I have seen the future, and it is wonderful

I just asked Dino how many of his parents are coming to prom. I am fairly certain that implies that a) he is bringing his parents to prom, like this boy did his grandmother, and b) that he possibly has more than two parents. Then again, if we count his programmers as parents...

Today, Ginny went to school, but she was technically excused, so she elected to skip many of her classes. I stole her for her final pre-statistics-AP-test hour. After she ate her unidentifiable sandwich (I think it might have been egg), we went outside and sat on the grass.

Well, I sat on the grass and tried to drag her down with me. She was reluctant, as she "didn't know where the grass had been." However, by the time I was lying down, she had at least reached a low crouch.

We spent a while daydreaming about the time to come. First we tried to think of next year.

"We'll both be sitting here," I said, "in the sun, and it will be AP week, so we'll be stressed. Oh, wait, no, we'll already be into amazing schools. You'll be going- where do you want to go?"

"This would work better if we knew where we were going."

"This is true."

"What about the reunion. Do you think we'll go to the reunion?"

"Yes. How about the 75th. We'll both go."

"What'll we do there."

"Well, I'll spot you first, and your hair will be all gray. I'll try to flag you down but I'll have trouble, what with my cane and all, so I'll start yelling, Ginny, Ginny. Then you'll finally see me, and you step into the light and your hair is gray. My first response is to say 'gosh, Ginny, you don't even look Asian anymore.'

"You become very angry, call me racist, and start hitting me with your cane. I hit you back. Then we get into a wicked awesome cane fight.

"Dino comes over to break it up, and he says "guys, stop-p-p-p" and starts to shake, as his circuits have a tendency to get a bit rusty."

"Is Owen going to repair him?"

"No, Owen died off ages ago. That's why Dino is having problems- his self maintenance has issues."

"Ah."

"Anyways, Dino short circuits, so then we go back to fighting when Vicky comes trundling over, walker and all. She somehow manages to force us apart and says 'TEA! GINNY! OPMINN!'

"'What? Where? I thought she'd left.' I say.

"US History! Remember the battles! Remember the Mohicans and the women and portfolios! What a class. What. A. Class.' Vicky continues to babble, somewhat incoherently, about the wonders of US history."

Ginny laughed. "Who next?"

"Well, if Dino is there, Tybalt probably showed up."

"What about Bryant?"

"He's busy building robots and saving the world."

"Oh, of course."

"Anyways, Tybalt is there. He's working, doing something. Recently divorced- he tried to hard to have the perfect, cookie-cutter life, and it fell through. What's his job, though?"

"Something important. Presidential advisor? To Sonny, maybe, who beat out Lumiere in the race."

"Oh, naturally. Anyways, Kathrya is there as well. She and Tybalt broke up, ages ago, when she went off to college. Anyways, he's been finding life unfulfilling, and he showed up at the reunion in search of the one that got away. Kathrya, of course, has been fine without him, living it up and being awesome, as usual. She sees the cane parade by us, and comes rushing over."

"Rushing?"

"She exercised as a youth, she can still rush. Anyways, she gets rather excited to see us, and starts yelling about love and other lovely things, and then she sees Tybalt, and their eyes meet, and she immediately falls silent. And we get kind of confused, but then Tybalt comes over under the pretense of oiling Dino's joints, and, suddenly, we understand."

Ginny sighed. "What about Mario? How's he doing?"

"Mario...hmmm. He's a big businessman, somewhere, really rich. Anyways, he shows up, and we all start laughing about the whole peeing-in-a-cup beeswax. Then he tells us that we can't tell anyone, as it will ruin his reputation and destroy the stock of his company. So, we blackmail him and all get a million dollars."

"That's some fast monetary accumulation."

"That it is."

"He really ought to be thinking more about the consequences of his actions."

I laughed. "What about Gretchen?"

"I bet she's at a university."

"But which?"

"She's at MIT, and you're at Harvard."

"That's realistic. But sure. How is she doing?"

"Did she marry Phil?"

"Maybe she has a really cute baby. But with who? Mario?"

"If he isn't Asian, the kid won't be."

"Well, if the baby is half..."

"Not enough. Besides, Phil is way better."

"Yeah, but she'd never marry him."

"But-"

"Okay, fine. Two weeks ago, Phil came to perform a violin thing at Harvard, and I brought Gretchen to see him, because we're still all buddy-buddy and whatnot. Anyways, she and Phil fall madly in love and start an illicit affair. Also, now Gretchie is pregnant, and she and Phil are avoiding each other so as not to arouse suspicion."

"What about Nyx."

"She's living in Swahili, speaking Swahilian, and saving the world, one starving child at a time. She's doing great, though. That's kind of boring. No plot arc."

"Darn."

