December 26, 2008, 11:17 a.m.
The economy sucks.
Daddy and Mommy waited to drop the bomb on us until after Christmas: we’re losing the house! And we’re splitting up! How could they have hidden this for so long?!
Anyway, Mommy and Daddy and Colton are going to stay with Papa Greg and Nana Deb, and Sissy and I are going to stay with Aunt Sherry in WASHINGTON!!!
Can you believe it?! I mean, this totally sucks, and I have NO idea how I’d going to pack all my stuff in a week, but WASHINGTON! I’m kind of excited to go somewhere new. I mean, I can keep up with all my friends—like KT and Asher—on facebook anyways. And in Washington I can visit all the Twilight sites. And, who knows, maybe I’ll meet my very own ♥Edward♥!!!
Uh, oh, Sissy’s crying and knocking on my door.
January 2, 2009, 8:25 a.m.
I’m on the plane and I’m so bored. I’m on the plane and I’m so bored. Sissy keeps poking me and asking what I’m writing. Alaska Airlines has small planes. I’m so bored. My iPod’s in my carryon and my carryon’s in the overhead bin. So, so bored.
11:30 p.m.
¡Estamos aquí! I realized I have never been up to visit Aunt Sherry since she moved to Washington. Her house smells damp. Sissy and I have to share a bed because she just had one queen size in the guest room. But Aunt Sherry gave us her body pillow to put between us so Sissy doesn’t drool on me (gross!). When I told Aunt Sherry how frizzy my hair was here, she just said that everyone’s hair is frizzy, so I won’t stand out. Somehow that doesn’t really make me feel much better. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
So we got off the plane in Portland. It’s a pretty airport. When you go outside you’re not really outside because there’s a glass cover over you. That’s because it rains so much. It was raining today. It is really cold too—it was only 50 today! And then Aunt Sherry says 50 is HIGH for January. Brrrr! I think I need like a coat or something. But, oh, yeah, I don’t have any money!
Anyways, Aunt Sherry’s house is kinda old and small and it’s painted mint green. It also has
I’m getting tired, so I need to get to the best part of today: I saw the HOTTEST guy in the world when we stopped for gas at the Safeway (it’s like Vons). (We passed this factory that smelled weird on the way—it makes paper.) He was putting gas in this really pretty black car, like a Porsche or something, and he had dark, dark glossy hair and these big gorgeous dark eyes and the most unbelievably clear pale skin with kinda flushed cheeks like those Russian gymnasts on the Olympics have (I can’t wait ’til 2012!). Okay, so half of his hotness was probably the hot car, but seriously, I have never seen a guy this hot in California. Muy guapo, definitely. He just looked like one of those guys who knows he’s hot, so he’s got that confidence without needing constant attention to feed his fragile ego, like some boys we know (uh, Trystin, anyone?). The bad part is that I think he noticed me staring from inside Aunt Sherry’s minivan because he looked over and his eyebrows knitted and deliberately looked away for the rest of the time he was filling up his car. So embarrassing!!! Oh, why couldn’t Aunt Sherry have a cool sports car or something instead of an old minivan? She doesn’t even have kids! Or maybe I’m just imagining that he even noticed.
Okay, so now it’s really late and tomorrow we have to go to FedEx and pick up the books and movies I mailed and unpack them. (This is a good thing—Aunt Sherry bought another bookcase just because I was coming!) Oh, I don’t think I can sleep. Sissy’s snoring. Good night.
January 4, 2009, 1:50 p.m.
So there aren’t very many youth in my new ward. And most of them don’t live in Camas, they live in
School starts tomorrow! I already picked out my outfit: the orange pin-dot dress from Anthropologie, the shiny emerald green stilettos I got for $5 online, and the white wrap cardigan I stole from Mommy’s closet. For jewelry I think I’ll wear the emerald green plastic choker and the matching earrings. I guess I’ll look like a mixed up Irish person, but I’ve got to start off on the right foot, and that means looking good.
It didn’t rain today, but it’s SUPER cold! Like, freezing! Aunt Sherry says the clouds keep in the warmth, but in Encinitas it could be sunny and warm at the same time, so I don’t get it.
January 5, 2009, 7:37 a.m., 1st period, calc.
Okay, so this school starts really early. It’s still completely dark outside! And we’re in class already! I already did this unit on ellipses in California, so I’m writing in here and pretending to be taking notes.
Aunt Sherry and I got here at like 7:15 to get me all registered. (It was snowing a little. Snowing!) Anyway, the school looks kinda like something out of a prison movie. It’s not an old-fashioned cagey prison, it’s a new one with a (dark) atrium and concrete floors and long windowless hallways. And they have stairs. Stairs?! I thought only high schools in 80s teen movies had stairs! Anyway the other thing about it that’s like an 80s teen movie is that it’s all white people. So weird. I mean, there are only two Asians in this class and this is calculus. I don’t see any Latinos or black people or Indians or anything. I feel all self-conscious like I’m at a white supremacist rally accidentally.
By the way, it took me like seven tries to convince the lady who introduced me to Mr. Morris that my name is Līza with a long i and a z sound and not Lĭsa with a short i and an s sound. Geez. I should reverse-nickname myself in this new school and tell everyone my name’s really Eliza. That’s just so much more sophisticated.
