March: The Wedding, Part II

[I found the quote at random and thought it's too funny to not share. ]

Three memories, one search, lots of worries, and one revelation.

ALTAR, n.
The place whereupon the priest formerly raveled out the small intestine of the sacrificial victim for purposes of divination and cooked its flesh for the gods. The word is now seldom used, except with reference to the sacrifice of their liberty and peace by a male and a female tool.
-The Devil’s Dictionary

As someone who had always dreamed of flying, airplanes in general had never ceased to be a source of disappointment for Nick. Vrai, he was in the air, among and usually above the clouds. And it was also true that by all technical definitions he could be said to be flying. But that was the problem, wasn’t it—the technicality. Distinctions between the finer points of logic and definition had never been his forte when his instinct and feelings were always claiming the first priorities.

So, even though by most things that counted Nick could say he was flying he was also, by his feelings, sitting in a sealed metal box at a height that most birds, being sensible and capable of actual flight, preferred to avoid.

Nick’s stomach churned (though that may also be because he hadn’t eaten anything that day yet, since that it was only ten and he was not in the habit of eating early breakfasts). Also, speaking of feelings, he was, between the cramped seats that were not designed to comfortably accommodate tall people and the weight of his backpack, loosing all the feelings in his legs. He was a bit worried about what would happen when he needed to do things such as, say, get off the airplane, but this was only a passing concern.

Next to him Gary was dozing, ipod still plugged into its ears, a tiny wasp humming away on its own. If he listened very carefully he could just make out the faint refrains of music. Zach was on the other side of Gary and appeared to be completely absorbed in a book.

Nick would’ve brought a book too, if he didn’t know that he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on it at all, this early and while he was on his way to Minnesota.

Minnesota? Mon Dieu! Moi?

“Hey Zach,” he tried to whisper over Gary’s head without waking him. “Did Mike call you yet?”

Zach looked up, an eyebrow raised half in amusement and half in curiosity. “ ‘Yet’ as in…?”

“Within the last day?” Nick tried to shift himself into a more comfortable position. Something in the vicinity of his neck cracked. It sounded interesting, but not particularly good.

“Yeah, to check to see if I’m getting on the right plane, I think he thinks I’m directionally challenged.” Zach made a face. “You?”

“I think he was trying to warn me about terrorists.” Nick paused, recalling the conversation. “Or else he’s threatening me with them. Can’t really tell.”

“Knowing Mike,” commented Zach, “It’s probably both. Don’t ask me how he manages—can’t tell you because I don’t know myself.”

Nick sighed. “Mike’s Mike.”

“Mike’s Mike,” agreed Zach, and went back to his book.

Nick breathed in. The air was thick and a little cottony on the tongue, another consequence, like the not-quite-right air pressure, of being in a sealed metal container. Outside tiny puffs of clouds floated in an ocean of blue, green, and brown. Everything felt less real here, at this height, surrounded by the grayed out air and the tiny mosaics that were the cities.

It was a nice day, thought Nick. It was a nice day and despite of all possible misgivings, it was a relatively nice trip. The whole thing could’ve been fun, in the sense of a first-time long distance traveling with friends, if he didn’t know how Mike felt about it, or if his concern didn’t weigh so heavily in his mind.

Nick took another deep breath, pulling the strange, stuffy air into his lungs, and looked outside the window again.

“You will be arriving at Saint Paul International Airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in approximately thirty minutes,” said the cheerful voice of a flight attendant, over the comm.

***

It was easy to see from the male female ratio in the room which half of the newlyweds had invited more guests. Not that Gary had anything against this, in principal. It was simply that when the general dancing part of the wedding began, he was expected to act a “gentleman” (whatever that meant) and had to agree to dance with any random female who had asked him to.

Across the room, Nick wasn’t fairing much better. Zach had, most likely, snuck away somewhere and was currently in hiding. Gary didn’t blame him. Not exactly. He just wished he’d thought of it himself soon enough so that he wouldn’t be stuck here, being twirled around and around to the sound of out-of-date music.

The music ended and the woman, who looked to be at about mid to late twenties, smiled and thanked him.

“No prob,” said Gary, and quickly retreated before he could get waylaid by another female.

The noise level of a room full of people at a wedding was not to be underestimated, Gary realized as he walked further and further away from the room, pretending to be looking for the restroom. Nor was the general quality of air pollution. It was either that or something psychological, but breathing was much easier when the number of people within ten feet of you was gradually reduced to three, to two, and finally, to zero.

He found Zach sitting by himself in the mostly deserted reception area, chin in hand and staring at the outside. Gary wondered how long he’d been sitting there.

“Hey.”

Zach started and gave Gary the look of someone who’d traveled a long way with his body and had left his mind somewhere behind him. “Er?”

“How long’d you been sittin here?”

“Oh,” Zach sighed. “I dunno. The wedding’s still going on, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Now that he was no longer surrounded by people Gary felt, for the first time, how tired he was. Ceremonies of any kind seemed to drain him of all energy and leave him with no motivation to do anything except, maybe, to crawl into bed and sleep for day. He yawned. “How come you aren’t dancin’ in there? We’re short on guys, y’know?”

“I don’t dance,” Zach said, studying his shirt cuffs and adjusting them.

“Uh-huh,” said Gary, and then, when Zach didn’t respond, “Coward.”

Zach eyed him, catching him in mid-yawn. “No argument there.”

“They’re not that bad, the people.”

“Right. And that’s why you’ve yawned three times in the past five seconds? Oh, fourth time now.”

“Alright,” admitted Gary. “Maybbe they’re pretty bad—but you’re missing a wedding!” He paused. “That didn’t really convince you, did it?”

“No, not really.” Zach smiled at him fondly, as Gary yawned for the fifth time. “But good try.”

“There you guys are!” Exclaimed Nick. “Some friend, leaving me there all by myself.” He paused and regarded them with narrowed eyes, suspicious. “Are you guys hiding?”

