From stardust to sentience

“Claire, go to college. Just go to college and you can do whatever the fuck you want. What-ever-the-fuck-you-want.” Says my brother.
That’s how my night ended.

I went back inside and faced my dad.
My father said NO. And again, NO. NO, NO, NO.
i begged him. i pleaded.

by some miracle, he said yes. he told me to be home by 9.
So I drove to Jackie’s, Jay in the front seat, Jess in the back. seventy on the high way, this is America, i thought to myself.

The tedious but entertaining process of introducing one’s self, rewind, repeat, play. Throw a smile in there, a handshake, a kiss on the cheek, and perhaps another smile, if you’re up for it.

Grab a cold one, a chair, or the chair first, then two cold ones, one for yourself and one for the cousin. sit and survey the surroundings, too far to participate in the conversation. (blame the architecture of jackie’s backyard)
see the spider sitting on its web, right above us. eating. celebrating, just like us.

and suddenly, i am the spider.
a girl named mariel sits beside her presumptive nameless boyfriend. [i watch the gnat fly into my web]
gary wears a headband in his fluffy hair. dark hair, dark eyes, strong arms. he tells stories with his mouth and his eyes. yes, he looks at everyone.
and jackie sits curled in a chair, laughing. content. next to
Alyssa, Barone’s girlfriend with the eyes of January ice. like the blue of the skies in december. [i have injected the fly]
Anthony is beside her, quiet, seemingly oblivious, always with the additional comical comment.
Jay, the new-comer, the outsider, Claire’s brother sits with cold glass in his right hand and his left fiddles with the chair.
Claire is behind him, situated at an angle to see everyone. Jessica sits next to her, in the sun, dazed and confused.

I consume a burger only to find a large ketchup stain on my shirt.
I went to Jackie’s basement to wash it off.
[Enter Anthony]
He asks how my weekend has been.
[Insert small talk of rollercoasters]

[Claire and Anthony EXIT, stage left]

Jackie: Everyone! Let’s move to the picnic table!
Everone moves to the picnic table. I take my seat, to the left of me is Alex, the dark haired girl who didn’t speak to me last time, to the left of her is Jeana, the small Asian girl who is my age, and on the other side is Alyssa, Anthony and Gary.

THE CONVERSATIONS:
somehow, a conversation starts between myself, gary, and anthony. Anthony pulled up a chair to the side of the picnic table to join us. Sometimes it would be a whole table discussion, other times it would be the three of us. Anthony mentioned how he was replaying The Ocarina of Time on Project 64, a computer emulator. I told him I played it recently. “What are your top 10 video games?” I asked.
–conversation goes on–
Between numbers, we would stray and talk about other things. Gardening, jobs, college, life, parents, people, friends, boyfriends, relationships, girlfriends, love, food, shrimp, video games, camping, lakes, trees, et cetera, et cetera.

(She wraps her body around him but he sits like a rock. Why are you being so unresponsive? Is it because of me? I’d like to think so, just because.. just because I wished I captivated you. Yes, that’s the truth. I want to be captivating.)

i must have been conversing for three hours straight. sometimes with gary only, sometimes with anthony.
It’s weird when you have been doing something for a long period of time, and you look up and suddenly it’s dark and the sky is dotted with stars. and you glance at your hands and realize that you’re here, right now, right here.

Time to go: I give everyone a hug or what not, and surprisingly enough.. there were some extended hugs. I left happy and proud of myself.
————–

If this is the end to my summer, it was amazing. If I hadn’t been able to go, I wouldn’t have met these people. Possibilities flourish after every decision made. After seeing myself interact with new people successfully.. it gives me hope for the future. Even though they are older, someday I will be that age, and maybe I’ll find someone.. someone special. It’s not hard. In fact, it gets easier. Good-bye summer. “Summer always comes, but it’s never the same one.” – Jeremy.

Tomorrow I start my journey as a Senior in High School.

Hi, my name is Claire. Nice to meet you.

