Popsicle Stand

I tried sleeping, but couldn't. I don't know when I fell asleep tonight or when I actually woke up and started working instead of just continually dozing off, but now I can't sleep and I'm up. There's nothing else to it. I lied in my bed for a good 30 minutes closing my eyes, tossing and turning, staring at the ceiling. Lying seems like an appropriate word to describe what I was doing in bed. Thinking I could sleep when I well knew that I couldn't.

But it gave me a chance to think about something other than school and the work I needed to do. I think it's finally dawned on me how everyone I knew last year felt as seniors. Just waiting, itching to get out of here. To me, laying in my bed, it seemed to have come full circle for me. I don't want to stay here anymore, I don't know where I want to be but not here. I want to say my final goodbyes, pick up, and blow this popsicle stand. Or maybe not even say my goodbyes and just leave. I realize that for most of the people I know now, I won't ever see or speak to again. The thought is eerily cathartic.

Maybe it's just easy to think that now, in what seems to be the thickest of senioritis.

Or maybe it's just finally coming to me how I don't really care about most of the people around me or what happens to them. Even in band, most of me doesn't really care how well we do anymore. I just want to go to competitions perform, chill in parking lots, and relax on bus rides. I don't care for practicing anymore. I don't care for getting better anymore. Some part of me realizes that no one will listen to all that the leaders and seniors have to say anyways. An apathetic outlook, I know, but at this point there's no other way to look at things for me.

As far as I'm concerned, I think my work is done here. At Ayala. At Chino Hills. I've taken what I could and I've done what I can. It's time to get up and leave for while I think. Maybe sometime in the future I'll realize that home is where the heart is. No matter how bland Chino Hills stays. But right now, in what I perceive to be my youthful rebellion in a search for something I think might be better out there, I'm ready to leave this these Hills behind me.

Illin'

Being sick is no fun just like everybody says. Not that I didn't know or think that before, but it really is horrible.

Headache
Chills
Fever
Aching Body
Sore Throat
Coughing

It just keeps going.

This must be the longest I've been put out of commission for being sick. Two days out of school, missing a competition today, and an SAT. Fucking hell. I still feel like shit with my head spinning and hurting at the same time, but I refuse to lay around in bed anymore. The worst part of being sick and missing school has to be just seeing your mates or having your regular human contact. The second worst part must be all the stuff your going to have to make up.

Being sick is such a strange journey in that of itself. When you're asleep it seems as if years fly by only to be woken up and have to sit through agonizing pain through time that seems to have stopped. Sitting there with your head throbbing and your body shivering uncontrollably looking back at the clock thinking it's been an hour only to see that it's still the same minute.

Hallucinatory nightmares of the deep and darkest corners of your mind fueled by an unrelenting fever then waking up gasping and wheezing for breath only to cough up something from your lungs into the trashcan that can only be discernible in the dark by the foul taste that it leaves behind in your mouth. Not to mention soaking in sweat and trembling from the cold.

At least now it isn't that bad. The fever is mostly gone. My neck and back only ache a little. Chills aren't so bad anymore. The coughing is still very much there and the headache still continues to persist. Speaking of which, it might be time to crawl back in bed and give my head another rest. Wasting time like this is not the fun.


A last thought: Why does Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup taste so good? It basically tastes like hot salt water, but it still tastes so good. The world may never know.

Another thing, to all those that send their goodwill, I thank you all.

Day Dreams

A drowsy zero period. Christensen's booming voice echoes through my head. My eyelids start to drop lower and lower until the whole room goes black. It only takes a second. I can still hear the sounds bouncing through my head.

I am god now. The universe a black canvas. I use my hand to summon up the debris of words and ideas into a swirling mass in the palm of my hand. From the void swirls together form. A planet. A society. Life. It all comes together, a spinning sphere smoothing itself out.

I snap awake, my head falling out of my hands. I can create life, but can't keep my head steady.

These half awake dreams in class are the only ones I seem to have anymore. Sleeping at night only lends itself to fast forward through life. These dreams I live lifetimes in a matter of seconds. I wonder why this is. Although all of them aren't so grand as creating life.

More often it seems like my subconscious is crawling through my dreams. Dreams of loss and rejection. They keep replaying through my mind, staying with me through the day like an awake nightmare. As if someone is dipping into an emotional well and pulls out a bucketful, these dreams leave me with my head hurting, my mouth dry, and my chest aching.

Another wet season in my brain seems to have come around feeding my feelings. But the well can't be full forever, it'll dry up eventually.

Maybe.

And then there was one.

It feels like those that enjoy doing nothing and the company of others are starting to fade away. The best moments I can recall in the last few years have been ones where I'm not really doing anything, just wandering. Just out for a stroll in the warm winter sun, the sun peaking through the tree branches. Everyone seems to be in a rush, along with myself. After a year of working day in and day out I miss those rare opportunities to just stop and smell the roses. To enjoy a walk for a walk. Even if by the time I reach my destination my feet are killing me.

I owe a lot to those that have left these hills for greener pastures. Those that like to do nothing for nothing. You could say that we're wasting our time, but to you I say that you're not living in the moment. Some of the best moments in my life have been where I could just laze about and be bored. To those I could be bored with, I thank.

College applications are already here and so are so many other things. I think I need a couple more breaths.

I shall go for a walk this weekend to remember all those that walked with me before.