Chunks

Today I laid out in the sun on my St. Joe's Prep blanket while reading my favorite collection of essays, Ex Libris. It never gets old, no matter the amount of times I've read it. For some reason my neighbor's dog thought it dandy to tickle my stomach, make me giggle and sit up, and then sit in the shade my body created after rising. I would then lift the heavy thing off of my blanket, tell it to go home, and situate myself again... only to have my stomach tickled minutes later. This went on until I eventually gave up and went inside. I hate being tickled. Especially when I am doing something important that requires concentration... Like nintendo. I used to be good at Dr. Mario. My character was always the robot-guy. I got used to the robotic victory sound he created after winning, because, well, it happened frequently while he was my character. Then, I went to school, and important skills such as nintendoing were squashed out of me to make room for Bio 100 nonsense and other "general" education. I think they call it general education because they make you take a class that gives you a general idea about the topic at large, and then tests you with graduate level questions from the same subject. And they "generally" make you do a pointless 10 hour project that no matter how hard you work on it, you'll probably get a "C" anyway. The general consensus states: "These classes generally suck." Hence, general ed. What a wet idea. It rained today. Buckets and buckets. We were trying to roast mallows to make s'mores. But everything just ended up soggy. For some reason my brother thinks it's a good idea to put a reeses in the s'more instead of a hershey's bar. That's far too liberal for my liking, though. There are a couple fundamentals such as s'mores that you just don't touch because the original will just blow the wanna-be-progressive, new product out of the water. It's a lose-lose situation. Just like when you go to Zupa's feeling adventurous, and your usual nuts about berries salad takes a backseat because you want to be different today, and your mom accompanies you on your quest for liberation, so you both proceed to liberate yourselves from the predictability you have become captive to, and ironically on this same day the dressing-chef decides to have a hang-over while making the vinaigrette, and the dressing on both of your (liberating) salads happens to taste like a dozen wasps crunched together with rotten milk in a magic bullet. Your taste buds get an unpleasant shock from an over-dosage of vinegar during your first bite, and you vow never to step outside of your comfort zone again. You don't want to complain, because everyone hates that person. But you walk out of the lovely salad joint feeling slightly disappointed, and irritated at your needy friend, hunger pains. Luckily, a trip to Costco was already on the itinerary, and their free samples and $1.35 frozen yogurt combat your distaste for public eateries. At the checkout, they scrutinize your face because they know it's not you on the back of the card, but luckily mom's with you this time, so they have no means by which to kick you out. And then they do the weird receipt-marker thing. I've never understood that. For some reason brother keeps singing in a falsetto and putting you in full-body locks, which, unfortunately, your nails prove to be useless in such a circumstance, so you sit helplessly, waiting for a parent to come to your rescue. But it's funny, so no one does. Ben Folds wants you to play his songs on the piano, but they've always been a little hard. You struggle through Fred Jones, and then decide to turn in for the night. But facebook calls, and so does blogger, and even though you've got absolutely nothing interesting to say, your fingers can't stop creating run-on sentences and choppy ideas about the day you just experienced, even though it is plausible that absolutely no one will want to read such a ridiculous piece of your mind. But you keep typing, anyway. Somehow, you were able to type for 40 minutes, change narrative from 1st person to second person, delay bedtime, and accomplish absolutely nothing while doing so.

But you got a letter today. And absolutely nothing else matters because of that.