Quickie

It's great to wake up with that warm, contented snuggly feeling in the morning. Even if one paper and two midterms currently stand between you and your four-day weekend.

Am I the only one who doesn't want to live in next semester? It's still only October, and I just want to enjoy the time we have here instead of constantly focusing on what's to come. Our college career is already more than half over, so I'd really rather not hurry it up any further. I guess this is also because I've been so happy this semester, and next semester, while it will be fun and exciting, will also be Sean-less for the most part, and this makes me sad. Meow.

Right now it's the best part of fall, when the leaves are changing and the fallen ones make that dry, crackling sound as the wind kicks them about on the street. I love this time of year, it makes me think of Northwest and walking up to Bishop's Corner after school with Sara and Heather to go to Borders, never buying anything, just reading all their magazines, and then sitting in Starbucks for hours with a single cup of tea and maybe a macadamia nut cookie. The booth in the corner was the best, with the squishy chairs, we always tried to score that one first. How many hours of our high school lives did we spend in those chairs, talking about our futures, about guys, about things we'd never yet experienced but were so eager to? How often in junior and senior year did the conversation move to college, and how worried we all were about splitting up and having to find new places for ourselves, new friends? There was a real fear back then that our friendships wouldn't survive the change. Now four years later, as college draws to a close, I find myself with the same worries, not only about the girls from home but also my friends here. Sadly, we Fairfieldians lack even the bond of a shared hometown (or two) among us, and future holidays and vacations will not draw all of us back to one location. Who knows which relationships will flourish after this, as everyone moves on to work, to grad school, and which ones will simply fade away like Meghan and I? I suppose I should be more worried about the old crowd, but I'm really not. Somehow I know that those relationships, while not set in stone, have weathered enough already in these seven, eight years that I can be reasonably assured of their continued strength. I can't imagine a world without Sara, without Heather and Rae. It's just not a good world. Even if I don't get to see some of them very often *cough* rae *cough* I still just have this sense that we're there for each other. God, we're like the frickin' women in beaches, we'll be writing each other letters our whole lives and not meeting up very often till one of us dies tragically of cancer or something. On a beach. That is how it goes, right? Oh, Fitz, how I wish that you were here so you could explain the intricacies of the plot of what you considered the most horrendous chick flick of all time. Or just so that we could laugh at you a little, for old time's sake.

The happiest news of the moment, meanwhile, is that Sara is coming to visit this weekend! She's staying three whole nights, which is very exciting. We're even going to sneak her onto the bus for the hayride and pretend she's an IRC alum! All she has to do is really parrot back the lines "who are you, whose are you, and who are you called to be" and they won't know the difference. It's like T-Rex not being able to see you when you're not moving. Magic. :-)

Isabel Allende

Meredith and I went to her lecture tonight, after the Dean's office offered a bunch of leftover student tickets for free--a fortuitous thing indeed, considering I already knew it to be sold out and therefore didn't have a hope of going. It was excellent, undoubtedly the best lecture I've been to in my time here. She is a truly gifted storyteller, even the litany of her life story, which is usually so boring from lecturers, was a vivid and adventurous tale. Painful, too, when she described the death of her young daughter. Mysterious, when she read from the letter her daughter had written nine months before her illness, based on a premonitory dream, a letter that spoke of herself as already a spirit, already dead. Dreams and stories, that's what her lecture was about. She said that she wrote to be able to remember, to create a world that is her own, and she mentioned how spotty and unreliable her memory has always been, always forgetting, always blurring the past. My memory is similar. I have trouble remembering details of events that happened only months ago. My memories of my childhood are fragmented, and every day it seems like they get dimmer and farther away. Yet I have such a good memory for things I've read or written, I remember phrases that I loved when I came across years and years ago. Words stick with me, rather than people and events. That worries me. How much of my life can I write down?

Back In the Swing of Things

Here I am with a little extra time before I head down to my indentured servitude in the slide library! It's always nice to be in the house alone in the morning...and the afternoon...ok and the nighttime too. Wendy's here somewhere but she's not making any noise so we're just going to pretend she's not. Our house is luscious, I have to say. It's big, way bigger than I thought it would be, and well-decorated, including some great pieces of furniture that Tess (who is apparently the queen of finding things along the side of the road and re-painting them in funky colors) brought. I love sitting on the back porch when there's a storm going on, just watching the rain come down and the sky light up but never getting wet myself, naturally.

We've already christened the house with not one but two birthday parties; one was for Tess, where we invited people to help us paint a giant mural on canvas we put up on the wall in the basement, and the other for Meredith, where we drank a lot...It was a lot of fun except for the end when Carla got really sick and we had to clean her up, hold her hair back etc while she was yelling things along the lines of "Why won't you just let me DIE??" Eventually we took her to the health center just to be on the safe side, and they said she was fine but they'd keep her for a while, and she ended up sleeping there till 8am the next day, whereupon she returned our house via the back door--not the front one I had left unlocked--and lacking a key, decided to break and enter instead, proving once again how easy it is to break into a townhouse if the window's open: just pop the screen out and climb in!