I grew up mostly as a shy girl, never the first one to put my hand out to say hello, the little girl who would grab a hold onto her mother’s dress and peek out from behind. As I got older, my mother would push me forward and I was always a bit awkward still.
In middle school, I had no enemies. I made sure I was nice to everyone, if I didn’t like someone, I would just brush it off. No one made rumors about me, no one talked about me behind my back, I was the friend you’d tell secrets to. The one who was friends equally with everyone.
Then in high school, I met some really awesome people who eventually got me to break out of my little shell and be heard. I gained confidence, I spoke out more, presentations were fine, I liked to voice my opinion.

Last night, after telling my mother 80% of the truth, going out the back door, meeting up with Jessica and sneaking out, running down my hill, leaving my father completely clueless, I felt like a teenager. A real seventeen year old. Yeah, it was my birthday yesterday, and yeah, I got my license.

Her parents are out for the weekend in Maryland. She called up everyone, and she threw a house party. There I was, standing in the darkness of my neighborhood, shoulders half bare, matching jewelry, make-up, skinny jeans. Just waiting.

She picked us up and we drove. Jessica had a deja vu, and I knew we were supposed to be there, at that point in time. When I have deja vus, I feel like everything’s on track, like those sudden realizations are clues that i’m actually doing alright in life. We got to her house and found out that her neighbor’s son, the police officer’s son, was also throwing a party. We were early, the first ones there. We set up everything, cleaned, made room, set up the beer pong tables.

I opened the fridge. There were at least three thirty packs, a large bottle of Malibu Rum, and a huge bottle of Smirnoff. We had pina colada mixes, pineapple mixes, margarita mixes. More people brought beers, shot glasses and what not.

I tried meeting people as they came in, introducing myself loudly, saying my name and nice to meet you. Shaking their hand, smiling, all that good stuff. I repeated their names in my head, over and over. Oh gosh, let me tell you, there definitely were some cute guys, and sitting there with Jessica, she would have given me encouraging words if I needed them.

So I had a couple of beers, a shot, went upstairs to sit outside. Sitting outside, I was around a table with Anthony Barone, a very cute, intellectual and understanding guy. Let me tell you a bit about what i’ve inferred about him. He loves music, can sit around all day listening to it, loves beer, we talked about how we ordered subscriptions of the Game Informer magazine and never read them, how we play Guitar Hero, how both our brothers are drug dealers (I got a high five for that one). I’ll talk about him more later. Then there was Quincy. I knew about him even before I met him. Jackie told me of the terrible accident he was in, and all that is left is a decorated cast on his left arm. Quincy…aka Cups, aka Cans. If you look at him, he would appear as a typical jock-swimmer type. Like someone I wouldn’t normally approach at school. He graduated with the Class of ‘o8, and I told him that I love that class. We talked about school, what he likes, what schools i’m applying to, what subjects he likes, (he’s a math and science nerd, going to school to be an orthodontist) and how I’m totally opposite, that I love writing and reading and am totally not a chemistry person. We got a really awesome conversation going.

Then there was the other Anthony, with the hat. A hat like in Tony Hawks Underground 2. He was a bit obnoxious, short, and loves skating, obviously. Kids with hats like that are skaters. It’s a known fact.

Jeana (or Gina), she passed out cold. She’s in my grade, very light weight, she was gone. A lot of drama floated around her, I noticed.

Mark told us a story about how many people gathered around him, (He was at a party where everyone was piss drunk) and watched a girl give him head. The story was pretty funny, actually.

Zach the Jew who goes to Princeton. Zach, the fancy man who drinks fancy beers with names no one knows of. I accidentally told him, “Don’t talk to me,” when I was super tipsy, when I meant, “You shouldn’t talk to me because I might say something entirely stupid and weird.” He laughed and got up. I felt really bad.

