I am currently sitting in my mom’s art gallery, killing time because it’s a Sunday and people don’t come to the Jefferson City mall on Sunday. In fact, people, don’t really come to the Jefferson City mall at all, but that’s another matter. Anyway, my day consists of opening the gallery for my mother so she can take my sister to Six Flags, going home to grab a late lunch, and babysitting. In other words, I never actually graduated from high school. The last 5 years have been a dream, and my nightmares are all true: I am in fact trapped in an awful Time Warp of some sort, the kind that doesn’t have Tim Curry or transvestites or fishnets, and pretty soon summer will be over and I’ll have to go back to high school and my role as The Purple Haired Girl (and OK maybe there can be fishnets) and oh my fucking god this is terrible.

Speaking of high school, a former nightmare DID come true when I had to be there two days in a row at 6:45 in the summer time. It was actually not that bad, though, as I was being paid $125/day and I finished by 1pm both days and I basically had to go hang out with a bunch of rising freshmen and facilitate activities. I was leading a session for the Council for Drug Free Youth, where my mother is the Director and nepotism is awesome. Basically, those 26 kids are my new favorite people and I’m not sure if this job is good for me because it made me feel so invested in their futures and well-being and I am going to take it so personally if any of those kids don’t go to college, become contributing members of society, and become president…or the next Gaga.

Discussing my issues with becoming excessively attached brings me to Ghana and the World Cup, which I can’t not mention because it’s happening now and it’s the one time every four years that Americans are supposed to acknowledge the fact that we’re the only ones who don’t care about soccer. I actually only root for us second. Sorry. The first full soccer games I ever sat through were the Africa Cup games in 2008 because Ghana hosted that year, and the games were in full swing when we arrived in the country. Watching Ghana win its quarter-final match is actually how I spent my first night with my host family. I will even occasionally watch European pro games where my favorite Ghanaian players are active because there’s a nostalgia factor there. In fact, as sad as it is that Essien is not on Ghana’s World Cup squad because that greatly reduces their chances, it is sadder still that Junior Agogo is not on their squad. That first night with my host family, Agogo scored the second (and winning) goal and my entire family and I got up, went outside and screamed in the streets with all the neighbors “AGOGO GOOAAALLLL! AGOGO GOOOAALLLL!” and getting the chance to scream this again was probably the thing I was most looking forward to about the World Cup, but my hopes were dashed when they finalized an Agogo-free squad. In spite of this dream-crushing revelation, I will still root for Ghana whenever I pretend to care about soccer.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to watch them beat Serbia, because I am here…at the gallery…trapped in my high school nightmare loop. I feel like I should put my lip ring back in or something. Maybe go write some angsty poems about my many struggles.