[Or] [ZuNo] An Experiment in Reality Pt. 2 (The Start of a New Year)

[Fish Head]

Wow, another ZuNoWrimo... can't wait to get it all done.


This is, obviously, a continuation of my other ZuNo, written about 4 months and one year ago.

For those of you who have read the old one, many things have changed in the life since then, yet, oddly enough, some remain the same (what a cliche, but it's true.)

For those of you who haven't read the old one, you'll be able to understand this one just fine, although I would suggest reading the original first.


Always open to comments.

Happy reading!

[Fish Head]

January 1, 2008

12:00 A.M

No lights, no music, no special way to ring in the New Year.

Me, lying on an area rug, watching the Simpsons movie. I’ve already seen it, but I guess it’s worth watching again. I hardly notice the time change, until my mother notifies me.

Happy New Year… I guess…

I shambled into my room, no longer interested in the movie. I went on the interblag, put on some music and chatted with some friends for a while. That didn’t entertain me for long, so I went to sleep.


* * *

I woke up to my mom shouting at me to get out of bed. I was woken up early because we were traveling to my great-grandparents for my grandad’s birthday. Yay me.


I got in the shower, but I didn’t really enjoy it. I was busy wrapped up in my malaise. Something about not having anyone to be with, unfinished homework, and being on break for way too long, seems to just get me down. As soon as I got out of the shower, I went back to bed, considering there wasn’t much else to do.

I once again woke up to my mother yelling at me. This time I was in a mildly better mood. We were piling into the car, so I grabbed my iPods, a pillow, and my copy of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. I was less than halfway through it. It needed to be finished by the next day. So much for completing assignments on time.

We pulled up to my great-uncles house to pick him up. He and his family used to travel by separate car, but that was a long time ago, when things that I don’t know about transpired and caused some sort of schism between my great-uncle’s family and my great-grandparents. Not that I really care about it anymore.

The trip up to Ellensburg was uneventful. I listened to my iPods (one likes to spontaneously turn off, the other’s a shuffle) and tried to read The Grapes of wrath. It’s not a bad read, it just (for reasons I don’t understand) takes a long time to read. I mean, I can finish the last Harry Potter book in one sitting, yet this book seems to defeat me.

My reading was interrupted by our arrival. We got out of the car and entered my great-grandparents (hitherto referred to as the prunes) assisted living home. It’s kind of cool. They live in a place that’s like a weird combination of a dorm room and a Boy Scout camp, and everyone has been aged by 60 or 70 years. They even get a 50’s style ice cream parlor.

We spent a good few hours sitting in their “dorm.” I didn’t participate in the discussion much, considering I don’t talk to old people that well. Even with my parents involved, the topics seemed to cover things I didn’t know about or didn’t want to know about. So I sat in a chair and read, whilst still listening to music. Eventually it was time for lunch.

Lunch at the Prunes’ wasn’t as great as it used to be. Before assisted living, I’d get delicious cake and homemade chicken pot pies at my great-grandparents house. What’d I get this time? Bland pasta, and really weird pork. At least, I think it was pork. On the upside, there were staff who practically waited on us, and the company was pretty cool. Along with the usual cast of misfits (e.g. my family) the Prunes invited two other people. Contestant #1 Mary, was an eccentric forgetful woman who had grown up with a Croatian background, providing an interesting way of speech and accent. Contestant #2 was Jim, an interesting man who had succumbed to a stroke sometime in the past 3 years. He was pretty normal, he just didn’t talk in long sentences and behaved erratically. Other than some speech and social skill deterioration, he was still mentally sharp. We managed to have some interesting conversation. Mary told us about the sadness of Communism in conjunction to her visit to Croatia. Jim told us about managing a KFC franchise for 20 years of his life (via having my father ask him the right yes or no/short answer questions).

