Here is the first section of my Young Adult manuscript! I'm sorry if it's a little hard to read, the formatting didn't translate as well between Word and the blog. Enjoy!

Racists, Boys, Butthole and Old Lady Water Aerobics:

My Summer at the Joslyn Art Museum by Amy Delancy

Part 1: The Oompa Loompa Predicament, It’s All About the Skin Color

Sunday, May 22

            AHHHHHHHHHH! Oh, my God. Tomorrow, the best days of my life are starting! I, Amy Delancy, will take my first step in embarking on my career as a serious artist. After tomorrow, the first fifteen years of my life will be deemed irrelevant, and I will be a real artist.

            I am going to keep this journal as a reminder of all I learn. I’ve never been a journaler, but I think it could be a good idea.

I’ve been selected to attend an elite art program. My grandma suggested that I try it. She’s the only one who understands my art obsession. I had to do extensive applications and interviews to get in; and my grandma had to basically force my mom into letting me do it. But I’m in, baby! Wooo!

Mom thought I could go somewhere closer to home. There are no summer art camps close to my house. Just like night classes that let anyone try to be an artist.  This year they just started a highly selective program for high school students at the Joslyn Art Museum in downtown Omaha, and I got in! Me! Just a freshman. I’m freaking out!

###

Monday, May 23

            Oh, dear. My first day was not what I dreamed it would be. God, where to start? I guess from the beginning.

Dad drove me downtown this morning in his Denali. It was the freaking longest drive ever.

“Do you have your toothbrush?” he asked.

“Yes, Dad,” I grunted back. My cheek was resting against the side window as I stared out at the back of the car in front of us. Brake lights! Go. Brake lights! This was taking forever.

“Do you have all your clothes? Your vitamins? Your pajamas?”

“Yes, Dad. I have my sketching kit too. Were you worried about that?” I asked, not taking my head off the window.

“Well, I guess I figured that’s the one thing you wouldn’t forget.” He patted my knee. We stopped at yet another stoplight. Even if I had forgotten something, I wouldn’t have told him. I’ve no idea why my dad, and all those zillions of other people we were bumper to bumper with from Millard to downtown Omaha, would want to drive like that almost hour both ways every day. And we had to leave way too early for summertime. Summer is for sleeping in, dude. Not getting up at the buttcrack of dawn!

“Oh, bloody hell!” I exclaimed when Dad had to slam on the brakes to save us from hitting a little sports car that whipped over into our lane.

“Amy!” Dad shouted.

“Really? You’re more concerned with that than this driving?” God, I was thankful I only had to do this once a week. I ride downtown with Dad on Mondays, then stay with Grandma who lives in Midtown, which is much closer to downtown than we live until Wednesday when Dad would take me back out to Millard, our suburb. “Why do we live so far away from your work? Why do you work so far away? It’s stupid.”

“Your mom loves the suburbs. We have a great house and neighborhood. You guys go to a great school,” my dad rattled off the same list he and my mom gave to my grandma every time they talked about old Omaha versus the suburbs. 

###

Grandma lives in an old house in Midtown, not far from the Joslyn. She thinks old houses are homes and old neighborhoods have character. Grandma thinks our house is exactly the same as every other house west of 72^nd Street, and my mom thinks Grandma will get mugged when she walks down the block to the coffee shop. Grandma is just glad she can still get “the good stuff” at her mom and pop coffee shop and not that “corporate sewage” at Starbucks, which she also says is on every corner of West Omaha, suburbia.

            Mom was so not ok with me staying with Grandma. Well, really she was way so not ok with me doing the program. Mom thinks I will get attacked or hooked on drugs hanging out downtown and said I couldn’t go. I called Grandma. Grandma said, “Doesn’t your mom watch ‘Pot Shop?’ Drugs are all over the ’burbs!” I’ve never seen “Pot Shop,” but Grandma loves her HBO. Yeah, Grandma, great choice when you’re trying to get Mom to let me stay with you.