9:41 a.m., 2ª clase, español
Tengo que practicar mi español en mi diario o no aprenderé nada. Esta clase me aburre más que la otra. Nadie habla español aquí. ¡Echo a menos al Señor Muños!
11:05 a.m., 4th period, AP world history
Okay, so how weird is this—in a few minutes we’re going to leave class, go to lunch (it’s lunch B), and then come back to the same class for half an hour. Anyway, before class started, a bunch of people (one of them’s named Brynn and sits in front of me) asked me where I lived. I told them I wasn’t sure but it’s kinda near the freeway/highway/whatever it is. They looked at me really weird like I’d started speaking Pig Latin and then they turned around and got really interested in their textbooks. The guy behind me leaned over and told me that they only liked other people from Prune Hill or (something) Shores. That’s the rich area, I guess. (It’s weird that I don’t live in the rich area. I hope I wasn’t snobby like them in SoCal!) He said he lives somewhere in the boonies (I forgot the name of it) and that his address even says Vancouver, which is another city that’s bigger than Camas. His name is Lee.
I think I should write down everyone’s names when they tell me so I remember later. Lee: skinny, white, blond/grayish hair. Brynn: kinda chubby, white, long burnt-straight brown hair with highlights. Devin: a redhead. Jasper: tall Asian in calculus. Charles: short Asian in calculus. Sima: she’s Indian—the only one. Uh, I forgot everyone else already.
noon, 4th period again
Tom: big and muscular, buzz-cut, doesn’t talk. Britney: natural blonde, doesn’t wear makeup or straighten her hair, but she’s pretty anyway. Rachel: goth/emo, pierced nose, eyebrows, bellybutton, nipples, lip, tongue, sternum, and back of her neck. Chase: Rachel’s goth/emo boyfriend, I didn’t ask him where he was pierced, has tattoos also. J (her real name’s Jacqueline, but she shortened it to one letter): thin with big boobs, dyed black hair, blue eyes, slutty top, too much eyeliner, has two piercings on her wrist of all places and one more behind her right ear.
Phew, I was sure I would forget all of that! Lee invited me to sit with his friends at lunch. (Did I mention that it was still dark in the atrium/lunchroom? I thought they just hadn’t turned the lights on yet this morning, but I guess they never turn them on. I couldn’t see my food!) Lee’s friends are definitely not the kind of people I’d hang out with in Encinitas, but here’s different, or I’m in a different socioeconomic class than I was. Lee’s friends live downtown (like I do, I guess—but it’s too small a town to even have a downtown) or out on some mountain with Lee. In fact, it turns out that Chase lives right around the corner from me. I was hoping that meant he could give me a ride from school, but he takes the bus too (TOO! I’m a bus-taker!).
Anyway, they’re way more interesting than I expected. Britney has a 26-year-old boyfriend who’s a firefighter. She says they haven’t technically had sex yet, but they have seen each other naked. On TV they call girls like her “jail bait”, but she seems pretty nice. Chase and Rachel have been going out for two years, and neither of them had any tattoos or piercings until they started dating, so I guess they egg each other on. J is a little bit more of a mystery. She’s super pretty and dresses slutty (plunging black lace tank-top with tight black jacket framing her annoyingly milky-white “assets”) but she doesn’t have a boyfriend or act like she’s just between guys.
Oh, and I think I have a gay friend already! Of course, he’s going to have to come out to me because there’s nothing worse you can do to a
12:28 p.m., 5th period, advanced English
straight guy than tell him he looks and acts gay. Instant friend repeller. I can’t risk being wrong because Lee’s into Twilight too, and when I said “Yeah, but I liked vampires even before Twilight ’cause I watched Buffy and Angel,” Lee got SO excited. He loves Buffy and Angel too! And he’s read the original Dracula! Lee says he’s been collecting vampire movies—classic ones and cheesy ones—and he’s way excited to borrow some of my books!
Ooo, we’re going to read from Julius Caesar. Shakespeare’s always good!
2:30 p.m.
Oh. My. Gosh. I saw him! I saw him! I was walking out of photography and there HE was! He’s not like super tall or anything, but he has this—presence—that totally stands out even in the dark hallways. It’s like he glows or something. Seriously. He was wearing—what was he wearing? I don’t even remember! Wow, I hadn’t even let myself believe that someone that perfect was high-school age. Eep. My heart’s still racing. Did you know who he was walking with, though? J! They weren’t holding hands or anything, but they kinda looked like a unit. So that’s why J seems so ambivalent—she’s got the HOTTEST guy in the WORLD, so nothing else really phases her.
Ugh. It’s really hard to write on the bus because it bumps so much. Chase and Rachel are just making out, oblivious to everything and everyone. I sat near the back with the other “big kids”, but they’re pretty gross. One of them—he’s got this icky white Afro thing going on—keeps talking loudly about ’shrooming and having sex parties. As if anyone would get in an orgy with him.
Wow, I’ve used up a TON of pages today. I guess I had a lot to write about. Did I mention that no one dresses nice in Camas? I was probably the only girl in a dress if you don’t count Brynn’s purple-leggings-and-frayed-jean-miniskirt combo.
