The moment that I think about writing, it becomes an obsession; I have to do it.  I promised myself that I wouldn't write much today, but we all know how that goes.

I've realized, over my time in Birmingham, that a life of restless moving and temporary homes has conditioned me to become antsy and feel caged when I've been in a place too long.  That's Blount hall right now.  It's probably all of Birmingham, but right now my predominating trap is that tiny room that I've been trapped in for years.  It doesn't help, that they're tightening their rules now.  I can't wait to get out, and I'm almost sure about which apartment I'll be moving in to.  The best and wort part of it is that I will be living alone... I can't wait for my friends to come and see me again, in my own place.  Am I finally growing up?
I doubt it.  I'm sure that when I'm grown up, I'll be wiser, or more mature, or more responsible, or capable, or something.  "Grown up" simply cannot be a child in grown-up circumstance.
Otherwise, this all seems somewhat more pointless.

My favorite part about moving is rummaging through all of my things as I pack them.  I bought several moving boxes today and Rephe came with me to start filling them up (I've got several times the amount of stuff that I arrived with, I've found).  Most of it is clothes and old notebooks, filled with pictures and small anxieties-- in fact, I learned that my first anxiety attacks happened at least a year ago.  Probably even further back, back when I was throwing myself headlong into mistakes for reasons that seem to change daily.  Today, the mistakes were all for fear to making greater mistakes.  Yesterday, I knew that it had all happened because I was being hurt and I was destroying everything to tear myself out of the trap.  Tomorrow, it'll probably be because I was chasing starlight.  I've come to love my mistakes; they brought me here, and everything about here seems fuller.  Even that anxiety, and even my passion and love. 

I found countless notebooks-turned-journal.  Notebooks to Princess and from Andrew, notebooks for classes, and notebooks that I used as diaries.  I spend hours reading the entries aloud to Rephe; by the end of it, my throat was raw and I was dumbfounded.  It's not a theory anymore; I was smarter back then.  I used prettier words and metaphors, I remembered more intelligent things, and I thought about deeper ideas.  I speculated, on paper, about religion and life and utopia and my own melancholy in ways that seemed passionate and deeper than the now!me could imagine.  And I think that I agree with old me.  I wish I were still so poetic. 

All in all, today was absolutely fun.  Rephe and I are struggling in every way, and I'm thankful.  I think life would be taken for granted if it weren't taken at the extremes, if only every once in a while.  Anyway, it's everything but my time with him that seems to go wrong.  It was somewhat frustrating and somewhat adorable that even though he was there to help, he kept sitting down and playing with various toys or flipping through old books instead of packing anything up.  :3.  I have hope, too, that once all of this school (I think that these classes are secretly a plot to slowly kill off our brain cells) is over, I may pick up where I left off with reading and writing and making theories.  I could be just shooting in the dark.  This may be one road that I can never step off of.

But I'm making a vow to myself right now to take one night off every single month for the rest of my life, and take the person / people closest to my heart & a blanket and sit underneath the stars, speculating with them-- and then I'll run inside & write it all down to re-read when I need to walk among the stars.  Or, if deep conversation eludes us, I'll sit underneath the stars snuggling with them, and then take another night off to bury myself in some books and then write about something unfair or unmarked, or something that's changed about my perspective or something that hasn't that's just heavy on my mind, as long as I end up writing somehow.  Writing is the only way the I can ever materialize my feelings & make them real.
& that's significant, right?

Haha. I knew I couldn't be brief.

--
Thank you, Teshie.  :3. Your words made me smile.

