My Christmas

For a while my new friends and their exciting conversations have been distracting Juice and me from pursuing boys, but Juice has developed a crush on a guy she knows nothing about. She keeps insisting that she doesn't need to get to know him because they're soulmates. For that reason she was convinced that he would come to our church’s Christmas Eve service, so she dressed up in blue net tights with a fluffy blue sweater. She is currently having a fanny-free phase, which means she searches for alternatives to the conformative skirts and pants that so many oppressed teen girls wear.

Needless to say, Juice was freezing in church, and her crush never came. Fortunately, a little girl in the pew in front of us had been crawling under every pew in church during the sermon, picking off the old dried gum stuck to the bottom of the pews. The sight made me feel nostaligic for the good old days when Juice and I used to do that. We never made anything with the gum though; we just collected it and molded it into a ball. This little girl remoistened each piece of gum and molded the pieces into a hat, which Juice promptly stole in order to plug up the chilling holes in her net tights. She used the remaining gum to mold mittens for herself while the children’s chorus line was performing the final song of the evening, “Silent Night” to the tune of “Jingle Bell Rock,” complete with high kicks.

As we left church. I avoided commenting on Juice’s fashion choices by saying, “Golly, my hands are cold. Aren’t yours, Supergirl?”

“Yes,” Supergirl said as we walked outside into the biting cold, “but what’s worse is that my eyes froze shut as soon as I stepped outside.”

I ripped Supergirl’s eyelids open so that she could see my latest accomplishment. With my new water-resistant brown coat I have learned to mold and throw snowballs with my elbows. I threw a snowball at Juice just as she was fashioning herself a gumband for her hair.

After a few more snowballs, I said, “ I hope you learned your lesson, Juice.”

“Sure I did,” Juice smirked. “Hey Supergirl, what’s wrong? Your look like your lips fell off.”

“They did,” Supergirl said, using her index and middle fingers as makeshift lips. “I told you I was cold. Oh, here they are.”

She picked up her lips by our church’s outside nativity set, which was chained to the pavement. Juice and I walked over to her because she still seemed pretty upset.

“Why aren’t those people in the stable moving?” she asked, her eyebrows nearly vertical with worry. “Are they frozen? And they’re so small. The cold must have shrunk them!”

“They’re plastic, stupid,” I said.

“Plastic?” she echoed. “I thought we were supposed to recycle plastic. This manger scene just stays here.”

Juice’s eyes lit up at that comment and I’m sure mine did too. An excuse to go to our favorite place on earth, Sink World! (For those of you who live in caves or are Roachel, they have a plastic-melting department and are open on Christmas Eve.)

“You’re right,” I said, patting Supergirl on the shoulder. “Let’s break it up into pieces to recycle.”
“We can have it melted down at Sink World,” Juice said, jutting her thumb over her shoulder.

So we went to Sink World and practiced football huddles over melted plastic. The great thing about Sink World isn’t the sinks, in my opinion, but the store’s pet pigeon, except that on this particular occasion it pooped on both me and Juice. We stayed there until Supergirl complained that the warmth of the melted plastic was making Juice’s gum-mittens darker and stickier, and her hand was stuck to one of them.

When I got home, I let Whitey unwrap my presents. I no longer cared about them. In memory of that great evening I wanted to keep the pigeon poop on my cheek, but it got in my eye. That upset me because I never have problems with my eyes, nor does anyone else I’ve ever known, hence it's a problem inconsistent with real life.

I'm friends with Supergirl!

One new friendship deserves another. This morning I was running up to Juice and Roachel outside on the street, shouting, “Watch me as I sing, fa la.” I had the most incredible gossip to spout.

“We’re too busy hitchhiking,” Roachel called back to me.

“That’s the only way guys will notice us,” Juice smirked.

“Omigosh!” I squealed, forgetting what I had run to tell them. “Juice, one of your eyes has a smaller iris than the other. What happened?”

“My puppy swallowed one of my eyes and I put one of his in as a substitute.”

“Well anyway, what did I run to tell you? Oh yes--on Friday I found this blond girl all alone out by the stadium right after we lost the game against Monument High, and she was crying. She was like, ‘People think I’m Supergirl because of my ears,’ cuz they were shaped like Ss and stuff. And I was like, ‘There, there,’ all soothing-like and ‘At least I can talk about you to Juice.’ Then she was like, ‘When I’m confused, my ears turn to question marks,’ and I was like, ‘All the more reason to be called Supergirl.’ And she was like protesting, ‘But I don’t want to be Supergirl! I have a sore throat and my mouth is all white and scaly inside!’ So I said, ‘Big deal, I get that way every time I watch a summer camp movie. Maybe you are Supergirl, though. If so, you’ll glow when you really have to go to the bathroom.’ So we sat right there on the steps of the stadium until we both really had to pee.”

