A New -Much Wilder- Chapter

Interestingly enough I just remembered that I didn't post yesterday and I felt bad about it on behalf of my viewership so here it goes. I woke up yesterday several times and then I fell asleep again until around 10:45 which is when I sprang out of bed because I thought I missed breakfast with my parents which woulda been bad cause they were leaving. Then I realized the reason I woke up in the first place is that my mother was knocking on the door, so I threw on some shoes and left the room. We drove around downtown Tally a little bit until we found a quaint little coffee shop to eat breakfast at. However, before we could get to the restaurant, an African-American homeless man named Eric (Arik?) stopped my parents and I so he could give me his two cents on college. They can be summarized thusly.

• I been here forty years
• I'm homeless
• I'm an orphan
• Think of yo parents
• Look at me son
• They worked so hard
• This is real important
• Son
• SON
• I seen girls fallin' down drunk with they legs open
• They be pregnant
• SON
• Look at me
• You look like a smart kid
• "He is" - My mom
• Son
• Don't give money to the other homeless guys cause they just spend it on booze
• Son
• Remember your parents

Needless to say my mother encouraged me to follow the advice of Eric and we were on our way. I got a BLT which was delicious cause tomato is the most underrated condiment of all time. The real treat of the morning was the sick as heck scooter that my parents bought me at my own bequest. This went nicely with the nerf basketball hoop that was also purchased for me. Once the hoop was installed, and I said goodbye to my parents until October, I took a little trip to the Leach center, which is the on campus gym. Neil, my roommate, had informed me that it was "sick" so to speak, so I did an independent investigation. I lifted weights and ran on the treadmill and drank water and led a healthy life for a whole 30 minutes! I checked out the basketball courts upstairs which were all in full use by 5-on-5 games. What happened next was a Toy Story like situation which is where whenever the game shifted to the opposite end of the court, several of us would scamper on to the free end to shoot around, but when the game shifted back we ran off. My mom texted me during this process and made me Snapchat pictures of what I was doing. I'm trying to ween her off of the constant communication she expects to have with me. I left the gym, took a shower, and accidentally fell asleep for about an hour. There was a concert in the courtyard so I walked over to Maddie's dorm and walked with her and her roommate over to the music. Earl Sweatshirt was unknown to me before the concert, and apparently Maddie too cause she hates rap music so she was just miserable the whole time. I ditched her to go get free food with Valentina and Angele at some "Taste of Tallahassee" event where there was a literal Smorgasbord of food from some tasty ass restaurants. Then we all went to my dorm to watch Pulp Fiction which also gave me the chance to send my roommate pictures of me with a couple of ladies on my bed, so he probably thinks I'm a slut. To be fair, I am. After Pulp Fiction, we went to see a midnight showing of the Princess Diaries with Olivia Friedly. To clarify, Olivia is a girl from Winter Park, not an actress in the Princess Diaries. I got home at 2 AM to find my roommate passed out after a night of heavy drinking. College life is indeed charming.
 

Back in Black (Garnet && Gold)

Ok listen up folks, the blog is revived and here's why. While I was at Winter Park high, too many people knew of the existence of this blog so I couldn't post the usual salty content. BUT FOLKS!!!! We've hit a reset button here at THE Florida State University. So where to begin...

