Life is so funny.

Life is so funny. Sometimes you accidentally make out with your friends. Sometimes Will Ferrell movies are inspiring. And sometimes the only person who can make you feel better after you find an old love letter from your ex-boyfriend is the girl he replaced you with. Things can really throw you for a loop every now and then.

I didn't do anything today but clean my room, listen to Flight of the Conchords, and watch the new Taylor Swift video on repeat. (At 0:45 she displays some oddly Kristina-esque mannerisms. Weird.) I'm still wearing the ugly sweatpants that I may or may not have worn half of yesterday and all of last night. Pretty soon I'm going to go over to my sister and brother-in-law's new house to watch TV, eat Chipotle (surprise!) and be otherwise productive. I think my brother moved out today. I realize that's a strange thing to speculate about-- whether or not your brother still lives with you-- but it's been the world's slowest moving process. If he did, baaaah, I now have to drive fifteen minutes away when we want to watch Scrubs together, and if he didn't, baaah, it's inevitable anyway.

A friend of Jess's died this week. I never met him, but it's a pretty terrible thing to imagine. He was our age, had a serious girlfriend, and Jess says he was a really great person. She's so sweet... she makes it her duty in life to revive everyone around her, so she never allows herself to be sad. Pray for her, okay? And obviously the family/friends/girlfriend of the boy.

I'm just the personification of fascinating today. I can't think of anything else at all to say. Stranger Than Fiction is beautiful and jaw-droppingly perfect. I'm vastly more obsessed with Rohan (RoboFillet) than he is with me. Misty (my little white dog) smells like burnt hair and vomit.

Chipotle burritos this year: soon to be 17

Subscribers: 15,916

Days left of high school: 12

Bye, guys! Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow. <3

A Sex-Charged Library Adventure

I'm not going to talk about the Scrubs finale, because, while my eyes became wet, I did not SHED any tears. And if I talk about it right now, my lack of crying will go from technical to nonexistent.

Hey, robros. I just came home from the library, because that's what I do in my spare time to keep myself from doing things like this. It was an eventful visit, to say the least. My brother's moving into my sister's old house sometime soon, so he borrowed my truck for hauling bookcases, leaving me with his nice car. The thing about driving a pickup truck older than you are, is that sometimes you forget that other people's brakes work and gas meters don't lie. Anyway, Jacob Black (my car) usually disarms people enough that they don't bother harass me. But without him? On my way into the library, I had to pass a large group of stoned teenage boys. They smiled, whistled, laughed, etc., and threw out comments like, "Hey, sexy thing. Oh, she's a good one. I like her walk!" As soon as I passed, the voice of a girl (What kind of girl hangs out with people like that?!) squeals, "Nick, stop looking at her ass!" Nick's a defensive guy. "I wasn't looking at her ass!" he retorted. "You are now," said one of his cohorts. "Yeeeaaah," said Nick. "Never mind."

Thanks, Nick! Luckily for me, I was hit on by the man behind the counter as I checked out. He looked through my stack of movies/CD and said, and I quote, "Oh my God, I think I'm in love with you. Good choices." This would have been a little bit more intriguing if he had been taller than 5'2" and younger than thirty-five, but it was a step up from Nick & co. Counter Guy's fortunate that they still haven't gotten in my copy of Miley Cyrus: Miles to Go. To stand in Miley's place (temporarily), I picked up:

--Amelie. It's my number-one favorite movie of all time, but I don't own it because that would take away all the excitement. This way it's always a treat.

--The Science of Sleep. Another favorite that I've been meaning to re-watch, as I've been having a strange recurring dream the past week. I'm in some kind of thrift or costume shop that's a combination of a vintage store in a nearby town and the layout of a bakery I've been to. My dreamland boyfriend works there, and while I can't remember his name when I wake up, he definitely has one in the dream. He sort of resembles this creepy guy who sits in the back of mine and Jess's Taco Bell, but he has his own distinct face. While I wait for him, a silent woman with dyed blue hair smiles widely and stands too close to me, but I'm not uncomfortable with it. She's like a normal size eight or ten woman, but she's a little bit bigger than real people, like she's been blown up on photoshop. Her face is really big and round. ...And that's the dream. I know that sounds boring and pointless, but I can see both of them perfectly in my head right now, and that's freaky. ANYWAY.

