• February 16, 2007 Tomorrow is David’s twentieth birthday. One more and he can buy me beer. Just kidding. Apparently I can’t tolerate alcohol anymore. It’s a damn shame. I guess it means I’ll never be a true Beaulieu. A great thing happened to me today. The student teacher in English, Miss Davis, passed back the vocabulary stories that we wrote awhile ago. Now, it’s probably good to say here that I came out of nowhere with my story and it ended up being the funniest thing I’ve ever written. I thought maybe she would chuckle at it and move on. Anyway, she gave Grace hers back (which was ten pages long) and then she asked if she could keep it for her resume. Joking around, I said, “You mean you don’t want a copy of mine?” Miss Davis looked straight at me. “No. I do. Your story was hilarious.” I was extremely taken aback. She told me about how she had cracked up and said that she had made her boyfriend read it, saying, “Look how funny this is!” She told me that she wanted it for her resume. “For what?” I asked, not quite believing it. “For examples of excellent student work,” Miss Davis answered me. Eh? That didn’t especially compute. I had spent about a half-hour tops on that story. I must be a better writer than I think I am. Well, it was a funny story, that’s for sure. I just didn’t think Miss Davis would love it so much. Great day in English. The story made Karen laugh, since that story was the most random thing I’ve ever come out with. Today was also the band test on “The Saint and the City”. We had to play the annoying redundant fanfare part and then a part later on. I think I actually did good. Both Matt and Toner told me that I was the best of the trumpets, and I think I was. The upper chairs screwed it. “Trumpets, you will be heard again on measures forty-six through fifty-three again on Tuesday,” Mr. Roberts said. Translation: You all suck. Get it together or I’m going to get mad again. It meant a lot coming from Toner that I was the best, since he’s quite good. He said something odd to me, though. “You should have seen the look on Luis’ face when you played it flawlessly,” he said. I was interested. Toner couldn’t really describe the look, which didn’t help me out any. Of course, it could have been because Blake held up a piece of paper that said, “What kind of tree are you?” at him. I was kind of pissed when Roberts said that he was retesting us, because we didn’t do that bad. I think he’s just punishing us for our bad chair auditions some more. Man, Mr. Roberts needs to learn the concept of “letting it go”. The horns were pretty bad and I don’t see him retesting them. Mr. Julius is in a bad mood with us. We’ve all been talking a bit much lately, so he’s getting mad. Our class can be obnoxious, so honestly I don’t blame him. A lot of those people need to be told exactly what to do. Poor Mr. Julius. Today, Toner told us that his mom was Japanese. I didn’t buy it for a second. “If your mom was Japanese, you would not have blue eyes,” I pointed out. Toner has very blue eyes, kind of like mine but slightly lighter. Kind of like Cam’s actually. Garrett does, too. Very German-looking guy. He came over and rested his arms on my shoulders. “Your maternal mother?” he asked. I rolled my eyes. “Maternal mother?” I asked, looking straight up at Garrett. Turns out, it’s true. Toner’s mom is Japanese, but by nationality, not ethnicity. She was born and raised in Japan. Therefore, her son still ended up being blue-eyed. The genetics unit did something to me. I always check out people with genetics now, sort of. I most likely got my blue eyes from Mom’s side of of the family, because hazel eyes run with the McGee line. Probably the German side. However, I remember her telling me that her grandfather, who was Italian, had blue eyes, since they were from northern Italy. Anyway. We sort of translated until the bell rang. Mr. Julius wanted us to parse, but he wasn’t really enforcing it. “How’s the Latin going, Garrett?” he asked later on in the hour. “Pretty good,” Garrett answered, ever the smartass. “I’m almost done,” I chimed in with my best-little-girl voice. “Can you parse it?” asked Mr. Julius, scanning me. “Yeah, actually.” “And I believe that,” he said back warmly. Good thing I have a good reputation in there, otherwise I’d be sunk. And I can parse it. Garrett and I walked together to the 6200 hallway and I went to Health. I spent a rather boring period there learning about minor injuries and how to treat them. I actually got Symington to let me out early to catch the bus that leaves at three-thirty, not four. She concluded after a long interview about my parents that I was a good student, so therefore I could go. Too bad I can’t pull that off every day. It’s nice to get home earlier. Now it’s a three-day weekend. Damn. Monday