Monday, December 1

All my life I’ve been told it’s not what’s on the outside that matters, but what’s on the inside. To bad nobody told that to my school. You see I’m not your typical everyday student who loves shopping and hanging out with friends and such. I’m different. No I don’t mean I have super powers like Buffy the Vampire slayer or anything like that, I’m just different. I was given this diary as an early birthday present from my parents who seem to think I have no life and that by writing things down I’ll wake up one day and have some. Friends I mean. Also my psychiatrist suggest that keeping a diary will help enforce positive vibes blah blah crap. So here I go, the beginning of a long journey about my life, or what I’d like it to be.

My name is Kyle Olivia O’Donnell. Don’t ask about the name just go with the flow here. I have two older brothers so my dad was on a roll with the boy names until I came along. A daughter wasn’t something that was part of his plan in life. He was suppose to have three perfect sons, all of whom would be great at sports, have the gorgeous girlfriends, grow up to get the perfect scholarships and become someone famous. A weird daughter like me isn’t something he expected.

So that’s why I got a boys name. Well it’s really not a boy’s name it just sounds like one and that’s what society has made it. At least that’s what my mom has told me. Of course she’d tell me anything to make me believe I’m loved. And I am. I have tons of people who love me. But that’s beside the point. My name is a boys name and I’m cursed because of it. My father was almost a hundred percent done with the first part of the plan (having three boys) and then WHAM a daughter dropped out and the plan was broken. No way could the plan be re-written to fit a daughter, so therefore I had to become another son. Or come as close as I can. My family isn’t exactly a sane one!

You see my mom is an ex-hippie and loves all the natural crap. Tofu happy is what my brothers and I call her. She makes everything with tofu and what I wouldn’t give to have one fast food dinner every once in a while! No way! Not in the O’Donnell house! Everything in our house is made from real herbs (grown in the green house located in our back yard that my mother insisted we build a few years back) as well as tofu meat picked up from Wild Oats (the crappy health food store three blocks away, we purposely moved into the house we now live in because the store was so close that we could walk to it. Oh joy!).

My mom’s fashion isn’t something I would be complementing either. She dresses just like a mother should dress. Nice clothes for work and others for daytime that I would never be seen in public in. Anyway that’s my mom. The saddest thing is that she doesn’t even look like a mom! At least not my mom, she could definitely pass off as either of my brother’s mom because they look just like her, but not me.

I’m the exact opposite of her. She’s a size three with a rather large chest. For a thirty-nine year old woman she looks like my sister. And I’m not talking little sister (EWW!) I’m talking a year or two older than me sister. Whenever we go to the mall together she gets hit on more than I do! Of course my weirdness could be part of it. But yeah, my mom’s a little over five foot five inches and has the gorgeous supermodel body, including straight blond hair, hazel eyes and everything. Unlike me, I’m range between a nine and an eleven and wear a shirt size small (my mom wears large because of her chest), I could be anything but supermodel graceful, my hair is a rats nest of reddish blond curls (and I’m not talking about the big curls, my hair is actually the only pretty part about me!) and my bluish-grayish eyes aren’t that appealing. My mom is way prettier than me! Nuff said!

My dad, well my dad’s an interesting person. How to explain him? A total jock? My dad’s someone who sets his mind on something and will stop at nothing to accomplish that goal. And he has. Ninety-nine percent of the time my dad’s goals have been accomplish, the one that failed was me. Although he reassures me everyday that I’m one of the best things to ever come into his life, but then there are those times when I catch him looking at me as if I was the biggest mistake of his life and he would give anything to go back in time and change the past. Something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time by now. But lets get back to my dad.

Other than the goal of having the three perfect sons he’s always wanted to be a chef, and he’s a good one too! I remember the large family dinners we’d have where we’d all have to be home by a certain time and we weren’t allowed to go out after and the entire time it was just a way that our family could hang out together without my brothers friends thinking they’re total losers for even thinking about spending time with their family. My dad would make the most delicious dinners on the block. Spaghetti with tofu meatballs was one of my brother’s favorite, but I always loved the cheese tortellini with Alfredo sauce. I guess it’s kind of the same thing as spaghetti, but my dad always knew it was my favorite so he would make extra thick noodles just to make me happy.

