He just figured it out.  His face has a shocked expression.  He was holding a Sam Adams and I thought he might actually drop the bottle.  

“You were talking about yourself, weren’t you?  All this time you were having me believe that it was some third person, but it was you!”  said Brian. 

“Yes, it was me.  But that is in the past now.  So it doesn’t need to get weird or anything.  I honestly thought you had figured it out a while ago,”  I told him.

“Hey guys!”  Our friend Jenn just came over to us.  We were at her party.  “Are you guys having fun?  Brian, is everything okay?  Did I just miss something?  Is he okay?”   

“Apparently he didn’t know that I liked him,”  I said to her.  “He seems very shocked by this new information.”

“Oh… In that case… I think I heard someone calling me on the other side of room. See you later!”  and with that, Jenn was gone.  She knew it was about to get awkward.

I turned towards Brian and he seemed a little less shocked.  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.

“I didn’t tell you because I thought you knew.  Oh, and the fact that I would be flat out rejected.  That is why I didn’t tell you.”

“I didn’t know,” he said.

“Yeah, got that,” I responded.

“So what do we do now?”

“Nothing. It was just a crush.  It doesn’t matter anymore.  I don’t feel that way anymore.  Everything is good the way it is now.”

“Oh. Okay. Yeah, it’s all good.”

When I woke up the next morning, Brian had his arm around me.  We were in my apartment, in my bed.  I just didn’t have any recollection of how this had come to be.

I got up to make some coffee.  When the coffee was done brewing, Brian came out to the kitchen.  I was unloading the dishwasher and putting the clean dishes away.

He came up behind me and put his arms around my waist.  He gently moved my hair off my neck and kissed my cheek.

“Good morning,” he whispered in my ear.  I thought to myself that it was a good thing that he was holding me tightly to him because my knees were buckling.

“I made coffee,” I whispered back. I turned around in his arms.  I looked him in the eye.  He looked back at me smiled.

He let me go and poured himself some coffee.  He turned and leaned with his back to the counter.  He sipped some coffee.

“So…” I said.

“You don’t remember do you?” he asked.

I let out a breath, “No.  I don’t remember.”

“I figured as much.  You were pretty far gone.”  He smiled at me.  “Don’t worry.  Nothing happened.  I brought you home and you asked me to stay.  So I did.”

“Okay but what happened last night?  Why did you bring me home?”

He put down his coffee.  He walked over to me and stood before me.  He was slightly taller than me and he was close enough so I had to tilt my head up.

“You were drunk.  You sat down next to me, and said, ‘I’m drunk.  Can you take me home?’  So I did.  When we got here, you gave me hug. When you pulled away, you looked me in the eye and I kissed you.  You asked me to stay.  Here we are.”

“You kissed me?  I don’t recall that.  It seems I should if I asked you to stay.”  I smiled at him.  He stepped forward.  He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me.

It was a small kiss with a little bit of tongue.  Then he stopped kissing me and removed his lips from mine.  He had his forehead against mine.  We were both breathing deep.

“I can’t believe I don’t remember that.” I said.

“That kiss was a lot better than the one from last night.”

Brian wrapped his arms around my torso.  I moved my head away from his and looked him in eye.  My arms were around his neck and my fingers were stroking the nape of his neck.

This was nice and I didn’t want to ruin it but I wanted to know the answer to the biggest question I had from the night.

“Why did you kiss me last night?” I asked.  Last night when we were talking, neither of us was interested in the other this way.

He brushed his finger across my face to put some stray hair behind my ear.  “Your eyes,” he said.  “When you looked at me, I couldn’t help it, I just had to kiss you to see what it was like.  Turns out it was like finding something I had been missing and I didn’t even know it was gone.”

I looked at him and he looked back at me.  I pulled myself up to him and kissed him.  It was soft and slow at first.  Then it became quicker and passionate.

He lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around his waist.  He walked effortlessly to the bedroom and closed the door.

When I sat down to write this, I had just come to a realization that really upset me.  I was living with the thirteen year old me. 

I was sitting down at the kitchen table with my roommates.  Last week Anne became an aunt and she was talking about the new baby.  While she was talking, Sarah had come out of her room and had gone out into the lounge and on her way out she said, “I have a final tomorrow, I will be back later.”  Earlier in the evening, there was a disagreement over volume of voices and socializing and controlling ourselves.  Sarah had a final today which is why she needed quiet to study. 

We went back to our conversation and something happened where Lindsay raised her voice in a joking manner and Anne responded in the same way.  So I said that there, right there where they raised their voices is what you can control.  To which Anne said that it isn’t fair for her to half to watch what she says or what volume. 