will be my first day of water polo. Karen advised me not to attempt to drown anyone for awhile. I’ll remember that. I’m not scared anymore, for one really good reason. I got Anne of St. Francis to join with me. She took a class on water polo for quite a few years, so it didn’t take much to get her on board with it. The best part is that we’re going to be on JV together, since they don’t have enough freshies to make a separate team. I’m thrilled. This makes it completely less scary! “And we can invite Cam to watch us kick ass,” she added to me online. We’re meeting Karen in the lobby for her to show us where to go and all that. Seven-thirty on Monday. I have to remember that. Seven-thirty to nine-fifteen. I’m still thinking that Amy is weirded out by this, however. I was asking Karen today what the swim team was like, since a lot of water polo players are on the swim team, too. Amy started going off on a thing about how it’s so hard and I didn’t want to do it. “I just don’t want you to go away,” she said. “I don’t want to lose you to sports.” “Well, you’re going away yourself, aren’t you?” I said (being perfectly tactless myself). But I meant it. It’s probably inevitable that Amy’s moving, and I want to have some friends. According to Alex, she might be moving to St. Louis. That’s far away. I mean, yeah, I’m going to be sad, but I really am going to need a plan. Plus, I really want to do this. I tried on Michael’s letter jacket tonight. It’s really nice, green with a gold collar, “Mike” written on the right breast in gold. His year is on the left sleeve. “Lacrosse” is written on the back in gold cursive. Yeah, but what if it was yours? a little voice inside me whispered. And it said 2009 and “Claire” and “Water Polo”? It was an interesting thought. I want to make it through the preseason stuff first. We’ll see how it works. Another thing about Amy that I shouldn’t care about. She thinks she’s kind of into Chris Jalilivand. I’m not sure why I’m weirded out. She asked if she had a shot, and I had to say no. After all, she said I had no shot with Garrett (she’s got a point- he’s freaking seventeen!), but still. Maybe it’s just because of the Interlochen thing. I think that if Amy knew about that, she would back off, but I’m not going to say a thing. I have to be a good friend and try to get past this. I had to do that when Anne and Cam started going out, but I just think I was having trouble letting go of him to another girl. I think it might also because I know for a fact he’s a friend of Luis’s, and our paths could possibly cross once again if something happens with them. If there’s one thing I would never repeat about my freshman year, that would be number one. Okay, it’s late, and I’m going to go read. February 18, 2007 I spent last night with Anne. Cam was doing the lights for Burns Park Players, so she was planning to go see the show. She asked me to go with her, and I went. It was funny, because both of us detest musicals, but we both went for other people. I went for Anne and Anne went for Cam. However, I felt kind of bad, because the musical was Oliver, and I know for a fact that it’s Amy’s favorite musical. So it’s like I was getting close with my other friends during her favorite musical. Pretty much doing exactly what she keeps accusing me of doing. It was a good night, and Anne got a sort of nickname out of it. She’s Pirate. So now the three of us are Shorty, Banjo, and Pirate. No wonder some people think we’re whacked. “Where do you get these names?” exclaimed Anne when I dubbed her Pirate. From a VH1 show, actually, with all these weird names that celebrities named their kids. My iPod is dead. At least that’s what we think. For some reason, it’s not turning on anymore and it refuses to charge. Well, those things are kind of weird sometimes. Mom said that she’d get me another one if it came down to that. My parents are pretty nice sometimes. Well, this is my last day of being completely sedentary. Water polo is tomorrow. I don’t know why I’m scared! Chances are, it’s going to be fine. I have Anne and Karen. I don’t know who the water polo people are, but they’re probably nice. I mean, it won’t be like Naomi Kesten’s soccer team. They were just a bunch of assholes. Oh. Another thing. I think Bailey might die soon. I cried for awhile last night about that. I’m hoping that she only has this thing with her back that Mom and Dad said she could have, but there’s an equal chance that she has cancer. If she has cancer, Mom and Dad have said all along that they’re going to put her down. I don’t want Bailey to die! She’s supposed to live a really long time. I’m writing this part about an hour after I wrote the last thing. Dad is now the coolest person in the world. He pronounced my iPod dead and then just shrugged and