#JustWriteIt

Day 2

Today was a good day. Not because anything particularly good happened, but because I was in a good mood. Maybe even a capital G Good capital M Mood. A Good Mood. I'm currently reading three books at once, four if you count Jane Eyre. But I don't because Jane Eyre is something I'm reading for English, totally against my will. I've fallen asleep trying to read it at least three times now. On top of this, I'm keeping up with my school work, and dressing nice. Nice for me, anyways. No holy t-shirts and day-old jeans, yet.

I woke up with the phrase "Fascist Germany" stuck in my head. It's just been there, floating around all day. Weird.

On days like today, Good Mood days, socializing comes surprisingly easy. Do I stutter? Yes. Do I generally care? Not on Good Mood days! It's almost like anything can happen, and inside, I will be unaffected, happy. Like someone ripped out my soul and deep cleaned it until there was not even a spot of grime left.

On Good Mood days, I felt the way I did before everything started going downhill. Or maybe it was always going downhill, and I was just too naïve to see it.

As I child I grew up in a small, 80's movie, neighborhood. You know the ones. Everyone knows each other, we had neighbors just show up on our front porch to socialize. We had friends around every corner, and enemies, and it seemed like at some points all of our friends shared our enemies. We had this one neighbor who used to steal people's dogs, and keep them in her privacy fence. She was an older lady, with a driveway lined with classic cars, and a hatred for everyone around her. She called the police every time someone shot fireworks, or threw a party, or looked like they might be enjoying themselves too much. Nobody liked her, which made me pity her.

I lived in a tiny stone house, with my mother, my father, and my annoying little brother for sixteen years of my life. The first seven or so  were happy years. I played with my father, because my mom was almost always on the phone, and he would play Barbies with me. Sometimes, one of my parents would read to me, usually my father. I remember learning to read- painstakingly reading Dick and Jane, scanning hungrily for new words. I absorbed words. I lived and breathed them. I still do. We had this huge copy of Dick and Jane, a combination of all of the short stories. My favorite was the one where they arranged the chairs like cars.

I don't actually remember my brother being born, what it was like when he came home from the hospital. He was in the hospital a lot, because he was born incredibly prematurely, should-technically-have-died prematurely. It's a miracle he lived. I'm glad he did, even if I do sometimes want to throw him off a small cliff.

My brother was, and still is, a tornado. He's so ADHD he can hardly function, and he seems to think everything is a joke. Everything. He used to draw on the walls, tear up my toys, and just generally act like a troll. He did a lot of crazy things as a child. One day, when he was about two, and I was around four, there was a knock on the doors. It was early in the morning, around 6 AM, and it woke my mother and I up. My father wasn't home, he was away at his job. He was always at his job. Anyways, mom opened the front door, and two men were standing there, holding my wild brother.

"We found him halfway around the block," one of the men said, "we kept asking him where he lived, and he kept pointing to his pedal-car, and saying he lived there."

My dear, sweet brother. A runaway at the grand age of two.

There's been other crazy things- he once streaked in the backyard in front of a bunch of garbage trucks. He climbed this huge tree with his friend. They disappeared into the foliage. "What happens if we fall?" his friend asked. "We die," my brother had replied.