After lunch is when things started getting… uncomfortable. My father decided that we should have a prayer-group-like-thing. This side of my family is notorious for these kinds of things. Obviously, I do not enjoy them. It’s not that I have religion issues; currently I am becoming a Catholic, after having been a Protestant for my entire life. I just don’t like these prayer things the Prunes/my dad do. They make me feel like I need to lie or try to one-up everyone or something. I managed to position myself last, thankfully. So we went around, and everyone talked about what they were thankful about during the last year, and what they were looking forward to this year (all with an implied religious connotation, of course.) Everyone said things that were pretty general or satisfactory, but once it came to my great-uncle, I heard something that disturbed me. I’ve always known my uncle to be an extremist, not the kind that blows up abortion mills, but the kind that is ignorant and ends up saying something offensive. Apparently, he had come to believe that the music his daughter was listening to was being “hexed” by “witches.” Um, wow. I became a little concerned, wondering if my parents were sharing any sentiment with him, and were therefore planning on emptying out my music library. I didn’t have a chance to ask because it came to be my turn.

Not wanting to lie about what I was going to say, I came up with something that, while satisfying the requirement, didn’t satisfy it in the way they wanted it to. I revealed to the family that I was grateful for all the adversity God had thrown my way, and was looking forward to all the adversity He had planned. I personally think that no matter what happens in your life, God is working. All the bad and all the good are according to His plan. It’s a kind of uplifting positive cynicism I’ve come to enjoy.

After that event was finished, I managed to talk to both of my parents (quietly and separately) about their opinions on what my great-uncle thought. Thankfully neither of them agreed with him.

Alas, my time with the Prunes was over, and all that followed was an uneventful car ride home.

Upon entering my house, I did what any good boy does, get on the internet. I was only on for a little while, I still had homework to finish. Sadly, there was a lot of it, and it took me till the end of the night to get it finished.

10:30 P.M

1,151 Words

[Fish Head]

January 2, 2008

5:00 A.M.

Waking up knowing that you have school to attend is not a pleasant task, so after I woke up, I proceeded to go back to sleep. Logic states that this would make me late for something. Logic is correct. Waking up once more 50 minutes later I found that there was no way I could make the 6:19 bus, which means that I would miss over half of my zero hour class.

After my slightly hurried and joyless shower, I found the culprit that caused me not to wake up properly. My cell phone. I have had many misadventures with my cell phone. I believe it is possessed by something, or has a really bad attitude. This is interesting because it is the second phone I’ve had that did things like that to me. Maybe they just don’t like me. Anyway, that day my phone thought it would be funny to activate its alarm but not to make any noise. It was rewarded for its efforts by a couple of thumps on the wall until it resumed normal function.

Seeing as I’d miss my bus, I figured there was one other thing I could do (other than wait an hour for the next bus,) I could call up my buddy Wessel. Wessel, unlike me, was allowed to drive, and could therefore pick me up and get me to school on time. Alas, his phone was not working, for reasons I was to later find out.

Eventually it came time for me to leave the house and get down to the bus stop. The journey was cold, but I had a nice jacket and a fish hat to keep me warm. I had with me all the accoutrements I’d need for school and my swim gear, for practice at 3:00 P.M.

After waiting in the cold for a short time, the bus picked me up and whisked me away to school. Well, not exactly school, but at the nearby grocery store. City busses tend to do things like that, and after a certain amount of time (and a certain amount of therapy sessions,) I’d come to accept that city busses existed to spite me. Life goes on, and so did I. Whilst hurrying to my history class my iPod started playing Waiting for the Worms, by Pink Floyd. This was a hindrance due to the greatness of the song, the marching in the background, and my brainwashing from the school band. I found myself slowing down in an attempts to keep in step. Just one of the many examples of my body doing something to spite me.

I arrived at my IB History of the Americas class 30 minutes late. I was 30 minutes late to a 45 minute class. Do the math, and I’ll bet you’ll be able to find out just how much I got done in that class. I turned in the assignment that I had done the night before, and hit Wessel for not answering his damn phone. Having given him his just desserts, I picked up the new worksheet and wasted no time not doing it.

