The beginning of the end.

School's almost here. Which means I'm going to stop posting again and start doing homework. I don't hate homework. 'Cept for when its not writing something. Which turns out to be what homework is, ninety five percent of the time. So I guess I really do hate homework. Maybe it'll get better in high school? Meh. I suspect not. I dread the prospect of... doing geometry, or any math at all, especially because I'll be with juniors who failed the class, apparently. It's not that I have a problem with people who don't work hard in class or are stupid or whatever - although I guess I sort of have a problem with the latter - it's mostly that I'm afraid because they're tall and they have an excess of confidence and they might try to cheat off me because I'm a freshman. Well, actually, I'm not afraid of that so much as I'm just hoping that they won't try, because getting suspended or expelled or failing for cheating is not on my list of things to get done this year. However, my mother reminds me, they'll be too concentrated on trying to pass the class to waste their time bothering other people. I'm not so sure that's true, but my mother has been unexpectedly right before, I suppose. I also dread the first day, mostly because I'll get lost. People keep telling me I won't. Ha. I know I will because when I went to that dreadful thing in the middle of the summer, I recognized nothing. Not a thing. I guess I can ask my more knowledgeable classmates or something. Still, what are the odds anyone's going to know enough obscure corners on the first day to tell me where journalism, of all things, is? Not very good ones, I don't think. The only thing I can remember about that room is that its in the back corner of the school, somewhere. Which is totally unhelpful. I'm worried that I won't know enough people to sit somewhere at lunch, even though I have absolutely no objections to sitting there with a book and being antisocial, at least for the first few days. If I were being rational, I wouldn't worry about this stuff, but I'm not so I do. Oh, and I also worry about french class, because I remember nothing. I think half of what we covered last year has totally escaped me. That means either reviewing french this week, or just accepting that my grade won't be so wonderful. Yeah. No clue what I'm going to do about that. And! Biology worries me because I'm not a science person. It took me at least thirty seconds to type the word 'biology' properly, for God's sake. We have to put together a science fair project. This isn't like, detrimental to my life, but I just don't want to. It'll take too long, I won't have any time, it won't be fun. Unless my parents let me experiment on rabbits or mice or something adorable and furry. Which isn't so safe or pleasent for the adorable and furry thing, so I don't think they will. Besides, we have three cats. Even if they weren't be experimented on, they'd have their days numbered. Oh, and I worry about not having enough time. My mother wants me to spend just about all day on Sunday in church, school days will be occupied by piano, whatever club I'm forced into, sleeping, homework and well... school, and Saturdays are the days I sleep. So that leaves me little to no time to do anything worth doing, whether that be hanging out with my friends or writing or reading or cleaning my room or wasting time looking at things on the internet. Which is pretty much what I've been doing all summer, whenever I can, and I like it that way. School eliminates life. For most people, I guess it sort of is life, but not for me. Last year was fine, but this year I need to do well and I'm going to try to have A's in everything but french and math because I need to get into college somehow, and it certainly is not going to be through my participation in countless events. On top of all of this, I'm worried because I'm already going to be in debt due to my hair's rebleaching, and my parents said I need to buy myself a new calculator if I don't find the one I lost. Which was something I really shouldn't have done, because that calculator was expensive and I was stupid for losing it and if I don't have it, I can forget having a halfway decent geometry grade. It's not a worry so much as an, 'oh darn, this kinda sucks.' But I mention it anyway because I can.

I hope nobody actually read all that.

