Alright. For the record, Disney (the all-powerful entity, not the man), Mulan and Pocahontas are not princesses. Nor will they ever be. Cinderella sort of became one, as did Belle (of Beauty and the Beast), but really, of the “Disney Princesses,” only Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and sort of The Little Mermaid (Ariel) were original, bona fide princesses. So basically, all the ones that don’t actually have names. (Okay, so The Little Mermaid had a name. But if I’d just said “Ariel,” would anyone know what I was talking about?) Pocahontas was a chief’s daughter, but that doesn’t make her a “princess” per se. That just makes her a chief’s daughter. And Mulan---much as I like and admire Mulan---was not a princess. Not a chief’s daughter. Not anything more spectacular than a cross-dressing warrior woman. Not a princess. (And if it were a true story, she wouldn’t even have been cute. She would’ve been totally butch. Just like the real GI Jane wouldn’t bear the slightest resemblance to Demi Moore.)

So I woke up this morning at around 0900, thanks to a 5-hour nap yesterday, and then Sarah left to go spend the day with Caleb, and I just never left her room. She won’t be coming back tonight, either. She’s going to spend the night with Caleb. And I just might stay in her room. I finished off the M&M’s I’d left here forever ago, and I stole some Spaghettio’s from Kelli, and then Dane brought me some Chipotle (I don’t really like most Chipotle food, but the tacos are okay), and he also brought me some cookies, and I was okay until halfway through a cookie (Jamie and Vicki made them; I was going to help but I forgot). Now I feel sick. Big cookies. Big rich chocolate chip cookies. Bastard cookies; now I feel sick and fat. That’s probably got just as much to do with not leaving this room all day (except for about 10 minutes to watch part of Team America, which is filth that I’ve already seen too many times and I didn’t leave the building, just walked down the hall) even though I had every intention of going for a shirtless run. Would’ve been a nice day for it, too.

But no, I started last night when Sarah left, watching Hook, Jimmy Neutron, Mulan II, Notting Hill, Robin Hood: Princess of Thieves (what’s funny is that they give Keira Knightley Phantom Menace credits on the cover; no one even knows she was in that movie), Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Titanic. (I’m still watching Titanic; it lost my interest a long time ago. I may be heartless.) I gained respect for Leonardo DiCaprio after watching Man in the Iron Mask; I thought he portrayed two different men quite well. But watching this movie, I remember why there was so much room for gain.

Lately I always feel like I have really bad breath, like an old lady. This has convinced me to eat fewer vegetables. I don’t know why. Don’t ask. It just seems to me that blaming vegetables is the appropriate thing to do. Didn’t I hear somewhere that vegetarians have bad breath? But having just eaten Chipotle food, I think maybe that’s got something to do with it. Maybe Chipotlerians have bad breath, too. Yucky. Feel like something died and is rotting in the back of my throat. I hope someone tells me if I actually have paint-peelingly bad breath.

Bleah; floating corpses, falling china, terrible dialogue . . . neh. I guess that’s a realistic portrayal, huh? Real-life isn’t scripted, and I don’t think this movie was, either. But it’s too light. I’ve been on the ocean at night, and unless it’s dawn or dusk, you can’t see the horizon like that. You can’t see anything; an occasional whitecap, a glimmer . . . but it’s dark. Anyway, all in all, I’m not remarkably impressed with this movie. Those two should’ve been dead a long time ago. There’s more than dumb luck keeping Jack and Rose alive; oh yes, I see the hand of a filmmaker in this. Did anyone see the old Titanic? The one with the mom and the dad and the illegitimate son . . . ? I don’t know anyone who was in it, or at least, I didn’t last time I saw it, which had to have been at least eight years ago.

I suddenly find myself singing---through a rather complex series of thoughts connected to “What would it have been like to have a love affair on the Titanic?”---a song from White Christmas. “ . . . My one love affair didn’t get anywhere from the start; To send me a Joe who had winter and snow in his heart wasn’t smart. Oh Love, you didn’t do right by me . . . ” Tis true fact; my one love affair didn’t get anywhere from the start, although it had nothing to do with Joe or winter. Just an inconvenient set of circumstances.

Now, when I say “love affair,” I don’t mean I was only involved in one romance. As I’ve said, I’ve had three boyfriends, two of whom are now married. And I’m not talking about any of them. “Boyfriends” are not “love affairs.” “Love affairs” are people other than the people that people know you’re with. “Love affairs” are way more fun than boyfriends. I’m going to make a recommendation that you, whoever you are, always keep your real love secret. It’s more fun. Fall in love all you want, but don’t hold hands in public, around people you know. Run away to the dark corners, to the cities where you’re strangers to everyone, and hold hands there. Kiss on those street corners and back alleys. (Jack’s dead, Rose; quit shaking him.) Whisper your “I love you’s”; write them in code, in sweet secret letters; don’t tattoo names on you, write Me + You and then watch it burn snuggled up by a secret fire when everyone thinks that she’s in New York and he’s in L.A..

Pardon my sentimentality; I’ve never done those things. Like I said, my one love affair didn’t get anywhere from the start. It was never really intended to. It was never actually intended to happen at all, and while I don’t regret it, I probably should. It’ll haunt the rest of my life. Or enrich it. I don’t know; I’m not there yet. Funny; I still lie about it. I still say it never happened; that I had three boyfriends and a bunch of first dates and that’s all. (Most of the first dates sucked. Maybe I’ll tell those stories someday too; Andy and Troy and Aaron and Dale . . . maybe not. Some of them might read this. Andy, my date with you didn’t suck, though I was afraid I bored you. Troy, you were the most amusing date I ever went on. Aaron, you suck. I hope you’re married to someone as psychotic as you are. Dale . . . ah, Dale . . . )

Oh lord! She could’ve at least SHOWN him the diamond before chucking it into the ocean. That’s craziness. Oh, and this is the part where she dies in her bed, eh? She’s done everything she needed to do, as shown by the pictures by her little berth; the straddle-riding in front of the roller coaster, the flying, etc. . . . Old people crack me up, but I’m never going to be one. Sort of like drunk people. (As in, I’m sure I’ll do it eventually, but I won’t be happy about it. Old, drunk, married, pregnant, obese, wrong . . . things I have no intention of being but probably will be at some point. Not in that order.)

Of course . . . I never had any intention of being in love, either. I don’t like being in love. I don’t like feeling owned. I don’t like feeling like I’m at the mercy of anyone else. I don’t even like having close friends, for that reason. I don’t like feeling obligated to anyone. I like feeling badassedly independent. (My computer tells me that “badassedly” is not a word. Or at least that it’s spelled wrong. Byte me, computer. Oh, it’s telling me that I meant to write “abashedly,” which, I assure you, was not my intent.)

So I finished Titanic and now I’m watching some Tarzan movie, because men who play Tarzan are hot, and so is Brendan Fraser, who played George of the Jungle, and was the hottest jungle man ever. And funniest, as well. I don’t like the chick they have playing Jane in this movie, who, coincidentally, is named Jane in real life, as well. I like the character, and she doesn’t seem slutty, which is good, but she’s not especially attractive, either. (Oh, evidently lions understand apespeak. Cool. Remind me to “ooh-ooh” at a lion the next time I need a favor from one. It works for Tarzan.) Well, she’s pretty enough when she smiles, I guess. Actually, she looks like Charlie. That’s . . . special. I like Charlie okay, but she’s not a close friend of mine. Which reminds me that oh shit I never made an appearance at Ann’s party.

I went to get a pedicure with Sarah, and that took until about noon, and then we went and ate, and then we went to the Del Monte Center, and by then I was falling asleep standing up, so we just came straight back and I fell asleep in Sarah’s room. I opened my eyes once and she was trying on her dress with some new shoes she got, and I said, “That looks nice,” and then fell asleep again. And then I woke up and it was 2100, and I remembered that she’d said she had to go to Caleb’s at some point, for “a little while,” and I debated whether or not I should wake her up. So I woke her up.

Dane asks if I stay in this room in a weird, canine way of waiting for Sarah to come back. No. I spent so much time in this room once upon a time that I tend to forget it’s Sarah’s room. It’s like mine. I don’t even really notice anymore that Sarah’s supposed to be in it. What is in it is a TV, and Kelli’s large rack. Of DVDs. And so I can spend all day here without even really noticing what’s going on. I also set up my computer on an ironing board in front of the TV last night, with a chair and my camera and the Playstation controller and all my stuff . . . I didn’t feel like “tearing down” my setup. (Yes, ironing board. Is that a problem? It’s like a portable table, just the right width for my computer. Maybe a little tippy . . . Someday, I’ll have to get me an ironing board . . . and maybe an iron to go with it.)

Damn. I shoulda gone running. I should be doing push-ups, sit-ups, squats, jumping jacks, high kicks, Tae Bo, yoga . . . but I’m not. Teehee. I’m vegging, and I like it. So there. Well, okay. I don’t really like it. I feel like I’m getting fat this weekend, and I’m watching this super-fit Tarzan run around and swing around and pull himself around and I’m just getting round.

I had a dream once that I got shot in the head. It was the most bizarre thing ever; I dreamt about gang wars and I was in one and some man killed some of my friends. So in the middle of the night, I snuck up behind him with a couple of knives and stabbed him, over and over again, all over his upper body. Front and back, in the ribs, and he just wouldn’t die. But he finally did, and I went into the bathroom to wash the blood off my knives. I was sick of it all, sick of the death and the killing and the senselessness. So when a few of his friends came in and said they were going to kill me, I didn’t even look up. “Do it, then,” I said, keeping my head bowed, watching the blood run off the blades and down the drain. And then I heard the gunshot, and felt the bullet sting the top of my skull and punch through to my brain, and then I was falling backwards, into one of the stalls, and people were grabbing at my arms, trying to hold me up, and I felt the blood run down my forehead, splitting at the bridge of my nose to run down my face like twin trails of tears, and then everything started fading to black and then I realized that I was awake, lying in bed, staring at the dark. They say that dying in your dreams is a bad sign, but that was a few months ago and I’m still alive, so maybe I woke up before I was actually dead.