“If we are,” replied Zach, grinning, “Then there’s always room for one more.”

Nick grinned back. “Okay.” He sat down and heaved an enormous sigh. Zach gave Gary an amused look that said “Not that bad, eh?” and Gary shrugged.

It all depended on the person, he supposed, and he was fast arriving at a conclusion that wedding ceremonies, in general, were hosted more for the benefit of the female half of the population than the male half. That would at least explain why every wedding he’d ever been to looked like it got attacked by a mob of crazed florists.

“Where’s Mike?” asked Nick, peering around them as if expecting someone to suddenly materialize from out behind a chair.

“Pardon?” Zach sat up straighter and gave him a confused look. “I thought he’s still in the room with…well, he was in the room with you,” he amended, “wasn’t he?”

Nick stared back at him, blue eyes wide. “Uh, no. I don’t think so? I haven’t seen him for the past half an hour.”

Oh no, said a voice in Gary’s head, no no no no no.

“I don’t remember seein him there for the past half an hour either.” He said slowly, as both Nick and Zach turned to look at him. No no no no no.

“No one’s came out this way for the past thirty, forty minutes except you two,” said Zach.

All three of them jumped to their feet at the same time.

“We have to check,” said Nick, a note of panic already creeping into his voice. “Back in the room. Maybe we just missed him.”

Gary forced a laugh. “Yea, maybe he’d just decided to hide somewhere in the room. Not that I’d blame him.”

“Wait,” said Zach suddenly. “What if he isn’t in the room and is somewhere around outside of room, or leaves the room while we’re there? We need someone out here too, just in case.”

Gary and Nick looked at each other.

“Alright,” Gary decided, “You can stay here. Got your cell?”

Zach opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded. “I’ll check around the entire floor, too.”

“Right,” said Nick, who was balanced on the balls of his feet. “Well, see you.”

They hurried back to the room. Which was exactly like when Gary left it to the extent that he sighed with relief and scanned the crowd, automatically expecting that just out of the corner of his eye he’d catch the familiar figure, that Mike would show up, if he just looked one inch more to the left.

Nick met his eyes, looking considerably less calm than he was even five seconds ago. “I can’t find him.”

“We’ll try again. Maybe he’s just in a corner somewhere we can’t see.” Gary ran a hand through his hair nervously. He couldn’t count on Nick on being level-headed, he knew, especially when one of his friends was missing and if the missing friend happened to be Mike. “Split the room. I’ll go through the left side an’ you do the right an’ we’ll meet there in the center,” he pointed, “where that giant vase thing is.”

“Alright,” agreed Nick, swallowing. “Alright.”

They split and went through the crowd again, this time physically. With dressed up adults pressing in on every side and the general chatter crowding his hearing and the glitter of far too many sparkles of artificial lights and crystal glasses he wanted to scream. Especially if he had to say “Excuse me” one more time. They met in the center and Gary could tell, by the expression on Nick’s face, that he had not found Mike and knew from the panicked expression that gradually infused his friend’s face (Nick had never been much good at hiding his feelings) that the same expression must be on his.

“What do we do?” asked Nick, took a deep breath, then repeated the question as if he thought if he kept asking it long enough, a solution would present itself. “What do we do? What do we do? What—”

“Shuddup,” Gary said, in as kindly a way as possible, and exhaled sharply. “Alright, he’s not in the room, we checked all the corners and went through the entire crowd,” Nick nodded, “So—” A cellphone went off. They looked at each other, startled. “Yours,” said Gary.

Nick dug through his pockets. “Hey.” Zach, he mouthed to Gary.

“No,” he said into the cellphone, looking progressively twitchier. “Oh. Right. Okay. See you. He said he’s been keeping a watch on the door and that no one’s came out,” he explained to Gary, somewhat dazed. “And asked if we found Mike inside yet, and I told him ‘no’ and he said he’ll check the first floor really quickly and meet us just outside of the door in a few minutes.”

“ ‘kay,” said Gary. “Let’s…we can…oh…uh…oh crap I hate this,” he muttered, unnecessarily, then gave Nick a wane smile. “Sorry. Wanna check through the room again?”

***

Zach reminded himself to not to panic. It had been almost thirty minutes already. Granted, it was a big hotel, but between the three of them, running through the corridors at full speed and scaring the staff, it did not take that long to cover the two hundred and something rooms and all the crannies, minus the obvious places Mike would not be found at, such as in the dining room, where all the people were.

He paused by the top floor, winced at the pain in his side, and forced himself to take deeper breaths. Gary had checked over this section already. They had checked everywhere and now were switching locations and rechecking, a headshake, a lift of the chin, and the flash of panic in their eyes all the message they needed to communicate: No, no luck here, you?

Leaning against a door, Zach rested his hand against the random door knob behind him and twisted, more out of the need to find something to do with his hand than anything, and nearly fell when the door opened unexpectedly. He stared at the doorknob, at the stairs beyond, at the sign which said: “OPEN ROOF ACCESS, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.”

Well, Mike was never quite on the same line with the authorities, was he?

“Figures,” muttered Zach to himself, checking his cellphone, checking the corridor, deserted at this time of the night where the others who had the option had left for better things. He also tried to check the stairs for recent signs of activity and after admitting to himself that he was no Sherlock, Zach quickly stepped behind the door and almost-shut it behind him.

Even the stairs to clean the rooftops were fitting of a four-starred hotel: clean and no chipping paint, nor dust to indicate whether someone had passed by earlier. Zach emerged unto the room top, half fenced and half open and felt a moment of relief that Mike was not here before he spotted the lone figure sitting at the edge of the roof. At the edge. No fences.

Zach took a deep breath, because he remembered somewhere that high levels of carbon dioxide caused anxiety and oxygen helped people relax. He took another deep breath because it helped, and thought, slightly hysterically, that it was a good thing that it was dark so no one would be able to see and wonder at the sight of a boy in a suit, sitting at the edge of the roof.

