i've been thinking about james cartano a lot lately. how... when we first started college, him at boston and myself, at rutgers, we promised to stay in touch, in spite of everything going on in our lives. we were very close... or so i thought. i thought that we had forged a friendship that stretched far beyond conventional means. i mean... he would always say 'these things' and i always took exception to them. he never referred to me when he was saying 'these things'.... so i thought we were solid. but then school started and he upped and disappeared. never returned emails. never returned phone calls. i took my, then, fledgling, investigative skills and found someone at his school who could track him down for me. sure enough, it worked and he soon became a part of her life. however, he was still nowhere to be found in my own. i was so angry. i couldnt even contain myself. i felt betrayed... lost... and bitter.

one nite, i had found myself at his "ex" girlfriend's birthday party. i wasnt sure if i would see him there, but i did. he had come all the way from boston to attend. he sat across from me during the cocktail hour and i tried to play it cool and calm, but i could feel my blood boiling. i had so many things to say to him, but it was not the time nor the place. he smiled, innocently, as he always did and it pushed me further and further to the edge until i felt overly compelled to say something. quietly and as politely as possible, i asked him what happened. why didnt he return my emails? why didnt he call me back when i left messages? he replied vaguely, implying that i should know. but i didnt. i persisted and still the answers came back vague and almost condescending. both of us were reaching the point of no return, where we might say something that we regret and worse yet, embarrass ourselves and the entire party for bringing such personal 'pain' to a festive occassion. he said that he needed to start over, to start anew, to forget everything. i looked at him and i was just lost. why did he have to do it without me? why couldnt he do it with me? all i've ever done is be there. why did he turn his back on me? i babbled my way through the rest of this conversation/debate and i'm guessing he could read the expression on my face. i recall him standing from his seat and stating, "you dont understand!" he kept repeating it. over and over. and i didnt. i didnt understand what he was going through in boston. i didnt understand why he felt he couldnt come to me. i didnt understand why all of this was happening, when all i wanted to do was be there for him... to be his friend... like i was in high school.

but this wasnt high school. we had started college... living two different lives in two different states. he was undergoing stress and situations i couldnt/didnt/wouldnt understand..... until maybe now. im still not sure. our 'talk' got cut off when one of our friends decided that we were going too far. we both stopped talking and just sat there. flustered. he bounced back quickly. when the party started, so did he. as for me, i sat there, watching him, like nothing even happened. he ended up asking me to dance. and we did. he also complimented one of my 'assets'.... and that was it. it was like we were back in high school. no ill feelings. no bitter sentiment. just us... back in high school... on the phone... in the middle of the night... when he should've been studying and i should've been sleeping. i havent talked to him much since then. maybe about 5 times. i've seen him twice since. i dont know what he's doing. as far as i know, he has a girlfriend that he gropes feverishly in public. yup. that sounds like the james i know.

i guess my point in all this is that... i'm at a threshold in my life and there's a part of me that feels like i need to start anew, to forget everything and to just forge a new life. but how could i do that to the people in my life when i know, FIRSTHAND, what that pain is? maybe he had the right idea but the wrong gameplan... the wrong mindset. i think... to be successful, you always have to know where you're coming from and who helped you get to where you are... good and bad.

even though james isnt really in my life now... i have to say... where ever you are.... im still here.

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it's been awhile i guess. there have been a few times when i've been laying in my bed wondering if i should UPDATE. i never have the energy.... never know what to say.... got a lot of stuff on my mind that i've been doing a really good job of keeping to myself. but i guess not anymore. oh well... i'm still not really gonna let it out. i just needed to say it vaguely....sometimes vague is good enough. kinda like rumsfeld. he can tell you everything and nothing all at the same time. that's mad skills yo!

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"HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICHAEL!!!!" says the drunken little sister planted at the bar with her hand on a martini.

my weekend was pretty full. let's begin with friday. i woke up early and headed into the city with lyn. i got fingerprinted by a secret service agent named mike. AND he let me do a set of my own prints!!! as a side note, i now see why they dont let people do it on their own. we then left brooklyn and headed over to the lower east side to get lyn's pants hemmed and eat some crepes. as i sat in the car and waited for her to return from felix {the tailor}, i noticed these 2 older unattractive foreign gentlemen NOTICING ME. i paid it no mind until lyn got into car and said, "yo man! those guys were checking you out!" yea. thanks lyn. afterwards, we walked over to the creperie and had some crepes. the young man in charge of the whole place was checking her out. he was very attractive. that's how my life goes. a guy like that checks her out. and those two gross creatures check me out. yeah! we ended up going back to my house and trying to play scrabble, but lyn sucks so we stopped and she left. i then fell asleep and woke up saturday morning.

after a few hours of waiting for her to wake up and put some clothes on, she called to say that she and james were ready. the flea market was pretty cool. even though i didnt really buy anything, it was definitely just worth it to walk around, get some fresh air and hang with some friends. after that.... it was time to prepare for michael's birthday party. without having to get into any obscene details, let's just say that someone came at me like a pitbull, SHE DID!!!!!! i have no regrets about my actions. but if it happens again, someone's going to walk away in a lot of pain. but you didn't hear that from me!!!!

then sunday came. after about 3 hours of sleep, i jumped...... ok..... crawled out of bed and showered up. by 9:15, i was already on the turnpike headed to my uncle's, who would then drive the hour and a half to the valley forge convention center in pennsylvania. our mission for the day: check out one of the largest gun shows in the area. i must say. it's not for the faint of heart. i wouldnt mind going again, but not right away. it was very claustrophobic. cool. but claustrophobic.

the last thing i'd like to mention is that i saw my very first "support our troops/god bless the usa" rally. it warmed the very cockles of my heart.

