Do you ever have something you just have to say, but you can't find the words...and even if you do it doesn't matter as no one is listening? Do you ever get so frustrated with everything you keep inside that she pound your fists against the wall, drawing blood from the sharp points of paint, or smashing the windowglass? I do. There is so much I have to say...but the person I need to say it to just isn't there.

I used to think I was so special. Scratch that. I used to be a shy girl. In school I could never speak. I blushed at a glance and never muttered my opinions out loud because I was certain that they were wrong. Things got kept in. I had friends, yes, of course, and they were like me too - good students but poor friends, girls so insecure and desperate that they clutched onto their friends like drowning victims. My silence had a bit more consequences then some. Older men, three times my age at eleven, took my silence for consent and my innocence for desire, and made me what they wanted. Yes, I do know the feel of a too large black lace teddy on pre-adolescent skin. I closed my eyes on that and pretended that I was going to be experienced, that I was practicing for a future lover. Years later I told myself it was all my fault, and I believed it, and sometimes still do.

School was good for me. I earned nearly all A's and the teachers found my writing creative, although I was no whiz at math. I was average. Utterly average. I had blond hair in braids and later chopped, a face called pretty but nothing special, the patient, kind demeanor of an average girl. More then anything I wanted to be different then that. I made up fake names with my friends - Chlorisa Skye, Isola Montegue. I dreamed of being someone who didn't blush when called on, who didn't sit at home writing in their journal about how nice it would be to be popular and loved, so didn't wait by the phone.

Things got a little better. In my sophomore year I started drama and loved it and made friends with people who spoke their minds, though I could not. I helped out on the paper and ghostwrote the "Devil's Advocate" column. I tried a lot of things that Brian Warner might have been familiar with - seances, selling my soul for fame, love spells, getting drunk to have guts.

I left home early, moved in with a drug dealer who was kind enough to take me in and watch over me. He made me speak. We would all sit in circles talking about some issue or song and he would demand that I contribute. So I learned to say things and to have more of an opinion then just a bitter voice in my head. I had wonderful friends then, who cared not a whit for the law or authority, the things I had always followed. I was damn mediocre, but they weren't. Slowly, I became different. Thoughts came into my head.

By 1996 I had a personality mapped out. She wasn't me. I wrote stories about her fabulous life and her glamourous experiences. She had the guts to say anything to anyone, even if it was controversial or offensive. She could make everyone agree with her yet didn't care at all about them. She had no respect for the institutions, the way things were done, the norm...in fact she hated it all. Everyone that had let me down - the church, the schools, the average people - she hated them all and wanted nothing to do with them but grind them below her bootheel. She was a tank rolling over the opposition...and to be honest, I loved her.

I became her. Ivy. Revs. All of it. First from behind a screen, as it is so much easier to be assertive when no one knows your face and you can lie about things, or change identity if need be. Seraphina September, Serendipity Blue, Revs9. Then later, in real life. At first it was acting...although by October 1996 it no longer was. I said what I felt to everyone, and paid no consequences. All those feelings of not being good enough faded, because I knew I was better then everyone.

After that, there was no turning back. I had lost it. I could cry, but not the same as I had once been able to. There was no such thing as remorse, nothing like regret, nothing but cold superiority, although to many I didn't come off as mean but just as confident, and I was quite confident. Anger unleashed on chat helped me unleash it elsewhere. I grew into the personality, and I pulled it off really well.

Now, January 20th, 2004, I don't know who I am without her. I still argue like mad and say what I feel, and it is still hard to truly cry and to truly regret, although I can, and do. I can't remember what it was like to be me before all of this started, but I think I should discover.

If there is such a thing as karma, I must have done something terrible, as I am still sick. I can't explain myself today. I skipped la classe francais without Miah for the first time ever and went to the beach with Lee instead. It was quite beautiful actually....the waves were high and it was twilight and prettyish, although freezing. Now we'll both get even more sick I'm sure....ah well...

For whatever reason I have an insane desire to travel soon. I want to go someplace different...like Egypt or India, or Cambodia...wherever...I am just bored with living in the States and everything implied by that. America is far too materialistic. Since I'm sick I've been watching television lately and thinking about how pathetic it is that we are so wealthy and so powerful and that we just can't be bothered about anything serious at all. Since I don't shop at Abercrombie I'm at best an honorary American....

By the way....I am happy....

current mood: freezing

sorry for the long delay. things happen and time flies. i went up to canada for a while and wandered also the streets of london. summer is no time to stand still, and really sitting in a stuffy room typing into my journal is no way to live. still, i wanted to keep it updated.

amhurst is doing well. he took off on some ill planned, doomed to failure job that jimmy hooked him up with. it's bound to come to a messy end, but he's having fun. other then that i don't keep in touch with anyone really. summer is no time for strong bonds either, i guess. at least it hasn't been.

this morning bright and early i drove out to visit amhurst because his parents were visiting. the world was golden sunny; it's cloudy now, but his room was lit with artificial, unreasonably bright white lights, and he had dressed in a hospital gown for the occasion. amhurst, of course, is not in a hospital nor is he very sick yet at all, and the place he's staying is not a hospital or anything but some weird commune for the ill. anyway, his parents came in. i've known amhurst forever, but not his parents, who i've seen twice.

