Ahem.

Dear Me, Perhaps I won't try to be eloquent, since you'll see through it and undoubtedly be a better writer by now. I'm writing this the day before I go home for Christmas, on which I'm sitting on my El Mundo desk chair in my room in the apartment on 134th St. Outside it's quiet, and though I still hear people yelling sometimes, I haven't heard any gunshots since the one night. My quandary with going home is that I don't know at this point if I want to stay in New York or return to Illinois for a while, because, as I told Mason last night, I don't know if I need some relief or more challenges. I want to be big-- I want to be important in my life, and I know that's something I can't have if I go back to living comfortably. But I can't decide if I have to sacrifice every aspect of my childhood in order to do that. There's a transit strike right now, so I'm worrying about whether or not I'll be able to catch a cab to LaGuardia tomorrow. I should be able to, but I'm still worrying, because I'm just a worrisome person. I probably still am. So where are you living now? What did you decide? Have you been taking dance classes, and how has the old voice been? Did you ever audition for the Ambitious Orchestra, and if you made it, did you have to give it all up for going home again? DID you ever get over Isobelle? How about Popkin? What of Dad and his neurologist's threats of Parkinson's disease? Are Emily and Erik married? I just said a few minutes ago in my Furcadia window that I'm writing one of these things. I'm in the wine cellar of the Paris dream with Lizzi, Furu, and Nolo. Ania, Ricky, Dari, and Pipere have all gone to bed. Today we RPed Jeannot coming back from prison, and it was sort of disappointing, but I had other things on my mind. Sometimes I think RP is kind of ridiculous anyway, but I keep it up because it helps me not to think about other things, and it's like my art in that doing it is like a mechanism for keeping me sane. Plus it's a way to interact with people, even if they're hundreds of miles away. I'm really doing some soul-searching, and a lot of it is hurting. I hope I've worked things out by now, because I really can't keep living my life like this, not knowing where to live. It's not even a matter of Rockford or Manhattan, it's a matter of past and future, or, God forbid, the present. No matter which way I turn it seems I get more depressed, and I'm really to the point now where I wonder if I'll ever be happy. I don't know if I'll be happy with myself or with where I am or with people, and if I'll ever be able to really connect to them again. I guess that's all. What a happy note to leave off on! And I just ended a sentence with a preposition. Your friend and wannabe, Eighteen-year-old Cami