Whirlwind

Wow, it's been a crazy couple of days, I didn't even realize I hadn't updated!

The night after I wrote my last entry, I went and hung out with my dear friend Robbie and his amiable girlfriend, Sydney. We watched Boondocks and went over to this kid Ellis's house and went on a walk and it was all very lovely. Robbie and I have been semi-close for a while, but I hadn't really gotten a chance to bond with Sydney until that night. She really makes me feel at ease, and she's so cheerful and easy to be around. We made plans to go to Harry Potter World together soon, since Robbie's mom works there and can get us free tickets. We also made further plans for our future camping trip.

I just heard on the TV that 50 Cent is getting his own condom line.

Anyway, the following day I slept until 2 in the afternoon, woke up, made some peanut butter brownies, packed my things, and came to see my mom, and I'll be staying with her until Friday. LIFE.

Sorry for the irregular updates, guys, I'll just have to find a pattern I can stick with.

Luvz.

Amy Beleckas Appreciation Blog

So Amy Beleckas is my best friend.

Yesterday I met up with her and her mom at the mall to do some shopping. She got a plethora of new clothes (including a varsity style jacket that reminds us of Justin Bieber), and her mom got new air fresheners and such. I went in with no intention of buying anything, but walked out with a new yellow sweater (Hufflepuff pride!), new glasses (the kind with clear lenses), new tights and NEW MOCCASINS.

Don't tell my parents though. They're supposed to think I'm broke.

But it was so much fun, I love Amy's mom like she's my own. We went to the grocery store and to planet smoothie, and then went back to Amy's house, where we Facebook creeped and caught up on life. Then we went to movie theater at the ghetto Oviedo mall. It was my first time ever going there, and it was the most depressing, desolate mall I've ever been in. We saw "Easy A", which was easily one of the funniest movies I've ever watched. Like seriously, new favorite.

Me and Amy laughed harder than anyone else in the theater, and were generally "those people". We were the only ones who laughed at the "Twilight" joke. When we got back to her house we watched "Running With Scissors", which was fabulous but I fell asleep halfway through.

This morning we made cinnamon rolls and watched Supernatural and I took a nap on their couch and then I came home and now I wish I were still with her.

Disrupted.

So today started out good and fun and everything.

I was helping my friend Mishelle, who's really pretty and sweet, by starring in her music video she's making for her class.

And all was fine and well, until we were filming a scene out on my street, and who should walk by but Posh Spice.

And then later I texted him and talked to him for the first time in months and he was rude and I was apathetic and awlknawlknwalknawlawnaw

Now my entire universe has been thrown off kilter and I feel all out of sorts and I don't know what to do. I'm just going to get some sleep, and once I get my thoughts together I'll tell you guys everything that I'm feeling right now.

World of Jenks, GANGSTA RAP, Alison, and more.

Oh, hello!

I'm so glad to be back in the blogging game, not gonna lie. This is my outlet, this is my release.

Today was uneventful, other than seeing Alison for the first time in a month. She came to my house after school and we ate grilled cheese and caught up on life. Which has been nothing but crazy for the both of us. I truly love that girl.

Other than that, I put myself back on a healthy eating regimen, which I plan on following pretty strictly for the next week or so. After that I'll loosen up a bit, but I just really need to shock my system after all the bad foods I've been eating recently.

I'm currently listening to terrible rap music, and enjoying it.

Also, how many of you have watched the new MTV series "World of Jenks"? I think I'm in love. The show itself is interesting enough, even though it's just "True Life" only shorter and focusing on only one person per episode. But I think what REALLY separates "World of Jenks" from every other reality show out there is the show's namesake, Andrew Jenks. He's a hot piece of ass, basically, and luckily for us viewers, he inserts himself into the show, living life alongside of the subjects. Two thumbs up.

After WoJ, I watched an episode of the Jersey Shore. I don't think I'm really a "fan", since I don't set aside time to watch it, I just watch it when it's convenient, but it cracks me up. Really.

OH OH OH. And I also did a lot of cleaning today.

OKAY LOVE YOU GUYS SEE YOU TOMORROW SORRY THIS POST WAS SO DISJOINTED AND RAMBLING BYE

Riding Solo?

WHADDDUP BLOG READERS.

I'm sorry again, for it taking so long for me to start updating again.

When I said my life had returned to normal in my last post, it was a lie. Because later that day, things got stirred up again.

BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER NOT GONNA GO THERE OH OKAY.

We're just going to pretend the past week didn't happen. But I'll let you guys know what i've been up to, starting with yesterday.

So my mom came and woke me up at like eight o'clock, and I had to get ready and pack all my stuff to go back to my dad's house. We put all my bags in my car (which is now thoroughly cleaned- shampooed the carpets and everything) and I drove the three hours to get home. Needless to say, when I got back I was exhausted, sad about leaving my mom, and not in the mood to do anything or talk to anyone, other than John Connor.

When I got into my room, I found the new issues of Teen Vogue and Seventeen sitting on my desk, along with a book that apparently my grandpa got for me- "Women Have All The Power (Too bad they don't know it!)". I started reading the book and it's actually pretty freakin' good. The author holds some views that I don't necessarily agree with, but still. Some of the stuff is pretty eye opening.

