One Love
Day 14;
December 27. 2010
Day 14;
I haven't even tries to add to this in a long time, I don't even really know why. I haven't been in the mood to do much creatively for the past seven months. It's not that I haven't been inspired and it's totally not like I didn't want to write, because I did, quite a bit, it was like I couldn't. I could only think about that I wanted to write, not actually what I could write about. I don't want, in fact I really can't (because that would be stupid) to write anything that isn't absolutely the truth. A poetic translation of my thoughts and endevers.
I'm sure everyone has a theory as to why the world is going crazy. And surely everyone can see that the world is, indeed, going crazy. If you haven't realized this yet, then you're fucking retarded.
I have my own theory about it, of course, why else would I mention it? I think the whole idea of social media, starting with the telephone way-back-when and ending with, for now, the internet is a bad one. The original thought behind all these information sharing technologies was noble: make it possible for people over long-distances to keep in touch in an easier, faster way and a better way for everyone to be connected. Then things went overboard, the telephone became something that people used less and less for important things, like sharing important news, and today almost everyone has a cell phone. And it's not just used for talking anymore, there's a million things a cell phone can do and we're still not happy with it.
The telephone was always somewhat of a luxury item, though. The television and the radio, used to entertain, brainwash, and keep the population in their homes, terrified of the statistics and opting out on living so that they can, "Stay tuned!"
The internet is the worst, though. You can find a billion different ideas about the same topic, and everyone is so convinced that they're the one that's right. It's information overload in the extreme. I never know if what I'm reading is the truth or something someone made up. You can fake anything with modern day technology, and if everything can be faked... how do we know what's real?
This mistrust and doubt of authenticity doesn't stop there. even the things we're given as a means of entertainment kind of filter us to be away of the crazy things that happen. Movies show us things some us couldn't begin to ever imagine. They make us question things just a little more, at least they make me question things. If someone can imagine something that blows your mind. something that you'll never forget, that gives it eternal life. I'm not briefed on all this is Chelsie, but I believe that memories are the only thing that we get to keep for always. They say we only use ten percent of our brain, and a lot of that percentage is divided up to functions we really aren't all that aware of. Like moving and our organs, everything that we do when we think we're sitting around doing nothing. The whole dejevu thing? Do we really just see them and not consciously register them? And then at a later date we see it again and without remembering the actual... memory... we recall the familiarity about it. Of like, what? That we've ex-perceived whatever's happening before, but we don't know when? We don't remember? I'm not sure, or anything, but I think maybe the other 90% might hold memories form like other lifetimes? I'm not even sure exactly what I believe in, it's just one of the very many theories that I have about... everything.
I'm not sure about anything, ever. People who are, kind of scare the shit out of me. What makes something so insanely special to you that you would close off every other option to your thinking process? I call that being close-minded and it's not a trait that I mush well with. I'm willing to try anything once, and it if I really like it, I'll figure out a way to do it again. That's the funny thing about our next story, because I didn't like love on the very first times I did drugs. Not the very first time, like the third time I actually got high and the billionth time I'd smoked pot ( I didn't inhale for the longest time, I started when I was so little that for the longest time I didn't realize that was a requirement or that I was doing anything wrong). But anyways, the third time I smoked pot I experienced something something like nothing I had experienced before.
I made a decision after the third time I got high, a decision that... if I'd stuck with it, my life would probably be different right now, at least... I'd feel differently about it. No you know what? I bet it would be different, I'd be a university somewhere and I would have friends and I would be normal.
I'm not saying that I regret the things I've done, or that I shouldn't have changed my mind, because I love where I'm at today, who I am and the things that I've come to believe in. But this story isn't about these things, and it's somewhat of an old old. This story is about the fact that :
8. Sometimes It's Scary
Robin, Sally and I were all sitting in Brittany's bathroom, on the floor, Brittany was in the shower, and Robin was trying to rig up a soda can so we could smoke pot out of it. Brittany was showering and it was weird, but we were somewhat desperate for pot, at least Sally and i were.
The thrill wasn't really still there for the Zubrods,
I had never smoked out of a soda can beforehand every attempt that I made failed horribly, so Robin lit it, and sucked the smoke into the can, not into her mouth, and then she handed it to me and I took as deep a breath as I could...
One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twen--my mental counting was cut short. I was out of oxygen. I exhaled and gasped for air, coughing.
Brittany poked her head out of from behind the shower curtain, "Are you okay?" I nodded and continued trying to catch my breath, "Alright she nodded and then Robin laughed. "You get higher when you cough, anyways." I didn't know anything about that but like ten to fifteen minutes later and few fucking intense hits: I was stoned. Brittany had gotten out of the shower and her and Sally were in her room, which was just right outside her bathroom, you opened the door and you were inside of it.
I was laying on the bathroom floor, my head was in Robin's lap and I was trying really hard to listen to the story Brittany was telling to Sally. It was something about the boy she almost lost her virginity to, something about his stupid fucking hat that she still had. Robin wasn't paying attention to Brittany, though, she was playing with her lighter, in a hand that was about both of us on the counter where neither of us could see it. She was sparking the flint and then holding the flame on for a second, and then she would let go and start all over.
She gasped and it made me glance up at her, just in time to see her knock a roll of flaming toilet paper off the counter that was on a path right towards my face. I rolled over and screamed and she put it out as quickly as possibly. Now I was just laying on the bathroom floor, it was cold, and I couldn't remember what was going on before Robin tried to set me on fire.
I'm great at remembering things, normally, and I had really been interested in whatever had been going on, like, five minutes ago.
I was getting frustrated. I felt... stupid. I felt as if I was really, literally fucking retarded. I'd never felt this way before, not ever in my entire life. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted to be able to control my thoughts again, and more than anything else, I wanted to remember what Brittany had just been talking about.
"Are you crying, Chelsie?" Sally, was the first to notice, of course, she was my best friend. I tried to shake my head, even though it was more than obvious that I was, "Why are you crying?" She grabbed my hands and tried to help me sit up. I just cried out, "I feel so stupid!" And that made me cry harder, for a second and then I kind of realized that I was way higher that I had ever been before. If this is how this fells, than I didn't like it.
I got into Brittany's bed and leaned back against the wall, hitting my head kind of hard. Brittany jumped, "Shhhh! You're going to wake someone up!" I just started giggling, "Everything behind me? It's like it seriously doesn't exist, I just completely forgot about it." That's when it was everyone else's turn to laugh. At me. For being an idiot.
Sally was in the bathroom, standing in front of the sink, rinsing her eyes out with water, she came back into the room and just stood in the middle of it, staring around at all of us. Robin was sitting in the egg-chair, slowly rocking from side to side. Sally kind of gasped and stared at Robin, her hand held her her chest.
"I thought you were. like. some kind of clown thing and then I saw you moving and I freaked out, dude!" I laughed, I couldn't help it. I was high.
This is where the story kind of loses it's time-line. I remember that Sally left the sink in the bathroom on for, like, ten billion years. Robin went to bed early... she always used to be the first one to pass out back then, every time we would hang out.
I wear glasses, maybe that's something you know about me, without them I'm totally and completely blind. Legally blind. Maybe you've worn glasses before, maybe not, it's still not like having perfect vision. You peripheral vision, you know like when you see things out of the corner of your eye? Well it's still blurry for me, and after a while. O guess I kind of just stopped paying attention to the things that were just out of my sight. I couldn't make any sense out of it, so it wasn't something that mattered to me.
Well at Brittany's house, it was like all the sudden I was aware of the things I didn't even want to see. It was like the outlines of my vision turned into like some kind of cartoon world and every time I moved of someone moved out of my line of sight I would get so dizzy, because everything would to like... re-situate.
