February 21, 1999.

Today is my brother's 21st birthday. I bought him a voodoo kit.

I'll be awfully glad to get back to school, even if that means that I'll have to worry about my Greek paper. You know why? Because I'M GODDAMN SICK AND TIRED OF READING CLARISSA!!!!! I'm serious. It takes me about 40 minutes to read 25 pages. The book is 1500 pages long. I'm on page 875. Three hours with the book is enough to push the bile to the tip of my throat.

You do the math.

Plus, my mom keeps asking me to come out and do stuff with her during the afternoon (usually just as I've really sunk my teeth into the "plot"). This is to capitalize on the 2 hours she has during the afternoon when she is a) awake and b) here. See, she's a nurse. She works the night shift. She feels guilty that she hasn't seen much of me this week...so she's easily angered when I try to beg off shopping to read Clarissa.

Yesterday I felt myself on the point of going bugfuck, so asked if I could go over to the Boy's house for dinner. She makes me feel bad for wanting to squander the 20 minutes we could've spent together. My dad doesn't like me to drive anywhere, because there might be thirty seconds where I might get carjacked or something, I don't know. Every time I want to go anywhere under my own power, I can't get out of the house without it going to a committee decision, without getting yelled at, without having to run all of my plans past every family member for approval (including my younger brother). Everyone in this house has more freedom than me.

The Boy keeps asking whether I want to move back next year. The answer is no, I really don't...but I think I can swallow my rage for 13 months, live rent free, and possibly buy my freedom for the rest of my goddamn life. Poor comfort, I know.

Last night Morgan, Little Spider and I went out to a kareoke bar in S-ville to meet Exodus and The Boy after "the game." Look, I know that kareoke tales are not welcome among the cool segment of the audience (Stacy in particular severs the link between short term and long term memory whenever I mention kareoke, thus forgetting any anecdote five minutes after it's over). I don't care. We got bombed and had a great time. A bunch of strangers wanted to meet the elusive girlf of the Boy (probably to verify my existence), so I found myself with a certain amount of unlikely celebrity. My presence also allowed the Boy to sing a number of Britpop songs in a roomful of hockey fans, secure in the knowledge that no-one could accuse him of playing for the other team (so to speak). I sang an obscure Alice Cooper single and joined Morgan and Little Spider on "Birdhouse In Your Soul." Several locals competed for the title of Queen of the Bar Harlots. I haven't been that drunk in months. It was great.