Sunday

I couldn't bring myself to go to lunch with Donna. I wrote her an email instead.

Dear Donna,

Anything bad that Luna says about me is probably true. I've been awful to her and I don't deserve her forgiveness, or yours. I can try and pay you back all the money you've given me for watching Luna. I don't deserve any of it and it was wrong of me to take it in the first place.

I shouldn't have any further contact with Luna; it would likely serve only to worsen the situation between the two of us.

For the record, I am incredibly sorry about all of this. However, you don't need to accept my apology or even acknowledge it. I don't deserve that much.

I wish the best to you and your family.

Jack

She wrote back a couple hours later:

Hi Jackie! 

Did you and Luna have a fight? She's locked herself up in her room all day. Whatever happened, I'm sure you aren't to blame. You have always been a wonderful friend to her.

I hope you two work through this. I'm sure you will! :)

Love, Donna 

I couldn't bring myself to reply to that. She doesn't understand the magnitude of the situation just yet. I'm sure Luna will explain it to her soon; I don't have the courage to do so myself, anyway. Trying to tell my mother will be bad enough as it is.

I don't know how I can tell Donna about what happened, or, for that matter, my own mother. I've let everyone down this time. I'm sorry. I'm a horrible person, an awful friend, and I don't deserve to have anyone's forgiveness. I got what I deserved...

And I'm sorry to cause you so much pain, and I'm sorry to bring you down again...

I can't believe what just happened.

I suppose I should have seen it coming. Certainly I was warned. Erin, why didn't I listen to you? You were right. You've probably been right about everything you've ever warned me of, and in retrospect I can't believe I didn't heed your warnings...

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. I guess I should just explain what happened.

I went over to Luna's to return the rock. The car wasn't in the driveway and nobody answered when I knocked, so I headed over to the pond figuring Luna was there. I was right; she was laying on the branch that extends out over the water, like she was on the day I first met her.

I thought she didn't see me until she spoke.

"Remember the first time you met me? I was lying on this branch."

"I was just thinking about that," I told her. I took a couple steps closer to the tree. Luna's newly-short hair was falling into her face, obscuring its features, but I was willing to bet her eyes were staring at me from behind that curtain of hair. It made me a bit uneasy.

"Were you?" she said.

"Yes. You on that tree branch reminded me." I was beginning to have a sense of foreboding about the whole thing. Something didn't feel right. It was a beautiful early fall evening, just cool enough for me to be wearing my hoodie (in the front pocket of which I had Luna's rock); the pond was perfectly still; the setting sun was casting glorious reds and golds over the entire landscape. I had noted how beautiful everything was on my bike ride over, but now the world seemed oddly reduced; diminished until nothing remained but the girl lying on the tree branch, all but perfectly motionless.

"What else do you remember about that day?"

"Um..." I searched for something I could say about that evening without incriminating myself. "You were nice to me. You invited me up to your room even though you'd only just met me."

"Because I trusted you," Luna said, and there was sudden venom in her voice. She brought her head up suddenly to look at me. Her eyes were puffy as though she'd been crying, but right now they were dry, bright, and furious.

"I thought you were my friend. How could you lie to me like that?"

I took a step back in surprise. "Lie to you?" I asked, almost stumbling over the words.

It was stupid. I should have confessed it all then, but I had been so used to keeping up the pretense that, even after it had already half-fallen, I couldn't stand to let it drop.

"You're still lying!" Luna pushed herself up into a sitting position on the tree branch. "All you ever did was lie to me! I can't believe my parents were paying you to be my friend—"

"Luna, it wasn't like that!" I searched my mind frantically for some way to turn the situation around, but could think of nothing. What possible defense could I have against her accusations? "How'd you find out?" I asked instead, hesitantly.

"Your blog. I found your blog, where..." she took a deep, shuddering breath, "where you talk about me, and just write down every little thing about me and how you're tricking me into being friends with you just so you can get paid for it, and it's all a big fat lie, our entire friendship. It's all a lie."

"It's not!" I seized my chance. "Luna, I really do care about you! The money wasn't important to me—"

"Then why did you take my parents' money?" Luna's voice rose. "You would have told them to keep their money if you really liked me! Plus, I know you don't care about me anyway, you just think I'm a dumb little kid—"

"That's not true," I tried to interject.

