oh that's the other thing I was going to post and forgot about -

the last few times I've gone down main I noticed a new salon and I thought it looked interesting, but it was closed every time I went by. I saw it was open today and I stopped in and talked to the owner/receptionist and the hairstylist there, and they were both VERY nice and told me they loved my hair - I believe her name was Melanie and she said she'd have an opening for part time receptionist around May, so I'm definitely going to apply for that. I also asked about jobs once I got out of school and her exact words were "Oh, no, your hair wouldn't be a problem! Tattoos, piercings, hair. The crazier the better!"

SWEET FREAKIN' ACTION!

soooo let's start off with December fifteenth, when I had to get out of my apartment and since the weather was supposed to be all OH NOES and shizzle, we did it in a HUGE rush. As in, most of my stuff is still in garbage bags in my grandma's storage place, haha. Which I still need to get, but anyways.

I was going back and forth between staying with Matt and sleeping at my parents, and finding a job, and it just kind of sucked. We found a house we wanted (we being me/Chris/Coni/Josh) that was great, we were supposed to sign the papers on Friday, and the chick called us on Monday and said that she rented it out to somebody else. great. and then it didn't look like anything was going anywhere with moving in with my friends (love 'em to death, but they're not very good with money OR planning sometimes, to say the least), so I was kind of waffling about what to do, very confused, I really didn't want to move back in with my family - even though I know I would have been welcome to, I wouldn't have had a room or a whole lotta privacy and it would have sucked.

So after a lot of talking I just ended up moving in with Matt (and Jake), since I had been staying here like a week and a half or two weeks at that point and there hadn't been any issues.

There are a few things that REALLY bug me (Jake is a ridiculous slob sometimes, the apartment is prone to cockroaches) but I wouldn't change it for the world.

New Year's was uneventful and since then it's kinda been a lot of the same. I work at Target now, which is not so bad - the people are pretty nice and the work is easy. I've only had a few annoying customers, and eh, you get that at any job. I'm hoping that I pass the 90 day review or whatever and get to stay on because I *need* this job and they let me have my multicolored hair and it might be dorky but that makes me sooooo happy!

although, I really did want to laugh at "hey, so do ya have any balloons with ya? HA HA" "ummm no" "say how do you work this fancy card reader thingamajig?"

I MIGHT LOOK LIKE A CLOWN BUT YOU'RE A FREAKIN' IDIOT, ASSHOLE!

haha.

I start cosmetology school next week and I am SUPER excited. I know there's at least one girl there who I don't like at all, (the girl who liked to be an ass to me for no reason and also brought her STD test results to class bragging about how she was clean, mmm, classy!) but it seems like they're more open to "alternative" type styles - saw a girl with blue streaks, girl with pink chunks, apparently there's a girl with a head full of neon pink hair yay - so I won't stick out like a sore thumb. MSU Fashion Department, anyone?

Applying for food stamps is a pain in the ass. The actual process isn't so bad, but I need employment/income verification since I've only been at Target for a month and some, not two months yet. The caseworker tells me I can just have my manager write/sign/date a statement saying "Michelle works approximately 20 hrs/week at $7.00" etc. etc. I tell my manager (or, one of 'em anyways) this and he says it all has to come from home office, and gives me a number. Which goes to an annoying automated machine of course. Which redirects me to another number (apparently they outsource their verification jazz to some other company) and THAT number redirects me to a website, which won't recognize my PIN, so I have to call ANOTHER number. I finally get a real freakin' person on the phone and I'm like "well, I would really prefer to just do this myself online, but it won't recognize my PIN. So if you could reset it for me..." "Oh, no, we can't access any of your information. You have to call the food stamp office, give them our website or number, your employer code, and your SSN, and then THEY can use that information to verify it."

ARGHHHH.

