I went Psycho Killer all over his guitar. (23)

Down here in good ol’ Bedford, Indiana the high school has been preparing for a rock concert, BEDROCKATHON!, performed by musicians within the student body .

Last year the theme was the Beatles.

I sang A Day in the Life in 6 inch gold glitter heels while the boys in the pit tried to look up my dress.

This year the theme is the 70s and I am:

Singing Lead on: Black dog-Led Zeppelin, School’s Out- Alice Cooper, Cherry Bomb- the Runaways

Playing lead guitar on: Cherry Bomb-the Runaways

Lead Bass on: Psycho Killer- the Talking Heads

Back-up vocals on: My Sweet Lord, In the Street, and a couple Neil Young songs.

I don’t know what happened. It’s like I like music or something.

Weird.

(An echo from the back, “A girl wins a talent show and suddenly it’s diva central…”)

So I  borrowed a guy’s royal blue electric Ibanez yesterday at practice (I’d left my Samick at home) and was running through Cherry Bomb with Becca the bassist and our drummer. We’d played it maybe 4 times when I look down and lo and behold-

The guy’s guitar is covered in blood.

I finished the song, and looked around and discovered- awesome- that while playing Cherry that day, I’d gotten a blood blister on my index finger of my strumming hand and it had busted. That and the shredded cuticle, the steel strings were red.

The guy was right there, but hadn’t noticed.

“Hey man, I’m sorry. I got blood on your guitar, but I’ll go clean it off.”

“What? You got blood on my guitar?”

“All over it.”

“…”

“I’m going to go clean it off. Sorry…”, I marched off to the bathroom, got a damp paper towel, wiped it off, cleaned off my now-not bleeding finger and went back. I choked back on the pick, and we ran through it again.

And again.

And again.

It got to where after every time I just grabbed the wad of paper towel, swiped it over the strings and pickup and kept going.

Garrett, always the gentleman and makeshift mic stand, held the mic for me for one run through so the drummer could hear me over the noise. We were using a instrument mic ran through the bass amp and with Becca thumping away, there was no way that he could hear me. But you always make your drummer happy.

After wards I wondered by him talking to our friend Karlo, “The top strings were just like…coated in blood.”

It might have been wrong, but my mentality was, blood comes off the steel and body easily, so no big deal. Once a guitar has blood on it, what’s blood to it?

…All blood is equal?

Garret watched me scrub the strings with the paper towels.

“Maybe you should like…stop?”

I laughed, ”Are you worried about my finger or the guitar?”

“You. Or both. Really both. More the guitar.”

After another time or two through I scrubbed the guitar, got it all off, gave the guitar back to its owner-who had assured it was no big deal, “Don’t worry about it”, as he had all through this endeavor.

I went into the next room to hangout and work on some vocals but everyonce in awhile I’d hear him.

“Ah! She got blood on the whammy bar!”

“Ah! She got blood on the body!”

“There’s blood on my pick...”

Every time I’d pop out, apologize, say I was sorry, offer to clean it off.

Every time he was fine, nbd bro, nbd.

“Nah, it’s really okay.”

When I got home, I checked my Facebook. He’d friend requested.

So here I am, friends with this boy who I got blood all over his guitar (or at least Facebook acquaintances), and tonight I have to try to convince him to be my drummer on another song.

Awesome.

Great way to start things.

I mean what an ice breaker, right? Just spread a little DNA around, get to know eachother on a molecular level- easy.

I was rehashing this to my father in Starbucks this morning on our weekly breakfast/visit and got to the “Ahthere’sbloodon-the whatever” bit, when he gave me a sharp look and shushed me over his black reading glasses.

I didn’t understand why so I kinda sat there with a look probably pretty close to a smacked puppy.

He glanced up and explained.

“People here to eat probably do not want to hear the word ‘blood’, with the word ‘Ah!’, as they are trying to eat their breakfasts.”

Great Big Poppy. If strangers can’t stomach the word blood heard from across the room, how is the boy who’s gear I BLED ON going to be able to look me in the eyes long enough for me to beg him to drum for me, let alone hit on 2:41 song that I’m performing?