--Stranger than Fiction. I saw it once about two years ago, but I didn't appreciate it because I was sick. We'll give it another chance.

--Little Miss Sunshine. I HAVE CHECKED OUT THIS MOVIE ABOUT TWELVE TIMES, EVERYONE I LOVE HAS COMMANDED THAT I WATCH IT, AND I SOMEHOW NEVER HAVE. That changes this week.

--The Squid and the Whale. I know absolutely nothing about this movie, other than that Laura Linney is in it and the cover looks trippy.

--Flight of the Conchords's The Distant Future. How can these songs still make me laugh when I've memorized them and anticipate all the jokes? I can't hear "I've been making a lasagna. For one," without cracking up. There's another recommendation for you guys! Flight of the Conchords. They're the most beautiful band in the whole wide room.

On an unrelated note, my audition went well today. It wasn't the most beautiful thing to ever come out of my mouth, but the three boys who auditioned had trouble hitting the final note, and the other girl is almost as bad a singer as she is a person. We'll see!

Sexy: New Zealand accents! Especially coming from dark, saucy, and hilarious men. Speaking like robots.

Unsexy: Loitering with your fellow pubescents in front of public buildings for no purpose other than to annoy/intimidate/objectify women.

Chipotle burritos this year: 16

Subscribers: 15,892

Days left of high school: 12

Bye, guys! Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow. <3

AP and Talent(lessness)

Every Thursday night at promptly ten o'clock, my friend, Adam (acheronwalthers), texts me the best quote from that week's episode of 30 Rock. In case you were wondering, "When's your cult committing suicide?" Hahahahaha. Tina Fey is a goddess.

Today I took the AP English Literature & Composition exam. The proctor lied to us and said they give different tests on the east and west coasts, but through some stealthy methods-- which do not include talking about the test, since that's against the rules-- I'm able to assume that we all took the same one. [Note: In case you matter in the AP world and are reading this, no, we did not steal anything or commit any crimes. The suspicion was verified through a single word.] I think I did well. I'd rate my first two essays at about sevens, probably (they're on a scale from 0-9), and if it were up to me, I'd give my free response a nine. I wrote about The Catcher in the Rye, and all kinds of hidden brilliance poured out of my brain from places I didn't even know I had. It's a shame that I'll never see that composition again, because I honestly think it's one of the best AP-style literature analyses I've ever written. Scoooore.

I forfeited the opportunity to make a 5AG video (I am a bad, bad, bad youtuber!) to attend my school's talent show tonight with my friend, Lauren. Nothing particularly spectacular or noteworthy. A baton twirler, an Irish dancer, a couple acoustic guitars, and the ever-so-predictable high school bands with more volume than talent. I felt like I was doing someone a favor for sitting through the whole thing, as the house lights were left on haphazardly for half the show, and there were countless bursts of white people attempting to clap in time. It did serve, however, to remind me just how little I will miss the American public school system. Two. Weeks. Two weeks.

Today is awesome because I ate raw cookie dough in the back of the auditorium while a group of white boys rapped into faulty microphones. Today is also awesome because of this quote from TOLauren: "Can I write your blog for you? I'll do the 'today I went to school and ate food' part, and you can add metaphors and shit." But all in all, today is awesome because I'm DONE with standardized tests, and I'm going to go take a shower now.

