a letter that will not be sent -- but if you find it and read it, that's okay too.
Dear Shantida,
Yes, I'm writing to you. That might be stupid, it might just make me unhappy, but it might also help me work through some things and maybe feel like some sort of closure to this whole mess.
I want to tell you a story. It's the story I've told to a lot of my closer friends who have found me in tears in the past couple of months. But I realize that you've never heard my version of the story, and I've never heard yours, and that may be where some of (or all of) the complications lie. So I'm going to tell you the story I've told so many times, but I'm going to tell it in the second person this time, which I haven't ever done before.
I've known Dan somewhat since I was in ninth grade and he was in tenth. We were in C.P. Biology together. He was quiet and seemed a little scary -- but all boys were scary, so that's nothing special -- and that was the entirety of what I noticed about him at that point. At least that I remember. I didn't really start noticing him until tenth grade, during Cecile, one evening when Kelci called me up and said she had something "kinda funny" to tell me, that I might want to know. She said she had been sitting by Dan during rehersal that day and, on a whim, had asked him who he thought the prettiest girl on that stage was. And, according to Kelci, he said, "well, Emily, Mora obviously, and Cora" and Kelci had said "Cora?" and Dan had said "yeah, definitely Cora." (According to Kelci that was the extent of the conversation, but Dan told me a few months ago that it had continued with Kelci saying, shockedly, "but -- she doesn't shave her legs!" and Dan had thought that quite a strange reason that he shouldn't think me pretty). So yes I definitely thought that worth knowing, I stowed it in the back of my mind as something to reassure myself with when I needed it, and I needed reassurance a lot that year, it was a very, very bad one. Anyway that summer was the first one that I worked at Cover to Cover, and Dan came in a lot (I know I've told you this before, but it's part of the story as I tell it). And he always looked at me as though, well, as though I was a pretty girl he had some interest in, and this of course terrified me, but it was really, really flattering. And Gianine saw the way he looked at me and thought it was really cute and started teasing me about him. She always sent me to wait on him, fairly obviously, and I always tried not to blush, but didn't really succeed. And he was blushing too a lot of the time, and that was really cute and flattering. And I could never quite look straight at him, because I could always feel him looking at me. And Gianine and Sara say that when he came into the store and I wasn't there he always looked so disappointed. He denies this, but it is true -- I saw it -- that his face just lit up when he walked in and I WAS there. And then there was a day, maybe it was late in tenth grade or maybe early in eleventh grade, yes, early eleventh because it was during chorus and in the bandroom, when Em told me she was worried that Dan had a crush on her and it was a terrible blow to my ego. Despite the fact that Dan's crush on Em was something that "everyone knew about" (or was it at that point? she herself was just finding out --) I didn't know about it, and it had, I realized then, been rather important to me to know (with Gianine's constant encouragement) that he *liked* me. I tried to brush off the disappointment while I concurred with Em that he was definitely not "our type" and what I would do if I were her would be to sort of break it to him gently, and be kind to him without getting his hopes up. I have no idea what I would have actually done if he had been openly interested in me at that point. I told myself it didn't matter to me, but it kept coming back into my mind for the following year, year and a half, so I guess it must have. So then, to continue the story, in eleventh grade I met you, and we got to be friends. And I never told you any of my history with Dan, it didn't seem important, all this about him was entirely peripheral to my life at that point, except when Gianine was teasing me about him. So no, he didn't really become a presence in my life until our senior year -- his second senior year. And you and I and he were all in the same homeroom, and we had some of the same study halls, and we all liked to hang out in the auditorium, so we were spending a lot of time together. And he was flirting with me a bit, and I was enjoying it quite a lot. You remember the day with the paper airplane hall pass? I was flying on that. But trying to deny it because at that point I was still trying to stay devoted to Corey Collins. Anyway then there was that day, it was open house night, it might have been the same day as the paper airplane actually, I'm not sure, anyway you and I and Kelci and some others, I don't remember who, were sitting around the auditorium chatting between the end of rehersal and the beginning of the open house, I was working on my pants, I remember it distinctly, you had just found the first piece of Cecile fabric for me and I was thrilled to death, anyway you were complaining about being single and you said something about how at this point you'd just run at anyone who showed any interest in you and I said "yeah, join the club" and Kelci turned to me (to me. to ME. or am I remembering this wrong? or did you miss who she was talking to? or am I crazy and none of this memory happened at all?) and said "Dan thinks you're hot. Go have sex with him." and I said no, I couldn't, I didn't know him well enough and if I were to fuck him I'd never be able to look him in the eye again. And within an hour I had completely forgotten about what Kelci had said but months later I remembered it and wondered -- and still wonder -- whether maybe that comment of hers was why a week later you suddenly decided to be head over heels in love with Dan. Or maybe it wasn't that sudden, how should I know? It certainly seemed sudden to me, since the previous day you had been gushing about Tyler Burgee. It took me a good while to figure out, actually, that the subject