It makes me want to go back and try a different manager or something. Also, it makes me wonder if the company gets some kind of tax hike or something for however many employees are on food stamps, 'cause this is effin ridiculous. And now I sound like my slightly paranoid/cynical father, BUT STILL.

we didn't have internet until today, and I've spent all day playing on it (before, it was either going to McD's for wifi, parking in a hotel parking lot, or sitting in one certain spot and not moving the laptop literally an inch or it would lose the crappy in and out wifi, mooched from our neighbors) so now my wrist hurts. I think I like parentheses too much, and I'm done writing now!

oh yeah, my hair is neon orange in the back now, with a few random chunks of pinky-red in between, and then purple in the front with a chunk of lime-green in the bangs. it works much better than it sounds like it would and I LOVE IT. I should have pictures in a few weeks when I have the cash for another digital camera (me and Matt are talking about splitting the cost of one).

let's see how much Michelle can type in the seven minutes until she heads to religion class....

it is MISERABLE outside. I had an appointment for a tour at a local cosmetology school at 12:30 and almost walked outside without a jacket. cold and rainy and windy and eww.

the cosmetology school is really nice. I like their facilities and the lady I talked to was really nice.

I'm dating a guy, Jeff, it was a week yesterday, and we met a week before that...I really like him a lot. And he's nice, funny, pays for things, gets along with my friends...not to mention good looking (or as my lovely mother says "cute in a scroungy kind of way"...I wouldn't have used those words but whatever :P ).

Speaking of my lovely mother, somehow she got the idea his name was Jess. made for a funny incident Saturday haha.

I'm glad my IDS class is over. Now I don't have to be at class 'til 2 any given day.

There's lots of stupid drama going on at Hot Topic, and I'm trying desperately to find a second job. I'm going to go apply later today or tomorrow at the Starbucks that's right down the road from me. I didn't mind barista-ing, so long as my manager isn't a crazy ass that schedules me when I can't work.

I did apply at TeleTech, the place Jeff works, but after a 30 minute computer test and a 15 minute interview, I thought to mention my college schedule and the guy goes "oh...no, we can't work around that for training. Apply again at winter break and you'll probably have a job."

damn.

the same guy also told me that I talk like I'm from New York because I talk so fast. hahaha.

My hair is black and red now...pictures of it (and hopefully Jeff too) sometime this week.

I'm kind of in an awkward situation with some of my friends because I told them I would probably be moving back in December to Joplin and move in with them. I saw the house this weekend, and it IS a nice house - but it'd be five people in what is technically a 3 bedroom house in December, and then Josh is supposed to move in in May. I don't think I could handle that. Not to mention Chad and Chris are already at each others' throat.

Aside from the whole Michelle-needs-her-space, I think it would be too much of a pain to move again within six months. And I'm starting to actually make some friends here, and I'm probably jumping the gun but I hope Jeff's still around then and that would make spontaneous hanging out a little impossible. And the cosmetology schools here are nicer. but now I don't know how to break it to them that I don't want to move in with them.

Ok, apparently that's how much I can type in seven minutes. Off to religion class!

GAHHHHHH.

classes today were rather rant inducing.

I had to get up WAY early for markup at HT - had to be there by eight, which put me at getting up at 6:45, which for crying out loud is earlier than I've been up in MONTHS. I couldn't sleep, so I didn't get to sleep 'til 2:30 or so, which is only about an hour or so later than I normally go to bed, but usually I'm waking up at like...ten or eleven, not six, haha.

I go to Psych class, and sat at the other side of the room because I wanted to sit by Carly, my friend from that class, but she got there late so I ended up talking to some random girl named Sarah, she was really nice. There were these people behind us who talked THE WHOLE FREAKIN' CLASS. I was tired and cranky and fighting to listen to the professor and not fall asleep anyways, and these idiots behind me are whispering about "so then I said and then she said and then he was like and I was like, aw hell no". I lean over to Sarah "...do the people behind you always talk this much?" "yeah. sometimes they're worse. it's pretty obnoxious." once class gets over, I'm like "holy crap. I wanted to turn around and say 'hey you know what guys, that's real cool and all, but I came to class for a reason and it was NOT to listen to you talk!' "...Sarah thought I should have hahaha.

Anyways. So I'm wanting to skip my fashion industry class and just go take a nap, but I don't. Even though I hate that class because almost all of the girls are bitches (also clones, seriously there are like...two haircuts throughout the entire class, and maybe four girls out of a hundred who don't have one of the two?), and it's completely stupid, the annoying teacher just ends up talking about 'how things are in the industry'. But I ignore my shoulder devil and go to class anyways.

Most of the class was a representative from the Buckle talking about how we should work there.

WTF MATE.

