Emily has just introduced me- as she has been trying to do for a while- to Melissa Ferrick's Drive. It seems to be about a lesbian fingering another lesbian. This idea, in itself, doesn't do much for me- fingers? Weird. I've never really been intrigued by the idea of a finger up my....self, and while I hope to grow more accustomed to the idea so that, you know, I can actually be used to having anything at all up there before I lose my virginity (less than 6 months to my 18th birthday), the song didn't have the instant effect I was hoping it would, and Floyd and Emily both expected it to have on me.

It'll probably grow on me, as most songs do.

My head is killing me. Em says I should take something. My response to that is one that Andrew used to make fun of, as it was a very common saying for me when he and I dated: "I could." It's making a come-back...though not the inflection I used to say it with.

Emily's eyes have no pigment in them, which is why they're blue. It's the reflection of blood vessels. Temporarily, that makes me like them slightly less. So does the residual film of chinese food coating my entire digestive track. Makes me feel icky.

I don't like, in general, using words like "Icky".

"You're a freak."
"Yes, I am. Why do you hang out with me?"
"I dunno. Hoping one day you'll break up with Jeff?"

We laugh at the reference to lover-ly days when I was single (or, ya know, with Andrew) and we took advantage of that and our mutual....abbyism. (A title we gave ourselves during our relationship my freshmen year that refers to the fact that we don't believe sexual attraction has anything to do with gender. I don't know if I still subscribe to the theory, but whatever. I go both ways.)

"Haha, yeah, you and everyone else." I reply, giggling before I speak, something I've picked up from Jeff. "The entire population of Linda's friends, just waiting f.or that. 'We want our sex toy back!'"

We're listening to Screaming Infidelites now by Dashboard Confessional- I've never heard it before. I turned to play with her hair just before the part that talks about hair- "You're hair, it's everywhere, screaming infidelities and taking its wear." and she recoiled, as if rejecting the implications that I would have picked up on, knowing the next lines. And she's reading this now, so I feel inclined to point out that that was simply MY take on the situation, in a purely artistic way.

"You should be an English Major." She says, apparently because I come up with "weird correlations" that she never would have thought about. I remind her of her "The Modern Novel" class.

"A Plain Morning" now. Dashboard Confessional is apparently emo music- up until a few weeks ago, I had no idea what Emo meant- another Jacquie enrichment. It's great to have people in life who can expand your...horizons, I suppose would be the appropriate ending to a possibly irrelevant cliché.

Em and I are at my Grandmother's house in Gloucester, in case you were wondering, and I have a little over forty-five minutes of freedom left until I'll be watching *rolls eyes* the winter olympics.

Chad should experiment with better away messages- for my sake alone. I write this on here because I know he will if I do- that's the Chad persona. With girls, or maybe just with me, he does little shit like that to let one know he's paying attention. I love it about him. That and his skin and the fingers that are allowed to touch my nose when no one else's are. If I were him, I would feel elitist- he is the one who gets the end of my nose and my invitation to frank's pit, and...probably something else.

Went downstairs and came back up with this thought- if someone ate nothing but corn for a week, what would their bowel movements consist of?

We're listening to "Wicked Game" by Chris Isaak and all I can think of is Mr. Leighton and his screwed up music taste.

Printing Marilyn Monroe pictures- SOMEONE has to take advantage of my uncle's amazing printer. He just came in here, lectured Emily on folk music, and then when he left and I told him to close the door he said, and I quote: "No, leave it open. I don't trust you two." It was all we could do to contain the hysterical fits of telltale laughter.

The computer is on the fritz and I want to make sure I don't lose this, so I'm off. On with it.

Hmmm, didn't bother at all yesterday. Odd of me.

Lately most of my internet-related energy has gone into playing pointless neopet games and getting into fights on the pit. (Frank's Pit, a message bored I used to be really into and am now getting psyched about again.)

I don't think to the pit because I don't want to flood it with my friends, though I'd sorta like it if a few of them decided to hang out there. I sent Mitch a link that he seemed to ignore- he and I haven't been talking as much lately, damned class scheduling- and a couple people know about it and check it out every now and then. The one person I'd really like to rope in as a perma-pitster is Chad. Something about his......chadlike nature would just...well, not blend in at the pit at all, it would be great. And I need someone on my team there. I want Chad.

Not going to be much updating going on this weekend- tomorrow I'm going to Gloucester, where Em and I are going to hang out for the day, and then early friday morning, phil and I are heading down to- dun dun DUHHHH!- New York. Eugene Lang isn't doing interviews anymore, so I'm just going down to check out the school and the city. Staying with Greg- I need a state ID to get into the dorm so I went and got one. I do not exaggerate- my ID dons the mother of all ugly identification pictures.

Greg thought Phil's name was Josh for some totally inexplicable reason. This amuses me. It doesn't take much.

While in New York, I desperately hope to see those statues of the characters from Alice in Wonderland....unfortunately, I have absolutely no idea where they are! I might just be imagining them for all I know! So e-mail me if you have any clue what I'm talking about.

On with it.

Hahahahahahahhaa! Quote of the fucking day!

(In reference to our horribly carved, completely awful screw-up of a jackolatern):
Andrew: :-) That was a beautiful pumpkin. I don't think many things could have better symbolized our relationship.

Ah! So cruel and so true! Hahaha!

(You wouldn't know it was funny unless you had seen the pumpkin....holy shit, was that an awful pumpkin. We cut, like, a large portion if it's forhead off entirely and then had to sort of reattach it with wire.....haha, shit.)

