			Me I'm 17, I'm fresh out of high school, I'm engaged, and since I've gotten out of high school I've forgotten that people actually do exist. God I miss people. Love I'm in love with Matt. He's very kind and gentle, and he doesn't judge me or try to change me. We're going to have a wonderful little family some day, and we'll always be in as much love as we are now. Blog Archive Quizzes People Lau Sara John & Sika Sab Links Jonathon Art TCS Stick Death Fling the Cow Magic Hate Ball DeviantART Penguin Baseball! Poke the Penguin Poke the Bunny
Sunday, February 29, 2004 The toolbox is gone! That makes me happy. Now I have room to spread some of my shit out in my room. I think. I'm having a problem thinking of what I want to do with it. Dad and I have an idea that we're going to try, so I hope it works. We're going to try it tomorrow, he's going to bed soon. And that was my happy little anouncement of the day. Niki ran away at 09:54 p.m. Friday, February 27, 2004 dies Stephen King, the absolute best author in the universe, is coming out with a mini-series on TV. It's called Kingdom Hospital, and it premiers Wednesday March 3 at 9pm ET on ABC. Then the following episodes will be aired on Wednesdays on ABC at 10pm ET. Don't mind me as I do a little free advertizing for my favorite author. It's damn cold outside. I've been out there taking pictures of them doing the garage floor, dad wants pictures of the entire process as it comes along. I got used to the nice warm Colorado air, and now I'm cold. Is it summer yet? In any case, I'm off now, I should probably cut my nails, they're getting hard to type with o.o Niki ran away at 12:33 p.m. Thursday, February 26, 2004 Well, here I am. Back in New York. It's cold. I just got off the phone with Matt. We were reminiscing some child-hood memories, and thinking about how much easier it was when we were little kids. Part of me wants to go back. I miss SPUD, I miss chasing the ice cream man, I miss John's Hess trucks, I even miss Barbie (the evil slut that she is). I miss riding my bike aimlessly about with a couple friends, some other people randomly joining in, listening for the noon whistle to blow so I knew I could go back home and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich waiting for me. Then I could hop back on my bike and ride around some more until the first street light came on. And that was a typical day for me in warm weather. In the wintertime, I'd go sledding alot. Around mid-day, I'd walk up to the school with my sled or tube, whichever I felt like using that day, and I'd go sledding until I felt like my toes would fall off. Then it was back home and grandma would make me some hot chocolate while I changed into some warmer clothes. Then John and I would go back outside and play in the backyard. Or I'd go over to Brittany and Dana's and we'd play in their front yard, building snow forts and pretending we were wolves or cats or whatever we felt like being. I miss those days. When life was simple, and all your friends lived right across the street. If you couldn't get hold of them by phone, you could always run up to their front door, no matter the weather. I miss the "acrobat cats" that Brittany Dana and I would pretend to be on the swing set. I miss my old pink bicycle with the training wheels, streamers and basket. I miss riding down the steep hill between fifth and sixth street. I miss sledding down the school hill. I miss sledding down the hill on Wall street (which used to be third street), the one I went to with John and his family. One day we made the path go across the road and down by the old saw mill, which was still running back then. I miss the days when I first moved out here and was introduced to the wonders of Eno's grocery. I miss getting penny candy with Laura and Heather, then sitting out on Eno's front porch on the beaten up old bench while we all drank our soda and munched on whatever goodies we found that day. I miss the snow forts Laura and I built in the church's side yard. I miss playing "where's Waldo" in Laura's huge Waldo book when we were supposed to be sleeping. I miss throwing crayon missiles at each other with her huge stuffed crayons. I miss the aliens, and the fuzzy horses. I miss Brittany Dana and my Hanson horses, when Hanson was such a fad. I miss not knowing who the Spice Girls are. I miss MCG and GGMF and MCGG and the girl in the chimney. I miss Laura's huge shell. I miss nano puppies and giga pets. I miss puppy in my pocket. I miss making boats out of empty soda bottles and floating them around in the pool, only to have them tip over and spill the crew of puppy and kitty in my pockets in the bottom of the deep end. Then we'd have to try to get to the bottom of the pool to get them before the next time Grandma vacuumed the pool and they'd be lost forever. I miss living at Grandma's house. I miss living in town, where John and I would ride down to Stewart's to get ice cream