I paused to catch my breath.

“So, is she Supergirl, Jolly?” Juice asked.

“Would my nose keep disappearing like this if she wasn’t, Juice?” I asked with a beaming smile. “I’ve discovered her secret, so she’s obviously put a curse on me.”

“Your nose is always disappearing,” said Roachel.

Suddenly my face froze up in that beaming-smile position. I couldn’t lower my eyebrows. I couldn’t stop smiling and my eyelids wouldn’t shut. My face wouldn’t budge even when I put my hand to it. “Omigosh, what’s happening to me?” I said behind my frozen face. “What’s going on?”
“Supergirl must have put a curse on you,” Juice smirked, slapping me on the back to keep my face from staying that way forever.

“I’m growing my bangs out,” said Roachel.

OMG, I cannot even describe the bittersweetness of this day. Oh wait....

If you thought my last blog post was tragic, HA! That was rumpunch compared to the latest disaster of my sophomore year. I was gradually awaking to the peace of my room this morning, minus my comforter, which my cat had peed on one too many times. I was beneath a fluffy pink blanket, smiling into my drool-bedewed pillow until Mom whispered, “Jolly, I’m sick of massaging your back. Wake up and do mine. I’m going to try to be a teenager today.”

“That’s nice,” I mumbled amidst the comfort of my warm drool. Then my drool was suddenly chilled and I sat up in bed. “What did you say?” I shrieked. “I thought you were just kidding about that! You can’t go back to school with me, Mom. You’ll embarrass me!”

“But I can be a cool babe,” Mom smirked a la Juice. “How many moms do you know that have bathed in a kiddie pool full of banana pudding?”

“I told you, that was a combination of commercial pus and bird poop,” I called after her as she waltzed away reciting the latest quotable punchlines from my favorite show, Comedy Something. I dressed hastily, thinking that if I was ready to leave before Mom was, Dad would just leave her behind. No such luck. The two were in cahoots against me.

Mom ran ahead of me once we reached school grounds. I had hoped she would hang around Dad, but since he was a teacher Mom insisted that would threaten her potential popularity. She ran around outside before school like that bratty puppy I tried to save from my caninivorous neighbor, except that Mom was introducing herself to everyone.

“Hi, Jolly’s mom,” Juice said with a wave. “Hi, Jolly.”

“Out of my way, Mom,” I said, shoving her to one side when she stopped to greet Juice, thus blocking my direct view of my best friend. Mom then ran off and caught her leg on the leg of some Asian girl exactly the same height as Juice and me. Mom’s leg seemed to be stuck. In fact, Mom’s leg, the Asian girl, the top half of Juice’s body, and my head all seemed to be frozen in time, just like in one of those coloring book versions of the cartoon movies where some cute little airplane with a heart of gold saves the world.

I forget how Mom freed herself. What matters is that she dropped out at the end of the day because student-teacher relationships were illegal and she would have cost Dad his prestigious, high-paying job. What matters even more is that Mom, of all people, led Juice and me into friendship with Roachel Sute, the aforementioned Asian girl.

“Mind if I stroke your sleeve?” Roachel asked Juice by way of introduction after being freed from Mom’s leg. “I love yellow polyester.”

“That’s just because she’s your mom.” said Juice. “No one else can stand her. She’s a tolerance teacher; what can you expect?”

I became entranced by Roachel’s long, delicate, carefully-manicured index finger as she stroked Juice’s sleeve. I hadn’t been so fascinated by anything since watching that documentary on the invention of concert tickets. “Wow!” I exclaimed. “Look at that finger. I must have it.”

“But this is the finger I pick my teeth with,” said Roachel, flipping her eyebrows as she gave us a free demonstration. “How can I bear to part with it?”

“You don’t have a choice,” I said. “Juice is in her tough girl phase.”

“That’s right, missies,” Juice grumbled in a low, Rockyesque voice. “If y’all don’t gimme no fingas, I’ll give you my fist.”

“Eek!” Roachel and I shrieked in harmony. “What would we do with an ugly fist like that?”

The bell rang for homeroom, so I grabbed the first opportunity for stalling that I could think of. I grabbed Juice’s ugly left fist with my right hand and we each put our remaining hand on one of Roachel’s shoulders.

“Let’s teach Roachel how to flip over frontwards so she can star in a martial arts movie,” I squealed.

“What’s martial arts?” Roachel asked with a smile.

“Don’t you ever stop asking questions?” I snapped.

She did stop asking questions, by the way, and I've learned so much from her already! namely the following:

Turtle power!

