Cupcakes.

I haven't written in a while. I've been so busy and overwhelmed. But I finished semester one with okay grades (could be better, and they will be this semester.) I'm pissed right now. Apparently pretty much everyone at my school thinks I'm a bitch, and some of them are my "friends". I mean, okay, I know that I am a bitch! But I am practically never mean to people's faces. Do people just call me that because their self esteem is low and they want to bash on somebody? Thats what people tell me, but I think that it's true maybe that people don't want to be my friend because of that. It sucks. I mean, I am a lot nicer to new people and people I haven't been friends with for a long time this year than I ever have before and it sucks that it is just backfiring at me. And the people who say this stuff are people I don't even know. I guess that should make it bother me less, but it doesn't. Because if the people that I DON'T know are saying that, what are the people I DO know say about me? It's so frustrating. And having been called "lesbo" is just fucking annoying. Stop, okay? I'm not a lesbian. And I don't know what makes people use it in a negative way towards me. It's like people steer clear of me just because of things they've heard other people say. And these other people don't know me. I just don't know what to do about it.
And of course the fact that my friend overdosed on sleeping pills a couple nights ago isn't making my life any easier, or the fact that I found out she actually had a miscarriage. What the hell?! She is in the tenth grade. I don't know.
I'm just overwhelmed and not happy right now. I still know there are people who have it way worse than me. But would you rather have a place to live and be warm and have no friends (yes I have friends but it seems to be dwindling somewhat) or be homeless and have lots of good friends and people who liked you?

Last night we got back from Fife at 9:30 PM. We had been there since 7am. By the way, Fife is almost an hour from my house and my volleyball tournament went only okay. And my feet felt like STUMPS at the end. But whatever. We beat our rival team which was goood. Verr nice. I was SO tired today.
For my drama class we performed "Sideways Stories from Wayside School" and today was our first performance. We do it for elementary schoolers every day at 10:30 and then on Friday we'll do it at 7pm. It was pretty fun, but some of the sound effects were off. Dumb sound guy. Just kidding; he's really cool. Haha. Anyway, that was fun and I got to dress up as a cow at the end. Wayyyy cool.
My life is so intensely boring. Our winter ball is in a week or so. I'm not planning on going because 1) There's really no one who I want to take me. 2) I don't want to pay for a ticket because I don't see the appeal anyway of dressing up and looking nice to go to a dark place where no one will see your looking-nice-ness and you're going to get sweaty and have people grope you anyway.
So that's what I think, so I'm not going. I will get to stay in and probably have more fun than I would at the dance anyway. My school is sooo boring. There are no boys to like and I think the only reason that I am not dead from boredom is because I have all these things outside of school. Haha. And friends, obviously.
I just finished my new favorite/2nd favorite book ever. It's called Speak, and it's by Laurie Halse Anderson. I LOVED it and I'm really glad I picked it for my reading project because I completely devoured it and I know it inside and out so I will do GREAT on my oral report. Yay. Hm. I need some spice in my life so I actually have something to freaking write about on here.

OH! That other girl named Sasha on my volleyball team. She keeps this journal with her all the time. Okay that's not an interesting story. God. Later.

The other day I felt like crap. But I hadn't slept for a while and that was why. It was the sleeplessness and I thought my life was shitty. It is just little full and busy right now. So now I feel better. Yay.
Today I had a volleyball tournament an I am quite sure my feet are going to fall off completely. We didn't do that well. We won 3 out of 4 games. But I think we may have moved up a level, so that's good. I'm glad. My life is pretty boring right now. I play pigtails and a cow in the play at my school. I look tres sexy in the cow costume. I can't think of anything to write about even though lots of things have happened in the last couple days.
There is another girl named Sasha on my volleyball team who is very annoying. VERY annoying.
I am watching Good Will Hunting and am distracted so maybe I will try to write more later.