of your infatuation had changed. And when I realized it it felt like a blow to the gut. But I swallowed my disappointment because I knew I had no right to claim prior attatchment since I had been very careful not to encourage him, and after all why should it mean anything to me that he had always seemed to like me? And then within a week you were going out with him. And I talked myself into believing I was thouroughly happy for you, and devoted my time to developing my minor crush on Nick McPhetres into a fullblown big deal. This is my biggest problem, and maybe what you're angry with me for: I always talk myself into going along with what others expect of me so well that I can't even tell I'm playing the part -- until it becomes too hard to bear and I break under the stress. So yes I successfully convinced myself that I was nothing but happy for you and I was not and never had been interested in Dan and I believed this and was even happy with it until mid-February. And then I started realizing that he really did mean something to me and that as I had gotten to know him better, spending time with him and you, I had started caring about him more and more. And I fought it. I fought it quite hard for a little while, because I didn't want to fuck up anything for you. I had heard so much from you about how happy you both were and the last thing in the world I wanted was to cause any problems between you. You can believe that or not, but it's true. I started inlisting other people to tell me periodically to stop thinking about Dan. Allie Lavoie was the principle one, she told me to "stop thinking about it" uncountable times during the last few weeks of "Audience" and I was profoundly grateful, but it didn't help, really. And then all through that time you were constantly teasing him about me and me about him, in front of each other. I'm not blaming you for that, you didn't know how close to home it all hit, you were so secure that he was long over me and I had never had any feelings for him. If I had known you were wrong on both sides I'm not sure what I would have done, I'd like to say I would have spoken up sooner because once I found out I really didn't like that you had been living in encouraged illusions -- and probably still are -- but I don't know, maybe I just would have kept my mouth shut so as not to hurt you, which I think would have hurt us all in the long run, perhaps as badly as we've all been hurt the way it turned out. Anyhow, with my conviction that you were right, at least, that he was long over me, I felt like the best thing I could do to save my own sanity was to tell you the situation so that you would stop teasing. Of course, nothing worked out the way I expected it would, because you, rather than being upset as I had expected, were delighted with the mess we were in, and came up with a plan that sounded like it would solve it. Or maybe I was responsible for the idea, I don't know, I think I did make the first joke about founding a polygamous colony. I never expected it to taken seriously. I guess it was just luck -- bad or good or maybe only necessary, I don't know -- that you did think seriously about the idea, and when I wished for "a solution" you had one, and for awhile everything seemed possible. For a week, actually. That's how long it was before I realized deep down inside that it wouldn't work, though I kept trying for two months. The first week when Dan and I barely said two words to each other and never saw each other out of your presence. You thought we were real cute until we had a conversation that started without you. I don't think you were ever happy with the experiment after that, were you? But you kept trying to keep it going because you knew the only way out was for one of us to leave and you knew that if you were the one unhappy with it you should be the one leaving, but you wouldn't. Anyway I still wanted it to work after that night and thought that it could, until I found out that Dan had been wanting to break up with you since before the experiment started, and stayed with you only out of curiosity about whether we could make this thing work. And I felt just awful about participating in that deception. And I'm sorry, truly sorry, that I allowed it to continue. But on the other hand I don't think it was really my business to solve that problem. I wish he hadn't told me what he wouldn't tell you. I really didn't know what to do with that knowledge that wasn't mine to have or to deal with. I still don't know what I should have done. Probably I should have left the relationship, I should have said "I can't be part of this experiment that's not working, if someone's always miserable I don't want to be involved." That was pretty close to what I did say, a month later when I actually said it. But anyway. At that point I didn't know what to do and probably wouldn't have done it if I had known, because I wasn't the one in danger of being hurt. And yes I am ashamed of myself for that. It's not okay for me to support his lies just because they're not hurting me. I don't like lies or untruths or dishonesty of any sort, and it was wrong of me to play along as long as I did. These days when he and I argue it's mostly about his dishonesty, especially his dishonesty to you. Because I don't approve of it and I feel responsible for some of it, because I didn't speak up when I could have. Anyway. Enough dwelling on that. So when I finally felt I had to end the experiment it was because the lies we were all living and the games we were all playing had finally turned on me. You obviously didn't want it to work anymore, you hadn't in months, you wanted me out of the way and you told me I "had really helped things" between you and Dan and implied that I was no longer necessary. I didn't want it to work anymore because I knew Dan was not happy with you, that everything was not fixed, and I didn't like you being lied to or him being unhappy, and also because I so rarely got any time alone with him, and because you seemed to resent me so much. I don't know what he really wanted. He told me he didn't want to hurt anyone. And I think that's true, and I don't think that's healthy, to put not hurting people