing.

 

But that doesn’t mean I’m not grateful for this blog.  I look forward to writing in here.  It’s one of the highlights of my week.  Really, it is.  Well, sometimes.  Depending on how many comments I think I’ll get.  Or how many people I confuse. To be honest.

 

But that doesn’t mean this website doesn’t thoroughly piss me off.  I get the same message from this thing every day.  Hey, Dar89! You know, like the website is my best friend or something.  Like if the website were a person, it would totally slap me five in the hallway. That’s probably what happens.  They say Hi fRiEndLeSs_tEeNagR52! And then shizAM. Friendless teenager thinks he has a friend. 

I’ve met people like Xanga.  They always want something.  Always want a piece of you, those kids.  Don’t let ‘em have it.  My suggestion?  Kick them in the groin.  Or if it’s an inanimate object, stick it in the microwave for three minutes with an entire bowl of marshmallows and three forks.  Don’t ask why.  Just do it. 

 

I guess I probably sound incredibly grandmother-like when I say that technology kills, but you know…it truly is eating away at our brains.  I’ve lived so much of my life staring at pixels.  At little boxes of color making up these two-dimensional images that do nothing but sit there.  They don’t even stare back at you. Just lay there lifelessly, pointlessly, flat. And yes, okay.  Maybe I did just finish reading Fahrenheit 451, but that is beside the point.  I encountered this issue even before I read that book.  And as I sit here, ipod at my side, the television blazing American Idol in the living room, typing away, I can proudly say that technology has no significant impact on my life.  It means nothing to me.  Seriously. 

 

Joke. 

 

But, god.  Those jets up in the sky.  They’re killing the birds.