The other day when I was at work I was thinking back to the little balding man I used to picture every time I told a lie. He would hold a sign over my head, or over the offender's head. The sign would be bright, and neon, flashing the words "BLATANT LIE".

The little balding man has since been fired, due to technology upgrades. The BLATANT LIE sign has not gone away, though. No, the sign is still there; it pops up and flashes in more neon glory than ever before, as it now has a long lasting and rechargable lithium-ion battery. My sign is bright neon red, and you can hear it buzz if you listen closely.

Others' signs are nearly inaudible, if not completely so. Though I heard one last night, when the answer to a question I figured would be reciprocated with another question was merely "no," followed by a goodbye. That's a blatant lie if ever there was one.

The sign doesn't bother to use up much battery power for the times I say "good" to questions like "how are you today?"

If only this sign were real. It would be so much easier to read people.

Political debates, and politics all together, suck.

So yesterday was definitely not as bad as I thought it would be. Granted, attempting to clean my room and do laundry (I only got one of three loads done) was really boring, but I didn't do much of it.

My mom didn't want me to go to Penn, so I ended up going to Katie's and meeting Tom's friends Teddy and Sam. They were really cool, and I had a really good time there, so all is well.

On the other hand, Fred attacked me to my away msg about a link to an article in my profile. That was not cool.

Sooo this is shaping up to be a fairly crappy weekend.

My mom had surgery yesterday and she's just not feeling good.

I stayed home last night to help her, cause she really needed me. It was awful to see her in pain. Parents should never be in pain. What a dumb comment, but it's true.

Today I'll probably clean my room and do laundry, if I ever get around to it.

I want to go to Penn tonight but my mom wants me to stay. So it'll be another fun night around this boring place. Maybe I'll do something, but Penn would be better. But obviously I'm not gonna go if my mom needs me here, cause if I'm only 15 min away I can drive home, but if I'm at Penn I might not be able to get home if she needs me.

Wow, I can't stand my grandmother. What a fucking bitch. My grandparents were out this morning so I was using the computer on their phone line. They came home, she storms in the house, picks up her phone line, and yells "GET OFF MY TELEPHONE!" No one is calling you in the morning. And fine, I'm switching it so that you always go online on your phone, cause for the past couple months it's been on my mom's phone line.

Then she yells up and asks me to come downstairs to tell me that my great uncle (who is an asshole, for reasons I'm not explaining now), and a know-it-all, told my grandmother that if you use avant browser (the browser I'm on right now) that you're more susceptible to getting some virus. She asks me not to use it. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna keep using this browser because it's the best one. You don't generally just get a virus w/o knowing it. And if we get one, I know people who are really good w/ computers and can get rid of it. I say that to her and walk out of the room, and she says "so if we get a virus what are we supposed to do w/ a know-it-all like that." I said "I can still hear you" and she said "I don't mind that you heard me."

FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't stand them, I can't wait for them to move. Really, I just want to be back at school where everything is so much better.

Why I won't see Fahrenheit 9/11.

Today I cracked my neck and as a result it hurts to turn my head or bend it in any way to the left.

I realized that much of my life is based around food. It's pretty much all I thought about today. How I need to eat less of it, how I need to eat more healthy foods (I read about "14 magic foods" that are really healthy to eat so I've been making an effort to eat them), how I need to lose weight and stop eating junkfood.

Not only that, but many memories of mine revolve around food.

Exhibit A: There is a woman, who I think passed away recently, named Debbie. She was a friend of my grandmother's. All I remember about her is how, when I was younger, she would take me to her house and give me hot chocolate and american cheese. I thought she was awesome.

Exhibit B: My grandparents are friends with other people, we'll call them the W's, and I remember visiting their house in CT once. They had a pool with a wooden deck, and I got a splinter. I remember them giving me some kind of gummy bears to make me feel better...and it definitely worked.

Exhibit C: Mr. W's name is Syril. I used to call him "Uncle Cereal."

* * * * *

People look really innocent when they're sleeping. It's like when you're asleep everything you've done, good or bad, goes away and you just become what you were when you were born: a thing that needs to eat and sleep to survive.

I noticed that when I was on the train watching someone sleep.

Still kinda cranky.

I hate feeling like I have to grovel (for forgiveness). It's one thing if it's a joke, but when it's serious...I mean, come on.

* * * * *

Just got up from my nap...it was really nice, and I feel a lot better.

Time for my shower...

Some things never change.

* * * * *

I had a good day today. Until I got home. That is not how it should be. I love getting grouched at by my grandparents as soon as I sit down to the dinner table.

Fuck this, I'm gonna try to take a nap.

Say "boo to you,
Poo poo to you"
And that's what you should say!

If the phone rings during dinner, my grandmother will answer it and sit down at the table and have a conversation with whoever called. She won't tell them she's in the middle of dinner and that her whole family has to sit there in silence while she talks. Instead, she talks even louder than normal. I can't stand it, especially because I know if I did the same thing I would get yelled at. I can't stand hypocrites.

With that aside I had a fun weekend. I spent Friday and Saturday nights at Penn. Friday there was a party, thrown by Breton, at the runners' house and it was pretty awesome. The next night was a lot more laid back...hung out with a bunch of the guys and watched them play poker (I wasn't about to put in $5 b/c I knew I'd lose). It was still fun, though. I miss school so much and I realllllly miss all my friends!!

My mom and I are most likely going away a week later than we thought for reasons I'm not discussing here, which means that I might try to spend the weekend at Penn again.

Other than that there's not much to report. Today went by quickly, which is good. I didn't get enough sleep last night, and as a result it was impossible to get up this morning.

Wow, my life is so interesting...

