Rampant Overusage

Hiatus

2005-08-29T07:21:13Z

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

Brief Sojourn to Ohio

2005-06-09T20:31:39Z

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?

Sneakin' An Entry In At Work!

2005-06-03T21:54:58Z

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!

Roadmaps

2005-05-16T20:43:35Z

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.

Quickie, part trois

2005-05-03T06:28:52Z

The last part, I promise. xoxo.

“I feel like I’m hung over,” Harry mumbled hoarsely the next day, all but stumbling into the kitchen, where Draco was reading the paper with his feet up on the table. He’d thought no one was about, so he quickly dropped his feet, though as they touched the cold floor he realized Harry probably wouldn’t notice one way or the other.

“Didn’t you sleep last night?” Draco inquired, pulling apart an orange. Harry sent him an arch look, and he flushed and looked away with a faint, “Oh, I see.”

Harry fell into a kitchen chair with a groan and conjured up a steaming double shot of espresso, staring at it cupped in the palm of one hand, the size of a miniature tea mug, and said without looking up, “Ginny told me you sussed the pregnancy out.”

Draco sucked in a breath and put down the section of orange he was about to bite, slowly, carefully, as though a sudden movement would cause Harry to attack. “I…” He didn’t know what to say. He knew he’d done the right thing in keeping her confidence, and he’d also encouraged her to tell Harry as soon as she could. But he still felt like her accomplice and as much as he sympathized with her, he didn’t think it was the right thing to have done; in this this case, he did have to agree with Harry.

When Harry didn’t say anything further, Draco looked over and saw him throw back the espresso as though it were a shot, then gasp from the heat, his eyes watering. “Look, Draco, don’t get nervous, or something. I’m not going to bite. Or blame you. It’s certainly not your fault. I know what Ginny’s like when she’s made up her mind. I appreciate you telling her she ought to tell me. I just wanted to say thank you. For that.”

“Huh?” Draco muttered stupidly, eyes widening.

“What are you more surprised by, a Gryffindor thanking a Slytherin, or Harry Potter thanking Draco Malfoy?” Harry asked, somewhat vehemently, apparently short on patience after his stressful evening and busy night. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and looked at Draco intently as he said, “It’s better to say, Thank you, when it’s due, and not worry about why maybe you shouldn’t, or you wouldn’t have at one time. If I want to thank you, then I’m going to in spite of old animosity, the fact that I didn’t like you, the fact that I never trusted you until you were brought here… It’s better for me to get things like that off my chest, otherwise intsead of thanking you some time in the future, I’ll be pissy and feel like I owe you one—and I don’t like owing people.”

“Alright,” Draco said slowly. “You’re welcome, then, though I don’t think I deserve thanks for that. I’m wary of secrets, especially those that don’t need keeping.”

“I agree.” Harry leaned back and exhaled. “Ah, that espresso’s hitting me.”

“Ah…” Draco cleared his throat and tried again, humiliation churning in his gut, “About last night, I didn’t mean to—that is, I shouldn’t…”

“Draco.” Harry cut him off. He smiled and leaned his chin on his hand. “You’ve lived for years without your magic. Let’s just say you forgot you could use it, alright?”

Draco blew out a breath, but said determinately, “I didn’t forget, though, and if you can be honest so thanks don’t turn into something bad, then I can be honest, too.”

“It’s not tit for tat, Draco,” Harry murmured, brows drawing together. “If you really want to explain why you were looking at me through the keyhole, then you can try to do that. But don’t do it if it’s just because I said thank you and you feel the need to reciprocate. I don’t really go in for that sort of thing. I have a bit of a hero complex, if you hadn’t noticed,” he added, smiling wryly in self-awareness.

“I did notice,” Draco said dryly, “about a thousand years ago.”

“Yes, well, it wasn’t pointed out to me until much later, so congratulations to you for being an observant bloke while I was am idiotic prat trying to do the right thing.”

“At least you’ve a sense of humor about it.”

Harry snorted. “You should get one, seriously, Draco. Life is happier and better if you know what you are, inside and out, and if you can be who you are everywhere. And it only gets better if you have a sense of humor about yourself. People respond better to it—a little charm, a little self-deprecation, a little wry arrogance.”

“You’ve learned how to work the system,” Draco commented.

“You don’t sound surprised.”

“You lost a lot in your battles as a young man. It makes sense that you stopped to learn how to prepare a bit more, get things smoothed out, approval waived. It’s much easier for the authorities to give in to your wishes if you request permission first.”

“I’m done with that, now,” Harry replied, “kissing arse. It’s not in me. I look like a total moron attempting it and everyone can see right through me. Which is why, after the final battle, I stood up in front of everyone and said to hell with public life, I’m done with it. I told everyone that I justed wanted to be a husband, and someday a father,” he paused to grin unabashedly, “and maybe even teach at Hogwart’s once it’s on its feet.”

“Teach,” Draco echoed, trying out the sound. If ihe had heard this prior to his arrival at the Burrow, he would’ve dismissed Harry as a potential professor out of hand. He was impatient, headstrong, and disinclined to listen to reason or logic. But Draco had experienced his subtle advice and the vulnerability that merely complimented and amplified his strengths. He knew when to offer advice and when to make a joke and he had offered Draco plenty of food for thought over the months, as well as being rather surprisingly frank when it came to showing that Draco had given him back much to think about as well. “What would you teach?” he finally asked.

Harry said, “Defense Against the Dark Arts.” With a shrug and a grin, he added, “Severus has said he no longer has any desire to teach such a ‘young’ subject, I believe is how he put it, so I figure, the field’s wide open, and no one’s going to dare to tell me that I’m unqualified for the position, for Merlin’s sake.”

“You’ll make an excellent professor,” Draco offered quietly, pulling his orange rind into smaller and smaller flakes.

“I don’t know, though,” Harry said contemplatively, “I might enjoy History.”

“History?” Draco repeated, blankly this time. “History?”

“Odd, isn’t it?” Harry agreed. “Who would think that a bloke like me—who slept through almost every History lesson, ever—would want the job. But I think I would’ve been better served in my ill-conceived adventures if I had had more knowledge of history—of what had been tried before, of what spells were known to work when and how. Even knowledge of old, ancient spells might’ve been nice to know. Like your Mark, for instance,” he said, nodding towards Draco’s chest, “that would’ve been a handy thing to have known, don’t you think? Not to use, per se, but to know that there were spells out there that could reveal something a person doesn’t even know themselves… There must be an element in that spell that’s been forgotten in modern magic, but which would be very helpful in creating new spells.”

“That’s not history, though, Harry, that’s… experimentation.”

“But it requires history. I’ve no knack for figuring things out, for teasing complex things apart, not really—Hermione always did that, or I just stumbled across the answer. The twins were good at putting things together a million ways until it worked out just right. But a little bit of history could save a lot of research, d’you see what I mean?”

“You want to be the foundation,” Draco suggested.

Harry leaned forward again, eagerly this time, and nodded, flushing slightly. “I’d love to do it, to know that a tiny piece of knowledge I offered them was used to create something great. My legacy isn’t exactly about building, you know, so much as destroying, and I’d rather leave behind something a bit more… productive.”

“A strange man, to give up the hero’s role for that of a teacher.”

“One and the same, Draco,” Harry said, winking arrogantly, “one and the same.” He rolled gracefully to his feet, sending the cup to the sink with a flick of his wand before shoving it down the back of his pants. “The Wizengamot has decided that it wants the opinions of the Ministry employees about our potential candidates for the Minister. It’s a politiking nightmare, as I’m sure you can imagine, but that’s what they want. In any case, it means that none of us will be back anytime soon, though we might pop in and out for short spells here and there to have a lie-in. So enjoy the rare solitude.”

“Harry?” Draco asked, and Harry paused and turned, cocking a brow. “At dinner last night, Angie mentioned—she said that they’re moving out?”

Harry nodded, sliding his hands into his pockets as he turned back around, as smoothly as any dancer, “Yeah. The Burrow’s Ron’s place now. We all just moved in after the war to be close together, partially because we’re quite used to sleeping all together in horribly public tent colonies, but partially because we needed each other. But now, it’s been long enough and we’re… centered again, I suppose. So we’re all going to our own places. The older ones, they already have their places; Gin and I are the only ones who had to buy ourselves a brand new place, actually.”

“Sounds fantastic,” Draco said.

“I guess,” Harry said, shrugging carelessly. “Gin’s been going nuts trying to get everything organized because the house is way up north, dead set in the Highlands.”

“A cozy getaway.”

“We’re hoping so.” Harry nodded and a minute later, Draco heard him shout from inside the fireplace, “Ministry of Magic—Department of Aurors!”

