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Lucy’s Diary, May 30th

May 30th, about 1AM, Windowsill in my room

Dear Diary,

I have just returned from the library, where it seems I will be spending most of the next few days. Not that I mind in the least, of course. For who do you think will be spending that time poring over books and old newspapers with me? If only you could see my blush in the darkness, you’d know the answer right away. R, of course!

Yes, he is out of the hospital – and quite a dramatic leave-taking that was. After having been told by his doctors that he was basically cured, he decided it would be a good idea to punch the doctor in the face – in front of me no less! – then take me by the hand and pull me out of the hospital with a triumphant shout of “RUN!” Diary, I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard in my life.

I know that we’re extremely far from being out of the woods – the Parazelli are after us, R agrees with me on that, and we know they’re not going to like our alliance and the fact that we can now pool our knowledge together about them. Still, things are looking up – R is out of the hospital and is actually staying at Pratt and Smith’s guest house, as a relation of mine would be entitled to.

Thank goodness Clarisse doesn’t know too much about the family to really know if he’s related to me or not. The P&S teachers have been suspicious about R, but they can’t exactly kick him out, especially when he puts on his charming-the-officials-face and becomes all smooth and suave and intellectual.

P&S is a girls’ school, as I’ve told you before, so of course every single one of the upper-class women here are now drooling over my “relative” as if he were the embodiment of a male Venus on earth. The obnoxious thing is that I can’t even be annoyed with them. I’m “related” to him, so he’s fair game for every flipping-her-hair-and-giggling female in this place.

Do you sense a slight change in me? I do too, Diary. I feel like I’m a bit more alive than I was. The fact that I have an ally and that we’re going to go after the psychopaths that killed my parents makes me feel like I have a purpose in life. I feel every nerve in my body singing with a vengeful longing for action – I feel like the Parazelli have finally met their match. Which is perfectly ridiculous, of course. What can R and me, a couple of normal people – and me only a teenager – do to an ancient cult?

R says that he is supposed to be meeting a contact here, and that it might be a teacher at the school. That has to be our best lead for now, and I hope R manages to follow up on that during the next few days.

As for me? Well, putting my hormones to the side for now, I’m going to try my damndest to find out if this school has or has ever had any sort of connection with either my parents or the Parazelli.

Wish me luck, both with my research and with keeping my hands to myself,

I am your faithful,

Lucy

A Moment’s Pause

This week has been hectic, which is my only excuse for not updating as regularly as I usually do. Let’s go over some odd things of this week:

-I got accepted to Hofstra University [not my first choice of college, but it’s good to know I got in somewhere!]

-We had a very odd house-guest around for half the week [and old friend of my parents’ who hasn’t been a real friend to them for many years, and yet the courtasy of having him stay with us is still there.]

-I went to a concert [very loud and very enjoyable.]

-I had to make large college envelopes again [because I needed to send yet MORE scores and data about me to the colleges.]

Ok, so maybe there hasn’t been all that much going on. But still, it was one of those weeks where things feel strange and hurried and you never have enough time for anything. Tonight there shall be a normal post again, or so I hope.

Distraction

A buzzing drone in my ear, I struggled to open my mouth in anything other than a pointless flapping and ranting of facts and figures. As my mind struggled to stay with the task of solving problems, complaints and mistakes, my fingers itched to be of use, and dragged my mind elsewhere, time after time.
It was hard to believe that the despair that had overtaken my mind and emotion just hours earlier seemed to have dissipated and dissolved under those same itching fingers, those same thoughts that were causing my mind to wander and my mouth to smile more often than not. The feeling of my fingers flying across the small pages in those precious few minutes between the chattering of voices in my ear – ah! The best feeling in the world, to be for once creating instead of venting, making up instead of putting down facts.
The ink flowing from the pen seemed to give birth to new ideas and characters with every twitch of my fingers, clutching the pen so tightly that my arm began to ache before long. My mind flowed with names, situations, ideas, friendships, worlds – all so far and free from my own that they made me dizzy just to think about them and the control and power my make-believing mind would have on them.
The hours passed quicker than they ever had before – even when I could not write for an hour or two at a time, my brain never ceased to create and invent and add flourishes to the characters and their unique traits and situations. It was the best distraction, and I’m not minded to forget it any time soon.

Hidden Wish

There are wishes that are too dear to the heart to be able to give up. At the same time, however, these same wishes, because of being so dear, are often hidden or lied about or concealed even from their own wisher. Wishes like these are the ones that are important. The wisher conceals them from him or herself because he or she knows that facing the wish, trying to accomplish it, will only make it like all the other wishes before – it will be gloried, it will be striven for, it will be boasted of, but eventually it will fall to the wayside like a dusty old garment, too worn out to be of use to the traveler anymore.