ahead of everyone's happiness. Anyway what finally broke me was, as you know, prom. I didn't really want to go, not much anyway. And I didn't want to go with him because that would be making you secondary. And I didn't want you to go with him because that would make me feel secondary. And I really believed that the only way to solve that issue was for all three of us to go together -- yes, I know that would have caused a stir, but I think we might have enjoyed it anyway -- or for none of us to go together, which was the best solution I think, and the one I thought I had been pushing for. I guess I didn't push forcefully enough. Or actually I think the best fun would have been if you and I had gone together. We could have really confused people. "Hi, we're Dan's harem, but we decided to leave him at home tonight." At any rate. When I found out he had agreed to go with you it hurt. A lot. I can't bear to feel like I'm obliged to be the shameful secret. He tells me over and over again that I have never been secondary. But I felt secondary. And I was miserable, absolutely miserable, and I had to end it. And I ended it knowing that I might well be losing him completely, and also that I might not lose him. And I told him that he was going to have to date either one of us or neither of us, because I couldn't live like that any more. And I told him that if he was going to break up with me he ought to get it over with, senior project be hanged, because I didn't want to be lead on or encouraged to hope when there was nothing to hope for. And I meant that for you too I think, I didn't want him to lead you on and then hurt you like he ended up doing. But he chose not to hear that plea, and maybe I didn't plead loud enough, anyway he did put off telling me the decision he had already made for the worst three days of my life, and kept leading you on several days longer, and no I don't think I've quite forgiven him for that yet. Anyway a week later when you and I had that fight and then that reconciliation and then he asked me out again and I said yes and you haven't seen me as a human being since, that I should try to tell. I'm not sure anymore which things you told me he said were things he didn't say, but you heard, or which were things he did say, but told me he hadn't said. But at that point there was a lot of leading you on that he vowed he had not done and I believed him, because I have certainly known you to hear only what you want to hear whether it bears any resemblance to what anyone is saying or not. Recent months I've thought that maybe he said a lot more of it than he said he said. And no I haven't any clue what he meant, by anything he said to you or you heard him say or even in a lot of cases I heard him say. But at that point I believed him when he said he only wanted me. I still believe him when he says that, actually. I think he's always meant it and I wish he hadn't told you such a shitload of lies to the contrary. And I wish you would stop blaming me for the lies he's told you. When he asked me out six months ago I said yes because I love him, because I fully believed he meant everything he said to me, and because saying no would have been perpetuating the climate of deception that had been killing all three of us for months. And I thought you deserved better than to be lied to again. I do not regret anything I did that day, or anything since. I've done absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in the past six months, and I do believe I'm the only one of us who can truly say that.
I don't mind you being angry with me, you have a right to be angry with me, but I wish you'd stop being angry for the wrong reasons. I did not betray you on the first of June, and I wish you'd stop saying that I did. The only way I have wronged you is by playing along for too long, and I stopped that mnay months ago.
I don't really know how to tell the rest of the story. I don't feel like I really know all of it. He told me all along that I was all he wanted, all he needed, and I believed him. I still do. Quite honestly I don't really mind that he kept fucking you. I mind that he lied to me about it, and I mind that he lied to you about me. I'm not the least bit angry at you about it, only ashamed for you. Because if I was in your shoes I would be terribly ashamed of myself. That's not to say you should be, you're probably much happier not being ashamed of it, it's just that, as I said before, I would really hate to be someone's shameful secret. And I find it kinda hard to believe that you didn't hate being that. I'm really sad that someone I've always cared about thinks so little of herself that she's willing to fuck a guy who doesn't love her. And I know he told you -- or let you believe, it comes to the same -- that we had broken up. But he says he did always tell you honestly that he loves me. And I really thought you had more of a sense of self worth than to keep sleeping with him knowing that. So I'm not mad at you, and I don't hate you, but I'm disappointed in you and sorry for you. And if that's condescending of me, well, you've earned it. I guess I've always thought you had more integrity than you turn out to, as well as more maturity and less capacity for self-delusion (however aided in that you may have been and maybe continue to be).
So there's my side of the story, plus some of my musings and theories. I'd like to hear yours, if you could try to tell it honestly and without insults. If you don't want me to be condescending towards you, it probably wouldn't hurt to act a little more mature than you generally have when talking to me.
I miss the person I used to know, before toughness became your self-defense and you made me into your favorite enemy. I miss the girl I could giggle with and talk about ideas with and spend hours reading Anne of Green Gables with, or cooking with or sewing with. If she's gone completely, don't bother to respond to this, I don't think I'll ever understand the person who's replaced her. But if my friend is still in there somewhere, please, I need to know what you've experienced that I've overlooked, I miss my sister and I'll be very sorry if she's truly gone.
Much love,
Cora

