February

[*helps push the post down farther* Let me know when you're all caught up with the midterm and other academic stuff Lucy, and I'll start routing the posts through your inbox again. It seems safer. First line of defense against the horrors of truly awful mechanical errors (that you are used to, after 2 years of salvaging my essays) and all. Feel brave. Feel very brave. *cough*]

Valentine’s Day was a lot like a disease that went around and randomly infected people, and for some reason the female half of the population usually ended up more affected. Then again, as far as Mike had observed, the female half of the population, especially within his age range, was weird in general, which meant that everything must be held in subjective degrees of measurement only.

Dawning of the fourteenth of February made him feel somewhat paranoid; it always did. He could never wake up on that day without feeling like there was someone stalking him, and he always had to the nagging suspicion that he was right. Had he not had an actually interesting class that day, he would’ve, doubtlessly, opted to go into hiding. The slight issue with that this year was that he had no where to hide except his room and by lunch, after receiving two door knocks and a pink heart (pink!) full of what he assumed to be candy, he decided that a new hiding place was needed and considered his options.

He needed a place with a door that locked, that much was for certain, and preferably something to do while he was inside the asylum. Naturally he thought about his friends. Nick, who, if he had any sense, would be hiding somewhere as well. Gary, being strange and with some sort unresolved issues with girls that Mike knew Zach did not approve of, was on a date with someone. Which left Zach who was, Mike realized, probably as much affected by February the fourteenth as a block of cement was and therefore the safest bet.

The weather, decided Zach, had definitely taken a turn for the better. It was already no longer necessary to keep the windows closed (more against the rain than the cold) or be redundantly thankful of the heating system (which happened about three days per year here). He enjoyed leaving the window wide open as he read, so that the room smelt like the outside: a blend of the nearby pines, sun-warmed wind, and the faintest of whiff of city smog that still somehow managed to coalesce together to bring to mind the word “springtime.”

Someone gave the door a sharp rap, then tried to open it. Since he had locked the door after his roommate had left with his girlfriend, this, of course, was not possible. Sighing, Zach unfolded himself from where he had wedged himself comfortably into his chair and went to open the door, thinking about how much less sympathetic he’d be if it turned out that his roommate had lost his room key, again.

“Hey,” said Mike, looking slightly twitchy and with his twitchiness reminding Zach that it was Valentine’s Day. “Can I come in?”

“You may,” answered Zach, “But your ‘entourage’ stays outside.”

“What?”

He made a slight motion with his hand, indicating that Mike, fittingly clad in black and dark grey on a day of overwhelming bright pinks and reds, should turn around. What then ensued could be only described as a massive screech-giggle as a group of girls hastily and indiscreetly shuffled behind a corner.

“Holy crap.” Mike bolted into the room and shoved the door closed behind him, looking even twitchier.

“There, there,” Zach said absently, checked out of the peephole on the door, and reflected that with that group out there and Mike in here he should give up reading his biology text right then and there… and perhaps consider what might be done to alleviate the distress of his friends. Plural. Because Nick had stopped by earlier before he fled somewhere else with a picture of his old girlfriend hidden in his wallet, just in case.

Nick wasn’t in his room. That was somewhat expected. Mike wasn’t in his room. That was also somewhat expected but, Gary thought, if Zach, the permanently dependable residence of his room, was not there he might have to go and destroy something by a way of stress management.

How was he supposed [see, Lucy, I remembered!] to know that that girl’d want that…that he’d end up…that he would probably experience some difficulties getting rid of this one because she had that particular twist to her personality which said: stalker material. Augh.

“Who’s it?” Came Zach’s voice when Gary, failing to open the door, was forced to bang against it instead.

“Me,” answered Gary, immensely relieved that someone was doing what they were supposed to be doing. (In the case of Zach, this meant being inside of his room.) He heard Zach say something, and wondered who he was talking to, before the door opened to allow his entrance.

“Hey,” said Mike, looking, with his expression and colour of clothing, like a lowering storm cloud. “Mind closing the door behind you?”

“You alright?” Asked Zach.

“Yes and no,” said Gary, immediately retreating to theatrics in order to hide his true horror of the events that had unfolded earlier that day. “You guys know I had a date, right?”

“Right,” agreed Zach, checked out of the door again, made a face, then closed it.

“And we’ve known each other for a while and I was just…you know…and it was Valentine’s day so I thought…well…flowers…being nice…it’s all your doing,” he added accusingly to Zach, who merely raised his eyebrows with a guileless, ‘who-me’ look. “And she…she got all soppy and…and…she used the L-word, you know?”

“She didn’t,” Mike managed to choke out, and hurriedly turned around to hide his expression.

Zach and Gary looked at each other. Zach gave a one shouldered shrug.

At least that seemed to have made someone feel better.

“She did,” whined Gary mournfully, feeling it entirely unfair that someone seemed to be enjoying his present pains. An uncomfortable heat was creeping up his face. “So what the hell do I do now?”

“L-word?” Zach’s lips twitched. Gary suddenly wondered if Zach was also deriving some sort of satisfaction from his current state of misery since he was always very disapproving of what he called his date-and-dump strategy. “That’s devotion for you,” murmured Zach. “I’m guessing that the attraction is not mutual?”

Gary muttered something that was pithy and to the point. Mike, managing a Rubik’s cube, made noises that could only be described as cackling. “What do I do?” He growled. “I don’t want to end up with a stalker or anything.”

“First of all,” said Zach, “What did you do after she used the word ‘love?’” He ignored Gary’s instinctive cringe. “How’d the date turn out?”

“Um. I’m not sure.” Oh God oh God why couldn’t these things come with directions? Though he supposed that at some levels he must’ve earned some sort of punishment, but certainly not this. Girls were really deeply horrifying things, why hadn’t he noticed that before? “I think I just sort of…left.”

“Oh, man,” was Mike’s well-expressed comment.

“Well, hell,” muttered Zach. “I don’t think we can do anything at this point so, er, Mike was suggesting that we get Nick and go out for lunch somewhere far, far away and flee the general site of trauma, so to speak, want to come?”

“Yeah,” said Gary fervently. Friends were a great comfort in times like these, even though there was a draft blowing directly at him from the window which was open for some odd reason. “Far, far, far away—what’re these?” He asked, noticing some boxes scattered across the room for the first time, now that he was no longer blinded by his own panic. Horrified, yes, and deeply traumatized, but not blinded.

Zach gave Mike a sympathetic, but also amused, look.

“If you mention one word about Joe Flanigan…” warned Mike, going slightly pink.

“Who?” Zach asked blankly.

“What?” asked Gary, confused, and when no one responded, continued. “Right. Anyway.” He poked at the boxes. “Are these food?”

“Eurgh,” said Mike. “Chocolates. I think. Want some? Want all of them?”

“Happy Valentine’s day,” added Zach.

“Argh,” groaned Mike and Gary, in unison.

[The V-day terrors as I was informed by the various guys from my floor and from work. AHEM.]

*pushes the yucky post down*

Eh, yeah, lets move on. Hopefully that's over.

Ironically, I wanna talk about something from Friday night when we were driving from the emergency room in the middle of the night.

It was dark (obviously) and there was this incredibly thick fog everywhere. Now that's not exactly nice if you're driving, but the way the world looked, it was incredible. I even thought that getting to see this was worth spending 7 hours in the emergency room.

There were old-fashioned street lamps in that neighborhood and they, along with the traffic light lights, looked like glowing spheres suspended in murky nothingness.