I’m not religious, but God has got to have one crazy sense of humor. He messes with me too much not to.

Either that or I am just a RIDICULOUS human being.

What, jerk? It’s friggin spring! (22)

It’s a freaking beautiful day.

I want to run outside, read on a porch swing, write some beautiful poetry (wait until you see how I personify the daisy!), I want to throw away every scarf I’ve ever knitted. I want to hug the mail man. I want to adopt 79 kittens and 65 golden retriever puppies for them to play with! I want…I want…

I want to CLIMB something!

Alright. Hold on. Let me catch my breath.

I don’t know when this good mood happened, or when spring started closing in. Surrounding me on all sides with short-shorts and neon flowers, the smell of sunscreen in the air, wanting to take a walk (trying suggesting that 2 months ago), etc. It really was ambush. I’m not entirely counting out that this could be because I started Eat Pray Love a few days ago (I’m still in Italy) but the evidence isn’t conclusive.

Suddenly I was turning the radio dial AWAY from the teenage-whine core and back to the oldies. I’m waving to people, laughing too loud Julia Roberts style, screaming “NO NO NO NO! SWERVE MAMA! Save the squirrel!!” with smacked puppy eyes waiting to see if it was squished.

It really is ridiculous. I’m seeing the world through rose colored lenses purchased at Urban Outfitters.

AND YOU KNOW WHAT?

It’s beautiful….

And to that, I say booyah. Booyah, groovy, tubular, stellar, spetacular, jive and copacetic.

Oh yes. You heard me.

Copacetic.

I’m not sure what to tell you, but Dear Reader, beware. I’m not entirely sure-don’t hold me accountable, but then again, when does anybody- but I’m beginning to think that atleast for this season, it is the end of frayed heartstring that, tortured artist this, Oh woe is me he played me like a broken banjo with a broken neck nonsense.

I think I’m going to try to be… This is so hard for me….

Op-ti-mis-tic. (A lady in the back pew faints.)

But let’s hope. And oh, goddamn, it’s about time.

How could I not be happy? I’m taking my gay best friend to prom in 2 weeks. If he can be gay about going to prom with a disgusting specimen such as a female, I CAN BE GAY TOO. (Oh I’m going to make him read that. He’ll hit me.)

(It’ll be worth it.)

(Unless he hits my face. I hate when he does that.)

(Maybe he’ll go for a kidney shot. He never gets the kidney shot.)

(Yeah. That’d be better.)

So seriously, go out! Eat some overpriced sushi on a students budget. Kiss a stranger and get slapped and sued. Tag a building and get arrested. Pick a flower and smell the now-dead thing. Adopt a puppy (though we all know that we ARE the terrible kind of people who stop loving them as much after 3 months. It happens.) Wear SPF 15 just for the fun of it since any SPF below 30 only gives minimal to no real protection from the sun.

Let’s get it done, people!

Ready? 1-2-3-

Freeze frame on all of jumping infront of a fountain.

Booyah.

They read too much Hemingway and take to drinking in an empty bathtub. (21)

I have a theory. A messed up little theory that’s smothered in the blood of a heartstring.

It’s illogical. It has no calling. It hasn’t been greatly researched, questioned, prodded poked and the holy of holy’s: PEER EDITED.

It’s been burning in my brain like a Bud Light neon in a smoky window for weeks (3, 4, 27, who knows) which is intolerably long for a teenager and not nearly long enough for someone of real worth. (READ; Implication: Teenagers are worthless. Said by a teenager! Treasonous! Blasphemous even! All God’s creatures…) It’s go time.

Everyone- but quick now. To read this and find it sound (as it is, trust) you must take this leap with me. GENERALIZE. Generalize. I am going to make a generalization. Ready? 1, 2, 3-

Everyone wants to be an artist. Specifically the show pony of artists- the Tortured Artist. If you need me to site material on this subject read Torture the Artist by Joey Goebel. A really terrific little piece of unbiased literature. You may be swayed.

