Bus Ride

Today was overcast, in that depressing way that winter days sometimes are.

I got on the bus at 4 o'clock or so, because it's always late. Really it should pick us up at 3:30. It sucks.

Anyway, I got on the bus, and there were three of us - my friends and I - so I sat alone while they sat in a seat farther in front. Two guys were sitting across from me, one in front, and one diagonal-front.

I was looking out the window when I heard Diagonal-Front say -

"You only have one friend, you need to get a life, and you're a faggot."

Across #1 said, "Who, me?"

"Yeah, you."

"No, I - I have more than one friend. You know J?" (I'm not putting his full name in.)

"Yeah, yeah. I know him. He's - he's in my history class. And he hates you and he thinks you only have one friend, you need to get a life, and you're a faggot."

"No...no, he doesn't."

"Yeah, he does."

"Who do you have for history?"

"Uhh...Ms. L."

"Oh, she's the worst," said Front.

"He hesitated," said Across #2. "He had to think about it."

"He's in my history class. Isn't he in my history class?" Diagonal-Front asked Front.

"Yeah," said Front.

"He thinks you're a homophobic gay. You're afraid of gays and you are a gay." (Seriously. GRAMMAR. Okay, sorry.)

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard," said Across #1, but he didn't sound certain.

"You should convert to Judaism. They'd let you be gay."

It went on like that for a while. And I didn't say anything. I should have said, "Fuck off." Or "You're an idiot if you think 'gay' is an insult." Or "You don't have to be such a dick." Or something. There was so much I could have said.

But I didn't, and Diagonal-Front got off the bus, and it passed. But I could see, in my furtive glances across the aisle, that Across #1 was still hurting. And I should have said something.

The Personal Essay

I slept over at my friend's house two nights ago. My girlfriend, who goes to another school, was there too and she said that her assignment for the weekend was to write a personal essay.

"That sounds fun!" I said. "I want to write a personal essay!"

Basically, she wants me to transfer to her school. Her main argument is that there may be a lot of work, but it will be work I'll want to do. So far (as much as I hate to say it) her argument does have some substance.

Well, anyway. It took me three hours (factoring in the large amount of A Very Potter Musical that I was watching while doing the work) to do a short paragraph for my history class, and it took me fifteen minutes to write the personal essay. (Ouch, right?) Anyway, here it is. (I do realize that this is short too.)

---

I must have been six, and it had snowed.

“It’s a snow day,” Aba said, “and the driveway needs shoveling.” We didn’t even have our snow blower or our digital camera yet – it was that long ago. So I, along with then three-year-old Itai, was recruited to help clear the driveway. Or perhaps we volunteered. We were young enough that we liked doing chores.

We bundled up in all our gear in the order that kindergarten teachers always say you should – snow pants, boots, coat, hat, gloves. Itai and I each got a small shovel and set out to help our parents. It’s possible that we were really being a nuisance rather than helping, but it was probably better than leaving us inside to our own devices.

It took a long time – of course it did, otherwise they wouldn’t have called a snow day. It was eerily silent, the kind of silence that you only have when it snows. The endless whiteness swallows up the sound.

I was shoveling by the big living room window when I stopped and looked around. My nose was cold and red and hurting a little and everyone was working around me.

“Am I doing well?” Itai asked in his high-pitched voice.

“You’re doing perfectly,” Mama said.

For a minute I almost felt like I wasn’t there, like I was looking through my eyes from somewhere far away. It was like this bundle of questions suddenly was delivered to my mind. Why are we here? How are we here?

It’s the first time I actually remember the questions. How did it happen? How did I come to be right here, right now? How am I alive?

After maybe a minute it occurred to me that I should probably keep on shoveling. I pushed the questions aside, stuck the shovel in the snow, and threw it to the side.

So far, it’s been eight years since then. I haven’t stopped asking.

Archaic Writings of Moi

I've been reading over my old poems. It's fun and it makes me feel like such a self-centered genius because I think, "oh hey, these are pretty decent!"

I also came across a story that I started in fourth or fifth grade. To be perfectly honest, erm...it's absolutely terrible. It is so very cliché and repetitive in the field of word choice. Not that I've made much improvement in that sense on first drafts, but when I go back and read it I think I might have spent more time choosing the font and formatting than actually writing. Whoops. 

But at the same time it's amazingly okay, because it's not much more than you'd expect from me back then. You kind of look at it and say, wow this is terrible. Makes you think of the fact that you're so much better at word choice, grammar, and just general story-making.

As for showing it to other people...I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. *reads it over again* Yeah, I don't think it will happen...EVER.