He took a step forward, his foot connecting with a coke can that some thoughtless custodian had left behind, possibly the only piece of trash in this hotel that was not neatly disposed in a trash can. Mike glanced back, face shadowed, the pointedly turned back around and Zach was left with an overwhelming sense that he Should Not Be Here.

He was there, however, and what he should be doing was to tell Mike that he needed to grow up, to stop sulking, and to go down and deal with it and how everyone was worried about him. That was what he should do, what he needed to do. That was what he could not do. What Zach wanted to do was find someone else, anyone else, who could tell him what to do, at a time like this. Someone else to point him the way across the proverbially thin ice, so he would no longer need to tentatively step forth, guarded by carefully tailored words and instincts only, because no amount of formulae and books could prepare a person for the real life, when it became too real.

But that was what it was all about, wasn’t it? The difference between psychology and mathematics. The lack of certainty and formulas where things were never equal and instincts a necessity. Instincts. In psychology, in life, instincts all boiled down to one thing, one decision: of choosing whether or not to care.

And Zach discovered that the choice was an easy one, after all—one that he’d made a long time ago, that one day at the bus station where a grey-eyed boy had mistakenly called him ‘Jonathan.’

With that in mind, he said, making his voice light with only a touch of wry humour. “I swear, Mike, that you were a cat or a bird or something in your previous life, because I can find no other explanation for this apparent height-obsession of yours.”

***

L'Eternel est mon berger. Je ne manquerai de rien.

Nick felt like he had been through this part of the hotel so many times that he could walk through it blindfolded.

They still had not found Mike yet.

Grâce à lui, je me repose dans des prairies verdoyantes, et c'est lui qui me conduit au bord des eaux calmes.

It had been nearly an hour of searching. Where could he be?

His cellphone went off. It was Gary, checking in. Nick had been, he admitted to himself, somewhat upset (and if he were completely honest with himself, he would also admit that he was still upset), which was only understandable since one of his friend had gone missing on the day of his father’s wedding. Zach had, it seemed, felt sorry for him when they decided to split up for further searches and suggested that they try to check in with each other every five minutes—which sounded like a good idea at the time, except no one expected to be receiving this many disappointments. And no one had thought about what it would be like to have your hopes up every five minutes, waiting for the cellphone to ring, only to be disappointed again and again and again. Nick felt slightly sick in his stomach as he picked up the phone, but was unable to stop the surge of hope that maybe, must maybe—

“Haven’t seen him,” said Gary, simply and without preamble. Nick no longer felt sick in his stomach. He didn’t think he had a stomach anymore. It went into hiding somewhere, in a better world where it didn’t have to perform continuous gymnastics.

Il me rend des forces neuves, et, pour l'honneur de son nom, il me mène pas à pas sur le droit chemin.

He hoped that at least Mike’s dad wouldn’t ask after Mike before they found him, because—

“An’ I’ve gone through downstairs an’ through the Room again, an’ Mike’s dad’s asked me if I’ve seen Mike.”

Horrifyingly optimistic, Nick reminded himself. I am horrifyingly optimistic. His cellphone made another noise. “Alright. Hanging up now, Zach’s calling.” That was another error in Zach’s planning. Two people calling him at the same time generally did not work out very well.

Except so far that was not a major problem, because their terse conversations over the phone were seldom longer than three sentences, and often no longer than what was necessary for a proper negation.

“Hey.”

“Mike’s with me,” said Zach, “and we’re coming down to the first floor. Meet you in front of the Room?”

They’d found Mike.

Oui, toute ma vie, ta bonté et ton amour m'accompagneront….

“Mike’s with you?” Nick repeated, almost stupidly. Mike’s with you? Where the hell was he? What was he doing?

“Yeah, he’s here right now, want to talk to him?” A different voice. Mike’s voice. Spoken away from the cellphone and with a great deal of irritation. “What? Aren’t we gonna see them in like, two seconds anyway?” Some muttered comment from Zach. “Okay fine.” Then, to Nick, over the phone, “Hey. Heard you’re worried about me?”

Quel con! “Where were you?” His head ached. His head ached and he abruptly just found out where his stomach was in a very surprising and unpleasant way. He felt like he ought to yell at Mike except, as always, he was too relieved to do so.

“In the hotel.” Zach said something that Nick didn’t catch. “Shuddup,” Mike muttered back. “Where were you?”

“I—” He turned the corner and saw Mike and Zach standing there with Gary. Gary gave a little wave. Mike lifted his chin by the way of a greeting and closed the cellphone, handing it back to Zach.

The lamps in the hallways were lit, long rows of light stretching either way. A few people who were standing near the entrance to the Room looked at them curiously for a moment, then looked away again, bored and more occupied within the orbital of their own lives.

They stood around for a moment, after the initial panic and the subsequent rush of searches, suddenly awkward with each other, not knowing what to say. Nick felt like he ought to say something—knew that he had plenty to say, that he wanted and should say—but, as usual, he lacked the proper words to say them.

It wasn’t even an issue of the language barrier, since he was just as bad in French as he was in English.

It was Gary who broke the silence first.

“They’re there,” He indicated the door to the Room with his head. Which, Nick assumed, meant that Mike already knew that his father was starting to look for him.

It was awful, Nick realized, the way that they all looked at Mike expectantly. But it could not be any other way, because it was his father’s wedding, and it was his life, his decision, and all of them knew it.

“Alright,” said Mike, exhaling sharply. “Alright. No, um, really, it’s alright,” he added, when everyone else made the move to follow him.

Nick looked at Mike again. Everyone looked at Mike again, then they looked at each other.

“Alright,” echoed Zach quietly.

Mike looked over them, once, face unreadable, then turned on his heels and walked into the room, where the newlyweds and most of the guests were. Nick gave Zach a questioning look, which Zach answered with a slight shrug—Mike is Mike—which, Nick supposed, was the most eloquent comment anyone could make under the given circumstances.