Draco didn’t know what he wanted to do, so, sighing, he went for a run, which was lovely in spite of his restless mood. The sun was a pulsing glow, warm on his bare torso and hot on particular points like the rounded corners of his shoulders and the outward curve of his back just above his derrière, his jogging pants riding low. He didn’t push himself, nor was he aiming for speed, he just lapped the property at a leisurely pace.

The rhythm, the familiarity, didn’t ease his restlessness as it usually did, but for once, he didn’t push it away, he embraced it and thought about what might calm him permanently. Would something like a home calm him? Would an exotic vacation?

He fumbled to a stop, bracing his hands on his thighs, breathing hard because he hadn’t been concentrating on his form, and squeezed his eyes shut. Those things wouldn’t calm him, wouldn’t chase his restlessness away, temporarily or permanently. They might distract him for a little bit, if he were lucky. No, he was not a lucky man and never had been, in spite of how fortunate he might have been had his parents been different. Contentment wouldn’t come from playing games, from gaining and hording power and influence, from earning or wasting money, or anything else he had been taught to be skilled at and love. It would come from something new, from someplace he was locked out of, so long as he was a prisoner at the Burrow, no matter how well-treated.

“So, that’s it, then. It’s time to leave.”

It was exactly what Draco had been thinking, but it wasn’t he who had spoken. He straightened quickly and moaned as the world spun for a moment, stilling as suddenly as it had tilted, which he found equally disconcertingly. “I’m sorry?” he inquired.

“I said, it’s time for me to leave,” Blaise said, eyeing Draco. “Are you alright, honey? You look a little blue about the gills, if I may say so.”

“I stood up too quickly,” he said, blushing both from being caught red-faced, feeling like a moron, and from being called honey. “Stupid. You surprised me.”

“Didn’t mean to sneak up on you,” Blaise apologized. “Remus and I came back to pick up the last of our things here because he’s moving out—moving back home, that is. But I’m going back to the flat and he’s to the Ministry for this Wizengamot shite. I’m not sure when I’ll be back around, so I thought I’d come to fare thee well, for now.”

Draco wiped his sweaty hands off on his jogging pants, trying to decide what he ought to do in the situation as Blaise waited patiently. As strange as their conversations had been, as disconcerting, he rather liked Blaise, with his odd combination of thick muscles and lady’s lingerie, and serious advice and lighthearted teasing. He admired how Blaise felt about Remus and how understanding he was about what Remus had and was going through. Even though he didn’t quite understand or believe what Blaise had said about relationships, he knew that, eventually, someday, he’d agree.

He wanted Blaise to know that, without necessarily having to say it aloud—one could only take so many steps at once, he reasoned—and he thought there was really only one answer. It was terrifying to him, and he was infuriated by himself, but still it took him at least a full minute before he’d steadied and braced himself enough to meet Blaise’s clear light blue eyes. Tucking some of his bangs, which had slipped free, behind his ears self-consciously, trying desperately to ignore the sticky sweat that was like a thin layer of goo across his upper body, he walked closer to Blaise and then stopped.

He had no clue how to give a hug, he realized, but Blaise’s face split into a wide grin and, tossing his curls over one shoulder, his tattoo flashing, he stretched his arms wide and then flung himself bodily at Draco. Draco caught him reflexively, staggering back a step or so because Blaise wasn’t a lightweight, and a rusty laugh was torn out of him as he felt Blaise pull his hair band out and scrub one hand through the blonde mass.

“You’re a sweetheart, you know,” Blaise murmured. “I’m sure you don’t realize it yet, but you’re strong too. I see the way you watch everything, trying to be okay with it all, with you, too, and that’s great. If it weren’t for these people here at the Burrow, and Severus, too, I wouldn’t have much of anything. But the funny thing is, they don’t keep score, not about anything. You aren’t weaker or lower down in their mind if they have to bail you out or if you’re a lump or indecisive—they don’t even have lists or rankings or anything, not at all. They get offended if you say thank you too many times, or if you apologize or stay silent when you don’t want to. They want happiness, that’s all.”

“I know they don’t keep track,” Draco said quietly, breaking away from Blaise, letting his hair slide across his face. “Their way here, it’s peaceful.”

Blaise exhaled noisily. “Yeah, it really is. A bloke gets used to it pretty easily, doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to think about separating himself.” He studied Draco shrewdly and guessed, “You’re thinking it’s time to go, aren’t you?”

“I might be,” Draco admitted. “I’m still only half-done admitting who I am to myself, and I certainly haven’t a clue what to do with the rest of my life, so I’m not in a horrid rush. I don’t feel like an unwanted guest, but I still feel like an interloper—”

“Or a voyeur,” Blaise interrupted, flashing white teeth, and laughing.

“Or that,” Draco agreed, though he couldn’t quite bring himself to say it.

“You might start with getting someone to explain how you ended up here,” Blaise suggested, then covered his mouth dramatically, as though he hadn’t meant to speak, and Draco felt himself smile softly as Blaise disapparated, laughing again.

How I ended up here… Draco mused. A strong breeze kicked up grass cuttings, brushing long blades against his fingertips and slicing harmlessly across his face, sticking aimlessly to his muggy skin, and his head fell back and he closed his eyes. Heat was gathering in the air, building up in the furnace deep, deep beneath his feet and rising up through dirt and rock and the remains of thousands of years of history to make his cheeks rosy. Clouds, heavy and wanting, lurched in the dome of sky overhead, bobbling back and forth like a buoy in the sea, ready to set free gushes of purifying rain, and Draco couldn’t help but feel a sense of destiny, Finally, oh, finally, ghost through his thoughts. The air was thick with invisible condensation, so that when he exhaled, he could almost see miniscule droplets of water toss away from his mouth and nose before plummeting to the soaked earth. He had never noticed nature, never paid attention to its magic which required no wizard or witch to make, no book to understand, and no spell to see or feel—but this afternoon, as the sky swiftly darkened and the earth swiftly flooded, the Burrow’s lawn quickly becoming the Burrow’s swamp, he saw it. He felt power thick and twisting, untameable and inescapable, and he realized that this power was one that he would willingly submit to, and so he laid down in the middle of the swathe of tall wildflowers along the fence. He listened to the snapping of the trees in the forest just beyond the fence and the rough scraping of the wind against their wet bark, and let himself be rocked to sleep, knowing that nature would not hurt him.

“What are you on about, Sirius?”

Although the voice was nothing more than a murmur, mildly irritated and politely aggravated, Draco drifted awake and licked lips being assaulted by staccato taps of rain.

“We aren’t in Molly’s kitchen anymore, stop being so bloody reserved, Remus!”

Draco smiled again, enjoying the jolt of cold water striking his bared teeth, and thought that Sirius and Remus had gone into the woods to have an argument in private. They both had animal’s noses, and if they couldn’t scent him, not even with everything stronger and muskier from all the rain, then he wasn’t going to interrupt them by standing up and politely excusing himself, so he stayed where he was.

“I’ve warned you, don’t call me a coward, ever,” Remus said vehemently, still no louder than a murmur, deceptively mild and reserved, “because you have no idea what I went through when I thought you’d betrayed us—betrayed Lily and James! I loved you so much, you can’t imagine what I went through, thinking I hadn’t seen, hadn’t realized, had been so blinded by you… And then you just—came back, but the children were there and so I couldn’t say anything, and we had to live at Grimmauld Place together and you wouldn’t even look at me,” Remus continued, his voice fraying around the edges.

“I knew we’d been in love, I didn’t—”

“I know,” Remus interrupted impatiently. “You’d lost all the good memories.” He laughed bitterly. “I didn’t know what to do with you in that house.”

“And then I was gone, and then I was back again,” Sirius yelled, “I think I remember the timeline of my life, Moony! This has nothing to do with why I called you a coward—why I still call you a coward! Nothing!”

“You think it’s not related?” Remus asked, his cultured voice growing more throaty, more dangerous. “When the war started, you became so vicious, you were something I truly didn’t know, no spark of who I’d known in you.”

“You didn’t bother to look, to try to see who I was,” Sirius cried, “you were so fucking busy falling for Blaise!”

“You,” Remus returned, still in an undertone, “didn’t seem to give a damn.”

“Well, before I got the chance, there was that curse,” Sirius retorted hotly. “I couldn’t do anything about that, and I spent all my time trying to save all our bloody lives and pay back the enemy in kind for what they had done to me, taken from me—as well as everyone else I’d cared for, including you! So don’t put that on me!”

“I’m not putting the curse on you. I was reminding you of how you acted when I fell in love with Blaise, which apparently you cared about.”

