and i just remembered, the second poem was actually to go along with the gift we did give fitz that year for xmas--a guide to bartending, and a miniature "Dating For Dummies". yeah, i'm nice to my teachers.

going through some old poetry files, what did i come across but the two spectacular pieces i produced to mock our dear Fitz during junior year. ah, memories. incidentally we were just discussing AP US history here this afternoon, amid much talk of ACTs and SATS and the NY Regions, which just sound so incredibly pointless. anyway they made me crack up. the xmas one is definitely my favorite (plus it has much better meter lol); do you guys remember how mr kaplan brought his class down to hear it, and then did a dramatic reading of it for all of us? that was great. i kinda miss fitz. yes i'm blocking out all the asshole moments, and his current treatment of flanny's little sister, but i can't help it, he was overall of the most amusing teachers i've ever encountered. for anyone who's never read this before, believe it or not Fitz actually asked me to write another one, which is why there's a "Christmas" version lol. in fact he wanted me to do another one at the end, to finish the year with a bang, but i couldn't come up with anything good.

The Ballad of Fitz
~composed one day eighth period while being bored to tears
by the Fitz-Steve mating dance


What a strange little man
Is that roly-poly Fitz—
Just when you think he might have brains,
He once again proves that he’s just a ditz

His supply of bad jokes
Are rarely PC,
And his short attention span
Makes us wonder if he has ADD

He’ll taunt and he’ll jest
To avoid starting class—
Do you ever have the urge
To knock him on his Irish ___?

We know he’s into sports,
And all the beer, good lord-
Is that all this guy can do
Whenever he gets bored?

Despite his charms he’s single,
And though you may not believe,
He’s found his soul mate in our very class—
In the person of a young man named Steve.

We all think that they form
An admirable pair—
One small, short and wiry,
One larger, and losing his hair.

From the back we watch
This male-dominated little zoo,
And if we wish someone would put us out of our misery,
Don’t blame us- so would you!

Because the over-powering chauvinism
Gets tiring, you see;
That’s why my most frustrating class
Is AP US History.

The Christmas Fitz: Close Encounters of the Santa Kind

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,
Not a Fitzpatrick was stirring—he was drunk on whiskey stout.

A six-pack of beer was hidden in the kitchen with care
In hopes that his friends wouldn’t find it there.

He had collapsed onto the sofa on the way to his bed,
As what would soon become a hangover danced in his head.

After all the whiskey—and two beers for a nightcap—
Fitz had settled himself down for a long winter’s nap

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
Fitz opened bloodshot eyes to shout- “What the hell’s the matter?”

He rose from the couch at a pace a snail would scoff
To teach the stranger not to bother someone who’s been sleeping it off

He leaned out the window into the falling snow,
Middle finger all ready for the person below

When what to his red-rimmed eyes should appear
But two red sleighs and sixteen reindeer!

One half of the image seemed to flicker;
And then he remembered- “Oh, all the liquor!”

A noise from behind made him quickly spin ‘round
As down from the Chimney came St. Nick with a bound

He straightened his red suit as Fitz stood in awe,
The swept off all the soot with one burly paw.

Then came a sound that it pained Fitz to hear—
‘twas the sound of old Santa opening his beer.

He stood there sadly as the precious stuff was guzzled
And through it all couldn’t help but be puzzled

“Santa,” he asked as good St. Nick downed the last,
“I’m glad you’re here but why haven’t you come in the past?”

Santa let out a loud belch and replied,
“My boy, I’m not here for your sorry hide!

“Your mother always called you the little bad seed,
and I can’t remember the last time you did a good deed;

“You give too many quizzes and you’re rarely sober—
Why, you even laughed when you ran that dog over!

“If it were up to me I’d not spare you a glance,”
he continued as he hitched up his red pants,

“But apparently there’s some who don’t share my view,
out of those you teach, you might know who.

“This group of girls sent me a note
Which said, and here I quote:

“Dear Santa, this is something you need to hear—
We know you won’t be visiting Fitz this year

Because all year long he hasn’t been the best
And there’s hard multiple choice on his damn tests;

And he has strange habits and acts like a nut
And he had that pic of Harrison as a mutt!

And we know Michelle sent you that other little request
For a pile of reindeer droppings to wind up on his desk,

But we’re asking, just to show that we don’t resent,
For you to deliver to him our present.”

The handwriting was all done with flowery curls,
And it was signed at the bottom, “The Eighth Period Girls”

Thus Santa brought his little tale to an end
And pulled out the package they had asked him to send

He threw it to Fitz, who caught it with a grin,
Wondering what could possibly be within.

“Santa,” he asked, “ how can I repay—?”
But Santa cut him off—“ Just give those girls an A!”

He sprang to his sleigh and grabbed the whip
Before pulling out his flask for one last sip.

Then Santa shouted down as the sleigh flew out of sight,
“Merry Christmas to Fitz, and to all a good night!”

~Thought of but not composed in class this time

talking to tommy last night made me feel really good. i had to express my surprise that he was sober on a thursday, to which he replied that they're really hardly ever drunk on weeknights, which i raised my eyebrows at but whatever. not that i'm getting my hopes up or anything, but he mentioned that he and dan might take another car trip next wednesday.....to fairfield. i realllllllllly want him to, even though they wouldn't be able to stick around that long, i don't care. ten minutes of seeing him would be worth it....he told me it'd be worth driving four hours just to see me for ten minutes too. :-) i don't even have a single exam till next saturday. all of next week is just studying and writing my english paper. i think i can work in a brief boyfriend study break. oh and he was wearing a black shirt tonight. dear god. he promised he'd wear it if he comes here on wednesday. tommy--in---black. yummy. how will i ever make him leave?

time for the last math class i will ever attend IN MY LIFE. exxxxxxxcellent.

ow, my head hurts. lot of drama tonight. the last few weeks of school are stressful enough without all this added shit. something's got to be done, i just don't know what.

tommy called me tonight as he and his friend dan were driving around aimlessly. he calls me back later to tell me that they're in ALBANY. marist is in poughkeepsie, two hours away. *shakes head*. i love how being a girl means the doubts begin to assail you almost immediately. i'm not even going to give voice to them here because i know they're baseless or just things i can't judge yet.

it's weird because this is basically uncharted territory for me. i've never started a relationship before with someone who i didn't know previously or see a lot of. his computer's out of commission right now and we can't see each other that often, so we text message and talk on the phone. i'm not huge into talking on the phone anyway, cell phones can be so annoying, and god knows i send too many text messages! so i'm trying to figure out how this is supposed to work, practically speaking, beyond all the cutesy stuff. i'm working on it, i really am lol.

oh yes and i'm planning to get spectacularly drunk this weekend. ok not spectacularly in the manner of some fabulous new york ladies i know cough cough, but michelle-fabulously-drunk which means hysterical giggling and exchanging random historical facts with pinky. hehehe.

it's the last week of classes. i want them to be over just because bleh, classes, yet i desperately don't want to have to leave all this. sigh.

i also miss tommy, enormously. it's not like i can't do this, i know i can. i really want to be with him. it's just hard, walking around campus seeing all these little happy couples walking around holding hands, knowing that it'll be pretty rare for me to get to do that. part of me was like "dammit michelle, couldn't you have just fallen for someone who went to your own school?" but then i look around and realize that no one here is quite like tommy, and i know he's the one i want. but it doesn't really make loneliness much better.

when you first start dating someone, there's like this month-long 'honeymoon' period where everything is just absolutely amazing and you just can't wait to see them and every time you do you get little butterflies in your stomach. after that the butterflies kind of stop because you fall into a pattern, more or less, and you get used to one another, or at least that's how it works when you see the other person a lot, which has always been my experience. so now i'm wondering if this whole honeymoon thing will just be extended for me and tommy because we won't be around each other all the time, like the newly dating so often are. and is this a good thing? a bad thing? i really don't know. it's not like i'm blind to the things i don't like, which would just manifest themselves after the bloom is off the rose, so to speak. i don't like that he's drunk during the week, i really don't. be drunk on weekends, whatever, who cares, but when you've got class it's just stupid. i don't really like talking to him when he's drunk, or when he's in a roomful of people, because it's weird to be this one person sitting in a quiet room competing with the voices of a bunch of other loud drunks. it reminded me of what greg used to do, when we'd be on the phone talking and i'd feel like he was ignoring me because he was talking to his friends online. if it really bothers me i'll say something, i won't let it be like last time, when i just kept ignoring it and ignoring it till i got irrationally angry over a single occurrence. yeah. learn from past mistakes.

