2002-06-12 - 11:30 p.m.

This is definitely not what I should be doing right now. I am tired, cracked, cut, bleeding, burned, broke, parched, and dirty. Writing a journal entry does nothing to alleviate any of those things. I have too many things to say and not enough time to say them.

10 Years ago tonight I found myself at Jane Clement's house. She was having what would beomce known as the "8th Grade" party. Charlie Smith showed up, uninvited, and Jane suckerpunched him across the patio. I remember Keith and I wouldn't share the trampoline and that annoyed Molly greatly. The Clements had decked the joint out in Tiki Torches. It was really cool. I think some of the girls may have slept out on the trampoline that night. We swam all night in her pool too. We weren't drinking yet, so that was a safe thing to do at a party still. Well, I shouldn't speak for Chad. He probably had a flask there for all I knew. Amy was there. From Alton (then Durham, then Boulder, then . . .) She flirted with Mike, and Ben told me he thought she was hot, and I had such an 8th Grade crush on her. And she was blond! (gasp!) And her hair wasn't super long (shock!) And I thought she was absolutely perfect. (Ewwww, I sound like such a *real* diary now don't I? Oh well. Like I give a fuck) Anyway, she kept moving. But we'd stay in touch, off and on. I had to mow our lawn on Holman Street for my dad for free all summer that year when he found a 4 1/2 hour phone call to Durham on the phone bill. It didn't help that it was from midnight to 4:30 in the morning. As high school wore on, we talked less, which was expected, as Jane and I pretty much lost touch as well when she left for Tilton. I always assumed that after seeing so much of Amy that 8th Grade Year (watching Silence of the Lambs together, Snow Days & Hot Dogs for a Dollar at the X-Tra Mart, parties at Jane's) that it would just be a matter of time before we hung out again. Like I said, after Jane's party I talked to Amy off and on for the next four years. Even tried to find her e-mail when the e-mail boom hit when we first all got to college. But I never saw her again after June 12, 1992. The night of our 8th Grade Graduation. Several years later I'd be watching OJ Simpson trying to escape in his white bronco on television from the Culkin's living room (despite Brooke, not surprisingly, having no memory of this), and several years later I'd be returning from Riverside from our Senior trip days before. And now, June 12, 2002 I return from Six Flags New England with a sunburn. I return with my knees and shoulders cut and bruised from rides I am too tall to ride. And I live in Dover. In an apartment that smells like either metal pork or dead flowers, depending which room you are in. Eating animal crackers and drinking diet pepsi out of 2 liter bottles. Here I am. I am here. And each of these June 12th's have been my Dad's birthday. From 1946 until now.

But it just struck midnight and it is no now longer my Dad's birthday and instead it is now Hannah's birthday. They are only one day and 6 years apart. You'd never guess by looking at them. Although Hannah is sad that I didn't send her a puppy in time for her birthday I will at least give her this: a flamenco-ing King Prawn (recycled from her own e-card) for all the world to see:

["I have loose jello ok?"]

I had a long day on Friday. I had another long day on Saturday that involved me helping the police find some runaway children and getting in an unrelated fight with a woman in front of the Newington Hoyt's and calling her a bitch in front of horrified movie-goers and other assorted red-blooded American families. And Danielle and I almost got jobs as professional movie watchers. And Megan and I prepared to gear up for our final farewell later in the week. It was all too much. And a kid almost peed on me. As Tim says, I'm a magnet for this shit.

Speaking of shit. My sleeping patterns? That shit is tight - yo. Except it's not. At all. Sweet Sassy Molassey have I not slept lately. And I had to make lots of CD's Saturday night and missed most of my scheduled sleep due to it. But now Brett, Monique, Rick, and Caleb all have new CDs and the world spins that much faster because of it. Sunday saw me going back to LA early for breakfast with Monique "I'll have the Blueberry Buckle Omelette please" Peaslee, Brett "I'll have the Menthol Homefries", and Rick. We ate at Cafe Deja Vu, and Smelmontian Caroline Caren was nowhere in sight. It was fun. We made sure to come up with a definite date for camping, and then made sure to promptly never mention it again. I finally got Watchmen back after a year and a half and then had it for a half hour and turned it over to Brett to read. He will love it if he knows what's good for him.

