Pet Peeve.

So, my father and brother went out of town for the rest of the week with a family friend and his son. While my father, brother, and said family friend's son loaded the car up with their luggage, my dad's friend sat down across the table from me and started to talk to me.
Now, you have to know, I love this man more than I love my father. He is nice and funny and I've known him since I was a really small child. He treats me like an adult and seems genuinely interested in myself and my life.
But, as we sat there and chatted, my mom happened to mention that I was doing Camp NaNoWriMo--which I am. My father's friend jumped on this and literally started interrogating me about my novel. I made it very clear that I was and always am super uncomfortable talking about my novels before they're finished because I'm very self-conscious of how poorly written they are until editing. But he persisted.
I hate when people ask about my novels before they're done. I am always extremely vague because everything in my novel is still subject to change. I seriously am done talking about my novel but people keep bugging me about it.
When it's done, you can read it. No, you can't edit it. Yes, one of my friends has already accepted the job of editing it and I trust her with my life. Yes, she is very capable. No, just because you're an adult does not mean you are a better writer than myself or her. No, I will not include you in my novel. Yes, I am a good and capable writer. No, you cannot offer me themes or scenes or character ideas. Yes, I know my novel better than you do.

Avery Reviews A Thing: The Bourne Legacy

The last time I reviewed something, I'm pretty sure it was still springtime (if May is still spring). So, I went to the movies yesterday and saw the number one box office seller of the weekend, The Bourne Legacy (from now on, it shall be dubbed TBL). I was really excited about this movie because I am a huge Jeremy Renner fan.
Things I liked:
I felt like this movie was extremely intimate without being obvious. Aaron and Marta never kiss or fuck or even hug but their relationship--which is initially just for the mutual benefit of not dying--is adorable. Gave me those damn butterflies.
Jeremy Renner and Rachel Weisz are both great actors, with both being vulnerable without being weak.
The writing was good if not a little drawn out at some points but I mean Tony Gilroy is a great writer, so that's to be expected.
Things I didn't quite enjoy:
THE CAMERAWORK. I mentioned this is my last "Avery Reviews A Thing." Chernobyl Diaries and TBL both suffer from chronic Bourne filming. The camera work is shaky, which is fine in the high-intensity scenes, but just distracts from the quiet scenes.
The motorcycle chase at the end had me white-fisted for the first half but as it continued, I grew bored of it. It felt like the chase was being drawn out much to far and I was really tired of watching it.
So, I give it three and a half blue pills out of five.

The Olympics.

So, for the first time in my entire life, I sat down and watched the Olympics every day they were on. My reason for this was that my best friend was in Europe and I had literally nothing better to do.
Let me tell you, I have gotten so emotionally invested in these games.
Just the fact that we can watch the expression of some of these people's deepest hopes and dreams and watch as they accomplish them is literally amazing to me. To see people who have refused to let circumstances ruin their dreams--whether it be amputations, injuries, homelessness--is so inspiring to me. And I don't care how bubble gum lollipop this sounds.
I really and truly care about all of these Olympians and when they lose, I empathize, and when they win, I celebrate. I can't even believe I have to wait another four years until I'll be able to watch these people and events again.
I'll be twenty. I'll be at college. I'll be voting and be legally allowed to get tattooed. I won't be watching them with my family.
I am actually saddened by that. It's so ridiculous but I feel like I'm going to miss these Olympics. I already miss them!
That feels extremely amazing to me.
I hope I'll still be as excited about them as I was this year.

Tongues in Trees.

A/N: Hi guys. So, I feel bad because I never post my writing anymore--not that anyone reads it--but I decided to started posting my Camp NaNoWriMo. Also, I know someone from my Tumblr is going to ask. Hunter being a diver was a decision I made a long time ago, while fleshing it out in early June. Any resemblance to real people, dead or alive, is coincidental.

The car chugged loudly, crawling desperately towards the gas station not far ahead. The dial was as close to the “E” as it could get and I was seriously amazed it had made it this far. Hunter, on the other hand, seemed less amazed and more determined to get it ten more feet to a pump.

“Just a little bit farther. C’mon, baby,” he whispered under his breath. “C’mon.” And as that word passed his lips the car sputtered and fell silent. We started to roll back down the hill we had just come up. Hunter slammed his foot on the break. “Well, shit,” he said, looking over to me.

“Looks like we are going to have to get out and push, huh?” I asked, withholding the grin that was dying to curve my lips.

As we both stepped out of our respective doors, I felt the car begin to shift, back down the hill.

