I'd been crying an awful lot lately. I'd tried exercising, and listening to music, and distracting myself with games. But you see, exercising only works for so long and then you're all sore. Music is nice but makes you think quite a lot, actually, more than you would have thought. But I guess I'm supposed to replace "thought" with "guessed," which I have already said, so that must make me a bad writer. And games, well, they're nice, and really distract you, but the only ones I've found I've either finished or you have to pay for them, or they got boring. I don't see why you would pay for something you're only going to use temporarily and then move on with.

Like clothes, you know, oh, clothes. They are simply wonderful, and quite beautiful, if I may say so. But they're really not much of a thing to buy until you're at least sixteen, when you've grown and you can wear them forever. And I know, I know, some things "go out of style," but if your point is to have your own style, it will never "go out of style." People who only wear what is fashionable at the moment depress me. It's like they're just trying to wear clothes to fit into what everyone else is wearing, when they could be wearing whatever they wanted. But I love the frills, the straight lines, the way they look on your body; well, only the good ones that make you look like a million bucks. And when you shop, I love the feeling you get, the one where you feel like a completely new person with the clothes you've bought. You feel like your wardrobe isn't a complete failure, and like you're going to have a ton to wear for however long you like, and that's the best thing in the world, feeling confident and happy. It makes you feel fresh and new and gorgeous all at once. But then you get home and what, exactly, do you see? You see the ugly, repulsive wardrobe that you own. It's not an enlightening feeling, and in fact, most often it makes you depressed.

But on that week, I think it was the lack of sunlight. You would know, if you knew me at all, that when I get home, most all I do is sit outside on the front porch and read. That's my favorite activity. I love the feeling of the sun on my skin, and the way it makes me energized and happy at once, and the way it makes me able to focus on reading. I love that you can feel the back of your head heating up when it's turned towards the sun, the way your hair feels a little warm and like it's a stove, and if you touch it, it'll burn you, even if that's not so. I love the way you can hear the birds singing, and how each song is different, depending on the species. I can tell. And then you imagine, absent mindedly, in your head, what the bird looks like. If it's kind of screechy, but sounds like a voice, then I'll envision it as a crow, and if it's a sing-song tweet, that sounds as if it's belting out a tune on the radio, then you envision it as one of those sweet, charming small bird. Oh, those small, gorgeous birds, that fly right in front of me as I read, and I turn and see them. And if I stop for a moment and look out to the horizon, just in between the two houses across from mine, I'll see this gorgeous view of the hills and clouds and the bay. I don't think I've ever seen that kind of view look unattractive, except when it all was covered in fog. But even then, the wisps of clouds look really gorgeous against the blue, loving sky. I've tried taking photographs of that view before, but actually, I don't have one of those professional cameras, like the Canon EOS Rebel or something or other, so I always end up making the shots blurry and not anything compared to what it looks like alive. It makes me sad when that happens, and I always get slightly frustrated with myself for not yet mastering the camera shots and figuring out how to work the contraption.

I tell you, the other day, I was sitting outside reading The Battle of The Labyrinth, I believe, or was it The Bell Jar? Either way, I was just sitting there, minding my business, when I saw this busy cat come from my neighbor on the left side's house. He just flat out pranced across the street, and I'd said, "Aw, cute kitty! Aw, look at it, all by itself, so sad," and it'd stared back at me and I'd gotten all scared and went back to reading. I don't have cats, I just have dogs though, so there's your explanation. I really enjoy cats, though, however I'm much too scared of them because I don't know how they act. I only know how dogs act, and this is only because I've had dogs ever since I was born. Only kind, loving dogs, though. I used to have two labs, named Daisy and Grover, but Daisy died, and then Grover died not even two months later, and I was very sad. I hadn't known them well because they died when I was ten, but Daisy was quite an odd dog. She ate her own poop, but I thought she was my favorite because she was prettier than Indy. Oh, you know, back then, I was very materialistic and all and I just liked things because they were pretty. That was all it took, and I would buy it, or want to be your friend because of it. But Grover was a sweeter dog, and he was less crazy round the head. He was my dad's dog, though. My mother loved him the most though. Well, maybe not, maybe my dad loved him more or just as much, but my mother let on more than my father. My mom's like that. She's really emotional and doesn't lie just to make you feel better. She's really honest about everything, except Santa Claus and all those old fables.

Did you know that actually, there was a Santa Claus? Not the magical, "I stuff myself down the chimney even though I'm fat," Santa Claus, but there was a man who handed presents round to every child in the town where he lived. I remember it being somewhere in Sweden, but I'm not quite sure. So you don't really "believe" in Santa Claus, because it is a fact that Santa Claus has walked this Earth.