“You know I care, that I’ve always cared,” Sirius growled in frustration, “that you fell in love with a child. He doesn’t have the loyalty or the endurance for you. He doesn’t know you like I do… I almost went crazy when I saw how much you’d missed me, you jackass!” Sirius panted, speaking more and more rapidly, though managing to retain coherence, “I didn’t want to torture you—I saw how much it hurt you, to be at Grimmauld Place with me—so I stayed away. I can’t be that guy—that Sirius—I can’t be that carefree and idiotic about cosseting you but be ridiculously terrified to commit!”

“No, I don’t suppose you can,” Remus said, though now his voice was ragged and uneven, and Draco suspected that he might be pacing because his voice gently rose and fell in volume. “I know you talked to the Order to understand what it had been like from when you fell behind the Veil and when you returned just in time for the war.”

“Remus, let me explain, let me tell you why I called you a coward, let me tell you how much I care. How much I… how much I love,” Sirius begged, and Draco had never heard him so somber, so desperate, so vulnerable. “Please, Moony…” he whispered.

At this, it seemed Remus’s control was gone, for he began screaming wildly, “Oh, Merlin—oh, gods, Sirius, don’t—don’t do this to me again! I can’t handle it. You’re here and then you’re gone, you’re mine and then you’re someone else’s, you’re a prankster and then you’re a killing me machine and then you’re giving me space, and now you’re making all these demands on me,” he screeched, his composure, his pretence of being subdued and detached, of being thoughtful and slow to react, totally dissolved.

Draco’s breath hitched. Between every word, he heard love, hard and unforgiving, a harsh and terrible master, and shuddered at what love had demanded of Remus and Sirius, what it had taken from them—what other people had stolen and ruined for them without permission, without regard to how much it cost them just to love.

“Moony…”

“No!” Remus cried desperately. “What do you want from me, Sirius?”

There was a noise, which Draco could only assume was Sirius’s, an indescribable noise conveying anguish and passion, deep and rough, a scratchy surface gouged by countless mishaps, and then Sirius hissed hoarsely, “You—I’ve always just wanted you.”

Remus laughed, a wild, lost noise, and there came a series of crashes as though he had either stumbled about or kicked out at the underbrush. “Damn it, Sirius,” he exclaimed, his voice higher, hysterical, “you can’t just do things like this!”

When Sirius spoke, his voice was under control, assured and deep, but also somber and bare. “I know that I’m a stupid git, fair useless and intolerable, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t remember enough to know that I loved you fiercely.” There was a long sigh, like a landscape of gentle waves curling against a sandy beach, stretching across years and aches, worn short and insignificant by newer pain. “I remember enough to be sure that no one else has ever touched me the way you did, and I’m not talking about in bed… not just about in bed,” he amended, a soft amusement beneath the carefully chosen words. “You’re the only one—ever—who touched me just for me, for no other reason. You’re the only one who’s ever loved me.”

“That’s not enough,” Remus snapped, and Draco knew his face was back in line, well-behaved and shuttered, because his tone was stony. “Me being the only one who’s ever loved you is not an explanation, and certainly not a reason, for what I know you’re asking me. I won’t be with you because I’m the only one who loves you.”

“Damn it,” Sirius exploded, his brief reign of control gone, “it’s about more than that! Do I have to spell this out?” There was a long pause; Draco imagined a stand-off, a staring contest, Sirius looming with his eyes narrowed and his hands on his hips, Remus with one brow cocked and his shoulders tilted backwards so that he could meet Sirius’s eyes. Finally Sirius burst out, “You don’t understand. I loved—I love—you so much that it’s survived Azkaban, Moony. All of it. Everything,” he stressed raggedly.

“You—I don’t—you never said…” Remus babbled.

“You said yourself you’ve been conflicted. I knew it—Gods, I knew it. So I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t even begin to explain to you that they’d stolen everything except for that. I remember what happened, what I said and what you said and what I did and what you did, but the feelings, they were more of a shadow than anything, like a remnant of the real thing. They’re washed out, but they’re there. And I’ve been making new memories, feeling things I know I’ve felt a million times before, and those emotions go back and color the memories, and they’ve fleshed out the shadows.”

Draco’s mouth twisted in pain. He had never felt anything so deeply, and Lucius and Narcissa, who had left such scars on him, were not here to confront. Even if they were, he would not now be sobbing on their shoulders the way he could hear Remus sobbing on Sirius’s shoulder, the gasps muffled against Sirius. They would not admit they had wronged him, and he would be able to show them no love—surely there was no love, no forgiveness, in him for Lucius and Narcissa, and Voldemort, for what they had put him through, for the lies and the manipulation and the utterly strangling coldness.

“Oh, sweetheart, I was such an idiot, such an utter loser, I’m surprised you still speak to me, that you’ve ever managed, I’m such a fucking prick, you know I’m total shit when it comes to people-people relations, no one ever taught me anything but how to yell foul, filthy insults, and I knew that wasn’t appropriate here—that was supposed to make you laugh, but I guess not. Damn it, I was going to be poetic and sweet, tell you how much I love you, how disgusting it is, the amount I love you. But you weren’t supposed to yell, I might’ve managed if you’d not gotten angry… That’s a lie, you know it’s a fucking lie, of course I was going to get mad, you’re right, always, and I love you for it, makes me want to just overwhelm you with love… I ought to have had my case better prepared, more words for you, I never had enough words—not enough important words, I mean, I’m always on about something, I swear I’ll do better…”

“Sirius,” Remus said, waterlogged, minutes later, though Sirius was still going strong with his litany of swearing and declarations and promises, “you can’t ask me to just leave Blaise for you, no matter how much you love me. It’s not fair of you.”

There was another silence. A bird twittered, politely inquiring if the rain had finished, and then there was a sudden thud just alongside Draco and something nudged his thigh and he yelped, his eyes flying open. Remus, looking utterly astonished, was looking down at him, his nose somewhat red, a hankerchief in one hand and his glasses tucked into the breast pocket of his polo shirt. “Good God, have you been sleeping, Draco?” Remus exclaimed, and if Draco hadn’t overheard their fight, he might never have known that he had just been sobbing and fighting not five minutes past.

“I was,” Draco murmured, clearing his throat. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he’d heard about Remus’s scarring and figured they were probably about on par. He pushed up to his elbows and made a face. “What are you doing out here?”

“Fighting with Sirius,” Remus said, falling gracefully to his haunches, “who’s vanished off into the woods in dog form. I don’t think he understood what I meant him to, but it’s no matter.” He cocked his head to one side. “You’re absolutely soaking and the ground’s like the banks of the Nile. Are you comfortable in the least?”

“Quite,” Draco said, laughing in spite of himself, anxiety dissapearing, “I don’t think I’ve ever done this in the entirety of my life… Not while sober, that is.”

“Anything you do when you’re sloshed hardly counts,” Remus advised. “By ‘this’, are you referring to napping through a rainstorm and a fight?”

“No, actually, I meant, I’m covered in mud, or I will be, once I get up. It’s unacceptable, unseemly, foul and, pardon me, common, for a Malfoy to get dirty.” He scrunched his nose up in disdain. “It’s delightful, I think.”

“Being muddy?” Remus considered him and a reluctant smile pulled at his tired mouth. “I suppose it is rather a wonderful thing. I can’t imagine what I would’ve done with myself as a boy, if it wasn’t getting into all manner of situations that ended in all of us mucky, covered in something, smelling foul, grinning and in trouble.”

“It’s a lucky thing that you can’t even imagine it,” Draco said quietly, mindful that Remus had just been through something painful, no matter how well he was hiding it. “Though I suppose being so isolated saved me from some unpleasant things.”

Remus’s mouth twitched and Draco thought perhaps he had been too unsubtle, but Remus merely rejoined mildly, “You are referring to the pains of childhood, I’m assuming—of fights with best friends and terrible put-downs from girls?”

“And all the various and sundry other things you undoubtedly experienced.”

“My dear boy,” Remus said, rising and holding out one hand, and Draco allowed himself to be pulled to his feet, “I cannot envy you missing them. I know there were far worse things in your own childhood, but we won’t speak of them,” he added briskly. “You’ve just had your first adolescent experience, we shan’t ruin it with saddening retrospection. Now,” he said, sounding both like a professor and the coordinator of mischief, “I insist upon joining you. Give me a moment, here…” He turned as if looking for something, then he dropped to the ground again, this time letting his knees sink into the spongy earth, and rooted around for something, while Draco looked on with interest.

All of a sudden, Remus pivoted on the balls of his feet and expertly pelted a ball of mud straight at Draco. It smacked and exploded with a horrid squishing noise in the middle of Draco’s ribs, making him wheeze for a moment, his jaw dropping in surprise.

Remus burst into laughter, perhaps a bit too strong for such a silly stunt, but Draco let himself grin as a boy would, all teeth and no smarm. “You should see your face,” he gasped, putting one graceful hand across his ribs as if to hold the creaking structure together, “I can’t believe you’ve never had a mud fight.”