Artists already creative but constantly feeling Uninspired and her twin sister Copied sneaking up behind them with a African ex-sex slave woven rope (we’re all so conscious) sexily tied up into a noose (we love suicide)-let’s make the rope red- need a way to prove that they are in fact so bursting with inwardly felt feelings and interesting interests and worthwhile pursuits get a bit desperate.

They read a bit too much Poe and turn to drinking and crying in public. They read a bit too much Kerouac and turn to drinking and driving around in a broken down car. They read some Hemingway and take to drinking in an empty bathtub, all alone (do not question me on this, it is just so).

Artists whether blessed with real pain or not (i.e. the abusive father, the evil school teacher, the disabled sibling,  the much coveted and boasted about alcoholic mother. Oh how we love the stories-) seek out pain.

To quote the great philosopher Gotye, “You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness.”

Oh yes, Gotye, do tell.

We seek it out. We want it. We talk in hushed tones about it with other artists though the stupid of us boast loudly and are scoffed at and shunned by the more blessedly punished.

Then we drink.

And look for unsuited lovers. We muse that Anastasia’s still out there somewhere, dying now, hooked up to an iron lung, unable to speak and tell her tale, regretful. SEX SEX SEX. Suicide.

We poke at dead flies on a windowsill with our pinky finger’s fingernail and muse things like, “Yeah brother, I know where you’re coming from.”

Consider the words beautifully broken. Taste ‘em. Sift them around a bit. Mull them over. Beat them to tar. If in a yearbook, the student Beautifully Broken would be voted Most Likely To: Be the byline in a tortured artist’s Myspace “About Me” (because to use Myspace is to be tortured).

My theory:

1. Everyone wants to be an artist. Specifically, a tortured artist.
2. As tortured artists, we look for ways to torture ourselves to create “inspiration”. Some consciously, others not. (Though really those of the “sub” category are just better at faking it than you or I.)
3. An unexplained point, but one quickly grasped: Artists must be liars. It’s in the list. It must be so. They must also sit in a coffee shop for obscene amounts of time. If pressed or in an urbanely unfortunate area Starbucks can be counted as a suitable. Rule of thumb: The closer the risk of food poisoning, the better. (If confused, go up two points, read over. Repeat. GRASP.)
4. There must be some sort of disease. Disease of the mind (alcoholism, depression, autism, bipolar, we’ll even count ADD), of the body (spinal meningitis, chronic migraines, a gimp leg, a bad cough, a lisp) or a disease of lust (hope for AIDS, its the most romantic and is easier to interject into a conversation than its lengthy third cousin, Chlamydia). If you can’t control it and it requires medication that makes you “numb”, you’ve arrived.

A conversation with a friend this week. We sit across from each other wearing winter coats indoors. Scarves too. Artists are always cold-

I, “Art isn’t about profit.”

He, “No, it’s about EXPRESSING yourself, who you ARE-“

I, “-YES YES YES. It’s your inner emotions-“

He, “I agree. It’s what you feel-“

I, “- And art is what you do when you can’t control it anymore and you can’t keep it in-“

He, “ Mhmm. Mhmm.”

I, “And you let it out. It’s necessity.”

He, “Yes.”

I, “Yes. Like a zit.”

He, “How’s your coffee?” [See point #3.]

I, “It’s great.” [See point #3.]

And the projector sputters and the film goes to flame. (Because it’s more dramatic to end this way.)

My heart has split ends. (20)

I lost my Valentine last night.

Small explosion, fire ball, puff of smoke, pffft.

Done. Gone really.

I’m not really upset that I’ll be alone (well, alone with my best friend Brian) on Valentine’s day. I’m calling this person (the puff of smoke) my Valentine because that’s the only title I can properly affix to him.

We weren’t dating. We weren’t talking. We weren’t in a relationship. That we were exclusive and cared for each other is actually what lead to our split.

I made him feel “weirded out” and “uncomfortable”. Well.

You don’t have to tell me twice. I never want to be that girl. The creepy lingering one ( you see her, over there? In the corner?) that just can’t quite get the hint of “we want you gone” that the group of I-want-to-be’s is sending across the room.

