"I see now that I was born an artist, and where I've always felt like an outsider everywhere but in my own mind, there are others like me."

I don't talk with these kids like I do with the rest of the world. The kids at my school, that is. I finally gave my manifesto in four inch heels. It's the first time I've really talked to a whole group of people about myself in this manner, and about where I am. 

"Like I said, I've always felt at home in my own brain. I've always had the ability to do anything I put my mind to, and I know that I have the skills to achieve anything that I want, and I am more than confident in saying that because I've allowed myself to believe and accept that realization. What's hard about this is knowing where I need to be, what I need to do, who I need to know, and the means I need to have necessary for me to achieve those things, but to be living in a place where we are constantly told that these things are of no value or almost impossible to do without a college education." 

I basically just told my class that it's a load of shit that we're made to believe that without college we won't be happy, and won't succeed in doing what we love and/or are naturally good at. This was also the day that the college counselor came in to talk to students one on one. Yee haw! Mostly though, I just tried pass along the message I've been receiving lately about doing what you want and what's going to make you happiest. It would be folly for me to say that it's something that I've discovered on my own, but I know it's what I need to do and I wanted to share that. So what better opportunity than to utilize our public speaking assignment? 

And what better opportunity to announce that whatever I choose to do "I'll still be the incredibly lonely, misunderstood, enigma of an artist I was born." Really? Really? Did I really just say that to my entire senior seminar class? As if people didn't already think I was self centered, overly embellished, schizoid. Why don't we just ice the cake? Anyone want a slice? No? That's fine. I'll eat it myself.

 I suppose school's the same old story. I really don't want to be there around everyone, and doing busy work. But I'm still managing to get by with exceptional grades with what feels like little effort and enthusiasm. And I haven't lost my voice from yelling about my frustrations because really I'd just rather not talk to anyone but Kailee about her new crab/cancer tattoo and what she's going to do and where she's going to live after she graduates, and about myself. But it's good to be able to talk with her because she's like me in the way that everybody tells her all of their problems and she probably rarely gets the chance to spout her own. So we just vent about our issues and compare our lives, and we're not too similar, but we're both, like 30, so we get it even if you don't.

While helping prepare the food for the season ticket holder event on Sunday I produced the names of the shows every other song playing on the Pandora Radio had been used in. Ryan suggested I use that space in my brain for more useful things. We close Hercules in about two weeks. It's been six consecutive, and at times overlapping shows since June. Mom said today that my kindergarten teacher used to like to tell her that she believed "Lucy would probably only ever be happy if she could split herself into three or more separate people so she could do everything at once," and in a way that's exactly what I've been doing. But now there's only one day a week where I'm not just me, so we're coming down to about a Lucy and a half, and soon it will be just me.  It's the first time in four months or so that I don't have my nights spoken for, so I've been sewing, and cleaning, and picking at my skin, and I've been needing more and more pillows to sleep with. I know I should take all this extra time to "relax" and "take a break" and have "time to myself" but frankly I don't like that. With the exception of the occasional opportunity to sing at the top of my lungs and walk around the house almost abandoning all modesty due to the fact that I'm the only one home, I've got more than enough opportunity to allow unnecessarily harmful thoughts about myself enter the equation. But I guess it is necessary, in a way. Now I've really got nobody's standards to meet but my own, and that will make me stronger, and that will force me to create more on my own terms. And I'll have to and am having to deal with not constantly being surrounded by the people that make me feel the most at home and less like I'm the only one in the world who's ever felt the way I do. But I'll end up dealing with that just fine, because I've always been able to work with separation anxiety. My methods might not be the best because I usually just end up shutting everybody out. I'll end up telling myself that I'm the only person I can relate to because I'm the only person I'll allow myself to be around. But then again assuming all of this could just be setting myself up for failure. Maybe I'll do just the opposite. Maybe I'll change my recurring pattern. You never know.

This Disneyland vacation couldn't come sooner. 20 days and counting.

Have you got it? I don't have it.

