alternate1985

Brother Micah is a crazy asshole who visits college campuses around the country (as I understand it, though it may just be within the state) and preaches his own Bible at them. In Brother Micah's Bible, God does not forgive sinners, or some such nonsense, and only people who have never sinned will get to be with him when the end comes. Brother Micah has never sinned, or so he says. So basically his message is, "Sorry, you're not me, so you're going to hell. Let me tell you all about it."

To be fair, although he visits UNF all the time, I've only gotten a chance to actually stop and listen to him a few times. But that's really all it takes.

He was visiting last week, and I got to leave work on a 10-minute to watch and point and laugh on the Green. My co-worker, Adam, who was there with me during the debate a couple weeks ago, saw me coming toward the (by that point, greatly diminished) crowd, and it was like he had been waiting for me. Like the fact that I would be coming out there at some point was inevitable. Adam is very devout in his own Christian faith, but even he can see that this guy's an evil freak.

On that particular day, we cracked up over the No Homo and No Porn buttons on his suspenders, and then laughed some more at his determination that Tim Tebow is going to hell because he posed in a magazine with--are you ready for this?--no shirt! But as I was on a 10-minute, and I was having such a good time that I wasn't paying attention to the clock, Jo (the cool supervisor) had to come out and drag me back to work.

But Brother Micah was on campus again yesterday. So I took another 10-minute. As it was my last day working for the company, I asked Adam to come out and watch with me for old times' sake. He declined, which meant yes, and we headed outside.

Once again, the cops had already gone before I'd arrived, but the crowd was larger this time, so that added to the excitement of it all a bit. There were probably about 50 people gathered around laughing at this asshole. Micah was in the process of telling some girl who was in a perfectly ordinary t-shirt and jeans that she was going to hell because she was so immodest.

"You are tempting all of these people out here into lust and masturbation!" he declared.

"Oh, I am so tempted," I announced.

He went on about porn and masturbation, to loud cheers from the crowd, who favored such things, and sex outside of marriage, to even louder cheers from the crowd. At some point he said, "Why is it that every time I ask a black person a question--?" I didn't hear the end of that one because Adam and I had fallen on each other, howling with laughter. (Adam is black, so it's okay--he knows I'm on his side.) He started talking about judgment and how evil it is.

"So why is it okay for you to judge us right now?" someone said.

"I have to! You all have led me to it," he said.

And then I decided: It was my last day. I wouldn't get to heckle anymore after this. I needed to go out with a bang. So, dragging Adam with me, I maneuvered my way into a spot in the crowd where Micah and I would have a clear view of each other.

"Hey, Micah!" I shouted. "Judge this!"

And there in the crowd of 50ish people in the middle of the Green, I flashed him.

"Yeah, there's a special place in hell for girls like you," he said.

"Oh, wow. You actually just did that. I will always have that memory of you to carry with me," Adam said.

"You're welcome," I told him. We were both cracking up.

Adam and I have a curious relationship. We like to joke about religion a lot, as he is, as I said, very devout in his faith, and I am an atheist. We make fun of each other all the time, but at the same time, it's like we each know the other one is not the extreme of our group, so we can still live together in harmony. Hence, more jokes. I remember one day I came in to work and he saw me and said, "Praise the Lord!"

"Hail Satan," I replied, without even thinking about it. And then we both laughed. That's the kind of relationship we have.

There are all kinds of videos of Brother Micah on YouTube. Be sure to check out his Gay Song. Yeah, he has a Gay Song.

Last night one of my co-workers, referring to Miss D., said, "What is that thing they say in Harry Potter? Thou-Who-Shouldn't-Ever-Be-Named?" I made fun of her for like ten minutes for the botched reference and atrocious grammar. (Though she freely admitted she is not a HP fan, I informed her that that was no excuse.)