cones. I miss going to the beach down town, even though there was a pool in our backyard. Now the Hudson's so polluted I wouldn't want to go in for the life of me. I miss the beach trips, though. I could go swimming, and then head on over to Jack Frost across the street for a small vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles. It was the only soft ice cream place in town. Now it doesn't exist any more. The rainbow sprinkles were the best. The chocolate ones looked like mouse poop. Jack Frost closed for good a few months ago. The owner didn't pay the rent. Last I knew, Subway was thinking of buying it and opening up shop right there. It's a good location, who wouldn't want it? But now I can't go down for some soft ice cream, a small vanilla cone with rainbow sprinkles. Not to relive my childhood, not to settle a craving for soft ice cream, not ever. It's gone. The next nearest soft ice cream place is Bon's, which is in the next town over. They're a lot better than Jack Frost could have ever dreamed of being. They have flavor burst ice cream, how could they not be better? But Bon's doesn't hold my childhood memories. I remember when a good mystery novel used to be Nancy Drew. Now I don't even like mystery. But they didn't have much that resembled Stephen King or Dean Koontz for little kids. So mystery it was. Last I checked, I'm still the last person who ever signed out a Nancy Drew book from the school library. Kids don't read any more, especially not Nancy Drew. I used to get a kick out of the idea that Nancy Drew and I had the same initials. I remember the days when I had to eat peas. I had to, or I wouldn't get any dessert. I'd always complain about it whenever it happened. But it wasn't too often, grandma always made dinner, and she hated peas, too. So it was usually corn. Which isn't too bad, though I've come to find out that the human body does not digest corn. I remember when a good song was Achy Breaky Heart by Billy Ray Cyrus. To me, pop and rap and rock didn't exist. The only rock I knew about were the Beatles and Elvis, but I didn't hear to much of 'em. I used to worship Billy Ray Cyrus, although I can't remember any of his songs. On a good day, I'll remember a chord or two of Achy Breaky Heart. I used to have a tape of all country songs, mom got it for me. I probably still have it. There was one song on it that always made me cry, but I can't remember why. I think the artist's name was David something. I remember thunder storms. They have to be my favorite childhood memory. Grandma's back porch was the best viewing spot in town for a thunderstorm. It had a roof over it and walls around it, which was more like a wall of windows. The backyard it looked into didn't have trees in it, so there weren't any trees nearby to block the view. You were almost always guaranteed the view of a lightning bolt while sitting on that porch. We'd pull the shades all the way up, turn the lights out, and make a bowl of popcorn. Usually Jerry would show up before the storm really got going. I think he liked them just as much as I did. He was Papa's best friend, and I was closer to him than I was to Grandpa Verdi. One night after one of these thunderstorms, we found a huge frog sitting right outside the porch door as Jerry was leaving to go home. He fed it a piece of popcorn, just tossed it at the frog. The frog must have thought it was a fly, because it snatched teh popcorn right out of the air with it's tongue. It didn't like it too much, it spit the popcorn right back out and went on sitting there without a care in the world. It was a big frog, too. It was bigger than a person's foot. Any person. Frogs that big don't exist anymore, they're getting smaller and smaller, and more mutated as well. Come to think of it, there aren't many thunderstorms like the ones we used to get. I haven't seen a good thunderstorm in years. I remember bumball machines. They had neat little trinkets in them, in those plastic bubbles that were so hard to open when we were little. I remember the plastic rings most of all. They used to be so cool, the gaudy plastic rings. We'd use them to play dress up. And our old dance costumes. My favorite was always the costume from Suzie Snowflake, from when I was 3 years old. Brittany and Dana had some good dress up clothes. We used to stuff little stuffed animals down the front of them so we looked "grown up", like we had real boobs. Then we'd take my really really big stuffed bear and bunnie, which were about the size of us at the time, and we'd pretend they were men, our husbands. We'd pretend we were getting married to the bear and the bunnie, and it would be a double wedding. Dana usually played the part of the priest that married Brittany and I to the bunnie and bear. I always got stuck with the bear, we always liked the bunnie better. His ears even stood up, until the thing inside one of them broke, then he only had one standing ear. I wonder