I will always remember how Sally was on all fours on the ground, and she was shaking and I kept asking her, "Are you laughing or are you crying?" Repeating it over and over again because she couldn't stop long enough to answer me. She was doing both, it turned out because she had been crying and then I wouldn't shut up up and it made her laugh.
Half the weed we smoked was from Jackie and the other half was from Matt Garcia (who was somewhat adorable and apparently a total dick) and Brittany said we must have smoked weed that was laced. She said it must have been PCP, but honestly, I just don't know. I was scared, though, and I didn't like it, so I decided to become straightedge.
That seriously didn't last all that long. I mean I kind of stuck with it but a few months later I was at the hospital and they gave me morphine. I loved it. I haven't looked back since then.
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I've been heartbroken before, a few times. Each time is a little easier, not because the relationships aren't as good but because I don't like being in that kind of pain. That chest-compressing, universe-shattering betrayal, which is exactly what it feels like when real love ends.
The first time my heart was really broken, I was barely 15 and it was a boy named Anthony. Anthony Jines. He was nice to me in this way that let me know he liked me, because wasn't the kind of boy that would waste him time on anything and especially not a girl. After that I didn't even... understand why I should even try again. I wanted to kill myself, but more that that I know of wanted to break someone else the complete and total way that I had been broken.
The only other person that had ever broken my heart was Gerard and he's done it a couple times. I still love him, though, he's my soul mate.
Why do people even want to love so badly? It's not as great and glamorous and special as it's made out to me, it isn't even eternal like people, like to believe. It's just an emotion like all the bajillion others that we feel throughout our lives. Just because one person makes you feel it more intensely than another, doesn't mean you should give up everything for them... unless you feel like you need to. I don't know does this make any sense to anyone who isn't me?
I want to made sense when I'm not making sense. I've been thinking about that more and more often now, like, if I could manage that than the possibilities are endless. i don't need endless possibilities, though. I just need to trust in the power of adventure and go with the flow.
I don't know what I want anymore, the end results, the master plan, the dreams for tomorrow? They're all missing into something I can't begin to comprehend. It's like some kind of masterpiece that's about to be born, and it's like nothing else you've seen before. I can promise you that.
I'm sitting here, shivering, wishing that I hadn't broken Megan and mine's pipe. It's actually just kind of mine, I guess. Megan gave it to me when Josh wanted her to get rid of all the speed we smoked the rest and she gave me the pipe 'cause she didn't want to destroy it. But earlier I was trying to smoke int eh dark 'cause Megan like blew a fuse in the back of the church, and it was like pitch black and I held the bowl too tight as I was wiping it clean, I might have gotten it too hot too, which I'm not sure about because I couldn't see it. I was trying to clean the neck, the only part I have left but my lighter ran out of fluid, and I don't know if Josh is asleep 'cause all my lighters are in the back room along with the cigarettes. I would love a cigarettes right now. Oh my gosh I really-really-really-really did a pretty good job today smoking-wise. Before the cigarette that I had like an hour ago I hadn't had one for like eightish hours. I'm not saying that like it's some kind of contest or as if I was trying to quit or anything, the less you smoke the more you have, the less you buy! I think I may have gotten one of my last packs for the next two weeks yesterday,and that pack was gone last night. Megan and I smoked a bunch on the way to Mesa and we found a pack in Wickenburg and we bought a pack on the way home. I think there's a little less than half of the on-the-way-home pack.
I can't wait, in like, basically two-three hours Josh is going to get up and go to work and then Megan and I can hopefully smoke some dope, if we only put a little tiny but in it, and it we're extra super careful, I think it'll probably work. Or maybe we'll get super lucky and Josh won't take the other pipe to work. I can understand maybe wanting to did it at work, sure, but there's quite a few ways to get tweaked and If I was trying to do it at work I seriously think I would just eat it. It doesn't kick in the as quickly but getting out your crack pipe at the place you're employed? It can't be that great of an idea.
I did more than I did last time with Megan 'cause my skin's turning orange and blotchy and in a couple hours one of my wrists will probably be noticeably smaller than the other. I just seriously wish that I had taken a shit ton of lighters into the back room, trying to melt down maybe smoke-able meth left-overs is a nice way to pass time, especially when you get a few alright hits from a totally broken pipe. We didn't even smoke that much out of it on the way home from Mesa and we smoked like three small bowls today, I think we smoked two little bowls on the car-ride home and I got maybe a bowl from the pieces that got stuck in the neck. Something's there are some pretty big chunks that get suck up in the neck. I have maybe, a little, little, tiny but left but I need a lighter and Josh and Megan's bedroom door it open a little bit, I guess to head if the babies start crying but the only door to the back room is on the other side of the laundry room which is right next to Josh and Megan's room, and the floor creaks. Loudly. I know that their T.V. is on and that Josh might be/is probably asleep, because he has to go to work in like three hours. It's weird 'cause Mega... I don't know if she's awake. I know she gave the baby a bottle like 45 minutes ago and I know she was tweaking with me all day and I don't know when Josh did it last. Which doesn't really matter because Megan told me that it has somewhat of the opposite effect on him.
I just really want a cigarette and a new light and I have to analyze everything before I try to do anything scary. I know walking through the Sullivan house to get smokes and my own lighter seems like a stupid thing to be scared of but I don't want to make Josh mad. And I don't want to wake up any babies. In fact, I think there might be a blue lighter in the kitchen. I just know that it's late and if Josh is asleep, I don't want to be the person that wakes him up earlier than he needs to be awake. Megan says he wakes up at 4:30 and leaves for work at like 5:30 but I think he wakes up later that, like, every time I come over he seems to be running kind of late.
Oh my god, I wish I was at home. I wouldn't have broken my first real oil burner pipe. I wouldn't be this freezing. I wouldn't have to wait the next three hours to go pee, and I don't think I would be this sad. I think I just realized why, even though Megan's one of my very, very best friends, I absolutely hate spending the night at her house.
It's because she's married and has kids and I don't mean because of those people I mean because at night time Josh comes homes and demands his wife's attention and then a couple hours after that she always like disappears into her bedroom and then the next day I hear like, "oh my gosh, I fell asleep." If I was going to spend the night all by myself anyways I would much rather do it in my own bedroom where all my stuff if. Where I can do whatever I want without having to worry about anything. It's like the same exact night in two different locations and one of them I'm sometimes forced to endure and the other I gladly accept most every day of the week.
Whenever I go over to any of my other friend's houses they spend all their time, including their night, with me. So I don't feel like I'm doing the same thing I could be doing at home.
I want a cigarette. The first time I thought I was smoking a cigarette I was ten, and I was at this girl's house, Carlie. Her mom was the bartender at Barley Pops, which was an Irish bar down the street from where we lived when we lived in Vegas. It was the bar my mother and Mike frequented. So after a while I was set up with Carlie. Her mom was a freaking bartender so every night she left us home alone at their apartment. Sometimes we just hung out and other times we would do other, slightly more mature activities. None of which matter except when we played truth or dare and I drank a shot of vodka and we both ended up wasting a few cigarettes. We lit them, and we sucked on them but we didn't inhale and after like the third one (each), in a row, we both decided that we should shot before we got addicted and so we wouldn't ruin our teeth. Hah.
I didn't smoke again until I was 12, when we lived in the Budget Suites (J1109 across the street from Sam's Town). I had stopped going to MVCS, my mom didn't have a job, and she was getting super sick, sicker everyday and I was quickly becoming somewhat of a bad kid.
I was enrolled in a Clark Count School District for the first time ever since we moved to Nevada and we were basically living in a motel room. One of the first days of waiting at the bus stop I was a blonde girl sitting like 100 feet away from me on a boulder. I stared at her because she looked like Emily, who was like a best friend to me at Mountain View. I missed everything about MVCS, I hadn't really anything in Vegas except Christian schools filled with Christian people.