In other news, my family is large and overwhelming and very Italian. My uncle went to a Mudhoney concert the night before he went to a Pearl Jam concert, making me eternally envious of his life. I ditched the baby shower I was meant to attend because I was wearing old jeans and a black sweatshirt, which was not an acceptable outfit, so I went to a kid museum with my father and little brother and had a great time. I think it was the best part of the whole six day thing. My little brother is the only one in my family who I consistently get along with. I brought my piano books to my grandparents' house because they have a piano and a keyboard, but every time I tried to practice, something happened and I couldn't. On top of that, I left the books there - however, I must confess, that was partly purposely because I didn't want to be stuck taking a lesson where I knew just about nothing tomorrow - so now I have no lesson tomorrow. At first I was insanely relieved. But then I realzied that now my first lesson falls on the first day of school, and then my reaction was a little less relieved. I will come home from all of the peril that will undoubtedly strike me, and then have more peril strike me because that's how it works with me and piano lessons. I love playing so darn much, but I get a panic attack before every single lesson.

My new guitar is here! At last! It's gorgeous. The strings were really, really out of tune but I fixed them up and played around a little with it. I am, by no means, a guitar expert, but I think it's comfortable to play. It's nice to have a change of pace, and having a guitar that's a little larger will probably help my fingers, not that I can tell at all by playing it, which I know is messed up, though I think my hands were probably still fine with the smaller size. My hand's not all that much bigger than my eight year old sister's. My mother still thinks it looks hickish. I don't care anymore. I've seen numerous people who are definitely not hicks playing very similar guitars, including some guy who I'm pretty sure is ex - Love Battery, so she's wrong.

I bought new (to me) shoes, after a long search, that are about twenty five years old and nineteen dollars. They're gray and rather ugly, but ugly in a pretty way. I love them. I don't know how comfortable they'll be, but I can whack them into shape by keeping them on while I sleep or something.

This week will be so busy. Tomorrow should have been a piano lesson, but it's not anymore, so I guess that's free. Wednesday is a therapy appointment. With my father. So much fun. Not only will my therapist yell at me to get involved with activity sorts of things, she'll also yell at me to communicate with my father. We haven't done any of the things she demanded we do last time we went, so we're both screwed in that respect. And school orientation, which I'm also worried about, but as long as they let us hang with friends, it should be all right. Believe it or not, I have kept in touch with most of the people I hung out with at school, which isn't actually all that useful, since most of them are going to another high school, but I suppose it sort of is. On Thursday, my sister has gymnastics and several people have orientation, which isn't that eventful for me, but it does mean there will be household chaos and such. On Friday, I'm getting my hair cut. And someone else is having orientation. I have too many other people living with me. On Saturday, I'm getting up early and driving to New Jersey for reasons I explained before.

This is getting long. I listened to Bikini Kill, Love Battery, Elastica, Smashing Pumpkins, Bratmobile, Duran Duran, Pond and Foo Fighters this week. That's all you need know.

Yeah.

Oh dear.

Everything is ending. Summer, therefore freedom, therefore, my life. I'm leaving for New York and when I return, I have nothing but therapy, orientation, and a hair cut to greet me. Don't get me wrong -- I'm looking forward to the hair cut because then my bleach will be fixed so I don't have two inches of dark hair growing it over it. And my blue will be renewed by a person who knows what they're doing, which is always nice. I'm also going to a music festival with my best friend the weekend before school, which is amazing but I'll post more about that later. Not the rest, though, and I'm dreading school. Most of my (online) friends have already started school, and they all seem to be doing alright, but I really really really don't want to go back. High school sounds so scary, and even my mother admits my first week will suck. Oh well. Nothing I can do about it, may as well save the utter panic for the last week. I have this entire weekend to... deal with my family. Hoorah. At least my grandparents have a piano so I can entertain myself that way. I packed a couple of books too. My school mandated reading and my copy of The Picture Of Dorian Gray, becuase I love it and I want to read it again. It takes thought and paying attention, but I'm in the car for eight hours so I've got the time for it and nothing else to occupy my mind. Nothing better to do.