Andrew: Seriously, think about it, Linda: Disgusting, horrible for others to look upon, composed of a couple poorly meshed-together pieces of crap....that was us!

As of right now, I've edited and re-posted this one thing three times. Hopefully this is the end of it.

On with it.

"When a man lies, he murders some part of the world."

Jeff wrote that to me in an e-mail from, like, november. The begining of November. Before we were dating. I just re-read it now.

Jeff used to be the person I was absolutely commited not to lie to- in any important way, anyway. Every now and then I would exaggerate a re-arrange a story to make it more amusing, but nothing big. Since we started dating, I've become much much much less faithful to the concept that truth between us is ultimately important. I'm still more honest to him than I am to other people, but I am, by no means, the open book I once was.

On top of which, I doubt very very highly that I have the capability to be anymore. It's one thing to always be entirely honest to a friend, but for some reason, that changes for me the second I begin dating someone. This, I am quite sure, is an unhealthy practice. I should hope to resolve it in the future.

I am, and have been, attempting to contact Ben to extend to him an invitation to join Ryan and I to the Super Wal*Mart, which I believe is the type of thing Ben just might enjoy. In the past, seeing Ben has consistently yielded a reason to lie to boyfriend figures, but I remain strict with the idea that that behavior will stay, as I said, in the past.

Doesn't seem to matter tonight, though, as he is not answering his phone calls and he isn't online. Too bad, would have been nice to see him. It's been too long- almost two months.

Ryan's coming soon and I want to grab some ice cream before she does, so I'm off to save the world, bada dum dum dum!

On with it.

Chad is apparently thrilled whenever he is mentioned on the site, so I'm making a point to mention him. Because he is the type of person that I particularly enjoy pleasing for no reason.

He and I are attemping to plan seeing each other, and with the New York trip sitting right in the middle of my week, certain things have been easier to do. But it's worth it- Chad's finger on the end of my nose is theraputic- he's theraputic in general. Doesn't look like I'll get to see him at this point, but that's really too bad. I enjoy Chad on a very different level that I enjoy most other people.

Damn, I'm tired.

I think I'll quit my hunt for ways to shamelessly promote this heinous place for tonight and retire to bed.

On with it.

I just read a saved conversation. The one and only time I ever had cyber sex. With Greg, of course.

He has invited me and Phil to stay with him when we visit New York, and whether I stay with him or not, I get to see him in less than a week! This **pleases** me.

Greg was and is very much a symbol of the spirit of bohemia, the energy and livelihood to artists can give each other, the moments of passion, the tender words, the meaning we can bring to stars and wet grass and hills and places like vermont. He makes me feel more consciously alive than most people do. He is wood and I am heat- put us together and we burn.

Our interaction next weekend will be limited to the platonic canvas, but I think we'll be able to find ample ways to amuse ourselves. Before it was me, him, and the beauty of vermont- the state, the mountains, the swallows, the sky, the atmosphere was seducing us. New York will have a whole different effect. Assuming I even get to see him for that long.

I have to work this out delicately.

I'm hungry and Jeff will be here in...well, he said he'd be here at 7:15 or 7:20, so he'll be here at...7:33. I'll let you know how close I got.

On with it!

I have just signed my name as "L.M. Coull" for the very first time (I think). Well, not so much signed as typed....but as the signature part of my E-mail.

L.M. Coull is my erotica writing pen name- I didn't want my gender to be given away and my last name, that I will tell you rhymes with "Dildo Pen" in case you don't know me, is too clunky to ever be even marginally famous.

I wrote the entire first draft of a porn story last night. 2,405 words. I wouldn't let myself go to bed until it was finished because I knew if I did, I'd never get back to it, so by the end the quality suffers. It definitely needs editing, so today I went online to find the market for cleansheets that I received in a Porn and Erotica writer's newsletter. I had to resubscribe because my L.M. Coull account got deleted a while ago, and before checking back issues I found a listing in the current issue for Swell Audio. They make CDs of audio porn- stories, poetry, audio plays, etc.

"Prose: We need quality, well-written fiction. Ideally we're looking for 2000 word stories, but we can work with you on length. No content restrictions, just nothing criminally violent, illegal, etc. We acquire audio rights to your work, and contributors whose work is accepted receive 3 copies of the CD their work is featured on.

Poetry: Basically the same as above (no length restrictions, etc.) but we're accepting all sorts of poems, and not looking for anything in particular, as far as theme. Just make it sexy. We acquire audio rights to your work, and contributors receive a copy of the CD their work is featured on."

The poetry part appealed to me. I wondered if "The Saxophonist", an ode to Pete (from Tri Sleep) I wrote a while ago was sexual enough to be considered for publication. The more I thought about it, the more sense it makes- whether or not it's dirty enough to be considered erotica, it certainly isn't clean enough to be published under too many other genres, and it was definitely meant to be oral poetry, so any other places it could possibly be published wouldn't make sense.

So I submitted it. If I get rejected- which is a definitive possibility (if not THE definitive possibility)- I'll need you all to remind me that, while it is a great poem, it was probably rejected simply because it's not quite sexual enough. It's my best work to date, and I need to have confidence in it at all costs.

Let's hope all comes out well, right?

I'm gonna go bathe, I think. And think about how cool it would be to actually get published. If not this one, soon, ya know? Soon.

My name is L.M. Coull, and I am a writer! On with it.