'cause I totally love the fact that I am PAYING to be advertised to. but that is not the end of my rant...at the beginning before he really got into it, he's like "I bet there's a lot of girls who work at retail here. Raise your hand if you work retail." Probably 10-15 girls in the class raise their hands, me included. He points at some random girl at the other side of the room, asks her who she works for, and kind of keeps pointing in general areas and has people shout out where they work. He gets to my side of the room, everyone shouts out where they work at, including me, he acknowledges the other girls but ignores me. Ok. I can deal, whatevs.

Then in the middle of the presentation, he's all "And a great thing in working at management in the Buckle is that we have a very boutique-like atmosphere, and the way management is set up, it's really very much like owning your own boutique. The difference though, is that our prices are better than boutiques because since we're a large company, we can get things for 10-15% cheaper than small businesses, so people will shop with us more."

Yeah okay. Your stunning people skills blew me over before, now you're talking about how you take customers from small businesses because you have the advantage since you're a large company. That TOTALLY makes me feel better about this whole, being advertised to in class thing.

I don't know. It just got on my nerves. I guess something like the Buckle would appeal to a lot of the girls, but shit, can't we at least do something that has some form of creativity instead of a big chain that just spits out the latest trends? I'd much rather listen to an actual boutique owner instead of that.

Then after he finishes, we had a presentation from a FACS teacher after that, about teaching and blah. And again, I'm probably just tired and cranky, but at some point she starts talking about how FACS is about the family unit and how people would be better off if problems were fixed beforehand...? thinking back, I'm not sure at all how she got on this topic, I was drifting in and out, but she was talking about how family units are dysfunctional more in modern times and rawr rawr rawr. and like I said, reading too much into it I'm sure, but talk like that makes me uncomfortable because it's usually the same people who're saying that unless it's the average suburban family with 2.5 kids, a white picket fence, and a stay at home soccer mom then it's an unhealthy dysfunctional family. And if I ever decide to have kids, it'll probably be NOTHING like that, not to mention that's usually the line of thinking that leads to homophobia.

I dunno. I'm cranky and frustrated and I honestly thought the whole pushing...what's the word I'm looking for? less strong and with less baggage than propaganda, but essentially that, would be done with high school. I hate hate hate it. Especially my fashion classes - I know what I want to do, but the thought of putting up with this CRAP makes me wonder if it's really necessary. urgh.

but anyways. Last Thursday I dyed Carly's hair. It turned out amazing if I do say so myself.





black on the underlayer and neon red on top. haha, I need to start charging. :P

remember that meme a while ago, where I said one day I'd have a mohawk?







more later...I probably won't even have internet access (that isn't slower than molasses until Saturday, starting tomorrow morning. I have a busy but fun few days ahead of me. :) and I'm sure you'll all hear about it on Sunday!

so no wonder Alicia's parents don't like me. I crawl out of bed rather late, knowing that Alicia had come back, and stagger by the bathroom to say hi. I thought it was just Alicia, imagine my shock when I see Amy "Holy shit! there's two of 'em!........andddd your mom". all in my bathroom.

whoops. >_<

so we went to the zoo last week, and the sun faded my hair to CRAP. I redyed it and this is the result:







I now have literally at least one shade of every color of the rainbow on my head. :D

I got that blue (the one on the majority of my head) by mixing some dye up that was roughly half fishbowl, a quarter SPLAT dye, and a quarter Blue Haired Freak. It's doing great so far - a nice bright blue, not the dark turquoise I was going for, but it works! It's not fading yet either.

I spent Thursday night up in Joplin. It was fun. I never thought I'd be counting down the days for classes to start - but I have nothingggggg to do!

I had two funny things happen at work last night though - one, I was greeting people, and I asked a group of maybe 2-3 girls how they were doing, I guess they didn't look at me until they replied, because the girl was kind of like "oh, I'm fine, how are...OH MY GOD I LOVE YOUR HAIR!!". I don't think I've ever had anyone yell quite like that.

the other thing was sooooooo cute I just about died. I could hear this baby crying and the sound of that drives me insane, so I thought I'd wander over there to see what was making him cry...he was, I think his mom said, fifteen months old, and as soon as I stuck my head around the corner to see why he was crying, he IMMEDIATELY stopped crying and started smiling at me and giggling. so I stood there and talked to him for a bit, just 'cause he was sooooo adorable. he did the same thing about twenty minutes later when he was crying at the register. his mom was like "I'm just gonna leave him by you next time I come in here!". haha.

and someone said I look like Rainbow Brite, I keep getting that and it makes me happy every time!!

there's a skating party from like, 8:00 to 9:30 I think for HT employees...I'm dorky excited. it's almost like having friends. hahaha.

but yeah, I think I'm done here. I'm going to go eat lunch and then attempt to make our apartment smell nice and be at least semi-clean.

