"I Could Turn Another Page..."

*peeks out nervously* Last day.

I shall leave early for work to-day: I am stopping by the store to buy a notebook in which to keep character sketches, and a birthday card for Jennie. It is not her birthday, you understand (hers is September thirtieth, I believe), but that of her niece... but of course she can't go out and buy a birthday card herself, so I've promised to get one for her.

It is unspeakably hot here to-day.

For some reason, it feels as though something terribly important is meant to happen, if not now, very soon. I feel as though I were waiting. It must be the heat--I suppose.

If I were not so concerned with hiding myself, I should want to be in another play.

"Night's Getting Longer With You On My Mind..."

*cries* I had the awfullest, awfullest day at work to-day. Was not the fault of any of my people, incidentally, was the personnel. Was just. Was just.

I was expecting rather a low-key day to-day: there was nothing important scheduled, and Kim was supposed to be there, and I didn't think I should have much trouble, really. Unfortunately, Kim called in sick and Linda was only in long enough to tell me that I was on my own and then go off. So it was me, all by myself, all day long.

*hides*

Also, Kim (despite what I had told her twice last week) watered the plants, so the 16:15 activity had to cancelled (it involves bringing the plants around on a cart to everyone and letting them water the plants and tend to them and it's really very nice, but it rather requires that the plants not be drowning in half an inch of water. Linda was livid)--I had to improvise instead.

There was no participation for the 14:00 activity, so I ended up loading everything onto a cart and going around to rooms instead, except that then it ended up running overtime, and I had hardly time enough to get to the 16:15 activity. I nearly forgot to deliver mail, I got out fifteen minutes late (which made Mum Very Annoyed) and I kept wanting to go and hide and burst into tears somewhere, but I didn't.

I also helped Katy get her telephone numbers sorted out and rather a lot of things--it turns out the person with Power of Attorney for her and for her husband lives in Lancaster, and she doesn't know his telephone number, so I've promised to look it up at the library for her and bring it to her as soon as possible.

I made far too many promises to-day, and left three undone.

But I think I understand what it was about Rebecca that made everyone love her. I think I understand what she did and how she was so strong. I think I will try to do that.

I miss her so much. *hides face in hands*

...Anna is better, though. She says she feels better every day.

"A Rose is a Rose is a Rose is a Rose is...."

*is much less with the wanting to die, now*

I have been scouring Google Image Search, because apparently I have nothing better to do with my time, for pictures (paintings) of girls who could be Zara. I have actually been rather successful. So far, I have a grand total of... five. But I shall seek more. Also, after Zara I shall look for Rina, because I am Silly Like That.

*obviously enjoys wasting time a good deal too much, which is the whole reason for the vanishing...*

*bounces!* I just remembered why I never go to ff.net! --Although, in my humble opinion, it's a parody.

"When Will I be Loved?"

It would be nice if to-morrow were a magic sort of day.

It's very difficult to find paintings of girls like Rina. I've had far less luck than with Zara. Zara was easy.

I shall have to reread Westmark, for I don't remember enough about Montmollin. In the meantime, could someone help me brush up very quickly?

I still feel as though I were waiting. I still feel--I want to dance. I want to dance like a painting by Degas, in that sort of colours, with that sort of free, fluid motion, like a painting, with beautiful feet and beautiful movements. I want to hold my arms out and twirl to the best kind of music in the world, which nobody at all can hear except for me, secret music that's beautiful. I want to love the whole world and love myself, too, because of the dance, and I should not mind, I don't think, if I were not loved, although it would make everything even more beautiful. I want wind, and maybe soft rain, but not too much. I want a cool day like spring. That's what I feel as though I were waiting for.

Soujin has a painted world and a world of cut together film scenes. Soujin has a world that when it's properly done is the most beautiful place she's ever seen herself, better than Iceland because Iceland is part of it, better than Michigan because Michigan is part of it, better than New Mexico because New Mexico is part of it. It has the farm here in Pennsylvania and it has a montage of all the Fred Astaire films she's ever watched and it has a thousand coloured scarves and a thousand weeks of measuring cups and GoLean Kashi cereal and a dancing stage that's the silver and black stage on which she played Epimetheus for four murderously horrible performances and a deep clear stream where she wrote silly stories about les Amis with Waen when they were much smaller. It has the Adirondacks and Blue Mountain Lake, and standing on the stone at the end of the Point in the sunset, with a loon somewhere in the distance. It has laughing too hard to breathe with Waen when she and Waen used to stay up at night to-gether, and the night they made Peter Lorre in the Land of Weirdos. It has photographs of her grandmother back when her grandmother was alive, and photographs of Nana when Nana still remembered who she was, and in addition there is every photograph she was never allowed to take of her people, of Elsie and Anne and Mary and John-whom-she-rescued and Ken and Gladys and all the people who have gone now, because they died or because they left. It was her poems and her stories and the music Erin wrote for The Tragedy of the Young Composer. It has all the dances (four) that Soujin has ever been to. It has all the best friends in real life (three) that Soujin ever made. It has all the best friends (twenty-six) on the internet. It has all the books. It has Pre-Raphaelite paintings in a book of Yeats, and Edward Gorey illustrations in a book of Belloc.

In Soujin's painted world of film scenes, of course everything has not been perfect, and she is not guilted by nostalgia or by the need to make things sound The Way They Ought into pretending that the unperfect things were lovely or that looking back she doesn't mind them--but in Soujin's world of film scenes that are painted, it has often been perfect.

Because Mum is doing the flowers for the wedding of Father Julian and his pretty fiancee, we shall go. I shall get a piece of wedding cake to take home and put under my pillow, after all. It won't be an elegant combination of white and dark cake with pink creme in between the layers like the wedding on Saturday; it will be carrot cake, because that's what Father Julian's pretty fiance likes.

Perhaps to-morrow will be a magic sort of day.