How lovely it is to be back with my Mama Tiger! Our room (the Fortress of Solitude) looks pretty much the same as last year, right down to the lack of decor on Carla's side. Sean is another welcome sight on campus, now that he's a full-time student again, and he spends a good deal of time at 121 with his girlfriend and half-girlfriend...even though Carla says we make her sick. Sean's room in Dolan, The Land Before Time, is good-sized as well--but to my great sadness, "Dogs Playing Poker" has made its return. Ugh.

Oh, and if you haven't seen "Rome" yet and you have HBO, watch this show!! It's absolutely amazing. Sean and I are obsessed. "Pomp is shiny!"

Last Post From Home

Tomorrow I'm off to start my junior year. How crazy is that, that two years should have elapsed so quickly! I've been ready for days, and now that my departure is a scant 16 hours away it seems like nothing will fill the time. I've had Rocky to play with, of course--Rocky our soon-to-be adopted golden poodle, the pet of one of my mom's dying patients. He's a great dog, very playful but well behaved. At fourteen poinds, this creature has enough strength to literally drag me down the street in pursuit of one of those mysterious doggy scent trails. Right now he is napping peacefully in the hallway, fresh from another confrontation with a seriously aggrieved Sapphire. She does not see him as the friendly explorer he is; she only perceives that her territory has been invaded, her person threatened, and, worst of all, the precious attention of her humans diverted to another, most unworthy canine. So she hisses, and growls, and makes herself even more unpleasant than usual. The poor thing--when I'm gone and Rocky has moved in on my mother's affections, she will have few friends.

The rounds were made last evening to bid farewell to Sara and Rae. Rae's new house is utterly charming, right down to the black shutters and the cobblestones her father laid out front. I think with the passage of time, it grows easier to say goodbye at the end of the summer--not because we are any less close, as I feel only better friends with all three of them as time moves on--but because there is more of a sense of security between us now that our relationships have weathered the first tumultuous years of college. What a wonderful thing it is, to have such friends.

Tomorrow, though, I go back to Fairfield and my other friends. I look forward so much to this semester, especially now that Sean will be back with us, and our little family will be whole again once more. This year will be great. I know it will.

Wish

I've been wishing and hoping and *gasp* praying a lot lately. Partly out of fear that bad things will happen, and partly because I so dearly desire a lot of good things to come about. Then I read Sara's latest post about wanting her life to be what she had promised herself, and never having anything to regret...I don't think I'll ever reach a point where I have nothing to regret. Even now, not yet twenty, I regret so many things. Little things mostly, like friendships I allowed to lapse, words I should have said but didn't, or vice versa, relationships I shouldn't have entered into, both platonic and otherwise. But I'd like to keep the regrets to a minimum, focus instead on all the things that I celebrate--the good friends that I've stayed close to, the risks I've taken, the guy who I finally realized was right for me all along.

To that end, I whipped out my Wish Book, which I came across in a GoodWill last summer in Monroe. It's a book for--you guessed it--writing down your wishes and dreams, and someone had written a few things in it before me. From the entry she wrote on her birthday in 1997, she's 39 now. She only wrote two entries, both bittersweet. Whoever she was, she wanted life to be simple, but of course it never is. At least she had someone to love who loved her. What a difference that makes!

So here I go. My wishes are going in here, beginning tonight.