Often you couldn't see anything except blinking reds and greens in the distance, and passageways indicated by rows of glowing white orbs of light. It was like another world, another universe. And when you could make out odd silhouettes of tree branches it was like a beautiful digital painting.

It was the most surreal experience I've ever had.

Oh, God, you guys, I've been going through hell this weekend.

Emergency rooms, doctors.. Apparently my sore throat was not a sore throat but a Peritonsillar abscess. Yeah, it even sounds bad.

Yesterday morning they stuck needles (AND a scalpel. A FREAKING SCALPEL) down my throat trying to drain it, but I have the worst gagging reflext. After like an hour I couldn't take it anymore, and he said he just needed to check if he got all of it, but I just couldn't, so we came home hoping it was all over, except today I can feel it getting larger in my throat. >.< Will have to go through it all again today and I don't even know if it's going to completely work. Stupid. Fucking. Gagging. Reflext. Also my tongue is abnormally large. Or my mouth too small. Or both.

And, yes, I'm only posting here to complain. Also I felt like you should know. Also my midterms are this week. Don't call because I can't really talk.

[Edit- 7:00 pm]

Wow. I have more self-control that I gave myself credit for.

After cutting the abcess with the scalpel again, he went in with scissors and enlarged the cut o_O I managed to keep my mouth open despite the gagging and the blood gushing into my mouth. YES. PRAISE ME. *cough* But, serously, I know some people can and have endured much worse things, but everything's relative and for me personally this is a big accomplishment. Now I'm happy to be home and spitting blood out all the time.

At least I found out I'm not afraid of or disgusted by blood because I've been spitting out a lot of it, mixed with gross pus, the last two days and I was fine with that part at least.

Also, I'm never using the expression "shoved down the throat" lightly again. Ever.

February

Approaching St. Valentine's I

He was not in a classroom and there was a girl smiling at him.

He was not in a classroom and there was a girl smiling at him, and he hadn’t a clue who she was. Come to think of it, he doubted that she was even in any of his classes from either the past or the recent quarter.

Zach scrutinized the girl. She looked like the cheerleader-sort, from the top of her curly gold head to the bottom of her be-glittered, flared jeans. She was also appeared to be smiling at him expectantly. Zach considered the situation, formulated a hypothesis, and looked over his shoulder.

There was no one else there.

The girl’s smile widened, and Zach regarded her warily. After growing up with five different cousins, three of them female and two of them younger than him, he knew he had a good reason to be nervous whenever a girl smiled at him like that.

“Hi,” she said, apparently coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t about to do anything. “I’m Leslie. Mind if I eat with you?”

“If you would like to,” replied Zach, eyebrows rising with bemusement. “And…nice to meet you?”

“Yeah, nice to meet you,” she grinned, teeth very white and shiny, and set her tray of food down across from him. Zach tried not to stare. It was an unusually chilly day for early February and she was wearing a tank-top. He recalled Mike’s email and wondered vaguely if this girl also came from Minnesota. “So…do you usually come here?”

When my friends haven’t dragged me off elsewhere, thought Zach. “Usually,” he answered, watching the girl toy with her necklace. It was a gold heart. On a chain. He wondered at the cliché symbolism of it. As someone who had trained himself to be watchful of other’s moods and wills, he found the girl’s body language very distracting. It was incredibly loud for something that had no volume, and also incredibly unsubtle even though he still didn’t know what she was trying to get at, exactly.

“So, you’re Mike’s friend, right?” She asked, with a brief upward glance at him, eyes blue through mascara-darkened lashes. Suddenly Zach realized exactly what she was after or rather, who she was after, and bit his tongue.

“Mmph,” he said, attempting a polite, non-committal response.

“Do you, um, know if he’s going out with anyone right now?”

…And there it was.

Zach cleared his throat nervously. It would be so easy to lie, and Mike, no doubt, would appreciate it. Even so, Zach couldn’t quite convince himself that he had the full justification for it. On the other hand, he also knew exactly what Mike’s current opinion was on the female population of this school, and knew that it definitely would not be appreciated if he told the girl that no, Mike was, in fact, not going out with anyone right now. He settled for the most diplomatic answer.

“I don’t think Michael is …currently available right now,” he said carefully.

The girl’s very white and shiny smile wavered only for an instant, but she carried on very smoothly. “Oh…right. Um. What about his other friend. The tall one?”

What an opportunist, thought Zach with some shock. “Nicolas?” he was getting rather good at this. “He’ll probably just show you a picture of his girlfriend. From France.” He added, just to nail the point home, and then some, because he had decided that he didn’t like the What-About-His-Other-Friend-Leslie.

“Er. Oh okay. Thanks.” She picked at her plate which, Zach noted, contained only plain salad, without dressing, and was only about a quarter full. They sat for a few moments in silence.

Now that Zach knew what she was after, and had a fairly good idea of who he was dealing with, he felt no obligation to attempt to carry on the conversation and decided to let the girl fend for herself.

“Um.” The girl attempted finally, giving up. “I’ll see you around?”

Zach, from the nervous sideways glances and the lacing of the fingers, translated: Let’s never, ever bring this up again, okay?

“Okay,” said Zach. “Nice to meet you.”

She gave him another smile, this time with more awkwardness than anything else, and bolted. Later, while leaving the dining commons, Zach passed her, surrounded by a group of her giggly friends, saw her panicked look when she saw him, and decided to be nice and wander the other way.

It was February, the second month of the year. It was February and the number ‘two’ seemed to do strange and unexplainable things to the hormone levels of his fellow students, both genders alike. Zach, thinking over what had just happened, realized that he should get used to it, because this was only his first year at college with his friends, and this way lays all the Februaries of the future.

...

February, recalled Nick, was a time when the female half of the population seemed to get very friendly, in an alarming sort of way. The last two years he had simply avoided the awkwardness by having a girlfriend which, he admitted, was convenient on St. Valentine’s day but, on the whole, proved to be much more than he could handle. He’d wanted the friend part more than the girlfriend part, and unlike her, had had no intentions of settling down and marrying any time within the next two years (que effrayant!). That had ended the progressively more one-sided relationship and Nicolas Lucille thought that he had had quite enough of girls for the time being, thank you very much. Therefore, when the girl with nut-coloured hair who sat across from him during chemistry labs smiled slightly too much and attempted to carry conversations with random (and badly pronounced) French vocabularies mixed in, Nick, recalling that the fourteenth of February was now less than fourteen days away, became somewhat nervous.

But it was either going to the chemistry labs or getting repeatedly marked down for missing and making up more than three late labs, and Nick was a good student which meant that, if nothing else, that he was a dutiful one. So he went to the labs, and was unfailingly polite to everyone, and did his best to avoid being cornered into any conversations that might inevitably lead up to the dreaded date of February the fourteenth. And so when the girl smiled at him over the vapours of strange boiling substances and crystalline gleams of fifty millilitre burettes and asked him if he was busy that weekend he smiled back, painstakingly polite as always, said ‘yes’, and thanked the heavens that he had friends. Male friends. Who have a life and do things on weekends.

He was thankful enough even to feel a mild tolerance at first, when Mike passed by the park and decided that climbing That Tree Over There would be a good idea—a tolerance that quickly diminished when Mike continued to climb up past what Nick was sure to be the safety level of the weight-supporting abilities of the tree limbs…and kept on going. Up.

“Mike, you’re going to break your neck!”

Rustling shadows and scorn, not unmixed with exasperated amusement. “No I’m not.”

“Yes you are!” He tried to peer upwards into the bewildering sway of leaves and millions of tiny suns dancing among the boughs. It was a sunny day and the sun was currently not helping him.

