the first
November 4 - the first
My rinky-dink shrink decided that I needed somewhere to expunge the remnants of those days that haunt my soul nightly. He didn’t use those exact words, mind you. More like, “Jot down some of these thoughts before they consume you, Lynn, and maybe you’ll be able to sleep” but I’ve always preferred the melodramatic to the mundane. There is something about language that allots for the histrionic and therefore it’s my duty to make the most of it.
Anyway, Doctor Jack (he prefers me to call him by his first name, just Jack, like on Will and Grace, except not so flamboyantly gay and stuff. But I prefer to maintain some distance between us...what can I say? I’ve got a penchant annoying people…where was I? Right...on Doctor Jack. You see Jack is far too personal a term and gives off a friend type relationship, which is hardly the case. I don’t enjoy spending time with him and the only reason he pries so freely into my life is for the weekly fee of two hundred fifty dollars) was convinced that insomnia could be solved like an algebra problem. It didn’t register that I probably tried every home remedy known to man prior to discussing it with him. It didn’t process in that psychologically-inundated brain of his that when that didn’t work, I resorted to my mother’s well-stocked pharmacy/medicine cabinet and tried an assortment of drugs from Tylenol PM to Valium. No, none of this affected Doctor Jack in the slightest. He was positive that the cure to my woes was a journal.
If x = a clichéd affliction that makes girl loathe life, family, and school, and y = place to pour out my heart, the answer is once malcontented teen turned Stepford cheerleader.
So here I am. Same malcontented (who isn’t), maladjusted (blame the parents, it’s always the parents) girl with a bad case of malaise and insomnia. Why do my parents pay Doctor Quackers the money? I would willingly take it myself and promise not to make it so abundantly clear that life is shit.
Nate, the best guy bud, says I’m a truism for every girl my age from a wealthy family. The lonely rich girl from the broken home that no one understands, wanting for nothing but love. I dunno. It sounds so ridiculous when he says it like that. As if I decided between my appointment at Toppers spa and shopping that what I was in need of was some good, old-fashioned, mental instability. Please. As if it was that easy. I had to work hard to get this cynical and depressed. I embraced entropy, fought the innate urge to please my parents with good grades and extracurriculars, and took to embracing the arts that moved me. It was not an easy feat.
But again, here I am. I’m wasting my one free period in a brutal day by writing in this journal and hoping to make sense of a world that seems so vast and stupid and unforgiving, and I’m not sure where to start. I think there should be a class at St. Agatha’s on that-how to survive in this shithole we call a planet without wanting to slit your wrists.
The Basics:
1) Lynn “Linnie” Marie Abbot. I’m usually referred to as that Abbot Girl, relation of {insert overachiever big sister’s name or well-known political mover & shaker father’s name or television newscaster mother’s name}. I was named after no one in particular, look like no one in particular, and rarely feel like talking to anyone in particular.
2) I reside in Philadelphia with my mother and step-father (an artist who doesn’t really do anything but stare at a blank canvas muttering to himself) in one of those historic houses that once a year tourists invade for fun. I spend the majority of my summers playing catch up with my father and his creepy family featuring Lissa, the always happy (lithium works wonders) stepmother, and the step-kids, dumb and dumber, in Manassas, Virginia.
3) I’m sixteen and a junior at Saint Agatha’s Prep School. Every teacher, counselor, parent, and random person on the street is quick to point out that this is the year. The most important year in my life EVER. Never will I need to be as smart and apt at taking culturally-biased tests as I am now. If I fail to rise to the occasion, I will have no life whatsoever after graduation and end up that guy selling flowers on the Schuylkill Expressway.
4) I’m not a complete misanthrope yet. I’ve got two best friends, Nate Haverly and Gwendolyn Mercer, with whom I enjoy movies, concerts, and the occasional St. Agatha’s Basketball game. This is only when we’re playing St. John’s, home of the hottest senior in any high school ever, a guy that puts Justin Timberlake and Prince William to shame, captain and center of the unstoppable St. John’s Bishops basketball team, Reggie Whitford. And when I find myself friendless in Virginia, I sometimes hang with the Wildebeest, Wally Watkins, in moments of sheer desperation.
5) Likes: feminine prose, angsty chick rock, punk, Orlando Bloom (Is there any question to his insatiable hotness?), independent movies, speaking French fluently, pretending to be an orphan, soap operas (though not likely to admit it), surfing the internet for celebrity gossip, writing, nerds, and thinking up new ways to torture my family. Dislikes: morons, dumbasseses, and stupid people of any variation, fame whores, Britney Spears, Steven Seagal movies, and guys who think they’re all that.
That’s about all I can think of for now. I’m not sure exposing my soul is going to be as simple as Doctor Jack thinks. What if someone found this? Do I really want some random high school jock god to read my ramblings on the beauty that is Reggie Whitford? I think not. Besides, the bell’s about to ring. It’s off to a lecture on William Penn and his relations with the Indians. We’re doing papers and I’ve entitled mine: You give me land and I bring you smallpox. It has A written all over it.
Hospitablely yours!
