I'm Set Free

I laid in the bed and stared at the blue ceiling. Tanzen walked out of the room and into the bathroom. I could see Rosie across the room on her bed. The pull out bed I'm sleeping on is dipped in in the middle, so I've slid into the center. Tanzen comes back. "Do you have any mouthwash?" The taste of stale tobacco and weed has dried out my mouth and left me feeling like I need a shower. "Yeah, there's some in there." I walk into the bathroom and latch the door behind me. It's perfect and dirty. The blue tiles are chipped, the mirror is covered in spots from toothpaste that missed the sink. I stand in front of the mirror and look at myself. For a second I think I should thank her for the bed. Then I realize that that's a dumb thought, she's my friend, she wants me to stay over. I look around the bathroom, through the disposable razors and half empty bottles, I see one bottle of mouth wash on the counter. It looks about 2 years too old. As I stare down at my toes I see one laying under the sink. I pick it up and unscrew the cap. The inside of the cap is stained partially brown, so I swig some from the bottle. I swish it in my mouth for 30 seconds and spit. I stare at myself again. My greasy mohawk is hanging down over the right side of my face. I continue to scope out the room, sizing up things in it, looking for anything that might be of use to me. Nothing. I realize what I'm doing and think about it. Nothing. It doesn't bother me. I see a bottle of half used cough syrup, eye make up remover, nothing worth my time. I step out of the bathroom and close the white door, it's paint peeling. Tanzen is tying her shoes and looks up at me as I sit down and begin to lace up my boots. As we walk to the subway we raise the same discussion as always: me. I begin talking about sobriety, cleaning up my act, or at least having more self control. She nods and smiles, interjects occasionally with nothing much to say besides the regular things. We walk into the subway and our conversation continues. I lean against the big beam next to the track, my shoulders resting on orange tile. I feel bad, but not really. I feel like I should feel bad, like I should shut up before something bad happens. We get on the train and two stops later, after a few more hushed words, we hug and Tanzen hops out. I ride the train in silence and I think about it all, turning it over in my head. The Velvet Underground keeps playing in my headphones, I keep repeating the song "I'm Set Free" and "Jesus." My stomach pops and pumps, sharp pains run up and down, from my rib cage to my hip bone. My entire digestive tract digesting itself. When I get home I feel excited as I work on the common application, as if it will change my entire life. As if I will become a new human being, a new life form, when college hits. It washes all feelings of hopelessness. I will be set free.

That's what happened on Sunday. Today was a pretty good day, I had 3 tests, which weren't that bad. I think I'll get at least a B or A on Environmental Science, it was pretty simple. I'm shooting for an A on my Latin quiz, I really felt like I Aced it! I've become so content with Cs in that class, it had almost stopped phasing me, but I feel really good about it. Afterwards my teacher and I discussed a paper I wrote over the summer, and this kid Ian started talking about his love life. I also learned in Latin today, how to say "a man who forces oral sex on others:" irrumator. We translated it as, "face rapist." Haha, that was a pretty excellent part of today. Last block I had a test in European history, it was actually on the Cold War. I don't know how well I did, my essay was okay, but the multiple choice section was hard.

Tomorrow I have a test in English and then I have a test in Statistics on Friday. I have an essay due on Monday, a test in Latin on Wednesday. Fuck, do they hate us or what? Today I'm hoping that Lauren will still want to hang, I just need to do something with my brian. I figure, if you ask a stoner to smoke, they won't turn it down. That's what I need right now, just something to ease the tension in my head. I haven't hung with Lauren in a few weeks, hence there has no complaining about her being a bitch lately. She's kinda been codependent on Nina, which is freaking all of us, including Nina, out. Lauren is going to have a hard time during college. She's been fucking with her own morals (her parents are alcoholics and she said she would never drink, but she ended up getting smashed multiple times during the summer for the first time). At least I never had any moral qualms with any drug, haha, I'm pretty equal opportunity. I think that's also worrying people, I have a feeling that once we all leave and she is left to her own devices she will get into hard drugs. Her family is made up of alcoholics and dopefiends, those genes aren't helping her at all.

I had counseling today at school. This woman named Karen pulled me out of study block to go talk to her in this closet (trapped in a closet with Karen, haha). She's nice, and she lets me play my iPod, what could be bad about that? I've said to much, fuck, she was asking me about the books I've been reading lately. Well, I didn't know what to say, almost every book I read is about drugs, so it's not like I could lie that easily. So, I started talking about "Beam Me Up, Scotty" and then for some reason we get onto Irvine Welsh and I recommend "Ecstasy." She asked me what it was about, "It's about ecstasy." "I'm beginning to see a pattern here." What the hell? I hope she doesn't drug test me. Speaking of drug tests, I filled out that form for Ashley, so I'll probably going to see her on Friday or Thursday at the group home. I'll be her first guest, which is a nice gesture. She's a nice kid, not the smartest, not the funniest, but we get along pretty well and we just mainly gossip and tell stories about our pasts. It will be interesting, apparently there's a lesbo there who is going after her. And on friday I'm doing Anthony's radio show again, just him and me, his friends were coming up, but they aren't now. It'll be fun, I like doing that. I'm going to bring some CDs or whatever, so that he'll play them.

We have to pretend to be having a wedding in health class, and I picked our wedding song, "Fall in Love With Me" by Iggy Pop. I figured that it's pretty good, I'd do that as my first dance, haha. My group is 4 girls, me, Nora (who I'm friends with), Maria (I kinda know her), and Laura (I kinda know her, too). It's funny, it's like a big lesbian polygamist wedding. Nora is taking charge of the wedding, but she's going to give us a little bit of say in the dress and some other things. I don't know why we do this, I feel like we should be doing something more important than this, but whatever. We get to watch intervention in health class, which is always entertaining. The teacher, Ms. Geary, really likes me, which is cool, it means that she's always nice to me. Health class = easy and awesome.

Well, I must be off, I have to translate Latin and take notes on this chapter for European history. Oh, joy of joys! = )