“No I’m not.” Another foot. Nick made an alarmed noise. “Nick, I’m not going to break my neck!”

The branches bending a little more under the unusual pressure, forming perfect bows, graceful even under the strain. Nick would’ve admired them a lot more had he not know and were not worried about the cause of the strain. He actually felt the prickling along the back of his neck, from sheer nerves. “By the time you break it it’ll be too late! Descendres!”

“Non, mère!”

“Um, Mike, that’s high enough now,” suggested Gary nervously, squinting upward.

“Agreed.” Zach took a stand. “Do come down, Mike, and stop abusing that poor tree.”

He stared down at them for a moment, perched precariously on a tree limp, narrow face unreadable, and huffed. “You guys suck.”

“So does gravity,” replied Zach, affably, “And the life of that tree, as of this moment.”

“Since when are you such a tree-lover?” Mike made a face, but he eventually descended the crucial few feet that was causing Nick’s innards to try to take evasive action and sat on a lower branch, dangling his legs and regarding the rest of them with the aggravated look of six-year old who’d just been told that no, he was not allowed to play with matches. “I wasn’t even doing anything!”

“Well…refrais ça et tu es consigné! No…TV, for a week.” Annouced Nick, jokingly. Jokingly, because he knew—and he knew that Mike knew it too—that he hated confrontations and therefore would never be able to carry out his threats, such as grounding his friend, which he wouldn’t know how to do anyway since back at home it was always mother who dealt with his sister when she misbehaved.

Mike stuck out his tongue at him and Nick, always happy with nonverbal arguments, responded likewise.

“They’re so mature,” sighed Gary.

“Teenagers,” agreed Zach sagely, just as Mike started to pick off leaves randomly to flick them at Nick.

Across the street, among the various shops, the increasingly alarming shades of pink continued to appear.

[All romantic details are provided by my various floormates, for this and possibly any of the future posts that may involve romantic details. Muchas gracias, even if they don't read this. Or have any idea that I'm indirectly using the information that they're supplying.]

[edit: 13:00]
Lucy, you're loosing your touch...Kate beat you to the beta-ing. o_O

And right, Kate, I'll ...keep trying. Though the guys that I'm currently living around seem to hug more than what's normal for the general male population, (I'm serious, Molly was complaining about this guy who kept hugging him) but I'm guessing it's another Miller hall thing (I'll just observe the guys at work instead).

[edit: 22:04]
Got it, Lucy. And...I'm really not sure if I should congratulate you on finding my writing mistakes. Something about that doesn't seem quite right, you know? =p

Luna!

They cast Luna ^^



And I actually like her! She just needs a bit darker/more messed up hair, but her eyes are very nice for the role.

Bellatrix (Helen McCrory), Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), Kingsley (George Harris), and Tonks (Natalia Tena) have also been cast. Also some guy for whom there are like no pictures (well, one really bad one) named Robbie Jarvis for young James's role. Some people were all "durr, Dan [harry] should have played his dad" but that would just look SILLY. I'm happy they've cast someone else. There should also be young Sirius (will we finally get a hot sirius? x), Snape, Lupin, and Lily cast sometime soon. Yaaa*starts couging*aaay! Oh and Peter too.

I thought this deserved a separate post:
Get well soon, Lusine! =)

Sick?!

Again?!
What the freak? And now it's my throat. The only thing I hate more than a sore throat is not being able to breath.

Speaking of, you should all be grateful to be effortlessly able to open your mouth wide enough for food to get in.


I seem to be taking over the blog as well. Hope nobody minds. IF YOU DO, POST.

This needs a new post

Even though Fenrir is a "family friend" he wasn't exactly a welcome guest at Draco's birthday parties.

Do I even need to say that this is by Makani?

The little girl is Pansy btw.

This is so weird.

So very weird.

O_O

WHAT

[edit] Won't be deleting the post for the sake of records, but seems like it shouldn't be a big problem to add a class by this Friday. I will hopefully get enrolled tomorrow.
[/edit]

UGH, I AM GOING TO CRY.
FREAKING HELL. UGHHH.

UCLA DROPPED MY HISTORY CLASS BECAUSE I WAS STILL ON THE WAITLIST BY THE FRIDAY OF WEEK 2. MY TA HAD NOT GIVEN ME THE PASSCODE TO ENROLL BECAUSE HE THOUGHT I'D AUTOMATICALLY GET ENROLLED AFTER A COUPLE PEOPLE DROPPED BY NEXT WEEK.

WELL I DIDN'T REALIZE BEING ON THE WAITLIST AFTER WEEK 2 WOULD BE A BIG PROBLEM, WHICH IT IS. I'M A JUST A FREAKING FRESHMAN.

BUT HE SHOULD HAVE. HE FREAKING SHOULD HAVE BECAUSE, AS HE SAID HIMSELF, HE'S BEEN STUDYING AT UNIVERSITY FOR ALMOST 10 YEARS NOW AND WILL GIVE US TIPS TO SUCCEED IN COLLEGE.

I think I should drop the capslock. I don't want to end up with only 10 units =( I also don't want to file petitions and pay money to add the class after the deadline as I seemingly would need to judGing by what info I found online.

Maybe this can still be fixed with a passcode/PTE number. Whatever.

Mew.

January

[Congratulations to Nick, as he wins his first argument. Happy Friday, everyone.
Beta, please, whenever/if you have time, Lucy.]

It took Mike only a second to realise that something’s different about Nick’s side of the room, the perfect maple-hued geometry of student furnishing broken by tidal drifts of papers and pens. It took him a little longer to realize that the ‘something’ was a violin case propped against the corner of the desk, its uncompromising dark contour inexplicable against the bright patch-work of Nick’s bedcovers.

He prodded it, gingerly. The thing was hard and had a certain rakish-air in the defeated scratches that marred its battered surfaces. It spoke of use, but also of musicianship, which made Mike immediately curious, and therefore suspicious. “Is there actually a violin in there?”

“Of course,” replied Nick, looking up from his computer, puzzled. What else could be in there? His face seemed to ask. Mike considered the possibilities and decided he’d rather not think about it. He tried another question.

“Nick, why do you have a violin in your room?”

“I brought it back with me from France because I thought I should practice.” He had the grace to look momentarily guilty. “Occasionally.”

Mike considered what he knew now about the guy who called himself Nicolas Lucille. He considered the violin case, impeccably respectable even when it was propping up the pages of an economy textbook that Nick had abandoned earlier. Something fundamental in Mike’s perception of his friend had gone very much awry and the equation didn’t add up, no matter from which way he looked at it.

“You play the violin?”

“What’s wrong with me playing a violin?” Nick looked even more bewildered.

“Nothing.” Mike considered this new development. “It’s just…wow…okay.”

“I can play it for you right now, if you want,” said Nick defensively, laying the case on his bed and taking out the violin.

It was indeed a violin, Mike noted. Complicated looking thing.

“No, it’s okay, I believe you,” said Mike, just a bit too hastily. He was, he admitted, astonished with this whole violin-business. He wanted time to reconcile the idea of it it with Nick who was, frankly, the one person he’d never thought to associate with a violin, after himself, of course. He also didn’t want to find out just what degree of ‘playing-the-violin’ he was going to be subjected to. At least, not yet. “It’s okay.”

“It’s okay.” Repeated Mike, grey eyes filled with something akin to alarm as he began to edge away none-too-subtly. Nick looked at him.

