Hello, darlings.

It's been a while since I've been here, but it'll be much, much longer till I return, if ever.  I might've outlived my LivelyBunny days.

You see, I'm starting my BraveBunny days.  An upgrade.  Lively, but Brave now, as well.  This is because I am leaving on Tuesday to study abroad for a semester and I want to do a travel journal instead of ridiculous mass e-mails, which I'd rather not have to send out.  So, a new LiveJournal.

For now, we shall call this forthcoming break a Hiatus, but it might turn into the ending of a lovely experiment.

So, from now on, to see about me, go to: www.livejournal.com/users/bravebunny/

There will be a Gallery up as well, eventually.  Please, please, please visit me at BraveBunny!  Don't say 'Bye to me here, say Hi! to me there!

Love,

the management, aka Zoe, aka LivelyBunny-turned-BraveBunny

Yes yes y'all, I'm back near the Mason-Dixon. But it's good. For Tony's graduation. So nice to see him again! Nice is, of course, an understatement, but you know. Just picture a glowing me. I drove down here myself and I didn't mind the drive or doing the driving or paying for all that gas ($1.89 in Indiana!), but my right leg feels overworked, which would be fine if my left felt that way too, but it doesn't. I feel unbalanced. I'm nuts though. It's sad that I'm only staying till Saturday, but I have things to do back home and he'll want to celebrate graduating without me around. He says he'd just bring me with, but... I mean, say you have a whole like week of girls' nights out planned, you wouldn't want to bring your man along, would you? Friends and significant others should mingle and combine now and then, but this is a celebration that I, the significant other, have nothing to do with, really. I can'really get all that excited about graduating, since I won't for another two years. I'll get more excited, excited enough to hang with his friends while they reminisce and [try] to dance, when he finishes med school in a bazillion years. In the meantime, we're hanging out. The only downside: they keep the A.C. in their fucking apartment jacked up so high that I'm in summer clothes and a sweater and pants would be hot, but I don't really like the A.C. Just enough so you're not constantly sweating, that's all I want. But Tony has crazy allergies now, so open windows = Bad.

Last weekend I went to two high school graduation parties. Very bizarre, the juxtaposition (aha! Tani!) of high school and college. I didn't mind being at the high school ones, but it was very strange because I barely talked to the young'uns, I mostly talked to adults or other friends who graduated my year, excepting Miz Molly D. I mean, it was good to see people and to listen to them jabber on and on, but suddenly I have this massive sypmathy for Patty and all the other guys who complained about all us girls "squwacking" (how the fuck do you SPELL that???). It really is almost unbearable if you're not really in the loop and you're trying to follow things even if you don't get the specifics or actually know the people being discussed. Yowzah.

Everyone--even if you don't know them--say a YAY!!! to my ex-roomie Meagan and my semi-ex-roomie Sarah and the fact that they've picked a wedding date and a location and have already written their vows!!! Congratulations, you guys!

I was thinking... My mom's printer is also a scanner. Would it be cool or beneficial to me to post some of my artwork up here and let people have a look at it? It's not worthy of any community, as my drawings of fanfic type genre stuff is mostly just manipulated photos or other works of art and that's just (C) problems. But what say you readers? Would my artwork be interesting to you? Because I'd kind of like people to see it but it's not like I want another other hobby... really...

Well. It's off to read The Accidental Tourist. Love to all.

P.S. I need new picture icons here, folks, except I'm keeping Salma. Who should I get? Bring Johnny back? Rhys Myers? Christian Bale? Monica Bellucci?

Look, y'all, I'm at work, sneaking in an LJ entry.  I feel like I should watch Office Space now... not that I'm rebelling or ripping off  $.001 for every dollar made, or whatever it was they did, but still, I feel like I'm in a club of the working bored. This is proving to me most pressingly that I will never enjoy or be fulfilled by... or maintain my sanity throughout... a desk job.  Or a regular, steady job where one project leads unerringly into the next, without any fud, ad infinitum.  Not that my job sucks or that the work is boring or useless, it's just that it's repetitive and it involves lots of checking and rechecking of small print.

Okay, it's time to leave now.  So I'm going.  Just felt like saying Hello to the wide world of the internet.  How are all of you?  I've got oodles of Pornish Pixies to catch up on, I'm seeing Tony on Wednesday, and today is Candace's birthday!  And maybe I'll get to see Berto!

