24 October 2000 ~ Goob for short...

Dreamed I somehow became brain-damaged. Dreamed I saw some girl with a peace sign around her neck and couldn't express that I liked her necklace, so I said, "I was in the war too."

Am talking to Aaron on instant-messanger. Aaron is harassing some kid we went to school with, asking him how much cock he sucks or something. The kid is answering honestly and quite proudly, and Aaron is laughing and sending me quotes from the conversation. I am unbelievably grossed-out, but also sort of enjoying this.

"If you need to spew, spew into this..." --Wayne's World

Went to Syracuse this morning with my mom and her friend Anita. Anita is SO cool; one of the few genuinely GENUINE people I know. She's also old enough to be my mom, although she looks and acts about 26. We had coffee and she showed me the "fun" part of town. I want a sister like Anita.

I had an adopted sister once, sort of... I've never written about her in this journal before. I guess I ought to do that...

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Her name was Angela, and about 70% of my memories of her involve her standing over a stove making something. She taught me that, in order to tell if your spaghetti is done, you must take one strand and throw it against the wall. If it sticks, the spaghetti is done. This should not be attempted for macaroni and cheese.

She called me "Maynard." She called everybody "Maynard."

She sent me a care-package my first week of college. In it was a first-aid kit: aspirin, a thermometer, midol, etc. There was an extension cord, some washcloths, soap, a paper journal, and a stuffed tiger.

She introduced me to the Indigo Girls before they were popular. We drove to Oneonta, an hour away, so we could hear one of her professors give a sermon at his church. He was a minister. She was a suck-up. She got an "A." We listened to the Indigo Girls on the way there.

Once, she baked cookies for a guy named Charles and brought them to his work.

She used to ask me how to spell words that weren't in the computer's spell-check. Words like "infantilization." I was twelve, but I could spell it anyway. Angela was a shitty speller.

Angela made a suit on my mom's sewing machine once. It was pink and beige paisley. It was so ugly. When she put it on, it was beautiful.

She drove a shitty little orange car with several billion miles on it. The orange car died. So she bought a little blue-green Geo Metro. The Metro died too.

She watched Comedy Central with me. And VH-1 Stand-Up Spotlight. We liked Rosie O'Donnell. Once, we watched a 12-hour Stand-Up Spotlight marathon, and walked around sort of dazed after awhile. Once, we watched a good three or four Lifetime movies in a row, too. We loved Lifetime movies. Angela is the only person I've ever known who was truly enjoyable to watch Lifetime movies with.

She didn't yell at me when I wrote her and told her I was "sort of dating" a guy who was seven years older than me. She didn't yell at me when I wrote her and told her I was sleeping with a guy who was gay. She didn't yell at me when I wrote her and told her I had a broken heart and wanted to jump off a building. She didn't say "I told you so" either. I haven't written her in a long time.

She had a friend named Lori who was the Queen Mother of Tetris and had a cockatiel named Bella. I beat Lori's score, but it was a number of years before I managed it.

Angela lived in the room next to mine. She had trunks of socks under her bed. More socks than I've ever seen in any other place. And lots of little boxes with pretty things in them. And incense holders and things. Angela taught me how to blow out the incense without burning yourself.

Angela was anorexic and once she had to go into a hospital and get tubes up her nose. GN tubes, they're called. Gastro-nasal, or something. She said they hurt and told me never to become anorexic. Then she fed me a lot.

She made quiche and I actually liked it.

Angela was taking some criminal justice courses at college, and whined a lot that I ought to write her papers for her. Once, I wrote a short story about a guy who stole a frying pan and a package of pork chops from a grocery store. The guy got convicted and couldn't pay his fine, so they threw him in jail for ten years and he was in solitary confinement, and he wasn't allowed to do anything. I gave her the short story and told her to hand it in to her professor for her criminal justice course. I don't think she did.

Angela's car (the orange one, not the dead Metro) automatically went to the mall every time she tried to drive anywhere. She didn't know why.

Angela's high school had something called The Millard Fillmore Society, named for the 13th president of the United States. No one ever showed up for meetings. The group didn't do anything. I think that was the point. Angela's high school also had a lot of students with bad hair.

She didn't like Peter. But she pretended to, because she knew I liked him.

She decided she didn't like Charles anymore. She decided she liked women better. Logically, she moved to Ithaca and got a girlfriend named Becky, who thought Ellen DeGeneres was cute (before Ellen was openly lesbian, or, for that matter, had her own show), and sort of looked a lot like Ellen.

She called me a "goober." "Goob," for short. She called everybody "goob," but mostly me.

She used to go along on the car trips to Maryland to see my mom in the hospital there. I think she was there the time my brothers and I picked bamboo and walked on the banks of the Potomac. She and my dad talked a lot about my mom. I wasn't supposed to hear, but I did anyway.

Angela was short with pretty brown hair and a beautiful face with perfect skin. She wore glasses and looked sort of librarian-ish. A little nerdy, maybe. It gave me a fellow nerd to look up to, though. Angela was 25 or so. I was 12 or so.

She lived with my family for three or four years. From the time I was 10 until I was 14, if I remember right. Funny how I never mentioned her in a year and a half of writing this journal. I miss her. Angela was beautiful in absolutely every way. I loved her completely. She was my sister and my closest friend and she took the best care of me that anyone ever had. Sometimes I think I'll find the journal she sent me at college and fill it up with pretty things and send it to her.

Maybe I'll start that tonight.

Love,
~Goober*