So here I am, trying to pick out classes for next year and really wishing that I could call greg up and ask his opinion on everything, but I can't because his father is a royal dick. I read his xanga today and it made me sad, not because of what it said but because of the feelings behind it. I'm sorry that he has to go through all this, that he has to be made a prisoner in his own house. That's just not right. I don't agree at all with the way his dad treats him. if greg hates school, i'll bet a lot of it is thanks to mr paul and his crazy ideas. I know greg is intelligent, and he can do well if he wants to. He just needs to find out what he wants to be doing, on his own time, and not at the behest of hitler.

when i think about greg and his father, sometimes i think of my dad and what he would have said about all of this. he probably would have agreed with mr paul and grounded him for those grades. not even the programming classes; if he brought home that C in math, all hell would have broken loose. heehee. greg got a better grade than i will in math! if dad knew what im getting in calculus i bet he'd have a heart attack and die all over again. we can't all be math geniuses, dad. sorry. i get the sense that my dad would have done much the same as greg's if i were to be in his position. of course, my dad's version of childrearing was such that that wouldn't happen. he'd never let it get that far, and as his daughter now i would never let it get that far. i think if i failed something, i would be haunted by the thought of his disappointment in me. i think after the fiasco of my dad's first year in college, failing was never an option for him. which made the rest of his life so much harder, never being able to accept that he couldn't go as high as he wanted to. i have long resolved not to let my limitations eat me alive. all the money in the world will never make up for the joy of being loved. i hope my dad never lost sight of that, but i sense that he was embittered by the struggles in his professional life. he was never a failure in any sense, and i hate the thought that perhaps he died thinking that he was. not true. just not true. i loved him, and i love greg, no matter what happens or what he chooses.

perhaps the beginning of my dad's college career is portentous. he was a brilliant student in high school, but he ended up partying his first year at Lowell and failed right out. my grandpa made him spend all summer painting houses. when he went back, he was on the dean's list until graduation. my dad only told me this once, and i honestly could not believe that my straight arrow father, who railed at my sister for getting bad grades in math and for not being an all A student, flunked out of college. i laughed. it was incredulous. he hated it if i referred to it casually, especially in public. i think it must have shamed him, that memory of his initial failure. i asked once if this meant that i would have one year to screw around with in college, and he just glowered at me. guess that was a no.

Rae told me a quote she might use in her valedictory address, i forgot the person: "If you want to be happy, be."