Marginalia

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
why wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have manage to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird signing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

-- Billy Collins

Musings

I have forced myself to begin writing again, after an entire semester of---nothing. People are always trying to encourage me in writing by telling me how sure they are that I'll be a great writer someday, etc etc, even my mom, which is weird because my mom hasn't read anything I've written since the poem I wrote for my dad's funeral cards (which now that I look back on it is painfully juvenile, but hey, I was 14 and wrote it in like half an hour), but then I just have these long periods where nothing comes. I remember greg saying he used to make himself write something every day, no matter what, and I've considered that, but then so much of what emerges is just junk. It's like DNA--great swathes of useless jumbles of letters, and then here and there the precise combinations that make life really go BOOM. I don't like writing junk, or at least keeping it around.

I was simply in a poetry mood the last few days. The weather and the beautiful sunsets are part of it, definitely; I just wanted to lie somewhere and read from Billy Collins while the sky was splashed with the most gorgeous array of colors. I read his books over and over again till the poems are like old gloves that I slip on with ease, cool and soft to the touch. Sometimes he slips too into the mundane for my taste, but on the whole, no one has ever spoken to me like his poetry has before.

Sonnet


All we need is fourteen lines, well, thirteen now,
and after this one just a dozen
to launch a little ship on love's storm-tossed seas,
then only ten more left like rows of beans.
How easily it goes unless you get Elizabethan
and insist the iambic bongos must be played
and rhymes positioned at the ends of lines,
one for every station of the cross.
But hang on here wile we make the turn
into the final six where all will be resolved,
where longing and heartache will find an end,
where Laura will tell Petrarch to put down his pen,
take off those crazy medieval tights,
blow out the lights, and come at last to bed.

--Billy Collins

March 30

As it turns out, my dad shares his birthday with Van Gogh; the only way I discovered this was seeing the van gogh-esque look that Google has on today, and then looking it up. Hm. The things you find out--not that my dad would have cared, naturally. Today, as every year, begins the count-down to his anniversary, which then causes me to of course spend a great deal of time contemplating how long it's been, how things have changed, how they could have been, etc etc. Happens every year. Five years is a sort of big one, though, it's the first real marker on the road that will stretch the entirety of my life.

The day after, however, I'm going to Providence with Sean--he to visit Quinn, me to see Sara, and both of us to watch "Brigadoon"--who could forget the NWC performance of that our senior year, with Heather as the vivacious little town tramp? Lol. I'm really glad I'm going, since I didn't get to see Sara, or the other girls, at all over Easter due to my crazy traveling. It was, however, very enjoyable to be with both Sean and Carla. She proved to be a most excellent "substitute girlfriend" or "wife number 2". We even took him to the mall to look at jewelry stores! Except we had to let him sit the last three or four out--the poor child looked utterly drained. We will build his stamina in due time.

Speaking of stamina and other things that could be put in a sexual light......guess who resigned from the Vteam at long last! Yes, many kudos to you, Rae B.C., and also to the young man who, as I had rae inform him, is now actually a man, thanks to her. So now when we congregate at the S-Lo house, there will be only TWO people on the "virgin couch". So ha. No more ostracizing the scarlet woman!

Carla keeps reminding me how little time we have left in the year. Bah. Six weeks is so short--great for Sean, yes, because he can finally escape the hellhole that is UMass, but sad for me. I almost teared up to day when Carla told me how much she's going to miss me over the summer--almost, but not quite. I will indeed miss my dear muffin....I really have been extremely lucky in terms of roommates. God likes me. He better, after certain events *eyes calendar* which make the longevity of whatever husband I choose extremely suspect. I'll have to warn the poor guy-- "Um, not to ruin the wedding day and all, but men reeeeally don't last long in this family. If we have kids, your days are pretty much numbered." Oh boy, can't wait!

Grey Day

Last night TJ, Mike, and Carla all took the relationship quiz that Sean and I had taken. Mike and Carla both came out as "sex-bombs", which kinda explains why they're both so frustrated and, in my cupcake's case, repressed. TJ was some sort of outdoorsy woodcutter guy. I forget.

Rae and AJ's three year anniversary is in two days. Go you, go....go....now go have sex, dammit! It' been long enough already.

Carla, muffin, your time will come, someday. I believe in you!