Some strange dreams recently. The other night I had one where I was at Victoria's Secret marveling over all the gorgeous colors and patterns. Staring at a pair of panties with a scene of a huge, beautiful house and the accompanying huge, beautiful backyard, I suddenly found myself within the scene, and knew myself to be in Alice in Wonderland's backyard. (I'm pretty sure it was from that awesome 1980s musical mini-series.) There I found Alice making out with Snow White. Random. They were animated, though. They looked similar to the Disney characters, but like one of those cheap knock-off animation studios.

Last night I dreamed Katie and I were being hunted by the Phantom of the Movie Theatre (Screen 17). It was just him chasing us all around the one room, through all the rows of seats. We barely made it out the doors alive. It's weird...this one was based on this random, seven-year-old memory.

Somehow the Phantom dream segued into one about playing bumper cars (or, more accurately, bumper children's bicycles and tricycles) at Walmart with Cortney. So strange.

That's all for now. Got other stuff to do.

"The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters. We've all got both dark and light inside of us. What matters is the part we choose to act on. That's who we really are." - Sirius to Harry, Order of the Phoenix

I think this is a very wise statement about the grey areas of life. But there are grey areas even within the quote itself. For example, we slap the brand of coward on someone who is afraid to do what is right. What about someone who is afraid to do what is wrong, but would otherwise do really horrible things? What about the Death Eaters who went into hiding and did not continue to do--well, basically their life's work--simply for fear of the consequences? They weren't choosing to act on their desires, but we know they wanted to.

What about, within our own world, people who are, say, racist, or in other ways bigoted, but won't admit it to the world? "Of course I don't hate [name a group]. I have friends who are [same group]." Nobody else knows it, and you haven't acted on anything.

I guess all these examples pretty much count as Death Eaters, even the ones in the real world. Still, I think thoughts and beliefs are as important as actions as far as what makes people who they are.

I don't know what made me think of this, besides the fact that I was watching this last week.

So when I found out on Monday that the Republican debate was to be held at my school, I got so excited. I knew I had no chance of actually being at the debate itself, but I could certainly be outside on the Green! None of my co-workers understood this at all. They were all either expressing displeasure at the fact that they had to work through it, or elation that they did not (this from the morning crew). There were snobbish comments like, "I'm staying as far away from that as possible," and "When my shift is over I am getting the hell out of this mess." They kept looking at me like I was crazy and saying, "Why in the world would you want to be there for that!?" I didn't understand it at all. How often does shit like that happen at UNF? How could I not want to be there for it? I really didn't get it. I mean, it's certainly not like I support any of the candidates. But when are Republican debates not entertaining? And surely there was plenty going on on the Green.

( Read on for the exciting details! )

With Becky's and my help, Manny became Pastor of Video Games at Chreon Ministries yesterday, and it was so rad.

We were discussing the fact that Kasey had just been made a deacon at her and David's church, and Manny made a sly remark that he would like to be a deacon as well. What could he be a deacon of? Well, Becky and Manny decided (and I have no clue what the differences are between deacons, ministers, pastors, preachers, whatever, so I had no input) that you could be a deacon of pretty much anything these days. Manny stated that he would like to be deacon of video games. No, he said, after more consideration, he would like to be a minister of video games. No--better still--he wanted to be Pastor of Video Games, with capital letters. And he wanted business cards to prove it.

At that moment, he was playing Resident Evil 4, and Becky was inquiring about the game a bit. Who was that guy? (It was Leon.) Is he in all the games? (No, Chris is in Resident Evil 5, but he hasn't played that one yet.)

"And," Manny said, "in Resident Evil 6, they're combining Chris and Leon."

"What, they're making a--Chreon?" I said, confused.

Manny explained that, no, they were not combining the two into one unstoppable super-soldier, but pairing them up. He had just used the wrong word. But Becky and I, after much laughter, decided that Chreon simply had to be a thing, and that we would make it ourselves.

"Baby, that's what can go on your business cards! Chreon Ministries!" Becky said. And we headed instantly into the other room to begin work on it.