This is when I became horrified and my heart went out to my father.  There were so many fights where I had said similar if not the same thing.  I did not know what to say because I did not know how to make her see that she was wrong.  It took me nearly four years of not living with my family full time and living with others to understand this.  Well she has done the same, so how could she not see that it isn’t about what is fair but it is about what is considerate. 

I had called my mom and I told her what happened and that I was living with me at the age of thirteen.  To which she said that I had grown up so much and that she was so proud of me.  That is when I realized that I want to be a person my parents are always proud of and want to share all the things in my life with their friends at a dinner party. 

I want to continue to grow as a person and I want to always be open to learn from others and be able to respect others who do not agree with me, even on the little things like Anne.  I want to strive to be better and actually start setting goals that are slightly harder than just passing the semester.  For starters I will continue to volunteer at Habitat for Humanity next semester.  I will try harder to respect the ones I live with, and to explain myself better on why I disagree instead of just staying silent and walking away.

I do not know what color to write about.  There are just so many to choose from.  Do I write about pink? It is the color of my teddy bear that my grandfather gave me.  The color of my flash drive I keep on my keys.  It is the color my grandparents, my brother and I, painted my bed when we moved from the condo to the house on Leoleis.  

Or do I write about green and the green leaves we painted on my pink bed?  I could also write about my grandparents green car.  The one my grandmother almost killed herself, my brother, and I in before we found about the brain tumor.  So understandably my heart nearly stopped beating when I saw the same green car in the Plough Lot walking back from work this summer. 

Do I write about the color red?  The color of my heart and all the hearts we get on Valentine’s Day.  A symbol of the love I felt for my grandparents.  The color of my first car! A 1996 Ford Thunderbird.  I miss that car.  It was such an awesome car for a sixteen year old girl. Fire Engine Red, two doors, gas good enough to get me down the street to the mall and across town to the Staples (red again) that I had my first job.  I have a nick name for the store now, and unfortunately I cannot share it with you.  I could go through the colors of the rainbow and relate it all back oo my family in one way or another.  Right down to the color of my grandmother’s two inch golden brown nails. 

It was Tuesday, April 30, 2002.  My parents came home together.  Why were they together?  I don’t recall what Auntie told us when she picked Jared and me up from school.  It was weird.  Things had been weird since the last bell rang.  Mrs. O’Connell walked by me and said that she was so sorry to hear.  I had no idea what she was talking about.  When I saw her a few weeks later, she knew I didn’t know what she was talking about at the time.  Why the hell would you say anything than?  I was only 12 years old! 

I got to Mrs. Conlon’s room and we talked and I did some homework just like every day after school until it was time to go upstairs to meet Jared and my mom who picked us up.  When we got up there, it wasn’t Mrs. Putt-Putt waiting for us but my aunt in her truck.  Auntie took us home and my brother and I did what we normally do when we get home.  I did my homework because I actually did homework back then, and Jared watched TV or played his video games.  While I was doing my homework at the kitchen table, Auntie did the dishes and made dinner.  I found a piece of mail with a UMASS phone number on it.  What’s that?  I didn’t ask.  Dinner was spaghetti because it is one of my comfort foods, that and it was what I ate every night, anyways.

My parents came home together.  They came up the stairs into the living room and called my brother down.  They needed to talk to us.  Auntie continued to clean in the kitchen.  She already knew.  I turned the television off.  Jared came down stairs.  They told us that Nana was sick.  Then there was a pause.  Of course the silence was killing me.  I couldn’t wait for them to just say that it was lung cancer.  It had to be lung cancer.  She was at one point a heavy smoker.  No it could be breast cancer.  Her sister had breast cancer. 

“Oh just tell us, it isn’t like it’s a brain tumor,” I said laughing.  It couldn’t be so bad because I already went through the cancer thing.  My parents turned and looked at each other.  Then that crash and shattering of my world changing just came.  It was a stupid brain tumor.  I knew it when they turned their heads.  They didn’t have to say it.  I just broke down.  Of course I would say that.  Only I would say that.  I wouldn’t have said it if I had known.  I look back on the conversation and laugh and cry about it.  When Nana got home with Uncle Steve and we told her the story and she laughed at it and gave us all hugs and said it was going to be all right.  Then we said good bye to Stevie and told him to give Carolyn hugs and say Happy Birthday from us.  It was her eighth birthday. 

Age. What is age? It is how old someone, or something, is.  It is measured in years, months, weeks, and days.  But does it really mean anything?  If it does mean something, what does it mean?

Age is but a number.  It means nothing except for in the eyes of the law.  But in reality a fourteen year old orphan might be more mature than 22 year old college graduate. 

