So...that was random

Just now I was on YouTube and clicked on a recommended video. It was from Tenchi Universe episode 24 where Ryoko gets Tenchi to Jurai to save Ayeka and take out the imposter Kagato. One of the comments was from someone with a screen name exactly the same as someone I knew in high school. A little more clicking and checking it out revealed that it was, in fact, her.

Also, her videos are...interesting. Props for dancing in costume and putting that online. I would never do that.

3.5 Years Ago

2/14/05

11:40 am

So here I am, selling flowers on the curbside of the store. Whodda thought that I could get paid for sitting for the next two hours? Heh. This is pretty cool, though, actually. I just made a sale to a nice older man. It's kinda funny 'cause earlier Jared wasn't sure what to get and asked my opinion. So did this guy "because I'm a girl." You know we woman all think alike. Today does make me a little sad, though. Not too much but enough. The only Valentines I ever got were from classmates, and we were all forced (which I think is lame BS). If everyone [mad another sale] gives cards to everyone elss, then it takes away from the real meaning. Ya, ya, I know. That way no one feels bad. Soft, fruity America (in the words of George Carlin). Then again, what is the real meaning? Who knows anymore with the cards and the candy and the flowers and blah blah blah. Hallmark, I blame you. You're running a smart operation and making a profit. Then Junior year Jon and Wyatt went on a double date with me and Amanda. They gave us each a faux flower and a sucker. That was probably the sweetest thing he's ever done for me (and it will probably always be that way). [12:00=Sale #3] But then I lost the flower a month or so ago. It's in my room somewhere, I hope. Maybe behind my TV and video games. How funny. We became friends over video games. Anyway, there was nothing else from him that really meant anything like that. Well...except that Ryoko figure. He loved that thing, but he gave it to me for my fifteenth birthday. Memories... Plus, one time back in 9th, he compared me to Cassi in his life: Cassi was Pakistan (he doesn't even know where that is...okay, neither do I), and I was the world. Even in a firendship way that meant a lot to me. But that bum...


(journal entry I wrote as I sold flowers on the curb at work a few years ago, I text messaged Jon, and he said "Ha ha, you were a beaner for Valentine's." He's half Mexican so it was okay he said that.)

The Path

The darkness it haunts me
Trees are cold and still
Alone beneath the crescent moon
Afraid
Stumbling forward, whispers in the night
I have been here before
Yet it is strange
I'm uneasy, alone
But the others are here
Together and apart
We stumble, we search
Hope comes up empty
Still we press along
Waiting for the end, for knowledge
The dawn will restore our faith
When we learn to believe again
And clear emotions will show us
What we desire most
The Truth will set us free
And we are finally home

Personal Timeline, part three

1999/2000: I become obsessed with everything Pokemon, even trading great cards for a five dollar magazine. I also let Jon rip me off in trades a few times and lose my Zelda figures. Our friends Zuhay and Zuleyma move back to Mexico, and we never hear from them again. On spring break, we find a tree with the face of Dampe and thus begins HR. We also befriend Jeanine and Jose and make our own little group. Jon and I rig the voting for eighth grade favorites in newspaper, but the issue never gets published. He and I start writing Zelda/Pokemon crossover stories. We all graduate to high school.

2000/01: We continue with HR and the four or us. One day when I was mad at Jon I started a massive everything crossover from the Powerpuff Girls to DBZ to Zelda and Tenchi Muyo. It will eventually become more than eight hundred pages long. Jeanine also tries to get us together, which fails miserably. I take Latin and meet Christine, and she and Jeanine become best friends. We become friends with Wyatt, too. That summer we all hang out everyday and make a movie that is Jon and Christine's collaborative vision. It sucks, but it's fun. We become the bike gang with messenger bags and are jumped by the VPC, a lame gang from our suburban neighborhood. They steal our red stuff.

2001/02: Christine and I compete for the smartest in our science class, even though she never does the homework and still does as well as me. My dad goes into the hospital for eight months, and my half sister gets married. The group grows in members but is broken by the end of the school year. I meet Andrea in my Latin class, and she likes anime and electronic music the same as me. I get into trance via Best of Trance Volume 2 and ATB. My family moves to our new house about a mile away, but I choose to stay at Etiwanda because they have Latin and my friends are there. Christine moves away.


2002/03: My dad moves in with us when he gets out of the hospital, but all I do is fight with him. I also almost fail my first class ever (pre-calculus) and drop it and take nothing instead. Tuesday through Thursday I scooter to Wyatt's house in the mornings and walk with him to school. The other two days my mom doesn't have work and drives me. He ditches class one day, and we walk home "hobo style" with a shopping cart full of junk from the "forest."Jon goes to Vally View, and we see each other less. My dad moves out into his own place before Christmas. Zelda: Windwaker comes out, and I preorder it to get the special edition disc. Jon and I try dating for a month, but it fails because it felt like friendship still. Wyatt and Amanda go out for three months. That summer I try pot for the first time, and I get drunk for the first time on 03/03/03.