quanta
My grandmother, Peg McLaughlin Meader, died last night around 11 pm. Please don't send your condolences or tell me how sorry you are (Dad and Merry, it was not amusing to be recieving your attempts at sympathy three days before she died), because I'm not sorry; I'm not grieving for her, I'm rejoicing for her. She knows where she's going. And I'm so glad she was finally able to let go of the pain that was keeping her here so much longer than anyone expected.
I didn't get to see her "one last time," I didn't get to "say goodbye." I didn't need to. It's not goodbye, it's "see ya 'round, Gram." We've never looked like we were close, I was afraid of her as a little kid, I was afraid of a lot of people, she taught me card games but she smelled like smoke. But we stopped being a little kid and an old lady a long time ago. Or maybe it wasn't a long time, I don't know, maybe it was only the summer before last when she hadn't been sick that long and Mom and I think Aunt Winky and I went to see her. No, it wasn't summer, it was winter, it was her birthday. Maybe it was only last February. No, it was my mother's birthday, and therefor a few days after her mother's birthday. At any rate. For some time now we've been on person-person footing. And she knows what she's up to, where she's going. So we don't need to cry for her.
Sometimes I feel older than my mother. My mother agrees. While she felt the need to whisper in her mother's ear, those last few hours when they knew she wouldn't wake up again, "I think when you go you'll be met by your father," because her father, my grandma's father I mean, was always very dear to her, I know she knows who she's looking for and will find her way.
I wrote a poem last night, about quarter of two, after I got off the phone with my mother (we talked from 11:30 to 1:30).

