Articles from March 2014

Friends tell me Phil is controlling–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–October 1994, Part 8

When we went to school events, Charles put his arm around me and I didn’t mind, but I feared other guys would see this as a sign that I was “off-limits.” I wasn’t: We were both allowed to date anybody else we wanted.

That’s what we meant by not being serious, by taking it slowly, by being, as Charles told Pearl, “very casual.” And I wanted to date at least two other guys at the time, including Mike.

Helene and her best friend Kay became my friends junior year through Phil, who liked to sit with them at lunch. They met in Sophomore Honors and liked him then, but now they were my friends as well, and Helene didn’t like him so much.

Helene said, “Phil has been talking to Kay. I think he sees her as a sister.” That might explain why she got quiet when I said Phil was a jerk. What truth twisting did he tell her?

Helene said Catherine told her Phil and Persephone were dating. Helene’s thoughts:

“It shows he misses you….You shine compared to her….It confirms my worst fears about him. I really think little of a person who–like a person who gets a divorce and then goes out and finds someone else right away. They don’t want to work on the relationship they have, and they go out and find another one?…He’s going to regret it.”

(Pearl said that Persephone’s going to regret it–which turned out to be true, a year later.) I said Phil didn’t want a feminist; Helene noted that Persephone was extremely feminist.

Helene also said, “Last year, after you two got engaged, Phil came to us [her and Kay] once and said you had an argument but worked it out. But he complained that you wouldn’t just do whatever he wanted. We saw this as controlling, and hoped you would realize this before you married him.”

I remembered that argument. It was over whether or not I could listen to a rock station in the minivan, one which only came in outside the campus and played better songs than any other station. Remember, this was in the Stone Ages when college kids couldn’t just hook up to campus Internet and pull in a webstream whenever they wanted.

I found the following paragraphs in The Psychology of Romantic Love by Nathaniel Branden:

Imagine that an individual feels, perhaps beneath the level of conscious awareness, that he or she significantly lacks worth, is not lovable, is not a person who can inspire devotion for any sustained length of time.
Simultaneously, this individual desires love, pursues love, hopes and dreams to find love.
Let us suppose this person is a man. He finds a woman he cares for, she seems to care for him, they are happy, excited, and stimulated in each other’s presence–and for a time it seems that his dream is to be fulfilled.
But deep in his psyche a time bomb is ticking away–the belief that he is inherently unlovable.
This time bomb provokes him to destroy his relationship. He may do this in any number of ways. He may endlessly demand reassurance. He may become excessively possessive and jealous.
He may behave cruelly to ‘test’ the depth of her devotion to him. [Phil once told me this was why things had gotten so bad. It’s in my diary.]
He may make self-deprecating comments and wait for her to correct him. [Phil did this all the time.]
He may tell her he does not deserve her and tell her again and again and again. [Yep.]
He may tell her that no woman can be trusted and that all women are fickle. [He refused to let me meet his “vampire friend S–,” with the fear that I’d fall for S–. And he didn’t believe me when I said I would never leave him even if I found a “soul mate.”]
He may find endless excuses to criticize her, to reject her before she can reject him. He may attempt to control and manipulate her by making her feel guilty, thereby hoping to bind her to him. He may become silent, withdrawn, preoccupied, throwing up barriers she cannot penetrate. [This whole paragraph sounds like Phil over the course of our relationship.]
After a while, perhaps, she has had enough; she is exhausted; he has worn her out. She leaves him.
He feels desolate, depressed, crushed, devastated. It is wonderful. He has been proven right. The world is the way he always knew it was. ‘They’re writing songs of love, but not for me.’ But how satisfying it is to know that one understands the nature of reality!
Suppose that, despite his best efforts, he cannot drive her away. Perhaps she believes in him, sees his potential. [That was me.]
Or perhaps she has a masochistic streak that requires that she be involved with such a man. She clings to him; she keeps reassuring him. Her devotion grows stronger, no matter what he does.
She simply does not understand the nature of the universe as he perceives it. She does not grasp that no one can love him.
In continuing to love him, she presents him with a problem: She confounds his view of reality. He needs a solution. He needs a way out.
He finds it. He decides that he has fallen out of love with her. Or he tells himself that she bores him. Or he tells himself that he is now in love with someone else. Or he tells himself that love does not interest him.
The particular choice does not matter; the net effect is the same: in the end, he is alone again–the way he always ‘knew’ he would be.
Then, once more, he can dream of finding love–he can look for a new woman–so that he can play out the drama all over again.
It is not essential, of course, that his relationship end so conclusively. A literal separation may not be necessary. He may be willing to allow a relationship to continue, providing both he and his partner are unhappy. This is a compromise he can live with. It is as good as being alone and abandoned–almost. –p. 128-129

