Yet another one...

Last night I had another story dream.

A young woman in a wealthy society had two lovers, one who looked like George Clooney and one who looked like Adrien Grenier, and she was secretly dating/sleeping with them both. She was invited to a weekend event held at an old mansion converted into a summer resort, and all her friends and some of her family was there-- and unfortunately, the two lovers were both invited.

She was remarkably sneaky in managing to keep her two secrets separate from both each other and the rest of the group, which pleased her no end. One afternoon she told the older lover that she would meet him in his room, and she went outside to get a breath of fresh air and so that her sister would think she was gone to walk in the garden. However, as she turned to reenter the house, there was a massive explosion-- someone had planted a bomb in the house, and she watched it explode right in the area of the house where she knew her younger lover to be. As people fled the area, headed for the lake or their cars, a second explosion went off-- this time closer to where she knew the older man she had planned to meet was.

Flash forward several months, and she's visiting a hospital. She goes to see her older lover, who is recovering well but severely disfigured; she then goes to see the younger one-- who is severely brain damaged and missing his legs, and sits on the floor of a padded room drawing in crayon. She has realized that of the two lovers, she was truly in love with the younger-- but because she had tried to have both at once, neither would ever be whole.

She left the hospital and met with an old man who told her he had a solution-- that he could send her back in time to occupy her body for the day of the explosion. She immediately agreed, and soon she was back that day; however, this time she changed her path. She paid a soothsayer and sent him to her older lover's room, claiming it was to be a fun little gift and she would join him soon; she then told the younger one she would meet him in his room instead. However, the soothsayer drugged the older lover's tea, and, per his instructions, dragged the man into the closet and pulled down clothes to pack around him. She had noticed that the items in the closet had been mostly out of reach of the second blast.

Meanwhile she met the younger lover, not dallying in the garden, and she told him she loved him, and they made love in his bed right before the blast went off. However, as they were farther from the center of the blast and they were in the bed, they were merely jostled and hit by splinters of wood.

A few days later, she is sitting with the younger lover in the hospital garden. They're recovering from the injuries, which aren't very severe, although he has trouble walking due to a shard of wood that hit his leg. Suddenly she sees the older lover walk by, glance at them, and walk faster. Giving her younger lover a reassuring kiss, she runs after the older one.

"I'm sorry," she said to him, once she caught him.

"You should be," he replied. "You played me like a fool. And then you chose him over me." It seems that in the rescue, the truth of her relationship with the younger beau became very apparent. "You hurt me."

"I saved you," she replied. "Why do you think that soothsayer drugged you? Why were you in that closet, protected from the blast?"

"You couldn't have known that ahead of time," the older man scoffed.

"I saw what happened to you-- saw you hit by the blast, your face practically blown off..."

"What are you talking about?"

"I knew. I did it to save you."

"You couldn't have... You didn't have anything to do with the blast, did you?"

"No!"

That's when I woke up. You know, for me, dreaming is a bit like watching 3/4ths of a movie and then having to turn off the TV. Annoying.

I'm always bad at these during the summer.

So Monday I was driving along, speeding, as I often do; I then drove over a little hill in the road and saw that a car was crossing my path. I braked. It was insufficient. Next thing I knew I felt the jolt of car hitting car.

She had been pulling into a parking lot, so she continued, and I pulled in as well, getting out and running over to apologize and ask if they were okay. The woman got out and started not-quite-yelling at me, saying, "Didn't you SEE me? How fast were you GOING?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, are you okay, is your car okay..."

WE rounded to the back of her car and checked it out-- a little dent in the bumper and a lot of paint from my car. "Oh, that's not too bad," she commented. "I don't think we'll even bother to get that fixed."

"There's a piece of a light over here," her daughter, who had been in the car, commented. "Well, it's not from my car," the driver replied. I then checked my car.

Unlike her large SUV, my little Contour had two broken lights and a bit of a dent in the hood on the passenger's side. "Oh, that's not too bad," I commented, in my youthful ignorance. "I can get that fixed. It's my fault, anyway."

"Okay," the woman replied, calmer now. "Hey, don't I know you?"

I paused, studying her face. "Oh, right, I think I do..."

"Yeah, from Girl Scouts? I know your mom. You bridged to Adults last year, you were the oldest girl at the ceremony. I'm D- S-."

"Oh, yeah!" I replied, remembering, thinking, Right, this is the woman that called the house like 20 times a day...

"So you're okay? I don't think I'll bother with getting my car fixed, but if my husband insists, I have your number already. WE can sort out insurance then, if need be."

I nodded, apologized again, put the pieces of the light in the seat beside me and drove home.

One call to my mother and an estimate later, I was getting a much better idea of how "not too bad" the car was- $481 bad. Turns out that the lights needed replacing, the plastic piece behind them was cracked and also needed replacing (and that one couldn't be bought at a discount like the lights), and the pressure on the hood was bad enough that it would all have to be banged out, and that was just to make it pass inspections.

I waited for my dad to get home, panicky. I expected the worst, because my dad tends to flip out when I screw up. I thought for sure I would have to pay for the damage, and get yelled at, and I couldn't think how I could afford it since they cut my hours at Discovery and I can't get cleared by a doctor to work at the daycare (stupid clinics). Thank GOD my dad understood. My folks have agreed to cover it in exchange for me being generous with chores and more careful next time.

So that was my adventure of the week...

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Oh. And I love him.

Curiousity

Have you ever had a question that you always thought you knew the answer to, but then when it come up in your life you start to second-guess the things you thought you understood?