A Goodly Evening

I haven’t written on here in quite a while, but last night was just that damn good that I feel the need to record it. Sean showed up at my office with flowers, gorgeous orange-yellow roses that caused everyone to ooh and ahh. Sean himself was likewise oohed and aahed by my coworkers, especially Nikki, who told me “good job!”. It was such a pick-me-up on an otherwise blah lunch hour, which I usually spend napping on the futon in the break room (though today I am determined to go outside and use the damn hammock). He picked me up from work, too, as Mrs. D’s car was in for a tuneup and she had taken over the Tahoe. However, I will forgive her for messing up my mirrors, changing the radio and squashing the front seat as close to the steering wheel as possible, because she actually filled the car up with gas!
It’s so handy having a man about the house, especially to kill bugs. I hate doing that, and my mom won’t either. He even took out the trash, meaning I think my mom will be drawing up some adoption papers quite soon. The downside for Sean, I suppose, was having to sleep in my sister’s bed, which has been extremely rickety ever since the carpet installation guys decided to take it apart and then put it back to together really badly. The damn thing rattles when you move the headboard, and all night I could hear the squeaking whenever he moved. We’re going to try to fix that next weekend.
We didn’t really do much of anything, which is partly what made it so gloriously nice. Well, when we went to pick up my mom’s car from the darkened auto repair place in the middle of the tobacco fields, there was a moment of that hmmm let’s be crazy teenagers and go “parking”, till we realized it was extremely dark, isolated and—despite being in cozy suburban Windsor and not the backwoods of Arkansas—kinda creepy, so we hightailed it out of there. We went walking around my neighborhood instead—much less chance of being murdered—and even got to observe the cutest, fattest raccoon making a feast out of the cat’s food dish. He ate like a little person, picking up the food with his paws. Precious!!
It’s been kind of rough recently, we realized, because both Sean and I put so much emphasis on the weekends since the weeks are so long and dull, but then we always spend the weekends doing the same thing—mostly laying around Sean’s house watching television. We spend all week looking forward to the weekend, but if the weekend turns out to not be stellar, it’s a big letdown, which is not a good thing. This realization came after a particularly crappy weekend, in which Sean could barely talk for his tonsils, and I came down with some sort of deathly illness courtesy of Sara or another heretofore unknown culprit. So our goal now is not to obsess over the weekends, but also not to spend all our time at Sean’s house! In fact, I probably won’t be visiting there again the rest of the summer…Sean’s coming up here for two weekends, we’re going to Carla’s once, and the final weekend will be just a flurry of packing, shopping, and insanity, in my two whole days between ending work and starting school.
I also just hugely enjoy having Sean at my house…it makes it so very homey. It took a lot of willpower to get my butt out the door this morning and off to work, where I am currently languishing, with 10 calls currently queued up (and why am I not answering them ,you ask? Mmmm, just ‘cause.) Anyway, last night and this morning definitely put a smile on my face. And tonight…tonight…tonight—our pal Adamo from high school managed to get his little nerdy mitts on a copy of the FAMILY GUY MOVIE, and will be screening it at the movie theater at Uhart tonight. J Wheeeee!!!

Where Has July Gone?

....Actually, I don't quite care where it's gone. Hello, August! This has actually been a fantastic summer, really (due in no small part to Boyfriend of the Year down in New Haven), but September is just around the corner!

Now, they say that it's the thought that counts, and for Sean's anniversary present to me, that really was true--he looked up Billy Collins in the yellow pages and wrote him a letter asking him for a signed copy of one of his poems, explaining that his girlfriend really liked his work. And then when he didn't get a response, he got me a signed copy of a book he had edited instead. Now, this is just extraordinary in itself, that he went that far to try for such an amazing present, and it really didn't matter that Collins never wrote back, BUT, when i went down this weekend, what was waiting for me but the signed poem, framed alongside his note "hoping you and michelle are still together"!! What kind of amazing-ness is that from a boyfriend? I so lucky.

Best Fourth

I don't think it would be hyperbole to say that this was the best weekend of my summer. Spending three sunny, beautiful days at Fairfield (which is very pretty in the summer and even more pretty without the hordes of Aberzombies meandering about) with all my favorite people....luscious. I was quite delighted to find that by Sunday night I had assembled almost all of my closest friends in one place, including two roommates, one boyfriend, and my three best friends from home. It was particularly surreal to be walking up that big hill in front of the library with Sara, Rae and Heather; at one point I looked around and there was all of campus spread out behind me, everything that is not home, Windsor, and high school, and yet there they were, too, Heather clutching her gold pumps in one hand as we walked through the grass, and Rae telling us excitedly about the topiary garden people have had sex in at Wellesley. Not to mention the fact that we've only all been together like, once all summer, it's just so awesome that we're still friends, and even more awesome that they and all my school friends got along so well. It's kind of like how you feel really satisfied when your friends like your boyfriend because you know it's a really good sign...and they love Sean and they love my Fairfield friends, wheeee!

I have not drunk so much, eaten so much, laughed so much, nor played so much "Never Ever Have I Ever" in longer than I can remember. It made me that much more revved up to go back to school. I went up to the townhouses briefly to go past mine--how unassuming it looks, but oh, what a place of magical and whimsical wondrousness it shall be!! :-)

July Already?

Has anyone been keeping track of time? I guess the past two months have gone by so quickly because there's been so little downtime; work all week, in New Haven every weekend, very unlike those long, lazy summers where often for days on end I had little to besides read and lounge about. It's nice in many ways that summer has not been dragging on. Only within the past week or so have I finally felt the first pangs of summer boredom syndrome (at work, no less), when I start fervently wishing it would be late August so I can eagerly anticipate the return to school. Many times I've looked at the date and laughed, just remembering where I was a year ago, and how infinitely happier I am now...*shakes head* It's just incredible.

Tomorrow I head down to Fairfield for a 4th of July party, where I will be joined on Sunday by Rae, Heather and Sara, as well as all my school friends and various friends they'll be bringing. Rae and Heather are eager to meet Carla now that Sara's been going on about how much she loves her! Also, Messrs. Smirnoff, Bacardi, and Vino will be attending, in the company of the charming Mme. Coronita. Such a gathering of good friends! :-)

Well, I don't think my job is terrible (they're paying me not to work Monday, and today they paid for almost three hours of me reading "The Joy of Sex" in Borders and getting my hair cut) but I like this:

The Big Bad Wolf Is Real
for Jim Daniels



We don't leave our terrible jobs
as the same humans that showed up
with bag lunches and optimism because

of a good night's sleep. Something's
been milked from us, something that time
sells to abstract powers. No wonder

that happy hour is three hours long,
that rush to be useless. At least our sins
are ours, although profiteers have plans.