Have I ever mentioned that I’m going to take over for Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft someday? It’s the only reason my hair’s so long. (Well, that’s a lie. There are a couple of reasons. But that’s the main one.) I had this discussion once with someone who said, “You can’t do that.” I said, “Why not?” “Well,” they said, “the only reason I watch Tomb Raider is to stare at Angelina Jolie’s ass. If I stare at your ass, you’ll beat the shit out of me.” “That’s true,” was really all I had to say. “But,” I added, “if I’m in a movie, I’m pretty sure you’re allowed.” I don’t have a very nice ass, though. Oh well. It wouldn’t really matter, I think. (I also don’t have Angelina Jolie’s boobs. For which I am quite grateful.)

Jessica texted me to say she got Dane a graple. (Grapple? Grape-ple? Dane spells it grapple, Jessica graple, and me grape-ple. An apple soaked in grape juice until it tastes like a grape. Sounds gross to me, but whatever . . . ) Yay; Tarzan’s over. That was a terrible movie. Now what? Hmm . . . what else here haven’t I seen?

This is me in Dane's room in the middle of the ungodly hours of the morning. 

Randolph Itch 2 a.m. (That might be copyrighted . . . )

So . . . it's 0142, and I just remembered that I actually have to get up in the morning because I scheduled Sarah and I to get pedicured. In the morning. On a Saturday. I must be on crack. Dane's reading a Korean book; evidently Koreans' minds work differently (no shit) because he's having trouble figuring out what it means to "open your heart and breathe with Mother Nature." Sorry dude; can't help ya.

So today, Saturday, is Ann's birthday. There's a "surprise party" for her at 1300, organized by "Charlie" (Ann's roommate, Charissa), and I'm expected to go, but like I said, I'm scheduled to do stuff with Sarah tomorrow. Which probably means it'll go down like this: We go get pedicured until about noon, and then we go to Santa Lucia Cafe, because it's Sarah's favorite restaurant, and then at around 1300, I say, "Well, I should probably swing by that filthy punk's party," and Sarah says, "Ok; can you drop me off at Caleb's?" (She's there right now; spending the night, and I keep telling myself I'm going to make the unprecedented step of actually sleeping tonight, which I've never done while she's been at Caleb's overnight, but it's almost 0200 and I'm still up, so . . . )

Bleah. I took a long nap today. I went to sleep and I woke up about 20 minutes later thinking it was the next morning. I should've got up then, when I thought I was refreshed, but as soon as I realized that it was actually just evening, I went back to sleep and didn't wake up for a couple of hours. Which is too bad, because Angela called me at some point and I was so completely groggy I totally forgot about it until an hour ago. At which point I texted her, but I guess she's either sleeping or partying. :-P Also, Jessica called me while I was away from my phone and never told me why. It's strange that she'd call me and that's the only reason I wonder why. Hm.

Well. I have to get up for a pedicure. A pedicure? What the hell? Since when do I get pedicures? Aish . . . I need to go to sleep. Pretty much two hours ago. I never should've gotten up . . .

Hey . . . this is me. :-D 

More fun than a (insert word here but I guarantee mine's better)

Did you hear the one about the three holes in the ground? You didn't? Well, well, well . . . (hyuk)

Anyway. Yeah. So. Got in trouble twice today before first hour . . . that's cool . . . the assumption is that it would be for a) Not doing my homework or b) Being late or c) Something else mundane like that . . . unless you went to school with me before now, in which case you would not be at all surprised to hear that my troubles of today stem from insubordination/disrespect. Fortunately, I didn't get in big direct trouble, because big direct trouble for insubordination/disrespect would be . . . big . . . trouble. But ha! I've thwarted them again.

My "legal defiance" of the other day has been made ILlegal, which I like to think is because I did it, but that might be egotistical. I do find it slightly funny that the day after I started spending all hour standing up pacing, they made a new, specific rule about not leaving your chair at all during class time unless you're falling asleep or unless you get permission to go to the bathroom. (Since when do we need permission to piss? Since never, that's what! In fact, since Day One, we've been told to just go and not ask because asking is more disruptive to class. Hmm . . . ) And we've also been told to make sure that teachers stick to our set break schedule, because we're entitled to our breaks and teachers are not allowed to go over. We've been instructed to interrupt them, and if necessary just get up and leave. So today, the teaching-team-leader-that-I-hate spent 48 minutes on one article. (She spent the first 2 minutes on a different article.) Then, as the minute hand touches the 0845 mark, she goes to start the third and final one. (This conversation is auto-translated by me; it was conducted in Korean and maybe if I get bored I'll type it in Korean and see how Babelfish translates it, too.)

"Teach"er: Okay, everyone, look at the next article.
Me: Ma'am, we're out of time.
Her: No, we have one minute left.
Me (in my head): Oh FUCK no, we do NOT have one minute left. Look at the damn clock, bitch!
But I stayed sitting down, waited until the second hand was halfway around AGAIN, and then started to stand up. Because it was my BREAK TIME. And then the section leader yelled at me to sit down, which I didn't do (hence "insubordination"), and the team leader said "We still have thirty seconds," and everyone else in the class knew she was wrong, and I just stood behind my chair until two minutes of the break were gone. And then I walked out, and half the class joined me.

When we came back in to start the next hour, the section leader started by saying, "Hey, everyone; don't get up while a teacher is teaching. Period. I know there've been some troubles lately with . . . a certain teacher . . . but that's a big show of disrespect and it makes us look bad." Hey jackass. I don't have any respect for her---how can I respect someone who can't read a g'damn clock?---and I am perfectly willing to make myself "look bad." It's worth it to me. If I don't do this kind of shit, this place will drive me crazy. I have to maintain SOME control of my life, powerless as I am.

Ooh, here's the Babelfish version:

"Sleep, everybody, see next article."
"The teacher, there is not an hour."
"Was not, one minutes it remained."

Brilliant . . . Babelfish SUCKS. I love it.

A detachable WHAT?!?!?

So I went to Target yesterday . . . alone . . . and so I was just chillin', wanderin' around . . . and I sort of gravitate eventually towards sporting gear, always, because I miss my 전에 life, and I almost bought a street hockey stick and ball, just to play with (I have a football, a skateboard, a soccer ball, and a softball and glove, all "just to play with" and all gathering dust in my room), but I didn't, because . . . well, I probably will next time. But then I get into camping stuff, and I'm looking at all the little Swiss army knives, and reliving my memories of tiny pocket knives (back when $17.99 was a fortune and I lost my knife and my little brother felt so bad for me he spent his life savings of aforesaid fortune to buy me a new one), and I see one that---no kidding!---has a detachable 128MB USB jumpdrive. No freakin way. (Yes freakin way! You can go to Target.com and see a 64MB one, and it says "web only" but it's a filthy lie.) But there was no price listed at the store; not on the little hanger-stick where they were and not in their scan-the-barcode database, and I'm antisocial so I didn't feel like asking an employee so I still don't know how much they cost, but that's so crazy I think I'm going to have to get one anyway. (The website says $59.99, but that's a 64MB drive, so . . . anyway, I think it's probably about the equivalent of the 옛날 $17.99)

Well. Other than that I really don't have very much for ya . . . today's Sarah's 24th birthday . . . I think that makes her feel like her biological clock is ticking and she needs to hurry up and get married and have children. Also, she won't be eating with us today because Kelli, in her infinite consideration, has commandeered a pretty-sick-with-the-communal-cold, biologically-ticking, too-nice-for-her-own-good, Happy-Birthday Sarah to help her get her car fixed at lunch time. I forgot to tell Dane. I hope he's not upset that he's not hearing it directly from Sarah. I've been cutting back on my texting so much that I haven't been telling anyone anything. I haven't even texted Angela since she left, which I feel really really bad about because she texts me and she's used to getting prompt responses and I haven't been replying at all.

I hate how people can be reasonably intelligent, decent-seeming, polite, clean human beings and still be utterly unlikable. How does that work? Is it just inexplicable complications of diverse personality interactions? Some unalterable brainwiring that dictates that some people just will not get along, and others will not be able to help but be close? Strange . . . once, when I was a freshman, my friend Kim was depressed because "all the boys" liked Emily (my sister) and Meagan (a friend of hers). I was following her around to make sure she was okay, and we hit a point where we started asking "all the boys" what makes guys attracted to certain girls. Nobody knew. The best they could come up with was, "Because they're . . . nice . . . ?" They weren't, really, especially. So the most honest they could come up with was, "Nobody really knows. We just are." Sh-bam. That's all there is, then. "We just are."

7

I like that title; it was a mistake when I was typing something else and suddenly it popped back to this window cuz it finished loading, but in high school we always used to say that the answer was either 7 or C, and I've been thinking about high school a lot lately so I'm gonna leave it.

Why high school? No idea. Maybe because it's time for summer break and I don't get one. People keep telling me that they're back home, my ex-boyfriend just got married (that's the second one to do that . . . that only leaves me with one single ex-boyfriend, and he hardly counts because he's younger than I am anyway) . . . and I decided I'm out of shape and miss my high school days of being in very good shape . . . which reminds me, I'm actually sore from organized PC today, which is weird. Derek led it and he made us do "leg throws," which are one of my most hated exercises. Or they were until yesterday, anyway, when "oblique crunches" blew them out of the water. I don't dislike them because they're hard; leg throws are tough but not killer and oblique crunches I could get used to. It's the sheer lack of dignity involved in both of those exercises.