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it's an odd thing to find yourself in your own private little hell. maybe hell is too strong a word. maybe 'prison'. as if the whole world was moving forward without you. i looked out the windows. didn't leave the house. cant/didn't sleep at all. family's acting up. i realized today that i can talk myself into tears. who knew?

i should be sleeping now but something in my body wont let me. I havent slept for about 48 hours and you would think that i would be knocked out right now. NOT.

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these are dangerous times. who is to say what our future holds... who it holds... or how it holds them. it is not enough to know where you have been, but also where you are presently and how you might arrive at your future destination?

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today. i was awoken by lyn calling to see if i wanted to run with her. seeing as how i thought it was raining and i had made previous plans, my first reaction was to say no. a little bummed, i tried to explain why as she just kept telling me that it could be done. after a few phone calls on my part to see if any maneuvering of my schedule could be managed, she gave up and just said, forget it. i'm just gonna go run. instinctively, i told her to wait because there might be a way this can work. 'lo and behold. everything turned out for the best, post the traffic and ugly black sneakers, and i was able to run through goose shit and ice for a mile straight with lyn by my side. fantastic!!!

i have even better news but im not allowed to say anything. BAH!!! it's such good news! can't wait to let it out! BAH!!! it's incredible!!! all i can say is, "DIBS on the boy!!!!!!!"

after lyn and i finished our run, we headed back to her house to freshen up and then meet with puto for dinner. it was their first meeting. i was nervous because they're 2 very large parts of my life and i would have been crushed if they didn't like each other. so over some chicken teriyaki and sushi, the dinner went off without a hitch. [yes i know it was ash wednesday. i'll tell you what i told lyn. "sin in my tummy! ooh. tummy full of sin feels good!" insert uproarious laughter here ]. now i havent spoken to puto yet, but lyn said that he's everything she thought he would be, minus the materialisticness of his LV wallet, which in her own words is ok because "i, myself, am materialistic". ahhh. my family! gotta love 'em.

• • • • •

10 years late, but still well worth it. life's too funny sometimes.

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sometimes i read older entries and i'm just dumbfounded. what the heck was i thinking of? who am i referring to? no idea. got me people... got me.

of course it's 4 o'clock an i'm awake. what else would i be doing? i just turned my computer on too. the damn thing wouldnt turn on. it was making me insane. i could've re-read a book. i actually think i'm doing that now. the other nite, i pulled one from my bookshelf that i thought i never read... but as i started, things seemed very familiar. i looked at the spine of the book and you can see faint cracks but the pages still feel very tight and unused. who knows? i'm beginning to think that i'm reading so many books that my memory is just molding them into one huge epic.

• • • • •

nothing like spending a weekend with your family to put things in perspective. all the different generations under one roof sharing the same laughter. oh to have spent 80 years on this earth experiencing the best and worst of what life has to offer. ahhh... but to be just an infant with 1 year under your belt, where everything is new and exciting. who wins? me? because i get to sit back and witness the glory that is my family. the grandmothers doting on everyone to make sure they're eating enough. the kids playing and working up a good sweat so that they can fall asleep during their ride home. the babies... oh, the babies. one of their smiles can make the hardest of men become giant teddy bears. who can go to work when there's so much going on in the world? :-)

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chatted with cousin mark on aol last nite. it's been several full moons since our last direct contact. i liked it very much. i hope ethan is doing well. we talked about books and what we've been up to. i told him that i've been trying to brush up on philippine history or something similar, so he suggested "america is in the heart". when i checked it on amazon.com and barnes&noble, it so intrigued that i made it a part of the trio of books that i ordered. i actually had to take one out to let it be within my price range, but i think it will be worth the sacrifice. if i dont like it... i know who to blame ;-). bleh. i dont know why i did that. i dont much like winkers.

lyn and i were talking about old blogs and she seems to have forgotten one of the 'originals'... so i checked it out myself tonite. had i known then, what i know now... i will have witnessed the worst act of aggression on american soil. i will have lost both my grandmothers. i will have reached my lowest mental, emotional and spiritual canyon. i will have risen from that canyon to try my hand at a career in children's services. i will have 'folded my hand' in that very same career.

it's about 4:AM and i cant fall asleep. someone's on the other side of the country fast asleep and here i am... sooooooo NOT asleep. someone on this coast is hard at work. and here am i. unable to fall asleep and taking advantage of the money that my parents have earned to afford me a college education and a family that is willing to freely give of their own time and money to lavish on me, this once, new and improved, hewlett packard laptop.

i found myself whining early this evening... because i was hungry and i didnt know what to eat or if there was anyone to eat with. but then.... as i drove in my 2000 xterra donning brand name clothes and expensive perfume, i suddenly realized that i was the biggest sh*t imaginable. oh woe is me that i cant decide between a sandwich and some burger joint. oh woe is me that my friends and family are a little too busy to eat with me right now. michelle... you sh*t. just shut the hell up and get some food.

and here's an oddity that ive been keeping to myself. i find that my conversations with my brother are becoming longer and encompassing a wider range of topics, other than "is there food at the house?" AND i find that when he does come to the house to devour some food, i always find myself by his side, asking him for his opinion or relaying some story that has 'significance' to our social realms. but shhh... dont tell him. i dont think he knows.

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