his stepfather had the mistaken impression that he was gay, and started berating amhurst about it, saying it was obscene and un-natural, etc. we both sat there; sort of stunned and half laughing, until finally amhurst explained that no, he wasn't gay, and that aids could affect a lot of different types of people. well, then they thought he was meaning "smart" and sassy, so they told him off. then i started yelling at them and screaming that he was going to die, and amhurst was laughing so hard that they thought the whole aids thing was a staged joke, and they told him on no uncertain terms that he was thoughtless and rude. then they left. i don't think they will be back.

amhurst looks fine. i catch myself checking for different things, like lesions or bruises, but there aren't any. he can breathe, he can walk around. when i worked with aids patients for a summer, all of them were in late stages, and that is how i pictured him looking - too thin and wasted, exhausted. but he doesn't, he still looks perfect. he is moving into a small studio apartment next month or so, so that he can walk to support meetings and doctor's meetings, etc. there is so much to learn and watch for, and i think such medical focus is freaking him out. we try very rarely to speak of medicine and instead make jokes about the people we know. i know miah...so, of course i have plenty of jokes. ;)

miah is very, very upset with me and wrote me a detailed email full of criticism and insults. now, you would think that would be hurtful...but it wasn't, because he wrote it all about this ring that i had loaned him and requested back. it went on into elaborate details about my elitist attitude (not the word he used, but i can't understand his spelling) and my self-centered cruelty...all over asking for a ring back. my god, what would have happened if i had shot his mother or something??? *lol* when i was reading it, i was sort of mad because it did describe me as some sort of ice princess/queen of hearts (always here is the queen's way)...but then i had to start laughing because it was over a freaking ring! *wafl* goodness! here i have a friend in jail...a friend dying of aids...a friend moving across the country in a chevy instead of a covered wagon...and then there is miah. like i said before...i have seen enough to start a book now. i don't even need florida.

well, my brother graduated this weekend. i wanted to mention it earlier but didn't. the graduation took place on the football field of his school, so i sat on the bleachers in the hot, hot sun and emerged tanned. he had a good time and looked cool in his big sunglasses, taking pictures of his friends and having an all around good time. afterwards, we all went out to dinner and patrick and i drove around and talked a bit. he said that he doesn't feel very different, which i understand from experience. this weekend is his open house...which i shall describe after i've seen it. i have to make 400 brownies. hmmm....

current mood: amused

I drove down to see Amhurst, who has been diagnosed with the full blown A.I.D.S., apparently carrying the H.I.V. in his blood unnoticed for quite a while. We joked and talked and cried, and made fun of the different lists of preventative techniques he has as well as his papers on avoiding common colds and viri. It is very strange to see Amhurst, who looks like a Judd Nelson/James Dean/Rebel *with* a cause all monitored and bruised at the elbows from bloodtests. Of course, it's not like he's dying right now, he's only in this Evergreen place to deal with his illness and learn more about it. It's knowing that he will die that scares me. Adam, apparently, and others like Jimmy are concerned because Amhurst and I are blood brothers, or, whatever you would call us. Mixed blood. Before or after? I guess I have no fear for me but for him; I sort of figure that we'll let the fates decide on me but Amhurst doesn't deserve this, not at all. I've known him too long...

I've been thinking about comments on this journal, and realizing that this is mine, my own private journal and I can say whatever I damn well please. I have a perfect right to explore and declare my thoughts, and anyone who can't handle them doesn't have to read my journal and doesn't have to like me. What do I care? I lived in Florida and have my own memories of that time, which I have every right to write about here or anywhere else, and also to relive, complain about or celebrate. I wonder who assumed that I suffered, for I never said I did, and I don't believe that I did. If Florida was a pit of misery, a terrible experience, then I would block it out and cover it up, not question it. I love examining Florida, watching the slow changes in myself during that time and considering the reasons behind them. I have some serious questions from that time, such as who made me so powerful in one persons eyes when I didn't even have the power of clear and coherant thought? I couldn't even hold a simple job, and I had always thought myself very strong and independant, and wound up in dependance on the one who depended on me. I was unable to do what I wished and say what I meant and even be who I was, and I like to, need to, and have the right to look for clues about that time and the reasons behind it. What I did...oh, what a laugh. *g* I didn't do anything, as anyone there can recall, except feel driven by myself destined to sink into some sort of hunter s. thompson/xiola bleu wish to be drug annihilation, and swim in clear water. What I did was nothing...which of course some may say was the whole problem...but it's too late to do anything about it now. Do I have regrets? There are things that I wish had never happened, things I wish I had done and made a stand for, but nothing now that I can regret, because if such experiences had never happened I would have never learned certain lessons. I regret the fact that others, one other, had to go down into the mire with me and that I couldn't have learned those lessons alone.

You want to know what I regret? I regret that my impulsive selfishness made someone feel that they had to save me or lose me...and I regret that at that time, losing me was not a choice she was able to make. I regret the apparent power that I had and didn't understand or even recognize. I regret that I am the best manipulator that probably has ever lived (is that a compliment or criticism?) and was able on some level to know what I was doing...and that I have always been able to get what I wanted...and that people like me (are there such?) do get the devoted and the caring and we do rip them to shreds for self-gratification or imagined need. I regret...to one person in the world only...that power made me drunk and love made me sickened and i didn't care enough, or at all...but....you can't apologize for something like that....

As far as regrets to myself, there are none. I became the person I am today, who can cry real tears for injured friends and have sincere love that isn't need, because of the experiences that I had. I have learned a lot and I can't pretend those weren't lessons I desperately needed. Perhaps we have many lives...and that was what I needed to learn for this one.