“Oh no you don’t,” Hunter growled, bracing himself against the frame. The car stopped. When he noticed that I, unlike him, was not helping, he jerked his head towards my side and I let out a small sigh. I placed my hands on the doorframe and began to push.

Hunter didn’t need me really. His muscles weren’t huge or bulky or anything like that but they were diver’s muscles, lean and strong. Though, maybe best not suited for pushing a car.

We finally made it to the pump and as Hunter reached into the car to pull the parking brake, I clambered up onto the hood. As I felt the sun begin to heat up my skin, I crawled up towards the windshield and reached inside on my side. I pulled a parasol out and opened it, shading my body from the hot, June sun.

I was extremely susceptible to sun burns and I did not particularly like them so I kept a parasol with me at all times.

The pump that Hunter was now struggling with was one of those Ye Olde pumps that are covered in rust and don’t have a credit card slot. I watched him bang around with the hose, trying to get it passed the open fuel cap.

There were a total of two pumps at this gas station, with a ramshackle building that I assumed you paid within. There were neon signs in the window of the station but they had burned out. From outside, all I could see was a single bulb hanging from a string attached to the ceiling.

“Hunter,” I said in a sing song voice.

“What?” he snapped.

“I believe that you own me ten bucks. Who was it who said that we would run out of gas?” I paused. “Oh right, that’d be me.”

“Alison,” he replied, exasperated. “Can this wait until we’re back on the road?”

“Back on the road after you pay me my money.” But it wasn’t me who had spoken. We both turned to find an old man standing halfway between the car and the building. He was round, like a ball, with thin limbs sticking out. He wore a stained wife beater that in no way covered his expansive stomach, which was covered in black hair. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. The state of his nails was visible from here, ragged and of varying lengths of nail-bitten distress.

“Um,” I finally said. “Yeah, we were just about to do that. How much?”

“Seventy four, ninety eight. Exact change only.”

I glanced in distress to Hunter as I pull my purse in front of me and began to dig through it. Seventy four dollars and eighty three cents later I looked up. “I’m missing fifteen cents.”

“Well, that fifteen cents will keep you from whenever you were going. I want my money.” The man had stamped out his old cigarette just to light up a new one. He hacked loudly and spit a loogie out onto the ground.

Hunter was rummaging around the car, looking for change. I screwed my mouth up and slid my coins back in my purse. Instead, I pulled out another whole dollar. “Keep the seven cents.” I handed the bills to the man and hurried into the car. Hunter gunned the car and sped out of the lot and back onto the road and back towards our ultimate goal.

Hunter and I were on our way to my family’s cabin in the middle of rural Minnesota. Not my ideal way to spend summer vacation, but my family had asked me to join them, insisted upon it. I told them that I would come, under one condition: Hunter was invited too.

They didn’t have a huge problem with this; Hunter grew up as part of my family. There wasn’t much of his left.

Plus, his dad was absolute best friends forever with my Aunt Anne. She and Hunter’s dad, had grown up together in Missoula, Montana, back when Pong was the only video game and there was a total of one curly-wired phone in every house. Granted, considering it was Montana, they probably didn’t have any phones at all. They probably used smoke signals.

Now, Anne was the only one who lived in Missoula anymore. Hunter and his dad had moved to a western suburb of Chicago, just a couple of towns over from where I lived with my mother and father.

Hunter jerked the car. In his attempt to find a ten wedged in a pocket of his jeans, he had allowed the car a little off-road rampage. He slid the bill in my hand. “I would appreciate it, Ali, if you would stop betting in any unfavorable manner you are capable of.”

“You lie. Betting is fun. You would actually appreciate if I would stop betting on the obvious, albeit, maybe not to you, option.” I waved my ten triumphantly.

Despite of himself, he cracked a tiny grin. “Fuck you.”

“Hey, watch the language. Where we’re going, there will be children. And adults who probably don’t appreciate f-bombs.”

“And twenty somethings, who probably use the word more than I do.”

“True. Doesn’t change the fact that we will both be censoring ourselves this summer.” We drove along in silence for a bit. We were six hours into our eight hours drive, closer to the seven mark. Hunter was kind of in a bit of a mood and I wasn’t really having it. Hunter hated driving but seeing as all I had was my learner’s permit, he had to drive the entirety of the way.

I swallowed a mouthful of water from my bottle, placed in the cup holder. “Who are you most excited to see?” I asked.

“No one in particular. I’m kind of excited to see Aunt Anne.”There you go. Hunter’s dad and Anne were so close that Hunter called her his aunt too. I’m honestly surprised he doesn’t call her mom. Although, he still sees his mom so I guess that complicates things.