Tah!
My rinky-dink shrink decided that I needed somewhere to expunge the remnants of those days that haunt my soul nightly. He didn’t use those exact words, mind you. More like, “Jot down some of these thoughts before they consume you, Lynn, and maybe you’ll be able to sleep” but I’ve always preferred the melodramatic to the mundane. There is something about language that allots for the histrionic and therefore it’s my duty to make the most of it.
Anyway, Doctor Jack (he prefers me to call him by his first name, just Jack, like on Will and Grace, except not so flamboyantly gay and stuff. But I prefer to maintain some distance between us...what can I say? I’ve got a penchant annoying people…where was I? Right...on Doctor Jack. You see Jack is far too personal a term and gives off a friend type relationship, which is hardly the case. I don’t enjoy spending time with him and the only reason he pries so freely into my life is for the weekly fee of two hundred fifty dollars) was convinced that insomnia could be solved like an algebra problem. It didn’t register that I probably tried every home remedy known to man prior to discussing it with him. It didn’t process in that psychologically-inundated brain of his that when that didn’t work, I resorted to my mother’s well-stocked pharmacy/medicine cabinet and tried an assortment of drugs from Tylenol PM to Valium. No, none of this affected Doctor Jack in the slightest. He was positive that the cure to my woes was a journal.
If x = a clichéd affliction that makes girl loathe life, family, and school, and y = place to pour out my heart, the answer is once malcontented teen turned Stepford cheerleader.
So here I am. Same malcontented (who isn’t), maladjusted (blame the parents, it’s always the parents) girl with a bad case of malaise and insomnia. Why do my parents pay Doctor Quackers the money? I would willingly take it myself and promise not to make it so abundantly clear that life is shit.
Nate, the best guy bud, says I’m a truism for every girl my age from a wealthy family. The lonely rich girl from the broken home that no one understands, wanting for nothing but love. I dunno. It sounds so ridiculous when he says it like that. As if I decided between my appointment at Toppers spa and shopping that what I was in need of was some good, old-fashioned, mental instability. Please. As if it was that easy. I had to work hard to get this cynical and depressed. I embraced entropy, fought the innate urge to please my parents with good grades and extracurriculars, and took to embracing the arts that moved me. It was not an easy feat.
But again, here I am. I’m wasting my one free period in a brutal day by writing in this journal and hoping to make sense of a world that seems so vast and stupid and unforgiving, and I’m not sure where to start. I think there should be a class at St. Agatha’s on that-how to survive in this shithole we call a planet without wanting to slit your wrists.
The Basics:
1) Lynn “Linnie” Marie Abbot. I’m usually referred to as that Abbot Girl, relation of {insert overachiever big sister’s name or well-known political mover & shaker father’s name or television newscaster mother’s name}. I was named after no one in particular, look like no one in particular, and rarely feel like talking to anyone in particular.
2) I reside in Philadelphia with my mother and step-father (an artist who doesn’t really do anything but stare at a blank canvas muttering to himself) in one of those historic houses that once a year tourists invade for fun. I spend the majority of my summers playing catch up with my father and his creepy family featuring Lissa, the always happy (lithium works wonders) stepmother, and the step-kids, dumb and dumber, in Manassas, Virginia.
3) I’m sixteen and a junior at Saint Agatha’s Prep School. Every teacher, counselor, parent, and random person on the street is quick to point out that this is the year. The most important year in my life EVER. Never will I need to be as smart and apt at taking culturally-biased tests as I am now. If I fail to rise to the occasion, I will have no life whatsoever after graduation and end up that guy selling flowers on the Schuylkill Expressway.
4) I’m not a complete misanthrope yet. I’ve got two best friends, Nate Haverly and Gwendolyn Mercer, with whom I enjoy movies, concerts, and the occasional St. Agatha’s Basketball game. This is only when we’re playing St. John’s, home of the hottest senior in any high school ever, a guy that puts Justin Timberlake and Prince William to shame, captain and center of the unstoppable St. John’s Bishops basketball team, Reggie Whitford. And when I find myself friendless in Virginia, I sometimes hang with the Wildebeest, Wally Watkins, in moments of sheer desperation.
5) Likes: feminine prose, angsty chick rock, punk, Orlando Bloom (Is there any question to his insatiable hotness?), independent movies, speaking French fluently, pretending to be an orphan, soap operas (though not likely to admit it), surfing the internet for celebrity gossip, writing, nerds, and thinking up new ways to torture my family. Dislikes: morons, dumbasseses, and stupid people of any variation, fame whores, Britney Spears, Steven Seagal movies, and guys who think they’re all that.
That’s about all I can think of for now. I’m not sure exposing my soul is going to be as simple as Doctor Jack thinks. What if someone found this? Do I really want some random high school jock god to read my ramblings on the beauty that is Reggie Whitford? I think not. Besides, the bell’s about to ring. It’s off to a lecture on William Penn and his relations with the Indians. We’re doing papers and I’ve entitled mine: You give me land and I bring you smallpox. It has A written all over it.
Hospitablely yours!
Tah!