Rane Arroyo

Poem I Won't Name But I Like A Lot

More than mere spasm
or when focused mind

and game heart combine
as mechanism,

enthusiasm
maneuvering spine

to bliss, realigned.
More like a schism

or charmed sarcasm
at reason’s fine line,

the old soul’s design
for protoplasm’s

iconoclasm,
exquisitely mined.


Hailey Leithauser

That Feeling

I always feel this slight sense of embarassment at being happy while someone else has just suffered a harsh disappointment. It's like the love version of survivor guilt; it leads one to ask question like why do bad things happen to good people, when people who have so made so many mistakes (me) still manage to stumble onto the right thing? I have no answer.

Still, amid it all, what comes back to me is the last line of one of my favorite books, "The Oracle Glass", which I've read more times than I can count: "But inside, my heart was singing He's waiting for you, and my mind was fixed on the remembrance of his dark eyes".

Reading

Such a great number of books on my reading list this summer, and I really want to get through them all, as it's hit me recently during a reorganization of books how many of my books I've never had a chance to read. Right now I'm reading Alexandre Dumas' Three Musketeers, which I was honestly surprised to find as entertaining as it is. Somehow I didn't imagine that a two-hundred-year-old swashbuckler romance (in the genre term, not the Danielle Steele) could really captivate me as much as a modern novel, but it totally does. I find myself reading for a couple of hours without realizing it, when usually with older classics it's enjoyable more on an intellectual level....luckily, The Three Musketeers was written for the masses, and this mass is loving it. Thank heaven my "at-work" reading book is a history book about the 17th century, because otherwise I wouldn't have remembered the historical background of the novel, beyond the infamous Richelieu--specifically, the siege of the Huguenot fortified city of La Rochelle, which plays a huge role in the book. The history book, also surprisingly, is really good. It covered the Enlightenment, the Counter Reformation, the rise of absolutism in France and constitutionalism in England, etc etc. Stuff that I should have a more concrete knowledge of, anyway.

Anyway, here's my reading list as it stands...suggest good books, if you know any. Always room for one more.

Bullfinch's Mythology
Age of Power
The Fencing Master
Artemisia
Merchant of Venice
Julius Caesar
3 Musketeers
Dinosaur in a Haystack
Paradise Lost
Man the MythMaker
Eichmann in Jerusalem
No Exit
Harry Potter 6 :-)

Happy

Ingredients of a great, lazy weekend: italian ice, warm weather, homemade food and being fed strawberries in bed. mmmm.

Thinking

Spring semester has been on my mind a lot recently. Basically, because my job pays so well I'm in a position now where I could conceivably go study abroad in Italy. My scholarship would reimburse me for the plane fare and will cover most of the tuition, and I'd have the bank account money, probably all my own without having to go into the school fund account I have. But now I'm questioning whether I'll still go or not, for a lot of reasons. One thing I've noticed is that now that I actually have money, I'm not keen on separating myself from it. I'm not sure I want to save save save this summer and fall and then spend it all in the spring.

Secondly, there's the Fulbright thing. If I work hard and come up with an amazing project, I could be on my way abroad after graduation anyway. Staying here spring semester would give me a lot more time to work on it, and Dr. Gogol said that spring/summer of your junior year is the optimum time to work on it, as everything has to be submitted by October of senior year. Then there's the fact that I have to balance two majors, one minor, and one or more possible internships. When I talked to the English internship guy, he said that he thought it would be best to do an internship spring semester of junior year and spring of senior year as well. Fall is apparently not as key.

Then there's the Sean factor; yes, I know some of you are probably groaning right now thinking that he shouldn't be a consideration, but of course he is. We had already started making plans to go on a trip to Italy together since neither of us could really afford to study abroad. In that case I could still have my scholarship pay for plane fare and my hotel bill because I would be going for an educational/cultural experience, so it'd definitely be cost-effective! Plus, in a lot of ways, a two week vacation with him sounds better than four months in Italy without him.

So there are all these factors jumbled together. I could spend all of my money on four months in Italy with Carla and Meredith, which would admittedly be a lot of fun, or I could stay at Fairfield, work on academic-y things, be with Sean, and go to Italy on spring break. Oh yeah, and have money. I'll be honest; I'm really leaning toward not going. Yes, Carla will have a fit when she finds out. At least this time I'll be making the free decision not to go instead of being forced into by the simple fact of not having the money.

Ah, big thoughts, which must end because I have to get dressed to meet the girls at Starbucks. Our last night with Rae, what sadness!