“Not even Nikki and Zooey? Aren’t they ‘hot bitches?’” I threw up quotes where they belonged.

Hunter shook head but laughed quietly. “They are not my type, at all.”

“Oh I see,” I replied. “Maybe Jack is more your style.” Jack was my gay cousin.

At that, Hunter swatted at me and I giggled. “Hell no. I am as straight as a pool cue.”

“Maybe a bent pool cue.”

I of course knew that Hunter was romantically and sexually interested in women. But, he was almost never with a girl long enough to get to the sexual part.

Hunter and my relationship was complicated and it complicated our other relationships. When we were younger, like elementary school kids, it was easy. Our sex meant nothing in our interests and all was good until the fourth or fifth grade.

That’s when boys became icky. I continued to play with Hunter outside of school, but I felt pressured to scorn him in public, as he did with me.

When we entered middle school, things went back to the way they had been in early elementary. Girls and boys could be friends again. The thing was, lots of girls and boys were becoming more than just friends.

Hunter got his first girlfriend in late sixth grade and I got my first boyfriend in seventh grade. While I am aware now that we were merely playing boyfriend-girlfriend like we used to play house, at the time it felt extremely serious and like nothing should come between us and our significant others. At least, that’s how they viewed it.

When Hunter and I began skipping “dates” to hang out with each other, Margret Waters and Jeffrey Smiths grew very middle school jealous. Rumors spread that Hunter and I were cheating on Margret and Jeffrey with each other and when we entered eighth grade, I even heard rumors that I had lost my virginity to Hunter.

I had not and though Margret and Jeffrey broke it off with us—before getting together—we seemed unaffected by the gossip.

But all of our later relationships suffered from the same chronic suspicion and envy. It got so bad that one of Hunter’s ex-girlfriends, in a desperate attempt to save their relationship, got him drunk on their two month anniversary and that night, Hunter lost his virginity. That was ninth grade. I still remember his call the next morning.

And while we never admitted the gossip was true, to say that our relationship has always been platonic would be a lie. But those are stories for another time.

Hunter stared at me.

“What?” I inquired, escaping daydreams.

“I asked you a question.”

“Well, I did not hear this question.” I rolled my window down a crack and the smell of coming rain seeped in.

“Close that, it’s going to rain.” He jabbed a finger towards the darkening and thickening clouds high above us.

“That, dearest Hunter, is not a question.” He rolled his eyes and fiddled with the controls on his door. My window closed.

“I asked if anyone birthed anyone who I should know about.”

I mentally ran through everyone in my family while slowly shaking my head. “Nope. Same people. But, you have to keep in mind that I have Nikki and Zooey in my family.”

“Very true, Ali. Those two are very unpredictable in their states of pregnancy or non-pregnancy.” I could feel the falling temperature as the sun disappeared behind the rain clouds. A light drizzle began to fall.

I pulled my cell phone out and pressed the power button, goofing around on a few of the apps for a bit.

“You know,” Hunter said, breaking the silence, “I honestly think that you could drive for a bit. There are no cops out here and you’re a damn good driver so he wouldn’t even be suspicious. Please,” he whined.

I tugged a sweatshirt on and curled up in my seat, rested my head on the window and closing my eyes. “I’m taking a nap now. Please do try to not get us in a wreck.”

As Hunter swore profusely beside me, I smirked into the zipper of my jacket.

Pansexuality.

So, I hate labels and I have always hated labels. I hate labelling myself. But, I like having something to describe myself with.
I always hated labelling myself as heterosexual because I feel that it is extremely confining and growing up in a town that sort of frowned upon homosexuals, anytime I thought a girl was pretty, I would have this super worrying thought: Am I a lesbian?
The fact is that, no, I am not a lesbian but I am not heterosexual.
I choose to label myself as pansexual, which leaves me with more freedom than either heterosexual or homosexual.
For those who don't know, pansexuality is the attraction to people regardless of gender identity, sex, or the state of their genitals. It's also known as gender blind.
That begs the question, Avery, does that mean you're attracted to everyone?
No. Just like everyone else, I have a type. I like smart, funny, nice people. What their genitals look like has no significance to me. I mostly am attracted to men but I refuse to use constraining labels. Plus, using pansexuality, I can always just narrow it down if I change.
I hope this doesn't make my friends see me differently.
In fact, I don't really want to post this because I'm sure they will think I'm this big, fat lesbian now--which I'm not, or haven't you been paying attention?