ISIS (that's "is" twice, as well as the goddess)
not for Grandma Peg, because she doesn't really need it, but for me, for her

I will not say was.
She will never stop listening.
infinitessimal infinite conscious;
we are all God.
One butterfly rose tonight,
on sun fell to earth and cride as it drew it's first breath.
They rushed me to the hospital
the day that I was born
and plugged me in
because they could not see me breathing.
She and I,
we always knew how to fool them --
She breathed without a sound for the last little while.
She said this might be
my last run round, she said
"it just might be."
Small bundles of possibility flit around the corners of the room,
and she held tightly to her nine-year-old granddaughter's hand
and said "this is more important than school" --
for four days while they thought
every minute she'd be gone.
My mother her daughter thought
she would meet her father, who maybe will be my son,
on the way there.
Don't worry Ma, she knows. She knows the road.
She will open the box when she wants to,
she's always been a fighter.
And always she will either be there or she will not.

It's all as true as I can see it. I'll see her later. Though I do kinda wonder whether her father was waiting for her, and whether I'm right, and that was him in that dream I had five years ago or so, where my son's name was Neil, and he was on his last run round this existence. Grandma thinks I might be on my last turn. I don't quite agree. I think I've got two or three more at least. But my son, if it is him, if it's Neil who I met in the dream-space with eyes as old as the hills, he'll be on his last spin, on his way home.
My mother's been reading a lot lately about the evolution of the soul, about how we're hitting a great turning where the majority of children being born now are "indigo children," in a later stage of the journey and in much greater multitudes than ever before. "How long till my soul gets it right/Will any human being ever reach the highest light..." She says I am one. An Indigo. I don't think so, actually. Not quite. I think I know some indigos, my Joshiepie's definitely one, for all he can't run and chatter like his cousin. He knows more than anyone else in his family ever will. I miss my Joshie. I have to see if I can go see him Thanksgiving weekend. And Britteny, my little baby beautiful. She's two now. My mom thinks only almost, thinks she was born in December, but I'm quite sure I met her well before Christmas and she was two weeks old then. Wow I miss all my babies.
At any rate, the world is, as I've been saying all week, wonderful. I love it. Even when I'm a shy fool and wonder if I'll ever have the courage to "live the life that I have made in song," as Jackson Browne says, even when I despair of myself, the world is wonderful. There will always be miracles. Right Grandma?

everything
"Today the emotional impact of all that's happened to you over the past few months could finally hit you, Coriana. You'll wonder how it could be that so many of your hopes and dreams could be manifesting. Yet you probably will not stop there. Conversations with friends, relatives and neighbors are likely to lead to ideas for new options so that you can continue to advance without getting burnt out or bored. Listen, write
the ideas down, and consider it all!"
-- my horoscope for today, courtesy of Astrocenter.com

Okay, accurate horoscope. I'm pretty damn near perfectly happy right now. Because I just had a conversation with Darby and it was a real relief in a way, because I've had this fear for a long, long time now that Darby saw right through me and knew more about me than I knew about myself. Had me completely figured out. I was right, of course. She's damn good at reading people. But I stopped being afraid of her a few days ago because you know what? I'VE figured me out. And so I no longer have to be afraid of Darby knowing me better than I know myself. And I can stop being afraid of Darby saying "I told you so" because I told her that she was right about me first. And that's really nice.

On a similar subject, I pissed off Elizabeth Nticki (or however you spell her last name) today. Actually, I didn't piss her off, I frightened her a little I think and annoyed her somewhat, but she wasn't mad at me or even terribly scared by me because I had gone out of my way, a few moments before, to be nice to her, to not set her up into feeling like "the enemy," which I think is mostly what she sets herself up as, and a big part of why she's continually so unhappy. Perhaps I should explain. Liz is a student in my poetry class, who is very loudly anti-feminist and anti-lesbian and believes emotion and politics have no place in poetry. She is somewhat disliked by I suspect every member of the class, and she works hard at it. I have my own theories about why she hates/fears everything, but we won't go into that. Anyway part of my goal for this poem writing assignment (our last) was to write something that would piss off Elizabeth, or at least make her very uncomfortable. But when I sat down to write the poem I actually wrote, that wasn't my goal. I realized while writing it that it would certainly make Liz uncomfortable, but that I didn't want to do that, really. I don't like being antagonistic, I don't like trying to make people unhappy. So this morning at the beginning of class I was thinking a lot about
a. how nervous I was about sharing this particular poem and
b. how it was going to make Liz feel like the enemy since it was very decidedly (well, no, not decidedly, kinda ambiguously and nervously, really) against several of her declared prejudices. So when Liz happened to sit down next to me, I sort of went out of my way to make her feel welcome, to treat her like a friend. And so when I did (very shakily) read my poem, she, as expected, used the words "typical" and "bad" to describe it, but more gently than sometimes, and with a smile. And so my mission to piss off Elizabeth both failed and, in a better way, succeeeded.