I got my sleepy ass out of bed at about 7:45 to get in the car and get on my way. The characters along for the ride include me, my mother, and my father. Also, about 75 tons of my crap. Our first stop was to my grandma's house in Maitland. My mom had been dog-sitting one of her "clients" but since she was going out of town she had to give the key to my grandma which initiated another long sequence of hugs and goodbyes. We were about to leave but my dad realized he forgot the SunPass so we drove fifteen minutes back home to get it and thusly, we were on our way. The sounds of the road trip included a medley of NPR, classic rock, and my mom telling us she had to eat/pee/etc. I fell asleep a couple times which is how I survived. We got to FSU a little past noon and started hauling things up to the room. My mom put on my huge mattress topper but we had to let it aerate first so we went to get some lunch at "the Den." Mom was quickly turning into a hungry bear as the service was inexplicably too slow for her. Finally the food was delivered and my dad looked at his insignificant wrap and exclaimed, "glad we waited so long for this." The epitome of a dissatisfied old Jewish couple. We went back to my room and finished setting up as my parents became acquainted with my roommate, Neil. Neil seems like a really chill guy, and his major, Biology, is considerably more challenging than my majors, Communication and English. My side of the room has no posters or anything and his just has one thing: an American flag. I'm just glad it isn't a confederate flag cause going to FSU ya never know what you're gonna get. Mom was absolutely OBSESSED with my bed spread. She had the mattress topper, a sheet to go over that, a sheet to go over that, a duvet, and then- get this- a Pendleton blanket in garnet, gold and navy. Then there was the body pillow, the two custom ordered pillows, the monogrammed pillowcase, and the embroidered pillow case. For those of you playing along at home that makes FIVE PILLOWS FOR ONE BOY. I shepherded my parents out and lay down for a nap. I walked around and took in the sights. Before I knew it it was time to go out to dinner with the folks. I had invited Caroline cause she was a family friend in addition to being my friend. Luckily she had a meeting and couldn't wake it so I got to go alone. I don't remember the last time I went out with just my parents but we had all gotten our fill of each other during the car ride and room assembly so dinner was kinda tense at first but it got better as time went on cause mom and dad started talking about how I've actually matured in the last four years. We all went back to my room again so we could bring up the stuff we had forgotten earlier which included food and water, ya know, the essentials. Mom had decided that my feet were the worst things she's ever smelled so she bought me Febreeze and some deodorizing thingies for my closet. I used the restroom and my mom suggested I test out that Febreeze so yeah, it was time for them to leave, especially cause I'll see them in literally a month for Joseph's Bar Mitzvah.

Once the parental retired to their hotel for the night I tested out the shower and went to hang out with my friend Jensen who I worked with at the JCC a couple years ago. Jensen is so incredibly cool, and her roommate was chill, but some weird ginger girl was there who introduced herself as, "your worst nightmare." "Oh, I don't like you," I said poignantly. Then ginger called her "almost boyfriend," Mitch, to come hang out. Mitch was arguably weirder than ginger girl cause Mitch was trying to court this b but doing a bad job cause everyone was trying to chill but he was making weird banshee noises and she was also being loud and it was just too much and reminded me too much of that one weird house party and working with kids. They busted out a pack of Uno cards and I intentionally messed up the game cause I'm kinda an asshole and was kinda annoyed by Mitch trying to be an alpha male when we was literally shorter than me and aggressively unintelligent. I did some more walking and came home to get my ass beat in 2k. I literally have no plans for the rest of the weekend so it may or may not be "lit." Until tomorrow <3

Welcome to Gatorland Y'all!

So today I went to the guitar concert because I had friends in it, and I had friends in the light booth, so why not? The reason why not was a little 12-year-old boy, who went by the mononym, 'Gator.' He's my friend Chloe's cousin and was brought along because she was babysitting him and doing lights. I first met Gator as he climbed into the light booth from the window, and I knew Chloe was bringing her cousin, but I didn't realize he'd be a floater. He gets in the room and immediately starts making Yo Mama jokes. "Yo mama is so dumb, that she bought a ticket to go see Xbox Live!" He was real proud of himself. He gave us his credentials which were as follows: wrestler, football player, used to play Minecraft when he was like 7 or something cause that game is for babies, skateboarder (shred it up brah), and drank 3 red bulls for breakfast. Gator would have been alright, but like a wild moose, he felt his authority challenged and so he tried to fight me in the confined lighting booth. I don't wanna brag, but I was about two feet taller than this kid, and he was kind of small, so I'd just bear hug him cause I didn't know what to do.

Some Gator quotes:

• "I've kissed 8 girls"
• "I kissed 3 girls at once"
• "I like peanuts"
• "I have 100 times more Instagram followers than you"
• "Woah, you have a Facebook?!"

Eventually, Gator, Chloe and I went outside because we were making a ruckus, and then Gator decided we

were going have an to all out fight. He started circling me like a tiny ass shark, and then he kept trying to grab me! I have got to hand it to this kid, he has balls, but he kept trying to punch me, so I just picked him up. Then I didn't know what to do with him so I put him back down, and he came at me again! He kept punching me in the stomach saying, "I bet you didn't feel that!" He made me sad. I went in the lighting booth and proceeded to lock him out. We let Chloe in too, but apparently, while the door was closing, Gator taped it so he could get in whenever. That isn't to say he was really locked out because he had the window, but it's nice to have options. At a certain point in the evening, we hadn't seen him for a while, so I open the door of the booth, and he's there talking to some 20-something-year-old and checking out his skateboard. According to Gator, he used to have a professional sponsor.