Paul Kim and Korbone came. GOD I missed Bones so much! He is such a sweetheart. I was so glad to see him again. He gets really, really red when he’s drunk. It’s funny. Paul Kim is silly. And he analyzed people. And he was Paul Kim. But I love Pall :D

I went outside and took a seat next to Barone. We started talking about a lot of things, life, what we want to do, what we like. I opened up to him, strangely enough. I asked him if it was a bad thing to be a hopeless romantic, and he said no. I’ve never really told a guy that (who doesn’t give me advice or i’m super comfortable with) because i’m afraid people will think it’s stupid and unrealistic. I told him how I wanted to teach English in other countries, and he encouraged me. I promised I’d send him a postcard. I told him about how I feel that my guy friends only see me on their level, how I play Halo with them, and how I don’t act like my girl friends, and he told me that it’s a good thing. He said it’s better to wait, because there are a lot of good people out there. To be completely honest, I felt so.. relaxed and really comfortable talking to him. I felt like we could talk for hours. Then, he realized he lost his phone, so I offered him mine to call it. He ended up putting his number in too, and I thanked him. :)

When he and the other Anthony, the one with the hat, were about to leave, we hugged. He said, “You smell like New Hampshire. It brings back good memories.”  I’ve never heard anything like that before, lol. I thought it was cute.

Went back downstairs, I think I took two shots or made another mixed drink, but at that point.. I was pretty gone. Not wasted. I couldn’t think straight and I hated that I felt so vulnerable (haha). We were sitting in the room right by the back door, when someone knocked.

It was her neighbor, the cop. He found Barone and the other Anthony walking around at three a.m., the other one holding a beer. Wow. He didn’t arrest them, he said he would, but only gave Jackie a warning. It was insane, I was so scared. My first house party, a cop comes! I saw Anthony and Barone standing outside behind him, standing solemnly. Jackie scolded the crap out of Anthony.. and told him to leave and not come back.

More people left, and it was just me, Paul, Bones, Jackie, Jess and Quincy left in her parent’s room. We talked more. It was around five a.m., and we were so, so tired. Bones and Paul left, Jackie made Quincy leave (because he lives down the block) and me and Jess crashed.

Had to get up an hour later. Got to my house, crashed. Three hours later, woke up anew.
___________

What an experience! My feelings are all jumbled up right now, so I can’t say anything about anything, yet.
I just love how the end of summer is the beginning of something new.

Orange Nectar

:) Orange nectar… the thought is heart warming. You know what’s funny? I say ‘warm’ like w + arm, not like whoa + arm. You know I just thought you’d LOVE to know that fact about myself.

I am a busy bee.

Tonight, I hope to make it to Jackie’s house party. I’m not so sure about rides even, and I’m leaving for Atlantic City early tomorrow morning…and I spent my last few “points” going to the Aladdin Smoke Shop (Hookah Bar! Did I tell you I went to my first hookah bar?!) and slept over Jessica’s house. Oh, the way my point system works, basically… I decide what’s top priority on my list of summer activities, you know like parties, sleep overs, going to the mall, going out to eat, going to the movies, and for example, Friday night I would skip out on going out to the movies in order to go out Saturday night to sleep over so and so’s house, for my parents sake. -_- Yes, it gets rather annoying, but it’s a cinch for me.

Ah! The Aladdin Smoke Shop. Big sign when you walk in “MUST BE 19 OR OLDER TO ENTER, PLEASE HAVE YOUR ID OUT.”  ID? What ID? 19? Sure!
Yeah, they don’t card, they liked us. :)  I was hesitant to go because 1) I have asthma, and I’d rather not damage my lungs even more because they already are from birth -_- and 2) Hm, I guess I don’t have a second reason. Fritze drove us in her sweet, stick shift BMW with Tim in the front, me, Jun, and Jess in the back. The shop was actually very ambient. The carpet needed a change, but each “station” which were like caves in the wall all Aladdin like, with sofas and comfy pillows and dim lights. We blasted the Sublime and it was aaall nice. We chose… xtasy (haha Fritze) and Mango! We saw 3 other girls on the other side, and we invited them over and.. yeah, we did it, we each took 4 at once. Hahah that sounds so bad. But it was fun. They had great flavors.. some African something and Tropical something. Yummmy. It was a very interesting experience. And I found out i’m a good ‘giver’ ;) if you know what I mean. Hahaha.

Slept over Jessica’s and… okay, we FINALLY got to try the donuts. It worked for me. It more than worked for me…Jesus lol, but not them :/ I don’t know why. Wow. So, yeah.

I really want to go to Jackie’s tonight. Meeting new people = good. Relax and have fun at a party = good. Change = good.

Atlantic City tomorrow… more party, with the cousins :)
I’m psyched, are you?