Married to Dane Cook, of course. :]

Tonight my camp counselor from summer came over and hung out with Danika and me. We watched Domestic Disturbance, did some pilates and started School of Rock. I pretty much could not stop watching Dane Cook videos all day. Tomorrow is my last day of freedom until school starts again! Poo.
My two favorite Dane Cooks were "My Son, Optimus Prime" and "Car Alarm." I also watched Hey There Delilah (my version) by some random guy on youtube. Hilarious. Today wasn't too eventful. I had volleyball practice from 10-1 . . . a Russian lesson from 1:30-3:30ish. It was actually pretty boring.
Last night I watched a bunch of yoyo-ing videos with my stepbrother . . . he's REALLY cool. He's obsessed with yoyo-ing. There's nothing else to say!

Tonight we went to go see Jersey Boys - the musical. I liked it a lot. (Okay, so I slept a little during the first half. But hey, I only got 4 hours of sleep last night!) It was really good. For those of you that don't know, it's about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons band. It's kindof depressing at the end but otherwise good.
I really need to finish my term paper for history. It's due on Tuesday and I have a total of 13 notes on it. No start on the actual paper, but 13 notes. Wow. I'm screwed. I have to get it in though or I fail the class and it is a permanent missing. So I guess it's better to make it crappy and turn it in rather than turn it in late, right? Okay.
When we got home I stayed up late with my stepbrother (again) and we watched Whose Line and a lot of yoyo-ing videos. There is a surprising amount of individuals who don't know what yoyo-ing is unless you put the dash there. I mean, honestly, people, come on! But now I can't sleep. My stepbrother put some kind of liquid nitrogen type stuff on his phone. So he's a pretty smart kid, as you can tell . . . I have volleyball practice starting in approximately 7 hours and 21 minutes. I should really get to sleep, but i guess I'm an insomniac. Maybe I will take a pill tomorrow, since school starts on Monday and I am consistently not able to fall asleep until 6 or so and waking up way after noon. I guess I'm a little happy to be going back to school though, to see my friends and such. But I can see them outside of school. I can do without the overload of homework.
I wonder if I can figure out how to make a video on this computer. Hm.
Apparently my whole family thinks I'm a total outcast or something at school. And that my 12 year old brother is more "popular" than I am. It's not true, but I'm not about to be like "I am too popular!" Haha. I need to put this away so I can at least try to get some sleep. Goodnight!

Today I got pretty annoyed with my mom. I guess you could say it's typical for us to get in small stupid fights. I've only ever said "I hate you" once to her face so if I was to say it, it would be a big deal, I guess. I often consider saying it just to shut her up when we have a fight, but today I actually got out the "I" part of it before I decided against it. I mean, whatever shortcomings my mom has and however much I disagree with her decisions I guess I just want her to be happy, right? I love her. Okay. That's all.

I bought this book called "The Writer's Block" the other day at Barnes & Noble. It is great! it is for (what else would it be for) when you have writer's block to stimulate your brain, or just to write in general. There are three kinds of exercises in there. They are spark words [just a word or two to get your mind flowing about something], little story starter type things ["According to the National Coffee Organization, there are more than 300,000 Americans who consume at least ten cups of coffee each day. Describe one of these people."] and there are little blurbs about different authors that tell you where they get their inspiration. Anyway, I was bored tonight and reading this book. One of the spark words I happened upon was 'custody'. My parents are divorced, so I thought it would be pretty easy to write a story about someone else like this. I wanted to write it in first person. I started writing and after about the second sentence I decided to make it my actual story. It's the first time I've written about it or actually said anything like this about it other than the blatant fact of it so . . . sorry. It's REALLY long.