if I even still have those two? I'll have to ask grandma tomorrow, I'd like to see them again. I never played house or school. Those are the two most heard of games of little kids. But I hated it. Marrying the bunnie and the bear was the closest I ever got to house, and you can just forget about school. I used to think sitting in class all day was bad enough, I wasn't about to go home and pretend I was at school, whether I was the teacher or not. I remember when computers were new. I heard about them, and the school had some of them, but nobody had one in their home. Not that I knew of anyway. Now here I am, on the computer, on the internet, no less. Back then, I'd never heard of the internet. All I knew was that computers were only boring machines that kept track of bank accounts and other such boring things. Nothing that would interest a little kid. Now there are all sorts of games and software for little kids. I saw a Nancy Drew computer game the other day. Imagine that, perhaps she isn't as dead as she was a few years ago. But they don't read the books anymore, they just play the computer game. Soap bubbles. The wonders of blowing through that little wand, after you dunked it out of the container and got your fingers all soapy. I remember trying to blow really really big ones, which I wasn't able to do. And I always tried to catch them on the wand without popping them. Grandma would never let us play with them in the house, so we always went down by my swingset and Papa's horseshoe pit. Bubbles, everyone had bubbles, and they tickled your face. Speaking of that part of the yard, Papa used to have logs delivered to him. They'd unload them right between the two pits, in front of my swing set. Then Papa would get out the chain saw and cut them into short pieces. Then he'd set them up on a stump and split them with his wedge and hammer. After they were small enough to fit in the wood stove, he'd put them in the wheel barrel and push them up to the house. He had to use a plyboard ramp to get up over the edge of the backyard, which is a big pile of dirt with grass growing on it and held in by a short wall. When he got them up to the house, he'd open one of the tiny basement windows, and toss them on through. The only thing down there was the wood pile and an empty space, at least in the vicinity of that particular window. After all he wanted was downstaris, he'd pile the rest up behind the shed by the horseshoe pits and put a tarp over them to keep them dry. Then he'd go downstairs and stack the random pile of wood thrown down there against the wall. I used to help him as much as I could. I couldn't saw the wood or split it, but I could toss it and stack it. He doesn't do that anymore. He doesn't use the woodstove anymore, either. We still have wood stacked downstairs against the wall. It's been there for years, untouched except for the cat, who has always liked to sleep on it. Tootsie is the cat's name, and she's almost as old as I am. I grew up with her, in fact, she is my first memory. She was born to a barn cat who was taken in by Brittany and Dana's parents. Mom and I went to look at the kittens one day a few weeks after they were born, we didn't intend on taking one home. All the kittens were in one big heap sleeping in the basket, the mother was off eating food in the kitchen. Tootsie was sitting in the other corner of the basket, alone. It was as if the other kittens had cast her out. She looked up at mom and meowed a tiny little meow at her. I had already gone off to the living room with Brittany, sleeping kittens weren't fun. Mom had fallen in love with Tootsie, and had accidentally named her on the spot, she asked Tootsie "what's the matter toots?", which was a name she used for all animals. Brittany's mom said that since she named her, she had to keep her (jokingly of course). But we wound up keeping her. A few weeks later, when the kittens were old enough to leave their mother, mom and I went back over and got her. The time in between was spent getting everything that was needed for a kitten, a few toys (whiffle balls and tiny stuffed animals, not any of the new fancy flashy things they have now), a litter box and kitty litter. We dug out a box from the basement and made a house for Tootsie. We put an old handtowel or cloth or something in one corner of the box for her to sleep in. There were two doors to this little home-made cat house, one to the general outside of the basement (which was actually mom's living room), and the other to her litter box. The layout of Grandma's basement wasn't like most basements, there were 3 rooms, mom's bedroom and living room, and the storage room. The storage room looked like normal basements, but the other two looked like normal bed and living rooms, just without big windows. And that was Tootsie's new home, the basement of Grandma's house. She wasn't big enough to climb the stairs yet, and we didn't want her upstairs