I woke up this morning to mum telling me that we were having plumbing issues again. That the sink in the kitchen was available for me to brush my teeth in but that if I actually needed to use the restroom she would have to drive me down to the Trader Joe's at the end of the street like she had earlier. So here I am in my less than real world appropriate pajamas in my kitchen brushing my teeth seeing out the window my dad and neighbor walking across the front yard about to come into the house, and the plumber getting out of his over-sized red truck. Our property manager can suck a dick, telling us that we didn't give him a reasonable SIX hour response time until we called the plumber. Really? It seems like he's not aware of how much water damage can happen in even the two hours that it took for mum to call the plumber, and have him show up. My dad's solution was just going back to bed.

I've been seeing what seem to be perfect little signs everywhere I go lately. Things that keep pushing me in the direction that I want to go. I'm still uneasy about the thought of life after high school blah, blah, blah - but I seem to increasingly know what I want. There are opposing forces out there living in people who are close to me and whose opinions should really matter, but something in me doesn't want to value them as much as the "signs" I'm getting, and the people who are where I want to be, assuring me that what I want is possible. I haven't eaten anything this morning so as I'm typing this my stomach is eating itself, and my brain is telling me that it could be acceptable to eat these dog treats on Michael's desk that Pat just brought in. I think I'll pass. I should really be getting ready for Hercules, and should scrub my hands a little more as they're still somewhat stained from our closing of ROBOTS VS. FAKE ROBOTS last night. I've got a long day ahead of me. I've got a long few months of no shows ahead of me. I've got a long rest of the school year ahead of me. I've got a long life ahead of me.
But all that aside... I think I'll go drink my coffee and pack some makeup on my face, because that's what I should be worrying about right now.

Yes, and

I'm sitting in my Senior Seminar class right now pretending to write my manifesto because it's something that I feel like I can't work on during school, and because really I just don't want to be here, so I might as well write something that I want to pay attention to and will keep me distracted from these ridiculous kids sitting in their little cluster behind me. Jessie won't stop showing me corsets on eBay that I in all honesty don't really care to look at right now either, but it's better than being talked at by my teachers so I really shouldn't be complaining. In drama today we are going to have Jeanmarie Simpson [the woman who stars in the COMING IN HOT show that I saw this year and last] coming in to talk to us. And I have to watch more kids do their monologues. It's hard figuring out how I want to grade them, even with a rubric. I start work at the Gaslight Costume Shoppe after school and have nothing but iced coffee in my stomach right now. I have to put this computer away. Way to go. Progress.

You have a deep rooted fear of being conventional.

I got my first less than fantastic theatre review today. It would be foolish to say that I'm not the slightest bit upset. I am. I ate four pieces of buttered toast in ten minutes after reading it. I am more upset at the review for it's judgment of the show as a whole, than I am about my own performance. If there's anything I've learned in the past seven years of public education it's how to deal with and accept dissent and dislike. At least attention will be brought to the show. At least I'm still more excited about the fact that on the classical station on the car radio this morning there was an add for ARMOR.


What I would really like to touch on is something that I actually worry about. When I use the school restroom at school I tend to be appalled if there is someone in the stall next to me. We have two stalls in two restrooms and two hundred students. I have the most distinct shoes in the school... nine times out of six. Whenever I use the restroom I worry that the person in the stall next to me will be able to recognize my shoes and will know that I'm taking a piss, and will hear me spitting in the toilet afterward. I will usually consider this as a contest. A competition of sorts. "Can I possibly beat this person next to me [whom I don't recognize the shoes of] in a non metaphorical pissing match?" I can, and I will. And I will even wash my hands. But I'm starting to get over things like this. Because I know we all use the restroom, and I know it's an unforgivable human trait... but I know I will still beat you.

I can't express enough that this past weekend was quite possibly one of, if not the best I've had. In my life. Age seventeen is proving itself, less than a month in. I become more comfortable in my own skin every day, and more sure of what it is I want to do. And I might not be complete but I sure as hell know how to fake the feeling of being so.