Oh, Miley!

Miley Cyrus - what respect i have for you as a person. You are such a beautiful and thoughtful woman, and SUCH a sex icon. One day I envision you will go down as history, right beside Marilyn Monroe and Audrey Hepburn.
Thank you for inspiring me, Miley. With ballads like, " If I'm not doin' too well, why be so hard on myself?" I can see why you have a cult-like teenage following. Those lyrics guided me through my freshman year of high school, and I hold solely you responsible for my 65 average.
Thanks, Miley, for showing me the right way to deal with a break - up - make a song and target the guy who broke up with me. Next time I break with up a kind diabetic, I will draw all over his face on a picture, shoot a video about it, and embarass him in front of America.
You are like a poet, rhyming all over the place. "But my intentions are good, yeah yeah yeah, sometimes just misunderstood" just had me tearing up all over the place. What meaning, what DEPTH those words have.
Thank you for setting a good example, with all your half naked pictures. Seriously, sometimes a girl just needs to get down and dirty - I mean, who CARES if 8 year olds look up to you as if you were a god? You have to do what YOU want, and what YOU need. Please, don't consider the pure minds you are influencing. Just go out there and do your thang, Miley. And if that means taking sleazy myspace pictures with your hot pink panties, well who's going to stop you?
Thanks for saying being quoted in the tabloids as saying it won't happen again, and then doing it again 2 weeks later. I really respect you for that, so much. Let all those 5 year old's eat their hearts out!
What I appreciate more than anything else are the things you say. Your wise words of wisdom will stick with me forever. The things you say really make me think about my life. For example, "I don't know if I could go back to, like, a normal life. I think it would be too hard."
Word, Miley. Just straight up word.
Or take, for example, "It was insane. All of a sudden I woke up one day and went to Macy’s and saw myself on a T-shirt. I feel empowered when I see my face on a T-shirt."
We can all, like, totally relate, like.
And the way you target other celebrities? I LOVE that tiger attitude you have. You're just so FIERCE, Miley. Don't let them other nice celebrities bring you down. Just get out there and do your thaaaang, girlfriend. Seriously, targeting Demi and Selena? BRILLIANT.
And don't listen to what anybody says, how you have low self-esteem. Everybody knows you have high self-esteem. Especially when you say things like, "I went to Macy's and tried on all the Hannah Montana stuff. It was fun."
Sounds totes fun, dollface.
You're especially literate, and I see that you think education is important. I mean, after all, ANYBODY could have made the mistake of calling their youtube video, "We are TO hapy." as opposed to "We are too happy."
But that's okay, 'cause who cares about education. We know what values you care about, Miley.
"I love your rack," you told Katy Perry.
Kudos, Miley. We all do!
And we're sorry, Miley, we really are, about how boys are just all over you.
"Just because I have big boobs .. " you tell Seventeen. America understands, Miles. Double A's are pretty hard to manage.
What the public appreciate most about you, Miley?
"I love God" you tell People magazine, 2 days after photos leak of you making out with an unidentified guy.
So thanks a lot, Miley. For setting a good example for the children of America, and for being a good Christian.

What an Eyesore.

My eyes are burning. There is like, fire inside my eyes. My eyes are being burned out of my sockets. There is intense pain going on in these eyes of mine.
And i can't even touch them.
For 5 minutes now, I have been sitting in the medical office waiting room of my eye doctor.
Let me clarify - I have been sitting on my hands. The circulation has been cut off of them. I can't feel my fingers.
I am not allowed to touch my eyes. These so called doctors just sprayed burning lava into the sockets that previously housed my eyeballs, and I can't scrape the lava out.
This is because I have 'done enough damage to them already.'
I suppose it is for that exact reason that they are damaging my eyes even more. So as to prevent my ability to hurt them anymore.
Because their plot has become clear to me now: These people are tying to kill my eyeballs.
I guess I should clarify on what the hell I am doing here instead of taking my computer science test like a good Stuyvesant student. The answer is that I am dying. In this medical office. And all because I didn't 'use my contacts properly'.
What a load of bull. Pshaw. Just because I didn't wash my contacts out everyday like I'm supposed to, and used the same contact solution for 4 weeks, and the contacts got completely dried out and I stuffed them into my eyes anyway, and then my eyes got all red and satanic and cartoon character huge and oozy due to my awful contact use, does not mean that i am at fault here.
It is obviously their fault. Them and their stupid 'medical degrees' this and, 'professional eye doctor' that. I was just doing fine with my red and satanic and cartoon character huge eyes until these stupid doctors poured BURNING LAVA INTO MY SKULL to make it 'all better'.
I mean, just because I can see clearly now doesn't mean they helped. I will take cartoon character huge eyes anyday over burning lava. But I guess that's just me.
And why did my mom send me to my eye doctor, anyway? Just because I came home with my hands in front of my face so that I could feel my way home, doesn't mean i'm not capable of living with these eyes. I mean, I got home in one piece, didn't I? Well, mostly. One of my fingers is still trapped in those subway car doors. And why did she yell at me? I bet this happens to people all the time. Well, not the 'losing finger in subway car door' thing. Because I've never actually seen that happen. But using the same contact solution without changing it or cleaning it for four weeks it totally a normal occurrence, right? Yeah. Definitely. Just because I've never seen it happen doesn't mean it doesn't, right?
Oops. Have to go. My doctor's coming back, and now that I can see her face, I see she's pretty angry. In fact, her face is doing that weird eyebrow thing it did when this happened last month, and she told me it better never happen again. Talk to you guys later!