I landed at Barb, Jim, K-Slop, and B-Slop's house later that day for the big graduation party (which only served to prove that I like the Parys' more that the Ouellettes). Conner and I mostly watched all the festivities from a distant perch and laughed and pointed and laughed some more. I met people whose names I should remember, but don't. B-Slop and Natalie were cool and K-Slop was nervous (no thanks to Bryan's "organic" soap making him break out in hives) and tried to claim ownership of Adult Swim and give ownership of Talking Heads to B-Slop, but Conner and I made sure to put an end to all that tomfoolery. All the church people sat under a tent, my boozy family sat at the patio and the Slop's friends sat at the picnic table. Two summers previous, at Bryan's same party my mother and I weren't speaking and we didn't end up speaking for the rest of that summer, ignoring Maura and Andrea's calls for me to stop being stubborn. This time we weren't speaking either. But then we were. Kinda. So who knows. And thanks to my Aunt Suzie and Aunt Linda (who I drank very small amounts of alcohol in front of) I got a chocolate chip cookie stain on my white shorts. I don't think white shorts and I were meant for each other in the scheme of things. I got to see Alyson too, and despite making fun of her Mall Cart hair, I was glad to see her while at the same time being repulsed to learn she has joined the dark side and is picking up some M.O.D.-ing shifts at Patrick's for the summer. She is one with the Beetle force now. I went to Linda's (somewhat) new house in Gilford later that day. It was on the top of Liberty Hill. Equidistant from Rollerskating Roland Bretton and Geographically Fetishistic GEK. I swore much more than I should have in front of Linda, my mother and Nanny. But oh well. Linda was wearing a hat that said "Gilford". I asked her why the hell she was wearing that. She said because she lives in Gilford now. But I protested, claiming she had lived in Laconia all her life. She said "Oh well." I said "I want to puke on your hat." Nanny hit me. Hard. My mother said "You are so disgusting." Conner laughed and then dove back into the pool. I wore my new orange shirt for what would be the last time.

I went to my dad's for a few hours and watched the 2nd half of Payback with him. (Isn't this recap exciting? If it is half as exciting to read as it is to type than I've hit the motherfucking jackpot. My father doesn't like it when I say words like motherfucking. I don't particulary care that he doesn't like me swearing.) Man, the nebulously cranky tree hit me today. Rick picked me up in Meredith at 10:45 that night and we met Menton at Patrick's around 11 or so. I snuck back into the back door of hell, aka - the kitchen and spoke with the people I knew (like Melissa, Veal Regan: Extra Spicey, John, Tom, Guzman) and stared dumbly at those I didn't know, which was everyone else. We left for Manchester to pick up Lisa "Crawdaddy" Crawshaw at Devonshire Downs (or something prissily named like that) past midnight. It was only the beginning of Granny Staples Wild Ride (aka - Rick's almost hitting tractor trailers and taking wrong exits). We didn't get to Rick's friend Mike's in Worcester until 2:30 AM. The whole area was quite "thickly settled". We slept at a Days Inn. They were mean there. We were up until 5:30 while they watched Secret Squirrel and Lisa and I tried in vain to sleep. Menton kept threatening to act out the Armegeddon Animal Cracker scene on me if a I fell asleep. Which I did. And he *tried* it until I woke up and hit him. We described almost everything as either: "That shit is tight." or "That shit is tight - yo." It was all very mature, fun, and mind-numbing. We got up hours later and the hotel tried to screw us over and call 6 hours 2 nights and we walked out on the bill and they stole my orange shirt in response. It was a sordid affair that could take up a whole entry in itself (telling the tale of how Lisa took control and kicked ass and took names, and how they made us carry a cot to the room, and "Zach, swing your big end over this way.", etc.) but this entry has already gotten unweildly as it is.