At that point, the bell rang, and we went up to my physics class. However, we resumed our discussion in the evening hours. A summary of that will come....tomorrow.

After School Unadventurous Adventures

I left Spanish this afternoon with Gretchen and Avon, and we were the nearly last, if not the very last, people to leave. Avon went down the first staircase to catch her bus, and Gretchen and I sped up, soon overtaking Dino and Sonny, who, while moving at a reasonable rate, couldn't match what Richard calls Gretchie's ridiculously fast pace. We then proceeded to talk about Dino, but, despite his relative proximity, he didn't notice.

Then Gretchen ended up wrapped in some conversation with Sonny, Dino forged on ahead, and I followed far enough behind him that it didn't seem worth the effort to chase after him just to awkwardly disengage upon reaching the bathroom.

By the time I extracted my wallet from my backpack and journeyed downstairs in search of a bake sale, the lobby seemed almost deserted, and there was, alas, no bake sale. I located Nyx by means of her floral shirt (which is very pretty, by the way) and announced myself to her, Kathrya, and Tybalt by means of a request for food.

I was very disappointed to discover that Tawny's baklava, which had previously been in the locker she shares with Nyx, had been removed. I pulled out some pretzels, which Kathrya and Tybalt agreed didn't taste like "real pretzels," and Nyx left for the dodgeball game, and the three of us stood somewhat oddly in the lobby for a few minutes. Brian came by asking for members of his team, and a bit later, in a matching tee, Rodney walked past.

Rodney can be identified by the fact that, in my English class today, Ms. Seltzia mentioned tessellations. I said that they were my absolute favorite, and Rodney was, sadly enough, the only person in class who got the joke.

Kathrya, Tybalt and I eventually started walking towards the cars, and we saw Bryant walking towards us, and then we all turned around and walked out to the parking lot.

The only bit of the conversation I can remember is that something about Dino came up, and Bryant said, somewhat out of nowhere, that Dino has a really annoying voice. I then mentioned something about being really confused when he started laughing at me in the language lab until I realized that the audio system was making chipmunk voice, and there was a fair amount of me trying to figure out where to walk, because I didn't like being way out on the edge, because it's hard to talk across four people, but it felt sort of weird to drop back, so I think there ended up being a fair amount of weaving about, but I suppose it worked.

When we reached the vehicles, Bryant requested his ride to unstickered parking, and Kathrya and I both volunteered.

"You want to ride in the truck?" I asked. "It's pretty fun."

"It is," said Kathrya, "extremely cool."

Bryant consented, so we waved goodbye to the lovebirds (yes, I am going to call them that). I stood on that random black bar on the underside of the truck that is probably not random at all and meant for standing on to throw stuff in the back, and threw my backpack and lunch into the bed of the truck. Bryant seemed apprehensive.

"Do I need to put mine back there?"

"Just hang onto it."

"What do you do when it rains?"

"I don't. I mean, I haven't had a passenger when it was raining. Actually, wait, no, I drove Ginny home. She just held everything. It's a bit crowded, though."

He nodded, and I put in the key and rolled down the windows. As soon as power reached the stereo, Lady Gaga and Beyonce's "Telephone" started blaring at a somewhat inhuman volume. I turned it down a bit and pulled out of the parking spot.

"You mess with it," I said.

"This is fine."

"I hate this song."

He did something to the music controls that I didn't see because I was driving. Britney started singing "and I'm caught in between, counting 1, 2, 3-"

"Oh, that's loads better," I said.

He laughed and did some different button pushing and the music changed again, to something instrumental, familiar, and yet somehow out of reach.

"Should I go right up here?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I'll go straight then."

I turned out of Paperclip, still trying to figure out what the song was. "It's Lady Gaga, singing, well, something, I just...."

"Bad Romance."

"Ah, yes. I probably ought to have known that."

I wasn't looking at him, but I could practically feel his shrug.

From there, we somehow managed to discuss both what house the blueprint on the dashboard was for (he read off my address, so I assumed it was my house, but it turns out that he actually read the builder's address label, and it was for a different project) and, after I took a turn a little bit too quickly, whether I was allowed to have passengers in the car.

I said that as long as he could pretend to be my twelve-year-old sister, we'd be fine, but I wasn't sure he could pull it off, and, oh, wait, my sister is actually thirteen, I totally know how old my siblings are.

I think I got a laugh for that one.

And then there was something about parallel parking, and then we were at his car, parked as crookedly as predicted, and he was gone, and I was coming to an intersection I wasn't accustomed to, trying to determine the best possible route to a pastry.

Honors List

Today, Gretchen came over, and we decided to combine our interests in gossip and academics to produce: The High Honors Predictions (Wood Knocking Enabled). This is also an opportunity for me to come up with lots of fun nicknames.

