I don't know just how to change you,

All I know is how to tell you that you can.

I came across a whole amazing spectrum of music the other day on pandora. "Desdemona" by The Alternate Routes is definitely a favorite right now. Look it up! Now!

Man. I am exhausted. Today was the most ridiculously long day - and yesterday was ridiculously awful. Let's start with the positive though (and perhaps the most important): I GOT PETER BACK! Wait wait wait, little rant first: 1-Day-Paint. One day, right? Wrong. SIX. asdrlkaselrknlawkernlkfrffff. They caused me many headaches this week. As if being a student without a car isn't hard enough, try being a HIRED DRIVER without one. That's why I had to borrow my dad's minivan yesterday and that's why I got into bad situations last night. Anyway - that's another story. My mind is gone, in case you couldn't tell. Right now I'm sitting here listening to music and eating chocolate covered pretzels; not particularly because I want to eat chocolate covered pretzels, but because I'm trying to wind myself down and there is NOTHING ELSE TO EAT here. We don't even have soda. (diet coke doesn't count.) I could brew a pot of coffee, but the sensible voice in the back of my head (perhaps the newly 18-year-old, and therefore a tad more mature, part of me) keeps saying that I really just need to go to bed, and coffee will just make it all worse. Which is silly logic. Coffee never made anything worse, except for my mom's stomach aches. Apparently she used to drink coffee when she was in high school, and soon afterward she developed an intolerance for it and it messes her up every time she drinks it. I live in fear that this will happen to me.

ANYWAY. The car. I was supposed to be able to pick it up Saturday, but it wasn't ready... so yesterday I had to borrow the van. My morning was spent driving Betty, which we won't go into. Suffice it to say that yes, even by 10 o'clock in the morning my sanity had started to suffer a little. Then I went home to grab some lunch, and I told Dad that it looked like I would need to get gas. He told me, "No no, you've got plenty of gas left to get you around town today. I'll fill it up tomorrow." Now, I love my father. But when I was driving from mime to my night class last evening, and the car starting beeping suddenly at me and flashing lights and slowing to a dragging inability to accelerate while I was on the busiest street in town, I will admit that I thought some very unpleasant thoughts. So - long story short, I managed to get the car off the road and I called Mom, who (a half hour later) came to me and brought a gallon of gasoline with her. The evening carried on as usual after that.

Incidentally, people always ask "Does it feel different?" after a birthday, although they really expect that you'll say "no". I remember that last year it did feel specifically different when I told someone that I was seventeen. Being eighteen, however, actually feels incredibly different. Maybe it's the fact that I can drive my friends legally now, so I don't have to be afraid whenever I see a cop... or maybe it's the knowledge that I can vote, or get called to jury duty, or smoke, or go to war... y'know, all that fun stuff. In any case, I feel older. It's weird.

This morning I woke up at 6:30 so that we could be at the car place by 8 to pick Peter up. Surprise: they still weren't ready. Dad drove me to school and I took a quiz in biology lab (my 8:30 class with the devil and periwinkle walls), a test in biology lecture, and finished the day with watching Casablanca in my other class (which was nice. What a grand movie.). Oh, and then there was a ridiculous occurrence in the library, where I went to eat lunch and read until my next class came along. I'm sitting there, right?, in this crowded hallway on my own bench. I kept noticing guys walking by and looking at me, but I owed this to my neurotic sixth-sense which assumes that everyone and their mother has some hidden agenda. So I tried to ignore it. Then, suddenly, I become aware that there are two guys standing about four feet away from me, staring at me. They have been talking for some time, but I only become aware of them in time to hear:

Guy 1: Dude, she's so not into me.
Guy 2: Come on, come on. Dude, I will be so mad at you if you don't talk to this girl.
Guy 1: No!
Guy 2: Come on! Say hello!
Guy 1: (Walks past me very slowly and says, in the most non-committal tone possible...) He-llo.
Me: (Continues to stare down at the book on my lap)
Guy 1: Alright man, come on.
Guy 2: Lame.
(They walk off.)

Currently the situation is funny. At the time, however, I was again filled with unpleasant thoughts towards half the world's population. Although, this could possibly be due to the fact that I am still bitter about my father's van.

At 3, Mom came and picked me up and we met Dad at the auto place, where my car was finally ready. The color is beautiful. Seriously - he looks so good. I mean I've always been glad to have Peter, but before he was just a car that someone gave me. Now he's mine. It's a nice feeling. I drove him home and listened to a newly made CD of mine, and couldn't help but be aware of how scratched and dented and peeling every other car on the road is. That was the definite high point of the week thus far.

So I came home around 4, drank some coffee, wrote some emails pertaining to The Dining Room, and put on mime makeup for the first time in what feels like forever. Tonight we had a mime presentation at a church's special-needs program. That went really well - they really enjoyed it. It was cool. :)

Well. I think I'm going to go beg a backrub from Dad and watch a Friends episode. Tomorrow's another big day... more driving, more papers to write.... speaking of writing, I wrote a song the other day that I really like. Also, I want to write books and plays like Tennessee Williams. But what young writer doesn't?