The entire time I was looking at her I was trying to figure out whether of not I wanted to get up, walk the 100 feet to her and introduce myself. I'm kind of shy most of the time, mainly because it's easier and a little bit because I'm scared of rejection. The whole, "HI! I'm _________! Wanna be besties?" Wasn't my thing, it was my little sister's thing.
I got up anyways. I walked across the parking lot and when I got closer I smiled, "I'm Chelsie, are you waiting for the Courtney bus?" She looked up at me, she didn't look like Emily up close, but I couldn't replace my old friends with clones of them, so what? I would live.
"Yeah, I'm Lisa, do you want to sit down?" She scooted all the way over to the right side of the giant rock and I sat down next to her. I don't remember what we talked about but I know that she was also 12 turning 13, but she was only in the sixth grade, so there was no chance that we would have any classes together. We set on the bus together, though.
My first day at Courtney I missed my bus home and had to wait like an hour for the late bus, which was late, and I mean really late. No pun intended. There were like no after school activities yet, it was like the first day of school. I talked to a boy on that bus ride home, he asked if he could walk me home because I wasn't sure which Budget Suites to get off at. The one with the little sign or the one with the humungous sign. When I saw Sam's Town I knew exactly where I was, though, so I told him I was fine.
After like a week or so, Lisa and I had fallen into a routine. It would be short lived but we didn't know that. We met every morning at the boulder and then we sat together on the bus and then eight hours later we would be back on the bus together. Lisa used to always talk about her neighbor, Gina. Gina was 14, the first time I met her I couldn't stop staring at her boobs, they were fucking huge. They would have been big on a grown woman and this bitch was 14. Gina was blonde too and she was pretty. She';s basically the person that I met ad kind of changed my life? She's the reason I started and knew how to wear eye liner. She smoked a lot of pot, that's like all she did all the time 'cause she didn't go to school and she was always home alone because her mom had like four jobs and a rich boyfriend.
We were like standing outside her door and like I said, I was staring at her chest, in shock. Lisa asked her if she wanted to go to Walgreen's with us and then we were on our way through the other half of the Suites, where the shitty pool and the shitty people lived and then we were in the Walgreen's parking lot. "What are we even here for?" Gina asked and I explained about mom having thing beginnings of the fly and she needed some stuff and she said we could get some stuff.
So my first experience with Gina was fine and she was nice and seriously cooler than anyone that had been my friend before. I don't know if you would consider the story to be taking a turn for the better or the worse at this point in time, some people see the innocent little christian girl getting corrupted in the big city and other things the weirdo is finally finding a place to fit and live in the real world. Can you describe this even as a plot twist when it's non-fiction? Or does non-fiction mean that it doesn't have a plot twist because these are hard, cold facts?
I don't know. It doesn't matter all that much.
I started coming over to Lisa's house in the morning instead of waiting for her at the rock that was our ghetto bus stop. I would come inside and sit on the couch and Lisa's mom would usually still be trying to get her out of bed. Some days she got up and we left went to school but way more often than not she would wait until the last second to get out of bed and her mom always left before we had to because she had a city bus to catch to work and they were generally on time.
After her mom left we would just stay there, hanging out. Sometimes we went to the pool and then there was the day we went to Gina's house to hang out with her. We were sitting in her living room talking about boys and stuff with MTV on quietly in the background. There were two boys, and a girl named Samantha two doors down from Gina's. They were step brother's and Gina was fucking both of them. Nick was blonde and the other had black hair and he was the nice one, but Gina was fucking both of they sold us our pot. That's who Gina was talking about, "Blahblahblah I can't decide blahblah." Is probably something along the lines of what she said. When it was happening I probably took in every word like the bread of life but now I could care less. When people go on and on like that about their stupid problems now-a-days I usually inform them of how much of a fuck I give about whatever their saying. I'm a grown up, I've learned. I'm not saying I don't care about people's problems, I'm just saying that if your problem is how you can't pick between incredibly hot brother one or incredibly hot brother number two than you should shut the fuck up.
I'm still not sure why Gina didn't go to school. 'Cause that's pretty illegal, but during the few months I knew her school wasn't even something that existed to her. I think about it now but like she was 14 and she smoked with her mom but there wasn't a real pipe to be found in that suite. They made foil ones, like a new pipe each time you got some weed. We're a bunch of white trash kids in Dolan and we're still not that ghetto. But after she was done talking about the Nick's she pulled out one of these foil pipes. I guess it was already packed because I just remember her whipping it out, taking a hit and then passing it to Lisa who did the same.
The whole time I'm just sitting there watching, begging something to save me from the situation I've been warned about a billion times. The situation I've put myself in; Peer. Pressure.
"Here," Lisa tried to hand me the lighter and the carefully molded smoking device, "No thanks, "I tried to smile, it was harder than usual because of the panic attack I was fighting down. "No thanks? Just take it." She put it in my hand and I tried to just hand it to Gina but she wouldn't take it from me. "You have to smoke some first and then I'll take it."
"But I don't want any." They both sighed and rolled their eyes at me. My life was falling apart in front of my eyes. Why is this happening to me?
"What are you afraid of?"
I was afraid of a lot of things. I was afraid of becoming a drug addict and I was pretty afraid of not having any friends again. I was afraid of my mom finding out. But more than anything else I was afraid that I was a weak person who just didn't what other people wanted me to do. Too scared to do what I wanted to do. Too scared of other people's opinions. I'm so glad I grew out of that. I'm still somewhat of a sweetheart but I'm not longer a pushover. If I don't want to do something, that I don't do it and if I do want to do it, I have my own legit reason. It's my life, I don't play by anyone else's rules. That was really that happened that day, though. I because scared of being a failure forever because my pot-smoking friends weren't very helpful and I had no idea what I was doing so I didn't inhale any of the times that I smoked with them. It was like Carlie and me with cigarettes all over again. I was still too little to know that if you don't inhale the illegal substances you're wasting them.
I started stealing money from my mom and leaving Annabell home alone so I could go over to Lisa or Gina's and we could buy a dime bag and smoke it and I started wearing the shortest skirts to school, just slutty clothes in general. Lisa started sitting closer to the back of the bus to be near the boy she had a crush on. I ended up sitting in front of Samantha, who I always thought wouldn't like me but we had a bit in common. We both liked to read and we liked the same movies and songs and she told me I should stay after school with her for some cooking club. I think we joined it together too, and then I stopped going to school.
I found out we were moving to Arizona. And I got grounded. Basically. Mike and my mom have always called it 'restriction' but it's the same thing as being grounded, for leaving Annabell home alone. She was like seven, and out pit bull Jake was with her, but I still kind of really knew that I shouldn't be doing it as I was doing it. I didn't get to see any of my friends before I left because of it. They weren't friends for very long but I went out and I made them myself, they weren't people hat I had classes with, they weren't people that I lived right next door to, they weren't even the kind of people that I had become very accustomed to knowing. And they were still my friends. Friends from scratch is hard as shit.
I remember once Lisa and I were fighting about something and she walked up in the middle of a line of people (horizontal) that she knew and somehow I walked up the same way, thinking about it now all I can picture is like a Hey! Arnold! showdown and I don't know if we would have gotten into a fist fight or not, if it would have come to that but we were in the parking lot and this car drove by and this girl jumped out of and ran over to us and she stood in front of me, facing Lisa and said, "Are you messing with my girl?" I seriously had never seen this girl before in my entire life. "I don't even know who your girl is!" Lisa said and the chick stepped aside and she touched my shoulder, "This is my girl and if I see you messing with her again, I'll find you and return the favor." And then she just walked away and got back into the bar she had hopped out of.
