thoughts from a car (written in a car)

We went to a rest stop about twenty minutes ago. I recognized it immediately, which is sort of sad, but I’ve been on this highway so many times that I know each individual rest stop on the New York State portion. They are so much nicer than the ones in New Jersey.

This was the one where you walk in and there is a Starbucks immediately to your right and a small CVS like place immediately to your left, and there is a lady selling yogurts straight ahead and a deli-like pizza place and a Roy Rogers with really shitty burgers lining the right side. I don’t know if that is every Roy Rogers or just that particular Roy Rogers, because I only get fast food in the rest stops and that is the only one with a Roy Rogers. Their burgers are dry and they use really awful cheese that isn’t even cheese and it is generally an unpleasant experience to go there.

I got a Salted Caramel Mocha from the Starbucks and a yogurt thing and this coconut bar from the lady who sells yogurts, and the Starbucks people seemed irritated but the yogurt lady told me “it’s lovely to see you again!” and “are you going to your grandmother’s again?” and “god bless you, dear!” with a smile on her face, and I have maybe talked to her once in my life about two years ago but she still remembers me and my sister.

On the way out I noticed that there was music playing in the background of the CVS so I stood on my toes and strained my ears to hear it. It was Iris. I stopped dead in my tracks and my mom stared at me, so I kept walking.

And I don’t want the whole world to see me

‘Cause I don’t think that they’d understand

When everything’s meant to be broken

I just want you to know who I am

I made myself keep walking before I broke down crying.

McGhee is currently reading a copy of People magazine that claims Adam Young to be the “Sexiest Man Alive!!!” with three exclamation points. There is a section on how Rainbow Loom was banned in some schools in Idaho because it was a distraction to students, which was not shocking in the slightest to me, but McGhee was horrified. “You remember Silly Bands?”

“Yeah?”
“Mr, Wolff banned them when I was in fifth grade. Ask him about it.”

Her entire face fell. “Would he really do something like that?”
“Well, they were a distraction. He didn’t have another choice. No one was learning anything.” It was actually because Alex McCarthy threatened to stab Alex Hauser if he didn’t hand over a snowman Silly Band, but I didn’t tell her that. It wasn’t an important asset. “Ask him about it.”
“I will!” she chirped, and moved on to asking about Britney Spears and what a custody hearing is.

Marshall is asking my mom if he can play an “educational” game on her iPad, when everyone in this car knows perfectly well he’ll just play Angry Birds. Still, she goes along with it, and asks him what kind of educational game he wishes to play.

“I don’t know. Math? Science? Physics?”

I stifle a laugh and so does McGhee, who saw how much… fun my dad had when he was getting his teaching certification in it, and who has heard bits about how Max is dealing with it. There is no educational game that an eight year old with the attention span of a very small dog can play to learn about physics. My mom glances at the three of us and sighs before handing over the iPad so that he’ll just shut up and she can go back to work.

I very desperately want to get to the Land of Cows and Cows right now, but my brother is behind me and my sister is to my right, and they’ll both be able to see if I’m on Minecraft, which is Not Supposed To Be On My Computer At All. Then again, I’m not supposed to have Tumblr or Youtube or a blog, even if it is a looseleaf blog with a whopping two posts.

I finally gave in and ate the coconut bar from the yogurt lady, and it is highly disappointing but still nutrients.

When I told Erik about how badly I needed Lapis Lazuli and how I was pissed when I hit diamond instead, he laughed and it was the best feeling to see. He doesn’t smile anymore, except when I’m irritated over something stupid.

The only real perk I can find with the diamonds is now I can make a diamond pick and start making obsidian blocks with the lava from the random as fuck lava pool and water from the irrigation system I’m setting up that’s going to make me able to grow wheat and melons and breed multicolored sheep and have the cow products wash into a pool when I kill the cows. I have this fabulous vision for it, and I can’t wait to start it when I get back all the wood stacks I lost when that creeper blew up in my face.

My mom is talking about how she goes on Urban Dictionary to look up all the words she reads in my texts when she regularly goes through my phone, and I am so happy that you don’t have texting right now because that would not have turned out well at all. The only thing I’m confused about is what she even needs Urban Dictionary for. Almost all my texts are just Miles ridiculously misspelling my name and me calling him a hoe and telling him to go to sleep.

On the other hand, it is very good that she doesn’t check my phone calls. “12:19 AM? What were you doing? Why are almost all your calls from Max?” She’ll figure it out in time.

If she’s going through my texts, then she also knows that he’s my phone background and she’s probably checked his contact information and seen what’s there. Yeah, she probably knows perfectly well by now.

Russell is half pissed because I don’t shut up about him and half pissed because I’m in a relationship and he is not when he’s two years older than me, but there’s always the exchange student that he’s trying to bag. “Gustav! I want him up my ass so bad!” The really sad thing is that no one even questions it anymore. We’re all so used to his gay level being sky high.