The truth comes out.

The truth is that sometimes being the really funny short kid gets old.

I've been the funny kid my whole life, and i'm a really boring person once you get to know me. Sometimes I just want to shed this comical skin and be myself, but I'm worried that without the cracks, nobody will want to stay friends with me. The jokes are a gimmick. It's for you to go, "hey, it's cute the cute short kid. look at her, that funny kid."
I don't want to be the funny kid. I want you to like me for me. I want you to tolerate me even when i'm being a bitch, and deal with the sarcasm, and not mind if sometimes I just want to sit there quietly and think. Or cry.

And the truth is that most of you won't be there for me when I'm just in a crappy mood and need a companion. And that most of you will ditch me if I'm going through a tough time. Oddly enough, this doesn't disappoint me. That's because I can say, "ditto for you." I don't have all that many friends I care about. This is not to say I'm anti social or whatever. It's just that I only care about certain people. I'll talk to you in the halls, and I'll give you a christmas card, but I probably don't give two shits about you. Not meaning that I don't care about the person, but meaning that .. I can only care so much. I'll bring you ice cream when you're down, and buy you a birthday gift. But I won't sit there and listen to all your problems, and I sure as hell won't give you my share of the water if we're sitting side by side in the sahara desert, waiting for death to come.

As for some of you .. I will be there for you. I will sit there and wipe your spit when you're sputtering about how he dumped your sorry ass. I will spoon feed you Ben&Jerry's Chubby Hubby if you become paralyzed. I will scooter over to your house in the dead of night if you tell me there's a problem. And I will take a bullet straight to the chest if I know that it means you'll be alright.

Those are the people who listen. Those are the people who don't care if I'm telling jokes, or telling secrets. Or even rambling on and on and on about some stupid math problem.
Those are the people who care.

& those are the people I love.

Things I learned during my first week as a sophmore in Stuyvesant High School:

1) Freshmen are tiny. The fact that sophmores ever were freshmen is a shocking and unbelievable fact that you still can't fully comprehend.
2) The senior bar is still offlimits. Very, very offlimits.
3) The halls get even more crowded every year. And freshmen are completely capable of shoving and pushing sophmores to their feet.
4) Running from the 2nd to the 9th floor in under 4 minutes is an impossible feat to accomplish.
5) Especially when you're wearing flats that you have not yet broken in.
6) And carrying 2 chemistry textbooks. Two thick chemistry textbooks.
7) Contrary to your hopes, the sophmore boys did not get any more attractive. Although
they got taller. Something that you, at 5 feet and half an inch, do not appreciate.
8) Telling your very bat-like assistant principal that she should go hang upside down on a tree branch might cause her to burst into tears. But how were you to know that she had a long history of ridicule from her fellow classmates throughout her elementary school career? Yes, 8 year olds can be very cruel people if they choose to be.
9) If you thought your 10th floor homeroom would get switched to a lesser floor, you were very very wrong in your assumption. Sadly wrong.
10) Classes that are only 27 minutes long? Very nice.
11) Lunch that is only 27 minutes long? Very, very upsetting,
12) Freshman boys - ooh la la.
13) Ooh la la. Those freshman boys.
14) Those are some seriously attractive freshman boys.
15) The. freshman. boys. are. unexplicably. hot.
16) Don't talk to your friends, even if they're sitting right next to you. No matter how tempting it will be. Because, seriously, your teachers WILL separate you. And put you in the front of the room to "keep an eye on". Which means that texting is not a possibility. Which, frankly, sucks.
17) Truly a suckish situation.
18) And if you're sitting next to your friend, and are passing them notes about your very round and temperamental teacher, please use a code name. Your teacher might not like being referred to as a , "fat dumb cow with no teaching capabilities."
19) Especially not if you throw in that it's, "about time she gave birth to the growing quintuplets that have been living in her stomach throughout your high school experience"
20) And don't curse in Russian in Spanish class, because it is a possibility that your spanish teacher knows like 580705 different languages and knows exactly what you said, and that it was about her and her unibrow.
21) Don't make fun of your math teacher's math tie. It is a possibility that it was made for him by his dyslexic son. Y'know. A highly unlikely possibility. But one that might have happened. To you.
22) You TOTALLY have the right to remain silent about your evil doings, even if your english teacher explains that this is a classroom, not a precint, and she is a teacher, and not a police officer.
23) If your female teacher is telling you this, don't mutter under your breath the words, "you're not a teacher. you're just an overweight amish man who's buying his time until he can go into retirement" because you just might be very close to the truth and she might just get very offended.
24) Starting a water balloon fight in computer science class and damaging 15,000$ of equipment is not something the adminstration takes lightly.
And lastly,
25) These days, people might take the threat that you're, "GOING TO BLOW UP THE SCHOOL AND EVERYONE IN IT" very, very seriously. And they might just search your pockets, your backpack, your locker, AND your home. And then they might kick you out of Stuyvesant High School. And your mother might not take it as lightly as she did when you got fired from your job. Just a thought.