Then I took a three hour nap. It was lovely.

Then, at 8:45 Amy came and got me. We hugged each other for a solid 10 minutes and squealed over being together for the first time in a month. It was lovely. We got in her car, blasted some Eminem and Asher Roth, and went back to her house, and I was really really happy about seeing her mom and dog for the first time in forever. We looked at a photo album of her childhood and ate ice pops.

THEN AT TEN O'CLOCK.

We left to go to JJ's for a party. It was on the small side, ten or fifteen people max, but everyone was beautiful. It was absolutely crazy. I spent some time getting to know this cool kid named Aria who I've only ever talked to on Facebook. JJ took her shirt off at one point. Byran was dancing to Britney Spears. There was chain smoking (not me) and death pong (possibly me). And KTG$ was there for like ten minutes. And lots of lovely pictures were taken. Apparently I gave away my bear silly band that Vanilla Ice gave me to some random guy named David, because I was shouting about him being a "lost cause". Hahahahahaha.

Anyway, we went back to Amy's around two. We decided it would be a good idea to watch Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but I passed out before she even put the DVD in.

When we woke up this morning, we spent thirty minutes laughing about last night, and then we proceeded to her kitchen to prepare chocolate chip pancakes, which were actually more chocolate chip than pancake. After eating we watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall, since we didn't get to last night, and then she took me home.

As soon as I got home I had to get in the shower and get ready to go to my little cousin's birthday party. Which was lame. I'm not really a big fan of my stepmom's side of the family. Not because of them or anything, I just don't really fit in.

Came home. Got on Tumblr. Wrote this blog. Etc.

Don't hurt me D:

Yes, I know I haven't posted in six days.

I'm terrible.

The reason I haven't posted in so long is because there was serious family drama that went down, which resulted in me having to pack all my stuff and wait by the side of the road for my Nannan to come pick me up at five o'clock in the morning. And lots of other things that followed and preceded but there's no use talking about any of it because none of it will do any good.

But here I am now, safe and sound and ready to resume my normal blogging practices.

Redneck Yacht Club.

So. Summary of past couple of days: Hell. My mother and I made a trip to visit my siblings (she now is allowed to have supervised visitation with them, and she has another court date in two weeks), cue a two day long emotional breakdown/fight with my stepdad that involved lots of tears and screaming and me sitting in the garage to get some peace.

FAST FORWARD TO TODAY.

Woke up this morning, things were good. Like. Out of nowhere. Everyone was pretending everything was okay. And that's perfectly fine with me, because that's generally how I operate. Pretend the problem doesn't exist.

My mom came in and told me to put my bathing suit on, and I obliged. After getting ready and packing some snacks, my stepdad hitched his giant white & green airboat to the back of our Tahoe, and off we went. We stopped at Wal-mart to buy sunglasses for me, some Chips Ahoy cookies and more food, and met up with our family friend Pepper, who also had his tiny (but fast as hell) green airboat hitched to the back of his pickup.

After thirty minutes or so of more driving, we ended up at Lake Kissimmee, in the backwoods. Close your eyes, and picture the most stereotypical, hillbilly trailer you can imagine, complete with Christmas lights. Now surround it with forest, and a shady dirt road. In the background, there's a lake. But it looks more like a swamp, thick with lily pads and sea grass. And there's a big grassy clearing next to the lake, lined with pickup trucks and ATV's, which is the where they unload the boats.

We unhooked our boat of its trailer, as did Pepper, and we all got on. I described my Papaw's airboat in my other entry, but my stepdad's boat is much, much nicer, bigger, louder, and faster. We drove the boats into the lake, and went speeding across it.

The water was so perfectly smooth, it was like a big mirror. I almost felt like it would be solid if you touched it. And the sky was the perfect shade of blue, with big white fluffy clouds in the distance. And we were going so fast it felt like flying. It was incredible.

And then came the fun part.

We stopped at a small grassy island in the middle of the lake, where there were at least thirty other airboats lined up, and a bunch of people just hanging out; in lawn chairs, on their boats, knee-deep in water, everywhere. When we showed up everyone gave us a warm welcome, even the people we'd never met before. And we all just sat around talking and laughing, watching a few of the idiots race each other and catching up on life.

I met a girl who was about a year younger than me, and her name was Bird. Bird, according to my stepfather and everyone else on the island, is an expert at airboats, even though she's a sixteen year old girl. She could tear one apart and put it back together again if she wanted to. I was so impressed when she walked over to our boat and started talking to my stepdad about parts and things and other airboat jargon. But she was very nice to me, and hopefully I'll see her again sometime this week.

She also had a sister, named Brenna, who was stunningly pretty. She was so pretty I felt uncomfortable in her presence. There was another sister, whose name I forgot, but she was eighteen and just-graduated, like me, and she was quiet like me, and just by looking at her I could tell me and her could've been best friends. But since we're both rather shy, we just went about our separate business, sharing little smiles every now and again. Oh, and we had the same shoes, only mine were white and hers were black.

