March 25, 1983

10:15 A.M.

I had a beautiful night sleep. I’m so happy! It’s when I can’t sleep that I want not to be here and to just be in my own bed. What I always should have done was just stay up all night and read which I think I will do on Saturday night since I have to be at the airport at six in the morning. This is my second to last day and I am going to enjoy it. I’m going to the pool.

9:30 P.M.

I have a few things on my mind. This evening Arturo asked me I would like to go out for parrillada, and Argentinean meal, at Che’s. I said yes but figured I didn’t have to have it if I didn’t want to. It’s a plate full of meat and sausage – food I don’t like. Anyway we got there and when I found out I had to eat it, I was confused but consented. It was fine and I talked to Arturo, asking him questions. I can’t stand Idalia I decided. She asked him when he started working. He said 15. She asked him if he paid for all his studies. I don’t know what his answer was but I butted in and said that I paid for my education. I really don’t know if that’s even true. I can’t wait to see my mother. I want to talk to her! Idalia had the stupidity to say to me that maybe I can save enough money to go to Argentina and visit my grandmother! My grandmother! Hah! My one and only grandmother is dead! Dear! I told her I wouldn’t even know the woman if I passed her on the street! She’s Arturo’s mother and I’ve never met her! How stupid and obnoxious of her to say that! Then she said, “She’s old and maybe you can take care of her” and I looked at her funny and replied “Why? I don’t even know her, she doesn’t know me and she doesn’t care who I am either.” Then she said, “Do you think we don’t love you either?” And again I looked at her weird and could not on Earth figure out where she was coming from! I couldn’t answer such a stupid question. I don’t know! I told Idalia that I have only known her for a few days in my entire life. Dear God, this is all so stupid. She had the gall, the asininity to say, to say! My God to say to me that when she first met Arturo, he told her the whole story and she loved him from that minute! Puh! Bullshit sweetheart! Who cares?! I DON’T EVEN KNOW THE WHOLE FUCKING STORY! So what does your crap mean to me?! Are you stupid Idalia? I can’t wait to tell my mother! She said also that to be loved I must love also. God. Oh God. I know these people don’t know me because I don’t let them. You know how I love people. I told her that I have a mother that loves me, loves me. And I love her. She is what is important to me. How could Idalia say to me that maybe I can save my money to go visit an old woman and take care of her, a woman I’ve never ever known in my life and who is supposed to be my grandmother. I just can’t believe it all. It was such a stupid conversation and I’m stupid. Arturo is stupid and I don’t have much to say for his choice in women. Idalia is stupid. I am too because I know my mother would kill me if I ever did anything for Rose Pottier – Arturo’s mother. She would just think it to be a stupid thing, but I have never ever thought of doing that, going to see my father’s mother with my own money and I have little respect for Idalia for saying that. Bullshit she knows the story. Bullshit! She can’t know much or she wouldn’t have said that and I cannot imagine our cultures being that entirely different. She has just been a pain in my ass tonight but I won’t be mad or angry forever. I just can’t believe it. When I think about all the people I do love, I really do love, Woody, Robert, Tanya, Abuelo, Mrs. Hoffman, Barbara, my teachers, my mother of course, I just can’t think about people who pop into my life and say they love me. Very few people love me and I return their love. I don’t doubt that Kevin and his family would share in my mother’s grief if anything ever happened to me, but I don’t think they could have any of their own. And it works in my direction too, I would be truly upset if anything ever happened to Kevin or his family because, simply these are people I know. Unfortunately I do not love them. Its fine my mother got married but for me it was the end of my world, that’s why I loved Hamlet. A situation that happened to me which I could not accept or understand and tried to find some help and truth by reading as closely as I could, Hamlet. Hamlet’s world fell apart and so did my world. When my mother got married I had nothing to hold on to. I hardly had anything to hold on to beforehand and nothing anymore after she told me she was getting married. I’ve been trying to figure out what it was that caused such difficulties for me but maybe this is it, maybe it isn’t. I might also swear that all this flow of words is so true. Truer than anything else ever written. I am angry with what Idalia dared to say to me. It just shows her stupidity and Kevin too for his bullshit about “I took your mother away from you.” Fuck you. You don’t know anything either. You don’t know what has happened to me. I have nothing to hold on to anymore. My poor mother was all I had. I was deserted by half my roots – I have a right then don’t I? My mother and her parents took total responsibility for me! That’s all I knew! God damn it all. All I knew was half my roots. My mother invested double energy into me! Into me! One little me! She gets married after 16 years and I am lost and confused. It’s like she’s given up on me. And mother, you don’t even understand me! It’s not important for anybody to know this about me. Everyone has got their stories. But my father is fucked up and so is everyone who knows him. I can’t understand Annie or Idalia or Inez. Was she his girlfriend? His girlfriend while Idalia was away, his girlfriend with 2 kids?! I don’t know. And my mother with Mike! Ugh! That was an awful experience. I’ve had it with these people. Nothing is true. Woody is my one true person. Our relationship is fine. I would like to emulate her. I love Tanya. I love Tanya very much. I want to see her grow up. I want to always be a close member of the family. I love Robert too and I hate what happened to their whole family. I know Robert loves Tanya and I know Woody loves Tanya more than anything and I am sorry that they are not together. But Tanya won’t be like me. Tanya has a better father – I think. I don’t know Arturo. But I do love Robert. I would like to marry a man like him. I’ve been thinking lately that we are intellectual and sexual. I am only as of late becoming aware of my sexual being and it is going to be a very important thing about me, but the rest of me has always been there and always will be even after I decide to become celibate if I ever do. If after I decide I’ve had a few bad experiences with men and decide to hate them. I was just thinking about people with hearts of gold like Jean Valjean and wondering if one could ever imagine someone just not liking Jean Valjean. I will ask Ms. Fetters. I am angry, angry, angry. And now I’m sad as I just listened to a story on the news about a man, a 60 year old professor, who has taught under several aliases. There were reports that he took the extra jobs to pay for surgery for a crippled daughter. You see, my being isn’t important at all. I wish my father would commit suicide. My mother tried to twice. I told Idalia she has no idea what my life has been like because she never had the experiences I’ve had. What a ball buster. Everything about her makes me angry – her makeup, her shoes, her clothes. And Kevin, his clothes, his eating habits. I want to write a novel about all of this, including all the fights I had with my mother. All the intense, intense fights. Bad fights. Could I dedicate it to my mother? I have to. She’s the one who got me started writing two years ago when my world fell apart. Only to my mother could I simply say all this and she would know where I’m coming from. Anyone else I would have to explain to. I want to talk to Mrs. Chasan and Woody. I am pissed! I probably have a tremendous chip on my shoulder. A tremendous one. That makes me mad too, because I didn’t put it there and I worked for years trying to mature and relinquish it. That process may be something we all go through. How can people hurt one another? It’s because they’ve been hurt themselves. I truly believe that. “If you haven’t seen what I’ve seen, been where I’ve been, then you can only try to understand me, but do try.” I can immerse myself in myself too but I don’t want to just do that. I have a big crush on Mr. Ambrose but does it at all matter? What matters? I have a toothache. Does that matter? Id I do well in school. Who cares? That only means I was able to concentrate on my studies and little else was on my mind. Everybody is different. People are such a phenomenon. What’s the point?