It has been a while, mes amies.  Much has happened, most of it fairly redundant to outline.  Let me just summarize it, to paraphrase Inigo Montoya.  (Spelling?)  It's summertime and I'm home.  I start work at Northwestern 31 May, I've been home for a week, and I'm already bored out of my gourd.  On the other hand, my writing is going very well and I can listen to my music very loudly and I am taking late-night pacing trecks up and down my street like I always do when I'm home, walking and thinking or talking on the phone.  I'm still waiting for a summer rainstorm, but it'll come, sometime.  My birthday's soon and Tony's giving me hints on what he's doing for me all the way from Ohio, but he's being delightfully cryptic and while I love surprises and don't want to know...  I want to know!!  I find it fun being back home because I wear crazy outfits and go out in public among Ladies Who Lunch and preppy kids with floral tank tops, tye-dyed belts, diamond-pattern sweater, ripped jeans, blue sneakers, embroidered purse and sometimes a gray hat.  And I have my own car.  It doesn't make noise and it's fuel efficient because it's only 4 cylinders but that means it doesn't zip satisfactorily on the highway, but it'll do me just fine because the bass makes the flimsy outside shake.

As for the big things.  I'm reconsidering going abroad for the full academic year next year.  There's oodles of reasons, again, because that's the way I work.  I already know I don't want to stay the whole year, but I still have to go through the whole process, the whole ten yards, as it were, in order to be 110% (a statistical impossibility...) sure that I haven't overlooked anything important.  I made the decision to go abroad full-year the second I switched to Western in like October 2004, people, and I took it as fact from there on out; when I applied this year, I didn't re-make the decision, I just followed through an already-made decision, it was just a technicality, filling out that application and getting accepted--thrilling though it was.  I never questioned the full year thing, even though there were requirement fulfillment issues and housing fears (Senior Year: in the dorms!?) and the beginnings of Leave Everybody For Eight Months...!?  But I didn't think it through again, until yesterday my mom and I were making the obligatory To Do / To Buy / To Find Out About list...  Does anyone else make those?... and suddenly I was guilty.  $575 for a one-week field study tour... only I'm doing two of them, so it's really $1150.  $390ish for the right Eurail pass... meaning $780.  $960 extra-cheap plane ticket, plus $200 fee for switching my return date when I figure out when I'm actually coming home.  They say plan on $100 a week just for food and accidentals and stuff, for September to May, minus one-month winter break, 8 months at 4 weeks, that's $3200.  Then there's however oodles I'd spent during the one-month winter break.  This money problem is obvious, its troubling nature, and so I said I was guilty and my mom gave me one of her level looks and asked me was the problem that I'm not sure I want to go the whole year.  I wailed and said maybe, and she gave me permission to give myself permission to change my mind.  When I've already made a decision, changing my mind is like being wrong--which is unacceptable, you see, hence her giving me permission to give myself permission.  I'm so bizarre.  But I needed to hear it.  We talked it through.  I talked to Tony.  He told me lots of things, some of them enough to make me blush and want to cry: I'm worth the wait, in terms of year abroad and working internationally post-grad, he'd love it if I came home after 4 months but he definitely doesn't want me making my decision just because of him.  Then he said that there's more location flexibility in his future career than I thought and that he'd be willing to go wherever I want and move about a bit, obviously it'd be a compromise but still you see my problem?  How could I stay away from that for eight months, never mind that we wouldn't suddenly go, Who's Zoe / Tony...? ??  He says I shouldn't include him in my deliberations as this is about what's best for me, what I want to do... but he is, he just is.  We're talking long-term, and he thinks he gets out of being on my short list of things I consider when I consider things that involve more than just me?  Yeah, right.  Fat chance, baby.

So I think I'm going to stay.  I have the rest of my life to travel.  I already talked to Candace and she said that we'll work out how to have our Ireland/Paris/Spain vacation together, and it should work because I'll finish fall semester 15 December and I can take two or two and a half weeks of vacation before I come home and then Candace and I can have from post-Christmas till I return to putz around a bit.  And I'll hopefully still be able to chill with Amanda before that.  So the best is still retained.  And honestly, about the big things, I know right away what's right and what fits, so after 3 or 4 months, I'll know whether living in Europe is really an option or if it's not, for some strange reason I can't fathom just now.

Suggestions?  Comments?  Questions?  Leave a message... or call me. 

The last part, I promise.  xoxo.

 

( Chapter for Candace, Part III )

It was too big for one post. So here's the next bit.

( Chapter for Candace, Part II )

I'm journaling only so that I can post a chapter of a story for Candace.  You can sneaky sneak and look at it, even though it's not for you, unless you're Candace, because I can't really stop you.  But before you peak and cheat, because someday the goal is to have this be a totally original piece of work published, just remember that this chapter: 1) Has no hanky panky, 2) Makes no explicit mention of hanky panky, 3) Has no catfights, 4) Has nothing gut-bustingly hilarious.  It's about development, people.  So just be warned.  Plus, it's long.

