Symptoms of Teenage Insanity

1 ) listening to imaginary music
It was my least favorite rule: no technology until you turn seventeen. So as a freshman in highschool, I had no phone, iPod, iPad, anything. I had earbuds, though, treasured them for exactly no reason. I always kept them in my ears with the plug just lying limp in my pocket or hanging loose; my friends thought I was losing it. You do realize you’re not listening to anything, right?? they’d ask. People always asked, but it was a long time before I realized why. It’s a psychological thing. It makes me feel… safer, I was finally able to tell my friends. As if they were a barrier keeping the real world away, leaving me safely dreaming in my surreal reality.
I always made sure to keep my protection near.

2 ) talking with other people in your mind (and expecting them to hear you)
I was lost in the feeling of my pencil scratching at the rough white paper and the sight of my whirlwind of memories and the sound of my nonexistent music blasting in my ears. I felt someone approach me and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to stay in the moment. This was my favorite part of red days: I had half an hour all to myself, my notebook, and my special windowsill in the yellow hallway staircase. My hand was aching and I’m sure my hair was a mess; I took out my writer’s frustration by flinging my hair out of my face. Whoever was coming wasn’t too near yet, so I didn’t lift my eyes and stayed where I was, precariously perched on the windowsill five feet off the ground.
“Hey, Holly,” she said, skipping down the stairs a little. I couldn’t pretend not to notice anymore without seeming rude. With an internal cringe at all the writing I was about to lose, I set down my pencil and smiled brightly at her.
“Hey!” She was looking at me with an odd expression that I’m pretty sure I had seen before. Wait, I did say hi, didn’t I? I was suddenly unsure. No, I concentrated for a moment, yanking myself out of the paper and into reality. Had I actually responded, or did that thought never leave my cloud of thinking? “I mean, hello.” I enunciated carefully, making sure my mouth was moving and and that I could feel my vocal cords buzzing every so slightly, verifying that I really was talking. She had a funny grin on her face now, confirming my suspicion that I hadn’t actually spoken in the first place. “Sorry!” I was completely confused at this point. “Sorry, I mean, hi…” I trailed off because my friend had a pained expression from trying to suppress her snorts of laughter. I jumped down from the windowsill and laughed too, relieved because she was used to my eccentric tendencies.

3 ) obsessively coloring in white spaces
This was it- the math test that would tip my stupid A- to an A, or drop it down to a B+. I got my paper and grabbed my pencil, fully prepared to delve right into the first question, but then the big bolded letters at the top of page caught my eye--and game over. All thoughts of the test melted away. My pencil, moving on it’s own accord, steered towards the big “D”, moving in familiar patterns until it was all shaded in. THE TEST!!!! half of me screamed, frantic. THE OPEN SPACE, the other half moaned. I forced my eyes to the first question, but they kept straying back to all the whitespace in the title. Maybe if I fill it all in I’ll be able to concentrate. So I gave in and let my pencil fly all over the page, filling in the “a” and “e” in “Name” and the “D” in “Date” and the heading of the test and every once in a while I was awarded with an “o”. Finally, when I was done, after all of two minutes, oddly, I felt very calm, at peace somehow. Wow, I should do that before every test, I thought, giggling. Wait--giggling?? Had I really just giggled?? I’d never giggled before in my life. I flashed a quick glance around me; nobody was staring, so that giggle (giggle!?) must have been in my head.
I zipped through the first three questions like a pro until my stubborn eyes picked up on the little triangle of nothingness in the number “4”. It was like looking at roadkill: you know you shouldn’t, and it won’t do any good, but your eyes can’t stay away. For the rest of the test, in order to focus, I found myself shading in every single space character.
That test had better have been worth it.   

4 ) uhhhhh

5 ) talking to my kitties in their own language (and expecting them to talk back)
“Aww, c’mere Aria, little Ari beebee, c’mere Ari-Ari…” I flopped down on my stomach and cooed at my seven month old gray tux kitten, head over heels in love. The other kitten, Lucy, a delicate tabby with long orange fur, came instead, purring and rubbing her silky fur against me. “Ohhh, look, it’s Lulu, it’s beautiful mootiful Lululululululu…”
I remember when we first adopted our precious kittens, we’d promised--no baby talk. The rule had flown out the window within the first week. I began purring with Lucy, and Aria, jealous of the attention, gave an imperious “mrrow!”. I was delighted; Lucy was usually the vocal one. “Yeah, mrrow!” I responded enthusiastically. “That’s right Aria. Meeeeooow...” Both kitties stopped grooming and stared at me, wondering, why on earth is she making such a horrible sound? As if in protest, Lucy opened her mouth in a delicately sophisticated mew. “Oh, well, I guess you can meow better than I can, huh Lulu?” I let loose another pitiful meow.
Aria stopped purring and chirped, an oddly bird-like sound, at my ear-splitting screech. She stood up, slowly stretching and shaking each paw in turn, her disdain clear. She stalked off. Lucy looked at her, then tipped her head at me. “You’re not gonna leave me, are you, Lucy?” I meowed at her, hoping she understood my Kitty. She trilled a pretty good imitation of Aria’s chirp and scampered after her sister, her lithe body and fuzzy tail making her look like an orange squirrel.
Figures.