We got to Six Flags. Finally. And lines were long. Really long. As in 2 1/2 to 3 hour waits long. So we spent our time on Mind Eraser and Cyclone type rides until Superman and Batman thinned out. We went on every rollercoaster (barring the NOT-QUITE-DEATH-DEFYING Poison Ivy Roller Coaster) and Scream was as always gut rippingly fun.

[If you haven't experienced the Superman ride, this picture (with the aforementioned Posion Ivy coaster on the right, 221 feet below) may not look like much. If you HAVE been on the Superman ride, then you know that this picture is a glimpse at the beginning of an adrenaline paradise. I'm telling you. This moment right here is heaven. With Maura Tierney handing out roast beef sandwiches after each round.]

[The Batman ride, sort of a reverse Mind Eraser, while no Heaven, is more like Neve Campbell and the girl from the American Eagle ad (with the green shirt) handing out canolis. Still fun, but no Maura Tierney with cold cuts. Plus, I had to explain the concept of the "three Robins" to Menton, Rick, Mike, and Lisa several times in line. No one ever asks who Jimmy Olsen is. Stupid Superman. The man. Not the ride.]

So after getting soaked (on the stupid Penguin Polar Cavey ride), burned (from the sun), cut on the knees (from Flashback), shredded on the shoulders (from Superman and Mind Eraser), and given a heart murmur (from Scream) we finally left around 8. We bid the kids from the American School of the Deaf a fond farewell and went to the Friendly's in Worcester for dinner. I'll say this much. It wasn't very Friendly. It was colder than Helen Hunt's soul and the food was just as tasty. We dropped Mike off, and drove to Manchester to drop Crawshaw off, all while Hacksaw Menton snored to his hearts content in the back seat while I explained to Rick in the front seat the finer points of the last 10 years that is the soap opera/tragi-comedy of our lives. And we still insist that McKeen's engine was warm because he went somewhere after he left my house. So there.

We got back to Dover at 2 and I woke up the next morning, Tuesday, only to find out that my body had decided to quit in the middle of the night and skipped town. I can't say I blamed it. And I was sad that my orange shirt was gone. Forever. And my shoulders look like I took something really sharp and rammed it against my shoulders a bunch of times. Just like that. But I went to work and it sucked and it was the mall and what do you expect?

Tim wants me to go across country with him and Ben in August to California. I'm still trying to mull this one over. There is definitely more pros than cons. We shall see, we shall see.

After I moved out of Washington Street I never went back. Rachel and I drove by a few times, but instead of going there, I just stole old pieces of my and Tim Laurent's treehouse. I've never been back to the condo in the Weirs. I've never been back to my Holman Street house, much less looked at it (although my dreams openly buck my non-particpant views). I never went back to Christensen nor Hitchcock. And I had no plans to go back to the ol' 68 A Piscataqua Rd homestead. AKA - Route 4. But now I may. There's a party there Friday night. First night of a planning-to-be-rainy Bike Weekend. A Bike Weekend, like my father's birthday, always at the same time in mid-June, that will be attended by more people this year but less of our people. And the person that usually throws the party isn't going home and there's a party that everyone is invited to that no one knows anything about. Damn, I should just work this weekend if things are so damn difficult. No, no. I'm not mad. I'm just tired and should apologize now for this random, cranky, fucked-up entry. No I shouldn't apologize. This shit was tight - yo.

"Hold tight. Wait till the party's over. Hold tight. We're in for nasty weather. There has got to be a way . . . Here's your ticket pack your bag. Time for jumpin' overboard. The transportation is here. Close enough but not too far. Maybe you know where you are. Fightin' fire with fire. All wet. Hey you might need a raincoat. Shakedown. Dreams walking in broad daylight. Three hundred sixty five degrees."

Enough of this. I'm going to bed. Like I should have done instead of writing this journal entry. Stupid fucking animal crackers. They make my mouth taste like. . . animal crackers.

It's been real,

Col. Katie Hallum

�

<-- Back to the Salt Mines! - Onward, to the Bee-Mobile! -->