These wishes stay close to the heart, and will unconsciously jump into the mind of the wisher and into his or her actions once in a while. The wisher, if sincere, will do all in their power to avoid the seriousness of the wish, will immediately laugh it off as a fancy, as a thing which can never be, while secretly wanting it so much that he or she would give up almost everything to be able to fulfill it.

Why is it that wishes brought to light are so often abandoned? One cannot presume to know – but what is certain, at least when it comes to this humble blogger’s opinion, is that the more serious one is about one’s wish, the more likely it is to be lost amongst the everyday. Better to supress and let it emerge on one with all the slowness of natural progress rather than force it upon and into one’s life with vulgar flashes of neon light.

Fatigue and Mental Health Days

Even people who love their jobs totally and unreservedly must have days where they’re weary to the bone and need to rest. It might come on by a soar throat and an aching head, it might come on by a long period of time without a proper vacation, or it may come out of nowhere or out of some irrational, emotional state.

Whatever it may be, sometimes you just need to take a day off. A day during which you let yourself sleep late, let yourself forget about the cares and worries of responsibility, let yourself be completely idle and enjoy every minute of it.

Well, you SHOULD be able to let yourself do all that. I, for some odd reason, have a fixation over this issue. I feel like if I’m not actually sick, fever and all, then it’s wrong for me to take a day off. I did take a day off today, and I did come home early from work yesterday, and I did have a soar throat and a tiny bit of a fever last night – and yet, I wasn’t truly ill, and I spent half the day feeling guilty about not having gone to work.

Uh-oh. I feel a workaholic in the making. Better nip this urge in the bud before it’s too late!

In The Spirit of The Gilmore Girls

I don’t know how many of you out there are aware of the TV show “The Gilmore Girls” and I also don’t know whether or not it had as much hype surrounding it in its native country as it did here. I think every single one of my girlfriends watched and loved it at a certain time in their high school years.

My mother and I are not to be excluded from the GG fan base! Oh no, we watched it religiously whenever it was on, and rejoiced at the time when the reruns were on every day and we got to giggle at the excellent script and sigh at the love affairs and family dramas. The odd thing about looking back at that time is that my mother and I, though on good terms in comparison with many a mother and daughter of the day, were not nearly as close as we are now.

Now, she and I, the two girls in the house with only our cats to keep us company, are close. We’re very close, I should think. I cannot express how much it means to me to be able to consider my mother as a friend and confidante, and I love our evening routine of dinner and a movie together. I hope against hope, though it’s quite a foreign thought to me as of yet, that I manage to have such a good relationship with my children as my parents had with me.

Lucy’s Diary, May 5th

May 5th, 2008

Dearest Diary,

After many hours of pointless, useless and otherwise simply obnoxious paperwork, I am free to dwell on my own thoughts once more. The flight landed, and I have never been more reluctant to get off a plane as I was this morning. There was a man a few seats in front of me who looked at me rather oddly as I sat there in my seat, making no move to get up and off the plane. But then, I suppose it is rather odd, in the hustle and bustle for the door, that a girl should stay stationary in her seat.

Having finally convinced myself to get up and leave the plane, though, I was plagued by the usual airport routine: passport check, luggage retrieval etc. I was most anxious to get some fresh air, and I almost forgot that I needed to look for my pick-up ride when I entered the arrivals hall.

Of course, they hadn’t forgotten about me – much to my chagrin, I might add. There was a man with a hat and a sign waiting for “Miss Lucy Blake” and I had no choice but to approach him and follow him to the town car, of which he was the driver.

While I wish I could have written in the car, it was much too bumpy and couldn’t be managed. Moreover, having gotten no sleep on the flight, I fell into an uneasy one on the ride over to Pratt and Smith. It was a long ride, because as I’ve said before, P&S is in the middle of many square miles of fields upon fields.

We finally arrived, and I was met at the gates by the woman who I’m supposed to consider as “the mother of all the young girls in this glorious home away from home!” Her words – not mine.

She escorted me to the offices, where I got many a dirty look for joining with them so very late in the semester. True, their semester lasts until the end of August, but my lateness is apparently enough to give me a black mark before I’ve even started. That relation of mine who sent me here [you see, my dear, that I am still too angry to even write her name] will be feeling more of my wrath with her in my phone call to home this week, you can be sure of it, Diary.

It is evening now, and I’m settled in my new room. It’s rather cozy and nice right now, but that is only because my three roommates are currently at the study hall doing their homework. I was assured by Miss Flynn, the self proclaimed Mommy of us all who is actually the supervisor of the girls’ living quarters, that the other girls will be along shortly and will escort me to dinner, which begins at promptly seven-thirty every evening.

I freely admit to you that I am dreading the introduction of these girls. They will be my staunchest companions in the coming months, if only because we are forced to live within the same very small room and share our bedtimes and awakenings. Wish me luck; I believe I hear the sound of giggling in the hall!

