Fuel

Not a great day to say the least.
   A panic attack lifted me out of my seat and got my chest heaving like a run-down horse. Suddenly everything was hitting me at a million miles an hour and I looked around for a practical escape route, but there was nowhere. You see, it's all the same. I could run to one place, but it'd still be too close and too easy of a guess for anyone who'd set out to look for me. I wrote furiously in my moleskin notebook, every word that was coming to mind, every phrase, hoping that somehow it'd bring me peace of mind, but it just fueled the yearning. What brought this on? It was silly. It was minor and part of the world I am being brought up in:

   A girl, my age, perhaps a year older or even younger got out of her white Mercedes at the gas station. She donned ripped daisy dukes, knee high "jock socks", a revealing tank top, and had her bleached blonde tresses on display. Her face was confident and as she looked over to size me up: ( me in my tucked in sweater, tights, and oxfords) a truck of boys our age pulled up. I looked just in time to see the boy in the passenger seat punch the driver, putting his fist to his own mouth and whistling at her. He was enjoying the view and I stood idly by with the gas pump clutched in my hand watching the scene. She paid them no attention, but for some reason it infuriated me. I was so angry. Not because they weren't hollering at me, not because she wasn't basking in  the kind of attention i never get, but because I  felt like it summed up this stupid city.   Typical, unoriginal, biased stupidity. Here she was, classic blond beauty, probably a better choice to play Daisy in "The Dukes of Hazzard" and here they were, the ever-sought-after prince charmings, banging the side of their truck like a bunch of animals. My disgust was endless. Why? This is normal stupid teenage behavior? There will be people like that everywhere you go. This city is  MADE of people like that. Not a few here, a few there...made. Homegrown typicality right here for me to live in. If you want it, you can have it.
   So, I drove angry to class, three hours before class would even start. I climbed in the back seat with the windows down and cried. It just hit me. This one stupid moment in time, something I would never usually pay any mind to had me in a ball in the back seat of my car. So now, like an ill child, I am home. After the episode passed enough for me to stop the heavy breathing, I climbed in the front seat and peeled out of there. Tears were flowing freely and it just so happens that the boy from the post "How it Felt" was standing in the parking lot wearing a suit in front of his new Mercedes. I was angry at everything. I'm home now, convinced that teaching myself the math lesson will let me simultaneously calm down.
   I miss my friends, I miss their likability, their genuineness, their humor. I'm glad they get to see more than the rundown "Welcome to San Clemente" sign off the freeway; blue and white letters printed in swirly cursive as if it couldn't get much better in this city by the beach. Trust me, it could, but it won't.