And The Beat Goes On

I really like my job, which is a surprising thing to say. Well, I like it as a summer job; perhaps I wouldnt like it so much if I were facing spending several years of my life doing it like some of my co-workers. But the people are great, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the work itself, while sometimes stressful and hectic, seems stimulating at least. Adam told us that while now we all balk at the idea of people paying 400 bucks for a pair of Neil Diamond tix, soon we won't even blink when people drop thousands of dollars on prime seats for the Superbowl or World Series. Corporate accounts have been known to spend in the tens of thousands on a single order--we've looked at some of the files and it's like, jesus, is this why we're hated by so many countries? I mean, my company fulfills what is by world standards a completely superfluous need; in places that barely have basic necessities, a service that charges premium prices for hugely expensive tickets to entertainment events would be unthinkable. Perhaps it's naive, but I can imagine so many better uses for your 800 bucks than getting floor seats to a U2 concert.

We all went out for pizza after work today to give everyone a chance to hang out; I, as the sole underage individual, was restricted to the root beer (although the guy who hired me said: "aren't you in your twenties? holy shit!"). The only other fun thing that happened today was learning about the perks program, which like the stock I probably won't be around long enough to enjoy. Anyway, for exceptional work, attendance, special projects etc, you can earn varying numbers of perks points, which then you can get stuff with. So I'm thinking, oh great, I can get a tshirt, but then Adam whips out this gigantic glossy catalogue and passes it around, and turns out you can get everything from sports equipment, digital cameras, and vacations to electric razors and dishwashers. I had my eye on this nice Kodak camera which was only like 140 pts (you can get 50 pts a month for perfect attendance, and i've got three months, so....), but the rest of the stuff was just awesome. He showed us some stats from the SF office, where they just started this program, and one woman's already racked up 900...apparently she's a crazy hard worker though, so I don't dream of coming near that. Still, I hope if I ever work in an office when I'm older that they have something like that...and raises and bonuses too, those sound fun lol.

Anyway, this is the first summer where I havent immediately gotten out of school and started couting down to fall. I'm very much anticipating making money and going to work, and plus I just plain haven't had time, really. Next week is when I start being on my real schedule, 11:30-8pm, so hopefully then I won't be having to go to bed at midnight, ugh.

Oh, I'm turning Sean into a cat-lover! Well, not really, he'll always be a dog person, but hey, no one's perfect. Anyway, the nights he's spent here, sapphire and cinnamon have both taken a turn sleeping with him, and seem to be ridiculously excited when he shows up. They're #1 Sean fans now, the little furry sluts; meanwhile, they basically ignore sara and heather when they come over, despite sara being partially responsible for sapphire's very presence in our house. How quickly feline minds forget a favor (ooh alliteration).

God, my mom's listening to Dr. Phil upstairs. How I hate that little bald man!

How Could I Resist--

The Highwayman

The wind was a torrent of darkness upon the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight looping the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn door.

He'd a French cocked hat on his forehead, and a bunch of lace at his chin;
He'd a coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of fine doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to his thigh!
And he rode with a jeweled twinkle--
His rapier hilt a-twinkle--
His pistol butts a-twinkle, under the jeweled sky.

Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
He tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred,
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter--
Bess, the landlord's daughter--
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim, the ostler listened--his face was white and peaked--
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter--
The landlord's black-eyed daughter;
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say:

"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart; I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light.
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

He stood upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair in the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the sweet black waves of perfume came tumbling o'er his breast,
Then he kissed its waves in the moonlight
(O sweet black waves in the moonlight!),
And he tugged at his reins in the moonlight, and galloped away to the west.

He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon.
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise of the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon over the purple moor,
The redcoat troops came marching--
Marching--marching--
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

They said no word to the landlord; they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets by their side;
There was Death at every window,
And Hell at one dark window,
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.

They had bound her up at attention, with many a sniggering jest!
They had tied a rifle beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her. She heard the dead man say,
"Look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way."

She twisted her hands behind her, but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

The tip of one finger touched it, she strove no more for the rest;
Up, she stood up at attention, with the barrel beneath her breast.
She would not risk their hearing, she would not strive again,
For the road lay bare in the moonlight,
Blank and bare in the moonlight,
And the blood in her veins, in the moonlight, throbbed to her love's refrain.

Tlot tlot, tlot tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hooves, ringing clear;
Tlot tlot, tlot tlot, in the distance! Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding--
Riding--riding--
The redcoats looked to their priming! She stood up straight and still.

Tlot tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment, she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight--
Her musket shattered the moonlight--
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him--with her death.

He turned, he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the casement, drenched in her own red blood!
Not till the dawn did he hear it, and his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs in the golden noon, wine-red was his velvet coat
When they shot him down in the highway,
Down like a dog in the highway,
And he lay in his blood in the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.

And still on a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a gypsy's ribbon looping the purple moor,
The highwayman comes riding--
Riding--riding--
The highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.

Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred,
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter--
Bess, the landlord's daughter--
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

Alfred Noyes

A Lady Who Thinks She Is Thirty

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,
Feels the sun with terror,
One unwilling step she takes,
Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight
Is old and gray and dirty;
Twenty-nine she was last night;
This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,
Like the twilight shining,
Haunted by a calendar,
Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,
Draw the mirror toward you;
Time who makes the years to whirl
Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;
Calendars for the human;
What's a year, or thirty, to
Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,
Yet soft her wing, Miranda;
Pick up your glass and tell me, then--
How old is Spring, Miranda?

Ogden Nash

Interesting

I'm home. Half of my college career is over. It's freakish.

I started my new job, for which I am attending two looong weeks of training, 8hrs a day. This is who I work for, as customer service. You would not believe how inordinately complicated the business world is. Are all businesses like this? With VPs of this and that, and affiliates and ridiculously long privacy agreements and everything? It's insane! I actually have to do math in my job too, calculating percentages and stuff. Thankfully they did not inquire as to my math abilities when I started, though there were five math questions on the application I had to submit to San Francisco after they hired me--which now makes sense. Hmm. My job is cool in a lot of ways, I can get discounted tickets to concerts and whatnot, and finagle special passes to the "exclusive events", like meet and greets with celebrities, although, nothing I'd really care to do.

Today Adam, our trainer, who's from L.A. and runs an art gallery in his spare time, told us that if any of us are going to San Fran, call him and he'll hook us up with another employee to stay with. People in this company are really nice--sadly, the San Fran office is where all the younger people are, there's mostly middle-aged people in the office I'll be in, but the atmosphere is so relaxed, it's great (the only dress code is "no sweats"). I actually find myself a little sad that I won't be working here longer than four months, because I'm missing out on like going to San Francisco, and getting stock options (strange as that sounds, their stock, which is privately held right now, has tripled in value in one year, and it's supposed to be worth up to 30 bucks a share in the next few years) and other grown-up things. I get paid on monday--paid for sitting on my ass in a conference room for 40 hours learning about co-branding and corporate accounts. sweeeet. I feel like going to Sofia's just to flaunt the fact that hey, instead of getting paid minimum wage to put up with ornery old people and bitchy children, I'm getting paid 12 bucks an hour to deal with...ornery middle-aged sports fans. By phone. In a comfy chair. In a cubicle. Still waaay better.

Heather and Sara came over tonight, and Sean joined us from UMass to enjoy pizza, the classic car show down at Bart's, some "ahoy"-ing to people boating on the river, and "Garden State". Heather announced her plans to leave the Vteam this sunday in a hotel room in Lake George *round of applause* I blame this bad influence on rae and rae blames it on me....meanwhile, Sara's left on the virgin chair, formerly the virgin couch. Ha. Loser....I mean, virtuous protector of noble ideals, way to go!

Sean gets out of UMass tomorrow! whoot!! I get Real Sean back FOREVER!!!!

End of the Year

It's almost here--in one week I'll be done with sophomore year! This has been a great year, despite some minor negative occurrences (ie the dirk awkwardness, yeah that's not so great), and even better than last year (a great portion of which i may attribute to having a much better boyfriend this time around hahaha). I'll really miss Loyola--best residence hall ever. I'm glad I did IRC, it was worth it; tomorrow night I will mooch for the last time my bagels and donuts from Happy Hour in the commons. I need to take advantage of those leather couches this week, hmmm.

In one week I will start my 45-hour-per-week job that will probably make me want to kill myself, but will also make me rich--12 bucks an hour, whoot! My weekends are going to be so fucking jam-packed with fun and amazement it's not even funny. On tap: trips to wellesley with s. lo and heather "monogamy" flanagan to see rae, possible penguin-napping from the mystic aquarium, horseback riding with my equestrian rider roommate, possible skydiving with boyfriend and co., end-of-summer trip to montreal with boyfriend and co., lots of poker nights, trips down to FU to see mike and meredith, worker bees that they are, july 4th extravaganza in new haven, and oh-so-many wonderful weekends spent at sean's with (disgusting display of saccharine ahead) the greatest boyfriend ever!!! Oh, and I am totally opening that up to sara, heather, carla, and any other of you wonderful folk who are fond of a seasside retreat in morris cove with with the beloved sambuca-swilling hubbard...what? not my house so i shouldnt invite people? oh, pish posh. sadly, you will all have to sleep on the airbeds, since sean's gotten over his case of chivalry in that department. queen size for me, even if i do have to sleep on the side with the dip!

I'm excited for all of this, even as I'm so sad to leave Carla. I mean, where will I be without someone trilling in french to me at indecent hours of the morning? Who will rumble "Raoulllll....Gerarrrrd" to me, who will I make mooing sounds at and chase with an imaginary cattle prod, who will sing the same obnoxious part from a song over an over? Oh, alas.

Oh, and let's not underestimate the importance of penguins here, people. They are my favorite animal. Well, bird. Whatever. The chance to pet and possibly abscond with a penguin is worth more to me than any of you in GOLD. thank you and good night.

