2003-12-06

Great News- my actual site is now crawled by google. I submitted it eighty years ago, then sunk into a chocolate glazed depression when google never crawled me. I now know that they do because it said so on my hit counter. I love you, Google!!!!!! And now it's not one-sided.

I put a counter on this too. Because I want to know that April does not toil in vain. She needs to feel the love or this is all for naught. And then she'll become schizophrenic and start talking about herself in the third person. We do NOT want this for her! She's already half-senile.

Maybe I should do the daily before I go on anymore.

Weight:175

What I ate: breakfast hot pocket, creme brulee (I work next to a bakery. It's not an easy thing. Would you like it better if I lied? If so, I had carrots. Yum.), some grape nuts, a frozen mini pizza, some oreos (I have to chastise me for this. If I'm going to insist on the sweets, I should at least limit me to one a day). 2 diet cokes, 4 waters (good girl- if we could just change that 4 to 25- I'd probably lose a pound a second in water weight alone).

What I did: had a piss test, worked, watched TV (Miss Match was cute tonight---- I wanted to make out with Michael so bad when he pulled her into that wishing room. I like when guys grab me and pull me into secret wishing rooms, not that they ever do. Okay, I would like it if guys would grab me and pull me into secret wishing rooms.), I read, talked to Aunt Colette and Lisa Lisa and (briefly), La Nikki.

La Nikki and I seem to be getting along. I mean, we're sisters, but we've never been close, really. When we were little, we were close. She's only a year older and we had similar interests back then (like dolls and candy and Haley Mills movies). Also, we had no mother and she was the only female that was constantly in my sphere. I counted on her to show me the way. I mean, she was a weensy bit evil, don't get me wrong. La Nikki was diva-esque and bad-tempered and violent, but I idolized her. She was La Nikki. She was the Catra to my She-ra. She was a worthy adversary. Sometimes I saw her as a larger-than-life, cartoon villain, but always so cool.

Despite La Nikki's complete control and subsequent violent reactions to any sudden rebellion on my part, we were sympatico. Then she went one way and I went another. It came along very gradually, at first. A scoffing at my clothes or shows here and there. Suddenly, I was 12 and she was 13 and she was getting boy crazy and wearing makeup while I was still making tissue beds for my Disney dolls and trying to catch Tiny Toons and Animaniacs in the morning.

She just grew up a bit faster (or maybe just in a different way). I got tired of dolls soon, but I still doggedly refuse to stop watching cartoons (And Spongebob rocks!). Anyway, the writers of these cartoons are my age. So most of the humor is pretty grown-up. They obviously appreciate their art. I am doing them a service by supporting their art.

It seems I spend too many days defending my cartoon-watching to my family. Didn't mean to hit y'all with it out of nowhere. Force of habit. Cartoon comes up, defense rises to surface. It's knee-jerk to me.

Anyway, I felt left behind by La Nikki. She partied with juvenile delinquents and disdained my childish ways. And I became even more deeply rooted in those ways as a passive aggressive reaction to her teasing. I am way passive aggressive. Preteen April started writing angsty "Why does Nikki make fun of me all the time when I used to worship her like she was Madonna?" poems. Then I turned into grungy, sarcastic, "At least I'm smarter than you and all your little friends, so there!" girl. Then I gave up my airs because it wasn't convincing anyone, even me, and especially not La Nikki.

So I ignored her for a few years. Despite some run-ins and fights and a couple awkward moments of bonding, I just ignored her. I decided that La Nikki and I were too different to ever be close to each other. I mostly treated her like someone I knew and was mildly attached to. Like a second cousin. I went through high school pretending I didn't really know her. But she did the same thing. It was Daria-and-Quinn-esque.

Then I went to college and she had a son and I gave him all the love I could while still holding her in mild disdain. But, mostly, I forgot she existed. I was so into finding April then.

I gradually grew up - at least emotionally. I still couldn't find any common ground with La Nikki. I mean, she hates comedies and she hates horror movies!!! How can you talk to someone like that? She dances all sexyish in bars whereas I can only dance when I'm being funny about it. She falls in love with every guy she dates whereas I seem to be incapable of trusting a man enough to admit to liking him. She watches Lifetime!!!!!! I cannot stress enough how anti-Lifetime I am. I decided that we could still never be close. And it was best to not make the effort.

Then I moved here to California. And, strangely, we're closer now. I'm closer to my sister at about 3,000 miles away than I ever was when we lived in the same house. Maybe we've both grown up. Maybe it's easier for the both of us to compromise and find common ground than before. Maybe I can see all the good things about Nikki from far away that I never could see when she was right in front of me. Maybe she's been feeling the same way I have all these years. Maybe if I lived in the same state, we'd end up on opposite sides of the ring again. I hope that's not the case. Because, for the first time in my life, I feel close to my sister. And I don't want it to go away.

My relationship with my sister has always been tainted with bitterness and a feeling of betrayal. I put her on a pedestal and couldn't handle it when she did things or made lifestyle choices that didn't mix well with my world view. But it's a huge burden to expect a sister to be a mother and an idol. Maybe I never should have put it on her.

I hate all this retrospective thinking. It makes my head all hurty.