            “No way am I letting Amy stay with you while you watch that HBO trash, Mother!” my mom had yelled into her phone.

            “Oh, oh, really? You think that would be good for her? Spending time with you down there. What will she do with herself? She needs to be with kids her age, it’s summer!” Mom paced around the kitchen with her apron on and waved a spatula about in her free hand. I sat at the kitchen table and pretended to mind my own business even though this phone call held the fate of my entire future.

            “Well, of course there’ll be kids her age in the camp, but who knows what they’ll be like. She has friends here, in this neighborhood. Kids who go to her school, whose parents are on the parenting board with me.

            “I understand that you think it’s an honor that she got accepted, but the two of you went behind my back to apply for this thing. I have to put my foot down. I’m her parent, Mom, not you. You have to let me be a parent.” Then my mom started crying and threw her spatula on the floor. Dad came into the kitchen from the living room, where he had been watching Sports Center, and took my mom’s cell out of her manicured hand. She tucked her short blonde hair behind her ears and marched out without looking at me.

            My stomach twisted and I felt like crying too. I went to my room then, so I don’t know how Dad smoothed things over, but I’m going, obviously. I know that I went behind Mom’s back, but I knew she’d never sign the consent forms, and Grandma said it’d be ok.

I’m pretty pumped to stay with Grandma. She makes the best food ever. Tonight she made me chicken fajitas and fried ice cream. I mean really. How many people make homemade fried ice cream? I doubt that there are many. Other than Mexican restaurant cooks.

But that was tonight. I skipped the whole day. So anyway the drive sucked. Dad dropped me off at Grandma’s first and then she took me to class. That’s when I started to get nervous.

###

“Uh, Grandma?” I gasped. We had been driving for a couple of minutes and the reality of where I was going hit me like a dodgeball in the gut (yep, that’s happened in gym before. I’m not very athletic). I felt like the wind had been punched out of me. I couldn’t breathe. “What if I suck? What if this is a mistake? What if they laugh at my work? I’m not good enough. We have to go home. Turn back. Please, I can’t do it.” All the words whooshed out in one gasp.

“Oh, buck up, Amy. You’ll be fine. They accepted you. The sketches you turned in for them were beautiful. The one that you did of your mother’s wedding picture? That was phenomenal! Have you ever showed it to her? I think she’d really love that,” Grandma said. She squeezed my hand.

“You think so?” I asked.

“Of course! I wouldn’t have helped you with the applications if I didn’t think you were worthy.”

“Yeah, but also do you think Mom would like to see the picture? I just don’t think she thinks my sketches are cool.”

“I think your sketches are wonderful and so do these Joslyn teachers. Your mom will come around. She loves you, Amy. Here we are!” She pulled her Buick right up in front of the door. “You’ll be ok. Go on! You don’t want to be the kid who walks in holding her grandma’s hand. I’ll see you at three! I’m going to meet my running group then play Bridge and have lunch with the old ladies at church.”

I barely made it out of the car before she zoomed away. Running is the one thing my grandma and mom have in common. They are both run-oholics. They have their own groups that they run with during the week and then on Sundays they do long runs together. Sometimes they do marathons together. I did not get that gene. I did get my grandma’s art gene.

I walked up the steps to the Joslyn and opened the doors. I’d been there before with Grandma many times. We go every time there’s a new exhibition or some fun class or activity, but I never seem to get over the sculpture that explodes out of the floor in the main entrance. It’s huge. I can’t decide if I love it or if it kind of scares me. It’s made of blown glass of all kinds of bold, brilliant colors. The colors are strong and pretty but commanding like the whole piece. The pieces of glass are very sharp and angular—not like vases and globes like you normally see made from blown glass. They’re almost harsh. The combination of beauty and power kind of makes my skin crawl.