last night was really wonderful. tommy asked me to be his girlfriend and i said yes. wendy realized what had happened when she saw him turn his claddagh ring around to the "taken" position. lol. it still hasn't really set in yet. i have a boyfriend...tommy's my boyfriend. i'm tommy's girlfriend. after charles i said i shouldn't have another one, that men were too much trouble, but you know what they say about the best laid plans of mice and men, right? but this is so much different than before, because it feels right. it makes me so happy, like i just want to smile and laugh for no reason at all!

the distance won't be fun, but if he were around all i would ever want to do is just do what we did today, lie in the grass behind bellarmine with the sun warming our faces. i've never really noticed before how sunlight makes skin almost sparkle.

it struck me ironically as we were driving around bridgport last night, wasting time while wendy got her groove on in the room with the f*buddy, that monday would have been my two-year anniversary with greg. it's also the two year anniversary of me having a drivers' license, woohoo! anyway it's just funny, how i have another anniversary to remember in april. that makes three: my dad, greg, and now tommy. wendy said it's on account of it being spring, which is probably true. except for my dad anyway lol.

i'm really happy right now. i'd be happier if tommy hadn't had to go back to marist, but i need to get adjusted to that situation. he's so damned cute. god. :-)

I just haven't been able to bring myself to go to work in so long....it's terrible, indolence is a disease. well i did accomplish things, i cleaned the room as usual and finished my history paper and burned a cd for tommy and went to debate. the day was so nice, but i found out that it's going to rain on friday. this presents some logistical problems. wendy's big plan is that the four of us all go out to dinner together, come back here and hang out for a bit, then she and rob will be doing their thing till 1am when he has to leave, then tommy and i can be in there till 4 when wendy has to go to sleep. he's sleeping over anyway (yay!). tommy will have the explorer, but i know he's planning to drink and i'd like to as well, so it's not like we could go anywhere anyway. originally my plan was that we could go watch the drive-in movie on the quad and then take him up behind bellarmine, which is now officially my favorite spot on campus, to look at the stars. they canceled the movie bc of the rain and there will definitely be no stars lol so michelle needs to come up with some new plans.

i'm still so excited, though.....the Mouse with No Name doesn't really smell like tommy's cologne anymore. he needs to be recharged. i can't believe wendy told him i carry the damned thing everywhere, i don't, i just carry him around the room! lol. friday cannot come soon enough....of course i wont be going to work then either bc he's getting here around 3, i think. oh i'm going to jump him so fast. (who said that?)

alright, now i am writing about half an hour later. amazing how small bits of information can kind of sour your good mood.

i'm ever so sorry that my "plan" doesn't sit well with you, dear. i'm sorry you disapprove of the way i'm living my life, but i like it, it makes me happy. are you happy? it sure doesn't sound that way. i'm also sorry that you are so very bitter. that's all that comes across to me from anything i ever hear about you: bitterness. not hope, not resignation, not nostalgia. why would i ever want to include you in my life in any way if all you have to offer is negative emotions? why do you think i stopped talking to you in the first place? i thought maybe you would just move on and let it go, but you just became even more resentful. it's been more than six months and apparently you haven't resolved whatever issues you still have.

i really wish things weren't this way. i miss you sometimes; i miss being friends with you. when i think about you i try to always remember the good times, which were the large portion of our time together. i wish that you weren't as unhappy as you make yourself sound. you said once that maybe we just never really knew each other at all; well, i sure as hell don't feel like i know you now.

i was planning to come back and finish this after i went into town, but i'm not. i was in a very good mood this morning after tommy told me he's definitely coming down on friday, and then this little episode made me really upset, which sucked. so i bought strawberries--delicious--and a beautiful pot of yellow flowers. just looking at them, so pure, so vibrant, so full of life, cleared my head and made me happier. i won't say that i'm still not upset by all this, by you in general, but i have so many great things going on in my life that one small negative is not enough to lose my cool over. so feel free to be bitter and negative about life, my friend. feel free to continue writing your vicious little diatribes full of meaningless phrases and atrocious spelling--but i simply have to say this: it's 'thief', not 'theif', and yes, it really does matter to most educated people--and feel free to continue being unhappily trapped by the past. for my part, i intend to spend my time enjoying the fabulous day outside, the company of my friends, and all the joys that the life i've chosen has to offer. and yes, it's all according to the plan.

It is a GLORIOUS day outside. holy shit. it's just so perfect. sadly i just missed the bus to town so i have an hour to kill, but still, i'm in such a good mood. it doesn't hurt that i found out that tommy is really coming to visit friday!!!!!! hahaha i walked into art history class with this big smile on my face, and i actually drifted off once or twice. that NEVER happens in jesus' class. sadly no art history for me next semester, goddamned biblical archaeology seminar got canceled because the prof got a better position at yale. so i was in a frenzy to find another class (i love how i register first of anyone yet i always find myself in some weird position) and i wound up signing up for foundations of drawing, because im required to take a studio art class at some point for my AH major anyway. sigh. i have two turbos now, drawing and creative writing. i better be so fucking creative next semester, dammit. lol.

today....today was interesting. i did nothing, pretty much. i channeled some thoreau; i walked up to bellarmine so i could lie in the grass and read billy collins and write. it was nice, but then it got cold and i was wearing sandals and i went home. oh and i scared some people who i think came up there to fool around, they saw me and took off lol.

tonight was great. i was sexiled, finally and at long last. i'm proud of my girl. she's doing it again friday night too, but he's bringing us a gift so i don't mind. he seemed a cool guy. they're not exclusive; i loved this little gem as imparted later by wendy: "hey, your roommate's pretty hot too. think she'd be interested?" the answer, dear sir, is no.

so it appears i have a decision to make about the future vis-a-vis me and tommy. i'm struggling with this. he told wendy tonight that while he'd like to talk about it with me soon, he wouldn't officially ask me out until the summer because of this whole distance thing. the "distance thing" worries me. it'll still be present during the summer even though we both have cars. i mean, we'll also have jobs, our separate friends, and i have to cart jen around. it's not like i could be down in oxford and monroe every weekend, and if he came up he wouldn't be able to stay over, my mom would never allow that. he pointed out the example of him and his ex, who lived like 45 minutes away and apparently that was fine. i don't know if i can say that i've really done distance. i suppose greg counted in the beginning of the year, but that's a bad comparison because being separated was not in itself the problem, it just accentuated what was already there. charles i guess was kind of distance, but he came over here a lot. rae and aj do distance really well, but they had a really strong foundation already built. sara and pat's long distance thing didn't really work out. so i'm conflicted over what would go on there, i don't know.

all this came about because wendy told him what her f-buddy said about me, and it seemed to me that he really didn't care whether i took the guy up on it or not, and i admit to being a little offended. i was like gee, thanks buddy, i know we're not actually dating, but c'mon here. early on i was like fine, if that's the way he thinks then i want to go seduce some guy right now, dammit! im glad i didn't try that lol. maybe it would be best for me to just find some guys to flirt with or something. i wouldn't go any further, because even not being exclusive it just feels like it would be cheating, if you know what i mean. it's like, even if you're just casually seeing someone, if you're to the point where you're really getting to know them and like them, you don't try to work on another one at the same time, or at least i don't. heather congratulated me that "you're not a skanky ho!" thanks, babe. it means a lot lol. also, im wondering if tommy would have a problem with the way certain things go down among my friends back home, ie crazy drunken party games that involve kissing people? i highly doubt i'd get any objections to girls, anyway.

all in all it was a full night. damn. time for bed.

last night was pretty crazy. after going to the admitted students open house to recruit for debate team, we had the debate team party at eileen's townhouse. it was so funny to be sitting there drinking with cdahts, our coach, who helped make the delicious spiked punch. i tried a cosmo, heather be proud, except it was a ghetto one bc they didn't have quatro or whatever, so i didnt like it very much. i made myself giant screwdrivers, like a huge beer cup full of OJ and then a little alcohol mixed in so i wouldnt taste it at all. yeah, lot of liquid there, so i definitely had to use the bathroom a lot. lovely.

so we all got pretty tipsy except for meredith. sean was having amarretto sour's and declaring himself perfectly fine even as he stumbled all over himself. jamie and michaela handed out their fabulous prizes; i won for "best partner, best hair, and most likely to tell someone off" (i'm jamie's partner, and the telling off apparently referred to friday's hugely heated ralph nader debate in which i referred to the green party as tree hugging jackasses and other things). so michaela wants to hook up with this guy matt on the team, who's really cute. his award said most likely to get ass from another debte team member, she was all over him on the couch, and he still didnt pick up on it. michaela's really cute, too.