said, “Okay. Let’s go get you a new one.” Just like that, he took me to Circuit City and got me a new one. It’s bright blue, four gigabytes, and it fits into my iPod dock without a problem. Freaking awesome. This is an awesome day. Now, the only thing left to do is to find that Def Leppard song that I wanted from Michael’s library. I have to go over to the Kelleys’ house in about an hour. Mrs. Kelley is hiring me to watch their two dogs over midwinter break. Would you believe she’s going to pay me about $150? I tried to go over there just now, but she was taking a nap or something. Neal Kelley answered the door. Cam and I have a bad track record with Neal. He was a real ass to us in eighth grade for no reason. It’s actually too bad, because I’ve known Neal since I was little. For some reason, this time he was civil. I told him that I had seen him in the play last night and that he did really good. He thanked me and said that his mom would call me. As I was walking away, I was thinking, “You know, Neal’s actually okay.” Maybe he’s grown up or something. Well, a year and a half will do that. So, now I’m probably just going to hang out and wait around. I think I know what I’m going to buy with the $150. Clothes, probably. I don’t have many pairs of pants, so I think I’m going to buy some jeans or something for the trip down to Florida. ‘Bye. February 19, 2007 Awesome news. Bailey’s going to be okay! Mom just took her to the vet and he said she just had a swollen knee. He gave her some medication and now she’s going to be okay. I’m so happy. I mean, Bailey’s only six. That’s half of what their usual lifespan is. Thank you, God. Well, tonight’s my first night of water polo. I’m actually not freaking out. I figure that I have no reason to be freaked out. Whatever happens will happen and I’ll still have Anne and Karen. I am sort of waiting up here for Amy to get on, though, because I need to talk to her. You guessed it. She’s all mad at me again. Also, I was totally right. She is weirded out by me playing. I figured it would be a passing shock, but no such luck. She’s worried that I’m going to slip away through water polo. Her fears are legit. I know how these things go. But then she told me not to ever sit at the “swimming table”. She made me promise. I wouldn’t do it. I knew that if I promised, it would come back and bite me in the ass. If I make new friends, I don’t want to give them the shaft. I don’t want to be popular. That’s not why I’m doing this. I just want more stuff to do. She got really, really mad. And, of course, Dad picked that time to kick me off. I haven’t talked to her since. I feel kind of bad, like I always do, but she pretty much told me I can’t be close with other people. That’s just stupid! People have other friends and that’s kind of a given in life. I told her about a million times that it’s nothing about her. I wonder if Michael ever feels this way? He’s got a lot of friends in a lot of different places. Well, we’ll just see how water polo goes now. Wish me luck. February 20, 2007 I am so sore. Sore as hell. I swear, if every night is like it was last night, I’m literally going to die. To tell you the truth, I had a decent amount of fun last night. The team is really nice, actually. It was a bad night to just be joining up, because we were doing something with the EMU people, so it was some slavedriver guy running the practice. From what I’ve heard, it won’t be that hard-core tomorrow. Well, Amy is extremely mad at me. Extremely. As in she-might-not-speak-to-me-for-weeks mad. Every single time I saw her today, she literally sprinted off in the opposite direction, which caused me to put up my away message. Homo currens fatuum apparet. It means “a running person appears stupid”. Translated by yours truly. I mean, I understand how she feels, but I just want to keep my options open. Next time I meet her online, I have to assure her that I don’t mean to just disappear and leave her behind at all. In fact, I’m planning to hang out with her about ninety-nine percent of the time. More, even. I just want to know that I can run my own life without my friends being controlling. I’m actually not angry at all about this. In fact, I think this is really stupid. Amy’s fighting with me about something that hasn’t even happened yet! I haven’t once gone over to the “swimming table”, and she’s not talking to me. I was sort of talking to Wyatt about it in Geometry. “Amy’s probably not going to be talking to me for a very long time,” I started out. Wyatt looked interested. “Why?” I oversimplified it. “Because I joined the water polo team.” He raised an eyebrow. “Really? Are you good?” I shrugged. “I’m okay. Yesterday was my first day. Amy thinks I’m going to be friends with them and she’s just going to fade into oblivion.” “Yeah,” Wyatt said sarcastically, “And not talking to you is really going to stop that from happening.” I had to laugh. He had a point. Wyatt makes a lot more sense than most people sometimes. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, except for Fuzz popping up every once in awhile to bring Amy’s side of the story. I hung out with Karen and Anne and we talked about the practice last night. The scary thing is that it doesn’t bug me at all when Amy’s all mad at me, probably because I know she’s mostly trying to get me to feel guilty. Sometimes she reminds me of how I was, with the guilt-trip thing. I know it doesn’t work anymore. Latin was good, as always. I got 96% on my synopsis. Mr. Julius has officially given up on the passage we were translating. We did subjunctives as a review today, partly for the French exchange student guy, who had never learned them. It’s amazing how easy Latin is becoming for me. It’s one of the only things that just makes sense to me. Well, some things make more sense than others, I suppose. Well, I have a ton of homework, so I’m out of here. February 21, 2007 The good news is that Amy finally got over herself today. The bad news is that she’s not fully over it. She’s scared more than anything. I had to tell her over and over and over that I’m not looking to ditch her by any means. It was sort of interesting how it ended, though. Karen and I were talking about how Amy was acting during Western Civ and Karen said that she had heard her talking to Fuzz, and she was saying some really bad stuff. “She’s overreacting,” Karen said, shaking her head. I talked to Grace and Wyatt, and they both were on my side. “It doesn’t mean you’re going to leave her behind,” Grace put in. She would know about these things. Grace has other friends, and she does crew. The world needs more people like Grace. She sort of comes off as antiestablishment, but she’s great. Western Civ is a lot of fun. We finally settled it during the time where we settle all things, during lunch. Karen suggested that we just work it out right then. Then Fuzz came up and saw us, asking, “Are you talking?” “Nope,” Amy said, looking away. I kept my surge of anger down. It was all I could do not to point out that the problem was not with me. I assured Amy for the millionth time that I don’t ditch my friends. “Cam is living proof of that,” I said, fingering my necklace. “A lot of stuff happened with us.” Amy lightened up after awhile. She starting talking wistfully of last year around this time for some reason. “It was just the three of us- well, the four of us, sometimes.” she said. “That was the only problem.” I was about to say something back when Karen said, “So what was that story that you guys were going to tell me about that?” The three of us laughed. We decided to go around and tell points of view, since there were a LOT of sides to what happened near the end of last year. We started from the beginning, with the second semester beginning and the Walrus and Amy fighting. Then we went to me liking the Walrus to the St. Patty’s Day Blowup. It was calm for a month then the note was written. I told the Walrus, then the last day of school happened, then summer rolled around. I heard some interesting stuff that I hadn’t heard before about the things that the Walrus told Fuzz. For example, the “one answer” thing. Apparently in about May, I was so bad at talking to guys that I could only think of one answer, and to my memory that answer was “yeah”. The Walrus asked Fuzz what he should do about it. Fuzz’s advice was to ask me a question that required more than one answer. I laughed so hard. This is hilarious because we were so different back then. Last year changed everyone, I think. On a good note, Fuzz rides the number three downtown with me now. I heard something kind of bad about the Walrus from him on the way down. He didn’t come to science today, and I was wondering why. Douda told Hurley who told Fuzz that he was escorted from Huron today. I’m actually worried. Also, I plan to find out. Douda will tell me, anyway. My guess is that they caught him. I know what he does, and I think the administration caught him. Poor guy. I’m going to get right on that tomorrow. It’s water polo tonight. This will be my first real representation of what the preseason stuff is going to be like. People are telling me that last time didn’t count, because the EMU coach was running the show and he was kind of being a slavedriver about it. Emily in Western Civ told me that it was the hardest practice she had ever been to, so I have hope. This might actually work out. I still can hardly see myself on the team, but with time maybe that will get easier. I hope, anyway. Well, later. I’m out. February 22, 2007 I’m not at sore today, believe it or not. I think