until she got bigger, that way she wouldn't get out and get hurt. And that's my first real memory, finding Tootsie, who has been the best friend and sister I've ever had for the majority of my life. I think that cat understands me better than almost anyone else, aside from Matt that is. Sometimes, not often, maybe only once or twice, she has understood better than Matt has. Only because she's lived with me for her entire life, aside from the first 6 weeks that were spent with her mother and siblings. She knows when I'm really hurting, and when I'm just feeling sorry for myself. She wipes tears off my face when I cry, and she curls up next to me or on my lap when I'm done crying, just to be there. When she gets mad at me, she sits with her back to me, looking at anything but me, and ignores me. If I talk to her, she growls, and when I ask if she wants to be left alone, she'll thump her tail as if to say "yes, go away". But now that I don't live at Grandma's, which is where she still lives, she gets excited when I walk in the door. I usually have to wake her up now, I didn't used to have to, she used to run out of where she was hiding and start rubbing on my legs and jump in my lap. But now I have to wake her up, she's getting older and she sleeps heavier. But when I do, she's as lively as ever. She'll start headbutting my face and rubbing her cheeks on my hands, turning round and round in my arms, or climbing up the front of me if my shoulders are close enough to her. She won't do it from the ground, but only if I get up high enough to the shelf she likes to sleep on or squat down to the chair she's laying in. I could go on about her for hours. Tootsie literally does represent my childhood. My dying childhood. She'll be 15 here in a week or so, she was kind of an easter present the month before I turned 3. I'm 17 now, I'll be 18 in a few months. I'll have to finish growing up soon, I'll be getting an apartment and having bills to pay and a job and college to go to. There won't be much time left over for chasing ice cream trucks. And I'm afraid Tootsie might die with the last threads of my childhood. She's getting old, almost senile, if cats get senile. She doesn't do much but sleep, and she's getting skinny. Wasting away, it seems. That's not to say she doesn't still have life in her, she's very lively at times. But there's still a part of me that feels that she's going to be gone by the time next winter is over. Maybe sooner, I don't know. Call me crazy or insane or whatever you want, but I do feel like that. I hope not, I hope she lives longer than that, but she is getting old. I guess all I can do is show her all the love I can until she is gone, and then some more. Some people call me wierd for getting all worked up over a cat. After all, she's just a cat, right? Not to me, to me she is family. She is the best friend I had growing up, the most faithful and loyal and honest. Every memory I have can be tied back to her. She is my first memory, and connected to every memory I have. She is tied so tightly to my life, how can I not get this worked up over her? I love that cat with every ounce of my being, I love her as much as I love Matt. It's kind of pathetic, this entire tangent I've gone off on. I'm only 17, and I'm already starting to sound like I'm 90. Maybe I'm feeling this old right now because of Tootsie, possibly even for Tootsie. Maybe I'm really insane and I don't know it. Maybe Tootsie is my last tie to my childhood and I'm afraid of losing it. Maybe I'm chickenshit and scared of real-world problems. Maybe this is what everyone feels when they're done with high school. That could be it, that I'm done with public school, the next step is college, where the real work begins. Maybe this is the nostalgic stage everyone talks about. Maybe I'm just tired, it's 1:23 in the morning, after all. Who knows? I don't, all I know right now is that part of me is screaming to go back to when I was 5 and 6 years old, and part of me is screaming to shove my way into the world and just do it, move forward. Since time travel is impossible as of yet, I guess the only thing to do is to continue on in a forward direction. It's what I want to do anyway, most of me that is. I'm assuming there will always be this screaming little kid inside of me that just wants to go swimming or sledding, so I'll just have to give in to it now and then to keep it content. And to keep me young at heart, no need to be aging to 90 when I'm only 17, or 20, or 35 or even 60. I'm realizing that life doesn't have to be hard. I'm glad that screaming brat is still there, because she knows how to have fun. That's what a lot of people lose as they get older, their inner kid. The inner ice cream eating, bike riding, screaming whiny brat. It's something I don't intend on losing, or else I'll be dead by the time I'm 45. Life really is what we make of it, so I'm going to do my best to make it easy and fun. It's no