this partying goodness only lasted from 4 to 7 pm, if you can beleive it. yes i was drunk in daylight. walking back to the dorm was fun, with meredith herding us like so many tipsy sheep. we were just in that great mood where everything is pretty damn funny. sean fell flat on his face in the hall cause he started laughing and lost his balance. he ended up hanging out in my room for a while after meredith and lauren went off to do their bonding thing, and it was so much fun. i decree that pinky and i shall get drunk together more often.

oh very important: amanda went on a date with a special someone last night. GO POPHAM!!!

so i kinda sobered up over the course of the evening--half-drunken showering is very interesting. did i mention that a drunk jamie insisted on tattooing people with semi-permanent markers? i got "I LOVE PIRATES" with a skull and crossbones, "I love TOO " and an L on the other side of my hand, and a giant TOMMY scrawled on my other arm. don't ask, i was so stupid to let her do that, cause im standing in the shower scrubbing furiously at them and they wouldnt fucking come off!!

later in the evening, i ended up joining the guys in JD's room. think eleven guys and one girl. they made me a sign that said FEMALE and took a pic to prove that a girl was indeed in the room. they're all going to die virgins cause they really don't know how to act around girls lol. i tried this stuff called hypno, it's BLUE and really good tasting, like you dont need to chase, except it's only 17 percent alcohol, so i was surprised that the guys even bothered drinking it. it would take a lot of that to have any effect. or so i assume, since it takes about three shots of 40% to affect me.

i love how the guys tape everything on their digital cameras. especially amusing, the tape of Pete *stupidly* agreeing to drink a capful of RUBBING ALCOHOL. yes, rubbing alcohol, aka hobo poison.

Pete: peter borea jr is going to die tonight!
Guy: Why the hell are you peter borea junior?
Pete: because my dad's peter borea senior, dickwad!

i'm sorry, you'd have to see the video, it's just really funny. last night i was supposed to tape a chris rock special for tommy on hbo, but i was kinda tipsy and watched Patton instead and almost fell asleep. so when it was over i TMed tommy to say guess what was just on! (we had just talked about what a good movie it was) and he wsa like chris rock! oops. yeah ill have to tape it some other time. i really need to shower now and get these goddamned tattoos off.

i watched kill bill 1 last night, because wendy and i were supposed to see the second one. it was damned good, the only thing that bothered me was the excessive blood, not because it was gratuitous (gotta love hollywood) but because it was just blatantly unrealistic. everything else could be accepted by the reasonable mind, even the gravity-defying stunts, i guess, but not the fire-hydrant spray of blood when someone got an arm cut off. years of watching really gruesome war movies have educated me, as has watching csi. arterial spray when you get your throat cut, huge. your arm, not so much. still, excellent film in my opinion.

after that wendy and i went over to regis, where i spent like three hours in a whole roomful of people i'd never met before. it was was great, though, everyone was really friendly. at one point wendy left to walk this guy back to campion and didn't come back, and i was like that's ok, i'm having fun, i'll just stay. i loved that all the guys said they'd never seen me on campus before. that's ok i'd never seen them either. i'd never even been inside regis. after that i came back, talked to pete and wendy on the steps for a bit, then went upstairs to discover that everyone was home from the dance and that james had gone home with a girl! our little asian james! so it's like 2am, im getting ready to go to sleep with my wonderful mousie, and there's a knock on the door. it's james. he walked the girl back to her room, but nothing happened, and he'd forgotten his key in the rush to leave, so he asked to sleep on our floor. so he did spend the night in a girl's room--with TWO girls, no less--but alas he has not earned his nickname, "pimp juice".

i'm sure i pissed the kid off this morning lol, i set my alarm for 815 and hit snooze repeatedly till 9. every ten minutes. yeah baby. i wasn't really awake, honestly. i'm so tired now, but i have to go try to recruit little high school seniors into the debate team. it's open a house today, i must say it's a beautiful day.

Dinosaur

In dreams, dinosaurs represent something from your past or a personal characteristic that changed and you no longer use. If you dream of being attacked by a dinosaur, you are struggling to change and become a different kind of person. If you escape the dinosaur, you will be successful in being seen differently by peers.

Dream symbol: dinosaur


Interpretation:
Harbouring old, rigid beliefs that no longer serve you
The past, or a need to let go of it and focus on the present
Something that's too big for you to handle
Something that's outdated, extinct or no longer relevant

Dinosaur
To see a dinosaur in your dream, symbolizes an outdated attitude. You may need to discard your old ways of thinking and habits.

To dream that you are being chased by a dinosaur, indicates your fears of no longer being needed or useful. Alternatively, being chased by a dinosaur, may reflect old issues that are still coming back to haunt you.

these are from three different dream dictionaries....so i'm dreaming about being chased by dinosaurs because of something from my past or an issue i haven't dealt with? or i'm trying to change....hm. interesting.

i made a conscious decision to be happy today. it is beautiful after two days of rain, surely this is a sign.

Memento Mori

you were barely fifty
a big man with
salt and pepper hair
thinning dangerously
no sight so incongruous
that April morning
(after the thud
the terrible shriek)
as you, collapsed
on the tiles as
your heart seized

suddenly

a great grasping
in the chest as
Death’s steely fingers
picked through
the ribs
closed around
the bloody organ
strangled
the final rhythm

suddenly

I approached unused
to the particular
shade of grey
that marks a corpse
my hands
on your stillness
pummeled the flesh
failed to force the life
back inside
my own heart
pierced right through
you were barely fifty
Father it all happened
so very

suddenly

tommy loves the marx brothers, and the movie "patton". if anyone didn't know, the title of my blog is not because i love Barnum crackers (though i do), it's off the Marx bros movie "Animal Crackers", which is also where the quote at the top of the blog comes from. i started this like two days after i'd seen the movie lol. also, patton was one of my dad's fave movies, and i love it too, i've juts never met many people our age who've bothered to watch it. now, if he only loved cary grant....

last night my dreams once again involved me being chased and terrified by dinosaurs. i've had lots of these dreams and i don't know why. did jurassic park scar me in some deep, dark way? i loved dinos as a kid, but i remember being terrified when i heard a trex was as tall as a two-story house. it's always velociraptors and trexes in the dreams, always in different places but always me running and trying to hide or escape and they're always crashing through the door or the wall and going for me. christ.

it's after midnight, so here it is. four years. it's almost too much to believe. i mark the real anniversary around noontime, that's the time i remember looking at the clock when i was calling the ambulance. what a strange recollection. my sister, who was at work at the time, swears the lights flickered at like ten after twelve that day, but i don't know if she just imagined it or made it up or if it was just a cosmically ironic coincidence. always ironic the way life goes on, the way the world keeps on turning even though for one group of people it has just been irreversibly shattered. how many other people have died on this day that i have neither known nor cared about? how many people will be remembering my dad today, and how will they be remembering him, i would love to know that. but i can't.

equally ironic that my identification number for the study today was 415. 4/15, the day that lives in infamy... how dramatic. also strange that whenever anyone asks me for my lucky number i always say 15, and i use it whenever a random number is required, like in passwords. i've never really had a lucky number in my life, i never cared. it seems that 15 is the only number that sticks with me. it's not really lucky in any sense, but at least it has some meaning to me. wherever i see the number 15, for some reason i feel....i don't even know what i feel. connected, maybe.

too much thinking. if i could have one wish right now, i would wish for a good dream tonight. i would wish to dream about my dad, not one of those dreams i've had where he's just kind of there and it's like nothing ever happened and he never died, not those because those are just depressing to wake up from and realize oh wait, nevermind, he IS dead. no, i want a dream where i know that he's dead but he's there anyway. why can't i have one of those mystical dream visitations? don't i deserve to see him again, even if it's only my subconscious working shit out? work this out, dammit.

suddenly i find myself wondering about the organ donation recipients. do they ever think about him on this day? there are people wandering around this state with their blood coursing through my father's veins, with my father's skin grafted onto theirs. there is a woman whose name i have now forgotten who is seeing through my dad's cornea, if you can believe that! little bits and pieces of him are still floating about. in my DNA too, except mixed up with my mom's. damn that scots-irish blood!

now it's REALLY time for bed. god and i just ate sweet tarts.

so, it's tomorrow. how strange. it feels like it crept up on me, once again, even though i've been thinking about it for a couple of weeks. my family doesn't really mark it in any way. i'll call my mom, but i doubt we'll more than mention it. it's not something that makes for great phone conversations, obviously. i've never visited his grave on his anniversary. in fact i think i've only been there twice since he died, once because my mom felt like going and i was trapped in the car (uncomfortable) and once by myself, before that. i must have been a freshman or a sophomore, because i rode my bike from my house.