My grandparents got home from Newport tonight while my mom and I were in the middle of dinner.

All I can do is give their return a resounding "UGHHHHH."

I love them and all, but they are impossible to live with. My grandmother talks nonstop till you wanna tear your hair out or rip your ears off or pay her to shut up.

My grandfather is the great inspector. He must observe everything and not only that, he must know why everything is the way it is. If something has changed, he must know why. Frequently he assumes I did something, and most often he is wrong.

I was in my room a couple minutes ago and I heard him walk into the study (where the computer that I'm on now is). I knew he had come in for the sole purpose of inspecting WHY ON EARTH the computer could possibly be on if I'm not in the room (he has decided this is absolutely intolerable). Plus there were two lights on in the room, so naturally he'd have to grouch about it.

Anyway, back to my room now that he's gone.

I finished listening to Rent today as I did more boring, mindless work.

I can't wait for the weekend. Assuming everything works out, I'll get to pretend I am still at school for a night, and hopefully do something fun the other night.

Thank God hump day is over...this week has been long enough already.

Plus the UPS guy has a crush on me.

I have nothing interesting to say. Seriously.

Today was so boring. so boring i am losing my brain cells and the ability to capitalize worfdes or puncutate them or use the delete key for when i spelled words wrong.

iugh. ughhhhhh.

i had a fun weekend, though. eddie had a pool party on saturday, and i went over there after going to the orthodontist. the receptionist there didn't recognize me cause i guess i look a lot older or different or something. shes moving to florida and i am jealous as hell. my orthodontist said what i hoped he'd say: i don't need my wisdom teeth pulled now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That warrents punctuation.

After Eddie's we went to Ryan's for a little and then I came home.

I think right now I am the fattest I've been since 8th grade. It's really awful and really disgraceful and I am embarrassed like woah by my love handles. If you ever read Goosebumps (was that R.L Stein?), maybe you remember the one where the hampster ate some green goo and grew to be a monster. My love handles seem to have found that same goo and somehow they have absorbed it and are now spilling out all over the place. It's vomitous.

Is it-- yes, I think it is -- time to bring back the good ol'

blub blub blub.

I found this watch I really like..it's for guys, but this is the kind of thing I love, w/ all the little dials. I mainly just wanted to have the link somewhere.

WOOO HOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! It's the weekenddd!!!!!! YESSS!!!!

Work is boring.

I had to drink hot chocolate and coffee (EWWWWW!!! Even after adding a pound of sugar it still wasn't very good) to stay awake today. I'm so happy it's the weekend.

Tonight I saw Saved! I really liked it.

I also got hit on by some weird guy who was like...30 years older than me. He pulled up next to me & rolled down his window. I figured he was gonna tell me there was something wrong with my car or ask me for directions, but instead he asked me if I wanted to go get a drink. I said no thanks. It was pretty creepy.

So I started work on Monday.

It's boring, but I'm trying to be positive about it.

However, it's hard to be positive when my third day there they decide to take up my lunch hour with some boring "lunch n learn" thing where they talk about litigation for an hour.

I'd rather shoot myself in the foot.

I want to write again. I want to write and redraft and refine until I have something that could be deemed "art" in word form.

I decided to re-read my autobiography, the four chapters of it that I wrote, from my senior year of high school. I just started reading, and it really makes me want to write. I'm so proud of it, and I want to do something I can be proud of again.

Maybe that's what I'll do this summer. Write another chapter of my ever-growing autobiography. I could do it while I'm on the train to and from work every day.

I guess that's what this blog is, in a way. My very own autobiography. If you compiled all the entires of my collective blogs and put them in date order, there you'd have it: four, sometimes very detailed, years of my life.

Anyway, back to reading about myself...

I feel the need to repeat myself. And to make a sweeping, but what I feel is accurate, generalization.

Deep down, we all want the same thing.

I guess some people are more needy than others, or needy in different ways.

But we all (or almost all) want the same thing. We want someone who understands us. Someone to listen, someone we can listen to. Someone to help us and someone we can help in return. Equality. We want to be able to share ourselves, to completely open up without being judged or looked down on. We want sympathy, empathy and care. We want to connect. We want to be able to bitch and moan if we've had a bad day. We want people we can cry to without worry that we'll scare them off.

I guess it's just hard to judge who will be scared off and who won't, who's ready and who's not, so we protect ourselves by rarely opening up. [Enter cliches about building walls/shells that need to be broken down for us to have truly deep connections with others].

Where am I going with this?

If I knew, maybe I wouldn't be rambling on like I am.

I guess I just think it's funny, or interesting, or strange, how differently people go about trying to achieve the same goal.

Well, I'm back from Orlando. My mom and I went to Universal Studios. We left last Monday and got back today.

I think you can measure what a good time you had by how depressed you are to go back...and I am severely depressed to be back here. It was beautiful and hot and sunny there, while it's cold, cloudy and icky here. Plus my throat is starting to hurt, so I'll probably be sick soon. :-/

Enough complaining, though.

Highlights of the trip:

The water rides at Islands of Adventure (river rapids, Universal Studios' equivalent to splash mountain, and the Jurassic Park River Adventure were all awesome), Shrek at Universal Studios was pretty good.

Hanging out by the pool & floating around in the inner tube my mom bought.

Dance dance revolution in the arcade at City Walk.

Seeing Fred twice :-)

Going to the Wekeiwa Springs

Not having internet (never thought I'd say it)

Getting away from everything at home

Mostly beautiful weather.

All in all it was very fun, pretty relaxing, and I am so glad to have gone.

Now I'll have to look forward to Newport, which is only three weeks away.

Why do I have to try to look forward to it?

I start work tomorrow.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!