instead i head to the computer and it's like i turn into a little girl who's just seen her first rainbow. i get all giddy and nervous and hopeful and despairing and i tell myself not to look obsessively at my buddy list, but it might as well be projected onto the insides of my eyelids. at 8:05 his name pops up, and i start to count. i only get to twelve before his IM pops up.

You went and broke our lives. You are so much worse than a cheater. You killed something. And you killed it when its back was turned.

The important thing is for the characters to feel real, and to be given the humanity they are due. That granting of humanity is what separates a full portrait from a stereotype.

It feels like I am wasting time. I mean, that's always the case. My life doesn't add up to anything.

Jesus died for our sins," Noah says solemnly. "What?!?" I reply, choking back my thoughts. "I was just seeing if you were listening.

I just needed to realize that style was like personality - it didn't always have to be consistent; it just had to be something you lived with.

I feel the universe is telling me something. And it doesn't even matter if it's true or not. What matters is that I feel it, and believe it.