On my bathroom wall we have random little sayings; one of them is, "A philosopher always knows what to do until it happens to them." I guess I'm a philosopher. (I also get advice from my bathroom wall. This is perhaps bad.) And now I have a question that I figured I knew the answer to, and suddenly I'm not so sure.

So I'm posing a question to whoever reads this blog, at least, whoever reads this and the question is applicable:

How did you know when you were in love?

"This is really a lovely day. Congratulations!"

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone. It was very happy for us at UNH, because a massive snowstorm resulted in curtailed operations-- so dining services are open but classes aren't. Nice.

Downside: all those forgetful guys must have had a hell of a time getting last-minute V-Day gifts.

Alas, I woke up at 6 AM, showered, and got dressed before I learned that classes were canceled, so I was unable to return to bed. Still, it was for the best, because it meant I could sneak around leaving pink carnations for Libentra and Deandron, hanging from their doors. Loquatia also got a lovely pink carnation.

The more problematic journey was to go over to Stoke and deliver carnations to Mistake and Closer, as the snow was coming down fairly hard and it was COLD. But Loquatia and I bundled up and made the trek, depositing a flower at Closer's door and handing another to Mistake herself. The last flower I didn't have a person to give to, as I had bought six flowers and I only have five friends, so it was given to Closer's roommate. Hopefully he was suitably embarrassed and/or confused.

IN exchange for the flower I received a little clay ladybug from Mistake. He's very cute. We ate breakfast together at Stillings, sat around and talked (about politics-- Closer fell asleep), ate lunch, then Loquatia and I headed home. Later in the afternoon, Deandron wandered by, and stopped. "Did you and [Mistake] conspire to put a flower on my door?" he demanded.

He looked so incredibly bewildered, all plans to let him wonder went out the window. "That was me," I replied, grinning.

"Okay, good," he replied, "because I couldn't figure it out, and I've been asking all around to try to figure out who left it for me, and then one of my roommates said 'maybe it was your Stoke friend' [Mistake] and I said, 'no, she wouldn't trek all the way over here in the snow' [probably true], and then I thought, 'but wait, [Basiorana] and [Mistake] are like the same person, so it must have been her.' But you really got me good, I was going crazy for like six hours there. I was about ready to like, commit suicide because I couldn't figure out who had sent it to me..."

Deandron is not good at problem-solving.

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Loquatia got a candy-gram, from Cute Chem Major, which does not confirm but could support my theory that he liiiiiiikes her. This is both cute and depressing at the same time because I don't think she wants a relationship of any sort. SHe's a little confused by the whole thing... Still, it's sweet. They delivered it to the room and everything.

I did not get a candy-gram from anybody. But I got to see the total bewilderment on Deandron's face as he tried to figure out who was responsible for his carnation, which is just as good, for different reasons. I think that V-Day should be redesigned from a holiday of romantic mushiness to one where we attempt to confuse and embarrass members of the opposite sex. Oh, wait...

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We ate dinner with the whole floor-- I wasn't going to be able to go but all my conflicting activities were canceled. Stillings had a chocolate fountain for Valentine's Day, but as Mistake says, "chocolate fountains are better in concept than in execution," so it's just as well that we went to Philbrook. I guess scheduling a hall dinner for Valentine's Day is a good way to help out the people that would otherwise be eating alone, but at the same time, it was kind of depressing to sit there and have nothing to say and nothing to talk about and be reminded that I have almost no social skills.

I've never had a Valentine, besides my mom. I've never had someone to reprimand for forgetting the day... It's hard to see people all happy lovey-dovey and remember that your life is nothing like that.

My Five Variable Love Profile

Propensity for Monogamy: My propensity for monogamy is medium. In general, I prefer to have only one love interest. But it's hard for me to stay devoted for too long! There's too much eye candy to keep me from wandering. Experience Level: My experience level is low. (Duh.) I've either had only one relationship.. Or all of my relationships have been very similar. I still have a lot to learn... and a lot to try! Dominance: My dominance is low. This doesn't mean I'm a doormat, just balanced. I know a relationship is not about getting your way. And I would give my sweetie a lot of freedom. Cynicism: My cynicism is medium. I'd like to believe in true and everlasting love... But I've definitely been burned enough to know better. I'm still an optimist, but I am also a realist. Independence: My independence is low. This doesn't mean I'm dependent in relationships... It does mean that I don't have any problem sharing my life. In my opinion, the best part of being in love is being together.

Take The Five Variable Love Test

Well.

For a long time (I don't know if she still does this, but she did) Mistake had one away message that she put up whenever she was upset about something. It was an excellent warning.

Away messages and buddy profiles are usually either funny, supposed to be funny, random and peppered with internet jargon and references to friends, or filled with song lyrics in an attempt to be deep. I think the choice of a buddy profile says a lot about a person, so I check them every once in a while. Today Loquatia, Mistake, Closer and I were eating at Hoco and a guy we used to hang out with at the beginning of the year showed up. He's usually one to domineer the conversation, but he seemed rather... subdued. So I was curious, and I check his buddy profile...

"There's nothing quite so vicious as a lover, unless you count the terminally ill, with whom they share many unpleasant characteristics. Both are selfish; withdrawn; manipulative; unstable; reserving all their sweetness for the loved one (or themselves) and turning on their friends like rabid dogs . . . There is a perverse satisfaction in picking at a scab. Lovers do it all the time, seeking out the most intense sources of pain and indulging them, sacrificing themselves again and again for the sake of the loved object with a dogged stupidity that poets have often mistaken for selflessness."

Ooo. Someone's bitter.