"It is true!" Luna was practically yelling now. I worried she was going to fall out of the tree and into the pond. "You always treat me like I'm so much younger! I'm only three years younger than you and that isn't that much! It's like when people were treating you like a girly-girl and you didn't like it — that's how it feels when you treat me like I'm a little kid!"

I regret to say that at that moment I lost my own temper.

"That's completely different. You are a little kid, Luna! You're only twelve! Sorry to tell you this, but just because you cut your own hair doesn't make you any older! It doesn't work like that! Next time you want to stage some 'middle-school rebellious phase' bullshit, don't copy me!"

"I thought you'd be proud of me!" Luna yelled. She jumped down from the tree, tottered for an instant, then regained her balance and stretched herself up to her full height (which is scarcely over five feet tall). "I'm doing what I want instead of listening to what my parents want for me! You should know all about that, Jackie!"

I froze.

"What the hell did you just call me?" I asked. My voice was low and quiet with anger.

Luna smirked, her gray eyes gleaming fiercely in the twilight.

"Jackie," she said, drawing out the word. "Patricia Jacqueline," she singsonged. Her eyes hardened. "Sorry to tell you this, but just because you call yourself a boy name doesn't make you a boy. You're still a little girly-girl, no matter how many times you cut your hair, Jackie—"

I could my body shaking and my pulse pounding in my temples. By some miracle, I managed to keep my voice steady as I replied.

"I came back over here to give you something." My right hand fumbled, trembling, into my pocket, fingers closing around Luna's rock. When I drew it out, her eyes widened, and her smirk vanished abruptly.

"Give me that!"

"I would have if you asked nicely." I drew my arm back, and Luna leaned forward, one hand outstretched towards my hand holding the rock. "But I guess you don't really want it."

"Give it back!" She was really screaming now. Both of her arms were on my right arm, trying to pull it down. I twisted out of her grasp, turned to face the pond, and brought my arm forward, releasing the rock as I did so. It splashed into the pond, breaking the mirror-like surface of the water into bold, concentric ripples.

Luna seemed to freeze, staring at the spot where the rock had disappeared. Her face, which had been flushed with anger, turned pale, and her eyes suddenly flooded with tears.

"Look, I'm..." I tried to put a hand on her shoulder, but she lashed out, swiping my hand away. "I'm sorry, Luna, I shouldn't have—"

"Look what you've done!" she gasped through her tears. Her eyes were still angry, but there was something else there, too; a deep sadness that made me instantly regret everything I'd just done. "I can't get it back now," she continued through her sobs, "because I can't even swim, and it's going to lie there forever at the bottom of the pond and I can never have it back..."

She didn't really seem to be addressing me anymore. Her eyes were fixed on some point behind me and over my head, as though she were speaking to some unseen entity.

"I could try—" I began.

"No!" Her eyes were on me again, and the full force of her fury was behind them. "Go away! I never want to see you again as long as I live. I hate you, Jack, I hate you..."

She broke off again, sobbing. "GO!" she screamed at me one last time, and I, coward that I am, turned and ran.

I ran until I reached my bike, and then I pedaled as fast as I could all the way home and ran up to my room without saying hello to either of my parents. I haven't done a single thing since I got home but write this post and think over every mistake I've made.

If I could take it all back and start over, I would in a heartbeat. Even if it meant never having had Luna as a friend, I would take that over causing her as much pain as I know I've caused her. She never wants to see me again, and I know nothing I can do will ever be enough to make amends to her. I just... Luna, if you're reading this, I never meant for any of it to happen this way, and I'm really, truly sorry...

I forgot I've still got Luna's rock.

I guess I should bring it back. I don't really want to go over to her place, but I might as well return it before I forget again. Besides, I haven't seen her face-to-face in a couple days.

My grandmother is visiting this weekend, so I'm being asked to clean my room. As if that makes any sense. She's hardly going to be staying in my bedroom, is she? Chances are she won't even see my bedroom while she's there. The guest bedroom is downstairs, so she probably won't be coming upstairs at all. (She can hardly even climb stairs anymore.)

I'm not in a good mood anyway but cleaning always makes it worse.

I'm not even sure what it is that bothers me about Luna cutting her hair. Is it that she's copying me? Is it that she reminds me of how I was at that age, and being reminded of that bothers me? Is it that she looks so unlike herself now? She looks so much older now with her hair short.

I tried drawing a picture:

It's not that the haircut makes her look old, really. I guess it finally makes her look her age... she's always looked so young for a twelve-year-old.

I tried to tell Erin about Luna cutting her hair.