Richard Dawkins

I had completely forgotten that there was a livechat scheduled with him today at 4pm. Luckily I checked my email when I got in and saw a reminder, so I caught the second half. It was held on the site faithless.org, which is a community of people who don't believe in any religion and believe that religion's hold on society needs to be shaken off by intelligent people. Dawkins, ps, is an evolutionary biologist who's written several really great books on evolution and genetics, including "The Selfish Gene" and my current read, "The Ancestor's Tale". He is most definitely an atheist. Ironically, as I'm watching this chat, I was doing my reading for Catholicism class, and it just became even more apparent, looking at the crap I was supposed to be reading about the "ecclesiology of the early Church", that I just have no faith in it whatsoever. Why have so many amazing minds bent their efforts to the study of such unconsequential matters?

I can't go so far as to say I don't believe in God, because I still do, even though I recognize that none of my arguments would withstand a vigorous debate. Some can even be used by both sides; creation obviously can be shown to have produced through natural selection, but what about the universe at large? The big bang didn't "select" to happen, something had to cause it.

And yet, even if creation occurred due to an intelligent designer, and then the laws of nature and evolution caused humans to become what we call human, why would that give us any special standing in God's eyes? we're just another species in the creation, 6 billion rats on a wheel.

I suppose I might almost count myself a kind of Deist--they believe in an intelligent creator who set everything up and then retired; Thomas Paine and other American founding fathers subscribed to this notion. This is where the Masons get their idea of the "Master Architect" of the universe. Of course this brings the question--how does this affect our understanding of the soul? If God does not act in the world and did not specifically intend for our race to develop, how are we any different than the animals?

I suppose there's still room in the Deist camp to suggest both a life after death and a general presence of God in the world. Of course, if we are no more special than animals, having been created by natural selection, then why do we deserve a life after death? Unless all creatures also go to this life after death? You could side with the pope and say that at some point, God acted and "inserted" a soul into the 'first' two humans. However, as evolutionary biologists will point out, there is no such thing as the first homo sapiens. The argument goes like this: for there to have been a "first" homo sapiens, there would have had to been a time when there were two parents of one species, and a child of a brand new species. That simply could not happen; every child of every generation will be biologically capable of breeding with its parent generation, and therefore cannot be of a different species. How then do we arrive at a different species? Because of transitional individuals, individuals with genetic changes that slowly bridged the gap between what we know as homo sapiens and the homo ergaster or homo erectus that came before. The child, though slightly different than the parent, is still enough of its species to mate with the parent (don't get too grossed out, happens in nature); however, the child of THAT child will not be able to mate with its grandparent, because the biological change will have been too great. When it has a child of its own, it can mate with that child, but the child will not be able to mate either with its grandparent or great grandparent, since the genetic differences are growing even greater. Thus eventually the descendants seem indistinguishable from the ancestors, cannot mate, and are obviously different species. So if that's how we came about, how would a soul occur? It could not happen by degrees as the transition to human-ness did, that's pretty ludicrous. And yet, I cannot shake my belief in a soul making us different from animals, and I cannot shake my belief in a benevolent being who exists in the world, even if he does not act in the world.

Dawkins would tell me that this reflects my inculcation in a religious society and that I'm not thinking for myself. He, like Marx, compared dependence on religion to dependence on narcotics. It seems true that simpler people tend to have very fervent belief in religion, a degree of belief that seems to wane the higher you progress along the educational spectrum. Dawkins pointed out how few scientists and doctors retain their faith, of any kind. Naturally, the egoistic side of me resented being lumped in with the intellectually stunted, simply for retaining a faith. I do think that religion is too often an opiate, and unquestioned by the people who subscribe to it. I also feel it is too controlling an influence in American society, and has been in the world for years. Yet, religion will never go away, because the masses will always need their opiates, no matter how hard you try to educate them. We can try to make it better (teaching evolution as a solid scientific theory instead of letting the wacko creationists run rampant, damned southerners!), but its influence will always be felt.

This is such just a tough subject to wrap the mind around. It's not experimentally verifiable and that's one reason to distrust the existence of god. You could argue that love is not verifiable either, (indeed, a cold evolutionary biologist could argue that the only reason to protect and raise your children is so that your genetic material can be passed on to further generations) yet no one denies it exists. It's just a tough nut to crack.