Memories are strange things. Do you know what I remember? The first day of lost innocence, the day it came true and wasn't a story from a book or tasteless movie but my life and your own. Driving, endlessly in heat like wet wool and the broken window blowing hot air, air conditioning floating away. Going to the Day's Inn...Pompano or Laudie?...and you went in. The thoughts in my head...knowing I could stop this...I could end this all just by knocking or bursting in to one unprotected hotel room. Fighting with me. And then the door opened...and out you were...and both of us crying...and then it stopped. And really...that was the point of no return. That was the last time that I cried for you, until three nights ago.

The sun was starting to set two nights ago...going like watercolors across the sky, vibrant pinks and fire oranges, black edging, pale blue. I went outside and sat on the little porch, and just started saying everything that I wanted to say to you. I explained everything...every fucking thing from WBS Christian to Slaughterback on Elm Street...calling you to the Island...moving to Lansing...staying with Mark...leaving. I explained everything in great detail, looking at the sky as though you were dead and listening to me. Perhaps you are...perhaps you are. I told you how much fun we had had on chat...and how I had been afraid when I met you because you were a cool person from the fancy state of California and probably some stuck up elitist, but fun anyway. I talked about the dynamic duo...and Mouse in Wonderland needs more pain...and pictures...and how I knew then that you would like girls because you liked Twiggy who was practically a girl. I told you how I felt like I had to be a certain way and distanced when you came to the apartment...because you expected someone cool like Revs and simply got Ivy...and just about everything. How I only hung around George on the island because you cared...and how thankful I was that you let me stay at your place above Mac's when I was sick from Trip Hazel...which I know now is "tri-fazel" in pronounciation. I told you how you had the best grasp of grammar and spelling...and had always made me feel very foolish for being in Honors English and not on your level. I told you about Revs as an outlet for everything...everything you can imagine...and always feeling in person that I could not compete with my invented persona. I told you about living in the Village Green and knowing that this would not be forever, and apologizing for taking everything about Miah out on you. I told you about Florida...how I remember the slow changes, waking up in the sandy bed crowded and bright, fighting with Mark, frustrated that nothing went as planned. I told you about how it had all become this quest for me...to become someone different and not be me anymore. I told you the thoughts that I had, lying awake in different Pompano hotels, living from Western Union...how jealousy and need filtered in. I told you just everything, and cried all the while, not for me, because I'm fine, but for you...because I imagine you aren't.

Then the dog came up...and he had this thing in his mouth...a baby rabbit. Not dead, just stunned. The sky was darker by then...hours had gone by while I was outside...and the stars came out all scattered and silver. I picked up the rabbit, which was warm and not scared...too little to be scared. It was a baby, and had never learned the lessons of dangerous humans and their scary dogs...and so I thought about it, about life going on and things being new, never started over or repeated but completely new...and I realized that you may never forgive me, and you may never forgive yourself, and things will never, ever be like the times I've idealized in my own mind and never again be like they were, but that life shall go on. That may be a stupid example...but it's at least a true one...and that's what I got out of it. You will never see me as you did, or as I was, or as I am now, and I think I know that. I will never see you as I once did...which is an improvement. I don't apologize often, and if I do I rarely mean it...but let me say this one genuine, sincerely. I am sorry for what you had to do, what you did, and what you may be going through now. Sincerely.

Yes, I know that doesn't matter to you...apologies are flimsy things that don't warm the hands or often the heart, but still it needs to be said. You deserve apologies even if you do not accept them.

I have a favorite Psi Com song that you can probably hear in your head still...alive or not. I used to love the lyrics about heroin, which in my perception made one cooler and much deeper (excusing Mako's case, of course). I loved "Xiola...follows the colors in my arm.." with all it's connotations and imagined visuals. The other line though, made an imprint on me even before we ever left the safety of the Lansing apartment. I suppose it could be because I played the song on repeat and far too often...but perhaps it was also some sort of omen.

The weekend was good. I was finally able to visit Adam in the jail, and his sentence is minimal, merely one year and a great deal of probation. Watching him through the glass was interesting. Apparently, the court was unable to sentence him for some warrants which are "out of range", so they could only convict him of a wee bit of time. Truthfully, that doesn't seem fair to the victims but...what can we do? Life isn't fair, and no one ever said it should be.

I spent the most of the weekend in Canada, which was a nice respite, despite the poor exchange rate ($1.35). I spent all of my journal money on clothing and strange African cats (batik and wood things, not live kittens), and wandered around the streets and the prettiness. Everything was in bloom, which is nice and northern.

It looks as though Adam is going to enjoy a nice, long stay in the county jail, or perhaps the prison system of the state. In his last letter, he included his request for a court-appointed lawyer and some information of exactly what he's up against. His rap sheet reads like an Olde English scroll - on and on and on. He estimates that he will be given a liberal assortment of years to serve.

He is finally taking it all to heart, and it is finally getting through to him, I think. Whatever myriad of crimes he committed before he met me, he has to be tried for them all now. The bail is $60,000. Apparently the police are quite proud to have him in custody, and consider him a valuable asset to their criminal collection. His last letter was full of sadness, such as saying that he believes he won't ever see me again, except through a wall of glass. It is hard to read it, and hard to imagine him kept in bars. I have pictures of him asleep, holding cats, and memories of him in Canada and Mackinac that are impossible to reconcile with the image of someone in jail. Some "criminal". I wrote him back three pages of college rule paper. Just told him about life and tried to make him feel better in the cynical, rather disturbed tone one usually only sees when I'm on Christian chat. There is a quote I'll send in my next letter - It is a sad individual who has never overstepped a limit to see what life looks like on the other side.