Chipotle burritos this year: 16

Subscribers: 15,881

Days left of high school: 13

Bye, guys! Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow. Wish me luck; I'm auditioning for Collins's solo in my choir's rendition of "Season of Love" at about 10am. Goodnight! <3

Mudbloods and Childhood Relics

You know what's truly hilarious? When people write out the lyrics to their favorite songs and expect other people, reading them, out of context, to be moved. First of all, it's rare that anyone else in the world is going to give a crap about the emo poetry in your facebook status. Second of all, sometimes perfectly awesome songs make for perfectly awful poems. (Not hating on Marie'; that video's really funny/pretty.) Where was I going with this? Oh, yeah-- I'm deeply, passionately in love with The Mudbloods, and I was thinking today, as I listened to them on repeat with my sad face, how beautiful their lyrics are. One example of very readable songs. While they make the experience even more incredible, you don't need Adam Dubberly's dreamy voice or the haunting melody for "Since March, Since September, and Still" to make you heartsick.

Since March of last year, every time I go to sleep

You're always right here, next to me

Whether I stay up late, or I go to bed early

You're in my life until I wake up in the morning

And I don't know if I love it or I hate it

But it's more painful than I'd ever like to admit

It's masochistic, but it's almost really worth it

To be able to be with you for even one more moment

And every time I have to wake

I come to terms with my actual fate

That the only thing lying next to me

Is a couple books and a pile of CDs

I open my eyes and begin to return 

From either the past, or a future that might have been

Even though it's been almost a year now

It's like you've left me all over again. 

Isn't that pretty?! I really can't get over it. These are the same guys who wrote and performed the song to which my video "Early Fall" is set. I seriously, seriously suggest that you buy some of their music. (And really, when have I ever led you wrong with a recommendation?)

On a completely unrelated note, after school my second grade class got together to open a "time capsule" we put together ten years ago. TOLauren and I met in that class when we were assigned to share a yellow floppy disk for our computer projects, and we'd sit in tiny chairs for hours on end, writing and illustrating stories together. How cool is it that we've been best friends since we were seven? (Jess and I have been best friends since we were five, too, and Lauren, Sarah and I have been a trio-in-crime since we were ten.) While our most famous and discussed stories, "Stop, Junior!" and "The Small Apple" unfortunately did not make it into the box, I uncovered a handful of gems. A six-page typed story called "Mirisa's Book Challenge," for example, from the era before MS Word provided automatic spell-check. "She ran downstairs and had a boll of live ceryel" (page 3, line 5). I'm amused to find, as well, that my affinity for making up last names is no new habit, as seen in "Mrs. Randar" and "Mr. Ettle." Despite my faulty eight-year-old spelling, I cracked up upon reading this poem I created:

"A friend is someone that is caring.

One whom you can trust.

A person you are nice to

And do not throw in the dust.

If you want a friend you should be caring too.

Then a kid just might say

"I like you"!"

Well, sweetie, the exclamation point really should be inside the quotations, and there are some aspects of syntax I would change, as well as a few missing commas... HAHA. I USED THE WORD "WHOM" IN SECOND GRADE. HAHAHA. Oh, here's another goodie:

"On Sunday morn when

You get home from

The chapel sit down

And unwind and eat

This apple."

"My name is Hayley G. Hoover. I am 8 years old. My favorite food is spigetie. I like to read and write. My favorite colors are violet and lime green. I love Annie, Ramona [Quimby, of the book series by Beverly Cleary] and pecacho (which I'm going to assume is Pikachu). My teacher has a beard."

The now beardless teacher attends my church and works at Royal Family Kids' Camp with me, so I was trusted to borrow the much-coveted video yearbook on VHS. After a few minutes of random action shots, in which I'm seen loudly attempting to direct a play in the corner of the room to a most unenthusiastic cast, I highjack the camera and conduct obnoxious interviews with my classmates for a good half hour. "How do you feel about our class pet giving birth?" I ask a tiny, pudgy version of one of my current choir friends. "Okay," he answers, blushing. Little Hayley exhales furiously and continues digging for dirt. "What if it had been Godzilla? What would you do if it was Godzilla?" Ben giggles and replies that he doesn't know. Little Hayley, tired and bored, spends the rest of the interviews playing with the zoom button and talking in a slow-mo voice. I'm not sure how to import VHS tapes to my computer--Do I need some kind of device?--but if I ever figure it out, I'll surely post it all on the tubes.

