First, I guess I should thank you for shopping here.  Although I don't understand what you could possibly be going to do with ninety percent of what you buy, or why you think that buying something for the sole reason that it's only a dollar, or two for three dollars, of five ninety nine will save you money, if there weren't so very many of you , they wouldn't have felt the need to hire me, and while I would have a summer, I would also have another fifteen hundred dollars in college loans.  So I guess it's for the best.   
     That said, I would like to remind you that those of us who work here are people just like those of you who come to spend money.   Please remember that we don't suddenly become less human when we put on our green smocks and little plastic name tags.  Please remember that we don't do this because we enjoy it - we need the money, whether it's for college, or an apartment, or food.  Please don't make it worse than it already is.
     Don't come up to the register at five after ten, when we close at ten, and ask me to verify the price on every single item you have.  The two or three that didn't have it marked are ok, but I assure you, we let you know when things are cheaper then the tag says.  My mom suggested that maybe you couldn't read, and I felt bad for a second.  Then I remembered that you paid by check, and had no trouble writing out the store name and measly forty dollars you owed us.
      Yes, measly forty dollars.  Don't bring a hundred dollars up to the register, and spend fifteen minutes after closing time deciding what you actually want to buy.  Don't think you have all the time in the world just because there's no one in line behind you.  Don't spend a full minute deliberating over every item, then handing them to me without saying anything, so every time I have to ask if you want it or not.  Don't ask me for a subtotal every five dollars.  Don't leave a pile of things you decided you didn't want after all behind me, so tall it reaches my shoulders, when the expected amount of returns fits under the counter for the entire night.  Don't pick things up if you're just going to complain that they're broken and you don't want them. Get here before closing time, and do your shopping in the aisles, not the check-out line.
     Don't waste so much of my time - I do have to go clean the candles section after this, you know, straitening the mess you've made of it - that by the time you leave, it's ten twenty-three, and the manager has to come escort you out the doors because we've locked them twenty minutes ago.  Don't make me have to be eternally grateful that that same manager says she'll take care of your cart of stuff you decided not to get after all, so I have a slim chance of finishing a rough job of my work on time.  Please, just don't.
      Please, just remember that I am not a robot, and even though they do pay me (slightly) for it, I don't really want to be here.  Please realize that it takes all my willpower to keep my happy-smiling-customer-service face when you do all this, and just skip it.  Just be considerate.  
            Just be considerate, and remember I'm a person too.
                                 Love,      
                                          Your Friendly Neighborhood Discount Store Worker
    

    Yesterday I finally had summer.  After a month of seeing no one and willing myself to clean up after lazy people for hours on end, I went to a graduation party.  Of course, it took great strength of will to tear myself away from the last Harry Potter book, but after chapter twenty-eight I managed it, and headed over to the graduation party of one of my not-so-close friends.  Well, one of my best friends outside of my closest circle.  I hope I’m making sense.

            I got there and it seemed that no one was there yet.  That was due mainly to the incredibly long driveway.  But I found one of my friends.  Oh, bother, this is going to get too confusing if I don’t actually use names.  Booglewarts.  I’m still a little paranoid about the internet.  (Though if I’m going for admissions blogger, I should probably get over that)  Anyway, Kevin and I hung out and didn’t fall out of the hammock (a great feat, believe me) and bemoaned the thirty-ish days left till college.  Eventually, Karen came, with news that Matt’s party was deserted, and she had said that she’d put in an appearance.  Kevin though he would too, and as none of my other friends were there, I went as well.  We all took Karen’s car.  You would do well to remember that important piece of information later, as you try and solve the dreadful murder…Oh wait, wrong night.

            Matt’s party was well, not deserted, but populated entirely by distant relatives, so perhaps and even more dire situation.  It featured an abundance of food and babies.  However, we had been there scarcely fifteen minutes when a chain of frantic phone calls eventually resulted in the news that Karen’s boyfriend’s dad had had a stroke, and he was at a concert with friends, and they wouldn’t bring him back to his car.  Yes, this brings up many questions as to the quality of these friends, but for the purposes of my story, it simply leads to the start of the “random-running-around-the-Capital-region-as-if-we-were-on-a-scavenger-hunt” segment.

