Your attention please...

This is excluding the photography project next friday, senior project, genetics presentation, senior edition...BLAAAAHH. I am going to do what is really important now.

Play cards!

School, the fifth element, Tacoma, picnic, driving, scary parks, sleep, book, woody allen, laura, beth's, badness, party, car ride, cards, sleep, mother's day, emily, bauhaus, michael, seattle center, book, food, coffee.

My mom is in portland, I have my grandma's car until tomorrow night. It's my size, but I'm beginning to dislike it regardless.

I'm just glad I don't have too many actual friends that still go to Ballard. And if I forgot anyone, they're going to have to forgive me.

I need to read a lot more this summer. Last year I whittled away a lot of time doing absolutely nothing. I do enjoy reading, I don't know why I fell out of the habit.

I had my AP literature test which I did fine on but treated me like shit. I'm exhausted now and still need to take some more film and try to finish my book for American Government. I've also decided that I'm fucked over for that test. I'm pretty sure, anyway. Sigh. Oh well.

I have this condition, you see? I leave my house in my prom shoes thinking I will be home at a somewhat reasonable hour. At about 9:00 pm or so. With Adam, a guy I would drive into the woods with and feel safe, knowing I probably wouldn't die. We go get andreas & scott, and take them to see memento.

We drive. We park. I am tall, becuase of the shoes. They get mad at my self-depreciation in high heels. Or, high hells.

We get to the theatre. See phoebe. She gives me free dr. pepper. I don't share. I don't want to risk giving mono.

We watch the film. Some enjoy.

I have this condition, see, of thinking I'll be home at a reasonable hour.

Scott wants to go home, we take him, listen to music.

Adam and Andreas begin to act like old married couple (I think it's cute, neither agree with me). We drive to Bauhaus. Bar is closed. I cry, and go to the bathroom. My feet hurt.

I call Tyler, we plan to meet at Dick's. We drive to dicks, get some food. Tyler complains about high people not getting caught.

I have this condition.

We go to the Pearl. It's extra theatre-like. I disregard, play cards with Adam. Adam beats me. We get kicked out, at 2:00 bar time. Tyler goes home, Andreas decides to depart.

I have this condition. Adam gets gas, and candy. We drive. We decide a remote denny's is an excellent extra-hours event. One that deserves bonus points.

I grimace at Adam's cd collection. My feet hurt.

We drive east, then north, then southwest. Somehow we end up northeast.

We find ourselves deciding between duvall, fall city, monroe, and granite falls. We chose granite falls.

I have a condition. It's rare, but it's chronic. And unhealthy.

We watch the night. It's gorgeous. The clouds fog the road, sleep on fields, hide between trees. The full moon glows over misty puffs.

We're on a back route road. It's the Mountain Highway Loop. We know we are going Northeast. We think we might end up in canada.

We switch drivers. I take off my shoes.

I drive, at relatively slow speeds, through foreign twisty steeper-climbing roads. We notice the mountains getting shorter, us getting taller.

I have this condition.

We talk. About all kinds of thing. Frontwards backwards social things, prom as my excuse to get everyone back for everything. My jaguar.

Adam gets scared. I do too. Adam jokingly says, "Red Rum! Red Rum!" We both agree it's not funny, but it's too late.

There is a stop sign. And no intersection. We notice what could be habitation. Murderer-cabin-esque habitation. I keep driving, quickly. I skid on gravel and almost run over a mouse.

We become more frightened.

The gravel qucikly becomes pavement again. We try to get over the fear by talking shmack. Unsuccessful. The only thing that breaks the dread and unsaid knowledge of certain death on the Mountain Highway Loop is daylight.

I have this condition, where I leave my house and don't tell my parents where I'm going.

The road keeps going, until suddenly it becomes dirt. There is a turn-around point. I take that opportunity to grudgingly turn around.

We still have not found a Denny's.

The sun rises on our return, we watch the mountains sparkle in the morning light. We watch the moon set over the river parallel to us. I curse Adam for not having Nick Drake. We listen to PJ Harvey.

We find our way back to Marysville. It's 5AM. We take the freeway back to seattle.

We get more gas. My dad calls.

I have this condition.

We drive to adam's house, call the father.

I hope father doesn't read this, or I'm dead.

We don't get more cds. This is a mistake.

We go to the Ballard Denny's. It is our ultimate destination.

We eat breakfast, play cards. "Normal" people interested in breakfast enter the establishment.

We sit in shock. Play more cards. Get tired. Drink coffee. Drink more coffee.

Go back to Adam's house to get cds, go to carceek. Go to Mr. Spots.

The Legion meal itself was much better though, (we're talking white chocolate mousse), and it was exciting to see so many people I knew there. I knew people from Forrest Ridge, O'Dea, Nathan Hale, Roosevelt, Garfeild, and Franklin. It was nice to see people I knew from middle school or JSA succeeding. Yay, happy happy. And I went with Anna to buy her prom dress beforehand, that was fun too.

Today I slept late cos I felt like shit, and showed up for the genetics lab, that we didn't have. I was pissed. I would have just slept. But I worked on my speech and chilled with Mango for a bit at Mr. Spots (oh, and Tyler & Anna too), and we drove the del sol around with the top down.

