The Burdens of Being Upright

Aug 31, 2002

i'd die screaming

we cant sit here forever you know. it gets tiring. eventually someone will get up and walk away. i guess thats the thing about beginnings. its just really a countdown until the end. i cant take these single servings. every night i start all over again. icanttakethesefeelingsofnothingness. i cant accept that i have nothing to be upset about. life is great. how could it ever not be?

read my post for april 8, 2002. its the best thing i've ever written.

posted by sarah 2:17 AM

Aug 29, 2002

would you believe that the last time these skinned knees healed it no longer amazed me

i love this weather, when its cold enough for long sleeves. i love the rain. it revitalizes you. and everyone cant look at a puddle without the urge to jump in it. the smart ones follow through.

i was talking to my friend john yesterday in biology and we've come up with a theory. there are two types of teenagers, those that try to be older and those that hang on to their childhood. the ones trying to be older get into alcohol and cigarettes and sex and overreact at everything. the ones trying to be younger run around doing random acts of vandalism and acting like idiots. most people are a little bit of both. i'd like to hope i fall into the latter category.

my fingernails are dirty.

count me out and fairweather are playing at joe's movement emporium tomorrow. i want to go. count me out is amazing. fairweather... not so much. saturday vanderbilt and lent are playing at first baptist in laurel, everybody go! go go go!

everything is going good right now. i guess i'm happy. i miss my friends though. its going to be tough getting used to only seeing them on weekends.

posted by sarah 10:49 PM

Aug 28, 2002

dude, somebody coned me

here's to giving up and giving in and giving yourself a headache.

my locker is right next to the special ed room this year. fun. i think i like the majority of my classes this year. not the majority of people though. people are annoying, they should not be. i wish katie and angie went to bowie. then i'd be happy.

posted by sarah 11:33 PM

Aug 27, 2002

3,000 people happily ignoring everyone around them

we had a student code of conduct assembly today, which is usually just incredibly boring. but this time there was a little addition at the end. russell lusby's mother came in and gave a talk. for those of you who dont know; 3 years ago russell lusby, a freshman at Bowie at the time, was shot and killed at a friend's house. his friend's uncle was playing around with a gun which he thought to be unloaded and as a joke he pointed the gun at russell and pulled the trigger. russell died within a few minutes. now a few of his friends have started a campaign about teens and gun safety. they handed out pens that had the website for the campaign and said "in memory of russell lusby". in one of my classes i saw a kid casually twirling one of the pens in his hand. it made me realize how valuable life really is. how in any moment it could end. a freshman in high school could never have imagined that in just a few years students would be sitting in one of his classrooms, holding a pen in memorial of him. and it could happen to any of us. today you're alive but tomorrow you could be just a statistic. all that will be left of you is a name, maybe a few photographs, and other's memories. as they were reading off the numbers of people killed by gunfire every year, i tried to fathom it. thousands. thousands of kids who lost their lives. thousands of mothers and fathers who lost their child. thousands of kids who lost their best friend. its just... i cant even begin to explain.

posted by sarah 4:18 PM

Aug 26, 2002

1 down, 179 to go

so today was the first day of school. eric drove me in the big green love machine! (family van) i know i said that i was somewhat looking forward to school starting but boy was i wrong. as soon as i walk through the door i remember that i dont like half of these people. but anywho, i saw catherine in the hallway, we have no classes together :( i also saw chin, she is such a cool person. ok, my schedule is as follows:

1st period - algebra 2 trig: nicole, sarah, bryce, and bethany are in this class with me. the teacher seems to be very nice and not overly strict. i dunno, i kind of miss the people in my math class from last year. there's just no replacing chin, jeff, matt, and khannia. nice class, has air conditioning.

2nd period - world history: jason, sean, abhas, and julie are in this class. the teacher seems nice in a dorky sort of way. from what i hear he gives a lot of work though. broken air conditioner, unbelievably humid.

3rd period - basic sculpture: jason's in this class with me. the teacher seems kind of bland. it had an air conditioner but it wasnt on very high, mildly hot.

4th period - biology: erin jones and john are in this class. teacher is very boring, very strict, and very old. (lindsay's dad had him back in the 70s.) this will probably be my worst class. cant remember if it has ac.