6 ) find a name for this one
I was holding a bag of poop in one hand and the stars in the other. I dropped the bag of cat poop into the trash can and gathered more stars for my other hand. They sifted through my fingers, making tingles run down my back, and collected on the ground by my feet. But stars don’t stay down for long; they floated back up almost immediately. My bare feet were gradually growing numb on the crisp, nearly frozen grass. My light sweater was no match for the freezing winds, but the stars were keeping me warm.
The sky looked three dimensional: I was holding the stars, I was on tiptoes and kissing the clouds, I was watching imaginary moonlarks dancing on the invisible wind. No- it couldn’t be invisible, because I was watching it, I could see the wind twisting and laughing, teasing me to join in. The trees had joined the moonlarks dancing with the wind; they waved their arms slowly, sweeping the ground with draping branches. A few straggling leaves accepted their invitation as well. They were dying: brittle and brown, unwanted, banished to live out the end of their days on the streets, but still, they danced because they could.
A pulsing glow of electric-blue ringed the moon, adding another dimension to the sky. When I was younger I had thought the moon was crying; now I decided that it was the light of the TARDIS as the Doctor disappeared and reappeared throughout all of time and space. As always, when I saw the moon, I pictured my moon filly, my beautiful, moon-colored filly that I had yet to find, but I knew was out there somewhere, waiting for me.
The scent of burning pine filled the air, and I knew my neighbor had lit his fireplace. Distantly, I could make out the faint strains of piano music, and I knew another neighbor was giving piano lessons.
I wanted to stay there, forever, frozen in time. But I heard someone call, “Holly!” inside the house, and then the stars began to lose their heat, and I could only just make out the patterns of the wind, and, as always, I was drawn back inside to the warmth, and the light. To the artificial warmth, the artificial light.
Even the savage tendencies of the natural world are preferable to the bleakness of artificiality.

7 ) a typical diary entry
Cyandia: the color of the sky in between two clouds after the sun goes down but before the stars come out. (cyan = blue, dia = between. As in, between the clouds, AND between night and day). Whoa that’s pretty cool. You should start something like the guy in Frindle did. That would be cool. What was his name oh yeah it was Nick. Well you’re not named Nick and you’re not a red head and you don’t wear glasses. Oh wait yes you do wow I forgot. This would be kind of weird if someone else was reading this. Oh yeah wow also you’re not a guy you’re definitely like a girl. I need to stop saying like so much. Like seriously. Wow this is lame I can’t even write without saying like. Okay you know what, I’m going the rest of my life without saying like. Or writing it. I think lowercase i’s are a lot prettier than upper case I’s. i should start making all my i’s lowercase. Hey look it’s so pretty. i just said that i know you did. Why do i alternate between referring to myself as i and as you. Okay this is getting weird i’m going to stop now
TODAY, 9 PM
Outside is 3-D!! It’s so weird!!
blood moon
ice stars
tangible clouds (-they’re not fluffy or soft or tingly or those cliches! they feel like those deerskin leaves)
blue sun
i need to make up a purple version of cyandia because that’s what the sky is right now...but i don’t know what the latin root meaning purple is. maybe i can combine the blue and reds...cyandemia? cyanemdia? i’ll have to come back to this…
i also need a word for the blue ring around the moon and for the color of starlight. working on it.
is there a difference between the color of moonlight and starlight? do i need different words for those? probably…
which one is stronger? the moon or the stars? because the moon is a lot closer so it’s brighter and it seems bigger, but the fact that the stars are so far away and we can still see them just means that in actuality they are MUCH bigger and MUCH brighter. still though i wonder which one is “stronger”...
how do you define strong?

If you can relate to two or more of these symptoms, our recommendation is to spend as much time with your friends as possible to attempt to alleviate your symptoms. We have found that people who are generally more at risk are first semester high school freshman girls. Also -- if your name is Holly McCallahan, please don’t bother reading this article. Not that you would remember, but you were the main test subject of the study, so we can guarantee that you will relate to all of these symptoms and more.
Michael G Carter, Psychologist