Someone asked "Why don't we worship philosophers like Socrates the way we worship Christ?" Dawkins replied "Let's not worship anyone. Except our lovers." I like that.

Hello Again

I had a pretty good spring break...as much as I would have loved to have been luxuriating on a cruise ship to some exotic locale, it was nice to loiter about the house in my pjs, watching movies and reading books till indecent hours of the morning. And of course Sean visited for several days, which was nice. However, it was also delicious to return here to my little blonde cupcake, laden with cookies, banana bread, and other assorted wonders from my stay in NoCo. The rest of the year is going to be good, I can feel it.

I did not, unfortunately, get into the Bucknell Seminar this summer, which I pretty much expected due to its competitiveness. That's ok. Despite the nebulous and uncertain status of my religious beliefs, I am a firm subscriber to the maxim that all things happen for a reason (see father's death, not getting into harvard, etc), and therefore it's probably for the best that I'm not spending three weeks in Pennsylvania come June. This way at least I'll be able to get the Harry Potter book right when it comes out! WHOOT!!

Reading an excellent book right now called "The Ancestor's Tale: A Journey Backwards into Evolution" by Richard Dawkins. It's (obviously) going backwards in time along the trail of human/mammalian/vertebrate/bacterial lineage, with each section in the form of a particular ancestors' "Tale", like in Chaucer. Wonderfully done, I must say. How I wish I could have studied evolution, and traveled the world looking at fossilized trilobites and examining the evolutionary adaptions of this or that fish and fowl...ah.

Also, we got Townhouse 121, just like the girls wanted. It's an end house, meaning it's slightly bigger. Excellent!

Spring is almost here, and I am wearing my yellow coat everywhere.

Another POV

Here's what Sean scored on the same Relationship Test I took:


eXpressive: 6/10
Practical: 5/10
Physical: 3/10
Giver: 2/10


You are a XPIT--Expressive Practical Intellectual Taker. This makes you a Manager.

You are cool, thoughtful and intelligent. Your approach and your sense of humor are under-the-radar, your charm is undeniable. You keep everything under control. You have distinctive vocal mannerisms. You may not have much interest in approaching strangers, but when you do, you are successful.

You will probably end up with someone beautiful, fascinating and off-balance. While your partner may steal the limelight, it's you that keeps things running smoothly and provides stability in your relationship. If you are with someone as contemplative and hard-headed as you, you can have a tough time.

Your greatest asset is that you tackle conflict as it rises -- you don't ignore it and let it brew. If you have a partner that *does* let it brew, it will make you crazy! You can find yourself fighting for two -- trying to anticipate your partner's needs and draw their feelings out -- which is exhausting and, well, not your job.

You would never cheat. You would make an excellent spouse. When your spouse's friends met you, they would think, "Crap, why couldn't I get that one?"

Hm. Interesting, very interesting...

Hmm

You are a RSIG--Reserved Sentimental Intellectual Giver. This makes you a People-Pleaser.

Oh, RSIG! You are the most complicated and dynamic of any type. You are brilliant, tender, romantic and a joy to be with. You're the favorite of many of your friends. It's just not a party until you get there. You are bursting with feeling and sentiment and insight but you very rarely express it -- it's not how you want to present yourself to the world. Although you are always studying your non-romantic relationships -- you turn a blind eye to romantic relationships.

You're highly adaptable, and you conform to your circumstances (maybe you're a youngest child?). You would probably be content with almost anyone, and almost anyone would be blissfully happy to have you. But just because you're content doesn't mean you're happy. Don't settle!

You'd rather ignore your problems than rock the boat by creating conflict. Please understand that in the long run ignoring conflict will make you unhappy and your partner exhausted. Try picking a fight just to see how it goes. You'll find out that solving problems is so satisfying for you that it makes conflict worth it.

Your sex life could be fantastic if you could stop worrying about everything so much (did I wash my hands? how do I look? what do I need to do tomorrow?). You need a sweet, expressive lover who makes you feel at ease and never puts pressure on you. If you feel secure with your partner outside the bedroom, it will make all the difference.

You cry at movies. A lot.

Of the 205278 people who have taken this quiz, 5.6 % are this type.

20 Questions to a Better Relationship

Of all of this, I will simply say, I don't cry at movies...often.

