So I should be seeing Elorza, well, technically TOMORROW, but, for all intents and purposes, two days from now- Friday. This depends very heavily on his ability to actually get back to me- a whopping day in advance- to let me know if he'll be able to make it and to help me cement our plans. I love the kid, and I love that he's willing to go out of his way to see me, but I'll be very disappointed if this goes under, for whatever reason.

I realized today that I desperately miss Mitch, and that I am very much ashamed of my negligence towards the....well, the most recent part of our friendship, I guess. I was going to refer to it as the end, but neither of us have expressed any desire to stop trying, and the fact that we seemingly HAVE, in practice, doesn't seem to nessecarily mean that either of us wants to anytime soon. It's my current contention that one of these days- hopefully soon- I will find the self-discipline to sit right down and write him an e-mail long and nice enough to revamp our weary friendship in one single, spectacular effort...he always did make my efforts feel appreciated. I don't know how I've done without that for so long.

The christmas vacation of those who go to orono, I've found, is dissapointingly taking place mostly in january, when I will have jetted off to massage school to be all the glorified hooker I can be. They key tradgedy in this is Nick, who is my closest friend at Orono, but there are countless otehrs that I was looking forward to the chance of seeing. Hopefully, this summer will be able to make up for it.

My sister is evidently moving out of the house this weekend- somehow, Tony and her have finally managed to procure an apartment. Were I confident that this living situation would be permanent, I would be rejoicing at this point, but neither my mother nor I nor anyone with a sense of pattern-recognition thinks that this will be something Cathy and Tony will be responsible enough to keep. If I have left you in the dark about the grim, sickly reality of my sister's troglodyte fiance, let me make a few things clear- he is a classless, deadbeat high-school drop out with no job, no driver's license, and no personal hygiene, and he is the only person in the world I consistently identify my feelings for as pure hatred. If that description led you, as it might, to believe that my snubbing of him is based on a judgemental since of superiority due to his social upbringing and lack of accomplishments, I should also include that along with his lazy, unclean uselessness, he is also an ASSHOLE. He treats my parents badly, he treats my sister badly, he treats my nephew badly, and given the oppurtunity to interact with me on a even more nauseatingly regular basis, he would treat me worse than all of them combined- he assumes, from the way I interact with him, that I am harsh and cold to all my friends, that there is nothing in the world that I care about, and that I am a self-centered snob. I patently deny everything but the self-centered...and hell, with people like him lurking about everywhere, what reason do I have not to appreciate someone like me?

There are two more hinderances to my potential feelings of glee at the upcoming absence of my sister, my nephew, and my arch-nemesis: one is simply that I am afraid of what might happen to Austin, who will be left alone to the devices of my sister's waning sanity and Tony's exploding temper, no longer with the protection of my parents, or of me- I like to be the one that takes Austin out of the room, sometimes out of the house when tempers are flaring between the other four, or, rather, I don't like to, but most times, I'm the only one who thinks to. I am sickened by the idea that my nephew will no longer have the relative sanctuary of a house with not two but four neurotic parent figures, and me. I wish, frankly, that it were only Cathy and Tony that were leaving, and that Austin could be given the chance of relative normalcy, instead of the destiny of a depraved school-shooter that is almost certainly his.

The second additional hinderance: my sister is pregnant.

I hesistate to say the thoughts I've had about this into type, lest everyone on earth should see me for the darkest, sickest part of me- suffice to say, there is no joy surrounding this for me. I could go into endless details about the affect that the idea of being linked to Tony, through a common child, all of the rest of our lives is- Tony is, happily, not Austin's father, and I cannot imagine that I could bring myself to love him the same otherwise, whether that is unfair or not. I am fearing now that, somehow, someway, fifteen years from now my future niece of nephew- Tony's future son or daughter- will for some reason read this, and be hurt. I fear the regret I would feel in that situation, and thus feel compelled to make one thing clear now- I am eighteen years old. I have seen my family reduced to an angry, tragic group of uninspired people over the past year, due very much to Tony's presence, and I am furious. I do not now understand the potential I have to love people, and I do not know understand the circumstances under which I will grow to know the future children of my sister, or the way we might mutually become a part of each other's lives. Everything I say now, I say not as an aunt that will more than likely grow to love this child as preciously as I do all my family, but as someone who has endured a great deal of anguish languished on her by someone she hates very much. When I grow, I will learn not to blame my problems on the innocent, or even as much on the guilty. I will learn to accept the mistakes of others for what they are, and not to carryaround the dark feelings that I currently do. I will love, as I do now, and moreso. If this is fifteen years from now, and you are my sister's child, do not think I don't care for you. I do.

I could tell of the way I reacted to the news of my sister's pregnancy, or of that whole day, or today, or tomorrow even, but I have work to get back to- burger king calls, as it tends to. Three more hours and I can go home and sleep.

I hope I'll be tired.

On with it.