My favorite story about age is that the summer I was ten, I would go visit my Great Aunt with Nana, Auntie Julie, and Julie’s new baby Merry. I loved playing with the baby.  On one visit, Julie asked if I would like to watch a movie and she put in “Pretty Woman”.  Now I joke with her about how she would never let Merry, now 11, watch the movie.  Merry is definitely older than I was at her age.  She is too smart for my own good.  That girl knows all of my tricks and she uses then on me all the time.  The one she was fast to catch onto was when we would play hide and go seek. I would start to count and then go talk to the adults and have a snack or watch television. I wouldn’t look for her until she called for me and then I would know where she was.  It is no longer fun to tease her.  I think the worst part is that she told her younger sisters all my tricks too so it doesn’t work when I try them on them.  

We were able to raise almost $650 for the MS Walk back I April! Thank you to those who donated!

My friends and I are doing this walk for my dad, Doug Dodge. He has relapsing remitting MS has for over 10 years now. MS is very hard to diagnose, you basically

have to rule out all other illnesses first. Thankfully it has been almost two years since his last episode and hopefully it will be a lot longer until his next. For now my dad is doing well. He just got a new job and is really psyched about it, having been out of work for over a year. He is a Network Analysis/IT Support person, a job which involves fine motor skills with his hands at times when connecting and disconnecting parts, and walking around a lot which can be difficult for him. His hands don’t work very well. A few years ago he had to start using the mouse on a computer with his left hand because he was having trouble with his right during an episode. It is hard for him to walk and it only gets worse throughout the day because he gets tired and it makes it harder to do things later in the day. We are doing this walk for him, and others who suffer from Multiple Sclerosis and their families. It isn’t easy for them.

My friend’s and I chose the team because my family’s last name is Dodge and the Charger and the Challenger are the coolest Dodge cars out there but Chargers have a better ring to it in this case.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?pg=team&fr_id=16711&team_id=247647

Hey everyone!  I am writing to let you know that I will be doing a walk to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis. My dad suffers from this so I am doing it for him, my family, my extend family who are very helpful when it comes to doing things that he cannot, and everyone else who is effected by MS. Please read more on our team page and on the National MS Society website below to learn more.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/site/TR?pg=team&fr_id=16711&team_id=247647

Just about everyone on the Assumption College campus has a facebook account. Granted there are several people that I know who don’t have an account but please just go with me on this. Facebook is how we all connect with each other. We create events and invite our friends out to dinner for our birthdays’. I know I just did this a week or two ago. It is convenient because we can connect with people we haven’t talked to in a while. It has even become a verb. “Hey Vi, do you know So-and-so?” “No.” “Oh you should facebook him, he is really cute.”

In the past year there has been a movie about the Great Mark Zuckerberg called The Social Network. It was a major hit and written by Aaron Sorkin. It was exactly an accurate portrayal of Zuckerberg, but hopefully all facebook users went to see it, just to know the basic story behind their beloved facebook creator.

The latest thing that has put facebook in the news is the crisis in Egypt. People were sick of now former President Hosni Mubarak reign. He had been in power for about 30 years without having been elected even once. So the people started a facebook group and began a protest. The Egyptian people’s story became a major worldwide news story because of this protest.

On a more local note though, are we as a society becoming too dependent on facebook? Do feel the need to check your facebook every morning before you go off to class? What is the first thing you do when you get back to your dorm? For a lot of people the answer is check their facebook. Now cell phone providers are allowing customers to access there facebook on their phones. Yeah, there is a computer wherever I go so thanks but no thanks Verizon. I am not paying to get the web on my phone.

The last thing that I found out that just through me for a loop was the new Chevy Cruz. It has onStar, an emergency feature on cars in case you are in an accident or run out of gas or lock your keys in the car or something. Now onStar will read you your facebook news feed. Did your mouth drop? Mine did, and then I swore a few times because I thought it was so ridiculous. My roommate looked at me like I had three heads because she didn’t know why I was upset. I told her and her mouth dropped to the floor the Genie’s in Aladdin. Do you really need to know what the chick you just went out with you thinks about your first date, that you cannot wait until you get home?

Recently a friend went out with her roommates for a beginning of the semester dinner on a friday. When they got back to the room she thought they were going to play a game or something, or she would come over. Well one of her roommates got back and was on her facebook for about half hour or so. My friend was upset with her roommate. There is nothing going on facebook unless someone is just saying where they are, what they are doing, and with who. Tell me why I car so much? I have my own plans already or you are texting me to see if I want to hang.

There are many benefits to facebook, like the crisis in Egypt and my 21^st birthday was an awesome night. However why do we need to be able to access our facebook in the car? On the phone or through onStar, either way can you really not wait? The high school and college aged crowd is just too used to facebook. What would we do if Zuckerberg said well this was fun but see you later and took down facebook?