It took about four hours in all. First we found the most similar (front-facing head shot) images we could of both Chris and Leon:

( Chris )

( Leon )

We then "combined" the two into one unstoppable super-soldier:

( Chreon )

Lastly, we made the business card itself:

( Manny's Business Card )

The quote we got from various Resident Evil titles--"Deadly Aim" and "The Darkside Chronicles". Also, it sounded weirdly appropriate.

At the end of those four hours, we were extremely proud of ourselves, and all of us are very excited to actually hold the final product in our hands.

Also, in my opinion after looking at hundreds of pictures of them each, Chris is totally hotter than Leon.

I had dinner with Becky's family last night. At some point Granny was talking about Tim Tebow and how someone has asked him to stop praying before every game. "It must be those atheists," she said. "They're always trying to do things like that."

I wasn't really listening to the conversation, just sort of off in my own head, because any mention of sports makes my mind sort of go blank with boredom. (I only know who Tim Tebow is because I have a friend who is completely obsessed with him.) But at this point my ears pricked back up. I instantly made eye contact with Manny, who always looks over at me during prayer time like he's trying not to laugh. We exchanged a glance of "you wouldn't know it to look at me, but I'm secretly laughing right now" and then quickly looked away again. Granny continued to ramble on about "those atheists" and what horrible people they are and how they want to control the world and kill all the Christians and eat all their babies.

Kasey said, "Well, Mom, I'm sure they're not all that way," and also sort of glanced at me.

Now, Granny is simply crazy about me. She's always telling them how she thinks I'm just the sweetest girl. But she's also the only one who doesn't know about my beliefs, or lack thereof.

At that point, Manny did something unexpected. He looked over at me and said loudly, "I don't know. Ashley, what do you think?"

Granny looked flabbergasted and said, "Well, why in the world are you asking her?" She turned to me and said, as if the idea were completely ludicrous, "You're not an atheist, are you?"

Taken aback, all I could say was, "Well, yeah."

Granny was completely shocked. "Oh, my word...."

On the one hand, I sort of don't mind that that came up, because now Granny can do one of a few things: She can admit to herself that atheists really aren't all that bad, because she knows one herself (unlikely); she can suddenly decide that she doesn't want to be around me, which will make things very awkward, since I go over there all the time; and she can convince herself that I am just the exception to the rule. Most likely, she will forget that this ever took place. Let's hope.

I'd really hoped that that would never come up with Granny at all.

I guess now I'll just have to do my small part for humanity by continuing to be a good little atheist so she can be enlightened to the fact that we don't worship Satan (since we don't believe in him) or eat babies.

Later, Becky and Manny and I were discussing the Tebow thing and just who it might be who was asking him to stop with the prayer stuff. Becky said, "It might not even be atheists! It could be anyone!"

"I think it's Fox News," I said. "They're causing trouble about it so they can bitch later and blame it all on someone else."

And so it was decided.

Recently I had a dream in which my father actually flat-out punched me in the face, and then instantly started crying and saying he just couldn't help it. He's never hit me (or any of us) before, but since coming to the realization that what I've actually experienced at his hands all these years has been emotional abuse, this dream was a scarily accurate portrayal of what it feels like to be around him at almost any time. Trying to make it seem like the victim is actually the one at fault is textbook abuse, and while he hasn't hit me, it was like the physical abuse in my dream perfectly represented what I experience with him. He's always bursting into tears around us and trying to make us feel sorry for him after he hurts us, and for years that really did work. It still does, to a degree--I mean, I'll always feel bad denying him the right to, say, go to my graduation, or to spend Thanksgiving with me, for example. But at least in recent times I am learning that feeling bad for the way I respond to his abuse is nothing compared to the way I feel when he actually abuses me.

Just thought I'd make note of that.