That’s not what happened here, the total-shun. No. More just a “Hey. I don’t want to be in a relationship. You get that we’re not in a relationship, right? I don’t think you get it.” (Paraphrased heavily)

It’s been got. I’m gone. Don’t tell me twice. Sorry to be an inconvenience to your sparkling life.

Frankly I’m embarrassed. He made me feel small, with what he said. Like a little kid.

Just sort of foolish. Because I did think there was something sort of real (“different”) going on here.

And there’s no real sympathy to be got in this. He was very upfront from the beginning. His hands and eyes lied when I suppose his mouth didn’t.

The main kicker is that I keep repeating in my head this phrase:

“You have a face like a pawn-shop guitar, I love you.”

I have no idea why it appeared or what it means to me yet. Its driving me insane.

My solution?

I’m not going to deal with it. I’m going to gloss pave patch steamroll over it and not think about it.

My coping mechanism will be to go to the hairdresser tonight and get a few inches lopped. That’s therapy, right, for chicks? I read somewhere one time that a break up is when women are most likely to change their hairstyle.

One problem. I’ve had this scheduled for weeks and have been planning on getting a new cut.

(Bangs, so exciting.)

Is it possible that my hair undermined my non-relationship? Is a haircut a self fulfilling prophecy?

Is it possible that I had the coping mechanism in place so that something to cope with had to present itself?

Any way you cut it my heart has split ends.

Now I just wish the dick would stop being nice to me… Ugh.

WFT, grammar wars. (19)

Facebook grammar wars. I’m pretty proud of this one. I have great friends.

Here’s the entire post. I broke the links, but other than that, its the same. The back story is that Brooke, for what ever reason that is irrationally rational in her teenage-girl mind, really despises me. I’ve never spoken to her beyond ‘Hello’, and she started a rumor that I was a lesbian wicken earlier this year.

When that happened all I thought was, “Atleast she was creative.”

So here we go:

Like  Comment  Unlike  Comment

Tag Photo

Click on the photo to start tagging. Done Tagging

Brennen E. I made this on Paint this morning. Taylor T., Tyler C., Brian R.and 3 others like this. Brooke  so does that mean your bisexual? Thursday at 4:04pm · Chris It’s probably fine :) haha   Thursday at 4:22pm · David The womens one should basically overlap tho haha  Thursday at 4:30pm · ·LIKE  2 Brennen E. Sorry Brooke, we can never be together. I’m a straight arrow. Try to take the joke. It’s not you, its me. Well, its a little of you too.   Thursday at 8:49pm · Brooke what, your not funny.  Thursday at 9:29pm · Chris You’re *   Thursday at 9:36pm · Brooke jerk   Thursday at 9:36pm · LIKE   1 Brooke I didnt mean that I liked you if that is what ‘you’re’ saying. WFT  Thursday at 10:32pm Brennen E.  *WTF  Friday at 7:12am LIKE ·  2 Brooke  you’re a ass  Friday at 4:13pm · Chris An* Sorry… I couldn’t resist!  Friday at 4:15pm · Brooke fuck you.  Friday at 4:16pm · Chris Well… That’s rude.  Friday at 4:18pm · Brooke no it is not fucker  Friday at 4:19pm · Brennen E. *one who fucks  5 hours ago ·Like ·  3  So that’s the way it went. Its not seeming to die so far. Not that I’m helping to let it. Sometimes I wish that I could just keep my mouth shut and my fingers still. And then I read back over things like these and think: “Ah. Screw it.”

A patriotic Lemon Face showsdown with L.A. Go Amreecah. (18)

I’m not patriotic. I’m lazy. And yesterday morning I was late.

I’m always late, but this time I was early-late. I usually waltz in a back door around 8:30-40 and go to class, avoiding hall monitors and the like. I was on the floor at 8:17. People were still milling around in the halls rushing to classes and I hadn’t missed the announcements completely. Early.

They came on. I kept plodding down the hall. I was tired, wearing my winter coat, 30 lb backpack, 2 purses and a coffee mug. I’m not a big morning person.

“Teachers and students please stand for a moment of silence followed by the pledge…”

I was standing. I was walking. Everyone kept walking. Then a sour looking teacher-woman rounded the corner. I tried to avoid eye contact. I kept plodding.

