Bob Dylan's 115th Dream

Subtitle: The Right Way to Sleep With A Moose

A few nights ago, I had a frantic fight with my sister. It went something like this:

Renata: Eww, what are you wearing?
Me: At least I'm wearing something. Look at you...
Renata: Whore.
Me: Man-whore.
Renata: Dammit, you're so pretty. I hate you.
Me: I love you.
Renata: I love you too... slut.

I throw a chicken bone at her.

Renata: Pick that up, the grease will stain the rug.

I throw another one.
She throws one back.
After about half an hour of severe laughter, we've finished off the chicken. My mom walks in.

Mom: V, is that a chicken bone? (Notice that Renata never gets blamed for this stuff.)
Me: Maybe...
Mom: Well, pick it up. The grease will stain the rug.

That night as I get in bed, Renata notices that the stuffed moose that usually occupies the foot of my bed has fallen to the floor. (The fabulous Elena, who as of yet has no blog alias, gave me this very same moose when she returned from Canada last year. It is very soft.) Renata got very annoyed about this, and threw out the best quote of the week, if not month:

"Come here, Veronica. I'll teach you the right way to sleep with a moose."

I snuggle into her bed and we talk about everyone we know and play "off the roof." (I know, I know; very third-grade. I feel very third-grade right now. As you may have noticed, from the quality of my writing.) Ah, sisterhood.

I finally return to my bed and stare at the Bob Dylan poster on my closet door. I continue to do so for the next two hours while I philosophise about life. Eventually I get so sleepy that I start speaking, actually asking questions like "What's it all about, Bob?" and instantly wincing at myself in a very sleepy way.

Not surprisingly, I dreamed that I met Bob Dylan. Again. I swear I've dreamt that I've met him about fifty times by now. In this dream, I relived an encounter that Elena (who as of yet has no blog alias) told me about, in which her friends' mother met Paul McCartney at an airport and sobbed "Oh, God, I love you," to which he replied, "I love you too, babe," and kissed her on the cheek. It was very pleasant, and I woke up at three in the morning with an ache in my chest.

I went back to sleep and had what could be described as a nightmare. I wasn't afraid in the dream, actually; in fact, I wasn't afraid afterwards, either, but when I described it to Bogo-San and another friend of mine, they described it as a nightmare. It was quite beautiful, actually. I won't describe it here because it was simply too beautiful and I am feeling simply too mundane right now to ruin such a wonderous and strange and surrealistically beautiful thing.

When I woke up again, I went straight to the shower, as usual, and looked in the mirror at my slightly bulging naked body. I still had the memory of the dark sad beautiful dream with me, and I looked squint-eyed into the mirror and felt truly beautiful. I felt like a dark-eyed gypsy. It was beautiful. I didn't think I was particularly beautiful, or perfect, or better than anyone else, or better-looking than anyone else; I just felt beautiful because of the beautiful strange feeling I was left with after the dream. I felt like a Roman statue, shining and white, cracked and imperfect and misproportioned but beautiful still in some elusive way, like a moonmoth with a crumpled wing or a hedge-sparrow hopping on one foot.

I thought about all the beautiful people I know, and my sister, and Joan Baez, and felt lucky and happy and wondered what it is that makes people beautiful. In the past, I had come to three general conclusions: that people are beautiful because they are filled with love, that people are beautiful because they are true to themselves and are the fountainheads and mirrors of their own self-esteem and self image, and that people are beautiful because they are capable of appreciating beauty. I am sometimes filled with love, rarely the fountainhead of my own self-confidence/self-image, and very often indulge myself in the appreciation of beauty; but at that moment, I felt like the embodiment of all three.

(Footnote: I have had this feeling twice before, in a stronger form. The first time was when I was ten and discovered Oscar Wilde and that I could write in the same week. The second time was on the morning of my fifteenth birthday, although I didn't know it was by birthday until over dinner my uncle remembered and dumped the rice all on his plate so that he could use the pot and serving spoon to accompany himself to "Las Mananitas," the Mexican birthday song which is about an hour long.)

Did I mention that it was beautiful?

Afterwards, however, I floated through the day as if from a distance, feeling unreal and causing Bogo-San to get worried and ask me if I was sick. I told him I wasn't, and that I'd just felt detached all day, and he looked even more concerned. (I won't pretend I didn't like being soothed, comforted and held, though. It was truly lovely.) I improvised terribly during Playwriting (it's no wonder: I had to act the parts of a sports-obsessed football-game watcher and a male waiter who hates french people), danced to Santana with my sister, talked to Jack 2 (who is very very sick), and got yelled at by my parents for blogging late. All the while feeling detached. It was lovely.