(According to the author website, this book is now out of print, but you can find it at the above Amazon link.)

Around this time, I saw Phil with his head on Persephone’s shoulder in the cafeteria. It made me sick. I was glad to have Charles around.

Charles and I were taking things very slow and casual, while Phil just seemed to jump from one serious relationship to another. The bed wasn’t even cold before he started dating her!

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound

January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD

February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

Fighting the Darkness: Slightly shaken at church today

Richard and Tracy’s church closed a while back. Occasionally, the people from there come to mine–well, except Richard and Tracy. I have no idea where they go these days, if anywhere.

Something I’ve dreaded for a while, finally happened today: A visitor from their church asked if I still hang out with them. “No.” He asked, Where are they living these days? I said, “I have no idea,” then got away as quickly as I could.

It’s true: I have no idea. For the past year, they’ve been checking my blog using two different IP addresses at the same time. It’s weird, because one residence is supposed to have one IP for every device hooked up to the Net. These don’t appear to be work IPs.

Before, they used the same cell phone for both, but nowadays (after switching service providers) they use two entirely different computers, with two entirely different IPs. These IPs are fixed, not changing more than once in a great while.

I know the two IPs are connected because they used the exact same search phrase–“nyssa hobbit blog nlvd”–with both IPs, in the exact same order, and NVLD spelled wrong for both.

One IP consistently comes from Fond du Lac, but is rarely used. The other one, various trackers show it coming from all over the country: a little city on the other side of the state, Madison, Georgia, Minnesota–then last week, Fond du Lac! This week, it’s back to Madison.

And they’re no longer in the phone book. So I can truthfully say I have no frickin’ clue where those people live these days.

And apparently, this guy from their own church doesn’t know, either.

But yeah, it left me shaken for several minutes.

[Update 5/29/15: Tracy alone is back in the phone book, but I discovered the address is old. They are still here in town, though, having moved yet again. Also, that very same IP which has traced all over the country, now traces to Fond du Lac.]

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on March 30, 2014June 10, 2023

I start dating Charles–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–October 1994, Part 7

Mike’s driving was now a byword, and we had just had a debate in the Journal about it. Astrid told us about the time she wanted to say, “Pick one lane and stay in it!” There was another time he scared her half to death by nearly running into a truck.

But now we had to deal with Charles’ driving, as well. He sped like a maniac and called everybody who didn’t a “putz.” (That’s the first time I ever heard that term.) He spent so much time getting mad and flipping people off and saying “you putz” that I worried for the safety of us passengers in his little, black car.

On Sunday, October 16 at 5pm, he took us down to Milwaukee to see Pearl in the hospital. At least I wasn’t in the front seat watching, but in the back seat with Sharon. She liked to zone and muse in the car and not talk, just like I often did; on the way back he thought she’d gone to sleep.

(But when I went to KFC and a movie with him on the night of the Shantytown, which I will describe later, I had to sit up front and see firsthand how he drove. 😛 )

At least I didn’t have to deal with Phil’s driving anymore. He was an inattentive, erratic driver, possibly worse than Mike or Charles, often taking his hands off the steering wheel and dancing around.

That’s why Persephone and I both laughed when Persephone told me one day that he offered to drive a group of people to Fond du Lac for dancing.

And one time junior year, Carrie told me she was waiting at a stop sign when she saw Phil and me in a minivan; Phil took the corner and almost hit her.

We planned to go to Florida over Winterim with Pearl, whose parents would help pay. But now Pearl couldn’t go because of her surgery, so her parents decided not to help us go to Florida.

