In My Absence.

Drove up to my Grandma’s yesterday with my dad to fetch my mom. I drove all the way, roundtrip. Just how I am. I don’t feel comfortable with my dad driving. Never did. Besides, he and mom both are a bit jumpy in tight situations. I don’t flinch if I’m going around a curve next to a Mack Truck. Just stay between the lines. I can always feel exactly how much room I have. I can hug either the yellow line, or the white line. Or the dotted lines to either side of me. No problem.

My, how much has changed in my absence. A lot of the property hasn’t been maintained. How could it, with my Grandpa degrading. The back trail is almost completely overgrown. I reached a point where I couldn’t push past the vegetation any further. I recognized the plants up ahead, and I didn’t feel like getting thorns on my cords.

Not long ago, you could walk around the pond. Now the pine trees are so overgrown that you nearly get run into the water. The dock looks horrible. The bridge to it floated to the other side, I pulled it out of the water with a spade. I was over there looking to see if I could quick-fix the. What’s-it-called. Let’s excess water out. Whatever. Sediment has built up over the years, combined with some cattails, a shallow area now surrounds it. With that, the pond has grown a little stagnant.

That place is something that matters to me. It matters to me. I want to take a week or two and cut back all the trees around the pond, pull out the excess cattails, and then do a mow to make it look like it was always beautiful. Nobody else will do it. I want to do it. So I will. With the back trail going wild, if I were to make another trail, I could more or less create my own path.

Behind the pond, I know there’s a small semi-secluded area surrounded by trees. I’ve always thought that if fixed up right, it would be incredibly romantic. But, like that’ll ever happen. In my dreams.

I do dream of being there a lot. They’re always happy dreams. Full of happy people from my past, that have never even been there.

The three-wheeler may be defunct. That ATV’s about as old as I am. They were outlawed years ago, but my grandparents saw no sense in getting rid of it. People who get hurt on them are idiots. Please. Those particular machines are NOT designed for jumps. (Nor would I do jumps anyway. Not my style.)

Played Pinochle last night with my mom and Grandma. Grandma said she hadn’t played it in years. Blame my absence. I had to remind everyone how many cards to deal, and how to bid. Halfway through, Grandma handed me the scoresheet and told me to be scorekeeper.

For me, there’s a lot of sentimental value in that. I started played when I was ten. We’d play Guys against Girls, Grandpa and I versus Mom and Grandma. In more recent years, the girls really handed our asses to us. Frankly, I blame Grandpa’s fading mind. Grandma has always kept score. She’d joke that she never passed algebra (let alone finish high school). So for me to assume scorekeeping is a great honor. Something else. I was sitting where Grandpa usually sat. It just happened that way during dinner, but for pinochle, I sat there on purpose.

(I won, by the way. Grandma made her usual non-threat that I couldn’t leave until she won.)

I wrote some stuff in my journal. Par for the course. I cried while writing a letter to Alex. I had her address, but she just moved. That’s what I get for putting things off!

Grandma’s chili was as good as usual. She claims to not be that great of a cook, but come on. Of course Grandma will make a decent chili! I went for seconds. I stopped myself from mentioning Paige’s Spaghetti.

Grandma told me my cousin Jamie is still pursuing her dream of openning a hairdressing salon. I haven’t seen her in ages, but I’m glad she’s going for it.

I want to visit more often. But GAS! Blah. Sure my dad can make it there and halfway back on a tank of gas. But. Um. I haven’t that luxury. I don’t think he liked how I actually pressed on the accelerator while going up onramps. I don’t like how easily the Corolla slips into overdrive. It shouldn’t need to. I also don’t like daytime running lights, but let’s not get into that.

I speed. I’ll admit it. If it’s 55, I’ll stick around 64. If traffic is tighter, I’ll slow down to 60. If it’s 65, I’ll go 74. I love going 75, just to see how fast people will past me. I have no problem going 80 if everybody around me is still moving with me or faster than me. Ha ha. That’s something I couldn’t do in the van. Things don’t feel right if I go over 70. I’ve also noticed that the overdrive (on the van) doesn’t really work over 65. Used to. Oh baby, it used to…

Oh. And I don’t speed in work areas. I don’t care if nobody’s around. I’ll do five over and that’s it. Don’t like that I’m going fifty? Too bad.

Someone was tailgating me while I was passing a Mack Truck. I was already going 75. So just before clearing the truck, I slowed to match the speed of the truck. Just to fuck with the person behind me. Ha ha. I was tempted to flash my brakes, but at that speed, I didn’t feel like trying my luck. Moreover, it’s not my car. Some fuckers might try to bump you.

I do keep a safe following distance, for the most part. More distance than most people seem to give.

I got a paycheck in the mail for the last three grueling days I put in. I had resigned myself to not getting that paycheck a while ago. Freaking awesome. Seriously, I worked my ass off those last three days. Actually, I was at five days straight. No, six. Five? I can’t remember.

Marissa asked me to be her backup plan if she isn’t boyfriended by prom time. She said she thinks I’d be fun to dance with. Damn straight, I am! I will laugh my ass off if this comes to be, but I’ll try not to get my hopes up. I know she’s quite a desired girl, I’d make a lot of little high schoolers jealous. Ha ha.

I heed not the start of school this Thursday. Because after that, i won’t have class again until Tuesday. It won’t be the week after that that I’ll have a “full” week. *purrs* I’ve decided the best attitude is to not care about grades. My goal is to learn as much as possible about the subjects I’m interested in. Do that, and the grades will follow.

After clearing an overgrown path up by the mailbox, I showered. My Grandma has a handheld showerhead. Yes. It’s exactly what you think. Yet, for some reason, the water pressure wasn’t quite right. It didn’t feel like it used to at my old house. *shrugs*

I maxed out my camera’s 128 meg memory card. Knew it was a smart purchase when I got it a while ago. I haven’t checked the pictures I took while enjoying my fleshlight™. The rest of the pictures I spammed while walking around my Grandma’s property. I have a lot. Though, I suppose it won’t exactly count as photojournaling. If I don’t do a proper photojournaling entry, Poptart will kill me. She’s a psycho bitch like that. ; )

I haven’t the patience to process all the pictures right now. Here’s my two favorites after a once-over viewing.

<img src=”http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b209/colonelquack/field2.jpg”&gt;