Cheynes

My sister is so beautiful. But truly. So very sweet and tender...I can't help but want to protect her from everything and everyone. I think if she had a boyfriend I'd feel instantly inclined to dislike him and make his job very difficult. She's so very perfect and still so unsure of herself... I don't know how to make her believe me about herself. I am reminded of this because she is right behind me making magic with the piano, pounding the keys and throwing up a blues-storm that is filled with passion until she sweats and finally stops, smiling. She looks at me and starts to laugh when she sees that tweety (bird) has just landed on my head.

I've always wanted to make her understand all the things I love, and, to her credit, she's understood many of them. But not all. And I don't understand everything she's passionate about, either. I want to give them to her, all of them, and make her understand and love them as much as I do. Loving things (and people) is so very difficult sometimes.

Officially on two weeks of archives on this blog now. I'm not sure why that makes me so happy. I never saw myself as a blogging type. Who knew?

Note to elena, who as of yet has no blog alias (but apparantly does read this... you leave the most hilarious comments, dude. Where would I be without you? (Don't pull a Happy Sheep and try to answer that)): it was truly not all that controversial, because certain people are very very accepting. And wonderful. And certain others still put up their away messages whenever I go online. All I can say is that you'd better come with me this summer. I'm sorry we didn't get to go bra-shopping or concert-going last night. I love your random comments... they're so you, and they always make me smile. I'm still waiting for you to get a blog, or at least use your livejournal, so that I can write inside jokes on it and confuse everyone. And I'm sorry, but a certain someone is most definately not gay. No matter how many times he cites Mean Girls or says "Fetch".

Last night was the last gig I'll ever see at Orange Bear. The old one, anyway, because it's relocating. Bogo San took me (though we were half an hour late to a one-hour show) and we had a generally good time (especially since they played Isis and Scarsborough Fair and that song they wrote that sounds exactly like Nirvana's Lake of Fire, some of my favorite songs of all time.) Adrian, or maybe it was Christian, I'm not sure which is which, said some closing words about "So, like, we've got to keep the scene going, and, like, still go to eachother's gigs and stuff, 'cause, like, it's real, y'know, it's good stuff," and I felt sad, mostly because I was never really as much a part of that scene as I'd like to have been. I really hope that it doesn't just end like that, unceremoniously and all. Although closure would probably be worse. I hate closure.

When I got home last night, I heart my mom say to my dad, "You know, I think V. is a lot like you, John, in that she hates being labelled." I immediately interjected, furiously declaring that "I am not like him!"

I think I'm beginning to discover why it is that I hate being labelled so much. It's because as soon as someone attaches a label to you, they've found a convenient way to disregard whatever it is that you're saying. Once I'd gotten a reputation as a rabid Bob Dylan fan, for example, people stopped listening to me when I told them to listen to certain Dylan songs. It's the same thing as when someone really religious tries to tell you about God; you tune out instantly, because you figure that it's just an innate character flaw that causes them to believe whatever it is they're saying, not their own logic or passion or good taste. Passion is not a flaw, and is not always irrational. I sound irritatingly like F. Scott Fitzgerald, I know, but I urge anyone who reads this never to disregard another's passion. It is seldom empty.

In case you didn't notice the change, thanks to the beautiful Laura K, or Elk, as she is known in blog-land (and perhaps in life, I'm not really sure), I now know how to link!

On a random note, some stats that I have gathered over the last week or so and found interesting, shocking, or sad:
1 in 10 people is homosexual, by the conservative estimate. (The liberal is 1 in 8.)
1 in 4 girls who goes to an all-girls' summer camp becomes/discovers herself as a lesbian.
1 in 9 rapes is committed by a woman.
1 in 20 children (defined as a person under the age of 16) who says that s/he has been abused physically, verbally or sexually is lying.
1 in 3 smokers will die of lung cancer.
1 in 5 teenagers will die of some form of cancer.
1 in 15 children born in the world will work in a sweatshop before the age of 16.

Dandy, Dandy

This is the story of Andy.

I met Andy in Wisconsin. While mopping the floor and singing in Italian. Of all things.