Dear Hayley,

I'm all right; how're you? HELL. NO. Sorry to let you down. No, I'm about as coordinated as a wounded duck. You'll realize that pretty soon. Um, yeah, you could say I've "been in a show." About a million, give or take. Yes, I more than "like" to write. I feel the same way about it now that you did then, except now I can spell "really." I guess I can draw enough to get by. Yes, you are eighteen. Good math. You should probably have put a comma before "me" to make sense of that sentence, but I get what you're saying. Thanks!

Love, Hayley

Chipotle burritos this year: 15

Subscribers: 15,853

Days left of high school: 14

Bye, guys! Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow. Wish me luck for the AP Lit exam tomorrow, and thank you soooooooooo much for your continuing abundance of comments. <3

Prom pictures and Bloody Red Heart

With my real date, Lex.

Andrew and I. Don't ask why he's wearing those sunglasses. I couldn't tell ya.

We were getting really sick of taking pictures.

Andrew, me, my friend, Seers (I guess you know her as Sarah), and her boyfriend, Max.

Yaaaay. And, while we're on the topic of pictures.... My editor, Amy Goldwasser, sent some photos of the cast of Bloody Red Heart (the stage play version of the essay anthology I contributed to). I didn't get to go see it, but it's surreal enough just to read about. My fourteen-year-old diary came to life!

The girl with the reddish-blondish hair, leaning on the girl with the hat, played me. The black girl on the left played the boy in my story.

Here's a close-up of Chiara Russi, credited with the leading role of Hayley Hoover, age 16.

I want to take another opportunity to thank those of you who read and comment on this blog for greatly increasing my quality of living. It took me over half an hour to read all your prom stories this morning (some were hilarious, some were heartbreaking, most were a combination of both) and I was positively thrilled. Thank you, guys. It genuinely means a lot.

Chipotle burritos this year: 15

Subscribers: 15,823

Days left of high school: 14

Bye, guys! See you, hopefully, tomorrow. <3

A Night to Remember

You guys, do you want me to look like an idiot? I'm sitting in my free period, moaning and holding my hand to my heart. All from reading the beautiful comments you left on last night's blog. I didn't expect anyone to say anything because it was so depressing-- I didn't really expect anyone to read it, even, because it was so long. But you all prove, once again, to be far better than I will ever be. I can't even convey how much your responses meant to me. A big hug to Tessa, Jordiekins (who's a boy?! His username is so normal for a girl, so I didn't think anything of it, but it's CUTE for a boy!), megkatjo, Phyllis, Cynthia, Faith, Katie, Bigred719, Daniel, Allyson, SnakesAndWorms, valerie2776, Leah (lessthanthree), Jordan, Tom, Nicholas, Karissa (who saw Bloody Red Heart!) Randi, Ginger, Hayley, sparkletasia, Rosianna (my soulsister), Callie, Rebecca, Leesa, VicMorrowsGhost, Brad, Kim, A.J. James, Catherine, Katy J, intothesunshine, Joanne, Adrienne, Joy Isobel, Lori, Elrich89, Kaitlin, Margo (Is that your real name? If it is, YOU'RE SO LUCKY. If it's just a nod to John Green, you're still awesome), Rachel, Gavin, an anonymous reader, and Gabby, who's incredible, considering our relationship's roots. I'll end the sappy shout-outs with an enormous, all-consuming, everlasting hug for Becky, who left the most heartwrenching comment I've ever received. I love you guys.