I walked in the studio. It wasn’t like going into any studio, well, really any classroom at Millard North, my high school. I just stopped in the doorway, my heart kicking against my ribs and drumming in my ears. All the blood from my marching heart rushed to my face. I just stood there, glued. Many of the students were already in their seats. My eyes flitted from table to table. Bloody crap! I was losing my breath again. Where was I going to sit? There were black kids, white kids, Hispanic kids, but I didn’t see any Hollister-wearing, fifteen-year-old, white girls like me. I knew I wouldn’t know anyone, and there would be upper classmen there, but out of 27 accepted students, I guess I figured I would just fit in.

I don’t think the other students were talking. I don’t know though. At least, it didn’t seem that they all knew each other and had friends. A couple of kids walked past me while I stood in the doorway staring at the tables.

“Let’s find a seat!” One of the teachers clapped her hands at me. “Come on, dear, we’re going to start in three minutes!”

I nodded and adjusted the single-strap travel bag that I had my supplies in. I slid onto a stool at a table with an emo white kid with a bullring through his nose and a Hispanic girl with the most beautiful hair God ever gave to a real person. She looked way older than me, like she might have just finished her junior year. She probably doesn’t want to hang around a dopey freshman. We didn’t talk, which was ok, I guess, because the instructor just lectured the whole time. Safety in the studio, class structure, lunch, field trips, blah, blah, blah. I imagined banging my head against the tabletop. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Why was I here?

I feel crappy saying this, but I don’t know how to say this. I’m not racist, but I’d never been somewhere with so many not-white people. God, I sound like a bloody bigot (said with a British accent). I want to bring bloody into the American vocabulary. My mom hates when I say bloody. She says it’s a curse word. I love it.

I told Grandma about the kids in my camp in the car as soon as she picked me up.

“I didn’t know who to sit with,” I told her. “It was awful. I couldn’t even think about what the teacher was saying. All that I could hear was ‘You’re a bloody racist! You froze and stared at the artists in your class like they were zoo animals! What? Do you think all artists are white girls?’ I can’t go back. I’m so embarrassed.”

 Grandma laughed at me. “Oh, honey. It’s not that bad.”

“Yes, it is. Do you think I’m racist?”

“You aren’t being racist because you’re ashamed of how you acted. If you were a real racist you wouldn’t feel that way. You are just a product of a segregated city, and parents who don’t care to help change that.”

“Segregated?” I raised my eyebrows. Really? I asked myself. Did Grandma just get a case of Alzheimer’s? We aren’t still living in the fifties and my grandma, who lives here, surely can’t believe that.

“Oh, come on, Amy. Who lives in North Omaha? The African Americans. Who lives in South Omaha? The Latinos. Who lives in West Omaha? In the suburbs? Middle class young white families. Segregation.” She pulled the Buick up to a parking stall at the Downtown Y.M.C.A. “You’ve got your bathing suit, right?”

We were going to water aerobics. It’s fun hanging out with Grandma and her old lady friends. I know most people would be embarrassed to do water aerobics with their grandmas, but I’m not going to see anyone from my school down here.

The only part that sucks about it is changing with all of them in the locker room. So many different kinds of old bodies. Fat ones, saggy ones, wrinkly ones, veiny ones. They’d all be so hard to draw, such intricate lines. And it’s hard because they’re so nice, but here they are sitting next to me with their naked butts on the bench or bending over to put on their aqua shoes. And they just keep talking like it’s nothing: Here I am hanging out in my granny panties talking about soufflés! But I want to say, “Let’s change fast,” (which means we’d have to change silently), “and get in the pool and chat there!”

As I pulled on my hot pink, leopard-spot patterned two-piece, Mary Ellen, who is like the female Santa Claus, round, jolly, jiggly like jelly, and very giving, cried, “Ooo, Amy, look! We match!” And she pulled out a hot pink, leopard-spotted one piece the size of a car tarp. Grandma looked up from her locker and quickly put her head inside it. She snorted and her shoulders shook with laughter. I glared at her when she finally got herself under control enough to emerge. “You can be twins!” she whispered to me.