It's a very long story, but the gist of it is that I was thirteen (fourteen in one week), working in the kitchen of my camp in Wisconsin (if you serve half the meals and wash dishes afterwards you don't pay as much for the camp) and having a very bad time because for the first time in my life none of my friends had come at the same time as me. I was working non-stop about seven hours a day in a vain effort to disprove all the New Yorker stereotypes I'd encountered, and was not taking it at all well. It was the shittiest day I'd had in a long time, and I was mopping the floor of Western Lodge, the enourmous hall where we ate, and feeling sorry for myself. In effort to cheer myself up, I started to sing an Italian song that invokes the sun. (I know, I know; how very metaphorical.) I had slept only three hours the night before because my friend had woken me up four times to take her to the nurse for her migraines and lost them before we got there.

Just when I thought I would pass out, I heard a voice say "Are you mopping the whole hall by yourself?"

It was Kieran Culkin, straight from Igby Goes Down and Dangerous Lives of the Altar Boys and complete with sexily long, slightly dissheveled reddish hair. So it seemed, at least. How could I not be stricken with romantic notions?

It didn't help that he insisted on finishing the mopping while I sorted silverware, a job that at least allowed me to sit, and got into an easy, relaxed conversation with me in which he proved that he was indeed as chivalrous, funny, loveable and attractive as I'd hoped he'd be. We did dishes together that night. (I succeeded in soaking him from head to toe with the sink-hose). We hung out every day in the kitchen when his work schedule was changed. He made it very clear from the first that he was very attracted to me. I, on the other hand, was shy, hesitant to make first steps, nervous whenever I talked to him.

How can I describe Andy? He's a little on the preppy side, granted, but still sincere and kind. He's the kind of guy that not one person can bear to dislike, the kind of guy that gives the kind of hugs that make your day and never thinks about himself. He always works hard and, after working seven hours straight when the dishwasher breaks, will still insist on working your shift so you can get some rest. An all-American cross-wearing nature-loving theater-obsessed good guy with the world's biggest heart.

So it really wasn't so strange that I fell painfully in love.

And it really wasn't so strange that when I told him I lived in New York, he jumped up and down, unknowingly spraying the windows with dishwashing soap, and told me that he was coming to New York in three weeks.

And it made sense that I ate dinner with his family one night, got invited to a party at his relatives' rather large house in New Jersey (which my mom wouldn't let me go to because she hadn't met him) and spent an entire day showing him the Empire State building, Greenwich Village and Times Square.

And it was only logical that we called each other a few times a week just to talk, and that I saw him when I came over Winter Break.

Eventually, however, the calls slowed down, and although he was still charming, sweet and decidedly interested whenever I talked to him online (which was only about once a month), everything faded away after about four months. I suppose I preferred to think of myself as a victem of circumstances, seperated by states only from what would have been a very happy relationship for both of us. And after all, no matter how passionate it seemed at the time, all it ever was was a childish romance in the midst of the final pained and emotional stages of puberty.

What could I do? I was no longer sure if he had any interest in me, and the silence was painful. I forced myself to forget him. When I met Bogo-San a few short months after that decision, the first person I'd had so much real interest in in quite a while, I determined to pursue my end and not let my own shyness kill the relationship again. I was fed up with hiding my feelings, fed up with pain. I still couldn't bring myself to be completely frank, and God knows I was insecure, but I'm glad I did what I did, no more and no less.

That summer proved odd. Staff Training Week at Anokijig (the camp) found me amongst mostly seventeen- and eighteen-year-olds who had been my counselors in the past, without most of my friends of previous years, and missing Bogo-San terribly. I mumbled a word or two to Andy about "let's just be friends" and somehow neglected to tell him that I'd been dating a guy in New York for almost two months.

Everything worked out well, for the most part; I avoided him when I was alone, skipped the weekly dance three nights in a row to run the movie projector for the younger kids, and through him made several new friends that I wouldn't have missed out on for anything. He was, as always, bright and brilliant, taking everything in stride but still managing to seem interested in me, which made me afraid somehow. I had no desire to return to my former painful state; having seen a glimpse of the other side, of what a relationship can be, I know now that choosing happiness is far more rewarding.

So when I talked to him online last night, I figured it would be no big deal if I casually mentioned that I'd been dating H. for the last eight or nine months.

"Do you still go to fencing?" he asked fondly;
me: "Not really... this guy who used to stalk me is always there, and it makes me nervous."
Andy: "Wow, that sucks. Yuck."
me: "Yeah... he pretty much ignores me now, though, because my boyfriend told him to leave me alone."
Andy: "How long have you had a boyfriend?"
me: "A while now, almost nine months."
Andy: "Wow! I'm happy for you."
me: "Yeah, it's really great. I mean it's really wonderful."
silence for a bit.
me: "thank you."
more silence.
me: "Hey, i have to go..."
I get an "Auto response": "Nobody's talkin, so just give me a call. 217-0110. -Andy."
me: "Alright, well, I'm going. I love you."