good to keep a pessimistic attitude, so I'm going to be as optimistic as I can. I think this was just one of those life-changing moments. Niki ran away at 11:05 p.m. Monday, February 23, 2004 The British can't make a horror movie to save their lives. At least without making it funny. Matt showed me 28 Days Later last night, it's a zombie movie that takes place in London. It was just... random. To say the least. I did like it though, I love British movies, they're awesome. The special features section of this one had alternative endings to the movie. One of them was drawn and some guy was saying the lines of all the characters while some other guy read the stage directions. It was like watching a comic book. I made Matt listen to the album of the soundtrack of the trailer of the film of Monty Python and the Holy Grail last night. I love that thing. British humor is just great. And now I have an urge to watch Monty Python, but it's at home pout. I don't want to go home. Not without Matt. But I have to, or I'm out half the price of my plane tickets. And mom would come out here and kill me. Well, dad would, mom would just bitch. I think I'm off now, I'm smelling Matt's english muffins and I want one. Niki ran away at 10:12 a.m. Thursday, February 19, 2004 Some thoughts I had the urge to write on TCS in response to someone's E-mail on childhood, which can be found here. I have to say that the way society has aged is simply ridiculous. It's gotten to the point where parents can't give their children a tap on the butt to let them know they're wrong without fearing that one day said child will call the police and the parents will go to jail. I grew up with spankings on a daily basis almost, because I was always doing something wrong. And I didn't turn out fcked up at all. I don't have mental problems, or post-traumatic stress disorder from being "abused", and I'm not going around raping or abusing other people just to let my anger out at my parents who abused me. It's ridiculous, if you ask me. Society has given more power to the arrogant 15 year old who resents his/her parents for not getting him/her the PS2 for Christmas. So said arrogant 15 year old decides that the next time his/her parents slap him/her for stealing the car, that he/she is going to call the cops and report child abuse. That way the parents will go to jail, and the kid will be put in foster care where the foster parents will give the kid everything it could ever dream of wanting. Including a car that was better than the one the kid stole from the parents all the time. Oh, I love all the pills we have in this age. Especially Zoloft. The Zoloft commercial says "while the cause of depression is unknown, it may be a chemical imbalance within the nerve cells of the brain. Zoloft works to correct this imbalance" This supposed imbalance. This imbalance that they don't even know if it's there or not. So basically, you're popping this "happy-pill" in the hopes that it will make you happy, when in reality you're getting more depressed because you're on the happy pill in the first place. Not to mention, one of the side effects of this anti-depressant is depression. Makes a whole hell of a lot of sense if you ask me. I saw a commercial the other day for "focus factor". A new pill. It's supposed to help you be able to focus on school and your job. WTF!? Now there's a pill that helps you focus. If you ask me, maybe the unfocused person just needs a vacation day to relax. Maybe smoke a little pot or something. Inability to focus is related to stress, so naturally, if you reduce the stress, you are more able to focus on the task at hand. But of course people are too lazy to do that, so they feel the need to pop a pill. God forbid someone take a day to learn how to relax. I could go on, but I think I've illustrated my point enough. The way society has changed is not good. People in society have just gotten lazy. They sit in front of a TV or computer playing games and getting fat all day. If they get depressed or overweight, no big deal! There are all kinds of pills that will make you happy and loose weight without lifting a finger, so that you can continue on playing those video games without missing a beat. God forbid you get up, go outside, and find something to do. Ride your bike around the block and fall down on dirt roads. Build forts and shelters out of sticks and pretend you're stranded in the woods. Play SPUD with a half-deflated kick ball. That is the problem with today's society, people have forgotten how to occupy themselves without aid of machines. I will admit, I'm almost as much of a computer junkie as the next person. But at least I remember SPUD, skinned knees, and bee stings. I still know how to set up a badmitten net and smack a birdie back and forth. I remember how to fall off my bike, and rip my pants hiking in the woods. I remember all the fun things we used to do as kids. I look at my little cousin, she's 