At some point during the year, however, possibly Spring Break, they took Pearl to Florida as a family trip. We were jealous, of course.

As it turned out, though, my taking a Winterim instead of going to Florida helped lead to meeting my future husband (and we went to Florida on our honeymoon). But more on that when the time comes.

Pearl loathes Barney. The nurses got their wires crossed somehow and thought Pearl liked Barney. So they gave her a purple dinosaur balloon. Pearl said to us, “Death to Barney!”

We all sat down in Pearl’s big, private room and watched some show about ways people got engaged and married. I felt a bit uncomfortable, thinking of Phil, probably wondering why these marriage shows were everywhere now, but tried to hide it.

Charles said he liked tradition, and would go all out for his engagement and wedding: a buggy ride in the park, top hats, tuxedos. My other friends weren’t too sure about tradition. I said, “What’s wrong with tradition?” and Charles smiled at me.

****

I sat with Carrie and Elaine one evening at dinner, possibly Tuesday the 18th. My roommies hadn’t shown up yet. Carrie was Catherine’s roommate sophomore year. They didn’t get along, so Carrie ended up with Elaine the following year.

Elaine’s parents used to be a priest and a nun! (They went from being celibates, to being so lovey-dovey that Elaine couldn’t stand it.) Carrie and Elaine often hung out with the Group.

Carrie said, “Persephone and Phil O’Hara have been going out. I’ll have to warn her about Phil.”

No, I never talked to Carrie about Phil; she said this all on her own. Maybe she heard things from Pearl, Sharon or Catherine. Or maybe she always disliked him. But it was comforting that other people saw him this way, after I was abused and unceremoniously discarded by him.

Then Persephone sat down with us and said, “Phil and I aren’t dating anymore. He said something really bad at a really bad time.” She wouldn’t tell us what it was, or what the situation was. I didn’t ask; I didn’t want to know.

That evening, we had an IV meeting in the gazebo by Jubilee, probably an executive board meeting, which we had at 7pm each Tuesday.

It was a warm evening, lit by a moon which would be full the next night, a beautiful background to our meeting. Charles leaned up against the inside wall of the gazebo and looked through the openings at the moon, saying how pretty it was.

I started back to my room after the meeting, but Charles asked me to go for a walk instead. I was suspicious. We walked along the side of the road in the moonlight and down to the lake. We sat at the picnic table by the lake and he asked me on a date.

The subject of Phil came up for a moment and Charles said, stroking my hair and caressing my back, “You deserve better.”

I said, “I don’t want a serious relationship.”

“I didn’t say it would be serious.”

I was reluctant to take his hand, so he said, “You’ll set the pace.”

Charles walked me back to my room and my roommies soon discovered why he’d asked me on a walk.

However, even though I’d dreamed of this, and even though I’d been attracted to him ever since I met him, it started to fade as soon as he asked me out. I didn’t know why.

But then, I’d felt that way soon after I started dating Peter and Phil. It went away both times. Maybe this would go away, as well. Maybe it was just shyness, or getting used to a change, going from liking a guy to actually dating him. It’s not as if that happened often.

One day in the next week, I sat with Catherine and Kay at a meal.

Catherine said, “You and Charles are a better match than you and Phil, because you’re both ‘royalty.'”

Through my paternal grandmother, my line goes back to King Duncan, immortalized in the play Macbeth. Charles said he was descended from a Sicilian noble–a duke, I think. I believe he also said he was a reincarnation of some noble or royal. (Yeah, right, but anyway.)

Catherine and I spoke of Phil and I said, “I’ve decided Phil is a jerk.”

Kay got very quiet. I later learned that Phil had been confiding in her.

I also said, “Charles and I are going slow because I don’t want this to be a rebound thing.”

Charles and I started sitting next to each other at meals (he usually sat with my friends, and had become a part of the Group). He came over to my apartment in the evening and hung out. We always watched Alternative Nation at eleven and Mystery Science Theater:3000 at midnight, which in those days was played in hour installments.

We cuddled up, but no kissing or anything else. I didn’t want to fall into sin, you see, as badly as my body missed what Phil and I used to do. Charles was soft and cuddly like a teddy bear.