...and now I'll probably never IM him again.
Here's to awkward summers.

esquivel!

i've noticed lately that i tend to cast the people i love most in a negative light when i talk about them. like elena (who as of yet has no blog alias... i don't think she reads this), jack 2, bogo-san, etc. it kind of pisses me off.

yesterday i heard some upsetting news from a friend and, as is my way, coped with it by walking into the new Forever 21 store on Union Square that thinks it is Urban Outfitters. the clothes weren't all that amazing, but the models that wore them were all startling and edgy and clean and anorexic and vile, because they made me feel vile and un-cool.

because i am veronica, i instantly think of all the other people i am nowhere near as cool as and get depressed again. (fuck grammar.)

*footnote: i always figured, when i was a depressed middle-schooler, that if i were older, or had longer hair, or had a boyfriend, or weren't such a social alien, that i wouldn't be depressed. i guess i was wrong. although i am far far less depressed now, and capable of picking myself up again, or letting certain other happy sheep help me do so. *end footnote.

because i am not the veronica that i once was, i recognize the negative effect that the store is having on me (especially since i am broke and shabbily dressed) and go instead to the next-door Strawberry, which usually makes me feel positively classy. strangely, it does nothing for my spirits, especially since i find a pair of shoes there that i like (a personal first, at the next-door Strawberry) and remember that i am broke and shabbily dressed.

recognizing the negative effect that the store was having on me, i go home and proceed to get into an arguement with my parents about my grades. recognizing the negative effect that the arguement is having on me, i proceed to not-do my spanish homework. recognizing the negative effect that not-feeling better and not-talking about the issue that initially upset me was having on my blue-fingered self (i was cold, hey), i proceed to call bogo-san and elena (who as of yet has no blog alias). to bogo-san i spill; from bogo-san i recieved comfort. to elena i teased and monologue; from elena i recieve her special brand of one-liners that date back to fifth grade and still make me crack up. especially the "happy sheep" ones. (elena as of yet has no blog alias, and probably doesn't read this.)

i think i will update often. the unique bizarreness of my mood is making this a very cheery experience on my part. i usually enjoy writing the most when i am indeed writing my oddest pieces. why, you ask? i know not.

notice that right after i wrote that i regretted casting elena (who as of yet has no blog alias and probably doesn't read this) in a negative light, i wrote, rather meanly and probably in retaliation for probably not reading this, that she probably doesn't read this, and cruelly highlighted the fact that elena as of yet has no blog alias? (this sounds confusing as i write it, but when it was merely a confusing thought that i thought it i assure you it was not so confusing and in fact most sincere.)

i'm not sure if i like this naming-my-blog-entries-after-alternatively-well-known-and-obscure-songs business. i think perhaps i will end it... or at least extend the challenge of naming the band/artist and/or album to unfortunate readers. this one is particularly obscure, so enjoy.

i'm not sure how to end this. here goes.

all i really wanna do

i love Othello. i truly do. it's almost three in the morning, and i just finished my essay, and guess what? writing it was amazing. it felt great. it's eleven pages at 1.5 spacing, and it's not even that good. i lost sight of the topic halfway through. i just rambled and let myself enjoy making connections. the whole play is just riddled with connections, plot circles, parallels, references... i can't get enough of it! watch camille hate it... in an odd way i really want her to. i want to write another one.

i remember hearing in middle school about dorks, geeks, and nerds; they were people who liked books and computers and old t.v. shows and didn't know any new music or watch t.v. it was simple, really; avoid picking up those traits, and you'd be fine.

i guess that makes me a dork, then.
it's so worth it.

my eyes, fingers, and back are killing me, and i can't feel either of my feet.

did i mention that i love Othello?
how anyone can not love it is beyond me. it's a pure work of art, a pure masterpiece. i don't particularly like any of the characters, really... although i think if i were a guy i'd probably develope a Desdemona thing. if.

even the word is beautiful. Othello. It's even fun to write.
Othello. Othello. Othello.
I would be so happy to do nothing but read Othello for the rest of the semester.
Othello. Othello. Othello.
print the damn thing and go to sleep.
Othello. Othello. Othello.
pain shooting up my back.
Othello.