It can no longer be avoided. The time has come for me to face, online, the horrors of things seen, unseen, felt, and heard. From somewhere deep within me, or deep within Evan's house, emerges a grim and pressing certainty: Though I shudder to spend one brief moment in meditation on the subject, the information must be preserved. In the event of any...incident...our friends and family need to know what happened to us. The citizens of the future must be informed! May they, god-willing, be spared the same evil misfortunes that we knew, and the dark fate that befell us...too soon. ...In all likelihood. It hasn't actually happened yet, of course, or I wouldn't now be telling about it. But...soon. Probably soon.

Here are the facts, as I understand them. It all started one day when Jessica had a feeling. It was an unusual, out-of-place feeling of pure evil. She'd been standing at the counter making a sandwich. Evan had gone to the bathroom. It was one of those long bathroom trips, so she'd been standing there alone for a while, perfectly complacent and happy about this delicious sandwich of which she was about to partake.

Suddenly, the Evil grabbed her. From out of nowhere, she had the compelling sense that someone--or something--was watching her. Utterly terrified, she was unable to move a muscle for the next 20-odd minutes until Evan emerged from the bathroom, at which point (I think) she burst into tears as the fear finally released her.

When she told me about this, my reaction was, Okay, so you had a feeling. I mean, it's pretty freaky and all, but it's not really much to go on. It could mean something, it could not. Get back to me when you've actually seen something. I admit to a little doubt--though not entirely. I have heard of such things occurring before.

I think Evan just scoffed completely, both at this strange "feeling" and at my giving it even the slightest concern. So it was fitting, really, that the next occurrence a few weeks later involved Evan.

Evan had been lying in bed, when something (I'm still a bit confused as to what exactly happened here, probably because I can't get any visual image from the description of events) about the size and height of a human head peeped around from the partition separating the bed from the doorway. I think it was a dark, shadowy figure, if I remember correctly. It remained there for several seconds, and then vanished back behind the partition. So, all things considered, Evan was pretty creeped out by that. And another thing--for the exact amount of time that whatever was looking down at Evan, Pepper (the dog), who had been lying down, head in paws, on the floor, lifted her head and just stared at the exact spot where the head was, and when it was gone, she laid her head back down as if nothing had happened.

After this event, we were all pretty freaked out. But not long after, Evan saw something even more alarming. One night, when everyone else was asleep, he was walking to the bathroom. As he went through the kitchen, he saw his shadow following him along. When he got to the doorway of the kitchen, where the light ended, he stopped, and so did the shadow. And then the shadow walked back in the other direction.

This, of course, was even more alarming, and Jessica was to the point where she was almost too terrified to stay at the house alone anymore. It was about this time that I told her about Shadow People, because she'd never heard of them before. We read a lot of stuff about them that day, and figured it was entirely possible that this whatever-it-is is, in fact, a Shadow Person. It is often seen as a shadowy figure, and we have no other explanation. It fits. Of course, it is completely undecided whether Shadow People are good or evil, or perhaps some are one and some are the other. (The three of us are still undecided as to what exactly ours is. Jessica swears it is evil and that it wants us to be frightened. I say maybe all "ghosts" just come off as horrible and evil but are really more like playful children who want to have fun and don't realize they're misbehaving.)

Anyway, because Jessica was so afraid, I decided that we should utilize a common tactic (even seen in Harry Potter) for dealing with paralyzing fear. Make it ridiculous. If we could refer to this thing by a name that would just be completely ridiculous for a ghost to have, maybe it wouldn't be as scary anymore. Jessica was somewhat leery of the idea of pissing it off, but through habit and use, my suggested name of Bob stuck. The Shadow Person is named Bob, until it informs us otherwise.

At this point, I was half-relieved and half-envious that I had experienced no Bob encounters of my own.

I needn't have worried.

One day, Jessica and I sat around at her apartment watching a lot of YouTube videos for several hours, and found this one: "Scary Mary". When you watch it, you can see that, were this a real movie, it would probably be really terrifying. We were impressed by how well done this trailer was and decided to show it to Evan when we went to the house later.

