Stage Left
Mood:  happy
8th grade was very interesting. I'd say alot of the defining moments in my life that led me to where I am now happened in that year. This was the year a kid in our middle school killed himself. This was the year I found Metallica and Nirvana and Guns N Roses. This was the year of my ex's G and R (for confidentiality). This was also the year of my good friends and good times, and bad friends, and half good times half bad times. At the beginning of the year I was pretty good friends with a girl named Tonya ( I don't have to hide her name because she is dead now), and she had had a sleepover party for her birthday. Let me give you a little insight on my parents before I continue with this. My parents have always worked in the casino industry. My dad was a bellcaptain for many years and my mom was a 21 dealer. For as long as I can remember, I've never wanted for anything. We always had a nice house, a nice car, and nice things in our house. I always shopped for new things at JCPenny's, Macy's, etc, you know department stores. I don't think I even stepped foot in a Walmart before the age of 17. My dad refuses to even think about shopping somewhere like WinCo or SaknSave. They are a little bit picky about certain things. So when they found out that my friend lived in a bad neighborhood, they almost didn't let me go. I was surprised, and still am to this day, they let me go. Anyway, I got to the party and met Tonya's older brother, who was a freshman in high school. Instant crush!! Now keep in mind I'm 13 by now, I still haven't really peaked with puberty if you know what I mean, haven't even seriously considered sex, and of course I'd kissed boys, but never deemed to touch them somewhere that I shouldn't. In other words I was an innocent prude. Well the party went on and we watched movies and stuff, then Tonya's parents went out and all of us kids (me, Tonya, 2 other girls, and Tonya's brother) were home alone. Wooo hooo we were gonna make trouble. Tonya decided she wanted to go out and egg some places, burn dog poo on doorsteps and toilet paper some houses. I didn't want to go cuz I wanted to stay home and make out with her brother. So, Tonya and the girls went out and I stayed home with the brother and almost decided to have sex with him before his parents got home and ruined that plan (thank god) and then right after they got there, Tonya and the girls got there too. So all of us kids decided we were gonna go out somewhere (this is over 12 years ago, I don't remember all the details). Tonya's brother wanted to go to a friend's house and we went walking somewhere, I think a park and hung out for a bit. When we got back to Tonya's her mom was asking where her brother was, so we went to the neighbor's house to find him and he was there with 4 other boys around his age and older. So we tell Tonya's brother that he's wanted at the house and we turn to walk back that way and all the guys followed us. Tonya's brother turned to go to where the house was, and we decided to go to the convenience store up the street (mind you it's almost midnight now). The boys were following us, whistling, and making cat calls, then they started talking amongst themselves but loud enough for us to hear that they had knives and wanted to fuck us and would do it with force if we resisted. We thought they were kidding at first until they started walking faster to catch up with us and started calling out to us "we'll get you bitches" we looked at eachother and made motions for the 4 of us to split up, two run one way and the other two run another. So we split up and the girl that I was running with broke away toward the high school that was in this area, and we dove into some bushes next to some bank or something and hid there. Well the two guys that were following us two saw the direction we went and was looking for us, one of them stopped right by the bushes we were in and was talking to the other guy. The first guy asked the other guy if he was serious about raping us, and the second guy said he didn't know but thought he could do it, plus we're just little kids we wouldn't fight that hard. As soon as we heard that we bolted from those bushes and ran as hard and fast back to Tonya's as we could. We made it back unscathed and crying, but we made it. I don't think I had ever been so scared in my life. I thought I would surely die out there if we were caught by those boys. I probably cried for about an hour and then called my mom to come get me. I never let her know what happened, just said I had a bad time. Tonya and I were never the same in our friendship, she obviously didn't think it was such a big deal, maybe she dealt with that kind of thing on a daily basis, I did not. And I never saw her brother again, although we did talk on the phone atleast twice a week for several months after. More about this year later....

Neverending
Mood:  hug me
Ok, so I get to middle school, and it's like a whole other experience. I've lived in the same town all of my life, and it's not a big town, or it wasn't back then, but it wasn't a small town either. Because I had had such a hard time in grade school my parents decided they wanted to move across town so the liklihood of me going to the same school as others in my grade school would be diminished. I had friends right away, and some of them I'm still friends with. I remember the first guy I got a crush on, was in my Foods class, otherwise known as HomeEc. We started flirting around, exchanged numbers and started to "go out" which didn't really mean we went anywhere, just that we were an item. We'll call him L. I think at the tender age of 12 (yes in 7th grade I was 12) he was and still is the boyfriend I hold in high regard and compare to most others. He was the first guy to EVER buy me flowers (except my dad, but he doesn't count), or bring me good chocolates. He came to my house and we lived a long way from him and almost out of town, and he rode the bus for almost 2 hours just to see me for a little bit. He was so sweet. I think thats why I broke up with him. He was too sweet and kind of a nerd. No, not kind of. Huge nerd. So I did my bitchiest to break up with him, yelled at him in the middle of the cafeteria that I never wanted him to touch me or look at me again. Well his twin sister (who hated me and I was terrified of) decided it was time to kick my ass. Pulled my by my hair across the yard at lunchtime and was gonna kick my ass if a teacher (applause please) hadn't have shown up and took us to the principals office. So I think this is where I decided the best course of action would be to date pure assholes and kick all the nice ones to the curb. I'm sure we'll see a pattern here in the long run.

The beginning
Mood:  happy
So I guess it all started when I was in grade school. I really didn't have any friends so when this new kid started going to my school, I tried to make friends with him and it worked. He lived only about 3 blocks from me, and we both lived right across the street from the school. We'll call him D for confidentiality. I think we were in 4th grade at the time. Anyway, we started to hang out alot, I was usually at his house playing with him in his backyard, or his parents had this little camping trailer in their driveway, and we used to go in there and play too, usually "house" or "boss and secretary" lol. I had a big crush on him, and thought of him as my boyfriend. Some of the kids who lived in our neighborhood and also went to our school started teasing D for playing with me, because no one liked me. So of course, D being a kid, would have me hide anytime he saw another kid anywhere near where we were playing so they wouldn't see us together. I never really thought about how cruel that was at the time, but it still smarts even now. I think I finally had had enough and let go of our friendship, plus he was getting a little wierd when we were playing that I see now as very sexual, but at the age of 9 I had no idea. I don't know exactly how this is supposed to affect the way I am today, but I know it must somehow.. trusting and loving a friend that is betraying you, and doesn't believe in you has to affect you in some way.