Lisa waited until the car pulled away to even look at me, "Who was that?" I tried really hard not to smile, but I cracked up, "I don't know!" Lisa started laughing too and it just one of the craziest things that's ever happened to me.
I also remember that Gina had an amazing singing voice and she could rap too, she was like one of the best rappers I've ever heard to this day. Male or female.
9. Dolan
We officially started residing in Dolan Springs, Arizona on November 18, 2004. Today's date is December 28, 2010. What I've learned here these past six years is irreplaceable and if I wasn't here, I don't think I would have learned it.
I learned that arson truly isn't as fun as it may sound.
Sometimes it takes losing everything to appreciate anything.
Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean you can start rumors about their STD status.
The moment you grow up is the second you realize you don't need to.
You have to believe in magic and miracles and that anything is possible, otherwise... what's the point?
Hitchhiking isn't as dangerous as people make it seem.
Rednecks are people too!
Sometimes trashy is the most beautiful, unique thing around.
Best friends come and go but soul mates will be around to talk shit with for forever.
Even if you're pretty on the inside, no one gives a fuck.
You have to say what you mean and, more importantly, mean what you say.
Everyone gets depressed, the difference is some people know how to deal with it, others don't.
You feel the way you way to, even if you're miserable, you have to want to be, otherwise you wouldn't feel that way. And it really is that easy.
Graduating from high school isn't for everybody.
Tattoos make you pretty.
Be yourself, no one else knows how.
Dreams, when thought about and remembered correctly can help you in life.
Sex is amazing, but you have to remember that herpes is for life, bro.
If you're going to try and commit suicide, you do it at your own house. Preferably not at all.
It's harder than it sounds, but if you don't trust the people you're around, maybe you should be around other people.
If you believe in something, you stand up for it.
Sometimes life gives you a best friend, you don't fuck the boy she's in love with.
It doesn't matter what other people think about you, it matters what you think about you. People will think what they're told to think.
Stay innocent for as long as you can possibly manage, the world isn't a very nice place.
If you have a talent, you need to show it off.
Wear deodorant, everyday.
Not everyone is going to like you, it's really okay. If everyone liked you it would probably mean there was something wrong with you.
Do what you love! Try the rest at least once.
When someone is your weed hook-up, you give them a bug. It's the polite thing to do.
Michelle Albert's husband is imaginary.
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I like remembering all this stuff and writing it down. I forgot I had so many stories. And there's a million more just waiting to be revealed. And I mean the ones I already have inside of me and the ones that are to come, the future stories that haven't even happened yet.
I never really consider the moments in my life that are bad, bad. If it's an experience, maybe even a new experience, and it ends up going horribly wrong, well then I get to tell that story to other people. It's like show and tell.
That's one of the things I love about telling stories to other people and hearing theirs, story times is when everyone gets a turn to share themselves with whoever is around. I want to share myself with everyone. Not only do I want to give myself away to whoever had the time to listen to what I have to say but I want them to want more. I want to verbalize my very soul and just have that kind of passion, not only on paper but also inside. Shining out whenever someone's asks me a question that excites me. I want to be a beacon for creativity, a lighthouse for the artists that have lost their way... or maybe they haven't found it at all yet.
I get the deepest sense of appreciation sometimes when I see the gloomiest, most amazing things. I want to make other people feel that way, I don't want them to honor me, I just want them to honor the words, believe in them, love them, and them they'll come to life.
10. Lake Trip 2010 Edition
"Do you like it well done? 'Cause I do it well!" The song was on repeat and Sally was running around her room trying to pack everything we would need. It was 8:30 AM & if Shannovan was on time, we'd be leaving in half an hour, but Shan--when he did show up, was never on time for anything; so even though we'd been awake all night and we were ready, we were pretty sure that we had time.
I heard something just then and turned the music down and turned around to look at Sally who had frozen in the middle of bending over, because she must have heard it too. She turned her head to look at me and we, at the same time, said, "No way!" And ran out into the downstairs hallways to open the front door for Shan, who was early and ready to go--and we were not.
We made fun, teasing Shan about how we genuinely thought that we would have had a few more hours to get ready. We went to Montgomery Mike's to get the van that would haul the boat and two hours later we were on our own little island stocked with beer, booze and more that enough biting flies. Sally and I put on our sunscreen and tanning oil and got to----
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PAUSE.
I'm so fucking cold.
I've been shivering for, like, the past 24 hours. Now that's fucking insane. Megan says Josh takes the speed to work with him, but he didn't take it yesterday and it's kind of the world's dickiest move to take all of it and not leave any for Megan. She has to put up with these kids all day.... I know I won't be able to do any if he didn't leave some for her somewhere, and if she doesn't share with me. I can totally tell when she's spun, though, so if he did and she does it without me I'm going to probably be really super upset.
Each time my body reacts differently to the high, sometimes my tummy growls and at Sally's I literally felt like I was dying and I had to lie down because I felt so exhausted and I was starving, but right now I just want to find that special feeling again, that feeling that let me know who I used to be isn't who I am anymore. But I guess I already know that... you can't always realize who you are... but I just want creative things to come out... not this crap.
RESUME.
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---what the lake is all about: Swimming and drinking. That is of course, after we set up our tent and helped get everything off the boats and set up. Mike was fishing and we were sitting in the water, enjoying the lake like we had been wanting to do for the last could of months, and it was finally happening. Right at the last minute, and by that I mean that we had been planning an amazing Labor Day Lake Trip Weekend (2010 Edition) & that one I had been allowed to go to, also Jackie was going to come, but she couldn't this weekend because she had to work. She's the reason we hadn't slept last night, well not really the reason but the excuse we were using. She had fallen asleep on the couch while it was indeed showing off to the world that it could totally be a couch instead of a pull-out bed it usually was. (It's kind of funny that Sally sleeps on a couch-bed because she has a reputation for breaking them sons-of-bitches) So we had stayed up all night listening to music and talking like we always do when we see each other and of course smoking a shit ton of pot that we bought from Jackie's parents a couple of hours earlier. If we had really wanted to go to sleep we could have, there were two other beds downstairs with us, now there are three because Sally's dad bought her a waterbed from L.J. But, like I said, we didn't go to sleep, we were too excited. So by the time we were at the lake smoking pot and drinking beer we were kind of burnt out and we couldn't feel our high or the buzz from the beer. (Honestly it's really hard for me to get a buzz from beer anyways, I'm never thirsty enough to get there) It was still awesome, though, except, well, I felt kind of guilt about being at the lake. Right before I went to Meadview, a couple days before, I had been stoned and in the middle of the night I got the munchies and decided to make blueberry pancakes. I put the butter in the pan, I put the batter in the pan, and I waited patiently for the middle to bubble, I was (and am) pretty sure that that's how to make pancakes. I don't really like pancakes, and I sure as hell had never made them before so I had no idea what I was doing. It was pancakes though, so, I could wing it, right? No big deal. (I promise this is relevant to my guilt) Apparently, not. As I was making the third pancake, I flipped it and I wasn't paying attention because I just dropped the pancake, let it flop back down into the pan that had quite a bit of boiling hot butter and of course it splattered all over the place. And I wasn't wearing pants (I don't really believe in pants) so it hit my thigh and it fucking BURNED. It was 2 AM and I didn't want to scream, so I bit down on my lip and threw myself backwards, hitting the cabinets and cursing silently as my leg burned with butter. Part of that burn turned out to be like, the worst degree, and it sucked, I still have the scar, but it was still a gooey-scab wound when we went to the lake, and lake water isn't the cleanest water in the world, and my mother had told me not to go because she was worried about it.
Like so many things my mother tells me not to do, I did it anyways.
In Arizona, monsoon season happens at the end of August, and early in September, but the weather everywhere seems to be getting constantly delayed so in early October we had set out on a very warm, clear day. Perfect for the lake.