            Karen doesn’t trust her sense of direction, nor, apparently, the digital compass in her car.  So she asked for Kevin to come along, and again, I went mainly because there was no one else there I would really hang out with.  So we drove to Albany.  And then to the hospital in Troy.  And then around Lansingburg, passing people hanging out in the street listening to car radios and smelling strongly of pot (I admit, until this point I really had no clue what pot smells like…others just said that it was), trying to find Karen’s boyfriend’s car because we needed to bring it to the hospital for him.  The fact that our main landmark was Stewarts and there are two in Lansingburg really didn’t help.  We found it though, and took it back to the hospital.

            There we followed the signs to “Patient Registration”, wandering down long corridors, absolutely deserted, the lighting growing dimmer…until we reached the desk, which was only open until seven.  So back through the empty hallways (there really was no one around) until we reached the beginning, and went the other direction, to the emergency registration, where we finally found him.  Karen decided to stay, and more convoluted driving plans were required.

            Kevin and I drove Karen’s car back to his house, where we hung out for five minutes until Erin, who had arrived at Emma’s party in our absence came and got us, with silly Pat in tow, and we finally made it back, only three or so hours after we had said we would be.

            Three more hours there, including an hour of Pat begging us to play Ouija, and then blaming it not working on our cynicism, and kicking us out of the room, and still not getting it to work, all the while protesting that he really didn’t believe it either.  And then we left, and I went home and finished Harry Potter.

            Which I will not talk about even though I really really want to.

I am now officially American.  Or maybe Finnish.  Nah, it’s not a Nokia.  Heh.  Anyway, I got my cell phone Friday, and am maybe just a tiny bitty bit obsessed with it.  I did have to figure out all the features with minimal reading of the instruction manual.  Never mind that only my best friend has called me, or even has my number.  The possibility is there.

            Actually, if I’m completely honest, one of the reasons that I got it before I left for college was that I thought it might make my summer better, you know, if my friends could get ahold of me easily to see if I’m available for movie of coffee shop.  I admit, it’s not so logical, especially with my work hours (life occurs between 3-11.  When you have to work at Christmas Tree Shops, life cannot, therefore, occur.) But it’s also a little silly, the kind of thing people are always coming up with “If I do this, then this slightly related thing that only I can really make happen, by doing something that won’t be easy, will happen.”  We’re all lazy.  And scared.

            On another note, I can not wait for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  My writing club (yes, a high school club, but with wonderful people who continue it during the summer on our student(me)-created, student(me, and a couple of my favorite freshman, well, sophomores now)-run, online forum) is rather obsessed, and our last actual meeting was basically just discuss-Harry-Potter-time, and it has gotten me very excited.  If I updated more often, I’d warn you not to expect anything that day or two after.

     It's pretty hard to tell right now.  The weather is crazy, like we're going through a whole year every week.  And it's probably the first time in my life that I want summer to be over, and it to be time to go to school.  Why? Because this summer is, well, just not summer.  I got a job, and while that was something I expected, it's messing up life a lot more than I thought it would.  And it's not the greatest job either.  OK, I don't share the attitude of many  of my co-workers that it's a horrible place to work and I should go look for something else immediatly.  But it's hard to know if that's just because I've never had a job before (teaching a swim lesson a week doesn't really count) or that I know it's only for the summer.  I would never be able to cashier for my whole life, but for now it's all right.  Only, the hours are horrible.  Being the lowly high-school-new-girl, I have evening shift, which is....Well, it goes until 11PM.  The first week started at 230, this week at 3, next week its supposed to be 330.  If it goes up to 4 after that, I am complaining loudly.  I don't really mind not working as long, but I get fewer breaks, and I do need money.  Which is the reason I'm working at all.
      But when I stop and think what I just spent the last eight hours doing....
      And of course, such hours completley destroy any chance of a social life.  Yes, I did have one.  For about three weeks at the end of school there.  Now, despite oh so many "I'll see you later"s and "We'll hang out this summer"s at graduatioin, I've seen none of those people since.  And with work scheduals the way they are, my Saturdays dissapear, as to afternoons and evenings throughout the week, and graduation parties must be missed, and so much else as well.
     There was one moment when I thought that something might happen this summer.  But he and I were both expecting something that had been there before, and it just wasn't anymore.

