some things i truly adore:

1. seeing bright flashing lights during a blizzard, and then going on facebook and seeing the word "thundersnow" in everyone's updates.

2. watching labyrinth for the first time and then spending an hour having seriously wierd-ass fangirl freakouts.

yesss.  jareth/sarah ftw.

3. superbowl food fest.  what better way to celebrate an overhyped football game than with too much food and a drinking game?

4. uhm... shenanigans.  and having natural curls again.

this is how i see people who are not present.  when you're not around i imagine you as someone famous.

sp:

cb:

also, listening to brand new and feeling like i'm in college again.

time for the list again.  let's forget all about last year's list, okay?

1. when i do things that i know are going to blow up in my face, i will refuse to feel like a fool.  it's not my fault people are shit.

2. i will not dwell on the past, unless i'm using it for creativity, because again, people are shit and will let you down.

3. i will follow the rules i present myself, starting with those silly flintstone vitamins.

4. i won't worry about letting people in.

5. water, lotion, vitamin e.

6. i will discover the causes of my crippling stomachaches, morning headaches, bum ovary, and temporary hearing loss.

and now, a word from effy on the future of things:

bah, humbug.  happy new year.

query;

They call her the ice queen, because she's never depended on anyone, but returning home after a disappointing first year at college to face old loves and strained family relationships is enough to make anyone vulnerable…right?

My ((wordcount)) word young-adult novel, My 19th Summer, follows eighteen year old Lucy as she arrives home from a tumultuous year.  Defeated and full of secrets, she just wants to stay off the radar and make it through the summer without getting hurt.  Reeling from her failures at university, Lucy has to navigate a difficult path, trying to take her relationship with first love Oliver from lovers to friends.  Besides that, all her friends have changed:  Cassie, a once timid girl on the fast track at Yale is now a college dropout that seems to grow wilder by the day.  The always mature Quinn is engaged, planning her wedding in August, and expects Lucy to be her maid of honor.  Her mother, ever absent, has truly become little more than a ghost, haunting their house when Lucy isn't home and leaving plants in her wake.  Just when it seems like too much to handle, she meets a new boy at work.  Declan only wants one thing; to get inside her head, the one place no one else is allowed.  If he succeeds he might just melt the ice queen, and discover what she's really hiding.           

 "The sign says a buck ninety eight."  The burly man leaning over the counter in front of me, whose name his deliveryman uniform declared was Grippy, was trying to look intimidating, but something about the meatball sub stain that had managed to spread from his lapel to his bellybutton ruined the effect.  I stared down at the six pack of Budweiser on the counter, then back at the man, then finally over to the cooler door, where a large sign declared that the single sixteen ounce Budweiser can was on sale for 1.98.  He had already scratched his instant lottery tickets on the counter and, declaring them losers, tossed them back at me before launching into a diatribe about how I'd overcharged him for a six-pack.  Needless to say my patience was wearing thin.  I didn't know what kind of magical candy land Grippy lived in, where beer that usually cost seven dollars could go on sale for two, but from the look on his face I knew he wasn't going to leave me alone until I gave in.            

"Have a nice day," I told him, gathering up the coins he'd used to pay me and sliding them into the drawer.  He gave me a dirty look as he left, and I could hear Declan chuckling behind me.  For someone that had been instructed to train me he spent an awful lot of time watching me fail and laughing at the results.  I didn't know how to adjust the price on the register, so I took a minute to root around in my purse until I had enough crumpled ones and dusty quarters to make up the difference.  Once I put the money in the drawer and slammed it shut I turned, taking a moment to give Declan a dark look before moving back across the small space and pushing myself up onto the counter.            

"Grippy strikes again," he declared, smirking at my scowl and keeping his eyes trained on the label maker he was holding, typing letters slowly.            

Someone pulled up to the gas pump, and a loud beep sounded once, then more forcefully.  I had to get up and activate the pump, because I knew Declan wouldn't, and the noise that at first had been a simple annoyance but would now haunt my dreams wouldn't stop until one of us pushed the little red circle on the cash register keyboard.  "What does that mean?"  I questioned, though I could probably have guessed what his answer would be.  He shrugged, pressing print and pulling on the bumpy white strip that came from the machine.            

"Just that I've never seen him pay full price for anything.  Grippy won't buy something unless there's a misleading sale sign nearby he can argue about."  He peeled the backing off and affixing the word to a shiny silver GULP nametag.  When he handed it to me I couldn't stop myself from laughing out loud, because the tag declared my name was Lucaaay.  I attached the pin to my oversized polo, and when I looked up he was looking at me expectantly.  When I returned his questioning stare shrugged, pushing back up onto the counter.

