Daily Archive

 (I wrote this about a year ago for no reason. Thought it was kinda interesting. So now you can read it.  Half the names are changed to protect the people I no longer associate with.)

   

I have a hard time reading. 

Don’t let me lie, I mean, I am an expert reader.  I read fast, I retain everything, and I can comprehend at a twelfth grade level, or even higher. it’s good considering I’m twenty-one.

But reading.  I like to read. I love to read. I love to write. I love talking about books.  But if the book in my hand does not pick me up and drop like I’m a fucking hot frying pan full of burning oils in the first paragraph, I will set it down, and never pick it up again. 

But still, I will tell people I read it.  Because who’s too say that I didn’t?  I read the first paragraph.  And where you may not be able to judge a book by its cover.  You can by all means judge a book by its first paragraph. 

So I am sorry, young reader, if you are not compelled to keep reading.  I did not do my job as a writer, and for that I will be an adult, and I will apologize. 

I should have probably started out with a fast paced story line. Or maybe I should have described my first sexual experience in graphic detail.  After all, that is what keeps us interested.

I’m already losing you.  I can tell.  The problem is that I don’t know where to begin.  It’s been a year.  And if I don’t start writing now, I may never fully remember what I am trying to get across. But where to start?

Wait. I got it.  Sorry.

December thirty-first, two-thousand and five.

Imagine a parking lot.  Enough spaces for a couple thousand cars to be parked on a Sunday afternoon.  Street lamps.  Snow.  Some falling, some already stuck to the ground.  I am wearing a pink coat from Banana Republic.  It’s classy.  My hair is cropped short, because my sister wanted it to be that way. It is dark brown.  I have a Grande White Mocha from Starbucks in my hand.  I’m sitting in a parking space, alone inside my free, 1993 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo.  I am waiting for Amanda.

She gets there late.  As usual. Amanda is always late.  Amanda is never on time.  This is Amanda.  Five foot.  White teeth.  Green Eyes.  Long blonde hair.  I hand her a Grande Soy Chai. 

We talk.  About nothing. About everything. We talk about Dana.  Dana is a useless concept to go into right now.  I do not care to talk about Dana. 

The night before this, Brandon asked me to be his girlfriend.  I want to talk about that.  No one has ever asked me to be their girlfriend before. 

I guess Brandon even made me a Christmas CD for my car.  All that has been playing in my car for the past month has been Depeche Mode, “Violator.”  I guess I shouldn’t listen to Depeche Mode during the holidays or something.  So Brandon made me a mix, a nice gesture… He gave it to Dana to hand off to me.  Dana has never given it to me. 

I’ll never know what he put on that CD for me.  I think Dana destroyed it.  Or she listens to it.  Either or.  It doesn’t exist to me.

Amanda and I sit in my car in the parking lot, there is black unlit building behind us.  We are facing the trees that divide the corporation from the residential area. The Corporation behind me is my home away from home.  The corporation is my church.

We sit and talk.  I don’t know where to go tonight, because I don’t want to go to Brandon’s house.  Because he asked me to be his girl, and I want to say no.  Because he never asked me out on a date, he just jumped straight to boyfriend/girlfriend status.  And he is kind of creepy.  Because his favorite Depeche Mode song, he tells me, reminds him of a child molester that never gets caught. 

“Amanda,” I say, “The only reason Brandon is having a party is because no one else wants underagers at their home, and I am twenty.  He wants me there.  So he is willing to not go elsewhere, if only to have me there.”

“Don’t be crazy, Alyssa.”

I’m not lying. I’m not crazy.  Because on Christmas Eve he stared me down inside the church lobby.  Then he walked up to me and told me that he was having a party.  And that I had to come.

“If I go, I don’t want to kiss him at midnight. And he’ll expect that.”  The party is in my honor.

I have been kissed four times before.  My first kiss I was eighteen.  I was drunk.  My second kiss was at nineteen.  I was loaded.  My third kiss was at twenty- I was roached.  My fourth kiss was with Matt. A nice, cute boy with goals and morals, he took my shirt off, but he asked nicely, even when intoxicated.  I told Matt we should just be friends.  He bored me, and hung on to every word I said.