“You don’t think I can play it?” He asked, secretly hurt. Mike was a great friend, when you get down to the ideal thing that meant friendship, but there were times, parfois—and more frequently, Nick guessed, than he himself could possibly keep track of—where Mike would underestimate him. It was an incident that bore repeating and sometimes Nick would give over to wondering whether the fault was his own or whether Mike made all his friends feel that way—a thought that he’d immediately feel guilty for even considering. Then there were the other times, throwing leaves at each other, Mike bringing up, with a wicked grin, a particular joke that made Zach look oh-so-horrified and Gary surprised, eating ice-cream in December while waiting from the rain to pass, and he’d think that it didn’t matter.

And then there were times like these again.

He put the violin under his chin, placing his fingers carefully, but with great familiarity, into position, the bowstring a pale beam carefully balanced. He saw Mike cringe out of the corner of his eyes and thought that for once, just this once, he would like to prove to Michael Reynolds that… …well, that he was himself, with his own flaws, but also abilities.

So he launched into allegretto, into a piece that was meant to be a triple with viola and cello but sounded just fine with only the violin, and played with cold wind blowing on the back of his neck from the open door which meant, he guessed, that someone had left the building door open again. He did not pay conscious attention to his hands, but to the notes cascading around him, and from long years of practice he made minute adjustments in pressure and angle so that the notes flowed together into something richer than the individual sounds could ever be.

Music was the right tool for this, he realized as he played. It was the perfect thing for someone who was never eloquent when it came to making points and was still struggling with the finer parts of English grammar. Music didn’t need grammar, it spoke for itself across cultures.

He looked at Mike as he played the last notes, guessing that he probably was wearing a rather defiant expression, but not caring very much since he couldn’t have helped it even if he tried. Sudden applauses greeted him from the door way, and he whirled around, startled, blinking at his unexpected audiences who had appeared out of thin air.

Quand ils…?

“Bravo, Monsieur!” Exclaimed Gary, grinning broadly.

“I thought someone was playing a CD,” Zach gave him a two-fingered salute. “I concur, Nicolas, there’s indeed hidden depths to you.”

Beaming, pleased, Nick carefully returned the instrument to its case and performed an exaggeratedly elaborate bow. “Mille merci.” He gave Mike a sideways glance. Mike, he decided gleefully, was recovering. It was not often that he could make Mike speechless (well, the right kind of speechlessness, anyway), and he enjoyed the moment, attempting to guess at what was happening in his friend’s head, underneath all that far-too-independent hair.

“This’s a really nice violin, Nick,” Gary had entered and was examining the instrument with the practiced eye of someone who grew up around valuable things.

“I know,” Nick smiled at the memory. “My father bought it for me when I went to lycée, and Adeline used to cry because I wouldn’t let her touch it.”

“Aww.”

“But as soon as she turned five she decided she doesn’t like violin after all and went for my mother’s flute instead.”

“Nick,” said Mike, still sounding, slightly, as if he had been traumatized. He looked at Nick. “How long have you been playing this?”

Nick thought about it. “I’m not sure, I’ve had lessons for a while. Definitely by the age of ten, I think.”

“That,” said Zach, “is a long time.”

“I liked it.”

“You weirdo,” said Mike, recovered and entirely himself again, but Nick had seen his face and knew that he had won this particular argument and, he thought happily, I didn’t have to argue a single word!

Bringing over his violin was definitely a good move.

Anna, that's terrible. And Lucy...I just...actually I don't really need to say anything, do I?

And besides, the real reason why I'm making an entire new post instead of just sticking on another comment is to wish Anna good luck because I think college's arriving (ha. ha.) so--

Good luck!
Buenas suertes
Bon chance
Udachi (sp?)
Yi lu shun feng

And I don't know how to do it in Polish or German, so you'll have to pretend.

Lame joke time!

I just had to post this:

A thief in Paris planned to steal some paintings from the Louvre. After carefully planning, he got past security, stole the paintings and made it safely to his van. However, he was captured only two blocks away when his van ran out of gas.

When asked how he could mastermind such a crime and then make such an obvious error, he replied:

"Monsieur, I had no Monet to buy Degas to make the Van Gogh."

Oooh!! Oooh!!! My Turn! My Turn!!!

Yay!! So here's my schedule! It's super yummy, color-coded, all-natural, Isis-friendly and math-free! =)

Tentative schedule

My class schedule is pretty much that, I don't think it will change. My work schedule might, but I'll do my uttermost to keep the time frame for Cupertino-traveling free, which, I think, will be my scheduling goal for however many years I'll be here. There. Wherever.

Also. Happy New Year. :-)

January

[You stand warned. This is a continuation of the last part written in exactly the same style with perhaps more error and less sense.]

“Alright,” said Gary, his voice shaking slightly. “Alright.” He pushed his sleeve up to reveal his right arm. “The catalyst? That she cared so damned much about the other people that she let this happen to her own kid!” He dropped his sleeve, his arm, and looked at the others, challenging, daring them to dismiss the four-inch long scar. “Happy now?

“No.” Zach crossed his arms and distractedly drummed his fingers along his upper arm. “How did you break your arm, Gary?”

He threw up his arms. “What is this now, an interrogation?”

Zach waited.

“Rock climbing. My mother was a rock-climbing instructor and she took me rock climbing along with one of her classes. The safety gear broke.”

Mike turned on his heels and walked out. In some ways, thought Zach with a sigh, he could sympathize. He even momentarily experienced the urge of using the It Was An Accident, Get Over It statement. A greater understanding of empathy had him swallowing that treacherous line and admitting that yes, the experience must’ve been horrible and yes, it was, in terms of overall trust, the equivalent of a betrayal. There was still something else though, that bothered him. Something that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.

“Well there goes Mike,” muttered Gary.

“Projects,” suggested Zach blandly. “What did your father do when this happened?” He expected some sort of snide comment, perhaps a refusal to answer now that he was the only one there. What he did not expect was the almost-smile which was, frankly, unnerving.

“Oh he was so mad,” Gary breathed, an almost-awed expression on his face. “I’ve never seen him that mad before.”

“Only child; I can imagine.” Zach pondered this new development

“Noooo,” Gary shook his head. “He divorced her for it.”

Zach’s mouth dropped open, but Gary was off somewhere else, wandering through the pale maze of memory, and did not notice.

“He got so mad that he divorced her, and they had this big fight over my custody. My dad won, of course.” He sounded, thought Zach, aghast, proud. “That woman’s a freaking idealist and didn’t stand a chance in court.” It was almost possible to see another man, older, the famed TV anchor, speaking from behind his son. “He won,” repeated Gary, a puzzled, slightly displeased frown crossed his face. “Come to think of it, I think that’s where he met my stepmum—she’s a lawyer on the case, you know.” And abrupt change of expression occurred. Zach wondered if Gary realized that he was ranting. Better out than in, he thought dazedly. “I don’t know what he wants!” Gary scowled, frustrated. “The college. The double major. The works, you know. What the hell does he want from me?” he finished with a wail.

Dear God, thought Zach.

“How do you know he wants something from you?” asked Zach.

“He’s my parent, of course he wants something from me.”

“Alright, you might have a point there, but have it ever occurred to you that maybe all he wants from you is be happy and healthy?” I mean,” Zach continued, forcing his tone to remain light-hearted with just a touch of dryness. “As cliché as that sounds, it’s actually the case for some parents. All good parents, actually.”

“My dad’s a good parent,” Gary interrupted, hastening to assure Zach, himself, the world.

“If he’s a good parent, then that’s, in general terms, probably what he wants from you.”

