'Twas then that the Hurdy-Gurdy man came, singing songs of love...

All right, this is ridiculous. I think we all have cases of severe egotism. People do read these blogs, and they do get hurt sometimes by the things we write, but is it any better to think the thing and not write it? I think that the real problem lies in the way everyone's gotten hateful all of the sudden. I think that the way everyone's become judgemental is almost presumptuous. The more I get to know people, the more I realize that nobody is what they seem to be on the surface; how can we really judge each other if we don't even know each other? I'm not really concerned about the whole blogging thing; the blogs are just freer gossip circles when stuff like this happens, and I'm sure that the people who are upset about what's been written about them are more upset by the percieved insult than by the fact that it was written up. Yes, it's a little much to put some of this stuff on the internet sometimes, but is it any better to hear it from your friends? Let's face it, Friends is a small school, and nothing stays quiet for long. Everyone will know this stuff at some point. The real problem is that we're judgemental enough to think that way, to regard people in such a negative light. Is it really necessary to have a distinct opinion of everyone?

Maybe it is. Maybe I'm insane. I don't know. I don't mean to insult anyone. I just think you guys are great people, and I don't see why we can't all put it aside and love each other.

By the way--y'all need to stop hiding. I know I have at least twenty or thirty readers from my sitemeter, and only four of the fifty people who read my last post commented. Granted, some may have read it twice (and some commented twice), but still... it's creepy to think of people withholding their identities like that. I'm honest with you guys. Be a little honest with me? Drop a comment on that post. I still want to know who actually reads this.

So... yeah. I went to the Bogo-San's country house and had a lovely weekend, although now I'm being forced at gunpoint to do homework. I've got a stupid World's Fair project to do for History, and I made the mistake of telling my parents about it, and now they're frantically buying books and google-ing stuff and generally making everything much more complicated than it needs to be. On the plus side, though, Harry's mom gave me a beautiful '88 brown leather bomber jacket, and I've been driving them crazy by wearing it in the house. It's comfy and lovely and clean and it smells like pinewood, and I don't even feel guilty about the fact that it's leather because I didn't buy it--I'm just helping Jo out by taking it off of her hands. Hee hee!

Good news on the former-writer's-block front: I've been writing like a madwoman! I think I've written ten poems in the last week. Most of them aren't any good, but overall I think the quality of my work is going up. I keep having little daytime fantasies about being a great poet of the twenty-first century and being buried in Poet's Corner, even though it's all ridiculous and I don't think they bury people there any more anyway.

And triumph of the week: a while ago I entered a piece for the Scholastic Writing Awards competition, much to my parent's chagrin (they wanted me to do homework all day instead). When I won an award, my sister proceeded to mock me for the title of the piece, and my parents gave me a clap on the back and then went about their business. These days they're pressuring me about filling out forms for summer programs I'm supposed to go to in order to buff up my resume for my college applications (because they're college nazis), and the program they're stressing most is a Creative Writing program at Columbia. In the middle of English last week I was reading everyone's blogs and decided to check my AOL mail, even though I dont' really use it that much any more. To my delight, I found an email from the Scholastic people, telling me that I was not only automatically accepted into the program because of the award--I was also eligible for a scholarship! I didn't get the scholarship, but it was cool being able to tell my parents that I'd already gotten in by my own means. I think Camille Guthrie was a bit upset when she found out I'd been checking my email in class instead of working on my essay about this, but she was nice about it and seemed happy for me, even though it meant that the nice recommendation she wrote me hadn't been necessary. (I can't wait to see what she names her baby!)

Backtracking a bit: I still have your clothes from Friday, Oona and Rachel. And I think we all know how awesome the play was. I was jumping out of my seat every second. The gangsters were hilarious, Rie was sexy, Frankie was fierce, Adam danced wonderfully and Sam never missed a beat. WonderBoy delivered every punch line perfectly, and Greg Cum-Tongue startled everyone with his clear voice and fervent acting. The costumes were glorious and the set survived intact, despite the distraction of Dennis's Chinese girlfriend and Gentry's last-minute sewing frenzy. I couldn't get enough of it. It really is a shame that it couldn't have gone on longer, and I'm still angry at my dad for making me miss the cast party. Although I still have the kick-ass sunglasses I found on Dan Hunter's roof, and somewhere within me several of LK's breathmints reside to this day.

Random: tonight is the second Bob Dylan concert I've been to. If I don't come to school on Tuesday, you can assume that my corpse is still staring in awe at the stage of the Beacon.

I just spent half an hour looking at Gentry's gorgeous friends and various other funky people that I don't know on Friendster. Does that make me a loser?

Don't answer that.

PS--go back and tell me what your coffee pot looks like! Do you think I'd make a good hedge-sparrow?