First, the top fifteen, also known as: Our Wonderful List, by Us.

1. Bryant, the somewhat smarter twin.

2. Tybalt, the other really smart twin.

3. Yuma, the Asian boy who likes to say "um." He is here because he is smart, and we like him.

4. Clara, who played Clara in the nutcracker and did very, very well on the math midterm and plays violin. We needed a girl on this list.

5. Julie. Because she is Julie.

6. Mario, because we like him more than

7. Livny. How we wish that he was stupider.

8. Brian. His first name is Avon's last name.

9. Jeff. Tierra is obsessed with him. However, he has taken a lot of journalism, which might pull down his GPA, but whatever.

10 and 11: Tea and Gretchen. Because we are awesome.

12. Avon or Natalie. They have the same first name, and we aren't really sure.

13. Sonny. The taller of the two workshop boys from Avon's elementary school.

14. Ariadne. Her dad gave a speech to our math class.

15. Nyx, because we love her. She's pretty good at school, too.

It'll be interesting to see if any of this rings true after another year and a half.

Also, I've been taking art classes at the art center in a nearby town. My teacher has a porno-stache, and it creeps me out a lot.

Dialogo

A Literal Translation of my latest spanish dialogue:

Narrator (N): For many years, the Marquis had the wish to kill the servant who had torn the fan of his wife.

Marquis (M): Today, I am happy that I can finally complete my goal.

N: The servant didn't know that his life was soon going to end.

Servant (S): You're blocking where I need to walk in order to obtain my serving platter.

M: You tore the fan of my wife many years ago.

S: I only tripped. I don't thing that I have culpability.

N: Like a lightning-bolt, the Marquis took the serving platter and began to fight with the servant

*the boy playing the waiter grabbed the platter and began hitting the boy playing the waiter over the head with it. Needless to say, I, the narrator, was laughing*

S: I hope that I win this important fight and that you lose.

M: You are an arrogant man and I recommend that you surrender.

N: The fight continued for some minutes, but at the end, the Marquis didn't vacillate and killed the servant.

M: Finally, I am capable of avenging myself of the servant!

N: Then, the Marquis left from the scene of the murder and went to his house.

Condesita (C) *played by Avon*: Hello, my good looking spouse. How are you? My god! You have blood on your hands! You have tripped?

M: I spoke to a man that I abhor. Now, he is not in the life.

C: I hope that you did not kill a man when you were at the embassy today.

Son (S): Dad, you killed the servant? I have wishes to see the body!

C: I hope nobody finds the body of the dead.

N: All the people of the family had a lot of fear. The Marquis recommended that the family flee the country.

C: We should change our names and flee the country.

S: Let's form a group of the freestyle rap music!

C: What a good idea, son.

N: Then, the family moved to Detroit and participated in many rap competitions.

M: My family, we have won many competitions and tomorrow is the big championship. How would you like to celebrate?

S: I want to go to the zoo in order to see the elephants.

N: While they were at the zoo, an elephant ate the family *(at this point, I was laughing so hard I had to stop and attempt to gather myself before spitting out comió)

C: We are in the stomach of the elephant and the championship is tomorrow. What are we going to do?

N: The family hoped that they could go to the competition, but they didn't leave from the stomach for ten years, and finally, they went out.

M: How good that now we are not in the stomach of an elephant.

S: Yes, I have much hunger because I have not eaten for ten years. I want sweets.

C: Good, son. Let's go to the store in order to obtain sweets that you can eat.

S: The sweets are very pleasing to me and I abhor the elephants.

M: Yes, never are we going to go to the zoo another time.

C: It is evident that the rap doesn't function for our family. We need to form a team of badminton!

THE END

The other presentations included one in which the Condesita is sitting with her husband (the Marquis) and her daughter, when the man she is having an affair with appears (handily gripping a rose between his teeth to denote his status as a Don Juan). The Condesita decides she likes the other man better, so the Dad kills himself dramatically and the daughter cries unconvincingly.

In another, the narrator came armed with a guitar. Archie wore a blonde wig to play the Condesita, and he and his hubby started a basketball team with ten of their eleven children. the eleventh wants to be a singer, so delivers most of his lines in song while the narrator plays guitar (yo amoooo tiiii, etc.). Unable to cope with his athletic parents' disapproval, the boy steals their money and runs. His parents don't hesitate to buy firearms and follow him, and the boy booby traps the path behind him. His father falls in a booby trap and dies (dramatically, of course), so Archie takes it upon himself to shoot the son, who also dies (dramatically, of course).

In another, Dino (short for dinosaur) plays the Marquis and must choose between John (he has a female twin) and Sonny (also a guy). Sonny spends the entire time devising devious tricks to get Dino to leave John, but in the end, Dino announces that he really just loves John, and hugs him.

It was all very silly.