Every free moment I’ve had has been eaten up by my helmet thing. I’ve been learning a lot.

The planet I come from is called Gacks. It’s in a galaxy on the other side of the universe. I’ll look up the name the scientists on Earth gave it soon.

I was one of over a thousand “seeds” sent from my homeworld to various planets across the universe. Most of them died. The report said that many didn’t make it to their destinations. Some of the ones who made it to their targets found worlds that no longer supported life and were unable to develop. Some were probably killed by indigenous people or wild animals because they never reconnected with their ships.

They thought I was dead.

Once I began reconnecting, my helmet sent a distress signal that told my the people of Gacks that it was damaged and was missing its database.

It got kind of technical. I didn’t understand it all.

I’m learning a lot. There are several different ethnic groups and cultures on Gacks. The seeds are genetic mixes of the 15 biggest powers. They were like the united nations of Gacks. My ship thing was given genetic code that matched my mom’s. It was programed to find someone who shared specific DNA with me in the hopes that the finder would refuse to let me go.

It worked.

I was pissed when I learned that I have no parents but Mom pointed out that she is a biological parent to some degree.

I can’t stop learning about Gacks. There is so much information it makes my head spin.

I was put into a group with a few girls in my social studies class. It kind of sucks because we were shoved into groups rather than letting us pick our own. Usually I try to do the work by myself because it makes everything easier and I don’t have to deal with the crap that people give me.

Tiffany, one of the girls in my group, has been mean to me in the past but the other two girls are mostly quiet. They’ve never made any attempt to be my friend but they aren’t total bitches, either.

Still. I don’t really want to have to talk to any of them. Tiffany, especially. We have to read a book for black history month and then write a report on it, each of us covering a different part of the book. We haven’t chosen a book to read yet. I tried to ask the other girls what they wanted to do and they mostly shrugged and avoided making eye contact.

I have been looking at the list of titles we have to choose from and none of the titles are calling to me. 

In other news, my helmet has stopped with numbers and has moved onto shapes and colors. We’re making progress. We’ve also done some sort of abstractions like “many” and “few”. I think. I hope I didn’t mess it up by not actually counting when a whole bunch of dots popped up. Then went away. I can’t wait until there is some information given back to me.

I feel like I’m being jerked around. One moment, the world seems bright and overrun with possibilities, then, suddenly, dark and barren. The funny thing about being stuck on this pendulum is that things swing both ways. Back and forth and back again.

I’m overjoyed with this newest development. That stone thing contained a wealth of information about my homeworld and it’s peoples. There is a problem, though. It isn’t in English.

It seems to run on autopilot. It’s trying to learn english by starting with math. I guess math is a universal constant. It counted to ten with dots and played a strange sound with each dot. I figured out that it is saying the names of the numbers so I started saying the names in english. Now, it counts to ten in near english. We’ll see what happens next.

So that was unanimous.

So Evelyn invited me to a super bowl party at her home and I decided to go because I had nothing else to do. She spent most of the time with her boyfriend guy and I spent most of my time talking to her cousins.

Several of her cousins were there. They were various ages from real little like five to older cousins who were already adults and who were enjoying their alcohol. And their football.

I guess Evelyn gave her family the pep talk about me before they came over. They tried to not stare at me and didn’t ask any questions. It was still kind of awkward, though. She had three cousins who were basically our age. Two were boys. Dave, older, was kind of skinny and wore a tshirt with this big white skull face on it. He said it was from some band called the misfits. James, who was still only 12, was tall and already had some facial hair. They mostly yelled at the TV. Chelle, who was 14 and was wearing a Twilight t shirt, liked to talk to me. I think she is kind of lonely because she just kept going on and on, like I do on this blog.

So, anyway, at one point, Dave made fun of her for reading while seated in the living room with the superbowl on. She put her book away, embarrassed, and spent the rest of the time prattling on like no ones business.

She suggested that I read hunger games and I said I’d think about it. She said they are really good. I said I’d try to remember to look into it. 

Am I wrong for brushing off her book recommendations just because she’s wearing a twilight shirt? What do you guys think about The Hunger Games? Are they really all that good?

I don’t know where to start. I’m not going to do this chronologically.

I’ve been so lost and hopeless. I didn’t know the word for how I felt, honestly, but Evelyn helped. She said it’s called despondent. I’m going to take her word for it. Everyone could see the pain on my face. They could tell that I was lost. A teacher of mine called my parents and said they should make sure I’m not on drugs. They said I seem suicidal.

There was such a dark cloud over my head, no one fucked with me. Not to my face, anyway. I heard Ashley call me “Columbine, the sequel” but she didn’t know I was in the stall while she and her friends put on their make up. And this name calling didn’t even register in my world of heartache.

Evelyn is staying over. She says hi. She thinks I’m talking to a 50 year old man who is pretending to be our age. She keeps asking who I’m typing to and what we’re talking about. I tell her nobody and nothing but she doesn’t believe me.