“I was hit by snowballs once,” Draco said reflectively. “I thought it the very devil at the time, but it was just Harry in his invisbility cloak, though I realized much later, while I was in the Manor, drunkenly calculating every slight. I believe our Interim Minister of Magic nearly died of laughter from it, in point of fact,” he added sourly.

“I bet he did,” Remus agreed, snorting one last time, and they began walking back to the Burrow without discussion, their feet sinking into the ground with each step.

“I suppose,” Draco said after a time, “that an adolescent boy’s response to being hit by a mud ball would be to throw as many as I could make back at you?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Remus confirmed, “but thankfully you are a man grown and certainly above such a thing as to retaliate against an old man.”

Now it was Draco who snorted. “Your lover is half your age and speaks so highly of you it makes my teeth ache from the sweetness—you’re not an old man.” Remus flushed and linked his hands behind his back. “He wasn’t idolizing you the way boys idolize their professors, either, Lupin,” he added, feeling giddy that he could tease without it being malicious, “he was telling me how amazing your relationship is because of how honest you are with each other—how you’re yourselves, always.”

“Ah,” Remus sighed, then patted Draco’s shoulder absently as he pushed open the back door, “you are a very subtle advisor when you wish to be.”

“Advisor?” Draco echoed, frowning as he tugged off his shoes and used an old towel that hung from the coat rack to begin to dry himself. “I’m the last person here—anywhere, probably—who ought to be advising anyone about anything.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Remus said dismissively. “You have had an incredible life. One no one would wish for themselves, and one that I have never wished even on the child of my enemies, but still, you are whole. Marked, to be sure, inside and out,” he smiled crookedly, “rather like myself. Yet here you are, free of it all, and you’ve seized the opportunity to bring us simple pleasure with your food. You kept Ginny’s confidence and offered her good advice. You had a lovely discussion with Harry which proved that you’ve let go all of the malice and pettiness you catalogued and hung on to so much as a boy. And you’ve kept quiet about what you’ve seen at the Burrow, except for when you went to Fleur, and that was when you felt cornered, threatened, completely blind.”

“I’ve done my share of wrong things,” Draco said bluntly.

“I’m sure you’re learning from them,” Remus answered evenly as they each took a large chair near the fireplace, which Remus lit with a quiet command after pulling his wand from his pocket. “You are certainly a good advisor, Draco, and one whose subtle reminder about how wonderful my life with Blaise is was both timely and reassuring. I think you heard Sirius, at the very least, when we were fighting. I appreciate you not interrupting. He would’ve smelled you, had he not been so preoccupied.”

“I did hear,” Draco said easily.

Remus sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s not been easy for him, I shall grant him that much, but neither has it been easy for anyone else, and sometimes it wears me to be gentle with him. Especially when he has a tendency to turn the tables on me whenever he feels he can’t stand it anymore.”

“Stand what, exactly?”

“Anything,” Remus said dryly. “A silence that’s too long for him. A peace that makes him nervous. A friendship that just might be getting complacent.”

“So at all the wrong moments,” Draco surmised, touching his nose to hide yet another smile that he could feel scrabbling to express itself. “I’ve never had that particular problem, although I have been known to make threats which turn out to be empty despite my absolute certainty that they are quite defensible.”

“We all have those things which we do even though we know it isn’t going to turn out well—almost in spite of what we mean to do or say,” Remus said amiably. “I tease where I ought to merely provoke, and I stay calm when a bit of fear would help nicely.”

“I like this place,” Draco declared, laughing, though it sounded strangled for it was an unfamiliar act for his body. “Arrogance may have its benefits, but it rather cause people to be completely unaware of how they really are—and completely unwilling to entertain the thought of being even slightly a way they do not wish to be.”

Remus rolled his head to look at Draco fully, and there was a patience in those eyes that Draco thought might also be an accessibility, a willingness to answer anything Draco might care to ask, or comment upon anything he might like to declare. He felt like he needed to ask what the world thought when they heard his name, what they might think of him—whether they might believe him, or whether they would ridicule, ignore, and override him, much as they had Harry during fifth year. “What do people know of me, out there, Remus? Of what I did—and didn’t—do during the war?”

“I don’t know the answer to those questions,” Remus replied apologetically, “I am rarely in the company of people who were not privy to everything I have been. I can tell you what society, in general, feels about you, if you like.”

“I think I must know, to start to prepare.”

Remus made no comment to that, but just explained, “There is a tally sheet for you, Draco. Your parents left you behind when they vanished, which is a plus for society, which hates your parents most thoroughly. However, they might have left you as a spy, so that’s a negative. You were guarded by tons of Ministry and allies over the years of your imprisonment, all of whom swear that you were never contacted, never used the black arts, never tried to escape, and there was never an attempt to rescue, steal or kill you—which is good. On the bad side, no one has spoken to you since you were a total prat at graduation; you might’ve gone nuts or be resentful of your captors, or as simply evil as your parents. Finally, you’re being held at the Burrow, which is either a plus or a minus, depending; some feel it’s a show of good faith, or it’s because most of the country’s strongest wizards and witches guard and live here.”

“So I’m a toss-up.”

“Indeed. It leaves rather a lot of room for you to sway them, Draco, should you decide this is something you wish to change or affect. It might be nice to be stuck in the center, to have no prevalent opinion. It might create an atmosphere of apathy towards you, once you are out and about, but then again, you might be subjected to intense scrutiny and testing to see if you might be pushed to reveal your evil.”

Quickie, part deux

2005-05-03T06:26:55Z

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

“So, who wants to go clubbing?” Blaise asked a minute later, shimmying up against Fleur, waggling his shapely brows. “C’mon, when was the last night we went?”

“Don’t you have to take care of Remus tonight?” Sirius said, and when Blaise stiffened, Draco realized that Sirius hadn’t spoken to Blaise—he had, in fact, said very little the entire night, missing many opportunities for his usual sly comments.

“He’s sleeping the deep sleep of the exhausted right now,” Blaise said steadily, his cheeriness and teasing absent from his voice, “and he’s not due to wake up until four in the morning. We’ll be back before then.” He turned back to the others. “So?”

“We haven’t gone dancing in a really long time,” Bill said thoughtfully, eyeing Fleur in a way that clearly stated he’d loved every minute. “Where’d you have in mind?”

“I am not going to a gay bar,” Oliver warned stubbornly, “just so you all know right now. I don’t want people staring at me while I dance with my wife, and shuddering if I happen to grab her ass or give her a hard kiss. It’s reverse discrimination.”

“I’ll protect you from all the big bad men,” Hermione teased, standing on her toes to slide an arm protectively around his shoulders. “Let Blaise pick where we go.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes at her before snatching her around the waist and tossing her over one shoulder. “The lady has spoken,” he said with resignation, though his eyes sparkled, “but because I’m going under protest, I get to dress you, no two ways about it.”

“No way!” Hermione gasped.

“It’s only fair,” Oliver told her confidently.

“It’s true, Herm,” Charlie said, grinning. “I’m in, Blaise.”

Blaise rubbed his hands together and looked around. “Any other takers?”

“We’re in, of course,” Angie said, stating the obvious, and the twins grinned and grabbed her as she called out, before they disapparated to avoid the landing where Harry undoubtedly still was, “Dress up, mates, or I’ll outshine you all!”

With that, Bill and Fleur, Charlie, and Oliver and Hermione disapparated and Blaise turned to Ron, asking enthusiastically, “Ron, you’re coming, aren’t you?”

“Sorry, no,” Ron said, mouth twisting wryly as he explained, “the Wizengamot’s still meeting, and it’s the beginning of the second week. My interview is on Thursday morning and I’ve got to get everything in order. Besides,” he added, tipping his head at Sirius, who was standing with his arms crossed, staring out the window at the beautiful early summer sky, “Sirius and I have some business to discuss.”

“Sure, I understand,” Blaise said.

Draco’s jaw fell open as Blaise casually kissed Ron’s cheek before disapparating.

“I’m going running,” Sirius announced quietly, his forehead pressed to the glass windowpane, before turning so that Draco saw his expression of ill-concealed turmoil. “I don’t think my mind’s in the right place for that meeting tonight. I’ll tell you about what I… retrieved… some other time, alright, mate?”

When Ron moved towards him, Sirius flung up one hand in warning before storming out. Ron shrugged and blew out a breath before he muttered, “That went well.”

Draco leaned against the wood-paneled wall, hands in his pockets. He couldn’t see Ron, but his shadow wavered on the floor in front of Draco’s feet, perfectly still.

Into the quiet came the sound like the grand finalé of fireworks and then Bill roared from the front door, “Alright, everyone, pay attention—forget the Floo, let’s just apparate, but don’t forget, we’re going to Loaded Dice, everyone, Loaded Dice!”

