It was nice, knowing everything there was to know.

Senior year of high school, my present writing voice began to emerge.

I finally accepted who I was and where I stood in the social structure - completely.

I had a lot to say about the topic I knew least about: love.

I became a passionate person. I was passionately Christian, passionately angry at a lot of people for a lot of reasons, passionately counter-culture, and even passionately confused.

So I guess not a lot has changed. I'm just passionate about different issues, or the same issues but from different angles.

Words from my seventeen-year-old self:

ON FRIENDS:

Ravin said i had big feet, so Ash decided to try on my shoes, so i stole his, and then i drove him home, and when i pulled into my garage, i looked down and realized..... that i was STILL WEARING his shoes. i mean, they felt EXACTLY LIKE my shoes but on a slightly larger scale. which makes sense, because i HAVE the exact same shoes on a slightly smaller scale.

i know that there are some of you who... attempted to make me "tall and stout" one year because you didnt think i could look fat, but you know what, i have just one word for you..... snowgear.

Kim gave me pocky and koalas. i love kim.

saturday night after the semi, we went to shaws with Ravin and Lonewlf to get juicy juice, and Lonewlf comes running up to us with a huge package of pads and goes, "LOOK! TAMPONS!" and we had to explain that those weren't tampons.

i escaped to the kitchen to call Ash and ask him about his koto, which was in my house for half a week and i never told him about.

i told [Erny] i was ryan ross, who is really a member of panic! at the disco... little did she know that Wanda and i invented ryan ross the sophomore and were really referring to her sister the whole time.

Lonewlf decided to wear his "hot pants" and nothing else. Lonewlf's hot pants are a pair of girl jeans cut so short that you can see the ends of his boxers poking out at the bottom... [then he] pretended my emergency blanket was a cape. now i have to wash it because it has been on his mostly naked body.

ON PARENTS:

EVERYBODY says that about their parents, and I usually think theyre just exaggerating, but Im telling you, the guy is a total kangaroo.

on friday night, my mom and i frolicked in the church parking lot.

ON RELATIONSHIPS:

It all began with "…two North Dakota… three North Dakota…" in the darkroom.

i dont know. one minute we were talking about werewolves, and the next, he invited me to the prom.

I hate the way dudes just throw "I love you" around like beer in a mosh pit... If youve been dating somebody for a month, two months, in cara's case five days, or even a year or two, YOU DO NOT LOVE THEM. Okay? You dont. [Author's note: JW has proven me wrong on this point. Nuff said.]

Ash tried to be the psychologist and told me that i'm just jealous because i think i'm going to be lonely forever.

there are a heck of a lot of things i could do that i would regret more than not doing them, if that made any sense at all. but of course it didnt, because nothing makes sense anymore, and it feels like nothing will ever make sense again.

it's like happy rainbows are coming out my ears or something.

ON ART:

i'm sure there's an actual word for fear of hot glue guns. i mean there is a word for "fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of one's mouth." there's got to be one for glue guns.

[there was a photo] of a kid with a skateboard gazing contemplatively at artwork hanging on a wall. the picture he's looking at is of a hawk, and i insisted it was a reference to tony hawk and how the kid wanted to be just like him. my grandma didnt get it, but i dont think she knows the first thing about tony hawk anyway.

bar chords kill my wrist, which i think is related to the fact that my thumb is not really opposable. i hate my thumbs so much. i swear, one of these days i'm just going to shut it in a car door or something and hope that when it heals from being broken, it will be weirdly bent into a much less awkward position than.... whatever weird shape it is now.

please pardon my logorrhea.

i tend to have epic dreams when i sleep on my stomach... last night/this morning, i got the second half of a dream that inspired me to write a story, which i stopped writing because i didnt know where to go with it, but now i have a better sense of direction, so maybe i can get working on that. [Author's note: This dream, from an entry dated 2006, was the foundation for Before the Empty Moon. Yep, STILL working on that.]

ON SOCIAL GATHERINGS:

they have a mario kart tourney..... funniest thing since sliced bread.......

good goobers, maybe it's happened to me! -what they always say about kids getting addicted to the internet!! and myspace!!!

On our way to the club, this guy in girl pants pointed at my relient k shirt and got all excited and yelled "you're going to the relient k concert! Yay!" or something, and I just sort of watched his little outburst with internalized amusement and continued eating my ice cream like "hello, can't you see i'm busy here?"

i told the bride "happy wedding" (DDR reference, b/c i'm a dork), and when the pastor started speaking, all i could think of was the guy in the princess bride.

ON BABYSITTING:

i really have corrupted the girl i babysat for on saturday. i taught her the meaning of emo, and now she gives me weekly reports on how many emo kids she's counted.

the boy would not go to bed, and finally i said, "all right. i'll read to you some more. let me go find a book." and went and got my systematic theology book, thinking, "this will put him RIGHT to sleep." not so. that rebel child had me read ten pages of impossible-to-pronounce names and titles before he finally conked out.

trust me to deal with flying shards of flaming glass with "LET'S EAT ICE CREAM!"

ON HIGH SCHOOL IN GENERAL:

i'm so used to being on the fringes of the social structure that i can tell everyone i dont care if they reject me, but of course i do. nobody wants to be rejected.

Wanda and I sat on the floor during lunch again.

i used to come home in tears because i couldnt understand why nobody understood me. my word, i was emo all the way back in second grade. i should have known it was hopeless.

I was ignored, as usual. I should just not bother talking, ever.

Let's face it. Just like everything else about school this year, spirit week and homecoming are going to suck. But you know what? I'M GOING TO BE A PIRATE ANYWAY. AND I'M GOING TO WEAR MY 80S SHIRT ON 70S DAY. AND I'M ADDING A NEW SUPERLATIVE CATEGORY FOR MYSELF: Most Likely to Instigate Revolution. Take that, CHS.

today was so long that i looked down at my shirt this afternoon and thought, "mandii, you scrub, you wore the same shirt two days in a row," and then realized that it was still the same day.

never be too "cool" to be a fool or too "old" to be bold. those are lame excuses for thinking small.

i am sick and tired of putting up with the other editors in my independent study, one of whom does not even have authority of any sort over me except in her imagination where she dominates the world because she thinks she is that smart and talented and special.

BRENDON URIE came over and inspected the hot water pots, to no avail, obviously, since they were empty. And then I realized that he had a big Styrofoam cup of ramen in his hand, just like me, and I had to stifle a laugh. Poor kid. He's fueled by ramen, but apparently not today.

eating is so strange. i mean, think about it. theres something in front of you, and then you put it into this big hole in your face and mash it all up, and suddenly it isnt there anymore.

your self-help forum says, "go play in traffic." thank you, and have an EMO DAY.

yesterday was "Senior skip day." needless to say, i went to school and skipped through the halls with my friends and sang, "senior skip day! senior skip day!" everywhere i went.

Peace, love, and reliving the not-so-golden years,
Miss Rex