Oh, I had my piano lesson today. It was wonderful. One of the best I've had, even though I felt I wasn't doing all that great. I was so nervous, I spent at least two hours practicing this morning and probably an hour pacing around, worrying that I wasn't going to do well. Which, yes, is unreasonable when talking about a piano lesson, but oh well. I did pretty well, according to my piano teacher. She said she thought I was doing a good job of Bach's Prelude, which I also love playing, so that's good, and assigned me two and a half more lines. For some reason, her expectations for me are lower on this song than the others we've played. She seems to overlook the faults I have in playing, when she normally wouldn't. She's also giving me smaller assignments. Makes it easier to play it over and over, which is my favorite part of practicing so I don't mind at all. As for Bitter Sweet Symphony, I failed at it so we both agreed I need to give up pop music and play something else. I'm doing a song called, 'Jester' from this jazz book we found in the piano bench. It seems more reasonable. Less repeated chords, which I hate. By myself, I learned 'The Devil' by Tears for Fears. It's played almost solely in piano, so when I play along with the recording, it sounds like it should. It's an easy song, but so fun, and the melody is beautiful.

I ramble about piano too much, I noticed. Sorry for anyone who has to read through this stuff on a regular basis.

My guitar is due to get here... tomorrow. Great timing. Oh well. There's someone coming over to take care of the dogs and I suppose they can make sure the package gets inside alright.

I can't find any shoes. My mother said that my shoes (which are my favorite shoes ever) are dying and I guess I agree so now I'm hunting 'em down. There simply are not any shoes out there to my liking. And when I do find a shoe I like, its sold out of my size because size seven is the most popular size ever, apparently. I've already ranted to multiple people about this though, so I should not rant again. Of course, this is my blog, so technically, I can write whatever I want but like... yeah.

I missed the Love Battery show. Inevitably. So darn tragic. I need to write that letter to Love Battery, begging them to scrape up the money and get over here.

Music has been Frente. Due to some much needed help, I found the song 'Same' on MySpace. Full length track, unlimited plays, everything. The EP is still not mine, but at least that song is. Music has also been Love Battery, (a lot of) L7, Bikini Kill, Foo Fighters -- I bought their album, 'The Color And The Shape' last weekend -- 10 Minute Warning, Nirvana, my father's music, which is under the name 'Waveformation', Elastica (apparently finding their self titled album is hard and it's worth a lot of cash. I feel lucky now.), Green River, Beyonce, Soundgarden, Team Dresch, Veruca Salt, Smashing Pumpkins, and Moist. In short, some decent variety. Not too much garbage. Besides maybe Beyonce, but I swear I only like Halo. And Single Ladies, a little bit. Only a little. Sort of.

That's 'bout it. This was moderately short, but I don't have all that much to say...

Haven't blogged in a lot of days.

Yeah, so I went to New Hampshire. It was totally fun until my grandparents started snapping at everyone they could see and I was forced into more boring activities than I ever thought I'd have to do and I had to sleep on a cement floor with an oxygen tank sighing loudly at me all through the night and my brother snoring. Thank you for that, my darling brother. The rest of vacation was alright. I was thrown out of bed around eight every day. Which was unfortunate, since it screwed up my head, but the rest of the days were decent. The trip was devoid of hipsters, besides a couple at Hershey Park. Hershey Park was pretty, and it was probably pretty darn awesome if you didn't have a chronic fear of head trama that made you stay away from rides at all costs. Which I do, for the time being, anyway. I should get on a ride at some time in my life, but what if that happens to be a head trama inducing one?! I hate near death experiences. Two is enough for one life. First the bolting horse, then the drowning. Too much risk taking. If I cut that out, I can (maybe) count on a gentle death in my sleep when I'm old. That sounds better than being taken down by something that's scary, or something that hurts. For some reason, when I tell my father about this philosophy, he tells me not to committ suicide. Which is stupid, because suicide is the last thing I'd do, right now. Or ever. I'm sort of anti - causing myself any pain at all. I won't even rip off a bandaid.