LUNCH: i have 1st lunch. it's basically everyone that was in my lunch last year except for catherine, bryce, and amber (the only people i really talked to). patrick and cj are in my lunch, i love them! ashley's in my lunch too. we spent the whole lunch period waiting in line at the soda machines eventhough we werent buying sodas. we just didnt feel like going back into the hot cafeteria.

5th period - tech ed: this teacher is an absolute idiot, you could get away with murder in this class. i am one of only four girls in this class. stephanie, mark, and some other kids who seem fun are in this class. no air, hot as balls.

6th period - english: flashback to last year. not only do i have the same teacher in the same classroom, but i'm also in the same seat! i dont like this teacher at all. this year is gonna be tough. patrick, erin jones, sarah, and jessica are in this class with me. hottest class of all.

so thats it.

posted by sarah 10:08 PM

Aug 25, 2002

let...... it........ GO

in about 7 hours i will be waking up for the first of 180 days of school. yay?

posted by sarah 11:33 PM

Aug 24, 2002

and i will spend my whole life counting

angie and i went on our date today. takoma park has a lot of nice shops. i bought a sweater, a jacket, and a shirt. all were very nice. mark's kitchen has tasty cheeseburgers. me and angie held hands, gazed longingly into eachother's eyes, frolicked through fields, and made out while the sun set. except we didnt do any of that.

forever second guessing. i'm digging my own grave. lets pretend these words make sense. lets pretend these nights have meaning. blurry eyes prove deceptive. thoughts stray into memories. happily ignoring everything. and i'd force a smile so you'd feel better. and i'd redefine honesty if it would put you at ease. i'll stop rambling. and i know what you're thinking, no this isnt about you.

posted by sarah 3:07 AM

Aug 23, 2002

whatever paul wants, paul gets

>> dummo (or was it gummo?) is a stupid movie. dont bother renting it.

>> the diet coke at subway doesnt taste as good as it does in bottles.

>> nikki s. lee has some photos on display at the hirshhorn.

>> georgia o'keefe's boobs are quite saggy.

>> katie and kevin cuddle hardcore.

>> paul is the most beautiful person i have ever seen. it takes all my strength to keep from jumping his bones in the middle of the street. he is the most original and creative person i know. and he wears tight jeans.

>> me and angie have a date tomorrow. we're going to takoma park.

posted by sarah 1:28 AM

Aug 21, 2002

crash and burn

"i'll see you when i see you" i guess it's over. remember two years ago? when we first started hanging out. those days were so much fun. i realize now that we cant get that back. it wouldnt be the same. we've both changed so much. we're not the same people anymore. i dont like who you are now and i think you feel the same way. it's like a sick dog, the best thing to do is just get it put to sleep, put it out of it's misery. all there is to say now is goodbye.

goodbye.

posted by sarah 3:12 AM

no expression

a renewed faith in mankind./?

things always get to the highest point right before they start declining. like if you throw a ball into the air. there's a point right when the ball stops moving upwards and starts falling back to the ground. and for a split second, the ball is weightless. if you look without blinking you can see that the ball seems to pause in mid-air. that pause is where i'm at right now. that feeling of weightlessness. where everything's great and you can just enjoy the view. but then there's the knowledge that the only thing left to do is decline. and you can feel it all start to slip away. as you prepare to crash and burn.

isnt this supposed to be a time for optimism?

posted by sarah 2:12 AM

Aug 20, 2002

peanut butter cap'n crunch may quite possibly be the best tasting food in the world

the spy museum was alright, not that great though. we were sitting at the base of this statue on some street corner in dc and noticed that the statue of the horse was very uh..... anatomically correct..... so i of course took a picture. i watched donnie darko and pi today. two amazing movies. pi makes me want to be smarter. during donnie darko i was thinking... if i knew that the world was going to end next week, would i do anything differently? so many different thoughts of what i'd rather be doing than sitting in my basement watching a movie raced through my head. it seems silly not to be doing any of them. every part of my life is just preparation for the next step. i go to school so i can get into a good college. go to college so i can get a good job. get a job so i can make money. make money so i can have a safe place to live, food to eat, a tv in every room of the house, designer clothes, colorful appliances, more useless crap. i'd rather leave it all. i'd rather live in the woods in the middle of nowhere, depend on myself for food and shelter. "live off the land" i guess you would say. throw away my calendars and watches. forget about what day and what time it is. stop counting down the minutes i have left to live and just live. forget electricity, forget plumbing, forget clothes, forget processed foods, forget books written by other people. there are people living in the rainforests along the amazon river right now that have never known any of these things. and do you think your life is any better than theirs? we will all die and we will all be forgotten. it doesnt matter if you have tons of friends, if you get married, or if everyone hates you. in the end, you're alone. how bittersweet your last breath must be.