Jack Q: Luna cut her hair.
swerin: good for her?
swerin: kid looked like she could use a haircut I guess?
swerin: wasn't her hair like butt length before
Jack Q: No, you don't get it. She cut her hair herself.
swerin: parents can afford to pay you to be friends with her but are too cheap to take their kid to get her hair cut?
Jack Q: She cut her hair herself in the middle of the night.
Jack Q: Doesn't this remind you of anybody?
swerin: oh
swerin: yeah but
swerin: lots of middle school kids have a "cut their own hair" phase it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with you??
swerin: i mean did you even tell her that story
Jack Q: Yes.
Jack Q: I'm sure she did it to copy me.
Jack Q: Come on! I even did this around the same time of year in seventh grade!
Jack Q: There is no way that's coincidence.
Jack Q: But what does she mean by it?
Jack Q: Is she trying to send me some sort of message? I don't get it.
swerin: imitation is the sincerest form of flattery my friend
Jack Q: I don't feel very flattered.
swerin: doesn't change the fact that she probably meant it as flattery

(She logged out after this last message without saying goodbye.)

Luna cut her hair.

Chopped it all off to just above her shoulders. By herself, she says.

It makes her look older. It's strange...

She seems really proud of herself.

Huh, what does this remind me of, I wonder?

I don't know who I can turn to anymore...

swerin: dude. you okay?
swerin: i just took a look at your blog
swerin: seems like stuff is going pretty badly for you
Jack Q: Yeah...
Jack Q: I just don't know how to end this.
Jack Q: You were right, Erin. I can't do this Luna thing anymore.
swerin: oh that's one i could stand to hear again
swerin: "you were right, erin"
swerin: music to my ears
swerin: figuratively speaking
swerin: anyway im sorry this is hard for you man
swerin: but really there's no way this wasn't gonna be difficult
swerin: and the longer you stay involved in this the more difficult its gonna be to end it
swerin: you dug yourself into this one im sorry to say
Jack Q: That really isn't what I need to hear right now.
swerin: what do you want me to tell you, dude?
swerin: you didn't take my advice way back when. if you had you wouldn't be in this situation right now
swerin: you made the choice to handle this by yourself
swerin: so now you're on your own
swerin: theres really nothing i can do about that

Luna keeps asking me what's wrong when we talk, and I feel so bad because I can't tell her. How is it that I've become the downer in this relationship? It's my job to make sure she's feeling okay and I can't even do my job anymore. I feel horrible.

Sometimes I think I ought to just quit my job. Stop accepting payment. Come clean with Luna. Maybe she wouldn't want me to be friends with her after that, and I wouldn't blame her. Maybe she would forgive me. I don't know.

In the end, though, I don't think I have the courage to do that.

I would talk to Dad about this, except that he's one of the people who talked me into taking this job in the first place. How can I trust him to give me good advice on this?

I can't talk to anybody but Erin, and she hasn't been online at all since Saturday night. Her Skype status says she's too busy with college right now and doesn't want to be disturbed.

I feel so lonely...

Maybe I've just been down lately. Maybe everything is really fine and I've just been overreacting. I just...

I don't think I can do this anymore.

Erin is right. It isn't fair to Luna to pretend to be her friend.

I need to find some way to tell her. But how can I tell her when I know how much it could hurt her?

I don't know what to do.

"The Blog of Jack Q., Friend-for-Hire"

So I've changed my blog title.

"Jack's Blog" was hardly very descriptive to begin with.

I think this new one says a lot more about me.

I usually feel better about things in the morning, but I don't really feel any better right now. I have a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach whenever I think about having to meet with Donna today, and having to hang out with Luna later in the afternoon.

In my previous posts I've been reiterating that everything's fine, but I don't know if that's true anymore. I don't know if that was ever true. It's been months since I felt like everything between Luna and I really was fine.

Sometimes I wish I could just quit the job — it is a job, after all, as Erin keeps reminding me — and be free. Even loneliness would be better than an unhappy friendship.

But I know I could never work up the nerve.

I'd be disappointing my mother.

I'd be disappointing Luna's parents.

I'd be disappointing Luna herself.

I think I'd even be disappointing me.

Erin just got online to reply to me.