We got along very well, having several things in common, such as a love of alternative music. We talked a lot and enjoyed each other’s company.

We were both Republican, though his views were more conservative than mine, which did make me nervous at times (he could be loud with people). (I eventually became a moderate Independent, and around 2004 or so, turned more liberal. Around 2010 or later, I realized I was a Democrat.)

He was 24, which seemed old to me. He was a senior when I was a freshman in high school. “You’re one of those old seniors!” I said, and laughed. He made a sound of fake annoyance.

Sharon didn’t hide from Charles her annoyance that he was always there in the evening. Later on, my roommies and I thought he had a crush on her because he liked women with opinions, she wasn’t afraid to give him hers, and he acted like he liked her.

****

Sharon and I began straightening up the microfiche drawers at the library, making room for new microfiches, putting them in order, etc.

It seemed tedious at first, but with both of us doing it, it became a chance to talk on and on about guys and life and things like that. Many of the microfiched magazines were short-lived, and Sharon started calling them “failures.” “It’s another failure,” she would say as she put one into the drawer.

I think I listened to alternative music as early as elementary school, about 1983. I remember listening to a little-known station that soon got replaced by Sunny 101 (shudder). It was great. They played songs U93 didn’t play, such as Peter Schilling’s “Major Tom.”

Then there was the stuff played on the Notre Dame University station late at night, which I discovered back in my junior year of high school and listened to all through college (on breaks).

And I also liked the alternative tapes that the weird, redheaded, leather-jacketed skinhead brought in to Drawing class my senior year of high school. He played Misfits and Faith No More. Everyone else at our table ripped on them, and said, “These Misfits don’t know how to play their instruments!” But when one of the guys asked me if I liked it, I said I did.

Of course, now alternative music was turning oddly normal and boring. 102.1 overplayed a lot of so-so songs but played little of the really good stuff, such as “Basket Case” by Compulsion (which I saw on MTV).

Alternative, suddenly popular, became too popular for its own good–which eventually ruined it. It became a cliché, a joke, and lost a great deal of its popularity, just as heavy metal had done in the late 80s and early 90s.

It was replaced by electronica, techno, even swing for a short time. By 1998, listeners lamented that all the bands sounded alike now–and, for an example, named several bands which all sounded like Matchbox-20.

It took the fusion of metal and alternative, forming a new style of music around 1999, to breathe new life into alternative.

****

The night of the annual Shantytown, Charles and I went to see Only You, a cute movie about a young girl who grows up believing her future husband’s name has been revealed to her on a ouija board.

Charles and I loved the Italian scenery, Charles especially because of his descent.

I wondered if Charles and I were meant to be together, because at the time we seemed more suited than Phil and I, and he was kinder.

We had a wonderful time, both at the movie and at Kentucky Fried Chicken, where we went afterwards and talked about many things.

He told me about his time in the Air Force, which I thought was cool. He didn’t want to join a frat because he’d already been through boot camp.

(Unfortunately, he changed his mind for some reason in the spring semester, and joined–can you guess which frat?–the Zetas. Why did my exes keep joining the Zetas?)

We got back to Roanoke and went over to the Shantytown, which, as usual, was on the large lawn between Old Main and Krueger. Almost everyone in the IV group was there, since they were all sleeping in either the IV shanty or the Phi-Delt shanty.

Clarissa slept in the RC-Cab shanty. I think Pearl, back home from the hospital and on pain medication, was in the Phi-Delt shanty. Mike, of course, was sleeping in the IV shanty. One other person, a woman, slept in the IV shanty. Of course Mike and this person would never do anything naughty, but it looked bad enough to joke about.

The shanties, as usual, were all cool, some cooler than others. Astrid decorated the IV shanty with various Christian designs, crosses, fishes, trees and verses. She was very proud of it. The rest of us may also have helped.

Charles and I joined our friends in roasting marshmallows by the bonfire on pointed sticks. Carrie or Elaine said one of us had a crush on a guy, but wouldn’t tell me who. I feared, of course, that it was Phil.