Dear diary.  Can I be candid, today?  I want to be able to say what I'm feeling without worrying about being judged or looking dramatic.  Without worrying about whether it's actually true or just my feelings talking.  I want to not feel like I have to write about certain things in a certain way, or look mature.  Sometimes, I'm just not mature.  I want to be able to sound depressed and cliche, because I need to know that I can feel whatever I'm feeling and that it'll be okay.  To myself, even.  I chastise myself for thinking silly things and letting myself get down so often.  I beat myself up sometimes over how depressed I am, because I don't want to become what I was again.  But I need to be honest. 
I would rather die right now than face this anxiety another second.  I've come to regret every second that I've lived beyond nineteen, because I hate myself for living to feel this.  It's not some simple anxiety attack that strikes every once in a while.  I can't live with it.  It's like my own voice is screaming inside my head, constantly, that I've done something wrong, I'm missing something, I'm afraid, something's not quite right, something's missing, I don't know why my heart is racing but I feel like I'm broken somewhere.  I don't know where, or why, or how to fix it.  But I can't think about anything but making this feeling go away.  And how can I make it go away?  I used to think that maybe focusing on something else would help: write down what the teacher is saying.  Draw a picture.  Write a story.  But those things have no hold whatsoever on this tremors.  So I think about bigger solutions.  Make myself sick.  Get hit by a car.  Get hit by a bullet.  In the face.  Anything.  I'd take anything over another second of this.  I haven't been able to complete a single basic task without being warped by this feeling, lately.  Not even getting through a meal.  I feel like I'm not the one getting through the day anymore.  It's anger, fear, depression.  It's anxiety that snaps at people or has to reread a sentence several time because my mind blanks in the middle.  Not me.  I'm not even sure where I am anymore.
I did something dramatic: The rationale isn't rational, not even to me.  I need something, though.  I got tired of seeing my mistakes laid out before me.  I shouldn't have to face things that were put solidly in my past anymore.  The past is always volatile, I wouldn't touch somebody else's if I knew what I was doing.  I walked away from the situation when I realized I was starting to regret.  I don't think I should have to justify my actions-- it was worthwhile to me.  It was.  I enjoyed parts of it, and when they were outweighed by the worst of it, I walked away.  So why am I being asked to justify, and why am I having to look the weight of my regrets in the face?  It's not so black and white.  But I have to choose.  So I deleted everyone that actually interacts with it, because I'm tired of the past.  That world and this one can't coexist.  So I'll wipe it away. 
Rephe is my sanity, my clarity, my anchor.  I think that I've been chipping away at him.  Criticizing him, telling him that he's not doing well enough.  But he's got brilliant blue eyes and I swear that I can't remember seeing any colour for the past week, but that impassioned shade of blue.  He made us little ham and turkey wraps for lunch today, since I'm running low on campus funds.  They were made of amazing.  We sat underneath all of the falling white blossom trees and watched the petals float around in silence.  It was chilly.  It'd been raining all day.  And I was comfortable.  I want to be closer to him somehow, but every single time I try to talk to him, some raging anxiety pours out and I sound like a complete idiotic psychopath, instead.  I just want for us to hold each other together.  But I can't hold myself together.  ...He's been helping me.  He makes schedules for me and helps me go over everything that I need to have done, he makes phone calls for me, cooks for me, walks me to classes ...Most importantly, he sits down and watches television with me after long bouts of work and frustration.  And he'll hold me.  Somehow, it's only when we're exactly like this that I can't be attacked at all.  I'd stay there forever, if everything wouldn't come unraveled in one night.  But there's too much for me to do, for me to stay safe.  This is why I was afraid of living to be this old.

I'm thinking of a way, and a how, to do this: I'm going to put this blog on hold again, soon.  The pressure to write has gotten intense... & not from anybody else.  It's me.  It's strange to me that my favorite thing to do, hands down, is write, but the need to write every single day has become so intense that it's stressful.  I've decided, for my own sanity, to force a break [even though I don't ever want to stop].  I'll have an old-fashioned, handwritten paper journal again until I've relieved myself of this insane idea that my day isn't worthwhile unless it was pretty enough to write about, or my day isn't real until I write, or I've got to write every single day, if for no reason at all. 
I'm going to enter this hiatus slowly; I may not even stop entirely.  Maybe I'll just hibernate.  But I want to do it right.  I want to feel like I'm closing a chapter properly, so that when I'm ready, I can feel like I'm coming home to a new beginning.  I think that I need that.

Dear diary.

Today was a very long, bustling day.  I managed to fall asleep at about 3:30 in the morning, and proceeded to have a succession of nightmares (about a stressful, mundane life.) until my father woke me up bright and early at 8:00 to go out.  I hopped out of bed and threw on the first clothes I laid my eyes on, and went.  Our first stop was the outlet mall in Gulfport.  I'd suggested that we go a few days ago, when Bradley mentioned that he really wanted a watch.  Fossil happens to be my favorite brand, so that's where I was heading.  But of course, mother dragged me into coach first.  And I kind of fell in love with a purse.  It wasn't the same type I usually go for... mother was impressed, especially since there was a storewide discount.  She was going to get a matching one, but in a slightly smaller size, to be cute... but of course she talked herself out of it.  When it comes to money, she always debates with herself for a while, and if it's not something she really wants, she keeps the money.  I hope that's a trait that I got from her... I can't tell yet.  I kind of feel bad for still wanting the purse... I really don't want to keep sapping my parents' money.  x_x  But she told me she liked it and that she'd buy it for me anyway.  ...It really cheered me up, from various other things that have been going on.