And then to talk about my dogs more, though. My other dogs I have now are Sweety and Dakota. Sweety is what she's named after; sweet. She's my dog. She prances a lot, and she's kind of fat, but she's nice. And a yellow lab, too. They're the nicest. But they're also really big and annoying sometimes. She likes to lick me a lot, and bark a lot, when she's outside. It's kind of sad that she's outside, because the only reason she is would be Dakota. Dakota's just a wild, wild mess. Sweety is eight, and Dakota's two. He's a wild thing. He still hasn't settled down at all, and my family and I are afraid he never will. And I love Sweety, but Sweety can only sit and be pet. She loves walking, she really does, but she's way too old to. My mom and dad took her on a walk a while ago now, and she went for thirty minutes and she was worn down and wheezing and we could barely get her back.  I feel really bad for her, because she doesn't exercise. Exercising is really wonderful. And Dakota, oh, Dakota. He is crazy. He just always jumps up and down and up and down when he sees my dad. He really loves him. He's dad's dog, too. I feel bad for my mom because she doesn't have a dog, nor does Dylan, my brother. And Dakota just runs wild. I think it's because we tried training him once, but couldn't. He wouldn't sit still. Even with the shock collar device, it's still quite hard to  get him to shut up. He learned how to speak from Sweety, really. He never knew until Sweety taught him. At least that's what my mom says. He doesn't ever sit still. My dad takes him on six mile walks every weekend and Dakota still only lays down for about five minutes and gets right back up. The dog doesn't ever lose any energy! I swear, we could run him a marathon and he still wouldn't be at all tired. He'd just prance around waiting to go farther. But I know why my dad has so many of his dogs. He's the one who feeds them, and the one who picks up their droppings from the backyard, the one who takes the dogs on walks. I swear it would be so quiet, the house, without them. There would be no noise at all, except for the crickets at night and the birds in the morning. It'd be so quiet it'd be eery sometimes. But I love Dakota and Sweety.

When I went walking with my dad a couple days ago, down on the trail which is literally down the street from our house, I went with him and Dakota. And the trail was beautiful, as usual, but I was mostly focused on getting out alive because the trail is so goddamn long and uphill. I usually don't go with my father because he goes at the crack of dawn, and I like sleep on weekends. But I did that time, and, as usual, I forgot my camera. The trail is on the edge of a big hill, so there's this gorgeous view of half the bay, and I like to photograph it, but literally every time I go I forget. I swear, literally. And then the time after that I went with my mom.

That feels like so long ago, all of this. It feels like years. I swear, it probably was. But it was just a week ago. That week was the best week of my life, I think. I was in a happy mood basically all the time. It was wonderful. Even when my brother and I fought like madmen, it was wonderful afterwards, because I'd still be happy.

But this week, this week is all bad. I dropped my cell phone in the water, and I cried. I miss my darling, a lot. Like a lot a lot, too. And that's really the only way to contact him, aside from the internet, which is not working right now, which is why I'm writing this long, long sucker. It's quite bad. I'm just sad sad sad, depressed depressed depressed. And I think the sun might have a lot to do with today, but little to do with yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that. It's wednesday, just so you know. It's wednesday and it's been a long, long day. I have to wait two days at least for my cell phone to dry out, so I can't contact my darling, and I'm really upset. I miss him quite a lot. He's amazing. His name is Blake. And I cried because I missed him.

That was when my mom came in, and she'd said to me, "Hey, did you get your dinner dance ticket?" I'd thrown my head onto the pillow of my bed and closed my eyes, making it look like I was sleeping, but I guess my mom had seen me throw my head down just as the door opened because she said, "Is everything okay?"

And I said, of course, "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just really, really tired. I went to bed at ten last night," which was true. "And no, I didn't get the dinner dance ticket. I was so mad. It's the one day they actually had people out to take the money for the ticket and I didn't bring my money!" That was also true.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

She paused, then said, "Okay." She stood there for a second before leaving.

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Author guidance for This story

This is actually something I'd written in May sometime, and I feel so different from then. It feels like a year ago and it was, kind of, it was the summer before this school year. But I feel like it was an entire year ago I wrote this. Anyway, it's semi-autobiographical, which is kind of funny to me. The boy I talked about is gone, and it's not summer anymore, and things are so different. It's so odd.

updated Oct 24 '11 by abb3yr0ad