I just realized something today, I haven't been involved in any drama this year. Do you know how happy that makes me? A drama-free Hillary is an excellent Hillary. I always just seem to attract the Drama Llama every single year, but not this one. My night has just been made by this, easily.

I really am ready for high school to be done with. I just want to get this next year to fly by, because I want to really start living. I want to get my career started. I want to start living on my own. I know I can do it, I just want to get started already.

I'm starting to make a portfolio for my cosmetology career. I though it'd be a good idea to document my work for the future. I've only got a few pictures so far, one is of my mom's hair after I did it a few nights ago and the other is of my hair after I did it last night. I decided that I wanted to give myself really short choppy bangs, so I did. They're crooked, but they're crooked on purpose. I'm happy about how they turned out, and I can't wait to start working on more people and to keep on building my talent...it's exciting.

I really need to go out and get a job. I was told for the last three or four months by my parents that I couldn't start applying yet because of my shoulder. I have to have surgery done at some point, so they didn't want me to get a job and then be like "By the wayyyy...I'll be off work for six months while I regain control of my shoulder." Now we're having some problem with our insurance, so my surgery is just out of the question, so I'm just saying screw it and I'm going to go get some applications this weekend. I'm really tired of coming off as a bum and taking money from my parents to do things with friends when my parents don't have the money to give me in the first place. I also need to start making my own payments on my car, because I can't really say that it's my car when I'm not even contributing towards the cost of it. I feel so horrible when I'm talking to my friends and I hear about how much they work and I'm just like "yep, I haven't had a job since October." I sound lazy, I need to change it.

I'm getting really sick of my dad being home. I forgot to take a bag of clothes out to one of the vans before I left for Springfield with Taelor earlier, so my dad freaked the fuck out. He hid my DVDs in the closet and told everyone to tell me that he threw them away. Ok, everyone knows how much I overreact about my movies. I freak out if there's so much as a scratch on them or if one goes missing, why? Because I've spent at least close to $500 maybe even more on all of those movies together. I would've died if I found out that he had thrown away my seasons of Ghost Hunters, because they were not very cheap. Anyways, I found them and I was being a complete brat to him. I told him that I was going to steal all of the laptops he leaves out in the living room and hide them in a closet and tell him that I threw them out. He doesn't think I'm very funny and neither does my mom. Adults really seem to hate me right now.

I've had an awesome weekend so far. I really just want to crash tomorrow, sleep all day. I got to hang out with Taelor, my future roomie, and that was the shit. We're going to go green when we move in together, everything will be eco-friendly. We're going to be complete hippies, motha. Our living quarters will be full of pictures of Lennon, Bob Dylan, & whoever the fuck else we decide to stick up on our walls. We're going to get a huge poster of Abbey Road to hang up. We spent a lot of time at Penny Lane today looking around at all of the amazing posters, and Taelor bought me one for my birthday. I'm fucking excited because of how extremely kick ass it is. Check it out:

I absolutely love the song 'Mother' so I about pissed my pants. I'm such a girl.

I'm going to go watch The Wall now. I'll sing along terribly. Nobody will want to listen, but I'll have fun doing it.

I figured I'd write a bit before I went to bed tonight.

Life has been really nice. I got to hang out with Meg for the first time in two weeks last night. We went to Wal-Mart, the mall, & IHop with Hannah. It was pretty grand. I really missed hanging out with her & seeing her cute taco/burrito of a face. I hope that we'll get to see more of each other now. I know that she's coming over on Saturday and she's bringing over her boy, so that should be fun.

I couldn't stop reading The Great Gatsby tonight. It's too good. All I can think of when I read it is the song "Rabbit Fur Coat" - Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins though.

I'm getting lazy in school again. It shouldn't be happening. My grades are too good for it, but I just want to be done at this point. I don't know how I'm going to make it through another year. At least next year is just easy classes. It'll be nice to be in Horticulture and Landscaping with Emily & Aryn, we'll have fun times.

No school on Friday. We have parent teacher conferences. My parents will probably say that they're going to go, and then they just won't. I don't think they've gone since I've gone to Maroa. Oh well, I really don't mind...much. I'd like to know if I'm doing something wrong in a class or something, but I guess the teacher would call home or tell me if I was. I just worry too much.

Ok. I need to sleep.

Well, I'm having a really bad night. There's really not one reason for it, it's a mixture of all sorts of things, different people, whatever. I decided that I was going to have a River Phoenix marathon tonight and that really turned out to be a bad idea on my part.

My first crush was on a boy who lived inside of my tv & vcr. My daddy used to put in this tape for me when I was sick, and that tape had a movie on it. The movie was Stand By Me and it starred the most beautiful human being to ever walk on this planet, to ever bless us with his presence, the most talented person ever. I used to sit in a pink plastic Little Mermaid chair in my feetie pajamas and watch that movie all the time and think about how much I wanted to reach through the tv and take that little boy by the hand and stop his tears, I wanted to make him happy. I eventually found out that this boy was no longer alive.

It's always sad to hear about people dying young, especially celebrities, but then you get to these people who just ooze with so much talent and their careers are so promising...and it's gone in an instant. I really think the recent death of Heath Ledger has stirred up my strong feelings for River, but they've always been there and if you've been friends with me for awhile now, then you already know that.

Every Halloween since I've been about nine or ten years old I light a candle in rememberance of Hollywood's favorite son. I watch Stand By Me, Running On Empty, and The Thing Called Love and I just keep him in my thoughts. Don't ever let him fade out of our memories, please. Don't let his talent fade.

I know, I probably seem stupid for writing all of this about a boy that I never even knew, a boy who died when I was only  two and a half, but he's important to me. He's very important.

Can you imagine how amazing things would be if he was still alive? I imagine he would've pursued his musical career even more...and I would've listened. I imagine he would've made more movies...and I would've watched them. Maybe he would've made a movie or two with his brother? I guess we'll never have the chance to know, will we?


RIVER JUDE BOTTOM PHOENIX
August 23, 1970 - October 31, 1993.
I love you, I miss you.

"The director speaks,
the cameras are rolling.
A boy steps between the backdrop & the lights.
He's stealing the scene with the crew as his witness.
The whole industry will judge him come academy night.

& they say he's too young to surrender
& they cry out & call him by name..
Their graffiti tells how he's remembered.
Still the river runs on just the same.
Run, River, run.

His legacy speaks in the canister rooms,
in the archives of great studio halls.
& there it will keep like a secret that's whispered between lovers
and those who never knew him at all..."
'River' - Ellis Paul.