Our next stop was fossil.  While Bradley and father meandered over to the cheap watches, mother and I dug around in the purses again.  :3.  She pointed out this small zippy pouch that was almost the size of my make-up bag, and asked if I could use that to put my glitter in (I love glitter!  And my collection was getting too big to fit into my make-up bag).  We decided to do it, since it was over half off, too.  X3.  It's blue, with a little owl sitting on a tree branch.  It's really adorable.  After I picked it up, we went back and started looking through the watches with Bradley.  I ended up choosing the one that he got.  It's chocolate coloured and manly-cool... but I wish that I'd found one with gears showing.  I love watches like that...

We ate chinese.  X3.  I think that every single time I see them, we go out for chinese.  It's like an unspoken tradition... and I get the feeling that my heart would break if we ever skipped that trip.

Our next stop was Hudson's, where my mother dragged me to the pants and made me pick about four pairs out because she thinks that I don't have enough...  on the way to the pants, a rack of button-up shirts in a deep shade of blue caught her eye.  They were boy-shirts, so I was confused when she started looking for a size small among them.  "For Jake," was all she said.  I was stunned.  We didn't end up finding any.  But I kept thinking about how undecided she seems to be about him.  On the way over, she'd been talking about how beautiful Jake's personality is, but how she still thinks that I should have ended up with a complete hunk that's stupidly in love with me and has a little bit of personality so that she could brag... or somebody that's more conservative.  I argued that he could be won over, and she happily discussed my points with me.  She's so open about him.  I feel so hopeful.  Speaking of him, though, I was sending him a constant stream of texts for most of the day and getting no answer.  X3  I felt completely dejected and lonely, and like my world was shrinking rapidly, until he woke up and dutifully informed me that he'd been in a coma.  .  I practically beamed when I saw his name pop up on my cell phone...

Alright, so after a quick stop at Wal*Mart, we drove home to be met promptly by Angel & Spike (X3 My very best Louisiana friends).  They wanted to go putt-putt golfing, which I'm stunningly terrible at.  Freaking geometry never works for me.  But I was excited to be doing something fun instead of moping in my room, so we drove to the mall together.  Spike kept whipping out some crazy nerd dances and Bradley and I managed to maintain normal conversations most of the way.  o_o;  After I suggested that we find a new anime to watch together, everything seemed so much better.  And I feel somewhat relieved by that... although I'm still somewhat ambivalent.  First off, the putt-putt place was really pretty.  It was black-lit and the walls were painted like the universe, so everything glowed strangely and I felt all endless and stuff.  But every hole was about angles and timing.  XD.  AND I AM BAD AT THAT. There was one where you had to putt the ball up a steep hill and into a carousel that was moving just as one of the seats was leaning forward.  Not one of us made it through that one.   I'm pretty sure that I got last place, but I was really cheerful anyway, since everything was really cute and everyone kept making really funny mistakes.  Like flinging the balls out of the course entirely several times.  All of us did that.

And then we had hot cocoa to finish off the night, as Bradley and I looked for a new anime to watch.
Also, Spike showed us videos of crazy american laws... and they were hilariously done.  If I can remember what they're called, I'm going to make everybody ever watch them.  :3.

I think I'm ready to go bowling, Rephe, as long as you throw some balls for me.  So that I don't feel like a complete failure.  X3.  Last night was hard, you know.  I was wondering if I could really make it through the rest of this week without seeing you at all.  I couldn't sleep for a while, just thinking about how much I missed hugging you, and watching you meanface.  You're the coolest boy ever and I miss the romance that you write into my life.  And I mean romance in the [reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, focus on emotion; relate it to sturm und drang [extremes of emotion are given free expression in reaction to the perceived constraints of rationalism]] sense of the word.  I mean that I feel lost without you.  And that all of my contradictions and passion, although expressed more often when I'm alone, are less realized when I'm not with you.  I want to chase you through some storms and forevers right now.  Or just be in your arms.  I just miss you.