last night’s practice took away all my soreness from the one before it. Weird stuff. It seems like every day I come home with more news. Well, I suppose seven hours will do that to you. Okay, first bit of news. I won my challenge and I think I’m getting back on Roberts’s good side again. Ashley decided to challenge me (and I was actually worried). But that’s okay. I won. I felt bad though, because Ashley and I are friends, and I didn’t want to be like “show no mercy!” or anything. I did make sort of an ass of myself when Mr. Roberts was telling us what to do, however. We were inside the music office for the challenge, and Mr. Roberts was telling us about how he would go into the other room, so he couldn’t see us. We would decided who played first and who played second. “I will refer to you as ‘Number One’ and ‘Number Two’,” he said. Pretty much forgetting completely that Mr. Roberts was standing right there, I turned to Ashley and did my best Dr. Evil impression. I actually think Mr. Roberts wanted to laugh, but he couldn’t. Ashley was Number One. I was Number Two (enter Dr. Evil voice). I think I did pretty good. After I played, I couldn’t help thinking that I had just won. “I have to go in favor of Number Two,” Mr. Roberts said. “Who was that?” I raised my hand. Then he gave us comments about what we should work on. He told us both to slow it down. I didn’t realize it had to go so slow. He was doing a slow tempo yesterday, but I thought we would go faster. “I thought you were just dumbing it down for us,” I said to Mr. Roberts, surprised. And that led him to quote me in front of the entire band. I was sort of toning him out at that time. Ashley and I were having a discussion about the composer of the music was a man or a woman, because the first name was Zo. I wasn’t really listening until I heard Mr. Roberts say, “I thought you were just dumbing it down for us.” I shot upright and started listening. He didn’t mention names, but he said that during a challenge, one of the people had said that. I was actually grateful, because even though it’s been awhile, he still remembers that I hate being called out in groups. “Hey, Claire, he quoted you,” said Ashley playfully. I laughed. I think I might challenge Zach soon, actually. He just got his wisdom teeth out, so now is the time to go for it, when he can’t really fight back, as cheap as that is. Sometimes I don’t know if I like Zach or not. He’s Jessica’s boyfriend, so I try to be nice to him, but he can be a real ass. I know that Blake hates him. I’ll think about it. I think that Mr. Roberts is better with me now, because he knows that I work now, and this challenge was proof of that. Maybe now he’s forgiven me for all my shenanigans first semester. I found out what happened to the Walrus, too. He got suspended. Fuzz told me. He was saying that he wanted to shoot his dad or something, and somehow the administration got involved. He was escorted off the campus and he’s suspended until after break. Damn. You know, I don’t know what’s going on with him lately. He’s suddenly trouble. I feel sorry for him. That’s all for me. ‘Bye. February 25, 2007 It’s been a few days because I’ve been sick. Really sick. My fever was 103 degrees. I couldn’t stand or walk because I was so dizzy. It totally came out of nowhere, too. I woke up at about quarter to two on Friday morning and I had such a bad stomachache I immediately thought, “Oh crap. I’m going to throw up.” However, it wasn’t for another hour until I did. I figured it would be a bad night all around if I didn’t at least make an attempt for the toilet, so I went and sat in the bathroom for awhile. An hour actually. I was trembly and I couldn’t stand, so I knew it was coming. I won’t rehash details or anything, but it was quite bad. I yelled for Mom and stopped after awhile, thankfully. She sent me back to bed. The only thing I remember saying is, “I don’t think I want to go to school today.” And that was the about when I lost all track of time. I slept for the better part of two days. Mom and Dad kept making me drink stuff, but I kept trying to tell them no, I was going to throw up if I drank anything. Now it’s Sunday. I still don’t feel very good. The disorientation is gone, but I still have a stomach ache. I guess this rules out water polo for tomorrow. This really sucks. My job with the Kelleys started yesterday, since it’s now break. Mom’s been having to do it and I feel pretty irresponsible. I hate it when my mommy has to do stuff for me. Also, since I was sick on Friday, I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to anyone. I would have at least liked to have gone to Latin. Band, too, actually. Ashley was going to vacation and Zach isn’t playing, so Matt had to hold up the whole section. Poor guy. I’m sure Mr. Roberts