Day Thirty One: BadSeed

I feel so good right now.

I feel like I should give you some background on my family, because I've written most of my adventures without context.

My grandfather, Robert Paul Farah had three sons, in this order: Scott, Paul and Dan. My father is Paul Robert* Farah, the middle child and the weird one, who moved from New Hampshire to live in Phoenix, where I was born. I am the oldest of eight cousin, two to Scott, three to Dan and three to my father, which really doesn't make them cousins. Also, I am not counting my adopted brothers and sisters, because my grandparents do not, which is really quite sad.

Anyway, being the oldest, I am a positively bad influence on them, because they look up to me. I love that feeling, but it also kind of worries me that I am doing damage to them. I've been discussing my anarchist/libertarian views with my cousin Matthew. He claims he will never do any illegal drugs because it's illegal. I told him I'm not going to allow the state to decide what is healthy for me. I'm seeding little thoughts like this into him. I let him read the Catcher in the Rye, which is way worse than the M-Rated games his mom won't let him play.

My cousin Joshua, lives in North Carolina and is the son of my uncle Dan. Today, I learned he is coming to live with my grandparents for a while. He flies in tomorrow night and I will go to pick him up. He's 14, and you know how influenced kids are at his age. So I'm going to really change him around, for better or worse. I'm really excited. We're sharing a room. We need to get him a cane, so off to Laconia!

Tomorrow my cousins Matthew and Mark return from Africa. We are really gonna have chaos on Friday. It's gonna be so awesome.

I feel peace. So at the top is a weird picture of me. I was riding a kids bike while wearing a Darth Vader mask. Why not.

*Notice that my father and grandfather have switched names. Aren't they clever? I was supposed to be Robert Paul too. Then I was supposed to be Heath. Instead, I am me.

Day Sixteen: Showoff

Note: I was unable to post last night because of a thunderstorm power outage. Actually, my grandparents just unplugged the internet router.

I woke up in one of my token hate-the-world moods. I don't know why, but I'm blaming you.

I went to the interview early. Thirty minutes, giving me time to wander around downtown Laconia and take snapshots. I took 189 pictures today, most of which I deleted and not all from downtown either. I haven't uploaded even a quarter of the total I've taken here, averaging about 50 pictures a day.

The interview went well. He was pretending to be nice to me, I was pretending to be a hard-worker. Showing off. I am already very familiar with how a newspaper works and all, so I kept spouting off random jargon. AP Stylebook. Feature story. Word-count. They seem to want to baby me, which I'm fine with. But still, I want them to know I can write the news. They asked if I could sometime do an online feature with a less professional, more personal spin. "You mean a blog?" I do that in my free-time, for fun!

So I easily got the internship. It pays. I didn't ask how much.

I took way too long to apply for this position. I wasn't really sure I wanted it. I wasn't really sure I wanted to even work as a writer anymore. For a couple months, I was having some serious doubt about where I wanted my life to lead. But today I was so excited and happy and at peace with myself for this minor accomplishment. I think I was right about this, at the very least.

I will be doing two primary things: data entry, which I am already doing for my uncle's company. Which I hate. Which is mind numbingly boring. But I'd much prefer doing it for the Citizen than the Man.

It's been hot and humid lately. My cousin Matt came over and we swam in the lake. It was still cold for me and gross as usual. Big oil spills of pollen were gushing everywhere and it got all over me. I poked at a dead fish. It looked cut up from a boat rudder, its guts unfolded, its eyes missing.

Later, my cousins and I took another bike ride. We set off firecrackers. For a Desert Child like me, where these toys are illegal, I was really excited. I love being destructive. We took our canes and hit them at each other, spraying sparks at our knees. We tried to make a few modified firecrackers, but they barely worked. Except when Mark taped a dozen sparklers together and lit them and it launched into their trashcan and set it on fire.

Most of these crackers were bells and whistles. Showing off. Nothing special. They make these things too safe nowadays.

I drove home, as the clouds were lighting up with a thunderstorm. Showing off. But not entirely. It's raining now, and there's that occasional clap, and this is the sound I will fall asleep to.