I'll never be the same

My new job at Ray and Albert's isn't particularly demanding work (not yet, at least) so whilst scrubbing dishes, slicing meat, and tending to the till, I've developed a habit of reflecting on the small-town diner dynamic. Nearly every customer that walks in that door is a character. I make mental notes on the ones I serve, recording a piece of them for future reference, for when I've caught an especially grueling case of writer's block and I need something pure and new to get me writing again.

There's the man with his entire face gathered near the bottom half of his head, whose pouting lips rest on his chin and whose eyebrows crumple down around the bridge of his nose. There's the woman with the striking smoker's voice who came in multiple times to order booze and cigarettes. There's a fat, happy woman and her shy daughter, who hides around mommy's legs when I smile at her. There's a kind old man in the corner watching football who doesn't mind me vacuuming beneath his chair at closing time. There's... a lot more. It's humbling to walk out of a school where each person is a carbon-copy of the next, and into a different building where everyone is so totally unique, and shamelessly so.

Work is a priority to me, now. Boys are troubling and can't make up their own minds. School is school and requires very little effort on my part. Art is something I almost need to do, and certainly not a chore. Friends are often a fleeting, fair-weather species to which I feel no lasting bond or promise. Writing is much like art. Music is second/third nature.

All those are just there. But this job, it's going to be my priority. Tomorrow I will throw myself into the work, I will impress the boss, I will earn my pay, and then I will come home, the government will steal away a portion of my paycheck, my to-do list will swell, and my life will be as sad and tired as everyone else I've ever met who had priorities. The future is looming and dark, and in it I would like to own a car.

Excuse me, my Peter Pan complex is flaring up...

I know this sounds ridiculous, but I do believe I had an encounter with love a little while ago. I can see myself dying just to keep that feeling a while longer. I can't be with this boy, though. So I moved on a little too quickly, pulled myself away from that mess waiting to happen, and got hurt by an entirely different boy. It wasn't too bad a hurt, though, because I know I didn't really care for him anyway; he was a decoy, a fallback.

I've also been sketching out the ground rules to birth control. I don't want to go into too much depth with this topic, as I know of some boys who read this, but I need to make a decision soon (I'm thinking within one/two months) on the matter, and have no one to help out with it. Only one of my friends is on it, and she lies to me almost constantly.

Aand--

Drugs are really, really fucking bad. Don't do them.

-manda.

You got the prize, you got the game
You got my pants around my ankles
You got me stuttering your name
You got me up at three A.M.
I'll never be the same
You got me checking every mirror
You got me so damn vain
You got me blinded to the world
Now only you remain