She stopped for the pledge.

I passed her. Then a shot rang out behind me.

“You all are already late, you might as well stop!”

I kept walking.

“Hey, seriously stop.”

I stopped.

A white-kid-from-the-hood up ahead, aptly called “L.A.” kept walking and cast a glance over his shoulder to Lemon Face.

Lemon Face, “Hey! Kid, you need to stop for the pledge.”

By now the pledge was playing. L.A. kept on walking.

“My teacher doesn’t care if I walk in late.”

“I don’t care!”

The kid kept on walking.

“STOP!”

The kid kept on walking.

Here was this woman, yelling down the hallway at a kid while the pledge was playing, and she couldn’t go after him because she was stopped.

I couldn’t hear the pledge because she was so loudly respecting it.

I think that’s an ironic situation. Go “Amreecah”.

I think this dog might be more patriotic than I am. I'm pretty cool with it. I couldn't pull off the bow-tie.

Go “Amreehcah.”

This seems to be the way it works. A reference point for Gay and Straight. (17)

Last night at Starbucks C., Becks, Brian and his boyfriend T. and I all met up. Conversation quickly turned to C.B., an ex of mine who came out of the closet earlier this week. We all got into this huge discussion about it, and what’s above is the conclusion I came to. (I made the graph up on Paint.)

There just seems to be an immense difference between bi boys and girls. For the most part (it seems to me) if a girl is bi she’s straight and experimenting, and if a boy is bi, he’s gay and straight curious. Maybe not a perfect equation…

While I was dating C., people would ask me if he was gay or bi. C. had asked me to say he was straight (he was bi at that time.) so I did, with my OWN flair. When people asked me, I would always reply:

“No, he’s straight. But when a guy has highlights and only shops at the Buckle, I could see why you would wonder.”     Man. You can’t write this stuff.

On a serious note, I do fully support anyone in any lifestyle choice they choose to make. It’s their life. I just don’t appreciate people who still coin the phrase “turned him gay.”

I amuse myself sometimes.

(People in this post:

Becks:  http://baphotographs.wordpress.com/

Brian:  http://funtimesinthebiblebelt.wordpress.com/ )

How I managed to flash a crowd, eat a fish eye, face plant and break my ex’s guitar. (16)

I have been a very busy girl.

No no, I have. While I’ve been away (in no particular order) I’ve:

1.Eaten a fish eye

2.Been elbowed in the sternum

3.Met two boys, both named Danny at a coffeeshop. Told them if they had a band they should name it the Kevins. They didn’t get it.

4.Disappointed someone by NOT peeing in a gutter

5.Assaulted a bus boy with a door.

6.Left the same knit cap in a car on four separate occasions

7.Stalked a drummer

8.Broken the pickup on my ex’s electric

9.Hazed another ex in class

10.Felt a strange affinity for a Campbell’s chicken noodle soup can.

11.Stolen some poor boy’s pants (Even I’m clueless on that one…)

12.Hugged a boy, turned around and been slapped by Brian. “Don’t you dare be somebody else’s fag hag!” He might have been kidding.

13.Been Shirley Temple’s double (with precisely 24 rollers)

14.Slept in two beds with four girls while being subjugated to a cacophony of prerecorded fake orgasms on someone’s phone ( Really? Just…really? Makayla Ro., I’m looking at you.)

15.Flashed an auditorium full of people (both tits). Not on purpose. Promise.

16.Been made no less than 16 Cd’s by a close friend who thinks my musical education is lacking (after listening, I cannot disagree)

17.Face planted

18.Helped my favorite teacher sop up spilled coffee of his desk and sent his zen garden toppling peace aura down onto the industrial carpet. Read: I am a failure.

19.Dodged a punch (Unrelated to the garden. Presumably.)

20.Nearly gotten a tattoo. (Oh wait. That was Becca…)

21.Blown off 10 AP EnviroSci projects.

22.Been hassled about Be Prude+Pompous.

23.Assaulted a classmate with a door.

24.Stepped on a cat. Now it won’t look me in the eye.