My partner for "leg throws" was Michaela . . . she's one of the most talked-about girls here, because she looks like a Barbie doll and is actually a nice person. (Not that most of the talkers really care if she's nice or not. Pigs.) So I actually DID the throws, which is weird because I'm a lazy bum, but she did them the whole time so I felt kind of obligated to. At the same time, I felt even dumber about them than ever because of her seemingly perfect poise all the time. People like that make me feel big and clumsy and plain, even though I'm not that big or really that clumsy. After leg throws, Derek announced "oblique crunches" as the next exercise, and then had to explain what that meant. Lie on your side on the ground and then . . . do sideways sit-ups? (I was watching him and he didn't do them very well either.) So we all lie down and start trying to do this exercise, and I just started laughing. "I don't think it's working," I said, because mostly I was just falling over. "I feel like a fish," said Michaela, because we were all just lying there flopping. It really didn't work very well. And then we had to roll over and do them on the other side, too, which worked even less.

But I actually did all the running at PC yesterday . . . and I'm supposed to work out with Sarah today, since we don't have PC . . . we'll see how much working out actually gets done, but at least there's a plan. I was supposed to work out with Tasia this morning at 0500, but I woke up at 0445 and thought about having to walk down to the car in the lower parking lot and drive it over and put on gym clothes and I just decided I really didn't feel like it. So I sent Tasia a text at about 0445.30 saying "I'm not going" and still don't know if she did or not.

Speaking of texts, I got a very long voicemail from my mother yesterday. (I think I probably won't make it a point to tell her that I didn't answer my phone because I was in a pub and couldn't hear it.) It said "blah blah . . . Coming back from Anchorage with Emily . . . going wedding dress shopping . . . blah blah . . . your last phone bill . . . $300 . . . Dad's pretty mad . . . I was freaked out . . . think I put it in the burn pile . . . not sure how to pay it now . . . my own problem . . . hope I figure it out in time . . . blah blah . . . " (Those aren't disrespectful, "this-is-garbage" kinds of blah blah's; they're "I don't really remember the chit-chatty parts but I saved it so I can listen again" blah blah's.)

I could've sworn I told her awhile ago to have my phone bills sent here . . . maybe she just likes to keep track of who I'm talking to. (Eee . . . ) I need a new phone. I'm intending to get one this weekend, but . . . we'll see. I'm also intending to go get pedicured with Sarah this weekend, but we'll see on that, too. I mean, it's The Plan, but plans with me and Sarah are slightly softer than stone these days. And by that I mean that I can't necessarily count on them until they're already over. Which is a bummer, because it means that anticipation is necessarily 없이. That sorta sucks. I can't get all excited looking forward to getting my nails done (not that I really would . . . but it's the principle . . . ) because if I do, and then it doesn't happen, I'll be ludicrously pissed off and hurt. (Yes . . . ludicrously . . . "Sir, they've gone plaid!" As have I . . . )

"I woke up with a hellacious sunburn and the ability to smell colors."

I don't really have anything to say. At all. How strange. And yet, I feel obligated to say something entertaining.

I almost killed a teacher today . . . this is one case where I will not use a real name, because I am going to be extraordinarily hateful. This woman . . . I swear . . . She was wearing a really really hideous scarf today and it kept making me think about strangulatory homicide. (I'm pretty sure "strangulatory" is not a word. Someone's gonna have to dictionarize my blog sometime. "Dictionarize," too.) This woman would be the best torturer/interrogator ever, because it makes no difference at all whether anyone actually answers any questions she asks. She wants a translation of a phrase. I say, "The American students who are falling behind in basic science knowledge." She takes ten minutes to go over every gordamn word and comes up, in the end, with the exact same phrase. Word-for-word. I hate her so much. She does this for everything; every word, every phrase, every sentence, every clause, every passage . . . And she's a big fan of the 다 같이, which means "All together," and no one does it anymore because it's so fuckin stupid. She says that same phrase after every fuckin word she says, and I want to kill her. And today she found a counseling statement I need to sign, and it was my lunchtime, and she said I needed to sign it. I said, "Well, this is my lunchtime . . . " and started to walk away, and she told me to come back a little early, and I said that that'll STILL be my lunchtime, but if she wants to catch me during class time, I'd be happy to do it. And THEN I walked away. And chuckled to myself all the way to the library, here. So pleased with legal defiance . . .

One more year . . . is that too much to ask? (Yes.)

If I were one year older, I would be turning 21 next month. I would really really appreciate turning 21 while I'm here, where drinking is such an important part of life. On the other hand, though, if I were to begin drinking here, I would be an alcoholic by the time I turned 22. As it is, I don't teetotal because I'm underage, necessarily; the illegality of it hardly enters the picture. It just makes a convenient excuse to not do it. The truth is that I don't really want to drink, except on rare occasions when I want to do something really stupid and would like the excuse of being tipsy/drunk. Which, by the way, is a terrible excuse.

I went out with Angela last night. We went a Japanese restaurant and sat at the sushi bar and she picked all the sushi because I don't know anything about it. And it was really really good, but I can't figure out how sushi manages to be so filling. And then we went to the British pub directly below the Japanese restaurant, and Angela drank wine all night and I drank coffee, and the funny thing was the end effect was virtually the same. (Loss of self-restraint, continual trips to the restroom, dehydration . . . ) Jessica kept saying the other night that when you get drunk, you need to put your phone away. Jessica was right, but we didn't do it, and we probably both raised our phone bills by about $50 in text messages. Whoops. I need to cut down the texting anyway.

Went running with Dane yesterday morning . . . It was Language Day, so there was no school, so we skipped out early and went running. I don't know what possessed me to go running voluntarily, except that it was a nice day and I'm feeling sort of out of shape these days. Now my back is sore because after running, I did a couple chin-ups. A couple chin-ups got no right to make me hurt like that. I don't think the sunburn helps; after running we went to the beach with Jamie and Dane flew his kite. Jamie tried to stay on rocks the whole time; evidently she doesn't like sand. We stopped at Wendy's before going and had a Wendy's picnic on the rocks on the beach. Good times . . . and sunburn . . . yes . . . sunburn . . . cleanse me of my neon-whiteness . . .

All's fair in love and Travelocity.

Okay. First off, to clear Sarah's name after that last post. She was late, I had to drive Kelli's car, but we did spend a good chunk of time together, and the only involvement of Caleb was that we had to drop Sarah's car off at his place and then he called her later and she talked to him for ten or fifteen minutes. So . . . she passes. We did sit in the Target parking lot for about three hours talking (yes, Tasia, we could've found somewhere else to talk . . . but why bother?), and we did not finish The Power of One, but that's okay. Some other time . . . (yeah . . . sure . . . )

Second off (Why does no one say that? "First off," yes, but "Second off," never.), Angela found out today that she'll have to leave by May 24th. That's a bitch. But . . . she'll be okay. And so will everyone else. That kind of thing's just normal around here. Sonya had to leave a little while ago, and there were multiple going-away parties, but Angela's not a big fan of group outings, so I don't know if we're going to do anything. A whole lot of people turned out for Sonya . . .

I really don't have anything else to say today. No recurring or original thoughts . . . I filed my nails this morning out of boredom . . . that's interesting . . . but only to me . . . I have a piece of paper from my last class hour before lunch that starts at 25 and goes all the way to 2 minutes left of class . . . illustrated numbering of the minutes . . . that's boredom . . . why does my blog always come back to a dissertation on boredom? Perhaps because my career choice was based on boredom, my decision to start a blog was based on boredom, and I'm still bored. What does it mean to be bored, anyway? I'm gonna have to research that . . . Researching boredom. Wow.

I don't have multiple personalities. Yes, I do! No, I don't . . .

Well. This morning I turned on some Coldplay to listen to while I was waking up; I went to sleep to Peter, Paul and Mary. Then I put in a Simon and Garfunkel CD to copy to my computer and switched the listening part to Eminem. Is there anything eclectic and weird about that? Also, yesterday, Tasia and Dane and everyone decided, sort of spontaneously, to all go out to dinner. And while I was getting ready for dinner, all alone in my room, I decided to wear a skirt (! that's weird !) and then I turned up Billy Joel really loud and danced like a crazyfool while brushing my hair. I am in such a freakin good mood lately. (Adam's theory is that I have a crush on someone. Adam's theory is bullshit.)

So the dinner party was thus, in alphabetical order. (Or rough alphabetical order, because I actually suck at alphabetical order.) Adam, Billy, Dane, Doug, Jessica, John, Kelli, Lina, Sarah, Tasia. And me. (Alphabetically, that'd either put me at the beginning, for "Abby," between Lina and Sarah, for "Me," or between Doug and Jessica, for "I," but I actually sat between Jessica and Wall.) Angela was supposed to come, but she cancelled at the very last second and spent the entire time (pretty long) sitting in my room playing my computer. That's cool.

Tasia had three beers, so I drove her and Jessica back to the dorms . . . but in Tasia's car, which is wholly unlike the last five cars I've driven. (Mine, Sarah's, Dane's, Elizabeth's, Melissa's. '78 Beetle, '99 Saturn, '77[?] Volvo, some-smallish-red-car, '99 Saturn.) Tasia's is a 2004 Hyundai Elantra, I believe, and a manual, and of those five cars, only mine is a manual. And it's entirely different from Tasia's, for a wide variety of reasons. So I looked and felt like an idiot, and I really wished that I was driving it alone because it would've been a lot of fun. But I didn't want to play with it too much with her in the car, and so I overcompensated and didn't do very well and even stalled right outside the gate. Wow. Talk about feeling dumb. Oh well; she was laced with alcohol and Jessica can't drive a stick at all, so the only one who made fun of me was the gate guard. (This is surprising; I would've expected a lot more crap from Jessica about it, but she was on the phone and probably didn't even notice.)

