I woke up early, and went to do laundry. The Coke Guy and The Pepsi Guy were both there, refilling their respective machines, and giving each other dirty looks. It was eerie.

Then, I drove to Zenith. I drove waaaay over to the DMV office to get D. the driving instruction manual. (Stage one in his Time to Take Charge plan is finally getting his license. Go, D. Even if nothing else comes of this, at least I won't have to get up and drive him to work anymore.) Then, I drove waaay over to WalMart, to refill my birth control.

While in checkout, the older brother of my best friend in high school was right behind me.

My first thought was "Aw, shit! Turn away! Maybe he won't recognise me!" Then, I realized that was stupid, and said hi.

This is going to take a little explanation.

In high school, I hung out with a girl named Michelle. She was very depressed, and for good reason. In the four years that we were friends, three different people she knew died. Her mom was an alchoholic, her dad was a gambling addict. She was usually doing a lot worse in her classes than she probably could be. She had incredibly fucked up relationships with a half dozen teachers. (No, not that way. Jeez. Get yer minds out of the gutter. It just seemed that if she was having a shitty day, before the day ended, it would be exponentially worse, because of Ron, and Mr. White, and Ms. Bricco, and maybe even Gene or Ms. Solsrud either taking an interest when she didn't want them to, or yelling at her for being immature when she decided she did want to talk.)

High school was hell for Michelle, and for me too, because I had to sit and watch her go through all this shit. Every single day, it was something new.

When I started to go down my senior year, (Aah!! College!! This is the rest of my fucking life we're talking about here, and I just don't know and Lynne and my parents are always right here and I think Lynne might be going through my stuff and life sucks for Michelle and life sucks in general and Ron's gonna yell at me for screwing up the newspaper again and what the hell's wrong I'm crying again and so on ad infinitum.) Michelle was right there.

We spent most of the year crying together. I knew my problems were nothing compared to hers, but we drove around town late at night and cried, and talked on the phone and cried, and cried during newspaper pasteups, and cried leaning on the lockers after school, and cried and cried, and held each other, and cried some more.

The following fall, I went to Miscatonic U., and she stayed at home, and went to school at UW-Zenith.

It became depressing, seeing her during breaks. I was meeting new people who didn't break down every time something else went wrong, and frankly feeling a lot better about myself, and she was still stuck in the same shit. Her mom got drunk and told her she wished Michelle had never been born. She saw Mr. Harrell at the grocery store, and he invited her over to his house to talk. She visited Ms. Bricco at least once a week.

I had Gotten Out, and I was OK now. How could she not see that she was bringing a lot of it on herself, and she would be stuck forever if she didn't get the hell out of Zenith?

So, I gradually eased her out of my life. I wondered if maybe I wouldn't have been so screwed up in high school if she hadn't been around, dragging me down. By the time I moved to Milwaukee after graduation, I barely felt guilty about it at all.

***

So, I saw Todd yesterday. He asked if I was living in Zenith, and I said, No, Cowtown. He asked where I was working, and I told him. Then I said, Well, it was good seeing you, and I left. It wasn't until I was out in my car that I realized I should have given him my phone number.

It was so shitty of me to stop calling her five years ago. She needed me. Maybe she still does. I am such a slime.

I think, this time, I'm finally strong enough to handle being her friend. I could be there, and listen when she needs it, and I wouldn't have to get sucked in this time. Why didn't I give Todd my number??

Well, because I smoke now. And, I smoke sometimes too. She wouldn't approve of that at all. She's probably still friends with Ron, and I don't need him in my life right now. I'm not quite that strong. She's probably still Christian. Yeah, these are all perfectly valid reasons. /sarcasm. Ana, you piece of shit.

Shit. At least I told Todd where I work. Maybe she'll stop by and visit some night. Or, maybe I'll stop being such a worm, and try to find out her number.