Dearest Troy Bolton,

It has become apparent to me that you are suffering from some internal fatal illness. After all, what reason could there be for the very apparent pain written all over your face as you sing your way though the high school musical movies? Whenever you burst into song, you seem to be on the verge of tears. Hitting a high note causes you obvious discomfort, and I for one appreciate the fact that you will go through so much to please your fans. The way your face twists as you belt out lyrics - my heart goes out to you in your time of need. It appears that the pain you're suffering from radiates from you stomach - for that is what you reach for as your face contorts. During, "Getcha Head in the Game" [props to you on that, btw. Nice high note you hit there, brotha], I was in tears just looking at you. I can only imagine what you were going through, as you got through the words 'Why am I feeling so wrooo-oong?' and your hand flew to your stomach. Don't worry, Troy. I know why you're feeling so wrong. It's the tumor in your stomach. Also, I hope the pepto bismol will take effect soon enough for you to stop crying during the scene I saw in the trailer for high school musical 3 - you know. The one where Gabriella stands up, and everything else gets quiet - [got to give it to disney, they sure know how to make something seem realistic!] - and you're all like, "And that's all I really need." Yeah, that. I honestly hope the medicine takes effect, because if you burst into tears right there, in the middle of the basketball court, I don't think your basketball buddies will be all the pleased with you. In fact, your manly rep might slip a few notches. So just hold it together a little bit man, long enough for the medicine to make it all better. Or, in the words of the medicine itself, take care of the 'upset stomach, diarrhea!' (Yes, we all love it. Yes, we all sing it in the shower. Or, atleast I do...) Right, so. Best wishes to you on that.
Love,
A caring fan.

How I Spent my Summer Vacation.

By Paula T. Age 15 and a quarter.

Dear teacher,
This summer vacation was a very productive one. I did many productive things
This summer vacation was very fun. I worked in a daycare as a buttwiper for minimum wage.
This summer I got food poisoning on two occasions.
I do not appreciate the fact that you made me write this essay.
I do not appreciate the fact that you made me write this essay for several reasons.
This includes
1) That the only people who write essays like this are 3rd graders. I should know, because my sister is writing the same essay next to me.
2)That you gave me an assignment like this one the first day of school. Let me tell you teacher, that was pretty freaking uncool. You are number one on my list of teachers who I will slaughter on April Fool's day.
3) You are my freaking art teacher. Where does this assignment tie into the curriculum?
4) I made plans for today, thinking I wouldn't get any work. And then you hit me with this. It's not appreciated.
5) My sister just looked over my shoulder, and notified me of the fact that she is getting extra credit for this assignment. I am not getting extra credit for this assignment. I am angry about this.
6) You told us that if we bailed on this assignment, our test average was getting docked. Which is clever of you, I suppose. But I am not the biggest fan of cleverness.
But I suppose I should start talking about my summer.
This summer was unlike any other summer I've ever hard. For starters, I had a job. And a real job, not one of those under the table operations where I got paid 20 dollars a week to alphabetize paperwork. No, no, this was a real job, where I did real work, and got paid real money. Not like last time, where I was paid in pesos. Which I later discovered was not, "just really pretty american money with spanish words on it."No, I will not be duped once again by those very smart latino people.
Also, I gained 5 pounds. This is a serious accomplishment in our household. My mother was ecstatic and allowed me to buy a pint of Ben&Jerry's Half Baked. I did. It was very good. I can understand that you just got a craving for ice cream, teacher. Go ahead. Buy some. This paper can wait.
Now that you're back, I can keep telling you about my summer.
Well, I walked in on my parents making whoopie. This was not one of the more exciting aspects of my summer. In fact, it's chalked up there with being stung by a jellyfish, a bumblebee, and my mother's persistent sarcasm.
I also fell in love. That was pretty cool. But if you saw those chocolate colored raspberries, you would fall in love, too.
Another pretty cool thing about this summer was the Cheetah Girls: One World. You will not believe how realistic the plotline was. I'm assuming you have no life, seeing as how you are a teacher, so I will tell you the story.
3 girls [There were 4, but one quit. Or whatever. They say she "was taking a summer course" but she obviously got pregnant, or something] are in some band that's not cool anymore, and they burst into song in the middle of the restaurant [and of course all the waiters can dance, too] and then get a call to try out for some movie. They try out, and they make it, but only one can be the star. One of the girls meets the boy she's been talking to on the phone in India, and he turns out to be a prince, and he provides the movie's location as long as the producer promises to make the girl the lead. But the producer falls in love with the other girl, so he obviously doesn't want to make the prince's girlfriend the lead. And the third girl is helping this popular dude who got case in the movie dance, because he gets all flustered around the choreographer, who's some commonplace ugly chick. In the end, the commonplace ugly chick gets the lead, the creepy fortune-telling sketch hooks up with all 3 of them, and they get trampled by elephants. Or something like that. I fell asleep an hour into it.
I also attended all the sales Staples had and got loads of steals on my school supplies. Pencils for 2 cents? Notebooks for 6 cents? A sharpener for free? COUNT ME IN.
That's pretty much it for my summer. Pretty run of the mill stuff.
Love, Paulabee.


P.S. Hannah Montana's concert was actually really not cool. And Demi Lovato getting her gap fixed was not appreciated.

So.