The End! (or the beginnning?)

I am so ridiculously afraid of words.
I've been reading this week's chapter of Kate Bornstein's MY GENDER WORKBOOK, the chapter titled "Zen and the Art of Gender Maintenance." And ze brought up naming. And how names stick. And in a way it was a relief to have it finally mentioned, but in away I wish ze hadn't. I'm terrified of names. That's why I'm so obsessed with them sometimes. Names dictate beings. I've named myself many times over. I'm really not Corina anymore, I haven't been for years, I willingly discarded that one and have never regretted it. Coriana I'm still working on, trying to become Coriana without losing Cora, who I think I may never shed and don't want to. But don't want to be limited to. That's the trouble, I always want to be something new without shedding something old, and naming generally does not let me do that. Everyone knows me as Cora. Coriana and Kassandra and Helena and Jill and Corsica and Cori feel very left out sometimes. And then there's Corita who I've aquired recently and really like being, personality-wise she's really a cross between Cora and Cori, I like being her. I never was Cori much. She appeared in ninth grade, Kelci named her, actually, Kelci named Coriana too, Kelci used to know me better than anyone else in the world. But I was never Cori much. She was too vivacious, I was always afraid, being her, that I was contradicting my image and people would get mad. I'm so afraid of not being who people expect me to be. I'm glad I've reached a place, for years now really, where my name is not Corina. I never liked her, never liked being her. I like Cora as a base personality, she's all around acceptable to me and most other people. That's the one thing wrong with her. She's very acceptable. I get sick of being so acceptable. I get sick of behaving myself and following all the rules I wrote for myself years ago only I wrote them the way I thought people wanted me to write them and they're not really me at all. "And if you follow every rule that anyone has ever told you, everything will work out fine just sign here on the dotted line." Yay Groovelily. What was that cheesy song from THE SLIPPER AND THE ROSE, the prince singing "why can't I be two people? split myself right in half! Why can't one of me endure the appaling formalities, while the other me can have a hell of a healthy laugh!" I want to be Cora AND Coriana AND Corita AND Cori AND Kassandra sometimes when the mood strikes me AND Helena when I'm feeling nostalgic AND Coreopsis who I've almost forgotten, it's been so long AND Jill who's Dan's favorite AND a thousand other yet unnamed people besides.

life aches.
I feel like I'm taking a risk, making this a public entry. It's not really public, there are very few people I want to share it with, but I think they're the only ones who read this journal anyway, so why should I worry. If you're not Dan, Wendy, Em, or possibly by some miracle Kelci, could you please stop reading this right now? I'd appreciate it. If you're one of the above mentioned people, well, thanks for listening.

It's been a very rough 18 hours or so.

Dan and I had a fight last night, a rather bad one. I'm not going to say what it was about, but I was definitely in the wrong, and I'm sorry. I expect too much of other people sometimes, and the fact that I expect it of myself too doesn't really justify it.

We resolved it and everything felt a whole lot better, though I guess I still felt and still feel pretty bad about the fact that it happenned at all. Beloved, I did not mean to hurt you, I never want to hurt you. I love you and I'm sorry and I hope we didn't leave each other in a mess of open wounds, it really felt like they were healing at least a bit.

But then I had nightmares all last night. You were hurt bad and I could tell you were hurt but you kept telling me it didn't matter to you as it obviously didn't matter to me and why should I be upset you were leaving me, you'd still send me the magazine articles. I don't know which magazine articles that dream you was referring to, but they weren't at all important to me, what I needed was you and you didn't see that. So I woke up again and again in tears and fell back into the same dream.