But I'm rambling. I could say it's 'cause I'm tired, but I've had so much caffiene today, I don't even think tiredness is possible. I've had two Pepsis, one very large, and a mocha frappichino that made me unable to sit still for the better part of a day. Coffee is my favorite thing in the world. Today was boring. Eleven, almost twelve hours in the car with two and a half books does that. Suddenly, having seven hundred songs on my iPod feels like nothing. I don't even have Machina on there yet. I need Dayglo so darn bad. Oh, that reminds me of something I need to rant about after I finish talking about this. The first book I read was 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' but Oscar Wilde. Best. Book. Ever. Not only did the author's personal life hook me from the start, the novel was so entertaining and thought provoking. I read a lot of classics, but I have to confess that some of them are things I read because I know they're meant to be good, even if I don't adore them. Like 'Pride And Prejudice', which I recently re - read. This book was different. Wilde writes in a way that is easier to understand, since the book was more recent than the average classic, but something about the way he writes is so artistic and fascinating. That's the first novel, bar none, I've read in a long time where I found myself re - reading parts because they were so darn good. Nobody writes things like that anymore. I wish I hadn't already finished 'Tunnel', because then I could try writing more like the way he writes. Maybe it's just as well though, because I don't want to start ripping him off... Anywho. The second book I read was 'The Dave Grohl Story' which was okay. The first part about his upbringing and his first experiences with the DC hardcore scene were good reading, particularly for someone who lives where I do. The part about Nirvana was interesting, but it ended up leaving me more annoyed than anything else, because the author had it out for Kurt & Courtney, from the very start, it was all about Kurt trying to decimate the band and Courtney treating him as a puppet and alienating the whole world through her sheer Courtneyness. Don't get me wrong, I don't object to Courtney bashing in the least, I, like about ninety five percent of the world, doesn't like her at all, but Kurt? By most accounts, he was a sweet, sort of misunderstood person who tended towards being very quiet. Not a band decimater, at least, not on purpose. So that was frustrating to read. The Foo Fighters part was alright. Mostly, it idolized Dave and took shots at everyone else in the music industry. Which is always nice to read about. If one was a manic Foo Fighers fan, they might appreciate it a little more. I can't call myself that, not even owning one of their albums, so I had only passing interest in parts of it. The last half of a book was this Christian woman genericish novel my mother had. I read it because I had two hours left and my other books were done. I could have attempted 'Paradise Lost', but I was sick of weeding through annotations after 'The Taming Of The Shrew' and 'Pride and Prejudice'. Nothing better for light reading than a book intended for thirty somethings who like romance without any physical contact. Those books are generally full of cliches and impossiblities that would be profoundly annoying anywhere else, but are kind of funny there. This particular one was about some woman who works at a cancer clinic and then gets breast cancer and falls in love with the doctor who she works for. Dunno if the irony's meant to get it pegged as witty or smart, but it had a rather fourth grade reading level, so I mostly just read it to pass time. Never finished it, don't know if I will. My mother doesn't like me reading her books, which is understandable, because I wouldn't let her go near mine.

Oh. Yes. Love Battery is playing their first show in years for seven dollars at an all ages club. Guess what city it's in. Freemont, in, y'know, Seattle. I can't really complain that they're sticking to their roots, and with the economy or whatever, it's probably hard to fly out to DC, but... I need you to play here, Love Battery!! My devotion for this band has reached a manic obsessive level over the past few weeks induced by repeated plays of Straight Freak Ticket and a crush on Ron Nine. I want to write them a fan letter, preferably begging them to come to DC or Northern Virginia. My parents rejected my offer to be in debt for several years so I could fly myself and one of them there. I actually cried over it. Twice. I might be a stupid suburban kid who knows nothing of real suffering, but I want to see Love Battery. So bad. Ron Nine normally plays more with his new band anyway. I should check them out. Down With People, they're called. Oh well. I'll have to content myself with finding out how to burn my Between The Eyes cassette to iTunes and hunting down copies of Confusion Au Go Go and Dayglo. I'm actually drained of cash, for the time being, because I sold my darling old guitar and bought myself a new one.