Personal Timeline, part two

1992: I make my first best friend (Nancy Wu). I also have public bathroom issues and have an accident that got me sent to the nurse for a call home and new shorts.

1994/95: In third grade I lie to my teacher quite brazenly and am almost caught. I also semi-meet the boy who would become my best friend when the third grade part of my combo class switched teachers after recess time.

1995/96: I compete with the other kids for the most creative and gory journal every day until our teacher bans us killing each other. I also come up with a zookeeper and animal game that enthralls my whole class, and I wish I could remember more about it now. Our teacher also divides us into basketball teams, and mine comes in third out of four places.

1996/97: I gain the nickname Rambo because I rammed my friend in a race to the drinking fountain. I also have a whole week where all I do is cause accidents for my friends, and I start to drift away from my group. Thinking about this now I see what this leads to only a few years later. This is the year I have more girl friends than guys since I started school.

1997/98: I start middle school and start to become less of a tomboy, wearing more girl clothes. My language arts and social studies likes when I read the text aloud because I'm clear and quick. I leave my group at the end of the year and end with no real place. This was a very awkward year for me.

1998/99: That boy and I are in the same class. We become friends over Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and I am the walking players guide for my class. After my newest group kicks me out (they were the sixth one that year) Jon leads me around until I found a new one. He comes to join me a week later. I convince him to join newspaper with me for eighth grade.

Closer

It was the silence and the stillness that had always been a bother. Humans by nature prefer to live in groups. At one time it was for survival, but for most it had become a psychological need as we evolved into more complex animals. Silence then means loneliness to some or at certain times, and much of that school year I had felt very alone. I suppose now that it was my own doing, but they say hindsight is always 20/20.

To remedy this, I often would simply turn the television on. Sound helped melt away the choking solitude, even if it was an artificial substitute for companionship. O this particular day, our house was still with no way to fix it. In preparation for the change of moving, painters had covered our walls in a new shade, helping erase the mark we left on the house. The TV was unplugged and stored under a plastic sheet. My portable CD player had died the day previous, and my mom and brother were out for some errands. This time I truly was alone.

As a last escape, I turned to my science textbook, more specifically to the chapter on human reproduction in females. Quickly this disinterested me, and in frustration I closed it instead stare at the ceiling. The feeling was so oppressive it was almost too much to stand. WIth my arm over my eyes, I tried to slip away from it all then.

An eternity of a few minutes passed in this fashion when suddenly a knock came at the door. Startled, I sat up and went to see who could have pierced that silence. Standing there with his scooter and a joke about the red mark on my forehead was Wyatt. He came to hang out, but without meaning to, he saved me from that moment. Instantly the oppression was gone, and we went out to play like the kids we still were. As we scootered to the park, the wind felt relieving, and the speed was freeing. I never told him that day, and I probably never will about my gratitude. We were never as close as he and Jon or me and Jon, but we were friends, no matter how imperfect. That was all I needed that day, and that friendship is what we have now five years later. It has survived longer than that silence, and it is what matters most.

The Walk

It was a spring evening that, for all appearances, seemed like any other. The sun had all but disappeared on the horizon, its pink hues mixing in the baby blue sky. It was so simple, but yet it was still a most amazing sight. Voices from the park were carried on the gentle breeze as children laughed and played joyfully, knowing that the school year was coming to a close. Their elementary school was to the west, just beneath the glowing ball. At one time it was my school as well, and there had begun the journey of academia. It had been five years since the promotion to the awkward transitional stage of intermediate school, and already I was half way through high school. Not much had changed in that time save for the company I kept. Through all the fighting that year, we all stuck together, trying as desperately as everyone else to figure out life. We all thought we were different, even chosen as we dubbed ourselves. None of this would matter. The school year was not the only thing coming to an end. As strong as our bonds were, they had suffered the strains and been fractured just enough to release easily. The ravaging of time could not have compared with what we did to ourselves. New bonds were forming. Comrades were leaving. And in the midst of this change, a curious urging compelled me to grab my scooter that afternoon and take off. The spot I stood in as I watched the sunset, felt the wind, and heard the kids playing was the point at which four paths diverged. That chapter of my life was over at that moment, and I knew that never again would I look at the park the same way. At the same time, there were new ways to go, a new phase to embrace. Instead of longing for what was coming to a close, it was something to stride forth into. About to turn sixteen and lose much of what had become important, I took the path I used least, knowing I never again would. Somehow in that moment I realized everything had changed. Everything was as mutable as the wind, and actually, it felt okay.