Day 858: Thursday, Thursday

I don't know that a Thursday has ever been awesome before. I wasn't expecting it to be awesome. But it was. I was up at a decent time and...I showered. Dressed. Ate. Went down to the high school. I checked in at the front office instead of slinking in like a teenager, and as I watched the little high schoolers return from lunch, I was suddenly, inexplicably grateful that I was no longer a high schooler. I checked in at the office, because really, I couldn't afford me a trespassing charge so close to the bar. I honestly only intended to talk to Mrs. Abernathy's class for 15 minutes because I remember being a high schooler and not caring about returning students, but then one girl kept asking questions, and I think I was genuinely funny and there was some stand-up going on, and by the time everything was over...the class was over. Mrs. Abernathy told me that she was a bit nervous about having me come because it was her worst-behaved class and she was impressed that I kept them in line.

And then...then I went to visit my old debate coach, because I was a policy debater in high school and proud of it, and I wanted to talk to the kids again. And it was good times. I talked trial and old debate war stories...and then the door opened and Mrs. Abernathy brought in her old class. I had a lot more fun talking to the debaters, and then, on a spur of the moment, I ended up doing a spar round against the team president. I think we were evenly matched until clash, and then - then I unleashed some of my Melilli-earned cross-examination skills. Afterwards someone told me it was a slaughter. Near the end I went a little talking-to-the-jury on them, which was technically a fallacy ad misericordium, but hey, things change. Still...it was strange, going back to the high school and seeing the old teachers. I saw Mrs. Madden as well. Talked to a high school kid who had lots of questions about getting into law school, saw an old teammate who I knew by face if not by name. When I first stepped into Abernathy's classroom and she called the class to order, she was all,

"Everyone, calm down, this is -"

And someone called out from the back of the classroom, "A new student?"

I just laughed. When I went into Mrs. Nilson's classroom, one of the girls cried out, "She's shorter than me!" I'm me, so I took a bow. Then I ran home to meet my friends. We had dinner at Outback (apparently while they were waiting for me to arrive they scared away an entire table full of people, which is pretty much how we run - we once cleared a Wendy's), and then we went shopping. We broke the sanctity of the party bubble because BenTen needed clothes, and we went to Ross, and then we met up with people at the mall. I bought two books at the mall and nothing else even though we poked around Hot Topic. Then we went to get ice cream at Cold Stone creamery, which was full of awesome - I got pumpkin ice cream. We poked in at Old Navy where Marty bought a new coat, and then we went back to my place (after BenTen and I went through some shenanigans at the factory mall and at Starbucks - we were full of shenanigans that night). There we hung out, talked, took a ridiculous amount of pictures, and then, in a fit of inspiration, I broke out the Christmas easel. And the pens. And we wrote an awesome story about a squirrel, a ghost store, and marmalade brassiere. Because that's who we are. Then we demanded that Marty read it, and I recorded it and took pictures, so...so I can make a home movie. Because I am full of determined to make a home movie for us. And am crazy excited for it. I really wish I'd taken some video of us playing Rock Band, but I'd drummed the entire time, so that's that.

I had a great time with my friends. After they left, my mom came to hang out and talk as she couldn't sleep. It was good times. Midnight chats with mom.

And now - now I shall write. And then sleep.