I’m tired. I think I’m going to take a nap. Seven-thirty is too early to start a school.
January 10, 2009, 6:45 p.m.
Okay, tell me if this isn’t weird: it’s only 6:45 and the sun went down two hours ago. I know it’s winter, but come on!
Another weird thing is that I dreamt about HIM. I was really, really tired and even though it wasn’t raining outside, it was still cold and wet and cloudy as heck, so I took a nap this afternoon—it turned into five hours! Anyway, I dreamt that the mysterious hot guy from school was in my bedroom and that we were talking about something (I forget what it was). I woke up feeling tingly all over with the last thing he said ringing in my head: “Sometimes we want to chase a phantom.” What does that mean?
So I just spent the last hour trying to find him in J’s facebook friends, but I can’t. Either he’s totally private, or he doesn’t have a facebook. Argh! Why doesn’t he just make it easy for me stalk him?!
13 de enero de 2009 (¡martes trece!), 9:01 a.m., 2ª clase
Empiezo a sospechar que mi maestro no hable español. Hoy hice una pregunta en español acerca de la tarea de ayer (la cual no tenía sentido). Él no me entendió hasta la tercera vez que la repetí, y sé que mi español no es tan horrible. ¡Ay!
January 14, 2009, 11:25 a.m., 3rd period, biology
Oh, my gosh! You’ll never guess what happened! So today is called “late start” because we start at ten (and then we only have three classes). I was gonna sleep in until 8:30, but Lee and them invited me out to breakfast. Chase and Rachel came by at about eight so we could walk to this place called Café Natalia in the cute little downtown shopping area of Camas. They said it’s less than a mile, but it’s all uphill! I was huffing and puffing and it was still pretty dark because the sun was just coming up and it was drizzling a little. I brought an umbrella, but Rachel told me not to use it because I’d look dumb. “Also it’s not raining hard, so the water bounces up under the umbrella anyways,” she said. But the rain messed with my carefully curled hair so it looked pretty scary by the time we got there. (I saw my reflection in the window, yikes!)
I was trying to lift up my hair so it would dry faster when who do you think walked in? Mysterious hot guy! It turns out that he’s J’s older brother and his name is Julian. (Is that a hot name or what?) My face got all hot, but my tan hasn’t faded too much yet, so I think it didn’t show a ton. I stuck my ruined hair in a ponytail lickety-split and wished I had worn my red cardigan with that white lacy top instead of my big-ol’ comfy green sweater. He introduced himself to me and shook my hand, which is lucky because in California he might have hugged me and then I would have just died from overwhelm-ment. His hand was cool and really smooth.
The food was pretty good—Natalia is Russian so you can order borscht and stuff besides your basic breakfast food. (I guess there are some Russians and Ukrainians here, so you think everyone’s white American but it turns out that some of the people really are immigrants. They’re just white immigrants.) I got pancakes, but on second thought I couldn't really taste them because Julian was too close—only J sat between us. Tom ate most of my breakfast because I couldn’t finish it fast enough. And then Lee and Julian were going to drive us all to school, and Julian personally offered to take me in his car. So Britney and I went with J and Julian, and Tom, Chase, and Rachel went with Lee. Julian’s car smells amazing. The seats are leather and it even has seat warmers in the back!
Oh, yuck. We’re going to dissect starfish now. They smell weird.
Did I mention Julian and I both have C lunch today?!
2:28 p.m.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaay! That’s all I have to say about that.
January 15, 6:12 a.m.
Periods suuuuuuuuuck!
January 17, 2009, 10:12 p.m.
Vampire movies I have to see:
• Dracula (1931)
• Drácula (1931, Spanish version)
• Nosferatu (1922)
• Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein
• Vampyr (1932)
• The Fearless Vampire Killers
• Underworld (Lee could skip the bad parts)
• Interview with the Vampire (ditto)
• Blood and Donuts (ditto)
• Forever Knight (80s TV show)
• I Vampiri (Italian)
• the Christopher Lee Dracula movies
• Countess Dracula
• Van Helsing
January 18, 2009, 2:02 p.m.
Brother Carter’s kids weren’t at church today ’cause they were at their mom’s for the holiday. He looked really sad, but Aunt Sherry didn’t even try to cheer him up!
9:10 p.m.
I just found out that Camas isn’t named after beds at all, it’s named after a flower called the camas lily. Cool, huh?
January 19, 2009, 7:13 p.m.
Oh, my gosh, I’m so excited! In 17 minutes Lee is going to pick me up and then we’re going to J and Julian’s house for a vampire movie night! When Lee told Julian that we were going to watch vampire movies at Lee’s house tonight, Julian instantly offered his house instead. (Britney says Lee’s house is really creepy even for Livingston Mountain, which kinda makes me want to see it.) Maybe I wowed Julian so much with my conversational skills on Wednesday that he wants to see more of me? Actually, I kind of doubt it. Julian didn’t really talk to me much even when it was just me and him at our lunch table last week. But anyways I guess he lives in this place called the Leadbetter Mansion on Lacamas Lake. Mansion! The only problem is that Julian couldn’t have us come over until almost eight, which means we’re going to bed really late when I have seminary in the morning at six. (I can't believe I used to think seven was early!) But if it means I get to be at his house and watch cool vintage vampire movies at the same time, I think I’ll manage.