It is a white Epiphone G - 310 SG, which is a long way of saying it's a pretty normal looking electric guitar that can do a lot and isn't too complicated or expensive. Well, actually, it does cost more than I'd like, but I had enough, so I figured I may as well live within my means. Oh, speaking of musical instruments, I can ramble about piano for a little while, right? I practiced on my grandparents piano, which was old and out of tune and felt all wrong to me. It screwed up my Prelude so darn much. Prelude is turning out to be one of my favorite songs. Not just to play, but to hear. Although, playing it is really exhilerating, in a way. The progression of notes that are part of the D minor (I think) chords in both hands is so fun. I don't even think about what my fingers are doing very much anymore, which is my favorite part of learning any song. I like playing classical ten times better than playing pop or rock. That said, I've cultivated an odd little aspiration to play piano in a riot girl or grunge band (that sounds more like one of the heavier, earlier ones). Something like Green River, only maybe even heavier. And with a piano. Mostly, this is because I'm incapable on the guitar and enjoy playing the same five power chords way too much to make something of myself, but also because the idea just appeals to me quite a lot. Can't imagine how I'll find multiple people willing to work with that, but that doesn't mean it'll never happen.

Oh, goodness, this entry was long and rambling and had almost no content worth actually reading. Music lately has been Love Battery. I swear, the only thing besides a couple of L7 songs I listened to the entire duration of my trip to New Hampshire was the two albums currently on my iPod. Drowning Sun is the best song in the world. What other artist can pull off the groovy thing?! Might have already mentioned that, but still... I've been listening to Nirvana and Mudhoney too. Also some Pavement, which makes me worry that I might turn into a hipster some day. Then there's Veruca Salt and Bratmobile and Lady Gaga. I really like 'Love Game'. No idea why. In fact, I don't think I want to know. I listened to more Devo, and then some Le Tigre. More of the same thing I always listen to, really. And always Love Battery. They catch me by surprise in the best ways. Thus why they're beating out Smashing Pumpkins for my second favorite band, at least, right now.

I don't really have a good excuse for not posting.

I don't. So I won't start with an excuse. It's been a little more than two weeks since I've posted, I think? And not even one little survey or post telling the world how I am. Which is fine, I guess, lots of other people do it but I like to try and post regularly. So now I'm posting and making it somewhat better. I wish I could say that summer's been so chaotic, I just haven't found time, but I've had time. I've just spent it occupying myself other ways. Want to hear about 'em? You know you do.

Firstly, I've been playing more guitar. I'm starting to get the skin shredded off the tops of my fingers again, which is cool, even though it hurts. I think I posted about this earlier, maybe, but I've been learning riffs and simple solos, and messing around with power chords, and it's all very fun. Because I'm not taking lessons, I can just let myself do whatever and not worry about learning specific things for the next week. I've learned all of L7's 'One More Thing' and Elastica's 'Blue', which is really easy, and most of Alice in Chains' 'Got Me Wrong' now. And Nirvana's 'Downer'. I want to learn some Smashing Pumpkins stuff, but Billy's insane at guitar, and I'm too lazy to deal with all of the things he does, so I had to put that aside for a while.

I've been playing piano too. I didn't have a lesson for about three weeks because we were both busy, and by then I'd made enough progress to get me ahead to the bridge of 'Psycho', which took forever. I could tell she wasn't sure that I was actually ready to move on, but was sick of making me play the same thing over and over. I don't know why I'm fine with classical stuff that is twice as hard as pop, but stumble over really easy stuff like this. It's annoying. I also got a new song assignment - Bach's Prelude Two in what I think is A minor, but I could be wrong. It's beautiful, if I get good at it, I might upload it to Youtube like I did with Movement One of Sonatina, but it's really hard. Well, not for someone who knows what they're doing, but for me. Especially since I've only had five days to practice this week, and one of them was sort of shortened. Thank God I still have today and tomorrow, I hate disappointing her and I still have no clue what I'm meant to be doing on Psycho, I only have about half of the right hand figured out on Prelude, and so... I have a lot to do.

