i just don't know
[I wrote this yesterday but forgot to post it.]
I'm bored as hell and I'm taking you all down with me.
1� Do you remember your first best friend? Who was it?
A boy named Kevin. He lives across the street.
2� Are you still in touch with this person?
Not really. I went to day care until I turned nine, and day care lady no. 3's youngest son, Jesse, liked to stage wrestling matches between me and other boys. They liked to copy moves they saw on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Because I was a year older than them, I always won. I won bruises and hate, and I won't tell you which of the two didn't heal, diary. Jesse also liked to grope me through bed sheets and plead with me to suck his dick. And I did it, because I was five and I didn't know.
Then my mom saw Kevin peeking into my room while I was changing, and my twenty-year-old cousin showed me his sprawling porn collection and asked me to take off my clothes the day before Thanksgiving. What I'm trying to say is, I didn't want to be friends with boys anymore.
3� Do you have a current close friend?
Yeah, Resa and Pat. Nick, too, but we love and hate each other at the same time.
4� How did you become friends with this person?
Resa - She moved to West St. Paul in 1994, and we met at a funeral Kevin held in his backyard for his pet lizard named Brent.
Pat - We met in a virtual chatroom called The Palace five years ago.
Nick - Resa, Steph and I spent the summer with him in 1998 after bumping into him at the YMCA. I could elaborate and embellish, and this could blossom into a lengthy, rambling story of friendship and teenage crushes and pools, but instead I will say this - Nick's friend Jason wanted to bang Steph.
5� Is there a friend from your past that you wish you were still in contact with? Why?
Karissa moved to Wisconsin in 1997. We still write letters, but I wish we were still good friends like we used to be.
Sometime last month a pink razor arrived in the mail. The included brochure read, "What is it about pink that makes you feel so good?" Really, it just reminds me of girls who ask if they can use pink pen on tests.
On Independence Day Pat and I watched the fireworks display at the Taste of Minnesota. At 9:15 p.m. that day, a woman tossed her two infant children into the Mississippi and then jumped off the Wabasha Street Bridge. All I could think of was, "If your best friend jumped off a bridge, would you jump, too?" The next morning I read about it in the newspaper over a bowl of Cheerios and a glass of grape juice:
"Rescuers pulled a drowning woman and child from the Mississippi River on Friday night near the Wabasha Street Bridge in St. Paul and were searching for a second child.
"Thousands who had been celebrating the holiday and Taste of Minnesota on Harriet Island watched the frantic rescue efforts.
"Police could not confirm rumors that ... the woman had tossed the two children into the river before jumping in herself.
"Witnesses said they heard a splash and the woman screaming about 9 p.m. They said two or more men jumped into the river and pulled the woman and one of the children to shore.
"'We were just sitting there, and we heard her screaming,' said Erin Mac, who was watching from the side of the river. 'She just kept screaming these bloodcurdling screams. She just kept screaming "Rachel."'
"Mac said the woman said 'Let me go' and appeared to resist when the rescuers tried to pull her to safety.
"...Police officers revived the child by performing CPR. He [a policeman] said the woman and child were at Regions Hospital in St. Paul.
"A hospital spokeswoman would not release their conditions."
- Star Tribune, July 5th, 2003
A few days later I watched Aliens at Di's [a friend from school] house with Pat, Nick [another friend from school], Matt [a friend of Nick and Di's], and Greg [graduated last year from the high school I attend]. I spent most of the movie laughing.
On Wednesday morning my mom and I took Pat to the airport. He's in California basking under clear blue skies and speeding down curvy roads in his mom's Camaro.
That evening I ate at Sakura [a Japanese restaurant in St. Paul] with last year's Japanese teacher, her mom, and a handful of second-year Japanese students. My teacher's mom offered everyone a taste of her fried fish and sushi (California rolls!), and after dinner she gave us a tin of pigeon-shaped cookies to share. Everyone met at the movie theater afterwards to see Pirates of the Caribbean, but I had already made plans to spend the night at Resa's. Resa picked me up, and we, plus Greg and Nathan [one of Resa's friends], sped off to WalMart in search of a pair of light-up sandals like Di's. We were disappointed to discover that they didn't carry them in women's sizes. We went to Di's house instead and played Tetris Attack, Clay Fighters, and Street Fighter 2 in her basement. The carpet had been ripped up and the floor underneath was the color of blood, and all the furniture was piled in the corner. I beat Greg at everything, and I almost wet my pants when I won three times playing Street Fighter 2, a game he claimed he had more practice with. Then I stole his driver's license and inadvertently insinuated that his appearance has been steadily declining since eighth grade. And it hasn't.
Resa and I went back to her house around midnight and made popcorn and watched Fight Club, and I'm still not sure whether or not I liked it after watching Bob's brain slip through the hole at the base of his skull and splatter onto the floor.