5/3/09

I totally can’t believe what happened today. It was so like a dream day. Let me start at the beginning. Went to church, as usual, then wanted to go to the mall with Sophie and see….whatever….and Mom being Mom didn’t want me going anywhere. She has this thing about us doing stuff as a family on Sundays (meaning doing nothing…together), but she comes home and takes a nap every Sunday afternoon for like two hours, besides which Matt had to work at Sub City this afternoon, so I pointed out both facts as nicely as possible, so she wouldn’t think I was being a smart mouth. I don’t TRY to be a smart mouth, it just comes out that way sometimes. I control it the best I can. Well, after grilled cheese sandwiches she must have decided I was right (no way! yes, way!) and said I could go, but be home by 6. Yes Mom, thank-you Mom, you’re the BEST MOM! Oh, and can I have ten bucks?

Sophie and I took the bus over to the mall, got an ice cream cone at B-R (why does Sophie insist on getting butter pecan? That’s the flavor great-aunt Mabel gets….it even has old-fashioned in the name). Well, we were sitting on a bench in front of the theater eating our cones and trying to decide what to see, when who do you think walked up? I’ll tell you, Grayson Riley Weber, that’s who, with Jon “Barky-Bark” Barker (long story that I’ll repeat if I ever get that autobiography deal). I nearly dropped my double-scoop Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup in Sophie’s lap! My mouth dropped open, but I noticed and shut it real quick.

Gray: Hey! (the cutest smile with a little dimple in his left cheek)
Barky -Bark: Hey. (looks bored)
Sophie: Hey. (glances at me to make sure I’m not hyperventilating or something)
Me: Hey. (can’t feel my mouth)
Gray: You guys going to a movie? (I love the way his sandy hair is all curly on his neck)
Sophie: Yeah…you?
Gray: Yeah. What are you guys gonna’ see? (his eyes are so green, like…um, like that rich moss on a rock in the woods…it doesn’t sound that pretty, but it is!)
Sophie: (again glancing at me) We hadn’t decided yet. How about you guys?
Gray: We hadn’t decided either. We can’t make a choice between horror and comedy. Jon, what do you say?
Barky-Bark: I don’t care. Whatever.
Gray: See? We’re having trouble. There’s not that much out right now anyway. How about you, Carly? What do you want to see? (and he’s so…ack!)
Me: (a little squeaky…I haven’t actually been listening, just trying not to stare or drool too obviously) Hmmm? Who me? Uh…um…I don’t know. I was thinking that new Sandra Bullock one maybe. I like her.
Gray: That one sounds okay to me. How about you, Jon? You want to join them?
Barky-Bark: Sure, whatever. (still looking bored…as usual)
Sophie: Great! A decision at last. We’ve got some time till the next showing, so we’re just going to finish these cones, okay? (I look down and mine’s beginning to drip onto my hand…I quickly lick around the edges to stop the flow)
Gray: That’s fine. (plants himself on the ledge next to the bench…right next to where I’m sitting) What flavor is that? (looking at me with those mossy eyes)
Me: Reese’s. (tongue feels a little thick)
Gray: Oh yeah? That’s my favorite! (he is soooooooooo cute!)
Me: Oh, mine too. (WOW!) Would you like some? Actually, I was about to toss the rest. (true…I’m not about to keep licking in front of him)
Gray: Thanks, but that’s okay. (cutest smile…did I mention that?)

We all got our tickets and walked into the theater, then I pointed to the restroom and said I needed to make a quick stop to wash my hands, nudging Sophie at the same time. She agreed. As soon as we were in the Ladies Room, Sophie grabbed me by both arms.

Sophie: Can you believe it? Gray showing up and wanting to go to the movie with you!
Me: Us…he wants to hang out with us.
Sophie: Come on! He’s totally into you. He even asked what movie you wanted to see.
Me: That’s just because nobody else was making a choice.
Sophie: No, that’s because he wanted to see a movie that you want to see. Don’t be dense.
Me: I don’t see it. Whatever, just don’t leave me. Make sure you sit next to me, okay? I don’t want him to think I’m trying to set something up. (washing our hands)
Sophie: Fine, but I think you’re missing a great opportunity here.

When we went back out, the two guys were standing in the concessions line. We joined them, and when we got up to the counter, Gray turned to us.

Gray: If I get a large popcorn, will you guys eat some? We’d get a free refill. (so sweet)
Sophie: Sure, thanks!
Me: (nodding…I’m a lively one alright)
Gray: Great!

So we all bought our own drinks and Gray got a big ole’ tub of popcorn with lots of butter. I grabbed a whole bunch of napkins…I didn’t want greasy fingers, NOT that I was planning on anybody touching them or anything! We went in and found the row we wanted and I headed in first. Sophie followed me, then Gray and Barky. I stopped in the middle and sat down, and Sophie climbed past me and sat on my left. I glared at her, but she just grinned back.

