Supposed to be writing my Journalism term paper, but already spent half the day fooling around.   It's really no prob, since I'm pretty smart, work better under pressure, and usually finish everything during an all-nighter.   Still, I always get a bad case of the "should's."    Must be Mom's influence; she's so careful.   So I was hiding out in the toasty library reading room, flipping through mags and fantasizing (my fav scene is innocently reading with a butterfly buzzing away, nonchalently getting off right in front of everybody, and peeps looking around the circle of easy chairs for that pesky mosquito!), when there's this hard peck on my shoulder.

"Hey, Twat," a familiar voice whispers affectionately, making me practically jump out of my seat.   

It's Chelle!    And eerily psychic, too.   I hardly ever run into her on campus.   We took advantage of the moment to take a nice walk downtown, just to talk, window shop, check out the Halloween displays, kick through the Fall leaves.    On the way back to the house, we hit the fraternity.   Chelles just had to liven the fire with Bruce, just in case of a cold front.    Feeling strange without my man, getting that three's-a-crowd feeling, and deserving of the gong at piano (gotta baby grand there), I wandered next door to see if Cowboy Jake were in.   I don't know what the fuck got into me.   I actually wandered up to his room, off-limits to the ladies,  where his total geek of a roommate was busy doing spreadsheets on his deluxe hand-built comp.   He politely ignored me, thank god, so I could memorize every pic on Jake's bulletin board.   There was his truck.   There was his horse.   His brother or something.   And there was some plump blonde, girl from home, Suzie-Q type (Brucie:   "You're the Suze, Tina."    Me:  "Not!") he must be going out with now.    After ten minutes, the housekeeper came up and flushed me out.   Oh, well, sour grapes.    Jakes is only another "should"; why pursue him when Brett's the best?

The weekend was interesting.   Seeing that I wasn't exactly going to "fill in" for her, Thea finally decided to put in an appearance Friday, after which she and Al retreated into the den for the night.   (Chelle:  "I thought he wasn't your type!"   Thea:   "Alfred's not a bad boy, really.  He gives the best HEAD I ever had.")    Saturday we thought we'd give him a good scare at the mummy ride, but this being too expensive to treat all his unexpected extra dates, he had other plans.    He wanted to go skating.  So we hung around the rink for a while with all the high school dudettes and families on quality time.   Then he wanted to lunch at this Chinese buffet called Luau Gardens that he liked in Sacramento.    All you can eat for only $5.00 per.   (Thea:   "Oh, I remember that.   Everything taste like flowers.")    Al was sure it was a chain, but we couldn't find it.   Chelle suggested Beni Hanna, but this made the Alster frown.   We ended up at MacD's instead.    For both lunch and dinner.   "You two seem to hit it off well," Thea kept teasing me.   Al wanted to see the sites, drop off a few job portfolios on the way, but kept getting lost.   After being stuck in traffic all day, the loving couple was starting to fight, so we headed back home.   

Sunday we all wanted to work on our costumes.  Al finally got the hint and left.

Got a bad "code" (to use Ashley-speak), which is not as fucked as it seems, considering it's rainy and I have to stay in to catch up on some major reading.   I haven't touched a single book since the quarter started, what with being excited or worried about one thing or another.   Also, Alfred, one of Thea's old flames, happened by for a surprise visit and has no one to entertain him while everybud's in class or wherever.   So I built us a nice fire and am sitting in my fleece blanket throw by the front window.   Thea calls every hour and asks, "What's he doing now?" and I say, "Puttering in the john," or "Fixing himself a snack," or "Watching the game," or "Calling peeps" (one after the other).   I feel like his babysitter.   Actually, Alli's in training to be a stand-up comedian and can be quite funny when he's unperturbed, which is becoming rarer and rarer with each passing day.   He's definitely passed the jolly not-bad-looking nice-dude could-be-your-bro stage, and carries a big paternal frown.   He never wants anything.   No, everything's just fine.   Wonder why he waits for Thea......Stupid question.   Forget I said it.  

I'm writing my honey a love letter.   A real one, not electronic.   Hope he gets it.