So sometimes my dad was really cool, but then came those days, with the look and everything. I’m sure some people out there know what I’m talking about. Other than being a great cook my dad’s just a normal dad. He goes to every event my brother’s are in, and has even come to my piano and choir recitals, taping everything and cheering the loudest when I was done. So even when the gray haired man I sometimes call my father in public embarrasses me a lot, I love him all the same. He’s not your average father (DUH! I just said all this crap!) But he’s a good man and I’m still wondering how my parent’s marriage went down the drain (another thing that wasn‘t part of the plan). It’s one of those unsolved mysteries!

My oldest brother, Adam Patrick O’Donnell, is the one that rebelled the most against my dad’s plan. He didn’t want to be the big football star like my father wanted. Instead he got more into theater and musicals and such. He’s really good to and landed the lead role in most of the shows when he was only a sophomore. Our school, Amador High, always spends tons of money on the productions; we even have a very large theater that was built tons of years ago. It’s rented out most of the year when the schools not doing productions and is used for either traveling shows or city productions. I think that’s one of the biggest ways we get funding in order to keep the building up and running and all that jazz.

Anyways back to Adam. Yeah, he’s a typical older brother. He’s twenty years old now and a junior at NYU studying in musical theater and stuff. So while I’m living on the west coast with my mom and other brother, he’s living on the east coast enjoying the wonderful different weathers with my dad, who also happened to move there after the divorce.

Adam has never really been a close brother to me. I mean yeah we talk on the phone all the time, but because of the five years age difference I never really got to know him like my other brother did. When Adam was a senior I was still in seventh grade. What senior in their right mind would want to hang out with a seventh grader? Not Adam that’s for sure! He was always hanging out with his friends, or my other brother, or one of his many girlfriends he had throughout high school. Of course back then I was considered a really big dork with the large spectacle glasses, braces the whole works! But lets not get into that very much.

Adam was always a popular guy in school. He looks just like my dad and other brother, tall, dark reddish hair cut short, that according to my best friend Alexandria, made him look like a, and I quote, ‘total hottie’!? Who tells their friend that their brother is a total hottie? I mean come on! He’s my brother! But obviously every girl must think that because he had plenty of dates growing up. Although now he has a girlfriend that he’s been dating since he moved to New York.

Her names Britt Jerkins, and she’s also a junior there studying in musical theater. That’s how they met. She’s really nice and is gorgeous too. Tall, blond hair, looks almost like my mother. The two of them get along quite well. Britt is really close to her family (who happens to live on the west coast as well) and loves spending time with ours. She comes home with Adam for all the holidays and such. Britt even took me shopping once and let me get a t-shirt that my mother absolutely hated when she saw me in it (although she didn’t say so in front of Britt). Ever since then Britt has become the big sister I never had, and always wished for. But enough about the wonderful couple.

Leaf Eryk O’Donnell (by the way diary if you haven’t figured it out by now, my families one hundred percent Irish, and proud of it!) is my other older brother. The one I’m a lot closer too, and the one my father absolutely loves because he actually followed the plan correctly. This year he’s a senior at Amador High and is currently the star quarterback on the football team, plays forward for the basketball and soccer teams, and still finds time to hang out with his friends, get straight A’s, have a girlfriend, spend time with his little sister, and workout his 170 pound, 99.9 muscle (not really) body! He’s the perfect son, and again according to Alexandria, is yet another total hottie.