How simple life was when you were younger.
I smile sadly at the concept, wedged into a chair meant for butts smaller than mine. I shift a little, and the chair creaks beneath my weight.
My current job in a daycare always keeps me in contact with little children. I look out at the playground set out in front of me.
Girls run from the boys, screaming about the fatal disease of cooties. A group of older children is coloring, the younger children gazing on in wonder at how they stay inside the lines. A little boy puts the finishing touch on a tower of building blocks, then smiles a malicious smile and kicks the tower, sending the blocks towering to the ground. An hour he's been building that tower, and only swift seconds were spent destroying it.
A metaphor, it feels like, for my life at the moment.
Or rather a metaphor for my friendship with you.
It wasn't too long ago when our "tower" reached its peak. At the time, our inside jokes rumored in the hundreds - just looking at you sent me into peals of laughter. No awkward silences, just comfortable moments reflecting on things. Hours spent on the phone, talking about nothing at all, and everything in particular. How well things were, and how bad they got. I can't pinpoint exactly when things got awry. The calls got less frequent. The comfortable moments stopped and turned into shifting eyes, stutters of, "sooo...".
I felt that I was to blame. I had taken part in this cycle of friendship so many times before, and always things ended badly. Surely, there was something wrong with me. With my personality.
How we tried to save it. And how it didn't help.
You tried to call me, and I paced around my house, anxious to think of things to say. Nothing would come to mind and I'd race to say something, anything, to keep you on the line, but the magical glimmer was gone from our friendship. The spark had long been gone, anyway, and we lapsed into a pattern of avoidance. We have the same friends, so it's not exactly easy to avoid you. My eyes catch yours, and you look away quickly. I follow suit.
I used to be funny around you, but I lost it. The comfort had left, and the humor wasn't far behind.
You don't have a hard time keeping up the jokes; I see you bonding comfortably with everyone around me.
I try to crack a joke, begin to tell it, and falter under your questioning gaze.
I don't really remember a time when your opinion took on such importance, but now it does.
I'm scared of your judging. I know that you can see through my laughter, my cover up, to the person within. And that in itself is scary enough.
I'm jolted out of my train of thought - the boy has begun rebuilding his tower, and he's laughing as he stacks block unto block, shooing away kids who want to help. He doesn't mind the time he just spent building the tower only to topple it to the ground. It doesn't matter to him that it will take him atleast an hour to rebuild it.
But I doubt fate will play out in the same way for us.

Adoption.

My sister is a 9 year old mother.
You read that right. Let me repeat myself for clarification.
My sister is a 9 year old mother.
Of a snail.
My sister is the 9 year old mother of a snail.
"You must mean you're the snail's owner," I corrected her, "Because you can't be a snail's mother. It's an animal. It's your pet."
"Whaddya mean, I can't be it's mother?" She demanded, "I raised it. I loved it. I put air holes in its jar."
"You've had it for roughly 5 minutes. And you're not it's mother. It's a freaking SNAIL."
"Fine, then. I've adopted it," She gave a triumphant smile.
"YOU CAN'T ADOPT A SNAIL."
"Well, I'll be the first."
My sister is the 9 year old mother of a snail.
She held up the little jam jar that was now the poor snail's home up to my face.
"LOOK AT IT. ISN'T IT THE CUTEST THING YOU'VE EVER SEEN?"
No I thought to myself. But I resisted the urge to gag and peeked at the jam jar. My sister had set up a modest home for the snail, complete with 4 leaves, a twig, and a piece of paper.
"For it to pee on," she explained, pointing to the tiny paper.
"Right," I said, slowly backing away."
"YOU CAN TOUCH IT IF YOU WANT. TOUCH IT!"
"I don't want to touch your freaking snail! PEOPLE EAT SNAILS IN FRANCE."
Esther shuddered, "How dare you? Refer to my child as FOOD? FOOD OF THE FRENCH!"
"It's not your child, Esther. It's a snail."
"ITS MY BABY. ITS MY ADOPTED KIN. I LOVE HER."
I stole another glance at the pathetic object of our conversation. It's little bug eyes looked at me sadly.
"LET ME OUT!" the eyes seemed to be saying.
"Esther. You have to let the snail go."
"NO!" Esther snatched the jar off the table and held it protectively to her chest, "If I told you to throw your baby away, would you do it? WOULD YOU?"
"That's not the same thing - "
"AND HOW DARE YOU EVEN THINK THAT," she yelled at me, "WHY DO YOU HATE THIS SNAIL SO MUCH, ANYYWAY? DO YOU HAVE SOMETHING AGAINST SNAILS?"
I shuddered inwardly. Memories from my childhood flooded my mind. Me sitting in the backward, a snail-filled leaf in my lap. Me putting salt on the snails, me ripping the shells off the snails' backs, me ripping the snails into several pieces and trying to see if regeneration would occur, me trying to feed the snails people food, me bringing the snails home, the snails withering away to nothing...
"DO YOU?" Esther screamed, bringing me back to the present.
"No," I said, turning away from her, "Keep your stupid snail. It won't last long anyway."
But Esther didn't hear my words, "PLAY TIME!" she shrieked, grabbing the jam jar from the table and screwing it open, "PLAY TIME FOR SNAILIE!"
Yes. That is the snail's name. Snailie. Obviously, my little sister is not the most imaginative child of the bunch.
"COME ON, SNAILIE! LET'S GO ON MY SWING SET!"
My sister is the 9 year old mother of a snail named Snailie. Oh, joy.

WHAT IS THIS MADNESS?

2 weeks ago, there was a blogging frenzy.
"I have a blog!" Michael Kwon told me, posting the link to his blog.
"I have been forced to get a blog!" Huma Sayiida exclaimed, posting the link on my facebook page.
"I'm .. going to write 'bout youuu .. on my online journal!" jeered the drunken man in Times Square, pointing to me.
I guess someone told him all about how I've been forcing people [more like blackmail, with a hint of begging] to get blogs.
Frankly, however, the lack of updates is absurd. The following is a conversation between me and myself about this disaster of epic proportions.