“But,” Gary looked confused, paused, and chewed on his lower lip. “But what if it isn’t?” he finished in a small voice.

“Then he’s not as good of a parent as you made him out to be, and you shouldn’t need to worry anyway,” Zach felt like saying, but that had more emotional implications that he could handle. Instead he said, “Ask you father.” He doubted Gary would, but even if he did, his father would not say no to this sort of question. It was the sort of question designed to make a parent grind their teeth, but try to look good anyway. And a TV anchorman such as Mr. Smith was bound to want to look good, even if only to his son, that much Zach was certain. “Look,” he chose his words carefully, knowing that, to some degree, he was destroying many of the fundamental laws which governed Gary’s world. “I know he’s your dad and all that…he’s your parent but…no matter how great we think our parents are, they’re…still human. They make mistakes…they can be wrong. Heck,” he tried a joke. “My mother once mistook a vein-and-artery diagram for a map!”

Gary stared at him. For one desperate, helpless moment Zach wished the others were here, now that the anger’s spent and the problem in the open. Now what Gary needed was comfort. If Nick were there he’d hug Gary as one would a little brother, saying everything’s fine, and be perseveringly cheerful until everything was fine. If Mike were here he’d make fun of everything and that’d be alright too.

Zach sighed, sighed and did the only thing he knew how to do under the circumstances, which was to wait, to respect the privacy and silence until the other person was ready to go on.

“Hrm,” said Gary, eventually, after some very awkward moments during which the two were unwilling to broach the silence. “Food.” His voice grew a little stronger. “I’m hungry, want to go get food?”

“Should I get the others too?” Zach asked softly, silently flicking himself with his fingers just on the inside of his wrist.

Gary looked panicked for a moment. He swallowed, then nodded nervously. “Um. Sure.”

“See you in the DC then, usual spot.” Gary nodded again. Zach took a deep breath and braced himself for the long aftermath would no doubt follow, and its questions, and stepped into the darkening air.

“All hail teen angst and its morbidities,” he muttered to himself, and sighed again.

happy old new year

the weird russians out there understand.

anyway, cousin makes me feel like exploding sometimes 8O

i should never have kids because i might end up strangling them -_- all i do with my cousin is yell at him though. which never helps so i stopped doing that.

>(

Omg, I should NOT be this busy and time-deprived (I did watch HOUSE yesterday though and it was good) on the freaking third day of school.

In a one hour break between classes this morning I completely changed 2/3 of my classes/schedule X_X Now I'm gathering the 10,000 books needed for the mythology class, rearranging stuff, oh and have to return a textbook.

MEEEEP. At least I think the worst is over and at least I'm stable now.

I swear, in high school schedule troubles haunted me once a year BUT NOW IT LOOKS LIKE I'LL HAVE THEM 3 TIMES A YEAR =( Hopefully not every time.

Anyway, schedule:

Hee.

As Lucy Pevensie, you may be quite timid and shy, but your heart is in the right place! You make sure you tell the truth, even if it results in embarrassment.

I love the description for Tumnus:
As Tumnus you may be a bit timid and shy. But you are conscientious, caring and friendly and respected by your friends. You hope to set a new trend with your cool beard.

Quiz is here .

January

[Thank you, Lucy. Here's another one for you to edit, if you're up to it. This's one's definitely going to be longer, for obvious reasons.

Oh and if you can make it obvious where you changed it (different color or something?) that'd be good because it'll make my life a lot easier when I go back to change the copy on my computer. =p]]

Gary Francis Smith turned left to enter the dorm and skidded to a dead halt. Someone walked into him. He thought it was Zach.

“…Gary?” asked Mike.

“Gary!” cried the woman who was waiting in front of the building, dark against the cream-coloured paint, and walked toward him with open arms. Gary experienced the sudden need to get away, took a step backward, and treaded on someone’s foot.

“Nrk,” said someone.

“Um,” said someone else.

“Gary,” repeated the woman, her eyes welling with tears. She took a deep breath and tried to smile, but she was bad at it and a corner of her mouth refused to turn up. Nevertheless she continued to try gamely and said, with horrible, brittle cheerfulness, “And are these your friends?”

Gary thought that he had never hated his mother quite so much after the accident, until that point. There were several things he would have liked to say, none of them appropriate in company, so he settled for saying, curtly, “Yes,” his voice strange and stiff to his own ears.

Her eyes found his and they looked at each other, only for a moment, before Gary deliberately looked away. He stared at the new patches of grass growing in front of the building, blissfully ignorant of everything save the spring sun, and observed that horrible events often happened on beautiful days.

“Hi!” said Nick into the awkwardness, far too enthusiastically. Gary imagined he could feel Mike’s glare and silently admired Nick’s courage.

“I’m Nick,” continued Nick fearlessly. Gary’s mother looked as if she could hug him. “Nicolas Lucille. Nice to meet you.”

“Zachary Dawson,” Zach, standing just to the right of him, offered his hand. “And this’s Mike.”

“Hi,” said Mike, thereby introducing another minute of awkward silence during which everyone became uncomfortably aware of the tense atmosphere. Self-activated explosives could be made from it. It had the particular kind of silence that was associated with things capable of self-combustion.

“I know,” said Gary’s mother brightly, as her smile continued to cling to her face for dear life. “Why don’t we all go out to dinner together? My treat.”

Everyone, subtly or not so subtly, turned to look at Gary. There were many facial expressions that could convey varying degrees of pleasure, but ‘bitter lemon’ was definitely not one of them.

“Er,” Nick started, then hesitated, possibly because Mike had just elbowed him in the kidneys.

“I know the dinner’s nothing compared to what my ex-husband can fork over,” she said almost pleadingly, her eyes remaining on her son. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t go somewhere nice—if that’s what you boys want.” She added quickly.

“Um,” said Mike, as Gary stared off determinedly at a point just above his mother’s right shoulder and looked like the world would crumple to dust before he spoke again.

“Nick and I can’t go,” Zach said suddenly. He cleared his throat and looked slightly embarrassed. “We both have tests coming up that we really should study for.” He glanced at Nick expectantly.

Nick nodded vigorously, trying to appear as if he had long known this and had not, in fact, just heard it.

“Um, right, we should probably go then,” Zach looked down at his watch in a professional, my-God-I’m-having-such-a-busy-day fashion, and gave the woman a harried smile. “Nice to meet you, Mrs…” he paused.

“Smith,” she said.

“Foucault,” said Gary, at the same time.

“Nice meeting you,” repeated Zach, as Nick mumbled something similar, and fled. Behind them, Mike had picked up the cue and was excusing himself for some sort of project from a class.

“Zach, did you just lie?” Nick asked, disturbed, as soon as they were safely out of earshot.

“I do have a test next Monday,” corrected Zach, as Mike joined them. “And I do think I should study for it.”

“Oh.” Nick blinked. “Do I really have a test too, then?”

“Your midterm’s coming up,” Zach reminded him. “You should study for that too.”

“Sneaky,” complained Mike. “That was very sneaky. Why didn’t you say I have a test too? Midterm’s here for everyone, you know.”

“You can cover your own bases,” Zach studied his fingers.

“Hey!” Nick protested. “I can cover my own bases too!” Something nagged at him. “Wait. Wait, what do you mean when you say ‘cover your bases’? I mean I think I know what that means, but I want to make sure…”

“Right,” said Mike, sounding entirely unconvinced.

“Hm,” agreed Zach, dubiously.

