Strive to be as normal as possible

Yesterday I went with Kevin, Lisa, and my sister to the Sawgrass Mills mall. I hadn't been there much, but I knew it was huge. In fact, it's one of the largest malls in the US. I don't even think we covered the whole mall in the six hours that we were there.

I didn't buy anything (except lunch), but I was thinking about getting new shoes. At this one place I saw a pair of really cheap shoes that were bright orange -- like traffic cone orange. The others wouldn't stand for it. They didn't suggest that I not buy them; they practically ordered me not to. I called my mom (who had said that I could buy a pair of shoes and that she would pay me back), and she said I could buy them if I would wear them every day. I might have worn them every once in a while. I figured that if everyone was going to crucify me about wearing them like my own friends and sister did, I couldn't imagine what everyone else would say. So I abandoned them, and Kevin the non-punk bought a pair of those checkered punk shoes that have no laces.

From this I learned an important lesson. I'm already a freaky-looking wacko predestined to be cast as a reject from society, so I have to try to be as normal as possible. Wearing bright orange shoes (especially with the dumb jean shorts and boring T-shirts that I always, always wear) doesn't help. I want to be like everyone else, and I'm dead serious about that. I wish my overall appearance were at least pretty okay. And is it so much to ask to have hobbies and interests and musical tastes that are actually shared by others?

Will I look back on this years from now and say, "Gah, what a stupid teenager I was"? Yes, of course. But until I can become an ordinary functioning adult living in a mansion, apartment, shack, or house with a halfway decent job, a completed education, someone who loves me, and car payments, I have to put up with trying to be accepted. I have to pave the way to the future, but unfortunately I'm such a lazy sluggard that I'm just sitting here and whining about it instead of applying for a job or finding out what on earth I have to do to get my learner's permit. And if you don't like my whining, then you probably shouldn't be here at all, because complaining is apparently what I'm all about. Here's an outbound link for you: Leave now, and don't come back.

Funny how that turned from an innocent account of a shopping outing to a depressed rant. Oh well. My mind works in strange and stupid ways. Bad mind. No Wikipedia for you. As for anyone whom I might have offended in that last paragraph, let me apologize, shake your hand, and obtain a copy of the Florida State Driver's Handbook. After all, I'm only human, and even though Colleges Like It™ when you're a well-rounded person who's a born leader and is perfect at everything, I can't be. I'm book smart, so give me that if you want. I can see where you're coming from, though, when you try to make me be perfect. I know a million stupid and useless things, but I don't know how to live.

This made me laugh: Mr. Roger Lord Mortimer's Neighborhood (Flash, sound). I less than three YouTube.

Decoding Best Buy wall numbers.

Two years ago: "I should be at work right now."