These killer headaches (hanging out with the pyracanthas at the club thurs) cause the most bizarre dreams.   Last night I had a nightmare that the parochial school I attended on the peninsula is situated on an ancient military base made up of several clay step pyramids.   The central play yard, where we youngsters once viewed the solar eclipse through a slice of cobalt blue glass, was situated in the vicinity of a pyramidal apex, the upper classrooms over the outer walls.   The structures looked smooth from the air, though, and blended into the surrounding ochre earth like large square welts.  They always build schools over places of archaeological significance, in case they want to redig later, the dream whispered.   How exciting for the nuns, I thought, to hold the keys to some awesome underground secret.   Even in the Beaver Cleaver United States, we have our catacombs......It was dry, hot, sizzling, only these hostile diamond fortresses nestled in their shallow valley, the bare land, and the empty summer sky.  In the future I was an intern at Stanford.  I saw the Stanford teaching hospital superimposed in the south.  From my walnut formica desk at the plexiglass window, I surveyed the industrial gray land like a prince in his tower.  But in the distant past was something terrible.  I was led down a steeply descending corridor into the deepest depths of the pyramid.   Chained to the wall and left alone.   Only a narrow shaft of light defined the square chamber, from a small aperture seemingly a mile above.   It looked to be the end of the day, when the sun washed over the dizzying tomblike walls, illuminating them like burnished copper.   There were no windows, no air, no water, no food, no comfort.   After some time the walls appeared to recede, and I was rooted to a vast glowing terra cotta plateau which was the top of the pyramid.   As I slowly suffocated to death, I was hit with the hard reality of this lonely, treacherous existence, perhaps for the first time in my earthly sojourn:   Never do that again!!!

No, Sir!  And give thanks for this humble glass of water, and this garage sale bedroom lamp.

I must be PMSing or something.   I'm so pissed off I could SCREAM.    Ran into Jordan at the student coffee shop.   Trying to catch each other up on the latest haps above all the noise.    I left our table briefly to zap my coffee in the micro, and Sharrie was there when I returned, in my chair.    With my sweater and purse hanging from the back, and my books underneath, when there was an extra chair she could've taken.   I know she's not exactly gonna rip me off right in my face, but it bugged the hell out of me, her symbolically usurping my place.   

I suppose I should feel sorry for the girl; she's such a nerd.   Thin and pretty, but has trouble fitting in.   Always saying or doing the wrong thing.   Always stoned.   Her rich Brentwood parents really fucked her up.   She inadvertently insulted Jordie by saying she should wear some eye shadow, like the Jord's ugly or something.   I left early just to make her get up.    She was onto to me, too, and said irritably, "Oh, you're making me get up?"    What a space case!

What can I say, but Friday was a blast.   We can't wait to go on the ride again.   We must be addicted to being SCARED. 

I don't know where it's going with Jeremiah, though; I know he wants something in return for all this besides a pork-out party,  especially now that Brett's out of the way.   He kept hinting what a pro he is at muff diving in the car going home.   I thought, Shine him on with Brucie, but what about Chelle?!?   I don't want to ruin our trust.   Mom thinks I'm crazy.   She rather likes the Jermeister, from what she's heard.  She doesn't think Olson will ever get serious.

Also on the social front, Thea has warmed up to me quite a bit.   She must be lonely since her "gal fren'" transferred out of state.   We took the bus to a far off mall yesterday, one of her old haunts, and went shopping.   I got some cultured pearl earrings, she some designer yardage.   We spent all night talking after she got out of the shower, her sitting cross-legged on the bed in nothing but her scant silk kimono, me hovering awkwardly in the doorway.   

One of our buys was some stage make-up.   In keeping with our current Indian craze, we decided to each dress up as our power animal for All Hallows this year.   The Costanoans were highly skilled in the art of camouflage, Auntie heard, and were notorious for their vivid and often terrifying body (particularly facial) paint; they even drew fake sores on their skin to scare off lascivious Spaniards.   Thea shall be Wolf, Donna the infamous Wily Coyote, Chelle the prairie dog, and me Coon Gurl (pun intended), in light of an intense dream I had in San Carlos about living in a straight-sided bamboo hut and having a raccoon for a pet.  I'm gonna have a black, doglike nose with thick black and white stripes radiating from it; for my body and bushy tail, fake fur, black leggings, and thin black rubber gloves.     