Go Joe!

Raise your hand if you’re sure

I’m half-human and half-pink-cow

Always keep Juice in a plastic container

Eyes suck!

I think my last blog post well illustrates how crappy my life had become. Not convinced? Here’s another example guaranteed to suck the pity out of anyone.

This weekend I sat at home alone with only a two-story house shielding me from raindrops of various sizes that were skiing healthily down our window panes. At first I had tried whiling away the time with exercise videos but got sick of the parts where the lady told me to try each one. Those moves were way to gymnasticky. So then once I finally found an alternative time-waster my mom came up to me and said, “Jolly, I wish you would stop reading wallpaper sample catalogs.”

“But they’re so easy,” I cried.

“The doctor says if you don’t give it up soon, you may choke because your allergy to dogs may be triggered by the smell of the samples.”

“Oh no! I’d better tell Juice to stop too.”

I dashed out of the house, thinking as I ran to Juice’s, “Maybe if I run fast enough the trees will stop throwing wet leaves at me. I hope it’s not too late!”

Juice met me at her front door in a purple sweatsuit. By that time the rain had stopped.

“Juice, we’ve got to stop reading wallpaper samples!” I panted.

“Just let me change clothes,” she said. “Meet me in the backyard. I want to swing while it’s still muddy outside.”

By the time I reached the backyard, Juice was already waiting for me on the tree swing. She was wearing red pants, a gray turtleneck, and a white leopard-print jacket.

“Why did you have to change your clothes, Juice?” I asked. “Sudden phase change?”

“No. My eyes leaked on the others.”

“Oh no!” I cried, kneeling beside her as she swung back and forth, nearly hitting me in the face with her right hip every swing. “The wallpaper samples have already struck! Is there anything I can do, my dear friend? Need a tissue?”

“It’s no use,” she sniffled as her eyes leaked black goo. “My doctor sent me a generic informational e-mail telling me I’ll have to have eye implants. My only comfort is sitting on this wet swing and pretending I’m being kissed.”

I watched as Juice’s leaking eye goo became clear. “If I were a boy, I’d kiss you, but I have a better idea,” I said. “I could give you my eyes. I’m sick of seeing my ugly face.”

“So am I.” Juice wept. “Plus I’ve always hated your eyes. They look like frogs. Still, I’d rather you be blind then me.”

“Thanks, Juice,” I said, stopping her swing and hugging her. “You can be my special seeing-eye dog, and I’ll give you a biscuit every time you roll over. Whoops!”

I had just realized that my eyes were leaking too.

Butt-stinky day

Today I’m writing this while my cat looks on and scoffs at me like everyone else always does. My new electric chalk, which I’ve been praising so much in previous entries, electrified everyone in geometry class, even me. That was especially strange since I hadn’t even brought the chalk to school; it simply appeared and began writing on the chalkboard by itself: “It’s brave to be nice, expensive to be warm, and cold to be free.” My chalk earned me a detention even though I had no control over what it wrote, because my geometry teacher said its statements were too much like truth, which is banned in Jiltin High because it’s considered to be a form of religion. Fortunately detention is also banned at my school because it hurt some kid’s feelings once.

To cheer myself up I put glue on my band leader’s right hand during practice since he’s always covering his eyes with that hand when he looks in my direction. That went well, but my new fashionable skirt was so tight my butt ripped all the way up to my ribs in self-esteem class. It felt like a zipper unzipping and only hurt a little, but Mrs. Renkin, who is still wearing that frowny-face pin on her shirt every day, was offended by my huge wedgie and blamed the whole class for conforming to such dangerous fashions. She made everyone pay me so I could buy a new butt and she gave me permission to leave school early for butt shopping, but as I was in the hallway getting all my stuff out of my locker two teachers caught up in the winds of socialization saw a red pebble pop out of my head and started calling me Pebbles. I was mortified and jogged unevenly out the door as fast as I could. Then, on my way out, I saw the boy I loved trying to steal another girl’s books. So much for Mort Mervin.

I settled for the cheapest butt I could find since Ope’s Ice Cream Shop had just come out with a new flavor, Snowball Supreme, and I had to try it. Tastes just like snow. Definitely worth every dollar.

Now I think I’ll lick my redyed purple comforter. I hope my cat won’t watch. Mm. Luscious starch.

My cat just told me it peed where I was licking.

Electric Chalk

I am so serious about electric chalk being the best thing ever invented. No other writing utensil even comes close. I should be the national spokeschick. I want to have electric chalk babies. End of story.

Congrats Juice!

On your speed-ranting prowess!

I'm only cool with your victory because I love the second-place prize.


Electric chalk is the new black.