Some people can totally pull off the whole “cool” thing. Not me- no way. Are you kidding me? Some people can wear the fuzzy little $50 Ugg boots and the $75 etnies, the impractical thin plaid coats and the skinny jeans with a designer logo on the butt pocket. Some people have the audacity to pay those high prices. Not me. I’m too practical to be cool. Being cool is just quixotic (look it up). Seriously, impeccable blonde hair, overly excessive make-up and an XY constantly at your side- is that all popular girls are made of? They’re just empty shells unless they work for it. I’d like to see a non-anorexic, non- Barbie-perfect cool girl, but like that’s ever gonna happen. Yeah right, when pigs fly.
Not that I’m unhappy, oh no, I’m perfectly happy with first Janey, then Kallie and her competitiveness and now Sami and her… weirdness deserting me. Oh, no, not at all. We still hang out together and all, but things have gotten weirder and harder since Taylor left. She was always everyone’s friend even though her life was completely imploding and collapsing in on her.
I think I understand how she felt when she…
Alone.
Forlorn, forsaken.
Dejected. Despondent.
Discarded as if no one needed her.
Invisible- the operative word.
I don’t care if I don’t fit in. I really don’t- I’m serious, no sarcasm this time, I swear. The one problem is that with the position in the high school food chain I have now makes my one goal in life impossible, or at least extremely unnecessarily complicated.
See? I know a kid who could say “altercation” and people would not give him so much as a supercilious look. (Yet another word he can get away with saying). People expect it from him and think it’s funny. It’s what makes him unique.
What makes me unique? When I use big words to show my ken (no, not the name or Barbie’s boyfriend. Seriously, get a dictionary), I get ignored. I know the answer, but no one ever asks me. I can play the part, but I’ve never even been given the chance of a part with a name. I can play piano, and I kick butt (8 years of piano lessons will do that, ya know) ‘til someone else comes along and plays if not better, a better song like the Pink Panther or Let it Be while I’m playing Beethoven and Clementi Sonatinas at light speed. I like to think I’m a good writer, but judging by the fact that my own mother doesn’t even pay attention to my stories, how good can they be? I’ve lost all my sense of self-esteem. Hit rock bottom.
We like to lie to ourselves, tell ourselves that if we try hard enough, we might actually succeed. I don’t know about you, but my pants are burning up. I tell myself I’m worthy of this life somehow, I’m too serious for a 15-year-old, I need to settle down and have some fun. But with all going on in my life I can’t even begin to worry about what dress to wear to SnoDaze. I’m too strong to give in to the fact that I’m a failure, too proud. The only thing I’m actually any good at is school. I don’t even try. I get A’s, and if it’s one of the classes I’m reading Maximum Ride through I might get a B. B+, A-, give or take. If nothing else, killing myself would rid the world with one wordy intellectual. But then I’d never succeed my dreams. Oh, don’t worry, I’m not like, uh…I’m not suicidal. I’m too chicken to kill myself or even intentionally give myself a paper cut.
And it all spirals back down to my Dream- ready for insane stupidness? To make a difference. I know. Hopeless, wasted dreams. At least it’s more realistic than my other dream- to fly. Yep, I know, I’m lame. My goals in life are to succeed, to make a difference, and to fly like a bird. Not that I’d tell anyone. Yet another deep dark secret.
All right, back to the somewhat realistic goal: making a difference. How do you make a difference without a cell phone to text and all the txt lingo u no lol, rofl, gr8, & bff :), :(, :D, ;P, without even Internet access on your home computer. How do you make a difference if no one will listen? I’ll tell you how- you don’t.
There’s some great food for thought right before bed for ya.

“Ug, my hair looks horrible!”
“Chrystal, it looks fine!”
“No, it does not! Hadley, you’re just saying that to make me feel better.”
“I’m not! At least it doesn’t look as bad as that loser Christine.”
“Christine? What a joke! Does she even wash her hair?”
“You want some spray?”
“Pink? Oh, I love that smell. Thanks!”

I woke up almost choking and gagging. Somehow I had managed to get out of bed, get dressed and eat, and get out the door and to school without really waking up. But I’ll tell you one thing. Five million squirts from that perfume bottle will wake any girl up- and I’m not just saying that. Every since my sister Iris decided to spray half her new birthday bottle of lavender perfume every five seconds on a car ride with the windows rolled up and I threw up, I’ve never gotten into that spray stuff that everyone else does. Seriously, one time Kallie tricked me and made it look like she was spraying herself but she actually sprayed me, I got so mad I almost started to cry and refused to talk to her until play practice.
So when Chrystal sprays her horrid perfume five million times right next to me- it feels like I’m in one of those gas chambers at Auschwitz, a flowery smelling Auschwitz, no less. I held my breath, grabbed my books, and ran as fast as I could away from Chrystal’s locker. The Creeperz- yes, I came up with that name, I shouldn’t even give them the dignity of even having that z at the end, but anyway- the Creeperz boys were showing up.
Chrystal was new at school this year. She had a really weird way of talking- I don’t know whether to call it a lisp or an accent. I’m leaning more towards a lisp. Have you ever noticed that people who have lisps have a hard time saying the word “lisp”? Don’t you find that a bit ironic? Apparently I have one, ‘cuz can hardly say the word.
Anyway, Chrystal is the picture of the typical “cool” girl that I painted above. And she doesn’t really have standards when it comes to boyfriends, if you know what I mean. The boys near her locker are wackos, creepy weirdos (hence, Creeperz) of questionable straightness. The slackers that always get into fights. The kind of guys this A-honor roll student wouldn’t be caught dead with.
“Give me a hug, Chrystal,” one said.
“Come on, Chrystal, don’t I get a hug, too?” another whined when she embraced the first Creeper.
GROSS! There is a freaking reason that this school has a rule against PDA- personal displays of affection- because in this case, I felt like I needed to throw up. And I did.
This was not the difference I had planned on making.