I work three days a week now, in the easiest job I have ever worked. The only time I felt more comfortable was when I worked at Barnes and Noble in Lansing. I go to school and drive to the beach, which is quite nice. I started doing more pencil sketches and also writing about non-fictional things. Florida makes an excellent writing topic - it is a sliver in the skin that cannot come out, and constantly I am reminded of this or that memory that would look better on paper. Last night I wrote about the fires, when Mouse and I were in Mascotte. Tonight perhaps I'll write something else, like the weird, disturbing obsession with Orange Blossom Trail. It's funny that the most vivid and impassioned memories I have are ones that she probably does not recall, or was not there to experience. Such is life.

On Saturday I got a post from Adam. He is in jail in St. Ignace, MI. Apparently, the mission in Holland ran background checks, and he had three outstanding warrants that he either didn't know about or didn't deal with. His letter was not really sad, more like frantic - call everyone and try to get money. I didn't, and to be honest I won't. Part of me is really pissed that he had things he never told me about. The rest is worried. I don't want to get in trouble for his stupidity. I suppose I will write to him but I can't help him out on this, especially since he said his bail was $50,000. I have no idea what they're charging him for that is that bad. To be honest, I thought he had taken care of his problem with Mackinac, or something. Probably I was hopeful too.

"she spreads herself wide open, to let the insects in...

...she leaves a trail of honey, to show me where she's been"

well, school was over and now it is back. this semester i am taking math 101 and math 102, humanities, phys ed and government. wow. this semester only lasts for seven weeks so i guess it's not that bad. i just wanted to get some requirements out of the way, which is okay since i'm working still at an easy job where i come and go as i please and can focus on school. it's quicker in the summer. miah is taking my classes with me, i'm sure it will end in fighting as always but maybe not, we're doing okay. we look like the band 'the white stripes' and people think we are brother and sister, which is amusing.

adam is in holland. i brought him there on friday because he had nowhere else to go. hopefully he will be able to find a job and get himself together a bit. he's already emailed me and sounds happy enough with the conditions. i miss him a lot, especially because i used to pick him up on my way to school and now i have miah instead, which is very different. adam is kinder but miah isn't exactly being mean. anyway i don't like having him gone but there isn't anything i can do except mourn. perhaps a break is nice anyways....

I'm at the school with Miah. It's unusual. He has eyebrows, facial hair, no makeup. He's wearing jeans. Just talking, it's interesting because of the points he brings up. They are very deep, serious...things I've been saying for a long time. He quit smoking and using drugs *bravo!* but I still have this feeling....could it all be fake? His life has been drama for so long, and my memories of him are dramatic and strange.

I have my geography final in forty-five minutes. I studied last night in a frantic fit, so I think I've got it down. If not then it's too late anyway...but geography is a fairly simple subject for me.

Adam and I went out today to Barnes and Noble to drink frapuccino and talk about life. He is definately moving. I told him to go; it's for the best. Stability, practicality...anyone living in a mission needs to look for a safe haven and a steady jon. I think it would make him happy. He's obsessed with his home town, his old friends, his life...he tells dramatic stories about these things which makes me think that he should go there. He's become a drastic wiccan, that's the only way to describe him...he has become very much obsessed and into Wicca. I'm not against it, I'm not for it, I don't care. It's a path, I suppose...although I've always liked the word "witch" because of it's culture shock connotations, I don't like "Wicca", which is too white light.

Adam debates religion in his homeless shelter. Miah has become a Christian. Wow. Life flips itself about a great deal I guess. I'm nothing, technically, except maybe agnostic. I was watching this video called "They Sold Their Souls for Rock n Roll", which tals about the evil impact of Satanism on music. There were tons of examples...Robert Johnson, Led Zeppelin. I was considering it all and then got in the car two nights ago with these dark thoughts in my head. Freaked out, I tried to calm myself down by playing the testing game..."If there is a really a Satan, let Manson come on the radio". That seemed safe because he is so rarely played on radio stations out this way. I turned on the radio..."Hi, this is Marilyn Manson. Keep it locked on KLQ." and then his new song playing...mObscene. That shook me up a bit. My mind persisted in regaling me with memories of the ouija board....*lol* What was that Lanette Kuntz used to say...about me playing a role in the end of the world? She used to scare me sometimes. She also used to make me feel wicked/powerful....

Shall I sell my soul to pass this exam? No, no way. I don't treat "dark" forces as glibly as I once did, asking demons into my soul to shock the Christian chat. It's still a fond memory though. Everyone's changing religious patterns are confusing me...I seem to stay basically the same, and challenging the people on http://www.christianforums.com (I'm feral on there, btw)....It's fun. Shock is fun. Religion, fun. Maybe I'll move to Cali and become someone famous.

"I've got my whore red lipstick...now do I look like a big rock star...?"

