Stop asking me!

I'll talk about what's wrong when I'm good and ready. For right now I need all of you to leave me alone and let me deal with this problem my own way.

Man, it took me forever to type that. Today I tried on my cat’s eyes to see how they looked, and they're really funky.

So yesterday, Dad and I went to the Bamboo Panda Restaurant, where the waitresses take bets on Chinese racehorses. Dad bet two hundred on the second horse in the second race. He let me wear onion rings on my ears provided that I promised not to eat the menu, so I just licked it.

When we got our food and started eating amongst the buzz of other gamblers, Dad kept pointing at the way I ate and laughing. Then he ran out of the restaurant, shaved off his mustache, and went to the Kiononia Coffee House to listen in disguise while Mom played hippie gospel tunes in imitation hippie clothes. He later told me that Mom figured out it was him and made him go to the library with her to study with her, just for old times sake. When he finally made his way back to me at our table hours after the restaurant was supposed to close, I was still paused in midthought while picking food out of my dimples. I kept accidentally shoving forkfuls of roast cherries against my neck instead of into my mouth, and then of course the cherries fell into my dress. Dad made a grimace for whatever reason and said, “If you keep shoveling in food that way, you’re going to get fat. You’ve already grown a little potbelly lately, and today you’re even wearing an empire-waist dress, which you swore you would never wear until you were pregnant.”

I shuddered inwardly. He’s noticed the change, but I wonder if he might really suspect.
After he said that, his collar began to extend like an unraveling roll of paper towels, and I asked if I could have just a little piece of it to wipe my hands on.

Dad said, “In your bloated condition, you can wipe your hands on my jacket sleeve if you like, and hold onto it while we walk out of here.” With that, he helped me up, grabbed the tips from several other deserted tables, used the tips to win back the two hundred he lost, and led me outside. I couldn’t stop smiling. Even if Dad does suspect, my secret’s safe with him.

I kind of like using my cat’s eyes, but they make me feel hot and sweaty somehow. My picture of Dad and Mom, the one with the commandment “Love Dad & Mom” written above it, is beginning to blurr.

Please post non-"what's wrong?" comments only. Thanks.

Borel again

Juice and I ran into Borel at the mall again today. She was wearing purple, again.

“They’re selling live turkeys!” Juice exclaimed as we walked by the ice cream parlor. She's currently in her oversized referee uniform phase, and I'm impressed that she can see anything beneath that giant white cap.

“Mmm,” I said, cradling my tummy and licking my freckles. “I love live turkeys. The way those feathers tickle!”

“I’m a turkey,” Borel practically bubbled over. “Eat me! My hair is like feathers and I can gobble.”

“I know. I’ve seen you eat. What makes you think you’re a turkey, though?”

“Yeah,” Juice smirked. “Besides the way you smell, we mean.”

“I use my imagination,” she gushed. “Right now I’m imagining myself under a starry sky, in front of a picket fence made out of giant french fries welded together with ketchup.”

“That’s all very well, but imagining won’t make it so,” said Juice.

“That’s what you think,” Borel scoffed, folding her arms. “I’ve been called a turkey nine times today already.” She thrust her left hip out and stretched her right leg as far away from the left as it could go, as if she were playing compass with her body. She plowed her hands into the back of her laundry pile of lemon-blond hair, flipped open her vertical-venetian-blind grin (minus the pearl buttons), squinted her eyes shut, and twisted her torso to the right, causing her purple-people-eating purse to swing out in the air to catch up with her. “I’ve got the turkey strut, the turkey bill, the turkey wings, and with one twist I can smack you with my purse. Gobble, gobble!” She began to walk away with her head tilted back.

“That boy who just walked past with the heart embroidered on the back pocket of his pants was admiring me,” she added without opening her eyes. “Face it, I rule the turkey roost.”

“As if we wanted to be turkeys,” I said, rolling my eyes after Borel had walked into the men’s restroom. “Talk about living apart from reality! Borel has no life.”

“Sticking out my tongue this much makes me dizzy,” said Juice. “Yeah, she’s one turkey I’ll never eat. Where are we going now, Jolly?”

“Up into the sky,” I said, my energy revived. “Turkeys can’t fly, but we popcorn girls can!”

Speaking of fashion mistakes....