Spring Break

I'm so glad to be home. Even if my cats are pretending not to know who I am and all the posters fell off the walls in my room, and even if my mom has the cleaning abilities of a woodchuck when Jen and I aren't home. Ah.

I just read Heather's journal about how she feels like her life isn't quite fulfilling right now, that she's not quite as into Theatre as she should be, "et cetera, et cetera, et cetera!" (sorry, we watched The King and I last night. lol.) That happens to me sometimes too, especially in terms of Art. Sometimes I'm like man, what the hell am I doing? English and Art History? What is THAT? And sometimes I'll be sitting in art class, staring at some Roman portrait bust of yet another dead emperor and I'll think, is this really that important? Am I really doing something valuable?

The same goes for my writing. I haven't written anything since last December, which is kind of natural, since I'll go through these phases when I never write anything. But I worry a lot about writing...I know I'm a good writer, I have a lot of poetry that has real quality to it, but I wonder if I'll ever actually be a really good poet, if I should bother sending my stuff out to publishing houses, or if it will always just be something I do for myself. I'll never stop writing, it's too much a part of me, but will it ever be anything more? I don't know. I'll find out soon if I qualified for the Bucknell Seminar. I really want it, more than I've wanted anything in a long time, but I just can't get my hopes up. Bridgford emailed me yesterday about sending in some poems for a special edition of the Sound, which is really nice of her. It helps to know that a writer like her thinks I have talent; I mean, she's been in the running for a Pulitzer with her poetry. She knows her shit.

As for my life being in order, well, a lot of things are going really well. Housing seems to have worked out, I'm making plans for going abroad next semester, I'll be planning my merit scholar proposal to take advantage of that thousand dollars. Sean, of course, is a huge part of the "life is going well" list. I quit debate, because it just wasn't doing anything for me anymore. What I miss from high school, the way Heather misses choir and theater, is Voices and Art Club. I miss getting together with friends and critiquing each others' work and eating good food, and I miss going to art museums with Sara, Rae, and Mr. Woodford in that stupid school van and eating pizza afterward. I'm glad I work in the slide library, because then I feel at least a little more connected to my major, even if I'm just organizing slides or doing something else really random.

I guess the only thing that I feel is out of order is myself, but that's just the usual quibbles with my own image that I and every other woman have had since time immemorial. I promise myself again and again, I'll either work on it or ignore it, but you know, it's not that easy to do either.

You know, I didn't have my mom buy me this Poet's Market book for nothing. Over break, I'm going to get some stuff together that Bridgford has already edited and send it out. It's time to start doing SOMETHING.

Still Alive!!

My illness appears to be on the wane, whoot! Finally I can swallow without pain, even if I'm still kinda coughing every five seconds. Oh well. Many good things happening lately despite the being sick--I found out Sara's and my spring breaks will overlap THIS WEEKEND!! once again we will be rockin' the W.H. Also, a small road trip may be in order, so that once again, the powerful fashion team of "What Not to Wear" Lugo and "No More Guido" DiMarzo may assert their influence on sean's spring wardrobe. Let the battle begin.

Speaking of sean, though, I must get disgustingly mushy here and say that he is absolutely the best guy to have around when you're not feeling well. He bought me tons of fruit and went out at night to CVS to get a thermometer when I had a fever, fetched me a million glasses of water, allowed me to steal the covers, and generally suffered my sick grumpiness for three days with great panache. My hat is off to you, dear.

My hat also goes off to a certain roommate of mine who just completed her five shows as star of Dead Man Walking! We saw her on Saturday in it, and despite feeling like crap that was one hell of a good performance. Mama Bear is so special.

So, now one week till SPRING BREAK! Which will not necessarily involve me going anywhere warm, but I mean I'll get to see sara, possibly help my mom select dog number 2 (which might come from a Sheltie Rescue Society in Monroe, despite me assuring my mom that you should never ever trust anything that comes out of that particular town, eh sara? lol), shop for/torture sean, spend some time with my beloved cats, sleep, and then return to new haven friday through sunday, hopefully. Carla wanted me to visit her, but she lives in the middle of the woods and I (as usual) don't want to spend that much money traveling after the amount of money I spent in the city the other weekend...ah well. We just can't seem to do without each other, alas. Mama Bear needs her Mama Tiger!!