the cemetery is called Riverside, which always puts me in mind of the old amusement park. it's situated on the bank of the farmington river. it's very peaceful. if you follow the really narrow road all the way to the back, my dad's grave is located right where the road turns to the left to loop back. that plot was the last left in that section of the cemetery, and we wanted it not only because it's pretty, but also because only there can you have upright gravestones. i picked out the stone, of course i wanted a glossy black marble. there's only one other black stone in the entire cemetery.

i don't know what i was expecting when i went down there that day. i've seen and read so much about people going to their loved ones' graves, to commune with them or whatever, so i guess i was just following what i thought i should do. so i went. i took a perfectly smooth pebble home with me that had been lying there. i have a habit of saving rocks from places now (like the federal property i stole from all those national monuments out west lol). the sound of the river moving by is really wonderful, especially on a quiet summer day, but aside from that, there's nothing. i felt nothing. i just looked at the stone. Joseph Thomas DiMarzo, March 30, 1950---April 15, 2000. And the Masonic symbol, which we all felt should be there. I looked for a while, then i got back on my bike and left. when i got home all i remember writing in my journal (i kept one on actual paper back then, gasp!) was "He's not there", and he isn't. i don't know exactly where i think he is, but it's not under that rock, so i have no reason to visit it. Unless i'm doing like sara and her mom on their trips to puerto rico, making sure her dad's grave is clean.

how else can one possibly celebrate a day such as this? i doubt he would approve of any alcoholic toasts in his honor. hm, that's something to think about--how do we want our loved ones to remember the anniversary of our deaths? do we want solemnity, a mass perhaps, or do we want nostalgia and the examination of old photo albums? i have no pictures of him to pore over. he was usually the one taking the photos, and all the ones we did have of him went into the giant photo collage that hangs in the living room. i wish i'd looked at it again before i left home, even though i know every picture by heart.

wendy and i are finally forcing ourselves to confront next year's reality, that we may not be rooming together. as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men....i got so upset tonight, both because of that, the paper i recently discovered is due thursday that i couldnt for the life of me concentrate on, and some other stuff that at ten oclock i was like fuck it, let's go work out. that was the hardest workout i've had in a while. i was drenched in sweat, it was nasty, but quite cathartic.

wendy decided to indulge when we got back, but i opted for some powerade shots lol. there is no one else i could ever live with who would match the amazing relationship i have with her. no one else would look so cute stealing my bed and no one else would probably jump on top of me if i tried to steal it back.

oh, i decided to email that guy from massachusetts last night, just because i felt bad not saying anything. for anyone who doesn't know, this guy who looked about my age, not too bad looking, gave me really sweet note with his number and email addy on it as i was leaving a restaurant in MA with my family. in true dimarzo fashion, my mom chased me around my grandpa's yard trying to get the note cause she thought it would be hilarious if she called him. she was actually disappointed that i said there was no way in hell i was calling this guy. i told her to focus her efforts on "marrying off" the other one. anyway, i have no interest in this kid, but somehow i felt i shouldnt be like, well you're so uncool that i'm not even going to contact you to say thank you. so i send him like a two line email saying thanks, good to know some massholes are friendly, im from ct , goodbye.(big hint here)

unfortunately, he emailed me back, telling me about himself, he's from the cape, apparently a senior in high school, yada yada yada. it was pretty obvious that he wants a reply. i'm sure he's a nice guy but i have no interest in being his new pen pal, but neither do i want to be rude. i'm not sure if i should just not reply or send some kind of final "don't talk to me again" message. argh. i was just trying to be nice, since his note was very complimentary. well, actually, in his email he referred me to looking like "a rose in a sandbox". i was like, um, what? interesting image ...it was a restaurant, for god's sake. anyway if anyone has any advice on how i can nicely tell this kid to bugger off, do let me know. thanks.

what a wet, rainy day. i skipped my 8am because i woke up tired, grumpy, and surrounded by dreariness. that left only jesus' class in the entire day, which of course is no problem! today we did Manet, and i found myself strangely intrigued, especially by his "Olympia". Alright, so i look at this painting and i'm like, hm, she's not really pretty, is she. her pose is an obvious quotation of Titian's Venus of Urbino, which i talked about once before, but this woman is much different. It was just so cool that the more i looked at it, and the more Jesus told me about the purpose behind it, the more i really appreciated it. The woman was a prostitute friend of Manet's, well known to Paris, and he shows her exactly as she is, completely realistic with no attempt to idealize her like the Venus. this painting shocked people because it was "too real", it was "naked", not "nude". i found that amusing. more importantly, though it's fascinating to compare the personalities of the two paintings (for comparison). The Venus is all soft curves, languid, shy-looking, and accessible, as though you could step into the picture and join her there on the bed. Olympia, in contrast, seems to be looking down at us rather commandingly, and her pose is alert, accentuated by that little black cat arching its back in the corner. Her message seems to be "stay away" as opposed to the venus' "come hither". Manet is making a really interesting shift in the portrayal of women, especially a well-known prostitute.

Tomorrow we're beginnning the impressionists. i have never really liked much of impressionism; i like van gogh pretty much, and some of monet (no flowers, though), but the others, cezanne and matisse, and the american impressionists like winslow homer, i just don't really get into. however i'm wondering if that will change once we start to study them. after all, i never liked the mona lisa until we discussed her hardcore for like an entire class, after which i really felt like i could appreciate her, and on first glance i wasn't too interested in manet, either. so now i'm all excited. i'm even thinking ahead to the class i'll be taking on modern art, probably junior year, wondering if maybe, just maybe, i might learn to appreciate some modern art once i learn the underlying principles. i'm loving this, i really am! i'm so glad i took that first art history course...my sister asked me what looking at "stupid pictures on a wall" could possibly contribute to life or the world. well, i think they contribute a hell of a lot, and it sure makes me happy. i got an A on last test, we got it back today, and that too made me really happy, more so than getting an A in my other classes, because it's an A in something i really really love. usually english would qualify but i hate that goddamned woman. check with me next semester, i foresee that creative writing will be my favorite class. :-)

i'm never sure whether i really like talking on the phone. it gives you the ability to gauge tone, but i don't know, sometimes i'm like blah, IM me please.

also interesting the things i've found out. similarities abound, but also some basic differences. i wonder if the things that would bother you in someone you're not interested in are glossed over by attraction? it's not like before when i would just not notice, now i've noticed and i choose to not care. who knows.

i'm really excited for heather. my fingers are crossed. go for it, my sexylicious redhead!

all told, i'm going to bed a little later than i probably should, and just a little bit happier.

1. If you had the choice to spin around the sun, or walk on the moon, which would you choose and why?

I’d walk on the moon. Think of how quiet it must be out there.

2. If you could share that experience with one person, who would that be, and why?
Rae, because right now I think she really needs a bit of R&R.

3. What colour do you think best describes you and why?

Blue. It has a lot of different shades, all of them beautiful. How does this describe me? Well, I’m multi-faceted and gorgeous. Obviously.

4. Do you know what your element is? If so what is it?

My element is Air. Fall Air, to be exact, thank you astrological wall calendars.

5. Do you know your astrological sign? If so what is it?

Libra

6. Do you believe that your dreams are a gateway to your soul?

Despite what I may believe, I know for a fact that dreams are the expression of my subconscious. How my soul ties into my subconscious is another matter. I haven’t really given much thought to it.

7. What is your most vivid dream?

The dreams I had a few years ago where my father was still alive, he hadn’t died, and I was desperately trying to tell him something but I never got the words out before the dreams ended.

8. If you could be doing anything right now, what would you be doing and why?

I would be cuddling with Tommy on a really big, comfortable bed, because that would just make me very very happy.


9. If you could only choose one element to surround yourself with either a)wind, b)fire, c)earth, or d)water, which would you choose and why?
Air, because then I could breathe it and not be burned, smothered, or drowned. Plus it’s my element, c’mon.

10. Would you ever share you heart completely with someone else? If yes, who, if no, why not?

I hope so. I haven’t found that person yet.

11. Who runs circles around your mind?

Annie, because I’ve never understood where her incredible well-spring of creativity and energy comes from. It’s like no one else I’ve ever met.

12. If you had to paint a self-portrait would you make it a)realistic, b)abstract, or c)you'd rather die than have to pick up a paint brush? Explain your answer.

Despite my lack of painting proficiency, I would try to make it as realistic as possible. I would want people to remember me as me, and not as some asymmetrical blobs of paint on a canvas. Although admittedly that’s probably how my portrait would turn out anyway.

