I'm finding myself around such a wide variety of people lately.
Of course, there's you.  There's always you.  I went home over Columbus Day Weekend, and you were there.  I walked over to put some backshop in the cart, and you were walking towards me.  I couldn't quite pinpoint the expression on your face, possibly because there were so many on there.  You came closer to me.  You said, "You're probably really mad at me, but I can explain."  That's something you don't know about me.  You don't know that I can't stay mad at you.  You told me that your girlfriend had your cell phone the night that I had texted you.  You told me that she's always thought there was something between us.  Then, it gets a little fuzzy.  I can't remember if the next thing you said was, "And there isn't," or if you never said that at all.  You said you should have warned me about her, explaining away the initial hesitation you had when I asked you for your number all those weeks ago.  You said there was a fight.  You said it lasted for weeks.  But still, even with all of that, you stayed close to me for the entire day.  And, ever since that day, I've been missing you more than ever.
I've been around musicians so much lately.  Every other Wednesday, there's a Coffeehouse at the Subway on campus.  I've never been so close to musicians before.  The musicians play cover songs just as often as they play their own creations.  I used to hate covers of songs, but now I've noticed that it's interesting to see what songs people like enough to want to learn how to play.  Those songs are special to them.  This one guy played "Someday You Will Be Loved" by Death Cab for Cutie.  Before he started, he said it was a sad song.  I never really thought of it as a sad song.  Even if it is about a break up, he's telling the girl that she will find love one day.  And, sure enough, the guy singing smiled each time he sang that line.  It was lovely.
Even though it's been awhile, there are still new people entering my life.  At first, I was angry when Mythology was canceled that Friday.  It was my first class of the day, I could have just stayed asleep if I had known.  But I made it all the way to the door before I found out the news.  However, if all of that hadn't had happened, it's quite possible that I never would have had that conversation with Tre.  He happened to be leaving his dorm at the same time I walked by it.  We were both on our way to our eleven o'clock classes.  He started the conversation, asking how far I made it before I realized that Mythology was canceled that morning.  I told him, and he told me that he'd made it to "that very tree," pointing as he said it.  We proceeded to talk for the entire walk to Yokum.  We talked about classes, mostly.  We're both English Education majors.  He wants to teach.  With his summers, he plans to work at a gym, teaching kids how to rock climb.  He loves little kids, just like I do.  I told him about my plans to minor in Journalism, telling him that I've always been as much a writer as I am a reader.  It was a nice conversation.
I'm finding that, as I start to care less about people, it's easier to get closer to them.  Cara and I met at orientation.  And she quickly became friends with a bunch of other people.  For the longest time, I felt like I didn't fit in with them.  But now, I finally feel like a part of their group.  I don't just have lunch with them three days a week anymore.  I'm going places with them.  I hung out with them all night on Friday.  We went to see Paranormal Activity.  It was funny and silly and scary.  There was the car ride.  I sat between Cara and Pete in the backseat.  The seatbelt didn't work, and I didn't even care.  Craig turned the music up loud, and we sung along to the songs on the radio.  The lights turned green, and we drove and drove and drove.  It was wonderful.
In the same aspects, as I start caring about people, it becomes harder to stay close.  Nicole and I went downtown last weekend.  She's from here, so she already knows about everything.  We went to Smooth Moves and got smoothies.  They were delicious.  We walked around.  There's a bookstore that's absolutely full of books.  There are the books on the shelves, books of the floor, books shoved in the cracks in the walls, books on the stairs.  I've never seen so many books in my entire life.  It was closing quickly, so we didn't have much time to spend there.  However, I did manage to find an old copy of J. D. Salinger's Nine Stories for only a dollar.  After the bookstore, we walked down to the lake.  There are a few foot bridges, mostly covered in graffiti.  The lake is right there.  The sunset must be beautiful from there.  I had an excellent time downtown with Nicole, and we"re planning to go to Burlington sometime soon.  Saturday night, we had plans to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show with Jeannie.  Jeannie and I were both unaware of the fact that Nicole's new boyfriend, Andrew, was coming along.  He's the type of person who dominates the conversation.  He believes that everything he has to say is important and should therefore be heard by everyone.  In his one attempt to talk to me specifically, he told me about the first time he got extremely drunk.  I just have no interest in things like that.  Anyway, the play was amazing.  I absolutely loved it.  And I'm planning on reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower again, now that I actually know what The Rocky Horror Picture Show is.
Anyway, I can't believe that it's still a month before Thanksgiving.  I like being here, but I miss home so much.  I have so much time on my hands that I simply don't know what to do with myself.  I miss Big Y, and I miss the people there.  I've never experienced this type of feeling before.  I've never wanted to be in more than one place at a time.