Three cheers went up, but were cut off abruptly as they all disapparated mid-cheer, and Draco watched Ron’s shadow drift toward the window, feeling tense but tired from the day, which had been long and emotional. A while later, he murmred seriously, “That was insensitive of Blaise.”

“Sirius should know that he’d never endanger Remus,” Draco disagreed crossly.

“He does,” Ron said absently, “that wasn’t what I was referring to. I meant it was insensitive of Blaise to invite everyone to go out when you can’t go. He knows you can’t leave the boundaries of the Burrow, and it was unfair of him.”

Draco’s brow furrowed and he raised his head, tipping it to one side also, studying Ron’s profile, unsure of Ron’s mood and the reason why he was speaking to Draco. He said carefully, “It would’ve been worse if he had pulled everyone aside to whisper the invitation into their ears. It would’ve seemed a secret I wasn’t allowed to know.”

Ron didn’t seem to have an answer for this and after a few minutes, Draco’s attention drifted and he stared at the night outside, foggy and unreal, something straight out of a suspenseful murder mystery. Into his half-dream, Ron sighed deeply, and Draco’s mind switched back to reality and he watched Ron turn to look over at him, and Ron was suddenly looking years older than he was, lines around his flattened mouth and bruises beneath his eyes making him look exhausted. “Good night, Mr. Malfoy.”

“Good night,” Draco murmured, but Ron had already vanished, and Draco half-smiled, shaking his head minutely. He pushed wearily to his feet, not really wanting to go to his room, which he’d have to seal against the arguing he could just hear, but he didn’t want to be puttering around when everyone came back from the club.

Grumbling to himself, he apparated to his bedroom anyhow and changed into his pajamas, listening to Harry’s voice alternating and overlapping with Ginny’s, though they were speaking quietly enough that he couldn’t understand. Sighing, restless, he wished he were at that club—desperately, writhing to pounding music, heedless of sweating, free of the Burrow, mashed up against strangers, revitalizing himself. But since he couldn’t do that, and he still had too much energy, so he couldn’t go to bed for all that he felt emotionally wrung out, he’d have to come up with something.

“Damn it, don’t be obtuse!” Harry cried, loud enough for Draco to understand.

“I think I’ve found something to do…” Draco pulled the pillow off his bed and put it next to the door, parked himself on it, and breathed a masking spell before pressing his eyes to the keyhole, which he then expanded slightly with another handy spell.

Harry was pacing the landing in a tight circle, looking as he must’ve just before a big battle, or just after, Draco supposed. His body was so rigid, so tight, that he looked built of blocks, sharp ridges of muscles pushing up his shirt like frozen waves, and his breathing was jagged, his voice frenetic. “Of course I’m excited, I’m thrilled, damn it, I love you, Ginny, this doesn’t change that!”

“It just means you don’t trust me anymore,” Ginny almost wailed, and Draco winced because she was nearing desperation, nearing a total meltdown.

“Oh, sweetheart, I trust you, I’d have you at my back anyday. But this just makes me wonder if there’s other things you’re keeping from me, other things you’re afraid to tell me because you think I won’t be able to handle them, or you’re afraid of how I’ll try to deal with them—or you think I haven’t grown enough to ask for help if I need it. I’m past needing to do everything myself, only asking for help in a roudabout way.”

“When have you ever asked me to help you with anything?” Ginny demanded. “Never, that’s when, Harry. If you’ve got paperwork and your eyes are crossing, you’re so tired, you never ask me to take dictation from you. If we’ve both got a mountain of work but I look a little tired or worn out, you take my mountain too—”

“And a damn good thing I’ve been doing that, too! You weren’t tired or worn out, you’re pregnant! You shouldn’t tax your body unnecessarily, and we have the same job, we’re not competing for anything, there’s no prizes for overworking yourself, and if I like to do it all myself, if I like to add your work to mine so that you can sleep a little bit more, so that you can smile a little more the next day, then what’s it matter?”

“You can’t do everything for me—it’s just as bad as me not telling you things.”

“That’s bollocks. You’ve proved yourself a thousand times, why can’t I just help you? Who’s going to accuse you of not working hard enough, or of somehow cheating by letting me help you? We all push work off on other people now and then—look at me, I sent out half of Ron’s best people just to find the necklace for you!”

“And maybe you shouldn’t have,” Ginny snapped.

“Oh,” Harry gasped, collapsing against the wall, hitting both his elbows hard, wincing, dropping his head. “Oh,” he repeated weakly, “you don’t like it. I knew you wouldn’t. I should never have wasted everyone’s time—I knew it, you don’t even wear jewelry, you don’t even like the stuff, I should’ve probably just taken you on holiday once everything settles down, just married you properly instead of in that tent …”

“You’re an unbelievable idiot,” Ginny screamed, louder than she’d been at the beginning of the argument, and Harry scowled, “if you think that you’re going to—to help yourself in the least by saying that you wish you could take back marrying me!”

Harry’s breath hitched and he slid down against the bathroom door, clutching his hair, anguished, and Draco, for the first time, felt guilty at his tresspassing, for the first time he wished he could take back listening to them. He should’ve sealed the room, he should’ve just gone outside and taken a run, he should’ve done the dishes instead of—

“You two are the most fucking idiotic people I’ve ever heard,” Ron pronounced, the stairs creaking slowly as he took his time reaching the landing, “and you’re loud enough to keep the twins awake with all this pointless bickering.”

He came into view, and Draco’s breath hissed in sharply, as his vision was suddenly taken up by a swath of Ron’s torso—bare, nicked by scars, paler on the front and tanner on the back, spotted with constellations of freckles, bisected beneath a delicate belly button by a light trail of golden-red hair that disappeared into his flannels. He clasped his hands at the base of his spine, elbows stuck out sideways like a bird, and stretched his back, groaning in pain, stretching out a surprisingly elegant torso.

“Ron, you just keep out of this, you!” Ginny screeched, sounding strangely embarrassed from inside the bathroom. “Just go back to bed—use a spell!”

“You use a spell,” Ron snapped. “This is the dumbest fight in the history of dumb fights. If only you two could listen to yourselves. You’re arguing over who’s the most helpful, who’s the most useful, who knows the other better—have you noticed that yet?”

Harry opened his mouth, then half-laughed, pushing to his feet, and exclaimed, “You’re right, you bloody bastard, you’re absolutely right.”

“I’ve been trying to convince you this fight is pointless for almost half an hour, and he insults you, and suddenly you see that this is pointless?”

“I didn’t say the fight was pointless,” Ron said smoothly, “I said you’re self-righteous idiots who are trying to out-do each other to prove that you love each other. You’re both saying you did what you thought was right at the time, given what you know about the other person—which is everything—and that, given the chance, you’d do the same damn thing again, even if it means having this stupid row all over again.”

“You did not,” Ginny snapped.

“Well, it’s what I meant.”

“Gin, he’s a good point. What are we fighting about? You like the gift, I think, now that I’ve got a second to think properly, and I—I’m speechless about the baby.”

“Now, come on out of there, Ginerva, and go up to bed.”

“Screw you,” Ginny said distinctly, but she opened the door, then stopped short because her tummy had run into the beautiful sickle-shaped dish carved between Harry’s hipbones, a perfect fit. He put his hands on her hips to steady her as she pulled her head back sharply to save their noses and chins from smashing together and offered her a smile the likes of which Draco had never seen—it glowed, it suggested, it promised, it loved. “You…” Ginny began breathlessly, but she stopped in favor of snaking her hand into Harry’s hair and pulling his mouth to hers, though they only sipped at each other, savoring, and Harry moaned softly, slipping his fingers through her long, thick hair.

Ron watched for a long moment, surveying them as if to make sure they wouldn’t relapse itno stupidity, before repeating, “Go up to bed, Harry, Ginny.”

They took their time pulling their lips apart. Ginny rested her head on Harry’s chest and then both of them gave Ron a disconcertingly similar look, part sucessful predator, part hedonistic anticipation, part pure happiness. “Going, going,” Harry said and scooped Ginny against his chest, one arm under her knees, as she gasped in surprise.

“And,” Ron said, censure sharp in his voice, and suddenly he knelt and stared straight at Draco, who was sure he was still hidden behind a spell, “Draco, stop spying.”

Draco gasped and scuttled backwards, but Ron was already gone. He crossed to the window and flung it open, leaning out so that the wind ruffled his hair, teased it loose so that its minty scent from his shampoo slid over his senses. He felt vulnerable and lost, but he didn’t want to pity himself so he left the window open and slipped beneath his sheet. He tucked his chin into his own shoulder and curled in around himself, wishing for a warmth, or a good-night kiss like other children were given at bed time.