January 20, 2009, 6:17 a.m., seminary
Not . . . managing. . . . So . . . . tired. . . . Need . . . sleep.
9:01 p.m. (Happy Inauguration, President Obama!)
Okay, so I just woke up from a very long nap. I don’t think I fell asleep until two or something this morning. I mean, we left J and Julian’s at about midnight, but I was too excited to sleep. Well, anyways I should be doing my Spanish homework right now, but that’s what the bus is for, right? I’ve got to write all about the movie night before I forget all the details.
Let’s start at the beginning: Lee picked me up and we started driving towards the school. When you go up to the school you pass Lacamas Lake and a little restaurant and a little store and suddenly there’s trees everywhere surrounding you. Then you come out of the trees and you turn right. To get to Julian’s house we turned left instead and came through more claustrophobic trees until tada! there’s this huge red Victorian mansion right on the lake. I asked Lee why J and Julian hang out in our group (actually I said “your group”) when they’re rich, and Lee said they live on the wrong side of the lake. Prune Hill isn’t all rich people; it’s just a bunch of subdivisions where the people act suburban. He pointed it out—it’s on the other side of the lake from J and Julian’s house—some of those houses look pretty big, but anyways that explains it a little, I guess.
So we got there and some other people I’ve never seen before were already over. And if they went to Camas, there’s no way I would have missed them. Freddy and Mary are twins, and they’re sophomores like me. Mary’s hair is blue and sticks out in chunks that make her head look like a Koosh ball. Freddy’s hair is split down the middle of his head: one side is black and the other is bleached white. They both have several piercings, but not as many as Chase and Rachel do. I kinda think Freddy has a thing for J, but she doesn’t really notice that he’s alive, poor guy. Their older sister, Virginia, is a junior. She has dark red hair that she twists in this weird way so it looks like shiny dreadlocks. Dreadlocks isn’t the right word because they’re too smooth—I don’t really know how to describe her hair. Okay, enough with the hair. Did I mention she has a little blue-green crystal stud in her nose that matches her eyes? She spent a lot of time draped on the furniture preening—one minute she was sprawled across the couch with her foot over the back and her arm over her head, sighing, and the next she was leaning over Julian’s armchair, playing with his hair. Whatever.
Anyway, I haven’t seen them before ’cause I guess they go to this alternative high school called Hayes Freedom. It’s in the old high school building in town, which was built in the twenties. They get to leave campus for lunch and go to Top Burger and stuff, but they don’t have AP!
Did I mention the house?! It’s got a tall round turret and a porch and it’s huge and old-fashioned. Inside it’s pretty nice, but until we got to the playroom it didn’t really look like anyone lived there. The rest of the house looks like it’s right out of those interior design magazines my mom used to always buy: everything used a beige, brick red, and light olive green color scheme which echoed through the house, and none of the pictures on the wall were of the family. Mr. and Mrs. Baines were away for the long weekend, and they hadn’t come back yet even though it was late on MLK day.
The “playroom” (J and Julian aren’t kids anymore, but that’s what they still call it) is probably as big as Aunt Sherry’s whole house, and it has a GIANT plasma screen and all of these super-soft couches and a couple LoveSacs and lots of books, which I totally didn’t expect. I got a glimpse of a few of the books—they’re good books, most of them, like Faulkner, Austen, Steinbeck, cummings, Anaya, Angelou, Thackeray, Dumas, . . . lots of good authors like that. I wonder if Julian reads them?
We started out with Nosferatu, which is a silent movie from the twenties. It was a little kooky, especially since the main character wore a lot of black lipstick and his wife was kinda ugly. Oh, and did I mention the vampire was this nasty monster thing? But by the end I was getting into it—Mrs. Hutter sacrifices her blood to trap the vampire with her until sunrise. Even though they don’t have special effects, this one part when the shadow of the vampire’s hand closed around her heart was really compelling. I felt a little fear-bubble pop inside me when that happened.
After that we watched the 1931 Dracula. It’s really slow. The part I didn’t like was that Mina was so boring. I mean, come on! A vampire is sneaking into your bedroom, draining your blood, turning you into a vampire, and driving you insane, and you’re just going to sit there?! That’s why Lee says next time we’ll watch the Spanish version because the Mina’s better. I think I’ll probably need the subtitles even though it would be a good way to practice my Spanish. The Dracula in this version is good though. Lee says all the Draculas after him copied his accent and the way he says stuff all creepy like, “I never drink . . . wine.”
Okay, so this is going to sound totally deluded, but I felt like while I was watching the first movie Julian was watching me. I mean, I just kinda felt his eyes burning on me. It’s probably wishful thinking. Whenever I looked at him in his armchair (which I only had the courage to do twice), he was just staring into the space above my head with this little frown on his face. So if he was looking at me other times, he was probably frowning. What’s wrong with me?! I must have checked my nose for boogers like nineteen times. He got up and left after the first movie, and we didn’t see him again. Probably he knew he should go to bed like I should have.
Oh, darn it! I just remembered that I didn’t do my math either.
