Dear Journal,

I have two things I'd like to talk about right now.

The first involves a lot of details and things that you could only learn through time. I've had this friend for over nine years, and her dad is a prick. Today he disappeared for hours, because he "went to the movies" with my friend's younger brother. Anyways, the point is he took my friend's car. [Let's just call my friend J to make it easier. Her dad will just be P for prick.]

Anyways, he took her car. And he was gone, and we were hungry. We were going to go into town and J and I were going to use all of our money to buy pizza and ice cream and batteries (for J's camera). But, without a vehicle, that's impossible.

So we went through this whole thing where we tried to get a vehicle, but to no avail. So P asks J what she wants to eat so he can pick it up and bring it home, and J happens to use the word "we", and P says, "I don't care what you two want, I care about what you want." Or something like that. 

Which makes me wonder about the value of hospitality and guests. Are guests so unimportant nowadays that what we want doesn't even come into the equation? Or is it just him being a prick? Because I can remember a long time ago, back when me and J first became friends, when he was talking and he said straight to his daughter's face that he cares more about the guests in his home than her. I remember that, and it pissed me off then. But does that mean I want to be treated as if I don't have needs and wants? No. I don't want to affect everyone's decisions, such as the decision about what to eat for dinner. In fact, I prefer not to have any special treatment. But some consideration would be nice. When J goes to my house, my parents feed her. My parents take into account what she wants. And my parents don't disappear for hours with the lie that they're "going to the movies" when there are no seven-hour movies in the theaters. 

So, in retrospect, I am kind of pissed right now. And you know what I did? I dumped out the coke I was drinking, because I wouldn't want to intrude on their cold beverage supply, and I left a ten on the counter for my half of the pizza and breadsticks we ordered for him to pick up (and I'm seriously debating taking exactly 2.5 breadsticks and half the medium pizza and bringing it home with me, simply because I paid) and went into J's room to get out of the way. J thinks I'm going about this the wrong way, and that I should just take advantage of the fact that he would have bought us basically anything we want, but I'm not like that. 

I grew up to have some respect for the guests in my home. And when I'm a guest in someone elses, I kind of expect some sort of respect back. But... I don't know. Am I expecting too much?

Now that I've completely ranted the page up, my second thought was this: While I was on vacation, my grandma gave me an idea. She said I should start a school paper.

Our school doesn't have a paper. And I'm a writer, and I'm a computer nerd, and I need something different to keep me occupied. So... why not? I could try it.

So if anyone happens to read this blog, and if any of you readers know anything about school papers, whether you read them or write for them, any advice or suggestions for getting started would be greatly appreciated.

lotsa love,
Chelsie