We all climbed into the pool and everyone was chattering away. Mary has an ulcer. Did we see they are tearing down another historic landmark in Midtown to build a chain store pharmacy? Omaha is going to the dogs.

But mostly they wanted to talk to me. How was my first day? Was I so excited to get in?

“Pay attention, ladies!” The instructor called to us. She was nice. She may have been annoyed that everyone just talked during her class, but really I think she was just glad they were there and moving. Even if Grandma was in such a serious debate with her friend Sally that she was still doing Cheerleader Run while we were now on Rocking Horse, at least she was doing something. Those are names of the moves. She should have been able to tell right away she was doing the wrong thing, because in Rocking Horse our arms are in the water, but for Cheerleader Run they pump into the air like you’re raising your pom-poms. Grandma’s arms were still flailing about.

“Just today when Amy got in the car after the art camp she was simply disgusted with herself. She thought she was being a racist because she was uncomfortable being in a class that was racially diverse. It’s not her fault, but it’s just pathetic!”

“Oh, the poor thing!” Sally looked over at me. “Lord. Do you remember when we were growing up here it was like unspoken law that no one of color lived farther west than 56^th street. Fifty years later here now there are over 200 streets in Omaha and I still bet west of 56^th Street the population is probably 85 percent white.” She turned to me. “This will be so good for you, dear. We’ll get you out of the suburbs and into the real world!”

###

 I learned nothing today. Tonight, as I lie in bed and write, all I can think about is whether or not I’m racist or subconsciously racist.

My brother, Keegan, has an Asian friend named Greg, who lives by us, but I don’t really know any black kids or have any Hispanic friends. I never realized it until today, when I was a minority in the studio, but Grandma is right: West Omaha, which basically includes Millard, isn’t very diverse.

God, I’m a real butthole. A racist butthole. Butthole. I haven’t heard that in a while. Side note to self: bring “butthole” back into style.   We used to say butthole all the time when I was a kid, but Keegan is in fourth grade and he never calls me butthole. I’ll have to make him my first convert in the butthole revival.

Wow, tangent. So what can I remember from class today?

Well, Bloody Bigot Amy sat down at a table with the emo kid and the beautiful Hispanic girl. At lunch we all sat outside and did icebreaker games. I HATE icebreaker games. So lame. Bloody lame. We went around in a circle, said our names, schools, what grade we are in, and why we love art.

The last question was hard. I didn’t even pay attention to anyone’s names or what school they went to in Omaha because I was so worried I’d say something stupid about why I love art. Uh, I love art because it’s beautiful. No, I was not going to be that dummy again today. I answered because art is the only way I know how to truly express myself. My artwork is the best of me put into a real physical form. I think that sounds pretty good.

After lunch Ms. B. (that’s the head honcho lady’s name—I know what Mrs. B. sounds like, but really she doesn’t seem to be a B. She’s teeny tiny, like five feet tall but that could be pushing it, and she has short thick black hair cut into a little bob. She has cat-eye glasses and looks like she stepped out of a fifth grade science lab wearing her painter’s coat.) told us our schedule for the summer. In the morning we’ll all be together either practicing with different mediums that aren’t necessarily in our main interests and having models and stuff come in or having guest speakers or Ms. B will talk or we’ll present what we are working on to each other. Then we’ll have lunch. In the afternoon we’ll break into our specialties groups. I’ll go with Jenna. She’s the sketching instructor. We can bounce around in specialties for the first half of the camp, but after we come back from Fourth of July break we have to stick with one because we will be working on a big project to present at the end of the program. I don’t think I’ll be bouncing around in other art forms. I know sketching is my thing.

Some rich anonymous Omaha person donated all of our supplies. I brought my own set of pencils and pastels, but Ms. B said we should all use the donated things and not waste our own. That’s cool I guess, but I got these sets special for the program, and I’ve been literally dying to use them. My parents or Grandma would get me a new set if I use these all up.

After water aerobics, Grandma and I went home, ate, watched an “Operation” re-run, and walked Maggie, Grandma’s Golden Retriever.