Somehow the concert lasted over two and a half hours, a fact that Gator would not let us forget. I was scrolling through Facebook and came upon a photo of Donald Trump, at which point Gator informed me that Trump was a "douche bag." Gator also told me that he's kissed more girls than me and that, "your mom doesn't count." He even had me send his photograph to Ashley Lazarski.

Towards the end of the concert Gator was getting to be a bit too much, so when it ended, we were all extremely relieved. The pièce de résistance was when he decided to slide down the banisters in the auditorium stairwell, and that was when it was time to call it quits. For more Gator updates, follow his Instagram @GPFLUG7 where you will notice that he has significantly fewer followers than me!!!

Kittens Part III: Cataclysm

I woke up this morning at 3 am because due to a complicated series of events: I had my mom's phone charging in my room but it was supposed to be used to wake Joseph up, who apparently passed the 3 am shift off to my mom who, when confronted about it at 3 am, decided she didn't want that shift, so I had to do it. Earlier in the evening, a couple of Hursh family members showed up to visit the kittens but decided to call it quits after Caroline picked up one of the kittens who had pissed itself. **IMPORTANT DETAIL** Anyway, it's much too early to function and I'm getting the bottles and formula and what-have-you so that I can feed the kittens who, at this point, kept trying to walk off the edge of the dining room table. One of the kittens could not get enough food, and the other didn't want any, and I had somehow gotten a considerable amount of formula on both of my hands as well as both of the kittens.

After loading them up with some sweet, sweet caloric goodness, I had to burp them, and then do... the thing... to make them pee. Well recalling what had happened earlier, I figured that they obviously didn't have to be molested to go pee, so I just put them back in the cage.

I woke up at 7 to lots of yelling and mom telling me that I had to drive Sophie to school because one of the kitten's stomach got all hard because it didn't pee. So that was rough. That's basically when mom decided the cats were not worth the trouble, but then she had to tell the family. I was kinda sad, but Sophie, who had not taken care of these cats whatsoever, started WAILING on the ride home. She made an impassioned plea regarding the fact that the cats were her only friends, and that she, "fed them once the other night!" Basically, she cried a lot. I guess the petition didn't work but thanks for trying y'all. Also, my mom says a parrot might be next.

The End of an Era

Whenever I think of school ending, I pretty much immediately jump to that one song from High School Musical II which is definitely a generational defect. So the day that school really ended for me was somewhere in the second quarter, but when I stopped having to go to school by law was this last Friday. It felt like any other Friday, except we did absolutely nothing in class, except for chem, which I arrived at thirty minutes late. It really tells you just how little regard I have for that joke of a class. Nobody was paying attention, and I was blatantly on my phone, but that didn't stop her from telling me specifically to get with the rest of the class. Whenever she yells, Akshay and Sloan slyly put away the phones on which they are covertly playing video games. The last time walking out of that class was a freaking catharsis. It was like just being there made me feel like I was wasting time that could've been used giving back to the less fortunate. One time, to prove a point, I pulled up a video of paint drying. I hope that I passed on this brashness to some of the juniors, whose names I did not care enough about to learn until the last month of school. Hannah, Hannah, Maddie, Ellie, Matt, Kevin and others.

It's so weird to think about the fact that I really don't have class anymore until I go to FSU in the fall, but it doesn't feel like I don't have school because I have like 8 more exams, and then theatre too. I was going to direct another one-act, and like I told Mr. Carter, "third time's the charm!" But, then Carter insisted I act which means I have to find a monologue to do so I think I might just recite the intro to Nineteen Kids and Counting. With all this free time I've just been staying out til much earlier in the morning, so I suspect that at some point next week, my sleep schedule will flip and I'll become nocturnal. Honestly, being nocturnal would make it easier to take care of the cats, because I was supposed to feed them at 3 am today, but I slept through my alarm for six hours, and then I woke up at six and panicked as I ran to my brother's room to get the cats and feed them in my dining room. They would not stop trying to jump off the table so I eventually just covered them with the towel as I nursed them one at a time. The real challenge was getting them to defecate after their meal. I did the thing with the paper towel and the warm water, cause in nature the mom cat just licks "their parts" so that's what I had to simulate (note the choice of words was 'simulate,' and not 'stimulate'). The problem was that they weren't going, but instead, just making a lot of scary noises that led me to believe I was scarring them for the rest of their nine lives. I woke Sophie up, but she wouldn't do it, so I woke Joseph up, and he informed me that he had already covered my 3 am shift for me but he'd do this anyway, and so I went back to sleep til 9. I'd like to thank Obama for having my mom return the cats home.