When I really like a song, I often want to live it.  I want to experience what the people in the song are experiencing.  I want to experience what the person who wrote the song experienced.  So, no, I haven't spent any nights (or days) drinking.  I haven't liked someone so much that they felt like my konstantine.  No one has knowingly hurt me in that way.  I asked you for your number before I left.  You gave it to me.  You seemed sad that I was leaving.  You stayed as close to me as you could during my last few days.  I've texted you twice now.  Each time, you ask who it is.  Each time, I tell you.  Each time, you never respond.  Part of me wants to call you, wants to make you talk to me.  Part of me wants to live "Feb 15".  I want to be sorry about the phone call, and needing you.  But I never will.
It seems like, with each guy I like, I give them a song.  Years and years ago, I gave you "She Paints Me Blue" by Something Corporate.  I gave you "So Much" by The Spill Canvas.  And, now, Mr. New Guy, I'm giving you "Hey" by Backseat Goodbye.  I guess it's something I've always done.  I find songs that I can relate to.  I apply them to my life.  Now, when I get homesick for the woods and the silent nights, I listen to "O New England" by The Decemberists because everything about that song is my home.
College is good.  It's weird to think that I've been here for a little over three weeks already.  It feels like it's been more time; it feels like it's been less time.  Ancient Myth and Modern Mythmaking is probably the class I like the least.  I feel like it could be better if we didn't spend so much time studying history.  I've learned about the ancient Greeks and Romans.  I don't want to learn about them anymore.  However, one of the history books we read did get kind of interesting at the end.  It was saying that, with society's current dependence on science, we have lost our faith in myths.  So, we must turn to art and literature for mythology.  It mentioned a number of novels, including George Orwell's 1984, saying that some of the ideas present in these novels became the lessons humans used to learn from myths.  So, that was interesting.  Due to prerequisites, I had to transfer out of Introduction to Writing Fiction and into Introduction to Film and Literature.  I really like this class when we are discussing short stories, like Alice Walker's The Flowers and Kate Chopin's The Story of an Hour.  However, I am not a fan of the class when we discuss film.  We spend a great deal of time studying lighting and other such technical aspects of film.  I guess it's interesting that that much thought goes into it, but I'd rather talk about the meaning.  Intensive French Review is actually quite easy.  We do a bunch of fun activities during class.  I got an A- on the first quiz.  Journalism isn't what I thought it would be.  I expected to write articles, but I think we mostly just study various journalists and the field in the general.  Public speaking is definitely challenging.  I made my first speech already.  I like writing the speeches.  The professor told me I had good grammar, sentence structure, and choice of language.  It's the speaking part I'm not so good at.  The library skills class I have to take is terribly simple.  As a project type thing, the teacher created a wiki site where we all choose a topic and write a bit about it.  I chose to do "Problems with Blogs".  Since it was about the problems, I found myself talking about blogs in a very negative way.  Most people that read it and commented on it would never guess that I have a blog.
I have more of a social life here than I ever have before, but it's still not much.  I get along really well with my roommate.  We have Journalism together, and we'll just go get food or just talk and such when we're in the room.  It's nice.  Justin lives on my floor.  He's a sophomore, and he's doing the national exchange program from Eastern, so he's just here for a semester.  It's extremely easy for us to talk, but I'm not attracted to him at all.  He has a girlfriend, anyway.  I met one girl in my Public Speaking class, Nicole.  We hang out quite a bit.  We've gone to two plays together, which were both quite good and interesting.  She's also introduced to me to one of her friends, Jeannie, who is an art major here.  Both of them grew up in Plattsburgh.  Nicole lives in the dorms, but Jeannie doesn't.  I still hang out with all of the people I met at Orientation.  Aaron's pretty much always around.  I have two classes with him, and he's always asking me to hang out with him.  He's funny.  But I don't want to hang out with him all of the time.  I hang out with Erika and Cara, too.  Cara and I have lunch together often.  We have lunch with people she's met through her roommate.  Craig and Patrick are pretty much always there.  And their friend Dustin is there sometimes, too.  He's an art major, I'm pretty sure his concentration is photography since he's always talking about his pictures and projects for photo class.  One day, while we were having lunch, one of the kids said that he was bored.  Dustin said, "When you're an artist, you're always paying attention to something."  As a writer, I knew exactly what he meant.  Big groups of us will go to the comedians they have on campus.  A little while ago, there was an open mic night.  People sang and played guitars and read poetry.  It was wonderful.  There was one guy who had an absolutely beautiful voice.  He played the guitar, the violin, and the harmonica.  One boy played "First Day of My Life" by Bright Eyes, which of course made me extremely happy.  Last night, I got dinner with a big group of people.  Then, we drove to a local concert.  Dustin was the one who organized it.  The concert was okay.  The acoustic guy dropped out, leaving a lot of loud music and screaming.  Still, it was interesting to see just how indie music can be.  After the concert, most of went to McDonald's and had some food there.  Then, we went back to campus and hung out in one of the dorms and watched a movie.  I got back to my dorm at one.  It's good to be out doing stuff.  So, yeah, I'm doing well, but I still want to meet more people.  I feel like there are so many people here, and you never know who could end up being your friend for the rest of your life.
My mother and my sister are coming up to visit me next weekend.  My mother still hasn't seen the campus, so she's pretty excited.  Except for the drive.  She hates driving.  I love my sister, and I miss her terribly.  So, I can't wait to see her.  Since everyone around here seems to go home for Columbus Day weekend, I've decdied that I'm going to do the same.  I figure I'll spend time with my dad.  When I told him I was coming home then, he texted back "The countdown begins."  I'll also work at Big Y for a few days.  There's nothing wrong with making some money.  And I'd love to see the people I work with.  So, yeah.  That's the plan.