 

( Chapter For Candace )

Hey y'all.  Have you ever had one of those days where you feel a mild sense of panic, way down under the surface, and you know why it's there?  I have this distant thing about finals creeping up on me, and it sucks.  I mean, everyone gets stressed a bit during finals, don't misunderstand me, I'm not complaining about being worried, I did sign up for school after all.  What I'm upset about is the fact that this panic is brewing, not boiling and certainly not expressing itself.  It's this giant passive-aggressive thing sitting there, and it's driving me crazy.

 

But at least my enthusiastic inspiring writing is back with a veneagnce, just now when I really don't have the time--or, I shouldn't spend the time--indulging that writing yen.  I ought to be working.  But, on the upside, I worked for five hours straight today and am half-way done with my Western Civ final test studying.  Now all that's left is to find six nice concrete examples I know inside and out and won't easily forget for proving in an essay that 'proves' that in my opinion Europe has a greater tendency towards cooperation or conflict, and why. Boom baby.  If anyone has any suggestions, or any lovely examples that I might've encountered in Europe between the Enlightenment and the end of the Cold War, that'd be fantasmic.

Now I'm going back to work.

I'm trying to write my Statement of Educational Objectives in the computer lab downstairs and there's this bunch of 6 kiddies who are supposedly in charge down here but who are, in reality, just talking about their road trip next week and I want to tear my hair out. Not that jokes about boys in showers and Speedos aren't funny... It's just that this thing is due tomorrow and it's rather like a Senior Thesis. And I need it done by tomorrow, and I don't want it to suck, and I can't write it. I need some peace. Or loud music, not voices. Bah humbug. Screw their carefree, purposeful ignoring of their work. For once, I resent them for not choosing to use their time better. Normally I could give a shit.

Ah'll be back. Later.

Jezzus, I'm tired. I feel like an old lady, can't work from 10 till 2 without my eyes going blurry and my brain going fuzzy, and I muttered "Ehhh" (like an old Jewish grandmother: think Brooklyn, or the Coffee Talk lady) and wrote on my hand what I need to finish tomorrow. Just wanted to put something out there. You know, communicate a little. Since I'm going home soon, suddenly I want hugs from all my friends who aren't here at school with me, isn't that silly, I just feel like I'd love one NOW, so I'm writing, putting this down, so that all of you out there who're far away, who I'll see soon, can read this and Tsk at me and maybe send me a symbolic hug across the miles and miles between us. I don't even require a Comment here, people, I'm asking for even less effort. Just... send me a kiss across space. Or, if you're uncomfy with that, a nice huggie or maybe even just like a "Sweet dreams", as I'm off to beddy just this minute. I got nothing else. Except, my parents got me a car for this summer; all they said is, "It's got a CD player and it doesn't make hideous noises. It's a Saturn." Good enough for me!

Look at this, people: I have discovered "rich text".  I hope it works, otherwise this sentence will make no sense.  If this is the case, and it looks as LJ entries normally do, please ignore this opening line as irrelevant.

In other news, I got an eerie feeling today, almost a shiver.  It happened like this: My iTunes is on random, as is its wont, and so I was listening to a lovely wealth of styles and languages and eras and all of that.  Then comes on the "Death Scene" from R&J, in which all one hears is one lone sob from Juliet and then this long empty pause and then this gunshot--And immediately following this is: "Woah my love, my darling..."  Yeup, it's "Unchained Melody".  So you know how iTunes like crossfades songs automatically and it's nifty?  Well, this particular crossfade made me shiver 'cause it was eerie, gunshot, the ultimate failure of love to give a woman enough strength to survive even her lover's death, followed by one of those love songs that you just can't ever hear often enough.

So there.  That was the monumental moment of my day, I think, other than the usual monumental moments.  I'm doing this odd shuffle dance here at Western in the final three weeks of the year, and I feel like Billy Flynn in 'Chicago' when he does that tap dance while in the courtroom.  Because I have lots of work, this is true, and I am doing it, a little out of order sometimes but I'm hitting my deadlines.  But then, I'm also about to leave school, not just til next August, but til NEXT August, as in, August 2006, so I'm wanting to spend time with friends here who I won't see in person for another year and a half, and have a chance to like insinuate myself into people's hearts so that I'll have more than three people e-mailing me in Lux (two being my folks and one being Tony...).  Then again, I'm also UBER-excited about next year and so... done... with this year, so I just want to blow shit off and have fun, go dancing, watch movies, do stupid shit late at night, never get enough sleep.  I did the work and the lack of sleep last year with Meagan, and Sarah too of course, when all a sudden in the last month of school we totally rocked at having a great time and groovy night-long conversations while also completing our work.  It was brilliant, to put it succinctly.  But I feel like I'm dropping little things here and there, just sort of loosing track of odds and ends.  But I don't think I actually am.  I'm insane, right?  Right?