(I decided to take out the timestamps from the chatlog because they just make it harder to read. Maybe later I'll go back and edit out the other ones.)

swerin: jack, it is a job.
swerin: you're making sure luna is okay. that's your job. correct?
swerin: you get paid to do that.
Jack Q: That's different. It only felt like work at first. Now we're friends.
Jack Q: I'm just saying that having to report on her wellbeing every night is making blogging feel like a job. And, honestly, I think it may be negatively impacting my relationship with Luna.
Jack Q: Whenever I hang out with her now I feel like I'm taking mental notes on her behavior, looking out for anything abnormal. It's like a chore. And I think she can tell I'm having less fun.
swerin: i don't give a damn what it feels like
swerin: work is what it IS
swerin: if u werent keeping an eye on her like this before then all that means is that up till now you've been a shitty worker
Jack Q: Technically, I'm getting paid to hang out with her, not to keep an eye on her.
swerin: you're getting paid to be friends with her
swerin: friends look out for each other jack
swerin: and you're under particular obligation to do so in this case because it's a job
swerin: she's your responsibility. and if she's too much responsibility, then you talk to her folks about it.
swerin: end story.
Jack Q: I've got this under control, I guess. It's just...
Jack Q: It doesn't feel like a real friendship anymore.
Jack Q: It's starting to feel forced.
swerin: that's how it always was jack
swerin: whether you felt it or not
swerin: i gotta go

I don't know how to feel about this anymore. I really do care about Luna, and I want her to be happy, it's just... being with her doesn't make me happy like it used to. Is that because she's been feeling down more often lately? Am I just being selfish? I know this really isn't about me. Even my own blog isn't about me. I feel like I'm a secondary character in my own story...

I need to sleep on this. Maybe I'll feel better in the morning. I just... I don't know anymore.

To Erin, to clear up some things.

You aren't online so I can't Skype you back.

So, in answer to your questions:

• No, Luna hasn't been "acting nuts" lately, as you put it. She seems perfectly sane to me, if a bit sad sometimes.
• This feeds into your next question/my next answer. Yes, when she seems unhappy it's generally at night/in the evening. Like I said, I think it's just because of her insomnia.
• I am still talking to her almost every night to help her with that. We usually don't talk for very long anymore, though, because it seems she's having an easier time sleeping now that school has started up again. (I expect school wears her out.)
• You wanted to know why I've been blogging less lately? Well, I guess it's less fun when I feel obligated to do so. It's not fun anymore. It feels like a job, or something.

Luna Report - 14 Sep '12

We didn't end up going to the movies. Nothing good was playing. Luna kept telling me about how she's making friends with this girl in her grade. I said that was good because she'll finally have a friend her own age, and then she got a bit cross with me (I think — I assume that's why she hasn't been on Skype at all this evening).

Luna Report - 13 Sep '12

I missed a couple days because I just haven't felt like blogging lately.

Luna's fine, Erin, don't freak out at me or anything.

Luna Report - 10 Sep '12

Luna seemed very down today. She didn't even really seem to want to talk to me.

I tried to cheer her up by reading to her, but it felt sort of useless. I'm not even sure she was paying attention. I wish I could be of more help...

Luna Report - 9 Sep '12

Met up with Donna for lunch. Since Luna's behavior has been fairly normal this week, I didn't think I needed to report anything to her, and I didn't.

Donna told me she thinks she heard Luna sleepwalking a couple nights ago, but she can't be sure; Luna could have just woken up and gotten out of bed in the middle of the night. Donna says she didn't leave her room, though, which might appear to support the sleepwalking hypothesis. (Remember, Luna locks her door at night. I doubt she'd be able to unlock it while asleep.)

Apart from that, nothing too exciting to report. Luna and I are planning a trip to the movies sometime this week. We haven't gone to see anything in theaters for a while. Should be fun.

Luna Report - 8 Sep '12

I'm sorry I missed a day.

There's honestly been nothing new to report. We've had a few conversations, nothing unusual or worth noting. She came over to my house yesterday and we baked brownies. Luna's had the usual amount of trouble getting to sleep, but hasn't blown up at me about it or said anything especially weird to me because of it. Everything's fine.

Luna Report - 6 Sep '12

Luna told me about school today. She says it's going alright. She even says a nice girl invited her to sit with her at lunch today.

Also, apparently she checked out Hamlet from the school library. (When pressed, she revealed that she actually swiped it from the library, since the librarian claimed she was too young to be reading Hamlet.) I expect she wants to read it so she'll get the Hamlet references in Opheliac, not that there are terribly many Hamlet references in that album (it's mostly the title track, if I remember correctly). I told her that if she wants to talk about it with me, I'd be happy to. I hope she enjoys it and that it doesn't go over her head too much.