I don’t remember who had the crush or if I ever found out who it was on, but I doubt it was Phil; she was probably just shy. As a group, we entertained someone’s young son with ghost stories.

Charles and I went back to the apartment for a while, since neither of us were sleeping in the shanties. Then we went to the door and exchanged a good-bye kiss.

It was the first and only kiss we ever shared, and very long and sweet. I was enchanted by the evening and felt attracted to him at the time, and like I was really starting to fall for him.

It was a pity I didn’t feel that way for long.

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year

Summer 1992:

September 1992:

October 1992–Shawn’s Exasperating Ambivalence:

November 1992:

December 1992:

January 1993:

February 1993:

March 1993:

April 1993:

May 1993:

Junior Year

Summer 1993: Music, Storm and Prophetic Dreams

September 1993:

October 1993:

November 1993:

December 1993:

January 1994:

February 1994:

March 1994:

April 1994:

May 1994:

Senior Year

June 1994–Bits of Abuse Here and There:

July & August 1994:

September 1994–Divorce: The Long, Dark, Painful Tunnel:

October 1994:

November 1994:

December 1994:

January 1995:

February 1995:

March 1995:

April 1995:

May 1995:

by Nyssa McCanmore
Posted on March 28, 2014June 6, 2023

“Kingdom Come”: Left Behind Review, Part 1–Where the Old Testament Law is Reinstated

by Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins, Tyndale House Publishers, ISBN 0842361901, available practically anywhere Christian books are sold:

A plot summary is here.

FINALLY! After 5 1/2 years, I’ve made it to the end of this series! It’s hard to believe it’s been so long–I could swear I just started this–But then, at my age, the years just fly by like the snowy owls we have around here: One moment you see it, the next it’s gone.

Now for my final review:

The Millennial Kingdom is described in the early pages. Now Jesus is in charge of the whole world, and it seems rather Taliban-like: If you don’t get saved by age 100, you die and spend eternity in Hell. (This does not apply to Jews.)

If you sin, you can get incinerated–or not.

And it seems that the Old Testament Law, which even the Apostles deemed too oppressive to put over Christians, is now back in effect, even the sacrifices and holidays! Things which the Apostles and other Early Church leaders scolded their flock not to do, are now being done.

And now the Jews are the Chosen People again, and Gentile Christians are the “foreigners.” What about everyone being equal?

First we have “The Millennial Kingdom,” a chapter which claims to describe what will happen during the Millennium. Not what the authors think will happen, but what life will be like. It’s things like [italics mine],

“Everyone will be assigned temporary housing until Jesus reconstructs the earth.”

An earthquake will have caused a residue that makes the entire planet sea-level.

“You may be a stellar student or an athlete or even a bit of a techie, but you will not have to be good with your hands. You may not be a gardener let alone a farmer, and perhaps you always pay to have carpentry, wiring, or plumbing done around the house. But in that day God will plant within you the desire–and the acumen–to do all those things yourself.”

How the heck do the authors know these things will happen? Isn’t this all just speculation?

On page xli, we learn that the moon and sun are “supercharged by the Shekinah glory of Christ,” so you can’t go outside without sunglasses, and even at night it’s bright. (I wear my sunglasses at night….) It’s hard to adjust to sleeping in the light.

Sounds like the sun is going into supernova; isn’t that a bad thing, meaning the imminent end of the earth? But then, at the end of the 1000 years, the earth is destroyed by fire from the heavens and from within the earth (p. 350)–Oh, hey, it IS a supernova!

And it sounds too frickin’ bright, not like paradise at all. You need the night and its cooling for sleep; nocturnal animals need the night, too.

Also, now everyone speaks Hebrew fluently. The rationale is Zephaniah 3:9, which says, “For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language, that they all may call on the name of the Lord, to serve Him with one accord.”

How does that translate to Hebrew? Why Hebrew and not some other language that’s actually still being used? Hebrew is not designed for 21st-century life. I bet their word for “cellphone” is English, not Hebrew!

What’s wrong with, say, a heavenly language? How is Hebrew better than any other language? Is it because the Bible was written in it? The Bible was also written in Aramaic and ancient Greek–Why not one of those?