One night recently, on a bit of a whim, I decided to reread one of my favorites:  Franny and Zooey by J. D. Salinger.  And, as all of my favorites do, it has made me aware of facts about myself that I was terribly blind to before.  First, I absolutely love letters.  People are just so  honest when it comes to writing on paper.  And just the act of it, the act of sitting down with a pen and a piece of notebook paper is just so terribly wonderful.  It takes times to write a letter.  And to devote said time to a letter is like devoting said time to the person the letter is written to.  It's just lovely.  Second, I have realized that the act of smoking a cigarette, many years ago when the dangers of such things were quite unknown, must have been a rather sophisticated thing to do.  Now, when people buy cigarettes, I can barely help calling them stupid right then in there.  I can barely help pointing out that they are spending just as much, if not more, money on things that fill their body with toxins than on actual food, sustenance.  Third, or more like second and a half, if there is such a thing, I find swearing in normal conversation attractive.  Growing up as I have, I have barely, if ever, been around people who swear in normal conversation.  So, somehow, I find this to be a sign of maturity, rather than the blatant sign of immaturity it most likely is.  So, when you say, "riding my fucking ass" instead of "being on my tail" or "tailgating me", I find it terribly attractive.  Fourth, I am quite displeased with the lie that being the reader that I am has placed inside of me.  I fully expect people to say what they mean, or at least, to have honest, heart felt desires to say what's on their minds.  I don't exactly try to hide how I feel about people.  So, when you said, "I'm at this register for a reason," and quickly covered up this little slip, mumbling something about how you just wanted to annoy me, I did little to remove the look of shock and happiness from my face.
Recently, at work, Courtney was telling everyone about how her younger sister is having a baby boy.  Courtney is twenty-one; her sister is nineteen.  Courtney kept saying that, at this point in her life, if she got pregnant, she would keep the baby.  What if something happened?  What if she couldn't have kids any more?  She said the one thing she looks forward to in her life is getting married and having children.  It just seemed so odd to me, really, that people can think that way.  I do love children, but never enough to have my own.  Never enough to have them be there forever, you know?  What she was saying made me worry that, if someone were to propose to her, she'd agree out of fear.  What if someone didn't propose to her again?  She may not be in love with this guy, but at least she'd be married.  It just made me worry is all.  Anyway, I've been thinking about it, and I'm going to be a teacher.  So, for a summer, I could have a foster child.  A beautiful two-year-old boy with stunning blue eyes or a three-year-old girl with small hands and curly blond hair.
I went to the George Weins Folk Festival in Newport, Rhode Island about a week ago.  There were hundreds, possibly thousands, of people there.  Everyone had blankets and chairs spread out all over the yard.  It was a hot day, perhaps the hottest of the summer.  The boats floated around the bay.  And people with passion got up on stage and played.  But, the whole time, I could not stop watching this one girl.  She was young, definitely, still in diapers.  She had golden hair.  It curled with water and blew with wind.  She was there with her parents and a few of their friends.  I think it was her dad, he kept picking her up and throwing her into the air and catching her.  Her mother danced with her, holding her hands and swaying back and forth.  She smiled.  Her smile was beautiful.  She had this lovely dress on.  It was striped, in a way, but the colors kind of flowed into one another.  White on the top, then orange, then yellow, pink on the bottom.  She ran around the blanket, falling sometimes, but still seeming strong.  When she fell, she stayed down, making it look like she had intended to sit down all along.  She was an amazing girl.
I spent the last few days in Moultonborough, New Hampshire.  My uncle has a house on Lake Winnipesaukee.  So, I drove up with my sister to go visit everyone.  Lauren is a few months younger than me and is starting her senior year in a few weeks.  Last year, we went up there the same time as her friend, Chris, so we worked it all out that he came up the same time as us this year.  I don't hang out with people my age very often, so it's always different when I do.  We mostly talked.  And texted.  One of my worst fears has been realized:  When you're in a room with a big group of people, and two of those people are texting, they are most likely texting each other about one of the other people in the room.  There's drama everywhere.  I like Lauren.  We can talk about books and music.  I'm pretty sure she will be eternally grateful to me for introducing her to Bright Eyes.  I like Chris.  He's funny and easy to talk to.  He's smart, and he'll be taking four AP classes next year.  Chemistry, Physics, Calculus, and English.  Sounds like a much more daunting course load than I took on.  His mother had him when she was eighteen.  He barely sees his father.  His mother bounces from boyfriend to boyfriend frequently.  