She really liked the new muppets movie that came out a month or so ago. I never saw a muppets movie before so, when we were at the RedBox looking for movies for tonight, she said we should rent one. The only muppets movie in the vending machine was Muppets From Space. This made me a little uncomfortable but Evelyn said it would most likely be funny and that, since she loves sci fi, it might be interesting. That was her word. Interesting.

It was funny, I guess, in its time. I didn’t know most of the celebrity cameos or get some of the references to popular sci fi movies. But I liked it. I smiled for the first time since that dumb blue dot showed up.

The movie follows Gonzo, this weird blue thing. He doesn’t know what he is. The other muppets all have pictures of their families hanging on this wall. It’s very sweet. Gonzo has a picture of him on a beach, alone. He’s even having nightmares that he’s the only animal not allowed on the fabled Noah’s Arc. Noah asked Gonzo what kind of animal he is and Gonzo said he’s a whatever. I was bawling. I couldn’t control myself. AND THIS WAS JUST THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES!

By the end of the movie, Gonzo is standing on a beach waiting for a spaceship. This weird thing, the size of a somewhat large (but not extremely large) watermelon but colored a strange purple and blue, landed on the beach. It was too small to be a ship.

I cried again. He was the Gonzo Without A Planet.

Speaking of finding disappointing things…

The blue dot arrived on Monday evening. I was ecstatic. I thought I was going home or at least that I would meet people like me. It landed in the field where I was discovered. The helmet thing told me exactly where to find it with a GPS like map. It was better than google maps but didn’t show the streets or landmarks. It led me right to this little black rock, though.

When I picked it up it started glowing different colors. It was amazing but then I started too realize that this meant there would be no celebrations, no long lost family, no species that looks like me. Nothing.

When I hold the rock and wear my helmet, I get what looks like a status bar. I don’t know what it means but I’ve lost hope that it could be a ship from my home world.

Gonzo got to meet some people from his world but learned that he is home here on Earth and doesn’t leave. I would have bailed so fast, though.

I’m glad I’m letting “alien” things into my life. Gonzo cheered me up. I’m still heart broken but I feel better.

Sigh. I’d better stop ignoring Evelyn now.

I’m not sure where it is, exactly, but it is on it’s way through our solar system right now. I saw Jupiter in my helmet thing about an hour ago. I think it slowed down to pinpoint my location or maybe so it won’t crash into your planet at light speed. Either way…

This is it…

I’m going home.

The first week and a half of school went ok. Mostly, I’ve been ignored. There was a small skirmish in the girls bathroom on friday. I caught a stiff shoulder and was pushed. Nothing too major.

Evelyn has this kinda sorta boyfriend. He hangs out with us at lunch and follows her around. She says they aren’t dating but she likes him. When he isn’t around she asks me if I think he likes her and if I think he’s cute.

It’s kinda funny but kinda annoying, too.

The dot seems even closer now. It’s almost here. I can’t wait.

I’ve been grounded for the past month. Can you believe that? I’ll explain what happened after I bitch about it for a second.

I don’t care a whole lot about christmas but I had to miss it, entirely, and that sucked. It made me feel lonely. Evelyn tried to call but my parents wouldn’t let me talk to her. I threw a fit and got scolded again.

Bleh. It was the worst.

Okay, so, it was a few days after Thanksgiving day. I was wearing my helmet thing and I thought I noticed something odd.

OMG, dudes, I don’t even know where to begin on this. Remember that dot that Evelyn said was probably my home world? I don’t think it is. I think it’s moving. Getting closer. It’s someone coming for me to rescue me from this shitty planet. I hope my home world doesn’t have any towns or cities like Roseburg. Evelyn thinks I’m jumping to conclusions and that the dot isn’t really moving. She says there is no way the dot can be moving fast enough that I could tell if it was as far away as it seems. And yet, there are fewer stars. It doesn’t seem like the dot that isn’t me isn’t on the other side of the universe. It was a few galaxies closer after a few days.

So, how I got grounded, I snuck out of the house after fighting with Evelyn because she didn’t believe me. I was going to find a way to make her see what I could see. Even if I had to draw it. I was kinda loud and it was late. Anyway, I got caught.

There was a huge fight between my parents and me. They said I can’t go back to Jo Lame and I started screaming and cussing. I can’t believe I got so emotional about getting to go back there. It’s absurd. Looking back, I still don’t understand it.

I smashed a lamp. I threw it at my dad, it hit the wall instead. After an hour of fighting I calmed down, apologized, and begged them to reconsider. I need kids my own age even if they are horrible. I hate feeling so alone.

So, I was grounded instead.

I start school this week. I’m scared and nervous.

Ok. I’m being called to dinner so I’m off to eat my tuna.

!!! If I get picked up by what ever this dot is, then, I might be able to eat something besides tuna without almost dying. That’d be so EPIC.