I'm sixteen. I feel like I should be pricking my finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel or something.

Dad's been saying stupid stuff all week like, "It's the last day of school!" or "Your first day of summer! Yaaay!" or "Tomorrow you'll be sixteen!" He drives me nuts. Last fall we were at a cookout and there was a family there with a daughter of about two or three. Her mother was talking to the other women and her father was trying to keep the little girl occupied. She was dragging a doll around and he said, "A dolly with red hair! Pretty." At the time I associated his words immediately with my father because he often speaks in exactly the same tone of voice. Mothers never speak like that. At any given time they are either on the level of the child ("I think it's a good day to go to the park. Would you like that?") or they are above the level of the child ("Julia, I told you to be quiet when I'm on the phone,"), but you never get the impression they are trying to see eye-to-eye with the child and failing miserably. I'm sure somewhere there are mothers with this problem, but I don't think I know any. My father, on the other hand, seems perpetually stuck in the squeaky-voiced "A dolly with red hair!" stage, unable to relate to his child either as an adult or as a child. Of course he's sometimes able to do this, when he's making bad puns at the dinner table or when we're having a serious conversation about college or something, but so often he just says things because he has no idea what else to say. It's like he's still saying the things he said when I was two because he can't understand me, he has no idea how my mind works.

I feel sorry for him sometimes and I know he tries hard to communicate with me, but at the same time I detest him. I see other girls leaning their heads on their fathers' shoulders in church, begging them for spending money or the car keys. They seem so distant, like a different species - I hate depending on my father. I hate feeling I owe him anything. I do extra chores and I never ask him for anything. Last fall I asked if instead of having allowance every week, I could have a six-month budget to buy clothes and books and things with so I could get used to budgeting and keeping track of money over time. My parents agreed and we negociated an amount. I insisted I would need less than they thought I would, but my father said there were sure to be unforeseen expenses and gave me far more than I had asked for. My friends would tell you I am among the thriftiest people in the world and of course having extra money only inspired me to be extra stingy with it. The six months came and went with plenty left over and now we have sort of a dare going to see if I can make it last the summer, thus making six months worth of money last all year. I've still got $104.71, so I'm sure I'll win. But my point is that I hate depending on him and am determined to do it as little as possible. I love it when I know things he doesn't know and I'm determined to be able to beat him at chess by the end of the summer. I don't like feeling like I'm at war with him, but it's like I've got to prove myself the smartest, most logical, most self-controlled person in the house. I've certainly got my sister beat in all those regards. She gets the social arena, I get the intellectual one. And I haven't been at odds with my mother since I was little. Whatever her faults I can't count them against her. But for some reason my father is the one person I know who infuriates me and I have to define myself by pushing away from him.

Maybe it's that everyone else likes him? He's undisputedly the best property manager in the company he works for and Mom's always saying he gets paid far less than he's worth. When anything needs to be negociated - with the trash collectors, with a teacher, with a landlady - he's always the one who does it and he always works things out so everyone's happy. Everyone's reaction seems to be, "Oh, Stewart!" accompanied by a smile. The two people he's unable to relate to are his daughters. When he and Mom argue Allison and I go upstairs and Allison does immitations of him until I'm rolling on the floor laughing and trying not to be heard. "I do not appreciate that kind of behavior!" she says in a deep voice, wagging her finger. "Do I have to raise my voice?" she shouts, as he always does when he's angry. Mocking him is one of the few ways my sister and I unite.

Anyway, I'm glad it's summer. I've been wanting to get a good entry out but I just haven't had the time these past two weeks what with exams and studying for them. I turned in my term paper and I'm really happy with it. Now school is over and I'll have a lot of time to do all the stuff I've been meaning to do these past six months. It's so strange to have literally nothing to worry about until September. Governor's school is just about the most stressful school in the city and it's so strange to have no workload all of a sudden. You spend two weeks thinking about nothing but exams and then it's Thursday afternoon and wham, you're relieved of all duty for two and half months. It's like stepping out of a rock concert into dead silence. I should feel really relieved but right now I think I'm still in shock. It's Monday and I'm still waiting for the weekend to end.

A few weeks ago my English teacher had us read a section from the book Poemcrazy by Susan Wooldridge. The section talks about Jung's theory that around the age of seven everyone starts becoming more aware of who they're expected to be and removing the aspects of themselves that go against society. We all do it, when you think about it - like pruning a tree. The author described these discarded aspects of our personalities as being our shadows - the hidden part we don' like to think about. As I read the section I thought, "Oh! Of course, my shadow is Eve!" (Yves. Whatever.) A few lines later I saw, "Laura, with long blond hair, a health food, vegetarian diet anda hand-built house in the pines, discovered that her shadow dresses in tight black leather, wears spike heels, has straight black hair, red lips and black nail polish. She smokes cigarettes through a long, metal cigarette holder." The description of Laura, aside from the house, matches me. The description of Laura's shadow, aside from the cigarette and the nails, matches Eve. I thought that was cool. When we finished reading our teacher assigned us to write a poem about our shadows. On Tuesday morning we all brought ours in, a little nervous. She asked if she could read some of them aloud and most of us said we didn't mind. Someone suggested reading them and having us guess who it belonged to and we all agreed. It took us a few guesses to get most people's right, but mine was the only one everyone guessed on the first try. This was it:

La Sombra

My shadow is fluent in Russian and javascript.
She stays up late writing code
While I’m asleep upstairs.
She likes French Vanilla coffee.
When we listen to the opera broadcast on Saturday afternoons
she identifies with Carmen, not Michaela like I do.
I think she must have been taking martial arts classes
for a long time because she keeps getting new belts.
Her favorite clothes are red or black and
She laughs when I wear blue.
My shadow plays the piano with her long fingers
And she doesn’t stop herself from yelling at my father.
She’s got lots of shoes, most of which she never wears
Her favorite is a pair of black leather boots
She hates writing in cursive and her handwriting’s illegible.
My shadow scoffs at macaroni
She eats her roast beef sandwich without a plate,
leaning on one elbow over the sink.
She’s got curly black hair and every time I see her it’s cut a different way-
This morning she hadn’t brushed it at all.
She stayed up late last night, bent over the computer
She didn’t get up until eleven this morning and said nothing
When I asked her what she’d been doing.


It wasn't as good as it could have been, but it mostly works.

June 2
June 20