There was also a boy there who looked like he might've been nineteen or so, who was very cute, for a redneck. He had red hair and freckles but he wasn't dorky looking or anything, had a nice body, and a tattoo of a cross on his back. He smoked Marlboros and was wearing camo shorts. Totally not the type of guy I'm normally attracted to, but there was something about him.

Usually the guys who I'm inexplicably attracted to in that manner are assholes. So I guess it's best that I didn't say one word to him the whole time. Even though he always seemed to be close by, and I thought I caught him looking at me once or twice. But I was probably imagining it. Because boys don't check me out.

At one point there was an old man whose boat flipped and everyone freaked out and rushed over to see if he was okay. He was.

The whole ordeal was so much fun and I'm so glad I got to go. On the ride back to where our Tahoe was, it started raining. And since we were going so fast, the droplets stung my skin.

Then we came home, and ate Little Caeser's pizza and pie and I took a shower and now I am writing this.

I love days like this, I love my life, and I love my blog readers.

I make everything worse.

Seriously I feel so helpless right now. I don't know what to do.

Something

Today I woke up, got ready and went to my Nannan's and Papaw's house, again, hahaha.

I hung around for a while and talked with my mom and Nannan inside while the menfolk worked on my stepdad's new airboat. Yay misogyny!

Then my mom and stepdad left and the fun began.

My Papaw, Nannan and I all piled into Paw's pickup truck, and drove down to an inlet on a mostly swampy part of Lake Okeechobee. And then we went all got on the airboat and went for a ride.

Few things are more impressive than riding through swamp in the night. Seriously, it's amazing. The only light we had besides the light on my Paw's cap was the light from the stars, which were perfectly visible. I've never seen so many stars in a sky before, and the Milky Way stretched out directly overhead like a rainbow. Around us there was nothing but swamp and dark water for as far as the eye could see. Even with the deafening roar of the airboat's propeller, it was eerily beautiful.

It was also my first experience with "frogging". If you're unfamiliar with the process, as I was, frogging is where you hunt frogs. To eat. I've eaten frog legs before (and they're delicious) but I've never been involved in the process, and I didn't particularly want to. You kill and capture frogs by basically spearing them with this long wooden stick with four razor sharp prongs at the end. It sounds like a really gruesome way to die, but the method actually kills the frogs quickly and painlessly. And then, after the frogs are stuck, you stick them in this special frog-holder-net-thing. It's crazy.

I felt even less bad for the frogs after I discovered how unintelligent they apparently are.

Picture this: You're a big, fat, green bullfrog. You're chilling out on a lily pad. Just waiting on some moths. Sitting there. Being a frog. All of the sudden, a really bright light shines on you, and you hear an extremely loud grinding noise, and a big metal thing a million times bigger than you pulls up next to you. You'd get the heck out of dodge, wouldn't you?

Apparently not. This amazed me. The frogs never ran. They never hopped away. They just sat there. And allowed themselves to become tomorrow's lunch. What?

Now, I'm not suggesting that creatures of lesser intelligence and self awareness (and common sense...) are less worthy of living, I'm just saying that at least the frogs weren't in a state of terror or panic at the time of death. They were just hanging out. "Oh, look, I almost didn't notice that large and obnoxiously loud boat less than a foot away from me! And there's a crazy mustached man with a death-stick! And he's shining a bright light on me! I wonder what that's about! Oh well, I'll just sit here and watch. Oh! Now I'm dead. Sucks."

Oh, and there were gators, lots and lots of gators. We spotted them by seeing the reflections of their eyes. My paw pulled up next to them and shined his helmet light on them so that we could watch. They're really such beautiful creatures. Other than those teeth. Most of them were really big, but we did spot a baby one that was about a foot long. My paw pulled up near it, got down from his seat (on airboats, in case you didn't know, the seats are elevated) reached over the side of the boat, and pulled the baby gator out of the water. The reptile was surprisingly calm. I named him Carlos. I got to touch him and he was really hard and scaly, but cute. Watching him swim away, I tried to imagine what his thought process was. The event probably traumatized him, and now I feel bad. Now he's going to grow up and abuse his kids.

We came back to my Nannan and Papaw's house, and my Nan and I made peanut butter fudge, which is delicious. I'm spending the night here, and going back home early tomorrow morning, because my Nan is going with my mom to court.

Oh. Yeah. I haven't mentioned this, but I guess I'll fill you guys in now. My mom is currently involved in a vicious custody battle. Her ex-husband (and my ex-stepfather), Tony, the father of three of my younger siblings, filed a random injunction against my mom accusing her of abusing my brother and sisters (not true, by the way, it's quite the opposite actually) so that he could get custody. Basically his entire motivation behind it is so that he won't have to pay child support anymore. It's a weird, messed up convoluted situation. But my mom hasn't been able to see them or talk to them in over a week, and it's breaking her heart. So that's part of why I'm here right now, to be here for her. It's a really tough time, I'm not going to lie, but what can you do but push through these sort of things, you know? I'll probably tell you guys more details on the situation tomorrow, but right now I have to write a letter telling about my mom's character and parenting ability for the courts tomorrow. Fun stuff.