Day 14;
I haven't even tries to add to this in a long time, I don't even really know why. I haven't been in the mood to do much creatively for the past seven months. It's not that I haven't been inspired and it's totally not like I didn't want to write, because I did, quite a bit, it was like I couldn't. I could only think about that I wanted to write, not actually what I could write about. I don't want, in fact I really can't (because that would be stupid) to write anything that isn't absolutely the truth. A poetic translation of my thoughts and endevers.
I'm sure everyone has a theory as to why the world is going crazy. And surely everyone can see that the world is, indeed, going crazy. If you haven't realized this yet, then you're fucking retarded.
I have my own theory about it, of course, why else would I mention it? I think the whole idea of social media, starting with the telephone way-back-when and ending with, for now, the internet is a bad one. The original thought behind all these information sharing technologies was noble: make it possible for people over long-distances to keep in touch in an easier, faster way and a better way for everyone to be connected. Then things went overboard, the telephone became something that people used less and less for important things, like sharing important news, and today almost everyone has a cell phone. And it's not just used for talking anymore, there's a million things a cell phone can do and we're still not happy with it.
The telephone was always somewhat of a luxury item, though. The television and the radio, used to entertain, brainwash, and keep the population in their homes, terrified of the statistics and opting out on living so that they can, "Stay tuned!"
The internet is the worst, though. You can find a billion different ideas about the same topic, and everyone is so convinced that they're the one that's right. It's information overload in the extreme. I never know if what I'm reading is the truth or something someone made up. You can fake anything with modern day technology, and if everything can be faked... how do we know what's real?
This mistrust and doubt of authenticity doesn't stop there. even the things we're given as a means of entertainment kind of filter us to be away of the crazy things that happen. Movies show us things some us couldn't begin to ever imagine. They make us question things just a little more, at least they make me question things. If someone can imagine something that blows your mind. something that you'll never forget, that gives it eternal life. I'm not briefed on all this is Chelsie, but I believe that memories are the only thing that we get to keep for always. They say we only use ten percent of our brain, and a lot of that percentage is divided up to functions we really aren't all that aware of. Like moving and our organs, everything that we do when we think we're sitting around doing nothing. The whole dejevu thing? Do we really just see them and not consciously register them? And then at a later date we see it again and without remembering the actual... memory... we recall the familiarity about it. Of like, what? That we've ex-perceived whatever's happening before, but we don't know when? We don't remember? I'm not sure, or anything, but I think maybe the other 90% might hold memories form like other lifetimes? I'm not even sure exactly what I believe in, it's just one of the very many theories that I have about... everything.
I'm not sure about anything, ever. People who are, kind of scare the shit out of me. What makes something so insanely special to you that you would close off every other option to your thinking process? I call that being close-minded and it's not a trait that I mush well with. I'm willing to try anything once, and it if I really like it, I'll figure out a way to do it again. That's the funny thing about our next story, because I didn't like love on the very first times I did drugs. Not the very first time, like the third time I actually got high and the billionth time I'd smoked pot ( I didn't inhale for the longest time, I started when I was so little that for the longest time I didn't realize that was a requirement or that I was doing anything wrong). But anyways, the third time I smoked pot I experienced something something like nothing I had experienced before.
I made a decision after the third time I got high, a decision that... if I'd stuck with it, my life would probably be different right now, at least... I'd feel differently about it. No you know what? I bet it would be different, I'd be a university somewhere and I would have friends and I would be normal.
I'm not saying that I regret the things I've done, or that I shouldn't have changed my mind, because I love where I'm at today, who I am and the things that I've come to believe in. But this story isn't about these things, and it's somewhat of an old old. This story is about the fact that :
8. Sometimes It's Scary
Robin, Sally and I were all sitting in Brittany's bathroom, on the floor, Brittany was in the shower, and Robin was trying to rig up a soda can so we could smoke pot out of it. Brittany was showering and it was weird, but we were somewhat desperate for pot, at least Sally and i were.
The thrill wasn't really still there for the Zubrods,
I had never smoked out of a soda can beforehand every attempt that I made failed horribly, so Robin lit it, and sucked the smoke into the can, not into her mouth, and then she handed it to me and I took as deep a breath as I could...
One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twen--my mental counting was cut short. I was out of oxygen. I exhaled and gasped for air, coughing.
Brittany poked her head out of from behind the shower curtain, "Are you okay?" I nodded and continued trying to catch my breath, "Alright she nodded and then Robin laughed. "You get higher when you cough, anyways." I didn't know anything about that but like ten to fifteen minutes later and few fucking intense hits: I was stoned. Brittany had gotten out of the shower and her and Sally were in her room, which was just right outside her bathroom, you opened the door and you were inside of it.
I was laying on the bathroom floor, my head was in Robin's lap and I was trying really hard to listen to the story Brittany was telling to Sally. It was something about the boy she almost lost her virginity to, something about his stupid fucking hat that she still had. Robin wasn't paying attention to Brittany, though, she was playing with her lighter, in a hand that was about both of us on the counter where neither of us could see it. She was sparking the flint and then holding the flame on for a second, and then she would let go and start all over.
She gasped and it made me glance up at her, just in time to see her knock a roll of flaming toilet paper off the counter that was on a path right towards my face. I rolled over and screamed and she put it out as quickly as possibly. Now I was just laying on the bathroom floor, it was cold, and I couldn't remember what was going on before Robin tried to set me on fire.
I'm great at remembering things, normally, and I had really been interested in whatever had been going on, like, five minutes ago.
I was getting frustrated. I felt... stupid. I felt as if I was really, literally fucking retarded. I'd never felt this way before, not ever in my entire life. I just wanted it to stop. I wanted to be able to control my thoughts again, and more than anything else, I wanted to remember what Brittany had just been talking about.
"Are you crying, Chelsie?" Sally, was the first to notice, of course, she was my best friend. I tried to shake my head, even though it was more than obvious that I was, "Why are you crying?" She grabbed my hands and tried to help me sit up. I just cried out, "I feel so stupid!" And that made me cry harder, for a second and then I kind of realized that I was way higher that I had ever been before. If this is how this fells, than I didn't like it.
I got into Brittany's bed and leaned back against the wall, hitting my head kind of hard. Brittany jumped, "Shhhh! You're going to wake someone up!" I just started giggling, "Everything behind me? It's like it seriously doesn't exist, I just completely forgot about it." That's when it was everyone else's turn to laugh. At me. For being an idiot.
Sally was in the bathroom, standing in front of the sink, rinsing her eyes out with water, she came back into the room and just stood in the middle of it, staring around at all of us. Robin was sitting in the egg-chair, slowly rocking from side to side. Sally kind of gasped and stared at Robin, her hand held her her chest.
"I thought you were. like. some kind of clown thing and then I saw you moving and I freaked out, dude!" I laughed, I couldn't help it. I was high.
This is where the story kind of loses it's time-line. I remember that Sally left the sink in the bathroom on for, like, ten billion years. Robin went to bed early... she always used to be the first one to pass out back then, every time we would hang out.
I wear glasses, maybe that's something you know about me, without them I'm totally and completely blind. Legally blind. Maybe you've worn glasses before, maybe not, it's still not like having perfect vision. You peripheral vision, you know like when you see things out of the corner of your eye? Well it's still blurry for me, and after a while. O guess I kind of just stopped paying attention to the things that were just out of my sight. I couldn't make any sense out of it, so it wasn't something that mattered to me.
Well at Brittany's house, it was like all the sudden I was aware of the things I didn't even want to see. It was like the outlines of my vision turned into like some kind of cartoon world and every time I moved of someone moved out of my line of sight I would get so dizzy, because everything would to like... re-situate.