I've been thinking about going to soccer tryouts tomorrow, but I don't have cleats or a full-sized ball and haven't played soccer for two years. And haven't played league soccer for 15 years. So . . . I'm afraid of making a fool of myself, just like stalling the car. Something I know I can do so much better, but I'm out of practice. And I don't even remember the last time I wore cleats to play soccer anyway; I'm used to playing indoor. Or pick-up in an outdoor hockey rink. On a real field? With a real ball? With actual soccer players? In cleats? I don't think I could do it. At least, I couldn't do it well. Or at least, I couldn't do it well at first, and if I can't walk onto the field and look good instantly, I don't know if my ego could handle it. :-P Neh. Whatever. Mebbe I will; probably I won't.

Sarah, as I'm sure I've mentioned, pencilled me in to spend time with her this afternoon. She made this promise Sunday night. Yesterday morning, Monday, she told Caleb he could borrow her car for the day, because his sleazy roommate needs to go somewhere. So. She expects us, during our set-aside hanging-out time, to be at the mercy of Caleb. To be picked up and dropped off by Caleb. Oh. Hell. No. She doesn't understand why I was less-than-giddy about that. Actually, I would've been pissed off, but it's about what I've come to expect. So I was more just disgusted and not surprised. I actually felt mildly vindicated; she was getting very upset with me on Sunday because I was skeptical about her ability to follow through on her commitment to set time aside for me. Well. The time's still sort of set aside . . . but Caleb's totally in the picture, too, so . . . Nice try, Sarah. It was a good thought. I'll give you credit for that, at least.

Kelli volunteered the use of her car, but Sarah doesn't like driving Kelli's car. Hello! I'll drive . . . I like driving . . . I like driving any car, as long as the owner's not there when I'm doing it. (Like babysitting. I will take care of the worst kid ever, as long as their parents are not around to see me do it. I will walk the wildest dogs, mow the gnarliest lawns . . . I just don't like people watching me work.)

So anyway . . . I watched Jessica do a card trick on Angela last night . . . and Angela completely didn't get it . . . It was pretty entertaining to me, actually. I understood it because when I was in fourth grade, I read a whole book of magic tricks. I can't do any of them because I never practiced them, but it was very usefully educational. I would like to say I would've figured it out regardless, but I can't make that guarantee. A large part of being smart is being well-educated. I like that thought; I'm going to leave it there and go bother some people. :-D

I have to pee. (TMI . . . 다시 . . . )

Well . . . took a reading test today . . . and by that I mean, slept through a reading test today. Haven't really done that for awhile, but I had such a busy weekend. And then I took a listening test, and I'm very bad at listening, but I had a lot of coffee, so now I feel like I'm going to burst but I'm wide afreakingwake.

Sarah called me very late last night, right as I was about to go to bed. I would've been in bed already, but I watched TV with Angela and Jessica, and then walked out, and then got a feeling that they were talking about me, so I snuck back in, and they were indeed, and so then I didn't leave again until after Jessica did. And that was late. (When I say "snuck back in," I mean I came in a closer door, so I was in earshot before they could come up with a plausible cover conversation. Not that I low-crawled down the hall and hid in a corner eavesdropping. Just walked in and said, "Talking about me, eh?")

So Sarah called in response to a text message I sent her about 75 minutes earlier, which is much too delayed a response, but she was with Caleb. Which means her phone was on silent and she wasn't paying any attention. Good thing it wasn't as urgent as she thought it was . . . And then she asked if she could come over, and I said "Ok," but sort of grudgingly because I didn't feel like she really deserved to come visit, but she did. And it was fine. And very emotional for Sarah, although I personally have reverted back to 별로 emotionless about life. (I like it like that. So much . . . freer . . . )

Ok, so something must be wrong. I've started inserting Korean into my blog. (That's no misprint. That's Korean. Yeah . . . ) And anyway, like I've said, I drank a lot of coffee. Over and out.

My mommy said not to put beans in my ears . . . but what about sand?

You know it's been a long day when I write more than one post. Where'd I leave off last time? Going to Angela's to get her out of bed, despite her paralyzing hangover. No, she got up voluntarily. But we didn't go to chow; we ordered Chinese and watched "Pulp Fiction" in the dayroom, using her Playstation because the DVD player is stuck in Progressive Scan Mode and we don't know what that means. Then I went by Jessica's to get some polish remover, and then I abused Dane's room horribly by using it to remove toenail polish. (Tsk . . . to do this in a boy's room has got to be a terrible sin. I ordinarily wouldn't even want it done in MY room. Sorry, Dane . . . I hope the smell's gone . . . ) Then, out of boredom, I went back downstairs and exchanged the polish remover for some polish. So now I have sparkly red toenails instead of smoky blue-gray. They match my pants. Except for the sparkle. My pants don't sparkle.

Ooh, but my pants did break this morning. The button came off the inside closure part. I didn't put it back on yet because it's not really a crucial part of the whole holding-the-pants-on arrangement. Also because it came off while I was going to Angela's and it just wasn't important enough to delay Angela's company by that much. What with Sarah's abandonment and Dane's absence, Angela's really the only friend I have left on a consistent basis. And hanging out with Angela and Jessica this weekend was more fun than Sarah's been for quite awhile now. And a different kind of fun than hanging out with Dane, because Dane's a guy. I don't want to centralize too much now, though; I made that mistake when I first got here. I'm just not really outgoing enough to make a whole bunch of new friends, though. I stick with the people that I already know. Generally. And I like a lot of people in this building, but they don't really know me well enough to invite me to hang out with them all the time, and I'm not generally an insert-myself-in kind of person. I feel like I'm interrupting every time I go to see Angela and Jessica's already there. Like they got together and had a reason for not inviting me. Oh well, though; I figure if they really want me to leave, they can tell me to. I don't mind telling people to leave if I don't want them around . . . depending on the person, sometimes, but usually I'm fairly indiscriminate.

This one time, Tiffany came into my old room to talk to my then-roommate, because she's sort of training my old roommate to take over her job for her. And she's talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and talking and mostly just saying the same three or four things over and over and over again. And it was starting to get late, and I had homework to do, and Sarah was over in my half of the room trying to do her homework, and my roommate had been trying to do her homework . . . and I was on the verge of saying, "For the love of God, Tiffany---SHUT UP!" But right as I was about to, she said, for maybe the eighth time, "Well, I think that's about it . . . " and I switched to, "Yes! Please! Let that be it. Get out of my room. Just go." She looked shocked and offended and started to say something else, and I said, "Come on. It's late. I have homework. You keep saying the same things. Good night . . . " and pushed her out the door. She threatened to go kill herself, to which I responded with something like, "Awww," and then she left, I shut the door, and my roommate said, "Thank you so much! Oh my God. Thank you thank you thank you." You're welcome; happy to do it. Don't like Tiffany very much and do like kicking people out of my room.

I used to have to kick Ann out of my room all the time. She had an inaccurate idea of how much time I wanted to spend with her, and she'd come in all the time from smoking herself silly and flop on my bed. I don't like my bed to smell like cigarette smoke. If I did, I'd smoke. In bed. So one time, I excused myself, sauntered down the hall to Sarah's room, borrowed her Febreze, came back, and Febreze'd my bed. And since Ann was still on it, I Febreze'd her smelly ass, too. (And the rest of her. Mostly the rest of her.) And she got pissed off (it was like squirting a cat with a water gun---so very funny!) and leapt off hissing and clawing and yelping, and she's very small. So I basically just swatted her down to the floor, which is what I usually do when Ann attacks me (it's less frequent now, but still happens), and then kept the Febreze around for awhile so I could spritz the whole room after she left. Which she did very late.

I don't remember for sure if she left very late that particular night, actually, in reality, but I figure it's probably a good guess. It was her wont to stay until like midnight every night. My roommate, Ashley, the best one I've ever had, used to complain about Ann's too-long, too-loud visits, and I would point out that I for sure never encouraged them and was, in fact, more opposed to them than Ashley was, but there was nothing I could do about it because Ann doesn't listen and I would've had to physically pick her up and set her outside the door and close it, and it would've played right into her hands to do so. Instead, Ashley just started inviting people over who are louder and more assertive than we are, and who had past conflicts with Ann, and they would make her leave. (Sort of the "Let's get bigger bugs!" concept . . . and then you have the bigger bugs to deal with . . . and they snore . . . really loudly . . . )

Well, I have a test tomorrow. So I should be studying, but I don't really know how. I already had a debate with Jessica today about the virtues of studying . . . I don't even know how one goes about it, and we have the same test this week. So I'm not going to study, and take my test tomorrow, and she's theoretically studying right now, and taking the test Wednesday, and we'll see who does better on it. I'm going to guess me, since she already got rolled back once, but . . . you never know.

And for all Sarah has said that she wants to spend time with me and I'm more important to her than Caleb, I haven't seen her since . . . Friday at lunch, I think. And I called her earlier today to ask if we were going to finish the movie we started last week, and she said, "No. No, we're not," and sounded angry. Hey, be-atch. It was your idea to watch the movie, and we didn't finish it because you had to go, and the plan was to finish it today. Don't you dare get angry with me for calling to ask you that, whether you're with Caleb today or not. Actually, my guess is that the anger has more to do with me texting her at bad hours last night . . . Hey, I was up . . . I asked if she was coming back to her room tonight . . . no answer . . . said That's evidently a no . . . no answer . . . said I don't know why I ever believed anything you ever said . . . and I'm guessing that's the one that did it, especially since it was at like 0430, although I can't imagine it woke her up. And she doesn't really have a right to be angry about it, because she really has broken every promise she ever made and disproved every statement she ever . . . stated. Whatever. She was the closest friend I'd ever had . . . I trusted her more than I've ever trusted any person. And now, I think, more than I ever will.