Tomorrow no class. Time for me to re-group and figure out how to not make an idiot of my self in class on Wednesday. No more losing my head because I don’t know any not-white people. That sounds racist, “not-white.” That’s what they say on surveys and tests and crap you have to fill out though.  God, I don’t know what I thought it’d be like. Millard North, I guess. There’s like twenty kids in my class of 600 that aren’t white.

But that’s ok. I’ll make friends—obviously I have something in common with these people! I’m not an awful person, just stupid.

###

Wednesday, May 25

            HOLY CRAP! Holy crap, holy crap! While I was busy having my minor meltdown on Monday, worrying about how I’d fit in and if I was racist, I managed to miss the absolutely, positively most gorgeous guy alive. Ever. His name is Marcus. I paid attention in the ice-breaker today. He’s so beautiful. He sat down with me and Bere (the pretty girl with the perfect hair who I sat by on Monday. Her real name is Bernice but she goes by Bere). He was a little late and he came rushing in, so sweet and apologetic and flustered.

            “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt class,” he said to Ms. B as he pulled out the stool next to mine.

            “Oh, that’s quite alright,” Ms. B said. She had to look up at Marcus even while he was sitting on his stool. She’s so dang short! She turned to the rest of the class and said, “I value promptness because as artists we need to know how to make and meet deadlines. Deadlines are everything to us. Otherwise you’ll let your work sit incomplete when you get to a difficult part. If you set deadlines, you’ll push yourself past the difficulties and finish your work. There’s nothing worse than an unfinished piece. I do understand, though, that many of you’re traveling from all over the city and you have lives outside of class. I want no excuses. If you’re late, you’re late, just don’t make it a habit.”

            He smiled apologetically at Bere and me. His teeth are so perfect and white like a movie star. (Thank God I got my braces off last month!) His teeth are so striking against his brown skin, which is even more perfect and pretty than Derek, the hot black guy on “Murderous Minds.” He kind of looks like the guy on “Murderous Minds” but younger (obviously), so no facial hair and less muscley. He seems shy and mysterious. And he’s tall. Tall, dark and handsome.

            He’s just so pretty! I wish I had his skin. It’s so nice and brown. If I had that skin, I’d look good in every color. I’d never be pale or washed out in the winter. I wouldn’t sunburn and I wouldn’t have these stupid freckles that are already multiplying all over my face and it’s only a week into summer.

            He probably thinks Bere is lovely. She is quite stunning. If you like petite, thin, perfect hair, Rosario Mendez-supermodel girls. Yeah, what guy’s into that?

            Did I mention he’s tall? But not in that weird gangly way that I am. He’s perfectly graceful and proportioned in his elegant height. Not many boys are taller than me. Mom and Dad say they will be next year. But Marcus is definitely at least six feet. I walked behind him on our way to lunch. He even has a perfect walk. Straight and athletic but not cocky at all. He doesn’t strut like most guys in my class with their chests out and arms stiff like they’re trying to take up as much room as possible so you have to notice them. 

            Ho-hum. If only, if only (the woodpecker sighs—haha Holes. I so love that book). If only, if only Marcus would like me. I don’t think I could talk to him even though. I’d just start sweating and be all red. I’d probably drool like a freaking Saint Bernard or something.            

            I didn’t tell Grandma about him. I just told her the day was better, and I’m no longer afraid I am racist. Dad picked me up after water aerobics. Yes, Mary Ellen and I still match, and Mom’s supper was not as exciting as Grandma’s would’ve been, I’m sure. She grilled chicken, and we had salad. Woo-hoo. She and Dad did let me tell them all about my first two classes, though.

            “Did you make anything neat in class this week?” Mom asked me as soon as we sat down to eat.

            “Not yet. We haven’t started any projects yet. We’ve just been going over class procedure and rules and what the class will be like. We’ve done two creativity exercises, one in the afternoon on Monday and one after lunch today.”

