Here it is. The promised entry, that I handwrote from 7 till 8 last night and am now typing in Word at 3:33 pm because Rachel need to talk to Michael and she�s picky that way.

.....

Comfort.

It�s a good thing to have in any life.

Sadly, it�s basically completely lacking in mine.

I don�t think he�s had all that much comfort in his, either.

I think I�ve fallen in love with him. At least a little bit, anyway. On Tuesday, we�d�ve been going out for two months. Tuesday is Rachel�s 19th birthday, too, and Ariana will be 14 months old.

We started dating on his daughter�s 1st birthday.

Callow? Perhaps... I don�t know if I can remember exactly what "callow" means, so I can�t rightly say, I suppose.

But this doesn�t matter. What matters is that today, the first day I�ve officially seen him since Christmas (and that�s almost two weeks ago), today I gave him back his ring, kissed his cheek, and said goodbye.

...

It hasn�t been a very good "bye" on this end, I call tell you that much. I�ve been crying off and on for the past five hours.

He�ll be spending the next three days (assuming he's not too sick � he�s gotten the flu from work) moving all his crap to his mother�s, which is four hours� drive away. Well, assuming there isn�t some guy driving 120 mph to run block for him.

Four hours� drive for him. Add an extra hour from here.

And unless he finds someplace new to stay, which is very unlikely, he won�t be coming back from his mother�s on Wednesday.

Because right now, that�s about the only legal move he can make.

(He said something about boosting a few cars to pay back �that ten grand I owe� to an old boss, and staying with his uncle in the city for a while. He can�t stand his uncle. Possibly even more so than the aunt he�s been living with. And staying with this uncle would be a monumentally stupid thing to do, since he�s a chief of police� and the only way he�d stay with this uncle anyway is if he did in fact boost those cars� which just wouldn�t be smart. Or legal...)

I suppose I could try to appeal to Michael�s good side. I think Michael has a good side... Maybe he could stay there for a few days. But I don�t think that would really solve anything in the long run.

Or, he could just suck it up, stay with his mom for a few months, find a job that�ll pay him more than shitty tips, and maybe move to St Louis or Lawrence next fall.

I can hope... it�s about all I can do, right now.

I�m seriously considering two schools right now: KU, which is in Lawrence, and a school with a massage therapy program in St Louis. KU is two hours from here; St Louis more like six or seven.

I think that (right now at least) I�d rather go to St Louis. I could meet this Samantha person who thinks I make for such a good read. She could probably show me around a bit, which would be good considering that I�ve basically driven through St Louis on I-64 from KY to KS and back several times, and I�ve been up in the arch once, and that�s about it for my experiences in St Louis. Aside from the Anita Blake books, of course, but since those�re fiction and I�m not the one who wrote them anyway, that probably doesn�t matter.

When my aunt was here last week, she told me to pick a career in something I liked/loved so much that I lost track of time while I was doing it. The only thing I�ve thought of so far is giving people backrubs/massages.

I�m probably already better at it than I am at French or Latin, which have, up till now, been my longest-running probably major. And I dare say it gets a better rate of pay than anything else I�m likely, at this point, to do....

And besides, St Louis is only 100 miles away from his mother�s. That�s farther than he is from me now, but a damn site closer than 5 hours, which is what it will be next week�

...

My parents are stifling me. Probably because I�m not the person I was a year ago. Back then, at least, I was still nominally Christian. Now, if anything� I don�t know. Pagan Agnostic, perhaps? Crossed with Weatherwaxian Headology? That�s closer�

I guess basically I know there are all sorts of gods doing all sorts of jobs, but there�s no sense in believing in them. It�ll just give them big heads.

And I�d think most deities already have enough trouble in the hat department without me adding to their problems.

That�s not the point.

I suppose the point is that I don�t want to be Mom and Dad�s precious baby girl anymore. I�m sixteen. I�m a senior in high school.

I�m a total pariah.

(Except, of course, to a few people. But most of them, I haven�t seen in a month. Some for longer.)