Luna seemed very tired. I wonder if she got an alright sleep the night before? It seems doubtful. I didn't ask, though.

Luna called me this afternoon. I missed the call, but the voicemail she left went something like, "Hi Jack, um... [long pause] sorry I didn't talk last night, I just... [another pause] I wanted to, but they didn't want me to. Sorry."

I guess she means her parents kicked her off the computer.

In any case, I expect she'll be online tonight.

Luna Report - 5 Sep '12

Luna didn't Skype me at all tonight. I hope nothing is wrong. I sent her a message but she hasn't replied. I guess she just isn't online, for whatever reason?

Well, Luna's first day of seventh grade seems to have gone fairly smoothly. So that's good, at least.

I shouldn't have stayed up so late last night. I'm really tired. I'm considering deleting that middle school post. I'm just not sure I want anybody to read it after all.

On (Not) Surviving Middle School

So when I was a little kid, my mother used to pick out all my clothes for me. That's not unusual at that age, I suppose; we're talking really little, before I went to school. However, the clothes she picked weren't the sort of clothes I think I'd have picked for myself, given the choice. They were pastel-colored, often pink, almost invariably frilly. She rarely dressed me in pants, preferring to put me in dresses or skirts. Sometimes she picked out matching outfits for the two of us (or as close as you can come to matching outfits for a three-year-old and a thirty-year-old).

Two little boys lived across the street from us. One was my age and the other was a couple years older. I was fascinated with them, because they got to do all this stuff I couldn't do. They were always climbing trees and running around and playing with sticks like they were swords. They played rough sometimes and got their clothes ripped or dirty. If I'd ever messed up my clothes like that, I've no doubt I would have been put in time-out. The littlest boy had a trike; his older brother had a bike. I used to watch them riding around and wish I could join them. Once I asked my mother if I could get a bike or a trike like the boys across the street had. "Don't be silly, Jackie," she told me. "You'd fall and skin your knees. You wouldn't like that."

She was always doing things like that; denying me things I wanted by telling me I didn't want them.

When I started kindergarten, there was a little girl with short hair, like a boy's hair. I wanted to have my hair cut like hers, but my mother told me I couldn't. "Oh, Jackie, she probably had to have her head shaved because she caught lice."

Maybe that little girl did have lice, but she also got to do other things I didn't get to do. She wore pants and t-shirts every day and never wore pink and roughhoused around like a boy. I had always been told I couldn't play rough, so instead I stood in the corner of the schoolyard trying not to get in trouble. I liked watching that girl, though. I was sort of in awe of her yet confused by her at the same time, because I didn't understand how she could be a girl and yet act like a boy. My mother taught me that boys acted a certain way and girls acted a certain way and that was just how it was, but this little girl seemed to stand in contradiction to all that.

In retrospect, maybe that girl was my first crush. I can't remember my feelings toward her clearly enough to be sure.

I was quiet in school. I was too shy to speak up, I think, because my mother always told me what my own opinions were. The problem is, when someone tells you something often enough — no matter how ridiculous it is, no matter if you start off knowing it to be false — eventually you start believing them. On top of that, I was a little kid, and she was my mother, and I trusted her in the way that little kids always trust their mothers.

Most of my teachers didn't seem to notice how subdued I was. They probably liked it; it made it easier for them to do their jobs. However, I did have a few teachers come up to me in private to talk to me, especially as I got older. The speech was always the same: "You're a smart girl, Jackie, why aren't you participating more in class? You could do so much if you pushed yourself a little harder."

Eventually I started to listen to them. I got more confident talking in class, and talking to other kids, voicing opinions that were mine and not my mother's. I even started to act a little more tomboyish, but only when I was safely out from under my mother's gaze. I wouldn't have dared to misbehave in her presence, and in her mind doing anything that didn't befit a young lady was misbehaving.

Really, my mother's problem is that she expects me to be just like her. I don't think she has anything in particular against tomboys, or masculine women, or whatever it is that I am. She just doesn't like the idea of me being one, because she wants me to be her little Mini-Me.

I was always small for my age as a kid. I think because I was small and kept to myself and wore frilly things and had ribbons in my hair, the other kids in my class thought of me as being kind of a baby. Even for the first year of middle school, when most of the other kids were starting to hit puberty, I still looked like a little girl. I got treated like I was younger than I was.