This was the first big event that was a "last of" event. Seniors, you know what I mean. This was the first time it really hit me that I will not be around next year. In the PNW, there are so many great people I've met and known that I will probably never see again. I wish I could say that we will all keep in touch but it's not true. I sat there at closing session thinking of every person in that organization that in some way changed my life forever. I couldn't believe how important so many of these had become to me in just a year. I mean, where would I be if not for Sumona's giggling and hugs that seem to last forever, Michael's liberal wit and need for cannabis in the early hours of the day, Dave's insanity, genius, and ideals, Chris' hard work, Lloyd's cooking, Laura's faithfulness, Sonia's kindness and gratefulness, everyone's proof of their ability of a leader in that organization. Where will I be without my chapter? Anna, Nikki, Matt (little Andreas), Keegan, Laura D., everyone that spent so much time on something they may not have found as important, people that brought me new ideas every day and showed me so much in this year alone.

Then there are the jokes I'll never forget-- "you can sit next to me, Emily", Nicole's gum, Britney Spears, our secret retreat, the BHS plot to see Dave in a suit, Anne & Laura's numerous other plots, the saran wrap, running out of gas in nowhereville, Washington. There was the badness of fall state, the excitement of winning my first Best Speaker award, the Backstreet Boys (who still should have won), the make overs, the embarrassing pictures, Chris being on a mountain somewhere at dawn, the flirting, the dancing, the mocking of O'Dea and the love I gained for so many of the chapters.

I didn't cry until closing session. But when I watched the swearing in of all my friends and co-workers from this year and finally understood that THEY are taking the state next year and I won't be there to help them, I couldn't help it. When Dave delivered his thank yous and admitted to the state that he may not have gotten anything done were it not for me, how could I not? Hearing Ashley burst into tears while telling Sumona she is the nicest person she's ever met and that no one will be able to fulfill the expectations left from her was completely devastating.

I received an award for Outstanding Achievement in Leadership in the Junior State. It was truly wonderful to feel as appreciated as I was.

I said my goodbyes and thank you's, but not to nearly enough people. There was no way I could have in the time we were allotted after the convention. There is no way I could honestly express my gratitude to so many of the people in JSA, I just wouldn't be able to find the words. There is so much to be thankful for this organization of dorks, just like me. I'm so glad I could find them, I never would have made it through senior year without it.

During this time I started to really think about leaving. I mean, of course I've said I wanted to go, I wanted out of the hell we call high school, I want out of my traumatic life, I want a new start. To an extent, it's true. To an extent, it's the most tragic thing I've done in my life. I've gained so many friends and have spent so much time with the people here that I don't know what exactly I will do without each and every one of them when I am some 3,000 miles away next year. Every friend I have right now is one that I dearly love and am incredibly attached too. I don't know how exactly I am going to survive this fall.

For a bonus, we drove by Mr. Spots on the way home, and I just thought about all the thing that have happened there that have, maybe not changed by life but certainly enhanced it and made be find the silver lining in just about everything.

I just can't believe how much has happened to me in the last year. It's all gone so fast, it feels like a huge blur. I am shocked at how very soon I will be saying final goodbye's again, regardless of whether or not I talk to someone that lives here every day once I move. It will not be the same, regardless of the phone bills or emails, or cumulative channel hours. There may not be someone in Boston to hold my hand and tell me it's all going to be ok.

So, I went out with scott on monday night to mr. spots and was a music geek. Last night, adam took me to Kinko's and I read him from Hamlet at Bauhaus until Tk suprised us by walking up and saying "Michael couldn't find your house." To Adam.

A slightly unexpected event brought the likes of Emily, Liz, Michael, and Arlo to join us in the now smoke free section of Bauhaus. I had to go home, but do to some unforseen events did not arrive until 11:45pm last night.

Today I went to school (ya. school.) and got fucked over. I have a paper due tuesday (although I'm assuming it will get moved due to the strike), and we learned about our impending Author Project, which we have to finish in two weeks. The AP tests are in the next two weeks too.

After school, I had to go to the surgery office and make sure I was ok, which was a difficulty because our car had broken this morning.

Then we drove (in a rental) back to the shop to get the car, so I drove to Mr. Spots and worked on my research paper. I made the old-new barista's day by tempting her with B-52 (soon the world will know), and I actually worked a lot on my research paper. While I was there, they played some tight music too.

I've been working on my paper for the last 7 hours or more, so I think I've done as much as I'm interested in doing tonight. I didn't even loiter too much on the internet. well, you know what I mean.

I also sat online doing practically nothing.

I was carless and didn't feel a ton like going out, so it was all good. But I'm about to fucking rip the sound card out of my computer and use it for practice in my newly-built sound card guillotine...

Around 4, I went out with Adam and we wound up driving to Snoqualmie Pass. Realizing, once we were a bit past Snoqualmie, that we hadn't seen any signs for Snoqualmie Falls (our pseudo-destination), we realized we had gotten on the wrong road. Oops.

We got back a little earlier than we thought we would, and still had time to burn before I would be requested by the girls I had accidentally double-booked. So we drove around Seattle for a bit longer after that.

I went home and called Emily and Heidi, who had both called me, and both said they would be happy to make it a girls night out. And yes, we had a Girls Night Out. It still astounds me how fascinating and mysterious this idea is to the male population of America at least. I don't know about Girl Talk in other parts of the world. I should do some research into that.

We went to the Pearl, which is self-described as a "Coffe House Theater" on its business card. So the three of us did our little chit chat and stayed out til 1:30 or so. It still astounds me how similar Emily and I are. We describe our emotions in mainly unintelligable sounds. And we understand them. Heidi kinda looked at us funny.

Then I came home and I couldn't sleep. So I had a nice conversation about Contact, which I finished last week. Then finally I began to feel tired and went to bed.

I am feeling so much better, I can't believe it. And today I get to take off my little bandages. I'm excited. A week ago I thought I would never walk right again. Modern medicine, I love you!