This version of the Millennium is also not the only one in Christendom. It’s called premillennialism. There is also post-millennialism and amillennialism.

Orthodoxy goes with amillennialism, or that the Millennium is symbolic of the time after Christ. (More info here.) Then at the end, Christ comes back, there is the Judgment (not a bunch of little judgments as in the Left Behind books), and then:

Thus, in its faith in resurrection and eternal life, the Orthodox Church looks not to some “other world” for salvation, but to this very world so loved by God, resurrected and glorified by Him, tilled with His own divine presence.
At the end of the ages God will reveal His presence and will fill all creation with Himself. For those who love Him it will be paradise. For those who hate Him it will be hell. And all physical creation, together with the righteous, will rejoice and be glad in His coming.
…When the Kingdom of God fills all creation, all things will be made new. This world will again be that paradise for which it was originally created. This is the Orthodox doctrine of the final fate of man and his universe.
It is sometimes argued, however, that this world will be totally destroyed and that God will create everything new “out of nothing” by the act of a second creation….
Because the Bible never speaks about a “second creation” and because it continually and consistently witnesses that God loves the world which He has made and does everything that He can to save it, the Orthodox Tradition never interprets such scriptural texts as teaching the actual annihilation of creation by God.
It understands such texts as speaking metaphorically of the great catastrophe which creation must endure, including even the righteous, in order for it to be cleansed, purified, made perfect, and saved….See full article at The Symbol of Faith: Eternal Life, OCA website

This also contradicts the LaHaye/Jenkins vision of the final end of everything after the Millennium ends and God’s opponents are incinerated: the earth is incinerated as well, replaced with a new one.

I’ve also noted that the Byzantine Empire, the Eastern part of the Roman Empire which lived on after the Western part fell into the Dark Ages, lasted for about 1000 years–then was laid waste by the Ottomans.

Since the Byzantine Empire was Christian, it works well as a literal Millennium–except for the end, of course. How could God’s Empire end with the evil side winning Armageddon?

On page 7, Irene is in the middle of reminiscing about Heaven: “She was able to describe the very portals of the house of God, a great, cathedral-like expanse where the redeemed of the ages were arrayed in purest white….”

Hmmmm….Last I recall, from The Rapture, they were all nekkid.

Fans of the Slacktivist‘s Left Behind reviews, have joked about the Millennium’s “steaming piles of fresh produce, drenched in butter.” Well, here they are on pages 2 and 11!

You see, meat is no longer used for food, despite the sacrifices (which are once again started in the Temple) and the eating of perfect meat after Armageddon (see Glorious Appearing).

So veggies drenched in butter are suddenly feasting food….I’m not quite sure I get the attraction….Where’s the cheese dip? the ranch dressing?

On page 13 is a reference to “new wine,” and we soon learn that people drink wine in the Millennium. But…I thought “new wine” was actually grape juice, according to Evangelical lore, and that wine is evil, so we’re not supposed to drink it at communion?

(Seriously, that’s how I was raised. It was a huge adjustment to take actual wine for communion in the Orthodox church, because I’d always taken grape juice.)

The hills and mountains now literally drip with “new wine” and flow with milk instead of water. But….What if you’re lactose intolerant? Chaim quotes some passage of the Bible where this image comes from. Yeah….I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a metaphor.

To be continued.

Phil shows my letter to his friends; I’m triggered by reminder of forced oral sex–College Memoirs: Life At Roanoke–October 1994, Part 6

October 12, 1994. I went out to the woods for a time, to be alone with nature and to pray. Nature can be soothing in times like these.

I asked God to show me the way to peace and rest. I followed a dark path and found a dead end. I followed a sunny path, and found the elusive river.

I thought God whispered to me, “Do you trust me?”–like Aladdin in the 1993 Disney cartoon.

Then I heard the Bradley Clock, and had to turn back. I was supposed to meet Sharon before dinner. I got lost for about 15 or 20 minutes, which was fun, but made me late. Sharon left without me.

While walking back from the woods, I was startled to pass right by Phil on the sidewalk as he left Muehlmeier, where Persephone and Trina lived.

We crossed paths; he went to the Campus Center as I headed back to the apartments to get Sharon for dinner.