it's life's illusions i recall...

conversation that took place at Orange Bear between jack 2 (matt) and myself friday night:

i pull up a chair.
jack 2: hey, v.v. ... what took you so long?
me: why, was i missed?
jack 2: kinda... well, i needed you to tell me how to get here... beer?
me: grrr...
(new song starts)
me: oh, my god, they're playing scarsborough fair... i've had this song stuck in my head since last tuesday, when i saw the graduate.
jack 2: yeah, i love that movie. you'd seen it before, right?
me: no...
jack 2: really? v.v., i'm dissappointed... you'd really never seen it? you, of all people...
me: just rub it in, will you...
me: hey, did you ever notice that the lyrics to this song are a lot like the lyrics of girl from the northern country?
jack 2: well, no shit, v.v. ... you didn't know that? i'm surprised at you. (hums)

"are you going to scarsborough fair?
parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
remember me to her that lives there-
she once was a true love of mine."

"if you're travelling the north country fair
where the wind blows heavy on the border line
ah, remember me to one that lives there-
she once was a true love of mine."

me: right... i knew that... (i think for a moment). wait, then who stole...
(song becomes extremely loud)
me: grrr...

i feel like an idiot. how did i never notice that? and who stole from who? i'd like to think that S. & G. ripped off Dylan, but it's probably the other way around. i'm truly dying to know, but i don't want to ask, being such a big dylan fan and all... how the hell did i not notice that? they're not even mildly obscure songs; they're even on two of my favorite albums.

later, i go to harry's house and talk to his dad for a few minutes. harry then procedes to show me via the internet that the lion king is not, as i had believed, based on Hamlet, but on an anime movie called kimba that came out several years earlier.

oh, god. they're messing with my mind again.

(John Cleese jumps into my blog)
"... and now for something completely different."

at EFP yesterday, we had to write a conflict skit and then analyze the conflict and resolve it. (it's not as dull as it sounds.) we wrote a skit about a kid who turned his friend in for downloading a paper; severe roughhousing was involved, and i assumed that some guys would play the parts of the students. (note that the girls from Hewitt did a skit about two girls who buy the same pair of shoes for prom.) when casting time rolled around, however, Tia grabbed the part of the brown-nose.

"who wants to be the cheater?" asked Louie. there was silence.
"i think v.v. should do it," he said.
i felt flattered, so i joked. "it's because i'm mexican, isn't it?" i have forgotten completely about the "pusing and shoving" scenes.
Louie grins. "damn mexicans."

the skit begins.
Tia: "Well, you cheated!"
me: "fuck!"
(i run and grab a script. we start over.)

the skit actually begins; Tia and i yell at each other across the room (all perfectly scripted now) and generally enjoy ourselves-- until the fight scene. Tia launches herself at me from across the room and tackles me to the ground, actually pulling my hair and scratching me. for a moment i'm in shock; then my self-preservation instincts kick in. i kick back, matching blow for blow.

"i have to go to college!" i scream. "ms. d. wouldn't give me an extension!"
she reaches for my eyes. i grab her wrist.
"so? i had to do the paper, too! you shouldn't have left it on the computer screen!"
i feel a nail in my thigh.
"why were you looking at my computer?"
our audience looks concerned. Phil B. (yes, amanda's brother) and Louie jump in and intervene, only partially acting.

Tia and i hug each other to reassure the audience.
"i have a rugburn on my knee," whispers Tia.
"we're going to remember this five years from now, you know," i whisper back, and laugh. "you almost got my eye."
"are you guys ok?" asks Louie, looking sincerely concerned.
we laugh more.

blessed are the peacemakers

EFP is amazing. i will from now on be much more involved with it. i will from now on be a better and brighter person. i will not forget what i learned today.

i realized today how utterly selfish i am, despite all my hippieistic tendancies. my blog thus far has been self-centered, terrible and all-in-all not very fun to read. my audiences have been incredibly sweet about leaving friendly comments and emails and generally cheering me up and making me feel pretty damn good, and i am determined in return to make my blog simultaneously profound, hilarious and true to life from now on. this may be difficult, as i'm not all that funny and only vaguely perceive life, and am far too much of a thinker to give a simple decision on anything profound, but i will attempt. this i swear. (*neotokyo!*)

and don't you dare leave a post after this.

on a different note, i love othello. with a fierce passion. the play, not the character. the character really pisses me off. who does he think he is, marrying this woman and then killing her at the tiniest suspicion of her infidelity? it's really not all that hard to figure those things out, either. i mean, come on. anyway...