Lastly, with the exception of hanging out with my internet friends, 'cause of course I'd be doing that, I've been writing again. For the first time in more than a year, excluding school assignments, it hasn't been fanfiction. I started a new novel, and it's at about twenty seven thousand words right now. I want to make it about fifty thousand at a minimum, but I guess I'll be done whenever the story line's finished. And then I can edit to make it longer. So much fun. My story doesn't... really... make sense, so I doubt it could go much of anywhere, but I'm having fun writing it and I've made almost ten thousand words in a day with it, so it's cool to have done that. I think that writing it has probably been the biggest cause in the random death of my blog, but oh well. I'm blogging now, right? And I intend to do at least three chapters today, even if they're not good chapters because I want to finish this whole thing by the time I leave for New Hampshire in a couple of weeks.

Oh. I almost forgot to mention this. I met my best friend. For the first time. In New Jersey (where, oddly, I came out of unscathed). It was pretty darn cool, to be able to hang out with someone who I've only talked to over the phone and over the internet before. I had to beg for it, because my father was really not too happy with the whole concept, but then she wasn't an old man, which meant he could go buy some cables at Game Stop and quit panicking, for the time being. We hung out at a mall for an hour or something, and then we (we being my father, brother and I) had to go. We saw my father's hometown, and this balloon festival thing where a disco band from the nineteen seventies were performing. And then we went to Great Adventure. We also saw Rutgers University, which is where my father went, and I've decided I am definitely not going there. Not only because it's in, well, New Jersey, but because it's huge. I can't handle the idea of taking a bus to get to each class, or wandering around miles and miles of paths. I have this little problem where I get really lost all of the time.

We went to PA over the weekend to see my grandmother, who actually lives in New York. I liked the city, even though my mother was afraid of it for some reason. There were so many hipsters, and if you know me, then you probably know how fascinating I find hipsters to be. I had a good time staking them out and envying their clothes. We went and did some historical things, and then we said goodbye to her and drove home. My favorite part of this vacation was probably, since I have had all interest in American history drained out of me by way of living near DC and having parents, was the mall that we stopped at on the way home. It was a gignatic, garish, tacky place that claimed to have more than two hundred stores. I loved it. I used nine dollars to buy Smashing Pumpkins' 'Machina and The Machines of God', which was one of their three albums that I didn't have yet. I still need Pisces Iscariot and Zeitgeist, but I'm not even sure I'll buy the latter because it's garbage compared to everything else they've put out and I already own most of its best songs. I also convinced my parents to buy me a leather jacket. I've sort of wanted one for more than a year, but yesterday I went on this obsessive quest through the whole mall and managed to find one that was frighteningly expensive to me, as I hate spending money, even when it's not mine, but was apparently pretty cheap for a jacket like that. It's brown, and it has some zippers, and I love it. Because buying stuff gives me a euphoria I don't think is normal.

Music as of late has been The Birthday Massacre and Marty Casey and Nirvana (mostly the Bleach stuff) and Steve Burns and Bikini Kill and Dinosaur Jr and L7 and Lily Allen and the Fastbacks and Love Battery. Oh, and speaking of Love Battery, I finally got around to putting Straight Freak Ticket, which I initially found to be subpar compared to their earlier stuff, on my iPod and oh my goodness, it's amazing. The melodies and such are more subtle, the guitar work is thinner, but it's so good. I can't stop listening to it. Every time I think that maybe I don't like Love Battery as much as I think that I do, they surprise me. I've also been listening to Smashing Pumpkins, of course. When I put up Machina, I'll have almost one hundred songs of their's on my iPod, which I think probably qualifies as obsessive since I, as I mentioned before, don't like spending my money on much of anything. I still need their singles and all that, but I guess I'll get around to that later.

That's all I have to say, for now.