Or, to top it off...my favorite quote from Marilyn Manson's "Driven" which I watched again last night...it's from Gidget, I think, or maybe Scott Wade (owner of geocities 5000, way back when)

M-Easter was good. The day was so bright and fresh, the grass was really, really green and everything looked alive and new. It was nice. I took Adam to dinner with my family, which went all right because we didn't stay for too long. It was nice to see everyone but strange too. I don't really feel close to my family. After dinner we went to the beach and walked on the sand for a while, collecting rocks. I guess I am okay with Adam leaving. It's probably better for him to live somewhere safe and have a stable job, maybe see his old friends and get back on his feet. It's not that much fun hanging out with him right now because he never has money and rarely has much to talk about.

Things are looking up. Josh wrote to me, and we talked about some different things and how we both want to get a move on. He decided that we should head out to California, which I've wanted to do for some time, and that's where he's from (all my favorite people hail from that way, somehow). He said we could stay with some friends of his until we got an apartment, which would be nice. I could really use a change. Josh is sick of Lansing and his work, and I think it's making his frustrated to be stuck somewhere, which is a lot of how I feel. I like my classes and I like some aspects of Michigan, but mainly it isn't where I want to be. Michigan is a nice place to come from, not a nice place to stay. Anyway, I am thinking that I will enroll in first summer semester out here, which is from May 5th to June 26th, and that will give us both time to save up money and make real plans. As much as I like to live improv, I think it's good to have some things settled. I do not want another Florida, or another Virginia experience. They are unique in their way, and important, and I respect everything I've gone through because it made me...me..but I don't care to do another summer of living in a car and wondering about money and hating everyone. No, thanks.

Classes are nearly done. All that's left in women's studies is to do my Islam presentation (tomorrow) and turn in the final (also tomorrow). The final assignment was to write a story (ohh...that's tough) about these set characters and having them discuss different issues we've addressed in class. I'm doing homosexuality, patriarchy/androcentrism and violence against women. Currently, my character Pam is being beaten by David. It's not cheery but it's getting the point across. Don't worry, she wises up in the end.

Well, yesterday when I got home, I checked the caller ID, and shockingly enough, there was a call from Sondra Dutcher. For the uninformed, that's Miah's aunt Sondra. He called back again and I spoke to him hesitantly, as he makes me nervous still and disappointed. He mentioned something about going back to school, that he got scholarship money and something. That's good, I guess, I'm happy for him but I am not going to rush over and visit or anything. He said he wasn't gay anymore, which made me wonder...why is he telling me this? Am I supposed to take it like he's hitting on me, or is it just a fact? Regardless, I don't care. Boys are for friends, not dates. Read "I kissed dating goodbye"...it's my Bible. ;)

Adam is leaving. He's moving to eastern Michigan, back in his old area, where he's from, Novi, etc...I guess one of his friends is getting him some fab job paying thousands of dollars a month, and they'll live together and go to the strip club, play card games. I am so pissed. No, sad, maybe...I don't know...I told him I didn't care. He said he wouldn't go if it bothered me but I felt like, who am I to say don't go? I just hate that he's leaving...I hate being left. Everyone leaves. Everyone always leaves.

I read the journal of Lt. Slash yesterday...he's over fighting in Iraq. I'll try to find the link because he's quite frank and amusing, just telling stories about life there and how he feels. I do respect him, especially some of the things he says about the war and how everyone back home in the states has already started to forget, move on and buy decorating kits for Easter. He's in a desert with no ice water, and people are arguing over the price of pastel eggs and rabbit shaped chocolates. Whatever. I do feel dumb sometimes because I don't think about the war constantly, and I should...some people, this is their whole life, their everything. They can't just flip the channel or log off the journal when they're sick of it. It's bombs flying overhead, and your best friend got shot, and it's hot and sticky and there isn't any fresh water...I feel so...American. All the bad that implies.

Just finished geography class, the last class except for the final. I'm going to miss it, miss my instructor from Serra Leone and some stuff we talked about. I regret missing any classtime because he came all the way here from Africa to teach me something...you see, and I never really think about that and what he's had to deal with. Everything today is just sadness, I don't know why, I cried earlier watching Toy Story 2, because the Jessie doll and the kid who grew up and didn't want her. I'll probably go home and gather up my old toys and cry about it a while...*sigh*

whatever happened to ziolab?

amhurst has written me four times today, in desperation and in panic worried about the things to come. he is not good at being under pressure and i think he's starting to snap from it all, mainlining in an old room in the grand rapids days inn. i am going to go and visit him this weekend if i can. josh finally wrote to me, well, not to me but he forwarded his new email address to a bunch of people and i was one of them. i haven't heard from him since january. hopefully everything is good with him and his life, and maybe if things go well i can visit him. i miss him a lot. the last time i was in lansing i didn't have much time or money and we didn't do anything. also, with adam there josh and i didn't have time to talk really. i wish we had.

i've been learning a lot. blackcode laboratories gave me a password and i've also been logged on to the phazefive tutorial and am there all the time copying tutorials and downloading weird programs to try and use. so far i can hack a short online password at most of the webbased anonymous emails (think hotmail), and i hacked my own wbs username and password just by virtue of knowing my ip address. well, it's not me and it's not my skills, it's these awesome programs. all i have to add is patience. things would go better and faster, i guess, had i not just deleted the system.ini initiation file in my old windows 98 e-machine. *lol* what was it doing in temp anyway?

