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I suppose with no one to thoroughly vent to, I have this here journal.
Today was the crappiest of crappy days. In fact, it served to scope in on how not-awesome my summer has been. I've been living this fantasy of "restful vacation" when, in reality, it has sucked.
So Travis is going to be the epitome of all I am angry at right now. Everything angry I have to say, he is an example of.
So every Monday and Friday, I wake up early and spend somewhere between four and six hours walking to a coffee shop with books under arm and plotting this anti-prom and then walking back. No one shows up and at first, that was okay, but now Travis has decided that because he's not the leader, he doesn't want to be part of it at all - I know, the perfect example of why he shouldn't be leader. I've tried to talk to him and he simply throws a hissy fit. I don't care.
Ugh. Where to go next?
I'll hit the pentacle of my dis-ease. There is an old man who said that if he needed help, he'd count on us to help him - for pay. I thought, "Hell yeah! Money for helping an old man!" and he agreed. Well, today, he needed help with his lawn and unloading his truck of heavy metal crap. I called my most trustworthy member, and he had a 103 fever. I know he'd never lie; helping is his thing. Travis was nowhere to be found. My brother and his friends considered "chilling" more important than this, so I got ditched.
So what would you do? This old man clearly couldn't do all of this work himself. It was heavy; three of us youngins couldn't do it either. My mother was standing there; she wasn't going to let me go alone with a stranger. Everyone left me there! I tried to explain to the man, but he looked even more frustrated than I was. He gently motioned toward his truck... the metal furniture piled higher than the cab.
He had tried to call me this morning and he got the answering machine. Let's face it: when you hit forty, you start waking up in the AM's. I am 17 and a writer that only gets her muse around midnight, so I woke up late.
I could kill someone; I'm so fed up. I was ditched. I got the blame. I got the sad old man's look. I even got the, "I'm sorry. I thought I could count on you guys." Kerpow! Slap in the pride, and it hurts. It hurts very, very badly.
Ugh. There are no words to express my disappointment.
North Carolina guy, my dear, dear friend, agreed that my "friends" are a-holes. He said they don't deserve an anti-prom, and to be perfectly honest, I can't help but agree. Maybe I should do this yard sale this Saturday (assuming Travis gives my s**t back to sell) and . . . Jesus, I don't know.
I feel hopeless. I feel crapped on. I feel . . . so many things. I miss Kelly. I miss Tabatha. I miss a lot of people who would never disappoint me to this extent.
So, feeling a fresh dose of this and a major headache, my mother decided it was time for my first driving lesson in a very, very long time. Remember in your driving manual where it says "Never drive when you're angry" ? Of course not. From what I've learned driving, no one reads the driving manual anymore. Anyway.
My mother still holds the door like Life itself when I drive and screams over and over for no good reason. She doesn't trust me because she never takes me out driving, even though I'm a damned good driver.
So if you don't live in New York, you probably don't know about our ridiculous driving laws. You can't get a permit until you are 16. A permit allows you to drive from dawn to dusk with a parent or guardian over the age of 21 in the vehicle with you.
When we moved, my mother said that she'd take me out to get my permit within a week of my turning 16. Didn't happen; her boyfriend came first. I asked her over and over, but she said that she was reserving her vacation, personal and sick days for emergencies. Fat f*****g chance, because the second Larry asked for something, she was out of work in a zippy. So I didn't get my permit.
So if you don't live in New York, you probably don't know about the other laws, either. Once you have your permit, you have to take a five-hour course on driving. While I was walking in the snow and through the drug-ridden streets of my city, alone, my friends had their permits. Hell, their parents took them within the week of their turning 16. They made fun of each other, and me; "You're 16 and you don't have your permit?" Over and over and in different shades of bullying, they made fun of everyone. Even the poor black girl got her permit on her birthday. But not Barb. No, because her mother had to reserve her days for emergencies - like cleaning the house, or her boyfriend's birthday. Okay. I was fine with that.
16.5 happened to all of this kids. When you have your permit for six months or you turn seventeen, you are then allowed your Junior License. This lets you drive without a parent in the vehicle and you're free to roam until 9PM. The only rule is no more than two non-family people are allowed in the car with you.
Guess what? I was still walking around town and standing in the rain and snow as I waited for the bus. I turned seventeen. All of my friends had their own cars by then; they were driving to work in their parents' cars to go to work and saving the money for theirs. They didn't bully each other any more. It was automatically assumed that if you were seventeen, you at least had your permit.
Hah hah. Not this one. Nope. So when people heard, they'd really tear at me. What, did I fail the written test? Did I not care? Was I so rich that I had a chauffeur? What the hell was wrong with me?