When it came time to go to Evan's, we took separate cars, because Jess planned to spend the night. I arrived a few minutes before she did, a little after 9pm. I knocked on the door. Pepper instantly began barking and scratching at the door as she does every time I go to Evan's. And, as Evan always does right before he opens the door, he teases Pepper a little bit: "Who's out there, Pepper? What do you hear? Huh? What do you hear? *pant pant pant*" (He didn't actually say the words 'pant pant pant', but he sometimes, as on this occasion, sticks out his tongue and imitates her own panting.)

And then he walked away. This was unusual, because he knew we were on our way over, and he'd never just leave either of us standing there at the door. Confused, I waited until Pepper had apparently given up and quieted down before knocking again. Pepper was instantly on the alert again, but this time, Evan didn't respond in any way. I knocked again after she had calmed down, and again she started barking and scratching. Evan always responds to Pepper, whether she's barking at the door or the window or whatever. What could he be doing that he would both ignore Pepper and leave me standing outside? Especially when we were expected and she was so obviously barking at somebody outside?

Jessica arrived a few minutes later and let us both into the house, and Evan came out of the shower a moment later.

"Didn't you hear Ashley knocking? She knocked three times. Why didn't you let her in?"

"Well I heard Pepper going crazy about something, but I was in the shower; I couldn't do anything."

"But what about when I knocked the first time?" I said. "When you were talking to Pepper?"

"Which time? She didn't even start barking until after I was in the shower."

Jess and I were both completely on edge after that, but even so, we were planning to watch a scary movie with dinner. We also, though, had to show Evan "Scary Mary". So while Evan worked on dinner, Jess and I got the video ready in the other room. In the living room we turned on the TV to the "channels" channel (I have no clue how cable works--it's the channel with all the channels) and left it while we tried to agree on a movie. We finally decided on The Thing. After dinner was prepared, Jess and I said, "But you have to see 'Scary Mary' first!"

"Oh, lord," Evan said. "Well, I think Mary Poppins is already on the TV anyway. I can hear somebody singing."

"Just because you hear somebody singing doesn't mean it's Mary Poppins," I said, rather scornfully because I wanted to defend Mary Poppins from being just any other musical. But then I stopped, because I heard, from the television, "...just a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down...". This exquisite timing (presumably from Bob), combined with the stolen voice of Evan from 20 minutes before, scared the hell out of me. I think I gasped or squealed or something and ran into the room to escape the evil television. It was very pathetic, but righteously so!

Jess and I were completely jumpy the rest of the night, and when her sister (Karen) unexpectedly knocked on the door shortly thereafter, we both sort of squealed. Evan looked at us incredulously and said something along the lines of, "What's up with you two? Has Mary Poppins gotten you this worked up?"

We learned on Christmas Night that Evan had apparently been focused on something else at the moment and missed the implications of his having been in the shower while I distinctly heard him talking to Pepper.

The three of us had escaped from the party to Evan's room, where it was quiet and we could be away from all the bustle. Somehow we got talking about scary movies--oh right, I mentioned how distinctly un-scary I find Paranormal Activity to be. Though Jess and I agreed that ghost-type movies are scariest when watched in the house, because that was stuff that could happen right then, right there.

"We haven't heard from Bob lately," Jess said.

Evan and I stared blankly. "Bob?" (Bob, incidentally, is also her brother's name, so we were confused for a moment.)

"Yeah, you know--", and she waved her hand aimlessly to indicate the room, the house, whatever, "--Bob?"

"Oh!" we said. "That Bob!"

"Yeahhh," she said, indicating our slowness, "we haven't heard from him lately."

At that precise moment, with Mary Poppins-like timing, all the lights in the room went dim for a time that was significant enough for no one to imagine it, and then lit back up. For a few seconds, we all stared silently at them and then at each other.

"That was pretty weird," Evan said.