Thus, he's moved around a lot.  When he went to Lauren's school, he was first in the class.  Now, he's second in the class at his new school.  He's never had braces and one of his teeth is kind of in front of the others.  I'm sure he's uncomfortable about it, but I like it.  It's cute, in a way.  Another thing about Chris is that he barely ever sleeps.  Two hours a night, for most nights.  He looks at sleep as a waste of time and feels like he's missing something whenever he is asleep.  So, Saturday night, I stayed up the entire night with him.  Everyone else fell asleep around six in the morning.  We talked and played card games and such.  All of us took my car and drove around places some of the days.  We went to get ice cream Sunday.  We drove into Meriden and went to some of the shops on Monday.  The thrift store wasn't open, though.  That was disappointing because it always has cheap books.  Lauren got a second edition copy of The Catcher in the Rye there for seventy-five cents a few weeks ago.  Then, on Tuesday, we drove to a Walmart so that Amy could get 17 Again.  Being the Zac Efron fanatic that she is, she needed to have it the day it came out.  And, even with my GPS, we ended up turning around at some Mental Institution that was really a Christain Boarding School.  We did end up watching that movie.  I'd seen it before, and it really isn't a terrible movie.  We also watched Heathers, which is kind of Mean Girls with murder, 80's hair, and less laughter.  We spent some time at the beach, playing cards and looking out at the lake.  Amy and I started heading home Wednesday night.  We left at seven and made it home a little before ten.  I like driving in the dark.
All of this has just reminded me how badly I want friends.  I want friends that I hang out with every week.  I want friends that I text all of the time.  But I also want friends that I have amazing nights with, but nights that are few and far between.  I got my room assignment.  I'm not going to be in a freshman dorm, which is a good thing.  I didn't really want to be surrounded by freshman.  I am rooming with a freshman, though.  Her name is Sarah and she's from Hamilton, Ontario.  Hamilton is a huge city, home to half a million people.  Crazy.  She took a year off after high school, so she's nineteen.  She's a journalism major, and I think we'll be able to get along quite well.  Also, I talked to Cara recently.  She's not living in the same dorm as me, but I doubt that will mean we'll never see each other.  Even with all of this, I am not looking forward to leaving my job at Big Y.  Or, well, I'm not looking forward to leaving the people I work with.  I'm going to have to get some phone numbers soon.  If that doesn't happen, FaceBook is the only way I'll be able to talk to any of those people.  It's unfortunate really, but I guess it would be worth it.
The second season of Everwood came out on DVD recently.  I was just browsing Target, waiting to see Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for the third time, when I saw it sitting on the shelf.  The second season is messy, really.  Andy dates for the first time since the death of his wife.  Ephram falls in love with a girl four years older than him.  Amy, dealing badly with the death of Colin, goes out with a drug addict.  And the relationship between Ephram and Amy takes the backseat, for the time being.  There's a lot of yelling, a lot of screaming.  But, still, it's beautiful.  Linda used to travel all over the world.  She has this box of things, memories, that she kept with her at all times.  In it, there are photographs, certainly.  But there are other things, too.  She pulled out of a copy of The Little Prince, saying it was her favorite book.  She had a copy of it in French, too, but a little boy conned her out of it.  Then, there's Ephram's tragic flaw paper:  " 'The more things change, the more they stay the same.'  I'm not sure who the first person was who said that.  Probably Shakespeare.  Or maybe Sting.  But at the moment, it's the sentence that best explains my tragic flaw: my inability to change.  I don't think I'm alone in this.  The more I get to know other people, the more I realize it's kind of everyone's flaw.  Staying exactly the same for as long as possible, standing perfectly still...  It feels safer somehow.  And if you are suffering, at least the pain is familiar.  Because if you took that leap of faith, went outside the box, did something unexpected...  Who knows what other pain might be out there, waiting for you.  Chances are it could be even worse.  So you maintain the status quo.  Choose the road already traveled and it doesn't seem that bad.  Not as far as flaws go.  You're not a drug addict.  You're not killing anyone...  Except maybe yourself a little.  When we finally do change, I don't think it happens like an earthquake or an explosion, where all of a sudden we're like this different person.  I think it's smaller than that.  The kind of thing most people wouldn't even notice unless they looked at us really close.  Which, thank God, they never do.  But you notice it.  Inside you that change feels like a world of difference.  And you hope this is it.  This is the person you get to be forever... that you'll never have to change again."  That, now that's beautiful.
Lately, Xanga is making pictures blurry if they're over 400 pixels wide.  That's why these are small.