13. Which do you prefer more and why, a)natural light, b)candle light, c)florescent light, or d)moonlight?

Well the creator of fluorescent lights should just be burned alive anyway, so that’s out. I love the romance of candlelight, but for practical purposes, like reading, it’s annoying. I’d take moonlight, because it’s so cool when you’re walking around under a full moon and you don’t have to worry where the next streetlight is, there’s so much illumination.

14. Do you believe in karma? Do you even know what karma is?

I’m not quite sure. Sometimes things come around and sometimes they don’t, and bad things definitely happen to good people. When things do work out evenly, people just label it karma.



15. How about fate? Are we all fulfilling a destiny here on earth?

Yes and no….obviously we make choices, I don’t think we’re rats on a wheel, but I feel somehow that we are working within a greater plan….I like the Masonic image of the Great Architect of the Universe.

16. Who is the most thought-provoking person you know, and why?

My dad. He definitely provokes more thoughts in me than anyone else. Lol.

17. Who is the most inspiring and why?

Wendy, because she has so much drive and inspiration, she’s so amazingly friendly and out-going despite any and all crap that could be going on. She claims she really has no self-confidence but girl, believe me, no one can ever tell. And she’s comfortable with herself, I really envy that.

18. If you had to spend the rest of your natural life with only one other human being, who would that be and why?

At this point I’d say wendy, because we’ve already demonstrated that we can live in a very small space for long periods of time without any attempted homicides.

19. Which sense could you not live without, and why?

The sense of sight. The world is so incredibly beautiful, even if it were on mute I would still not give it up.

20. Have you ever written on a mirror? If so what did you write?

I can’t say I have.

21. Have you ever written or drawn on another person? If so who, and what did you write/draw?

Oh, so many people. Numbers, reminders, little designs.

22. What do you wish on?

I wish on 11:11 when I remember, and I wish on stars.

23. Tell the person who sent this to you one thing about yourself, however big or small, that you've never told before.

No one sent this to me, but hmm, something I haven’t told anyone then? Well then, to all of my friends: whenever I imagine my future ten, twenty, thirty years down the line, my wonderful successful life with my Spanish villa full of art and my huge library and my vintage corvette, I always imagine them in it, no matter how impractical that may seem. They’re always there with me.

24. Right now is your life, spiraling, or ascending? Why?

Ascending in the general sense, but spiraling toward the end of the year.

25. If you could change one thing you did in the last 24 hours, what would it be and why?

Er, I wouldn’t have left the deli bag of turkey open on the counter so that Mr. Binky jumped up and started eating it and then my mom started yelling at me because she was making herself a sandwich for tomorrow.

26. What can someone do to you that would turn you on fully, physical or mental, or both?

Read me a poem. (A good one).

27. Do you prefer sleeping outside beneath the night sky, or your cozy bed indoors? Why?

Both. Inside beds are really comfy and warm, but there’s something so incredible about being outside under the stars, or even under a canopy of trees. Naturally this only applies to bug-free environments. If there are bugs give me the damned inside bed any day.

28. What is the most beautiful thing in the world?

Never ever could I name one. No way.

29. Name one person whose changed your life for the better.
My dad, through his death as well as his life. Also sara, heather and rae for everything that happened in the years that followed. They’ve truly helped make me the person I am now.

30. Name one person whose changed your life for the worse.

Jen.

31. If you knew you were going to pass away within the next few days, what would be the last thing you say, and who would you say that to?

I would say “I love you”, and I would say it to everyone I possibly could.

32. Do you believe in heaven? If so what do you think it will be like?

If I had to choose a uniform place, it would be like the Elysian Fields the Greeks wrote about, eternal natural beauty and peace. No clouds, please, and no naked boys toting harps.

33. Would you rather a)run through a sunflower field, b)jump inside a waterfall, or c)hike through the woods? Why?

Running through the sunflower fields would destroy them, and the waterfall thing reminds me of a scene in Jurassic park 2, so I’ll take the woodsy hike.

34. What is your worst fear in the world? Does it consume you?

Heights, and if you get me near something high you bet your ass it consumes me. Hell, get me near a tall flight of stairs or on a stepladder and it consumes me. Isn’t phobia wonderful?

35. What is one thing that can make you smile no matter what mood your in?

Reading really good poetry, looking at something beautiful.

36. If you could meet anyone, past or present, dead or alive, who would you meet and why?

I’d definitely have to say Jesus, at this point. Can you imagine all the questions I’d have to ask him, to figure out how much of what’s in the gospel actually happened and how much is “editorializing”? plus maybe I could get the actual scoop on him and mary magdelene.

37. Have you ever written poetry? Have you shared it?

Yes and yes.

38. Do you believe experimentation can be a good thing? Why or why not?

Experimentation is good depending on the situation. Experimenting with crack, for instance—not good. Experimenting with green lipstick—not good but not as bad as crack. Experimenting in a safe environment, good.

39. What was the last thing someone said to you?

My mom asked if I wanted more banana bread for school. For some crazy reason I said no. actually I said no because she did so much baking yesterday, I feel kind of bad asking.

40. What was the last thing you said to them?

What I just said.

41. If you had the ability to change one thing about the world, what would it be and why?

People would be more tolerant.

42. If you could go back in time, where would you go, what would you do, and why?

Back to the Renaissance, and I would go spy on all the famous guys working.

43. What is the most bizarre thing you've ever done to yourself?

Ummmm….i can’t really think of anything, honestly. I guess it could be me wearing dark brown lipstick in sophomore year, such that joe whatsisname inquired of someone if I were a satanist. Because it’s a known fact that satanists can be identified by their choice of makeup. Jackass. I glared at him in the hallways for a week hoping he’d think I was going to make a voodoo doll of him or something. Hmm maybe this is why all the guys were afraid of me. Maybe they all thought I worshipped the devil. Oh well, their loss, right? Right?

44. And finally, what makes you you?

you’d think this is an easy question, but it’s really kinda not. Because anything I say, like my intelligence or my sense of humor, could be completely identical to some random person on the other side of the globe. I could take the literalist route and say my social security number, which in the eyes of the government is really my only identifying characteristic….i guess I’ll go with the old “unique set of life experiences” one. I’m hoping there’s not another person out there who has had the exact same life as I have. If there is, they need to call me up and we need to chat. Wouldn’t that be so awesome, to be able to kvetch to someone who knows EXACTLY what you’re talking about??

and charles bleached his hair!! it's so funny in contrast to his dark eyebrows. his sister influenced him to do it, apparently. *shakes head* whatever floats his boat.

oh i forgot to mention another reason why i dislike my sister. she hates art. she said "every stupid flower looks the same no matter which dead french guy painted it." and so on and so forth. my mom said nothing during this discussion, but i kind of know she feels the same way. actually, what she said was "well, honey, i'm just glad you're not an artist." i was like gee, thanks mom. we were arguing all the way up till she got dropped off. she lives down the street from the MFA and one block from the gardner museum, one of the coolest museums in boston, and she would never go because art is worthless to her. she thinks i'm an idiot because i have no interest in international diplomacy and law like her and i'd rather look at paintings by dead guys.

i'm think im not in the right frame of mind now to work on my el greco paper. lol.

Ah, the chaos surrounding any sort of DiMarzo family get-together. screaming, yelling, no end of annoying comments from my sister and off-color ones from my grandpa (calling michael jackson the "cloroxed n****" is my personal favorite) and a lot of me wishing i could just turn on my headphones and ignore all of it.

some good things happened, though. while hunting for some scrap paper to write things down on (damn the lack of computers) i found three things in a chest of drawers in the front parlor. the first was several sheets of paper on which my grandpa had written down the story of how he met, fell in love with, and married my grandmother. horribly messy handwriting and a lot of crossouts. the second was a single sheet dated last march, a sort-of poem about him looking out the window and seeing a sea-gull, and wondering if it was as lonely as he was without the woman he loved. the third was the most surprising for me to find, just sitting in this drawer amid calendars and scraps of paper--a sheet of paper written in my grandmother's hand, dated 1989, all about her life. it began "i was born the third of twelve children..." and went on to describe how she only went to school up till 9th grade, when she had to go to work in a factory to help her family. her first paycheck was three dollars-- for sixty hours worth of work. holy god. it was just so utterly strange to be reading about her life in her own words, this woman who died when i was eight. she seemed to have such personal strength--at one point she wrote "it has not been easy, but i can't complain--i'm from very strong stock." in his recollection of her, my granpda wrote something about how she had great wisdom, the kind that can't be found in books. if ever i doubt that true love exists, i should think of my grandparents. they faced such obstacles and had such limitations placed on them by life, but in the end they had each other. reading my grandfather's own words about how much he misses her, i felt the same sadness for him that i feel for my mom.....what a terrible thing for him, to not only have buried his wife and best friend, but also his only son.