This is summer?

This is my summer.

      Well, I'm sitting here right now a free woman.  OK, maybe that's a bit dramatic.  Really though, high school is over.  Forever.  I graduate a week from tomorrow.  It's been forever and no time at all.  I've been here for most of it, even if most of that time it was sporadic.  I'm not really sure what I want to say about it, other than it's over.  There will be a few things I miss - band, writing club and drama club and MasterMinds (all of which were only started this year, a few friends - but mostly, I'm not sad to see it go.  People in high school are so silly.  And it's all about the people, so high school is just so silly.  I don't really know if college will be any different, but I'm hoping.
     Right now I'm trying to download a Japanese IME (Imput Management Editor) so I can write Japanese on my computer.  However, it is not going too well.  On the dial-up at home, it said it would take 8 hours, so I left it on overnight.  Somehow the modem cord got pulled out and it stopped 2/3 of the way through.  It wouldn't pick up where it left off.  So I came to the college, where there's high-speed wireless and tried it.  It downloaded but for some reason couldn't install.  I can't find it on my computer to try again.  It might have been because I have Office 2003, and it's for Office XP, but I can't find one for 2003, and you know what, I don't even know if XP is older or newer!  It's madness, it really is.

       Driving along a highway, going home from somewhere - I don't remember what - and we were coming to the end.  We were passing mile markers, getting lower with every one. 5.1...5.0...4.9..........1.3........0.2......and we were coming to the end.  Approaching home after a trip, seeing signs of getting closer every few seconds and the car just keeps carrying me on, it always feels like something else is coming to an end, as the mile markers count it down. 
     Senior year is winding up now.  We've passed three report cards that, like those green signs on the highway, mark progress towards the end.  My friend is keeping a tally, marking off the days we have left in school.  I've spent what seems like my whole life there, the same school since kindergarten.  In sixth grade I moved accross the driveway, but its still the same school.  For two thirds of my life - no, more - I've been there.  And now the days are counting down and its coming to an end.
     This is  no imagined era of a family vacation, but truely a new time approaching.  Four and a half short months from now I'll live somewhere new, and though I look forward to all that it will offer, I can't help but feel sorrow for all that I'm leaving behind.  Nothing will be the same again, after this year comes to its end.

Well, I have a little blurby for you, wrote it a couple of days ago, so the Saturday that is referenced is last week. Enjoy.  (or maybe not...)

     I had a swim meet on Saturday, didn't do too well, but with the amount of practice we have, that's not all that surprising, and also not what I really want to talk about.  See, after the meet, the food was all closed up and I was quite hungry, so we stopped at Panera on the way home.  (Now you're all "mmmmm-Panera", right?  just wait, it's not so pretty)  We were sitting and eating and a family comes up to this table, where someone else has left their stuff.  They move it, and sit down there.  The dad says - get this - "move your feet, loose your seat".  How kindergarten can you get?  A grown man in Panera saying petty rhymes as he takes a stranger's seat!?!  It's one thing to steal your friend's seat in the cafeteria and make them get another chair, but you don't take the entire table of another party in a restaurant!  There was a little girl with them too - maybe five or six.  Bet you can guess what she'll be saying next week when she's back in school.  If anyone ever wondered why these children's rhymes stay the same,  I guess you have your answer now.  There are  idiots who try to use them when and where they really shouldn't.  And if you can't tell, it pretty much disgusted me.

