When Jez was here, he made fun of me when I revealed to him that at age 8, I had a huge crush on Oliver Twist in the musical Oliver!. The boy has the voice of an angel! I still have a crush on him, no matter how sick and weird that is!

Which fictional characters have you had crushes on?

Notice I didn't phrase that, Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?. No, I am a dork and I expect everyone else to be just as geeky as I am. So with no further ado, I bring you:

A brief summary of srah's other fictional-character-crushes

(Yes, just a brief summary. I'm sure there have been millions. Just in case you didn't think I was pathetic enough already.)

• Finch, American Pie. Dude, he wore a white suit jacket and Converse™ to prom. And had an air of superiority and snobbishness! What's not to love?
• Dmitri, Anastasia. Dreamiest Cartoon Ever.
• Gilbert Blythe, Anne of Green Gables. I spent a whole summer "mooning over" a character in a book. And I had to be at least 16 at the time.
• Danny, Music from Another Room. It's been years since I saw this, but this was the first time I'd ever see Jude Law in anything and I fell in love with the sound of his voice.
• Norman Bates, Psycho. Um... pretty?
• Lt. Joe Cable, South Pacific. "...My eyes look down/ At your lovely face,/ And I hold a world/ In my embrace..." Mmmmmm...

Note: This post originally began as a draft on June 6, 2003! It has taken almost a year and a half for me to be able to bring myself to post it! Stop laughing!

Hay un mes hasta la llegada del Jezito en los Estados Unidos, donde va a visitarme!

After requesting I requested that Colin Firth be invited along on our English Holiday, Jez says,

"I don't know why women like him so much, anyway."

Have at it, ladies. What is it that we like about him?

When we were out last night, it was proposed that you can't really get over an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend unless you hate them. Some of us disagreed and it was suggested that maybe this is a male-only phenomenon - that girls are able to be over people without hating them, but men are only over someone if they do hate them.

What do you think?

My sister has pointed out a disturbing trend wherein John Stevens sings to me, I am in love with all of the Weasleys and I think Prince Harry is perhaps as cute as, if not cuter than, his brother.

Yeeps! Where are all of these carrot-topped teenagers coming from? I was never the one who was into redheads and they are all babes* in arms! Echhh echhh echhh!

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* I don't mean that in the sexy way! Really!

So, hrmmm... I've been puzzling over it all day and can't find an amusing or entertaining way of telling this story...

Somehow various recent chats with friends have helped me get a better picture of what I want out of life. This weekend I came to the conclusion that not only was I not happy, but I had the power to do something about it in an attempt to make myself happier. So Mr B------ and I have broken up and are going to work on our friendship instead. Back to Swinging Singleton* mode for srah.

Please take a moment to collect yourself - if you're as surprised as most of the people I've talked to, you've probably fallen off your chair. I'm frankly surprised at the numbers of people who are surprised. And they're probably surprised at me being surprised and I'm surprised at... okay, I'm ending this post now.

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* If by "swinging" you mean "doing homework, finding an internship and avoiding romantic entanglements." Which I'm sure you do.

(upon finishing my Java programming homework)

Mr B------: As President Clinton said, Mission Accomplished!
srah: When did he say that?
Mr B------: Well, he didn't. But his banner did, when he was on a boat.
(long pause)
srah: Did you mean President Bush?
Mr B------: Huh?
srah: You said President Clinton.
Mr B------: Oh.
srah: You meant President George Clinton.
Mr B------: He has the distinction of being the only president who had a Parliament.

Mr B------ was in the kitchen and I called to him from the living room.

"When you come back, will you bring the caramel corn?"

"What about a horn?"

"Caramel CORN. Will you bring the caramel corn?"

"Terrible whore?"

"What? Terrible p0rn? No, I said CARAMEL CORN!!!!1"

He finally understood what I'd been saying and tossed me the bag. Eventually I recovered from the mental image of terrible p0rn, with people completely dressed and glaring at each other from across the room, but he only started my hysterical laughter again when he added,

"You know, my great-grandmother made that caramel corn."

I seem to have contracted a case of Boyfriend over the weekend. Symptoms include hugging, kissing, severe hand-holding and possible cookie-baking.

Given the amount of time we spend together, this will probably only come as a surprise to those who thought we were already dating.

My parents are going to Becky's football game this weekend and have left me their hockey tickets. Two hockey tickets. The problem here is that I have no friends. There are a few Post-It®-noted people I'm starting to think I could possibly consider friends, but they're all males who I don't want to give the wrong idea to or t-bone and I don't think t-bone's fiancé would like it if I stole her.

Luckily I remembered that the Pato's birthday is tomorrow, so I've invited him up for the hockey game and we're going to go out to dinner. Does dinner and a hockey game count as a date? It's not that I think Pato's going to get the wrong idea, but really, when it comes down to it, what's the difference between a date and friends going out? I wouldn't know - I've never dated anyone before. I feel like a bit of a male-female-relationship mutant right about now. I don't want to think about boys. I just want to sleep.