Quickie

2005-05-03T06:24:09Z

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.

They all moved to the back living room, moving slowly, and fell onto furniture. Draco sat in a deep chair by the fireplace, drawing his knees to his chest, and had to press his mouth into his upper arm to hide the smile growing there; everyone in the room was clearly straining to hear what was going on in the kitchen.

The twins snickered, and everyone turned to them. They were smirking mischeviously, but only Hermione glared as they realized he was reeling out one of their infamous Extendable Ears, which were now invisible and virtually undetectable. “What?” George asked Hermione, not pausing his slow work.

“You’re incorrigible,” Hermione said disgustedly.

“You only wish you had lax enough morals to listen,” Angie told Hermione archly, and Hermione’s lips pinched together in defiant refusal.

“There we go,” Fred announced.

A second later, Harry’s voice, somewhat fuzzier than usual, could be heard, stumbling, “Look, I can’t do this like this. I wanted to be poetic and say something wonderfully sweet… I know this seems… random… but…” His voice trailed off and he took a deep breath. “Gin,” he began again.

“Harry,” Ginny said, exasperation shading her voice, “I didn’t marry a poet.”

“No,” Harry said, the tension in his voice eased, “no, you didn’t.” Draco listened intently and heard a soft thunk, which he knew was Harry putting the black box on the table in front of her. “Don’t open it yet,” he told her, “because I want you to understand,” he said quietly, forcefully, “that Sirius and I tracked this down, then everyone went to get it for me—for us. I wanted you to have it because… well, our wedding wasn’t—it wasn’t what I had in mind when I used to dream of it, before.”

“Oh…” Ginny breathed, her usual tone softening, “I wasn’t expecting—”

“But you deserved better,” Harry interrupted vehemently.

There was a very long pause, soundless, and no one knew what to make of it, and finally Oliver burst out, “I can’t take it—we need to see this!”

“Hmm.” Bill crossed to take the end of the Extendable Ears from George, then muttered a string of words under his breath, incomprehensible, and just as Angie started to demand to know what he was saying, a hazy mirror, much like the surface of a Pensieve, appeared in midair. People gasped, but Draco just nodded slowly, remembering the spell, suddenly, one rather disapproved of by good wizards and witches, but it had been a lovely spying tool, and one often used for hedonistic activities.

“It’s like television with fuzzy reception,” Hermione exclaimed, clearly impressed, sidling up to Bill and beginning to pester him.

“Quiet, now,” Bill murmured, staring.

Ginny’s big, bright brown eyes, rimmed with tears, took up nearly the whole surface, as she studied the tarnished gold necklace that was draped across her fingers. It was really more like a slender torque, at the center of which was a flat, intricate design of gold filigree that formed an ancient symbol which Draco recognized as one for love.

After long moments, no one speaking in either room, Ginny closed her fingers about the two parts of the clasp, but Harry brushed away her fingers. He gently secured the heavy necklace about her neck, then slid one hand down it until the symbol was held safe between her skin and his, and then kissed the skin just beneath her ear adoringly.

One of her hands grabbed Harry’s free hand fiercely. Her eyes blazed at him as she said, “I have a gift for you, too. While you’ve been gone, I’ve been working up the courage to tell you about it, and I think now’s the perfect time.”

Ron, watching the proceedings while leaning against the back door, inhaled sharply, and Draco bit his lip, resolutely trying not to show that he knew what Ron’s noise was about. Only Charlie turned sharp eyes in Ron’s direction, for everyone else’s eyes were riveted to Harry’s intelligent face as Ginny slid her wand from her dress.

“A confession, really.”

Harry finally pulled his hand off the necklace and dropped it into his lap, sliding his chair backwards as if bracing for her confession. Draco’s mouth was dry on Ginny’s behalf and his stomach was filled with butterflies on Harry’s behalf, and the anticipatory, tense mood was broken when Angie cried, “What is it already, Ginny!”

Even as the twins and Bill chuckled, Ginny pointed her wand at herself as if she’d heard Angie’s plea, and whispered almost inaudibly, “Finite incantatem.”

Immediately her appearance changed. Her dress stretched and loosened, but still it didn’t even begin to hide the massive roundness where her flat stomach had once been; her breasts were much fuller, and her cheeks were rounder. She was nearly beet red, her smattering of freckles stark against it. “Harry, please don’t, I…”

Harry made a strangled noise, his eyes locked on her belly.

In the back living room, there were gasps, but no one took their eyes off Harry, whose free hand, visibly quaking, stretched out and just brushed her belly, making his whole body jerk, and then he froze.

Just when Draco was sure he was going to lift a face gone furious, he slumped forwards so that his forehead was pressed against her now-abundant cleavage, and his hands clutched at her softened waist. His shoulders began to shake, his ribs to heave against the side seams of his shirt, and Ginny’s face nearly collapsed under the weight of her tenderness and relief.

“What the bloody hell!” Oliver cried, looking furious and confused.

“How did you know, Ron?” Fleur asked over Oliver’s outburst, and everyone swung to stare at Ron, who looked neither confused nor surprised. “Who helped her to do that? She doesn’t have magical talent of that sort, I am sure of it.”

“Holy God…” Bill breathed, “she must’ve been pregnant at the final battle!”

“She was,” Ron confirmed, “a month gone.”

“Of course,” Oliver said, sounding relieved, “I understand now. She couldn’t tell anyone because it was a great surprise weapon against Voldemort, and she couldn’t tell Harry because he’d have been too worried about her.”

“He’d have completely bolloxed it,” Ron agreed with equanamity.

“Ron!” Hermione screeched. “That’s not true, and how dare you!”

“Oh, come off it, Hermione,” Ron said, sounding tired, “you know it as well as I do. It would have brought back a million horrors and every single one of his darkest fears. If he had known, it would have been Voldemort who would have had the last word, who would have had the vital advantage over Harry, not the other way around.”

Hermione opened her mouth to keep arguing, but Bill said, “It doesn’t make him any weaker. It’s another way he’s the better man, as if there was ever any doubt.”

Draco listened to their discussion only peripherally, entranced, absorbed, by the way Ginny’s hand was fisted in Harry’s unkept hair as though it were a lifeline—and perhaps, for her, it was, he thought, feeling that tug of sorrow again, deeply.

“I don’t understand why she’s kept it a secret,” Blaise said, sounding hurt, pouting. “Once it was all over, why keep it quiet anymore? Harry would’ve had another thing to celebrate, something fantastic to think about while we dealt with the aftermath—that wasn’t any fun. A baby on the way would’ve cheered him—cheered everyone up!”

“You’re sweet, Blaise,” Fleur commented, earning herself a withering glare.

“He didn’t believe it was really over,” Charlie explained. “You remember.”

“We could hear his nightmares for kilometres,” Blaise conceded softly. “He wasn’t sleeping, was always looking over his shoulder, barely let Ginny out of his sight. Constantly wanted to hear reports and have head counts repeated from everywhere. Was crazy about interrogating the most important prisoners personally.”

“I think it’s turning,” George began, “out fine,” Fred finished.

Harry had raised his face, gleaming with smeared tears, but Draco saw that he had broken out in a sweat along his upper lip and his hairline, and he frowned. He knew what a man with a temper sharply restrained looked like, so while most of the others dropped their jaws when Harry suddenly began roaring, Draco just flinched reflexively.

“What do you mean, you didn’t want to worry me? A pregnancy isn’t like—it’s not like you didn’t want to tell me about a broken toilet in the guest loo so I wouldn’t worry over finding a plummer, Ginny! I had a right to know—that child’s mine, we made it together—I had a right to know before now! I’ve missed the whole bloody thing, haven’t I, and even though most blokes complain about their pregnant wives, I wouldn’t have complained, I would’ve been the happiest man alive—cloud nine, I tell you! But you’ve taken that away from me and now I’ll never get it back!”

“You think we’re only having one child?” Ginny screeched.

Draco considered this a fairly ridiculous response, considering it addressed the least important thing that came to mind from hearing Harry’s rant, and apparently Harry agreed because he started yelling again. “You’ve completely missed the point!”

“No, you miss my point, Harry!” she cried in frustration, jumping to her feet and shaking a finger at him, speaking rapidly, “I’m your wife, I’m here to handle what you can’t, just like you handle any thing I can’t manage to take care of myself. And this was something I didn’t need your help with—if I’d told you, then I would’ve had to worry about it for myself, and then worry about you worrying about it, and then worrying about you worrying about me worrying—do you see where this is going?”

“I know where it went—another person decided I couldn’t handle something, someone else decided that I’d jeopardize everything if I knew the whole truth, someone else manipulated the truth, held back, lied by omission, because they decided they thought they knew what was best for me!” Harry’s voice lowered to a growl as he said, “I love you, but I cannot believe you’ve done this to me.”