posted by sarah 3:25 AM

Aug 18, 2002

tomorrow = spy museum in dc. fun fun fun.

posted by sarah 11:44 PM

good gracious ass badacious!

i woke up a few days ago with the idea that i wanted some grey jeans. so today i bought grey fabric dye and dyed a pair of my jeans. they were ugly anyway. it worked but it didnt turn out as dark as i wanted so tomorrow i think i'll get some more and try dying them again. i picked up my film today. both of the rolls are from the middle of seventh grade. (you can tell by the length and color of my hair). i miss my hair being that length. waaa. one of the rolls is pretty weird. i remember taking the pictures though. me and lindsay were bored one morning so we dressed up in the weirdest clothes we could find and took pictures midair while jumping on her trampoline. when she gets back from the lake i'll have to show them to her.

one of the kids in my neighborhood just knocked on the door looking for my brother and he was wearing a vanderbilt sweatshirt. haha.

posted by sarah 8:37 PM

Aug 17, 2002

you, i hate your smile

i saw ben kweller!!! me and katie had plans to go but when i called her she had forgotten about it and was already doing something else, which made me bummed b/c i thought i was going to miss ben kweller. but then angie, my wonderful savior, said she'd go with me. so me and angie hopped on the metro and headed down to the 9:30 club. my morning jacket is a good band. they all have such wonderful lovely dirty hippie hair. ben kweller is so great, i cannot thank angie enough for going with me. afterwards matt and paul picked us up from the metro and we all had hot sex for hours. (minus the hot sex part). and now i'm home and not tired b/c i've only been awake since 8 pm. blah.

posted by sarah 3:26 AM

Aug 15, 2002

"the universe may be as great as they say, but it wouldnt' be missed if it didn't exist."
(piet hein)

i went and got my hair done today. only cost me 10 bucks. now its not a bright ugly red, but instead is a nice brownish red. its still a little dark because they just dyed it but it should lighten up within a few days. it looked bad right after i got it done because they blow-dried my hair and it was big and poofy and ugly. (this is why i dont often wear my hair down). so when i got home i took a shower and put it up, now it looks nicer. i just wrote an entire paragraph about my hair, can you say meaningless?

posted by sarah 8:18 PM

you have no idea how many times i've re-edited this post. everything i typed just disgusted me. i quickly deleted every sentence i would write. and now nothing scares me more than honesty.

posted by sarah 3:57 AM

Aug 13, 2002

hey! you're part of it

show at fort reno today. i love that place. or maybe i just love the freshfields. i saw pat, chris, and monchie!!! i havent seen them in months... literally! it was a fun day. august is turning out to be not so bad. tomorrow i'm going to the dentist and then to buy some dye, get a book from the library that i have to read by the time school starts (procrastination), and drop off some film to be developed. i was looking through some of my old stuff in an upstairs closet and i found 2 rolls of film that have never been developed. i'm excited to see whats on them. friday is ben kweller. me and katie are gonna go after she gets off work. thats gonna be great. saturday is time out of line and vanderbilt, which should be fun. i need to see if i have any more blank tapes for my camera. i should start taping things more. but i hate lugging around that camera. once i get a job and more money i want to get one of those really nice cameras that are a lot smaller. that would make me happy. maybe i'll look around at bowie town center for a job tomorrow. i'm sure one of the buses from bowie goes near there. but for now i need sleep. goodnight all.
posted by sarah 3:33 AM

Aug 12, 2002

i would stand in line for this

kjfuisgfygfrgfbsdfsjdf!!!! i dyed my hair red last night and it looks like crap. it wasnt the color i expected, its a bright bright bright ugly red. so today or tomorrow i'm going to dye it again. i was hoping for a red that looked more natural. i think i should wait a day or two before i dye it again though. i dont want to completely kill my hair. so moving on... i saw catherine last night! her and bryan came over and hung out with me. and also last night we made a pyramid out of hay on the road, except i didnt really help b/c i'm weak and cant lift bales of hay. yeah... 2 more weeks of summer left. i guess i should make these last 2 count. somehow.