Sophie: (whispering) I’m sitting next to you, just like you asked.
Me: (frowning and whispering) That’s not what I meant.
Sophie: (still that cheesy grin) I know. Just go with it.

We passed the tub back and forth, sharing the popcorn among us, and (as always) I was carful about touching. Not that I didn’t want to touch Gray’s hand “accidentally,” but with me an accidental touch can be very unpleasant and disappointing. I didn’t want to ruin the happy moment of being with him. But, I was so nervous sitting right next to him, knowing that he chose to be here with me (us), that I slipped up. I was determined not to look over at him too much (although we did glance at each other during some of the funny parts, laughing). So I reached into the tub without paying attention just once, right when he was reaching in too. Our hands brushed and I jerked mine back.

Me: (whispering) Sorry.
Gray: (whispering) No problem. Go ahead.
Me: That’s okay. I’m full. (not about to risk that again)

 Thank goodness I got nothing. Not a single thought. Either the touch was too light or too short, or I was too nervous to get anything. Whatever. I’ll take small favors. Anyway, after the movie (which I barely remember…I was just so nervous…I’ll have to rent it sometime!) we went our separate ways. Of course, Sophie and I rehashed the whole thing all the way home on the bus, and I still feel like I’m floating. Gray Weber wanted to be around ME! BEST DAY EVERRRRRRRRR!

I don’t want you to think that my blog is going to be ONLY blog story and silly comments. I plan to write thoughts here too, to share a part of me. It’s just that recent events in my life have been so traumatic and debilitating that I can’t put any thoughts down (at least none that I would want the public to read). I do have the occasional rant when I feel strongly about something, but my feelings go much deeper than that at the moment, so deep that I CAN express them, but really prefer not to. Just know that I plan to actually BE HERE soon…..count on it. For now, just enjoy my lighter moments!

Overheard bits of conversations that I find amusing…

“If I have to smell another fish, I will seriously die.”

 5/2

Saturday. Best day of the week. A day for doing all kinds of stuff……or nothing. I love Saturday. Sophie slept over last night and is still asleep, so I thought I would get this out of the way now so we can do something (or nothing) when she wakes up. Last night we Facebooked and Tweeted for hours and painted each other’s nails and toes. Good times.

 It’s sooooooooooo nice to have a best friend that I can be around without worrying about whether I can touch her or not. I wish I could tell her that. She KNOWS that I love her like my own sister. She knows that she’s my BFF. And she would probably be so hurt if she knew I was keeping this huge secret from her… she doesn’t try to keep many secrets from me. Of course, she can’t anyway, but still. That’s one of the things I love best about her. With Sophie Jenner, WYSIWYG…..totally. What comes out of her mouth is exactly what’s going on in her head, without much filtering. I should know. This gets her into trouble at times, because she hasn’t learned to censor herself very good yet (but she’s like a million times better than she was in first grade). Anyway, maybe it would be okay to tell her…I sure want to, every day. I mean, she hasn’t breathed a word to anybody about my crush on Gray Weber. It’s probably obvious anyway, but I know she hasn’t told. I can trust her with most things. But with something this big, I’m just not sure. I really don’t trust anybody with my secret except my parents…and Matt, I suppose. I’ll ask Headcase about it on Tuesday. We’ll see what kind of advice she gives….or if she’s the kind that won’t give advice, just keep asking questions, like the ones on TV.

 But really, what can she tell me that I don’t already know? How can she help me? I know I said I would give her a chance, and we’ve only met once, but I just don’t see the point. I know, I know, keep an open mind…I hear you, Mom-in-my-head. What is is about my parents’ genes that produced a freak like me anyway? Maybe they dropped me on my head as a baby and are just afraid to tell me! Maybe I was bit by a radioactive spider and no one knew. Maybe I’m from Krypton and my parents found me in a wrecked spaceship in a field. Well, I KNOW I’m not Supergirl or Spidergirl. I’m not a super anything, just a stupid skinny short girl with a stupid “gift. Well, reading people’s minds is a big ole’ pain in the you-know-what, if you ask me. You can totally have it, I DON’T WANT IT! I’d give it back in a minute, if it meant I would be just a normal, totally clueless teenager, like all my friends. They REALLY don’t know how great they’ve got it. Yeah, they SAY they’d like to know what so-and-so is thinking, or whether that cute guy likes me, but they’re so lucky they don’t know. Knowing what other people are thinking is usually boring, rarely fun, often disappointing or irritating, occasionally really hurtful, and the worst of times totally disgusting or even horror-movie scary.