Ginny screamed wordlessly, so loudly that it rang in the back living room twice, once from the Extendable Ears and once from Ginny herself, and Draco jerked again as he heard, but didn’t see, her pound up the stairs, then slam a door.

“Just where do you think you’re going,” Harry bellowed, clattering up after her. “Locking yourself in the bathroom, are you? That’s very mature of you, Ginny.”

“Sod off!” she screamed, sounding furious, though muffled. “If you don’t believe me and you won’t listen to reason then I’m not going to bother to exlain myself to you!”

“That’s enough of that,” Hermione finally snapped, seizing the Extendable Ears by sheer luck, ending the spells, “I think they can have their drag-out fight in private.”

After a life where everything went unspoken, Draco was astonished that no one seemed to find Harry and Ginny’s honesty strange. He knew he shouldn’t be, as no one had hedged with him at all, really, except where other duties and promises bound them from it, and he knew that Gryffindors did not make games of fights.

I'll betcha for it

2005-04-30T21:10:20Z

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.

livelybunny @ 2005-04-28T21:59:00

2005-04-29T02:02:21Z

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.

livelybunny @ 2005-04-26T02:10:00

2005-04-26T06:12:19Z

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!

Eerie.

2005-04-21T04:48:43Z

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

2005-04-10T21:45:23Z

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.

New Picture!

2005-03-29T00:42:38Z

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! ;)

I need to clean my room

2005-03-28T05:48:38Z

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...

Ohhh Cross-Posting!

2005-03-21T05:05:02Z

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.

Spring Break?

2005-03-20T01:40:45Z

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.

Collegiate Participation

2005-03-11T05:55:58Z

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??

I'm going now, I swear...

2005-03-03T06:32:30Z

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.

livelybunny @ 2005-02-26T02:16:00

2005-02-26T07:22:35Z

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.

Ehh Forget You Anyhow.

2005-02-25T20:44:27Z

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.

Voyeurs!

2005-02-23T06:37:00Z

It has come to my attention that there are those out there who are sneaky-sneaky and read Rampant Overusage but never make any comment. Which means you are peaking into my private life, reading my thoughts, observing my questions, and remaining silent, anonymous, cloaked. In short, you're being a voyeur. You're all voyeurs. Generally I wouldn't mind, as I peep now and then into others' journals, but I try to make comments when and where I can. On the other hand, I know that I, 99% of the time, have something to say, so I usually comment. But I resent the thought that I bemoan being unread and then finding out that people do, in fact, read, they just don't acknowledge their presence. And don't bother to point out that if you're a voyeur, then I'm by necessity an exhibitionist as I make posting even when I think no one's reading. It doesn't make you any better.

In other news, I'm in a good place right now. I went home for the weekend and got myself all refreshed and now I'm running smoothly. I saw a few friends, one of whom I haven't seen literally for almost a year, and we went to this great trendy but earthy breakfast place and had exotic pancakes and $4 a glass fresh O.J. and it was delightful. Some people, as we pointed out, just don't ever really need to like have plans to stay friends, to stay on the same wavelength. It was also nice just to vegge out with my parents, dorky as that sounds; we read all in a row like ducklings on the couch together, one or two dogs squished between us or across our feet, and watched a couple of movies ("Pillow Talk" and "Laurence of Arabia", and my mom and I watched "Living Out Loud"), and we ate together and passed each other in the mornings and the afternoons and the evenings. And the drive was good. Productive? That's the wrong word, but I don't have a better one. Cleansing, maybe.

And now I'm back. Last year, every time I came back to school, there was this great feeling of Ahhh, of relief almost, of feeling like I was back at home. But now, I don't feel that way anymore. I think it has something to do with the fact that after this semester, I won't be here at all for an entire year; I'll be someplace else, some other location not my parent's house will be home. It's like I'm getting myself used to not having this place be home so that when I go abroad, I won't miss it so much. I'm sad because thus the friends I have here aren't as solid in my mind anymore; I feel like I'm running parallel or perpendicular to a lot of people, either almost but not quite lining up with them in harmony or like just catching them at odd moments that matter but don't MATTER. I wonder if university life will end and then a year later, it'll just taper off except for those random e-mails of "I changed address / cell phone number / job / e-mail address" so that we might be able to visit one another when we pass each other in locations. But I don't want it to be like that, even if I'm not sure how good we'll manage to keep each other up to date when we don't live side-by-side. Although I suppose I'll find out next year, to be fair.

My writing is going well. Nothing spectacular, but no "blocks" either (I hate the phrase Writer's Block, I think it's a poor excuse for not focusing and not paying due attention on what ought to be a grand passion for words and stories and characters). No poetry, which I'm starting to be saddened by; it's because I'm happy. Funny how being relatively average, meaning I have no great complications or problems just now, and happy makes poetry pretty much an un-viable form of writing, unless I write love poems or Wow-the-Universe-is-Grand! poems, which I think no one else enjoys; they mutter Fuck you you happy cheerful asshole.

I'm reading a lot of things right now, which is great! Over the weekend, I read Christina Dodd's "Almost Like Being in Love" and Janet Evanovich's "Full House", two great quick, quirky romances. I'm also in the course of reading "Bonfire of the Vanities" by Tom Wolfe, who I've never read before, and rereading leisurely "Eveless Eden" by Marianne Wiggins, which is one of my favorites.

Tomorrow night Gail's arriving and we're going to see Movin' Out with Tony. I am thrilled. We are dressing up. I have to find an iron. I'm getting my cable cord from Libby (well, from her desk at Studio) so that I can record 'Alias' and 'Lost' (well, have Shira tape them). Today was a Monday/Tuesday switch day, so I have my M/W/F schedule--my early day--two days in a row. Boohiss stupid university policy.

Britain is trying to make the Royal Navy more hospitable and welcoming and safe, etc., to gays and lesbians. I love this for several reasons. First off, the thought of biased American yahoos in coalitions with out gays and lesbians from the Royal Navy, for Chrissake, cracks me up. Secondly, think of it like this: Puritans think England is oppressive and repressive so they move to the U.S., where now gays, lesbians and various other disenfranchised groups (and lots of those in the majority, too) find it repressive and stifling; the English send all their prisoners and convincts and suchlike to Australia, which is now fine as far as I know (producing lots of actors, it seems). England got rid of their Goody Two-Shoes (where the fuck did that phrase come from, I wonder??) and booted off a whole bunch of convicts who might've bred with nice British citizens to create lots of potential convict babies. And now, England rocks. Does that qualify as "ironic"? I'm always loathe to use the word because I know that everyone misuses it, really, and it's one of my pet peeves... but just 'cause I know when it's used incorrectly doesn't mean I feel confident that I can use it correctly. Can I, in this instance? Or is it just hilarious, crazy, odd, unlucky for me?

Ciao, duckies.

Got Art?

2005-02-03T19:17:03Z

First off, I hate that subject line, but I'm too lazy to come up with something better and I just saw this funny icon that said, 'Just tell Nemo you couldn't find him because you were high. N|E|M|O: My anti-drug.' Hehe.

So... I drew something yesterday. Suddenly I thought, Where the FUCK is my sketchbook!?, all urgent-like, as though I think that often and should've logically known exactly where it was. I started out by looking at the face of a model from a Vanity Fair add--the old David Yurman main model, you know, the almost-plain blond with freckles--and outlining her face shape and then tracing that onto my paper. From there, I proceded to change the face shape till I like it, then I drew those nifty little markers reminding me about proportion, drew things in in pencil, and then erased one eye, the mouth, and one eyebrow and did them over. Then I did her hair in ink, added ink to her eyes, ears, mouth and nose, all black, except for red on the mouth, green in the eyes, and blue to her earrings. It's just a woman, looking sideways with her face not quite directly facing otuwards, and the suggestion of shoulders. She's stylized and I'm satisfied with her--especially her exotic eyes, if I do say so myself, as well as the curls of hair falling over her shoulders and across her face. I have her in a necklace that's like a giant sgean dhu--a huge Celtic blade, kind of, I dunno, broadsword-ish--and I need a nifty phrase to "engrave" on the blade; I tried to look up things like Honor, Vengeance and Vigilance in an English-Latin dictionary, but... those are huge words and they have fifty thousand different options listed so I'm saving that till later.

This left me thinking about ink, which naturally progressed to me remembering that I've been thinking about tattoos. I won't contemplate actually getting one till I've got the perfect design. I want a series of interlinking symbols that all mean something and mean something more to me personally; something lunar, something goddess, a series of protection symbols, the Om, a yin-yang type thing, something early and something celestial, and something "me"... It sounds like the list of things a bride needs: something old, something borrowed. But searching online is the most FRUSTRATING thing ever, so I think I'm going to just hop over to the library and pick up books / journals on symbols.