7 years old. She knows how to run the computer better than I do. How sad is that? She knows the workings of playstation better than she does a kick ball. She's 7 years old and she's getting pudgy because she doesn't play outside much. And what can I do? By the time I have kids, they won't make kickballs anymore. They'll have virtual kickball in PE class. There will be some computer screen that shows a picture of a ball, and how far it goes depends on how fast you can click the mouse. The only muscled parts of anyone's body will be their fingers. I'm not going as far as to say that all technology is horrible. New developments in cars are making less pollution. Computers eliminate the endless file cabinets in offices, and offer a quick reference system for quick research. Some technology is wonderful. But I still hold to the fact that much technological break-throughs have made society lazy. People don't even work on their own cars anymore. They can't, it's all computerized. So they bring it to the shop and leave it there for a week, and the magical mechanic makes everything better. Niki ran away at 12:53 p.m. Wednesday, February 18, 2004 Dear God, it's almost 8 in the morning, and I've been up since 12 after 5. What the hell is wrong with me? I should go back to bed. I'm usually not even thinking of waking up right now. I need sleep. But if I sleep now, I'll be sitting up awake while Matt's sleeping tonight, and that'll just be boring. At least being awake now, I can occupy myself. But if I'm up late again tonight, I'll have nothing to do, because I don't want to wake Matt up, he has to work tomorrow. There are only 2 rooms in here, and the kitchen light isn't bright enough to read by. I can't turn the light on in this room because then Matt won't be able to sleep. Of course, knowing him, he'd tell me I could read in here anyway. But I'm not that cruel. So I guess I'll just have to be tired. In other news, the high today is supposed to be about 60. 60! I haven't felt temperatures that warm since september! Of course, tomorrow's supposed to be about 30 with freezing rain and crap. Blah. The weather out here is so fickle. You just don't know what to expect from day to day. But still, 60! Matt needs a desk lamp. It's dark over in this little corner-type-thing. shrug* Oh well. I'm hungry. I think I'm going to go get food. Niki ran away at 07:53 a.m. Tuesday, February 17, 2004 Well here I am in Colorado. Matt just got the internet yesterday, and that makes me happy. He's at work right now, this is the first day he's had to work since I got here. Thank God he got the internet, or I'd have nothing to do but strain my eyes again. Well, of course there's always video games, but I'm not too big on them. shrug, I'll just sit around on the internet like the internet junkie that I am. On the way out here, I almost missed my connecting flight in Minneapolis. I had an hour layover, and had to get from one end of the airport to the other. Not to mention, my first flight was late getting there. When I got to the gate I had to be at, I had a minute to get a water (I was incredibly thirsty), and then they started boarding. Lovely, eh? I'm short too, I wasn't built to be moving as fast as I was, and my legs were hurting for a day or so afterward. Either that or I'm just out of shape. In any case, I'm here, and I'm happy I'm here, and I guess that's all that matters. Matt dragged me out to the mall a couple times since I got here. Yesterday I wound up buying a T-shirt from Hot Topic. Well, I gave Matt the money and made him pay for it because he gets a nifty military discount. In any case, it has a picture of a wierd looking bear type thing on it, and it says "Beware the florty bear thing, it's gong to do something. I don't know what, but it's gettin' jiggly". nod yep, I know, I'm a dork. And I think I'm going to be going now. I don't know what I'll do, but I'm out of things to ramble about. Niki ran away at 09:40 a.m. Tuesday, February 10, 2004 I just got back from a week at Grandma's. I did nothing but read books the entire time. 3 books in a week. My head hurts. I can barely look at the computer screen to make sure I'm not making any typos, and I have the screen dimmed as much as I can. I think I strained my eyes. I've had this massive headache since Saturday night, it's Tuesday now. Ow. On the plus side, I fly out Friday. I just hope this headache is gone before then. I was up this morning at 7:30, after not getting to sleep until 3:30 or 4. FUN! I fucking hate mornings. Mom woke me up this morning when she was getting ready for work. Well, more like the dogs did when they were getting their breakfast. Trixie has a habit of prancing around and her toenails make a clicking sound on the floor, and that's what woke me up. Then the sound of the dog food being poured into their dishes and all that, and Trixie decided she needed to bark. God this sucks. I think I'm going to go pop