Alex got back home on Monday and we broke up last night. As trite as it sounds, we've grown apart. We haven't seen much of each other in the past nine months and we've both had big, life-changing experiences during that time. Some people can make long-distance relationships work - we didn't.

I've been stressing out about it for a while, but I didn't want to say anything here until we'd talked about it. I'm feeling quite relieved now. It's nice that we both saw that it was over, so no one's upset and we can still be friends.

My boyfriend is not dead! My boyfriend is not dead!

(This is a good thing.)

I finally got back the CDs I left in Bob's car in Virginia, so I can listen to all of the lovely music I've missed for weeks. Listening to this CD again makes me want to cry. But that's also because I'm insane and because MY BOYFRIEND IS MISSING IN MEXICO!!! This is the boy who makes me call him whenever I make the 10-minute journey between our houses, so that he can be sure I got home alright. He had better be dead, or he will be when he gets home.

Mi pololo no me ha llamado desde su llegada en México. Quizás, bebió el agua famosa y está muriendo en una calle de México, DF.

Tonight is the fateful night Pato crosses the Rio Grande. I dropped him off at the airport this morning, and he should now be on the way to Dallas, then off to Mexico to dig things up. As I drove away, I had the same guilty feeling as last time I dropped him off at an airport. Did he make it in the airport okay? Did he find his group? Is he wandering around the airport, lost and confused, crying out my name, and forsaking me for leaving him all alone????

Why am I so lucky? And why can't this post wait four days? The answers are: I dunno and Because.

I am struck tonight by how lucky I am to have my Pato, when so many other people out there are in bad relationships or no relationships. Why am I so lucky as to have found Alex right away when other people struggle for years looking for love? What makes me so special? Sometimes I get concerned because I don't feel like I've done anything to deserve my luck. There are probably a lot of people out there who deserve to be happy more than I do.

One of the things I love about Alex is that he's foreign, so he hasn't grown up hearing the same jokes we've heard over and over again. You can toss out the oldest pun in the world in the middle of a conversation and he will laugh for about five hours. It amuses me greatly because I like puns but it's hard to find people who will laugh at them.

I will also laugh at French puns for five hours - for your information - just in case anyone reading this is interested in having a conversation in French with me and wants to hear me squeak like a gerbil.

Now that I am in the bus, I am starting to feel guilty for not waiting at the airport until Alex's flight took off. What if something goes wrong and he doesn't leave after all?!

But if I had stayed, I would have broke down and bought myself a cup of Airport Tea, even higher-priced than Train Station Tea, although perhaps not surpassing Tea Bought On a Train.

I feel guilty now. WHAT HAVE I DONE? My little Pato may be stranded all alone in a strange airport, all because I wanted to save 2€50. Pourvu que tout se passe bien.

The airport, not the dead former president.

Alex is probably boarding his plane now, getting ready to leave for Frankfurt in 20 minutes. And here I am, in the bus, going away from him. He's managed to get away without me hanging on his pant leg and begging him not to leave me.

Did you know that there's a Gandalf Airlines? Alex and I picture bearded flight attendants in robes who strike their staff down on the floor and roar "You SHALL NOT PASS!" when you try to sneak into first class, breaking the plane in half while they're at it.

My Pato has sent me pictures, including this one of him in costume as Medvedenko in The Seagull. He got to wear Harry Potter glasses and I think he looks more like my mental image of Harry than Daniel Radcliffe does. This is not something I normally would have thought about my boyfriend, and it is really rather troubling that I should be attracted to Harry Potter. Anyway, Alex is incredibly adorable and ALL MINE. So there.

My own pictures from Vichy should be coming along soon, as they're in the United States being developed at the moment...

I don't know if I will be at a computer between now and Tuesday, so happy birthday to my beloved little duckling, who will soon save me from admitting that I'm dating a teenager. Muchas smooches.

I don't know why I put "yam". Maybe I'm insane.

Anyway, in case I don't get to a computer tomorrow (yeah right - what else is there to do in Grenoble on a Sunday?), happy first anniversary to my beloved widdle Pato and myself. Am I supposed to wish myself a happy anniversary? I don't know - I've never had one before.

My Pato tried out for Chekov's The Seagull on Monday and found out today that he's been cast as Medvedenko. Time for srah to do some quick Chekov-research. The character description says:

Semyon Semyonovich Medvedenko - Medvedenko is a local schoolteacher who is poor and must support his family at home while later supporting his new family with Masha. He is a boring conversationalist because he spends most of his time complaining about his poverty. Medvedenko pursues the melancholy Masha, eventually winning her hand in marriage, out of convenience and a hope of change, not love.

This cute thing has been mine for 11 months. Lucky me.

Sometimes I wish that phones were like intercoms and that while they were ringing, you could scream out "I KNOW YOU'RE HOME, SO PICK UP THE DAMNED PHONE." That's the advantage that answering machines have over voice mail.

