it's frightening. it's frightening that a week from today is my last day in my shakespeare class. it seems like i just started it a week ago. it's gone by so fast. it is/was a six week class. what have i done with my life in those six weeks? nothing much. i still haven't sent in my applications to colleges to transfer to. i still don't have a job. i still don't have any close friends in this damn town. or any friends that i talk to outside of school. i'll have lived here for 2 years this october.

we moved here the middle of my senior year in high school. mom didn't want me to transfer to a new school. i couldn't care less. so all of my time was spent in a different town then where i lived. spent going to school. spent hanging with friends. spent not here. i don't even know the names of my neighbors. but you never see people outside in this neighborhood anyway.

there is someone from high school that goes to kcc with me. but i would rather gouge my eyes out with a dull spork than talk to him. i couldn't stand him then, and i can't stand him now.

..

i don't even remember what i was going to write about. it wasn't what i had written above. but i guess it doesn't matter what i was going to write. everything goes by so quickly.

my friend chris. her and her boyfriend mike had a baby. a boy i believe. the last time i saw her was graduation. the three of us were planning on moving up to grand rapids after graduation. but that fell through.

chris and i used to go to the $.99 movies all the time when we were freshmens and sophmores. we would see stupid movies. we would throw popcorn at each other. we would wander down to the k-mart and make asses of ourselves. we would walk to the aracade next to the movie theater. and play pool. and air hockey.

our senior year. chris, mike and i. we dyed our hair together. mike was blue. i was purple. chris was a sweet flame orange with a fade. very orange on top. faded down to a dark orange on the bottom. we went to Pizza Hut after school that day. had an intellectual conversation amid everyone else's pointless chatter.

mike's cigarette smoke drifting up and around to the ceiling. me playing with a lighter. because i'm a pyro. chris. being chris. adorable and kooky. wanting her cheesesticks.

we talked. about everything and anything. about society. people being who they are not.

mike's small bathroom. the three of us move shoulder to shoulder. like a dance. the smell of blech and hair dye fills the room. mike and i open the small window.

the bathtub has a ring around the drain from where we rinsed our heads. blue. orange. purple. a mixture of colors.

chris and i outside. playing with the dogs. big dogs. black dogs. friendly loveable dogs. dogs with muddy paws. paw prints on our shirts. hair dye around the shirt collars.

we go down to mike's room. in the basement. he shows me something he's working on. with computers.

he's smart. at school he was always late to class. and slept. but. he's smart. good with electronics. plays the violin too. smarter than people gave him credit for.

some people thought he was a pot smoking slacker. but. he was a smart pot smoking slacker.

cigarette smoke. lighter's flame. cheesesticks.

.wigglestick.