He�s twenty-four. He graduated high school, but he never went to college. I have no problem with that; my parents, it seems, do. He also has two kids, although probably only one of them�s his. And an ex-wife, although they might not ever have been legally married. They were hand-fasted, though. And I believe him about how she broke that oath. (Four guys at once, and an attempt at a fifth, none of them her husband... well...)

He�s 24. I�m 16. He�s half again as old as I am. He�s had 8 years more experience with the world, and the proof of it as well.

Hell, he�s had twenty years more experience with the world. Who am I fooling? I don�t know shit about shit. Throw me out into the ocean of �the real world� and I�d drop without a trace.

That�s the real beauty of society today, don�t you think? People like him, who�ve lived through all sorts of hell and just learned to deal with it, are left with nothing to show for it. People like me, who (maybe) are smart enough to figure things out if they�re given a chance, aren�t. And the stupid idiots who should have been thrown back at birth are left to lead the planet down the spiral path of descent.

Poetic, isn�t it?

My parents, those masters of the art of stifling one�s children�s potential, have decreed that he�s maybe one step up from white trash, and as such he can possibly be my friend, if he always behaves as a perfect gentleman (the unspoken assumption here, of course, is that it would be impossible for him to do this for any length of time). Maybe. But never anything more than that, because apparently he isn�t in my �social class� and comes from �bad blood�.

The �bad blood� statement, unlike the rest of that last bit, was actually spoken out loud. By my mother. At the dinner table, no less.

God, I hate hypocrites. Such good and loving Christians such as these... Hell, Jesus hung out with hookers and thieves. Surely none of us should aspire to greater heights! *rolls eyes*

I just wanted to be happy. The perfect thing about him was that he made me happier than I can ever remember being, and I made him happy in return. Lately, he�s been surrounded by three women who�ve been doing their damnedest to make his life a living hell: his aunt, his ex, and his boss. He said, on Christmas, that the only time he wasn�t under added stress (just the stress he already had, y�know) was when he was driving. As in, the tenth of a mile from his aunt�s to work, or vice-versa.

And when he was with me. Because the only thing I�ve tried to make him do (other than relax) is spend more time with me. He didn�t mind that, see?

I don�t know what to do anymore. I think I�m going to be very depressed soon. I guess it�s supposed to make up for the last two and a half months.

I guess that �patience, grasshopper� is the only thing I can say to myself� hopefully, he�ll be able to stay online at his mom�s so that I�ll be able to keep in touch. And this fall�

To quote John-Boy, �only the Shadow knows for sure.�

...

...

...

Huh. It didn�t take half as long to type that as it did to write it. I guess that happens, sometimes.

Some of that writing is no longer applicable. I got a message from him when I got home from school (but before I had time to type this up, seeing as how Rachel started hollering about how she was expecting a phone call) saying that it was ten till 1 (in the morning) and he wasn�t going to be on much longer (honestly, I�m surprised that he was still up that late� he was sicker than a dog yesterday afternoon), but he wasn�t going to his mom�s and so he�d get a hold of me.

This is good. Because despite that, I�ve been missing him terribly all day. Odd, sort of, because I saw him yesterday. Hardly more than twenty-four hours ago, really.

But then again� I started crying about ten seconds after I couldn�t see him anymore, because I was certain that I wasn�t going to see him for probably three weeks.

I still might not see him for that long. I know he�s not going to go to fighter practice next week, because (assuming it�s warm enough, of course) it�ll be here in town, and he�s in the mood to avoid my parents at the moment, since they seem to have decided he�s the enemy because they don�t know anything about him except that he makes me tremendously happy and he has two kids and an ex-wife.

They seem to be of the opinion that as soon as he lets it, assuming I�m not in the picture at the moment, he and his ex will fall back into each other�s arms and fall in love again too. I really don�t see that happening. He hates her. He really does. And he definitely doesn�t trust her. She�s betrayed him about fifteen too many times.

He doesn�t have to play nice anymore. And his mother really doesn�t like her. So if he and his ex take the kids to go see their grandmother, �S� had better behave. Because... well... yeah.