all in all, i was just kind of bowled over by reading all this. the last time i found an old letter in my grandpa's house, it was one my dad wrote from california when he was twenty or so, and it kind of depressed me because it showed me even then the drive he had to make everything perfect. the kind of drive that is ultimately self-defeating because it can't tolerate anything less than complete success.

and since my dad's anniversary approacheth (loved the radio ad that declared "April 15 is coming--the day that does not sit well with many people"), it was of course a major topic of discussion. somehow i hate talking about him with my sister, i don't know why. she just seems to always be either too dramatic and over-emotional (again with the calling him "daddy" thing which irks me so much) or just really abrupt, like talking about how she's so sure he would have killed himself anyway even if he had lived. my mom and i talked about him on the way home, which is fine, i don't mind talking about him when it's just the two of us. it's her that just makes me want to sit in a corner and ignore everything.

i called some of my friends last night because it struck me that a year ago at this time we were enduring a really horrible four hour long easter vigil at some adobe mission church in arizona. today....what did we do easter sunday, i can't even remember. i think we might have gone to taos. who knows....three years ago today rae and i were sitting through an easter mass in spanish in madrid (the only words i really recognized were "senor" and "dios"), and i had just met manuel like five minutes before we dashed out the door. weird. i wonder what i will be remembering this day for five years from now?

Just because I feel like posting a picture of tommy....i will....except that i can't remember the html for pictures, so you'll just have to be content with a link. that way if you dont want to see it you don't have to lol. Pic Aside from the fact that he, Dan and Justin are attempting to look badass, it's a pretty good picture, meaning for once he doesn't look stoned!

soon i will be going up to MA to visit my grandpa for easter. yay for car rides.

oh and yesterday i bought "angels and demons", by the same guy who wrote da vinci code. meghan told me it's even better, so i'm all intrigued now.

tonight made me genuinely glad to be home. not even the sight of my little sapphire curled up on the bed made me as satisfied as going to see "The Prince and Me" with sara and totally hanging onto each other at the crazy emotional moments in the movie (and also when they were about to start going at it in the library, that was hot) and squealing and being utterly girly. it was great. as for everyone who mocked me for wanting to see this movie, it was completely worth it! it was not simply a cutesy movie about an incredibly gorgeous prince, it was about julia stiles' character having to choose between being a queen and her dreams of being a doctor and helping people. in the end.....well i won't tell you the end, but it's definitely the right choice that she makes. female empowerment, right on! then i sang loudly to myself on the drive home, and had a good chat with my mom as she baked that sort of made up for the anger this afternoon. so it's been a good night.

after the movie ended we were talking for a minute about that whole issue of choosing between your dreams and someone you truly love. it's such a hard question. you could say "omnia vincit amor", but honestly, i don't want to sacrifice my dreams for anyone.

in my mind when i think into the future, i always have this idea that after graduation i'll pack up and move to spain for a few years, just for the hell of it. i never usually envision a significant other in there, but what if there were one? what if i were completely lucky *crosses fingers* and like got a fulbright scholarship to spain or something, but there was someone here that i were truly in love with?i can't possibly imagine myself giving up that opportunity, i feel like i'd hate myself forever. right now my plans for the future are almost entirely nebulous, but there is one concrete point of reference: spain. spain is the only dream i have right now. still, i can't entirely speak from experience on this either, because i've never yet loved someone so completely that i feel like i would give up anything for them. i loved greg, but if for some reason he'd been like "skip college, let's go away", i would have said fuck no, bye. will i find someone like that? or will there always be something that i just can't sacrifice?

quite possibly these are questions that i won't be able to answer until i find myself in that situation. i hope that i never will.

my mom just called me upstairs to lick the spoon from making the blueberry muffins. damn, life is good right now.

oh, and is it weird that watching chick flicks that deal a lot with marriage always leave me with the "damn i wanna be married" feeling? it only lasts for like an hour, it's definitely fading now....i'm so impressionable. most of the time i'm like no way, i don't want to be confined to marriage, but sometimes i'm like well, it would be incredible to know that you have this one person you can truly rely on for the rest of your life (ignoring the insane divorce rate in this country). it's not so much the sexually liberated aspect of the single life that draws me, it's more the idea of being free, not tied down forever...but something inside me says that this is just a phase, that one day i'll realize that utter freedom can be pretty lonely.

Ten Things That Make Michelle Happy Today:
1.) blueberry muffin batter
2.) the smell of baking things
3.) cats who love me
4.) incredibly fluffy beds
5.) the last hug i received, which was from sara
6.) the sight of my mom puttering about the kitchen
7.) movies that end well
8.) eating cheese and strawberries and chocolate for dinner
9.) obstinately remaining in the car with the stereo blasting in sara's quiet neighborhood until "sober" finished playing
10.) thinking about tommy

oh coming home really sucked. my mom finally deigned to come get me at like three o'clock. when jen showed up with her i was just hugely reminded of all the reasons i did NOT want to go home. hunger, frustration, anger and sadness combined, i was really upset, and there were tears as we drove away. all the way to the highway i was repeating the same thing in my head "don't make me leave, don't make me go back there". this is just a taste of this summer and already i hate it. already i want to go back to school, i want out, i want to be away from them.

hanging out with sara is the only thing keeping me going. that, and the memory of last night.

Oh, last night was amazing. it was amazing twice over, because after he left the first time i was like, damn, i'm not going to see him for a while, and then we kept text messaging each other, and at like 230 he was finally like that's it, i'm sneaking out! he was only there from about 3 to 4:30 and saying goodbye was, once again, really hard, but damn, it was worth it.

we both agreed that we think we're addicted. and we don't really mind.

after four hours of text messages he's coming back. just when i thought this night couldn't get any more out-there. i can't wait to see this month's cell phone bill. holy shit. you've never seen anyone fly out of bed quicker in their lives.

i don't think i'll be sleeping much tonight.

energy energy energy! i feel like i'm on fire....no, my face is just really flushed....my heart is also racing from practically leaping up the fucking stairs hahaha ok too much sugar, bring it in as heather would say.....hoo boy. what a way to end the week. hot damn. if anyone can't guess the cause of the excitement is a boy. michelle did not go to the gym tonight nor is she watching csi, but she had something far far far better. a boy. tommy, to be precise.........before he got here i had butterflies in my stomach. bad enough that for a brief second i felt nauseous. i felt like such a fucking girl but you know what it all turned out well and being a girl is AN AWESOME THING AND I LOVE IT. I FUCKING LOVE IT. my hatred of men conceived through some sheistiness of past days coupled with last night's movie is gone. well anyway i don't hate all man. a lot of men are really stupid, like ones who go here and to NYu but ones who happen to go to marist and are named tommy are pretty damned good. i sound like i'm on crack, i know, but my fingers are in that fabulous warmed-up state and they're flying across the keys almost faster than i can think of things to type! ideas are flying through my mind at warp speed but they're fragmented and weird and blotched with color like the paintings i'm trying to do a fucking report on right now! this is.....beautiful.

in the moment....that's all i thought tonight would be, in the moment. i was reminded of a quote from one of my favorite books, the duchess of milan, which deals a lot with the theme of fortune's wheel....at a point where she's really happy at last, beatrice d'este, the heroine, thinks to herself "stop the wheel. this is my choice." (of course she can't, hence the ending of the book which is really sad but let's ignore that shall we). if i could choose, tonight would be my choice... tommy's visit completely lifted my spirits after the evening started out terribly, with me feeling really lonely. i ate dinner alone in the caf, i've never done that. i packed like crazy and was thinking so many depressing thoughts about the year ending. but this, this has just made me so much more content. i can face an evening alone, hells yes i can. well i could have done it before but now it's just so much better.

rambling rambling rambling. my thoughts are so skewed. you know those moments when there's something inside of you that you feel so strongly you just want to yell it out, but you don't because it's risky or you might make a mistake? i felt that a couple of times tonight, i just wanted things to stay like that. it was so....sweet, so comfortable.

of course i can't predict the future, of course things can't always be fabulous, but hell, carpe diem! the new theme on my phone is "tempus fugit" in honor of the closing year.

we said it. we both did. i'm glad.

i can still smell his cologne, faintly. life is really good, right now.

Today was a good day. At work I gave a tour to a girl from staten island who accidentally missed the real tour; she was already accepted and was 90 percent certain she wanted to come here. it was really cool, mostly because she was really nice and she wanted to hear about actual life at school, not the stats and history that the actual tour guides talk out.

then meredith and i went to a lecture on Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in Chicago. Picture Little did i know it's a Unitarian Universalist church, and the only FLW building still in public use. i would love to visit it sometime, perhaps with a certain small faerie in tow? :-) The building itself is really interesting (nothing like the weird "controlled space" of Taliesin West, former HILL-ers). I have no idea if anyone will actually look at this, but this is a schematic. The Unity Temple is the first cubic structure to the left. it's all constructed in units of 7 feet, which has religious symbolism apparently, and the cube shape is supposed to symbolize equality and unity which as we all know is what those darling little Universalists are all about. Wright wanted to make a building "expressive of the faith". even though i'm not a huge wright fan (i've always hated those cantilevered roofs) i found myself admiring the neat rectilinear design of this building. my grandpa loves wright, absolutely loves him, so i'm hoping we can actually talk about this over easter dinner. i'd call him about it but it's hard to have such conversations with him on the phone because you have to yell everything and repeat things, basically.

the night is also going well. yet another successful evening at the gym. we've been at this five nights a week for three weeks. um, and we also ate ben and jerry's tonight but let's ignore this. we were going to have the boys down here (read: pete only, because all the other guys will never come down this end of the hall) only to discover that pete left for home unexpectedly. as in, he left a post-it note on his door apologizing and saying shit had happened and he really wanted to leave, goodbye all. very strange. i feel bad for him that he doesn't like it here. wendy says he feels judged. so many people genuinely like him, though, i wonder if he understands that. i think he's a really cool guy, but i'm sensing definite issues there. this is what sucks for men about being men--they can't talk shit over with other guys. the guys on our floor do not have deep conversations about things that trouble with them. you know what, men laugh at us sometimes because we talk everything over with our friends and we over-analyze, but at least we have a support network. we have people to lean on when things get tough, people who know what's going on in our lives and recognize signs of depression or anxiety.

anyway, wendy and i are watching "someone like you", a chick flick that is actually kind of making me hate men! lol. i'm definitely reconsidering some things. i think i let my imagination run away with me for a bit there. note to self: resist resist resist. i'm hoping to relax and get a lot of work done tomorrow when everyone is gone. go to the gym, write some papers, watch csi, play some final fantasy, and be very creeped out by an empty fairfield! lol

some people go to clubs and bars on tuesday nights, that seems so completely strange to me. yeah i could party on a tuesday, wednesday or thursday if there was a special reason, but people regularly getting plastered on school nights seems pretty stupid. sigh. more to think on. but i guess it's good that certain illusions not be allowed to build up because they can be dangerous, can't they. fuck fuck fuck. i hate that i was on some level waiting all day for a phone call that lasted approximately five minutes and did not exactly leave me feeling warm and/or fuzzy. i hate that i let myself do that. i'm turning my phone off tomorrow. LIFE IS NEVER SIMPLE.

I hate playing phone tag, and I hate the feeling that's in my stomach right now. Oh dear.

The Stranger

Help me if you can
It's just that this,
is not the way I'm wired
so could you please,
help me understand why
you've given in to all these
reckless dark desires you're
Lying to yourself again
Suicidal imbecile
Think about it, put it on the faultline
What'll it take to get it through to you precious
I'm over this
Why do you wanna throw it away like this
Such a mess
why would i wanna wash you
Disconnect and self-destruct
one bullet at a time
What's your rush now
everyone will have his day to die
Medicated
drama queen
Picture perfect non-belligerence
Narcissistic
drama queen
Craving fame and all its decadence
Lying through your teeth again
Suicidal imbecile
Think about it, put it on the faultline
What'll it take to get it through to you precious
I'm over this
Why do wanna throw it away like this
Such a mess
why would i wanna wash you
Disconnect and self-destruct
one bullet at a time
What's your rush now
everyone will have his day to die
They were right about you
They were right about you
Lying to my face again
Suicidal imbecile
Think about, you're putting it on the fault line
What'll it take to get it through to you precious
I'm over this
Why do you wanna throw it away like this
Such a mess
Over this, over this
Disconnect and self-destruct
one bullet at a time
What's your hurry
everyone will have his day to die
If you choose to pull the trigger
Should your drama prove sincere
Do it somewhere far away from here

~A Perfect Circle

English class today consisted entirely of listening to twenty minutes of some guy reading greek poetry--in greek. sing-songy and annoying. and then my professor yakking about god knows what. oh and that's just after she felt like beginning class at quarter of. we also had a seven minute break during the class. what a terrible teacher. i wrote a lot in my notebook, though, and read my favorite poems in the anthology yet another time.

some things from the notebook:

i can't believe i paid several thousand dollars to hear someone moan in greek on a tape.
i spend too much time thinking about men.
life is complicated, but would i really want it to be different? would i want it to be bland, to be the identical progression of classes and work, seeing only the same faces, thinking only the same thoughts? No, i choose a little bit of chaos, i choose some measure of uncertainty. I choose the thrill of anticipation...
i can't believe i left this open on the desk when i went to the bathroom.
i'm incorrigible.
nicholas reminds me of a certain guy from november. bad bad bad.
What was it that he said that night? it was about "living in the moment". honestly, in practice it's harder than it seems. it's hard to restrain yourself from looking ahead, from wanting something more. you have to circumscribe your emotions and keep watch for weaknesses. you have to remember exactly what you decided to allow yourself to want and need.
i've tried, i really have. with november boy as he will now be known, i didn't really connect with him on a personal level. we had absolutely nothing in common. i kind of wanted him because he wanted me, and it didn't work. i realized then that i couldn't just hook up in a completely random sense. then there was charles. he was funny and sweet, almost overly so. in terms of personality he wasn't a good match in that he was too meek. he didn't challenge me. now there's tommy. he's dynamic, talkative, funny, hot...i like talking to him, he challenges me, he makes me feel comfortable and he's aggressive, too. i realized today that this is the kind of guy i want, this is the "type", if you will. it doesn't really matter how they look or how tall they are, i've been all over the map on that one, this is the basic formula for someone who could make michelle happy. the problem is, i've thoroughly convinced myself that i just shouldn't have a boyfriend because i feel like i get infatuated too easily. i go too deep, too fast, and then i break the surface a few weeks later wondering what the hell got into me. i fear my one-month turnaround. i fear asking someone out, losing interest, and then having to hurt their feelings. i fear someone becoming overly attached to me, i fear that i could believe myself to be attached and really not be.
i remember what it felt like to be falling in love, and i wonder if i want that again.

all this is what michelle does in english class when the teacher is NOT saying anything that it is educational value. i know this makes it sound like i have a fear of commitment. i'm not sure. i'm just afraid of making more mistakes because i'm not just playing with my own feelings, someone else's are involved too. i've never felt so terrible as the night i told charles i didn't feel that way about him. it was utter shit and i was like fuck this, i don't want to have to do this again!
this is from some random website:

"My instincts tell me that for most people, what is perceived as a fear of commitment is actually more of a disdain for commitment. It seems that at various times in our life, we are more or less sensitive to the disappointment of those around us - and realists know that nothing is static, people and circumstances all change over time. So what is interpreted as a fear of commitment, is really just an acknowledgement that the commitment is likely to be broken later, so why make a promise that can't be kept?

Perhaps a smarter way around relationships in modern day life would be short or medium term commitments, with the option to renew upon expiry. Forever is a little fanciful, but six months? No problem."

it's midnight, time to go to dreams.

In Response

Yes, I will confess it—
I don’t understand you,
and often I don’t even
care to try.
Why should I, when
at a moment’s notice
you will change,
forget your cares,
and be impatient
with my reluctance
to keep pace
with your emotions?
I’m sorry
that I cannot switch from
despair to hilarity
and back again
as effortlessly
as a skater glides
across the ice.
I’m sorry
that you cannot hear
your life
cracking beneath you.
I prefer to stay on shore
and watch you go
through the motions
of living, your arms out
for the balance
you can never maintain.

four thirty in the fucking morning. i guess i just don't want to go to sleep because that means i'll have to wake up and face complete and utter drainage of all my energy after the past few days, plus work and tests. and i just don't feel like sleeping alone tonight. today. whatever.

this is so long that it's going to have to be laid out in a day-by-day post, a la heather flanagan!

The Great Marist Adventure
Starring Michelle and Wendy

Thursday, early evening: Tommy's mom picked me and wendy up at the Quick and drove us to poughkeepsie for tommy's birthday celebration. she's such a nice woman but i must say not as cool as mama flanny. we arrive at marist and the boys are supposed to come down (being tommy, roommate justin, and friends), take our stuff upstairs, and then return to go out to dinner. we're parked at the bottom of a long flight of stairs, it's night, it's pouring, it's April Fool's and tommy's an asshole. basically, he pranked me but good; he had one of his friends run by and swipe my duffel bag, making me think someone had stolen everything i'd brought with me. i was in total shock. this went on for like ten minutes with plans to go to security, but they wouldnt be able to do much, and them all escorting me back to the car, until his friend dan popped up with my bag and said "hey, is this yours?" with a big grin on his face. i chased tommy around the fucking parking lot, i was so fucking pissed! i was this close to crying, thinking all my stuff, my cd player and cds and clothes etc were all gone! and wendy and mrs tuccio were in on it, they had promised not to tell, though his mom claimed she'd tried to drop hints. vengeance will be mine. oh and mrs tuccio asked me tomake sure tommy could still father children after i got revenge bc he's one of the few tuccio males left lol.

dinner was fine. justin and tommy are so funny together; you've got the lanky white kid who loves rap (and dances really well, christ) and then the HUGE black guy who says the funniest stuff.

justin: "fight the power!"
wendy: "what power?"
justin: "you know, The Power"
wendy: "no, i really don't get it...." (wendy has never heard of black power. everyone was shocked. she also thought racial discrimination didn't exist anymore.)

Thursday night: so i meet all of tommy's friends, hang out in his room after his mom leaves, and of course everyone starts drinking. we're talking ten-12 people here, so they went through a 1.75 liter bottle of vodka in an hour or so. michelle ended up feeling sick, which is amusing because her alcohol intake pitiful compared to everyone else and was spread out more. i'm not really sure what happened. i recovered pretty quickly, but i felt really gross. er, no one take this the wrong way, but so much shit happened i'm having trouble remmebering how tommy and i started to hook up. how annoying! well long story short we did hook up in the wee hours of the morning, and it was sweet. no details here. he has the top bunk, which was scary. we planned to stay up for the sunrise but justin woke up at like 4 and told us to "bust a nut and go to bed" lol so we got quiet.

Friday Morning: basically tommy fell asleep after that, taking up the whole fucking bed, and i felt gross and could not sleep so i ended up showering at 5:30 am. fun fun fun. when i get back tommy is sitting up in bed looking at me, says a bunch of gibberish and falls back down. he talks in his sleep! and he talked a lot! he called me "nana" at one point, told me a story about a dog, and asked about trains. at 6:30 justin was up and asked me if i wanted to go to mcdonald's, so we went and came back. more gibberish from tommy. i managed to get like 45 minutes of sleep somehow till everyone got up, tommy was very puzzled as to why he woke up to an empty bed and me sleeping on the bunk below. i was annoyed sort of, but he's so cuddly and very cute. naturally all was forgiven.

Friday Day: i ran into three NWC people in one day. i saw tori at the atm and kim voden at a frat house (more later) but the most hysterical was seeing sara rizakow in the caf. why? because i tried to hide and explained to the group how i didnt like her from high school, and they freaked out because they all know her and hate her! it gets better--she once basically "raped" tommy as wendy puts it; she got into his bed when he was drunk and went down on him, then rolled over and talked to God out loud, referring to tommy as her boyfriend. he got freaked out and kicked her out, and she's been lusting for him ever since. wendy was like "oh my god, put your arm around him on the way out she'll be so mad" but she was facing the wrong way. still, nah nah nah nah nah! just cause you were a ho-bag in high school and got guys when some of us were still shunned doesn't mean you're hot stuff. what now, beeyotch!

after lunch we went out, the boys got more liquor and wendy got her eyebrow pierced. it actually looks really good. much fun during the lazy afternoon. basically tommy and i were making out whenever possible. the thing about the boys' hall on his floor is that no one locks the door ever, and people randomly enter and leave, so dan and justin and big red and the girls would all just open the door or come in and there we'd be on the couch. no one blinked lol.

Friday Evening: dinner was some gross takeout that i barely touched because i felt weird. i decided right there not to drink that night. wendy had been fine not getting ass the night before but was determined to get some that evening, and plans were made to attend a frat party to keep her away from Evil Briain, sleaze-bag from home who lived in that building. to briefly explain, he has the deconti complex going on, the guy you shouldn't be attracted to but are anyway. bad news. they started drinking around seven in the room, and things got quite crazy for a little while. i got a lap dance from tommy. fuck, that was hot. he's also a damned good dancer, and even though i don't really like rap, with the music turned up wicked loud and him dancing (with wendy and justin), it was just hot, and i kept just smiling like such an idiot watching him. so cute. i told him he was cute later and he was actually surprised because not a lot of people tell him so, apparently, but jesus, he is. i didn't tell him that i'd been basically wanting to rip his clothes off since the moment i got there. i thought that might be too tempting. oh, let's not go into temptation....far too much of that these past few days! my favorite part of the evening occurred after wendy and tommy had just gone shot-for-shot (very silly thing to do on wendy's part) and they were both pretty damned drunk. it involved a lot of michelle sitting on people's laps and teasing wendy, but it's another thing not to be gone into here.

Friday Night: things went a bit downhill here. wendy became very very drunk; she was also unhappy due to a situation with evil brian and some personal stuff, so combine that with booze and you have the makings of a really bad situation. she was insistent on going out to the frat, so we all piled in these HUGE taxis, they're 15-seater vans, and go. five bucks to get into this place, which is by far the most disgusting domicile i have ever entered and i hope to god i never will again (this is the problem with attending one of these things sober, you're critical). masses of people all drinking gross beer. there was NOTHING else to drink, and i was so thirsty i almost drank one, but one sniff and i felt almost physically ill. the house was dilapidated, filthy, and full of awful frat-boy decorations like sixties posters and naked women. people were smoking indoors and my contacts got gross. no one was dancing anywhere, people were just talking to people they already knew, and wendy was unhappy because she didn't meet anyone new bc they werent there to branch out apparently. so yeah i stuck close to wendy and tommy, and was having no fun. tommy felt sick, he'd thrown up before, so we went outside for some fresh air. everyone else we knew apparently decided to leave and wendy found us, she thought we'd ditched her but she'd forgotten that we asked if she wanted to come outside and she said no. she was definitely in a very bad way at this point, so we just decided to go home. tommy actually APOLOGIZED to me that we had to leave so early before "things got fun". i was like, wtf, that was the most boring pointless physically uncomfortable experience of my life! well i didn't say that. this is something marist kids do for fun. did i mention none of them seem to do anything but party?

Saturday Morning: tommy and i successfully shared a bed, except i apparently kept edging him off but that bastard deserved it lol. i got like four hours sleep then we had to get up. i was really sad when the alarm went off, because i wanted to stay with him, but alas. i left my jacket, ten bucks and a sock behind. the ride to grand central was exhausting, but the one to fairfield was better. wendy and i had to talk about all the shit that happened. she was so much better in the morning, but acknowledged that there's issues that have to be dealt with because that's not a situation anyone wants to repeat. we mostly just focused on all the fun shit that went down, half of which i can't even write here! would you beleive this is the PG version of the marist trip? lol!

On to the analysis: i'm really glad i went. i had fun, i got off-campus, i had an amazing time with an amazing guy plus my lovely roommate. it's awesome that i like tommy as a person beyond the sexual aspect. he's funny, dynamic, and really friendly. and he's fucking sexy. if i weren't already hooking up with him or if wendy had banned it or something this weekend would have been torture! i just wanted to throw him down and rip his clothes off like all the time! it was bad, very bad indeed lol. as to the future, i have no idea. i would love to see more of him, but i'm conscious of the path this could take and i know it's treacherous. don't worry, i keep telling myself to be careful. let's not repeat past mistakes shall we? or make new ones?

in FINAL FUCKING CONCLUSION and i hope that no one felt compelled to read this besides wendy beacuse i know she will, this weekend was good. yes, i'm like sixty bucks lighter and missing some clothes and have some random bruises and smell like smoke, but i had fun, dammit.

So, the classes i'm taking next year are as follows:

Creative Writing: Poetry (a turbo class with Dr. Bridgford, i heart her)
Intro to Peace and Justice (a class for IRC)
Intro to Religious Studies, i forget which class, it's required
Seminar: Biblical Archaeology (this one they only offer once in four years)
Intro to Sociology (sadly, this is an 8am, but having a monday turbo kind of messed up my schedule)

the thing i'm most looking forward to is that my IRC class is in my dorm. i will so go to it in my pjs if at all possible, even if it's like at 11 am. i don't care. freedom!! actually that's a lie, i'm most looking forward to creative writing because i'm that damn excited about it. i've missed having a group atmosphere to discuss poetry. damn, never thought i'd say this but i kind of miss lynchie.