After 15 minutes of pointlessness, I had 15 minutes to spend before I was subjected to a full hour of pointlessness known as Wind Ensemble. I was determined that this day would not be a boring one, and I pulled out my can of Wired x344. Wired x344 happens to be a quirky little drink with a quirky little name. The 344 represents the milligrams of caffeine the drink contained. 5 minutes and one delicious energy drink later, I was ready for Wind Ensemble. My buddy Fredo found me and slipped me his latest copy of Sandman, by Neil Gaiman. It was #9 out of 11, The Kindly Ones. It promised to be a good read.

Wind Ensemble was what it usually was, listening to the bad morning announcements, learning music we should already know, and constant chatter. I didn’t notice that it was mundane because I was a little busy reading Sandman. It was rather enjoyable.

The next class of the day, IB Biology was a major downer. We watched the movie Hotel Rwanda, for reasons I still don’t fully understand. Apparently, the conflict between the Tutsi and Hutu had something to do with nose size and skin color, and therefore had to do with Biology and genetics. Genocide seems to be a subject that better fits history class.

IB Math Studies proved to be what it has always been, socializing whilst learning odd math concepts. Something about the different laws of exponents, I don’t remember too well, it didn’t really hold my attention.

Before IB English Literature started, I wanted to have a little adventure. So I did something that I used to do all the time during my sophomore year, get lunch and eat it before passing time is over. Nowadays, I can’t finish in 5 minutes, because I can’t get into the pizza line, so instead I go for the deli sandwich. I can usually finish the sandwich, but the chips, milk, and apple are usually eaten slowly and stealthily during English. The class itself was a letdown. Instead of discussing the book, we listened to a CD of people discussing the book, which really irritated me. The homework for the night? Look up the meaning of agrarianism.

Lunch was a time of social functioning, and due to the lack of food in my mouth, I functioned fairly well. I got a Mountain Dew out of it.


After lunch, I went into the band room for IB Music, or as we call it IB Talking. Our teacher (the band director), Mr. Goranson, has to teach us and the percussion class. The percussion class has about 25 students. IB Talking has roughly 6. The result is that Goranson has to teach the class with a lower collective IQ, percussion, more often. So we do what we do best. Talk. I spent the period finishing up reading Sandman, which was brilliant.

IB Spanish 3 was the next and final class of the day. Many worksheets were handed out, and we were informed that our teacher would not be returning to class until next Tuesday, and we would be having a sub and watching movies. Not the fun kind of movies, the edumactional ones. Bummer.

Now that school was over, it was time for swim practice. I decided that I didn’t want to swim that day, so I called up my coach, lied to him, and rode the bus home. I spent the afternoon in a trance playing Guitar Hero III. I swear I have an addiction to that game.

Eventually my father demanded that I go into his office and help him fill out the form for the festival that my band hoped to play. After being rather short with me, my mother called and told us to come over to Denny’s for dinner with my grandfather.

Dinner was peaceful and wonderful, just what I needed after such a chaotic day. My grandfather and his friend, both truckers, reminisced and told stories. I’m always amazed by the things my grandfather has experienced in his life, and I never get bored with them. For dinner I had a bacon cheddar cheeseburger, with fries. It was pretty big.

The conversations lasted a very long time, and by the time I got home, I was ready to go to bed. It was a good end to a blah day.
11:00 P.M.

[Szerenade]

I read the introduction of your Part 1. I enjoyed the realism of this, although the fish hat kind of ruined the effect for a few seconds.

[Fish Head]

January 3, 2008
5:00 A.M.

An easy day. Simple. Not spiteful or disruptive in anyway. I hate those days. I mean, there’s no struggle, not complexities, no MacGyver moments.

The morning ran smoothly. I showered, napped, and woke up again (not necessarily in that order.) With the morning in order, I slipped a can of Wired x344 into my pocket, and left the house.

During the bus ride to school, I brought out the thing I planned to use to prevent boredom, a copy of the Dilbert Principle I had picked up at the GoodWill. Mildly entertaining.

I spent my morning sitting in the cafeteria reading the book. The bus, in its constant spitefulness, drops me off 30 minutes before class starts. So I sit in the cafeteria for two reasons:
1. It’s warm
2. (Not quite worked out yet.)
During my readings, my friend Justin approached me. Occasionally, he is dropped off early at school by his parents. Poor Justin, having parents that love him that much must really be a drag. We talked of random things, of Monty Python and sharpened fingernails. Soon, it was time for IB History.

