NUMBER THREE: Discostress

I had no idea discotheques were so stressful.

Every morning (or afternoon, as the case may be), I wake up and immediately take a shower, I think because I don't want to be seen just after I've awoken. I always have this little feeling, because each night so far, I've dreamt of hanging out with my friends. The first night, I dreamt I kept seeing everyone everywhere- and not just my friends, either; random Tam people. I had a dream that Emmett and Avery were mad at Brinkman and I (and we told Violet about it later), and last night I dreamt that Deborah was driving us around the canyon. I hang out with the Frenchies all day and the Americans all night.

Anyway, this morning we had to get up early to go shopping in Nice for something to wear to the disco tomorrow night. Victoria and I met Laura at the bus stop. There were these two obnoxious-looking girls on the bus today, sitting in such a place that I kept looking over at them, which made me angrier and angrier. And I couldn't even express it, I couldn't tell anyone about how one of them looked like that girl Courtney Mahan, so I just got more furious with them and kept thinking mean things at them and I couldn't stop myself. Thank God they didn't say anything when we passed the children's hospital on our way into Nice. Yesterday, these people on the bus were like "ISNT THAT WHERE ANGELINA JOLIE IS GIVING BIRTH TO TWINS RIGHT NOW? WHY DID THEY CHOOSE THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL HOW WEIRD." It's not that weird. They have about a million kids and the hospital is right on the beach.

I do not want to see Brangelina pushing their fucking strollers around here, let me tell you. Imagine what kind of people they think they are. Ugh. They go wherever the fuck they want wherever they want; imagine how nifty they must have thought it would be to fly their asses down here to have children on the French Riveria.

So we get off the bus and enter the first store, this horrible, Godawful joint playing the radio/television/music station NRJ (pronounced "energy" with a French accent), and there they are, those two dumb bitches with their crimped hair, pinched faces, poorly painted fingernails, and Jonas Brothers t-shirts. Everything in the store was shiny and full of fake rhinetones, and I had to sit there and watch Leona Lewis and various awful French artists music videos for like, a half an hour. Every time I saw those girls, I wanted to attack them. "Attack" was the word I was using in my head, as in, "If I have to see you one more time, I will attack."

Renon was supposed to come, by the way, but he didn't show up or answer his phone, so at lunch, Victoria sent him a kind of bitchy text message. By the time we stopped for lunch, both Victoria and Laura had bought things; but I wasn't ready to stomach so much Euro shoved down my throat. Victoria and Laura were concerned and kept trying to get me to try shit on, but shopping is kind of hard for American hipsters in mainstream EuroStores like Pimkie. I ended up buying some stuff in H&M, but it was apparently not enough to get me into a disco. Victoria began to panic.

We met a friend of Laura's at Victoria's house, a girl named Virginie. Virginie had come to practice doing our make-up for tomorrow. She took before&after shots of me, both of which were probably ugly. She is training to be a professional make-up artist or whatever, which means she knows how to do fancy things with makeup, but was delightfully unaware that I look like a fucking tranny when I wear too much makeup. When she had finished, the cloud of French girls surrounding me were all tittering and excited, and they were like "Look in the mirror!" and I was really scared. I already sounded like a retard because they were treating me like I couldn't speak any French at all, so they would say what they could in English, which only confused me. I kid you not, they did not say more than two words in a row in English ("look me" etc) so when they spoke, I didn't always know if they had just said something in French or English. So that was confusing for me.

Sure enough, it was too much makeup, but I shut the fuck up. They all really liked it. I'm a bit worried about tomorrow, when Virginie is scheduled to redo my makeup and do my hair, which is also a very, very technical process. Victoria tried to dress me really, really Euro, but I couldn't stand it. I don't understand-are you not allowed to be remotely classy at a discotheque? I kept thinking Oh my God, my brother would laugh his ass off as I stood awkwardly in front of a full-length mirror in a short skirt, gigantic silver sequined top, crisp white jean jacket, high heels, and a shitload of makeup. Oh what a Polaroid that would have been. Say "high school!"