“There you guys are!” exclaimed Gary, catching up with them. Zach stopped, hurriedly retraced his steps, and peered around the corner of the building. Gary’s mother was just leaving. She also appeared to be crying.

“Erm,” said Nick, helplessly, and looked uncomfortable.

“Yeah thanks, you guys, for ditching me.” Gary spoke playfully, but anger lingered just beneath the surface. He looked at Zach, who met his accusing gaze calmly.

“But you’re with us now?” Nick looked at Gary hopefully, then wavered at the glowering expression on his face.

Mike did not say anything, but his expression indicated that the not-quite-gone old dislike for Gary was making a fast re-entrance.

“I should go study,” mumbled Nick, fidgeting.

“Good idea,” said Zach, who was still gazing at Gary with an air of maddening patience, as if he was waiting for something. Mike had a you-are-an-unreasonable-brat expression on his face that made Gary ground his teeth.

It was, he thought in a rare moment of insight, not that he was trying to be unreasonable. It was the simple fact that the mere sight of his mother induced such a wave of negative feelings that he by instinct would want to be away at somewhere else. And how could he control such a basic impulse as wanting to leave something unpleasant? Moreover, continued the justified little voice in his head, why would he want to?

“I can’t help it,” he found himself muttering, feeling Mike’s glare burning a hole on his forehead. A whining note crept into his voice. “So stop that!”

“Can’t or won’t?” murmured Zach, giving him an unreadable look that somehow made him think of the psychology class they’d taken together, and the lesson on operant conditioning and phobias.

I hate psych majors, thought Gary with great vehemence.

“What did she ever do to you?” demanded Mike insolently, voice carefully controlled save for the barbed sarcasm which would always run wild. “Aside from, you know, giving birth to you?”

Gary felt himself go very red, then very pale, then red again. There was an odd ringing noise in his ears which told him exactly how furious he was which was, though Gary, even more infuriating because he was made this mad by someone who didn’t understand anything at all.

“Away,” said Zach, and steered them into a deserted lounge. Gary let himself be steered, too angry to notice or care.

“What did she do to me?” He exploded. “What would you know anything about it? I just have something against my mum, alright?” Mike narrowed his eyes. “And don’t look at me like that because I know you don’t always get along with your parents either—and don’t tell me you’ve never had moment where you hated your dad before!”

Mike, who had been turning increasingly brighter shades of pink over the past few moments, went still. Gary, watching the lines of his fists harden, wondered if this was it—that he was going to get popped one and end up in a hospital with a broken nose. A part of him was grimly satisfied at the prospect of the hospital trip.

“Okay. Fine.” Mike gritted out instead. He took a deep breath and asked, with remarkable calm, “What did she do?”

“None. Of. Your. Damned. Business.” Gary bit out.

“There’s more than one,” Zach said, almost to himself. Gary turned on him, oddly angry and oddly appalled. Zach lifted his chin. “But there’s one catalyst, so to speak, of the events, isn’t there?”

“What did she do?” Mike repeated.

Gary swore at him and would’ve turned and left the place except he knew that there was no way he could avoid this now, unless he broke the newly formed friendship completely.

Why thank you mother, he thought bitterly, thank you ever so much for coming the few moments where my life just started to feel right again.

“Gary…” said Zach, carefully.

“Alright,” said Gary, his voice shaking slightly. “Alright.” He pushed his sleeve up to reveal his right arm. “The catalyst? That she cared so damned much about the other people that she let this happen to her own kid!” He dropped his sleeve, his arm, and looked at the others, challenging, daring them to dismiss the four-inch long scar. “Happy now?

January

[Fragment. Also, I don't know anyone who speaks German or Polish, so if anyone who reads this know someone who speaks any of those two languages, has an email, and won't mind me bothering them about it, that'd be really good.]

“I miss Fluffy,” said Mike thoughtfully.

“I find it hard to believe that you never thought to check if ‘Fluffy’ is a girl or a boy,” yawned Zach. Idly he flipped a few pages to see how much he still needed to read--the amount proved too much for him. Zach let his head drop atop of the book with a groan as Nick gave him a consoling pat on the head.

“I found Fluffy on a rainy day by the freeway,” Mike stated with great dignity. “Our companionship has ascended above things like…gender.”

“That sounds wrong,” commented Gary, and quailed when Mike gave him a dark look. Neither had quite forgotten the fact that Mike had started this acquaintance wanting to punch Gary’s face in yet.

“How nice,” said Nick, curious. “Did you seriously find her-him-," he managed to hit the right word on the third try. "-It by the highway?”

“No Nick,” Mike replied sarcastically. “I’m making it all up.”

“Just asking,” Nick grumbled.

“Right,” he tapped a pencil against his hand. “It was when I moved in Minnesota and we just got all the furniture in the new house and I thought I’d, you know, get to know the neighbourhood…”

“In the rain?”

“Yeah well…” Mike hunched a shoulder. “Anyway. The house was pretty close to the freeway—” Someone made a disbelieving noise. Mike ignored it. “And there was this box, half-closed, sort of, and I wanted to see what was in it. So I opened the box and there was this puppy…”

“Aww,” said Gary and Nick, at the same time.

Mike threw down his pencil, crossed his arms, and scowled. “That’s it. I’m not telling the story anymore.”

“That’s so cute!” Gary grinned at Nick, who grinned back. “Puppy love. Literally. Aww.”

Mike made a snarly noise deep in his throat and looked about him for something he could safely throw. His friends realized that scaled on experience, Mike was at the level where he was capable of inflicting bodily injuries.

“Right, Um,” Nick stepped into the fray, eager to divert the tension. “That was a nice story, Mike. What?”

Mike stopped glaring and sighed, appealing to who he hoped to be, if not the person of sanity, then at least the person of reliable reasonableness. “Zach?”

“Mmph?”

“Did you ever have a pet?”

“I had—” Zach stopped, removed his face from the book, and tried again. “I had a fish. What?”

“Nothing. I thought…you’d be more of a cat person. Seriously, fish?”

“His name’s Carl,” Zach said fondly, lost in reminiscence. “He ate the other fishes.”

“Um. That’s…nice,” hedged Gary.

Nick and Mike exchanged an I-don’t-understand-him look.

“I had a fish too,” volunteered Nick. “But I didn’t name it.”

“Did it eat other fishes too?” Zach inquired with some interest.

“No, it’s just a…a normal poisson rouge.”

“Goldfisch,” said Gary sagely, nodding.

“Bor-ring,” Mike made a derisive noise. “Was that German?” He asked Gary, who grinned.

“Aber, ja,” said Gary. “Ja także mówią niektóre Język polski. And language tutors are evil.”

Nick looked impressed, Mike annoyed. Gary, after realizing that an annoyed Mike was one that he should pay careful attention to, flailed about wildly for a change in conversation.

“It all sounds like gibberish to me,” Zach said bracingly. “Do you have any pets, Gary?”

“They’re more of family pets than mine,” admits Gary, “but, let’s see…” He ticked off the names on his fingers. “There’s Larry, he’s the closest thing to my own pet I guess—he’s a nine-month old lizard—actually a Water Dragon. Then there’s Daisy—oh Larry’s green—yeah, and Muffy, Oliver, and Snowbell, those are the family cats. We also have two dogs, Buddy and Sparky; Buddy’s the older one—he’s almost four, I think.”

Silence greeted his words, Gary fidgeted, suddenly realizing that listing all the pets was not a good idea. He should’ve stuck simply to Larry instead—he actually took care of him, occasionally.

“Wow,” said Zach, searching for something mild to say. “That’s…quite a family.”