Right around the time I started seventh grade, though, I suddenly hit a growth spurt. I went from being short for my age to being tall for my age remarkably quickly. I didn't look like a little girl anymore; I wasn't "cute", I was an awkward beanpole of a kid. None of my clothes fit.

I started to get uncomfortable with the way I looked. There's no way for me to accurately convey the feeling except that it felt like my inner self and my outer self didn't match, and had never matched. In fact, being tall and skinny was the only thing I really liked about the way I looked now, because I didn't look like a cute little girl anymore.

Sometimes I got almost panicky over my appearance; I felt like I was being trapped in a shell that didn't belong to me, and I just had to break out or I'd suffocate. That's how I felt the night I grabbed a pair of scissors from the kitchen and cut my hair as short as I could manage it.

I had always had long, curly hair. My mother liked to tie it up in pigtails for me. People complimented me on my hair often. I thought that because my mother liked my hair and other people liked my hair, I had to like my hair too.

I don't really remember actually cutting my hair: I just remember looking in the mirror when it was all done and feeling like a completely new person. It was strange and exhilarating all at once. The sense of excitement I felt was like getting a new present and thinking of all the things you might be able to do with it, all the as-yet-untapped potential.

The following morning, I was still feeling excited from having cut my hair — I guess I was riding out some sort of adrenaline high. I told my parents that I didn't want to wear girly clothes anymore, that I wanted to keep my hair short, and that I wanted them to call me Jack instead of Jackie. I told them this as they were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. They just stared at me the whole time like I had flown in from Neptune.

Neither of them put up an argument, though, and I headed off to school in the least feminine clothes I owned (which, unfortunately, was skinny jeans and a ratty old sweatshirt of my dad's that had shrunk in the wash). I felt pretty damn pleased with myself.

People stared at me all day long during school. I interpreted the stares as being of admiration or respect. When people called me Jackie, I proudly corrected them and told them to call me Jack. I got a lot of weird looks, but, like with my parents, no one protested.

No one protested at all the first day. Then the protesting began in earnest.

By day 2, concerned teachers were calling my parents to ask them about me. My dad, I think, handled most of the calls; I'm not really sure, because neither of my parents wanted to talk to me about it. Kids in school started bullying me and calling me names; "dyke" was among the politer things I was called.

The worst, though, was my mother.

Initially, she acted as though she had no problem with my decision. She was never supportive, but she didn't give me a hard time over it, until a couple days in. I don't even remember what started it, but she just blew up at me.

The gist of her argument went like this: Why couldn't I just be a normal girl? Why did I have to be so childish instead of acting like a mature young lady? Was this all just a ploy for attention? Did I need psychiatric help? What on earth had gotten into me that I would want to cut off all my beautiful hair?

I've never seen my mother so upset in my life as she was that day, and I hope to never see her that way again.

My dad tried to smooth things over, and he succeeded to some extend. I don't know what he said to my mother, but he got her to agree to letting me wear my hair short and wear less feminine clothes if I desired. The one thing she never agreed to do was to call me Jack; even though my dad eventually got in the habit of dropping the -ie, my mother still calls me Jackie and seems to have no intentions of changing that anytime soon.

I left middle school about a month later when the teasing and namecalling escalated to physical violence. A group of older boys had taken to slamming me into lockers, and when I tried to stand up to them the leader punched me in the nose. From then on, instead of slamming me into the lockers, those boys would just hit me when they saw me. It didn't take long for my parents to notice the bruises — I'm sure they noticed right away, actually, in which case I suppose it took a few days for them to decide to do anything about it. They pulled me out of school. My dad began homeschooling me not long after.

That's as much of this story as I think I'll ever be willing to tell.

Luna Report - 4 Sep '12

I didn't ask Luna about the sleepwalking. I did ask her about why her parents wanted to move to the city in the first place, though, and Luna was able to shed some light on that. Apparently before Luna was born Donna and Matt were in a band, and they had to quit the band when they had her. The band wanted to get back together, so that's why they moved. Luna suspects they moved back upstate because it wasn't working out. That sounds like a solid theory to me.

Luna and I met up this afternoon to go get ice cream, in honor of her last day of summer vacation. She seemed kind of down, probably because... well, it's her last day of summer vacation. This evening when I talked to her she seemed anxious about school.

"Everyone treats me like a baby," she said to me.