Once we got inside Panda made a beeline for the DJ booth to request a song, and Cassie launching herself into the arms of one of the girls seated at the bar, a girl with curly brown hair whose name I remembered was Riley.  Riley had been the only other freshman in chemistry class with me, and she and I had quizzed each other in the hall before every big test.  The next year she started hanging around with the pretty stoner girls, the ones with perfect skin and pink pot leaves scribbled in the margins of their notebooks.  I hadn't spoken to her since freshman year, but she gave me a warm smile when I walked up behind Cassie.

"Hey, Lucy," she called out, and I gave her an awkward wave.  They both stared at me, waiting for me to say something else, but I couldn't think of a single solitary thing to talk about, so I just smiled and pretended to be preoccupied by watching a nearby game of pool.  People had never been my strong suit, but with my mother hiding in her greenhouse and Oliver avoiding my calls, I was quickly starting to realize that it might be time to study up on small talk.

"How's the Ivy League treating you?" Riley asked, offering Cassie some of her dark mixed drink.

Cassie took a long sip and shrugged, a funny far off look coming over her face.  "Dunno.  Dropped out," she said with a hard laugh, and I had to lean in to be sure I heard her correctly.

"Wait, what?"  I couldn't even make full sentences, I was so shocked.  Cassie going to Yale had always been a given.  Her parents had met there, when her mother was an undergraduate and her father was working on a Thesis for his PhD, and they'd been grooming her from birth to follow in their footsteps.  There was even a picture on the mantle of the dining room fireplace, of baby Cassie in a little blue and white Yale onesie, chewing on a spitty pennant.  How could she have dropped out and not told me?  Had we really grown that far apart?

"It just wasn't what I expected," she said quietly, and I could tell she was avoiding my eyes.  Riley seemed greatly cheered by Cassie's revelation, pulling her into an exuberant hug. 

"Higher education is totally overrated anyway.  I can get you a job at the movie theater, you get to see all the movies for free, plus all the popcorn you can eat.  Oh Cass, I'm so psyched you're sticking around."  Riley was off and running, already planning girls night for the following weekend.  Watching them was like the two weeks I'd spend in Mexico with my Spanish class junior year; I knew all the words and gestures, but stringing them together seemed so daunting that I didn't even try.

"I didn't think you were old enough to drink," he told me, taking a sip from the brown bottle he was holding and pushing himself up onto the counter.  He was staring, so I tried to look nonchalant, fixing my smudged eyeliner in the mirror.            

"I'm not."  I waved my X marked hand in his face.  His smile seemed to grow before my eyes as he hopped back down and took my wrist.            

"You need a drink, then," he said, tugging me toward the door.  I held back, wishing for the briefest moment that I had a clue what I was doing.            

"I'm fine," I promised, but he just shook his head vehemently.           

"You don't come to the bar if you don't want to drink, Lucinda.  Let me get you something," he said, and there was a gentle pleading in his voice that seemed to dull all my sensibilities.  I stopped holding back, allowing him to pull me halfway out the door.  That was as far as we made it before getting pushed back, like the tide coming in, and hurricane Cassie reached down to push some spare toilet paper rolls off a nearby bench.  She slid a red faced Panda into place there, pulling on the paper towel rack and handing the torn sheets to me.  As breakdowns went, this was fast, even for Panda.            

"That fucking asshole," Cass was muttering, as Panda was wracked with choking sobs.          

"What happened?" I asked, even though I was sure I didn't want to know.  Declan pushed himself back up onto the counter to make room for us all, observing the whole situation closely.            

"Kissing… stupid… girl..."  Panda's words came and went, interrupted by breathy gasps, making the whole statement totally incomprehensible.  I tried to dab the tears away without smudging her mascara, but it was already streaked halfway down her face.            

"You were kissing a stupid girl?"  Declan ventured, and Cassie and Panda both turned, as though they'd just noticed he was there with us.  Cassie's face was overcome by a look I knew all too well; eyes wide, lips slightly parted, hips twisted to a coy angle… it was a full blown flirt.  Panda didn't look quite as impressed, taking the paper from my hand and dabbing her eyes haughtily.            

"No.  He was kissing a stupid girl," she told him forcefully, taking the time to enunciate each word.            
"Who was?"  I heard myself ask; I hadn't even seen Panda start flirting yet.            

