Later that same day...

My parents left for some place this morning, not sure where. Let me check. ... Glenacres Inn. Anyway, most of the day was a celebration of solitude, as most of my summer has been. I got lazy and hot and decided to walk around in my underwear after I got off work. Here it is, 6 hours later, and the idea of putting on the boy's boxers to sleep makes me feel all itchy and uncomfortable.

Things I did today: ate two bowls of Special K strawberries and 2 granola bars. That's all. But you should see how many empty Diet Pepsi cans are laying around. Found 3 different tubes of KY Jelly in my mom's nightstand. You didn't want to know, but neither did I. I stole her quarters for this year's laundry money as payback. Found $150 cash in an old wallet that's been sitting in a drawer of junk in my closet for about 3 years. Melted down 5 candles - 4 in a soap dish and 1 in my parents' hanging candle holder. The whole candle search was the original reason for digging through my parents' drawers. I learned my lesson there.

I've been reading up on my friends' summer blogs, and I'm feeling a definite lack of enthusiasm from my quarter. Oh, Bellingham will be lovely. I'm psyched about getting up there and finding a job and really digging my feet in to make this next year work. But there's also that part inside of me that is screaming "ohshitohshitohshit" over and over again. Certain people can make that voice go away. Left alone, however, and that voice will tear through me and prevent any kind of normal social functioning. I didn't read books all through junior high and high school because they were more interesting than the people around me. I read them because I needed that barrier to keep me from facing my fears.

Has anyone ever heard of this? "Face your fears"? I'm sure the term has been around forever, but it's a specific thing that the boys on my junior high bus did to each other. Face your fears meant that as you got off the bus, you had to trip and let everyone make fun of you. I only remember two of them ever doing it, but it came up at least once a week. Well, this year at Western I'm going to have to face my fears. I don't have a cousin and a clone to fall back on. I might have to take Chanel's definition of a break from the boy just to get myself into perspective. But I'm not going to hole up in my room and sit around in my underwear. I'm going to ride my bike and walk downtown and sit in the coffee shops and finally go down to the Downtown side of the waterfront.

I'm also going to buy some candles.