I will always remember how Sally was on all fours on the ground, and she was shaking and I kept asking her, "Are you laughing or are you crying?" Repeating it over and over again because she couldn't stop long enough to answer me. She was doing both, it turned out because she had been crying and then I wouldn't shut up up and it made her laugh.
Half the weed we smoked was from Jackie and the other half was from Matt Garcia (who was somewhat adorable and apparently a total dick) and Brittany said we must have smoked weed that was laced. She said it must have been PCP, but honestly, I just don't know. I was scared, though, and I didn't like it, so I decided to become straightedge.
That seriously didn't last all that long. I mean I kind of stuck with it but a few months later I was at the hospital and they gave me morphine. I loved it. I haven't looked back since then.
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I've been heartbroken before, a few times. Each time is a little easier, not because the relationships aren't as good but because I don't like being in that kind of pain. That chest-compressing, universe-shattering betrayal, which is exactly what it feels like when real love ends.
The first time my heart was really broken, I was barely 15 and it was a boy named Anthony. Anthony Jines. He was nice to me in this way that let me know he liked me, because wasn't the kind of boy that would waste him time on anything and especially not a girl. After that I didn't even... understand why I should even try again. I wanted to kill myself, but more that that I know of wanted to break someone else the complete and total way that I had been broken.
The only other person that had ever broken my heart was Gerard and he's done it a couple times. I still love him, though, he's my soul mate.
Why do people even want to love so badly? It's not as great and glamorous and special as it's made out to me, it isn't even eternal like people, like to believe. It's just an emotion like all the bajillion others that we feel throughout our lives. Just because one person makes you feel it more intensely than another, doesn't mean you should give up everything for them... unless you feel like you need to. I don't know does this make any sense to anyone who isn't me?
I want to made sense when I'm not making sense. I've been thinking about that more and more often now, like, if I could manage that than the possibilities are endless. i don't need endless possibilities, though. I just need to trust in the power of adventure and go with the flow.
I don't know what I want anymore, the end results, the master plan, the dreams for tomorrow? They're all missing into something I can't begin to comprehend. It's like some kind of masterpiece that's about to be born, and it's like nothing else you've seen before. I can promise you that.
I'm sitting here, shivering, wishing that I hadn't broken Megan and mine's pipe. It's actually just kind of mine, I guess. Megan gave it to me when Josh wanted her to get rid of all the speed we smoked the rest and she gave me the pipe 'cause she didn't want to destroy it. But earlier I was trying to smoke int eh dark 'cause Megan like blew a fuse in the back of the church, and it was like pitch black and I held the bowl too tight as I was wiping it clean, I might have gotten it too hot too, which I'm not sure about because I couldn't see it. I was trying to clean the neck, the only part I have left but my lighter ran out of fluid, and I don't know if Josh is asleep 'cause all my lighters are in the back room along with the cigarettes. I would love a cigarettes right now. Oh my gosh I really-really-really-really did a pretty good job today smoking-wise. Before the cigarette that I had like an hour ago I hadn't had one for like eightish hours. I'm not saying that like it's some kind of contest or as if I was trying to quit or anything, the less you smoke the more you have, the less you buy! I think I may have gotten one of my last packs for the next two weeks yesterday,and that pack was gone last night. Megan and I smoked a bunch on the way to Mesa and we found a pack in Wickenburg and we bought a pack on the way home. I think there's a little less than half of the on-the-way-home pack.
I can't wait, in like, basically two-three hours Josh is going to get up and go to work and then Megan and I can hopefully smoke some dope, if we only put a little tiny but in it, and it we're extra super careful, I think it'll probably work. Or maybe we'll get super lucky and Josh won't take the other pipe to work. I can understand maybe wanting to did it at work, sure, but there's quite a few ways to get tweaked and If I was trying to do it at work I seriously think I would just eat it. It doesn't kick in the as quickly but getting out your crack pipe at the place you're employed? It can't be that great of an idea.
I did more than I did last time with Megan 'cause my skin's turning orange and blotchy and in a couple hours one of my wrists will probably be noticeably smaller than the other. I just seriously wish that I had taken a shit ton of lighters into the back room, trying to melt down maybe smoke-able meth left-overs is a nice way to pass time, especially when you get a few alright hits from a totally broken pipe. We didn't even smoke that much out of it on the way home from Mesa and we smoked like three small bowls today, I think we smoked two little bowls on the car-ride home and I got maybe a bowl from the pieces that got stuck in the neck. Something's there are some pretty big chunks that get suck up in the neck. I have maybe, a little, little, tiny but left but I need a lighter and Josh and Megan's bedroom door it open a little bit, I guess to head if the babies start crying but the only door to the back room is on the other side of the laundry room which is right next to Josh and Megan's room, and the floor creaks. Loudly. I know that their T.V. is on and that Josh might be/is probably asleep, because he has to go to work in like three hours. It's weird 'cause Mega... I don't know if she's awake. I know she gave the baby a bottle like 45 minutes ago and I know she was tweaking with me all day and I don't know when Josh did it last. Which doesn't really matter because Megan told me that it has somewhat of the opposite effect on him.
I just really want a cigarette and a new light and I have to analyze everything before I try to do anything scary. I know walking through the Sullivan house to get smokes and my own lighter seems like a stupid thing to be scared of but I don't want to make Josh mad. And I don't want to wake up any babies. In fact, I think there might be a blue lighter in the kitchen. I just know that it's late and if Josh is asleep, I don't want to be the person that wakes him up earlier than he needs to be awake. Megan says he wakes up at 4:30 and leaves for work at like 5:30 but I think he wakes up later that, like, every time I come over he seems to be running kind of late.
Oh my god, I wish I was at home. I wouldn't have broken my first real oil burner pipe. I wouldn't be this freezing. I wouldn't have to wait the next three hours to go pee, and I don't think I would be this sad. I think I just realized why, even though Megan's one of my very, very best friends, I absolutely hate spending the night at her house.
It's because she's married and has kids and I don't mean because of those people I mean because at night time Josh comes homes and demands his wife's attention and then a couple hours after that she always like disappears into her bedroom and then the next day I hear like, "oh my gosh, I fell asleep." If I was going to spend the night all by myself anyways I would much rather do it in my own bedroom where all my stuff if. Where I can do whatever I want without having to worry about anything. It's like the same exact night in two different locations and one of them I'm sometimes forced to endure and the other I gladly accept most every day of the week.
Whenever I go over to any of my other friend's houses they spend all their time, including their night, with me. So I don't feel like I'm doing the same thing I could be doing at home.
I want a cigarette. The first time I thought I was smoking a cigarette I was ten, and I was at this girl's house, Carlie. Her mom was the bartender at Barley Pops, which was an Irish bar down the street from where we lived when we lived in Vegas. It was the bar my mother and Mike frequented. So after a while I was set up with Carlie. Her mom was a freaking bartender so every night she left us home alone at their apartment. Sometimes we just hung out and other times we would do other, slightly more mature activities. None of which matter except when we played truth or dare and I drank a shot of vodka and we both ended up wasting a few cigarettes. We lit them, and we sucked on them but we didn't inhale and after like the third one (each), in a row, we both decided that we should shot before we got addicted and so we wouldn't ruin our teeth. Hah.
I didn't smoke again until I was 12, when we lived in the Budget Suites (J1109 across the street from Sam's Town). I had stopped going to MVCS, my mom didn't have a job, and she was getting super sick, sicker everyday and I was quickly becoming somewhat of a bad kid.
I was enrolled in a Clark Count School District for the first time ever since we moved to Nevada and we were basically living in a motel room. One of the first days of waiting at the bus stop I was a blonde girl sitting like 100 feet away from me on a boulder. I stared at her because she looked like Emily, who was like a best friend to me at Mountain View. I missed everything about MVCS, I hadn't really anything in Vegas except Christian schools filled with Christian people.