Oh, last night I had a dream where Rodney Dangerfield was making fun of all these people I don't like for me. Heehee. I must have been reminded of him last night during the "tribute to dead people" section of the Oscars.

Anyway, there's work to be done. I have no classes Friday, so I just need to get to Thursday and I'm golden. I can't wait.

Belated

I realized I never really posted about my weekend with Heather and Rae...how can one possibly describe the fantastic-ness? How to capture the fabulosity of the gay club, shopping, drinking with heather AND rae, teasing poor aj over the phone, having a frank conversation about sex with greg online while intoxicated, leaving a really half-assed drunk dial on sean's phone, highlighting my hair red, borrowing heather's clothes, shoes and makeup and everything else, sleeping in her roommate's giant bed and decidedly NOT spooning with rachel von stealin-covers, seeing the less-than-awe-inspiring gates and generally wandering around NYC with two of my best friends? Oh, it cannot be put into words. The only thing that could have made the experience better was if Sara had been able to make it--then would our little group have been made complete, and quite possibly Rae and I could have danced scandalously with her too instead of just with each other, and hey, that sketchy black straight guy probably would have gone right for her, because she's one of his people! heehee. just kidding, my dear. However, despite the lack of our S-lo, spending time with the girls really recharged my batteries exactly like i needed it to. I mean, we helped rae pick out sex lingerie. What better form of bonding could there be??

Redux

NWC-ers: Remember this from the Love and Sex lecture our senior year? (This was an old guy who gave us a valentine's day lecture in order to disabuse us of our grand notions about sex, ie it lasts on average 8 minutes, and about 'true love', ie most of you in this audience are moronic little twits with too many hormones. alas, too true in those days)This was the test of how good your relationship is (pardon my writing in spots, this was two years ago)

1. What is the Main Attraction? If it was their money or their body, bad sign. Personality, good sign.
2. What are the number of things that attract you to the other person? If you can only think of a few, bad sign. If you can think of a lot, good sign. This might take longer than some of the other questions; it wasn't something I could just decide instantly in the auditorium while he was talking. I had to sit down and think about it.
3. How did the relationship start? If everything happened really fast, all at once, and two weeks later you're in love, chances are it's just infatuation. If things take longer to develop, better chances it's love.
4. How did it stop? This is not something you can answer during the relationship (duh). But if you didn't really love the person, it ends and you're over it a month or so later, wondering what you saw in him/her. If it was love, you never get over it (well you do, but never completely, even if you love again, which you probably will), and it changes you forever. I'm not sure this is so applicable if someone got really hurt by another person. That might change them forever, and they might never forget it, but that doesn't necessarily mean they loved that person.
5. Is it consistently good? If you're usually pretty good with the other person, outside of regular spats and fights and periods of grouchiness, good sign. If it's all ups and downs, one minute you want them dead, the next you want their pants on the floor, that leans more toward bad. There go all those romance novels--rage and passion do not a happy love match make.
6. How does distance affect things? Can you handle being separated, does that make you appreciate the other person even more? If so, good sign. If you get all impatient and go looking for some ass a week after the other person is gone, very bad sign.
7. How do you see each other? Do you think in idealized forms, like "oooh he's perfect", not seeing the faults? Bad sign. Muy malo. If you recognize the other person's faults, and love them despite their flaws, good sign. Muy bien.
8. How do you handle quarrels? If you break up after arguing over who controls the radio dial--every single week--that's a bad sign. If you try to work things out and don't run away, good sign.
9. What are the attitudes of your friends/family, and how does that affect you? The guy made the excellent point that having your friends and family hate your significant other is RARELY a good sign. These people know you, and want the best for you, and chances are that they're seeing something you're not. Their opinions should matter to you, because you love them back--not that they rule your life, obviously. Anyway, good sign if they like him/her, possible bad sign if they don't; good sign if you care about what they think; possible bad sign if you don't. This is an iffy one, different in each situation, I guess.
10. How does the relationship affect your personality? If being with this person has made you retreat from all your relationships and responsibilites to focus exclusively on them, very bad sign. If your relationship has made you even more complete and well-rounded, good sign.
11. "Feeling Reference". In conversation, when talking about your relationship, do you use "me and her" or "we"? Do you say "I did this, and he did this" or "we did this". If you're using "I", that leans toward lack of committment. If you say "we" more often then not, then you really think of yourselves as a couple, a pair, a team.
12. What's your ego response? Are you selfish toward the other person, or are you unselfish?
13. What's your overall attitude? Kind of the same as the last. Do you percieve your role to be more giving or more taking?
14. Finally, the Jealousy question. Some amount of jealousy is nice; everyone likes to feel loved. However, if the other person freaks when you talk to an ex or just another person of the opposite sex, bad sign. Insecurities ahead! If however, the other person is secure in your affections, they probably love you enough to trust you.