 This is why I don’t touch people much, ESPECIALLY strangers. Sophie thinks I’m a little bit of a germaphobe, which is just fine. Let her think that for now. I googled it…there are a bunch of phobias about germs, dirt, and being touched. Pick one. Maybe I do have a phobia about touching people. But it’s not irrational, it is TOTALLY rational. If you touch a hot stove enough times and get burned with the scars to prove it, you get skittish about touching any stove, in case it just looks like it’s cool. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I think I’ll pick a career where I have to wear gloves…like a dishwasher, or a BUTLER! They wear gloves, right? I think I’ll make a list of reasonable excuses to wear gloves.

 I guess I should be grateful for small favors….I mean, it could be so much worse, like in some books and movies. Twilight, where Edward reads everybody’s thoughts all the time (actually, I would agree with Sophie that he’s the perfect boyfriend if it wasn’t for that —- so I’m TEAM JACOB!) That movie with the old guy…um, Bruce something….Unbreakable. All he had to do was brush up against people in a crowd and hear their thoughts. ICK! I would go completely postal. The TV show Medium…Allison is constantly dreaming gory junk in murders (her poor husband never gets a full night’s sleep)…oh yeah, AND talks to dead people, just like the kid in Sixth Sense. I’m soooooooooo glad I don’t see dead people (as if)! The girl in the book who gets struck by lightning, then finds missing people (then the government shows up and totally ruins her life…my WORST nightmare). Wow, people sure like to write about this stuff. I wonder how many others out there are like me. A million? A thousand? A hundred? One? Yeah, I feel completely alien and alone sometimes.

 Sophie is starting to move around and groan…wakey-wakey, princess. Oh, I know! We could have a Harry Potter marathon this afternoon. Maybe Mom will let me ask Kelly and Sammie to come over too! WAKE UP, SOPH!!!

Overheard bits of conversations that I find amusing…

“You’re funniest when you talk to yourself”

All the dishes rattle in the cupboards when the elephants arrive…

It’s time to introduce you to two of my regular “features”…Song Lyric of the Day and Comments Out of Context. Song Lyric of the Day is fairly obvious, I guess. I post a single line from a song I have heard, or is running through my head on a loop (driving me insane), one of my favorites, or one I detest. It will be up to you to figure out the song title and artist….or not. Music is a large part of my life, and the world would be a much more boring (and quiet!) place without it!

The other, Comments Out of Context (COOC), came to me one time when I overheard a stranger in the grocery store say something that cracked me up. I have always found it amusing to hear comments in passing, wondering what in the world they’re talking about! So frequently I will post these little gems that I overhear accidentally (mostly). I’ll admit some of them come from my own family…they don’t mind….I think. Anyway, enjoy!

  5/01 

Yay! One more month of school, then I’m officially a high school freshman! That is, if I don’t blow it and flunk something. Stop it, you’re doing fine in everything. You even have a solid C in science…. blech. You’ve never failed a class in your life, you’re not going to start that until junior year senior year college. Yeah, yeah, I hear me…hehe.

 Sophie says that high school will be a whole new start for us. I don’t see how it will be any different. We’ll still be the same two losers we’ve been since kindergarten (Sophie doesn’t believe she’s a loser, but she does hang around with me, a complete spaz, which means she totally is). All the same people, all the same cliques. It’s not like we’re going to suddenly become gorgeous blonds and grow boobs over the summer. Weeeeelllllll, that IS what happened to Kelly Gartner last summer…she got the boobs, her mom let her put streaks in her hair, AND she got her braces off…wow, what a difference when we all came back to school last fall. The guys were drooling all over themselves. It was pathetic. I was totally jealous. She didn’t change personalities though, and I thought she would…you know, like they do on the TV shows…she used to be your friend, then she got pretty. The populars asked her to join them after that, but she stuck with the rest of us band geeks all year, lowering our level of general geekiness by several points. If only I could get some boobs this summer…and different hair…a tan, no freckles…and a couple of inches wouldn’t hurt either…….oh, and while I’m living in a fantasy world, how about a different brain!

I just wish (for like, the zillionth time) that I could be normal. Headcase says that I have to think of it as a gift, not a curse. Yeah well, she’s not the one with this particular “gift”, is she? She is so clueless. Of course, when I opened my big mouth and told her that, she said, “Well, clue me in. Tell me what it’s like.” Wow, that would take about 50 sessions. She’d be reaaaaaaally old by then…she’s already pretty old, at least 35 or 40. I guarantee she hasn’t helped anybody like me before…what makes her think she can? I’m like, from another planet or something. Then she said to write about it. I don’t know…that would take forever. Tell my life story? Okay, I am only 13 and ¾, so it wouldn’t take forever. I’m just not sure I want to talk about it. But that’s what we’re here for, right? I’m supposed to write what I’m feeling, write anything I want. Well, I just don’t feel like it right now, okay? Maybe later…..