With that, I'm happy and my eyes are so tired that I can feel my eyelids dragging across my dry contacts every time I fucking blink, which is a big fat fucking sign that I need to fall into bed.  Tomorrow will be busy and late, with homework, unfortunately, and it's supposed to be cold this weekend.  Double damn.  But I'll live because the Parley Archive is back up!  And because Jack Davenport is now listed on the cast list for the next two 'Pirates' movies!!!  And because I know I can finish what I need to finish, without bloodshed.

Bonne nuit, mes voyeurs, je souhaite que vous passiez une bonne journee demain.

It's been a while since I put something up over here. I was thinking about putting up a random chapter that I wrote that didn't fit with the sotry, so which is now lonely in a file with lots of other lonely fragments, lost puzzle pieces, but it'd take explaining / set up and no one cares that much. However, if the 3 people who ever respond feel the need for a random story that ends with a bit of a snog between friends, just le me know. ;) We'll vote on it, democratic style.

So I was talking to a really good friend this afternoon, whom I don't really talk to all that often, on account of scheduling and ADD, and he asked, Do you like school? He doesn't. Never has, and is luckily smart enough that he can just get it out of the way without too much torture. I wanted to say that, yes, I love school, that even though it's almost the end of the year and my situation will be entirely different next year, no, I don't feel like a second-semester senior all over again, that yes, I get up every day, groggy but excited, with all my reading done, 100% prepared. This isn't true, though. I am prepared; I read enough to participate in discussion, most days, and I get to class close to on time as I can, and I ask questions and offer opinions and try to be productive. I think about the things I read other places, and the things I discuss sort of get cross-posted among my classes. I talk about what I'm talking about in school with friends and my parents and I think about them, too. But do I LIKE it? Does it make me feel warm and fuzzy, or does it make me feel as though I'm getting smarter, wiser, brighter, better? Not really. I wonder, is this the product of the way our education system works--that is, that right now it's more about job preparation than just plain learning? Or is it that I've just been plowing through education, formal learning, discussions, forced readings, participation, attendence, tests and grades since I was five years old and it's regoddamndiculous to still be doing the same shit fifteen damn years later? Yeah, that might be it.

It might also be that the weather is fucking gorgeous, and I want to have picnics and get slathered in sunscreen, and I want to read a good book on a blanket, and I want to eat fruit and cold sanwiches and argue about what each fluffy cloud looks like. I want to be able to keep my window thrown open every night and I want a lazy rotating fan over my head. I want even cotton sheets to be too hot, and pajamas to be a long-forgotten memory. I'd like to swim in the ocean again, to feel wet sand between my toes, to hike through the woods and get scratched and make a wildflower boquet even though that might be bad for the environment, and I want to take stupid amateur pictures of deer and fishies and hawks and squirrels and blue skies and my doggies scratching their backs on the grass. And maybe a nice pad of paper to jot ideas onto, and maybe a little more inspiration for what to apply such poetic wording to, like a story, perhaps, and not just a stray character or funny situation... I want to edit my novel, pen gripped between my teeth, eyes blurry as I squint at a sentence, deliberating over a comma vs. a semi-colon. I want sunshine and rainstorms, hot air and cool winds, tornado warnings and car washes and squirt gun fights and block parties and guacamole and fruit juice mixed with seltzer. I want sundresses and bare feet and maybe too much idealism, and only small moments were doubts and worries and stress creep in. I even want work, nice work to earn me the money to explore and buy pretty things for myself and those I love, something that requires some focus and I even get a little sick of so that I can look forward to 5:00 Friday afternoon.

Too idealistic? Unrealistic? Perhaps not very ambitious? Maybe. But maybe I just watched "Before Night Falls" and there was beautiful poetry recited there, and a strong man trying to get his thoughts, his words, maybe a little bit of his very soul, out there into the world, and he died too young, and just think of how much more we could be, could do, could feel, if we just thought about it every now and then.

Just had to announce, I've ditched my Joaquin Phoenix icon and replaced it with a photo of Salma Hayek, which is amazing, and even more incredible on a larger scale, as it's meant to be viewed. So then, it came about because Caitlin and I were having a long discussion about the Top 5: men for a one-nighter, men to wake up next to, men to go to dinner with, women for a one-nighter, women to make love to, etc. It made me realize, I have no gorgeous woman icon going... not when I'm still a free user and can only have three icons uploaded at once. So voila, a new one. Enjoy! ;)