I burst out laughing, as I frequently do when so nervous, and couldn't stop for about five minutes. Resting, as I was, on the side of the bed that wasn't by the wall, I kept picturing the only scary part of Paranormal Activity except the very end, when whatever-it-is drags that girl out of the bed. I was so certain that, right then, something might get me and drag me away...uh...into the party. Probably because there were a bunch of people out there, it didn't actually happen. But Bob apparently still wanted the three of us, at least, to know that he was the one in charge.

Going back over the details of the disembodied voice of Evan a few minutes later, I shivered and said, "I'm getting chills again just thinking about this."

"I'm getting chills just thinking about this!" he said. "This is really fucking creepy!" So, yeah. He'd apparently had no clue that that had even happened.

Nothing else has happened since then, but it's only been a little over a week. I'll update should any new incidents occur.

Edit: Thinking about it recently, it occurred to me that almost every Bob incident involves Evan either being in the bathroom or heading to the bathroom. All except the time he was in his room. Maybe he was thinking about going to the bathroom. Who knows? (Not me.)

Sometimes I go on specific actor binges. I'll choose some actor (usually male and of the sexy variety) and watch a whole bunch of their movies in a very short time period. Basically I just go to IMDB, start from the bottom of the page, and see how many of these films are available at the public library, until I've worked myself to the top of the IMDB list. Currently one of the main ones is Al Pacino, since my recent discovery of his sexiness in The Godfather. Today Jess and Evan and I watched Dog Day Afternoon, which I found thoroughly enjoyable. (My binge fodder right now also includes Kevin Spacey, which led me to the utter delight that is Glengarry Glen Ross, with both him and Al. Wonderful.)

To change the subject drastically, gentle readers, I am faced with a conundrum in my life right now. To invite my father to my graduation, or not to invite him: That is the question. On the one hand, I feel like a horrible bitch just leaving him out of something I know he would dearly love to be a part of. I hate hurting people, even those who hurt me. But on the other hand, isn't leaving him out the whole point? I keep having to speak to him to hold the family peace (to the extent that family peace actually exists for us). Anytime there's a birthday or a holiday or something, I am forced to encounter him, and then my not speaking to him streak comes to a bitter end, which itself ends in agony. And every time I have to break that streak, suddenly he sees that it's okay--he can abuse us as much as he wants, but we'll still stick around and allow that in our lives. There are no repercussions of his behavior. As I said to someone the other day, if it is too much of an effort for him to be a decent, non-abusive person so that he can have a relationship with the daughter he supposedly cares so much about, then he simply is not worth my time. He has made no effort to communicate with me and try to sort this all out since the last incident, and from everything I hear, he is still exactly the same with everyone else, every single day.

Mom texted me last night to ask when graduation was. I knew the moment I received this text that she was trying to coax me into inviting him. I told her the date and time. She asked me, "Are we invited?"

"I already invited you," I said. "But I only have one ticket left." This wasn't true; I have six tickets left. She asked me who else was invited, and I told her Jess and Evan.

"What about your dad?" she said. This stung. It was the moment of truth. I had to be cold to my own father, and I felt bad, even though I know he deserves it.

"What about him?" I said. Ouch. She didn't answer again.

It seems as though Mom conveniently forgets every conversation we ever have about him and how I'm not going to allow this in my life any longer. She likes to pretend that the nastiness just isn't there, or that if she ignores it, it will go away. That doesn't fly with me. I do not want or need the effort of having to tune the nasty out. There's no reason for me to when I can just cut it out completely.

This morning Mom told me that he doesn't even remember what he did, and maybe I could write him a letter. I remarked that if he can't remember at least 26 years of being an abusive father and husband, then a letter probably won't do much good. I had thought before about writing a letter, but I know what the outcome would be. He'd read it to his family, scoffing about how absurd it was, just as he did with the letter my aunt wrote him, with basically the same message, several years ago. Every now and then he would bring it out and read it to us again, taunting us, urging us, by means of verbal abuse, to agree with him that it was completely ludicrous, that of course he was not an abusive father, and this writer obviously has no idea what she is talking about. Sometimes he would bring it out to wary friends or neighbors and laugh and taunt them as well. They would be nice out of politeness, which would validate his behavior and heighten his self-esteem. It would give him one more thing to scream about forever and ever, but he would ignore any actual meaning behind it.