     Nearly Halfway through the first month of the year.  Nearly Halfway through the last year of high school.  I'm not sure of the specific significance, but I can't help but feel as though it's there.  Maybe "nearly halfway" makes it seem as if we're just waiting, trying to hold on untill truely halfway, and the end.  So often that's what it seems like.  So often I wish I could have graduated last year.  But there were "fun" classes I wanted to take which would not have happened.  Now I know that optimism can be a curse.  Just because you pick the class doesn't make the teacher intelligent.
     Driving home yesterday from an early-morning swim meet and noon-time team pizza outing, I looked out the window at the flat brown land.  It was not truely flat, but empty, desolate, with the long dead grasses making it seem as if it were fraying, little pieces, fragile, sticking out at odd angles.  So long dead, but not yet buried in peaceful white.  It was sad, so sad, and lonely.  Perhaps more lonely than anything else.   Empty, stretching flat but not flat, and falling apart.
     And later, something hoped did not happen, though I should have known it wouldn't, should know it never will.  And nosy family is no help, so I think of nearly halfway and empty roadsides, and wonder where that optimism went.

  What else is there to say?
     It's one of those days when I feel like I have a million thoughts but not a one will come out my fingertips to you.  Alas, I thought I was done with college essays, but now I must do scholarships.
     One of the strangest things is the night view from an airplane.  Lights of home glittering below could really be anywhere at all.  Where are you?   
     I'm graduating this year.  Class of 2007.  It's a slightly scary thought.  Exciting, scary.  Oh, yes, but where are we going?   
     Hopefully this wasn't too nonsensical.

See you again soon.   
~bye

Well, this is an entry that I wrote in word about a week ago with the intention of posting it the next day.  By the time I got around to it, blogdrive was down, so it got delayed a little longer.  So now I'm posting it.  In a bit I'll take out this intro and backdate it, for sake of accuracy in the thought-time correspondance.  But, oh, I'll stop blabbering now, here it is, from a week ago:

     I got a new laptop computer yesterday, for a course I’m taking at a local college.  It’s a Tablet PC, so something of a novelty, and my sister has been enthralled by it for the past three and a half hours.  I just made her turn it off because, even though it’s illogical, I couldn’t help feeling that it needed a rest.
      I’m not using it right now-I haven’t set up internet yet and likely will wait a bit longer to do so, as I am leery of letting I be killed by a virus in its first week of life.  Computers are like children in the seventeenth century: often die so young.  That was a random thought that just came into my head as I was writing.
      But anyways, I am using my old computer because it has internet and the keyboard’s easier, and it is what I know and am comfortable with, even if most of the time I don’t love it.
      On the internet right now and it bothers me because it means that should he wish, he can’t call me.  But it pleases me too, because when I get no call from him, I have a reason.  A reason, that is, that can satisfy me for a little while longer, keep me sane a bit longer.
      Without a reason, I get anxious and angry and restless and then I bang on the piano and try to find the tunes of songs I wrote long ago which might not fit exactly in words, but in emotion come close :
                                     The rock that never came
                                      The world never ended
                                      Impact Imaginary
                                       Somehow still left us winded

                                    ....just an end to all our dreams
                                       nothing is as it seems...
     and when I cannot find the tunes, I scribble random bits from one or another on my whiteboard, never breaking at lines, just covering it furiously in messy black text and when it’s full, orange slashes through it all, before I fling markers away from me, to prevent any more.  Oh no, please no more.
     I don’t understand it, really.  I always thought I was rational, and I came to the conclusion long ago that I was the friend.  Never know that I would ever be so far from satisfied with that.  Never saw it.  No one else who knows me ever would either.
     I guess life as surprises around every corner.
     Strangely, but maybe not so much, what soothed me was installing the software on my new computer.  Formulaic, with each step telling you what to do.  How often I wish that more of life was like that.  But then again, might that be boring?  Still, a little help from time to time would not be unwelcome