So I wake up (after a marathon of Harry Potter - more on that later) and I'm like "Hmm. Pancakes sound good. I'm making PANCAKES!" and I even asked Alicia (who is still in bed, the layabout) if she wanted any. La la la, make pancake mix, grease the pan, and the first two fall apart HORRIBLY. (I don't know why)

Screw this. I'm making POPTARTS!

But yeah. Friday was really up and down. I went in for a second interview at Hot Topic and later found out I got the job, wooooooo-hooooo! And after the interview I was hanging out around the mall some with Steven, this guy I met at orientation. I hope he doesn't get any ideas...he's nice enough, but I always have issues with being able to tell if people are just being friendly or if they're interested, and I'm not interested. In some really, really weird way (dunno if it's because they both look kind of alike - long dark hair, tall skinny guys, or something about his mannerisms) he reminds me of Spencer (that'd be my ex-boyfriend, for those of us just tuning in. my whiny, bipolar ex-boyfriend that I can be friends with but why god did I date him). And...yeah. weiiiiiiird. I also got in a fender-bender, which sucked so hard. It was later that night...I'd stopped at a stop-light, and looked over my left shoulder to see who was in that lane, and I don't know if my foot slipped off the brakes or what, but I rolled forward about 3 ft and tapped the van in front of me. We both pull off in a parking lot, and the ladies (who were really very nice considering), were like "Oh, we're so sorry, we wouldn't call this in, but this is the school van so we have to file an accident report."

CRAP.

Their van had like...seriously...one small scratch on it. Blah. We (being me, Jess, and Kelton) ended up walking around downtown for an hour or two, and it was awesome. It's nice living someplace with a real downtown now. I was kind of trying to get the other two to shut up, they sounded like tourists or something - "WOW! LOOK AT ALL THESE PEOPLE!" over and over again. I think it's funny, seeing as how Jessica was the one that was supposedly moving to San Diego a while ago...riiiiight...

Saturday kind of sucked too, except for eating lunch with Heath at Olive Garden. I was later than I intended to be to the show that night, and I didn't end up staying long enough for it to be worth the five dollars, plus a few people showed up that I really don't like. So I was like 'screw this, I'm just going home'. I did get to see my siblingly and familial types though. It's weird, I miss our dogs more than I thought I would. I picked up the seventh HP book at Target, since Amazon.com are all lying scumbags. Delivered on the day of release, my ass. I better get my money back.

Yesterday was much, much better. I woke up and went to my first day of work, which was more training than anything else and didn't involve actually getting to help customers at all. Oh well. I think it'll be a fun enough job, my next day is Wednesday, then Saturday - which sucks, because I'm scheduled 4-8 and I was supposed to help Mr. T out with the book signing. I'll be in Joplin Saturday anyways, because Coni and I are having a hair dying party (oh yeah, Steven too, he's doing neon green streaks, Coni's redoing hot pink, and I'm doing Fishbowl by SFX - so it'll be a lighter brighter turquoise blue instead of the darker blue I have now), so I'm going to pick her up Friday afternoon and then she'll spend the night, and then I'll take her home the next morning, and probably get to be at the signing for about an hour.

Which, speaking of the signing, YOU SHOULD ALL GO. I mean, how amazing would it be to meet me in the flesh. Oh yeah, and there's this book thing that you can buy also.

haha.

Anyways, after work, I came home around one and started reading Deathly Hallows. Read until about five when Heath showed up with a futon and a desk (now my sewing machine table!) that he oh-so-nicely gave me. We got it all carried up, and then we went to the mall (he wanted to buy an iPhone), I ended up getting two pairs of clearance shoes with my discount, and then we drove around some...ate at Nonna's, which is sooooo gooooood, as I've mentioned before. Went back to the apartment and he helped me get the futon and sewing machine table all set up, I made quite a bit of progress on the bits of my room that had, until then, remained stubbornly in boxes. Turns out, even with the hangers I ganked from home, and then ten pack I bought, I still need more. And I should probably get a little shelf-organizer thing for my sewing machine desk. And a stool for it. But most of that is probably going to have to wait a while. Except for the hangers, because I need my clothes hung up.