 




 







 

 

                Her father was a collector of glass.  Whenever he saw a piece of glass he liked, he bought it, picked it up off the floor, anything to have it for himself.  There was glass all over the house.  At first, he’d tried to keep it one room.  He built shelves for the walls and tables for the center of the room.  The larger pieces sat right on the floor themselves.  With some pieces, he got creative, finding ways to hang them from the ceiling.  But, eventually, after many years, there just wasn’t any more room.  The glass floated outward from then on.  Any spare place on a table was soon laden with glass.  Glass covered the counters, the kitchen table, sometimes even making it on to the kitchen chairs.

                So, naturally, she’d learned to be careful.  She walked so slowly, so smoothly, that some people called her graceful.  She floated from floor to floor, room to room, barely making a sound.  She would have been excellent at scaring people, sneaking up behind them and screaming in their ear, but her soundless walking found its way into other parts of her life, too.  She did not speak.  When she spoke, it was barely above a whisper.  Her words floated in mid-air for just a second, and then they were gone.

                Some people might have expected that she would have acted differently in other places, away from the house of glass.  But she did not.  She walked just as gracefully, talked just as quietly, anywhere in the world as she did in that house.  When she was young, in elementary school, it wasn’t an issue.  Everyone banded together, even if they kept to themselves.  She ate lunch with a specific group of girls every day.  Whenever a group project was conducted, she wasn’t left to be thrown into the smallest group by the teacher.  Still, things change.

                High school was different for her.  She was beautiful, to say the least.  Her body was thin, curved.  Her hair was the lightest of all browns; it fell in large, long curls along her face and down her back.  She had long legs, legs that were made for heels, and she knew it.  She wore heels everyday.  Her favorite was a pair of classic black heels, featuring a peep toe opening and a four inch stiletto.  Other girls saw the way the guys looked at her.  They tried to emulate her, wearing heels as she did.  But they mostly stumbled, sometimes even falling.  No guys dropped to their knees to help them up.  These girls echoed through the halls as they walked in their heels.  She did not.  She kept the quiet grace in her walk, no matter what shoes she had on.

                It’s safe to say that the guys were most likely fascinated with her.  They were amazed by her silence, the sharp features of her face.  Perhaps they thought she was something greater than them, something beyond human.  Perhaps they thought she was an angel.  There were theories, mostly spoken in whispered voices at the tables in the back of the library or the safety of the boys’ locker room.  She’s an angel.  She has invisible wings.  That’s why she doesn’t make a sound when she walks; she’s flying, floating above the ground.  That’s why she flinches away when anyone tries to touch her back.

