I think now is a great time to sink into fantasy. Are you ready?

Because I have a problem with empathy and actually feel.

So I think it's a good sort of therapy for me to escape.

The music went from loud to soft and the blob of people around me suddenly paired off into innumerable couples and I stood in the center alone.

I quickly gave up as I looked around and began to back up out of the crowd.

But then he came out of nowhere.

"Will you dance with me?" he asked me.
"Yes!" I answered.
Because how many times does the one person I'm completely enamored by come up and ask me to dance with him? How many times does that happen? How many times does the one person I'm completely falling for start falling, too?

I liked his long blonde hair and his blue eyes. I liked the way I hadn't had a clue as to where he was from. I liked his accents--completely American when speaking English and completely Israeli when speaking Hebrew.

I liked the way he held me in time and how we swayed in time with the music.

"I'm sorry," he said in the middle of one song. "I sweat too much."
"It's ok. It's only 120 degrees in here," I answered.

And we kept dancing.

For some reason, they played two slow songs in a row and it felt like an eternity that didn't last long enough. Then the music ended and the couples broke apart and scattered their separate ways.

"I don't want to leave tomorrow," I said to him outside.
He shrugged.
"It's good to go home eventually."
"Good-night, ---," I said.
"Laila tov, Aurora," he said to me.

The next morning I couldn't stop hugging him good-bye.
He laughed at me.
"It's not like you'll never see me again. I'll be back in a few years."
"That's forever from now!" I said.
"Aaah. Keep smiling. Forever isn't that long."
I hugged him one last time and watched him walk on the bus.

Through the day, I imagined him walking through the airport and stepping on the plane and going back home to Israel.

I was supposed to send him a birthday present, Dracula, by Bram Stoker because we had an ongoing joke about how he was a vampire and I was the Northern Lights.

So now I don't hesitate to tell my friends that I love them. Because I didn't tell him and I never sent his present because by the time I was ready I'd learned that Time is never on your side and people are snatched away in a moment without any warning whatsoever.

Since the war started last week his face has been flashing before my eyes constantly. I can't get away from it. I can't talk about it. I can't do anything. I dream about him, though, like I've dreamed about him since he died.

Sorry. He didn't just die. He was murdered.

He was murdered for nothing like everyone else.

Because stubborn people can't share. Because people are animals. Because people aren't human, they're savages and they love to kill themselves and anything that remotely resembles life and joy.

He was murdered.

And the last thing he ever saw is something I can only imagine. Because maybe he was looking out the window at the countryside of the Galil. Or maybe he was talking to a friend. Or maybe he was looking inward and remembering his dreams or looking forward to the day he wouldn't end up living. But mostly when I imagine, I imagine fire. Fire because I know it was the last thing he ever felt even if he didn't see it. Fire because that's what happens during a suicide bombing.

He talks to me all the time in my dreams, so maybe ghosts are just our imagination or maybe they really are the imprint of someone who used to be. Maybe he really does exist somehow, which means he really does think of me, really does visit me, really does love me, too.

He's the reason I'm terrified of anything real. That's the secret. The people I love the most, the people I admit to loving the most are the first ones stolen away. So I don't admit outright, even to myself, because I can't. Because I don't want them to die.

I don't want them to die.

Unfortunately, the rest of humanity wants everyone to die because people are never good. They're beasts. And beasts are selfish and care for nothing except the survival instinct and thrive on the inherent hatred of every other living creature known to them.

I'm sorry I'm one of them. But I try as best as I can not to be.

And I still don't want them to die.

It's funny, though, because even though it hurts in the morning when I wake up and realize that he's not really alive, I want those dreams again and again. Because I still love him. I still miss him. I still think of him every day.

And I love it when his face flashes in front of me and I get caught up in it for a moment and believe it's not a dream.

First Let Down

Well, it's not so bad, I don't think. Let's just say not every agency out there can be trusted, so I've decided to terminate all dealings with this one no matter what they say about my manuscript.

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/

OH MY

I sent my synopsis into a literary agency last night.
They answered me first thing this morning and told me they want to see my whole manuscript.
I spent all day putting in last-minute revisions and putting it into format.
And sent it in.

Now I wait again.
But I PASSED THE FIRST TEST!
And this is REAL.

Nothing in Particular

So I haven't written on this in a while...Since then I've hung out, torn apart my room which is still happening, attempted to write a synopsis for my book which is still coming...seen lots of people, prepared to go back to Philadelphia for the Philadelphia Folk Festival in August and then go straight to school and stay with Kat for a week before move-in day! I'm seeing Lindsay today at 4:15 which is really exciting! Two days in one week which is almost never heard of.