I can’t imagine kissing Brandon.  He is a skinny boy.  About 5’9”, he likes Elliott Smith and Beck, which is fine, just an observation.  He enjoys Kevin Smith movies as well as the type that make you think, like Magnolia and American Beauty.   He spends a lot of his time bashing Christians and conservatives.  I fight him, because he never has a good argument and I am good at knowing both sides to every argument, so I am good at fighting.  He likes that about me.  He has an appreciation for young girls that speak their minds.  Innocent yet mature. 

He wants me to be his girl, because I speak my mind.  Because I am eight years younger than him, and he’s known me since I was thirteen?  I guess he likes that, the party tonight, is for me.

I don’t like him because he’s a liberal scumbag.  I think extreme liberals are stupid, if only because they are cocky and always think they’re right.  Liberal’s don’t know how to win debates, they only argue to hear themselves talk.   They don’t ever have valid points.  They just lead everyone around in circles and then raise taxes.

I don’t like Brandon, because he is a dumb, skinny asshole that will fight me about the Native American’s when I obviously have no knowledge on the subject.  But he likes me, for that reason, and invited me over.  “So maybe we should make an appearance?”

“Let’s stop at Tim’s first, and then we can go over there.  Then we can go to Kristine’s or something.”

   Amanda needs to do something.  It’s New Year’s Eve.  We need to be out “partying like rock stars.”  I. personally, would not mind spending the evening with my parents, eating Chinese food, and passing out before midnight.  But then again, that sounds lame on a social resume. 

“So let’s go to Tim’s then.”

Tim has been my friend since we were both fifteen.   His friend Sky was my first kiss.  Sky was ugly.  But his name was cool and reminded me of Marlon Brando from Guys and Dolls. Sky played Radiohead and Collective Soul on his guitar.  He was a sloppy kisser, as was he a sloppy guitar player.  Tim was five feet away, passed out on the floor, when this happened.  When my first kiss happened.  I’ve never really talked to Sky again.

Tim is a “nice guy.”  Tim loves me when there is no one else better around.  That is why I love Tim.  Because I know where I fall.  He’ll have my back, unless I fuck with someone that he cares more about.  I know who they are, so Tim will always have my back. 

He has a big house.  I spend a lot of time there because I am his sister’s small group leader for church, she is a senior in high school, and you might call me her spiritual “mentor.”  She and a few other girls will be at his house.  They will be drinking from the keg in the bathroom that I will never go to see.   I will come, stay for twenty minutes, and leave without drinking.  But I will be seen by a lot of underage church kids.  I will be seen by Tim’s parents who are upstairs wondering if it was smart to purchase their son a keg. 

Tim’s dad is on the board at church.  My life pretty much revolves around church. 

Let me run through this again.  I know there is a keg in the bathroom.  I do not go in the bathroom, because I don’t want to drink their beer, and I never have to pee.  I never see the keg.  But I am seen by a lot of underage church kids.  I am not fazed.  I never see the keg.  It does not exist. I am about to leave and go somewhere else to get trashed.

I walk in.  I am greeted with joy.  Jacey, Amanda and Dana are by my side.  My brother gives me a hug.  I run to the kitchen with Jace’s hand in my hand.  Lets get fucked up.

Everyone is already wasted.  Everyone except for them.  Sara, Stephanie, Sarah.  I wish I made those names up. 

Sara is pissed because she is crazy.  Stephanie is sad because she is pregnant and cannot get drunk.  Sarah is a depressed suicidal that should kill herself.  They are all mad that I am getting myself an amaretto stone sour from Keel.  They are mad because I am twenty.  I don’t care.  Brandon wants me here.  It’s his house.  I am the guest of honor, they just don’t know it yet…  They just won’t know it ever.

I see Brandon. This is what I say:

“Are you drunk? You’re not?  Why not? Oh… you want to be responsible. You haven’t drunk since when?  3 hours ago.  Sober.  I see.  Well, I want you to know that I don’t want to date you.  I don’t want to date anyone.  I need to be single.  I like it.  And Brandon?  When I get drunk tonight, don’t try and kiss me.  Why? Because bad things happen when I get drunk.”

I cannot comprehend anything.  I do not know what is going on.  I don’t know what I drank but it was 10:00 and now it is midnight, and I missed the countdown, so we do it again.  Then we sing our own bad version of Auld Lang Syne.  Brandon comes up to me. 

“Kiss on the mouth?”

I peck him.  I do not like his taste.  He is still sober.  He might have had some of Dana’s Champagne though.

I black out.