The Soap Opera Returns

*large, large, large disclaimer* what you are about to read was written by me during sophomore year of high school. it was part of a lengthy and honorable tradition amongst me and my over-imaginative friends to write our own crazy soap operas and distribute them online. this was pretty much the last one, because it was the funniest; however, it requires a.) some knowledge of x-files characters, b.) an understanding of just how obsessed rae was with the xfiles, c.) knowledge of a whole lot of inside jokes, ie scott w, daniella, my inflatable purple alien friend, previous soap opera episodes etc, and d.) the knowledge that none of us are nor have ever been gay. it was just funnier that way. ironically, back when this was written, none of us really did drink, or have sex, or do ANY of the crazy things we wrote about. ah, innocence...

To Sara and Rae: heeheeheehee


As Sands Through the Hourglass,
So Are the Days of Our Lives....

It's nighttime in the Buglione~Corbett house. Rae's parents are, as disturbingly usual, absent. Drifting down from Rae's bedroom are the sounds of three gals having a VERY good time.
"Rae would you stop that? You know I don't like butterscotch sauce!"
"Rrrrrr....Michelle..."
Suddenly outside Rae's house a blinding light appears as a hovercraft descends to window-level. Rae's friendly neighborhood wack job rises from his bed under newspapers in an alley and runs towards it. "Take me away!!" he yells. Instead, a little blue laser shoots out from the alien ship and makes his head explode.
Inside the girls don't notice anything unusual until a weird green light fills the room and they all begin to float in midair. In light of their previous...activity, they're not wearing much, and they make futile efforts to grab at their likewise-floating clothes as they are sucked out the window and into the ship.
"NOOOOOOO!" Sara screamed.
"NOOOOOOO!" Michelle screamed.
"FINALLY!!!" Rachel screamed.
When next they can think coherently, they find themselves in what looks like the medical lab of the ship- in the buff. They immediately dive for cover as two little green dudes- who mysteriously resemble Michelle's five foot high inflatable alien pal Fred, except he's purple- appear.
"Welcome Earthlings," they intone. "Do not be af-eeeeeeek!!" Rae, in her enthusiasm at finally having ben abducted, runs over to the little aliens and starts touching them.
"You guys!!" she squeals. "This is so kewl!" She glances back at Michelle and Sara, only to find that they are eyeing her with skepticism.
"Unhand us, Earthchild!" Rae suddenly finds herself floating in a big green light. But this only makes her happier.
"I'm Scully in the season finale!" she shrieks in ectsasy. "It's like a full body massage! Only- can you make this thing shake me a bit?" The aliens sigh, and Rae begins to shake violently like an epileptic who just had a run-in with a hair dryer in the bathtub. "WHEEEEEEE!!"
Sara and Michelle hide their faces, partially in embarrassment, and partially because hell, she's naked and she's shaking in mid air!
"We don't know her."
"Aren't you going to ask us why we brought you here?" one of the little green dudes asked impatiently.
"Oh yeah!" Sara remembers her lines from every alien abduction movie she's seen. "Who the fuck are you, where the fuck are we and what the FUCK do you want with us?"
The aliens glanced at each other. "Definitely the right ones." One of them pulls out what looks a like a VCR remote and clicks a button. "Roll tape!" Suddenly the lights dim and they're looking at a movie screen.
"That's us!" Rae exclaimed, having been released from her "body massage". Sure enough, onscreen is playing a tape of the higlights of their careers as murderers, hookers, sluts and friends.
"You three Earth women have been of great interest to us. As you can see, we have complied video surveillance of some of your most interesting activties..."
The screen flashed to a picture of Rae holding her hedgeclippers high as a terrified Dan back away. 'Nooo! Rae, put down the hedgeclippers!' "Your mutilation of the strange hybrid boy Dan..."
"He deserved it!"
A picture of Michelle and Kris using women's basic weapons and a lot of lingerie to fight their way into teacher-guarded Northwaste to rescue Rae from the evil hag Mrs Hennessey flashed on. Michelle was emerging from the janitor's closet after making sure Mr Dumais wasn't a threat. "Your interesting use of promiscuity to come to the aid of a friend..."
"Do you mind not showing that? I was under the influence!"
Now the screen displayed Sara letting Scott White stuff ten dollar bills into her G string and then throwing him out in disgust when he forgot who she was for the umpteenth time the next morning. "Fornication appears to be a highly lucrative pursuit among your species..."
"Hey! I needed the money!"
"In conclusion," the little alien continued, "you three have been the cause of, to our count, 153 deaths, two sex changes, 321 acts of prostitution, one suicide, and the heartless waste of thousands of gallons of whipped cream and chocolate syrup. We find this highly interesting, and would like to find out why you three are so strange by probing your...um...minds."
Rae hopped up and down. "We get to get PROBED!! YIPPEEE!"
Michelle and Sara looked like they would have liked to object, but were powerless as an invisible force strapped them to metal tables.
"While we are probing your- minds, we would like to offer you the use of our virtual reality program."
"GUNDAMN WING!" Sara yelled. "PLEEEEAAAASSSSSEEE!"
"We have preselected a program for you, I'm afraid. It's a rather popular Earth show....the Z Files, I think?" (There is a loud BEEP as Rae goes into heart failure, and the alien waits a second for them to revive her before continuing). "We usually give each one of you roles, so you-" he pointed to Rae- "will be Agent...ah....Scullery-" BEEP (Rae goes into heart failure again). The alien turned to Michelle and Sara. "Does she do this often?"
"No," Michelle replied dryly. "Only when we get abducted."
"I see. Anyways, the child Michelle will be Margater-Magaret-Margerine- oh whatever the hell the back stabbing blonde bitch's name is-"
"Marita Covarrubias?"
"Indeed. And you, the child Sara, will be-" Sara screamed as she realized who she was going to be. "-Diana Fowley."
With that, the alien ship disappeared and the three girls found themselves in a tiny office shoved into the bottom of the FBI building in Washington. Rae looked around and then looked down.
"I'M SCUULLLLLLYYYYYYYY!!!!!" the joyful squeal could be heard in all the four corners of the world.
After they succeeded in pulling Rae off the ceiling fan, Michelle and Sara ran to the ladies' to check themselves out. Michelle screamed in horror.
"I'm BLONDE!!" Sara grabbed her and slapped her across the face.
"You think you're bad? Look at me!! I'm an over forty, ugly-ass-bitch with wrinkles and no chest!! I NEVER get any!! This isn't virtual reality! This is my FUTURE!!" Sara turned and attempted to drown herself in a drinking foutain. Rae and Michelle yanked her out and threw her on the floor.
"Sorry if we're being unhelpful here, but we've places to see and hot guys to do!" Rae checked her liptstick and raced out the door to find Mulder. Michelle looked at Sara, an evil smile on her face.
"Two words for you, my friend," she said. "HELLOOO, Krycek!" Then she too raced out the door. Sara pulled herself together.
"Ah, well...there's got to be someone around here I can screw..."
Meanwhile Fox Mulder was watching one of the dirty movies that "weren't his" and trying to organize his alien files when Scully walked in. "Put the files away Fox..."she purred.
Not looking up, he replied, "No can do, gotta get these organized." Scully stalked forward and knocked them all off his desk. He stared at her in surprise. "Scull-"
"Screw the files, Mulder," Rae said. She reached up and tore off all her clothes with one hand (hey, it's VR, she can do what she wants) "Or rather, screw me!"
Mulder's mouth dropped open. "What the hell took you so long?"