things are better, i feel better, not quite so rampant and rushed. i still want to leave (want to leave, want to go) but it's more like a song stuck in my head on repeat then this horrid drive. i am just sick and bored here. so bored. bored of adam, bored of the people that i know, not that it is their fault but there is never anything new to talk about. i don't really know what i want. today is one of my last women's studies classes, and i have to present my activism project which in my case is informing people about rape. i have the statistics ready and even a list of important topics to touch on (the difficulty of prosecuting rape, homosexual rape, the rape culture of the us of a) and i am ready then to be done with this. i still have my islam thing to present which i do on the 22nd of april, i think. is that the right date? around there anyway.

what i want more then anything right now is to have someone close to talk to. not someone new really because i want to be able to trust them, but not anyone who is around right now either because i want to listen as well and have them share new things and present new points. i really miss mouse a lot right now, i have for a long time but now i do more so, and maybe that is because all my friends here are male. there is no one to have poetry slams with. there is no one to act silly with. adam is silly but not in a cool way, i don't mean to insult him but he's not cool really. if he started to act silly i would feel unhappy, i think. reminds me of my favorite manson quote.

"i hate when people are smiling and laughing and having a good time. that really gets me depressed"

sanity is swirling away like water down the sink. i was driving home from class yesterday and i just got hit, hard, by this tidal wave of guilt and sorrow. i missed mouse, i couldn't stop crying despite the fact that i was going seventy miles and hour, just screaming and sad and miserable. i don't want to be hated. i don't want to live in someones memory like a monster, lurking, the shadow of this miserable thing they remember. i know she must think of me like some dangerous person, and i wish i could ask for a second chance...but wouldn't you know...you can never go back again....

doomed are the maudlin? yes. doomed to repeat their lives i suppose. yesterday when i was so sad i wanted so badly to leave, just take off blindly forging ahead with no planning, no thoughts. hmm...where have we seen that before? why are some people never happy unless they are fucking things up for themselves? why couldn't i be a murderer or something...wreck lives besides my own. oh, i know i do, i know i did. mouse, of course, might send an occasional comment but she won't talk to me and didn't i fuck that one up quite nicely...of course i guess i hurt myself too but not quite so obviously, not so blatantly. why do i care about these things? what am i doing, barrelling down the road with the red hot chili peppers blasting, wanting to go back to florida? am i completely fucked up? survey says......

yes. i don't know what my problem is. i know i'm not being reasonable. i hate florida. oh, but i love florida. humidity on your face and hair smelling like chlorine, the stars drowned out by the cloudy sky...florida at night. i miss the alligators, that's the big thing for me. i miss the destruction. i think i have a destructive personality...i think i think about myself too much. i miss feeling like someone would do anything for me, feeling that important, but there is no point in missing that, i'm not that important. a good person would take that power and respect and make something good of it, become a rock star or write good books and share their knowledge with the world. they would not try to drag everyone down to drown with them among the swamps. but none the less...i miss parts of florida, perhaps the things that i can remember, because who knows if i remember it all? i want to go back, i want to go back, i want to go back. one would call it an addiction, and perhaps that isn't so far off. after all...i'm doing fine here. i like my work. i like my school. i like my friends. it's perfectly normal then, to want to fuck this all up? for me...

i'm not even sad about it, that's the funny thing. i've had so much energy in the last two days, feeling hyper and sugar high as though something has clicked on. it's spring...the snow is melted away and the sun is shining bright...and according to tradition it is time to let go. my memory is a deceit and a blasphemy, and saying this is a assault on a soul of someone, somewhere...and still i cannot lie and say i don't miss it. not all of it, for i know i am tuning some out, the days were too hot and i had prickly heat, and if there is a devil then i've probably brought him my soul giftwrapped for the ways i've treated people...and still i cannot say no....

it was as bad as she says, i know it was, i'm sure it was...but all i can think of is how much of an escapists bubble i lived in...locked away and feeling no pain. feeding fucking alligators and watching the love bugs fly. playing jane's addiction. i still cannot listen to jane's addiction, especially the song "of course" without thinking of florida and going to the mascotte library and all the hotels. it's impossible. if i ever go to lollapalooza i will never be able to stop. it's really funny...because i don't take drugs or smoke, and i hardly ever drink now, and i don't even eat sugar...and how can i be so addicted to something, and why do i still always want to die? if i was a christian i would say demon possession because nothing, nothing tempers this. at least...nothing i have. it's an obsession and i don't understand why, all i can say is that things are too comfortable here and my friends too reliable, and i guess somewhere, someplace that starts this cycle up again. every spring...jesus....

all these papers i wrote after getting back from florida...all these letters. i found all these pictures, and looking at them was okay but nothing special and all of a sudden those words are gospel and those pictures precious...because they are from florida. i have had dreams about florida for the last month or so, of the A1A, and of the little indie theatre that i only went to once i think...and the facist squares mall, and orange blossom trail where i went alone. i looked up howey in the hills on the internet last night....driven, driven as though if i go down there maybe i will go back in time and find something or someone that got lost there before. that's what it's like...i get impatient and shaky and i am ready to go right now, right now....