Heath left around 10:30, after some you-tubing (I LOVE OUR WIFI, even if it crapped out a few times) and some help with the hanging of posters and etc. as well. I read HP straight until about 2:30 when I finished it and then I went to bed (and had really, really weird dreams). I was...I dunno. it's weird that it's all over. I've been reading Harry Potter since I was like, 11-12. But I'm satisfied with the ending.

and then a few hours ago I woke up and here we are! good story I know.

And Alicia's still in bed. I should get a little squirt-water bottle for occasions like this.

Oh wait, she just rose and shone. Never mind. But I might get a squirt-bottle anyways. Just in case.

yayyyy I remembered my blogger password without having to have an email sent. sweet action.

I have a window in my room. this is something that has never happened before. and HOLY CRAP I did not know the sun was THAT bright at eight in the morning. ouch. I couldn't sleep last night so I didn't get to sleep until around 2:30 and then I woke up because of the aforementioned brightness...then my mom called and woke me up for good. sigh.

Last night I had painted our shower curtain (pictures later, it was plain pink, now it's pink splattered with black fabric paint, looks freakin' sweet)...I tried to go to sleep around one but since I just couldn't manage it, I get up and wander to the kitchen where Alicia is still washing dishes. I sit down on the kitchen floor without saying anything and start picking at the fabric paint that got on it earlier...she turns around and goes "you know, it's a good thing we're living with each other and not anyone else, because anyone else would probably turn either of us in right now." haha...

I have an interview at Hot Topic today, heck yes! I'm excited. I hope I get the job. if not, there's at least one other place in the mall that I'm going to apply at.


I had the absolute CUTEST thing happen the other day(last...Thursday) though. I seriously almost died. I was in the food court talking to some friends, with Coni (she has hot pink hair), and this lady walks up to us with her little girl like...hiding behind her. She goes "Can I talk to you girls for a second?" and we're like "uh...okay" thinking she's going to chew us out or something...she pulls us aside and goes "My daughter is EXTREMELY shy, she wanted me to tell you that she loves you ladies' hair. But she thinks anyone with hair as cool as yours' must be a rock star, so she wanted me to get your autograph for her."

IT WAS ADORABLE. So we signed a little notebook for the little girl and we were talking to the lady, she said that she was really big on being your own person and that her daughter had seen pictures of her when she was younger with funky-colored hair, she thought the 'star' thing was because she used to work for a drama company and there was a guy with bright blue liberty spikes, and that was how her daughter got the idea. So freakin' cute. (and what a cool mom! seriously!)

hmmm yeah. back to trying to find a comb so I can shower, and sticky-taking up posters. it's kind of funny, actually...something I never realized until today is that out of all my decor (hah, by which I mean posters and the like), I only paid for 2 of them and those are both movie posters. seven or eight of them are my artwork, one or two is Seaira's artwork, one of them I found by the dumpster one night after work (it's perfectly clean, it was a halloween promo poster from like gamestop or something), two came with cds, and the rest are ripped or cut out of magazines or newspapers (or calvin and hobbes comics that I printed off and cut out). interesting...

yes, I know, shocking! a post!

I'm not sure why it's been so long, I know at least part of it is because a while ago our modem stopped working for a week and I was using my laptop, which didn't have my password on it for blogger (since I am a dork, and mostly depend on my computer knowing the passwords to my accounts to get in to them).

Last Thursday and Friday was SOAR, my orientation for MSU...it was alright. I was expecting the worst after hearing Alicia's stories, and maybe it was just because she was with the socially-retarded honors students (haha, just kidding!) or something, but I met quite a few people. I got the myspace of a few. My schedule...I'm not sure if I'm going to mess with it or not. On Monday, I'm in class from like, one to eight, Tuesday and Thursday, 2-8 or thereabouts, and Wednesday from like...1-4 or something. I have Fridays off (which is definitely something I want to keep). My schedule doesn't leave a whole lotta room open for a job, but it (my schedule, that is) would kind of suck anyways because I have to take a class from 4-8 for my major on Monday, and Tuesday and Thursday had the only Art 100 class left...so at least they're all lumped together instead of spread out throughout the day. I might see if I can scooch the Wednesday classes up some to make them earlier and have more of the afternoon free for work. I got a tip from someone about a coffee-house that wouldn't have a problem with blue hair (oh yes, more on the hair later), and another shop or two I can apply at. I'll probably call Heath later for more ideas, even if I'm getting reaaaaally sick of filling out applications...