When I woke up for the last time at 10:30 this morning I wanted very much to talk to you and have you reassure me it was only a dream but you had already left for class. So I told myself it was only a dream and I believed myself until Shantida started IMing me. Somehow she seemed to already know the details of our fight. And that scared me, scared me shitless. She kept throwing accusations at me, that I was hypocritical, that I was afraid of her, that I was intruding on her life and expecting her not to intrude on mine. That whenever you were in a bad mood it was because I was talking to you. That you'd be better off without me.

I was sobbing by then and mercifully she had to go and I sought comfort from every source I could but Em wasn't there and Kelci wasn't there and Wendy wasn't there and your mom wasn't there and Greg told me I'd just have to ask you, whether you'd be better off without me or not.

Later I got to talk to Em and she at least was able to tell me not to listen to Shantida, to block her (which I did) and not make myself deal with her when she's determined to get under my skin. But she doesn't know whether I'm a good or bad thing for Dan, she says he barely talks to her anymore, so that wasn't all that reassuring.

And then thank all the gods for my favorite pixie who not only convinced me that anyone who dislikes peanut butter is definitely not worth listening to but also dragged me out of my room to go on a saga cookie run (¡muchas gracias, Wendito! Te amo muchisimo.).

But now I'm still waiting for Dan to get back from class and I'm starting to worry he won't stop back in his room between classes and I won't get any definitive reassurance that he does in fact still love me and shantida doesn't know what she's talking about and I don't need to be afraid that she's right until late tonight -- if ever.

Danny, I love you, please tell me she's wrong and you're happier with me than without me. But if you can't tell me that honestly, please tell me the truth and get it over with. I know I'm happier with you, I know you brighten my life, and I know I need to know whether I mean that much to you -- or not.

being here now
I'm writing this in Dan's room at Johnson State College in Johnson, Vermont. It's nice to be in the far north. And lovely warm -- 50 degrees -- and everyone here appreciates that as unseasonable warmth for early November.

It's good to be here in other ways, too. Which is really nice. I wasn't sure about this weekend, whether it was good for me to come here, but it's all right.

She says she wants a truce. I don't understand why she's telling me this; I don't think I've ever attacked. I have this urge to inform her that she can start treating my like a valid human being again -- which she has actually been doing -- I don't mind that, I'm certainly not going to object, but I don't understand what the point is of her taking pains to inform me that she doesn't want to fight anymore. It's up to her. Entirely. I haven't fought, and I haven't asked her to "put in all that energy to avoid me when I'm on campus". Why do I have to deal with this shit? Why does anyone? Why does Annika have to be interrogated about her first impression of me? Oh, I don't know. I shouldn't tax my brain trying to unravell her motives. I should know by now it's not worth the time, she doesn't know them herself, I shouldn't expect her to be acting rationally.

Time to go see a play!

what to do today
i have too much i should get done today. i need to change my sheets and do my laundy, i ought to do my several weeks overdue geology project and do some research for that 3rd2nd paper that's due in a week, i need white out, shoes, tea, and a silver illuminating pen, i have two pages to write in spanish, i should have gone to see bookstores in northampton about selling my book long before now, and they're showing "Pride and Predjudice" in the Dakin Living Room this afternoon, and serving tea. I don't know what to do. I think I'll go watch the movie. I'm a very bad, irresponsible little girl.

I am going to get some work done today...
I want to reread "The Autobiography of Red." I'm in an "obscure Greek mythology as the basis for modern poetry" mood. It may be related to the Clotho/Lachesis/Atropos reference in the poem I wrote last night. Not maybe, but certainly is, actually. "These are the days of miracle and wonder/this is the long distance call..." Sorry, music intrudes on thought rather easily.
I am going to get work done this afternoon, before my Spanish exam (exam? what's that?). I am going to do research for my 3rd2nd paper on the influence of industrialization on the lives of indigena women in the Andes. Really. I'm going to do research. I'm also going to reread part of "The Autobiography of Red."
I wish my repairing the stupid suicidal mirror had done something other than inspire it to jump off the wall AGAIN.
"For reasons I cannot explain/there's some part of me wants to see Graceland/And I may be obliged to defend every love, every ending, or maybe there's no obligations now/Maybe I've a reason to believe we all will be recieved in Graceland."