I don't really want to write about my prom, but I figure it's a record worth having, so I'll try to get it out. Okay, so the day started with getting my hair and makeup done. I wasn't crazy about the final product of my hair, but I had no issues with it. I hated wearing that makeup, though. I didn't look anything like myself, and it was both freaky and weirdly upsetting. I tried to avoid eye contact with myself and got pumped to later step into my craaazy dress that I positively adore. Some people (mostly those who are interested in fashion or like standing out) were big fans, but most reviews were openly confused, if not negative. One of my friends' boyfriends-- a guy I'm friends with, and admire for being typically kind-- said, and I quote, "Hey, Hayley. You look... interesting." My friend, Sarah, laughed out loud when she saw it and mockingly asked if she could borrow it. Another good friend told me, flat out, that she didn't like it, but liked me anyway. Despite how I'm making it sound, my feelings were in no way hurt over all that. I think it's kind of funny.

In line for Promenade, I told my date all the things I said yesterday about our English. He told me I was making a big deal over nothing. Then, like a sitcom, on cue walks in our English teacher from last year, who promptly takes to hugging me passionately and saying how much she loves and misses me. Talk about contrast!

Dinner was okay. I was mostly left to chaperone the boys at my table to make sure they didn't make fun of my flamboyant (yes, obnoxious to the extreme, but in my eyes, lovable) friend, at one point throwing a roll at one of their heads. They both lost serious respect points with me for that. Adding to his tally of lost respect, one of them (the boy who earlier said I looked interesting) and his girlfriend proceeded to moodily grope and eye-roll in each other's laps all night. Give me a break! I can't believe I was grateful that the music started playing and dinner was over.

I spent the majority of the dance portion positioned awkwardly in front of my date, cringing and swaying slightly to the beat of frightening rap music, while my peers literally held a lapdance competition on my right. I swear, the human race is devolving. They're so animalistic and overtly sexual, even in front of our assistant principal! The goal of a dress is to cover those body parts! The goal of music is to be heard, not thudded violently through the body at an incomprehensible volume! I danced in arm's length of my date just long enough for him to kiss me excitedly and terribly, taking care to do so when as many people as possible were watching. Let me tell you-- nothing is less sexy than wearing a princess gown in the middle of a student body orgy, and no first kiss is less innocent and sweet than one given by attack to the 8 Mile soundtrack.

The last nail was pounded forcefully into the coffin, by way of strappy silver high heel, at After Prom. First, I had to sit outside in a tube top, visibly shivering, while my date looked like an idiot and smoked a cheap cigar with ultimate pride, like, Look how manly I am! I smell like Old Spice, geriatrics and cancer! When we finally went inside, a group of tired chaperones gave us the fish eye, sizing us up and down to silently determine whether we were boozing, hitting up, or sexing. For me, it was none of the above, but their glares somehow made me feel dirty regardless. For the rest of the night, until three or so when I begged my date to take me home, I listened to some sophomore boys' band sing off-key versions of whiny white boy soft rock, watched my classmates prance their cellulite around in swimsuits, and thoroughly lost a game of "I've never." On the bright side, there was a TON of food, and-- I'm NOT making this up-- there were chips and salsa catered by Chipotle. I  jauntily consumed a teeny, tiny amount whilst listening to my date tell me how "People should only eat Chipotle about twice a year, because it loses its appeal." Yikes, kid. Not your best move. To punctuate that statement, he took my plate from me mid-bite, bored, and insisted that we relocate. OUCH! Anyone wanna desert Team Andrew? See what I mean now?

I walked inside as quickly as possible so I wouldn't have to experience the wrath of his mouth again, and just stood in my hallway for a minute in the pitch black, letting it soak in. On the bright side, I will never, ever, ever, ever have to do that again. On the smudgy side, I had eyeliner ingrained in my skin and was practically too exhausted to make it upstairs. I did, and fell asleep without so much as washing my face besides a few quick swipes of a washcloth. I awoke the next day at noon. My sister made me waffles.

And that, kids, was the so-advertised "night of my dreams" that High School Musical 3 and Seventeen Magazine love to talk about.

Chipotle burritos this year: 15

Subscribers: 15,807

Days left of high school: 15

Bye, guys! Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow. <3

Emotional backpack

"A good name is more valuable than precious perfume, in the same way the day of death is better than the day you were born." -Ecclesiastes 7:1

I'm writing this with the sour, raw feeling in my head reminiscent of when I'm trying not to cry. A million little things seem to be dumping themselves one by one into the metaphorical backpack of emotions that I have to haul uphill in high humidity for an unspecified amount of time. What did I call this before? Oh yeah, notsome.