I asked her what she meant, and she explained that her classmates often treated her like she was younger than them. (I suspect this is because Luna does look younger than her age, and in some ways acts younger than her age — though less so now than when I first met her.)

"It'll be better this year," I told her, trying to cheer her up. "You're older now, and they're all going to see that and treat you differently."

"They'll be older too," Luna pointed out.

The conversation went on in this vein for a little while; I kept trying to look on the bright side, but Luna seemed determined to look at the gloomier side of things.

"Look," I said finally, "I'm the wrong person to be giving advice on this anyway. When people picked on me in middle school, I started being homeschooled. I'm a quitter."

"People picked on you in middle school?" Luna sounded intrigued. "Why?"

"Because I wasn't like them. Middle schoolers will pick on anyone they think is too different."

I didn't really want to elaborate, but eventually she pressed me for it and I ended up telling her the whole story of how I didn't make it through public middle school.

That story is too long to put in this post. I'm going to write it up separately and post it in a bit. I guess I've always sort of wanted to write down that story anyway, so it may as well be now.

Sleepwalking

Donna emailed me this morning and asked me if I could call her so she could explain the sleepwalking thing over the phone.

I just got off the phone with her. This is what she told me:

Back when the family lived in Manhattan, Donna and Matt first noticed that Luna seemed to be an occasional sleepwalker. They heard her stumbling around in her room late at night on a couple occasions. Neither of them was worried about it until one night Luna sleepwalked out of her bedroom, out the apartment door, and down to the lobby before another resident in the building spotted her and woke her up.

Part of the reason for the move back upstate was because Donna and Matt were worried about what might have happened had Luna not been woken up; she could have walked right out into the busy Manhattan streets. Donna admitted that there were also other reasons for moving; she said that she and Matt had had plans that didn't come to fruition and so there wasn't really any reason for them to remain in NYC. Luna's sleepwalking incident was simply the final straw.

Donna says that now they ask Luna to lock her door before going to bed so if she does sleepwalk, she can't leave her room.

Luna isn't aware that she sleepwalks, apparently; even when she's woken up while sleepwalking, she never remembers the incident afterwards. Donna says they haven't told Luna about it because they don't want her to feel like something's wrong with her, or like it was her fault that they moved back upstate. (Donna stressed again that most of the reason for the move had nothing to do with Luna's sleepwalking.)

So now this leaves me with two questions:

1. Should I tell Luna about the sleepwalking?
2. Should I ask Luna or Donna about their other reasons for moving back upstate?

Luna Report - 3 Sep '12

Today was my first day of school, but Luna doesn't start until Wednesday. Apparently I neglected to tell her that I had school and thus was not going to be able to come over this afternoon. She was upset with me when I first logged onto Skype, but she got over it quickly enough.

Luna told me she wants to take up blogging again. I asked her what she would blog about, and she said she'd probably blog about "all the stuff I don't like to talk about out loud". I guess that's not too different from a lot of my blogging, so I can't judge.

I asked her if I could see her blog. She gave me the link. (Here it is.) There's nothing on it but a couple short text posts and some cat pictures. She hasn't updated since February.

Luna told me she was nervous about going to sleep because last night she had a nightmare. She refused to tell me what it was.

Luna Report - 2 Sep '12

Luna seems perfectly fine and not at all suicidal.

That's all I feel like writing tonight.

Come see our girls, crazy girls...