The entire time I was looking at her I was trying to figure out whether of not I wanted to get up, walk the 100 feet to her and introduce myself. I'm kind of shy most of the time, mainly because it's easier and a little bit because I'm scared of rejection. The whole, "HI! I'm _________! Wanna be besties?" Wasn't my thing, it was my little sister's thing.
I got up anyways. I walked across the parking lot and when I got closer I smiled, "I'm Chelsie, are you waiting for the Courtney bus?" She looked up at me, she didn't look like Emily up close, but I couldn't replace my old friends with clones of them, so what? I would live.
"Yeah, I'm Lisa, do you want to sit down?" She scooted all the way over to the right side of the giant rock and I sat down next to her. I don't remember what we talked about but I know that she was also 12 turning 13, but she was only in the sixth grade, so there was no chance that we would have any classes together. We set on the bus together, though.
My first day at Courtney I missed my bus home and had to wait like an hour for the late bus, which was late, and I mean really late. No pun intended. There were like no after school activities yet, it was like the first day of school. I talked to a boy on that bus ride home, he asked if he could walk me home because I wasn't sure which Budget Suites to get off at. The one with the little sign or the one with the humungous sign. When I saw Sam's Town I knew exactly where I was, though, so I told him I was fine.
After like a week or so, Lisa and I had fallen into a routine. It would be short lived but we didn't know that. We met every morning at the boulder and then we sat together on the bus and then eight hours later we would be back on the bus together. Lisa used to always talk about her neighbor, Gina. Gina was 14, the first time I met her I couldn't stop staring at her boobs, they were fucking huge. They would have been big on a grown woman and this bitch was 14. Gina was blonde too and she was pretty. She';s basically the person that I met ad kind of changed my life? She's the reason I started and knew how to wear eye liner. She smoked a lot of pot, that's like all she did all the time 'cause she didn't go to school and she was always home alone because her mom had like four jobs and a rich boyfriend.
We were like standing outside her door and like I said, I was staring at her chest, in shock. Lisa asked her if she wanted to go to Walgreen's with us and then we were on our way through the other half of the Suites, where the shitty pool and the shitty people lived and then we were in the Walgreen's parking lot. "What are we even here for?" Gina asked and I explained about mom having thing beginnings of the fly and she needed some stuff and she said we could get some stuff.
So my first experience with Gina was fine and she was nice and seriously cooler than anyone that had been my friend before. I don't know if you would consider the story to be taking a turn for the better or the worse at this point in time, some people see the innocent little christian girl getting corrupted in the big city and other things the weirdo is finally finding a place to fit and live in the real world. Can you describe this even as a plot twist when it's non-fiction? Or does non-fiction mean that it doesn't have a plot twist because these are hard, cold facts?
I don't know. It doesn't matter all that much.
I started coming over to Lisa's house in the morning instead of waiting for her at the rock that was our ghetto bus stop. I would come inside and sit on the couch and Lisa's mom would usually still be trying to get her out of bed. Some days she got up and we left went to school but way more often than not she would wait until the last second to get out of bed and her mom always left before we had to because she had a city bus to catch to work and they were generally on time.
After her mom left we would just stay there, hanging out. Sometimes we went to the pool and then there was the day we went to Gina's house to hang out with her. We were sitting in her living room talking about boys and stuff with MTV on quietly in the background. There were two boys, and a girl named Samantha two doors down from Gina's. They were step brother's and Gina was fucking both of them. Nick was blonde and the other had black hair and he was the nice one, but Gina was fucking both of they sold us our pot. That's who Gina was talking about, "Blahblahblah I can't decide blahblah." Is probably something along the lines of what she said. When it was happening I probably took in every word like the bread of life but now I could care less. When people go on and on like that about their stupid problems now-a-days I usually inform them of how much of a fuck I give about whatever their saying. I'm a grown up, I've learned. I'm not saying I don't care about people's problems, I'm just saying that if your problem is how you can't pick between incredibly hot brother one or incredibly hot brother number two than you should shut the fuck up.
I'm still not sure why Gina didn't go to school. 'Cause that's pretty illegal, but during the few months I knew her school wasn't even something that existed to her. I think about it now but like she was 14 and she smoked with her mom but there wasn't a real pipe to be found in that suite. They made foil ones, like a new pipe each time you got some weed. We're a bunch of white trash kids in Dolan and we're still not that ghetto. But after she was done talking about the Nick's she pulled out one of these foil pipes. I guess it was already packed because I just remember her whipping it out, taking a hit and then passing it to Lisa who did the same.
The whole time I'm just sitting there watching, begging something to save me from the situation I've been warned about a billion times. The situation I've put myself in; Peer. Pressure.
"Here," Lisa tried to hand me the lighter and the carefully molded smoking device, "No thanks, "I tried to smile, it was harder than usual because of the panic attack I was fighting down. "No thanks? Just take it." She put it in my hand and I tried to just hand it to Gina but she wouldn't take it from me. "You have to smoke some first and then I'll take it."
"But I don't want any." They both sighed and rolled their eyes at me. My life was falling apart in front of my eyes. Why is this happening to me?
"What are you afraid of?"
I was afraid of a lot of things. I was afraid of becoming a drug addict and I was pretty afraid of not having any friends again. I was afraid of my mom finding out. But more than anything else I was afraid that I was a weak person who just didn't what other people wanted me to do. Too scared to do what I wanted to do. Too scared of other people's opinions. I'm so glad I grew out of that. I'm still somewhat of a sweetheart but I'm not longer a pushover. If I don't want to do something, that I don't do it and if I do want to do it, I have my own legit reason. It's my life, I don't play by anyone else's rules. That was really that happened that day, though. I because scared of being a failure forever because my pot-smoking friends weren't very helpful and I had no idea what I was doing so I didn't inhale any of the times that I smoked with them. It was like Carlie and me with cigarettes all over again. I was still too little to know that if you don't inhale the illegal substances you're wasting them.
I started stealing money from my mom and leaving Annabell home alone so I could go over to Lisa or Gina's and we could buy a dime bag and smoke it and I started wearing the shortest skirts to school, just slutty clothes in general. Lisa started sitting closer to the back of the bus to be near the boy she had a crush on. I ended up sitting in front of Samantha, who I always thought wouldn't like me but we had a bit in common. We both liked to read and we liked the same movies and songs and she told me I should stay after school with her for some cooking club. I think we joined it together too, and then I stopped going to school.
I found out we were moving to Arizona. And I got grounded. Basically. Mike and my mom have always called it 'restriction' but it's the same thing as being grounded, for leaving Annabell home alone. She was like seven, and out pit bull Jake was with her, but I still kind of really knew that I shouldn't be doing it as I was doing it. I didn't get to see any of my friends before I left because of it. They weren't friends for very long but I went out and I made them myself, they weren't people hat I had classes with, they weren't people that I lived right next door to, they weren't even the kind of people that I had become very accustomed to knowing. And they were still my friends. Friends from scratch is hard as shit.
I remember once Lisa and I were fighting about something and she walked up in the middle of a line of people (horizontal) that she knew and somehow I walked up the same way, thinking about it now all I can picture is like a Hey! Arnold! showdown and I don't know if we would have gotten into a fist fight or not, if it would have come to that but we were in the parking lot and this car drove by and this girl jumped out of and ran over to us and she stood in front of me, facing Lisa and said, "Are you messing with my girl?" I seriously had never seen this girl before in my entire life. "I don't even know who your girl is!" Lisa said and the chick stepped aside and she touched my shoulder, "This is my girl and if I see you messing with her again, I'll find you and return the favor." And then she just walked away and got back into the bar she had hopped out of.
Lisa waited until the car pulled away to even look at me, "Who was that?" I tried really hard not to smile, but I cracked up, "I don't know!" Lisa started laughing too and it just one of the craziest things that's ever happened to me.