January 22, 12:30, 5th period
Today at lunch everyone was talking about where they’re going next year. Their whole group is going to split up! Chase and Rachel are transferring to Hayes Freedom, Tom’s going to the Skills Center (a vocational school for high school students), and Lee’s doing Running Start, which means he’s going to go to community college and the high school’s going to pay for it. That means that everyone interesting gets weeded out of this school: the smart kids go to Running Start, the stoners go to Hayes Freedom, the kinetic types go to the Skills Center, the weird loners do this online high school thing called Home Link. Lee says there’s even an arts and music school for those kids to go to. And they’re all public schools. This shouldn’t be weird to me because I went to San Dieguito after all, but I never really saw who got left behind.
The only people who didn’t have much to say were Britney, J, and I. (I and J! Ha, ha!) I’m not going to be here next year. Britney’s still not sure what she wants to do, but the community college definitely has a lot more guys who are her type (“ten year limit!”). She’ll probably go there. J, well, she just kinda shrugged. She looks like she’d be happier at Hayes Freedom, but I think her parents might want her to stay at the nice high school ’cause they’re rich. Come to think of it, why did Julian stay here all four years? According to Lee, he’s super smart, and Lee should know because he’s smart too. For example, apparently Julian took calculus his sophomore year just like I did, and that’s hard to do in Washington ’cause of how they organize the middle-school math classes. He’s done a few AP courses and got all fours and fives. And Julian’s an artist (some of his work from last year’s still on the wall in photography), so why didn’t he at least go to the art school? I really want to know where he’s going to college, but I can’t think of a reason to ask that doesn’t scream, “I’m obsessed with you!”
Oh, yeah, a week from Saturday is the Snoball, a formal girls’-choice dance. (Britney says all the dances are formal here, but that doesn’t make sense.) It has a Mardi Gras theme, which I think has definite fashion potential. Rachel’s going to go with Chase, of course, but Britney can’t bring her boyfriend ’cause he’ll get arrested or something. To fix that problem, Britney and J are going together, as each other’s date. (Britney says her firefighter’s fine with it. I’ll bet he is.) Maybe that’s why J isn’t interested in any boys. However, she doesn’t seem super-interested in girls either. She’s like made of stone or something. Lee and Tom aren’t going because they don’t dance, they say. Maybe Lee would take me if I asked him, though. That’s if I decide I want to go. Anyway on Saturday, Rachel, J, and Britney are going to Portland to look for dresses, and they asked me to come with them! I’m pretty excited to see Portland (apparently it’s really weird, like the emo capital of the world), and I miss going shopping at Horton Plaza with KT. It’s been forever since I’ve gone shopping with friends instead of just with Sissy and my mom!
January 23, 8:12 a.m., 1st period
So today after seminary Jasper asked me to Snoball! On every Friday, school starts a half hour later, but seminary’s still at six, so I guess everyone (except me for the past two weeks) goes to someone’s house on Prune Hill for breakfast. I’d just been taking the bus from the chapel (which is on Prune Hill) to school and trying to nap in the hallway during the extra half hour. But today Brynn Christianson invited me to her house with a bunch of other people. Her house isn’t very exciting. It’s painted gray for one thing. Who paints their house gray when the sky and the air and the ground are always gray all the time? I think Aunt Sherry’s mint green is much better. Anyway she has a big kitchen and her mom (typical super-nice BMW) cooked us pancakes and eggs and bacon and even made these huge fruit and yogurt parfaits with strawberries she froze last year. I was stuffing my face because Aunt Sherry only ever buys cereal for breakfast (Lucky Charms for Sissy and Apple-Cinnamon Cheerios mixed with regular Cheerios for me) and I missed bacon, and then Jasper just came up and asked me out. Then Brynn said she and all the other Mormons who are going to Snoball are going to meet at her house and have Chinese food before the dance. The problem is that I already agreed to help J and Rach get ready at J’s house. I don’t know what to do: I told Jasper I’ll let him know where to meet. Jasper’s a junior, so he doesn’t have lunch with me. He probably doesn’t know that I’m hanging out with all non-Mormons.
10:00 a.m., 3ª clase, biología
El señor Tripp acaba de mandarme que cambie de clase de español para el semestre que viene. Él me dijo, “Tu origen hispana te ha preparado para clases más avanzadas en español.” Le dije que no tengo ni una gota de sangre hispano (yo lo sé porque soy mormona y he visto mi historia familiar), es que estoy bronceada un poquito. ¡Pero soy rubia! ¡Y todavía hablo bien gringo! A él no le importa. Esto posiblemente va a cambiar todo mi horario. ¡Y acabo de encontrar la ruta mejor a todas mis clases!
Ay. Español dos debe de ser lo mismo en todas partes.
2:26 p.m.
Okay, so at lunch I told everyone that Jasper asked me to the dance. It’s a little weird first of all because it’s a girls’-choice dance. Then I had to explain that he was in seminary and calculus with me, which brought out two weird things about me: math and Mormonism. I’m not sure how I expected them to react, I mean, a lot of the Prune Hill “pod people” they’re always bashing are Mormon, plus not all of the group is especially academically motivated. But they didn’t seem to think it was weird at all. A lot of my friends in Encinitas thought it was weird that I was so smart, and they were mostly type-A Mormons at the Academy. I guess the operative phrase here is “whatever floats your boat.” Piercings? Religion? Drugs? Smartness? Whatever.