I've never really been one to have super-close friends . . . Sarah was sort of a fluke that way . . . and it didn't work out so well, so . . . forget about ever doing that again, I think. I like chillin with Angela and Jessica, but . . . I also like chillin with Ruth, and Jamie, and Tasia, and Dane, and Mary, and Vicki, and John, and Doug, and Kelli, and Lina, and everyone else. And if I had all of their phone numbers, my phone bills would be crazy higher, because I think that text messages are the most perfect form of communication ever invented. And I will constantly text people that I don't even want to talk to. For some reason, thought, other people don't see it that way. Jessica does not respond to my text messages (although she does to Angela's). Angela does, every time, and Dane does. Sarah does not. Tasia usually does. Isaac used to . . . but I don't really text him very much anymore.

And Jessica, if you ever get around to reading this, this is a blog. It's a pretty damn'd random assortment of whatever thoughts get vomited out of my brain while I'm typing. Other people's may have themes or whatever, most personal ones are just rants against humanity . . . this is mine.

Is it weird to say I miss having access to a plumbing snake?

So . . . last night . . . went to Angela's, where Angela and Jessica were playing Nintendo again, and Angela had been sitting in her room all day, so as soon as I said I was hungry, we went downtown. (I was gonna just order pizza, but Angela wanted out.) We walked around downtown for awhile, trying to decide what to eat. Angela just wanted some wine, Jessica tries to immerse herself in the Korean experience, and I didn't really care; I was just really hungry. Eventually, we decided to go to NaRa, the Korean restaurant (I hate spelling it in English, but I don't know if my post publishes Korean. Let's see: 나라 식당), where I ate way more than I should have and learned that Jessica doesn't like beef. Just fish and chicken. (Fish isn't meat, J; it's not even worth mentioning. That's why they eat it for Lent.)

After that, we went to Safeway, where Jessica and Angela bought some rum and pineapple juice. In quantity. (I'll try to get them to take it out of your car before you get back, Dane . . . ) I bought some water. Then we went to a liquor store, where they bought two sketchy-looking paper bags of liquor, and then we went to the beach. We weren't really prepared for the beach, except for having large quantities of liquor, but we went anyway. Jessica didn't want to sit in the sand at first, because she didn't want to get all sandy, but then the fights started and everyone got covered in sand and Jessica was the first one to be stretched out lounging in it. I have never been so sandy in my life. (And I definitely won the fights, Jessica. You so lose.)

They consumed alcohol in various forms of mixers, and I drank water and tried to brush sand off of myself. Actually, the race came first, and then the fights, and the race started with Angela saying, "Hey! Let's run to the water and back!" and Jessica and I starting to roll up our pant legs. And then Angela said, "Everyone has to take off their top layer!" and I only had one shirt on. So I got pretty damn sandy, because I fought in a sports bra. (It was dark at the beach, and cold.)

Eventually the people with the fire, a little further down, looked like they were getting up to leave. So Angela went over and asked if we could have their fire. And then we took it. Angela's still been smoking; she keeps saying this is the week she's quitting, and then she smokes the next week, too. Jessica and I seemed to take turns caring about whether or not she quits. Being sober with two people as drunk as they were can be very interesting, and I've always said I wouldn't drink if I could, but if I hadn't been driving last night, I probably would've been as tight as they were.

Then some friends of Jessica's showed up at their own fire further down the beach, and she ran off to visit them. They "beat the shit out of her," which consisted of picking her up and trying to throw her in the ocean, and if Angela and I had realized she was yelling for her friends to come help, I would've come (Angela couldn't stand up; she was wasted), but I didn't realize so I didn't move. Our fire started to burn down, and then Jessica came back, and yelled at us for not helping her. Whoops.

I learned last night that both of them had really shitty home lives, whether they even know it or not. (Jessica knows it. I think. Angela I'm not sure about.) I actually learned a lot of things last night, sitting across a fire from the two of them. Jessica's about 3 years older than me, and Angela's about 4, and I don't think I'll ever have very much in common with them, but this has been an extraordinarily fun weekend regardless. And very enlightening.

We finally came back to the dorms around 0245, and Angela didn't want to go to bed so we went to the dayroom and watched TV, and I don't know if anyone else fell asleep but I sure did. Jessica woke me up to go back over to our building around 0400. I know I was awake for Dexter's Laboratory, and something else before it, I think, but I definitely fell asleep during Tiny Toons. I have sort of drugged-like memories of it. Kind of scary.

I went back to my room to take a shower, and was surprised to find the lights on. My roommate actually got up and started wandering around when I came in, but by the time I got done with my shower, she was sleeping again. Good---I like my roommate fine, but I don't like talking to roommates. (Except Ashley, who was the greatest roommate I could've ever had, short of rooming with Tasia or Jessica, which would make my life so much more entertaining. My current roommate's name is Ashlee, I just remembered, but I'm talking about my third roommate here, and this is my . . . sixth?) Our shower drains very very slowly, to the point where it's always kind of nasty. Like slimy, non-draining nasty. And I was covered in sand. And now my shower is covered in sand. A whole beach washed out of my hair, and there's still another one in my buttcrack (TMI; please 'scuse), and I haven't been that sandy since . . . ever. I'd never had anyone rub handfuls of sand into my hair before (Thanks, Jessica, for that new experience . . . ), and since I'd been wrestling around in loose-ish jeans and a sports bra, I had a lot of sand pretty much everywhere. (I just received a text from Angela: "I have sand in every crack and orifice I possess." I guess she didn't shower last night.) I'm still not looking forward to tipping my jeans upside down and having two beaches spill out of the back pockets; I guess I should do laundry today, but I have a test tomorrow.

Also, I was supposed to finish a movie with Sarah today, but Sarah has lately cancelled or ignored every commitment she's made to everyone except Caleb, so I might as well give the DVD back to Isaac and take her number off of my phone. (Sigh. So much for best friends.) Anyhoooo. I'm hungry. Goin for food now . . . not counting on my hungover buddies to come with me. Angela said she wants to come but can't move. Great . . . to the rescue!

Of course we copy! 24 hours a day! In color!

I've made Dane's room my Base of Operations for the day. After getting up about 30 minutes after Tasia and company left for the zoo, and also left a nasty note on my door saying it's my own damn fault I didn't go to bed and I have to buy Tasia a very nice present to make up for it because she's angry with me, I came up here to Dane's room, wearing what I wore to bed this morning, which is what I wore after coming back from shopping with Tasia yesterday, and started looking at old NES games and systems on eBay. After awhile, Jessica came up, and we both sat in here looking at NES games and systems on eBay, and then we took Dane's car to Target, so Jessica could agonize over which 2-in-1 to buy; a curler/straightener or dryer/straightener. She went with the curler, but she said her hair doesn't hold a curl so she doesn't know why she did it.

Then we went to Ross, where checking out took FOREVER, and then we went to Burger King to get some food for Angela, who is a little incapacitated today. And now I'm back here. Jessica was talking about repainting her toenails, which is something I need to do (badly!) but I don't have any a) polish remover to get rid of the "Smoke" blue-silver that they are now or b) other polish to put on. So theoretically, I should be down in Jessica's room doing that, but . . . I'd sort of rather not. Her nails make mine feel inadequate. (Most people's do, with the exceptions of Mexicans men who've been manual laborers all their lives and Dale Judge, who was my fourth grade teacher and whose fingernails were so bad that the memory of them makes me shudder.) So I'm sittin in Dane's room, using Doug's internet. Doug, should you ever read this, I think you should know a few things:
First, that you seem to be one of the best roommates ever, and certainly one of the best that Dane's had here.
Second, that your girlfriend was a good roommate, too, for the brief time I was rooming with her.
Third, that I hope you don't mind me calling you "Doug" on here; I just prefer to stick with first names only.
Fourth, that your food looks good.
Fifth, that you're a very funny man.
And sixth . . . actually, I think that's about it. If I come up with anything else, I'll let you know. Thanks for the internet usage.

Anyway, Jessica said she might come back up here later, and in the meantime, I have some other things I want to do on this computer, so . . . blog out.

I have nothing to say.

It's 0212. I just finished sitting in the dayroom, watching "Saw" with Megan, Angela, Jessica, and . . . oh crap. I don't know his first name. Barton. Whatever. He hardly counts; he came in halfway through. It wasn't a very impressive movie; I don't recommend it. I really don't have anything bloggable to say . . . I'm supposed to be getting up in less than eight hours to go the zoo with Tasia, Jamie, Ben, and what's-his-name (different what's-his-name), and I only actually know Tasia and Jamie, and I'm not going to like the zoo, and I'm so incredibly sleep-deprived . . . I literally almost passed out earlier, just standing in my room. I got hit by a sudden wave of fatigue and dizziness and had to sit down. And then I stood up, grabbed my skateboard, and walked out. I had a purpose, even though something was telling me that dizzy fits and skateboards shouldn't really go together. But oh well. Nothing happened. I didn't fall or even really go skateboarding; just pushed Jessica around the hall on it for a little while until Tasia left and Megan restarted the movie.

Dane left me his keys for the weekend; he went to visit Doug. And when I say keys, I mean car and room. I'm in his room now; maybe I'll blog from his car later. Especially if I decide not to go to the zoo, which sounds like a good idea. Not going. For one thing, Tasia's car will be mightily uncomfortable with five people in it. For another, I'm not going to like it. And for a third . . . I'm freakin tired like no one should ever be tired. Actually, I should get out of Dane's abandoned room before I fall asleep right here. Hmm. Hey, I just noticed that Dane has black sheets on his bed. So do I. Black sheets . . .