Why are the days always shorter, here?

Today was a good day.  Mom took us shopping bright and early, just as I thought she would.  We didn't come home with much-- some jelly bellies for a certain childlike prince of mine, and a movie for myself.  It was the browsing around and small talk that made it so much fun, though.  Mother and I have completely different tastes...  but we always gravitate toward the same type of thing, and from there, it's fun.  Especially when one or the other of us accidentally triggers a political discussion.  It doesn't matter that we don't quite agree.  I think we're finally to the point that we're just enjoying each others' company.

By the way [Rephe], every time I take a shower, I look at the shower head to see how many of the holes are clogged up.  I haven't found another showerhead that operates at 100%, yet.  Every time I'm in a store and I notice Jones soda or jelly bellies, I stop and pine over them.  I now consider hats to be a very important accessory.  I substitute letters for cusswords.  I find that I communicate without words better-- sometimes, "mao" or a generally inquisitive chirp seems more communicative.  I told my mother that I was going to get my "shoesies" from the garage earlier today, and she scoffed at me.  I have faith in some absolutes.  I always cook with spices, and when I'm unsatisfied with food, I wonder which spices I could throw on to make it yummier.  I'm okay with writing inconsistently.   I feel heavy when I realize I have secrets.  I talk to God more frequently.  I'm not afraid of losing my passion when I get older.  ...I'm not afraid of being older.  I notice more nuances in music.  I have a special fondness for gummy animals.  These are such small details about me... they're details that didn't exist before you came.  Sometimes, you ask me what impact & change you've caused in me.  I usually struggle to find an answer.  I don't think that anything I say is quite right, especially if you can't see by my everyday behaviour that everything about my world has changed, if only slightly, since I've known you.   We both know that it's the small things that make us.  And if you can't tell by this that your impact has gone far deeper, I'll search for more answers.  But you should just take my word for it.  :3.

Tonight, my mother made us cobbler to munch on.  Bradley automatically volunteered to take the rest home with him to share with his friends.  I wasn't too pleased with that, as I'm quite fond of the cobbler and I happen to know people that love it, too.  But mother caught on.  She said she was going to make more.  X3.  Bradley's pushing to stay in Alabama again.  I can't really stand this inconsistency.  I know that he's not willing to take initiative on his own, he's not willing to clean, I can tell that he has difficulty keeping things from my mother (so living with him would give him a lot more to slip up on), his mannerisms aren't exactly clean, and he'd probably complain about the frequency of Rephe visits. I'd already resigned to (& set my heart on) living alone, and now all of this pressure is putting me in a foul mood.  Especially since, when we discussed the possibility of him not being able to, he tried to give my mother a list of benefits for keeping me on campus.  ...I don't like the way he's trying to subtly stir the waters.  I've noticed it in other topics, too (tl;dr? I caught on, you ass).  I probably wouldn't be raging over him right now, if I hadn't tried to watch a movie with him earlier (Gran Torino).  I'm the type of person that hates it when people say anything during movies.  I feel like distractions take away from what you're supposed to be getting.  But this boy would not stay quiet.  He talked about unrelated topics like manga and stories, he predicted what was going to happen, and he babbled about character personalities and made up fake lines for them... from the opening to the end.  He couldn't stay quiet long enough to hear one whole dialogue.  By the end of the movie, I was fuming.  I walked silently back to my room and shut the door.  It's not just during the movie, that's how he is, constantly. 
This is why I've got to be careful about who I live with.  I can't live with so much noise.  I can't. 
I don't know how I'd ever study with him in my place... or survive, even. I don't.  What's worse is that UAB is cheaper even out-of-state than Michigan is in-state.  *headdesk*.  It's looking so likely and I. just. want. to. meltaway. 

I can't wait until it's Rephe&I again.  He always gives me room to breathe, when I need it.  And he can always tell when I need it.  ._.'  He's the only one that fits like that. <3.  And later, Dal will be there too, and then I'll be happy because all of my soul will be back in one place. :3.

Even though we're together, we're not "with each other" right now. 
Lately, I keep catching myself drifting.  It's frustrating, when I can't focus even enough to get one simple task accomplished so that I can spend some super time tackling my hard-working fluffyboy.  ^_^;.  But... I don't even realize that I'm drifting.  I just exist for a while, and become vaguely aware of the fact that no life has been happening... and before I can grab hold, I'm gone again.