guilty. i am supposed to pick up adam today from his homeless mission and move him to a new one and i just don't want to. i just don't. it's sunday, i don't know that they even do intake today, i don't have much gas money and it's 100 miles round trip, i don't like driving around with him because i'm always afraid i'll get pulled oevr by the police, and he has a warrant out for him probably and i have visions of my car being confiscated and myself being hauled to the cop shop and tormented for hours. can i get in trouble for assisting a wanted felon? probably. i'm sure i've done it before but never this knowingly, never when i know full well what he is wanted for and where. i am such a terrible friend. well, i'm not, because i take him out for lunch and talk to him...i just don't want to be responsible for him. do not rely on me!! it would be different if he had done anything...anything at all since arriving here, but he hasn't. if he had a job even part time so i didn't always pay for everything. he could have stayed at this mission longer - the director asked if he had looked for a job and he said no, because he wasn't planning on staying in the area too long! it's not like you have to work here forever, just get a job flipping burgers or something for a month and make some cash. if he did, then he could have cheap car by now, he could live in that. he would have money for food and some clothes...and it's not all that cold. he is getting stagnant, like miah did.

i feel really neglectful because i have been trying to be a good friend to him, but i don't feel it accomplishes anything anymore, at least for adam. if i driev him to this new mission he won't work there, he will just want to sit in some place during the day watching television and go back at night. if he was taking a class, working a few hours, even doing volunteer work i would feel that this would be for a reason, but i don't. he isn't. and he still has god knows what warrants and legal troubles, which i don't want to get mixed up in. *sigh* i am a worthless friend.

i was offered a job in minnesota (cool) as a housing manager for this resort, which i want to take. i'm not too sure because they have a weird uniform of shorts which you must wear and i don't like showing my legs. my islam studies have affected me i guess, i wear a scarf most days (not a hijab but a hairscarf) and long pants and nothing revealing. i suppose before reading about islam i didn't think much of dressing in revealing ways either - the attention is weird and i still have hangups about my body. also this job, i would get an apartment near st. paul and they seem fairly expensive so i'm not sure if i could swing it. and i'm an awful roommate so getting a roommate is out of the question. *lol* i also need to see if i can continue getting scholarship money for my classes, because if i can then i would rather not move.

and adam. he wants to come out there with me and i sort of want him to (if he got a job). but i don't want to share a place with anyone, i need space and living with people drives me insane. also, i doubt he would keep the job. he's gotten more and more into crime, talking about jobs to do that i'm scared of him doing, wanting me to teach him hacking and connect him to my old friends who can hack fairly well. i was online with meph one night and adam was asking me a lot about him, if he could hack into these peoples accounts. i want to think he is joking but i know he isn't, and i definately do not want to get involved. crime is dull to me, and i'd rather not live with the gnawing panic and guilty fear of someone with something to hide. right now i am fairly innocent, relatively speaking, and i need to not add anything to my list of problems. good grades, potential good job, okay job now...things are okay. do not fuck them up, ivy!!!

the war is progessing...i am still opposed to it because the iraqi people are not in agreement with it. bush is an arrogant little man...and i think he is being an asshole, to tell the truth. i support the soldiers because they are people, and doing what they are told, and risking their lives for something they believe in - i have to support that. but i do not trust the government, not at all. i read stuff on beliefnet.com and also through mailing lists about how bush offered franklin graham (billy grahams son) evangelism opportunities is iraq after the war, and how he offered companies that supported his campaign jobs and space for their factories. get out of office! grr! i feel that bush is dangerous and i'm expecting confrontation against this country sometime. bush is a fundie...so i see this war as his anti-islam effort and not as a non-biased move to help others. no wonder the world hates this country...

religion is a big thing right now. i am on christian forums a lot, and occasionally wbs chatting about issues. i am still not a christian, and i still argue the bible and argue the issues for fun. i am also on some islamic mailing lists and getting info about that - the women's studies project has turned personal. in addition i have taken out books on wicca and paganism, i'm re-reading laVey, i bought new tarot and ouija, i got a new bible collection started and tracts from jack chick. i am really unsure about my beliefs. i know that

a. i do not believe that the bible is infallible, because of the atheists annotated bible, which pointed out many contradictions

b. i do not like conservative views of things, and i am against rabid evangelism

c. i like dark things, i like forbidden things and i probably always will. when it's controversial, i want it

d. i could not be wicca because i'm not that white light

e. i like the qur'an but my views of islam are tainted by some history i'd rather not elaborate on, and also because in practice it seems misogynist, even if the qur'an itself isn't.

f. the concept of jesus and god is getting rather dull for me, no matter how cultish and wacky. when i read the word "jesus" i instantly feel bored.

why am i so tired and yet still awake? stubbornly cleaning out the cobwebs at feralsite, deleting old picture files. hmm. unexciting. i really want to put up a lot of my new stuff but so much is cluttered in the one main directory and of course i have to sort through it bit by bit.

sorry. all fascinated with this song. well, people are being arrested left and right in war protests. 2,000 in san fran, or that's what i heard anyways. i purchased a television for the express purpose of watching war coverage. took a break and watched mtv news. less then informative. this war just feels wrong. i don't know...who are we to say who can have and do what in the world? i don't hate bush as a person, but i hate his policies, and i don't just mean the war. his anti-women stance is evident in his choices. i think i write to poor old carl levin three times a week.

i wrote to jane's addiction today and asked them personal questions. well, asked perry, who cares what anyone else is doing *smirk*. i asked him what made him write "of course", because from what i understand he wrote that independantly. that song...in honesty..is my favorite jane's song. i would have died without that song. okay...so i probably should have died in the blur of the past, but thanks to whatever i am still here...and i would have to say that song meant the world to me when i was possessed. no, i don't mean possessed like demons...but i've sort of half come to the conclusion that i wasn't quite in my own soul two years ago. yes...that's about right. no wonder no one ever got upset that i cut myself back then...they probably all wanted to do worse...*yeah*....anyway, so...