They walked in, a few seconds later, and stood by the door. The music was no longer blaring and the volume of the conversation in the room was more subdued. Soon, soon it would be done and the day would truly be over.

Nick watched Mike walk toward his father and his now-stepmother, knowing how much his friend must’ve had hated and dreaded this moment, and felt vaguely proud that none of Mike’s emotions showed through. His friend’s steps were decisive, firm, and he held himself straight, without even the habitual slouch. The only hint of his tension was his tightly clenched fists but, Nick supposed, Mike’s fists were probably clenched during most of the ceremony. He wished he could give happiness to all of his friends, as if it were a physical thing to be wrapped up and tied with a brightly-colored ribbon, to be handed over a cup of hot chocolate, but it was not within his power to give. It was a hopeless task to keep on trying, but he was tied to his task, his efforts, even as Sisyphus was, helpless. All because it was one of his greatest wishes—it was simply what he did when he liked people—he wanted to make them happy.

He watched Mike walk away, looking strangely grown up and strangely tall as he moved toward the inevitable, and it was in that moment that Nicolas realized the single most awful thing about being a grown up:

It meant that everyone expected you to have gained the ability, the self-control, to fulfill your expected role, no matter how much you hated it.

C’est pas juste, thought Nick, I hate being a grown up.

[The finals have wandered off with the happy ending as well as a large portion of my brain and most of what I'd call my wit. If you happen to see them around I'd appreciate it if you would send it back. The happy ending has smiley faces drawn all over it.

Also, in the last part, where Mike told Nick that he was "in the hotel", Zach's muttered comment was meant to be something along the lines of "Actually, it's more like on the hotel." Because. Yes. Ha. Ha. ]

studying for the history final is killing me slowly and painfully

So naturally I take occasional breaks. Which have been growing more and more frequent. SOMUCHTODOUGH.

Anyway, I've done this before but didn't remember what I got. I went to www.humanforsale.com to see how much I'm worth on the market, and it's about $1,503,780. Not bad, not bad. Could buy lots of twinkies with that kind of money.


p.s. x) I did one for a really old, gross and diseased guy and got $139,466. Now all I have to do is find an 87year old homeless dude and sell him to take care of my college costs.

Ookay

You are an Orthodox Snapeist.

You take Canon!Snape at face value -- like JKR

says, Snape is "a deeply horrible

person". You like to write/read stories

where he's portrayed as supercilious, unfair,

often undignified, and sometimes downright

cruel. You may accept some partial

explanations for his behavior when they're

offered in canon, but you're still pretty

hard on him, and don't like to let him off

the hook. The guy's a nasty, unwashed git

-- it says so in the books!


What kind of Snapeist are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

You are a Conservative Snapeist.

Like the Orthodox Snapeist, you acknowledge that

Snape often behaves pretty badly in the

books, but you prefer to focus on the

mitigating factors, and the fact that Harry

doesn't entirely understand what he's

observing. You may write/read stories

exploring Snape's return to Dumbledore, and

the redeeming sacrifices he's made to protect

Harry and the wizarding world in general.

Hey, the guy's been through a lot -- cut him

a little slack!


What kind of Snapeist are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

March

[To make up for the short posts earlier.
After some time spent on careful observation, I've concluded that there are some things that go on in a guy's head that I will not, repeat, will not commit to paper (or in this case, paper or .doc file).

I tried.]

On most days Mike liked to pretend that he was normal, just another college kid with jeans worn ragged at the knees and headphones blasting downloaded music into his ears, its tempo a slower, deeper echo of his heart. On most days Mike did what the other kids do, trailing back to his (and his roommate’s) room’s cluttered dimensions to spend hours upon hours in a digital reality, where exit was always an option only one click away. On most days it worked out just fine, allowing the waters of time to stream over his life with hardly a ripple, no deeper and no shallower than any other lives. Then there were the other days when the bubble would shatter, uncalled for and without warning, days when he felt an abyss opening beneath his feet. Those were the days when Mike would sit in the sun and feel no warmth, staring at the silvery lines on the underside of his arms, almost too fine to see. Those were the days of walking on thin ice, when he could not find shelter in indifference, regardless of whim or will. His friends called it “the Mood.” The psychiatrist had a different name for it, right before he walked out—it was slightly longer to say but, in the end, it all amounted up to the same thing: that life sucked.

Oh to be sure there were always more factors than that, each value requiring countless hours and thought to define methodically, to try to contain. There were always more factors, different each time. What mattered this time was that spring break was coming, that another quarter was ending, and that his father had just called, less than twenty-four hours ago, to announce that he was getting married, that the wedding was over spring break, and that one Michael J. Reynolds was expected to show up for it, broking no argument.

Mike seriously considered calling Gary over to meditate on the possibility of a double patricide before he remembered that Gary was just sorting out all the problems with his father, and therefore he should do the nice thing and Let Them Be. Except Mike was thoroughly sick and tired of Letting Things Be. It was always the same choice, he knew—it was just this time it took that much more effort, where things had gone so far passed what was fair that Mike could no longer be bothered with it anymore. All of which went a long way to explain his mood (or rather, Mood,) when Nick and Gary found him, lying prone on the lawn outside of the life science building.

“Mike, you okay?” asked Gary, and Mike, with the sun a dark red haze behind his closed eyes, could tell by the quality of silence that ensued that at least one of his two friends had realized how stupid the question was.

“Wassup?” Gary tried to amend, before realizing that that was not the way to go, either.

Mike looked up wearily. It was a Friday afternoon, and Gary was already wearing his Thank-God-the-Week’s-Over celebratory green contacts. Nick had just moved to thoughtfully place himself so that his shadow feel cross Mike’s head and the sun was no longer shining directly in his eyes. He also looked a little drawn and Mike, lying with blades of grass poking him in the neck and the lumpy comfort (or was that discomfort? He could no longer tell…) of his backpack under his head, tried to get it through his head that he was making his friends worried and that with the finals next week, everyone was worried enough already. He should cheer up, that was what he should do—Suck It Up, whatever—but he could not even muster enough energy to sit up.