I wonder where I've been.

Jakey, Dally, Teshie, Toan, I miss you.
& I love you.
<3

Welcome home, me.
It's always awesome to come home again, to warm meals and a clean home and lots of presents.  Mom sat in the living room with us, chatting like she always does.  But since I was talking online with some friends (it was a very important conversation), I could only listen half-heartedly.  And when she left, I felt bad.  Really bad.  I'd missed her so so much... but the two situations were equally important to me.  I resolved to spend more time with her this week. I don't know when my next chance to really spend time with her will be, and the thought of letting my life fly by with her drifting away is terrifying.  She's been the one talking to me and holding my hand through it all.  Sometimes, I didn't like the way she held so tightly, but, hell, sometimes I really miss it, too.

I can't shake this feeling that I'm not holding on tightly enough.  Not just to her, to anybody.  And every single night that I spent up here in my room alone, the feeling gets deeper.  It's silly to think that I'll end up alone... but less silly to realize that I'd deserve it, for all of the lack of effort that I give them, sometimes.  And right now, I am alone.  Even though my prince is talking to me.  And working tirelessly on a project to make me happy.  *half grin*.  Even though I'm talking to Teshie and Toan.  Right now, it's the weight of the choices that I make that put me on this island.  And I know that, tomorrow, when I have to choose between idly flipping through web pages or calling an old friend to babble, I'm going to cower and choose solitude.  I don't know why I do it.  And it's not that I regret it.  I just don't want for them to slip between my fingers, either.  They're the things that make everything worthwhile to me.  Somewhere down the line, I've forgotten how to.

It's just this room, and being away from everybody.  In Birmingham, if it's not Brittany, it's Rephe.  I'm never alone, and even though I love to be quiet and alone in my corner, it's comforting to have them in the room babbling idly at me.  But I always start thinking, late at night when I'm actually alone.  And somehow, it always turns around to what I'm doing wrong.  What I've done wrong.  How my arm hurts right now for mysterious reasons.  How I can't seem to communicate with Bradley, even though I really tried, today.  I'm still not sure what this nameless wall between us is.  How I've let myself go weeks without talking to Dal.  How I sometimes yell at mother, and I know that she doesn't deserve it.  How I've let ambiguous situations hurt people.  knowingly?

My parents gave me my shot record today.  I learned that I've got at least four shots to get before I can get into this program.  But before that, I've got to make a good grade on this next micro test.  And! I get to get my CPR certification next weekend, again~.  It's a lot of preparation.  ...They also left me several tubes of lipgloss, as a reward for making them proud.  ^_^;  I love lipgloss so much.  I can't stand having dry lips... and my lips break out if I use chapstick.  Anyway, I love how shiny lipgloss is.  And how many flavours it comes in.  And how I'm the only one that I know that actually has a collection of it, because I'm so obsessed with having one everywhere. 

I'm going to be honest.  I'm homesick already.  It's just that I miss my study buddy, and my yummy cook, and my snuggle bunny-- those are all the same person [Rephe].  But I love being here, too.  I want to stay here.  Life seems so much more simple and secure around my parents.  If only I'd brought him back with me again.  :3.  But mother wanted time with her daughter alone, so.. I think the thought of me being in a serious relationship still scares her-- it's just like her.  And I really love that about her, now.  ...Now that she can't actually stop me.  XD

By the way, that conversation was awesome.  I'm glad we talked-- Dal, and Teshie, and Toan.  I'm proud of every one of you and I love you more than I love any other friends that I've ever had, ever ever ever.  :3  Plus, you guys are made of total awesome.  I'm glad that we're starting to talk again.  :3.