January 25, 7:59 p.m.
Oh, my gosh, it was sooooo hard to wake up for church today. I didn’t even shower—I just went all smelly with greasy hair. I’m beginning to realize why Stephenie Meyer’s vampires like Washington so much: it is always dark! Since there isn’t much difference between night and day, it’s hard to keep with the whole awake-in-the-day, asleep-in-the-night thing.
I’ve got to talk about the shopping trip! Well, first of all it I had to take Sissy with me. Aunt Sherry went to this teachers’ conference in Longview, and Sissy was all, “You can’t leave me here all day!” Which is dumb. I mean, she’s almost fourteen, it’s not like she can’t be by herself ever. So I told her that she could go as long as she had her mouth zipped the whole time. And it was embarrassing when Britney’s boyfriend Jason drove up in his pickup (J and Britney were already with him) because it only had five seatbelts—three along the bench seat and two of those super-uncomfortable sideways chairs in the back. When we got to Rachel’s house (she lives a few blocks down), I gave my sideways seat to Sissy and just sat on the floor between Sissy and J. There was absolutely no more room! Anyway it was really bouncy getting to Portland. We crossed a different bridge this time—it was big and green with all this metal above you. J says it’s a drawbridge. Portland has a lot more crazy bridges, and I started to get a little carsick because we were taking all these turns and it was so bouncy and I was down on the floor looking up out of the windows. Luckily I didn’t throw up or anything.
Anyway, Jason dropped us off on an insanely narrow crowded street. All these people were hurrying around. There were neon signs everywhere. We went to so many stores! Some of them were vintage or consignment shops, some upscale thrift stores, and some other ones had new clothes. I saw a ton of white people with long colored dreadlocks. Wow, I just don’t think I can describe the city’s vibe well enough.
So in the end I found this shiny emerald green sheath with gold lace around the middle. I still have the gold shrug I wore to homecoming, so it’ll be modest. The dress only cost $25 because it was used. $25! (Oh, did I mention Aunt Sherry gave me $50 to buy a dress? It was nice of her, but that’s not very much.) Britney bought a fluffy strapless dress made of gold tulle at this store that’s super-trendy about everything. Rachel got the best deal—$10 for a purple slip dress with diagonal green tiger stripes. The weirdest outfit was definitely J’s though: she bought a fitted black pantsuit and some Mardi Gras spray glitter (green, gold, and purple) that she’s going to spray all over it. She said she was inspired by Susan Sarandon’s daughter in Saved! when she goes to the prom with McCully Culkin. “As long as we’re going as a couple,” J told Britney, “one of us might as well wear the pants.” Britney just laughed. That’s so weird, but it’s also kinda funny at the same time. On the way home as I bounced against her legs, J told me that she and Britney are partly going together so that people will have something to talk about for the next couple months. So that’s it! And I thought J was so ambivalent that she’d never care if anyone noticed her!
Sissy behaved herself pretty well. When we went to get ice cream, her scoop of cookie dough fell off the cone onto on Rachel’s shoe, but Rachel was really nice about it. It wiped right off since Rachel’s shoes are patent leather combat boots. I was so embarrassed, though.
9:07 p.m.
Oh, my gosh! I am going to kill Sissy! She was talking to Mom while I was writing in my journal, and then she handed the phone to me, and Mom said that Sissy said that I’m hanging out with “a bad crowd” who swear and do drugs and have sex all the time. She even told Mom that Britney and J were lesbian girlfriends, as if Jason didn’t exist or anything! None of that stuff even happened—she just said it because J and Rachel dress emo and have piercings, like that’s a crime. She doesn’t even understand that half the people in Washington are emo! Are they all on drugs?! OH, MY GOSH! And then Mom went on and on for AN HOUR about bad influences and how she’s so sorry she can’t be here to protect me and then Mom started crying and bearing her testimony and it was SO embarrassing! So now I’m crying too. It’s so unfair! She just believed Sissy and didn’t even listen to my side of the story! She could have at least listened!
I screamed at Sissy forever, but she just started bawling. I guess she didn’t like going to Portland or something, which is dumb because she didn’t have to go! I’m not going to speak to Sissy or take her anywhere with me for the rest of my life! Ahhhhh! I’m going to sleep on the couch after Aunt Sherry goes to bed so I don’t have to look at her anymore.
January 26, 1:55 p.m. No school!
I still haven’t spoken to Sissy.
Okay, so this morning I was going to write on my world history paper. (I think I’m going to compare and contrast Western and Eastern feudalism.) But when I got on the computer, I discovered that Julian added me as a friend! He must just have a super-private facebook account. So I spent an hour making sure my profile was up-to-date and that I had a witty status. It’s dumb, I know, but I just can’t help myself. Instead of a photo, he had a self-portrait in conté crayon. It’s really good. (I may or may not have saved the file in My Pictures because it was so pretty. His black eyes just burned into you.) He really doesn’t have much on his facebook—no groups or apps and not many friends—so he’s probably one of those people who just has a facebook because people kept bugging him about it. His status hasn’t been updated. Anyway, I put “Liza Jensen thinks feudalism has a bum rap” as my status. Hey, it’s what’s on my mind.