'Marita' meanwhile, had gone in search of her casual lover and incredibly hot Russian partner in crime, Alex Krycek. She found him with the Cigarrette Smoking Man, mixing a little business with pleasure. "Alex!" she commanded. He sprang up and ran to her like a whipped puppy.
"Yes, Marita?" he whispered. submissively. Michelle glanced over at the CSM and wrinkled her nose in distaste.
She crooked her finger. "Follow me!" She walked out of the room, followed closely by Alex who was panting and pawing at her exactly like a little puppy dog...but that was just because he was Alex and a horny bastard. Never had more fun been had in a closet with a just a pair of handcuffs and a LOT of whipped cream.

Sara, in character, was wandering aimlessly around the FBI building looknig for someone to either torment or have sex with, and was having trouble finding either. She checked the break room, the bathrooms, a variety of closets and the director's office, to no avail. In desparation she went down to the lowest level of the building where Mulder's office was. Before she even reached it she could hear odd noises and a hysterical squeaking that she knew to be Rae.
Suddenly she saw a male form crouching at the door and looking through the keyhole. Sighing, Sara steeled herself for what was to come. "Oh, Spender...."
******
Sadly, after only about two hours of this virtual fantasy, the girls found themselves back on the alien ship. The little green dude who had been inspecting them said, "Our probe is finished. We have gathered enough data to determine the cause of your collective psycho-sociopathic tendencies." He turned away and began to prepare to return them to Earth.
"Hey!" Sara yelled. "Aren't you going to tell us what you found out?"
"Oh yes," the alien said as the familiar green light surrounded them, "the problem is that you're all royally fucked up."
"WE KNEW THAT!!" the three yelled in unison as they disappeared from the ship.
*****
The next morning when the girls awoke, they were all naked in Rae's bed, they all had headaches and were having trouble remembering what had happened the night before. So far, everything was normal.
"It was a dream," Michelle said firmly later on.
"A really GOOD dream," Rae said, grinning.
Sara was quiet. "Well I have a question." She looked at Michelle. "If last night was all a dream, then why are you still wearing handcuffs?"
Michelle cleared her throat and looked pointedly at Rae.
"Oh...right."
Rae sighed. "I guess now we'll never know....."

~THE END~