Zensitive

1. I can dislocate my left shoulder at will, without it hurting.

2. I've got to be the whitest girl in my entire city, but I'm from the inner city originally, so I'm secretly gangster.

3.  The fact that I just said gangster instead of gangsta disproves my theory.

4. It turns out that my dad listened to Death Cab for Cutie, which I always thought was a bit odd. He must have been quirky.

5. There is no better feeling than leaning alllllllllll the way back on a chair and feeling your spine crack.

6. I have a bad habit of losing my mp3 player in epic ways. One got ran over, one has fallen into the ocean. My new one is safer than the President.

7.  I've hugged Marilyn Manson.
 
8. The best reactions in the world are from old ladies who hear that I've hugged him. 

9.  Certain types of keyboards are easier for me to type on than others.

10. I love walking alone at night, but due to the fact that I have breasts--I have to be super careful. So I normally have a little knife or something.

11. I loves me some caffeine. 

12. I've been homeless.

13. My life would make an awesome book, if only I could remember stuff.

14. My mom's anxiety has definitely affected me. And occasionally her Xanax affects me as well.

15. When I was playing the Sims, I found the master cheat code. It changed your relationships, needs, death, everything. And then it got boring as hell--so I decided that if I ever found out the secret to being fully in charge of my life, I'd be bored to tears.

16. My family has an unhealthy obsession with Disney. Like....really freaking unhealthy. I, however, remain immune.

17.  Until I was 12, I had no idea what Nickelodeon was.

18. If I was stuck in a snow-bound train car, I would eventually resort to cannibalism.

19. At some point, "Oh, it's just the internet, don't take it to heart" doesn't really cut it. I know kids who've really gotten hurt on here.

20. My parents both were huge gay right activists, and since I was a baby I used to go to protests with them.

21. When I see someone, anyone..I wonder how well they kiss.

22. The chaos theory fascinates me.

23.  I want to be a film student.

24. Because of all my guy friends, I laugh at really inappropriate things. Luckily, they laugh with me.

25. I ask people to make me playlists of their favorite music. Because of this, I love almost every genre.

--For the record, never speak this to the person riding shotgun.

There's a place in Orange County, by the mountains, called Black Star Canyon.
Before I went, I Wikipedia'd it, and this is what I came up with.

• The meeting place of a Satanic cult in the 1980s, which is often misstated as having been the Ku Klux Klan due to the numerous hikers' reports of seeing distant bonfires in the canyon.
• Haunted by a demon called "Black Star"
• Being home to extraterrestrials and/or a secret military installation
• Being guarded by Indian spirits
• Haunted by a banshee called "La Llorona" (The Wailer), who was said to live in a well and have the head of a horse.

....So, that's fun.
Scary movies have never really gotten to me, nor indeed have scary stories.
But when Darren, Kevin, Angela and I pulled up to the entrance of the Canyon, I got chills running up and down my spine. There aren't many areas left without fluorescent lighting, signs, ect. This was one of the few.

Aside from the glow of our headlights, what lay before us was a long stretch of black. Darren turned to me, she of the nonverbal fear.

"Do you trust me?"

HELL NO. What if we get attacked? Or crash? Or eaten by a freaky well-dwelling horse-headed wailing lady?

"Of course."

Mind and mouth should be better connected sometimes.
So we drive.

Over and over, dotted reflective lines direct us through the black. We've got our music turned up, singing, shifting our gazes out the window for some sign of danger. All we got in return was the echo of our music.

Careless in our summer clothes
splashing around, in the muck and the miiiire..

Kevin grinned. "You know, there's an old schoolhouse up the road."
"Please, god, Kev, not again.." Angela interjected. He held up a hand.
"Just saying. When I grew up, we used to have this right of passage of ringing the school bell."

Chills went through me again, followed by awkward self-chiding. Ooooh. A bell.
Scaaaary.
I smirked, turning back to look at him. "So. Are you saying we should go?"

now hang me up to dry
you wrung me out
too too too many times

For a moment, everything paused. The music had been turned off..when had that happened? Even Darren slowed down. Kevin finally looked up.

"Hell no."
"There's a turnaround here, should we take i--"
"YES!" all three of us near shouted in unison. We'd dropped our cool exteriors for a group freakout. With nervous laughter and music turned back up, we turned around, speeding back the opposite way. All the while singing along, louder this time (as if our voices would drive the demon-kkk-wailer-alien-indian monster out of our minds).

all mixed up in the wash
hot water bleeding our colors

Kevin leaned forward on our last stretch of road.
"You know, guys...I keep expecting a zombie to step out and hit our car."

now hang me up to dry
I'm pearly like the whites
the whites of your eyes


"...Shut up, Kevin."
Next time? I'm ringing that bell.

Ah, Thanksgiving preparation.
The fun times that are schlepping all of our family up to Oregon for the third time in my life to see my stepdad's family.
Time to hear about all the Hallmark moments:

"Josh got accepted into all of the schools he applied fo--"

"--urty pounds. In six months. it's a miracle in a pill--"

"--owcases always end up having to be bleached more, since I started coloring my ha--"

"-rvard Law! Josh is so excited, and we are all excited for him. Aren't we?"

I miss the good old days in Washington, DC. Where we learned who got shot this year. Who got some weird disease. Who had an odd political fight brought on by alcohol.

Or hey, got shot whilst being in a drunken political fight brought on by some weird disease?
 Just a good, clean, Backwoods-Baltimore Thanksgiving.

And then it comes to me. The new one of the family.

"What about you, sweetie? Any Ivy League applications on your desk?"

The pause.
The moment where slowly, every last one of them turns to me.

"--Actually, I'm thinking of going to film school."

A longer pause. Actually, just a continuation of the initial one.

"Film school? Oh...that's nice dear..."

--And then it's back to Josh, and his nail-biting decision. Yale? Harvard?
Only my cousin Clay comes up to me after.

"Can I tell you a secret?"
I pause, then slowly nod.

"I'm going into interior design. They think I'm doing architecture."
"Why would it matter?"
"They consider Grandpa redoing one room entirely in IKEA to be interior design."

I inhale sharply, thinking: I hope you never see our house. It looks like Macy's and IKEA's love-child.

I grin. "You should see my house."

"Hey" Clay grins back "just put it in your movie."