I had a damn good weekend. Alex made an impromptu trip up here, getting here Thursday night and going home Monday morning. It was a lot of fun - Friday, they(being Alicia, Levi, and Alex) met me in Springfield after my orientation got over, and we ran around. Also got pizza that really, really sucked. It was probably just the style of pizza (St. Louis style?) but seriously...it was like cheese on crackers. ew. very thin brittle crust and hardly any sauce or cheese. Anyways...after the pizza, Alicia and Levi headed home, and me and Alex dawdled around a bit, went into this shop with hand-made incense and candles (and a very fluffy, very cute dog) and I got some stuff to smellify our apartment when we finally move in (on Sunday...ouch! *needs to start packing in a serious, serious fashion...as the madre keeps telling me). Speaking of which, I'm kind of pissed because our corner apartment that we were supposed to have was given to someone else. Even though we'd put a deposit on it. Why? probably because our move date was down a FULL TWO WEEKS later than we told her it would be (August 1st instead of July 15th). I don't know if our apartment lady (uhm...real estate agent?) is just a doofus or what, maybe it was just an honest mistake.

Anyways...Saturday we went to the creek with Jesse and Jerome, and it was a lot of fun. I didn't even get sunburned! (which is pretty amazing if I say so myself) and the drunken canoe-goers were HILARIOUS. Except that I kept being referred to as the 'girl with purple hair' by...floater-by, when it is very clearly blue. Sunday we just kind of hung out and I had my going away party at Journey's, which turned out to just be me, Amy, Stacy, and Heath watching Goonies and eating cake and popcorn. We stayed up late at the hotel watching movies (John Tucker Must Die and The Departed). JTMD was alright, funny but kind of dumb. although I wasn't really expecting intelligent comedy or anything. The Departed....oh my. SO LONG. It finally got over at almost three, and I was disappointed with the ending. Like, it was an okay movie, but I wouldn't have stayed up if I'd known everyone

(spoiler)

DIEEEEEED. Sheesh. And then Monday I had to get home early.

More on the hair: I dyed it...it was supposed to be streaked, it turned out to be most of the front half of my head. First it was a fuchsia color, then it faded to a hot pink...and then after my last day at Journey's I went to go do it blue, and tried to bleach it out...the pink didn't wanna bleach! It was still hot pink afterwards (although a lighter hot pink - it reminded me of pink lemonade with the bleach-blonde). I redyed it and I don't know if I just had bad luck with the dye (that I left on for THREE HOURS) or what, but it was a really REALLY light blue...it looked like cotton candy. Totally not what I wanted. I saw someone at the Cinna show who had dark blue hair and I asked her what she used (which turned out to be just this stuff called Splat from Walgreens) and used that...and voila, blue hair! (with purple on the side-bits) I think I'm going to finish using the bottle of dye to touch it up, and then redo it with a combination of Blue Mayhem (a bright neon blue, instead of a darker blue) and Fishbowl (a really bright turquoise). Of course, this assumes I'd have the money for that. *sigh* I'm getting it trimmed later today, finally. it's getting too long to spike up without looking like einstein.

Last night we went to go see HP at midnight...it was pretty cool. I wasn't actually that impressed with the movie itself - they left a LOT of stuff out, the visit with Neville's parents in the hospital(which would have made me cry like a baby), the interview with Rita and the Quibbler, and the double-way mirror with Sirius (I'm pretty sure they might have screwed themselves over on that one, because I think JKR either said or heavily implied that the mirror will be of some level of importance in book seven), quidditch - but it was a fun experience. I went with Coni, her boyfriend, Zach, and Zach's brother (who is OBNOXIOUS. I don't see how they can be related, because Zach is a nice guy and his brother is just like, an obnoxious twit). Spent roughly two hours in the movie theatre just SITTING. haha, and I saw Mr. Withers there!! I'm surprised he recognized me, honestly. I wish he had a blog or something to keep in touch with him with, he was one of my favorite teachers.