Dad called me earlier and told me that there a conference that he has to do soon.  It's being held in two places, and of course he'll be sent to the closer one (in Florida).  The other one is in Barcelona, of all places.  Barcelona.  Hearing that name again made my heart sink.  Sometimes, I forget that I've ever been there.  It seems like such a magical place.  A city off in Europe, with tiny markets and elaborate gothic cathedrals.  Tiny coffee shops and huge markets and dances right there in the streets.  And buildings that should have been from fairy tales.  I walked around in those.  And nobody spoke English.  And nobody knew me or the mistakes I've made.  I was brand new there, and having my adventure.  I was sitting at the Mediterranean under the stars, and running through Islamic baths, and touching Roman walls. That was me.  Living a dream.  But today, I feel normal.  Far too normal to have stared Saturno in the face and visited The Garden of Earthly Delights in person.  I don't know if normal even does it justice.  This weekend, I've felt like a phantom.  Like somebody's imaginary friend.   I've been studying and eating and watching House, but I feel like my mind [spirit. soul.] has been drifting elsewhere.  Somewhere grey and unclear.    Probably to escape all of these unnamed tremors I've been having.  Hell, if I could, I'd run away from them physically, too. 

Abandoning my completely random stroke of nostalgia, my late class was canceled on Thursday.  I was thrilled about it, because I've been hating that professor ever since he interrupted our project and threw us on the chopping block for not doing a good job with a project that he never gave us directions for.  ...Then I found out that his wife had a relapse.  Of what, I don't know, but she's been in the hospital and he's been very noticeably torn up about it, and no matter how mad I am at him, I'm really sad about this news.
I'm terrified of the day that it happens to me.
So, for now, I'm praying for them.  Hard.  Because I hate the thought of anybody having to cry on a hospital bedside for somebody that's supposed to be with them forever.  I'm always going to be unrealistic about this.  The thought of letting go is one that I'll reject until it's all over. 

Someone from my past sent me a message the other day... her name's Ashley Carter-- it used to be Ashley Ingram.  I knew her in elementary school, when things were simple and bright.  It was strange to go through her pictures-- she looks completely different.  Happy and beautiful.  She has an attractive husband and an adorable son and a stable life.  Of all of the people that I knew from that town, she's the only one that seems so stable.  The rest or them are divorced, or single moms, bar-hoppers (even though they've got kids), no job, no education, and more.  So I'm proud of her.  :3 

I feel like I've gotten a lot closer to some of my other friends lately, too.  <3 Which has made me supersuper happy.

After a lot of thought, I decided to give Rephe a project: I asked him to make me a CD.  Twenty-seven songs (it was going to be just twenty, but I couldn't narrow it down that much) that I chose for him to re-make/ cover for me.  I like the way he makes music, but I keep watching him start songs and throw them out in the wake of another one.  So I decided to force him to finish a bunch. :3 They're all my favorite songs, and ones that I've thought were really pretty or meaningful lately.  I can't wait to see what kind of message they convey when he re-spins them.
It's going to be my favorite CD[s].  <3

This is really all that's on my mind, disjointed as it all is.  I'm about to pack up and drive home for Spring break, even though I'm going to be studying for tests, even there.    Everything is starting to move really fast.  I'm sensible enough to be afraid.  I can't wait for the summer.  It'll be my first summer without any semblance of a break whatsoever.  But I'll be happy here, with my Jakey and my new home and lots and lots of school.  <3.  It's bringing me closer to Dally.  :3  Love you guys.

Inevitable complications.
Ever since I've received my acceptance e-mail, I've been worried about how to get my final grades to the master's program before the seventh (that's before they'll even be posted).  I e-mailed a person about it, and when he didn't answer, I e-mailed another person.  Then they both answered.  Although one contact informed me that I wouldn't have to do anything to get my grades to them in time, another person gave me a much more complex process to use.  I have the sinking feeling that the complicated road is the right one.

My graduation is on May 8.  I have to arrive to get checked in by eight-fifteen in the morning.  My school's ceremony doesn't start until nine-thirty.  At night.  My orientation to the new program is the day before that.  Classes start two days after.

My parents want me to live in a dorm.  Again.  With confining rules and the suffocating inability to let anybody come and stay with me.  I can't take it.  I want to live as an adult.  I don't want to be twenty-five and still checking my buddies in every time I want to watch a movie with them.  So we've been arguing about that.

I know this will sound weird, but the fact that I don't need to poo is a problem.  I have a project-- a GI tract unknown for a lab, and I have to bring in a feces sample tomorrow.  But I can't force it and I don't know what else to do.  T_T  But this is a major grade and I don't want to take such a huge blow to my GPA... wah~ What an awkward problem.

