School

The first time I realized that I could get out of bed and realize life wasn’t as bad as I thought it was, was the first real time I was appreciated. Appreciation can be more powerful than a bolt of lightning in the middle of an ocean’s perfect storm. “Truth is more powerful than God.” Gandhi once said. This statement isn’t only true and amazingly right, it is applicable to every moment of a person’s life in almost any setting and society.

How can you be appreciated to the fullest, most meaningful extent if it weren’t for truth? The actual action of telling one’s true feelings can result in appreciation. You can’t be fully appreciated if someone is lying to you in the first place of how they feel about you. And upon how they feel about you, you comprehend what the true meaning of truthful thinking and speaking really is.

I’m not trying to make this constant jargon, and if I was, I’d tell you that this is a book of psychological jargon, enjoy reading so long as you have a Titanic sized dictionary to reference to.

Walking into school is like digging your own tunnel, and if you have been to school all your life, the tunnel isn’t at all foreign to you. It’s like a routine thing that you never really think about, you just dread it when it actually happens to cross your mind. Especially when you find your mind wondering elsewhere and your grandmother that’s around 200 years old calls you up and reminds you that you have to return to school after a very pleasant vacation that you’d rather not have come to an end. Nevertheless, this metaphorical tunnel you enter for 70% of your life until the age of around eighteen or nineteen, or even twenty, keeps going until you’ve basically retraced the paths in the tunnel so many times that if you were to actually add them all up, you’d start vomiting blood and left over peas from last Easter.

There’s everything and nothing to hate about school. The average teenager doesn’t really know what to think about school, they just have the automatic “I hate school” seep out of their mouths like the current in a river. It’s like a reflex to dislike going to school, but you need to go. It’s a required process in ones life to attend school because without school, you’d be utterly pathetic. With it, you still might be utterly pathetic but not as much as you would be without it. Unfortunately, that’s how many trials and tribulations in life work, with or without various attributes of life, it designates the severities. Without severities, you’d not only be utterly pathetic all the goddamn time, but you’d have nothing to fall back on or compare to. Therefore, without comparisons, life would be dull as a fucking garden with no plants, in the middle of a dry, cold desert. So, if I were to suggest or encourage attending an academic institute leading up to a K-12 diploma, I would recommend picturing yourself on Jeopardy and answering “What is helped out” to the question “What did the Spanish do to the Aztecs?” Take the goddamn time to fill your brain up with how the hell to live your life, and get that diploma.

People are just bastards sometimes. You have preps who are bastards who rub your face in how pathetic you are compared to them. They ask the most questions, do the most extra credit, turn in every homework assignment on time, pass every quiz, test, or exam, and complain about everything. What the hell do you have to complain about if you’re a strait A student.

It’s not only the fact that they’re smart, motivated individuals; it’s that they’re bastards. They have no realization that there is a world outside of smart jokes and good fashion. Preps, from my observations, live in a goddamn box filled with dictionaries, over priced novels consisting of a ridiculous amount of pages, news papers, posters of overplayed singers, rappers and pop stars, all the office supplies imaginable and a crap load of apple juice and granola bars. Oh, and in the corner, there’s a little shelf with whatever awards for sports they have achieved during the years. When I try talking to them, they have no recollection of humor or respect.

If it isn’t up to their off the chart standards, they don’t give a rat’s ass what comes out of your mouth.

The first time I received a good quarter grade was in seventh grade. It was probably the second quarter, I was considered to be on the high honor roll. This was one level below highest honors. The second time I got on the honor roll is in 8th grade because I wanted to get into a good school then. After that, nothing really occurred. I never really looked at myself as a very concerned kid when it came to school although my grandma and parents were always thrilled about my knowledge.

The type of teacher that always made me uneasy was when they’re always telling you what to do and they teach at such a fast pace, you miss eighty percent of what you were supposed to comprehend in the class. I remember Spanish class was always a joyous academic experience: “Get out your homework, then start on page 325 in the textbook, numbers 1-20. Then show me your vocabulary and the handout I gave you. I will collect the vocabulary books and we will have a quiz on the 20 words you were supposed to memorize over the past four days. Any questions?” Mrs. Buford announced to the class. She had unattractive faded blond dyed hair with the gray roots. She was around fifty something years old and never wearing clothes you could relate to or even enjoy looking at. She was single and there was no doubt in my mind she was a lesbian. I have no problem with homosexuals, I have a problem with her in particular. I failed her class miserably the first half of that year. I slid by with D’s just by a strand. I was switched and passed for the year average, barely.