Tylenol and re-orginize my bookshelf again, seeing how I can't read any of them at the moment. Niki ran away at 08:27 a.m. Wednesday, February 4, 2004 I've spent the last few nights at Grandma's, and I'm having internet withdrawl. I came home this afternoon to do laundry, and I'm going back to Grandma's tonight. I had almost forgotten what my bedroom looked like. It is so wonderful to be out of school! I love sitting at Gram's watching the buses go by on their way to get everyone after school, and I have the satisfying knowledge that I've been sitting around not in school all day, and I can't get in trouble for it. It's awesome. Now all I have to do is turn 21 so I can drink and I'll be all set. Not that I would anyway o.o Grandma and I started in on my dress today, we've got most everything cut out. Tomorrow we'll be sewing the bodice together and gettin git fitted to me. But from the sounds of things, Matt and I won't be able to get married until 2005. First they were going to deploy him in March, then they changed it to a deployment window of March to August, in which he was not allowed to take leave. Then they changed the window to July or August. Now they're looking at September. They'll probably change it about 50 more times before they actually decide on something. So as of now, Grandma and I are just making the dresses, and they'll be ready for whenever we can get married. Everything is up in the air... I'm waiting for it to come crashing down on my head. I've been reading like there's no tomorrow lately. I've gone through 3 books in the past week, a new record for me. The Green Mile, Hearts in Atlantis, and I'm halfway through the Gunslinger. All by Stephen King, of course. Speaking of which, John's mom has got a couple Stephen King books that she doesn't want, I hope she finds them soon, I have this irresistible urge to expand my bookshelf even further. Even though there isn't any room on it for the books I already have. I'm going to have to sort through them and get rid of some. Maybe I'll give some of my Christopher Pike books to Courtney, she likes Christopher Pike. And I don't think I'll be reading them any time soon, I've outgrown him. Nobody's getting the Vampire series though, not no way, not no how. I love that series, I've read it about 6 times by now. Granted, Catlin bought half of them for me, but shrug, you can't beat a good book, no matter who got it for you. Speaking of Catlin, I've noticed that my mind has a habit of regurgitating images of him in my dreams every 2 months or so. It's been noticable since I started keeping a dream diary, and roughly every two months, I have a dream about him. The most recent one was odd, I had it a couple nights ago: I was at the Wilton Mall with a bunch of people from school. But it didn't feel like a class field trip or anything, it felt more like an end of the year carnival type of thing, like they did for the movie Grease. I was in the food court, I think I was sitting with Leah, or she just sat at the table I was at. The food court could have been outside, it seems like there was an earthen floor at least, but I can't really remember. I was aware that Catlin was in the mall somewhere, either I'd seen him or heard he was there or something, I just knew he was there. At a certain time, closing time I think, everyone was leaving the mall, and the only exit was the food court exit for some reason. I was sitting there waiting for Catlin to come out because I wanted to either tell him something important or ask him something important or something. There was a note of importance to the reason I wanted to talk to him, but I don't know why I wanted to. He came into the food court wearing some black trench coat, the one from Hot Topic I think. He got on the carousel, and sat in a chair, for some reason there were more chairs on the carousel than there were horses. I followed him on it, and got on a horse. The carousel made me extremely dizzy, and I was crawling off of it when it was over, but everyone else was fine. I was looking for my socks and shoes as I was crawling (I don't know how they came off my feet). Then Catlin was there, either just talking to me or helping me up or something, but he was there. I don't remember what was said, it's all fuzzy, but I do remember telling him to give me a call sometime. Aparantly we had to leave and weren't done talking or something. The whole time I was wondering what Matt would be thinking. I think I had to talk to Catlin about Matt... or something to that effect, but I just can't remember. I have no idea what that dream could have meant. All the dreams I've had about Catlin mean something, but this one baffles me. If I knew what it was I had to talk to him about, maybe I'd be able to figure it out. Bah, don't mind my mindless rambling. I'll figure it out, not like anyone cares anyway. I think I'm done rambling for the moment. Niki ran away at 04:37 p.m.

The toolbox is gone!