I finally saw Kelly yesterday and talked to her for a long time and then saw Mr. Clifford which was nice. Only I forgot to remind him of those stupid library books I took out for him on my card and of course are about a year overdue now. Oh well. I made him pay for lunch and then got pissed off because he was ditching me after 2 hours to go see someone else. So much for sensible planning of the schedule. So I said that was fine and that he should just drop me off at home instead of driving aimlessly and proceeded to slam the door in his face. Which I personally thought was great. But he came running after me begging for forgiveness and I'm an idiot so I forgave him.

Talked to James again to confirm the whole Philly thing, so I'm going to buy my cheap plane tickets today and he's buying the concert tickets. I also have to send my stinking promissory note in so my tuition gets paid and call Mendel which I'm dreading to remind him that he'll be recieving one, too.

I also found out I have a job dishwashing starting Monday for a while. Hopefully until I leave. It sounds crude but fortunately I tend to enjoy those things. Look at my job at school. If cleaning up puke and walking up to random masturbators and telling them to "Please stop" in the Student Lounge at 2:00am and to "Please find your own room" isn't crude I really don't know what is. So dishwashing should be wonderful. Except my mother is there, of course. But I can deal with that. Hopefully, they'll let me wash to my iPod so I can listen to goodness while I wash away the nastiness and stick my body in mile-wide pots and get shit out of them.

That's all now. Yay. I have to get dressed and clean my room (or attempt) and write the synopsis and see Lindsay.

Well, at least my back is almost all better so I can start walking again tomorrow! I've skipped yesterday and today. Just to make sure it doesn't die on me.

Boyhood Stretched on a Line

Another song. If you were listening closely you know who it's for.

I wish you can find all your wonders
I wish you can wind around the time
so it holds you tight
and treats you nicely

I hope you can find somebody who's true
someone who's new to you
for every day you open your eyes
She'll grow your love for you and lie
with you in the moonlight

And if it were all up to me
I'd wish for you to keep your childhood wonders
But even though you knew
that it couldn't last
I know you never quite believed it before
that life's too fast
'til it happened to you
You never quite believed it before

So take your time
Don't rush it
Even though you see the years
stretched on a line
that seems hard to master sometimes

I'm balancing, too
right beside you
And if you ever need anything
Remember the whole world's
in it with you, too

And if it were all up to me
I'd wish for you to keep your childhood wonders
But even though you knew
that it couldn't last
I know you never quite believed it before
that life's too fast
'til it happened to you
I know you never quite believed it before
that life's too fast

So take your time
Don't rush it
Even though you see the years
stretched on a line
that seems hard to master sometimes

Even though you see the years
stretched on a line
that seems hard to master sometimes

Even though you see the years
stretched on a line
that's too hard to master sometimes.

Home

Home is lonely. I'm hanging out with Sam and Noah right now but it's still lonely. They like to sit in my room (or rather in my presence) and read. So the silence fills up the emptiness and becomes even more empty than it was in the first place because everything that's here reminds me of where I'm not, or who I'm not with more like. I can't wait for the summer to be over.

The heat's already oppressive. Late August weather in mid-June. Already over 100. Last night Cher took me to a Dr. John, Neville Brothers, and BB King concert which was amazing. But at 7pm it was still 101 degrees outside and I wondered if my mind weren't already cooked beyond measure or if it was just my imagination that my skin was boiling off. I've decided that it was just my imagination to remedy the horror of what this heat does to us.

The sky is still on the edge between light and dark and it's after 9pm.

I went out walking again today. Noah came with me. Tomorrow I have to start out earlier because the heat gets too intense and I have to stop before I get in all my miles. Ideally, it'll be my 7.5 like it was in May but it'll be hard getting myself up at 5:30 to beat the over-90 mid-mornings. All I can think about is the heat.

It seeps into your brain like water through the cracks, boils out your eyeballs and your hair and your skin. The humidity sticks to your teeth it runs so deep and before you know it it's haunting your dreams, soaking your bed, making the nightmare of the waking day inescapable and all we can do it pray for a winter which never comes. We sigh with relief for a 90-degree cool breeze.

It's why I moved to New England. Unfortunately, I still spend the worst part of the year in the region I sought to escape. So much for freedom. The heat follows me and the air's so thick I suffocate in it as it wraps itself around my mouth and nose and I crumble under that legendary Southern Wrath.