25.Loved a boy for his septum ring. Then he left the room. Becca, “Who was that?” Me, “Who the frick knows.”

26.Taken a 12 hour bus trip

27.Had Chai tea spilled all over a wool coat and seude shoes. My wool coat and seude shoes.

28.Been reunited with my Fossil purse that had been sitting behind the counter at Starbucks for 2 weeks.

29.Had to go back and pickup Fossil purse that had been left on the back of a chair in a Starbucks. Again.

30.Caught cold. Given cold. Had cold regifted back to me.

31.Skyped on accident with a brit named Reiss.

32.Left the house for the day and found out too late that the shirt goes completely sheer in daylight. Made a few friends on that outing.

33. A friend learned and surprised me by learning Cath… by Death Cab on acoustic becuase of one of the first conversations we had ever had. I’d told him it was my theme song.

34. Told Becca that I loved her, now go die in a gutter. She said okay. I stopped her. “Wait, I really don’t want to get my shoes wet this time of year.” She replied, “Mmmkay.” and we went back to life.

35. Ice skated on a side walk. And fell. Becca laughed. I had to scrub coffee out of my hair.

36. Been sent a picture of a friend gaging his ears with a taper candle and Vaseline. After praying that it didn’t awaken something in me, now I just really wish I could unsee it.

37. My ex C. came out of the closet. We all knew the whole time, ALL of us. So the boy liked Skittles, it happens. Everyone’s turned a boy gay once, right? Right? Hello? …oh no…

My life is a friggen sitcom.

Food for thought, Once you’ve eaten one eyeball, you’ve eaten them all. Believe you me.

Sigh.

 

Sometimes you've just got to laugh. If you don't laugh you die. I'm just going to skip over the cry bit, la di da...

 

B.S.ology and the Leech. (15)

 

The heavily opinionated will inherit the earth. They will tell you what kind of blue the skies are, the exact derision of the aroma of the flowers, and explain why the fertilizer on the other side is an unfair advantage for the greener grass that resides there.

The heavily opinionated also tend to be lecturers.
When I sit before lecturers in a conversation, a very curious thing happens. As they rebut my retorts and classify our conversation,  I can almost watch them sucking away my will to reply. They leech the conversation from others and drain information from everything around them. They sit, hungrily digesting the information in their bellies, waiting to attack the unsuspecting passerby, transfixing them in place before slithering over to them, to then begin sucking them dry of their will to socialize.
“Happens every day,” an eye-witness laments with a sad shake of their head, turning towards the cameras.
I have a horrible confession; We are all leeches. Every last one of us. Even myself. 

For example,  on Beatles trivia my sister is a force to be reckoned with. If a Beatles song pops on the radio, you switch it off lest she hear it and give you the where when how and who on it, with always a slander towards Yoko. Becks, a friend of mine, is an authority of photography. If shady $.25 Romance novels with yellowing pages come into the conversation play, I have a friend for that. Opera, Brian. How to heckle, (Mr.) Christopher Kupersmith. A  lecturer can be a useful thing, answering questions you couldn’t or didn’t know how to ask.

But when a lecturer gets a pretty mouth filled with rows and rows of sharp toothed multiple syllabled words, that, Dear Reader, is when the lecturer loses it’s beauty.

B.S.ology and the leech. A love story.

The term B.S. is, “ [when] used as an interjection, it protests the use of misleading, disingenuous, or false language.”*

What gives the lecturer the urge to B.S.? It could be survival. A competitive leaning to keep the edge and assert dominance over the conversation, rather than step aside and let the next in line slither up and take over. There’s a need to be the authority on the subject even when it outstretches the reaches of their own base of  knowledge.

According to Scott Berkun, best selling author and public speaker, one “reason people lie… [is that] we want to be seen as better than we see ourselves.”

A feeling of inadequacy, or needing to prove something, could spur a lecturer to turn to the attractive practice of B.S.ology. They embody false information to pass out to others, rather than seeking out the field that they are actually hungry for, self confidence and self worth.

