soundofsilence_xo's Xanga Site

... and these are memories.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Sorry, life's been busy, and I haven't had much time to write. Or think. [sigh]

I've been talking to my cousin in Wisconsin a lot the last few months. She's 14, but she actually thinks, unlike a lot of 14-year-olds I know. I'm hoping to visit her sometime this summer. She's never seen Fight Club, which is a crime. And I've never been to Wisconsin.
Now to convince my mom...

Thursday, April 10, 2008

I read thirty-seven books while I was sick. Books on my reading list, books that people said I would like, books that it seemed every teenager should read. So that's how I got to the point where I would quote Shakespeare in one breath and The Perks Of Being A Wallflower in the next.
I listened to Simon and Garfunkel's greatest hits about 200 times (literally). This time last year I only listened to My Chemical Romance. That's all my friends listened to. But MCR disappeared around the same time those friends stopped calling me, and I think I only liked them because I was supposed to. Those friends wouldn't be caught dead admitting to liking something that came out before they were born.
I had talked to people all over the world. New York City. Seattle. Montreal. Liverpool. Edinburgh. Paris. Melbourne. I even had a few conversations with a girl in Tokyo who wanted to practice her English - I never would have guessed it wasn't her first language. And it turns out that there's a lot of fascinating people in the world once you start looking outside Charlotte.
So there I was, sitting in front of the mirror. Brown hair. No tan. New pants. The change was outwardly apparent, almost as much as it felt internally. This seemed like as good a time as any to carry out my master plan. Susanna wasn't going back to school on Monday. Rae was.
Well, that was easy.
I lit a little oddly-scented candle, pulled out a deck of cards, and played Solitaire until 2am.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

I woke up at 3am. I did that a lot while I was sick, waking up at random hours of the morning, staying awake for a couple hours to read, listen to another CD, stare at the ceiling, paint my fingernails orange, whatever. It hadn't happened in a while, though. It was a nice flashback.
The window was open. It was such lovely weather outside. It'd be such a shame to waste it...
... and before I knew it, I was two blocks away on my bike. In a baggy t-shirt and pajama pants and old sneakers. And I had no clue where I was going, but I couldn't go home now. So I rode to the park a couple miles away. Playgrounds are fun at night. Quiet. But it gets a bit lonely.
I'd grabbed my phone, which was odd, but now I had it and it was so very tempting. Should I? You'd be crazy. But it'd be fun. But he wouldn't.
I called anyway. The phone rang eight times before he answered.
"Hello?"
"You don't park in your garage, do you?"
"Uh... no...?"
"So you can drive down to the park."
"Rae, it's three in the morning."
"That's the point."
"Wait... are you at the park?"
"Obviously."
"Why are you at the park?"
"Couldn't sleep. And swings are fun. Come on."
"Yeah, okay."
"Thank yoooooooooou. Can you bring me a sweatshirt? I'm freezing.

... hello?"

He didn't come, though.
It's not like my life is perfect, either.

Monday, March 31, 2008

1. Buy an iPod.
2. Go to an office supply store.
3. Put Death Cab For Cutie on repeat.
4. Check out the paperclip selection.
5. Try out every desk chair in the building.
6. Pretend not to speak English when the sales rep asks if he can help you. Non parlo inglese? Yeah, right.
Well, here it was. Monday, September 22. My senior year had begun a month ago, and I had been doing the work on home studies. But after the doctor's appointment on Thursday gave me a clean bill of health, Mom and I went shopping for school supplies. I spent the weekend trying to sort through my life in preparation for Monday. I was hardly the same person I was when I last set foot on campus.
I stared at my reflection. I had lost 17 pounds without trying, which would have been nice if not for the fact that all the lost weight came from lost muscle. Trying to move the kitchen table two nights ago took far more effort than it should have.
I started dyeing my hair blonde when I was in 8th grade. People said it looked good that way, and I didn't look so pale anymore. But it had to be redone once a month, at least, and I had stopped messing with it while in quarantine. I now had nearly three inches of dark brown roots before my hair abruptly turned blonde around my ears. When mom went to the grocery store that night, I asked her to buy some dark brown dye for me.
"Don't you want to come and pick out the color yourself?"
"Not really. I trust you. Surprise me."
Two hours later, I sat on the floor by the full-length mirror by my desk. The desk lamp dimly lit up the room. The transformation was complete. I stared at myself through the brown hair. It turned out darker than I had planned, but I kind of liked it that way.
I was cleaning my room today. I have no idea when I started enjoying cleaning, but it's seriously starting to feel like a hobby these days. Shoved under my bed with a bunch of old clothes was this pretty little notebook. I tore out two pages of doodles from freshman English and converted it into a journal. I doubt it will last long.
My name is Rae. At least, it is now. For sixteen years it was Susanna, which technically is still my first name, but the only person who calls me that now is my grandmother in Florida. The decision to go by my middle name was borne of two things:
1. Sixteen years and eight months of frustration with people who thought I still enjoyed the song "Oh Susanna" and thought it was funny to sing it to me. It wasn't.
2. Five months of mononucleosis in which I did not leave the house, and a resulting personality transformation.
Yes, five months, despite the fact that 90% of online medical journals say it should be over in six weeks. I wasn't a terribly healthy person to begin with, so I guess my immune system took it pretty hard. It was April when I caught it - I shared a slurpie with an acquaintance at a pep rally, and I guess she had just barely recovered.
The "oh, Susanna, who have you been kissing? wink wink nudge nudge" jokes went away after about a week, when the school quarterback caught it somehow. That's not how I got it, but I got to pretend, and that was kind of fun. In a sick and twisted way.
Mom felt sick that night and went to bed early. I talked to a girl in Manchester for about 20 minutes (it was six in the morning there), and then she had to leave for school. I resigned myself to channel-surfing until I fell asleep. Infomercials, Food Network, Seinfeld reruns. I gave up, turned off the television and headed to the kitchen.
I flipped the lightswitch - the light came on for a fraction of a second before I was greeted with a loud pop! and darkness. And naturally, the fridge was empty. I grabbed the carton of orange juice and drank straight out of it, and then proceeded to spill it all over myself and the floor. I swore a bit louder than I care to admit.
Paper towels probably would have taken care of the mess, but my excessive late-night energy left me mopping the whole kitchen in the dark without pausing to consider the absurdity of my actions. I soon realized that I had accidentally mopped myself into a corner, with wet floor around me in each direction, so I sat down where the table would usually sit. Undeterred, I took another sip from the juice carton.
The microwave clock read 11:04. I stared at it for a full seven minutes until it was 11:11. Well, damn, I thought. I have no idea what to wish for.