And now to enter a new world entirely...

Don't get me wrong, I love my father to death because...well, because he's my father. It's from him that I get my hair, my pack-rat nature, my endless fascination with things that fly, and my complete inability to show emotions. (the latter of which is more of a handicap, but what'er ya gonna do?) He loves me too, but sometimes I have to remind myself of this.

Our weekend started out as it always does, dinner at some fast-food restaurant. One of our long, semi-silent car rides later, we're eating a semi-silent dinner at Chik-fil-a. We don't talk a whole lot, him and I. I suppose I also get my "loner-ish" nature from him too, I don't enjoy talking unless I have too. I'm awkward in small-talk, but after years of one certain teacher *cough*Mr.Wilson*cough* forcing me to go up and introduce myself, to approach complete strangers, I feel this is a problem I have worked out. Except for with my father.

I guess it's because I haven't spent a whole lot of time around him. That's probably a good thing, because if we spend more than our usual two days together we start to grate on each other (more so than usual). When we got home, I asked if I could use his computer and spent the rest of the evening online. As usual, I was forced off just as my creative juices got flowing.

Saturday, our usual trip to the grocery store. I drove because my dad thinks I don't get enough practice. I'm 17, I don't have my license because I have to get a job first, and I don't have a job because nowhere I have applied to has hired me. You think I am a touch bitter about this? Oui. "Watch out! You're too close to the white line!" he said, practically snatching the steering wheel from my hands, just because I was close to the white line. Close as in maybe 3 inches from it! Mr. Paranoid...so what if I'd run off the road at the same place before, a year before to be exact.

At the store, "You could have pulled in more... No, stop! That's too far!" I gritted my teeth and white-knuckled the wheel. "You need to practice more, Lauren. That was the worst parking job..." I can't park, we've discussed this... shall we move on?

Never. He always draws out the bad from me, never the good. Always, "Think!", "Pay attention!" or "That's what you get for thinking again." My patience was worn thin by Sunday night. On our ride back to my house he was again pointing out my flaws. I'd long since tuned him out and was gazing out the window at the stars and the full moon. Space has always fascinated me, I soak up information about it like a particularly dry sponge. The moon was bright enough to light up my driveway as he pulled in and we said goodbye. For all he hassles me, I love my father and miss him during the week... a little.

After he pulled away I lingered in the driveway and watched the International Space Station streak across the sky like a meteor. It was a nice night, so I decided to take the dog for a walk. I went inside and let everyone know I was home, grabbed my flashlight and the dog's leash and halter. She definitely seemed excited as I haltered her and opened the gate, and nearly took off with me attached to the leash.

"Definitely peaceful tonight... almost too quiet, it is... Valefor muttered suspiciously from the back of my mind. "You're just paranoid." I said aloud to myself, or to the dog if there are any psych majors reading. I nearly jumped out of my skin when Scout (my dog) uttered a low growl, her hackles standing on end. I shrieked when I saw a pair of glowing green eyes peering out from the trees that lined either side of my street. They seemed to loom in on me even more, creating a tunnel of darkness. Scout continued to growl softly, though she took shelter behind me with a yelp when the being that the glowing eyes belonged to pelted from the treeline... just a neighbor's cat.

After a moment I recognized the orange marmalade tabby coat, it belonged to a cat that I had a little feud going on with. Not to long ago, I had been driving slowly down the street after a trip to the movies with my mom. That fat cat was sitting square in the middle of the street with it's back to me. I slowed down and stopped when the car's bumper was maybe an inch or two away from it. You'd think that a one-ton vehicle, high beams blazing, motor snarling away would startle even the most grizzled of alley cats from the street, but not this cat. It continued to sit there until I tooted the horn lightly, at which point it turned and regarded me with one gleaming eye and sauntered off as if to say, "Oh, am I in your way?"

Scout nearly jerked my arm off as she tried to chase after the cat, but I (at the great risk of getting my ass sandblasted off by being dragged across the asphalt) dug my heels in. "Let's get back home...it's late and I'm sure I have some homework to do." So we returned home and I, completely ignoring my bookbag in the floor of my room, settled into bed with the book I was currently reading.

Another fateful week began, another week closer to that blessed occurrence known as Graduation. Truth be told, I was half dreading, half looking forward to my Graduation. I'm no friend to change, and along comes this big event that's going to put a stop to something that my life has been centered around for the past 12 years. I actually liked school, I have awesome friends, I do respectably well in my classes, and I get involved in stuff like the FFA and my art stuff.

Then again, I've complained about school and having to get up early, homework and all the projects and SAE's and such...college isn't totally different. There's still classes, but you plan what class to take at what time, you live away from home and the homework is much worse. I ignored Graduation, always thinking of it as some huge dark figure looming in the path ahead that I would confront when I reached it.

This week too started out normally, the 10th graders were taking their Comprehensive Competency Tests which made first period over two hours long (score!) so I was in for a Wednesday morning of nothing but French and a piddly 20 minutes of algebra II. The best part of the day was when the bells to announce class changes malfunctioned, and they rang on and off at irregular periods about halfway through the two hours. A few jokes on Jerry Springer and how the bell sounded like bleeped out curse words, before the teacher hushed us.

So the day drudged on until, tragedy of tragedies, a lockdown was called. This means either it's a drill and they're just going through the halls with drug-dogs, or something bad has happened and it is no longer safe to be in the hallways. As it turned out, this time was for real. Apparently, some crazy lunatic had kicked the window out of a police car going down I-85 and escaped. A lockdown was called on four surrounding schools.

We were stuck at school until the lockdown could be lifted. It wasn't a terrible time, I being stuck in pottery. We played one of the more interesting games of pictionary I've played, and I thankfully got a ride home from a classmate so I didn't have to wait until the buses caught up with the new schedule. Eventually the guy was caught, still shackled at the ankles and handcuffed, and we were released at 3:40, a full hour and 20 minutes late.

My friend Amy gave me a ride home and we took a rather long detour to skirt some of the major traffic, her little brother in the backseat (we'd picked him up from the nearby middle school) gawking at the news choppers scrambling to catch the floods of students exiting the schools. Once home, I flopped onto the front yard with joy, after Amy had disappeared around the corner of course. Then I heard a curious cheep-cheep, shuffle-mumble-shuffle coming from the backyard.

Around the edge of the house I noticed some slight movement in the paddock of forest and bamboo that made up the barrier between us and my back neighbors. Warily, because of the days earlier events, I investigated.