To this day, coons often scamper down from the San Carlos hills to wash their paws in city dwellers' swimming pools.   Males fighting over nubile females parry along the high wooden fences every Spring, hissing like cats.   They look much cuter as themselves, though..   I practiced on my face a little while ago and it looks shockingly  savage, like a headhunter's.   Oooh.

With Thea being half Cherokee, Donna Mexican, Chelle Paison, and me mostly Sicilian, we might hang out at one of the reservations this Fall and do some charitable work.   Thea says the natives are surprisingly very receptive to Angelinos on an Indian kick, what with being so guilty about getting everything free from the government so they can maintain their dying lifestyle.   They don't mind if we invade their harvest fest circle and spin our supernatural tales around the campfire like old medicine men.   Chelle was putting together one of those new Betty Crocker complete dessert mixes last night, and Thea commented how they test those at the reservation.   Kewel!

Right now I'm trying to remember the ingredients for "Chickonderoga," a yummy casserole I made once for my honey's birthday.   It's based on Country Captain, and named not after the famous battle of Ticonderoga (which I never knew about), but a favorite drafting pencil of  mine.   I could kill myself for not writing it down.   Damn!   It's my night to cook dinner.

AND it's back to Kansas--er, campus, again.  Yeah, I'm down at ye auld bungalow, munching out with my roommies.   We're having a little back-to-school party tonight with just us and the boys, sans the Brettster.   Sorry I haven't blogged for a while; the fire season was loads worse than we predicted and a lot has been happening.   Brett's dandy, though; about the most dangerous thing his squad had to do was help rescue an endangered species of snake!!!   They'd invaded somebody's property at the edge of the woods, where they'd fled for safety, "poor things."   One of the guys said you could even see them racing the flames, zigzaging through the smoke like loose hoses under pressure.   Several fire fighters got bitten.   The San Francisco zoo wanted 'em for their rare color.   Sure teaches you the value of living vicariously.   Oh, well.   

So I'm without my honey from now on, 'til I graduate.   He's actually situated in dentistry school, and found a room in a really posh house with a son of a friend of theirs, a red brick Federal on a austere tree-lined street, and I'm sort of jealous.    It was a small sorority before, and the girls kept it up really nice.   There's a huge beamed living room overlooking the backyard, wide plank floors, and the two bathrooms, also spacious, sport navy blue and ivory checkered tiles and white pedestal sinks.  The boy's all decked out in new horn-rimmed glasses and a short haircut and looks like a regular owl, man.   So I'm not going through withdrawal pains, yet.   (Maybe it's these Dream Bars; they're the original recipe, Chelle said, made with Lorna Dunes.   Yummalicious!)     

Everybud's in a real Native American mood, in honor of the Indian casino issues this election.   We're taking Native American Studies, grooving up on Indian history, the whole bit.   I even agreed to help Mr. Foster finish a job in the Belmont hills August so I could spend a week at Auntie's and check out unspoken territory.   Her neighborhood's built right over the ancient Lamchin tribe's settlement on Pulgas Creek, of which little is known.  What once was all oak forest, rolling green meadows, and misty harbor as far as the eye can see is now an upper middle-class community of quaint story book and designer homes, wild rose gardens, play houses, and fish ponds.   Her Japanese neighbor, who lives in a redwood-paneled nouveau pagoda-style home with wide cedar steps winding up to a front deck, says the large cement slab in the far left corner of his yard probably predates the house and is muy suspish, considering there's plenty of room for RV parking in the front.   Could go back before the Gold Rush days, to the second Spanish occupation, and hiding a private cemetary underneath.   Woo-OOOH-oooh!   With the branches of Auntie's giant white oak straining towards the second floor dormer window, I tell you it was like Poltergeist. 

Finished my cat castle.   Chloe loved it!    She found her way right to the top, where she promptly sat over the entry hole and blocked Maya.  From this strategic position, she could bat the enemy away from the walls.   The dog soon swallowed her pride and staked a claim over the second floor.   It was a kick watching their furtive eyes peeping through the slit windows.   Try to get 'em out, though; the place is too high and well-built, nearly like stone compared to your standard wicker hive. 

There's more, but Jeremy's here to take us to Revenge of the Mummy, so see yas!   And afterwards, par-DEEEEE!!!!!!!    As you can see, we're in a real Halloweenie mood.   In case I don't return by the 31st, have a happy one!!!!!