I'm cranking out the scholarships and THIS CLOSE to getting a job... finally...

My grandfather went to the hospital to get an angiogram the other day because his doctor recommended it and my mom and my uncle told him he couldn't wait until his cardiogram, which was schedule for next month. So in he goes and they say oh you have some blockage, we'll clear that right up, and now, today, he's coming home. Of course, now my grandmother's day nurse gets to pick up extra hours because my grandfather can't pick anything up, and certainly not my grandmother. This is good all-around, in my opinion; my grandfather actually listened to his children and his wife. And my grandmother is on some mood-altering drugs from the hospital's psychologist because she's been depressed lately because she's getting weaker and older, etc., and so when I spoke to her yesterday, suddenly she was laughing; she was... herself. The herself we haven't seen in years. I hope she embraces this and remembers what she's really like and then stays happy for the rest of her life, because she's been incredibly lucky and her mind is still whole even if her body's fragile.

I listened to Prince through Queen on my iTunes yesterday, made me happy; today I'm going Aimee Man through Al Green. Damn this is cool.

I started 'Carry Me Across the River' by Ethan Canin last night--I haven't read a new book in AGES AND AGES--and I really like it. Clean prose, a good feeling, quite befitting the main character.

Umm. That's it, except: Why can't I find a community on LJ that posts people's stories or poems?? All I can find are people's personal LJs where they post their own stuff... I could post my own stuff here, but no one reads my journal so no one will comment and I want those comments. I talked about this like 4 months ago. I'm a dork.

I'm seeing Spike Lee speak tonight. Dinner with Libby. Maybe Latin Night at Stadium this weekend.

Va-Va Voom

2005-01-31T07:24:47Z

I had one of those great weekends, the kind that will live on in history. It was intense and personal and invigorating, and it also made me laugh. I talked, deep and long, with most of my closest friends and I feel stronger, happier and more energetic, which is fantastic, because last week, I was exhausted and flagging in my scholastic enthusiasm (I almost skipped my first class, but I didn't--I was even on time!). I still have gentle, tiny smudges of tiredness under my eyes, but I'm smiling and I'm grooving to my music, which at this moment is "Dirty Man" by Joss Stone.

I've finally, finally started to actually edit my manuscript. Congratulations to me. I'm up to page 11 of 144, so nearly a tenth of the way done. ;) I'm proud of myself. For a moment there, I mentally groaned and repressed panic because the prose is so simple and I thought, I can write better than this--more complexly than this! But then, a page later, I sat back, and I looked at a line, and it was simple, but it was clean, and the story isn't complicated and it's sweet, not undramatic or lacking in excitement or drive, but it's quieter, somehow, and I like it that way--I made it that way. So I've decided I'm fine with it how it is, and I'm trying hard to keep the integrity of my original words and rhythms as I edit; I did, however nicely written it is, finish it more than a year ago, and I've grown since then.

The helpful passage from my manuscript:
"He stood in his boxers with his hands on his hips and could just see both of his sons at once. He sighed deeply and meant to walk away, but he couldn’t. It was nearly three in the morning and he was going to have to wake up at six, but he couldn’t move. The sight of his sons, so young, so vulnerable, completely in his care, hopelessly trying and unique, sleeping, made his heart contract painfully. They were a mixed blessing, his sons; whenever he looked at them, he saw Janie. He couldn’t help it. Sandy had two children who had the sweet turn of Janie’s ears, the cowlick she’d had as a teenager, her bowing, sweet mouth with its devilish curve, her laugh that began as a giggle and ended as a musical guffaw—-but more than that, he had two children who had her curiosity, her ridiculous sense of humor, her insight, her aptitude for picking up almost anything and her loudness."

I tried to find a lyric or a chorus or a verse to reflect How I Feel Today, but couldn't, and I tried to find a poem or a stanza or an inspirational quote, but I couldn't. So I've decided, instead, to just leave this reflection with: In approximately fifteen minutes, I will be in my underwear, in the fetal position, wrapped around my stuffed panther, my comforter drawn in around me the way you twist tee shirts for tye-dying, my nose buried in a soft pillow, the light from the hallway just hitting me directly in the eyes, with a tired but very, very content smile curving my mouth.

It's. Fucking. Official.

2005-01-20T23:41:28Z

Yeah. It's fucking official. I'm accepted into the year-long study abroad program. I mean, it's not that I thought they'd be able to find some reason why I shouldn't be allowed to go. But still, I worry until it's official, because that way they can't back out of it!

And I'm happy. And I'm congratulating myself with not doing the appropriate reading for tomorrow. But I'll do the rest of my homework, because I'm good like that. And tomorrow Tony and I are going to a nicer dinner, for kicks and to celebrate. He said French wine. I'm not going to turn that down.

I found pretty pictures of Orlando Bloom last night.

And I'm going to open mic tonight, just to check things out. Jenn's going to sing and Robyn's going to make sure I have someone to talk to, should the shy bug bite me on the ass. But I'll know most of the people there, on sight at least.

::does a happy dance::

Damn Stupid Connectivity...

2005-01-18T06:57:14Z

It is 8 degrees F here. -3 with windchill. Where am I, fucking Chicago?? Damn you, Ohio, you're supposed to be MILD-MANNERED when it comes to weather!

In any case... A Poem, to describe my day, and perhaps demonstrate my whimsical state of mind just now, which may be because I had a lovely weekend, or because I'm now exhausted and have no clue why I'm still up, or if I'm delirious because my internet has been weaving in and out of reachability due to some bullshit about an Invalid IP address--like I know what that is? So how could I change it??

The Poem. It is PG. Sorry folks, I am not in a dirty mood today... more's the pity. ;)

A Poem, Accurately Describing My Day By Way of an iTunes Mix of My Songs:

I wake up slowly, ensconsed, skin to skin, blanket light, feet hot, hands intertwined, shoulders stiff, content: "The First Taste", Fiona Apple.

There is a long list of reasons why I have to go back to school, but it makes leaving even harder, to an obstinate girl: "Objection Tango", Shakira.

Driving away from where I want to be just then, and being melodramatic in my mind for shits and giggles: "This Will All Make Perfect Sense", John Mayer.

Regaining equilibrium, hopefully to be used to further my education, while eating and discussing grandparents, thinking, It should’ve been a four-day weekend, damn it: "My Phone’s on Vibrate for You", Rufus Wainwright.

Getting a call from Mama, trying to summarize life, while maintaining the delicate friend/parent balance: "The State We’re In", The Chemical Brothers.

Walking back in the freezing, wind whistling under my hat to sting my ears, reminding me I need to use Q-tips on them, going for Zen peace to stay warm: "Fumbling Towards Ecstasy", Sarah McLaughlin.

That awkard moment in the tiny elevator with someone you half-know, knowing you’ll only be there thirty seconds, all told, wondering, Is it worth it?: "Digging a Ditch", Dave Matthews Band.

Reading the notes I left to myself of Things To Do, hearing Mama’s voice in my head: "Why Don’t You Get A Job", The Offspring.

Thinking of what might have been, if I’d been as (un)lucky as I’ve been in the past, laughing at myself for fictionalizing my life in my own mind, the writer’s favorite hobby: "F-Stop Blues", Jack Johnson.

Wishing I could beg off and collapse on my down comforter, it’s cool and inviting and squishy, and stolen from home, so even better, but holding strong by repeating: "The Bed’s Too Big Without You", The Police.

Dinner—-You say I don’t eat as much as I say I do: "Cheers Darlin’", Damian Rice.

Grasping for the right combination of words to elicit the desired reaction from the eventual audience of aforementioned words, fingers dancing over the keys: "The Harder They Come", Jimmy Cliff.

Reading someone else’s words, letting myself wallow in the amazement of falling into a story: "Living in Your Letters", Dashboard Confessionals.

Remembering my words can be just as effective, if I weren’t such a cowardly Gemini about it all: "A Rush of Blood to the Head", Coldplay.

Attempting French take-home quiz, staring at columns of adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, tenses, conjugations, and direct objects, and definitely thinking “…WTF…?” too often: "Down So Long", Jewel.

Thinking about constructing this poem, instead of finishing French, remembering how it’s similar to an idea to journal all the songs that run through your head in the span of a day: "I Want to Tell You", The Beatles.

After speaking with you on the phone, and you tell me it’s late and I sound exhausted, and you make me go, which was hours ago, love: "In the Midnight Hour", Grateful Dead.

Noticing it’s now 1:50 a.m., I will still be sorry, but relieved, to turn out the light and sink into my pillows: "The Last Remaining Light", Audioslave.

Good Night, Lovelies. I send my love, and my kisses. XOXO.