There's a good chance I will relent and mysteriously find another ticket in the end to give to him. But I will be very disappointed with myself!

Now that it's 3:30 in the morning and my head is drooping, I guess I should go to bed. To be continued.

Recently I watched the Godfather trilogy for the first time ever and discovered the sexiness that is Al Pacino. I never knew. Totally loved the movies themselves (new favorites, in fact), but I think I almost orgasmed at certain moments. I think the sexiest ones were probably in Part One when he was still in the process of selling his soul and you could really see the transition from good and innocent to cold and, well, soulless. (I don't know why I'm so frequently attracted to the evil guys in movies, but it does happen.)

So the other night, which was only a week or so after I saw Part Three, I had a dream. A cousin I had never met or heard of before but who seemed to be a good friend of mine appeared out of nowhere. He was played by either that weird-looking dude from The New Guy or that weird-looking dude who played Gareth in the British version of The Office. It was hard to tell after I woke up because they're both skinny and awkward-looking blokes, but it was probably the British one, as I'd been watching that show that week. (I had also been watching Glengarry Glen Ross right before bed, which explains the Pacino bit pretty well.)

Anyway, so my gawky cousin appeared and informed me that he had been to a huge amazing party that night and had been right in the vicinity of both Al Pacino and Robert deNiro. As my cousin was apparently attempting to get into Hollywood as an actor himself, this was probably the most exciting moment of his life, but I was ecstatic myself. "Are they still in town?" I said. "You have got to get me in contact! It is vital!"

So my cousin led me to some fancy bar or restaurant or something which, as luck would have it, landed me at a table for two with Al, who appeared to be the same age as in the first film. Yummy. And I told him exactly what I told everyone else--that I'd watched the movie for the first time ever and had been suddenly struck by how sexy he was.

He told me I should follow him to whatever hotel he was staying in, and I tried to appear not overly desperate, but then he took my right hand and held it firmly between both of his (I can still feel his hands pressing against mine), and he looked very soberly into my eyes and said, "I think you should come with me."

Well, that was an offer I couldn't refuse.

Unfortunately I woke up right after that. Sigh. I'm smitten.

I randomly broke out in a small patch of not-too-bothersome hives on my arm a few nights ago. (FYI: Hives are very much not contagious, just caused by stress or allergies, so I'm not dirty and I didn't catch them from anyone.) I only ever had those once before, when I had an allergic reaction to taking three different types of allergy medication in one day. I will never, ever do that again. Oh, the physical agony.

But the other night's outbreak wasn't so bad as that. And because I can't think of a single thing that would have caused it, I guessed it was probably stress-induced. Almost as if I worried them onto myself. That's almost like telekinesis, right? Right? So I now have the superpower of giving myself hives. I can do it with stomachaches, too. Impressive, yeah?

The next night I was sitting alone and trying to decide if I should read, watch a movie, or what. Every scenario I came up with just left me feeling alone, incomplete, unfulfilled. I suppose that's inevitable--whatever I do, half of me is gone, so it won't be fully satisfying. I notice this constantly, that there are too many times I want to do something, anything, but that whatever I do, I know it won't be enough--and possibly worse for the wasted attempt.

As these thoughts went through my head, that tiny patch of hives started to appear very lightly in the same place. Amazing. I guess it's The Hives of Loneliness, or something.

They're gone now, by the way.

Well. It's Thanksgiving today, and I'm going to David and Kasey's instead of to my parents'. Woobie is also going to a friend's house. Casey is eating with our parents, but is getting the hell out of there immediately after to go to a friend's house as well. Poor Mom. But I guess this is the life she chose, since she refuses to leave, and I'm not going to feel guilty about being with a whole group of people who are actually nice to me. So anyway, I guess I'd better head out.