Rygar and Battletoads

I went out with Angela last night. She's lonely; failed her final and is stuck here until someone decides what to do with her, and I'm too young to drink but I'm old enough to watch people get drunk and make sure they don't do anything too stupid. She bought a bottle of wine, and we sat outside the store for her to drink it while they closed. That's the closest place where alcohol is allowed, so there were a lot of people there, with a lot of beer, and a lot of cigarettes. Angela and I were more mellow than the majority of them. One guy, a known drug dealer, bit the top off of a beer bottle and then spat a lot of blood onto the concrete for a long time. It wasn't really the kind of scene we were looking for, but we had our own conversation going and I don't think Angela, in her wined-up state, really noticed anything else. She's been trying to quit smoking, but most of her friends graduated and left, and she's still stuck here, and . . . she finally caved and bought a pack of cigarettes. (She did it at lunch, when I wasn't there. But I let her smoke them. I don't really think that it's detrimental enough to her physical health to warrant disallowing the good it does to her mental health.)

So she drank herself happy, while I was happy-hyper already. When she'd finished about half the bottle, she went inside and bought a bottle of grape juice. Then she poured it out and filled the juice bottle with wine. "Technically," she said, "it really is grape juice." I agreed. We went back to the dorms, because I wanted to try feeding off of a 3rd-floor wireless network from the 2nd floor. Something went all funky with the IP addresses (I don't really understand any of what I'm saying) and so I couldn't establish a working connection, but we watched TV in the dayroom for awhile anyway. And then Angie went and got her NES (that stands for Old School Nintendo, in case you didn't know---and yes, the letters DO match up) from her room, and I watched her blow in the cartridges and had flashbacks.

We played Mario Bros, we played Paperboy . . . Dane came down with his computer and watched, but his computer DID establish a usable connection, so he didn't play at all. And then Jessica came, around 2215, maybe, and she played, too. Evidently she's the world's greatest expert on Mario Bros. (Sure, whatever . . . so critical of everyone else . . . ) Actually, she did know some pretty obscure stuff about that game. I don't understand how people come into this knowledge. But I had a pretty non-electronic childhood, so . . . I guess I could tell you some pretty obscure things about trees, really big mushrooms, rocks, and squirrels. In case you're interested. And we all talked a lot about old games, too. I mentioned Rygar, not really expecting anyone else to have heard of it (we had a big box full of Nintendo games, most of which were pretty obscure/bizarre/not working), and Jessica (I don't think she really likes to be called that, but it's her name and I don't really know her well enough to assign nicknames) said, "Oh yeah, I played that." I complained that I'd never made it past like the second level because it was impossible to figure out, and she said, "Yeah, with that one like wall thing and you're like what the hell am I supposed to do now?" I was strangely pleased that I wasn't the only one to have had this problem, and especially that someone as well-versed as Jessica is at Mario Bros (the epitome of Old Nintendo) had been exactly as good at Rygar as I was, once upon a time. (I know Battletoads is in the title, but I don't think we talked about it ever. I may have mentioned it once last night, but that's all. It's just the other game I'm always surprised people have heard of, even though it seems like everyone's played it. So weird . . . ) But MegaMan 6 is the game I keep wanting to play. I'm sure I suck at that one, now, too, because it's been so damn long, but geez. I used to kick ass. (Yeah, yeah. Say whatever you want, right, cuz you can't prove it anyway? It's truth.)

Tonight I'm supposed to go shopping with Tasia, which scares me a little because I'm not much of a shopper, and Tasia really really is, and we're only supposed to get gold shoes for me so I can wear this one formal dress I have to a dinner/dance I'm going to, but I'm afraid she'll also try (and possibly succeed) talking me into buying something crazy, and Tasia-like, such as a miniskirt or really low-cut shirt or something that I will never wear. She gave me a skirt and shirt for my birthday last year, and the skirt is nice (long denim), but the shirt is more revealing/provocative than wearing no shirt at all. By a long shot. I've only ever worn it under other shirts, and only twice, and that was 11 months ago. Whoo! It's almost my birthday.

What a terrible coincidence; what a terrible song.

Okay, I have had Joshua Kadison's "Jessie" stuck in my head for goin' on three days now. It's actually a really sweet little song . . . But I don't want to sing it anymore!!! "Jessie, paint your pictures about how it's gonna be. By now I should know better; your dreams are never free. Tell me all about our little trailer by the sea. Oh Jessie, you could always sell any dream to me . . . " Look up the lyrics sometime . . . it's sad and sweet and kind of hopeless, but what really makes that song is the tune, which you can't get from looking up the lyrics. And Joshua Kadison has a very nice, sad, sweet, hopeless-but-content kind of voice. Anyway, I like it. And I bet it's a song Dane doesn't have, which is rare and somehow makes it even more desirable. I'll be downloading it as soon as I get internet. For unbloggable reasons, I have to remind myself to download this song by writing it on my hand. In code. Yesterday my hand just had Sharpie marks that said, somewhat illegibly, "U THE CAT ME" from a part in the song that says, "We'll go down to Mexico; you, the cat and me." Today it says "Jessie", but it says it in my own slightly decayed version of Germanic runes.

I got up this morning just before 0500, to go work out with Tasia. But while I was sitting in the dayroom, wondering if Tasia was going to be a no-show, I saw a whole vanload of people, including one of advanced years and authority, pull up outside. This is odd for 0500, so I wondered what was up. My first thought was that they were here to get someone for a random urinalysis drug test, but they usually like to do that closer to 0430, and it wouldn't take a whole vanload. So I figgered I'd figgered wrong. Then I went and stood in my room, by the door, which is deadbolted open because it's broken. (Good for lockouts, bad for privacy.) And I heard the small redhaired girl start yelling "Exercise, exercise, exercise!" (What? Everyone's going to the gym now?) "Fire, fire, fire!" Oh, shit. Fire drill? Where do we even evacuate to? (Sorry, grammarians---To where do we evacuate?) No one else knew, either. So as she banged on every single door (and got more than one scream of, "We heard you already!") girls stumbled out into the hallway in various degrees of undress, stood for a moment deciding which door to head for, and then staggered out. I opened my door right before she got to it and said, "We're up," so she didn't holler in my face. Then I walked (not staggered, because I was up and dressed and ready to go) outside, following a bunch of confused chicas to the astroturf field across the street. Which turned out to be the wrong place to go, resulting in an overall fire drill time of fifteen minutes. Gee. We're all dead. So we're getting another one sometime in the next few weeks. I think I'll get up to work out with Tasia more often.

We did go work out, then, sort of. I mean, she worked out. I just sort of wandered around looking at machines. I'm kind of dumb. I did some leg work, and some pseudo-chin-ups. It's funny that I don't do anything and Tasia does . . . but I guess she feels like she has to and I really don't. She asked me why I'm so damn skinny (I'm not) and I said it must be because I've been in sports since 3rd grade. She hasn't. But she goes running almost every night, does yoga twice a week, works out most mornings, and has physical therapy. So why am I, the laziest person alive, the one with the almost-flat stomach? No clue. Nada. None. Zip. Good genes? I don't really know what I look like, bodywise . . . people tell me "Good," but I personally am not really attracted to myself, so . . . whatever. Subject change.

Actually, no, scratch that. No subject change. This is my blog, dammit, and if I want to talk about myself, I damn well can. Dane's the only one who reads this these days (may or may not change . . . clearly if you're reading this and you're not Dane, that changed), and if he hasn't already decided I'm Narcissistic, he won't now. (I don't think . . . ) He does think I have low self-esteem, though, or low self-image, or low self-respect, or low self-something, which I disagree with. I have extraordinarily high all of those things. I just don't expect other people to see me the way I do. Also, I fully realize that my personality has a tendency to sort of negate anything positive with which my person may be endowed. (Not that my "endowments" are really anything to speak of, per se.) I remember the first time in my adult life that I looked in a mirror and thought, "Oh wow. That person looks exactly like who I always wanted to be." Okay, so "adult life" is sort of pushing it; I was 17 and a half, sitting on a small bed on a big cruise ship somewhere near Panama, wearing a huge white terrycloth bathrobe, my still-growing hair wet and wavy from a shower and the humidity, writing a letter, and I was just barely starting to tan. Since then, it's happened more frequently. Last night, for example, I got back from PC and took my Tshirt off to change clothes, and I walked past the mirror in my sports bra and thought, "Damn. I look . . . fit. Or at least, way fitter than I have for awhile. What happened?" This is probably because I still had my shorts on; my "fitness" doesn't seem to reach anything between my knees and my waist, but I guess most women hate their thighs.

Personally, I'm going to say I hate my mother's thighs. Because those are the ones I've been blessed with. (That "blessed" was sarcastic. Unless I get stranded in the wilderness with no food for a very long time, in which case my body will feed off of those damn thighs and keep me alive until help arrives.) I have an upper body from my dad's side of the family---square shoulders, flat-ish stomach, long arms . . . and everything from the waist down (which includes my hands) is all Mom. Except hips. I don't really have any, and my mom has six children and therefore childbearing hips. I have the face of my father (well, a young, female version of my father) to a point of ridiculous resemblance, and the hands of my mother. Not younger. My hands look just like my mom's. The only difference is the nails. I have a tendency to keep mine very short and rather rough, and my mom's nails tend more towards long. (She says they're short, but I disagree.)

I gotta wonder how long it's going to be until people assume Dane and I are a couple. Someone asked once already, but it was a someone who doesn't know me very well, so it didn't really matter. But yesterday, I opened my door to let Dane in and was still wearing just my shorts and sports bra (on the occasions when I feel good about myself, I have every intention of showing it . . . thank you, Tasia, for your confidence-boosting urging to wear more revealing clothing), and Mary, the girl across the hall, raised her eyebrows at me. (Or maybe just one eyebrow; I don't remember.) I stuck my tongue out and shut the door. At any rate, even if there were interest (which there isn't), I'm way too young for Dane. Shit, I'm too young for myself right now. (So don't go getting any ideas, Dane. And I apologize if the no-shirt was a tease; that's why I asked your permission first. :-D )

Anyway. It's go time. Going . . . going . . . gone.

The train just left the station, and I totally missed it.