                She did flinch at the smallest sign of physical contact.  It was like she was a piece of glass herself.  She could break at any moment.

                One morning, she woke to the rain.  Where she lived, it was perpetually warm.  Even when it rained, she knew she’d feel the heat, clinging to her back, pressing against her cheeks.  When it rained, she wore boots.  Her books were black; they had a chrome buckle on the side.  The heel was three inches, making her an inch shorter than her usual height.  On this particular day, she decided to wear shorts.  They were a light gray, and she paired them with a white tank top and a black vest.  The vest buttoned from just below her chest to just above her bellybutton.  She lined her fingers and wrists with flowers and pearls.  A particularly long pearl necklace hung from her neck, falling just short of the end of the vest.  As an afterthought, or maybe on a whim, she pulled a black lace garter up to the mid-thigh of her right leg.

                When she arrived at school that day, everyone stared.  It was like a dare, almost.  Like she was waiting for someone to kneel down in front of her, reach up, and pull it off.  And, sure enough, someone went for it.  She was sitting in biology class, listening carefully as the teacher went through the lesson plan, when a boy’s left arm started to move.  His name was Peter Michaels.  He was quiet; he kept to himself.  He wasn’t sure what came over him that day; he wasn’t sure what made him do it.  But he couldn’t focus on the lesson.  His eyes kept floating away from the blackboard to that one spot of skin on her leg that wasn’t showing.  It was a mystery to him.  Somehow, he convinced himself that all of her secrets, all of the mysteries that surrounded her, would be revealed if he could just see that one part of her leg.  So, slowly, carefully, his left arm reached out.  He got a hold of the lace between two of his fingers.  And he tugged.

                The fabric barely moved.  She was out of her seat and in the far corner of the room before he had time to let his arm return to his side.  He looked at her, confused, wanting to apologize, but before he could open his mouth an awful sound filled the room.  She was screaming.  There were no words.  Her mouth was wide open, and the scream spilled out like water from a faucet.  Only, there was no way to stop it.  The faucet was open, and it couldn’t be closed.  The flow could not even be weakened.  The teacher tried to reason with her, tried to calm her down.  He reached out to touch her shoulders, wanting to tell her that it was okay.  But, as soon as his fingers made contact with her skin, she was screaming louder.  The sound of the scream didn’t cease as she ran out the classroom door.  It remained in their ears, repeating over and over again in their minds.

                She didn’t know where she was running.  She just wanted a way out.  But, no matter where she turned, there was another wall in her way.  She couldn’t even find a window.  Then, she saw it.  It was the glass window that served as wall between the hallway and the office.  To her, it looked like a way to the outside.  For once, the glass was a haven.  She would reach it, and it would break.  She would be free.

                She did reach the glass, but it did not break.  It was strong glass, unlike the hundreds of objects her father collected and placed all over the house.  She threw herself against it again and again, but it held.  She screamed louder as people came out of the office and the nearby classrooms, grabbing her arms, pulling her away, trying to calm her down.  The screaming did not stop until she was seated on a couch in the office of the school guidance counselor.

                She wasn’t sure what it was about the office that made her feel safe.  Then, she realized that there was no glass in the office.  She pointed out her observation to the woman sitting at the desk in front of her.  The woman merely nodded, watching her closely.  She did not have any nervous habits.  She did not cross and uncross her legs.  She did not tap her fingers.  She did not twirl her hair.  She did not bite her nails.  Her eyes stayed focused carefully on a crack in the desk, her hands resting at her sides.  Looking at her, one couldn’t be sure if she was breathing because her torso didn’t rise and fall steadily.

                The guidance counselor spoke, wanting her to talk about herself.  She mumbled something about having heard a lot about her, but never having heard anything from her.  Her eyes stayed focused on the crack in the desk as she listened.  Her mouth opened carefully, and the words came out in the same quiet, fleeting fashion as they always did.  “My name is Allison.  My father fills our house with glass.  Every move I make, I have to be careful not to break it.  I can’t breathe.”  She was surprised at how quickly the words came out, how easy it was to say them.  The guidance counselor placed the telephone to her ear, saying she thought they should get her father in there.  All the while, her eyes stayed focused on the crack in the desk.