Paula: This is a disaster of epic proportions.
Paula: Yes, the lack of updates is absurd. Almost as absurd as that hideous granny dress you wore 2 weeks ago.
Paula: I thought we agreed never to speak of that again.
Paula: You agreed. I said nothing.
Paula: We are the same person! Naturally, if you agreed, I agreed as well.
Paula: Enough of this nonsense. I am getting a headache.
Paula: Me, too.

ON TO OTHER ISSUES OF GALACTIC IMPORTANCE: me.

well, not me, really. blogging. my blogging. as in this thing that i do, that you're reading right now. i'm beginning to think it's fairly pointless. as in, being done for no one. largely like my mother's cooking - the woman stays at the stove 3 hours a day, produces burnt meat and charred potatoes that my sister and i carefully discard into our napkins.
that being said - is anyone reading this baby? this carefully constructed blog that i update when i remember - or more like when someone says, "hey, paula. how 'bout updating that blog that you have?" often, they're met with a quizzical expression. "what blog?"
and then i remember. this blog.
"OH!" I say, "smacking my forehead. THIS BLOG. yes, i will."
and i do, as you can see.
so leave me a comment if you think i should.
update it, that is.
or else this will become an abandoned hobby. much like those 15 or so diaries that are floating somewhere around the pacific ocean. or maybe someone's read them. maybe someone's taking pleasure in my 7 page diary, reading every curse, and devouring every complaint.
i can only hope.
OKAY LEAVE A COMMENT WITH YOUR OPINION.
kisses!

Another day at work, another crying fit.

The day started innocently enough.
"Here," said the secretary, throwing 1,000-somewhat envelopes at me, "postmark these."
Postmarking envelopes has become a somewhat favorite of mine. The envelope gets weighed on a scale, makes a marvelous beeping noise, and can then be slid into a slot where another marvelous beeping noise is made, followed by a marvelous whirring noise, and then the envelope is removed with a bright red postmark in the top-right corner.
Hi. I'm Paula. Did I mention I have ADD?
The people in the office have caught on to the fact that I love postmarking envelopes due to the protective noises I make when people come near the postmarking machine.
"I'll postmark those envelopes for you!" I yell, protectively shielding the postmarking machine from any harm.
"Alright!" says the person, dropping the envelopes on the floor and cautiously backing away.
Hi, I'm Paula. Did I mention I am slightly crazy?
Like I said, the day started on a fairly innocent note. There I was, postmarking like a true - er. mailman? There I was, postmarking like a true mailman, giving small little gasps of joy whenever the machine made noises. The workers in the office had taken to avoiding me like people avoid one with a highly infectious disease, moving around me but keeping within a 10 feet radius. There might as well have been a sign over my head the said, "Beware Paula. She bites and pees on moving objects."
The point is, people kept away from me, which I don't really mind. The Love Machine -as I had taken to calling my postmarking wonder - and I needed our time alone. Suddenly, a warning flashed on the Love Machine's bright 2" LCD screen.
warning - ink low.
My heart fluttered.
The Love Machine was in danger.
Hi, I'm Paula. I am in love with an inatimate object.
I rifled through the drawers under the Love Machine, desperate for a new ink cartridge. My baby needed help, and I was going to help it. Nothing could keep us apart.
"AHA!" I proclaimed out loud victoriously, my hands grasping the red ink cartridge, "My Love Machine's last claim to human - er, machine life. My Love Machine's last claim to machine life."
The sign over my head, that I mentioned before? It now said, "Beware Paula. She bites, pees on moving objects, and also displays symptoms of schizophrenia. Has been known to break out of her cage occasionally, taking her agressive tendencies out on young children."
Workers in the near vicinity scattered away, except for a young woman who was hard at working - editing her myspace profile.
"Don't open that cartridge," she eyed me warily, "I broke the last postmarking machine, and the $300 to replace it went straight out of my paycheck."
I gasped audibly, not at the notion that the $300 to replace the last postmarking machine had gone out of this young woman's paycheck [I don't even get a paycheck!], but at the fact that she had broken a machine of such -- beauty. Such amazingness. How dare she? She was now public enemy number 1 in my eyes.
"You are now Public Enemy number 1 in my eyes," I told her venomously.
She scattered, scared that I would bite her, or pee on her, or whatever.
Me and the Love Machine were alone.
"Seriously," she said over her shoulder, "it's a complicated machine. You'll probably break it."
I was torn between my love for the Love Machine, as well as my fear that I might break it, and my ADD urges to open the cartridge and grant life to the Machine once more.
5 minutes of twitching and wandering eyes led to my ripping open the cartridge.
Red ink droplets landed on the oak table and over one of the envelopes.
I used a bounty to clean them up, one eye suspiciously on the door in case one of my bosses came through it.
Once the droplets were taken care of, I opened the Love Machine.
There, deep in it's chest, was the empty cartridge. The Love Machine's heart - the center of all of it's activity. And I, Paula, was getting offered the chance to refill the empty vessel.
Well, to be honest, no one had told me to refill the cartridge. In fact, I had been strictly warned against it.
But let's face it. I owed it to the Love Machine. If we let silly things like jobs and money matter more than true love - well. We'd be where we are now. But things were changing. And I was needed.
I gently pressed the unlock button on the top of the cartridge, and it popped out of its place. I gave a squeal. That noise had been heaven to my ears.
Once the old cartridge was out of place, I tried to stick the new cartridge in, and encountered an itty bitty, teeny weeny, little problem.
The new cartridge refused to go in.
After many futile attempts, I faced the truth: a specialist had to be called in. Or, in my case, an office worker.
"Help!" I cried, "Help!"
"What happened?" said Martha, the same girl who had warned me against opening the Love Machine. Upon seeing what happened, she shook her head and smirked, "Told you so."
Then she proceeded to walk over to the Love Machine and unceremoniously bang the cartridge into place. Red ink spilled everywhere, reminding me of blood. This specialist was killing my patient!
"Stop!" I cried, "You're hurting it!"
Martha dropped the cartridge on the floor, and I lovingly scooped it up.
"You are CRAZY," she told me, not jokingly, "You are crazy, and you scare me, and I don't know why they hired you. You are crazy, you scare me, I don't know why they hired you, and I am staying away from you!" With that, she stalked out of the room.
I felt bad for Martha, I really did. She was jealous of the connection that the Love Machine and I had. I could understand, I had been jealous last week of the fact that the kids on the Barney show got to sing with him, and I didn't. But I had moved on, and so would Martha.
"What's going on?" yelled my red-faced boss Richie, storming into the room, "Why is Martha telling me you're crazy and broke my 600$ machine? And why is there red ink everywhere? You!" he pointed a finger at me, "WHAT. DID. YOU. DO. THIS. TIME."
And then the sobbing began.
"I didn't break it," I babbled, "I just ... wanted to save it. I wanted to put in the ink so it would keep working. I didn't break it, Martha banged it. Martha banged it and she made it bleed, and I didn't do anything."
I was a mess. Truly, a mess. Love had turned me into a mess.
Richie's eyes softened as he took in my decomposition.
"Let me see what I can do."
And then he snapped the cartridge back into place, and my Love Machine gave a delicate purr, and all was well again.
The end!
*based on true events.

