i have an acoustic guitar propped up in my room to remind me that i want to learn how to play it. i have post-its on my computer monitor to remind me that i have shit to do. i have an organizer to remind me that i need to be punctual.

if i have all these reminders to show me
that i want to do something,
that i have to do something,
that i need to be something,
then how come i'm not what i planned to be?

it's tough living up to my parents' standards. it's tougher to live up to mine.

relationships change when people change. teens fall in and out of love because we grow older and discover things that make us unhappy with what we have.

likewise, if people don't change, then bad relationships can't be fixed.

my parents are talking shit about each other again. more like my dad, actually. i kick it at my dad's every other weekend, but i'm dreading this one because he spent the entire time bitching about my mother the last time i went.

i spoke too soon. tina and i both got our periods today. bitchiness ensues.

fuck everything. where the hell is cody? shouldn't he be writing about some bullshit he swears people will read?

no wait. i'm sorry i said that. i've read it. i think it's good shit. i hope other people read it too.

my sister came back from her first year of college a few weeks ago (on summer break). my mother cooes over her like a pigeon every chance she can get.

a year ago, tina would have walked right past me and to her room. she would have yelled at me to get offline so she could use the phone (stupid dial-up). examples could go on.

when she came through the door, she gave me a big hug and said, "i missed you." i think she's changed. sometimes we talked online and i got the impression she was having a lot of fun.

we're so different. in high school, she was popular. she had great grades. she had a lot of boyfriends. my mom bitches constantly. why aren't your grades like tina's? haven't you been wearing the same sweater for the past three days? are you a lesbian?

ok, so the last part isn't true. my mom is so traditional, i doubt she would ever utter the word lesbian in my presence.

tina's asking (asking! not demanding! this has been going on for three weeks!) that i get off the computer now. i'll be the good younger sister for tonight.

hope you like the new layout. courtesy of me.

(i'm a girl in case you didn't figure that out. just cuz some kid goes around saying, "i see dead people," doesn't mean that the name is just a guy name.)

i'm haley. cody and i went to the same middle school, but we've known each other since we were itty bitty neighbors together. i moved with my mom when my parents divorced, but that didn't happen until after cody and i were friends. it seems sort of pointless to have lived next to each other for thirteen years of our lives but only become friends at the twelfth year.

top reason summer break kicks ass: i don't have mrs. smith for history. i'm so fucking glad that i don't have to deal with her shit anymore.

now, to all four of you (that's optimistic) that have read this short-lived blog, welcome haley, author number two.

i think the thought that "no one understands me" is probably the most thought thought of all the thoughts that i (or any poor shmuck like me) have thought. i think it just about every minute of everyday -- today my dad tried to lecture me about the importance of doing shit with my life, and immedietely, i thought "how dare he lecture me -- he doesn't even know what the hell i'm about!" same when i go to the bookstore or the library, i check out a book, that same lady with the same ugly rhine coated glasses gives me the same nasty look, and i want to say, "hey, you know, i'm not just another punk. i'm different. so don't give me that look. save it for the abercrombie assholes."

its everywhere. its reflected in every thing i do -- the pursuit of understanding, the attempt to make other people just realize that i'm not all that cliched teenage bullshit (i'm not all about living fast and dying young or smoking weed or whatever the fuck people think kids do these days), that i transcend all that, that i have legitamate thoughts and feelings that could use some serious examination, if only you'd acknowledge them!...

but in the end, its the same. i never go out of my way to prove the librarians wrong. i keep mostly to myself. my inner thoughts and feelings, my arguments with God, my rage for the goddamn social structure, and my deeper, darker broodings, my hidden cynicisms and pessimistic expectations never peak out into the light, never recieving any human contact.
cause i don't want to wear it on my sleeve sometimes. you probably wouldn't understand anyways.

my name is cody.

my father is an alcoholic and my mother left us long ago. my sister's hepped up on whatever the drug of choice is at whatever moment, and i'm just wallowing in the experience, in the ratty little apartment we call home.

well, not really. but if life was perfect, that's what it would be.

because we all want to complain. start complaining about your life, and listen how many people join in. judy doesn't feel well adjusted. bobby feels out of sorts. johnny is oh so lonely.

but the truth is, all of them live pretty average lives, have average feelings, and average problems. which isn't much, granted, but its pretty good, comparatively.

but when a person has a terrible childhood -- a horrifying, disconcerting, vomit inducing childhood -- they got a right to complain. no one can touch 'em. no one can say, "well, if you think about things on the big scale, joe, its not that bad." cause it is that bad, dammit. they're justified in their pain.

but that's how it feels with my problems too. when i say, "nobody understands me", anyone can smack me and say "you and everyone else, jackass, at least you got a roof over your head and a meal on the table", and no one will blink an eye. but it doesn't feel that way, to me anyways. i mean, a roof over my head and the meal on the table is alright and all, but i still feel pretty lousy.

do you get me?

cause i don't like feeling like i'm shallow, ungrateful, and whiny. cause i feel like crap, plain and simple.
some people wish for red brick houses and white picket fences. i'm wishing for a box in an alley. is that too much to ask?

first blog. woo hoo. enjoy.