My weekend was quiet, after a busy week full of me going from place A to B, thankfully not rushed or plagued by difficult homework. On Friday night, Tony came out here and had no plan, which is unusual, so we had a nice dinner uptown and then by 9 pm we were snuggled into my bed, telling stories and laughing about how light it is in my dorm room even with all the lights out because of the glass panel over my door that lets in all the light from the hallway. We slept over here, which was a first, and also a last, because although we sleep all snuggled up, the bed really is too narrow and Tony has a nice big bed in a nice apartment without thuds and screeching girls. He went home around lunchtime because he had a sore throat and needed medicine for it, and so I spent the afternoon putzing around, making artwork of a character to jet off to Candace, listening to music, wearing a skirt. Then I went to dinner with Meagan, where we discussed everything from paintings to cameras to babies to work, laughing hard and being serious and eating well, and then we walked back to her appartment where we watched But I'm a Cheerleader, which was like the companion piece to Saved!, almost. Then Sarah drove me home, but I'd forgotten my keys, so I stood outside till someone went inside, and then I had to call the CLA on duty to let me in--thankfully they didn't charge me! (I think they're supposed to chargge like $5 or something.) Today I basically slept, made food and watched Dave, was wished a happy Easter, wrote more, talked with Candace about her trip to London (I'm so jealous!), and watched the series premier of Grey's Anatomy, which was pretty cool, promising.

Even though I've done stuff all weekend and had a bit of a social life, I still sort of feel like I've spent thel ast week in solitude. It's not really true, but I still randomly felt all lonely-like. Not as though there was anyone I really wanted to see or someone I missed, nor did I have that sort of whiny, self-conscious feeling that I was bored with myself. I didn't want to read a book or watch a movie, and I didn't have enough focus / concentration to write. I messed around online, trying to find something my mind would settle on, but it didn't work until around 8 when I went to Davida's to watch tv and chat with her.

Basically, I'm just in a weird mood, I'm not complaining, I swear. My 9 am tomorrow is canceled, so I'm thrilled. I did no work this weekend, but I did submit two scholarship applications. Wonderfully, there was no work that I really should've done. I think this week I'm going to make a collage.

I don't know...

I read Manda's LJ today and commented on her frustrations at ambitions, being able to articulate them and being able to deal with them, and being able to combat / stand strong against other people's accomplishments. It made me think a lot and it ties in with a few things that've been floating through my mind the past couple of days, so I replied to her, and now I'm going to post that here too so that I don't repeat myself because I think I said it all right the first time around, and there's no use drafting a perfectly good comment, you know?

*Amandine ~ I've been thinking about this mediocrity thing too. I don't think it's just Tufts or it's just you. Think about how placated we were at good old dhs. We were expected to be the bright children of bright parents--and we were (I'm referring to our group here...); we did our work, to varying degrees, and died at the thought of a B. We never did anything particularly special, except maybe Relay For Life and begrudingly donating to School Chest in return for our Snickers and Il Forno's slices. Yet with all the resources, how many of us did real, useful work? In any field, for any cause? Not many of us--I don't think any of our group did at all. And now that we're at college and there's nifty groups and opportunities lining up around the block, how many of us are taking advantage of that? As far as I know, only Mc'Ali, whose involved in charity stuff up to her eyeballs. I was filling out an application for int'l students in my dept and the questions are all about how do you contribute to the dept's community / the university's community / the Oxford community. And I just want to scream, I'm writing! I'm trying to learn how to be an adult! I'm relaxing so I don't go nuts! I'm taking long showers and watching Gilmore Girls and going to other people's programs so I can pet kitties and see a Bollywood movie! Our society tells us it's never enough. Never enough money, never enough possessions, never enough ambition, never enough expectations, never enough worries, never enough accomplishments. We always want that more, more, more. I mean, we've been told all our lives that we're more intelligent than "most people", that we'll do amazing things, that we're being given incredible, life-altering opportunities. All of this is true, and yet I still constantly feel as though I'm doing nothing with all of these resources. I'm editing, I'm reading, I watch a lot of TV, and I still do the bare minimum required to get grades as close to A's as I can get. This isn't to say that I'm not learning, that I'm not challenged, that I'm not striving and trying and working and crying and getting frustrated. But I'm not organizing or life-saving or contributing in any big way either, and I feel like an utter failure for not being a 5-star student. I'm proud to be one among a generation that's so ambitious and is accomplishing so much... but they're making the rest of us, even those of us who are "Above Average" (God I hate that phrase but you know what I mean here) look like TOTAL ASSHOLES. Damned if I can convince myself, either, that I'm doing enough. Just wanted to let you know you're one among a million... it's like how we're all unique so none of us really are.*

Plus, I'm still grappling with feeling like an adult. I don't know whether I'm supposed to be happy, excited, worried, scared, or confused like I am.

