Blogs of Wrath

July 29 I get nervous sometimes. Dad says that nerves lead to pressure, and too much pressure can make you explode. When the pot of corn on the cob boils on the stove, he holds the lid down and illustrates this theory by showing me the way the steam lifts it. When you have pressure, you need a release … a valve to free yourself. Some people have journals for this kind of liberation. Well, I’ve got mine. My name is Carl DeReese and this is my blog. August 8 When I stand in what will be our new house, I wonder if it will really be done by the end of the month like they say. My new bedroom will be in the basement—which is fine, because I can have some privacy to listen to music without my dad telling me it’s time to turn it down and go to bed. Plus we’ll have the house wired with Comcast High-Speed Internet. I want to eventually get a laptop with wireless Internet so I can design a network, but that’s down the road. Maybe that can be a future Xmas or birthday gift if I keep my grades up. What freaks me out is people can see right through the walls. It’s not like the house is done yet, but I can stand in what will be my bedroom and see right through the wall into the downstairs family room. From the street, I can see into the whole house. It doesn’t seem like home with the entire world able to look through the walls. Honestly, it doesn’t feel like home. It’s just boards and sawdust and two-by-fours. Maybe we should forget the walls, and let the world watch us as we do our daily stuff. We could be a reality show: House Without Walls. But then, that’s what this blog is. I’ll use my mouse and click on “publish” and the whole world can read this. Trouble is, most people won’t even know it’s here. August 29 It’s weird moving to a new school. My dad tells me all about when he was a kid, and how they moved to different states a couple of times. I’m just lucky to be staying here in Utah. Moving from another town just a few miles away shouldn’t feel so different, but the people just aren’t the same. Maybe we can go back to Woods Cross and I won’t have such a hard time learning all these new faces in a new school. I already miss my old friends Tim and Trent. It’s like a billion names were poured into my head today. Not that I can keep track of them or even match them to a face. Imagine taking every name that you’ve ever known and then shifting them to different people. After today I just wanted to get back home so I could mess around with my computer stuff that’s sort of unpacked and scattered all over the floor. I should probably organize all of my nerdy computer gadgets, but whatever. Dragging myself through today took a lot of energy, and cleaning just plain sucks. My life for the past couple of days has been ripping packing tape off U-Haul boxes and rediscovering every stupid worldly possession I have. I find junk that I don’t need, and search forever to find what I’m looking for. August 30 The thing about Farmington Junior High is the building itself seems like it was designed just to confuse me. In my old school the hallways made sense. I could almost close my eyes and know where to go. In FJH, I feel like I need GPS to simply find my locker. I swear, between classes the custodians must make it a point to pull the locker numbers off and re-arrange them. People are messing with my head, seriously. I miss Woods Cross. Stupid, I know. On a map the towns are almost right next to each other. It takes about eleven minutes (I timed it) to drive from our old house to our new house. Of course that’s on the freeway and I’m only thirteen. By the time I get to drive I probably won’t even remember anybody from the old neighborhood. Since the carpet in our house is new we have to take our shoes off. This is because we don’t have a yard yet and everything is covered with dirt. Dad says he wants to put in a sprinkler system, spread topsoil, and then top it off with sod. Lucky me, I’ll get to help. When I’m old, is that all I’ll have to worry about? Just stupid grass and sprinklers? August 31 In my new neighborhood, everyone is either young—like freaking pre-school or elementary young—or old. The house next door is filled with children. I haven’t actually been able to count all of them, but there must be at least five kids. The oldest is in third grade. Across the street are Mr. and Mrs. Flinders. When I first read the name on the mailbox, I thought it said Flanders, and that would have been okely-dokely with me. (Get it? Simpson’s joke.) Anyway, they’re old. No kids. I’m the only person on our street in junior high. I walk to and from school alone. The worst part of school is lunch. Not because what they allege to be food is putrid or anything like that. (Let it be known that the meals are crappy.) It’s because I don’t want to sit at a table all alone. Last year in seventh grade it was pretty scary, but at least I had Tim and Trent around and we were going through it together. Today at lunch I didn’t want to sit at a table alone. I just couldn’t. So I bought some chips from the vending machine and walked around eating them. When they were gone, I just continued walking around in the hallway so it looked like I was going somewhere even though I wasn’t. If they’d let me take a bus to Woods Cross Junior High just for lunch period, I’d be happy. Then I could see my friends and not sit alone at the cafeteria. I hope I’m not being a big baby about all of this. Maybe I am. Maybe nobody really cares anyway. September 5 Have you ever looked under a table at a restaurant and found a crust of gum stuck all over the bottom? My history class can be boring, but today one of the cheerleaders totally freaked out. She screamed and said, “There’s a bunch of boogers stuck under my desk!” Then she lifted up her hand, held it in front of her and said, “And now they’re on my hand.” She almost started to cry, I swear, as she ran to the bathroom. The whole class laughed, and we really needed a break. It was perfect timing. Even the teacher smiled a little. Most of my other classes are pretty good—except for gym. Yesterday I got pantsed when we were playing basketball. Everyone thought it was pretty funny, but I was so embarrassed I thought I was going to die. Luckily my underwear only went down part of the way, so my white butt was only partially exposed. And the girls weren’t in the gym at the time, thank God. Coach Tate told me to “toughen up,” but I really just wanted to go home. Most of the time, I try to fake a headache so I don’t have to play sports. Sometimes it works. For now, I’m going to try and figure out this math homework. Mrs. Taylor is going to slay me if I miss one more assignment. September 6 Mom has finally arranged every last bit of furniture to her liking. And I mean all of it, including the pictures on the walls, every decoration we used to have in the old house, plus a hefty amount of new additions. We have this shelf above the wall that runs between the kitchen and the living room, and I’ve noticed that she’s added a ton of baskets, candles, flower arrangements, and stuff that only moms can think of. I wish she’d sleep, though. I can tell that she’s been tossing and turning all night because her face seems so tired all the time. Sleeping in a new house is a little freaky at first, but I’m getting used to it. I can make it to the bathroom in the middle of the night without turning on a light. At least, I hope it’s the bathroom! Har-dee-har-har. Gosh, I’m funny. Back to mom, though; it’s like she’s got something on her mind. I hope everything’s all right. Since she’s hung up all the decorations, I’ve noticed this calendar that she put on the wall above the telephone in the kitchen. There is an appointment penciled in for next Wednesday with someone called Dr. Abbot.