"Oh, my mom works."
"She's too busy to take you to the DMV?"
"Uh."
"Well couldn't someone just take you down there? Or couldn't you walk?"
"No, you need a legal guardian for the paperwork, and -"
"Oh, well that sucks."
So I endure this. One kid got his actual License having passed the final test and could drive unlimited. If I got my permit, I'd have to get my mother to ride around with me . . . when she had the time. So I ignored it. I tried to look at the bright side. I was saving the earth, right? I tried to think I was okay with waking up an hour earlier to get on the bus. Bus b***h, with her cigarettes and screaming, didn't help, but hey, I was with my friends, right? My . . . bus partners . . . who stole my s**t . . . and made fun of me . . . and . . . f**k.
Oh well, right? Tough luck, right?
That was when it happened.
My little brother turned 16.
He waited a week because he got sick, and then my mother took us to the DMV.
and he WHINED that he had to wait a week.
Take a minute to try - TRY - to comprehend the rage I felt.
Go ahead. I'll wait. I have all day.
Done?
Yes.
Ahem . . .
My brother waited a week, and then it was time for driving lessons. M-hm. That lasted all of two weeks. And then Larry decided that he could wait. He couldn't take the six-hour course or the junior license test until August, so what was the rush? My mother knew this. She wasn't in a rush either.
I nagged. I threw it in her face who the bright-as-day favorite was and what bulls**t it was. I also told her that I had New Visions that I was going to be accepted for.
"We'll get you your junior license. Calm down."
"I don't drive, Mom! I can't pass a road test when I don't know how to drive!"
"You'll go driving."
"And we need to do it soon! There's a month wait before you take the test."
"We'll go driving."
Her boyfriend caught wind. He emphasized how important it was. I mean, it's not like my future depended on my ability to drive to New Visions. Nooo. And I mean, heh, the letter that said, "If you don't have your junior license by June 6, 2009, you are not eligible for New Visions. Sign here verifying you have your license." That? Oh, who cares that it was a legal document, or that it was strongly suggested. Depending on a road test the first time around? That wasn't insane. Nope. And it's not like Jessi is taking it the eighth time. And it's not like people learn to drive through practice. No, they're born drivers. You're born knowing parallel parking and ---
He hired a guy for 80 bucks an hour to teach me to drive. My mother had to consent. She consented to three hours. We didn't drive for two months after this.
It's July.
The boyfriend, whose name is Wayne by the way, sent me to the six hour course. My mother actually drove because she needed to finally impress him. I'm turning 18 in September and I'm surrounded by 16 year olds. I get angry all over again, but I take deep breaths. There is a 30-something woman there as well who just moved from the City, obviously, and everyone knows that in NYC, you're either a murderer or a cab driver if you have your license. I pass the course easily.
So my mother waits until now to take me driving. By now, I have bought my own car. That she uses, because it's nicer than hers. There are cobwebs between the car and the house - thick ones - that break once a week when someone has to take the garbage cans to and from the road. That's it.
My driving test is in two weeks. I have to learn how to drive by then.
My mother took me out tonight, and she doesn't trust me. She discusses that parallel parking is so easy. So I tell her to pretend she is the instructor grading me and I tell her the rules that we were told during the five hour course. She denies these rules - because she was a car insurance adjuster in Florida - and I have to explain that no, I know the rules. So we play by the rules. I fail three times for hitting the curb and get it perfect the fourth time.
It is at this moment that she questions hiring the man her boyfriend had come. This man books for the summer in May. I'm screwed, but she insists that she will call him tomorrow and that I need to be awake in case he comes tomorrow. Won't happen, but hell, I'm tired of arguing.
Then she decides that if I fail - inevitable - in two weeks, I'll just have to get my license in a different state because there's no way I'll be able to do my senior year of high school otherwise. Yes, because that's what I want after the crappy day I had - no hope.
I'm going to drive illegally tomorrow. Don't tell anyone. I'm going to call my ex-boyfriend and I'm going to cry. I'm going to ask him where he wants to go, and we are going to go driving tomorrow.
Wish me luck, please. I don't usually whine. I'm not a whiner. I'm usually so calm and at ease, but today? Today sucked. I just want to destroy this crummy world. No, no. That won't be fair to the cute animals. No, I just want every living human being to die. The children? They'll grow up to be pricks, too. I just hate everyone right now.
*sigh*
To write crummy stories no one reads anyway! Ha. My life is worthless.
Eightwingedangel · Thu Jul 23, 2009 @ 02:27am · 0 Comments |
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