But today is the first day of spring. I smelled overwet mud while I was walking back to my dorm; the trees back home are starting to bud, just tiny hints of dark, dark brown-green barely visible at the ends of branches; and the wind, though it's still on the cold end of things, has this very thin edge of heat on it, so that I shivered from it while I was outside. I want to fling open my windows and lean out into the night air and fling my arms wide, and then I want to pound outside and dance in a filmy skirt. But I'll wait until it rains, that spring rain, those cool droplets soaring to the ground on warm air, hitting the soaking ground, so that I can dance barefoot and laugh and laugh and put my hair down and have a moment where me and my inner pagan are in perfect harmony, where the both of us are in perfect harmony with nature, with the earth, with the sky, with the air, with all of nature and all of the creatures and the spirits, with all of the beauty, so that it's so strong and so sure and so filling that for a minute I can forget the ugliness that humanity can leave with every step it takes, with every breath it lets out, with every decision it makes.

Zoe: Hello, Jesus?... No?... God, then?... No, not in, then?... Okay, damn it, how about that weirdo Holy Ghost?... Not in either, eh? Well shit. How about Cow?... Yeah, you're in, Holy Cow? Can I PUH-LEASE have a nice spring break?... What is spring break? Well, it's this nice vacation... No, it's really not that important... Oh, fuckit.

So. My spring break hasn't been a total waste. I suceeded in filling out all the proper paperwork for study abroad that's due Tuesday. I printed out a script to edit (not mine, don't even worry about it). I read 3 book which I loved... and which, at the end, I was like, Oh hell I already read those. Which is cool because it was like reading them for the first time... again. I had a lovely time with Candace, Katie and Gail (and had a fun time hunting for Miz Molly D, and plan to have a fun time with the NU kiddies + Gail tonight). I had a fun dinner with my uncle and aunt and I survived my encounters with my grandparents, I had lovely talks with my folks, and I didn't spend all the money I'd laid aside for this week. Plus, the Gaelic Storm concert at House of Blues--or, HOB as they call it, which is too fucking idiotically close to SOB, those idiots--with Mc'Ali. And Robyn was here for three days just to spice it all up. And Tony said that this summer, screw a weekend on the coast, let's go to Europe for two weeks with a couple of his friends and then he'll escort me to Lux... which means anniversary celebration in Europe somplace romantic like maybe Paris. (Damn, this vacation plan / dream better work out.)

But then I was sick for a while with an ear infection. I didn't finish editing MY manuscript. I didn't plan anything. I wrote like a scene and a half, when I'd planned on at least ten pages--is that too much to ask, honestly? Then I went to see a movie--only ONE--and it was a crappy movie, and I never say that, so you know it wasn't good. (It was called The Boys & Girl of County Clare--possibly the shittiest title EVER.) I couldn't get a flow going, I coudln't find a rhythm, I was regularly tired and feeling under the weather, just off enough to notice but not off enough to not care about it at all. I didn't even go downtown. I didn't buy anything for fun. I miss my music at school. I miss my boyfriend. I'm sad that the Amoxycillin they gave me for the ear infection is in pill form, not in Bubble Gum liquid flavor like when I was a kid and got chronic ear infections.

So what's a girl to do? Just go back to college, which is home, too.

Wednesday night / this morning was what we here at Miami University of Ohio call "Green Beer Day". See, the school thought they'd be so clever and put our Spring Break across St. Paddy's day so as to dodge the bullet of arresting half the student population for drunk & disorderly / underage drinking / contributing to the delinquency of a minor. In reality, this plan yielded about the same results as my high school got when they put our Prom across Memorial Day weekend in the hopes kids wouldn't skip Monday--i.e., tons just skipped Tuesday, too, and in essence earned themselves a 4-day Prom weekend. In the same vein, Miami students (or bar owners, skeptics might logically suggest) decided to just make their own St. Paddy's and call it Green Beer Day. How it works is that kids drink Wednesday night into early early Thursday morning until the bars close at 3:30 as required by law, then they stay up and try to sober up a little but generally they don't sleep, and then the bars RE-OPEN at 5 a.m. and they get drunk all over again, and then they sleep it off / half-sober up before classes and are mostly asleep / are extremely hungover for classes; and when goes through uptown anytime during this day-long period, there's a distinctly rank smell of puke and even at lunchtime today there were oodles of drunkards staggering around.