To hell with it, he thought, and closed his eyes again.

The Mood was present. Nick could see it in the way Mike was collapsed against the ground, the tension in his shoulders, and the something in his gaze just before his expression changed, locking them out even before he closed his eyes again

Que dire de plus?

Nick wanted to yell in frustration at the locking out, at being locked out when the Mood had struck again. It was the locking out that made the Mood that much worse, because it meant that there was no way to gauge anything until Mike decided to talk, whenever that might be.

Gary shifted next to him, awkward and at a loss.

Yeah, thought Nick, moi aussi. He’d known Mike longer, but he still didn’t know how to react when Mike was like this. He doubted even Zach knew. It was hard—each time, each trial—him always hoping that it would be the last and a tight knot in stomach, a nagging worry in the back of his mind, always informing him that it probably was not. There was a cynic in him, albeit a deeply buried one (in fact, it was so deeply buried that Nick didn’t think it should be counted at all) and Mike would no doubt feel very smug to know this except Nick was planning to take the knowledge to the grave with him.

Il en est de même d'une lampe: si on l'allume, ce n'est pas pour la mettre sous une mesure à grains: au contraire, on la fixe sur un pied de lampe …and it gives light to all who are in the house…

So he did what he usually did when this happened, which was, first, to elicit some form of response from Mike. Even if it was just a punch, a word, it would have broken that particular type of frozen silence and Nick knew at some levels that it was the silence, the dark thoughts that were weaving a wall of tangled webs between Mike and the rest of the world, that was the most dangerous. He nudged Mike’s left arm, the one that had never suffered from a fracture, as gently as possible with his foot. “Hey Mike.”

Mike ignored him. He tried again. “Mike?”

“What?” Mike finally snapped, throwing his left arm over his eyes.

What indeed, thought Nick. Get up. Do something. Fight the Mood. What? “You’re done for the day right? Want to downtown together?”

Silence.

This, Nick thought, is why now I’d actually prefer it when he’s calling me an idiot and laughing at me. Because I know this.

Mike took a deep breath. It came out a shuddering sigh that was not un-tinged with exasperation. He finally looked at Nick. “Don’t s’ppose you’ll go away ‘til I say ‘yes’?” He asked without much hope.

“I’m not going away even if you said ‘yes’,” corrected Nick, hiding a smile. Six months. They’d known each other for six months (though sometimes he swore it felt like forever), and he still remembered that first month…and from Mike’s response, so did he. “Since, you know.” He plopped down beside Mike on the grass, just to make his point.

“We’re not going ‘nywhere,” chimed in Gary, eyeing the ground regretfully, as that his clothes generally cost as much as an entire wardrobe and therefore were not to be ruined on anything that wet, alive, and chlorophyll-ed.

“Auugh,” groaned Mike, and rolled over to his side, away from them, apparently less concerned with the state of his clothes than the proximity of his annoyingly persistent friends. “You guys suck. You guys are the suck.”

“Like a vacuum cleaner?” asked Gary, curiously.

“No,” replied Mike. “I like vacuum cleaners. Don’t have to argue with ‘em, see? We get along great.” He paused.

“Got something you wanna tell us, Mike?” Gary asked into that pause, all mock seriousness. “Like since when did you start a relationship with a vacuum cleaner?”

“Since I realized that girls’re all stalker-ly and creepy, as you have so kindly showed us,” said Mike, not entirely without guile. “At least vacuum cleaners aren’t stalker-ly.”

Gary went red. “Alright. Let’s…not…”

“Did she send you anymore love notes this week?”

“What? No!”

“Candy? Flowers?”

“Hey—You—shuddup!”

Nick laughed and allowed himself to relax a little. It was better now, with Mike distracted and waging a little battle of insults with Gary. A little safer. He inhaled deeply and breathed in the scent of fresh grass, which he liked, and the scent of sunshine, golden and a more subtle fragrance than the grass, dancing somewhere in the air around him, warming his skin. In the sudden silence he turned and found both Gary and Mike staring at him. “What? I like the smell of grass!”

“Uh,” said Gary. “ ’s that normal?” He asked Mike, in a stage whisper.

“Oh, he’s just weird n’ French that way,” explained Mike very logically.

“And charming,” added Nick, grinning hugely. “Weird and French and charming. Don’t forget that, Michel.”

“Riiiiiight.” Mike rolled his eyes, then scowled. “And I told you to stop calling me that. It’s like a girl’s name.”

“Actually it sounds more like Mikhail to me…” interjected Gary. Mike gave him a withering look. “Just sayin.”

“French people and their weird sense of endearment,” snorted Mike. “I mean… mon p’tit chou—what up with that?”

“Hey you American people aren’t much better,” countered Nick. “You call people ‘cookie’ and ‘sugar’ and things.”

“That’s because they’re sweet, you idiot.”

“Well cabbages are--!” Green. Crunchy? Not really sweet. Nick stopped himself. “Er.”

“See!” Mike said, triumphantly. “Ha! I laugh in your face. Ha!”

“They’re…uhm… good to eat,” Nick finished lamely, but knowing that the point was moot when Mike was smirking like that.

He did seem happier now, though, Nick thought, and smiled.

Pourquoi as-tu douté?

“Hey, you guys busy over spring break?” Mike asked suddenly.

Nick contemplated what Mike could have planned over spring break. Movies. Video games. Making fun of Nick for three hours straight because he kept mispronouncing all the actor’s names. Anything, so long that it did not involve airplanes. Nick no longer trusted Mike around airplanes. “No, I don’t think so.”

“I love college,” sighed Gary blissfully, “No homework over break. No homework for an entire goddam’ week.”

Silence.