Be warned: The following story shows extreme stupidity on the part of the writer. I'm actually really embarrassed about the following story because it reflects just how dumb America's children are. You can read it, but it's pretty much one of the stupidest things I've done ever.

Since this is the 4th of July, I will share a funny story ... about the 4th of July.
When I was in Canda, I went into a restaurant and they had a list of holidays they had off - Christmas, New Years, etc.
They didn't have Columbus Day, or the 4th of July, or any of those other REALLLLLLY AWESOME HOLIDAYS that you get off just because some dude was like, "Alright. I'm going to go do something amazing, and get a holiday named in my honor." Because seriously, how the hell do you celebrate Columbus Day? Get a cake with sailboats on it? Seriously, it's just an excuse to throw a party.
Anyway, I was like, to the French dude behind the counter [i will refer to it as a dude, because i couldn't really identify it's gender], "Excuse-a me-a?" [Because I remember reading somewhere that in the French language you can pretty much add an a to anything, and you have a new word. I don't know if this applies to Canada. Hell, I don't even know if there's such thing as Canadian, because there sure isn't anything called Englishian.]
And the dude [it], goes, "WHAAAAT?"
Which I sure don't think was very polite, seeing as how I was a guest, and trying to speak the dude's language.
But I pardoned his stupidity and his rudeness, and I was just like, "How come you don't get the 4th of July off?"
I know, I know. How stupid. But I was young. 14. A naive young girl, but I can be forgiven. So much time has passed since then - 2 whole months. I have grown in mind and in body. But mostly in mind, much to my mother's disappointment.
Anyway, the [it] replies, "Well. Because. We are not American."
And I didn't get it at first. I was like, "Yeah. But that's not really a reason to .."
And then it hit me. Kind of the way it hit me my mother was pregnant, when she was in the delivery room. Or that people call me paulabear because it sounds like polarbear.
The first thing that hit me was the fact that they were Canadian, so of course they wouldn't celebrate an American holiday. It's like French people celebrating Cinco de Mayo. Or Russians celebrating Valentines Day. It's not done. Really it's not.
The second thing that hit me was that I really needed the bathroom. And the 3rd thing followed soon after, and it was the thought that I was really slow sometimes.
The 4th thing that hit me was WHY THE HELL IS THIS dude BEING SO PATRONIZING. I mean, yes, I said something stupid, but this guy was probably the kind of guy who closed the toilet seat on his winkie every other day. Hell, he probably didn't even have a winkie. I couldn't even identify its gender.
So then I realized that this guy was being a complete a-hole, and I was just like, "YOU KNOW WHAT. MY FAMILY AND I ARE OUT OF HERE. GOOD DAY."
But I didn't say the good day part, because really, he was being a mean person.
And we didn't give him a tip.
And that was a really stupid story, I'm sorry.
ENJOY THE FIREWORKS. AND THE HOTDOGS. AND PLEASE DON'T WEAR RED, WHITE, AND BLUE. BECAUSE THAT'S TACKY. AND YOU'RE PROBABLY STARING AT THE SCREEN RIGHT NOW AND GOING, "AW. I FEEL TACKY."
To which I can only reply, "Um. Yeah."
HAPPY 4TH OF JULY !