In my history class in my freshman year, I had the coolest teacher. He was from England. He was in his mid thirties and had really funky hair and a clean shave with Dockers, and a tie every day. He had a really good sense of humor and just was a really brilliant guy. He had two of his daughters go to the school also, fine as hell, although it was sort of awkward to talk about them and such because their father was a teacher of mine. Nevertheless, I remember how laid back his classes were, and how easy it was to pass because he was such a nice guy. He would let almost anything slide, only about ten kids got sent to the office from his class the whole year.

I really hate school events. We always have pep rallies, dances, fund raisers, sports events, plays, etc. The only reason I hate them is because they are so depressing to go to. Because you look at yourself with your very low level of friends that actually speak to you there and realize what a pathetic, purposeless action you are displaying. I just think school events are really depressing. The reason for this is that it reminds me of the times that I actually went to them. It reminds me of the girlfriends I had at the time and how everything was worth it and I was motivated. I remember all the really romantic dances and such, it’s just so fucking sad to think about. Of course, if life was perfect, I wouldn’t have to worry about such things. Since life isn’t that easy, clearly, school dances would remind me of all the romantic evenings I had with whoever I’ve dated.

In addition, there are the ex-friends that you walk by in the hall everyday. It’s kind of sick and really depressing when I walk into school everyday, past the freshman that used to be my friends. I see some of my ex-girlfriends and it is like they never knew me, let alone kissed me. Nevertheless, there are swarms of people everyday that remind me of the times that I was accepted, known, even loved by people. Once I realized that all of what I had was gone, ever to be the same again, I remember the importance of a good thing.

Once you get in a moment that you’re with a girl, everyone talks to you and on top of that is accepting of your personality, looks, and overall how you carry yourself and you just happen to have a dad that is being nicer and more understanding to you: never ever let it go. When you get a moment like that, that you’re on top of the world and you don’t even need to try to stay sober, you just are without having any concern of it, seize the moment, freeze it and hold it, squeeze it and hold it because those days are golden. You will regret not living your life to the fullest within those rare and marvelous conditions.

You’ll probably want to hear about how everything changed at the age of seven for me and everything that went on before my mother moved to the middle of nowhere with a goddamn stranger. In addition, you will probably want to know that I stayed at the same school the whole time.

The House

There is nothing cheerful about where I spent thirty percent of my childhood and what went on as I was living there. I had this cat that was neglected and this other cat that was over fed. The house reeked of a blend of dead flowers, overused Lysol, bubble gum, mildew, stinky cheese, and overcooked chicken and rice. The driveway was a complete mess; puddles everywhere and was like a huge road of quicksand just waiting for you to get stuck in.

Nevertheless, when it rained, there was a small river that flowed strait through the driveway. The most depressing aspect of my front yard is that every aspect was depressing. The basketball hoop couldn’t be used because of the unfit ground throughout the year. The basketball was left out all winter and is flat; probably warped. There was a lake and a ripped-out-of-the-roots tree in the small pond directly behind the woodshed, leading to the side yard fence that it damaged. Everything was just there. Nothing looked alive in the whole view of the first impression an average human being from civilization would receive.

It was always hazy and never colorful; it was always be best of two evils in terms of shading. There were just shades of gray at that house for me, gray that nobody should ever witness first hand. The only room in the whole goddamn house that had colors, was my room. The walls were painted bright turquoise; the window had the blinds pulled down but a bright yellowish greenish curtain over it. My covers on my bed were yellow on the bottom layer, pink on the middle layer, and green on the top layer. I never used sheets. Even the bathroom was depressing.

Stepping inside the bathroom made me want to vomit. The wall paper was very pretty and I really had no objections to it. However, it was old as hell and most of the time I realized the dark red and flowers is never meant for a fifteen and seventeen year old male. It hadn’t been replaced since we moved in. It was the only room besides the den in the whole house that wasn’t re-wallpapered, or painted for that matter. It just stayed the same as it always was when whoever lived there before us.