He said nothing to me, just walked past me, snubbing me, so I ignored and said nothing to him.

I was right by him, close enough to touch, and saw and recognized the letter–the envelope, the thickness were the same–in his hand. He held nothing else.

I mentioned it to my friends at dinner and said I wondered if he’d shown my letter around.

Charles said, “He probably did show it to someone. Except for my friend S– and myself, most guys are jerks. They only think about themselves, and not about their girlfriends or wives.”

I was furious with Phil. This letter had personal things in it (which I deleted here), and it was quite likely he’d shown it to other people, especially after I specifically asked him not to talk about it to anyone who wasn’t in a happy marriage (which, obviously, would be neither Persephone nor Trina, who weren’t married).

This apparent betrayal hurt me deeply. I also couldn’t see why he would treat my letter as a personal offense. I still don’t, when reading over the copy.

I didn’t think of it at the time, but considering how mad he looked when I saw him, it’s entirely possible that Persephone and Trina saw the letter, agreed that it was reasonable, and angered Phil by not agreeing with him. Of course, this is merely speculation, but it comes from a re-reading which I just did of the letter.

****

Charles broke up with Trina only a few weeks after school started, and probably by early October. It seems they met during Orientation Week and started dating before they met anyone else; now Charles said he no longer felt a “spark” for her. He didn’t hate her or anything like that.

Trina went through a short time of not wanting to be at the same table in Bossard with him, leaving soon after he’d sit down, but I don’t think it was more than a few weeks.

Charles invited people to a party in his apartment in my building, where he lived with Dirk and Carl, but Pearl and I were the only ones who showed up. We had a good time anyway, watching Field of Dreams (first time for me) and Loaded Weapon. We had popcorn and pop, and Charles was a courteous host, happy to see us and spend time with us. Dirk even came in at one point.

I just realized something: Charles lived in Muehlmeier. I know this party was before I started dating him, and that he lived in Muehlmeier afterwards, so he must have started out in the apartments and then moved into his own room in Muehlmeier.

****

One evening at dinner, probably during the second full week of October, I sat at a table set apart from the other tables, taking orders for candygrams for an IV fundraiser. I kept knocking on the table (some of my friends were around) and saying, like the Land Shark on a 70s episode of Saturday Night Live, “Candygram! Candygram!”

Unfortunately, the cafeteria served something different: various ethnic foods they’d never served before.

At first I thought this was great, a chance to try new things, but one of the foods was okra. I tried it, but I could not stand it because it was all sticky and had the same consistency and taste as semen.

Ugh! I couldn’t stand this reminder of oral sex with Phil–especially after he forced me into it. I went hungry because there wasn’t much else.

That night we put the candygrams together: suckers and lollypops with little messages, written and sometimes decorated by the people sending them. They were written on little cut-outs of shapes like footballs, hearts and circles.

Sharon told me later, when I asked, that she saw the one that Persephone wrote to Phil. It read “Keep the faith,” nothing ooey-gooey and “I love you”-like.

This relieved me, though I couldn’t figure out why Persephone would tell him the same thing he had recently told me. It wasn’t as if he needed encouragement that we’d get back together. He was the dumper, after all, and chasing Persephone!

Now that Phil was gone, and I knew I would be allowed to marry again without committing adultery because I was the abandoned party, I let my crush on Mike begin to grow. Why ever not?

Sharon had a crush on him as well, but since neither of us had encouragement from Mike, and he had rejected her late junior year, it didn’t feel like a true rivalry. It just meant somebody with whom to gush over him.

****

Friday, October 14. At 2pm, I went to the Opening Ceremonies for the Great Lakes Writer’s Festival in the Bradley Building. I stood up, as I’d done every year, when the Fessler Scholarship recipients were recognized. Then we heard readings by Lucien Stryk and Sapphire, both poets.

Sapphire had been there before, but I missed her the first time. I just wished they’d had a novel writer there again as in previous years: one poet, one novelist. After all, I wrote and enjoyed some poetry, but my main love was novels and stories.

The weekend of the Writer’s Festival was also the weekend of Homecoming, so later on my friends and I saw the “Lighting of the R.” The “R,” for Roanoke, was just a tiny piece of cardboard or metal with some lightbulbs on it that formed the shape of an “R.”

