[Note: You probably don't want to read this post. It starts out fairly innocent, then turns into a therapist's couch. I won't hold it against you if you skip this entry, because I'll never know. The entry probably doesn't make much sense, anyway.]

You know what needs to be updated? WIAN and my Quotes page. You know what needs a new layout? WIAN and Cult of Lincoln. You know what I need to do? Study like heck for my huge History and Math tests tomorrow. Ugh. You know what I've been doing most of this afternoon? Sleeping.

Let's make this clear: I never take afternoon naps. It just doesn't happen. My mind is always too busy to be able to calm itself down in the afternoon to let me just get some good nappage. The last time I had an afternoon nap (while not travelling, of course) was when I was really sick a few months ago. I don't feel sick at all, but I have noticed slight personality changes, at least. When not being actively involved in class, I turn into a zombie. Ashley, Supercool Freshman of Niftyness, can attest to this. I've been a lot more dead than usual. Bah.

Yet the fact remains that I've spent the afternoon sleeping. All the sugar and healthy dinner and ice water and orange juice can't wake me up from this dazed funk. No one can concentrate on the Gilded Age and pre-WWI economy like this. I'm ticked off at my current state, because I swore to myself that this last quarter, I would bring up my grade in History. I got a lower History grade than expected last quarter, and if I can't drag up my bootstraps, colleges will snub me like yesterday's garbage. Okay, maybe not really an outright snub, but I wouldn't be as attractive. Double bah.

And so ends my griping session. I try to keep my weblog free of complaint fests, but I just wanted to share this with someone who will let me talk without changing the topic. Meh.

Okay, so maybe my griping session doesn't end here. It's a testament to how off-center I feel right now, as I would usually never think of writing this in a weblog where anyone can see it, but I'm worried about my friends. Chungy and I have been closer than sisters all through Upper School, but now I feel like we're somehow drifting apart. Intangible feelings of distance. I know this isn't true, but I feel like she doesn't care about the things that mean so much to me. My show at the Dallas Institute has been up for a month and none of my friends have expressed any interest in finding a time to go, seeing as they missed the opening. Even when I radiate excitement about my newest CGs or the photographs I posted on tnm.n, no one cares. I have to drag people over to the computers (on the other side of the classroom, for Gods' sake) to force them to look, and even then, it's just a cursory glance. Chungy didn't even come to "Ten Little Indians" at Jesuit last fall. Then Elizabeth constantly belittles my CGs for reasons yet unknown. What's her problem with my CGs? If she thinks they're a waste of time, she should tell me. I've come a long way from where I began 2 years ago.

I get a disturbing sense of deja vu when I think about my friendship with Chungy. It reminds me of 8th grade, when my best friend in the world at the time, Rachel, suddenly decided that our friendship was over. It's a testament to my naivete and obliviousness that I still have no idea why. I know that she was going through a fair amount of hell, aggravated by occasional larger doses of hell, such as going to Advanced Space Academy over Passover so that all she could eat was matzoh (sp?), then having an allergic reaction to the scuba suit and spending the night in the hospital hooked to an IV, but I still have no clue what started it all. Now I feel like Chungy and I are slowly moving apart, and her sudden sickness at ISAS parallels far too closely in my mind to Rachel's experience at Advanced Space Academy. I shouldn't be worried, but I can't help feeling nervous.

Maybe this is one of the reasons I've felt so drawn to Ashley over the past few weeks. She shows honest enthusiasm for my CGs, listens to my ramblings, tolerates my lunchtime stupor, and acts in the generally friendly way that has been lacking from my relationships with my other friends. She doesn't make me feel slightly inferior. Chungy and Rachel are taking a zillion APs and Honors courses and Chungy has huge dreams to be a BioMedical Engineer. She devours intellectual books by the truckload, while I spend my time CGing and plodding through general fiction. Elizabeth makes me feel childish and immature, ridiculing my interests as juvenile: from my CGs to "Men at Arms", she acts as though my every interest is just a silly, passing phase.

I know they don't realize how much this is affecting me, and I'm certain that they don't intend to make me feel this low. They're wonderful friends and I love them all, and I know that if they knew how they were making me feel, they'd at least do something. Gah. I'm already daunted by the idea of becoming a senior and facing college and I'm just ready for this godawful year to end. Then I feel guilty whenever I show up for rehearsal for "The 12th Night", because I feel like I'm being unfaithful to Mrs. Felice. (I know you're probably reading this, but I'm writing it anyway) I love Mrs. Felice, and I feel like a jerk for deserting her, even though I really dislike "The Little Prince" and I really wanted to try Shakespeare. Jesuit theatre is so much better than Hockaday theatre. I got to stop by "Little Prince" rehearsals one day when I had a free afternoon, and I saw how much I missed the camaraderie. These feelings were increased when I saw the godawful "How to Succeed" performance at ISAS. I realized again just how much Jesuit theatre means to me. Gah, now I'm getting sappy.

As I told Ashley today at lunch, "I just need a good week's sleep".

And another thing about Ashley: she knows what it's like to have great online friends. The RMLers were the ones to get me through the Rachel drama in 8th grade and my WOFS/weblogging friends are the ones keeping me true to myself and (though they probably weren't aware they were doing this) keeping me from handing in my sketchbook and giving up. No matter how self-confident I can feel, I still desperately need that outside voice telling me that they like what I'm doing and encouraging me to do more. I get that a little from Ashley and Tori (another aspiring artist), but most of it comes from my online friends, Alicey in particular. (Alicey, if you're reading this, thank you.) No matter how much I like to make fun of the Site Fights, the fact remains that Ashley has made fabulous friends through her involvement, letting me know that I'm not the only one. About a week ago, I was in my advisory, drooling over Alicey's 2nd task CG. It was the day after she had posted it. Elizabeth asked who Alicey was, and I ended the description saying that I worship and envy her art so much that "if she wasn't one of my best friends, I'd probably hate her guts". Elizabeth just seemed to radiate belittling-rays. "How can you be best friends with someone you know on the computer?" she asked. Something along those lines, anyway. Sure, I have no way of knowing that my online friends aren't 60-year-old pedophiles, but she has no right to make me feel inferior just because I have some fantastic friends that I'll probably never meet, while all of her friends exist in real life. Ashley understands this. Ashley is just a really understanding person. I need an understanding person right now.

It's the little things that add up. I just want this year to end. And I just want to go to sleep. History and Math can wait.