You know how people tend to think up really good comebacks or punchlines a day or so after their chance has passed, and they replay the conversation in their head exactly how it could've gone? Well, I don't do that as much as I create imaginary conversations in my head that aren't really based on any previous occurence. Usually they happen before the fact. Like if I'm going to a party, I'll start imagining a conversation I might have with Bill,* and we'll just be talking about something like the vase on the coffee table, and then I'll suddenly deliver the best line ever. You know those kind of lines, the ones that get the whole room laughing because they fit the moment, and they're charming, self-deprecating, and overconfident all at once. So sometimes I'll try and maneuver real conversations on the track of my imagined conversations, like "Hey, Bill, what do you think about that vase, EH?" but the other person very rarely follows the script. Then I'm usually so let-down that I miss opportunities for other show-stoppers that I'll think of much later. If you went to a party, in my head, you'd be repeating stories to your friends for years.

Oh Internet. I can tell you things that I can't tell anybody else.

I took my sister to school this morning so that I could have the car, which she wasn't happy about. If anybody was up at 7:30 this morning, the sky looked really incredibly for some reason, all pinks and yellows and baby blues. I don't remember it ever looking so nice when I drove in the morning. At school, I ducked in to drop off Ms. Price's letter in the teacher boxes. It was like old times, only because I did the Cold Shuddering Walk from the car to the front entrance. You know the Cold Shuddering Walk, everybody does it when it's 7:30 in the morning, where you put your head to the ground and fold your arms and put on the face that says "It's 40 degrees out and I have a Sim Jones test 1st period and I haven't had breakfast and it's already time for ANOTHER friggin' National Honor Society meeting, and like HELL I'm signing up to go back to that rest home to make Valentine's cards. Stop hogging the scissors, Grandma!" So yeah, Cold Shuddering Walk. And I can see what Kristen means about going back there, you immediately start feeling self-conscious again. There's just this electric energy of judgement and disapproval in high school. It's not that college is all that accepting, either; it's just replaced its petty prejudices with indifference.

I also saw Dr. Adams on the way into the teacher's boxes, but we really had nothing to say, especially because I was trying to keep my mouth shut after only 20 minutes of being awake and drinking half a cup of coffee + egg nog. I'm torn about going to visit the teachers. I really don't want to be that guy who just drops in and expects school to halt because he's suddenly back on campus. Whenever an old student dropped by, Ms. Serkedakis would threaten us about coming back to visit during class. And even before/after school, how much do the teachers really care about the fact that you're back? It's not as profound for the teachers as it is for the students. Ms. Crockett isn't going to run to Mr. Friedman and say, "Holy Snap! I just saw Drew Dir! It was so weird, it was like I was back in last year teaching last year's class, only it was THIS year! I'm totally going home to blog about this." Okay, Mr. Wade might do that. But I think they're only minimally interested in what you're doing at college, and beyond that, you're just another student in the hundreds who have graduated before. I'll write them nice letters.

Oh, by the way. I got my braces off.

*I do not actually know anyone named Bill.