Alex's host mom is moving into a new house and they don't have a phone yet. Even though I hate talking on the phone, I don't think I could live without one. I would feel too disconnected from the rest of the world.

My Pato is on his way back to me. Everyone wish him a safe voyage!

Guess who's coming back on Thursday?!

My Pato Purific is sick and far away. Poor me. Send me your condolences. Heh heh. Pato and I haven't spent more than a weekend apart in more than nine months. We are such wimps.

Sniff.

Happy seventh monthiversary, Patito!

My little Patito has gotten a haircut! He is so cute it will take some getting used to. He was less attractive with the almost-mullet and I liked it that way. Keep the other girls away. Now he is adorable with beautiful curls all over the place. I will beat you all off with a stick! Stay away!

43 days.

I have a friend. We would meet in the KC and talk about nothing and everything, back at the beginning of the year when no one had anything better to do than sit in the KC and talk for hours on end. I thought, "We have a lot to talk about. This looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

But he had other plans, which became evident when he ran home one day and returned with a Pringles can. No, I lied. It did not become evident, it became confusing. "Have some Pringles," he said. "No thanks, I don't really like Pringles," I replied. "No, really, take some," he insisted. "Well, fine," I gave in. There was a red rose in the Pringles can. Was this a declaration of his true intentions or a late birthday gift? Turned out to be the former, which caused much distress and confusion and accusations of stalking until I finally gave in and gave him a chance.

I'm glad I did. I love you. Happy six monthiversary.

51 days.

When I was a SOAR leader at the beginning of the year, I was pushing all of my baby chicks from Baldwin to the health center. I held the door for them, then one of them complained that I had shut the door on his invisible tail. Good thing we were going to the health center, then. We spent the trip to the health center discussing whether it would be better to have a tail or the ability to fly. What a weirdo. Who would have thought I'd be dating him now?

I love my boyfriend because he is nice to everyone and not just to me. He bought a whole mess of flowers and made homemade valentines for all of his friends. I love him because he's a thoughtful little bugger.

And other reasons.

Alex, in some very strange mood, has declared all music other than Sting and Cookie Monster illegal. If you want to record music and you are not Sting, you will have to dress in a Cookie Monster costume and mention Sesame Street issues at least once in your song, even if it's not relevant.

El Patito dressed as a pollito! This makes me laugh and laugh and roll around on the floor. Sorry, Boyfriend.

I went to Cafe Felix with Becky Reik, Harini, and Alex. Patito el Pavito was quiet and normal, which is rather out of character. I suppose I would be, too, meeting up with people who hadn't seen much of each other since high school.

You're still very charming.

I went to the craft store with my mom and Alex today and Alex kept walking up and down the aisles, sticking his face in the silk flowers. I believe I have The Strangest Boyfriend On Earth.

I hate studying for my Spanish tests with Alex.

Either I am lying and I actually do like it, or I am just really dumb and forget every single time that I hate it and go back to doing it again the next time.

Somehow it always results in Alex doubled over in laughter with tears streaming down his face. Is that conducive to learning? No. Alex is a chuleta de cerdo.

I watched Apt Pupil today with Alex, who is madly and passionately in love with Sir Ian McKellen. I think I may have to fall in love with him myself. This is particularly frightening considering that, in the movie, he plays a former Nazi concentration camp officer who enjoys murdering homeless street hustlers and putting cats in the oven. Of course, this is from the girl who finds Norman Bates attractive. I think I have serious issues and that someone should probably look into Boyfriend's background and make sure he's not a psycho killer.

Sometimes I wish you could peek in someone's ear while they're sleeping and see what they're dreaming about.

Yesterday Alex and I were taking a nap and at one point I was awake while he was asleep. He reached over (in his sleep, mind you) and patted me on the head approvingly and said something unintelligible. I wonder what was going on in there.

Alex stole the sea from Bolivia and licked it so they wouldn't want it back. Bastard!

I think I am the most visual learner in the whole entire world. Do other people visualize words written out when they say them? Probably not. I'm probably insane.

I have had the phrase "Puedo borrar?" ("Can I erase?" in Spanish) in my head all morning. I think I'm going to start beating it against the walls.

All the "advantages" aside, I did miss you while you were gone, Alex. So don't feel unappreciated.

Good thing about Boyfriend being in Ohio: free choice of footwear with no worries about being taller than him. Yay boots.

Advantage #2: Time alone to be an individual person. Yahboosucks to Alisha. Not to say that it's all fun and games being boyfriendless, but you know what the Monty Python boys say...

"'Always look on the bright side of life'?"
"No, 'Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.'"

2 hits. I think one of them was me in the Umbrella Office. Sigh sigh lament...

I wonder how much time I waste every day. Not that it's really that wasted - I like to relax. I don't like to be stressed. Durned American lifestyle.

Yesterday, Alisha as much as told me I don't exist as an individual - I am just Alex's Girlfriend. Well gee, that was nice. Rather painful and frustrating, actually. I love Alex... but I love me, too.

I think my English Language test went well. Tests are better than papers.