Ben (I’ve resolved to start dropping names) and I went out for sushi last night, and that was good. Afterwards, tragically car-less, we walked along the highway and tried to find a bookstore. We happened upon a McDonalds playstructure instead. Trying to climb into it was a bad idea, and I think I ought to give up on reclaiming my childhood. Still, highways at night are beautiful, and there was sporadic yellow lightning in the distance, as if someone was trying to boot up Frankenstein.

We found a Barnes&Noble eventually, with the bemused help of a bangly blond salesgirl at a video store, and looked at gorgeous photography books. They were a bit worn, like lots of other people had also squashed into armchairs and gaped through them.

Carl is funny, even though he claims I am smarmy. I am not a used-car salesman; therefore, there is no smarm. QED.

There will be photographic evidence of the proletariot hat at some point. Meanwhile, everyone cheer for Dylan, who now pays money to exist on the web. Yay for him!

This semester I will finally be forced to write creatively. This is something I’ve never really attempted, paralyzed with fear of failure and laziness.

I have decided to become an anarchist. Not the kind that really wants government to disappear, because those people would probably be the first to go if it actually did. I’m only an anarchist because I hate authority, specifically, one authority — Espinosa. Today he confiscated my beautiful proletariot hat. I am bitter and vengeful.

I’ve actually started exercising. Is that not marvelous? Now I can conform to society’s standards the way I’ve always wanted to.

I read somewhere that love and hate are two sides of the same coin — they both make you burn and do strange, illogical things. The opposite of love is indifference. It’s true.

Yesterday was a really good day. Went out to lunch again, and after school I went to Starbucks with one of my favorite people. We talked for hours over raspberry ice cream and coffee things, and when I got home Arman and I conversed on the phone for five hours at least. It’s a pity we didn’t think about the phone bill until midnight or so — at that point it probably would have been cheaper for me to fly to Michigan.

It’s funny, how things work out. Or don’t. Have some appropriate lyrics.

My math teacher is amazing because he doesn’t make us rationalize denominators. My teacher last year did not realize that now is the Age of the Calculator, and her slide-rule logic was useless. I absolutely cannot respect math teachers who can’t handle radicals in the denominator.

Okay, so the master plan: senior year, I have to hold sway over Newspaper, Frontage Roads, Psychology Club, and maybe Unite if it’s not dead by then.

The first day of school was less terrifying this time around. I know the place now, and it’s my place. Of course I woke up at four to finish my summer reading book report (this was pathetic) and thus my day was kind of bleary. At least I’m back in the groove. Journalism class has got to be the best thing ever.

Our new school bells are abominable. They drone like the fire alarm. It’s pathological. It turns out that the reason our bells are so demented is: the school was struck by lightning over the summer, and somehow this fried the bells. I hope this is true.

My Physics teacher is a reputable-looking, tie-wearing man. He asked me my name, and I said, Anush, rhymes with bush. I say this because otherwise Americans mangle it to Anoosh, somehow. Like the President? he asked. Or like the plant, I replied. Oh, you’re a Democrat, said he.

My schedule next year is this amazing, shiny thing I want to have babies with. The school doesn’t want upperclassmen to take more than seven classes unless they need to. Cunningly, I brought my criminally adorable baby brother along, and the establishment bent to my whims. Alex also helped me get into Journalism II without taking the prerequisite. Yay me.

This is entertaining. “Theobiology” is a novel concept.

Why don’t I know how to drive yet? Life is poo.

I have very specific taste, I’ve realized, in food, people, art, etc. I am only enthused about sushi, Irish Cream, and capitalist Starbucks things. My very favorite people are extremely similar. Fortunately, they don’t know each other, because if they shook hands the universe might implode. I like the way my analytical thinking is always about me, and also really vague so no one mistakenly perceives a point.

School’s close. It’s a good thing, really, because I need that obligation to get me up in the mornings. I’ve found I need people to do things. I am profoundly okay with an empty life.

Two in the morning. Somehow got my maternal unit to get me bottled Starbucks objects, and am now grooving. See how cleverly I vary my sentence structure by simply leaving off the ‘I’ in the beginning, instead of actually innovating?