I really hope she's not still living at home. I wonder if she graduated. She's the one who got me started on a paper journal (And yes. That may have been the only thing that kept me from breaking down entirely senior year of high school). She would so love DiaryLand.

***

So, anyway, after Walmart, I drove waay over to Midas to get the car looked at. He changed the oil, and told me my muffler was in danger of falling of entirely, the transmission fluid needed to be changed, and I should probably get new tires soon too. I laughed at him.

Well, no. I politely explained that money was tight right now, but I'd call him soon.

***

I went home, and D. was just waking up. I told him I didn't have to work, and we decided to drive up to Hot Topic in Ankh-Morpork, which is the only place in the area I've been able to find blue hair dye.

We got home about 5. He said he wanted to do it tonight, but not quite yet. He went over to DiabloLand for two hours. Then, he came home and showered, and we went down to the House.

The House has a much bigger bathroom than we do. And, the hot water runs longer. I remembered to grab the bleach kit, the dye, some towels, shampoo, and Vaseline, but forgot Noxema and a brush and a hairdryer. We ended up borrowing one thing from damn near every person we saw.

We borrowed a chair from Vin. She was funny.

Knockknockknock

"Hey, can I borrow your chair?"

"Yeah, sure."

She didn't ask why, or if I was plannnig on bringing it back. Just, "Yeah, sure." That amused me.

D. sat in the chair, while I stood over him with the bleach stuff. Man, does that stuff reek. I was scared about getting it in his eyes, so I applied it heavily about an inch from his hairline, and then spread it down a little bit.

We waited a half hour. His hair was mostly blondish in the part where it had grown out, and the blue bits in the back where I had really slopped the bleach were kinda green instead. And, he had very visible dark roots.

We drove to KMart, to get another bottle of bleach stuff. We waited for his hair to air dry for maybe a half hour, before it occured to me to borrow a blowdryer from someone.

I reapplied the bleach stuff. This was a bigger bottle, and it took forever to use it all. It still reeked. I was careful to apply a whole bunch to his roots this time. We waited another half hour.

His hair really looked funky. You could totally tell I had no real clue what I was doing. Bits were still blueish. Other bits were most definitely green. There were whiteblond parts. There were even a couple of pink streaks. At least none of it was dark brown anymore, which I reasoned was all that really mattered. The rest would all get covered up by the blue.

He used the blowdryer, and I took a cigarette break.

I'd actually done the blue part of this process before. The last few times, he'd decided his hair was probably still blond, and hadn't bothered with rebleaching. So, now we were on familiar ground.

He applied a coat of Vaseline to his hairline, as the bottle suggested. That was one bit we had learned the hard way.

I glooped blue stuff all over his head, and a little bit on Vin's chair, and the floor, and my jeans. We waited 15 minutes.

He happened to be showering the stuff out while Ken took a shower in the other stall. KC and I watched their feet and giggled. In one stall, there were just normal feet, and in the other one, there were feet with rivers of blue gushing over them.

D. emerged totally blue. He applied Noxema to the bits of him not covered by clothing, and most of it came out. (You wouldn't think it to look at him, but the Vaseline really did help. Basically, it kept the concentrated dye on his forehead and ears for 15 minutes from setting. All the rest of the blue is extremely watered down, and even though it's everywhere, it goes away with just a little effort.

The stuff on Vin's chair, though, didn't. I scrubbed it with soap and water. I tried D's crack monkey suggestion of using Noxema on the chair. There was still a big blob of blue on her chair.

Finally, I took it back. "Um, here's your chair. It's a little more blue than it was before and I'm really sorry, and if you get in trouble at the end of the year, just let me know and I'll pay for it."

She didn't seem to think it was a big deal, but I still felt bad.

It was midnight. I had been dying hair for almost four hours. And, the day pre-Blue had been pretty eventful too. I went home and went to bed.

***

I woke up today with blue on my forehead. Damn him for being so snuggly. D. assured me that Noxema plus my loofah sponge is the best yet for getting blue off of skin. I hope he's right.

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