Bradley, for some reason, feels like it's time to hold me accountable and make me feel guilty for letting Maku have stayed with me for so long.  For letting him into the dorm and for letting him be in my life at all.  And, since a friend of his told him so, he thinks it's my fault that Maku stopped talking to his friends/family.  I shouldn't really have to defend myself here; I did what I did because I cared about him then, and I begged him to contact his friends & family more.  We even fought over both of those points.  But I hate conflict.  And now I feel backed into a wall, which really isn't right.  It's not Bradley's business, and that stuff is in the past for a reason.  Once I thought I would have something to regret, I left.    Until then, I was happy with my decisions.  Isn't that enough?

So much schoolwork~.

There's another thing.  A secret, because it's personal and maddening.  I hope it goes away, as I don't really have the strength to face it.

And now for the happy, myu~.

It's been thunderstorming since last night.  Quick flashes of light and loud booms.  Every once in a while, the earth shakes.  I fell asleep listening to raindrops and I've been running through it. Even though it's slightly frustrating because I don't want my schoolwork to get wet, I still enjoy looking at the grey skies and watching the world torrent.

I left a present for Brittany in the dorm.  She still hasn't come home, but I hope that her super late Christmas present will cheer her up.  =]. 

I got a special package in the mail!  And now everything that I've been waiting for is here.  It's something really adorable, I'm going to put it on the wall of my new home.  I think it's something that'll cheer me up when I'm studying my butt off and don't have time for other happy things.
Like making tea.

^_^.
I had a great night with Rephe, too.  I was watching him play Chrono Trigger on the computer, and earlier we watched The Natural History of the Chicken (which is hilariously bad and cute).  And we made animal noises at each other like we do.  XD.  But we also talked about things that we've never really covered before.  We've been learning a lot of new things about each other lately, I think.  Last night, I broke down and cried after Gomorra.  I told him things.  Just memories about the past, and about this maddening [...].  That conversation was about my secrets.  All of the ones that I could get to surface.  I think he'll keep them safe. They were things, I think, that showed him something new; we grew closer.  Like we did tonight.  I'm so wide open and dependent.

I can't stop thinking about how long away Dal is.    My life won't ever be quite right until I'm with her.
If she were here, she'd know all of them, too.  I miss her.

<3.

Today, Rephe and I went for some pizza at Hungry Howie's.  The counter was being run by Sean Connery (but a younger version).  He was passing out free drinks with every order... they were pulpy fruit juices.  We chose to drink pineapple first, but after I asked him if I cold buy the other flavors, he just let us walk away with a bag full of drinks.  :3  So, today started out good.  I also got a package that I've been waiting for!  It's really sparkly glitter.  :3  And I so love things that sparkle.

I also:
- Registered for CPR certification
-Found out what I had to do to get Medical Clearance
-Found out how to get my grades posted on time to make it into the summer semester
-Looked at more apartments
-Found a place to get furniture
-Went grocery shopping, big time.
-Finished busy work and ran to class.

I'd say that today was pretty productive.  =].

I also found out that Bradley wasn't going to get in-state tuition, get this, by going to the office and asking about the procedure myself, since he wasn't motivated enough to do it.  Honestly, I don't feel like he wanted to be in an apartment with me.  But since he wouldn't have gotten in anyway, I guess I can't hold it against him.  He has to move back to Michigan after this semester.  I don't think that he liked it here anyway, and I feel like a failure for that.  I feel like I'm missing out on a rare chance to make real connections with my family. But something went wrong, and I'm still completely lost to the reason. I wish I knew.  I was trying, and family, I guess, is one thing that I've honestly failed at.  I just wish I knew why.  Anyway, his absence means that I'm out in the deep end again.  I don't believe that there's another person in Birmingham that I'd be okay living with.  I'm an easygoing person to live with, but there are very few people that I can be around for too long without wanting to melt into the floor and disappear.  I don't even want to return to the dorm anymore.  I still like SW, but I just don't want to be there around her so constantly right now.

So it looks like I'm back to finding my own place.  I'm not concerned about being lonely.  I know that I won't really be.  I'm concerned about finding a place that's cheap enough to manage... splitting the cost was the entire reason that staying in Birmingham was going to be manageable.  Now... an apartment, with utilities, is almost as much as living on campus.  If you count in the gas to drive back and forth and buying furniture to use-- even cheap furniture, it may equal on-campus housing.  For the first year, at least.  My concern is how it's going to be paid for.  My parents want for me to borrow money from them and pay them back later, so that I won't owe anybody else anything later on.  But I don't want for them to go bankrupt doing it. So I'm trying to find something reasonable.  It's hard.  There are a lot of sketchy places here, and even most of those are wayyy too expensive. Harhar.