[I don't know if it'll be longer or this's it. We'll see.]

January

[There's something very disturbing about the thought of a cat drowning its grief in alcohol, Lucy.
Very cute picture though.

Oh yes. This post's also written from before, never posted.]

January

There was such thing as hate as first sight. Or perhaps that was too strong a word. It was, to be accurate, a feeling more along the lines of an almost irrepressible urge to punch the guy's face in. But, once again, 'almost' was the key word that signalled to him that his self control could and therefore probably would win.

Mike felt his fists unclench almost regretfully.

A foot away from him, Zach slid him a sideways glance, then nodded at the guy he was speaking to. "See you tomorrow," he said, and the guy smiled—no, smirked, really, and left.

"I don't like him," announced Mike.

Zach gave him another sideways glance. "You don't like a great many people."

"I really don't like him," insisted Mike. "It's one of those things you know…" he paused, "Okay, maybe you don't know. But I wanted to punch his face in."

"I’m glad you didn’t,” said Zach mildly.

Mike rolled his eyes. Really, Zach wouldn't know. For someone who was male and eighteen, Zach displayed an appalling lack of violent tendencies. "Who's he, anyway?"

"For your information," Mike rolled his eyes again. Zach was using that particular tone that he employed when he thought Mike was being bad-mannered. It managed to convey the feelings of You-Should-Act-More-Politely with every syllable. Mike didn't know how he does it. "His name's Gary and he was in my general psychology class."

"I feel sorry for his future victims," said Mike darkly. He had had bad experiences with psychologists before, and he thought he could guess very accurately what sort of psychologist that this Gary person would turn out to be.

Zach gave him a slightly disapproving frown, having, despite of his claims, not completely given up on the issue of courtesy with Mike yet. "Actually, I think he's an economy and business double-major. He's intelligent." He added unnecessarily.

"Whatever, I still don't like him," said Mike stubbornly.

Zach muttered something under his breath.

The next time he saw Gary was during lunch, unexpectedly. He'd been expecting to meet Zach for lunch…well, not so much 'meet' as dropping in on Zach's mind-numbingly predictable schedule. However, mind-numbing took on another meaning when he saw Nick and Zach eating lunch with the said Gary person. He was considering whether or not to just turn on his heels and walk out, paid lunch fee or no, when Nick saw him. Naturally everyone else saw him too, and there was nothing for him to do except to stay for lunch with the rest of them.

The lunch confirmed his initial dislike for Gary. The guy was rich, and snobby about it, he was shallow and his withering politeness could be as rude as Mike himself could be without pretence—and the guys did it for fun. He was prejudiced without being decisive, and experienced without being wise. It was easy to tell from Nick's expression that he didn't think so well of Gary either, and Mike found himself wondering just what had gotten into Zach for even conversing with this sort of person.

They didn't like him, even an idiot could figure that out and Gary, for all that he had considered himself to be at one time or another, was not an idiot.

He felt almost sorry for Zach, who was doubtlessly trying to help. He doubted, however, that Zach knew that his current state was a direct consequence resulting from a series of conscience decisions made by him. Idly he wondered if Zach would still be so interested if he told him that once, in the private school that he went to in Ontario, he'd gotten into trouble for picking a fight with the nerds. He won, of course, and because of his father's wealth he never got into serious problems either. His records were golden, untouchable. Sure it wasn't like that because of anything that he did, directly, but no one else knew that.

"…I wonder if the country would actually turn out to be a lot better if an economists's in charge of it," Zach was saying, thoughtfully. This geek in particular had a perchance for strange tangents.

"Sure," he answered with a loftiness that had become a second nature to him, "We'd have a lot less problems. 'Money is the ultimate source of joy,' I always say." Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the other two guys, Mike and Nick, exchange a look.

Good for them, like he'd care what they thought of him. He knew their types too: the fob and the punk-wannabe—no doubt that both of them were pretty enough so that there were girls both secretly and not-so-secretly stalking them. Their ego could be as every bit as bad as he could be—for different reasons, too. The hypocrites. He stabbed the green bean on his place viciously.

"I disagree," said Zach, carefully. "Though I'll admit that in today's world money ended up as pretty much the end of most of the happiness around there are things that still exist despite of it. I mean, if you want to get down to the idea of happiness itself, philosophically, it has very little to do with …monetary values."

Philosophically? That qualified as a word deserving to be made fun of, in Gary's rules.

"Well that's just very 'philosophical' of you." He replied, mimicking Zach's trace of British accent. Zach coloured faintly. "Also very idealistically impractical and geeky, just so you know."

"I'm going to go to class now," said the guy, Mike. He gave Nick a look. Gary wondered if they were always so unsubtle about it.

"Um, right. Class," mumbled Nick, getting up too.

"See you, Zach," said Mike, pointedly ignoring Gary, then left. Nick offered them—more at Zach than at him, Gary noticed—a weak sort of smile and left too, hurrying after Mike.

"Bye," said Zach, doing a reasonable job of maintaining the This-Doesn't-Bother-Me appearance. He turned to Gary, "I'm sorry, but—"

"Oh, I just remembered, I have a class too," said Gary. He did, but it was so easy that he usually opted to skip it and do something else instead. However, something here was bothering him and he rather thought he could use some of the teacher's boring lecture as background music while he sorted it out. "Bye Zach!"

"I don't like him," Nick confided to Zach, hoping that he wouldn't offend his friend. "I mean sometimes he just says things…that're …you know…" he made a vague hand motion.

Zach smiled wanly. "It's okay. Mike doesn't like him either. Most people don't."

He always knew his friends were a little strange, but this was bordering unexplainable. He stared at Zach.

"What can I say," said Zach with a quiet laugh. "I'm just masochistic that way."

“Um, right,” Nick mumbled, then looked down at where Zach’s sitting, leaning against one of the bookshelves. In a very secluded corner of the library. Where he’d been going to for most of the past week. “Zach, has anyone been bullying you?” He thought about it. “Do you want me to beat them up?”

“What?” Zach looked up at him, bewildered, then immediately amused. “No, no. I’m here for my term paper. This entire shelf,” he made an expansive gesture over his head and banged his hand against the edge of a shelf. “Ow. Is on psychology, dedicated to Freud. Though,” he continued, with slightly raised eyebrows, “I’m surprised you know what the word ‘bullying’ meant, let along offering a solution. A very violent solution. Honestly, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“I have hidden depths,” said Nick knowledgeably, ruffling Zach’s hair and cheerfully ignoring the accompanied muttering.

It took a bit more money to procure him a singles room in a college dorm, especially in the newest dormitory building, but then, money was never an issue for him and never would be, and for the down periods he experienced regularly, he considered every cent of that money well spent.

Gary laid in bed, ipod plugged into his ears, and stared listlessly at the ceiling. He waited for the questions to end because he knew they would always end, if he ignored them long enough.

Was it, or was it not his mother's fault, for instance? If she had been a little less philanthropically concerned about the others and little more concerned about her own kid none of this would've happened. He probably wouldn't even be at where he was right now. He'd be a lot happier, for one thing.

The woman deserved the divorce. Granted, the new lady wasn't exactly the top of the game, but she was pretty and she could talk which, surmised Gary, was probably all that the opposite gender was capable of, besides being overly and uselessly idealistic and philanthropically concerned about even more useless things.

The better part of him disagreed, but he had gotten so good at ignoring it that what it said never registered as more than a moral background noise.

With his left hand he worried the long scar on his right arm, rubbing the thumb across the puckered tissue, back and forth, back and forth. He would never like rock-climbing again. The fact that now he had an almost phobic fear of heights was also her fault.

