and all the cards are played and the dice are rolled and it's all on the table and i'm tired and bruised but you don't want to know and you're blocking it out and i'm trying to forget how it was and you already have and it's over.
13 January 2004 1707
another year, another tara tara birthday party. good fun, good fun. it was a complete zoo. her entire family, their children, their pets, their boyfriends/girlfriends, and then all the other people they've met, ever. and then chris and the two year old broke out the karaoke machine. oh man. was that ever terrifying. and the boys came... and we conquered... and then we sat up at the kitchen table talking until 4 in the morning while heidi had "just one last beer" and "just one last cigarette" and left the door open while she smoked and froze us all to death. and then tara's mom woke up and got upset to find us all here and still very awake and quite loud and got grouchy and sent us to bed.
i love that, in the gorman household, she can just get up and tell us all to go to bed. all these adults and college students. tara and thomas, and thomas's girlfriend, and his friend, and tara's roommate... and me, and we all hang our heads and head up to where ever it is we're sleeping, at 4 30 in the morning. thomas's friend, who was mexican with a german name that i cannot spell, was completely overwhelmed by the gorman family. every time someone would spill something or start yelling or dancing or tara would be... tara, or baby jake would toddle over and want to be picked up or the dog would start snoring... he just looked like a deer caught in the headlights. it was amusing. i remember when all that mess was new to me and i was .... stunned, to say the least. but now i've developed a tolerance for... well, many things. i love the chaos and how everyone feels like they can bring everyone they know home and just hang out there and sisters and mothers and family friends come in and out and stop and hang out with us and then the toddlers come in with big cardboard boxes over their heads that are so deep they completely reach the ground and the cat jumps on a chair and heidi screams. i want to somehow create a family like that. i wonder how on earth it's done... that's definitely not how family is structured over at the arcangeli residence. hm. so yah, another year, another tara party, another night for funny memories and strange pictures. i miss that girl.
in other news, you guys have stopped putting your names when you sign my guestbook. this is Not Cool. i Do Not Like this game. at least give me a clue, man with a plan! and g$. honestly. silly boys.
10 January 2004 0055
even though i am fresh out of good question ideas, which becomes quickly obvious, i updated The Damn Guestbook, which you should sign so that you can mock my stupidity at 1 in the morning when i try to be witty and fail and then just give up. come on, all the cool kids are doing it.
10 January 2004 0003
other than completely pissing off supermatt, who is disappointed in me i think and completely right about it, this has been a great night. and snow totally makes everything okay. and that picture i just put up made me think of betty's but in a warm fuzzy way, not a scared way, becuase i'm still not worried about eating cat and things of that nature no matter what i hear. i love betty. and now i have a weekend. and i'm just generally too pleased for words.
5 January 2004 2236
i am stunned. i just heard my mother FIGHT my father because of how he's been treating me lately. he's been screaming at me for everything and he doesn't usually do that so i'm not numb to it like i'm numb to mother screaming. so i try to shake it off and i end up crying later and telling mother what i did wrong today and what he yelled about and i guess the story i told her about this morning was the last straw for her. he was yelling at me for something i didn't do and when i tried to explain i got a "i'm SICK of your excuses you will DO THIS RIGHT or LOSE THE TRUCK" and it was just something stupid, like they all are. like the time i didn't fold the pizza box right before i put it away. but anyways, when he called home tonight from where ever the hell he is, she called him on it. and i just sat here amazed. she was saying things like "she's gonna be gone in 18 months, is this how you want her to remember you?" and all i could think is... wow, she actually does care. she's sad because i am and she's trying to fix it. she wants me to love them when i leave. she wants me to be happy here before i leave. it was a sensation i don't get so often in this house. we can all be not fighting and getting along and everything but there's never a feeling of protection like i got tonight.
of course, half an hour later, it was world war three about something or other but i just acquiesed because i felt bad becuase i knew she was just picking a fight with me because dad's pissed at her because she was defending me. and i feel all warm and fuzzy. like, seriously, and it's not due just to my sweater that i loooove and took off perhaps three times all break long enough to put it through the wash. (i love this thing. i showered while it was in the laundry and when i got out i put it back on again. sad.)
so on the vicious gossip circuit, i heard a good one today. seems that a silly girl i know is going to make a mistake i once made, except she's going to compound this mistake by being the Other Woman. or rather, Girl. oh joy. definitely watch for details as this develops. i plan to be quite amused as the whole thing plays out.
as for me being brilliant and ruthless.... well, you just don't cross me or lie to me. heh. because years of being guilt-tripped at home mean that not only am i wonderful at causing other people to feel guilty, but it's impossible to make me feel bad about anything. heh. the pleasure of being spiteful. tee hee.
my new year's was wonderful. katie and tara and i were, as usual, a prescription for trouble. we got all dressed up and looked Damn Cute for a freakin' expensive dinner that i, thankfully, did not have to pay for, and then partied the rest of the night in pajamas until we fell down from sheer exhaustion, slept like babies, and woke up quite pleased with our nights. i woke up first and apparently wasn't as awake as i thought i was because my first act of consciousness was to fall up the stairs. and then i fell back down them. and then i was unable to go back to sleep because there were too many bruises for me to lie down properly. so i watched a monk marathon - sad day, because i liked it - and finally got up the courage to wake the non-morning-person tara, and then we cleaned up our carnage and found all our cameras and cell phones and clothes and the like, departed, and giggled all the way home. and a very happy new year to all of you as well.
and now major author is upon me. i have so many ideas and absolutely no knowledge of how to write a thesis statement. thanks, ms. woods. really. she's kinda a fan of this somewhat organic method of learning... like, you figure it out naturally, after i fail you a couple of times. it's great fun. mother and i are planning college visits... ohhh i cannot wait! these days, susan's got me so excited about the mcnair scholarship at usc, and supermatt's got me so excited about duke in general, that i'm not even going to mind when i don't get jefferson scholar at UVa or emory scholar or any one of those other scholar full ride programs i've been lusting after since i could breathe. i just need something decent looking to put on my resume... because 3 straight years of theatre is not quite as impressive as i would like to believe, especially since i don't plan to major in it or even pursue it, really. but i'm working on that.
life is so grand right now you just have no idea. seriously. i wake up smiling. i go to sleep smiling. in between i do happy dances and laugh and jump and cry out for joy, which is sort of a double meaning because not only am i happy but i'm happy for meeeee, and the song "hey ya" makes me a crazy dancing singing blur for 4 minutes. i feel like a weight that's been hanging over me for years has been lifted off, and not in the way anyone who has any clue could ever possibly expect. seriously. life is so great. don't listen to me when i whine or bitch. just Don't. play outkast for me. that'll shut me up. well, it'll make me sing, but i won't be whining. that's good, right?