Oh, I forgot to mention the funny thing that happened on Saturday. Lately I’ve been thinking about how nice it would be to have a job (well, to have the money from a job), so I asked my friends what they did for money.
J said she had the parental support thing going on, not that it’s her fault or anything. Rachel said she’s been applying everywhere and no one will take her. Chase gave her money for a dress ’cause he works at his uncle’s auto shop. Then Britney said, “I sell eggs.”
I was so shocked and I didn’t really know what to say, so after thinking about it I said, “Well, I guess you’ve got like four hundred. You don’t really need all of them.”
Everyone stopped talking and just stared at me for a minute straight. Then J started to laugh. (She even laughs pretty, like a tinkling little bell—that’s just not right.) Rachel and Britney figured it out soon after and started laughing too. Britney’s face got all red she was laughing so hard! Finally she gasped, “Liza, I have (laugh) chickens!” She collapsed on my shoulder laughing.
So now Britney’s status says, “Britney Mathis sells her eggs!” Oh, man, I am so dumb sometimes.
7:23 p.m.
Top Ten Evil Vampires (in no particular order)
• Count Dracula—Dracula
• Lestat—Vampire Chronicles
• Bishop—Morganville Vampires
• Angelus—Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
• Bo—Sunshine
• Carmilla/Mircalla—Carmilla
• Aro—Twilight
• Lord Ruthven—The Vampyre
• Queen Akasha—Queen of the Damned
• Fallon Nuit—Minion
January 28, 1:10 p.m., 6th period, photography
We’re supposed to be doing a final right now, but our photography final was just a project which I’m excused from because I came in too late. So basically I’m just going to get the grade that was on my San Dieguito transcript. We’re watching Holes instead. No wonder my mom wouldn’t let me see it when it came out! Okay, movies with child abuse are not funny! They’re not even thought-provoking. They just suck. Oh, great, there’s racist hate crimes too! Why on earth was this rated PG?
Today Julian and I had lunch together again. The table we (well, not Julian) usually sit at was taken, so he and I went outside and ate on a bench under an overhang. It was pretty warm for Washington—46—but I was still kinda cold. I was rubbing my hands together between bites of my cheese sandwich. I asked Julian who he usually sits with at lunch since our group all have B lunch, and he says that he usually draws in the art room or reads in the library. That’s kinda weird, actually. He’s basically the hottest guy in the whole school—probably in the whole state, since Edward’s fictional—yet he doesn’t have a lunch group? Come on!
I asked Julian what he was currently reading, and he said, “Oh, just some book for book freaks.”
“So what’s it called?” I pushed, all sassy and hair-flippy.
He rolled his eyes and sighed and looked down at me all world-weary, “It’s called The Well of Lost Plots. It’s the—”
“—third in the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde with two fs and an e at the end!” I finished.
Julian blinked and then smiled. Did I mention his smile is a sunbreak that lights up his whole face? Well, it is. I could read by his smile in a dark room.
“I had them all in California,” I told him, “plus the Nursery Crime Stories. They’re in storage now.”
“Yeah, I’ve just gotten into them,” Julian said. He looked down at his hands. “The title of the first one always put me off—I thought The Eyre Affair was like one of those Jane Austen fan-fiction atrocities except with Charlotte Brontë.”
“Oh, my gosh, it’s like, get your own ideas already!” I added, giggling uncontrollably. (I know, I suck.)
He was quiet for three seconds, and then he laughed. He laughs silently with his white, straight, large-in-a-good-way teeth (yet they aren’t at all gummy like people’s teeth are when they’ve had major braces) open and his shoulders shaking and his eyes and nose wrinkled up. Finally he leaned back and sighed. He stared at the water dripping from the edge of the overhang. “I’m glad you moved here, Eliza,” he told the droplets. Then he got all serious—“You’re cold. Let’s go inside.”
The bell rang, and he was gone.
So now I’ve got a big problem because I’m getting these heart-racing insanity feelings, and those feelings are telling me that Julian likes me. But he’s never even touched me—not even accidentally brushed my shoulder or arm or anything, so maybe I’m just getting hormonal revelation. I mean, I knew for sure that Trystin liked me because he was always making excuses to get close to me, like that time we had an archery activity for YM/YW. (So embarrassing in retrospect.) So basically I’m just so obsessed with Julian that I’m fooling myself into thinking he’s sending me I-like-you vibes. That’s pathetic. Maybe I should just avoid him from now on until I get over it or something. Concentrating on other things is getting a little difficult.
9:31 p.m.
At Young Women today we talked about journals and then we sewed these completely impractical notebooks from lumpy handmade paper. Sister Rasmussen said that in heaven the angels will quote from our journals just like we quote from Nephi’s and Abraham’s journals. Just a guess: no angels are gonna read from this journal.
January 30, 1:25 p.m.
Got out of history early and I’m waiting for the bus. Got out of class early and I’m waiting for an hour. Listenin’ to my iPod and writing in here so I don’t look like a loser. Thinkin’ about how Stephenie Meyer is a genius for introducing me to Muse. Wantin’ to be in a black hole instead of here on the floor in the sophomore hallway. Bored. Bored. Bored. Oh, good, Lee finally finished his final.