All the administration did was put it in the yard outside the Campus Center, in the same place we had the first picnic freshman year (where I met Shawn), and turn on the lights. I remembered Sarah’s laughing comments the year before, saying she had just seen the “Lighting of the R.” I now saw why she laughed.

It was strange, but whenever I sat with my friends at lunch or dinner and Charles was there, I’d be a little nervous and happy that he was there. I’d hear him talk about asking girls out.

He once wanted to ask a girl out but was disappointed, because she had a boyfriend and was upset over a recent fight with him (meaning she was off-limits). I would feel a little upset about this because I wanted him to notice me!

I wasn’t with Phil anymore, and Charles wasn’t with Trina anymore, so if I wanted to act on the strange attraction I felt for Charles, I could. Before, when I was still with Phil and had just met Charles, I felt it and it was like forbidden fruit. Now it wasn’t, but it was still enticing. Maybe I felt it because he was a decent guy.

One weekend around this time, probably on a Saturday, I was doing laundry–whites–when Charles came over with his best friend S–, who was visiting him for the weekend. The dryer got done and I had to go get my clothes and fold them, but I didn’t want to leave the conversation in the living room.

By the way, S– was cute and had two earrings. He seemed like a nice guy with a good sense of humor. He also had a girlfriend, but that didn’t matter to me because I liked Charles, anyway.

I sat in the living room folding towels while we all talked and laughed about things, and I think my laundry was the object of one good-natured joke. I don’t remember if I folded my underwear in front of them, or if I excused myself and went into the bedroom for that.

I got the feeling that Charles liked me back, and that S– knew about it and was, well, checking me out.

We all had fun at Homecoming. I never saw Phil at the festivities, so that helped a lot.

Friday night at 7:45 was the bonfire and pep rally, then the fireworks. Just before Homecoming, Pearl went to the hospital for surgery related to her physical disabilities, so we were forced to go to it without her.

During the beautiful fireworks, loud rock songs played, such as the AC/DC song “Thunderstruck.” The song seemed to fit well, and I went to another world, one with no Phil, just my friends and beauty and music.

Charles joined us there; I stayed near him as we stood and watched the fireworks. Charles said, “I wish Pearl were here to see this,” and we all agreed.

After this, the new Homecoming Tent was opened up for us on the lawn outside the lower level doors of the Campus Center, so we could go in and dance. It was a small tent, and I don’t know if many people went to the dance, or how many would have fit in it. I went there with Mike and Charles. I don’t remember where my other friends went.

Mike asked me to dance once, then started dancing like a muppet, but I didn’t dance. This was outside the dance tent. We didn’t like the music–rap, as usual–so we didn’t stay long.

We thought they should play alternative more, which people seemed to like, but it never got played. Lots of people complained about the music that was always played at these dances. When we were at the tent, we were the only ones there. I don’t think I went inside.

Saturday night, after the Campus Cookout at 9pm, my friends and I (soon joined by Charles, to my glee) went into the tent not for a dance but for some entertainment.

There was this guy there, Hammerhead, doing magic tricks, but I thought he got a little too verbally lewd with the female student who went up on stage to assist him.

Then at ten was Pat McCurdy, who sang weird and funny songs. At one point, he did a song in which everyone was supposed to put their hands to their cheeks and join in whenever he yelled, “Makes me nervous!” It was his own song. I really liked that one.

I especially liked when, before one song, he asked, “How many people here are in love tonight?” People clapped. Then he asked, “How many people here are in hate tonight?” I clapped hard for that one, thinking of Phil, who was apparently nowhere around that night. Persephone may have been there, though.

Index
Cast of Characters (Work in Progress)

Table of Contents

Freshman Year

September 1991:

October 1991:

November 1991:

December 1991: Ride the Greyhound
January 1992: Dealing with a Breakup with Probable NVLD
February 1992:

March 1992: Shawn: Just Friends or Dating?

April 1992: Pledging, Prayer Group–and Peter’s Smear Campaign

May 1992:

Sophomore Year

Summer 1992: