our elegant little dinner party at sara's last night went off wonderfully...so wonderfully, in fact, that heather has decreed that it should be repeated every month or so. sara had an awesome setup in her living room, with tons of flat pillows and candles, so it kind of felt like we were in india or the middle east (it helped that rae brought hummus and tabouleh for appetizers). we had so much damned food, especially the best fruit salad with every fruit known to man in it, that we just all ate until we couldn't eat anymore...and then we ate more...the conversation naturally turned to matters of men and sex, as it must when the fab four are finally reunited (not since january, christ), and it was quite entertaining, shall we say. we're all finally at more or less the same juncture, which is really amusing considering how things stood merely a year ago. sara's mom even let us have a go at some merlot, except i find wine really nasty so heather drank mine--way to go, babe, always willing to take one for your hetero lifemate!

after being apart from them for four months, especially rae who i hadn't seen at all since break, it just felt so right to be together, eating and laughing and cuddling on sara's bed to watch a movie about a lesbian cheerleader. i still miss the freedom of school, but there are, at the very least, three important things to be thankful for in being at home.

Welcome Home, Rae! (Took You Long Enough)

the last few days have been a lot of fun...i tried bowling for the first time since someone's birthday party in fourth grade and sucked royally! i also wasn't great at minigolf, but i kicked ass at lazer tag--as usual. GladWrap triumphs again! well, i wasn't number 1, i was number 3, but still out of thirty that ain't bad, plus i was already tired from not getting sleep the night before.

tonight i'm getting dressed up to have a indoor picnic/dinner party with sara, rae and heather...sara's getting her ceilings redone so there's really no furniture, so we're going to do it eastern style with lots of cushions. tomorrow it's back to sofia's. we actually had lunch there today and it was nice to see some of the waitresses, esp since they were really excited to see me lol, and it made me not dread tomorrow so much. as for this afternoon....i could nap, but jen's not here again so i should do some cleaning and re-arranging and stuff in her absence. i love how jen decided to be gone for the whole long weekend when i was really busy and couldn't have wendy here. grrrr. oh well, this means she gets subjected to the beast when she visits. if i survived, she'll survive.

also, i don't want to say anything too revealing in the public eye, but i would like to offer congratulations to a really good friend who seems to be at the beginning of something wonderful. best wishes to you, my dear!

so i take a quick look at the comp screen before going to bed, only to be invited by flanny to stay up so i can go with her to drop hilary off at northwest at 4am for a choir trip. what the hell, so i'm tired as fuck and my shoulders are killing me and it's pouring! should that get in the way of some quality time in a certain champagne colored toyota corola? no, i think not.

have you ever seen parents with small children, out having fun, and wished you could be that age again when nothing really mattered beyond having comfy overalls and nice crayons? there was a father buying popcorn for his two little girls in the movie theater this afternoon. the sight just kind of struck me with that little pang of sadness and nostalgia, which seeing fathers and daughters anywhere generally does to me. maybe it was because the guy was wearing a button-down shirt that looked just like one my dad had, i don't know.

i am so exhausted, but the past two days have been completely worth it. yesterday i got up at the ungodly hour of nine and drove to new haven to meet up with james and sean before we did another of those little studies at yale. i love how even though i live farthest away and got lost due to pinky's lack of directional capability, i still got there twenty minutes before either of them. it was really good to see them both, though sean was wearing a hat that can only be described as "old men's-wear" : a white fedora with a black band around the brim. i mean, come on, if he doesn't want to be made fun of for looking like a grandpa he should realllllly not wear things like that.

after that i drove to monroe via some not-to-bad backroads (no matter what they say, wendy and tommy live in the middle of nowhere. it's as bad as somers hehe) where tommy answered the door in full tuxedo! he looked so damn good, too. he wanted me to get a chance to see what it looked like on him, after i'd expressed my disappointment at missing him all dressed up for suzanne's prom last week, so he went all out, down to the cufflinks and fancy shoes. :-)

after that i got a lovely candelit dinner, complete with irish music in the background *rolls eyes* and really horrible potatoes that ended up being inedible. among other things we watched a really good movie called "murder by death", which brings together characters based on fictional detectives from other movies to solve a crime. two of them, dick and dora charleston, were based on nick and nora charles from the "thin man" movies...another was a sam spade/humphrey bogart character. there's no one quite like humphrey bogart anymore, is there?

i had to laugh this morning when tommy's mom sort of scolded him for that fact that we slept together in his bed last night; she told him to take the couch next time and "give the poor girl some space" because there's "no use creating temptation". hahaha.

this afternoon tommy led me through some truly horrible backroads to wendy's house. i'm talking curvy roads through dense foresty areas, up and down hills, where the speed limit was 15. naturally bc i was trying not to lose tommy i was going faster than that; it was really not an enjoyable drive and definitely not one i want to do again ever. wendy and i ended up meeting her friend justin and going to see shrek 2, which was surprisingly good for a sequel. the drive home seemed suspiciously short, even though i know i wasn't going that fast. anyway now i'm home, utterly exhausted, and ALONE thank you jesus christ. jen will basically be gone until sunday at various friends' homes. wheeee.

rain, rain, go AWAY! i hate gross days like today, they make everything look ugly and stupid and life seems pointless. i'm amazed i even had the drive to get dressed. one more day and i get to see james, sean and then tommy! :-)

today is my one-month anniversary with tommy! it seems so much longer that that. still, einstein did prove that time is relative...of course that's more when you're approaching the speed of light, but you get the idea.

i picked up a book called "good poems" today, compiled and introduced by none other than rae's beloved garrison keillor. he organizes things under categories, everything from "resurrection" to "yellow". looks pretty interesting, and of course i'm always scouting for new poetry!

i'm going back to sofia's. i called izzy yesterday, my manager jen called me back today and said she'd tell me about the schedule tonight or tomorrow. ah well, the dream of escape was brief. she told me the waitresses all missed me, which is nice. i'm sure the guys in the kitchen did too, for entirely different reasons. i do kind of miss romeo, and cooper, because they were always really nice...steve, too, he always told me i looked good. melo and ferrer, not so much. melo liked calling me "pocahontas" and "princess", for reasons beyond my comprehension. the thought of seeing charlie again is not exactly pleasant....oh that slimeball. i guess it's back to my campaign to convince izzy to let me drive his corvette sometime. i mean, he lets ferrer and melo drive it to fill it up or take it to get detailed and stuff, and he obviously trusts me enough to drive his truck...of course that might be bc we have the same one...but still. it might be the ugliest corvette ever produced but it's still related to the hot ones.

speaking of which, on the way to the mall today i saw a real-life version of Red!! for anyone who doesn't know, Red is the model of a '69 corvette convertible that rae gave me for christmas....i saw a real one, same color, and it was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen. sweet.

why do i constantly go back and read old posts from weeks, months, even years before? i don't really know...in an entry from last july i wrote this: "and the moon was delightfully yellow and very low in the sky, too...a delicious cheese just out of reach." it makes me want to see a full moon, like now.

i watched la femme nikita tonight. i'm so impressionable--movies really can affect me, for brief periods anyway, like how i always have that "gee i want to get married" feeling after i watch a good chick flick, except this kind of made me want to be an assassin. lol. or just shoot something, at least; i haven't fired a gun in years, haven't even held one since the day my mom took my dad's beretta .22 to the safety deposit box to await my 21st birthday. come to think of it, that damn thing hasnt been cleaned in three years. christ, it's probably not even going to work when i get it back.this isn't quite the one i have, my has a right-handed grip for some annoying discriminatory reason. i bet they don't even make lefty guns. how cruel.

i just came back from the wake for tommy's grandpa. i'm so exhausted, i felt my eyes about to close on the highway a few times. i made it back alright, obviously. it was very strange, i must say, not only because i didn't know his grandpa at all and there were all these people milling about that i had to be introduced to, but just because i hadn't been in a funeral home since my dad died, and it really brought it all back, which was just lovely, as you might imagine. however, the priest came in to say some prayers at the end of calling hours, and he said some things which i wish someone had said in front of me four years ago. the thing i liked best was this: "the bonds of friendship you knit in life are not unraveled in death." he also made the point that finding a person or a group of people to love is the most important thing in this life, and when he said that i looked at wendy who was sitting on my right and then tommy sitting on my left and i thanked god that they were two of the people i had found to care about and who care about me. also included in this are my family and of course my friends, who know who they are. "eternally grateful" only begins to describe the happiness of someone who has been blessed with true friends.

about this love thing, though...i get frustrated. i can tell a girl i love her because we're friends, because we care about each other, and it's easy to say. i can tell my guy friends (albeit infrequently) that i love them and it's not as easy cause they're men but i can say it without feeling weird. yet when it comes to tommy, who is definitely a friend, who definitely cares a lot about me and who i care so much about, it's so hard to say it because immediately it has a different connotation because we're dating. we agreed the other night that neither of us is ready to say we're in love, even though we really care about each other, and while i wish i could just tell him i love him and mean it (for the moment) simply in the sense that i love him like i love everyone that i'm close to, somehow that just doens't seem....ok. his grandpa passed away, and when i hugged him i just instinctively wanted to say 'i love you', because that's what i would say to wendy or rae or james or tj or any of my other friends if, god forbid, the same thing was happening to them, but i didn't. argh.

watching tommy today, it struck me that even though i didn't know his grandfather at all, i do know that he must have been so incredibly proud to have him as a grandson. it makes me sad that he feels like his parents don't really approve of him or appreciate him. tommy really is special...no, not just special, he's amazing. i haven't felt this way about someone in a long time, and i'm glad it's him. god am i glad it's him.

and so we're sarcastic and pretend to insult each other over the phone, when all i want to do is tell him how much i love lying in my bed, the lights turned down almost to the point of darkness, with his voice in my ear. i close my eyes and even though the connection isn't great i can almost pretend that he's lying there next to me and that tonight is not another night i will spend missing him as i drift off to sleep. but i didn't say it, for one reason or another, so instead i write it down here. maybe i'll give him the link to this sometime. he said he didn't understand why we all keep these journals, and i said that it was to keep up with each others' lives, and it is, to a point. it's part public-service announcement, the daily news brief on michelle's life, but also part tangible organization of michelle's thoughts and things she wants to remember. i'm not sure if there are any reasons why i wouldn't want him reading this....i guess it's mostly because of what happened with greg, because when i knew that he had the link i got more self-conscious about what i was writing, which i shouldn't have, but i did. my relationship with tommy is different than the one i had with greg; i couldn't put into words exactly how that's the case, i just feel like it is. i feel closer to him, i guess. i don't know. i think i need some sleep; tomorrow will be a full day.

oh, tonight's simpsons, which i sort of heard from my room as i got dressed for the interview, was one of the ones where homer's maybe going to die because he needs a really expensive surgical procedure. the line i heard was bart saying something about "homer, you can't die....then i won't have a dad..." and i realized that was one of the episodes that played in this like weeklong string of episodes relating to homer's role as the father that played a couple of years ago. i recalled this because i had such a hard time watching those episodes, they all either dealt with him either about to die (remmeber the poison blowfish one?) or his failures as a dad. for anyone who doesnt know this bit of family backstory, jen and i always joking compared my dad to homer...both overweight, balding nuclear engineers. jen called him "captain donut" even though he never ate them lol. i guess i always considered myself closest to lisa, the annoying little know-it-all daughter. the episodes where lisa was so disappointed in him and he thought he was a bad father never fail to make me cry...even more so when they work it out before the half-hour is up. if only life worked like a sitcom, right?

jesus i'm exhausted. so much has happened. today i got a job, got a $4000 scholarship from the masons, found out i got straight As in school, and got a personal email from jesus (professor) thanking me for the note i wrote him at the end of my exam. whew.

yesterday i went to visit tommy, saw my beloved wendy and met tommy's best friend paul, who is a really cool guy. tommy took me for a drive in his dad's candy-apple-red camaro convertible. HOT.

really there's too much to write here about last night...i myself am still sorting some things out. one thing i'm sure of, and that's that tommy means so much to me. he makes me happy both in the ridiculously happy, dumb-grin-on-your-face-and-tingly-feelings way and in the quieter, peaceful way...i would rather believe that fate, rather than dumb luck, brought me and wendy together, so by extension, fate led me to tommy as well. i like fate.

a long conversation with tommy tonight about death and memories and life led me into the living room to look at the collage of pictures that i made for my dad's wake. i felt like i hadn't looked at it, really looked at it, in so long, though i see it all the time. i sat down in front of it and i started looking at the pictures and suddenly i was there in them, like that time in alcatraz when he stood inside the cell with his hands up and a goofy grin on his face...then one of him standing in the kitchen, almost the same pose, but wearing his blue nylon blazer and work clothes. suddenly i could feel exactly what that coat felt like underneath my fingers, softer than the heavy red winter coat but still scratchy. suddenly i could picture him sitting to my left at the dinner table, dumping the meatloaf into a giant bowl of salad and carefully making a moat of of a baked potato. suddenly i could see him smiling again, but i couldn't remember the sound of his laughter, which almost made me cry, but i didn't, what made me cry was the picture of him and my mother, taken when they were just married, standing outside of some random tourist spot, arms around each other, grinning, looking so happy, and it just hit me that they had no way of knowing back then that this would be the way things would turn out. looking at them, so blissfully unaware of what the years would bring, i couldn't help but cry...part of me wanted to jump in there, wanted to warn them, but part of me didn't want to, because it would only taint their time together. then i just had the powerful fear that it will happen to me, that i'll fall in love and be so happy and i'll never expect what's waiting around the corner till it hits me. that scared me so much but i know i can't let that stop me from enjoying life. you just have to cope with the chance that it will all be taken away in an instant, and you will be left, again.

i can't remember the last time i cried on the phone with someone...tommy was crying at times too. i'm just usually not comfortable doing it in front of other people, not because i don't want to look stupid or feel weak but just because i feel like they can't understand, and i want them to understand! i don't want them just to see me and think oh yeah, her dad died four years ago, that's why she cries sometimes...i want them to know who it was that i lost, and how i lost him, and all the emotional baggage that came along with my dad and our family and just everything. and that's really not possible, outside of a very few people, and i don't usually feel the need to cry around them, but if i did i know that i would. sara, rae, heather....you guys have the best idea of all the shit that happened. where or what i would be without you, i have no idea and i don't really want to know. i originally almost started to cry telling tommy about my dad's wake, about the masonic ritual of putting evergreens in the coffin and how that meant more to me than the church rites or the burial service, and also how you guys being there helped so much....even about how heather cried more than me and she'd never even met him. i'm not crying anymore, but i'm at that stage where i know i'll start again if i start thinking about him again, and i don't want to do that, it's late, i need sleep.

i had the idea today of writing a letter and then setting it adrift on the farmington, in one of those little lantern boats the chinese make for those who have died...i would write "i love you, dad" as many times as i could fit it onto that piece of paper. maybe he'll see. maybe he already knows.

and i'm back from MA. graduation was cut abruptly short by a torrential downpour that sent hundreds of family members scurrying indoors. in the end they just tossed the grads their diplomas and left, which sucked for jen because she got screwed out of a graduation. personally, i didnt want to sit out there for hours anyway, and i must say it was pretty comical to see me and my mom and my two aunts and jen's five friends all running around like drowned rats in boston. we all went out for a late lunch with my grandpa and my cousins, much questioning about college from my aunt bc my cousin sara is going to be a senior, i do believe. i was so sad to see that she dressed just like the miniskirt mafia at FU-- little short ruffled shirt and a jean jacket with the popped collar. at least she came by her skin color honestly, she has the same awesome tan color that my dad had. no irish contamination there, that's why *shakes fist* she's looking at catholic schools, including PC. sara, puerto-rican-best-friend-sara, doesn't want her there lol.

tommy's grandpa is in the hospital, dying. his family went to say goodbye this morning. he told me he brought his grandpa a picture of me yesterday, which is ironic because so did i. there's never anything to say in a moment like this. what i wanted to do was reach through the phone and hug him, but instead i just said i was sorry, which is true but painfully inadequate. thankfully, he had a chance to say goodbye and to tell his grandpa that he loved him. i just pray that whenever my grandfather's time comes i have the same chance...i try not to think about that, even though he's 88 years old. at least when he passes away he will be with my grandma and my dad again; he misses them so much. for that reason, i think my grandpa will die happy, when the time comes. that really is the best thing you can hope for--a long life and a happy death.

thoughts of mortality always make me consider all that i have and all that i should be thankful for. i'm talking to meredith and amanda online right now as i type this, and i was talking to sara a little while ago on the phone...it's just so good to have really close friends, to know that people really know you, and care about you, and miss you when you're not with them. i miss school so much more when i'm talking to meredith and popham because it reminds me that i can't just go down the hall and knock on their door to say hi or can i borrow your vacuum or what happened on gilmore girls!! or whatever. yet at the same time, talking to sara reminded me of how good it is to be home with my friends from high school (all we're missing is our little rae! come home, faerie queen) with the people i've known forever. so strange to think that a year ago i would have been talking to sara, but would have known nothing about these random people named meredith and amanda...makes me wonder who i'll know a year or two from now. anyway, i love you all. friends make life awesome.

and having a wonderful boyfriend doesn't really hurt, either.

and i'm home. let's not go into the agonizing moving out and in process--suffice it to say that thank god tommy was there because otherwise i would have either broken down in tears or blown up at my mom. i was so completely exhausted by like six pm. however, i couldn't pass up with opportunity to hang out with my girls--sara, heather, mel and jessi. jessi picked me up and we were supposed to go to greg's friend's party, but we got there and it was really dull, so we left pretty quickly. greg has sideburns! gah! i feel like he ruined his natural beauty!

anyway from there we wandered about for a bit, stopped for ice cream, then headed over to tom's...i won't post his full name, obviously, but all you northwesters, sexylicious Tom B, aka "The Walking STD", infamous for taping his sexual exploits with my friend emily and also for dancing in a leopard print thong to "foxy lady" in a hot tub. yeeeah. also mr avery's younger brother brian, now melissa's bf (so cute) and noah, aka one of the hottest guys ever. there was alcohol involved, obviously, but tonight was michelle's induction into the ranks of the designated drivers, since sara gets weirded out driving at night and jessi really wanted to drink.

of course, there was sexual stuff in the air because those guys are always horny and they were half drunk when we got there, so we wound up playing spin the bottle, but, alas, i could really only make out with jessi and mel (i love how i always work the entire family), since sara and heather are just no-nos. i eventually pecked the guys when i got them, but i guess they kind of considered that a waste of a turn bc they didn't get anything out of it. oh well. so basically i ended up not drinking and not getting any (besides a drunk and very amorous melissa) and really really really wanting to be in monroe with a certain someone.

the coolest part of the evening, for me anyway *glares at sara and heather those little hos* was driving jessi's car, because it's so much racier than anything i've ever driven even though it's just a civic ex. i love how in two days i've driven three cars, none of them mine. the tahoe and i have not yet reconnected. in fact we may not reconnect until monday. tomorrow it's off to MA to suffer through this graduation crap. i will have my cellphone, PLEASE GOD CALL ME *cough* i mean what, who's going to be desperately lonely and missing all of you? yeah, that's me. dammit.

weird weird weird weird WEIRD. tomorrow morning i am leaving this place, and i know i should go to bed because i'm getting up early to eat breakfast with meredith but i can't, i don't want to sleep, i don't want to wake up because then it will all well and truly be over. wendy's stuff is all gone and our little room is so sad. tonight will be the only night ever that i will go to sleep being able to see the ceiling, since our beds are no longer bunked. lotta fun getting those apart--greg really did a number on them when we moved in. i had that strange feeling of missing him again tonight, probably because he was here when i moved in, he saw how sterile it was when i first unlocked the door, and now it's back to that way again. so i called, and we talked for a while, and it was fun.

hm, tonight must have been have-fun-with-exes night--andrew and i had a war in the hallway, me with my deadly dart gun and him with that pathetic bow and arrow. he's going to be bruised tomorrow, baby. it was ironic in that it kind of proved that he and i can actually get along when we're not drunk, as opposed to what he observed tuesday night when we were stumbling around the halls together. anyway that was a lot of fun.

we also all went out to see "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" tonight, which was a good movie and one that got me thinking about memories and regrets and all that. i came to the quick conclusion that i wouldn't erase anyone--andrew was actually the first thing that came to mind, but then i realized i would lose what i learned from that, namely don't date sketchy clingy cubans! i had the fleeting thought of greg, but i know that there were just too many good times there for me to ever want to erase it. too much happiness. the last half of high school would have been dramatically different for me if i hadn't been with him, and probably not for the better. in the movie they tell the people whose memories are being erased that they have to bring in every single thing they have that reminds them of the person--thinking about that later i was like holy shit, no way could i manage that. i'm a fucking pack rat. i save everything, for the express purpose of being reminded of things when i poke through them later. plus i'd have to give up my tool hoodie, huggy the bear, the tool tshirt i am currently wearing....(that purple heart candle though, i'd give that up real fast). how crazy is it that i still have a nametag that says "GREG" stuck on my wall at home? that i still have a miniature prom picture on my bookshelf? seven months and three boyfriends later, and there's still remnants, everywhere. i remember seeing on his site something about how he was tempted to gather up everything that reminded him of me and throw it out or burn it, but he didn't, and i'm glad he didn't. i wouldn't have.

alright enough about old flames...michelle misses current flame. i miss a lot of people right now, wendy, tj, sean, popham, etc, so at least i'm a little used to missing tommy. no, nevermind that really doesn't make me feel any better. i might be able to see him monday or so. this weekend's going to suck, going up to MA for graduation, all that family, then jen's little pal coming home with us, everyone asking me about college and me just desperately wanting to come back, to open the door to campion 425 and find wendy, half dressed, straightening her hair or lying on my bed with baby bop, to come back to my friends here and my freedom here and my life. i never realized it would be this hard to leave. jesus. how hard will it be to graduate? i don't even want to know. i just want to STAY.

weird weird weird weird WEIRD. tomorrow morning i am leaving this place, and i know i should go to bed because i'm getting up early to eat breakfast with meredith but i can't, i don't want to sleep, i don't want to wake up because then it will all well and truly be over. wendy's stuff is all gone and our little room is so sad. tonight will be the only night ever that i will go to sleep being able to see the ceiling, since our beds are no longer bunked. lotta fun getting those apart--greg really did a number on them when we moved in. i had that strange feeling of missing him again tonight, probably because he was here when i moved in, he saw how sterile it was when i first unlocked the door, and now it's back to that way again. so i called, and we talked for a while, and it was fun.

hm, tonight must have been have-fun-with-exes night--andrew and i had a war in the hallway, me with my deadly dart gun and him with that pathetic bow and arrow. he's going to be bruised tomorrow, baby. it was ironic in that it kind of proved that he and i can actually get along when we're not drunk, as opposed to what he observed tuesday night when we were stumbling around the halls together. anyway that was a lot of fun.

we also all went out to see "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" tonight, which was a good movie and one that got me thinking about memories and regrets and all that. i came to the quick conclusion that i wouldn't erase anyone--andrew was actually the first thing that came to mind, but then i realized i would lose what i learned from that, namely don't date sketchy clingy cubans! i had the fleeting thought of greg, but i know that there were just too many good times there for me to ever want to erase it. too much happiness. the last half of high school would have been dramatically different for me if i hadn't been with him, and probably not for the better. in the movie they tell the people whose memories are being erased that they have to bring in every single thing they have that reminds them of the person--thinking about that later i was like holy shit, no way could i manage that. i'm a fucking pack rat. i save everything, for the express purpose of being reminded of things when i poke through them later. plus i'd have to give up my tool hoodie, huggy the bear, the tool tshirt i am currently wearing....(that purple heart candle though, i'd give that up real fast). how crazy is it that i still have a nametag that says "GREG" stuck on my wall at home? that i still have a miniature prom picture on my bookshelf? seven months and three boyfriends later, and there's still remnants, everywhere. i remember seeing on his site something about how he was tempted to gather up everything that reminded him of me and throw it out or burn it, but he didn't, and i'm glad he didn't. i wouldn't have.

alright enough about old flames...michelle misses current flame. i miss a lot of people right now, wendy, tj, sean, popham, etc, so at least i'm a little used to missing tommy. no, nevermind that really doesn't make me feel any better. i might be able to see him monday or so. this weekend's going to suck, going up to MA for graduation, all that family, then jen's little pal coming home with us, everyone asking me about college and me just desperately wanting to come back, to open the door to campion 425 and find wendy, half dressed, straightening her hair or lying on my bed with baby bop, to come back to my friends here and my freedom here and my life. i never realized it would be this hard to leave. jesus. how hard will it be to graduate? i don't even want to know. i just want to STAY.

Ok, so blogger has a new format now when you sign in. weird. it informed me that i have made 473 posts on this blog since its inception, which is cool.

tomorrow i have exams in history and art history. my hand will want to die after that six hours of writing writing writing. blah. at least in AH i enjoy what i'm writing about, though. well, my mathematical career is now completely over (i took a knife to my textbook, but it wasnt too sharp, so stabbing it repeatedly only penetrated the first ten pages or so. i'll try again tuesday) and after tomorrow, so too will my history one be! muahaha.

tommy's back from emmaus! it's corny, yes, but i missed him in the approximately two and a half days i didn't get to talk to him one way or another. i'm such a girl.

heather got a gold necklace from zales as a make-up gift from a guy she's not even dating. i told her how ironic it was that not a single one of her friends had gotten something that nice from any of their boyfriends lol. she informed me that this is what comes from "dating up" (but she was kidding, naturally).

just a few days left now. how strange is that. i can't bear to pack up the rest of my things until at least wednesday, and i'm not taking my posters down until thursday, if at all possible...i don't want to wake up in a bare room. tuesday night's going to be great, i've never been drunk with tj before! i think he will be a fun drunk like me and sean. he's buying sean a bottle of amaretto, just for him, so he can make his amaretto sours. i asked my mom over the phone if i could give sean the bottle of amaretto we've got and never use, and she was like "WHAT! i do not give alcohol to minors! what's wrong with your friends!" i was kind of testing her out, i must say...i'm really not sure if she thinks i drink or not, or if she would be really upset about it. she didn't seem to care when jen revealed she'd drunk at school, and she generally considers me more responsible than jen, but i don't know. i'll have to hide my shot glasses when i go home, she bought them for me bc i said that "a friend of wendy's wants some". i mean, come on, is that at all a plausible reason for me to be buying shot glasses? but she didn't say anything! maybe she thinks i like drinking out of them cause they're cute. the littlest one i have i got from my grandma when i was little bc i thought it was so adorable. i had no idea what it was. my grandpa uses shot glasses in the bathroom to take pills with lol.

wendy and i made some more interesting lists tonight...including one of guys each of us is not allowed to have sex with lol. i took a permanent marker and wrote four sets of initials on each of our smiley-face condoms. we've decreed that the Sacred Smile Condoms may only be used for someone whose initials are now permanently branded onto the packaging. well one set of initials on each is AF, which is NOT andrew, but "anyone famous" lol. right now that little bitch is trying to steal my bed. AND my mouse! nooooooo! i attacked her with the hair straightener--again--but i was unsuccessful in removing her. she's like a fungus. a big, blonde, cute fungus with "a perfect nose" and nice legs. grrr.

oh, and i just realized that my Poems file on my computer, which i started once i got to fairfield, reached sixty pages tonight. i've been a prolific little bastard this year. they're not all good, but there are some i just love. i think this is my favorite poem that i've ever written:

What I Really Meant to Tell You


I just wanted you to know
that the words that came
out of my mouth today
weren’t at all what I wanted you to hear.
In place of “Excuse me,”
I meant to tell you that your eyes
are the exact shade of blue
that El Greco used for the robe of God
In his famous Day of Judgement,

and if you heard me say
“Could you pass me a straw?”
what I actually said was that
I wish that I could sit by you
and write endless poems
about the grace of your hands.

Also, when I said “good-bye”, I meant it,
but next to that last e was a single,
silent declaration of my love,
(in case you didn’t hear).

yes i've posted it before, but i do love it. it was pretty early, it's only on page 15 lol. ironically, this was kind of inspired by TFB, after i brushed into him in the cafeteria and did not say any of the wonderful things i could have said to entice/entrap him. then i thought he was gay, and i stopped liking him anyway, but i still loved the poem, and then i discovered he is in fact not gay, and now the poem seems a bit ironic to me, but who cares, i still love it!

i called greg back tonight. we actually ended up talking for almost an hour, about random stuff. i hadn't realized how much i missed the sound of his voice until then, it's very soothing. i go back and forth on this, i know, but tonight i miss being friends.

tonight, tommy read me a speech that he's giving this weekend at an emmaus retreat. part of it was a story about how he always used to be angry at his dad when he was younger and even hated him, and only now started to realize that who his dad is as a person. apparently part of the retreat is that when the kids get there they get letters their parents have written for them, and the one tommy's dad wrote for him when he went made him break down and cry because it made him realize how much his dad loved him. i told him he was very lucky to have reached that point, especially at this age....and i suddenly really wanted to cry, but i didn't feel like breaking into tears in the hallway.

it always hurts to hear about the turning points other people have with their parents, at various stages in their lives. especially with their fathers. it just drives home for the millionth time that i will never have that. our relationship ended with the anger, with the arguing, with the complete lack of understanding. our relationship ended on the floor of my parents' bedroom, or at least his half of it did, because i'm still here, i'm still thinking about him and wishing....i wish so many things, none of them possible. i wanted to tell tommy that i hoped that he took that letter from his dad and put it somewhere where he will always have it, no matter what happens. i didn't think i could say it without crying. i wonder if he knows that i would give almost anything to have a letter like that from my dad...and now i'm crying, and i think i'm waking wendy up.

the argument could be made that what i can't have with my dad i can always have with my mom, but i don't know. i can talk to my mom, i know she's proud of me, i understand her as a person much more than i did four years ago, much more than i ever understood my dad. but, for better or for worse, my dad was the most powerful influence in my life. we were alike, we made each other laugh. my mom and i are not that similar....i don't know, i can't help it. there's just this huge sense in me that if things could have been put right, with everything, if somehow i could have flashed forward to some utopian future, what a relationship we might have had! but there's no use daydreaming about that, is there.

how ironic that just the other day i was musing about how i haven't been thinking about him much since his anniversary. i actually remember thinking that i hadn't cried in a while--well i'm making up for lost time now. how utterly ironic that they thought there was something wrong with me, after he died, because no one ever saw me cry. i barely ever cried, for a few years. maybe it's because i've gained perspective; i see it all from so many angles now. back then i had just lost a father figure whom i often disliked, which is bad enough in itself, but four years later he's become so much more, full of depth and history and all the things i never had a chance to know. four years later i'm still discovering what i lost that day, and with every revelation i grieve more and more for what i'll never have. loss is supposed to grow dimmer over the years, but for me it seems to grow more acute, especially on nights like tonight, when i hear the happiness in the voice of someone who has reached a milestone with their dad that i can never hope to achieve, in this life.

and the final irony of all this? i start crying on the night we run out of tissues. beautiful.

i want to write but i don't know what to say. how do you turn tears into words?

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.


~Pablo Neruda

One Hundred Interesting Questions And One Boring One
a survey by Adam Bertocci
---
It's a long survey, but filled with the kinds of questions you won't see anywhere else. Be honest and send it to all your friends, and who knows what you'll learn!

YOUR NAME
(1) The singular boring question: What is your name?
I??ve learned not to answer this, because it makes my site Google-able. MMD.
(2) If you had been born a member of the opposite sex, what would your name have been?
Michael
(3) Would you name a child of yours after you?
No, I??d probably name a boy after my dad, and a girl, who knows.
(4) If you had to switch first names with a friend of yours, who would you switch with?
Meredith
(5) What's the way people most often mispronounce any part of your name?
DiMarz-i-o
(6) If you were to become famous, would you drop your last name (like Madonna, Cher, Roseanne)?
Hell no, I like my last name.

DEEP THEOLOGICAL QUESTIONS
(7) Do you believe in the traditional view of Heaven and Hell?
Not really. I feel like truly evil people should be punished, but the majority of people are not bad enough to deserve eternal torment, even if they don??t confess their sins or attend services.
(8) Do you think God has a gender?
Not really. I usually put God in the male gender in my own mind simply because I was raised in a patriarchal religion. I find the traditional image of god as the guy with the flowing beard to be comforting, even if it may be inaccurate. Humans need something they can relate to when they think of God.
(9) Do you think science counteracts religion?
Not really. For me, the complexity of life has always been one of the greatest proofs of the existence of God, even though for some it is the greatest argument against it. Science has never explained what there was before the Big Bang, after all. Something cannot come from nothing.
(10) Do you believe in organized religion?
No. I believe in a lot of what the major religions have in common, but it??s the trappings and rituals that I dislike, and also their determination to nitpick until they??ve come up with a codified reaction to every little thing in life.
(11) Where do you think we go when we die?
I??m not sure. Hopefully, to heaven.
(12) Do you feel a little funny thinking about the questions in this section?
Not at all, I think about them a lot.

HUMOR
(13) How easy is it to make you laugh?
Pretty easy ??
(14) What person you know makes you laugh the most?
Probably heather, my crazy ghetto girl
(15) Do you laugh at jokes you know you shouldn't?
Of course.
(16) Do you tell jokes you know you shouldn't?
Of course!
(17) What words instantly make you laugh or at least smile?
Um?Kcan??t think of any
(18) What do you think is the funniest thing you've ever said or written?
One of those things that rae uses for her away messages?Kbut I forgot what it said?KI just know that I read it one day and cracked up, I??d completely forgotten that I??d ever said it.

MUSIC
(19) Do you ever dance to music when nobody's watching?
Cough. Yes.
(20) What is/are the worst song(s) you have ever heard?
A lot of rap songs, a lot of death metal, and a lot of country.
(21) What song(s) do you wish you could understand a little better?
A lot of Tool songs lol
(22) What song(s) are constantly in your head?
NIN: Perfect Drug, Incubus: I Miss You, A Perfect Circle: The Stranger, Elliot Smith: Say Yes
(23) What song(s) do you think describe your personality best?
Hm?KI don??t know. Probably an APC song.
(24) If you were to serenade the object of your affections, which song(s) would you use?
Incubus: I Miss you, Hoobastank: The Reason, Incubus: I wish you were here
(25) If the object of your affections were to serenade you, what song(s) would you hope he or she used?
Anything they thought appropriate

MOVIES
(26) What movie(s) do you love that nobody else seems to?
Hmm?K.a lot of old cary grant movies, and old movies in general. Like ??M??, which is a black and white German film starring Peter Lorre as this creepy child murderer. Possibly only sean shares my taste in movies.
(27) Do you agree with the idea that sequels are always worse than the original?
Usually, yes.
(28) Who's your favorite Star Wars character?
I was in love with Han Solo.
(29) What kind of movie do you think there should be more of?
I miss the old screwball comedies, which were what Cary Grant tended to star in. they were quick-paced, witty, and just fun to watch. They really don??t make many movies like that anymore.
(30) What movie(s) do you simply not understand the appeal of?
Anything akin to the Farrelly brothers, with lots of bodily humor gags.

FOOD
(31) When eating, are you more concerned with taste or healthiness?
taste
(32) What's your favorite kind of cheese?
Mozzarella or american
(33) What do you think your answer to the previous question reveals about your personality?
Um, that I??m Italian AND American, duh.
(34) If you knew exactly what went into Chinese food, hamburger meat, etc., would you still eat it?
Yes, I usually have faith in the FDA.
(35) Do you ever feel guilty eating meat?
Not really, animals were meant to be eaten. I do wish they were treated more humanely, though, that turns my stomach.

COMPUTERS
(36) Mac or PC?
PC

(37) How much do you actually care about the inner workings of your computer, as long as it works?
Not too much
(38) Do you ever begin preferring IMs to other forms of conversation?
It depends who I??m talking to. Sometimes, yes.
(39) Do you find you're different talking through IMs than face-to-face or on the telephone?
Well, you have more of a chance to think about what you??re going to say over the computer.
(40) Have you ever ended bid on something on eBay and regretted it later?
No.

THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES
(41) Have you ever wished you could experience being the other gender?
Yes, a lot of the time it just seems men have it easier.
(42) What do you love most about the other gender?
How they smell (if they smell good, anyway)
(43) What do you dislike most about the other gender?
How stupid, insensitive, and mean they can be
(44) What do you understand least about the other gender?
How they don??t mind not having the kind of close relationships that girls do.

CELEBRITIES
(45) Do you sometimes see a movie or watch a show just because a good-looking celebrity is in it?
Oh hells yes.
(46) What celebrity's autograph do you want most?
Johnny Depp??s
(47) Have people ever said you looked like a celebrity, and if so, who?
Some people at Sofia??s said I look like Anne Hathaway, but she??s kinda more English looking than I am.
(48) If there was to be a movie about you, who do you think should play you (in personality, looks or both)?
Oh, Catherine zeta jones, definitely. In looks, of course.
(49) Does it ever annoy you when you know someone is a celebrity but you can't remember why?
no
(50) If you could enter any celebrity's mind like in "Being John Malkovich", whose would you enter?
Johnny Depp??s, and I would think ??Damn I am SO HOT!??

(51) Do you want to be John Malkovich?
Not at all

NUMBERS
(52) Do you laugh when you hear or read the number 69?
No
(53) Were you lying about your answer to the previous question?
no
(54) Do you actually know your Social Security Number?
Yes, since it??s my school id
(55) Do you actually know your IP address?
nope
(56) Do you know what an IP address is?
Internet?K.um?Kprovider? I know it??s the individual address of your computer on the net
(57) Do you know the four-character extension on your ZIP code?
no
(58) Ever thought there were too many numbers floating around in our lives?
Yes, quite
(59) Does your head begin to hurt when you think of infinity, imaginary numbers, irrational numbers, etc.?
no
(60) What do you think of pi?
I think that I??m reading a book right now called ??Life of Pi??, except it??s not about the number.

LOVE, SEX AND ALL THAT
(61) Did you get a little frightened or uncomfortable seeing this as a section title?
no
(62) If someone you had no interest in dating expressed interest in dating you, how would you feel?
Kind of bad knowing that I??d be making someone unhappy, but you have to be true to yourself.
(63) Do you prefer getting to know someone first before dating them or going in "blind"?
Getting to know them a bit
(64) Could you carry on a relationship with someone with the same first name as a family member?
Sure, why not

(65) Have you ever wished it was more "socially acceptable" for a girl to ask a guy out?
Whoever said it wasn??t socially acceptable? Most of the guys I??ve ever dated I??ve asked out myself. Men are pussies.
(66) What's your opinion on sex without emotional commitment?
Not good. I don??t want to have random sex, though I may occasionally daydream about it. I??d like to know that I love my partner and that he loves me.
(67) Have you ever been romantically attracted to someone physically unattractive?
Briefly, and then, well, it didn??t go too well.
(68) Do you think the opposite sex finds you good-looking?
Yes, for the most part
(69) Would you be willing to give up sex in exchange for an emotional commitment you knew would last?
Well I wouldn??t quite be giving it up, since I??ve never had it, so sure.
(70) Do you think the number of the last question was a coincidence?
I wasn??t paying attention.

POSSESSIONS
(71) What is your favorite possession?
The Mouse with No Name
(72) What physical, tangible possession do you want most?
A corvette
(73) How badly do you want it?
Well, not badly enough to kill for it, I can wait
(74) Have you ever seen 'The Exorcist'?
yes
(75) How long did it take you to understand why the last question is in this section?
Not very long, I??m a bright one!

HOLIDAYS
(76) Does Christmas music too far away from Christmas annoy you?
Incredibly so
(77) How old do you think you will be before you stop liking getting older?
Sometime in my early thirties
(78) What was the best Halloween costume you ever had?
I liked being a pirate this year
(79) What was the worst Halloween costume you ever had?
I remember being a pumpkin once when I was very little. Thanks mom.
(80) What holiday do you think has still managed to retain its original meaning?
thanksgiving
(81) There are currently no federal holidays during August- what should be put there?
National Read A Goddamned Book Day, for all those lazy teenagers who never read anything past the comics.

MEMORIES
(82) How good is your short-term memory? For most things, good, but for faces not good at all.
(83) How good is your long-term memory? Fairly good, but I forget some things
(84) What is your earliest memory? Probably my first day of kindergarten, reporting to my grandparents over the phone about the bus ride
(85) What is your happiest memory (other than recieving this survey)?
I have a lot of them?Kright now I??m thinking of Tommy
(86) What is your strangest memory?
I don??t know?K.
(87) What song, movie, etc. do you wish you could memorize?
Pirates!

TEARS
(88) What movie makes/made you cry?
Lilo and Stitch is probably the only cartoon movie that??s ever made me cry
(89) What book makes/made you cry? ??The Lovely Bones??, ??Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix??
(90) What song makes/made you cry?
I??ve never heard any.
(91) What makes/made you laugh so hard you cried?
A lot of my friends

THREE TRULY RANDOM QUESTIONS
(92) Would you like to be cloned?
NOOOOOOOO
(93) Do you wish you could be alive when the world was ending, just to experience it?
Uh, no. I??d be scared shitless.
(94) Scaramouche, scaramouche, will you do the fandango?
What?

