From Me, a Toothbrush, To You, A Bicycle Tire

They told me that I was meant for the cleaner life

That you would drag me through the mud

They said that you would tread all over me

That they could see right through you

That you were full of hot air

That I would always be chasing

Always watching you disappear after sleeker models

That it would be a vicious cycle

But I know better

I know about your rough edges

And I have seen your perfect curves

And I will fit

Into whatever spaces you let me

If loving you means getting dirty

Bring on the grime

I will leave this porcelain home behind

I’m used to twice a day relationships

But with you, I’ll take all the time

And I know that we live in different worlds

And we’re always really busy

But in my dreams

You spin around me so fast

I always wake up dizzy

So, maybe one day

You’ll grow tired of the road

And roll on back to me

And when I blink my eyes into morning

Your smile will be the only one I see

(poem written by Sarah Kay) 

My Twin, Coree

Coree: A note to Abigail

When I need to be picked up, I just read this.

For anyone that doesn't really know what my life was like before I was here, this was it.

I miss it.

I miss my friend.

I love you too, dear.

Turn It Into Literature

So I got this potentially amazing idea for my script for Drama class.

It came to me after a friend mentioned that their idea was semi-autobiographical, with some stuff added to it, and suddenly I remembered every time this summer that I thought "Wow, my life would be such a good book/movie/TV sitcom/work of art."

So now I have this honest, beautiful, powerful idea inside my head, but I don't know how to do it justice without putting everything... well... out there.

And of course, no one would have to know it's true. My drama teacher might be the only one that ever reads it.

But what if it by some fluke, got chosen to be performed in December???

There are people out there who would know. 


So you see my dilemma...

Dear Stanford University,

Okay. I know my application probably won't look at all imposing amongst the stacks of class presidents and swim team captains and geniuses with SAT scores of 2360. Some of them will probably even have poetic, beautifully-worded essays. I like to say writing is my strong suit, but of course several of your other early applicants will claim that the essays are their forte as well.

But listen. You, in the Admissions office. You, deciders of my fate. Do you have any idea who I am?? I'm Abby freaking Erdelatz. I've lived in 4 countries and gone to 10 schools and still managed to keep up piano lessons for eight years. I can memorize the lines of every cast member in a show, including my own, by the second week of rehearsals without trying. I make my bed every morning without being asked, keep my room clean, have never snuck out or tried drugs, have a great relationship with my parents, and my hair is really soft! You have no idea who I am because on paper I amount to little, but in the real world I am spectacular. But you'll never know, will you?

You'll see a kid with probably some lovely teacher recommendations about my cheerful and cooperative personality in class, a few too many B's and B-pluses on my transcript, and who had some mildly interesting adventures as a military kid. You'll see average. You'll see pleasing, refreshing even. But you'll see average.

What you won't see, however, is me.

Style As Needed

My life is a lot like my hair.

Sometimes I wake up and all it takes is one glance to know it's a mess. So with a sigh, I grab a rod of hot metal and a brush and I clean it up. Tangles are ripped out because anything gentler would take far too much effort. In some places, the hint of a nice wavyness is visible, but it's not enough. It's never enough. So the curling iron presses and molds and exaggerates until the waves comply and become perfect, or near-perfect curls. Then it must be engulfed in a cloud of hairspray, or the curls will fall. Because they are, after all, fake.

No matter how much I use, they always fall out.

But sometimes I wake up and it's baby soft. I start to glide a brush through it, but realize that it would interrupt the angelic waves that already cascade across my shoulders. I brush my fingers across the front to see if they'll scatter, but they only fall gracefully into place, comfortable as they are. So I simply gape at the mirror with 20 extra minutes, unable to believe my luck.

Life is precisely like that.

Dear U.S. Postal Service,

Umm. Do I need to send you my address again?

I used to think growing up was all a bunch of secret formulas and processes and numbers that I simply didn't know yet. Someday, of course, someone would send me a nice thick packet with all kinds of instructions on how to apply for jobs and pay for college and taxes and how insurance works and other such things.

Well, here I am, typing in the required information into the Common App to send to Stanford and William and Mary, but I keep having to skip blanks because the packet hasn't arrived yet.

Were you just misinformed? Or is it on its way? If you could just shoot me an email as to when it's getting here that would be great, because I can't really get started on my essays until I know how this whole 'life' thing is supposed to work.

Thanks.

My Day Is Coming, Gentlemen

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Before you read this, go find the song that always pumps you up. Listen while you read. (Come And Get It is actually applicable, but you don't have to use that.) 

You know what I realized yesterday?

Guys go through girl 'phases'.

When they're young, it's the Little Rascals phase. "Girls are dumb, yucky, stupid, etc." Then they reach middle school and the curiosity sets in. Girls are new and exciting. Then it's high school and girls are entertainment. They're desirable. They exist either to look at or to pursue. And when I say pursue, I usually mean chase. It's not bad; that is, not all high school guys look at girls as objects. But they're fun. It's not time to be serious yet. Let's be interested in whatever's the newest, shiniest thing.

