Happy 13th birthday, Gil!
My goal for today was to try and have fun; dodge as much of
the tween drama as I possibly could; and survive Gil’s birthday party without
causing any more problems for Michael or me with Lisa and her friends. Thankfully, I mostly managed to do all of the
above.
Getting a nicer day with lots of sunshine helped to improve
everyone’s mood, though for our class; having a Friday night party to look
forward to helped a lot too. We had an
uneventful, standard school and work morning at home, and I went to meet up
with Rowen at her house mostly so I could drop off the overnight bag I’d need
for the post-party sleepover we’ve been having since getting back from Gil’s
home. Patrick needed to ride his new
bike to school, so we were on our own for the walk there; and we managed to
avoid pretty much any tween issues until gym class.
I’d like to put all of the blame for ending up in the
tweeird zone on Tim, since he thought that it was really funny to choose
Michael for his first team pick, and then make me his second choice. Unfortunately, I also have that little
problem about liking to win a lot; so I have to take some of the blame
too. While Tim thought he was being
funny, Lisa – and the half of our classmates who are staying on her good side –
was not amused. Her mood for the rest of
that class was inversely correlated to my scoring, and not only did Tim’s team
win big; but I was the top scorer, and Michael was a close second.
That isn’t something I’m trying to brag about, and Lisa
really shouldn’t get upset because while she’s as fit and healthy as I am, she
is also not as competitive; doesn’t love playing sports the way I do; and I
have some advantages that don’t even include any of my special abilities. Yes, I could tone it down even more than I
already need to, and I will have to do that once the boys all start getting
significantly taller and stronger than me; but that won’t be a problem until
next year – or maybe in Grade Nine.
Oh, and though Tim was happy with the win, and joked about
picking Michael and me in the wrong order; I don’t think he expected that Rowen
would be the third top scorer – and she earned the most points for her
team. Why do our classmates always seem
to forget that Rowen’s had an A+ in Phys-Ed every year too? Just because she’s not as fired up all the
time as I am doesn’t mean she isn’t just as competitive in her own, quiet way.
Moving along, though it wasn’t really all that warm outside
yet, Rowen and I went for a walk after having our lunch; mostly so I could get
away from the drama for a while – and some of the ongoing jokes that Tim and
some of the other guys were still directing my way. Next up for tweeird time was music class. Not only did Michael and I have too much fun,
but one of the songs we’re learning has a small saxophone duet in it; and we
were in for more jokes because of how great we sounded playing it. I’m sure it isn’t necessary to mention that
certain members of our class were not happy about our musicality or amused by
the jokes.
I was really happy to have a bit of a reprieve while Rowen
and I went back to her house to get ready for Gil’s party. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that I like dressing
up as much as the next girl, and though Rowen wanted to get dressed up for a
specific reason; we both had fun getting ready and looking our best. We’re getting better at timing our arrival
too, and about half of Gil’s guests were there when we made it to his house. Party central was in the family room, though
once everyone was there; we needed to spread out to the living room and kitchen
to have room for everyone.
As usual for the ‘guy’ parties, video gaming was a major
part of the entertainment plan, and the girls mostly either hung out with their
boyfriends; got together in little girl groups to chat; and pretended to be
impressed with everything the guys were trying to do to show off. With nearly half of my classmates politely
staying clear of me, it was tough to stay out of the tweeird zone; but Rowen
and I managed to have fun anyway – partly because Gil’s younger sister,
Bethany, was thrilled when we actually made an effort to spend some time with
her. Beth is ten ‘going on eleven’, and
while I can guess that she frequently annoys Gil as much as Patrick gets on
Rowen’s nerves; she kept us very entertained with her running commentary and
jokes about her big brother; tweens in general; and what she thought about
tween couples and romance.
The displays of tween romance weren’t too scary during the
first few hours of the party, with the one couple that was the exception being
the pair that annoyed Rowen the most all night.