Now, my participation was nothing like that. For one, green beer freaks me out--like green linguini used to freak me out when I was a kid because I was absolutely certain that just because the color was green, it tasted different, which it didn't because it wasn't spinach pasta, it was just green-colored pasta. For another, I don't like getting drunk and I think that going to class almost-not-drunk-anymore or hung over is inappropriate, disrespectful and just asking for it. But I did go to '80s Night @ Balcony, which goes down from 10 to 2 every Wednesday night. Dressing '80s isn't necessary though there is a costume/dance-off competition every week. Some people are die-hard '80s Night-ers and go about every week and have friends exclusively from '80s Night. It's a little wild. But basically it's an excuse for people to dance spastically and laugh about how dumb the fashion was in that decade, and dance to stuff like Toto and Bon Jovi (avec mullet) and even Michael Jackson and feel no shame and no problem with grooving all-out to it. People get sweaty. There are very, very few gross creepy men stumbling around trying to cop a feel or smash up against a female ass. Plus, they play the songs' music videos up on the televisions so you can laugh at what Tiffany looked like out of the corner of your eye as you dance, dance, dance! I wore sneakers, which I think was a very smart move on my part because you can't Jump Around in heels, damn it, and that meant I danced for 3 hours and my feet didn't hurt (and still don't). Plus, there were a bunch of kids from Western there and we walked back together, made a food run around 2:30 at the union and chatted it up, joked around, and it was really cool. So it was in this way that I participated in collegiate life. That and I tumbled into bed at 4 and woke up at 9:25 to go to work.

Um so yeah. You know how volcanoes sort of like shiver and the levels on all the scientific early warning stuff rises a little bit and people go, Huh, she's hiccuping? I had one of those about leaving for Luxembourg the other night. A sort of early Oh hell thing. It was a combination of being excited about leaving, logically knowing it's the perfect time, sad about leaving Tony for so long even though I know we'll be fine, being so far away from friends even though I know I'll make more and new friends there, and worrying about what the hell I'm going to actually do for a career. So I called my Mom at like 11 at night, her time, and she listened to me cry a little and worry a little and then we talked it out--perfect balance of making me sort of get to the root of my worries and reminding me I don't have to worry, etc etc--and then she made me laugh and told me it's better to worry minimally 6 months before I leave then to try to cram all the emotional phases and rises and dips and flips all into maybe a week or two.

Fair enough.

And I still feel like an adult. I mean, like a real one. Discussing vacationing with Tony for a weekend someplace with pretty water. Comparing job schedules with people. Recommending good Chicago neighborhoods for people who have internships there and don't know where to rent for cheap. Hearing Seniors talk about their Senior Projects. But it's not PANICKING me, or making me Paranoid with a capital IDIOT, it's just making me more thoughtful, I think, more conscious of what I do and why and how.

La la la.

p.s. For all my friends at home: What's our favorite cheasy pick-up line? It's short, sweet and entirely to the point. It was used on me. And it worked. Am I allowed to say that??

So... Tony and I did that thing tonight. This one:
Me: Okay, well, g'night then.
T: 'Night. Love you.
Me: Love you too... night.
T: [in an adorable, little boy voice] Bye.
Me: Okay, I should go... night.
T: [in same voice] Nighty.
Me: Night.
T: [in same voice] Nighty.
Me: Damn it, I'm going to hang up now... night.
T: [in same voice, only cuter] K. Night.
Me: Night... I'm hanging up now... I am... I'm about to hang up right now... Ready? Damn it, I can't... you're being cute... Night... Night... Bye... Bye... Okay, okay, I love you... Night... I love you... I'm going to hang up now... Now... Ready?... 1... 2... I'm hanging up now, okay?... Now... Okay I'm hanging up now, bye...

I swear to God I was laughing so hard when I hung up.
I hate those people, the people who do that in public and are so cute you just want to gag and puke. And now I am one of those people, officially. But there were no witnesses, no one who had to suffer hearing that. Other than us, and we, of course, were just fine with listening to it because... well... we're in love.

I feel as conflicted about this--i.e., I feel I *ought* to feel conflicted, but really don't--as I do about him calling me "baby". Meh. I love him. He can call me baby. I call him adorable and cute. And have been known to on occasion accidentally imply that he might in fact be skinny.

I have a killer headache and a way busy next two days, comme ca. Thurs: Work, class, eat, read for class, model in leotard for art class ($6.25/hr), presentation, dinner, homework, homework, homework... Minute of sleep... Fri: Class, class, class, class, write paper, write paper, write paper, turn in paper, remember how to breathe, nap, dinner, get ready, meet Tony's cousins.

Jeez. I almost feel pressure. Sometimes I laugh at how little work I actually do. I could be doing more, and stressing way more, but that won't help me, and it won't help me learn how to cope, function better in a "real-world" environment, do a damn thing for my health, improve my peace of mind, or give me any more self-understanding. So I have reasons for doing as much as I want and suffering brief moments of "I'm unprepared / behind / procrastinating / lost / under the wire". I like my way better.

My head hurts. And my eyes are kind of blooshot (old, dry contacts, too much wakey-wakey).

But my music is great and my desktop is Draco in drag with huge anime eyes and to-the-upper-arm hot pink gloves and purple lips and he's all around a Harry.