Ok. Well. I was all set to write stuff in here . . . stuff about lunches and boredom and . . . stuff. But then I remembered that Dane said to read his comment on my last blog, and I did, and it was . . . more touching than I care to admit, because I don't get "touched," but yeah. Anyway. So now I'm having a lot of trouble remembering what I was going to say.

Alright, I think I found it. I don't know who's eating lunch with whom today (and I never learned the grammatical difference between "who" and "whom"), and I'm having trouble deciding whether it really matters to me that much. I was pretty frustrated with Sarah last night; I had to move dorms so she ate with Caleb on the assumption that she'd spend all afternoon and evening with me, helping me move, but then she found out Dane was and my "best friend's" contribution to the move effort was two Victoria's Secret bags, a Gap bag, and some of my stuff that had been in her room. And then, after Dane went to Study Hall, she came by to help me unpack, and while it was very helpful, she didn't stay very long before deciding she was hungry. So we went to Subway, leaving my room in a state of near-complete disarray, and she wanted to talk, so we spent a very long time at Subway, which is not her fault because we hadn't really talked for awhile. I just wish we could've done it in my room, while unpacking my stuff, but I didn't insist on it so I don't blame her for that. But then she decided she couldn't really help anymore until I was closer to being done, so she left, saying she'd call me later. By 2200, she still hadn't called, so I texted her and asked if she was still going to. She said yes. I said make it soon because my roommate's trying to sleep. Then, since my phone batteries were nearly dead, I took my phone, charger, and self out to the dayroom to wait. And wait. And finally asked again if she was going to call or should I just go to bed? She said Go to bed. I said she should know better by now than to do things like that and not expect me to get angry. So she called. And after we'd been talking for about 15 minutes, I asked if she'd made it out to Caleb's and she said she was calling from there. Wow. That is so . . . beyond angering. Not that she was at Caleb's; I don't give a shit. That she had said she'd call, and then went to Caleb's, where she inevitably stays until at least 2330 (and is incommunicado with the world), and was intending to call me afterwards. The sheer lack of consideration boggles the mind. When added to her childishness with the whole Dane situation, I begin to wonder how well I really know her.

She was gone all last weekend and came back asking me why I'd gone insane. And asking Dane why he's insane. If I were gone for a weekend, and I came back, and all my friends seemed crazy, simultaneously, I think I'd probably assume that something in me had changed. (Except that I know already that Dane and I did both change this past weekend, but I think Sarah did, too.) But anyway. None of this was actually anything I wanted to say. I mean, clearly, I wanted to say it, but I was really going to comment more on "the peak of boredom," as demonstrated this morning. Here 'tis:

I found myself decorating an Aquafina bottle with a Sharpie this morning, and then rubbing half the ink off with paper to give it a more "distressed" look, and decided that I had reached the peak of boredom. Until walking here, to the library, at lunchtime, when I saw a man with a straw broom sweeping a lawn mower. As in, running the broom over the top of it---a lot---to cleanse it of . . . what? Grass bits? Dust? Maybe people like to have clean lawn mowers, but I was a groundskeeper for 2 years and I never swept a lawn mower. That's just weird. But it looked like the kind of thing I would've done to look like I was working. Find some BS bit of menial labor and go nuts. Yeah. Sweepin' lawn mowers . . .

And then there were none . . .

So it comes to this. Even the daily lunches, which survived the heartbreaks and bitterness and random causticity (I'm so sure that's not a word that I won't even look it up) are now gone. At least for now. Sarah has decided she is so frustrated with Dane, for reasons that she seems sure of but can't explain very clearly, that she will not eat lunch with the two of us anymore. Yesterday I ate lunch with Sarah. Today I'm eating lunch with Dane, and Sarah plans to go to Caleb's apartment to eat. I feel . . . divided . . .

Sarah's been my best friend for as long as it's mattered, but my loyalty at this point, I find, is with Dane. Dane is the one who's still around; Sarah's the one who is continually ditching me for Caleb. And I'm beginning to realize, for the first time in my life, that I don't care. I have turned a corner and somehow found myself back at the age of 7; independent and able to devote my time and energy to things that I actually want to do. I'm not waiting for Sarah to come home anymore, I'm not angry if she cancels on me to hang out with Caleb. And I can't figure out why I ever was.

Caleb and I were chatting last night (via text message) about what kinds of plans to make for Sarah's birthday. Instead of wishing I could exclude him altogether, I told him to go ahead and make special romantic plans for her actual birthday night and I'd work on a bigger, group outing for the following weekend. (Her birthday's on a Wednesday and that weekend is a holiday so it'll only be the next night anyway.) In fact,the only two things I even got irritated at him for (instead of the standard, all-encompassing "He exists") were that I had to identify myself to him and I identified myself by surname and he addressed me by given name (I don't like my given name; I typically go by surname), and then when I finished the conversation with "Dismissed," he responded with "Aye aye, Glenallen," and the actual spelling of my hometown is "Glennallen." This wasn't a big issue; to be frank, I misspelled it a few months ago while addressing a package to my family, so that didn't really get my goat so much, so to speak. But I would really prefer that he be less familiar with me; I don't know him. Lots of people who know me much better are still relegated to calling me by my last name.

Sarah tried to excuse him: "Most people consider it more polite to use someone's first name."
Me: "I consider it more polite to call people by whatever they introduce themselves as."
I think I win that argument. My own mother infinitely prefers not being called by her first name by anyone who is not yet of marriageable age, and while Caleb is indeed of age (more so than I am, in fact, cuz I'm a young'un), I just don't know him well enough for him to be that special. Curious that I've hardly even met my best friend's boyfriend . . .

Ooh, just broke routine again---reading Jumpstart in addition to the normal comic strips. Just saw one of the funnier lines ever (ok, maybe not . . . I didn't laugh out loud, so it can't be that good, I guess): "You look like a fetus!" Alright, sorry; it's not really funny. My roommate said a funny thing last night, though. See, I'm moving out, to a different dorm building (Dane's building, actually), and so my roommate will be getting a new roommate pretty soon, and getting new roommates sucks because you never know how they're going to be. So she said, "Well, that's shitty, because my birthday's on Thursday and if I get a new roommate for my birthday, I'm going to kill someone." I guess now that this, too, is really only hilarious if you know my roommate. She's pretty mild-mannered most of the time; tall-ish, skinny, on the intelligent side of ditzy . . . To be honest, I don't really know her that well. I've been her roommate for quite awhile, but I don't spend much time in my room and we don't really talk that much when I am in. She said the other day that "That's what I love about our relationship; we don't even talk to each other!" We get along fine, if you can even call our interaction enough to warrant the term "getting along." She probably won't notice when I'm moved out.

Actually, most people don't notice most of what I do. I am as completely average as anyone can possibly be. Brown hair, brown eyes, Caucasian, 5'4.5", 137 pounds . . . I am the epitome of an average female. If I were any less noticeable, my nametag would be blank. I used to be an athlete, so now I'm just not fat. I'm not an athlete anymore, so now I'm just not skinny. I had braces in junior high, but I didn't wear my retainer, so my teeth could hardly be called crooked but they're not really straight. I don't have ravaging acne, but I don't have clear skin (ooh, is my age betrayed?). The most noticeable things about me are that I look about 4 years younger than I am (and if you don't know how old I am, why would you notice?) and that my hair is way longer than it should be (but it's always in a little tiny bun to keep it in uniform regulations, so you wouldn't necessarily notice that, either).

Well, here comes Dane. Time for me to be about done. Thought for the day: How many Portuguese potbellies would you have to stack on top of each other to make a pig path to the moon?

I read comics.

I read the same comics every day, on comics.com. It's a very set routine; I have lots of very set routines. I read 9 Chickweed Lane, then Agnes, Brevity, A Case in Point, For Better or Worse, Frazz, Get Fuzzy, Li'l Abner, Luann, Over the Hedge, Pearls Before Swine, Pibgorn, and Pickles. The only variation is that sometimes I don't bother with Pickles. When I walk to school, I go the same way every time. There are about twenty-two million ways I could go---permutations and deviations and missed formations---but I don't. I always go the same way. To school, to library, to chow hall, to mailroom, to school, to dorm, to conditioning, to dorm . . . My footfalls never falter, never alter, never change. My pathways are unchanging constants in a constantly changing world. My weekends can be similarly mapped---or could. Until lately.

If you read my previous post, you see that I did not sleep at all Saturday night. That's not routine. I went for a walk. That's not routine. In fact, nothing about my weekend was routine. It was all different, and I enjoyed it immensely. As a rule, I don't like change. I'm not OCD or anything; I just like knowing how things are going to work. And when they change, they create possibilities that I no longer know. I guess that's why I've been so hopped up on adrenalin for the past three days . . . I feel like I'm running headlong down a dark, forested hill, and I can't see where I'm going and I don't know what's at the bottom. If I were to do that for real, say, two weeks ago, I would've hated it. But I used to do it for real all the time, when I was growing up, say, 12 years ago. And I loved it. I used to love the feeling of running in the dark over uneven, unknown, invisible ground. It's such a rush. I don't know when that changed; maybe I hit a wall or stepped in a hole or just got older and came to understand the risks.

I've always been bad at moderation. I can do all or nothing. So my younger self, the one that climbed trees and ran in the dark and sledded facefirst, has jumped the gap to the me of two weeks ago, who never willingly did anything without knowing exactly what the consequences would be. And now I'm running again. To Hell with Consequences! And that may be where it takes me . . .

Like walkin' in the rain and the snow when there's nowhere to go . . .