It was a very uncomfortable, awkward bathroom. I always looked at it whenever I’d be in the shower, just sort of getting nauseous and all. To tell you the truth, I really wanted to rip all the wallpaper off that was about to actually peel off and spray paint the whole goddamn bathroom by myself. I really hated the amount of idiocy within that house. It was almost factious how the whole common sense and psychological realm stared at you with wide open eyes. It was a venerability that you couldn’t really point out but you knew was there all the time. This psychological realm can be defined though, not elaborated or substantiated upon however.

Instead of actually using your sensibility, the people located in this town just made decisions off the top of their head without even thinking about it. It is a society quite different from where I live now, where I am sane. The weather didn’t even make any reasonable sense around that house.

Continuing, the back yard and so on was just all random plants scattered wherever they pleased, nothing really planted or voluntary. There was a pool that was banned for no reason what so ever for me and my brother to use with ourselves or with our friends. The yard got more and more bland as seasons passed. The front, back, and side yard of that house was a huge slab of cheep metal that nobody really noticed or tended to. The woods were not regular woods one of my good friends once said when we walked through the woods. The woods there reeked of damp moss, squirrel feces and swamp algae. There were no leaves on the trees until the end of summer seemingly and in addition, until then, it was a million shades of gray, no color. There were tree branches the size of cars falling randomly during anytime of day. Mud littered the forests where mud shouldn’t even be. Frogs disappeared the second year I lived there. Just about everything disappeared that once was existent; including me.

“Hello!” my mother chanted as I slowly opened the squeaky screen door, the only door that was unlocked in the entire house. I didn’t reply right at the moment of the interruption to my entry to the house. “hi” I reply flatly. I look at the ground and notice the mud rug filled with dirt and grime from the many months of its extraordinary dirtiness. My shoes are unwanted for the climb up the stairs as the smell of burnt fish and dead flowers with a small hint of old perfume. I slowly close the door half way and realize that she’s already heard me enter the house. “Hello there” she said with a smile. She was never there, standing at the top of the first flight of stairs. I never saw her say it with a smile in that predicament, but I could see it in her voice. I was always slowly tip-toeing up the stairs to avoid making unnecessary noise. I hate unnecessary noise. A flash of pressure runs though my shoulder and neck muscles as the strain from the incline stops from the straps of my backpack. I pray that she’s not standing there, although I know she isn’t. I continue across the hallway that contains the corridor to the living room and dining room, the cereal closet, the bathroom and the two rooms: mine and my brother’s. The first few steps always squeak no matter how little weight you step with. The door never is easy to shut behind you based on the tight space between the staircase wall and the vast amount of space for the door to be idle.

Darkness and tiredness completely fills my veins by the time I touch the doorknob to my bedroom; the only comfort in the house. I open the door and a rush of welcoming, lived-in air fills my nostrils. It is almost impossible to describe the smell of what my room smelled like just as it hit me after a few days of being away from it. It smelled of Gillette shaving cream, Mountain Dew soda, topical mist deodorizer, and cardboard. Nothing disturbed me of my room or the smell of it.

I closed the door behind me making my way around my desk and over to my mattress on the floor. I then drop my bag next to it on my desk side and immediately flop down with utter exhaustion and sadness on my mattress lying on the middle of my floor. I breathe in the bitter smell of drool, blood and aftershave that fills my pillow, resting my head gently on it as if I were weightless. I pull the thick, itchy covers of cotton and polyester over my body from toes to chin. I am in nirvana at that moment in the day.

There’s a knock at my door two minutes into my glorious three hours of nirvana; it is no longer in effect. “Pete… how was your day, are you okay?” my mother blurts out like it’s a mandatory segment of her day to bother me. “It was fine mom...” I reply to her questioning with the most vague and emotionally drained connotation. She then closes the door and leaves me alone. I put on some music and curl myself in a ball with the covers surrounding every inch of my body as if I just got out of an arctic freeze. I clench up my arms against my chest with the covers tightly gripped and slowly fade into a minor rapid eye movement. My eyes roll back in my skull as I grip the seams of the two covers so tight, my hands go pale white.