“Wanna go to Minnesota with me? I’m pretty sure my dad can get us plane tickets.” Mike followed the startling proposition by sitting up and giving them a strained smile—lopsided and tight at the jaws. “Look, I’m even offerin’ a safe way to travel!”

Nick stared at him. Mike was known to be a bit impulsive at times, but this was sudden, even for him. A football whizzed past somewhere overhead. A projectile tracing its unconcerned path of flight against the sky. “Um.”

“You’re going to Minnesota over the break?” A confused frown puckered Gary’s forehead.

“I do, you know, technically live there,” Mike reminded him, sighed again, and admitted reluctantly (and it sounded like, through clenched teeth), “An’ my dad’s gettin’ married.”

Oh, thought Nick. Then, oooooh.

Well, that would explain the Mood.

“That’s—” Nick started, then stopped. That’s wonderful? Probably not. That’s terrible? That would only make Mike more depressed. “That’s, that’s, um.”

“Yeah,” agreed Gary, nervously wounding his hands into his hair as he darted an anxious glance at Nick. “That’s.”

“Well thanks, guys,” Mike said sarcastically, irony causing his mouth to curl up at one corner. “For being, you know, so comfortin’.”

“I’ll have to ask my dad,” Gary tried to appeal. “But I think I can come, over spring break?”

Good job, Nick’s eyes tried to convey. Gary looked relieved. Slightly. Not really.

Mike turned to Nick, one eyebrow raised.

One good thing about living this far away from his parents was the almost unlimited amount of freedom, checked only by prudence and one’s own sensibility. Nick knew that his mother would have much preferred that he stayed with his uncle, but the decision was inevitably left to his own discretions.

Decisions, decisions, thought Nick, freedom and sensibility. He was never much good at being discrete, as Mike often told him with great enthusiasm, and it was, more or less, Zach’s job to be the sensible one in the group while it was his job to keep people’s spirits up so….

“Yeah, I guess so. I’ll just have to let my uncle know ahead of time.”

It was going to be an interesting spring break.

A part of Zach was all schedules and frightening predictability. For instance Mike, knowing Zach’s intolerance for meals in crowded settings, his tendencies to do things early, and his progressive decrease in patience over the course of the week, had only to factor in that Zach dines at six thirty on Monday and that his patience decreased at around six minutes per day to walk in at six in the evening on Friday in the dining hall to find his friend exactly where he was supposed to be.

It made him feel vaguely proud, as he grabbed a tray and hurried after Zach, the latter completely oblivious to his presence. The accuracy of his mathematical model in predicting actual human behavior was possibly one of the few breaks in the now fairly omnipresent cloud of doom and gloom which Nick seemed to think was surrounding him.

“Hey,” he said, just as Zach was about to turn to go find a table. “Havin’ dinner early today?”

To his disappointment, Zach did not jump or make any sort of interesting noises. His eyes had widened slightly, that was true, but being Zach, he merely looked up and said, quite calmly, “Yes, that was the plan, so if you’re planning to burn down anything I’d like to know ahead of time, thanks.”

“Who’s it that’s talking about arson now?” Mike raised an eyebrow. He wondered if Zach realized that he didn’t always think about burning things down or blowing things up or other illegal activities of equal nature. True, occasionally those ideas had their appeals, but he actually never thought about them that much. Planes? Now airplanes were a different story. Especially the shiny supersonic ones.

Airplanes. Spring break. Minnesota. Mike tried to turn his thought away from the track that would inevitably lead him down the road toward the hellhole of Someone, Please Shoot Me and Shoot Me Now, but he was too late.

“I’ve concluded that talking about it is better than doing it.” Zach gave him a sideways look. “Better out than in, right?”

“Hm,” said Mike, dubiously. He sighed and looked around. One of the most amazing sights in college was the groups of people. It was not that people didn’t normally travel in groups, but the sheer amount of group-traveling-ness, the cliques and group-orientation that were present in college, was staggering. At six at night, Pacific Time, on a Friday, the current moment was as close as the dining hall could get to “tranquil” for the rest of the night.

He sighed again, feeling intensely and almost irrationally jealous of the peaceful demeanors of most of the people who were around at this time, who were here to just eat food, chat with friends, worry about tests, and nothing more. Unfair and so unfair because it was entirely too typical of life to be this unfair. “Um, Nick’s told you about my whole spring break thing, right?”

“If by which you meant the wedding,” said Zach, “Then yes. I’m sorry,” he added softly, a moment later.

“Yeah, well, so am I…” It was hard to try not to sigh, the pressure building within himself, mounting, another type of tension to counter the one already in his head that was working on giving him a steady migraine. It was harder to sigh, because of the pain behind each sharp exhalation because of the almost non-sound of frustration and helplessness.

He sighed. And waited. And being patient, he waited all of five seconds, contemplating the choice between coffee or soda before deciding that his current plight deserved the pacification of hot chocolate, before asking, “So you comin’ or what?”

Zach looked up from where he was attempting the tricky business of extracting a fork from the mess of forks in the fork container (a process that Mike could never watch without wincing). “Hmm? Oh. Yeah. Want to sit over there?” He indicated with his chin, tray in one hand, fork in the other.

It took a moment for Mike to realize that Zach wasn’t talking about the same thing he was. “No, not that,” he corrected, wanting to clench his teeth but refraining. “Spring break. Minnesota, you comin?”

Zach hesitated.

Mike hated that hesitation. It always meant that he was about to…to be thwarted, that he wasn’t about to get what he asked for or that some horrible news was about to be conferred on to him. It had happened so many times since when he was a kid that he’d trained himself to recognize it—the momentary awkwardness, the slight note of apology in the person’s eyes. He knew it wasn’t anyone’s fault—certainly not Zach’s as he tried to find the best way to break the bad news but, God, he hated that hesitation.

“I’ll ask my parents,” said Zach, finally. “We’ll see.”