            “What do you do for a creativity exercise?” Dad asked.

            “Well, on Monday we walked all around downtown and looked at the old buildings and people watched and just took in our surroundings. We were all supposed to take one image in our mind and then when we got back to the classroom some of the people in class shared their image and how they would like to work that into a piece of art.”

            “Huh,” Dad responded.

            “Like one of the girls that sits by me, her name is Bere—”

            “Betty?” Mom interrupted me, “What high school girl is named Betty?”

            “No, it’s Bere. I know it kind of sounds like Betty when you say it, but she is Hispanic, so you kind of say it with an accent. Her name is Bernice, but she goes by Bere. Anyway, Bere told us about an old man she saw waiting at a bus stop. She is a painter and a sculptor and she likes to do abstract art, so she was saying that she’d like to try a Picasso-like work with him. She’d use all blue and black hues to show his age and paint him old and sad, and then use really bold and vibrant colors for the background to show his lost youth,” I said. I looked at my parents. “I’m sorry. I can’t explain it as well as she can, but it’s her vision, you know, so she can describe it better. The way she talked about the colors and the brush strokes you could almost see the painting she had in her mind.”

            “Interesting. What did you share as your inspiration?” Dad asked.

            “Oh, gosh, I didn’t share! We didn’t have a whole lot of time. It was so fun walking around and exploring downtown, we spent too much time doing that and Bere was the only one who got to share. I chose this cool stained glass window at St. Joseph cathedral. Grandma and I went back to the cathedral yesterday then and I sat and tried to use my pastels to do it, but I couldn’t get it quite right. Grandma used some of my pastels and drew a pretty cool pigeon though.”

            “What was your creative project today?” Mom asked.

            “We went down to the park at ConAgra and talked about the ways to show realistic looking water.”

            “So, all of you just wander around downtown as a group? Or alone? You’re going to get lost down there, Amy. You don’t know your way around down there and you don’t know anyone to come and help you,” Mom said, setting down her fork and glaring at me. “What was I thinking letting you do this? These people are taking no responsibility for you!”

            “Emma!” Dad cut her off. “She never said any of that. Let her speak.”

            “We all go together. All thirty-two of us: twenty-seven students, four specialties instructors, and Ms. B. I don’t think I am stupid enough to get separated from a group that large.” My mom and I stared at each other while I spoke, and then I looked away. My chicken and salad were half eaten, but I took my paper napkin out of my lap and put in on my plate. “I’m full. Do you need me to help clean up the table when you are done?” I asked Mom.

            “Don’t worry, Amy. I’ll get it. Thanks though,” Dad said, smiling at me. Then he turned to my brother. “Want to go to the batting cages tomorrow and hit a few?”

I went in my room for a while and watched a couple T.V. shows while I doodled. Summertime tv sucks. Then I went back downstairs to the kitchen to get a little dessert, but while I was gone Keegan ate the last of the frozen yogurt, so we had nothing for dessert. I called him a butthole to start my revival. He told me to go eat farts. Seriously? What kind of comeback is that? Kids these days, I swear. They don’t know anything.

I’m going to hit the hay now. This week is going to go by soooo slow until I get to see Marcus again. I might see if Michaela wants to go to the pool tomorrow. I should start working on my tan. A tan is the one thing I can easily fix. Tan ugly is not near as bad a pasty ugly.

Oh, and nothing happened yesterday. Pancakes, golfing, crazy awesome salad—not at all your standard lettuce and dressing that Mom thinks is salad, but really, really good Grandma-made salad with Craisins, grilled chicken, spinach and feta cheese—for lunch, then naptime/reading in the sun on Grandma’s deck, water aerobics, and this delicious summer pasta thing Grandma made. She had to soak the vegetables for two hours before we started the rest of the dinner. Mom would never do that and she doesn’t even have a job. It’s not like she doesn’t have time to make things as good as Grandma does. Ooo and we had cherry tart for dessert made from cherries that we got at the farmer’s market downtown. There is a new farmer’s market at Midtown Crossing, which is closer to Grandma’s house, but Grandma absolutely, positively loathes Midtown Crossing. She thinks it is the most evil thing ever. She thinks they’re trying to bring the suburbs into Historic Omaha and are ruining all kinds of old buildings and areas to build new yuppie (her word not mine) stuff. She says all the young professionals without children realize how stupid it is to drive an hour to work every day like my dad does, but they don’t want old things. They want the convenience of living close to their jobs downtown, but they want the new, shininess of the suburbs, so they’ll destroy old buildings with stories and histories.