I also remember that Gina had an amazing singing voice and she could rap too, she was like one of the best rappers I've ever heard to this day. Male or female.
9. Dolan
We officially started residing in Dolan Springs, Arizona on November 18, 2004. Today's date is December 28, 2010. What I've learned here these past six years is irreplaceable and if I wasn't here, I don't think I would have learned it.
I learned that arson truly isn't as fun as it may sound.
Sometimes it takes losing everything to appreciate anything.
Just because you don't like someone doesn't mean you can start rumors about their STD status.
The moment you grow up is the second you realize you don't need to.
You have to believe in magic and miracles and that anything is possible, otherwise... what's the point?
Hitchhiking isn't as dangerous as people make it seem.
Rednecks are people too!
Sometimes trashy is the most beautiful, unique thing around.
Best friends come and go but soul mates will be around to talk shit with for forever.
Even if you're pretty on the inside, no one gives a fuck.
You have to say what you mean and, more importantly, mean what you say.
Everyone gets depressed, the difference is some people know how to deal with it, others don't.
You feel the way you way to, even if you're miserable, you have to want to be, otherwise you wouldn't feel that way. And it really is that easy.
Graduating from high school isn't for everybody.
Tattoos make you pretty.
Be yourself, no one else knows how.
Dreams, when thought about and remembered correctly can help you in life.
Sex is amazing, but you have to remember that herpes is for life, bro.
If you're going to try and commit suicide, you do it at your own house. Preferably not at all.
It's harder than it sounds, but if you don't trust the people you're around, maybe you should be around other people.
If you believe in something, you stand up for it.
Sometimes life gives you a best friend, you don't fuck the boy she's in love with.
It doesn't matter what other people think about you, it matters what you think about you. People will think what they're told to think.
Stay innocent for as long as you can possibly manage, the world isn't a very nice place.
If you have a talent, you need to show it off.
Wear deodorant, everyday.
Not everyone is going to like you, it's really okay. If everyone liked you it would probably mean there was something wrong with you.
Do what you love! Try the rest at least once.
When someone is your weed hook-up, you give them a bug. It's the polite thing to do.
Michelle Albert's husband is imaginary.
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I like remembering all this stuff and writing it down. I forgot I had so many stories. And there's a million more just waiting to be revealed. And I mean the ones I already have inside of me and the ones that are to come, the future stories that haven't even happened yet.
I never really consider the moments in my life that are bad, bad. If it's an experience, maybe even a new experience, and it ends up going horribly wrong, well then I get to tell that story to other people. It's like show and tell.
That's one of the things I love about telling stories to other people and hearing theirs, story times is when everyone gets a turn to share themselves with whoever is around. I want to share myself with everyone. Not only do I want to give myself away to whoever had the time to listen to what I have to say but I want them to want more. I want to verbalize my very soul and just have that kind of passion, not only on paper but also inside. Shining out whenever someone's asks me a question that excites me. I want to be a beacon for creativity, a lighthouse for the artists that have lost their way... or maybe they haven't found it at all yet.
I get the deepest sense of appreciation sometimes when I see the gloomiest, most amazing things. I want to make other people feel that way, I don't want them to honor me, I just want them to honor the words, believe in them, love them, and them they'll come to life.
10. Lake Trip 2010 Edition
"Do you like it well done? 'Cause I do it well!" The song was on repeat and Sally was running around her room trying to pack everything we would need. It was 8:30 AM & if Shannovan was on time, we'd be leaving in half an hour, but Shan--when he did show up, was never on time for anything; so even though we'd been awake all night and we were ready, we were pretty sure that we had time.
I heard something just then and turned the music down and turned around to look at Sally who had frozen in the middle of bending over, because she must have heard it too. She turned her head to look at me and we, at the same time, said, "No way!" And ran out into the downstairs hallways to open the front door for Shan, who was early and ready to go--and we were not.
We made fun, teasing Shan about how we genuinely thought that we would have had a few more hours to get ready. We went to Montgomery Mike's to get the van that would haul the boat and two hours later we were on our own little island stocked with beer, booze and more that enough biting flies. Sally and I put on our sunscreen and tanning oil and got to----
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PAUSE.
I'm so fucking cold.
I've been shivering for, like, the past 24 hours. Now that's fucking insane. Megan says Josh takes the speed to work with him, but he didn't take it yesterday and it's kind of the world's dickiest move to take all of it and not leave any for Megan. She has to put up with these kids all day.... I know I won't be able to do any if he didn't leave some for her somewhere, and if she doesn't share with me. I can totally tell when she's spun, though, so if he did and she does it without me I'm going to probably be really super upset.
Each time my body reacts differently to the high, sometimes my tummy growls and at Sally's I literally felt like I was dying and I had to lie down because I felt so exhausted and I was starving, but right now I just want to find that special feeling again, that feeling that let me know who I used to be isn't who I am anymore. But I guess I already know that... you can't always realize who you are... but I just want creative things to come out... not this crap.
RESUME.
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---what the lake is all about: Swimming and drinking. That is of course, after we set up our tent and helped get everything off the boats and set up. Mike was fishing and we were sitting in the water, enjoying the lake like we had been wanting to do for the last could of months, and it was finally happening. Right at the last minute, and by that I mean that we had been planning an amazing Labor Day Lake Trip Weekend (2010 Edition) & that one I had been allowed to go to, also Jackie was going to come, but she couldn't this weekend because she had to work. She's the reason we hadn't slept last night, well not really the reason but the excuse we were using. She had fallen asleep on the couch while it was indeed showing off to the world that it could totally be a couch instead of a pull-out bed it usually was. (It's kind of funny that Sally sleeps on a couch-bed because she has a reputation for breaking them sons-of-bitches) So we had stayed up all night listening to music and talking like we always do when we see each other and of course smoking a shit ton of pot that we bought from Jackie's parents a couple of hours earlier. If we had really wanted to go to sleep we could have, there were two other beds downstairs with us, now there are three because Sally's dad bought her a waterbed from L.J. But, like I said, we didn't go to sleep, we were too excited. So by the time we were at the lake smoking pot and drinking beer we were kind of burnt out and we couldn't feel our high or the buzz from the beer. (Honestly it's really hard for me to get a buzz from beer anyways, I'm never thirsty enough to get there) It was still awesome, though, except, well, I felt kind of guilt about being at the lake. Right before I went to Meadview, a couple days before, I had been stoned and in the middle of the night I got the munchies and decided to make blueberry pancakes. I put the butter in the pan, I put the batter in the pan, and I waited patiently for the middle to bubble, I was (and am) pretty sure that that's how to make pancakes. I don't really like pancakes, and I sure as hell had never made them before so I had no idea what I was doing. It was pancakes though, so, I could wing it, right? No big deal. (I promise this is relevant to my guilt) Apparently, not. As I was making the third pancake, I flipped it and I wasn't paying attention because I just dropped the pancake, let it flop back down into the pan that had quite a bit of boiling hot butter and of course it splattered all over the place. And I wasn't wearing pants (I don't really believe in pants) so it hit my thigh and it fucking BURNED. It was 2 AM and I didn't want to scream, so I bit down on my lip and threw myself backwards, hitting the cabinets and cursing silently as my leg burned with butter. Part of that burn turned out to be like, the worst degree, and it sucked, I still have the scar, but it was still a gooey-scab wound when we went to the lake, and lake water isn't the cleanest water in the world, and my mother had told me not to go because she was worried about it.
Like so many things my mother tells me not to do, I did it anyways.
In Arizona, monsoon season happens at the end of August, and early in September, but the weather everywhere seems to be getting constantly delayed so in early October we had set out on a very warm, clear day. Perfect for the lake.