Items in my backpack at the present time:

1) My score on the English test I wrote about two days ago is detrimental to my grade in the class, and as the AP exam is next week, our assignments for the course are pretty much done, and there isn't much more chance to improve. I don't want to turn this into a petty teenaged issue and place all the blame for my inferior work on the teacher, but I've been thinking about my relationship with her lately, and I've had some personal insights. She has me for both AP English, in which we write long, complex essays on a daily basis, and for Newspaper, in which I turn in articles every single Friday, and I have never-- not even once-- received a positive comment on a writing assignment. I've gotten perfect scores on papers, and I've received accolades throughout the school for editorials, and I've led class literature discussions, but I have never-- not even one-- gotten so much as a "nice job" or a "well-written." I understand that if she perceives a cocky attitude in me, she doesn't want to encourage it. But I don't think I come off that way at all! I've never mentioned to her that I'm in a book, or spoke to her about my internet life, or bragged to her about my relationships with authors I admire, or brought up NaNoWriMo. I've made effort not to act bigheaded about my love for writing, because if a teacher thinks I'm talented, I want her to come to that conclusion on her own. But honestly? I've written some brilliant pieces for those classes. It's my passion and reason for living, and this woman, whose passion is to encourage young people to pursue their gifts, has never found a single chance in a whole year to let me know she laughed at a line or liked a point made in an essay. I know that my performance on a test has nothing to do with my personal relationship with the grader, but I think I have reason to be upset about the classes as a whole. This teacher also, for example, thinks I'm an ecstatically happy person, when I did poorly in Newspaper last grading period because I was too miserably depressed to lift my head. She also thinks Jess (who she's had three years) goes by Jessica. So.

2) I started attending my church before I could talk. I've been in the same company, in the same building, twice a week for the past eighteen years. Our pastor is like an uncle to me: he convinced me to go on a bike-riding retreat when I was little and (if you can even grasp this concept) less athletic than I am now. He was present for every single family crisis. He officiated my sister's marriage, and will mine. The man is a wonderful, brilliant, real, flawed person, and I love him dearly. Unfortunately, the United Methodist Church as a whole attempts to work in the best interest of all its members, so when a minister has done great things for an individual church but is, after many years, appearing to flatline, they will sometimes require that the minister go somewhere new where they can be of more assistance. Basically, the higher powers that be are, in a way, asking a sort of retirement of my pastor. This summer, he'll be moving a few hours away to indefinitely work a different kind of job, and it's suggested that his current church family keep contact with him to a minimum for a while, so as not to show an unfair bias against the new pastor, and to not be selfish. The system isn't evil or anything; they're looking out for the greater good, trying to breathe life in new places and not let things get stale. This means, however, some pretty awful stuff for my family. My mother and the pastor's wife have been working together at the church for twelve years, and are best friends with the intensity of me and Jess. And for the "greater good of the United Methodist system in our area," my mom will be separated from her best friend in the world at the same time her last of four children will move out. My mom loves what she does, but she's been working for a long time, and she's exhausted. So now, at the time she needs her best friend most, and she needs her coworker to keep her afloat, everything is going to change against her will and power. It's heartbreaking to think about. On top of that, when I come home from college, my church will not be the same one I left. We'll have a new, young, very different pastor who, if he ever even has the time to learn my name, will have not taught me to ride a bike with handlebar brakes. He won't have seen me lose my baby teeth, or baptized me, or hugged me when my grandpa died. I just feel like... like the government is burning down my house and leaving an IOU.