Loneliness is a strange thing. There's people around me, people I could be hanging out with, place I could go. People who are online I could say hello to, chat with. But today I'm lonely, a little tired, trying not to think that I have a chunk of work to do this weekend. I'm also very... Meh. Sadly neutral. Blase. The plans I have for the rest of the weekend don't lessen my loneliness now. I wanted to be alone today, but I was unhappy about that at the same time.

So, I read poetry. It's a solidarity thing.

First, a Pablo Neruda poem called "Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair":

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.

And then, a poem of my own, untitled, as usual:

Give it up
Not to me, to yourself
Have faith in my words;
The hand that wrote
These musings
Is ever steady in the truth.
Don’t back down
Never shut those green eyes.
No trembling
In your resolve;
I’ll never let you tumble.
But please don’t go
Let my heart be an anchor.

Forget you voyeurs anyhow. This isn't why I write the damn thing anyhow... not really. Not the main reason. I'm supposed to be journaling in a way which isn't so self-centered and Today I did this and then this and then this and now I'm writing this, which is how any attempts at diaries I've made have ended up. Chazz's LJ is hilarious, T-sa's is just plain sporadic, Amandine's has a narrowed scope... Blahbby blahbby blah. I should quit complaining and just have it what I make it. No entertaining stories about what hilarity my life involves (uh, none), or what craziness (1% of my life), or what woes (thankfully maybe 5%, entirely due to school). I meant this to be a forum where I got things off my chest in a safe forum, things that had nothing to do with anyone in particular, those vague rather menacing things that creep up on you and if you don't let them out, end up as rants at your best friend because she always says "lie" instead of "lay" or some other ridiculous thing--psychologists call it Transference. Yeah.

Gail left this morning and we had some good minutes here and there but I was so busy that I didn't really get to like talk to her much, but we did have good talks while watching Will & Grace and during commercials on The O.C., CSI, and E.R. (so many initials! Where are real tv show names!?) But during a conversation we were having about God a billion things, sexuality and Puritan shame of it, dating who you want, whiteness and reverse discrimination, etc etc., I suddenly was like Gail can I give you a hug because you're smart!? And I did give her hug, and it was good. Because my friends here are bright, and well-versed / well-read / articulate about what they know about, what they care about... but my friends from home were well-rounded. Which sounds kind of cliched and like, why would you ever want to be well-rounded, it means you know a little bit about everything but not a whole lot about anything. But actually we had fantastic conversations, things that wove politics and humor and history and anecdotes and personal insults, everything just hurtling across tables or puppy piles or big living rooms or the theatre. Maybe that doesn't happen anymore because people don't have the time to piece discussions like that together, or because I don't have A Group of friends here to debate that with.

Today in my Human Nature class we were discussing Obedience, Conformity and Reciprocation. Our profs asked us to device a little hypothetical experiment that, if actually done, might help us figure out how much / when people do 1 or all 3 of those things. So this one group said they'd do the Asch line test with two groups: A group of friends, and a group of strangers, and compare how much conformity went on in each group. They said that they thought people would be more likely to comform when among friends, but then one guy said, No, I think it's the exact opposite, and I agreed. I mean, I'd be SO much more likely to tell my friends to Fuck off, they're a dumbass / dipshit / clearly wrong / out of their minds / the reason we can't have nice things. I don't think I'd correct a stranger. How many times have you been in line somewhere, lazily eavesdropping on the people around you because they're lucky enough to be in line with a friend while you're stuck there all by your lonesome, and heard them say something wrong, or ask a question you could answer? And how many times have you said, Pardon me, I couldn't help but overhear and you're wrong / I know the answer and it's [whatever it is] ? Never. I don't do that. Unless I already know them. Is calling your friends out a sign of a very strong friendship, or a competitive set of friends, or is it just the hallmark of people who have probably spent too much time together and know the others' weaknesses too well, or your own personall all-around arrogance showing? Maybe all three, I don't know, but it did make me think, think about all those great debates we had, once upon an adolescence.

I have a busy weekend, lots of reading to catch up on because I suck, and two papers and one project to seriously get ready for... Yay! that reading catch-up doubles as paper/project-prep! Lucky Zoe!

I'm reading 'Chesapeake Blue' by Nora Roberts, still working on 'Bonfire of the Vanities' and 'Eveless Eden'. I've put down the Ethan Canin for now, it's plodding and not ADD enough for a student on her study breaks.

And I was heartbroken to discover that THERE WILL BE NO CAPTAIN NORRINGTON IN THE 2ND PIRATES MOVIE--YES, IMDB LISTS NO JACK DAVENPORT ON ITS FULL CAST LIST! What the shit is this?? My fantasy world is crushed.