                Then, her father was there.  He sat next to her on the couch, sitting as far away from her as possible, careful not to touch her.  It was like he knew, almost.  The guidance counselor watched them carefully.  She noticed the similarities between Allison and her father.  Her father stayed just as still as she did.  Only, his eyes wandered.  He inspected every nook and cranny of the room.  It was like he was looking for its secrets.

                With the guidance counselor as a mediator, they began to talk.  Father and daughter had the first honest conversation they’d had in all of the time they’d spent their lives together.  Still looking at the crack in the desk, she said, “Look at the desk.  Look right there.  Do you see the crack?  Even with that crack, the desk is still strong.  The wood holds; it stays together.  Glass isn’t like that.  Glass never has a crack.  Glass is not strong enough to just crack.  It breaks.  Glass only breaks.”  Her father looked at the crack in the wood with utmost disgust.  “I can do almost anything to this desk, and it will remain a desk.”  To prove her point, she stood.  She pushed the desk with her fingers.  She shoved the weight of her body against it.  Turning her back to it, she kicked it with the heel of her right shoe.  The heel made a small dent in the wood.  That was all.  She sat back down, her eyes turning now to the small dent in the desk.  “Wood isn’t dangerous.  I don’t have to tip-toe around it.  There’s no wood in that house.  Nothing solid.  Nothing strong.  You cover it all with glass.”  She stared at the dent in the desk, barely listening as her father and the guidance counselor spoke.  She heard her father say that his father had collected glass.  He thought it was what he was supposed to do.  She heard the guidance counselor say they had some things to take care of when they got home.  She heard these words, but she was already imagining it.  She was imagining kicking the glass, picking it up and throwing it, slamming doors to make the house shake.

                She was doing it.  She was at the house of glass.  Only, it would soon cease to be the house of glass.  She started in the glass room, knocking the trinkets off the shelves, pushing over the ones that rested on the floor.  She flipped the tables that the glass sat on.  She ran upstairs, her heels noisily knocking over glass as she went.  Once in her room, she threw the glass to the floor.  She jumped on the floor, listening to the crashing sounds as the glass hanging in the glass room fell to the floor.  She dashed out of her room, pushing the glass in the hallway off its shelves.  The glass in the bathrooms, the kitchen, her father’s bedroom, the foyer, the living room, all became millions of tiny, clear pieces.  She didn’t stop until she saw herself.

                She was in the first floor hallway when it happened.  At the very end of the hallway, there was a mirror.  She looked at herself.  There were cuts in her arms, her legs, her hands.  A deep red film covered her body.  A body that was once so beautiful was ruined, falling apart.  She ran to the end of the hall, lifted the mirror off the wall, and dropped it at her feet.  There she sat, the glass in her body, the blood on the carpet, her reflection looking back at her from millions of tiny, clear pieces of glass.

Oh, and since I probably won't be making another entry before then, I leave for Plattsburgh on August 22nd.  And classes start the 24th.  Crazy?  I know.

