Oh my Pontiff. As you all know- the Pope died today (and instantly, I become '999 999 served' in the blogosphere for mentions of the late Pope today). Catholics came crawling out of the woodwork today and gathered outside St. Joseph's Basilica in mourning, and they rang the bells. I wish someone would ring bells when I die, faith or no faith. Maybe you should all bring Swedish cowbells to my funeral. Or a gong to hit at particularly poignant moments in the service and eugoogaly <= intentionally misspelled, and ALWAYS mispronounced on my part, in reverance to stupid supermodel movies.

Things have not been so great today. More fighting, and more deterioration on my grandmother's part. And my dad is on the brink of massively losing his cool on some hapless victim because he's still holding it all in for the sake of the collective good. But it's starting to seep out a little, because I told him a joke I'd heard the other day at school on the way home, and he didn't laugh- just sharply said that I smelled really smokey, and asked if I was smoking more then usual. And yes- I lied to him and said no. And yes- he's got reason to be mad at me. Hell, I'm mad at me. But it killed any conversation dead, and we rode the rest of the way home in disgustingly tense and angry silence. I was mad at myself for still smoking, because now my dad is going to go back to hating me again until I quit. And I honestly don't know if I can. I always say I can, and wish I can, but what if I can't? My family doesn't do addiction well.

I was outside earlier feeling sorry for my parents and my grandmother, and a homeless guy came up to me and asked me how I was doing--whether I was having a good night. Not for money or cigarettes or anything. He said I looked sad and asked me who I was visiting, and guessed I was up to see my grandma on the first try. He told me jokes and some stories and gave me a hand-smithed celtic ring as a "friendship ring, even if I never see ya again, just for good luck and hope, you know?" The story was humourous, involving a dropped quarter and mild mood-altering drugs: "When I saw that old silver queen of England land on the sidewalk, I just started to cry rivers of tears. I looked up at the sky, and it looked like this big huge eye staring down at me, accusing me of something, and I just cried harder." I swear to god this is an accurate quote, because I raced inside right away and wrote it down. His name was Frank, and he's "not really homeless. Just wandering. I like to meet new people and party, you know?" At that moment, I envied him, and I wanted to just walk away from the hospital and take off to the unknowns with nothing on me whatsoever. How idealistic and psychologically wrong that was to entertain.

I have successfully hacked through the intro and first body paragraph of the essay. I've never had an essay be such a painful process for me, though by all means, it's incredibly easy. I just can't stand how much of a problem this is proving to be (ie- keeping my shit together).

Offers for sex this week: 4. Offers taken up: none.

I'm so sick and tired of the opposite sex. Maybe not sick and tired, but complacent with what's up now- even though certain points of my personal life are somewhat "what the fuck?!" right now- I enjoy the mild confusion. Honestly, if I even had a boyfriend right now, I'd be just too horrible to be around. Dreadful depressing, and probably slightly psychologically unsound. BUT- maybe I'm like this because I'm starved for physical affection. Who knows. What I do know is that I'm fairly certain that I will never meet the right guy- being realistic, you know? But, hopefully I don't settle for someone awful. God knows I seem to attract awful people.  ¶ 3:02 AM