What the hell happened to me? How did I get the wrong end of the deal here? I mean come on man! Couldn’t I be given some looks or a nice body or even some talent like my brothers? All I got was a medium height curvy body, practically no boobs (I’m a 34 A), hair that is so out of control it’s not even funny, no life, I’m so clumsy, that social outcast of the school, no talent or skills for anything other than piano (which isn’t saying much). What went wrong? Of course this isn’t about me! It’s about Leaf! Has great red hair and a row of freckles across his face (like we all do) looks absolutely gorgeous like my mother and father. He’s funny and has a great sense of humor, always laughing at himself and never putting other people down, who wouldn’t want to be his friend? Basically he has a perfect life. I mean our family may be really weird and crazy and stupid or whatever, but man do we have money!

Most of the money came from my great-grandfather who struck rich when the three hundred acres he bought from a run-down ranch after coming to American from Ireland, turned out to be a gold mine of oil. That’s how he started our family in it’s fortune. He also had a hand in making the potato chip, but that’s a different story (he really had nothing to do with it, but my mom likes telling us he did. Parents! They’re so weird). Anyway after my great-grandfather Patrick Ryan struck rich he married a wealthy stock-brokers daughter, my great-grandmother Irene O‘Connor who then became Irene Ryan. They had four little kiddies including my grandmother Bonnie Ryan.

Unfortunately during a stage-coach raid my grandmother Bonnie's two sisters and brother were killed leaving her the family fortune. Which I guess is good news for us, but it’s still sad. So my aunt Bonnie inherited the family fortune (which is about fifty million by now! No not really but I like making it sound that way!) and fell in love with my Celtic grandfather Wynne O’Neal. My grandfather Wynne was also very wealthy as his father also owned many oil wells. So my grandmother Bonnie became Bonnie O’Neal and they had a bunch of little kiddies (three girls) including my mother, Erin O’Neal.

So the family wealth was split amongst my mother and her two sisters. My aunt Theresa married a wealthy doctor and they’re still happily married in Florida with seven kids (if you can believe that). I see my cousins during the summer and during the family reunions which are every other Christmas, held at my grandparents mansion in Colorado. My aunt Caitlyn is married as well and has three children. They live with my uncle in Hawaii and again I see them in the summer and during the family reunions. My mother married my father, Jason Patrick O’Donnell, and they’re marriage was going well until four years ago when they all of a sudden they started having lots of fights and ended up deciding they needed to spend time away from each other. That’s when my dad (a very wealthy orthodontist) moved to New York and he’s been there ever since.

He sent my mom the divorce papers a few months after moving out and she hasn’t really seen him since then. Leaf and I go and see him every other holiday (my mother made sure Christmas was always spent with her family so we could go to the family reunions) and that’s how life’s always been. So with Adam driving a black convertible, Leaf driving a blue Porsche, and I’m sorry but there is no way I didn’t see that black convertible Mercedes hidden in the back of our five car garage that my mother insists is not for my birthday (December 23), you could say life was pretty good. Until he showed up. More about him later.

So anyways enough about my family….wait! I forgot to tell about myself! Not that it’s really important for a diary to know about the person writing in it? Or is it? Does the diary really care weather I explain about how dorky I am and how much of an outcast I am from my school. How I’m teased regularly by those who see me and ignored by those who don’t even know I’m alive. And you would think that with my really popular brother’s I would be at least semi-popular. You know, have some people who know I’m alive. But besides my two best friends Alexandria and Tyler and of course Leaf, no one even knows I’m there.

All about me…what is there to tell? I’m like five foot five inches ( about six inches shorter than Leaf and Adam), I have a very curvy body (as I’ve already explained) I use to have the big spectacles until my mother couldn’t stand the sight of me in them so she got me smaller glasses, but I still look like a dork. Which I am. Animals are my life and I live for animals (not really, I just like them a lot). I have two cats, William Wallace and Leaf Erickson (named after my wonderful brother), a Saluki whose name is Anastasia, and an aquarium full of fish. So that’s basically my life. And it’s not like I’m the only rich person in the neighborhood. It’s California for heaven’s sake so every one here is rich because the houses cost so much. If I hadn’t mentioned this earlier (I don’t think I did) I live in a semi-large city called Pleasanton (it’s about forty-five minutes outside of San Francisco) and can’t wait to leave.