15 things I learned from my first day of work:

*1) Toilets do not clean themselves. [I get to.]
*2) Paper cuts sting more than a jellyfish.
*3) 8 paper cuts sting more than 8 jellyfish.
4) When people don't say 'thank you' after you spend 5 HOURS alphabetizing their STUPID manila file folders that caused you 8 PAPER CUTS, it's not right to call them pompous assholes your first day on the job. Really, they don't appreciate it.
5) Seriously, they don't.
*6) When someone stares at you menacingly, it's not right to let out a little girlish giggle.
*7) Really. It's not right.
*8) If you get caught reading, think of something more creative to say then, "uh, sorry." and then hanging your head.
*9) When someone hands you money for transportation and you don't have a bag on you, don't stick it in your bra right in front of your middle-aged, going through life crisis manager.
10) If, like me, you're not getting paid .. don't complain about it loudly. in front of your middle-aged, going through life crisis manager that just got a free peep show, and has still not recovered. remember, this is more action than he's got since he took health ed in high school.
11) When your boss is talking to you, and your rat-faced, overweight coworker laughs at something you said, don't turn around and rudely exclaim, "WHAT. HAVE YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY ME TO? SAY IT. SAY IT BEFORE I RIP OUT YOUR MALE ORGANS AND DISPLAY THEM IN MY HOUSE."
12) And if you do happen to rudely exclaim, "WHAT. HAVE YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY ME TO? SAY IT. SAY IT BEFORE I RIP OUT YOUR MALE ORGANS AND DISPLAY THEM IN MY HOUSE," and everyone is staring at you, don't start crying.
13) And if you do happen to rudely exclaim, "WHAT. HAVE YOU GOT SOMETHING TO SAY ME TO? SAY IT. SAY IT BEFORE I RIP OUT YOUR MALE ORGANS AND DISPLAY THEM IN MY HOUSE," and everyone is staring at you, and you start crying .. don't start telling them about what an awful day you had, and how everything went wrong, and how they're all slave drivers. They don't want to hear it. Really, they don't.
14) When they fire you, make a more graceful exit than the one I made. Don't trip, and then rudely curse. It's not ladylike.
*15) And when you're blogging about it the next day .. don't lie like I did. Really. It's unattractive.

* facts really happened. look at 9 again.

The footpath.

I wrote this in 6th grade on halloween. We had to write a short cliffhanger, and then the class had to make up an ending. It's not good at all (I was 11), but I thought you guys might find it funny. Enojy!

Maria ran.
It was the only thing she knew how to do well.
Her breath came out in little white puffs, her sneakers pounding out a rhythym on the hard rock ground. Cold wind slapped at her knees, pulled on her hair. Her eyes were streaming; she wiped them on her sleeve and ran harder, faster. She had to escape the man on her tail.
A huge curve was coming up, and she cut across it, pulling her arms to her chest. She allowed herself a fleeting glance over her shoulder. The man had come down, hard, groaning in pain.
Good, she thought, I hope he sprained something.
For several minutes now, she had been running, -flying, really -hoping to escape the horrid creature following her. Her mother had warned her, told her stories about this forest. She remembered a conversation they'd engaged in, days earlier.
"Maria, the forest is a dangerous place."
"Mother, the forest hasn't been dangerous since you were a little girl!" Maria laughed, admiring the polish on her nails.
"Maria, I am warning you. It is not safe. Never go there alone."
I wasn't alone today, Maria thought bitterly. She had believed the man who told her he could get her out of the forest. Disobedient and fiesty, Maria had defied her mother and gone to the forest late at night, hoping to discover if the secrets her friends had told her about it were true. But Maria lost the footpath, and before long was travelling in circles. She sat on a rotted log and cried, lost and hungry, and very, very wet.
"I could help you," the man with kind eyes had said, smiling, "I can show you the way out."
She had taken the hand he offered, followed him - until he brought her to a small cottage a couple of yards from where she had sat crying.
"I haven't had a human companion in much too long," he said, his formerly kind eyes narrowing into slits, "And I can't wait to be your friend." With that, he smiled, sharp fangs coming into view. And that was when Maria began to run.
The man had matched her, step for step, as she ran out of his cottage and through the forest. The sky had darkened to a menacing purple, and she cried out when a tree branch sliced at her foot. Things had taken a turn for the better when the man had slipped on a muddy leaf and fallen, but now he was up and running, and looming closer and closer.
Somebody, anybody, help she thought.
The prayer fell on deaf ears.
Maria ran.
Her foot snagged a vine, and she landed hard on her knees.
"No!" she cried out.
And the man was on top of her, hurting her, whispering in her ear.
Maria tried to scream, but no voice escaped from the throat the man had latched himself onto.

OH WOW WOW WOW. 2 MORE POSTS. THIS HAS TO COME TO AN END.

I`m bringing blogging back!

Paula [as psychiatrist]: So, Paula, when did you start having these spaz attacks?
Paula [as herself]: *crosses legs the way the gay guys on television do* well,
I think its from the lack of attention I had come to love so
much.
Paula[as psychiatrist]: Do tell.
Paula [a.h.]: You see, there's this awesome website called blogspot where I'd write about [myself] and have people post comments of wonderfulness.
Paula [a.p]: My records state you had quite a few haters.
Paula [a.h.]: THATS A LIE! EVERYONE LOVES PAULA!
Paula[a.p.]: Uhha...interesting *writes something on her clipboard*
Paula [a.h.]: *impatiently* what are you writing?
Paula [a.p.]: nothing, nothing.
Paula[a.h.] *stands up* IM BRINGING blogging BACK!
Paula: [a.p.]: sit down, Mrs.Paula.
Paula [a.h.]: no i refuse! not until people start visiting my page more often, and leaving comments longer than one word! I have a dream, a dream where all bloggers are equal. where people come and go, and speak their minds, IN WRITING. I have a dream, that
Paula [a.p.] *speaking camly into earpiece* bring in the people
Paula [a.h.]: WHAT? WHAT PEOPLE?
Paula [a.p.]: people, mrs. paula, who care about you. they only want to help!
A blur of black, a shout, fuzziness, a small yelp..."im bringing blogging b..."
Person #1 : what'd she say?
Person #2: i unno. everyone knew she was a freak. like, actually. she didn't shave her armpits, and rambled on and on about female rights.
Person # 1: Don't people like that have a name? femi - somethings?
Person # 2: Freaks. We call them freaks.

