written 5/7/02:
i've had a maddening day - quick rise @10 and shower and dress and then dad on the phone for me for nearly 3 hours trying to get all the supplies for my new pet sitting job - which include an occupational license, an alpha/numeric pager, a precise shirt found mainly in eastern Zaire, a very good, detailed orlando map (the book kind, not the folding kind), a portfolio/day planner that has about 2000 capabilities, and a trip to [several] police departments to get finger printed, WHICH, by the way, i woke up very early for yesterday, only to have Miss Sanford PD tell me i need a finger print card (after i'd called and been told they would supply one) thus requiring me to visit the FBI in Maitland to get one and then make it to the ALTAMONTE PD by 3:30 to do it. And i did. And i met a lovely dog there. But then my car, which had been smelling like formaldihyde all afternoon, in the hot hot son, without air conditioning, leaving me to have visions of bizarre children putting class dissection project remains in my back seat some day while i was leaving the car with the windows rolled down, started making funny noises and getting too hot and at Panera became WAY too hot, so i called dad, he yelled at me (which is the appropriate thing to do in this situation), and i put water in the coolant thing, which immediately leaked out, and by the time i got to Pep Boys it was steaming, and this is where i am, whilst writing this. since 4. it's 7:30. dad didn't feel like coming down. whenever i get out of here (after finding out that everyone who appears on Elimidate is a complete moron), i have to get to a public library to get online and try to get another social security card, because i've apparently lost mine, and i need it for get a job. i've never needed it before, and an ID and social security number will not suffice. so that should take a while. and then i have to go to oveido mall to get this weird shirt that costs more than i have so i have to put money in my account very soon from some imaginary fairy godmother. as opposed to a real fairy godmother. occupational license at casselberry tag office that always has hour-long lines tomorrow morning. then work work work. what the hell.
and i still haven't called joe, so, technically, he could be dead.
i was caught several times thinking about him at work yesterday. i guess you can't help going over all the possibilities in your head. i was just washing dishes at home and i got locked on to just a normal day in the relationship between melody and joe - just the very smallest of things would be mindblowing at this point. like juan; he was scared of a jenn relationship because it's been so long since he's been in a relationship - well let's just say it's been 5 times as long for me. just to experience that kind of dynamic with someone..i can't imagine. i don't know why it's taken me so long. so this possibility feels like it's at the end of my fingertips, touching, not pressing. and it's a very strange mixture in my stomach of fear and excitement. i feel very embarrassed telling anyone this. you feel like a freak admitting something like that. and now, when i think about it, i don't think it was me or them. it was just life, and timing. maybe i shouldn't talk like it's over. it's most likely not over. but it would be nice.

12:28 that night:
well i'm home, i've just watched How Stella Got Her Groove Back, which was kind of dumb, but taye diggs is immaculately beautiful, so is angela bassett. black people age so well, their skin looks so flawless. sometimes i just want to touch them, like on the shoulder or the back. skin is so beautiful sometimes. i imagine i'd want to touch and explore every inch of a lover's body, just spend hours going over everything...the human body is so incredible, it's this organ, this living thing, yet it's just a shell, but it's so much of us. i love the people who talk about the body being the greatest instrument - and then i think of dance and how pure that is, and that Powerade commercial with all the people performing those spectacular physical acts - when it says in big letters "what is going on?" it's Shocking what our bodies are capable of doing. and so beautiful.
the car, as it turns out, may be very badly damaged. like the engine. which could cost more than the car is worth. so that could all be finished. and if so, all of this stress and hard work of the past week will have been useless, because i can not do this job without a car. and i sat today on my dad's bed, in the middle of all the insane effort, thinking "this better pay off", then thinking it probably wouldn't somehow, that that was suddenly creeping in as a sort of intuitive idea...but i wrote it off as me trying to make excuses to stop working so hard, because i'm so inherantly lazy and unconfident in starting big things like this. but now there's this. and i have other means for work, but all very low paying, and practically impossible to feasibly get another car with. dad's brakes suddenly went out today, too. and this all right when it seemed i would be able to hold onto my car a while longer while my mom struggles with her plans. "it gets worse before it gets better." finally, tonight i got a letter from UCF saying that my financial aid has been taken away because of insufficient number of hours completed. i haven't told dad. i don't know if i owe them money now or what. money that i don't have. i got maybe an F and a D in two classes, which was very unexpected, but maybe not final, i find out tomorrow, but if this is true, i lose the florida academic scholarship as well. now it seems suddenly plausible to have to drop out of school for lack of funding. and this all is in me now, very quietly. you stand still and the wind swirls around and all of this information doesn't quite sink in, but just lingers all around you. touching, not pressing.

