I’d like you all to meet my new boyfriend.

First of all, yes, my hands are the size of shovels in real life, too. Second, his name is pretty badass right now–Canon Digital Rebel XT–but it’s still lacking that star quality that things tend to earn when in my presence. Let’s give him his dues: proceed with suggestions.

Obviously, my first models were my pets, because they’re absolutely everything to me. Greta’s old and creaky and can barely get on the couch anymore, but the second she steps into the snow she turns into a big stupid puppy. Moses is clearly going to be my favorite subject because he is so gorgeous. He is also, as you can see, a natural model. Please forgive his come-hither eyes, the flash was directly in his face.

Also, I like this little Pictobrowser, but it does cut them off quite a bit, so definitely click my Flickr pictures to the left to get them in their full form.

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“They wouldn’t give me permission for extended stay. My flight’s not until the 22nd.”

“Ohh noo… are you going to stay at your girlfriend’s house?”

“Yeah… It’s just stupid, because I asked for the extension and they said no. I didn’t know they could do that.”

“Oh I know, I can’t believe it. But at least you get to spend more time with your girlfriend!” (Notices his deathly serious expression and eyes cast to the ground.) “…Yay?”

“Yeah. It’s just…” (Struggles for words.) “She’s just informed me… that… she’s going to spend the entire time reading the seventh Harry Potter…”

“Ooh…”

“Yeah.”

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Each of the following things hit me in two ways: “Good one! Write that down,” and, “This is really nothing anyone needs or wants to know about.” Fortunately, the time has come when each episode or thought process has joined one super force of Things That Happened or Were Considered These Past Few Weeks:

1. The day after Thanksgiving, I was driving to Circuit City when my finger blew up. I thought, spider bite? Finger jam? But it didn’t hurt at all, it was just that middle joint area swelled up like a frog gullet (I like to paint nice pictures). I had to work in ten minutes, how could I make a drink with a finger like this, will I ever be the same again, am I Spiderman, am I on House? It actually went away rather quickly, but then it happened again the next day to another finger, and the next day to the other hand, and my fingers just kept blowing up, and it was lasting for hours, and now they were getting bruises and bumps and twisted, and what’s the deal, arthritis? Fortunately, it’s not arthritis, and $10-for-five-pills later, it’s not an allergy either, it’s Raynaud’s phenomenon. I just keep having really extreme reactions to things that really are not that extreme. In this case, I just have to wear gloves more because my hands are big wusses when it comes to the cold.

2. I’ve been looking for gloves for ages! I’ve got these ones from EMS which are perfectly efficient and get the job done better than mittens, but they also look like I am planning a trip to the top of Mt. Everest. And I’ve got the longest fingers in the world, they just don’t fit, and they’ve got no give. Any glove recommendations?

3. You know what else blew up? My deodorant. Usually when it’s getting down to the very end, I’m more cautious when putting it on, but I didn’t realize it was getting there, so I just went right for it, and pchoooo flakes and chunks of deodorant all over the place. I have a sweating problem, which has actually been under control for a really long time, but unlike some people I know, I can’t go a day without deodorant. So I ran down to the school bookstore and bought the cheap travel size they have. And now I smell like diapers. Clean diapers, but. I feel like when I’m around people they’re thinking, “Why does she smell so much like a baby?”

4. It’s not because I’m having a baby, that’s for damn sure, as my cramps will tell you.

5. For my whole life I have documented my dad’s hiLARious midnight ramblings, because he always falls asleep in the living room and I am always scared out of my wits when he suddenly starts shouting. And I like to make fun of people for things they can’t control, so sue me. But obviously, when I do something like that, I have it coming. And now it’s been confirmed that I… have somniloquy. Please, don’t cry, I know it’s hard to take it all at once, but… it’s true. Every single night, I talk in my sleep. EVERY NIGHT. And occasionally sleepwalk. I am always waking Kellie up, screaming about something, fuming and thrashing and about to rip down my wall hanging or turning the fan on high. I’m going to tell Maxine about it because she really likes dream interpretation, but I don’t have much to say except secondhand information, because the nights that I am most active are the nights that I sleep like a baby. I never recollect doing anything.

What I should do is what this guy did. He’s been told so many times about talking in his sleep that he’s set up a microphone and records himself every night. And almost without fail, he talks. I don’t know if it’s the ramblings that make it ridiculously funny (though he is British so that brings it to a humor level I can’t even comprehend) so much as it is his transcriptions. Example: “fuk fuk fukuljug.. yep”. Now that’s reporting.

6. I wonder if my increased nighttime drama is due in part to the fact that I am going STIR CRAZY. This week has been awfully long, and I want so, so, so badly to go home. It doesn’t have anything to do with people so much as it has to do with place. As nice as an alternative as St. Thomas More has played, he is not my home. His pretty Chrismakkah cheer from a few weeks ago has turned into drooping lights and too much duct tape. The vacuum doesn’t work anymore, which simply doesn’t fly in a suite with eight girls. Watching HP5 made me long for the summer when we went flying by my school and I thought about how excited I was to live in that new fancy building. Now all I think about is how dirty it is and how it’s not even my dirt. My dirt is in Plymouth, in my bed with my tick-infested kitties but I don’t care, and kissing my dog with bad breath but I don’t care, and allowing my big mean cat to chew on my hair but I don’t care, because that’s my dirt. Split ends on the counter, no thank you. Cat peeing in the sink like a good boy? Yes please.

