I tried to type casually so he wouldn't know that I was so excited. I had already freaked Fat Louie out by jumping up and down in my computer chair and almost rolling over his tail.
FtLouie: Nothing, so far as I know. Why?
LinuxRulz: Want to go to dinner at the Screening Room? They're showing the first Star Wars. You know the real first one, not that waste of digital pixels, The Phantom Headcase.
OH MY GOD HE WAS ASKING ME OUT. Dinner and a movie. At the same time, because at the Screening Room you
sit at a table and eat dinner while the movie is going. And Star Wars is only my favourite movie of all time, after Dirty Dancing. Gould there BE a girl luckier than me? No, I don't think so.
My fingers were trembling as I wrote:
FtLouie: I think that would be OK. I'll have to check with my mom.
Can I let you know tomorrow?
LinuxRulz: OK. So see you tomorrow? Around 7:45?
FtLouie: Tomorrow, 7:45.
I wanted to add something like I miss you or I love you, but I don't know, it just felt too weird, and I couldn't do it. I mean,
it's embarrassing, telling the person you love that you love them. It shouldn't be, but it is. Also, it didn't seem like something
Jane Eyre would do. Unless, you know, she had just discovered the man she loved had gone blind in a heroic attempt to
rescue his crazy firebug wife from an inferno she'd set herself.
Asking me out to dinner and a movie didn't really seem the same, somehow.
Then Michael wrote:
LinuxRulz: Kid, I've been from one side of this galaxy to the other...
which is one of my favourite lines from the first Star Wars. So then I wrote:
FtLouie: I happen to like nice men...
jumping ahead to The Empire Strikes Back, to which Michael replied:
LinuxRulz: I'm nice.
Which is better than saying I love you, because right after Han Solo says that, he totally kisses her. OH MY GOD!!!
It really is like Michael is Han Solo and I'm Princess Leia, because Michael is good at fixing stuff like hyper drives, and,
well, I'm a princess, and I'm very environmentally conscious like Leia, and everything.
Plus Michael's dog Pavlov sort of looks like Chewbacca, if Chewbacca were a sheltie.
I could not imagine a more perfect date if I tried. Mom will let me go, too, because the Screening Room isn't that far away,
and it's
Michael,
after all. Even Mr. Gianini likes Michael, and he doesn't like many of the boys who go to Albeit Einstein,
as he says they are mostly all walking bundles of testosterone.
I will never get to sleep now, I am too worked up. I am going to see him in eight hours and fifteen minutes.
And on Friday I am going to be sitting next to him in a darkened room. All alone. With no one else around. Except all the waitresses and the other people at the movie. The Force is so with me.
Tuesday; January 19,
First Day of School after Winter Break, Homeroom
I barely made it out of bed this morning. In fact, the only reason I was able to drag myself out from beneath the covers -
and Fat Louie, who lay on my chest purring like a lawnmower all night long - was the prospect of seeing Michael for the
first time in thirty-two days.
It is completely cruel to force a person of my tender years, when I should be getting at least nine hours of sleep a night, to
travel back and forth between two such drastically different time zones, with not even a single day of rest in-between. I am completely jet lagged, and I am sure it is going to stunt not only my physical growth (not in the height department because
I am tall enough, thank you, but in the mammary gland division, glands being very sensitive to things like disrupted sleep
cycles), but my intellectual growth as well.
And now that I am entering the second semester of my freshman year, my grades are actually going to start to matter. Not
that I intend to go to college or anything, at least not right away. I, like Prince William, want to take a year off between high school and college, hopefully volunteering for Greenpeace in one of those boats that goes out between Japanese and Russian whaling ships and the whales. I don't think Greenpeace takes volunteers who don't have at least a 3.0 average.
Anyway, it was murder getting up this morning, especially when, after I'd dragged on my school uniform, I realized my
Queen Amidala panties weren't in my underwear drawer. I have to wear my Queen Amidala underwear on the first day
of every semester, or I'll have bad luck for the rest of the year. I always have good luck when I wear my Queen Amidala panties. For instance, I was wearing them the night of the Non-Denominational Winter Dance, when Michael finally told
me he loved me.
I have to wear them on the first day of second semester, just like I'll have to send them to the laundry-by-the-pound place
and get them washed before Friday so I can wear them on my date with Michael. Because I'm going to need extra good
luck that night, since I plan on giving Michael his birthday present then. His birthday present that I'm hoping he'll like so
much, he'll fall in love with me, if he isn't already. I am still not too clear on that whole point.
So I had to go into my mom's room, the one she shares with Mr Gianini, and wake her up and be all, 'Mom, where's my
Queen Amidala underwear?' Thank God Mr. G was in the shower. I swear to God if I'd had to see them in bed together
in the condition I was in at that time, I'd have gone completely Anne Heche.
My mom, who sleeps like a log even when she isn't pregnant, just went, 'Shurnowog,' which isn't even a word.
'Mom,' I said. 'I need my Queen Amidala panties. Where are they?'
But all my mom said was, 'Kapukin.'
So then I got an idea. Not that I really thought there was any way my mom wasn't going to let me go out with Michael,
after her uplifting speech about him the night before. But just to make sure she couldn't back out of it, I went, 'Mom,
can I go with Michael for dinner and a movie at the Screening Room this Friday night?'
And she went, rolling over, 'Yeah, yeah, scuniper.'
So I got that taken care of.
But I still had to go to school in my regular underwear, which creeped me out a little because there's nothing special
about it, it is just boring and white.
But then I kind of perked up when I got in the limo, because of the prospect of seeing Michael and all.
But then I was like, Oh, my God, what was going to happen when I saw Michael? Because when you haven't seen your boyfriend in thirty-two days, you can't just be all, 'Oh, hi,' when you see him. You have to, like, give him a hug or something.
But how was I going to give him a hug in the car? With Lars watching? I mean, at least I wasn't going to have to worry