Robin Lloyd, published author, divulges that “we find that as soon as people feel that their self-esteem is threatened, they immediately begin to lie at higher levels,”

Other times it is laziness that leads. Bright intellects, even brighter tongues, and a feeling of superiority gives them the feeling of knowing all they need to know on a subject, even when they have no preexisting knowledge on it beyond someone saying, “What do you think of [insert modern topic here]?”

Scott Berkun, again, explains that “if they got away with it when they were young (say, because they were smarter than their parents, their friends, and their parent’s friends) they’ve probably built an ego around being right, and will therefore defend their perfect record of invented righteousness to the death. ”

“Invented righteousness.” Apparently I need to meet this fellow.

Now here’s the problem, Dear Reader:

I have no conclusion or simple solution to tack onto the end of this article. I cannot provide you with an effective pesticide. I have no salt, just a sliver of insight as to why someone might come to use  B.S.ology as a crutch, rather than knowledge as a tool. With understanding comes forgiveness, right?

I from time to time, or more often than not honestly, rely on B.S.ology to make a point, entice a story, or get a better grade. With only a few clever quotes in between, I must admit that I relied on B.S. to fill the gaps in this article. (Are the quotes even real? Are her sources credible?)

A real question for you to me Dear Reader; 

How long until this epidemic reaches you?

Someone calls, “B.S.!” And the crowd goes silent.

*Definition cited from Wikipedia.

My friends are cows. (14)

I am sitting in a Starbucks. A table behind me, a little to my left and 2 chairs down a girl is still shoving 6′s into her ears.

“What size is that?”

“Ooowowow. Huh?”

“What size are you stretching to?”

“Uhm….2′s?” Twisting winding grinding the black spiral into her ear right ear.

“No, What size is that you’re doing there?”

“Oh! (Haha) 6′s.”

“Thanks. See Brian? That’s going to be you!” I gestured with a thumb at the wincing girl. I flopped into my seat with a creak.

Wincing girl perked up.

Brian did too.

“I’m at 10′s right now.”

“Oh! Okay.” They beamed. Brian turned back to his Toshiba and she went back to cussing out her closest friend and shoving things through her head.

“When I tell people I’m going to get my septum done they give me a weird look.” Brian’s blue face glowed at me from infront of his laptop. I sunk down as my laptop booted up.

“Just do it.”

“Ooh, peer pressure. Mkay.”

Sigh.

Let’s go down the line today.

Becca. Becca’s 5/8 and keeps blowing out at 3/4. She has her septum pierced. She wants and aspires to pierce both of her nostrils on either side. Eye brow dermals are on the horizon.

Brian. The already gaged, septum hopeful.

My favorite teacher, while presenting today caught my attention with 3 holes in his left ear, long unutilized. I think I saw a cobweb, but they were there.

C., a new friend has achieved the 3/4 and just let his ears blow out. He also has a ip ring.

I haven’t got an extra hole in my head.

Not-a-one. The lack of my ability to impersonate a piece of Swiss cheese is starting to bother me.

I’ve tried every excuse.

“I just don’t like needles?” CHECK.

“I don’t like earrings (I’d lose them anyway.)?” CHECK.

“It makes me different. Screw conforming to the norm?” CHECK.

Am I at an indie (as I’ve been christened by my friends)  and social disadvantage not having mosied up alongside the other chatel to have my ear punched before going out again to graze on the cultural grasses like the rest?

Grass as graze, not smoky haze.

Every one around me is getting gaged, pierced, pitted and dread locked.

What’s a simple nuclear strawberry to do?

I have no piercings, no loud band tees on constant display, not even an I <3 BOOBIES bracelet to help me declare my inner being to the world.

The closest thing I do is brandish my red thread anti-human trafficking bracelet and leave a wave of black fingernail polish in my wake.

Am I slacking?

Do I care?

I’m not sure.

But seeing as I’m an original nonconforming minamilist with a minor phobia, I’m way too much of a wreck to decide right now.

Perhaps I’ll get the old orange three ring binder puncher out and have a hey day.

But I’ll probably just repaint my nails.

I still don’t understand hip dermals.

Brian, patting down the back of his hair, “I just want to switch up my style for college, you know?”

You me and the world buddy. Oi.