Today I made the mistake of going shopping with Juice during her cowgirl phase. She can’t actually tell the difference between a cow and a girl, so needless to say she has no idea how to dress like a cowgirl. She just keeps making the ok sign to signify that she's an Oklahoma cowgirl. I've tried to convince her that Oklahoma is just a movie, but she still insists that it exists.

So we went shopping for no reason in particular, as always. Juice played spectator as I performed Barbie poses for her in the dressing room hallway.

“A little bit too much like that one part of Little Orphan Annie’s dance routine,” she said as I posed in a flimsy white piece that managed to cover the most freckly part of my rear.

“You mean in the movie Annie or the play?” I asked, examining my orphanic pose in the dressing room hallway mirror. “Do my lips look black?”

Juice groaned and slouched in her dressing room spectator seat, muttering, “Here comes Borel, professional Barbie.”

Sure enough, our fake friend Borel flounced up in a dress that closely resembled my comforter in its prefaded stage. “Honestly, Jolly, that’s too simple,” she huffed. “You should try a Barbie pose in something challenging, like flowers.” She pulled a big puffy white dress with bigger, puffier pink flowers out of the dressing room reject pile.

“I’m allergic to flowers,” I whispered to Juice.

“You never should have tried to pose like Barbie,” she whispered back, standing up, folding her arms, and attempting a pose of her own, “Oklahoma-style.”

“Hurry up and change!” gushed Borel, shoving me into my little changing chamber with the dress. “Now we’ll see who looks like Barbie, you orange poophead!”

“I’m allergic to pink too!” I cried before she pulled the door shut on me.

“Jolly doesn’t really care that much about Barbie,” I heard Juice saying, “but I bet she can outpose you any day.”

The pressure was making me dizzy as I left my chamber in the dress.

“Here comes Jolly, the next knockout of the doll world.” Juice smirked, still folding her arms and posing “Oklahoma-style.” She and Borel were both sticking out their best hip so far that they seemed to be brandishing the hips towards each other like swords.

“I can’t pose,” I cried, trying to bring their attention away from their apparent hip duel. “I’ve never been so embarrassed since yesterday!” (Yesterday after school I went to the post office to complain about the small amounts of cereal in each box, and all I got for my effort was a lot of laughter and some spitwads the employees made out of stamps.)

“Then I’m still the best Barbie poser in the world!” Borel squealed. “You suck!” She switched hips, folded her hands and pressed them to the cheek opposite her projecting hip. Her pearly-toothed smile reached so high on her face that her upper cheeks covered her eyes. It was the perfect Barbie pose.

“I’m gonna cry,” I whispered to Juice.

“Good. I don’t like you,” she whispered back. Then she added out loud, “You know, the first requirement of Barbie posing is the danger of butt display, since international-level Barbie posers aren’t allowed to wear underwear. That’s what makes it an Olympic-approved sport. But the dress Jolly’s wearing has no threat of butt display.”

“Underwear,” Borel murmured, as if remembering a long-lost love. “Sweet, precious, soothing cotton. Jolly!” Her voice suddenly held a commanding edge. “Get out of that dress and give it to me. I’ve found my calling--well, maybe not my specific calling, but I now know it includes underwear. Thanks for the wake-up call, Juice.”

I ended up buying my flimsy white orphanic-posing costume, for the mere sake of using up the rest of my Monopoly money.

“Funny,” I said, examining my purchase as we left the mall. “This only has two little pearl buttons. I thought it had about six more when I tried it on.” I stopped short of running into a giant carrot made out of icing, which was on display in front of Maze Supermarket. “Hey! So that’s why Borel’s smile was so pearly-toothed! She cheated, and stole my buttons in the process!”

“What does it matter? It’s only a nightgown,” Juice said with a smirk and a shrug.

Snuh.

Mondays suck too!

Not as much as Jiff, but still, I am so annoyed at my revamped-history teacher Mr. Fargone. I'm sick of him joking excessively about his cartoonesque nose and showing off his ability to write on the chalkboard with his eyes closed. He is so irrational and far out from reality, and I hate that in a person. Besides, today I glued my hand to my face, and once you make a fashion decision that big, it’s irreversible. I should rename Monday "Jiffday".

Heroes jumps the shark?

Or the sky, is more like it.

