John Donne

Predictably, I missed the dance due to a wonderful bout of stomach flu. It seems I missed some more insidious events as well. But then, it's hard to care about plots and danger and trouble brewing when one is focusing on maintaining the contents of one's stomach.

Henry, of course, remains completely unaffected. He has an immune system of steel. Well, ignoring the fact that immune systems are composed of white blood cells and various -cytes and so on and so forth, rather than iron.

Still, the police seem to think that "I was busy drinking lots of fluids and keeping my feet elevated" isn't a proper alibi, so a couple Officer Friendly types came around and asked me about internal politics and grudges and whatnot. I told them that I just moved here and can hardly remember anyone's name let alone their social status and could they please pass the bucket as I'm feeling a bit queasy? After a while, they (rightly) concluded that I am clueless on the matter, and left--but not before making vague allusions to "rewards" for any sort of information I might suddenly remember.

At any rate, Mom decided that if I'm good enough to be sarcastic to officers of the law, I'm good enough to go to school. So I return tomorrow to another day of wholesome mind-fortification.

So.

I have been informed that there is a SCHOOL DANCE this week. Of course, since I've only been attending for a few days, my chances of getting a date to the SCHOOL DANCE are minimal, especially since I keep getting names confused and mistaking peoples' genders. (Look, some of the boys here look surprisingly like beautiful women from behind, okay?)

However, I remain optimistic, even in the face of datelessness. You can have just as much fun alone, yes?

I have a tiny--but colorful!--line of bruises trailing down my forearm. It looks like a snake. If snakes were blurry and 2D and came in a sort of purply-brown color and lacked any defining traits like heads or scales.

Right, now that that metaphor is dead, moving on...

Mass this morning was utterly uninteresting, thus the bruises. I was pinching myself to stay alert, lest my dear mother prod me with her Clawlike Finger of Accusation. Henry, on the other hand, was too alert, by which I mean "squirming frantically on the pew until Mom hissed at him to calm down." Poor kid--we're still living out of cardboard boxes, and his toys haven't all been unpacked yet. He's missing the sweet battery-powered embrace of the PSP.

I start at the new school tomorrow. (Mom must be distracted or something, as she hasn't yet given me the usual "You need to do your best because ever since your father died we haven't been that well off and you need scholarships so do your best and so on and so forth" speech.) Hopefully the school itself will be as interesting as the promotional literature made it out to be. The new house is apparently close enough that I can walk to school, and the scenery is disturbingly rural.

I miss London. It may be (like most cities) filthy, crowded, and full of the homeless and insane, but at least I don't have to worry about being devoured alive by rabid racoons.

Alright. To bed with me, lest I be bleary for my first day of school.