Right now, I’m happy to be here, at the computer, alone in my room, nobody hassling me…..crud, Mom just called me to come set the table for dinner [sigh]. Coming, Mom……………..

Dear Diary, Dear Journal, 04/30

My name is Carly Boone. I am 13 years, 8 months, and 6 days old. This is my journal. It is private. If you are reading this right now, please stop (that means YOU, Mom). I mean it. I don’t want anyone reading my thoughts and feelings without permission. Some day, when I become famous for something…who knows what…I might use it for part of my autobiography. But for now, I’m only writing it because my new therapist, Ms. Headcase (JK – not really! I just thought I would use a fake name…makes her more mysterious), told me it would be a good way to sort out my “feelings”. Ick. And I’m only going to a therapist because my parents are making me. I’m not crazy, okay? I don’t have to take any anti-psychotics or anti-anything else, like some of the kids I know. I just have a lot of stuff going on right now that I have trouble dealing with sometimes. Okay, not just right now, all my life, but middle school is hard and supposedly high school (looming a few months away, gasp) will be even harder. They want me to have a safe place to go and talk about my “feelings”. Whatevs.

Headcase said that I don’t have to show this to anyone, not even her, but that I can share it if I want. I don’t want. I don’t even know her. I don’t trust her. I know there’s this doctor/patient code or something, where she can’t talk about me to anybody, not even my parents, without my permission, but it still makes me nervous to think about her knowing all my secrets. The truth is, I do need someplace I can go to talk about stuff, because I just don’t want to lay it all on my parents…they have enough to deal with already. And some stuff I can’t even tell my best friend, Sophie. Try to talk to my stupid older brother? Not likely. Talking to the cat is a complete waste of time…she thinks she’s too good to listen to my pathetic problems. Tripp just wants me to “Throw the ball! Throw the ball!” [drool, pant, chase the tail-less butt] So where does that leave me? Talking to a complete stranger about stuff she might not even believe, even though my parents have already told her all about me.

So I’m going to try to cooperate. I guess, what have I got to lose, right? Who knows, maybe it will help me to keep stuff sorted. At this point, I have to try something…it really is too hard to keep it bottled up inside my all the time. I feel like I will bust open like that fat watermelon I accidentally dropped on the driveway last week…splaaaaaaaaat! Ewwwwww, guts and seeds and juice and rind going every which way, splattering the car and my legs. Actually, it did make a really cool pattern on the concrete…I just stood there staring at it, thinking that I felt just like that sometimes. Of course, then Mom spoiled the moment by making her tut-tut noise and what a waste of 5 bucks. She wasn’t really mad, but she did make me pick up the pieces and hose off the driveway. Fair enough.

I don’t know how to do this, though. Headcase just said to write about whatever comes into my head, it doesn’t have to be interesting or even make sense, just do it every day. Of course, she wanted me to hand write it, but like, NO WAY! Not when I have a perfectly good PC sitting in my room. And just so we’re clear, it never leaves this room. Not like “Princes Diaries,” where Mia is sitting in the bathroom writing in her journal at the BIG DANCE…yeah, right. Or that other story, where the girl writes in her journal on menus and napkins and stupid stuff like that. Yeah, and I learned a valuable lesson watching “Starter Wife” (which Mom doesn’t know I watch…another reason to keep this private), where she takes her journal to a party to show a publisher or something, and it gets stolen and all the dirt on everyone in Hollywood is published on the internet, then everybody in town hates her!!!! Okay, so I have nothing worth publishing on the internet…well, not much anyway…but still, the lesson is there. DON’T take your journal out places where it could get read by snoopy people! And I put a password on this and named it “English Assignment #5”, just so nobody gets too curious. 

I guess that’s all the thoughts I have for today. Oh, I have plenty to say, but since I’m going to be writing CONSTANTLY in this thing, I’ll save the juicy stuff for another day…you know, all the stuff about my overprotective parents, boys, my paranoid brother, boys, trying to make it through the end of middle school with my best friend Sophie (and boys)…oh, and being a psychic freak…junk like that.

Here I am, I have returned! I’m so happy to be back…I have missed being here, and I will try keep up with it better than I did when it lapsed. I sank into a deep funk, a pit of despair and hopelessness, depressed for almost a year, existing and functioning on the most basic level. But I’ve been working through it, and can see light on the other side (thank you, friends and family for helping me and not giving up on me). Praise the Lord! You can tell that the site is bare bones, but I will strive to return it to its former glory…hehe. I plan to bring back a few of my “old” regular  tricks…uh, segments…my serial story, “I Know What You’re Thinking”, Song Lyric of the Day, and Comments Out of Context (or COOC). I hope you enjoy them. Since it’s a new “old” beginning for me, I will post the very first installment of “I Know What You’re Thinking” today. I hope you’ll find time to join me here at my “home” once in a while. You’re always welcome!