Much love,

Hastily,

Lucy

Dear Diary

I’ve been looking up more writing exercises, and I found one in a list, which is now saved on my computer because it has some other really good and interesting exercises in it. The one that I found, and that I am now posting a beginning of, is this: “Keep a diary of a fictional character.” So, I present to you a not very original character, Lucy:

Dear Diary,

While I know that keeping diaries is quite out of style in this day and age, I have decided to begin one anyway. Oh, you might be surprised at my saying it is out of style – after all, how many teen-novels are there these days that focus on journal writing? The Princess Diaries are perhaps the most known of these, though they are not the only books to adopt this style by far. So, once again, how can I say that diaries are out of style? Well, for one, almost no one writes or keeps diaries for themselves anymore, and so in that perspective, you are unique. You’re not to be revealed to the eyes of the internet-surfing hordes. No, you are to remain, quiet and peaceful, in the confines of this book.

But I digress. The reason for my starting a journal, a diary, an imaginary pen-friend, is perhaps one that could be mocked at, and yet I shall confide it in you, my diary, for you are to become the ultimate confidante on all matters concerning my life. The reason, therefore, is that I am utterly, without a doubt, and presumably for the foreseeable future, friendless.

Why, you ask, is such a charming young woman, writing with such a fine and elegant pen, friendless? Well, Diary dear, I shall tell you the reason for this mortifying fact. I have been sentenced, but that relation of mine which I despise and abhor but have no choice but be commanded by as she is my legal guardian – I have been sentenced, I say, to study at a boarding school. Not any boarding school – the most prestigious of modern girls’ preparatory schools, that which is named “Pratt and Smith School for Young Ladies.”

Yes, Diary. I have been sentenced, in short, to live like a girl from the Victorian age, only without the glorious dresses and the height of sophistication being the making of tea with the correct amount of sugar. Oh no, I will actually be forced to study and study and study some more in order to get accepted in two years to such schools as Yale, Harvard or Princeton.

This brings me back to my being utterly friendless. I am still only on the airplane to Vermont, where this school resides in the middle of what can reasonably be considered “nowhere,” but I have had to leave every single one of my incredible girlfriends behind me. I know for a fact that we’re only allowed one hour of phone calls to home a week at P&S, and that will certainly not be enough time for me to talk to Sarah, Jenny AND Linda. If I’m lucky, there will be modern things such as internet at P&S, but who knows?

And so, Diary dearest, you are my only companion and soul mate as of now, and I hope that I shall be able to entertain you with my miseries and trials at this most hated of places. I now leave you fondly to put away my tray-table and buckle my seat belt, as we’re beginning our ascent.

With much love and fondness for your pages already,

I am yours sincerely,

Lucy

Vibes

One of the most magnificent and incredible things to me are how days can change from being unbearable to face to being calm, peaceful, enjoyable and rewarding. There are those mornings where you may wake up and just feel so tired, so sad, so completely unprepared to face a day of work and socializing and exercise and travel. And yet, when the day goes by, step by step, you realize that you’re going through the motions without a negative thought in your head.

What is it about human nature that makes us so utterly easy and open to change of moods? Not always, of course not – sometimes we’ll retain a bad mood for hours and refuse to let ourselves budge from it. And yet, sometimes the simple act of human kindness, of a smile or a voice, can help raise our spirits. Sometimes even nice weather and a light breeze can be enough to raise a smile on our lips.

It also always seems to happen most that when we don’t expect it, we suddenly experience the change. In the midst of a raging temper, one might be startled into a laugh. In between sobs, someone might be kind enough to make us smile. We are fickle creatures indeed, but one cannot help but be thankful for it if it helps us get rid of bad vibes.

Good Idea. Bad Idea.

What show is that from?! I’m going insane. There was a TV show that my brother and I used to love when we were younger. One of my strongest memories of being in Los Angeles with my family was how different, and superior, so much of the television programs I watched were. Not only does there seem to always be an episode of “Law and Order: SVU” on, but also the children’s programs were varied and so much better in the US when I was little.

So there was this show that I adored. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it now. It had all sorts of sections to it – it was animated – and one of the sections was this part called “Good Idea. Bad Idea.” The good idea would be, for instance, someone changing a light-bulb with shoes on his feet and the bad idea would be someone changing a light-bulb with wet hands and getting electrocuted in an exceptionally amusing manner [at least to young children it seemed amusing]. Also, I don’t think I’m giving a very good example, because it was usually less crudely amusing and less educational, just very silly and funny.

There was also a section in this show of these weird crosses between animals and how they’d look while running a race.

Does anyone have any clue what I’m talking about or have I gone insane and imagined a whole TV show?