I've been away for awhile.
I had orientation at SUNY Plattsburgh from July 8th to the 10th.  Overall, it was a good experience.  The social interaction was there.  Everyone was nervous.  Everyone was new.  Everyone had something to say.  My roommate for the session, Erica, and I got along quite well.  We also spent most our time with Cara, a girl staying in the room next to us.  The person I got along with the best was a boy named Aaron.  We talked about indie music and going to shows.  He likes photography, too, mentioning that he goes into the woods with his camera and just shoots away.  He loves Shakespeare, though he's never read Hamlet, and he wants to write plays.  As he is an English major, I'll have many classes with him over the years.  There were many times, while we were waiting to go to the next event, that I would watch people.  The shared nervousness slowly disappeared as people became comfortable around each other.  One boy often drifted away from the crowd, a cigarette in his hand.  Despite this habit, I found myself attracted to him.  From a distance, I watched as he flicked his dirty blonde hair out of his eyes.  From a distance, I watched his worn-in shoes walk along the pavement.  From a distance, I sighed, knowing I didn't have the courage to walk over to him.  On the final day, registration for classes was held.  As I walked over to the table where the head of the English department sat, Aaron at my side, I was not surprised to find the attractive boy from the edge of the crowd already seated.  He wants to teach literature.  Sometimes, I get lucky.  There are a lot of general education requirements to fill, but I have already taken care of practically all of them in high school.  So, I am taking Ancient Myth and Modern Mythmaking, a class the head of the department believes all English majors should take in their first semester.  I already have a writing class:  Introduction to Writing Fiction.  As an education major, I have to take two language courses.  I am taking my first of two college level French classes this semester.  To fill a general education requirement, I am taking Introduction to Public Speaking.  Public speaking is something I have struggled with all of my life and something I feel I need to deal with as soon as possible.  This class presents an excellent opportunity to do just that.  My final class is Introduction to Journalism.  I admit that I don't read the newspaper daily, and I am disturbed by the fleeting life of a magazine article.  However, the honesty is there, as is the interest.  It should prove to be an interesting first semester.
I spent the last few days rereading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.  Now, I haven't been reading anything for about a month now.  I'm not sure why.  I just haven't felt like reading.  This book seemed to be exactly what I needed.  The words are easy.  The facts are complicated, but they are facts.  Everything is straightforward, everything is in your face.  Still, the issues are there.  There are issues that hit close to home:  issues with friends and lovers.  There are issues that exist only on the page, only in the imagination:  issues of difficult spells and dark magic.  Also, as I was in a hurry to finish it before the movie, I just kept reading it.  Normally, the chapters seem long and drawn out.  That did not happen this time, I am pleased to say.  I saw the movie last night with my dad and my sister.  Dad purchased the tickets before hand, and we waited in line with hundreds of people for the workers to let us in the theater.  At precisely 12:10, the movie started.  To put it simply, I liked it.  A lot of the scenes were shortened.  I feel like I would have been confused, had I not read the book.  Tom Felton did an excellent job playing Draco.  Him in his black suit skulking around the castle with a look of nervous fear instead of the pompous overconfidence he's displayed for so long.  All of the relationship issues were done well.  There was constant flirtation between Ron and Hermione and Harry and Ginny throughout the movie.  I've always liked Harry and Ginny together.  I thought the scene over Christmas at the Weasley's was an unnecessary addition, but I like what it did for Harry and Ginny.  I liked that Ginny went into the Room of Requirement with Harry to hide his copy of Advanced Potions Making.  When she told him to close his eyes so she could hide the book, I knew she was going to kiss him when she was through.  And she did.  Dumbledore showed Harry the necessary memories.  Dumbledore's conversation with Draco was exactly as I'd pictured it.  Dumbledore growing weaker and weaker, Draco becoming more and more scared.  Harry's battle with Snape was also good:  "How dare you try to use my own spells against me?"  And, at the end, it is apparent that Ron and Hermione will accompany Harry on his quest to find the remaining horcruxes and destroy Lord Voldemort.
Things, some things, are weird lately.  My orientation leader happily told us that he would be painting his dorm room green in the coming weeks.  At first, I found it strange that he would go through so much trouble.  But it makes sense, really.  He spends more of his time living in that dorm room that he does in his bedroom at his home in Brooklyn.  The same will be true for me.  College is going to become more of a first home than a second home.  At dinner Thursday night, Erica made a comment about how Aaron and I will have a lot of classes together, since we're both English majors.  I said something along the lines of, "Yeah, I guess we will."  He said, "You don't sound too excited about that."  I said, "Oh, no,  I am."  It was then that it hit me that I was there.  I was already meeting the people I would be spending the next few years of my life with.  I figured that seeing the new Harry Potter movie as I did was putting myself in the position to see some of the kids I graduated high school with for the first time since graduation.  Even as the people filed by me, I saw no one I knew.  And then there's you.
Having not gotten my schedule and paycheck due to being away, I went Friday night.  I saw your truck in the parking lot.  As I walked to the doors, I looked inside for you.  Before I made it in the store, I heard your voice, saying my name.  You were closing that night.  You were cleaning the bottle room.  I went in to talk to you as you worked.  We talked for practically half an hour.  The conversation flowed easily.  We talked about college.  You said that six thousand people is way too many for you.  You went to a high school not much bigger than mine, and you hid in the back whenever you had classes with more than twenty people in them.  I'd driven for hours and hours, and we talked about bad drivers.  Everyone is in a hurry.  Everyone cuts you off.  When you had to go inside to bring the trash to the back, I followed.  I got my paycheck and schedule.  When I went back outside, you were helping a customer in the bottle room.  I said a whispered goodbye.  Even though you replied, you still called a "Goodnight, Stephanie," to me before I turned the corner.
I've been smiling lately.