The Book Of Impossible Focus.

I need to write something.

I have been an aspiring writer since I was...geez, I don't even know when. Three? I'd run the length of the house, making up stories about my "invisible friends." I remember stealing characters from Aladdin (Jafar was my favorite). I also dictated the saga of the Titanic to my mother and then drew the pictures of the ship in its various stages of destruction. (I'm sure it was based heavily on the movie...can't remember if anything about the drawing scene was mentioned. Oh, that would've been horrendous. I still can't draw.) Then, from about fifth grade to eighth, I started an absolutely terrible miniseries called Through A Teacher's Eyes. It was about these young and pretty elementary school teachers who spent a great deal of their time in the teacher's lounge, occasionally having a realization that one of their students was their child from a failed marriage (the computer teacher), having memorials to commemorate the sinking of the--what else?--Titanic, showing old episodes of M*A*S*H to their class (the first grade teacher...I must ask: WTF?!?), and doing all of this other fun stuff.

If I ever find any of the aforementioned crap, it's bonfire fodder. (Except the book about the Titanic.)

Long story short, all of this bad writing and poor plot planning has made me what I am today. I got done with the horribleness early. Now I can focus on crisper dialogue, fine-tuned description, finding my "voice."

(On another note, my mother is watching some crime show on mute so she can read the close captioning. Hearing problems she has not.)

So. I need to seriously dedicate myself to writing something. I don't know what. All the plots are based too much on my own life. I've got some little scenes that I wrote out in the back of my history class this year...you could call them wish fullfillment, I guess--the future I want to have. But I found them a couple days ago, and they're not that bad. The only problem is that I had to limit them to a page in length so it looked like I was taking notes (very detailed notes on two pages, mind you), so they end abruptly.

I just keep fast-forwarding to the design of the book jacket and whatnot.

Okay. The end.

2009...expectations are lowering...

Hello hello!

I've spent the better part of the evening creeping around CraigsList, looking at the ridiculously spendy real estate in New York (TriBeCa especially) and San Francisco. It's charming, but it's also a wakeup call. Perhaps I shall not move to a classy minimalist apartment straight out of college. Unless $3,000 dollars per month falls from the sky.

Perhaps I'll marry a doctor when I'm 24. That could be handy.

Hello hello!

I just attempted to publish something and it deleted it. So.

I went to dinner with Matthew awhile ago (with Neal and Renae, who were along to torment him), and during the course of those events, this is what was said:

"When we're 25, we'll see each other across a bar...and we'll date..."

Yes. That's when our grand relationship will start. If I haven't found better than him by then, I will become a lesbian.

And, for 100% honesty? I. Don't. Like. Him. He doesn't give me butterflies. He does give me angry hornets that buzz in my chest which make me want to kill him.

June has Dane wrapped around her little finger. He would do anything for her, whereas Matthew left me to fend for myself in a strange city and didn't understand why I was angry at him when I got un-lost two hours later.

[If this doesn't publish, anger will happen.]

Wow.

So apparently some sort of curse is sweeping Hollywood. First Ed McMahon, then Farrah, then Michael, and now Billy Mays. The last one is personally ironic, because last night at about 2:00 A.M., I turned the channel rather quickly because I didn't feel like listening to a boisterous salesman promote....something. That boisterous salesman, of course, was Billy Mays. Now I feel bad.

I'm not sure if I've told you about my friend Renae, so now's a good a time as any. I actually know her through Neal. We all went to the same elementary school, but Renae and I never really meshed. (Okay, maybe in kindergarten. I thought she was pretty.) In middle school, I thought she didn't like me so I tried to avoid her. I remember flipping out on her once during some class because she was touching me. But this spring/summer, the three of us have done a ton of stuff together. Renae is fun, she's unique, she is never boring.

So the lesson is.... well, there kind of is no lesson. But who says there always has to be one?

Speaking of Production Control...

The phrase "best friend" has been used way too much in the past 24 hours. Once in a way that made me slightly sad (apparently close friends doesn't equal best friends if you're married), and one that made me slightly happy.

I'm outta here.

"Why in the world does she do this to herself?"

In one year, I will be off to my place of higher education. When I go, things need to change. If I get to be a junior in college and still am hopelessly single, I am going to do something rash. Like actually make a move.

And it's not like I've never been in love. I have. I am. It's just that the object of my affections has an object of his affections. Married affections.

At the risk of sounding like a typical teenager, I kind of hate my life. Even though I'm not, I feel like I'm totally alone.

God. If this was in ten years, it would be sensical. But it's not. So I'm just gonna shut up.

Superfabulous?

So, I'm having a bit of an issue. I always complain internally when I never get invited to go do things, and then when I do, my uber-cautious side hops in with concerns and whatnot. Like tonight. Some girls and I are gonna go to the lake (skinny-dipping was mentioned...) and I suddenly have all these reservations.

It's funny.....as I'm typing this, they're going away. Hmm. Probably because, as Nate recently pointed out, live life without inhibitions. Never turn opportunities down just because they're different.

Okay, apparently I just taught myself a lesson.

And no.....I am not skinny-dipping Sometimes a few inhibitions are a good thing.

...now this just has to pan out.

An Unspoken Rule That Is Now Spoken.

Okay. This is a [very pathetic] thing that has irked me for quite sometime. You cannot call yourself a band geek and have that be it. Especially if you have little to no musical talent. It's like me calling myself a math nerd because I'm in two classes of it (don't even ask why), yet suck majorly. You have to let yourself earn the title. So adding a Facebook bumper sticker stating "BAND GEEK AND PROUD" is bad for many reasons.

Reason One (as stated above):
You are not a band geek until you do something other than proclaim it and take your clarinet home every weekened to [not] practice.

Reason Two (as not stated above):
Calling yourself a band geek gives a negative stigma to those of us that are and don't blow about it.

Reason Three (as stated below):
Actions speak louder than words. So can it, shut off the computer/GameBoy, and learn how to play some eighth notes.

College: The Next Great ISSUE.

Here are my options that I have set up. They're purely self-imposed, so they are subject to change without warning.

• Stay close to home, thereby not bankrupting the family so I can get some worthless (again, no one's words but my own) musical theater degree. (I don't look like an actress. I need contacts. But that's a whole OTHER thing.)
• Go far away, enjoy the locale, and pay off loans for eighty bazillion years. (And bankrupt the family.)

Is it pathetic that I truly want someone who's madly in love with me to knock on my window, beckon me out, and we'll trek off to the great beyond to pursue our bohemian dreams (or at least mine---he can go be a lawyer or whatever his little heart desires)? He'll have to be educated in the ways of music. Seriously, that trait makes me swoon. If you can judge key and time signatures by hearing three seconds of a song because you have learned it, not because you are some musical freakzoid who puts no effort into anything (MATTHEW)....yes, I will fall deeply in infatuation.

So. If any of you know someone 17-25 (or older, I have no age limit) that, after your scanning of this piece of internet babble and critique of my persona, would enjoy me, lemme know. Let him know. I am very sweet under the tangy exterior.

So. [A needle pulling thread!]

There's this girl named Darina. And she absolutely hangs off of Nate. It's bad. It's not as bad as Anne, but it's still terrible. She lurks and talks and he doesn't know her. She's talked to him 3 times in her entire existence. What makes her think that---that---that----argh, never mind. It's a good thing that this was his last appearance at my school, because he's one inch away from being molested by his fans.