Cats

So I'm lying in bed, watching some How To Get Away with Murder, on the 'flix, and all of a sudden I get a call from my mom. It starts with the regular spiel about how I need to clean my room and yadda yadda, but then she tells me that she decided that I'm going to be taking care of a couple 3-week-old kittens. I did not sign up for that, and it's pretty typical for my mom to get excited about an idea and then just go ahead and do it. That happens to be how Rosebud was brought home because dad was on a business trip to Atlanta. Mom calls me from the car where she already has the kittens. Great. I don't dislike cats, in fact, I like them and I wanted one when I was younger, but I was never allowed to have one because my mom didn't want one. Now I have two? Anyway, mom brings them home and plops their cage down in the middle of my- still dirty- room. Of course, as soon as we start to hold them we're all in love, but that's when the real bombs start dropping. The first bomb is that after we feed them we have to "rub them with a warm washcloth." "Warm what?" Sophie asks. "Their parts," mom explains. Ohhhhh nope. Count me out. Next bomb: they need to be fed every three hours, which means that because they're my responsibility, mom explains, I have to wake up at 3 and feed them. At this point, I'd like to acknowledge the fact that my mom either didn't know about the three weeks of IB exams or didn't care because she had determined that these kittens were a necessary responsibility for me. I definitely could not wake up  every three hours to feed these kittens, which is what I told mom, who still did not believe that studying and taking exams constitute 'doing things on my days off.' She had told me last week that, since I'm gonna be spending a lot of time at home, I'll get to help clean the house. That sure is a funny way you got of lookin at things, Steph. Anywho, my mom took the kittens back to the vet cause that's where they go every day to be monitored, but now she doesn't want to take them home again, even though I don't have a morning exam for another week.

Sign my petition to tell Obama to tell my mom to let me keep the kittens.
https://wh.gov/ioPHO

How Do You Measure a Four Day Trip to Tampa?

I had no performance friday so it was just like, do whatever I feel like. I went to an improv workshop with some big sweaty guy, but watching other teenagers do improv is so incredibly painful because they all do whatever they think will be funny for teenagers, and, spoiler alert, it’s rarely funny. I left early and my friend Gabe and I hung out by the vending machines while he flirted with girls and I just tried to get them to read my blog. Neither of us really succeeded. Afterwards I went to a writing workshop with this teacher who started off talking about the definition of playwright, and then ended with doing other stuff. This one kid would not stop asking stupid questions so I just sat on my phone and wrote a play about Ted Cruz being the Zodiac Killer. We were all supposed to write scenes so I just went with an idea I had already started. The kid asked questions until the end of the session and finally the instructor guy was like, “how about I just read what you wrote after class?” “Oh I didn’t write anything,” replied the kid. It was a two-part workshop so we decided to not come back for fear of dealing with the annoying kid. Drama kids are better at just avoiding problems than confronting them, and that’s the way we like it!

Lunch was overpriced pizza, but overpriced can be used to describe every meal here except the first night when we had mall food court Chinese food. I went with a group to a musical theater workshop where I stayed in the back because I’m a much better rapper than a singer, and if you’ve heard me rap, then you know my singing is atrocious. We had to leave after that and go to some fancy dinner, which is code for ‘not a lot of food.’ Then I watched/slept through a performance of Romeo and Juliet, except before it started, thespians demonstrated exactly why they are the worst people to do anything with. They started doing the wave, but instead of the traditional way, they just dabbed around the auditorium. Then when the lights went out, they used the freaking flashlights on their phones to communicate in morse code. I fell asleep seven times during Romeo and Juliet, but it was only really bad because I started snoring in the third act. When it ended, we were all thankful, and we headed back to our hotel. All of the guys, except Daniel Crasnow, went to go play poker with Mr. Carter, who beat us all. We ordered pizza and rode the elevator down with a very very drunk girl. On the way back up a bunch of old men asked for our pizza. After we ate we began to execute our insane prank. So Mr. Carter’s suite was connected to the other group of guys’ suite so we bugged our way into his room and I dropped my Bluetooth speaker behind the chair. We connected it to Gabe’s phone which I had recorded the phrase, “are you living your life to the fullest?” So I had to go back to my room but I made sure Gabe knew to keep playing it. I got the following chain of messages:

Monologues Saturday! GoNNa WiNG iT!