did you know that only one of the 353 members of congress has a child enlisted in the military? i heard that on cnn special report. i can't believe i'm watching the television - i want to smack myself. think of how much advertising i'm submitting myself to!

cocooned. i feel separated from the entire world...cut off and wandering in fog. adam calls me three times a day...and sometimes i just let the phone ring. that's so bad. rick calls. i don't answer his calls either. miah never calls....he's in a pot haze. i cannot stand potheads....the apathy. the sitting there in stale food, leaking soft drink cups, overflowing ashtrays, unblinking eyes going from judge judy to soap operas to oprah...like zombies. i haven't seen miah in months..the last time i was there i just walked out...i wanted to punch him and see if i could make him blink, but i decided to just leave and go get a coke.

it's frustrating...because he is such an ungodly slug...lying on the couch, awake for maybe five hours a day...laughing at incoherant jokes...looking through the dustbins for his abandoned braincells. sometimes i just want to shoot him and see if he won't wake up and get mad. my god...even getting dragged through broken glass when we fought was much more exciting. i don't know why tonight is miah night...i guess i'm about to ride the cotton pony and all that, and these types of thoughts turn up in moments like that. out of the blue - pow - i miss him. not how he is now...i could go sit with him for hours and miss him the whole time...rather like one must feel about a comatose relative who they recall being lively and dramatic. why miah anyway? good question. he was unique..he was weird...he wore my shorty skimpy idiot teen deb dresses to parades...we got thrown out of bars together...committed crimes together. he was alive...and now he's not. even screaming at him, blood dripping down my arm, feeling like my heart was glass and had been hit with a sledgehammer...it was exciting. this is boring. i am so alone.

adam...he's nice. i used to really feel close to him...i guess i do somewhat. i can tell him everything about myself but not in the meaningful, serious, secret, furtive way you tell a close friend..praying they will understand and hoping they can identify. i can tell adam anything because i don't care what his reaction will be...and i know i can't shock him. nothing shocks him...i mean, his past even shocks me...or did when he first told me it during a midnight walk on mackinac. i was scared when he told me some of what he's done...sitting alone with him in the dark...but he was my best friend then. i guess he still is...i'm just distant. this is probably all me. sometimes i which there was a time machine and i could go all different times of my life and fix them. "you know, mouse, let's wait a while and save money before we go to florida...."

well, now we're all going to die. i am so unimpressed with this stupid war. i hate seeing hick townspeople buying posters of saddam and bin ladan with targets drawn on them. everyone seems to think we're having a football game or something, and that we should all be patriotic cheerleaders. bleh. i think war is stupid, i think bush should be ousted, and i think that we should fuck off and leave others alone. america is not the playground monitor. and war on terrorism? please. we've had one attack in this country where others face many, and we have the nerve to cry and go one and on about the greatness of this dead country. i despise living in america. praise god, my canadia immigration papers came today.

yawn. out of the hospital. i hate being sick...and this time with good reason; being sick interrupted my tour of the dale chihuly exhibit in grand rapids, and the meijer gardens. bleh. i had to go to the emergency room, drink some sort of mint-flavored, acid green poison, have x-rays, have ultrasounds, hook myself to a heart monitor, have a pulse meter on my wrist, have a lot of blood tests and two i.v.'s stuck in my arm and hand. hmmm. that's not very exciting. some way to have a spring break.

been out of my mind for the last few days, the way i get when i am sick, like living in a slide slow. flash, you're someplace...flash..it's an hour later and i can't remember the in between. blackouts. i always get like this when i am sick. strange thoughts get into my mind. today, it was disks. finding my old disks, like lox lobo and some stuff smote gave to me, some of my old spookykid disks. i have 32 of them...but there are about four i can't find. i went into obsessive mode, knocking over furniture, climbing into attics and closets, looking for these damned disks...the room swirling, my head dizzy the whole time. *lol* i am so fucked up. i'm so pale. it's really weird. i found a clutch of old papers..the old revs books, chat print outs, old stories...dave mccabe stuff, mm newsletters. i found a picture of me and realized that, although the pic is three years old, i was wearing the same clothes today that i was then. my hair the same style. crazy.

i have my midterm in women's studies tonight. my head is numb with knowledge. i think i'm fairly prepared though.

the last few days have been good. i went out to the lake again with a camera and took a bunch of pictures, they were beautiful. i spent hours walking around on the ice and wading in the water and walking in the woods. it was actually pretty fun, sort of like one of those "find yourself" retreats, but done alone.

i started writing more again, just about all different subjects but especially times in my life when things have gone really wrong. nothing that i want to see published really, or even would share with many people, but important things. writing about florida. do i have a right to do that? in the fifteen pages that i've already written, i've clarified a lot of things in my own mind, and taken into account a lot of factors that never affected me before. it's not like i want to rehash or drag through old, miserable times again, or glorify them and pretend they were great, but i do want to get what i can from them. experience. knowledge. a more realistic world view. that is all pretty important to me, and as bad as some events were, writing what i felt about them will not change the world and can only help. but no, not for publishing.

everything else is fairly well, the snow is starting to melt away and i am all right. been playing some old music, developing old pictures, wearing old clothes. i dyed my hair again, jet black. starting to feel a bit more real, and integrating my personalities :)