My parents are buffoons sometimes. They really are. Sometimes, no doubt, they have the best intentions... but we all know what those do, don�t we?

Anyway, next week it�s in a town I�ve never been to that I can recall, and I don�t have the faintest idea where the park is, or why on earth we�d be holding it there since I don�t think that anybody in the shire lives there.

But the week after that (in other words, three weeks from yesterday) it�ll be in Pittsburg again. In which case, even if he does end up going to his mother�s, he�ll maybe be able to come.

...

I need a different life. That�s it. Y�see, this one�s too damn awkward, and there isn�t any way I can see to make it less so. I can�t see any way for him to move here, and I know I can�t move there, not yet anyway. And even if I could, I don�t know if necessarily I should.

I thought up a way, back about a month ago� if I�d graduated at semester, I could have started college at PSU and possibly� who knows? I didn�t, and I didn�t, and so it�s a moo point.

You know, it�s like a cow�s opinion. It just doesn�t matter.

I guess one of the big problems here is that time takes too long to pass. And yet, here I am, beginning my last semester of high school; a senior. Surely I�m supposed to enjoy it, right? Since it�ll end up passing so fast and I�ll look back on all those wasted opportunities with harsh regret, and all that jazz?

Such a load of shit, don�t you think?

I�m tired of living in my parents� house, under my parents� rule. I told my friend Sushi about this, and she said �Hell no! If my parents tried to tell me I couldn�t date some guy I liked, I�d totally ignore them!� or at least words to that effect.

I really wish I could just walk out the front door right now and not come back. I�d have to take Wills, because I�d miss him too much if I left him (he�s my cat). But then again... he�s getting really old, so by all rights I should leave him... but he�d miss me, too. I don�t know. See, it�s things like this. You start planning what you�d do and how you�d do it to be happy, and realize that there isn�t really anything you can do right now.

Fucking monkey nuts, as David says. >.<

Heh� Microsoft Word has problems of a grammatical nature with �>.<� They don�t know what it is. But they don�t like it. :)

Huh. I guess if I took Dad�s car right now and left, he could sell it and make a good part of that ten grand� it�s a good car, see.

But I don�t know that I want to live that life. I guess that, despite all my blustering cussedness and all that, I�m weak. Or shallow. Nah, not shallow. But scared, probably. I don�t know how to live a hard life, and I don�t really want to learn.

He hasn�t really had anything but a hard life. I want to help him, I really do... but I can�t think of any way to do that without hurting myself (and maybe him) more than it would help.

ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH ARRGH

Sorry bout that.

I don�t know what to do. I need a sign. Something.

I think my mind is going to snap. It might have already, I don�t know.

.....

Well, that's the end of everything I typed up yesterday afternoon, anyway.

Now it's today. Tuesday. With all that Tuesday entails.

When I finished typing this all up, I saved it to a suitably nondescript title and checked to see if Rachel was off the phone yet. The answer? Yes... and no.

She was online. >.< Her computer doesn't even have Callwave, which means that since she was bitching at me for trying to get online (on a computer that does have Callwave) because she was expecting a phone call... arrgh. So I took a nap. And then woke up three hours later in time for dinner. And after dinner, watched Dad spend five hours trying to install our "quick and easy" DSL stuff.

He also spent three hours, I think he said, on the phone with some lady trying to figure it out. He wasn't really impressed with her technical knowledge, seeing as how he knew more about some things than she did.

We still don't have DSL, either.

I got a note from him just a few minutes ago. He sent it at 6:30 last night. While I was asleep.

I think I need to ask him where he went, if not to his mother's... I know he's not going to stay at his aunt's much longer, if he's even still there.

Maybe despite his loathing of Angel he moved in with Shawn again anyway. I know Shawn's gotten Internet up and running again... I talked to him on ICQ a few days ago.

I could keep rambling but I don't think it'd help very much.

Because I still don't know what I need to do.

Except bake a cake for Rachel's birthday today. But I don't really want to do even that right now. >.<