Found during one particularly intense session of Stumbling:

"On October 31, 2006 he [Alexander Litvinenko] went to his office and overheard Alexey Shiklomanov, his boss, and some colleagues talking about how the assassination went off without a hitch...the sushi bar owner eventually confessed that Alexey Shiklomanov paid him to poison Litvinenko’s food. Shiklomanov got away and remains hiding in an unknown location until this day."

Um, what?

I'm pretty sure the key suspect in this case is Andrei Lugovoi, not our friendly neighborhood communist. I didn't rule out a case of mistaken identity, so I totes did some extensive research, you guys (read: I looked it up on Wikipedia and reread my notes from ICJ). None of the suspects seems to sport that particular name.

So either the girls who wrote this paper--for it is an Honors Chemistry paper--slapped two Russian-looking names together for effect and that bizarre coincidence resulted, or someone has it out for him.

Interesting.

1. Failing at shouting down my English teacher, but getting points for trying.
2. Seeing pictures of fluzzy white mice in the science book.
3. Finding out that I now have "regulars" for Tarot reading, and piquing someone's interest.
4. The awesome sub in Math.
5. Getting a 3.0 for this quarter. Whoo!
6. The field hockey game. The bees were bad, but the soccer team sans Alexey proved themselves to be a bunch of magnificent twatwaffles. Kind of like a tamer version of Urk Kuldar, really. I wish I could consider one of those boys my brother, but...meh.
7. Getting a ride home from Alexey. Had you told me back in freshman year that this would have happened, I would have laughed in your face. Progress towards some form of a friendship is clicking along nicely.

I'm feeling rather colorless right now. But not the bad kind of colorless, like that watery, miserably gray. This is a rather crystalline sort of colorless, like a block of pure quartz with a slight cloudiness and little rainbows trapped in the middle.

It could have something to do with it being three in the morning.

It might have to do with the weirdass turn my friendship with Nim has taken.

Maybe it's related to the fact that the Russian is suddenly paying more attention to me than my own teacher/older brother.

Whatever it is, it's not entirely unpleasant.

American University was awesome. I really do think it's my first choice of school, but at the same time, I think it's a bad idea to want to go to a school because they trick-or-treat at the embassies (obviously, that's not the only reason, but still).

Knight of Music was also awesome. Someone actually made a point of speaking to me during Long Reach's show--a far better record than the fiasco with the candy bars two years ago--so I think I'm making some progress away from the status of "creepy Polish stalker girl". We shall see.
Apart from that, the shows were really excellent, the moon was full, and people were in high spirits. It was a good comp, all in all.

But the best part of the night?

Coming home and nearly stepping on a black, leather-bound, gold-embossed copy of the Necronomicon, left by a certain sociopath as a "cheer up" gift.

I love my life.

"He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue."
-Mark Twain

I. Am. So. Going. To. Kill. Someone.

WHY!

It was one bag of M&Ms, not a candy heart. The message on the CandyGram wasn't even remotely romantic. "A mad drummer, you are. Completely insane." But suddenly, I do something nice for him and it's bruited about that I'm head-over-heels in love with Alexeystalin again!

The Fiasco was in April.  This is the middle of October. People buy CandyGrams for their friends. I wanted to be kind, considering I haven't talked to him since June. I thought everything would have died down. But noooo, I shoulda known he would make a fuss.

Why do I even bother with Alexey anymore?

Damn him for being such a clever bastard. Damn it for being a status symbol to be seen with him. Damn everyone for tearing down my reputation 'till nothing was left but dust and some little pearls.

I do hope I can get this cleared up.

Anyway, other than that, Knight of Music was really excellent. Middletown had some smexy Cavalier hats, and Keener and Matsy were marching with Sallies.

THE U OF D BAND WAS FREAKIN' HUGE.

300+ MEMBERS.

WHOOOOOAAAAAA.

Red Bank tomorrow, huzzah. No fear of hurtful gossip. I can be safe for a few hours.

I need to talk to Randi and Mike on Monday.

One to set me to rights, and one to philosophisize at me so all this petty gossip  is left far behind.

And now, to bed, before I go into bad metaphors.

'nighty-night.

Before I get into the stuff that happened at school today, I'd briefly like to share that I went to one of Erin Weed's Self-Defense seminars last night.

FREAKIN'. AMAZING. 

She's studied with the FBI. the National Academy of Crime and Crime Prevention (something along those lines), she knows knife defense, carjacking defense, and general assault defense. Some of her best friends are high-ranking Marines, SS men, and National Guardsmen.

She-hulk, right?

Wrong.

Erin's a little bit taller than me, a little bit curvier, and a whole lot funnier. I swear, I was laughing half the time through her presentation, especially the bits about her "scary van photo collection" and her "Alpha Phi boy network". If you like, I can tell you a bit more over AIM.

Anyway, so a pretty good night last night. Today, though, several things happened, and not all of them good.

Actually, only one of them is good, so I'll save that for last.

So we were waiting for the bus this morning. It was about five minutes late. None of the kids at my stop are IB or Honors, and you can tell it by the way they talk. Each minute ticked by, and with each minute, the language of the two girls who did most of the talking got progessively fouler. By five minutes, one of the girls had snarled, "Where the f*ck is that motherf*cking bus?"

I finally snapped, let me tell you. "He's probably getting gas," I said, trying not to explode in her face. "That's what he was doing last time."

Then the most incredible thing. She turned to me and said, "I wasn't talking to you, bitch, so shut up."

I was furious! I could have punched her in her perfectly made-up face, maybe even used some of the "defense" techniques I learned last night. Instead, I contented myself with turning away and torturing her slowly to death until the bus came. So perhaps that was more satisfying.

Then, at Lunch, the freshmen took over our table. W T F !!! They know it's our table, the little gits. Some of them may be less than intelligent, but it's not that hard to know that you risk incurring the wrath of the IB Sophomores if you "conquer" their table.

Finally, on my way to Math from World History, there was this CP kid watching me. He decided it would be funny to stalk me down the Math hallway. About halfway down, he comes up behind me and suddenly all I hear is this earsplitting yell. He was screaming directly into my right ear. I twitched, but I did not satisfy him, and he was about to do it again when his teacher came out, dragged him into the classroom, and said, "Why would you try to scare a girl? That was really rude!"

Huzzah for Mr. Van.

The one good thing that happened was that Jaime and I got stuck behind mini-Alexey in the lunch line. These are his similarities to the real Alexey so far:

Same haircut
Same eyes
Same facial structure
Same skintone
Same backpack (but in Grey)
Same watch
Same school program (IB)
Same voice

....it's freakin weird!

Maybe they're related?

Distantly?

Five days until Manahawkin and the one day when I can do something more interesting than comparing an eerily similar Freshman and Sophomore.

Huzzah for reenacting.

Just remember that you're standing
On a planet that's evolving
And revolving at nine hundred miles per hour

It's orbiting at ninety miles per second
So it's reckoned 
A sun that is the source of all our po'er

The sun and you and me
And all the stars that we can see
Are moving at a million miles per day

In an outer spiral arm, at forty thousand miles per hour
Of the galaxy 
They call the Milky Way!
-Eric Idle, "The Galaxy Song"