Blah - enjoy this one, Courtney. It's looong.

Blah.... that's about all there is to say. Life sucks right now, despite the fact that I've discovered another INCREDIBLE musical - Cats! It's amazing... I'm begging for the soundtrack for Christmas (w/ Elaine Paige as Grizabella).... lol, but if you've never seen it and you want to, I have it on my video blog (www.jadevideos-inluvwitheb.blogspot.com).

Other than that, life is really crappy. I have a French test at school tomorrow, the children's musical was horrible... Grammy and Aunt Glenda showed up and I couldn't talk to them. I couldn't! I went backstage and cried, and Paula Dorman and Chrisi Ranck tried to cheer me up. But it was awful. And, despite all of my previous Christmas joys, I am now dreading Christmas.

Ha! Christmas.... what's that? I know it's a national holiday of some sort. Something about some God coming to earth as a baby, born of a virgin, to save his people. But why celebrate that? How stupid! What do we care? Everyone in the world gathers with their families to celebrate this incredible holiday when Christ came down as a baby. But I don't really have much of a family anymore. No one gives a darn. Aunt Glenda has come back like a ghost, but I don't even know her anymore! Who is this old woman? She's not the dear aunt I used to know... she looks like she's been had too many times by too many different people, and it scares me. I can't stand to get near her. But then I realize... I never knew much about her anyway. I knew that she didn't like Elvis. I knew what kind of powder she wore - in fact, I have a can of the stuff just so that I can smell my dear aunt every time I open it. But I don't know much else. She was a good artist. I could pick out clothing that she would wear every time I went shopping. I even have shoes that remind me of her! But all I knew were the outside things. I think I love her, but did I ever truly know her?

It's the same thing with [Uncle] Wally. I knew he loved his pretzals... like mad, he loved those dang pretzals! Every time we went to their house, there were pretzals and icecream. Always. There was also colgate toothpaste. And VO5 shampoo. I know he had Honey Bear... or Aunt Glenda did.... someone did! I know he did Angel Tree... I can't even go past the stupid table without bawling! I feel so stupid. But I don't know what to do about it.

Thanks to Facebook and this blog, I've reconnected with my cousins. But even there, I don't feel like I know them. My family means the world to me, and it's falling apart. Heaven help me, the only thing I have to hang on to is my music and my schooling, and even that fails me at times. I can't live off of good grades and good roles. But that's all I have! I have friends, I guess, but most of them have their own little "best friend" cliques. What do I have? I have Jenn. And half the time we're fighting too much to be friends. All anyone cares about is school.

Everyone thinks that I should be over every that's happened to me. But I'm not even sure that I know about everything that has happened to me. I know there's a reason why I am so afraid of "Pappy John," but everyone assures me that he's just a creepy old man. I don't know who my grandmother is. I'm afraid I never will. I'm afraid she'll go to her grave bearing the secret of the woman that she truly is, leaving as her only legacy Cinderella and Elvis. And I will be the only one who cares. I'm afraid that Aunt Caterina thinks poorly of me - like the rest of the world does. Everyone thinks that I'm nothing but a drama queen. They think that everything I say and do is an exaggeration of the perfectly normal feelings that I have. But that's not true! I want people to look beyond what they see of short, fat, ugly, dramatic me. There's so much more to me than that! SO MUCH MORE!

Why can't they see that I'm a person too? What makes people think that I don't give crap about anybody but myself? Pastor Bill (and everyone else) always want me to come to youth group, and it drives me nuts! I hate youth group, but nobody cares about that. They just want their attendence to go up. I'm so sick of church, youth group, and everything else in this stupid community, in this stupid state, in this stupid world. God, if you're out there, help me out here! I need it!

This sucks.