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I was 7 years old. I couldn't figure out why my parents were doing this to me. Had I done something wrong, upset them? I was willing to do anything to turn back time and fix it, if I could change whatever it was that had made them come to this decision. Divorce. It was such an unknown concept that I had never even thought about. The day they told me, Mom and I were sitting at the dining room table, and Dad was pacing the room. Finally, Dad put his hand on my shoulder and said, "We've decided to get divorced." All I could do was put my head on the table and cry. I cried for hours like that. I didn't know what made them do this. It had to have been my fault. Would we all still live together? None of my friends had ever had divorced parents. After I stopped being sad, I was angry. I didn't feel like it was my fault anymore. No; they were ruining my life.
Only later would I remember the awful fights that came both before and after the divorce. Before, it was fights about silly things. "You bought her a two-piece swimsuit? I told her she couldn't have one until she was ten!" or "I can't believe you went to dinner with him without telling me. It's things like this that make me not trust you." During these fights, they would scream so loud that I would go up to my room, close the door, and hide my head under my pillow for hours. Upon realizing that I wasn't watching TV or on the main floor, one of my parents would come up and apologize and say it wouldn't happen again. But it always did.
The fights that came after the divorce were much quieter and much worse. They were custody fights. At the time, I hardly knew what the word meant. When I learned, I was shocked. Couldn't kids still live with both parents after a divorce? I didn't understand why not. The day I learned what custody was was also the day that I found out my mom was in the NAVY and that they were sending her to Whidbey Island, which was a 3-hour drive from where we lived. Now it was obvious who had custody, at least for now. I would be able to stay in the same school system, I wouldn't have to move. I was just happy to be able to stay in the same house with my dad. He had always been the more easygoing one. Only now do I know how this crushed my mom. None of the fights, nothing before the divorce had made her this sad. This was only the first year of four in her NAVY contract.
Mom told me that she had told the NAVY officials the situation, and that they had agreed not to send her anywhere too far away from home. The next year they sent her to Okinawa, Japan. I didn't know what to do with myself. The night that she left, I sat on the couch with her for so long, refusing to let go for anything. I couldn't bear to let her go without me. We wrote each other letters that night. She wouldn't open mine until she left Seattle, and I wasn't allowed to read hers until she got back. At 9 years old, I wasn't a very deep thinker. My letter ran along the lines of "I can't wait to see you. I'll miss you." and all obvious things you would say to anybody who was leaving for a year. My dad locked away her letter in his safe at work. I didn't read it until I was 12 and my mom was out of the NAVY. I cried when I read it for two reasons. The first was that I remembered everything from that night. How I had felt, how I had tried to hold her back as she was getting into the taxi. The second was for what she had said in the letter. It was wrinkled in places because she, too had been crying as she wrote it. All it had said was how she loved me so much and was going to miss me and couldn't wait for me to come visit her over Christmas. I felt so stupid then. My letter hadn't been at all meaningful in retrospect and hers seemed like a work of art. I'm not sure that I have ever even told her how much I appreciated that letter.
For the first month or so that she was gone, I was so sad. Then she started sending letters and packages every couple weeks, and I began to feel better. I got more of my third grade homework in on time. But I still wished she was home. By this time the divorce didn't make me hate my parents. It was more of a way of life that I had to get used to, whether I liked it or not. There wasn't a way to make everybody happy.
For Christmas, I flew to Japan with my great-grandmother. I loved being with my mom during that time. She introduced me to all her friends from the NAVY base, showed me around the city. This was where I was first introduced to merry-go-round sushi. We went to a zoo where the animals were allowed to roam around freely. It was mostly monkeys and birds and turtles. We went to the largest aquarium in the world, where they keep whale sharks. But soon enough I had to leave, and the same sad feelings came back all over again. Leaving her a second time was almost worse than leaving her the first. I didn't go back to visit her anymore during that year in Japan.
Her next two years were spent in Whidbey Island and one in Everett, Washington which is about 30 minutes from my dad's house. By this point I hated the NAVY. But she was closer to home, and I was glad.
When her NAVY service was over, she moved to Seattle. I thought this would be great, and it was for a while. But I hadn't lived with my mom for so long that I didn't really know her anymore and it was always a little bit awkward when we were together. I really only started getting to know her when i was 11-12 years old. Also, carting around my stuff from one house to another was really hard. I still can hardly stand it.
That was around the time she met Jeff. They are now married. At first I hated him. I was jealous that she spent so much time with him. I felt like I didn't know her any better than he did, and this was the most unfair thing in the world to me. That is still true. Shouldn't a girl know her mom better than her stepdad does? My mom was mad at me for not warming up to him right away. This didn't make me mad at my mom, it only made me hate Jeff more.
Now I'm getting more used to Jeff and his twins who are two years younger than me. I can't say I hate him. The word I would use is resent. I resent him for being rich and stingy at the same time. I resent him for being selfish. I resent him for knowing my mom just as well or better than I do. But most of all, I resent him for taking the place of my dad in my mom's life.

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So there's the divorce story portion of my life.