After the movie we went to Denny's, which was all good fun (and believe it or not, we saw a good three people we know, at 3:30 in the morning at Denny's...and we met this incredibly incredibly drunk dude who was a laugh riot). And then I came home, set my alarm to wake me up at noon...fell asleep and had weird restless dreams. I woke up and went to grab my cell phone to see what time it was, but it wasn't where I left it...I'm like "oh noooo, it's like one, and I'm going to be so late for my haircut! ack!"...yeah...it wasn't even 11 yet. whoops.

So, I have decided that a. this is the Purse From Hell, it used to live in hell, until I gave it form, and now it just haunts me, and b. once I finish the Purse From Hell, I think I will have a sewing day or two for ME, before I start working on etsy things. I NEED a sewing day for me! I have let's see...still have the X-Ray Spex shirt, a pink shirt I'm going to remake/stencil, some hot pink jeans to peg, the pirates of the blood drive shirt from a while ago, probably another shirt from a while ago, a zebra print skirt to make (that will be COOL - all I need is for the grommet tape and etc. that I ordered to come in the mail), and now, a dress(out of an XXL men's t-shirt I got on sale today). See, I got these aweeeesome boots:





and they also came with the holy grail of samples:



of which my dad totally missed the point on - I was talking to him about how much free stuff the seller(it was a store) included, and he looks at it, and goes "man, what a weirdo".

Ok dad. Point is here, you are here. NOT THE SAME PLACE.

anyways, I looooove them, but they don't look very good with jeans. Much better with skirts. and I don't own very many skirts I wear willingly. My solution? Obviously, Michelle needs more cool skirts and dresses. Which means Michelle is going to be making some! Which goes back to the aforementioned sewing day.

Also, I still need to actually clean everything, and get all that crap to goodwill.

I ordered the hair dye on Friday! I'm doing my bangs, the side bits, and some random streaks/chunks on top. I might do some color in the back, but I haven't decided yet. It's going to be a mix of this color and this color. I LOVE the color that Virgin Rose is, before it fades to a hot pink (not that, y'know, I have any issues with hot pink either), so I'm going to do about a 3:1 ratio of that and Pimpin' Purple, in hopes of keeping it magenta a little longer. Either way, it should last ages, and hopefully will look kickass. *excited* I'll post pictures...and hopefully, very soon after the sewing day and the hair color, I will have a photo shoot with Aliciakins. yay!

ARGH.

I got hired at Shake's. and maybe I'm just a wuss but I'm kind of dreading going back later today. Urgh. Especially since I'm going to the movies afterwards with Alicia, and I'm probably going to have to run home in between to shower or something, or else be stick all over and have major hat-hair.

What makes it worse is that I just set up an interview at Pac Sun. And, of course, I don't know if I'll get the job or not...but...a job at Pac Sun sounds a helluva lot better than food service. But I don't want to quit after only working two shifts. But but but...

blah.

so Alicia's long and rambly post got me thinking long and rambly (damn you Alicia). It's interesting how far I've come or how much I've changed since high school started. I used to be SO insecure. And since about sixth grade, there was always at least one friend in my group that wasn't really a friend. Actually, that started with LeAnn in third grade...then it was Stacia in middle school until we had that falling out, then it was LeAnn and Thia in freshman year, until we had THAT falling out, and I was so upset because I had all these classes with them and I had to ignore them and their constant snide remarks. And I had thought they were my best friends, hah. I remember Thia getting up in my face in science class and not one of my friends stuck up for me. I remember when they got over it randomly at the beginning of sophomore year and I was torn between being really really angry at them and wanting their approval again. For some unknown reason. Alex moving didn't help with me being upset during freshman year, either. Alicia was there and was really my only friend through a lot of it. At the beginning of sophomore year I started being friends with Jessica, we used to be SUCH good friends. I started being better friends with LeAnn again too...I dunno if I'll ever trust her again after all that crap she pulled, but she's grown up a lot now. Stacia too.

I remember, though this is going back and forth now, in like...seventh or eighth grade, when I realized that things I always took for granted (like, for example, equal rights for everyone, regardless of race/sex/orientation/religion etc.) were NOT something everyone believed in. I remember hearing the phrase "gay rights" and honest-to-goodness thinking it was some kind of joke because why would gay people have any less rights than the rest of us? And I ended up arguing with everyone for the rest of my career at Diamond, haha.