“You do know you don’t have to worry about the plane tickets, right? ‘Cause my dad—”

“We’ll see,” Zach repeated firmly, the resolute line to his mouth and the guarded, cautious look on his face putting an end to the conversation. “I’ll…I can let you know by Monday, definitely.”

“Alright,” agreed Mike, stifling another sigh with only the greatest of efforts. He followed Zach as he carried his tray over to a table.

“But aside from that,” said Zach, sitting down. “How’s your day? Horrible? Horribly boring?” He glanced up at Mike, measuring, a spark of dark amusement in his eyes. “Both?”

“See, you’re doin’ it again,” complained Mike. “You knew I was going to say ‘both’.”

Zach ducked his head, but failed to do it in time to hide the grin that was determined to take over his face.

“I’d like to think,” said Mike, sitting down and addressing the air in front of him, “I’m not that easy to figure out.”

“Trust me, you’re not,” muttered Zach, picking at his food, head still determinedly lowered.

“You’re laughin’ at me,” accused Mike. Zach paused for a moment before looking at him over his tray, eyebrows arched and expression completely blank except for his eyes. Oh god, the eyes. “I can see it in your eyes.”

“I’m sorry,” murmured Zach, and studiously looked back down at his dinner.

“No you’re not.”

Zach coughed into his napkin.

“I’m complicated,” Mike grumbled to himself, half-defiant, half-appalled. “I’m very complicated, like an onion.”

“Yes. You smell,” said Zach, grinning into his glass of whatever healthy thing that he’d decided to drink.

“Hey!” Exclaimed Mike, straightening indignantly in his chair. There was a certain element of wickedness to Zach that not many had ever seen, that Mike felt himself to have the doubtful privilege of being the veteran of. He tried to scowl, but it twisted itself around somehow in the middle and ended up as a sort of aggravated smile instead. “Layers! I mean layers! An’ I do not smell,” he paused. “…do I?”

Zach choked on the juice. “Not like onions, at least,” he managed, when he could speak again.

“Oh thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Zach grinned, then added, with just a touch of irony. “Happy Friday.”

[Oh and I'm also to pass on the message and tell Mike to not "break the vacuum's heart, please. Hoovers are so sensitive." End message.]

The current schedule...

Here's my schedule as currently set for the Spring quarter (starting...the week of March 27th, it seems, since we don't really get a spring break).

All the boxes in blue are the ones I filled out when I told the DC that I WILL NOT BE WORKING. I'm only working (hopefully) 5 hr/week in the spring quarter and requested the whole Saturday off so I can either rest or, as the case most likely will turn out to be, bang myself over the head with my textbooks.

In any cases, I'm thankful that I actually like (quality of professors and lectures aside) science:

artpad

Sorry, Anna, but I'm tired of seeing that cat every time I open Lunatics.

So update yay. artpad is so much fun. i love the replay thing. it makes drawing looks so quick and easy and doesn't show any of the "undo"s making it seem like you don't make mistakes x)

You are lucky to be given not ONE, not TWO, but THREE drawings from me-

http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?ivqf9tri2ik headphone guy. possibly sleeping. possibly not.
http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?ivqegq16tx9c redheaded girl whom I wish I gave Luna's hair color.
http://artpad.art.com/gallery/?ivqfukcedr4 messy harry. i like how he looks nothing like harry for a while but then you add the glasses and BAM. you got harry.


Man I (could) waste hours with this thing.

Happy Birthday, Anna!

Guard you birthday cake well!!!

February

[bonus points to anyone who can guess which part I drafted in my head.]

The most important things in life often happened by accident, by chance, be fate—by whatever supernatural forces, governed or ungoverned by law, that have puzzled many great minds over the centuries. Things came by unexpectedly this way: being lost, confused and alone amid the bewildering torrent of events and choices and finding a friend there beside you, as lost and confused as you are, but still ready to help you; living your life one way for so many years, believing yourself happy, only to suddenly discover that it was another life style that you craved—and that it was right within reach. It was the unexpected and unquestioned moral support, the prank and lewd jokes slipped between the pages of his dullest political science reader. It was the foil-wrapped candy bouncing off the back of his head whenever he’d been studying for too long (he seldom needed any other encouragement to take a break), and getting together and abruptly deciding, between your friends and the rest of your floor mates, to build a barricade across the entrance to the lounge with the lounge desks and chairs and attack all those who passed by with rolled up balls of socks and crumpled sheets of notes. It was unruly. It was undignified. It was unexpected. It was fun.

“Hey Gary,” someone shouted. “How many socks do we have left?”

Gary looked at the pile in front of them. Someone owned a pair of green socks. Someone else owned a pair that looked like it got chewed on. They were haphazardly rolled—or crammed, as the word would be more appropriate—into vaguely ball shaped things that piled up like grenades before the first charge. Most of them who were gathered here didn’t have the habit of rolling socks. Most of the rolled socks weren’t paired. They would have some problems sorting out the socks later, but currently, no one cared.

“A lot!” He called back, then added, with a theatrical arrogance that he had trained himself to, a not quite second nature that became, inextricably, part of his sense of humour. “And that’s Captain Gary for you.”

“Oui, capitaine,” Nick gave him a cheerful, if sloppy salute the same time a ball of sock rebounded from the point just between Gary’s shoulder blades. There was some general snickering.

“Alright,” he stated, twisting around from where he was crouched behind a desk even as his lips fought to break into a grin. Mike was trying to look innocent. Everyone was trying to look innocent, but Gary knew from experience that projectile weaponry was the specialty of Michael Reynolds. He asked the question anyway, because that was part of the game too. “Who did that?”

“Why’re you looking at me?” Asked Mike, with an expression of injured innocence on his face, executing his role in the joke flawlessly.

The most important things in life were also the most elusive, the permanent serendipity factor appearing when it was least expected, like a joke and like all jokes, unexplainable.

Gary opened his mouth and was about to say something about suspicion when someone else—keeping watch over the window—yelled—

“Someone’s coming!”