was tearing out what little hair he has left. When we get back, it will be The Dreaded Month of March in band. Mr. Roberts always makes a huge thing about how hard March is. Festival, Bands in Review, Symphony Band tryouts, and our trip. That’s partly why I had no intention of losing Ashley’s challenge, because he hinted that he wouldn’t be able to set up anything until early April, since March is freaking insano. I had no desire of losing my chair for a whole month. I’ve been out of contact with everyone for a few days. I know that Amy wanted to talk to me about something on Thursday, but I went to my lesson then did my homework then went to bed. She called yesterday, but Mom told her that I was sick. Well, I didn’t expect anyone to call Friday, except maybe Anne. Friday was the three-lunch thing for assemblies. Anne and Fuzz were the only ones in my lunch, so I didn’t expect anyone else to figure out that I was sick. I’m actually glad I missed that. If I remember correctly, I skipped that one last year. Yeah, I think that’s right. I was in my bad-ass phase and for some reason thought it was really cool to skip Goebbel’s class. Man, I was stupid. I mean, just to hang out with people? Stupid. The first time I ever did it was to lend an extra hand when Melanie and Wyatt were about to take each other’s heads off last February. I was just being a good friend. However, somehow it turned into a huge thing and I ended up looking like a snake in front of Goebbel. Recently, I realized something. We may not have seen eye to eye, me and Goebbel, but she was a fine teacher. She knew how to put the material out there. And honestly, looking back, her class wasn’t all that hard. She just had the radical idea that if you do your work, it’ll pay off. I was stupid. Well, I’m kind of bored and still feeling sort of like crap, so I guess I’m just going to hang out for awhile. February 26, 2007 I’m feeling much better today, although the virus made my muscles all sore and I can hardly extend my arms. That means I’m skipping water polo tonight, as much as that sucks. Those workouts are already hard for me when I’m healthy, so I want to know what’ll happen when I’m slightly sick. It’s only Monday and I want to go back to school. I have nothing to do, since I was sick Friday. No homework and it’s driving me insane. At least Amy called today. Now she thinks that she’s moving away to Massachusetts, and Alex is, too. They would be in different cities, but I know she’s thinking of getting back together with him. It’s going to be an utter disaster if it does happen. Alex himself told me that she’s just too clingy to be with, at least for him. I hope it never ends up happening. We were brainstorming who she should go with to the AIDS in Africa dance thing. The Huron guys are not to her liking. Well, Chris is, I suppose. I found out today that my longtime hunch about Grace liking him was right all along. Amy told me over the phone that she had competition, and she told me who. I said, “Well, yeah. I could have told you that.” Then I had to tell the whole Laura at Interlochen story to clear it up. I can’t think of anyone she’d like, honestly. Paul? Ha. Funny. Fuzz can’t pay for the ticket and she’s not even going to think about the Fairy March. I thought joking around and saying, “Okay, you can have Toner,” but something tells me that he’s scared of girls. He gives off the vibe. Michael Toner is now officially the person who follows me everywhere I go. I found out a weird thing. I had to switch my trumpet lesson because of water polo, so I had to switch with someone else. It turns out that the guy I switched with is Toner’s little brother, Stephen. Small music community. That’s Ann Arbor, I guess. I’m going to head out. ‘Bye. February 27, 2007 Nothing interesting is going on. It’s still break and I’m still bored. And it’s only Tuesday. February 28, 2007 I’m kind of tired. I just got back from water polo. It wasn’t that hard tonight, because the coach, Chris Keenan, showed a lot of videos and talked a lot, so we ended up only having about a half an hour to swim. I really like that guy. He’s really nice. I also like the team. They’re funny. Karen said that they like having new people, so I guess it’s true. Anne’s gone on a cruise, so I was somewhat alone. That meant I could blend in without her talking my ear off. In the end, Anne’s great, but she’s still a freshman with a lot to learn. I agree with popular opinion, which is that all freshmen deserve to be slapped. Some are funny but most are pretty annoying. It’s Wednesday. At least break is half over. That’s good, because I’m sick of it. Now I’m going to go to bed. March 9, 2007 Ooh, damn. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Well, the basic news is that I’m finally settling into water polo. The practices are hard, but it’ll be okay. I want to work hard, so there’s no way I’m quitting. I like it a lot, actually. I’m not particularly good yet, but I’ve got time. On that subject, the schedule finally got to Anne. She quit. Just like that. She quit and left us behind. I tried to tell her how I feel about quitters to keep her from doing it, but it was a longer story than I cared to tell. So I’m on my own now. I have no one to swim with now. To tell the truth, I got as close to angry as I get with any of my friends at her. I mean, come on! She’s just rolling over and dying! She said that she wanted it to be like it was in Rec and Ed and it’s not. In layman’s terms, she doesn’t want to work. Okay, maybe that’s unfair. Still, I think she could have pulled it off. When I have a minute with Michael, I’m going to ask him if he ever gets frustrated when his lacrosse friends are lazy. In other news, tomorrow is Festival. We have to be there at quarter to twelve. Well, at least I get to sleep in. I’ve been getting up for conditioning (water polo thing) at about five in the morning. It’s been slightly killer. I found that I’m more awake during the day, though. I can concentrate in Geometry without thinking, “I’m so tired. I could go to sleep right here.” I can’t say the same for Wyatt, though. He’s dead out in every class. I remember Festival last year. We played the Second Suite in F and the Ascension. I loved the beginning of the Ascension. It sort of reminded me of the start of that old song we played in eighth grade, Encanto. Killian Williams was our first chair and he was just about the most inconsistent soloist of all the first chairs. He would play fine sometimes, then screw it at the concert. And, of course, that was the day I cried at “You’re Beautiful”. I swear that James Blunt has it out for me. As I’ve said before, it was the line, “But it’s time to face the truth- I will never be with you.” Enter the boo-hoos. So, yeah. We’ll see what this year is like. Of course, I’m in a much better place this year, blah blah blah. My only complaint is that we have to wear the dresses. I’m not cool with dresses. They don’t work with me. Why couldn’t I have been a guy? Then I could have worn one of the spiffy tuxes. Well, I look pretty good in mine, so I guess I’m not complaining that much. Let’s see. What’s going on in school? In English, we’re finally done with Kindred. We finished with a project, a newspaper. We got to work with a partner, so Nick and I worked together like we usually do. I wouldn’t have minded working with Alex, but I think he was doing it with someone else. Our project came out good. Nick’s a good partner. Now we’re watching The Butterfly Effect. I’ve seen it before, but it’s so much more fun to watch it with your friends. Alex and Nick are quite the comedians, especially since the movie is really screwed up. It deals with time travel, which is probably why we’re seeing it. It’s kind of sad, though, because he keeps trying to make his life right, but he still ends up killing his girlfriend pretty much every time, or she hooks up with the fat ugly guy instead. We didn’t quite finish it, so I’m hoping we’re going to do that Monday. I’m going to go. Peace out. March 12, 2007 It’s Monday night and we have no school tomorrow. The juniors are taking some test tomorrow, so the rest of us get a couple days off. It doesn’t apply to water polo, however. We’re still going in for conditioning at six in the morning. The first day of the season was today. I couldn’t swim, though. My physical isn’t in yet. First, we had a team meeting that lasted about an hour. Chris left and the captains started running the show. Everyone got into a circle and we had to say our name, grade, and something weird that we could do. It was freaking hilarious. After awhile, it turned into a mockery of Alcoholics Anonymous. I love the team. Everyone is really nice. I think I hit gold here. I’m still trying to think of a way to talk Amy around. I swear, every week we go through the same thing. I don’t get it, myself. None of my other friends had a problem with me doing this. Somehow, the same argument keeps coming around. I’m not making an effort and she can’t get her way. I say something to the effect of I control my own life and she’s blowing this out of proportion. Usually I end up with the upper hand (for obvious reasons) but it’s getting annoying! She’d better get used to this, because it’s not going away for a very long time. I sat on the side of the pool for the remaining time, which was about an hour and a half. Toner came by and I said hello to him. At six, I went out to the Athletic Lobby and blinked with surprise. I had never seen the place so full. I swear, everyone and their grandmother was there. Well, of course, the