If on that day you had asked me what history class was like, I’d’ve told you that it was similar to a large library, except talking was allowed, you couldn’t find any answers, books were not allowed to be checked out, and there was homework. Other than that, just like a library. Wessel finally told me why his phone was always off, turns out that he left it at my house and hadn’t realized it. He demanded that I should be taken home at lunch to get it. Bright as that idea seemed, I decided to ignore it and attempt to “work.” At the end of the period I ended up getting one of the two worksheets finished. I didn’t have much time to care, considering that I had consumed the x344 during class, there wasn’t much I could pay attention to.

Band was like it was the previous today, except I was doing it once more. Kind of like playing a video game for the second time, except your original save file was erased, and you hadn’t finished the game yet, and the A button sticks. We worked on Shenandoah, which from now one will be referred to as crappy. Crappy is a very slow song that I’ve been forced to play year after year ever since middle school. Woo. Hoo.

After the fun that is Wind Ensemble, there was Biology. I half-watched Hotel Rwanda as I read The Dilbert Principle. Turns out that a lot of things from that book can be applied to high school. Meanwhile in Hotel Rwanda, the protagonist was hiding refugees in the hotel as the genocides got more intense.

Math turned up two things, mildly entertaining worksheets and tortilla rounds. Yay tortilla rounds! The worksheets had to do with chain letters and exponential growth. Two things that I am intimately acquainted with. As a result, I read more of The Dilbert Principle.

I shot out of math class, because once again I desired the conspiracy and intrigue that is only gained by getting lunch an hour before you’re supposed to. It makes me feel like I’m some sort of rebel or spy. All sarcasm and ego boosting aside, it gives me something to do.

English was a major waste of time. Each group came up and presented the term that they had studied the previous night. By studied, I mean wikied and printed up info on within the past 12 hours. Since I hadn’t done that, I printed it up in class. Clever me. Turns out that agrarianism is the belief that working on the land gives one inner peace and brings them closer to God. Who would’ve figured? Certainly me. Soon, all the time in English had been wasted, and it was time for lunch.

During lunch, I found that I had left the freshman in my math class with my Dilbert Principle. This irritated me because:
1. He is a freshman taking an IB class
2. I couldn’t read my book while he had it.
Sadly, I couldn’t pursue the re-acquirement of my book due to the fact that Wessel dragged me over to my house to pick up his charger. The journey to my house was surprisingly uneventful, no car crashes or transforming robots. The hang up happened when we got to my house and no one was there. As a result, my house was locked. I didn’t have my key, and hadn’t for quite a while. I called up my mom and asked her to let us in, and give me $15 for the solo and ensemble concert I did not want to participate in yet was required to. Once we got inside the house, my mother and I proceeded to get into an argument about whether or not the charger was Wessel’s, and the conflict ended up getting solved with the result of the charger was his, and that I had lost my mother’s.

With $15 in hand I arrived to Wind Ensemble 5 minutes late. I choose to blame the Amish for this, because chances are, they will never find out how often I blame them for things. Having the blame being placed where it belongs, I proceeded to have one of the most unpleasant IB Music classes I’d ever had. To sum it up, “The Return of Justina.” She was a student last year. Now, she was teaching us. I still don’t understand why. She grilled us for the rest of the period about vocab that we already knew. Fun fun. I couldn’t wait to leave. So I *snuck* out of the class to go and get my The Dilbert Principle form the freshman. 10 minutes and 3 interrupted classes later I had it back in my possession, just in time for Spanish.

Since we were continuing the movie I already wasn’t paying much attention to, I decided to read more of The Dilbert Principle. Meanwhile, a brother and sister from Guatemala were trying to get to America.

After school, it was time for swim practice. I used to have a major passion for swim team, but it had dissipated to the point where every once in awhile I’d skip. That day I didn’t. I walked into the pool, got into my drag suit (a pair of old jammers and a normal pair of swim trunks.) and got into the pool. The practice ended up being semi-sweet. I got a good work out from it, but I found out that the knee injury (I slipped and landed on it, hard) prevented me from doing breaststroke, which I suck at anyway. The practice was from the 3-5, long enough to get a good tiring work out.

