thoughts from a car, trip 3, installment 1

I promised my grandma that I’d take my move in Words With Friends whenever I had Internet, and it’s beginning now. She hasn’t yet figured out that I cheat relentlessly.

BIDED, 16 points

These are the nice grandparents who aren’t conservative and live on the outskirts of a village in Upstate New York that has about 450 people, including all of the farmers on the surrounding highways. They’ve lived here for over fifty years, and will stay until they die. Rarely do new people arrive; even more rarely does anyone leave. If you are born there, you will probably die there.

My mom and all her siblings managed to leave.

The cousins that we saw live in New Hampshire. The way to their house goes through Max’s town; I looked it up on Google Maps. This is about the third time this weekend I’ve asked my mom when the next time we’ll see them is.

“Why are you so interested in going to see Billy and Donnie?”

i don’t know; i’m just curious

Someday she’ll know.

The town is almost ritualistic. There is one church that about a quarter of the town attends, and is the center of social life. If the church is having a pasta dinner, you will be eating pasta. If there’s a peace pole ceremony, you’ll be at that peace pole. My grandma is in the choir. You can see her age as you go along the row of choir pictures from 1958 on. She has her set group of friends that she plays Scrabble with every other Tuesday.

My grandpa and about ten other men religiously attend the diner at 7 AM every morning, which was at first in one location until they migrated due to coffee being $0.05 lower at Tam’s, which closed down last year and was replaced in the same building by Cindy’s, with no changes except for the removal of Eggs Benedict from the menu and getting rid of all the dirt and the Mike and Ike’s machine. They don’t like the artificial maple syrup provided, so they bring their own and keep it stored in the fridge in the back, labeled by name.

I read McGhee some of the riddles on the placemats this morning.

What’s the smallest planet?

Pluto.

“But Pluto isn’t a planet!”

What’s the difference between a tree and a bush?

Trucks.

“Trunks?”

No, trucks. T-R-U-C-K-S.

How many people get bitten by dragonflies every year?
The coyote.

“What does that even mean?”

It hit me last night that I am not going to get to see him again before the end of this year, or probably the most of next year, and so much is going to change in such a small amount of time if her mom even says a word that it is painful to think about.

I offered Gabe half my soul and an entire cake if he’d bring me to his town, since Gabe’s the only friend who can drive and won’t ask questions. He hasn’t responded yet.

Love is patient; love is kind. Love has so many flaws.

I dreamed he was here and then woke up and cried.

The cousins just passed us on the highway. I didn’t notice at first. My aunt started waving from the side window and for some reason I looked up. She has double G boobs that everyone makes fun of her over and the same wide hips and thighs that I was cursed with, along with no one in this family of sticks with fast metabolisms.

If I had her as a mother, I think it would be quite a bit easier, but then I remember that that uncle is a lobster fisher and quickly take it back.

I have my aunt’s waist (which must’ve come from somewhere further back) and my conservative grandma’s eyes (the only brown ones other than hers in the family) and my great grandma’s skin (oily to death) and my dad’s feet (too large) and teeth that are made up of the worst genes from every family member and smashed together (five extra and extraordinary overbite and ridiculous spacing and far too large and a pain to deal with).

No one knows where I got my hair from. It’s the only thing that is just for me. I suspect the milkman.

Mom, whose hair do i have?

“It’s like mine.”

But yours is light brown and straight.

The entire point of giving me this computer was so that it could charge and I could use it outside of my room, but the only main thing that changed was that I started taking more selfies.

There is one world with a girl named Diamond who gets into Salem Witches’ Institute and another where a pixie girl in the underground world is in training to be her culture’s form of a professional kayaker but their province rarely gets rain and another where the horse gets stolen and I want to write them all but I don’t know where to begin.

Max and I were going to do a collab thing called Remembering Game which just turned into his for lack of a better name because the idea was his and only he could really write it and he will deny it until he dies but his prose is so much better than mine.

One down, two to go.

One down, two to go.

I can’t even imagine how nice it must be to have friends with benefits.

Last night on the phone he told me that it sucks having three friends when he barely knows one, the second is back and forth, and the third lives 200 miles away, and I almost asked what about Jason what about April what about Caroline and Emma but I realized there was no point because he’d get mad and give me the only response he ever does when I ask that.

Most of my friends here are roughly at Caroline and Emma level; I wouldn’t trust them with much and they only think they know me. Honestly, the person at my school who knows the most about me is Erik, and that is by no means a good thing.

There is the off chance that I am going to a New Year’s Eve party this year and I am much excited such wow level excited, but at the same time afrad because if Laura doesn’t go I don’t know what I’ll do, seeing as I can’t work myself into conversations alone and nobody else cares enough to help me try.

She has just as much shit that she’s hiding as anyone else and I am starting to see it and it is so odd; she seemed like one of the most upbeat people for the longest time.

3 hours 8 minutes of battery remaining. 5 hours 8 minutes of car ride left to go. I want to play Solitaire but I don’t think it’s on this computer. Huge surprise, it’s not.

I want to talk to Max but he’s doing the smart math thing and I don’t have internet anyway.

Then again, I almost always want to talk to Max.

The collar did the job, he wrote, which did not help how much I want to see him.

We just passed the sign for MASS TURNPIKE EXIT 21A BOSTON and I winced.

I asked my mom as a joke if we could take it and she asked why.

Max.

“Very funny.”
She doesn’t realize I’m dead serious.

We went to a rest stop and got Combos (for everyone else) and Starbucks (for me, assuming that I paid for it myself) and there was a boy with red hair who wasn’t him and long distance relationships are indescribably awful but he is indescribably brilliant.
I am afraid I’ll slap the next person who tells me they know how I feel.

Mariella asked me who the girl is and I told her and I think she is confused.

Freddi is getting into a long distance relationship and I told her to run while she still can.

Everything is hurt and if he was here he’d be sitting next to me.

My mom is currently on the wifi and she won’t let me on. Fuck you too, Mom.

I have been typing up poems for a secret document and I realized what was meant in The Falls of Love and it sort of slapped me very quickly and very fast.

3 hours 30 minutes left in the car two hours 30 minutes left of battery life.

I am staring at myself in the front mirror and my eyebrows are sort of scaring me and I have no idea what he even sees.

My bangs naturally come over my right eye no matter how hard I try to get them out.

I don’t even know how Jairo sees. Apparently the Latin teacher spent half a class period trying to get his hair out of his eyes for him and it Would Not Move. James and I joke that he and Charlie communicate through scene kid signals being emitted from their bangs.

Mom can i have five minutes of wifi

“You can have three.”

Hell fucking yes