i love you all. gotta write my essay.
i really shouldn't be this happy about it.

purple haze

Had a terrible, terrible day yesterday. The only things that saved me were a sweet testimonial and the whole Dan Rather thing. I especially loved the bit about the girl riding on the back of the turtle- I don’t know why, but it really cheered me up. I read a lot of Roald Dahl growing up. Otherwise, everything seemed to be going wrong that possibly could: I woke up late, Yarrot took me aside to say that he didn’t like my white-on-white work and lowered both my quarter and semester grades, ms. Daly made me explain the derivation of quadratic equations to the whole class (which I couldn’t) just because I was trying to listen to Rachel’s recount of her terrible weekend during class, my sister called me a slut and said that by being outgoing I make her feel depressed, the newspaper fell a page short of the number of spreads we needed (meaning another week of work on my part), I lost my ipod headphones… I won’t obsess over it, but all in all it sucked. At sixth period I went to the bathroom to brush my hair and ended up crying like a little girl. I ducked into a stall when someone came in and ended up late to English (where my phone rang twice and we finished Othello for good). I was sick as all hell and couldn’t think straight, and by the time I got home I didn’t know who I was any more. I tried to update my blog three times, but AOL (grr…) kept quitting on me. Harry called me at about ten and I just broke down and started sobbing into the phone. As always he was incredibly loving and wouldn’t let me go until I’d told him everything and was sufficiently calmed and comforted, and kept insisting on coming over to see me (even though he’d just left and his dad was nagging him about his college stuff). finally I dissuaded him and listened to Blood on the Tracks and cried a bit more and fell asleep with cold fingers under six Mexican blankets.

Today I woke up and decided that no matter what happened I wouldn’t let myself get that upset again. And I didn’t. I blew off all my newspaper obligations all day, ate french fries for lunch, found my ipod headphones, bought concert tickets for next month, had a picture taken of me lying on top of Alex DaSilva (“promise you won’t show it to Harry? I’m afraid of him.”), and generally made a fool of myself in the best way possible. I put off my homework until seven after seeing MacGyver for the first time with Will and Oona and Harry (“I don’t trust you to do anything straight, Murdoc!”), although halfway through it I started feeling self-conscious again. Afterwards Harry came over and cheered me up (as always) and I realized that I don’t have as much homework as I thought I did. I consequently blew off everything that wasn’t absolutely necessary and read Othello and The Importance of Being Earnest and generally felt cozy. Sometimes I wish there were nothing in my life but friends, good books and hot chocolate.

first rays of the new rising sun

the first entry of a blog should be interesting, but mine won't be, because today was just not an interesting day. i woke up at about 11, ate breakfast, and listened to blood on the tracks, oh mercy, a pete seeger vinyl and a roy orbison album while doing the dishes. (i know, i know, i have very diverse musical taste. i was feeling vintage.) i had to get out of the shower after only half an hour because i had the heat up so high that my mom was worried i'd set off the smoke alarm. eventually i dragged my sick (by this i mean infirm) self outside of the house to shop (unsucessfully). out of sheer boredom i decided to finally create the blog i'd been thinking about and talking about for a few weeks, because i'm just that egotistical.

despite the fact that today was dull as all hell, last night was wonderful. i went to this karaoke lounge-thing with some friends and discovered that paint it black is not in my key. at all. i finally gave up and just shreiked the damn thing, hoping that my lack of talent would be either overwhelmed by harry's loud voice or mistaken for passion. afterwards- orange bear! everyone was there, even the freshmen, which was mildly annoying, because when i was a freshman i didn't go to these things. the problem with this years' freshman class, especially the girls, is that they think they're just that cool. i'm not saying that they're not; it just pisses me off that they think so. people who think they're that cool rarely are, in my opinion.

alas, i ramble. what i kept thinking about last night was the way a person defines themself over time. i've always felt undefined; only now am i really beginning to "come out of my shell" (i hate that phrase) and stop being intimidated by people so easily. what i found fascinating was the idea that every person who said "hey, veronica" or "hey, v.v." to me last night had some concept, accurate or not, of what "veronica" means, of who i am. i actually found this mildly disturbing, because i have no idea what "veronica" means. if we have no other power or ability in life, we will always have the ability to define our own names to the people that we meet. i've always known this, but last night it struck me in a new way, perhaps because i felt as though my name had taken on a new meaning over the past year to so many people, for better or for worse.

how's that for a first entry?
don't answer that.