sports starting today are soccer, track (guys and girls), baseball, softball, golf, tennis, lacrosse (guys and girls), and girls’ water polo. It was interesting to see the lacrosse team. I remember the banquet last year. That was fun. For the most part, the lacrosse guys are really nice guys. Michael’s playing goalie this year. Their dumbass goalie from last year graduated and the backup thinks he’s going to get drafted for playing long stick midfielder. That leaves The Fabulous Mike Beaulieu as Huron’s goalie. It’s too bad, because he was a damn good attack and a good midfielder, too. I realized today, now my two Latin buddies and I all have something in common now. We’re all in water sports. Garrett got the late news today that I’m playing. I told him today in the 6200 hallway. I was going down the hall without Wyatt for some reason when I saw someone behind me closing in. I knew it had to be either Toner or Garrett, so I took a guess. “I see you, Garrett!” He grinned and caught up with me and we headed down the hallway together. “How was your day?” he asked, beating gently on my arm. I resisted the temptation to point out that it wasn’t even second hour yet. “Okay,” I said. “I had to get up at five in the morning to swim, though.” “You’re on the water polo team?” “Yep,” I said, nodding. He high-fived me and grinned. “Is Chris making you work hard?” I groaned. “Yeah, he’s trying to kill me.” We split up at the 4200 hallway like usual. He goes to the 5200 hallway and I continue down the hall to Wilson’s class. I don’t know who Garrett’s girlfriend is, but I hope she knows just how lucky she is. Speaking of Wilson, the student teacher is gone. Yes! Well, she’s not gone, she’s just not teaching anymore. At least we’re done with the stupid middle school partner projects now. Back to individual high school work now. I’m going to miss working with Nick on everything, though. Nick’s a quality guy. I know for a fact that he used to smoke like a chimney, but he kicked it. Now, anytime anyone brings up drugs, he makes sure to say that weed is “some bad shit”. He’s a really cool guy. I’ll miss him next year. Well, I don’t know what I’ll do now. I think I’m going to go get some food or something, because this water polo is exploding my appetite. March 13, 2007 I’m so exhausted. Today was my first real practice, since I got all my forms in. It was kind of hard. We did the weight room and then got into the pool. We did a lot of shooting drills. Our goalie is really good. She blocked six straight shots, one after another. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s exhausting. Today mostly consisted of me running all over creation trying to get my water polo stuff together. I woke up at a little after eleven. After much begging and pressing, I got Michael to get off his ass and take me to the doctor’s office to get the sports physical form. We dropped it off at Huron and I got the slip that says it’s okay for me to practice. After that, I had to go to the VA and get Mom to sign another form. Before we left, Amy called. She actually called the Fairy March to see if he had a problem with her going to Florida. I’ve told her a million times that people forget stuff. Sure, it was kind of big, but it was nearly two years ago. Then she asked if I could hang out. I told her I had to go get my mom to sign some stuff, then I had to drop it off, then I had to go to practice. It was the truth, but hey. You can guess what that brought up. The old generic argument. “You’re ditching me for practice again?” she exclaimed. “Well, it’s not like I have a choice,” I said. Then she went off on a thing about how she knew that things were going to change once I joined water polo and all that. Thankfully, Michael called me to go, so I told her I had to go with no regrets. I’m sick of this argument. Really. This is not my problem! I told her over the phone, “We can’t keep reinventing this, you know.” I mean, come on. It’s my life and unfortunately I can’t center it around her. I’ve been thinking, I’m really the one who should be angry, but I’m not. I mean, the support was just awesome through all this. (That was sarcastic.) This was a major step out of the box for me, and this made it that much harder. Amy’s going to have to get over this. There’s nothing I can do anymore. Our first game is tomorrow. I’m kind of nervous. It’s away at Grand Blanc (wherever the hell that is). I told Mom and Dad that I don’t expect them to come, because it’s far away, but also because I don’t want them to see me when I haven’t picked it up fully yet. I didn’t tell them the second part. Michael tells me that they’d just be proud of me for trying something new, but I have my pride. I have a headache. I’m going to go.

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