I miss Laurel a whole lot. I don’t know why. I woke up this morning and I was lying in bed and I thought about her and I really wanted to see her. Maybe I could go up there sometime this week. I doubt it, though. I’ve spent too much money lately and I need to cut back on that a little.

I haven’t heard from Joanna in a while. I’m not really surprised. I guess she’s thinking the same thing of me. I guess I’m just trying to let it die. I’ve a feeling she’ll call pretty soon, though. I guess I should call or write or something like that. I don’t know what to say, though. I guess I could just tell her what I’ve been doing. That’s about all I could do, really. I sit there trying to write to her and nothing comes to mind. I can’t understand that. I don’t really care, though. I’m not infatuated with her anymore. I don’t guess I ever really was attracted to her. I think it was more infatuation than anything, and that’s a dangerous, unpredictable emotion.

I can’t understand how every night the past few nights I’ve gotten to thinking about Diane and thinking, “I’ll go see her tomorrow,” and then when tomorrow seeing Diane is the last thing I want to do. It’s really bizarre. I don’t know why that happens, though.

Laurel looked incredible Saturday. She hasn’t looked that good in a while. I didn’t think that then, but now I look back and she did look strikingly beautiful.

Mom said that Laurel didn’t look too happy about the fact that I was sitting with Jessica this week. I thought I needed to, since I’ve shown such an interest in her well being lately.

I really feel for Jessica sometimes. She can but such a pain in the rear, but (no pun intended) I understand a lot of it is because of her “father” treats her. I think someone needs to kick his ass and say, “Hey, Dave, look at how you’re treating your daughter. You treat her like sh*t. You treat strangers better than you treat your own daughter.” Deanna and I talked about this a little and she agreed with that. Perhaps Deanna and I could take up a little collection and pay a hit man to come and beat David to the brink of death, then go visit him in the hospital and tell him that that’s going to keep happening until he treats Jessica with some respect. :)

Wow, I got of track there a little. Anyway, Mom said Laurel looked a little upset that I was sitting with Jessica. I don’t think that sounds like something Laurel would do, but you never know. It kind of scares me that it might be the case because it makes me wonder if I know Laurel as well as I do…if she really is too good to be true. I don’t think so, though; perhaps I’m “blinded by love,” or infatuation. I still don’t think so, though.

I’ve been thinking about what it will be like when Laurel goes off to college. I think she’s going to UVa and I’ll still be at King for another year and then probably one extra semester for student teaching. I wonder if she’ll be like Kris and Brett and come back every two or three weeks (Of course they come back more like once every three to five weeks now.) or if she’ll be like Dave who’s been back once this semester, to my knowledge. That would drive me crazy if she just stayed up there all the time. I’d go nuts I think. But I’ve been thinking about that, and wondering what I should do, that is if things keep going as they are now. I could just not say anything and see her whenever she comes back for a visit. Or I could be truly bold and daring and tell her exactly how I feel…tell her that I would be very interested in pursuing this thing into a full‑fledged, serious “relationship” in every sense of the word…that I’m not making a commitment, or expecting one from her, but I just wanted her to know exactly (or almost) how I feel about her and ask her to keep that in mind as she meets and goes out with other people. It would be ridiculous to do that now, and maybe even a little premature to do something like that then. But who knows. That’s still a year and a half off, at least. Almost two years, really. So what have I to worry about? It’s just something I’ve been thinking about a little, wondering if college will be where she “out‑grows” me as I’ve a feeling that she will.

5:13 PM

I’m finally done with the fall 1992 semester. The exam for Western Literature was hell. I did pretty well, but it took forever to do my essay. It was on worthiness (Christian heroism) in the books we read this semester. I wrote about four and a half pages. My middle finger was so sore when I was done…it had a huge indentation where my pen was resting. I was surprised that I didn’t get writer’s cramp. I usually do during exams… badly. But I guess since I typed my Philosophy exam and my Paul exam was short and easy with no essays (I would say the same of my French exam…but it wasn’t short and easy…just no essays.) then didn’t write as much as I usually do during exam time.

8:01 PM

I’ve an idea for a story. It’s close to that of Causalities of War. I got the idea from watching the news. In Somalia there was a riot of sorts. A woman was accused of being a prostitute and she was beaten and stabbed and the French soldiers just looked on. I’m sure they were given orders not to intervene. But it does raise an ethical question similar to that in Causalities of War. Should they have disobeyed those orders and intervened?

I heard this comedian on Mtv tonight. On part of his act was really good: “Sometimes I get so confused that I want to stop someone on the street and ask them what’s going on. But I’m afraid they will say, ‘Yeah, but I’m not supposed to tell you.'”

It’s such a good feeling to know that I’m done with this semester. It’s like when You’ve got to pee and you’re in the car and have to hold it for a very long time, then when you finally get to go to the bathroom you feel so good…the longer you go the better you feel.

I’m watching Willow and it’s amazing how much the story borrows from Biblical stories. It’s similar to the story of Moses, mainly, but it also has parallels in the story of Jesus’ birth. A child is foretold to have a great destiny — to save the world — and a ruler has children killed when they are born to try to prevent the child from being born and to secure their own rulership. Then there’s a similarity to the story of Moses, who was, of course, put in the river Nile in a basket.