A Quote from Scully

"Well, it seems to me that the best relationships - the ones that last - are frequently the ones that are rooted in friendship. You know, one day you look at the person and you see something more than you did the night before. Like a switch has been flicked somewhere. And the person who was just a friend is... suddenly the only person you can ever imagine yourself with" --Gillian Anderson

Reminder

Note to self: Buy Sean jeans. And force him to wear them often.

It's DONE!!!

It's done!!!! Our house is settled, and everyone's happy, and the unhappiness and the cattiness and the whole unpleasant business is over and done with. We found our seventh person--a girl Wendy knows, who might be an RA anyway. So I will now be living with Anna, Carla, Tess, Wendy, Ioanna, and this girl Desiree, and I will be living in a room with Carla once again. It's gonna be awesome. I'm already looking forward to decorating with wendy and ioanna (who seem to be the ones most interested in the decor of the as-yet-unsecured house). It's been decided that we will try to get 121, which is a traditional theater house, and hopefully if that's not available we can get an end house, cause those are bigger.

I'm so glad this worked out.

In four days it will be the four of us...and heather's roomies aren't going to be there, so it will be just us in an apartment made for four!

Things To Do:

Dye hair weird colors
Go to Heaven
Visit Gates
Be cracked out
Spoon someone

Valentine's Day

I will officially designate this as the Best Valentine's Day ever! Sean managed to give me exactly the kind of gift I like--fun, cute, thoughtful, AND creative. A few weeks back I posted something about all the things I wish I could do, like take a train ride, dye my hair, go to a concert, get letters, etc; basically, every part of my gift corresponded to something in there--he gave me a Metallica tape so I could have my own concert in his car (and not suffer the oldies stuff), a little toy train with a coupon for a train ride, a letter, and not one, but TWO boxes of hair dye, one blue and one red!! Plus he gave me roses and --of course--caramels, AND he brought roses for carla, which absolutely made her day. Talk about thinking outside the box (but the box came too!). Last night we went to Bellini's, this cute little restaurant where I felt entirely over-dressed and where I enjoyed eating pasta while Sean, who has foolishly sacrificed it for lent, could not. Later we went to see House of Flying Daggers, which had its moments of cinematic coolness, but on the whole was far less interesting than Hero and a little tedious toward the end (at one point, a character who was stabbed in the heart, "died", and been covered with snowfall for several hours GETS BACK UP, still on the verge of death. please.) Sean's whole family, besides Danny, was away for the weekend, so we had the house to ourselves. Tonight was especially nice, just curled up on the sofa in front of the fireplace watching "A League Of their Own" and eating more pasta sean couldnt have, while he ate his awful fish sauce. bleh.

And if you couldn't tell, he is simply the most amazing Valentine I have ever had.

Valentine's Day Approacheth

Tomorrow is Valentine's day for me, since Mondays really are a tad inconvenient. I finally get to see House of Flying Daggers!! Monday will also mark, let's see, two years that I've had a particularly useless purple lilac-scented heartshaped candle, thank you greggiepoo, and one year that the wonderful Mr. Bojangles has slept by my side, courtesy of charles. If this upward trend in presents continues, well, I bet I'll really like whatever Sean gives me this year! :-)

Tomorrow is also ONE WEEK till the weekend of incredible magical fun-ness in NYC with heather, rae and sara!! whoot!!! Words cannot describe how excited I am at the prospect of all of us being together, especially since I had forlornly been expecting only to be reunited come summer break, which is a looong way off from here.