That was a good enough reason to spend as much time as we could anywhere
except where ‘Tommy’ and his girlfriend were hanging out; and the other was
that I was keeping my distance from Michael to avoid adding any fuel to my
personal tween drama fire. We were
mostly able to do that in part, again, thanks to Beth; since she’d pretty much
become our shadow for the night by the time we sat down for dinner.
Birthday party meals for tweens and teens are always a
potential reputation risk for both the parents and their children, but if the
fact that the boys pretty much demolished every scrap of food on the table is
any indication; I’d say that Gil and his parents scored top marks tonight. The homemade cakes were a hit too, and so
were Gil’s birthday gifts – especially the new video games and movies that
helped provide the entertainment for the rest of the night.
The tweeird level started rising steadily after dinner,
first from the guys kicking their showing off antics into the next gear, and
then when quite a few of the couples moved into the living room to watch movies
while the gaming continued in the family room.
Rowen and I still had Bethany with us when we attempted to join the
movie-watching group, but while she was having fun giggling and whispering a
running commentary about the action going on in the darkened room; Rowen was
definitely not having fun watching Tommy and his girlfriend happily making out
while sitting together in one of the recliners.
Michael was with the guys playing video games in the family
room, and he was being watched closely by Lisa as she sat and talked with the
other girls who were hanging out there either to keep her company or because
their own boyfriends had picked gaming over movies and cuddling.
Rowen’s telling me to write about Michael’s reaction anytime
I was around, but I really don’t want to go there; and if anything, the other
girls paid more attention to how we both looked than any of the guys did. Most of that attention wasn’t appreciative,
though we did get a few compliments from some of our friends like Sally and Gretchen. Though I was still keeping my distance from
Michael, we stayed in the family room for a while; went for a little walk with
Bethany when we were all ready for a little break from the action; and spent
some time hanging out with Gil’s parents and sister in the kitchen when they
were working on snack and drink refills during the movie intermission.
There isn’t much else to report from the party. Rowen and I headed home during the
intermission between the second and third movie. We were the first ‘kids’ to leave, but we’d
long since hit our tweeird zone limit by then.
Unfortunately, we traded that in for an hour and a half or so of regular
younger brother and sidekick intrusions into what we’d hoped would be some
quiet girl-chat time.
Patrick and Scott were in fine form tonight, but Rowen was
not in the mood to put up with their antics; and while the boys thought that
they were having a blast; it was all I could do to keep Rowen from breaking
down into tears from dealing with that after having to hang around and watch
the guy she loves making out with his girlfriend all night while continuing to
be oblivious to her. While he’s usually
as dense as any other boy, I think Patrick actually figured that out
eventually, and though they’re still awake; it’s been more than a half hour
since the last time they were in Rowen’s room trying to bug us.
We’ve pretty much finished the post-mortem on the party, and
though Rowen has tried to tease me a bit about Michael, her heart really isn’t
in it tonight; and I think she’s just ready to crash for a few hours and not
think about ‘Tommy’ for a while. Since
we’ll both be working in the morning, we really should get some sleep, but even
though I’m going to wrap this up and turn my computer off; I don’t actually
expect to be sleeping anytime soon. Yes,
we mostly had a pretty good day despite our respective tween troubles, but I’d
really like to be able to play with all of our friends again without the problems. It would be nice if Rowen could have what she
wants most right now too – even if I think she’s a bit crazy to want to be in
the tween dating game at all. Finally, I
wish that Michael and I could just be friends and do the things we both like to
do together without any of the tween drama.
In a way, it’s funny that he couldn’t hang out and play with me when I
first moved here because girls were gross and had germs, cooties, and worse;
and now that everyone in our class except me has crossed over; he apparently
can’t just be friends with me either unless we’re dating each other, or we both
are dating someone else.
Other than continuing to be sure that I do not want to cross
over, I don’t expect to come up with any answers that will solve all of my
problems – or Rowen’s – but it’s time to call it a night and at least pretend
to go to sleep, so...
...until next time, this is Magi Master Cassie Proctor;
logging out!