It took him a few moments to realize that someone was knocking on the door. It took him a few moments longer for him to stop pretending that his ipod was on and decide to respond.

"BUSY!" He shouted, with just enough annoyance injected into it to make it sound genuine.

The knocking stopped.

"Gary," came Zach's voice, muffled by the door. "You're the one who called for a review session today, at this time, and the test is tomorrow. If you prefer not to—"

He yanked open the door. Zach, on the other side, took an involuntary step back before entering, tentatively. If he thought anything about the Armani clothing and the expensive gadgets lying around the room, he kept it to himself. "Quiz each other?" he suggested, holding up his notebook.

"Sure, let me get my notebook," muttered Gary. His cell phone went off. "Oh my f—" He fumbled for the phone. "Hey."

His father. Damn him for his sense of timing. There were a lot of things that he wanted to point out as his father ranted at him, but he was very conscience of the someone else who was in the room, watching him.

As if picking up his cue, Zach scribbled "I'll be in the lounge" on the last sheet of his notebook, showed it to Gary, and left quietly, closing the door behind him. Gary waited a few seconds and checked to see that Zach had actually left before turning his full attention to the phone in his hand.

It was always like this. Conversations between him and his father were always like this and would always end like this, with neither side satisfied. He shouldn't talk to people—he shouldn’t be near people after a down period, after a row with his father but, as always since the habit had formed, he picked the more reckless route and stormed into the lounge.

Zach looked at him, one eyebrow slightly raised by otherwise asking no questions.

"Okay," said Gary. "Study session time."

"Will you stop trying to get me to like him already!" demanded Mike, annoyed. "He's a snob and a bastard and I want nothing to do with him, which part of this don't you understand?"

"Understanding isn't part of the problem," said Zach, dryly, and Mike groaned at his literal interpretation of things. Zach paused, "Well, maybe it is, but not in the sense you mean."

"And what is the sense that I meant?" asked Mike with biting sarcasm.

Zach ignored him. "If I do recall correctly…" Mike snorted. Zach knew his own little memory tricks and did, on occasions, show off. "…If I remembered it right," repeated Zach, his tone going even drier, "When we first met, you are not exactly the gentleman either."

"I am," Mike reminded him, "Still no gentleman."

The corner of Zach's mouth twitched. "True, but you've gotten better about it." He paused again, then gave Mike the Serious Look, "You've changed, Michael, I don't know if you're aware of it or not…"

"Oh I am," muttered Mike. He often wondered when the changing would stop, if it ever would, and then where he'd end up. It was a worrying thought and one that he had tortured himself with, over and over again. "Believe me, I am."

"Right," said Zach amiably. "People change."

"What's your point?"

Zach hunched his shoulders. The movement filled Mike with foreboding because he only did that when he was about to say something that he thought Mike wouldn't like, and in most cases, he'd be right.

"It's just…" said Zach, finally, "We should be a bit more…sympathetic…"

Mike snorted. "Sympathy? For him? You must be kidding me."

"Don't assume that everything's rosy and perfect just because you can't see the problems," retorted Zach.

"What problems?" Mike bit out.

"Ever considered," began Zach with a sort of calmness that Mike knew, from experience, meant that he was annoyed. "The possibility that the reason you don't like him is because you see too much of yourself in him?"

Instinctive denial. Instincts for when he would not rather think about things, for when the nagging premonition told him that truth is a far-shot away from favourable. "Me? Look, this is going too far."

"Hardly, I was under the impression that we're going around in circles." Zach gave him a worried grin. "Give the guy a chance…he's got this entire…different personality built up, on top of something else that shows through…only occasionally…"

"Got him drunk, then psychoanalyzed him, have you?"

"No!" Zach looked horrified, then sheepish. "Well, I did took advantage of the time when he was mentally exhausted…. We had a study session for econ the other day, and ended up staying pretty late…"

"You can't stay up late," pointed out Mike. Very realistically, he thought.

"I'm actually not that bad, provided that I got enough sleep the day before." Said Zach, and sighed. "Well, that's that, I suppose…."

To say that the atmosphere was uncomfortable would be an understatement, but to give his friends (namely Mike) credit, no food had intentionally gone anywhere besides into mouths. It could, on many levels, be a lot worse.

Zach picked at his food and thought desperately of some way to continue the …nonexistent conversation. He tried not to sigh. As someone who more or less cruised along in other people's conversations, trying to maintain his conversation always took up considerable effort. Neither Mike nor Nick were about to jump in at any point, that was certain, and Zach, in the awkward seconds that marched past, found himself thinking about the weather.

"Right, I have to go. Class." Said Nick, and excused himself. Zach looked at Mike, silently reminding his friend that he knew his schedule and that he expected him to stay seated. Mike opened his mouth.

"So did your father ever get over the midwinter-plane-ride?" Zach asked blandly, performing the equivalent of kicking his friend under the table, except with words.

Mike glared at him. "I don't know," he said scornfully. "Hard to tell, see, since we're not on speaking terms."

"I thought he called you fairly recently," Zach lifted an eyebrow. He glanced at Gary out of the corner of his eye. The guy was definitely listening, at least.

"Yeah, we talked, but you know, there's this difference between talking and actually saying something?"

"But—"

Gary laughed. It wasn't a particularly happy sort of laugh, and for the lack of any other accurate emotionally descriptive words, it sounded bitter. However, it was still laughter, and Mike and Zach stared at him.

"Sorry, it's just…" he snorted, "I know how that goes. You're both talking and neither one's saying anything…"

"…and you end up going in circles and never really get anywhere." Finished Mike, slowly.

"Exactly," said Gary with another laugh. "Oh God oh God…my dad's hopeless."

Zach answered Mike's incredulous look with a blank one. Of all of his pet peeves, Mike hated the I-told-you-so statements the most.

"Chocolate?" offered Gary, digging out a very nicely wrapped bar from his backpack. "Chocolat de France, importé."

"Merci vraiment." Nick grinned and accepted a piece. "I missed some of the chocolates from back home, you know. France has the best chocolates."

Mike made a face. "Just because you're French doesn't mean that France's got the best of everything."

"Bulgarian chocolate's pretty good," said Gary. "Really good. Hmm, remind me, I'll get some next week."

"Gary, Nick's addicted to chocolate, I think," said Zach solemnly. "You really shouldn't encourage him."

"Don't listen to him," instructed Nick. "Besides, chocolate's good for you."

"Up to a certain amount, that is," muttered Zach.

"Addictions are fun," commented Mike, finishing off his piece of chocolate. "You really should try it sometimes, Zach."

"What, you don't think I'm insane enough as is?" Zach asked with mock surprise.

"Good point," conceded Mike. "What d'you think, Gary?"

"I find myself wondering why we're not all in an insane asylum," Gary grinned at Zach. "Maybe they haven't caught us yet."

"Maybe the world's insane," suggested Zach.

"We know it is," Mike reminded him.

"Oh, that's right," agreed Zach. "Well, jolly good."

Gary and Mike exchanged a look. Zach occasionally had very interesting relapses in his speech pattern. Between him and Nick, there wasn't a lot to choose from.

"So exactly what's insane?" prompted Nick.

"Everything," said Mike.

And that could be philosophically, if not politically, correct too.

[If it made it even more detailed it would've gone on...for ever and ever and ever, so I mostly shortened it in honor of reconstructive memory.]

My Happy New Year Post

My cat and I wish you a very happy New Year!
(And I didn't make her sit there)