So, my new debate partner, Chris (I initially wrote Christ, but unfortunately, JC isn't down with APDA) who is a good debater but really intense and very....APDA, ie talks REALLY fast and REALLY loud and uses all those random APDA phrases like "cross-apply that..." and "that's a tautological argument"...yeah, apparently his parents are english aristocrats who live in london, while he gets to live at home in what is apparently a mansion, because there is more than one wing....he transferred from William and Mary after taking last semester off to rewrite the book he wrote over the summer...yeah. He said he's having a party there during the Yale tournament, but alas, that's Easter weekend. He has already convinced me to go to the Mount Holyoke tournament the weekend our spring break starts, because hey, it's conveniently close to UMass, why not?

In other news...my feet are really cold...don't know why that's worthy of writing down but I already did it, oh well! Oh, anyone who has not seen the fabulous film entitled "My Little Equines Gone Wrong", created by our very own Sara and her roommate Jen, you need to see it. Trust me.

Another Goodbye

My mom left a message on my phone this morning that Sheena died during the night. I won't pretend I really liked the dog, I didn't, I hated her barking and her following me around the house and having to clean up after her. I hated that she chased my cats and ate their food. I'm not a dog person. But I still felt so terrible when I heard my mom's voice saying that she was gone, because she sounded so sad and alone. Sheena was my mom's company, her friend--which sounds silly, no doubt, to anyone who's never had a pet. I told Mike this a little while ago, that my cats really are my friends, as strange as that sounds, and Sheena was my mom's friend. I know it cheered my mom up when she came home to an empty house to have a dog greeting her at the door, happy to have her back. It just makes me so indescribably sad to think of my mom coming home to a silent, empty house, with nothing barking and wagging its tail and waiting to be let out. I hate the thought of my mom being lonely. Hasn't life made her lonely enough? My dad was her only real friend, and he's gone, and now Sheena too. It's just not fair, not fair.

I feel like I should say a prayer for her, that she goes to whatever happy place dogs get to be after they die. Mike agreed with me that he thinks animals have souls. Some people think that's overly sentimental, but if you have pets that you really care about, you can't help but see something deeper when you look into their eyes. They're not dumb machines that exist for a certain length of time and then disappear into the void; they have personality and spirit to them. I was remembering how my dad used to say that in his idea of heaven you're with everyone you love, including all the pets you ever owned. My mom thinks Pepper died of a broken heart after my dad died, and somehow I always imagined that they were together, and Bonnie and Jasmine too, forever begging for treats in some eternal paradise. Or maybe they won't have to beg anymore, because maybe heaven for cats is a land of never-ending catnip and Whiskas treats? I don't know. But on the walk back from class I pictured Sheena joining them there, wherever there is, and my dad finally getting to meet this little dog that had been causing so much of a ruckus down below. He always wanted a dog, after all. I think Sheena's idea of heaven would be an unlimited number of squirrels for her to chase, a never-ending supply of MilkBones, and someone to give her tummy rubs. I hope she has that, wherever she is.

Jesus H

What a weekend...Friday night me, Mike and Lauren went to Sean's house for some pasta fagouli good times, and I made them watch Orgazmo, which is such an amusing movie. Saturday Sean and I visited Hubbard in the rehabilitation center, where she's hopped up and strung out on various painkillers after having had double knee replacement surgery. She's so funny--and such an awful patient. We had lunch with Linda and Michelle, Sean's aunt (who according to Linda is to be henceforth only called Shelly, to avoid confusion) and then I wound up feeling sick, so we didn't go to Danny G's house. And then I drove Sean's car back to school!

Last night was the debate party at Jamie's townhouse, to which we in the debate team asked if we could bring our other friends to. It was fun, we played flip cup with Courteney, and I learned that properly diluted rum and Coke is not that bad. Jamie insisted on giving us semi-permanent marker tattoos (this year I wound up with a "I HEART CUPCAKES" on my boobs), and insisted on a dance party in the basement, where a large inflatable ball was used by me with malice aforethought...in short, everything was a lot of fun, till Mike W. threw up all over Jamie's foyer. Needless to say, we felt really bad, since he was our friend, so two of the boys walked him home and we cleaned the bathroom and the basement. I personally think it was cleaner when we left than when we got there.

Drunk Carla also made an appearance last night. I discovered her sprawled outside our door after the usual "Ahhh don't come in!" when the door started opening. cough cough. We went back down to TJ and Mike's room where Carla was her usual really amusing drunken self, attaching herself to TJ, loudly proclaiming that I'm a ho, and telling me to "step away from the buffet and let her have some". Ah, my roommate.