So I never went to bed last night. Did Designated Driving with Dane until about 0240, and then went back up to my room, called a friend (I knew she was up because we'd been texting all night . . . my phone bill's going to be unspeakably huge . . . ), talking for awhile, then hung up and starting playing a game on my computer. (Yes, Tasia, I know . . . I don't want to date you, though, so you don't have to care . . . ) It's a silly game . . . very similar to the Settlers series, but much . . . cheaper. Called Pharaoh or something like that. I got two games that are virtually the same (Pharaoh and Rome III, I think) from the $1 section at Target . . . I heart Target (bleah, I can't believe I just said that . . . the "heart" part, I mean . . . I really do have feelings for Target . . . )

Anyway, I "got up" (and by that I mean out of the chair in the dayroom) at like . . . 0900 . . . I think . . . the sun was up . . . and I was going to . . . I don't know . . . I don't EVER know what to do lately, because I have no car anymore . . . My sweetass triple-white 1978 VW Convertible Beetle has been reduced to a statue of a cute car . . . it left a trail of gas and oil (well, I think the gas evaporated, but the oil is still there) for a couple miles. A full tank of gas, pissed out a faulty part in the bottom of my car. I made it back to the parking lot in front of my dorm with about a quarter gallon left in the tank . . . very lucky . . . and for some inexplicable reason, there's also a nasty brown SOMETHING seeping out from the hood and staining the white paint . . . my car looks like it bled to death, shitting itself as it crawled to its parking spot. Damn car.

So yeah, I got up, so to speak, and saw that it was raining, so I decided to go for a walk. I started walking . . . walked down the hill into town . . . wandered around . . . stopped into a bookstore and started reading the first part of the first book of the Harry Potter series . . . in Korean . . . (I understood enough . . . I couldn't translate it, but I could "make gist," as they say.) I've been on an adrenalin rush for the past two days now, I think. That's what it feels like. That's why I can't settle on a subject and didn't go to sleep. I can't say why, although I think I know . . . (more of those "things-that-can't-be-said" . . . hate those, hey?) I do believe it's making me slightly sick to my stomach. I haven't felt like this since Junior High. It's only fun for the first hour or so, and then you just want to stop. To feel normal. To not care. Not feel nervous without knowing exactly why. I mean, I know the cause, I just don't know why it would make me feel nervous and hopped up and . . . slightly diarrhetic, to be honest. (That might've been TMI; please excuse.)

Then I started walking in the direction of the Coffee Shops. Yes, Shops. They are Legion. And I walked right past them. It was still raining . . . still raining . . . I turned a corner (I decided I shouldn't have coffee if my stomach was upset . . . that's not cool . . . ) and I saw a father and son, son maybe about nine. The kid was opening an umbrella, and I watched it expand, and then they both stepped under it and started walking away from the car. I almost smiled; they were sort of cute together under the umbrella, and then the father said, "Got your list?" and the son tried not to look mortified, but to be cool and under control as he admitted that he didn't. I was walking past them at that moment, and the father took the umbrella as the kid darted the eight and a half feet back to the car. "You're killing me, Tommy!" groaned the dad, and I didn't look to see if he was joking. Do fathers realize the effect they have on their children? If my dad had not given me a lecture on certain un-bloggable subjects, certain un-bloggable events in my life might have had very different outcomes. I would probably not be where I am now, both physically and mentally and every other way.

I can remember him telling me once, after I complained about something rather personal, that "God doesn't make mistakes. He made you this way for a reason, and you have to trust that and not want to change." Think about the implications of that. I mean, sure, ok, the Big Man doesn't make mistakes. But people do.

The rain . . . oh, the rain . . . it makes me feel clean and dirty all at once. Used to be just clean . . . when I was young and innocent and didn't have friends trying to tell me that rain is filthy because the air is polluted. I still say that one's bullshit; water is purified as it evaporates, and then it goes up into the sky, and air is polluted, sure, but see, the only reason water pipes don't have nasties in them is that the water constantly rushing through them constantly washes it out. And where does it wash to? Duh. The drinking end. So I think that raindrops can't possibly be any dirtier than most tap water and they're more fun to play with. But it still makes me feel dirty.

Clean because I feel like rain is clean, pollutant-laden atmosphere notwithstanding. But dirty, too, because the rain seems to draw out, osmosis-style, all of the bad things I've ever thought and said and done and wanted to do, and I could've sworn today that I could smell all the filth inside me being pulled to the outside. How strange . . .

Okay, well . . . maybe, then.

Alright. So I said I'm not a fan of blogs, because they're rants, etcetera etcetera, blog blog blog. Even the word "blog" just . . . bugs me. So then I rant about blogs. But I'm done now. Fact is, I started my own out of sheer boredom, and not because I have anything to SAY to the world, because anything I feel like I want to say that I can't say normally, I can't say in a blog either because duh. I can't say it. So moving right along . . .
As I said, I'm bored. And not JUST bored, I mean monkeyfudgesucking bored. I sit in this ridiculously sterile library waiting for my lunch break to end and I read comics online and just . . . wait. (Okay, that wasn't fair to the library. It's actually very nice. If you're trying to study every world language and have no interest in literature, because there isn't any. Except in languages other than English. And it's not that I'm opposed to other languages, I just don't understand what they say to me.)

What I'm actually doing is waiting for Dane. Dane has his own blog (definitivedane.blogspot.com) and is the reason I started one and and is a very tall man with a broken heart. His lunch break starts about 25 minutes after mine does, so I wait for him, and then we go find Sarah, whose lunch break starts one hour after mine does and therefore (hold on . . . ) 35 minutes after Dane's. Sarah is the one who broke Dane's heart, but we all still eat lunch together. (I usually eat some kind of pasta and what they call salad, Sarah eats weird things like cottage cheese with sugar, and Dane eats his own heart. Not literally.)

For awhile, directly post-heartbreak, lunch was a little forced and awkward; Sarah laughing too loud, Dane being too polite, and me being . . . me. "Me" is very antisocial . . . actually, I'm always like that, which is why it's "me," and so I just wouldn't really listen to the fake conversation that the "adults" were carrying on; I'd just watch the TV across the room (I can't really see it that well . . . my vision sucks) and sometimes say something random and caustic, which is what "me" does when "me" actually speaks.

These days lunches are much more comfortable . . . the only subject that is taboo (at least for "me" to mention) is Sarah's new boyfriend, Caleb. I'm not allowed to mention him because if I do, Dane feels that I am making a deliberate effort to hurt everyone else, because he is still feasting happily on his own heart (Dane likes being a victim) and Sarah would be hurt by me hurting Dane. Also because if I say something about Caleb, it's probably got something to do with how Sarah spends all her time now with Caleb and not with Dane and I, and Dane thinks that those comments are aimed at making Sarah feel bad. (Maybe they are. Like I said, "me" is pretty caustic. And stuff.) Sarah, however, does not feel especially hurt if I hurt Dane. She doesn't usually notice. Sarah is an extraordinarily nice person, and she surely would feel bad, if she realized that Dane was hurt. But she usually doesn't, because she's also an extraordinarily oblivious person. (I maintain that it's because she's an optimist and doesn't ever see bad things; Dane maintains that she's living in a dreamworld where she thinks everything can work out perfectly and everyone can be happy.) However, Sarah knows already that "me" doesn't like Caleb, and so if I mention him, she takes everything I say in the most negative light. (This is my fault; I said she was an optimist and a nice person and it's all true, but my sarcasm, bitterness, and negativity has pushed her beyond human limits, even for extraordinarily nice humans.)

Contrary to possibly given impression, we actually usually spend lunchtimes quite pleasantly these days. Dane makes fun of me for being time-conscious (my watch alarm sounds at 1215 and then again at 1220, because it's about a ten-minute walk back to my classroom and I like to be a few minutes early), but the truth is that I'm very much unconscious of the time, and that's why my alarm is set. We meet outside Sarah's building, we walk to the dining facility (I like the word "facility;" is that weird?), we go in, we eat, we talk (well, they talk and I stare at the TV . . . and sometimes say something caustic . . . ), and then my alarm sounds, Dane mocks me, and we go check our little mailboxes, and then Dane and I walk back to class and Sarah does . . . whatever Sarah does. The fact that her lunch break starts an hour after mine dictates that it also ends an hour after mine. And Dane's. Dane's lunch break is shorter than mine because of his class level; we both end at the same time.

Well . . . now Dane's here . . . checking his email . . . (funny; yesterday he said he only checks it once a week, but he checked it yesterday, and it's still the same week, so that bastard lied to me!!! Just kidding . . . geez . . . ) We still have awhile to wait; it's only 1232 and Sarah doesn't come outside until 1250, and hopefully she doesn't bring Caleb with her . . . That only happened once, and it was before Dane had met him, which means it was just shortly post-heartbreak, and the whole stairwell went very awkward for about ten seconds until Caleb kept moving. I don't like Caleb . . . this might be because I never like my friends' boyfriends or it might be justified . . . I like to think it's justified . . . I have reasons (but as I said before, things I can't say in real life I can't blog about, and my primary reason for thinking Caleb and Sarah should not be together is a dirty little secret of Caleb's that Sarah told me and since it's a dirty little secret . . . I can't tell) . . . but he really does seem to be a generally nice guy. It's just that Sarah is, again extraordinarily nice, and I don't think generally nice is anywhere NEAR good enough.

Not that sex is a bad thing, but I'm personally rather opposed to it extramaritally. (Is that a word? Dictionary.com says no. Dangit. It is now, melonfruitshuckers!) Caleb is used to getting some (I think probably more than just some) from his girlfriends. Sarah does not give any. Anyway. It's go time. And by that I mean it's time to go. Find Sarah. That was abrupt, hey?

P.S. Sarah won't even let me put her pictures on Shutterfly.com, so she probably wouldn't like being profiled in a blog, and Dane probably wouldn't appreciate the bits about his broken heart, so do me a favor and don't tell them I wrote this.

I'm not a fan of blogs.

Actually, I'm more than mildly opposed to most blogs . . . rants at the world . . . a pleading for someone to understand---or NOT understand---you . . . but if that's what they're used for, I guess I can do it too, eh? (Yes . . . I said "eh." And I MEANT it.)