My sister and I are eating crackers with goat cheese and cranberries and they are delicious but it is only half registering because I reread the part in The Amber Spyglass where Lyra has to leave Pan behind, and I realized that that really was last Saturday for us. He was Lyra and I was Pan and I had to stay on the shore as he went off, and there were muttered reassurances of how we’d see each other soon when neither of us completely believed it.

I ran out of my headache pills yesterday and my dad called them into the pharmacy this morning so they won’t be ready to pick up until Saturday morning, but of course we’ll be in Vermont by then, which means I am going three days without taking them which is not good for anyone.

He is probably in the middle of competing right now, since it goes from 5:30 to 8:30, and after this one he is 100% qualified to go to regionals and if he is in the top seven there he comes to New Jersey for divisionals for a weekend which means seeing him, because I will get Gabe Kaufman to drive me to Upper Saddle River if it becomes necessary.

My computer battery level is down to 69% and I am only mildly amused.

We’ve gotten to the point in the evening where McGhee and Marshall go into rage bitch mode, and they are screaming at everyone about how awful everything is. McGhee wants to know where my flashlight is (she took it about four months ago) and Marshall wants to know why McGhee is yelling (it is completely obvious) and everyone is just so loud.

They have a piano at their house but it is awful and the Bb key gets stuck very frequently.

My sister is using my phone as a flashlight and she noticed the background. “Is that the guy you met? On your phone?”
“Yes.”

You’ll meet him soon, I hope, I think, but I don’t say it out loud out of fear of jinxing everything.

We stopped at another rest station and my sister immediately went, “Oh, I know this one!” and we did. It was the one that we went to on the way to Green Mountain Suzuki Institute the first year we went, which was my third Suzuki camp and her second and Marshall’s first. I got put in groups with kids older than me who had no interest in a 12-year-old, and I was still more advanced than all but three of them. McGhee refused to talk to anyone besides a girl named Claudia Derryberry, who she still talks to. Marshall broke things.

The vending machines have changed since then. It used to be just soda and snack foods, but now they’ve added one that has healthier alternatives like Milk! and Decaf Iced Coffee! and Salad!!! with all three exclamation points. It is still really nice on the inside but ratchet on the outside, and there’s still a mirror on the ceiling away from the actual bathrooms. It’s sort of disappointing. There is also a nature trail that we went on last time, but since it is pitch black dark out, we didn’t even bother.

McGhee found a legitimate flashlight and I am going to call him as soon as it hits 8:30 in 58 minutes from now because otherwise I doubt I’ll be able to talk to him today. The Snells are French and very loving and want to know if I have a boy yet every time I see them. I didn’t tell them about Isaac and I don’t think I’m going to tell them about Max.

I saw Isaac on the way home today and we walked for two blocks before my dad got me.

“Who are you?”
“I don’t know, who are you?”

“Why are you following me, stranger? And who are you?”
“I’m walking this way, too. My name is Charlotte. I went to MMS.”
He smiled in his Isaac way and I suddenly remembered last winter and the math competition and how lovely that entire day was.

“You’re such a whore.”

“Um, excuse me, but I prefer slut.”

“Whore.”

“Slut is so much nicer. Whore’s an insult.”

“Slore. Slut and whore. Is that better, you little cunt?”

“No, I’m just a slut.”

His hair’s gotten longer since the last time I talked to him (in June).

“It’s Friday.”

“What’s so great about Friday?”

“This is the first time I’ve walked home in a week.”

“You don’t usually?”
“Yeah, I have robotics every day after school from Monday to Thursday.”
“Are you on the shit team or JV?”

“Freshman is so much better than JV. JV doesn’t even have a robot.”
“Are you coding or building?”

“Programming. I sort of didn’t help at all with building the actual robot, and Julian Gouin got really pissed off, but now he likes me again because I can code.”

My dad yelled for me and I turned to him.

“I have to go now.”
“Okay, I don’t know you again.”

I doubt I’ll talk to him again for a few more months.

Today in bio we had a lab day, which meant a double period, which meant we spent 90 minutes working on a lab. I’d guess that 60 of those minutes were counting out rice.

I didn’t finish my double entry journals that were due ninth, so I told James and he said that he’d just do the lab himself so that I could work, and he’d give me his data. That child is a saint. Mr. Nugent came up to us a few times and even asked me what book I was reading, but he didn’t care, because he knows that we both already understand all the concepts. There were three other people in the class working on the same assignment anyway.

There was one ten-minute period where I took a break and James said all chipperly, “Next week is Thanksgiving!”

“Yeah, I get to spend all day in the kitchen.”
“I get to build.”
“Robotics?”

He grinned and went back to counting rice.