I think the new CineDine place at Midtown Crossing looks awesome. You get to eat supper, and there are waiters and everything, while you watch your movie. I won’t be getting to check it out anytime soon because Grandma thinks it is an eyesore of metal and glass in her once historic brick-and-wood neighborhood, and Mom and Dad probably think it is too far away.

###

Thursday, May 26

            Michaela and I went to the pool today and got our tan on. I told her all about Marcus. She says he should be my summer romance. Yeah, right. I’ve never even had a regular romance. Michaela is really into theater, and she tried telling me about this musical called Grease where these high school kids run around and wear leather and sing and dance and they have a song about summer loving. My life is not a musical, and I can’t imagine wearing leather during summer.

I told her about Miss Priss Bere (I shouldn’t say that. I don’t really know her yet, she might be very nice. She seems nice; she is just way so much more beautiful than me). Michaela said if I get to him first he’ll be mine! Right. Stun him with my sparkling personality, butthole revival and all.

            “You just need to dress really hot,” Michaela said. She was laying on her back on a chair on the sun deck at our neighborhood’s country club pool. She had huge black sunglasses on that were going to give her a ridiculous tan line. I had tried to tell her not to wear them, but she thought they made her forehead smaller since she had pinned her bangs back to avoid the tan line her hair would give her. Stupid, I know, trading one tan line for another, but whatever, I didn’t want to argue. “That’s the thing about Grease,” she said. “In the end Sandy changes out of her frumpy sweaters and poodle skirts and dresses in tight leather and a skimpy top and heels and she gets the guy.”

            “I’m not going to dress like a slut to get a guy,” I told her and rolled over onto my stomach to work on my backside tan. “Besides, the only tight pants I have are those stupid skinny jeans my mom got me.”

I did remember, though, that my mom got me a cool black tank top from Hollister last week for “Happy Summer Break!” Mom is always getting Keegan and me new clothes, which is sweet, but she always says they’re for something like Happy Friday! Have a new fleece! Oh, Columbus Day have a new pair of Nikes or Happy Mother’s Day, have a new pair of jeans, because without you I wouldn’t be a mother! It’s really nice of her, but she could just say she was at the store and thought it’d be cute on me. Also, it’s hard to feel like you dress hot when all you wear are clothes your forty-year-old mother picked out for you.

            The pair skinny jeans she bought me in the fall (Happy New School Year jeans!) are just awful. They make my legs look so long, like I’m a stork. So she bought me another pair. Mom very much wants me to be totally “in” as far as my fashion goes. I still don’t think that anyone would go for me in my skintight jeans unless he had a beak. (Do storks have beaks? Is that what they’re called? Side note: research stork beaks.)

###

Sunday, May 29

            Bloody hell. I look like a freaking sweet potato fry. I’m burnt to a crisp. Even my eyelids are red. This is a disaster. I was so good monitoring my tan on Thursday and Saturday; I thought it wouldn’t hurt if I used tanning oil rather than sunscreen today. False. You could pour ice water on my skin and it would boil. No cute black tank top can improve this Oompa Loompa look. Additionally, my legs are so burnt I won’t be wearing tight jeans for, I don’t know, probably the rest of the summer. So it will be soft baggie shorts and t-shirts. Man, I’ll look real hot. Luckily, tomorrow is Memorial Day so my burn will have two extra days to fester and boil before I go back to camp.

###