I'm not sure I like this season all that much. DL is dead, unless that's a ruse. Candice/Michelle's company put her alone with the psychopathic Sylar and of course he kills her right away, unless that's another illusion created by her. Otherwise, that company is idiots. I'm guessing he thinks her powers don't work but they just don't work on him, the illusions are for everyone but him.

And when West and Claire were flying through the air I laughed an extra 50 years onto my life. Oh my. That was priceless. Too funny. West, Superman you aint.

Jiff sucks!

I paid a hefty price for breaking off our date so early two weeks ago. The sky was a golden purple today, and the community improvement volunteers had come to Irch Court and painted the fading leaves pink. I cared for none of that, however. Even the sight of the newly-built bicycle airport, our senator’s pork contribution to our area, could not excite me since I am not a bicycle and can therefore never use that airport.

“I can’t believe Jiff did this to me again,” I was saying through clenched teeth as my best friend Juice, currently in her Native American phase, walked home from school with me. “He said he chopped his hands off.”

“I keep telling you, if you wore a flea collar with a heart tag--”

“I know, I know. ‘This never would have happened.’ Daddy!” We had reached my house and my dad was looking in the mailbox. “Thanks for making us walk home instead of waiting for us and giving us a ride.”

“Don’t you have anything better to say to me?” he asked.

“Yes. My boyfriend cheated on me again. Now he’s writing love letters to Cece. Can you beat him up?”

“Not while I’m reading my mail, Jolly.”

“If I twirl my hair till I pull it off, then will you?”

Dad didn’t respond.

“How about if I play with your collar?” I pleaded, flicking at the pointy ends of said collar. “Kill him, Daddy.”

“No, but I’ll hold the door for you and Juice. Come on inside.”

“Hi, Jolly. Hi, Mr. Rogers,” said the door. “Ow, don’t push me around so much!”

“Shut up, door,” said Dad. “Juice, why are you resting your chin on Jolly’s backpack?”

Juice didn’t respond, nor did she move her chin from its resting place as she followed me inside. When I turned around to see how funny and unrealistic she looked, my backpack mysteriously flew out from under her and she fell face first to the floor. After helping herself to her feet, she began to roll her eyes and they froze looking upward, as if she were suddenly trapped in a comic strip box. Mom came into the hallway to stare silently. I didn’t like the look on her face. She’s been wearing it ever since she went to an Age Bank conference last weekend to learn about the national push to donate age to those who needed it.

“Please stop chewing on your finger,” I said to Dad, trying to laugh off the entire previous conversation. “You know I hate it like Slurpies.”

“I can’t help it,” said Dad between nibbles. “I love eating flesh.”

“Well,” I giggled in panic, dragging Juice up the staircase, “munch away on flesh that doesn’t belong to Juice or me. Hey, look! Juice is kissing the air.”

She actually was kissing the air during her unrealistic post-fall trance, but Dad remained undistracted, holding up his index finger a la E. T. “Look, I bit my fingertip off.” He reached over Juice’s head to write an exclamation mark on the staircase wall above her. Sufficiently intimidated, Juice bowed her head and began to back down the stairs. “You two young ladies are going to be eaten, alive and uncooked, whether you like it or not,” Dad continued. “I will share your luscious flesh with your mother, and we will both become youthfully envigorated.”

Mom folded her arms and looked at me sideways as if to say, “Yeah, so there.”

My parents walked away in satisfaction at having put me in my place--I’m not sure how since they didn’t end up eating us. Left alone with Juice, I slumped down to sit on the steps and she followed suit.

“What does Mom have to do with this?” I asked. “She wasn’t even in our conversation.”
“Maybe if your Dad eats you, Jiff will suddenly realize that he truly loves you.” Juice smirked, patting me on the back.

I hate it when people smirk, but a good point is a good point.

Heroes thoughts

I don't know what to say, except that I'm totally rooting for Wes (or West or whatever Claire's obligatory boyfriend's name is) to die so Claire can be even more messed up and still act as if she hasn't had any life changing experiences and is still a teenage brat.

I was also rooting for her toe to not grow back, just so she'd have a weakness or something.

I wonder if any of those actors playing Irish people in Peter's storyline are actually Irish. The accents sound so fake.

And the cursed Hispanic girl and the Haitian totally have to get together. :)

I :heart Hiro.