"Carter," she whispered miserably, and the pieces all clicked into place.  Panda and Carter had dated all through high school, right up until the night before graduation, when he got her in the car and drove her out to Chipman Point, the most romantic spot in the whole town.  It was there he'd told her that even though they'd spent the last few months talking about their life together after graduation, they were young, and he didn't want to be tied down the summer before going away to school.  We'd spent the entire ceremony talking her down, wiping away the tears and fanning her red face with our programs in hopes she'd be able to take a decent picture later.  Eventually she'd decided that living well was the best revenge, and ever since had been hooking up with anything that could boast a pulse.  Still, we'd yet to make it through a run-in with Carter that didn't end with a full fledged breakdown, and tonight seemed like no exception.            

"I could kick his ass for this," Cassie continued to rant, allowing me to fan Panda while she leaned back against the counter, having inched dangerously close to where Declan was still perched, watching.            

"She's not even pretty," Panda mumbled, turning a hopeful glance to Declan.  At least she'd stopped crying.  "Is she?"            

He was on his feet in a heartbeat, walking over and pushing out the door.  His eyes scanned the crowd discerningly.  "What does he look like?"            

"Brown hair, curly, tall," she began, standing up to move next to him in the doorway.  He nodded a casual greeting to someone who passed by, and Panda reached up a hand to point out Carter, whose face was concealed by a petite blonde that couldn't have been older than sixteen.  When they had detangled themselves we all got a good look, pressed together in the doorway.  She certainly wasn't ugly, as much as I wished for Panda's sake that she was, but I couldn't say for sure how Declan would handle the question.  We were all staring at him as he seemed to consider, thinking hard about the matter at hand.  After a while he turned back into the bathroom, where we waited anxiously, as though he were about to deliver an important speech.            

"I've examined the specimen closely, and I've come to the conclusion that she's no competition for any of you beautiful ladies.  I mean, she's drinking a bottle of Smirnoff.  Anyone that pays five fifty for something you can get six of in a store for a buck more isn't the brightest penny in the fountain, if you know what I mean."  His tone was gravely serious, but he was giving me a wicked smile, and I had to bite my lip to keep from returning it.  He hadn't actually said anything derogatory about the way the girl looked, but Cassie was laughing, long and loud, Panda was giving me a look that asked where does he come up with this stuff?  Cassie gave Declan one final winning smile before grabbing Panda by the arm, nearly dragging her to the ground before managing to yank her back to the door.            

"He's right, she looks like a hobbit.  Let's go show Carter what he's missing," she demanded, sparing a glance over he shoulder at the two of us that remained.  "Lucy, you coming?"

"Tell me something about this boy, Oliver, your…"            

"EX-boyfriend," I supplied, emphasis on the ex for good measure. "How did you hear about him?"            

"Your friend Pandora is kind of a talker," he informed me.  I nodded.            

"Oliver is…discovering himself.  And apparently, discovering anything with a pulse while he's at it."  I couldn't keep the bitterness out of my voice.            

"Is that why you dumped him?"  The question caught me off guard, because I suddenly realized he might have a lot more information than I first imagined.            

"I didn't dump him," I corrected.            

"So he dumped you." He was staring at me, dark eyes expectant.  I shook my head, that wasn't quite right either.  His eyebrow gave a teasing wiggle.  "Look, Luce, someone's got to do the dumping, relationships don't just dissolve."  I wanted to tell him how wrong he was, but instead I found my breath catching in the throat.            

"Don't call me Luce," I requested, and from the way he was looking at me I could tell he got the idea right away.  He didn't even tease me about the particulars, just nodded.  After I thought a while I sighed, choosing my words very carefully.  "When it came down to it, it was easier to push him away than it was to explain to him what was going on in my life."  As soon as I said it I realized how true it was.  I was the one that pushed Oliver away.  "I guess I always thought he would have fought a little harder."

a1a. morello i freaking missed your comments whilst you were gone.

b2b. here's the second try, the reasons why i will never fall in love:

and now i'm late for harry potter... time to spend a few hours pretending like my vision of love isn't some romanticized bullshit that can never come true.
XOXO!

thinking weird thoughts, considering how strange it is to know now that i could have loved someone.  there have been many, but so few have had the legitimate potential to be loved.  and now my dreams are riddled with memories and lyrics, and i don't know what to think.

i would like to play lego harry potter.

also, my left ring finger is a bit disconnected from my hand, which i'm thinking might be a problem.

and here, because i am only on the internet once every twelve years, is an extensive pictorial explanation of why i will never fall in love:

just kidding.  don't ever fuck with my computer.  about time i went and kicked someone's ass.  thanks!