posted by sarah 2:48 PM

Aug 11, 2002

michael jackson for sheriff

beach was fun. me, paul, gordon, mike, and eric watched the sun rise on friday morning. it made the ocean the most perfect color you've ever seen. i cant even begin to explain it. yeah and other fun stuff happened and i dont feel like typing so.......... goodnight.

posted by sarah 12:49 AM

Aug 8, 2002

i only hope you know what you're doing this time around

i got my schedule today. i have the same english teacher! rarr! one year with her was bad enough. i'm going to try to switch out of that class. i dont think i can take another year of her. the rest of my schedule seems ok. i have 1st period with bethany. and 2nd period with jason and this kid named sean who i have yet to meet but have talked to online. i have tech ed for my 5th period which is a lot better than having english. (5th period is when all the lunches are so you're stuck in your 5th period class for an extra half hour every day.) so yeah...
me and paul are going down to OC tomorrow to visit katie, kevin, and matt. fun fun fun. i miss katie.
i went to youth group with lindsay tonight for the first time in months. i dont know... kind of akward... kind of strange... i just dont know anymore. it all seems so meaningless to me now...

so unsatisfying.

posted by sarah 12:52 AM

Aug 6, 2002

clap clap you're dumb

8 am! i havent been awake this early in so long. the morning is nice. why am i awake so early? because i couldnt get to sleep last night. so i've been awake.... for too long. at some point i gave up trying to fall asleep in my bed so i just went into the other room and watched tv for awhile. oh man, the best shows are on at 5 am! captain planet! carebears! captain planet is the greatest show ever. "captain planet, he's our hero, gonna take pollution down to zero!" anyway... so now its 8 am and me and michelle (friend from yorktown) are remniscing about the good ol' days. i know i'm gonna kick myself later for saying this but i miss school. i miss having something to wake up for, even if its to go somewhere i dont like. i know i say this every year but this year is gonna be fun. i'll make sure of it.

posted by sarah 8:26 AM

Aug 3, 2002

cut the kids in half

>last night (or more like this morning) me and paul went to dennys and got milkshakes at around 3:00 am. dennys was actually crowded. i think its because thats about the time all the bars and nightlubs close. i guess everyone goes to dennys to sober up. afterwards we went and knocked on kevin's window and woke him up. then i went home and slept.<

>>i just got back from shopping with my mom. i bought two new pairs of shoes because they were cheap. and i bought some other stuff too. now i think i'll go clean my room because its a big mess.<<

>>>i'm looking forward to school starting. i miss my friends. and summer is getting dull and repetative.<<<

posted by sarah 7:44 PM

Aug 2, 2002

to love and be loved

school starts in 24 days. i'm neither upset nor excited about it. i cant wait until summer's over. i hate this hot muggy weather. and autumn is so beautiful and perfect. summer has been good. i'm happy. let go of paranoia and everything will be so much more enjoyable. but fear is so exciting in its own wonderful-terrible way. (i know you've been hurting but i've been waiting to be there for you))))

?what happened?

negative people, negative energies, negative everything---cause so much stress. give me a migraine. lies meant to spare lives induce confusion. depression. complaining annoyance. the wise ones are too naive to notice~the fools keep on trying. and you said..yousaid..why can i never remember what you've said/? ||||||||||| i cant type anything that would explain what i'm trying to say. }{}{}{}{{}}{{}}{{}}{}{}{}{{}}{}{}{}{{{}}{{}{
youdontdeservegoodbye/. /\/\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\\//\its that feeling that everyone in the room speaks a different language. that you're alone.that understanding doesnt exist between mere mortals. that feeling of insignificance>unworthy>insatiable.unwanted. you've forsaken the first two people to see your face. the first and only to love you. that body you hate is who you are. your past, your present., you future. you got your life, the color of you eyes, the way you smile, from them. and you'd throw it all away for a later curfew? freedom is great but it has its cost. the hand you call control is only trying to guide you. but you;'d swat it away and complain about it on a computer that it worked to pay for? _"the hand you hold is the hand that holds you down_"be you, be free, makeyour own choices, live your own life but remember where it came from. remember who created you/...... dont throw it away. dont scold someone for being just as confused as you are. you created that facade of omniscience, not him. forget it. the only thing that makes you unique is your fingerprints.

posted by sarah 10:26 PM