Then college. Then the real world. Well, now it's time to settle. Guys look for the nice girls. The one's who are good with kids. Who can be intelligent. Responsible. The ones who'd make good wives. Good moms. The ones they can respect.

Well, here's what I realized.

I've never been the newest, shiniest thing. I used to think that meant I was doing it wrong. Well, that's not true.
I'm a nice girl. And that's okay. 

Because the thing is, I'm looking around the sea of high school boys, trying to find one of them who's looking for a nice girl. Because some are. But the vast majority of them are still in the entertainment phase. And that's okay too. But I was brushing my teeth yesterday and realized that my day is coming. I may not be a fashion plate, or know about the coolest hipster band, or have a cool devil-may-care attitude in my skinny jeans and liquid eyeliner, but hey. While those girls are having their heyday, I'm gearing up for mine.

There will come a day when good guys look for nice girls, and when that day comes, I'll be ready.

So it's incredibly liberating to say with confidence that while it really sucks some days, I'm cool with just sitting back for now. And waiting. For when the good guys come for the nice girls.

(Wow. That was empowering.)

Dear Sleepless Unicorn,

Remember the fourth picture?

It was the one we said we'd get rid of. It was too posed. Cliche. Neither of us looked all that great.

When I got home I cut it off the strip like we promised. But I kept it. It's in a box, and that box is in a drawer.

Well, tonight I looked at it.

I needed to remember that. It was easy to remember myself. The me in the picture. But you... the you the in picture was gone.


It's not that I miss it.

But the speed with which this new you replaced the old one was startling, and well...

...it hurts.


I'm mad at myself. For letting it.

Dear Wordpress,

It's curious thing, my contradictory mind.

You see, I told it- swore up and down- that I was ready to forget. And so now I can feel it filling up past the dotted line on the rim- with worries, shiny new musings, and a thousand hand-cramping daily details... as usual. But I can also feel your author's essence dissolving in the stagnant, cloudy murk at the bottom.

That was what was supposed to happen. My mind and I had agreed on it. But it's working more quickly than that small, still-aching part of me is ready for.

So though your comments section is painfully inviting, my contradictory mind and I came up with the conclusion that we're going to refrain. We're not going to say the things that we want to.

Because a thousand other things are already filling it past the dotted line, and we're afraid there might not be enough room for more...

Senior Year Day 1: A Synopsis

The film score from Finding Nemo barged its way into a dream at the ungodly hour of 5:45 a.m, and despite how cheerily my responsible brain tried to remind me of all the new and wonderful things I was about to encounter, my body was as irritated as it always is in the mornings.

(To my future husband: Don't ever wake me up. I don't care if you have breakfast and a vase of flowers on a tray to give me. I won't be happy.)

Of course, I missed the bus stop. I sprinted and caught the next stop, but still. Doesn't the fact that I'm a senior and still riding the bus get me any mercy? And get this: two freshman were in my usual seat. Oh. Come. On. (To top it off, they cut in front of me, even though their row was behind mine, as we were getting off. I was mentally protesting when I remembered that I still have trouble passing for a junior, let alone a senior. They couldn't have known.)

I'd like to take a moment here and recognize how caught up I'm already getting with all this "senior privilege" nonsense, when I've hated the kids who do that for the past three years like nothing else.

Sorry.

To Mr. Tlumack: I'm sorry. I know you have your own hipster, cynical, fan-club amongst the kids who had you for two years. But Ms. Roark seems much more helpful of an English teacher. Anyone who gives individual voice recordings of feedback for your papers and offers to make a Twitter page to remind you of homework can't be that bad, can she?

And yes. I am taking a Creative Writing class. WORDS CAN'T EXPRESS.
If there was ever something I needed, it was a class where I can listen to my iPod and just write scattered thoughts for an hour every other day.

Other than that:

-Eating outside is a rush, but it's way too hot to enjoy it just yet.
-I kept wishing to see certain people walking the halls so I could watch them pass like I used to, but I had to remind myself that they're gone.
-I'm going to need to go to sleep earlier if this whole 'attentiveness' thing is going to work, especially for AP French, which has a grand total of 6 students and therefore is impossible to sleep in.
-It still hasn't hit me that they're aren't people who have seniority on me and can pretend to put me in my place, but in fact that's me now.
-There's nothing more frustrating than first-day-of-school handwriting.
-Scratch that. There's nothing more frustrating than all the seat-changing that happens in the first week of school. I'd like to get all that settled like, now, so I know where to sit.

Here's to one more year. And I know I say that, but I don't really believe it just yet.

My Latest Feels-y Song

'Cause you're the reason I believe in

something I don't know...