THIS SURVEY
(95) Do you think that one hundred and one questions is too long?
(96) Do you think the one hundred interesting questions actually were interesting?
(97) Are you sorry you began filling it out?
(98) What question do you wish it had asked?
(99) How would you have answered it?
(I??m not answering any of these. They are pointless.)

THE TWO MOST IMPORTANT QUESTIONS
(100) When was the last time you let the people you love know you love them?
A few days at least, I haven??t really talked to my friends from home or family lately, and my friends here don??t generally do the ??I love you?? thing.

(101) What do you want the people who are reading this survey to know?
I do love you guys, I hope you always know that.

so i thought, having little else to do, that i would render a more accurate description of last night's events, which were really quite enjoyable up until coming back to the dorm.

around 10:30 wendy and i went to her friend kate's room in loyola to help her get rid of her alcohol, except she had just gone out and bought a handle of baccardi O and a bottle of baccardi razz, which kind of defeated the purpose but whatever. we had to keep the noise down because her RA was on duty with the door open next door. it was all people i knew except for one or two, everyone was really cool--oh, and TFB was there. yes, dear tfb, whom i adored all of first semester but then thought was gay. yeah he's not gay--he's hooked up with kate twice and she reported him to be a good kisser. he was kind of flirting with me while we were there, and told me straight out he was sad we hadn't met before because i was really cool (yes i pretended not to know who he was at all-cough). then we all piled onto the couch for a photograph, and he snuggled right close up to me and then didn't leave when everyone else did. wendy was pretty drunk by this time and was snuggling on the other side so he said he was "balancing her out". uhuh. i didn't really care, he wasn't trying to be sketchy. anyway at one point this girl emily i met a couple of weeks ago in regis was laughing bc wendy was trying to kiss me, and i assured her that even though she was my new V-team best friend i didnt want to kiss her, to which TFB responded, "well, would you kiss me?". jesus christ. i was thinking "goddammit, if this had happened three months ago i would have been all over you in a second, my friend", but of course what i said was "no, i have a boyfriend, i'm sorry". he looked properly disappointed, of course. i wouldn't trade tommy for anyone, don't get the idea that suddenly i'm regretting being attached, it was just the utter irony of the moment--a former crush i had given up on as gay, hitting on ME. hahaha. oh well, good to know at least i'm not a loser and just couldn't get him.

anyway so we all played never ever have i ever, which is a mightily fun game, and great to play in a room full of people who've done morally ambiguous things in their lives. i don't really know how much alcohol i had, it was baccardi O and sprite in lovely margarita glasses. baccardi O is pretty low proof. anyway apparently wendy had had a lot more than me, because i was suprised at how drunk she was acting, since i know her tolerance level is much higher. eventually we had to get back to the dorm, which was not fun at all. luckily i spotted TJ as we were exiting Loyola and he helped me get her into campion, even though he was kind of drunk as well (after only four beers lol).

unfortunately, when wendy got back she insisted on going to hang out with the guys, so we went first to pete's room and then to jd's. pete followed us there and, in joking around trying to make me leave, hit me in the chest, and i was like oh no you didnt biotch. steve walked in right then, steve always tries to control pete a little, and i jokingly said oh, pete hit me! then wendy had to go to the bathroom, and when i got back i saw steve lecturing pete in the hallway, all i heard was "you HIT her?!?!" and i was like oh shit, i was just kidding, he didnt hurt me or anything, but steve made him apologize to me anyway. i felt kind of bad. pete was drunk and high, a wonderful combination. anyway it was soon evident that wendy just needed to go to our room; unfortunately RA rob spotted her moving rather unevenly down the hallway--or maybe it was me chasing her saying "wendy! stop"--and followed us to our room, where wendy tried to unsuccessfully tell him from my bed that she hadn't drunk anything. he pulled me outside to ask me about it, and i really didnt know. ironically, thanks to the gum i chewed before leaving, he assured me he knew i was not involved. i was like, umm....ok....i was drunk, but not past a point where i couldn't walk, talk and think normally when required. anyway he didnt write her up, he was just concerned. i was pretty scared myself, never having really seen her this drunk before. i was contemplating taking her to the health center, but i asked mark's advice online and he said she would be ok as long as she wasnt having trouble breathing or making strange noises. so i put her to bed in my bed, and then stayed up till 430 reading tom clancy because i refused to go up on the top bunk with any trace of alcohol still in my system. i survived the night, somehow. i was worried id wake up and try to sswing my legs over the side, but i didn't.

anyway that was my night. it was pretty good for the most part, i had a lot of fun in loyola. i missed tommy so much, though. weirdly, i was watching fuse today and Eminem was on, and he reminded me of tommy in his sense of humor. i never really knew eminem had much of one, but apparently he does, who would have guessed.

this entry is being written while still intoxicated. the situation is basically that a very drunk wendy has been put to bed in MY bed, therefore i must sleep on her bed tonight. problem? michelle is afraid of heights, therefore i refuse to go up there until im absolutely certain i'm sober. then at least i stand a slightly smaller chance of falling and dying. i don't care if it takes till five am, seriously. our RA, rob, followed us down the hallway because he said it seemed wendy was experiencing a lack of motor skills. he beckoned me out of the room to inquire after her health. despite the serious nature of the moment, i couldnt help but feel ironically amused when he assured me that he knew i was fine. i was like, gee, thank heaven for Dentyne Ice and TJ, the former for ridding myself of Baccardi O smell and the latter for helping me get wendy into campion, even though he himself was slightly drunk. or so he said. maybe he was really drunk, bc i recall something about him joking to wendy about the two of them making out and i was like whoa, she maybe be drunk but im not that drunk, be careful buddy, and he just laughed. or that's just tj. i would really like to sober up now.