7. I don’t know why that last point ended up so focused on how disgusting I am, but really I’m excited for the Christmas spirit. I don’t know how people don’t like the holidays, even those of us who are utterly alone, because it is literally sustaining me while I am here for the next few days. Saturday was pretty rough for me, because some really horrible things happened, like oh noez! I had to hurry and meet a deadline, and say whaat! my inner elbow wouldn’t stop itching, and seriously, pompom? my brother went to see a movie without me. Holy shit, what a day. The next morning I got up early, called my house, and had every single person on the phone describe in detail the Christmas tree that they’d picked out and made everyone promise to spend time with me. And then I made them tell me one more time where the tree was. And then I went to church and pictured the tree and prayed that my hands would stop shaking.

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Today, in the Park Street station, the guy who is always playing his guitar was there playing his guitar–acoustic versions of Christmas carols that had a whole bunch of people clapping and singing. I debated self-consciously whether I should go up and put a dollar in his case. Just as I determined that I would and looked down to my bag to get my wallet, the woman standing next to me tutted loudly.

“I hate this shit.”

I looked up.

“Christmas, what a load of shit. What’s the big deal. I could definitely do without it. It’s just another day to sit inside your house doing nothing.”

I wasn’t sure if I should answer her, because it wouldn’t be the first time I started talking rationally to a crazy person without realizing they were crazy. But she was looking me in the eye, so I shrugged optimistically.

“Sitting inside can be nice, sometimes.”

“Not when it’s all you do, it’s not. Oh, no.”

I nodded to say, Ah, yes, well, and unhanded my wallet. I took out my phone instead and hoped that there might be a message.

“I wouldn’t even be here if I had it my way.”

I clicked through my list of numbers like they were important.

“I wouldn’t even be here if I had it my way. And you know what?” she said, a bit louder. “No one would miss me. No one.”

I pushed my mouth to the side and leaned towards her. “I am sure people would miss you.”

“No–they–wouldn’t.”

I pushed my mouth again and turned to watch the man play a really beautiful instrumental of “White Christmas” for a minute. I would miss you. That’s what I nearly said. That’s what I nearly said, just like I nearly put money in his guitar case.

Instead, my phone rang, and Addie told me that we were staying on the Green line, and I ran back up the stairs, towards the shopping malls and credit cards I know and away from a world I can only pretend to understand.

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What the past three days have taught me is that I am older than my age and should not consort with people who cannot get their head around the idea that actually, they need to start taking some responsibility, some initiative, and some enjoyment in life in a way that is not going to fuck people. Who keep others in mind and come to the conclusion that you know what? Happiness for the greater good is a terrific thing, and it fills your gut with a feeling incomparable to the one you get when you try so hard to be liked that a piece of you falls away.

For nearly a year now, I have been keeping my emotions in check. It has been necessary to battle the wretched sides of college, the ones that hurt my heart because these people, they have no sense of themselves, and even less for others. Every now and then, I get to thinking, and I wonder if this contentedness I profess, is it there? Or is that the front? Have I really felt anything at all, or has it only been a lack of despair? Am I numb and moving nowhere?

But last night, I decided to let go. I am surrounded by drunk bridesmaids, and I catch myself mimicking the inhibition. Do I have a boyfriend? Have I ever? And it pulls at me, these fears of expression, because the passion that burns inside me at all hours of the day is so far removed from the collected exterior that I keep, and so I never actually speak them to people because people won’t hear of it, it is too strange for them to accept that I am a person who has for so long bottled up her secrets that they throb like extraordinary things. For a moment I think, wait, this is how it starts, when you pretend to be like other people to be liked and when will it stop and–

“It sounds like you have real feelings for this guy.”

“You must be so excited. You’re going to be sisters now, you’re going to be family.”

“Aren’t you just so proud?”

–and I recognize now that there is no judgment, that I am allowed to say exactly what I feel. No more being cool, no more, “Yes, I’m pretty excited.” It comes out all as a rush. I am so proud, of him and all he’s done and how far he’s come, and I really hate myself for going away next year because it seems like I don’t care, but I do care, it’s just that I also need to move myself forward and to get away from where I am, because it’s true, I am desperately in love but I won’t do anything about it, and it hurts to be reminded everyday that I won’t do anything about it, and that’s why, I just need to get away and be on my own and go somewhere where I can be like this because maybe someone will see me, but it is in no way reflective of how I feel about them, because my God I am so happy for them, you can’t even know, he is my brother and we are so close, I am just happy, I am, and they are everything that I want to be, and how can I be like them if I don’t go away? How can I be like them if I don’t give myself the opportunity to, because one day I want them to be the ones that feel this happy, you know, sitting in the pews and completely unable to contain it, because I want everyone to feel this incredible, genuine happiness for other people, and that can’t happen unless I leave, because it hurts me to be in love right now and good people don’t want other good people to hurt, so I am leaving and they are staying, and I am happy.

I am talking, and someone is listening who has no apparent reason to listen to me, and it feels like the friendship I’ve been searching for desperately, people who have gotten over themselves and have found a center for their lives, and they are the way I want to be. And then I feel it–the snap of the strings on the mask–and I am not ugly.

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