Immediately, despite of the momentary aside, they quickly retook their respective positions.

Zach stepped in front of the second floor lounge of Schrödinger’s Hall, at approximately 16:23, Pacific Time, Saturday afternoon, and was promptly attacked by a trolley of crumpled paper and……socks?

After pausing for a brief moment, under fire and under complete shock at the sudden unexpected development of the situation, Zach did what any sensible being in his right mind would do—which was to duck around the corner, out of the way, and contemplate why the hell it suddenly became necessary for him to fish out balled-up sheets of “The Fundamental Theories of Economics” out of his jacket’s hood.

“Wait. Wait! Halt!” Yelled someone.

Sighing, Zach glanced about him and tossed the notes in question into the nearest recycle bin. He recognized that voice, as well as few of the other voices that immediately rose in question and, after so many incidents within the category of inside-out backpacks and sporks on New Year’s, he might as well have guessed that at least one—if not all three—of his friends were behind this.

“Hey Zach!” Sang out Mike who, Zach recalled from the almost surreal glimpse he’d caught between the storm of socks, was located somewhere behind a desk and a chair, both of which were upside-down. “You okay?”

Warily he poked his head around the corner and inspected the not unimpressive barricade blocking the entrance to the lounge.

“Yes,” he answered. “Tell me, is there any particular reason why I was attacked by flying socks and paper-balls?”

“Tell me, is there any particular reason why I was attacked by flying socks and paper-balls?” Asked Zach blankly, cautiously stepping out from behind a turn in the hallway that separated the walkway from the lounge.

“Oh,” Mike grinned, feeling mischievous and rebellious at the same time. “No particular reason.”

“No reason,” echoed Nick, clambering out from behind a mountain of stacked-and-sideway chairs.

“For sho’” Gary picked up another ball of socks, balanced it experimentally in his hand, and peered hopefully down the hall way.

“Oy,” muttered Zach, a faint frown of disapproval crossing his face, gingerly poking at a pile of furniture with his fingers. “I was afraid of that.”

“Lighten up,” Mike suggested. Zach’s eyebrows lifted in mock confusion.

Right, almost forgot who I was talking to.

“What’s up?” He attempted, instead.

“You asked if we wanted to do something Saturday afternoon,” Zach reminded him. “We agreed that we wanted to do something Saturday afternoon, so I came over to see if you guys’d figured out what that ‘something’ is that you wanted to do this afternoon.”

“Wait. When was this?”

“Yesterday afternoon, or evening, to be exact—during dinner, right before—”

“Alright alright I got your point.” Mike didn’t know whether to laugh or groan, so he did neither and sighed instead, turning and looking at the others. “So what’d you guys wan’ to do?”

Gary shrugged, a noncommittal gesture. “I’ono.”

Zach was still looking at him, waiting expectantly, so he turned to Nick. “Say something.”

“Err.” Said Nick.

“No, not that, you idiot,” grumbled Mike, remembering too late that perhaps asking Nick wasn’t that good of an idea. “Um.”

“We might try to restore some semblance of sanity while we decide,” said Zach.

Mike was tempted to make a comment on the questionable state of sanity regarding themselves, but Zach had turned away and was now attempting to dislodge a chair from the top of the barricade. The entire section collapsed with a clang.

Nick laughed. Gary laughed. Mike rolled his eyes at the ceiling and went to take down the other chairs before Zach could kill himself or accomplish something else equally detrimental. The other followed the suit and started, with a few grumbles, to dissemble the Great Wall of Lounge Furniture.

“Ten-hut!” Someone shouted. Everyone who lived in the dorm and was therefore acquainted with the tradition sprang to a mock salute at the residential advisor who had chosen, right at that moment, to wander by. She eyed the sock and paper covered floor, eyed what was left of the barricade and wisely decided not to say anything. It was easy to see, however, that inside of her mind she was saying to herself: BOYS.

The roar of laughter started before she was even fully out of sight.

My mom is just starting to realize that, well, I'm a bit of an outsider. Guess I can't blame her since I'm not too much of an outsider for it to have been noticeable. But now she's all anxious about me not being social enough, and not having established a circle of friends at university yet, and you're turning 19! you should be acting more like a normal girl blossoming into a woman!

..yea, i'm not exaggerating the phrasing or anything. I guess all these years she'd been hoping all the weird parts of me would go away with childhood. Also, what the heck, I've changed schools like 3 times and I don't remember ever turning up at home the next week with a couple dozen of my closest friends that I'd managed to make.

I also feel the need to hire a fake boyfriend or something (she's asking about any guys i like more and more often). After all, that always works out in the movies. And it's not like I don't want a boyfriend, I don't think any of them want me =P

Anyway, this isn't that big of a thing, I just always like posting here. The blog must have cast a magic spell on me so it won't die lonely and without posts for weeks on end.

and so makani continues to rule

Why Harry, is that a creature in your chest...?

Valentine's post... sort of

I don't know if I've ever talked about this before, but in Armenia there's a special traditional celebration on Feb 14th. Basically what you're supposed to do is bring fire from church and then jump over it, and sickness will get burned in the fire or something along those lines. The day is directed more towards newlyweds and "newlyengageds".

Anyway, nobody really gets the fire from the church anymore, but people do make fires outside and jump over them. It's kinda fun. Since my cousin got engaged in fall, they had a little celebration with the fire and everything.


It's-a me! Got a haircut that same day; the hair had gotten long enough for ponytails already.



Cousin and fiancee jumping. Blurry but kinda cool.



Aunt and uncle helping little cousin jump. He was having the time of his life x)



Me, right after jumping. Not a very good picture. And you can't really see the flame because my butt is in the way =P.



Women are supposed to dance around the fire 7 times in the end (I think?). We just sort of walked around it like once.

Ok, this has been your cultural lesson for today. NOW GET BACK TO HW.

p.s. This was over the weekend, not yesterday, because yea, convenient.

Happy Chocolate Everyone!

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.