October 10, 2000

Today I was supposed to be in Iowa City, visiting the University of Iowa. Or at least at school. But it's 1:10 in the afternoon, and I'm sitting here, in jeans and a sweatshirt that have been worn for two days already, wishing the itching would just stop. Damn chicken pox.

Having a childhood disease at the age of 17 is very interesting. When you are a child, you don't know any better but to scratch the nasty red spots that seem to be just about everywhere. But when you are 17, you know that if you really scratch, you will really scar. So you scratch around them, hoping this will fool your skin into satisfaction. Or you rub them, stretching out your grody sweatshirt as you pull it back and forth across your back. You compromise, too. No one will ever examine your scalp, so you scratch those until they start to hurt. It makes up for the rest of them.

Why couldn't I have had them as a child? This is so backwards.

Here's the abridged story behind it all: Two years ago, my little brother and I were supposed to get the vaccine. We did get shots, but the doctor and nurses lied to us and gave us the hepatitis shot instead. Something to note: getting older, having respiratory problems, and taking steroids that weaken your immune system are all bad things to combine with chicken pox (in my case, i've done all three in the past month, and have done in the past), so the vaccine was actually quite important. So we thought we were good, up until three or so weeks ago, when my brother broke out with spots. Argh! I was quartined at my grandma's house for a weekend, and we thought all was good. Friday night there was a huge pep rally at school, and when I got home from it I felt especially miserable. Motherly insistence revealed spots on my back, and the realization that the spot on my face was not an unfortunate zit but a pock. Argh!

I have been off steroids for about a month, and I got three huge, nasty shots of thick 'something-globin' when my brother broke out, so I think my immune system has been built up again. Despite my age and respiratory problems, I'm not really having a bad time of it. But still- the doctor lied to us and gave us the hepatitis shot, and I have to miss a week of my life because of it. And it could have been much worse, so we're all very lucky. Including the doctor, I think.

In other news...

I'm learning how to play the banjo finally. The class I'm taking consists of my and three older gentlemen. As old or older than my father, I mean. At first I felt young and stupid and out of place, but now I don't care. I'm enjoying the slow development of calluses on my fingers, and the idea of eventually getting good at it. No one my age thinks it's a good idea, or even a nice one. Everyone is yelling "What about the guitar?" Everyone plays the guitar though. My brother plays the guitar, and I'm not my brother. When you play the banjo, you know how to play it. Meaning: people who "play" the guitar could actually just know the power chords, and can get away as great players. But when you play the banjo, you kind of have to know your stuff. And I like that.

I got a 34 on my ACT. I love it, but I hate it at the same time. It means that I might not have to worry about getting myself into college. But it also means that I'm a nerd, doesn't it? Just another way ol' Ms. Rose is academic, through and through. It makes me crinkle my forehead. There must be some way I'm more than that. But you know what I'm doing after I post this? I'm going to pull out my chemistry book and take a chapter and half of notes, and then finish up with a few problems. Then I'll do some reading for English. And I won't practice the banjo, or the songs my voice teacher gave me, and I won't start on that goddamn story I've been building up for months, or that speech I've been reciting in my head for the past week. Because chemistry has to be done, and English does too. So where do the things that I want to happen come in? Why must all that wait for the summer?

I mentioned the pep rally Friday night. It was for the homecoming football game the next afternoon, and it was almost something out of the movies. The choir I'm in this year performs at the rally, and we are notorious for boring the hell out of everyone- we're corny and not nearly as sexy as the cheerleaders. So this year we decided to change it a bit. Our routine began with this awfully corny "Oompa-Loompa" song (the homecoming theme this year was "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory"). They actually started booing and calling for us to get off the field! Then we shock them all by breaking into a rap! we finish it off with an 'N Sync- ish kind of dance! The crowd is roaring, they seem to have forgotten their original disgust. It was quite invigorating- something straight out of the end of one of those teeny-bopper feel-good flicks. The music geeks prove themselves to the rest of the school, or something like that.

K. Here's the plan: I'll end this now, but I'll be back this weekend to bitch about this one thing that I just can't get over. I'll go and do some chem, and some english, but I'll also play and sing and write. It's only 2. I have time. From Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, "Getting Better":
It's getting better all the time
I used to get mad at my school
The teachers that taught me weren't cool
You're holding me down, turning me round
Filling me up with your rules.
I've got to admit it's getting better
A little better all the time