And sophomore and junior year are just kind of blurs. Spencer and his whiny depressiveness after we broke up, a lot of painful not-knowing-where-I-am-ness...somewhere in this I discovered the Clash, and a lot of the other music I listen to now. It sounds so so SO corny, but I can't even describe how much of an influence punk and ska music has been to me. It makes up a lot of who I am now. To know that at some point somewhere else someone had thought exactly what I was thinking and put it to music, music that anyone could play or sing along to no matter who they were or how much musical knowledge they had, music that spoke to me and said "HEY! Listen up!" and smacked me across the face with the loud anger of it all, music that was my anger at injustice, my passion (two things I feel are big important parts of me), put into form; that music gave me hope and direction and the knowledge that I wasn't the only one that felt that way, and I will never, ever forget it. Music is so important to me.

And it was in the middle of junior year that I started making/stencilling my own clothes...another thing that's so important to me for reasons I can't even put into words. I know a lot of people don't view it the same way as I do, but to me, clothes are an extension of who I am, they're the part of me that I can easily show the world, they're things that I spend hours making, art that everyone can take part in and enjoy without having to pay to see a gallery.

Summer b/t junior and senior year...ahh...a lot of restlessness, and another blow to my self-esteem at the very end of it. The next two months were just like, hit after hit to my self esteem, due to the fact that I seem to attract either commitment-phobes or people who are gay and just don't know it yet, heh. I got so annoyed I was just like, screw it. And somewhere in here, came the realization that Jessica and I weren't the friends we used to be, because she'd started changing, or maybe she hadn't and I did, but either way, it's come to the point now where I'm biting my tongue more than I'm not, and I don't think that's a healthy sign in any relationship...especially when she never bites her tongue to keep from saying rude things to me, or if she does she tells me about it later.

I think that, though a lot of me hasn't changed, I know that there are times and places to argue now, and I'm a LOT more confident than I used to be. I used to always be looking to my friends for approval and now I can honestly say if someone tells me they don't like me or what I listen to or what I'm wearing, I can shrug and say "yeah, your opinion doesn't matter to me.". Does that make me a bitch? Maybe in a society where any sign of confidence is immediately hailed as arrogance and conceit, I get comments any time body image comes up because I'm like "you know, I don't really have a problem with my body. I love the way I look and I'm happy with myself." Yeah sure, there are things that aren't perfect about me, but that's because I'm human and not some glossed-over-photoshopped picture. And I love my imperfections right up there with my perfections, wouldn't change 'em for the world.

anyways...

project graduation was fun, minus a few parts. the place we were at (Celebration Station in Tulsa) had this kind of creepy carnival-esque vibe...it probably wouldn't have been so bad in daylight, but when it was dark outside and there's this big stuffed animals hanging from the ceiling randomly, all these arcade games going off constantly in the relative silence, and these HUGE reallyfreakingcreepy animatronic stuffed animals singing...yeah, it was really easy to imagine the whole thing turning into a slasher where we got locked inside and the stuffed animals came to life and killed us all one by one after we illogically split up.

the go-kart track was LOADS of fun though. I probably spent the most time on it. I had Alicia as my passenger one round and probably scared the living crap out of her haha.

I'm so glad, though. Like...there's maybe 3-4 people that I'll really miss from Diamond. I'm sure there's more, that Ryan's yoda antics will make me miss him a bit from time to time...but really truly miss? yeah, 3-4 people. And I'm moving and I am SO excited about it!

New hair as of Wednesday night:



I love it. And I was surprised, because I was waiting on hearing lots of snide comments at school on Thursday...maybe they were just being nice since it was my last day, but I got nothing except for nice comments. Even from people who don't normally have a lot of nice things to say to me.

AND I CAN TOTALLY PUT IT IN A MOHAWK. hahaha! I did for project graduation.

The only thing is that I wish I would have had time to paint my senior tile for art. I was going to put a picture of the confederate flag and "you lost, get over it" around it. But I was too busy finishing my comic book panel sketch from Fray to rile up the hicks one last time. Oh well, my comic book panel sketch is worth it.

I was a bit irritated - went to the mall with Casey and Alicia on Thursday to try on this pair of mary-jane docs I'd been debating on buying. I finally decided I wanted them yesterday and went to buy them with some graduation money...yeaaaah, they got transferred out on Friday. So now I have to drive to Springfield to get them >_<

hrmm I think I'm out...off to work before too long, at the custard place *sigh*