3) Again, every Sunday night since I was about twelve, I've met at the church for what we call small groups. I've been getting together with my friends (and not just Church Friends-- these are Jess and Lauren and Sarah, among about six others) and my godmother-figure to talk about life, study a Bible verse, and hang out every single week. It's our only absolutely unchanging, stable social date to guarantee each other uninterrupted time, and it's been happening since we all had braces on our teeth. I can't even picture a world without small group. The impact these people have had on my life is positively immeasurable. But alas. We have one college freshman, one high school sophomore, and the rest are high school seniors. Our leader has been far too close with us to take on another group, so Elise, the sophomore, will be groupless next year. Oh, yeah-- and I WILL NO LONGER HAVE MY SMALL GROUP. The most reliable positive influence of my life is coming to an end. Our leader brought this up tonight, and as I walked into my house, I nearly fainted. There are few, few, few things more important to me than my small group. It's ending.

4) Oops, I did it again. I've nearly made myself a Girlfriend, and it's taken me until the last possible second to realize how desperately I do not want to be one. The main contributer to this (well, the one I feel comfortable enough to disclose to my blog readers) is the fact that he doesn't know the deep, intangible me. He knows the concept of Hayley Hoover from School: the girl he's flirted with intently since middle school, his costar in four musicals and six years of choir, the one who bounces up and down over Emily Dickinson in English and ignores everyone else for her tiny circle of friends. But in all actuality? Well, my small group was talking tonight about the different names we all hold. Like, I'm Hayley Hoover at school, and Hayley to my friends, Hayles and Haylsie to my family, Fuzzball to my brother, Miss Hayley at Royal Family Kids' Camp, and hayleyghoover to the internet. This boy knows Hayley Hoover, has a grasp on Hayles, and has a very vauge idea of hayleyghoover. And maybe that's the starting off point when you meet a new boy you're interested in, but that's not a relationship you jump into, thinking all the prerequisites were taken care of in the six years' preparation. If we were going to click on the sublime level of tight, functional love, it would have already happened. It hasn't, and it won't. I've been in love, and this situation has no potential for love. I can't stomach going through the motions of dating right now unless there's a needed give-and-take between us and kissing is intimate. Unfortunately, I don't really know how to break this news to him, having set the stage for boyfriend/girlfriending it. That'll be awkward.

5) I've been accidentally upsetting or abusing a lot of my friends lately. My friend, Sarah, is in a very serious relationship with our mutual friend (He's also our small group leader's son), and I've seen her so scarcely this school year that it's almost unbearable. Trying to make amends, she planned for my date and I to go with her and her boyfriend to prom. Well, the group soon filled up when another couple of our friends joined in, and then a few more, and then a few more... anyway, it turned into a huge event, made up mostly of people I don't know. At the same time, two friends of mine, neither of whom drive, needed another couple to go with, and as my date knew them better and would be more comfortable, we blew off Sarah. I saw her for a total of ten minutes last night. At the same time, I kept putting off recording some stuff for the new Parselmouths album, mostly because I still have difficulty combining Friend Kristina and Kristina Parselmouth in my head, and I was terrified. I'm totally comfortable with Friend Kristina in every possible way, but Kristina Parselmouth is a figure I've been anonymously admiring for years. I forgot about it after a while, even though she made many polite urging attempts to remind me, and it finally got the point that it was too late. I should have decided to tell her I couldn't help a long time ago, and now I've put her in a tight, nervous situation. Graham (my old close choir/musical friend/sort of neighbor) and Sarah Keeler (my old close internet friend/his fiance) came home for the weekend to work on things for their wedding, too, and I've let my prom stress and other problems get in the way of spending time with them. Other things are going on, too, and just... all in all, I'm sort of a sucky ass person right now.

Anyway, there are probably other backpack items I need to bring up, but it's late, and I need to go to bed. I've decided that un/sexy is optional from here on out, because a) it's hard to come up with them sometimes, and b) I'm tired. I'm going to stop tracking my weight because there's very little change in it from day to day, and I don't exactly want to think about that when it's avoidable. Therefore:

Chipotle burritos this year: 15

Subscribers: 15,781

Days left of high school: 16

Bye, guys. Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow. <3