Well. That was... unexpected... the whole thing, really.

I went to fighter practice today. Kim was sick, so it wasn�t at her house. We ended up going to Buster�s and helping him get rid of all the crap floating about in his yard. Big trash fire? Oh yeah.

His youngest daughter almost threw a �Camp Fuel� tin (empty, thank the Shadow) on the fire. Shawn... was not really expecting that. His reaction was very amusing.

It went on the metal pile instead. :)

When they started working on the plumbing, Angel and I went into town to go shoe shopping. Prom is less than two weeks away, after all... yecch... it�s too soon, I really thought it was three weeks away still. But it isn�t.

Which of course means graduation is four weeks away, and then I�ll be FREE!!! Yay!

So we were looking at shoes, and Angel hates me because I told her which prom dress I got. Apparently she wanted one of them when she was at Hot Topic a while back.

Later, I took her over to meet Greg and she�s planning to draft him for Mech/Tech/K40 games. Which is all cool, I guess. Greg was ticked off at me for not knocking, because he was vegging out in front of the tv with no shirt on.

Angel works at the club. More importantly, she lives with Buster and Shawn. I don�t honestly know if she�d even noticed or not. Remember, I�d known Buster for over two months before I saw him with a shirt _on_.

I called Dad then to see if I could get an extra hour so we could keep shopping, but no dice because he�s horribly mean and cruel. So I drove Angel back up to Buster�s, and we talked a bit.

I heard many interesting things. About Lenny. No real surprise there, although some of what he�s apparently done were somewhat surprising, I guess.

The girl whose name Scott couldn�t remember is apparently named Brandi. Not the same Brandi who�s in the household, which is probably a good thing, since Angel said Lenny�d moved in with her.

She also said that the entire thing with �St Louis� was a pile of shit, and the three of them (her, Shawn, and Lenny) had been living on 4th Street the whole time.

Also, all my calls were going through _just_ fine. He just wasn�t picking up the phone. It was sitting next to him and everything, he just didn�t pick it up.

And apparently he�d justified that by saying that he�d said stuff to me about not wanting anything to do with me (which, since I�d know if he had, is a lie).

So I came home rather pissed off at Lenny, and I decided to call him one last time, despite the fact that the �one last time� before was over a month ago, the day that I broke up with/dumped him (or did I). I figured, what the hell, he�s not going to pick up anyway, and this way at least I�ll be able to tell him off, right?

The bastard picked up.

I really didn�t know what to do, because I hadn�t in the least thought he�d pick up. After all, he�d been doing a very good job at completely ignoring me for two months, so why would that change?

So I let him talk.

Had this been two months ago, I probably would have believed him much more readily, but as it is, I haven�t the slightest clue whether I do or not.

He said that his phone had been tapped, which is why he�d said St Louis. After all, with a cell phone all you can do is monitor, you can�t trace it.

Personally, I would have thought you�d maybe at least be able to trace which cell it was in, but maybe that�s just me.

I don�t really think I�ll be able to date him again. I�m glad that he�s decided to surface from hiding from everybody, and he said he�d call me sometime. (He also said that a week and a half ago, he left a message with McDonald�s to have me call him. Which might have worked, if I�d been working there that day or the day after; considering that I was flying to or in Arizona at the time, not so much so. And by the time I got back, any message would have been eaten by monkeys.)

So it�s nice that maybe I can be friends with him again, but I won�t be dating him. I don�t understand him well enough for that to work, and I need to feel important. He doesn�t really work that way, so it just wouldn�t work out.

Aw hell. It makes sense to me, at least.

I didn�t tell him that I�ll be going to PSU this fall. Doubtless I will someday, but I want to see if it�ll matter or not first.

He may have said it, not I, and not recently, but once bitten, twice shy. I feel the need to be rather more cautious than I was the first time around, although if I understand his logic rightly (who knows about that) he lied and disappeared to protect me. >.< Presumably meaning that whoever was causing problems with him would have tried to hurt me in order to hurt him.

It�s probably all a load of bull, but oh well. I guess I�ll see.

On the other hand, if the man actually does have (or maybe by now had...) enemies powerful and wicked enough to drive over an hour to track down a girl to hurt somebody they had a problem with... (and there�s a confusing sentence) ...maybe he�s not the safest person in the world to know.

I like him anyway.

Not going to date him. Too different for that, because I can�t see what I want with him anymore. And that would keep me from flirting with people like John-Boy and Kevin and Brian (if he ever gets online...), which wouldn�t be fun because I have such fun with John-Boy and I really like Kevin.

Hmm... I can just see myself giving this address to Kevin and having him going through all the archives... it�d be embarrassing...

I guess I�d just have to either have made that clear already so it wouldn�t be a surprise, or be bright red when I remember that I put stuff like that in here.

Probably just as well that I haven�t given it to Lenny, either. :)

.....

My parents are such prudes.

I told them that Angel�d invited me to come back during the day sometime to go shopping for shoes with her again, since she knows every place in town (and several in Joplin) that would conceivably carry shoes that would fit me and I�d like.

They asked who Angel was. I told them she was Shawn�s girlfriend, and in the household. They asked why she wasn�t working during the days. I told them she works nights, not days. They asked where she worked. I told them she works at the club.

They flipped.

They don�t want me going shopping with a �striptease artist� (I swear, Mom called her that at least twice if not three times). They think it reflects poorly on them, and for some reason they seem to think that people might pull them up on charges for neglect or some shit like that.

Of anything I�ve done that would cause that to happen, hanging out and shopping with Angel really isn�t going to be it.

Hanging out with a convicted felon might be.

Honestly, I don�t really think anybody�s going to do that anyway, so I don�t think they need to worry. In the meantime, I guess I get to sit at home for the next month like a good little girl, which will suck rancid monkey balls. (I felt like something new and different, instead of the good old �bloody fucking monkey nuts�. I hope you don�t feel too upset.)

Once I�ve graduated, if I�m at all lucky, they�ll leave me be a little bit more. Perhaps, just perhaps, between us Rachel and I will let them spend more time in Pittsburg, and I�ll actually make it to a game or two. That�d be nice.

Bah.