January 31, 5:00 p.m.
J’s in the bathroom right now dying Rachel’s hair purple. (I guess Rachel and Chase change their hair color at least once a month.) The smell of the bleach was getting to me though, so now I’m just sitting on J’s enormous curtain-hung bed. Britney’s in the hallway on the phone with her boyfriend. He doesn’t like Julian or something, and I guess he just figured out that J is Julian’s sister and he thinks Britney going with J is a cover for her going with Julian. So now she’s trying to reassure him. Geez, it’s complicated.
J has some pretty amazing music. Right now her iPod stereo’s playing all these
But guess who showed up? That Virginia girl who came to our movie night! Apparently, Hayes Freedom students go to Camas dances, so she asked Julian. I mean, I knew Mary had asked Lee, but for some reason I never suspected that Virginia would have come too!
She just came in here to hang up her dress, but I’m hiding behind the bed curtains. She already did her hair—wow, her hair’s almost Ariel’s color and long and curled. Oh, my gosh, she’s going to wear emerald green! No! Her dress looks much more sophisticated too—silky, halter, with a low V-neck that cinches just above her bellybutton with this awesome vintagey gold clasp. The back goes way down, which will show off her long, lean profile. And I’ll just look a little girl at her grandma’s garden party with my little sheath and shrug! At least Jasper and I are going to join the Mormon group at Brynn’s at seven; I won’t have to spend all night with Virginia wearing the sexy version of my outfit.
Oh, there’s Mary.
7:35 p.m.
I’m in Brynn’s bathroom because I had to get away for a sec. Everyone here’s got all these stories and inside jokes, and they’re all saying, “Remember when we went to Cottonwood Beach last summer?” and “Randy called me last night,—know what he said?” It’s just awkward.
Jasper came to get me at 6:45, so I had put on my dress, but I hadn’t done my hair yet. J, Britney, Rachel, Mary, and Virginia had all been wandering around in their underwear in J’s room, and it was distracting. I mean, not really in a sexual way—I’m just not used to see other girls so . . . open about their bodies. Anyway, the door rang and Britney was zipping me up. I pulled on my shrug and ran into the foyer.
“When Liza said you lived in the Leadbetter Mansion, I didn’t really believe her,” Jasper was telling Julian. Oh, my gosh—Julian. He was wearing this really fitted dark, dark green checked (some fancy kind of check) vest and pants, a light green shirt, and a tie with wide forest-green and cream stripes. I think he had a jacket that matched the vest and pants, but he wasn’t wearing it.
“Hi, Jasper,” I squeaked. Jasper only wore a black shirt and black slacks with a silver tie.
“Hey, Liza,” Jasper looked Julian up and down and frowned, “you ready?”
“Almost,” I answered, trying to find my green heels under the living room couch. My nylons slipped on the waxy wood floor, and I yelped. Jasper came over to help me look.
J picked that moment to come out of her bedroom. She was wearing the glittery pants from her pantsuit and a black pleather corset. Her boobs were everywhere! Jasper’s eyes were going to POP out of his head. “Jules, have you seen my drugs?” she called as she wandered into the kitchen.
“You’re out, Jackie,” Julian called back. “We’re going to Dr. Sogn on Monday, remember?”
J shouted fourteen distinct swear words in a row.
I had found my shoes, but my hair was still all big and gross. “Just a moment,” I told Jasper.
He stopped me from reentering J’s room, but not before he saw the tail end of Virginia slipping her dress over her head when Britney opened the door—“Liza, shouldn’t we better just go?”
“Well, I guess I don’t have to do my hair,” I conceded, sliding on my shoes. (I have my fold-up brush in my purse, so I figured I’d just brush it in the car.)
“You’re leaving?” Britney realized. “I was going to put your hair up for you.”
I had already stepped up to the entryway. “I’m just going to wear it down,” I shrugged.
“Wait, Eliza, let me see,” Julian suddenly appeared beside me. He reached out (our heads were even because I was on the step), twirled my hair around, and gathered it all at the base of my skull. “You look stunning with your hair off your neck,” he told me, and then he let go and my hair dropped like a curtain back over my shoulders. I still have red marks where his fingers brushed my skin. That’s weird, right? His hands were cool, but he burned me. I hope he couldn’t feel my jugular throbbing—my heart was going nuts! I couldn’t even look him in the eyes. Seriously, I thought I was going to scream or faint or moan or die or something.
So then of course I had to let Britney do my hair. She braided it around both sides of my head and then put it in a bun at the nape of my neck. I looked like an old-fashioned lady in one of those 1860s paintings. I guess Virginia saw or heard something because suddenly she was gathering her gorgeous hair into a ponytail. She had totally planned on wearing it down before. Jasper sat in the living room and made awkward conversation with Chase and Britney. Then he spent the whole drive over here making sideways comments about how he’s always thought his sister (she’s at BYU) looks better with her hair down and how he hoped all the food wouldn’t be gone at Brynn’s. (There’s still plenty, but I’m afraid of dropping sweet-and-sour pork on my dress.)
Oh, shoot. I’ve been in here writing way longer than I meant to be.
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