can i do this?
She's not home. But will be in half an hour. I am so scared, and so sure that I have to do this, and do it today. It's rather like I used to feel calling Corey, in a wierd, random way. I can see no similarity, except that it's a phone call to someone who may not want to talk to me. I can do this, I can do this. What's the worst thing she can say? That she does in fact hate my guts, think I'm the scum of the earth and should not be allowed to live. Which is pretty bad. At eight o'clock, I'll call. Is this okay for me to do? How much can I say? Would I be threatening the mother/daughter relationship if I told the truth? But can I possibly be at all fair to myself if I don't tell the whole truth? What I want to know is what it is they think I have done. If we stick to that, there probably won't be any need to bring up the rest of the story -- the summer, I mean. Why do I do what I do? When I act out of fear, I always regret, so I've been trying very hard not to. But when I don't act out of fear, people tell me I ought to. And tell me it would not be fear, it would be compassion. But if I had made the choice she wanted me to make, I would have done it out of fear. There's no way around that. So what does that mean about my real motives? Does my choosing not to act out of fear mean I had no feelings for her but fear? I don't know. At that point, maybe. Maybe I was afraid of her, which is the part I haven't told her. Because she wouldn't like it. And I'm afraid of how she would react to my fear.
Patty Ackley-Warlick said, when I was in eighth grade, in "Free to Be," that all actions are motivated by love, or by its opposite, fear. I have never forgotten that. I've disagreed with it sometimes, but that idea is always in my mind somehow. I try to act out of love rather than fear. So what am I being motivated by now? Why am I making this phone call? It's against my fears, contrary to my fears, but it's not motivated by love. It's an attempt to reverse fear. "We have nothing to fear but fear itself." That's bogus. We have nothing to fear but fear of ourselves. I am trying not to be afraid. So am I making the mistake of not knowing brave from stupid? I don't know.
If she tells me she hates me (she won't not straight out), I'll ask why. If she tells me she's angry at me (much more likely), I'll ask for what. If she tells me I ought to be ashamed of myself (more likely still), I'll ask why, and try not to say "I'm the only one who's been acting honorably." I will do this. I will survive. And it may make things worse in the short run, but it will make things better in the long run. Communication always does. I am afraid. That's okay. I am not going to be ruled by my fears.
I want to talk to someone about it before I do it. But someone who won't try to discourage me, and I don't think I'll find anyone. They'll say I'm asking for trouble I don't need. But if I don't talk to Susan the phrase "If you go out there my mother will have a fit" will keep haunting me. And I'll keep thinking, over and over, I shouldn't have played along.
I don't know how I'm going to stand the 20 more minutes until I can call. I'll call at 7:50. She should be home by then. I hope. Waiting is always the hardest. Like those most horrible three days. I don't ever want to live through something like that again. It was so much worse, those three days in May, than anything in September. What I hate is not knowing, being lied to. In September, when things got bad the other shoe had already dropped. What I hate is the shadow.
What can I say to her? To defend myself without incriminating anyone else? I can say I think I've been making the best decisions I can make, since late May. I can say I have tried to be honest. I can say I regret March through May, because it's true, I do. Those two months represent the worst situation I have ever been in. Three's a bad number, my mother always said. Someone will always be left out. If she asks me why I got into it in the first place, what should I tell her? I don't know, that's the real truth. I wanted not to be alone anymore. I wanted to belong to somethng. I wanted not to always be the one sitting on the outside watching my friends have happy little romances. I've always been intrigued by unconventional relationships. I thought we might be able to pull it off. I would still be willing to try it again. As long as I would not be treated like I ought to be secondary. I don't mind equality. That's what I wanted. But being the one who has to be hidden, the one people don't see, that I can't take. If we had all agreed that neither of us would go to prom with him, I probably wouldn't have ended the experiment. yes, there were good times. Lots of good times. The bad times involved the days she skipped algebra, and when I felt I had to lie. But there were good times. If he really had cared about both of us equally, I would have been fine with the situation. I think. But why did I get into it? Because it sounded worth trying. two minutes.
I can do this.
"Hi Susan. It's Cora. I wanted to talk to you. Shantida said you hate my guts, and I need to know whether that's true, and why." Here I go.