later that night i read this in vonneget's cat's cradle, and loved it:
[an american ambassador's speech to the people of san lorenzo on the anniversary of their "100 martyrs for democracy"]
"i am about to do a very un-ambassadorial thing. i am about to tell you what i really feel. we are gathered here, friends, to honor the 100 martyrs for democracy, children dead, all dead, all murdered in war. it is customary on days like this to call such lost children men. i am unable to call them men for this simple reason: that in the same war in which the 100 martyrs for democracy died, my own son died. my sould insists that i mourn not a man but a child. i do not say that children at war do not die like men, if they have to die. to their everlasting honor and our everlasting shame they do die like men, thus making possible the manly jubilation of patriotic holidays. but they are murdered children all the same. and i propose to you that if we are to pay our sincere respects to the hundred lost children of san lorenzo, that we might best spend the day despising what killed them; which is to say, the stupidity and viciousness of all mankind. perhaps, when we remember wars, we should take off our clothes and paint ourselves blue and go on all fours all day long and grunt like pigs. that would surely be more appropriate than noble oratory and shows of flags and well-oiled guns. i do not mean to be ungrateful for the fine, martial show we are about to see - and a thrilling show it really will be... and hooray say i for thrilling shows. but if today is really in honor of a hundred children murdered in war, is today a day for a thrilling show? the answer is yes, on one condition: that we, the celebrants, are working consciously and tirelessly to reduce the stupidity and viciousness of ourselves and of all mankind. see what i have brought? [he holds up a wreath that says "pro patria", and then recites this poem]
'i was the first fruits of the battle of missionary ridge
when i felt the bullet enter my heart
i wished i had staid at home and gone to jail
for stealing the hogs of curl trenary
instead of running away andjoining the army
rather a thousand times the county jail
than to lie under this marble figure with wings
and this granite pedestal
bearing the words "pro patria"
what do they mean anyway?'
what do they mean anyway? they mean 'for one's country.' any country at all. this wreath i bring is a gift from the people of one country to the people of another. nevermind which countries. think of people... and children murdered in war... and any country at all. think of peace. think of brotherly love. think of plenty. think of what paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise. as stupid and vicious as men are, this is a lovely day. i, in my own heart and as a representative of the peace-loving people of the united states of america, pity the 100 martyrs for democracy for being dead on this find day."

5/8/02 2:46am:
the grades have been confirmed at A, D, F. no more financial aid. still don't know about the car [i now have my fixed car back but the whole situation is too sketchy for this pet sitting job so i've declined it, don't care about school right this second]. but all of this doesn't matter for a few minutes here because this evening found my previous situation's striking contrast. bruce. suddenly appears, as if from nowhere, outside with drew. i go join them, we talk talk talk. he looks very good. and by that, i mean exceptionally good. i'm feeling very well, i'm on a roll, conversation is going very well. drew then must leave. i prepare for bruce to say goodbye after brief movie talk, but instead he says "i'm starving, do you want to get something to eat?" i am stunned, but remain very cool and off we go. this is shocking. i'm in bruce's pimp black old lincoln that he paid $750 for. i'm riding in a car with bruce. who i've never had an actual conversation with before this day. this is quite a leap. so we eat at philly's and have wonderful easy conversation, about everything from movies to angelina to classy porn to what have you. now outside he says the unthinkable - "so what do you want to do now?" what? this kid still wants to hang out with me? am i dreaming? excuse me? well i wasn't dreaming, and he kept asking me where to next throughout the night. we went thru the mall and had fun looking at kitchenware, we wandered aimlessly in the car, with his new Hammer/Vanilla Ice and Beastie Boys - license to ill tapes i convinced him to buy, made a quick and kind of accidentally uneventful stop at blockbuster (i realized my VCR was broken) and went to the oveido bowling alley and played 3 games of pool. i beat him once. conversation stayed entertaining and effortless. for four hours. this has got to be one of the oddest experiences of my life. (was this to make up for 4 hours at pep boys?) so he took me home and we exchange numbers and i'm told he'll lose mine, so i have no idea when to call him, but i may see if he wants to go bowling tonight. i hope that's not too soon. does anyone realize the magnitude of this? this was otherworldly. i didn't really feel tremendously attracted to him as time passed, just incredibly comfortable. suddenly he's not just a piece of meat, he's a person kind of a thing. and we're so alike. (de ja vu?) and he's so goddamn attractive. but i didn't really pick up a flirtacious vibe from him, but i don't exactly have much to go from so i don't really know how to read him. drew just told me he's very selective about who he hangs out with. he was very surprised i'd spent 4 hours with him. so this is the new story. and if you'll compare these two days i've written about, you'll find that life is the strangest thing there is.