Once practice was over, I got into my mother’s car, and we sped of to Costco. Not exactly what I had in mind to do, but we had to go pick up Wessel’s gift. For some reason, Wessel and I had decided that for Christmas, we were going to spend roughly $40 on each other. Neither of us know why, our only answer is that our families are close friends. All oddness aside, we went into Costco and picked up a copy of Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga. There’s a long story behind why I bought it, but basically we agreed that if there ever was a complete Lego Star Wars thing, one of us would have to purchase it. On the way home, I called Wessel and told him to come and pick up his gift.

Wessel arrived at the house shortly after we did, so I told him to think fast and threw the game at him. He didn’t catch it, and claimed that he couldn’t think that fast. He opened up the game and we tried it out on the Wii. We didn’t find much different in the new version, until Indiana Jones came up for purchase. That was officially cool. He only stayed long enough for us to play through the first part of episode I, and then went home. I proceeded to try to get some homework done, but instead played Guitar Hero. Go me. Eventually, it was time to go to sleep.

10:00 P.M.

3,797 Words

[Fish Head]

January 4, 2007

Ugh. Bad day. Not like the kind of bad day where you get shot and someone stabs you, and then you get robbed. Just the kind where nothing really goes right. The morning started normally, I had everything ready and left on time, the bad day started when school began.

During history, I had a second worksheet to do, along with an assigned current events article. Yay homework on a weekend. Crappy thing #1

During band, we played Shenandoah. Bad thing #2

Biology was neutral, we finished Hotel Rwanda. The movie was good, and made a point. Good, I guess.

During math we had a homework check, and guess what? I hadn’t done the homework. Bad thing #3

English was just a disappointment. Nothing happened, and our teacher almost had a breakdown. Plus, we got another assignment. Bad thing #3.5

IB Music was one of THE worst classes I’d had so far. Justina decided that she was going to give us a listening quiz. Then she decided to be a prude, and tried to act like she had the authority of a teacher. Very irritating. Bad things #4-9

During Spanish me and Wessel talked of doing something, considering that it was the weekend, and we needed to do something. I was suffering from a holiday hang over, which means that I had the urge to party. Not the irresponsible kind of party, the fun kind. So Wessel and I agreed that after class we’d go over to his house and hang out, with a quick stop at my house to pick stuff up.

Hanging out with Wessel meant that I would have to skip swim, something I had no problem doing. I got into Wessel’s car and we headed out. Realizing that I didn’t have a key, I called up my father and asked if he had the house unlocked. He told me to pick it up from YCTV, where he was currently working on something. After a quick jaunt to some nerdy card store (Wessel needed to pick up some sleeves) I gave Wessel bad instructions that eventually led to our arrival at YCTV.

I ran into the studio and managed to get the key from my father. I asked him where he wanted me to leave it. Here’s where I made my mistake. It turned out that my father didn’t know that I’d been driving around with Wessel, and he wasn’t happy about it. He proceeded to get extremely angry about, and told me to walk home, then changed his mind and told me to get dropped off at the house. Bad thing #10

I left YCTV and told Wessel what had happened. He insisted that if he had to drop me off, he probably wouldn’t go back to his house to get his stuff because it would “take too long.” Whiner. Chris dropped me off at my house, I went in, flopped onto the couch and passed out for a few hours. Bad thing #11

* * *
I awoke to a missed call from Chris. Turned out he was interested in coming over. So he did. We decided that we were going to play some Guitar Hero. After a few versus matches, I noticed that something was messed up with my whammy bar. Turned out that through defect or overuse it didn’t work as well as I needed it to. Bad thing #12.

We spent the rest of the night playing Lego Star Wars. It was fun. It got my mind off of all the crap that had happened, and began to give me positive thoughts. If only all problems could be solved so easily. I was surprisingly able to finish the night somewhat content.

11:00 P.M.

4,421 Words

Kind of a short one, but eh-tev.