The weather was really warm today.  Even though I prefer cold weather and snow for a vast number of reasons, it felt pretty amazing to be sitting outside in the sunlight and soaking in a lot of warm.  I felt energized-- which struck me as odd, since that's exactly how I feel when it becomes so cold that the air bites my skin.  ^_^; But I think that the sunlight has an affinity for Rephe.  It just makes him glow. Even while it's burning my eyes to pieces.  I kept thinking that it was time to go on a long walk with my camera and make something of my free time.  The trick is that I don't actually have free time.  Ever.  And won't for a long time.  You know, I don't get a Christmas break with this program?  I literally get just Christmas day off.  My parents are thinking about coming and spending Christmas with me, since I can't go to see them.

It's just like me, to already be thinking about next Christmas. X3 It seems forever away...
But if I'm here, that means that, for a few hours at least, I'll have another Christmas with Rephe.  Maybe I'm jumping the gun, but that seems beautiful to me.  I can't wait.  <3 Especially until the day that I can spend Christmas with both him and Dal.

Love love<3.

I watched the city go up in flames yesterday.  It started with smoke billowing about northside, in a neat little column.  On the radio, I heard someone talking about a major highway being shut down due to this fire.  "Tire fire", they called it.  I wanted to see.  It's natural for people to want to see things be destroyed.  I think they feel some kind of affinity for it.  After all, we're just as mortal as that building, which was going up in thick black smoke. I like to think that watching things die is watching things be born, too.  Maybe not right there, maybe not for a long time.  Maybe it's some distantly-related prequel.  But every end leaves room for some other beginning.  To me.  Or maybe it's just morbidity.  Maybe watching things die is simply watching them die, and it's just the chaos of it that draws us in.  Whatever it is, I think there's something deep there.  It makes me think, and it's the kind of thinking that takes me somewhere new every time.  So we went to go see the fire.  We were driving through thick traffic to get as close to the building as possible.  I never actually saw the building.  I saw the smoke get thicker & darker until it was pitch dark.  And then I saw a line of firemen, with streams of water arching into the smoke.  It's a poor description for something that looked so epic.  It may have been the sunlight; those streams were bright and shining and in my head, it was an epic battle.  These were the good guys.  Were they winning?  I couldn't tell.  My time was up; I had to turn the car around and drive us off to Five Guys for lunch.  Which, might I add, is always a perfectly awesome place for a date.  X3.  We got lost several times on the way there, and I was getting really frustrated with my life, but it was all worth it when I sat down and started munching on their fries and burgers.  I'm such a fan.  <3.  On the way home, the drive was still incre~dibly backed up and it was taking forever.  I was about to rage out and destroy some stuff when Rephe decided to open one of those conversations-- the ones that are revelatory and make me reconsider things.  I love men that can see through the surface. <3.  He kind of rescued me, with that.  [I had fun.]

We've had a lot of good news this week.  Firstly!!  I was accepted into the master's program!  (AMNP~)  I'm so relieved and excited and proud and.. it still hasn't hit me. I can tell, because every time I think about the acceptance letter, I grow extremely happy and find myself on the verge of tears.  And then I find myself backing away from the realization, to approach it later.  There's so much that I have to take care of before orientation!  I have to get so many new vaccines, and medical clearance, and CPR certification...  And the orientation is before my graduation date.  The first class is two days after my graduation.  That spells out no summer break for me, and hardly any time to move into my new apartment. Since I'm extremely sure that SW has flaked on getting an apartment with me (she still hasn't told me, though, which is purely infuriating), I was looking at apartments with Bradley.  We found one that's in a great place, it's very pretty, it's got lots of space and it's actually very cute... in short, it seems absolutely perfect.  And if I save up enough, I can get a pet!!.  :3  Of course, if that falls through, I've got a backup in mind.  Living alone would be much more expensive, but I can't just take any chances as far as this goes.  I need to be safe. 

I can't believe I got into the program that I wanted.  T_T I'm glad though, because honestly, I had no other ideas in mind.

:3 Time for homework.