December 25, 1995

It's been Christmas for about a few minutes now, since I tend to write after midnight nowadays. Ordinarily, I'd be tucked away in my little bed, of course, but I thought it fit to transcribe my thoughts, as they pertain a few things, most my grandmother's death. Which occurred this past evening at 7:30 pm. Quite frankly, I don't have a whole lot to say about it and acutally was ashamed of myself for thinking that the death occurred at a most inopportune time, Christmas Eve, that is. I mean, I'm not six years old and care about presents, first and foremost. I am a rationally-thinking, mature sixteen year old. But it kind of upset me that my dad couldn't be with us for the tradition brother-to-brother gift exchange and Christmas cookie-eating delights that we usually partake in. Oh well. And I should probably mention it now, that we had been expecting her to pass away for quite some time now, since she had pretty much deteriorated both physically and mentally, and it was just a matter of days. I should say that so no one accuses me of not feeling anything. I do feel something, despite the fact that I began laughing once I heard the news (a nervous reaction), but it obviously isn't as intense as if she died when she was in perfect health, like this past summer, when she journeyed to Ireland. It makes everything kind of awkward, though. As for the present, the here and now, I'm typing this away on WordPerfect 6.1¹, listening to my Pizzicato Five CD, not on my portable CD player, but through the computer's CD-ROM drive and the Windows Media Player. All very fancy, I should say, but that's what this new computer's all about. I realize I'll look at this later and laugh at my reaction. Like we'll be living in space in twenty years and the world will be our oyster. This CD's cool enough, I suppose. All in Japanese, and infused with dance-laden pop hooks (God, I could be a rock critic)². It's so much of a step aside from those alternative rock bands we all know and love, but that's both good and band. Don't want to get into it now. I'm hesitating with my typing now because I fear that I'll start writing more seven-word sentences like the one above, and punctuating every comment with some filler like "Well." It's craziness, I tell you. But that just tells me that I should stop for now, becayse I think I've said what I meant to say. Except for maybe I thought I should record my dreams for yesterday: Diane Breining3r³ with Abbeduto-length⁴ hair looking at Adam's Human Animals List⁵. and saying we should put it in the program for the musical; Jay C0llins writing a review of the Jayhawks for journalism class simply to rip the band apart, to spite Dan Piw0warczyk, who in the dream is a slightly embarrassed Jayhawks fan, and me humming a Jayhawks song when I see the idea for the article on paper; in my grandma's house, Shar0n Battista⁶ telling Bob that he was the third man she's seen naked in her entire life, she talking about shower stalls and me standing by; soaping up the sides of those giant castle-like towers so no intruders can enter by hoisting themselves up; I know there must be at least one more. But Santa should be coming soon, and I should be in bed. Or should I?

1 I was toying with keeping a computer-based journal, but it didn't last past Christmas break. A couple months later, I dutifully copied this entry out by hand (!) into my notebook.

2 Heh. Some people seem to think I am.

3 My sophomore-year English teacher and director of the six plays in which I acted in high school: "Midsummer Night's Dream," "See How They Run," "South Pacific," "Rumors," "Lend Me a Tenor," and "Guys and Dolls."

4 Ms. Abbeduto was a French teacher who I never actually had for class. I think "Abbeduto-length" means short.

5 My friend Adam loved coming up with animals to which he could compare our teachers and classmates (cf. 12/20/95 entry re: Genevieve W. looking like a bat). Some were oddly specific, such as "snow owl" (Megan M.), "aardvark" (Collin B.), and, bizarrely, "pigeon with eyes like peeled grapes" (Debbie G.). He kept a handwritten list of his best ones.

6 My friend (and sometimes rival) Ryan's mom. Bob is his dad.