Some charming free entertainment, courtesy of your favorite writer.

PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:27:03 PM): will you kiss me?
SmarterChild (10:27:03 PM): XXX
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:27:08 PM): will you hug me?
SmarterChild (10:27:09 PM): ((()))
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:27:13 PM): will you marry me?
SmarterChild (10:27:13 PM): Sorry. I don't think that would work.
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:27:41 PM): You're right. I'm too good for you.



--------------edit--------------


uniQuelynoRmalME (10:36:51 PM): u no Pete Wentz?
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:38:01 PM): let's pretend i do
uniQuelynoRmalME (10:38:05 PM): lol
uniQuelynoRmalME (10:38:16 PM): I didnt like him for the longest time
uniQuelynoRmalME (10:38:44 PM): Hes the guitarist for fall out boy and he took a pic. of his unowut and put it on the internet
uniQuelynoRmalME (10:38:45 PM): ew
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:38:58 PM): EW
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:39:00 PM): EWWWWWWWWW
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:39:01 PM): EW
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:39:03 PM): hey
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:39:05 PM): can i have the link?
uniQuelynoRmalME (10:39:07 PM): lmao
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:39:10 PM): =)
uniQuelynoRmalME (10:39:30 PM): ur jokin, though, rite?
PerfectlyPaulaaa (10:39:41 PM): once again, let's pretend i am =)

another one? two in one day? paula, what's next? flying pigs? mooing sheep? the horror, the horror. tres merde.

OH MYYYYYY GOD.
I am getting an iPhone.
The world has come to an end.
I haven't felt such joy ever.
Not even when I got into Stuyvesant, and not even when I found out that there was a movie coming out based on Ella Enchanted.
Alright, the second one comes close.
I can't talk now; there is a polar meltdown of joy going on in the privacy of my bedroom.
AHHH AHH AHHA.


edit: I did feel this happy once. I think it was when I passed level 7 on minisweeper.
Oh wow. I just realized what an uncensored dork I am. I have to go cry in a corner now. Have a nice night.

I can't believe I'm doing this. Then again, I said the same thing about myspace, facebook, and my cell phone.

Hey, my name is Paula, and I am not the right person for a blog.
The truth is, I've made 15 attempts at diaries in the past, but things like that are just not for me.
This should come as a shock, seeing as how I spend half my life reading, a fourth of it writing, and one fourth making sarcastic remarks. Surprising as it may be, though, I have never ever [ever] been able to keep a diary for over a week. The first day is always a good one, and is a 2 page account of my day. The second day involves a comment along the lines of, "wow. this is getting boring." The third day only has a page of writing. The fourth a paragraph. The fifth usually involves a lot of cursing the diary for its existence. The sixth day ends in my throwing the diary out, and usually in a painful and creative way. One time i chucked its contents into the Red Sea, making for a pleasant surprise for an unsuspecting traveller.
Which explains why I hate getting diaries as gifts.
"Here you go!" says friend, thrusting wrapped present in my face.
"Thanks!" says eager Paula, ripping apart gift, "Oh wow," she says, on seeing contents of gift, "Er. You shouldn't have." [Under breath: You really, really, shouldn't have.]
Payback comes in the form of my forgetting aforementioned friend's gift at home for months on end. Accidentally, of course.
I don't have many friends.
Well, this isn't true.
Not at all, really.
Wow, I think I should explain myself to the reader, seeing as how they've already put up with a paragraph of ranting. Hello, my name is Paula. I'm a sophmore at Stuyvesant High School in New York City. You've probably heard of it, and you probably didn't. It's a supposedly smart school, but after going there for a year, I've made the conclusion that it really is not. You've definitely got your share of braniacs, but the kids there are the same you might find in any other school, except for a couple of differences. Mainly, that:
1) I can count the amount of african americans on one hand. And 2 of them are half asian.
2) Our accessory of choice is a rubik's cube.
3) The only fights that break out are over who trumps who in a yugioh card game.
Stuyvesant High School is a school for the outcasts. Even the strangest of kids has a friend or two. I should know, I'm pretty strange.
More about myself: I love my friends and family, and am always up for doing something fun. I have freakishly weird proportions - 4"7, weighing in at 62 pounds. Some call me cute. I beg to differ, really. I have a lot of friends, and even an appreciation group. But more on that later. I am scared to death of scary movies. Like, seriously. I cried watching 'When a Stranger Calls'.
You are dealing with a serious wimp here, people. I also like quiet hang outs, like when you have a picnic on the Great Lawn, or spend a day in watching dvds with a close friend. Days like that are even more amazing than Nutella. I love clothes. A LOT. I spend hours [not exaggerating] online shopping. My father hates it. But honestly, what do men understand about finding the perfect BCBG halter dress in a color to match your eyes? Nothing, I tell you. Nothing. I prefer texting to calling and I have a contagious laugh. I'm usually right. Seriously. I am usually right. Lastly, I love you. For reading all of this. It means a lot.



Wow. I wrote a lot for a first time blog. Hopefully I keep this up. And hopefully, you keep reading. I don't see why you would. But if you do, that's cool. Really cool. Cooler than ice cubes.
Ew, that was lame. Alright, see you later.