[9/2/12 7:38:22 PM] swerin: SUICIDE. SHE MEANS SHE WANTS TO KILL HERSELF.
[9/2/12 7:38:28 PM] swerin: YOU GOTTA TELL HER PARENTS ASAP.
[9/2/12 7:40:11 PM] Jack Q: Whoa, what?
[9/2/12 7:40:37 PM] swerin: how thick are you dude? she says she wants to end it all or whatever, she's referring to suicide. you dont play around with that shit you tell somebody right away. RIGHT AWAY
[9/2/12 7:40:40 PM] swerin: jfc man why do i have to explain this
[9/2/12 7:41:13 PM] Jack Q: How do you know she meant that?
[9/2/12 7:41:21 PM] Jack Q: Maybe she meant that she wishes she was able to stop her sleep-related problems — insomnia, nightmares, etc. Maybe this has to do with the sleepwalking thing I haven't heard about yet.
[9/2/12 7:41:45 PM] swerin: oh i bet it does. she wishes she was able to stop those problems and i bet the only way she can think of to stop them is by offing herself.
[9/2/12 7:42:02 PM] swerin: talk to her parents AS SOON AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN. preferably now.
[9/2/12 7:42:46 PM] Jack Q: Don't you think this is a little hasty? We don't want to alarm them over one comment she made.
[9/2/12 7:43:00 PM] Jack Q: She's seemed perfectly fine the past couple days.
[9/2/12 7:43:38 PM] Jack Q: Look, I promise you this: the second she says anything about suicide again I will call her parents and let them know.
[9/2/12 7:43:56 PM] Jack Q: I just don't think one comment she made (an ambiguous one, too) is much cause for alarm.
[9/2/12 7:45:43 PM] swerin: okay
[9/2/12 7:45:57 PM] swerin: im agreeing to this only bc i cant actually call lunas parents myself
[9/2/12 7:46:09 PM] swerin: and because it was u who heard it not me so i dont actually know how it was said
[9/2/12 7:46:17 PM] swerin: basically im trusting ur judgement here
[9/2/12 7:46:23 PM] swerin: so don't let me down
[9/2/12 7:46:47 PM] Jack Q: I promise I won't.

Is She Promised To The Night

[9/2/12 5:14:19 PM] swerin: (clears throat) okay im giving u permission to post this and any future chatlogs which pertain to luna unless i tell u u can't
[9/2/12 5:14:28 PM] swerin: so b4 we get onto the more important question of whether or not u liked the lorax i need to ask you something
[9/2/12 5:14:40 PM] swerin: u had that one post where u talked about luna being like two different people depending on the time of day? where like she's all weird at night and gets mad at u over stupid things and acts anxious
[9/2/12 5:14:56 PM] swerin: how often does she act like that? bc it sounds like she hasn't done that for the past two days at least
[9/2/12 5:15:11 PM] swerin: also could you give some more specific examples?
[9/2/12 5:15:18 PM] swerin: i dont mean over skype necessarily u can do a blog post about it

So after receiving this series of messages from Erin, I felt I had to go into a little more depth with what I mean by Luna acting strangely at night.

I think it's because she has anxieties related to falling asleep; she gets nervous, and that makes her quicker to anger. The times she's gotten mad at me are usually because I'm late getting online so we can talk, or something like that. I always apologize, after which she generally apologizes too for yelling at me. Then I have to comfort her because she feels bad about getting mad at me and I have to reassure her that she's not a bad friend and she didn't hurt my feelings. (Which is true, mostly.)

Sometimes she talks about her imaginary friends, particularly one of them (Gwyn, I'm pretty sure is her name), as if they're real. She's only done that a couple times but it kind of creeps me out.

The other day she said something to me like "I wish I could just be done with all of this". I asked her what she meant, and she said "You know what I mean". I dropped it because I didn't want to admit that I didn't know what she was talking about.

I met with Donna today. She didn't have time to chat anyway; she just paid me and left to go to a meeting or something. I don't actually remember what she said.

I asked her about the sleepwalking thing Matt mentioned, and she seemed taken aback but told me she'd write me an email explaining it.

Luna Report - 1 Sep '12

I went over to Luna's today. She showed me all the new clothes and stuff she got for school. She doesn't seem particularly excited for school to start, but who would blame her?

We watched a movie (it was The Lorax, Erin, I know you've been bugging me to watch it) and then we had dinner together, after which I went home.

When we talked to each other this evening, Luna asked me to read to her. (I've done this in the past.) I read her a couple chapters of Alice and Wonderland until she told me she was getting sleepy. We actually talked for a few more minutes after that, but it wasn't about anything that interesting. Mostly about school and stuff.

Erin, in case you're not picking up on it, Luna's fine.

Dream Journal - 1 Sep '12

(This is probably going to be my last dream journal. School starts in two days and I'll have less time to blog; this Luna thing is going to be occupying more of my blogging time now anyway. Maybe I'll post more dreams if I have a particularly memorable one, but otherwise this one is the last one.)

I dreamed Luna was really angry at me because I still haven't given her back her rock. She was yelling at me — and Luna rarely yells, even when she's mad — to give it back because she needed it back. She kept saying "I need it". I went up to my room to get it from my suitcase, and when I pulled out the rock I saw that it was a human heart, warm and dripping blood. It was beating in my hands. I could hear it beating. I could feel the heartbeat reverberating through my body.

I woke up then, even though it wasn't yet morning. I fell right back to sleep and didn't have any other dreams.