Saturday night, later than my journal entry, Robin called. (I just now realized her name had an "i" instead of a "y". I also just now found out her last name is Mork, not Mort, like I once thought.  Good thing I caught this, could of been embarassing.)  We talked for about three hours I think-reminescant of my talks with Jamie.  Also reminescent of my talks with Jamie, we talked about everything.  I mean anything and everything.  In fact, before I hung up, I told her that I knew I would remember virtually not hing of the conversation we had-it was that varied.  We talked about cartoons-Animaniatics, and Lion King. We talked about cats, hers, mine, and Jamie's.  We talked about school, and about our piles of "to read" books.  Mine topped her's-her's was seven or e ight, if I remember correctly, mine is twenty.  This got her respect, needless to say!  One thing I remember quite clearly is a bried allude to the "web" my high school friends had devised.  It entailed the "love/like" relationships between everyone who was into anyone.  I never really heard a whole lot about this web, it was made last year in school, and I think I heard a bit of it once.  What surprised me, however, was that, apparently, from what Robin let slip, that I was in there-with April.  So apparently, people did know something.  How much they knew, I can't say, but, this throws a whoel new light on the situation of Joe and April and I.  The others must have known, or suspected, if they cared, that I was in torture seeing them together.  I say cared becau se it seemed to me, throughout my relations with these friends of mine, namely Joe, April, Pernish, Maria, Brad, Dan, primarily, that I didn't really fit into their group.  It seemed to me as if I was more on the side, looking in.  Whether they saw it this way or not I can't say, maybe yes, maybe no.  In short, I can't feel as if I was ever really accepted by them. There was too much distance.  The one thing they all shared more than anything else was Academic Competition and Mrs. Pyle.  I wasn't in the class, I was in band, and the two classes met at the same time, zero period.  Band was much more important to me.  While Rachelle wasn't in the class, she went with them on their Long Beach/Model United Nations trip, and, while I had the opportunity to go, was even asked, the band trip to Disneyland was that same weekend.  Needless to say, I didn't go.  So my inclusion in the web comes as a shock, because I really didn't think anyone really cared a whole lot.  I'm not saying they didn't at all.  In fact, they were rather good friends, and provided some time away from reality and school and whatever.  I hung out with them a little, but not a lot, especially away from school.  I was never as close to them as I wanted to be, as they were to each other.  I was a "lesser" fr iend, I suppose, is how I saw it.  It surprises me to realize that I had some feelings for April. Looking back, however, it really doesn't all that much. I did seem to be very concerned whenever she went into an attack, and was melancholy that night at her house in the spa after the senior ball, obviously apparent, at least to Rachelle-which I noted in another entry a while back.  This leads me to understand April's lack of enthuism when I called her over winter break, to tell her about the get-together (which, by the way, Amy, Erin, and I only showed up-the organizers.  When no-one showed up, we went to see Sarah, who was sick and would soon leave California for the east coast, and so I said goodbye.  Then we went to see Nish, who was also sick at home.)  She didn't seem very happy to here from me.  It didn't help that I felt extreme trepidation in just calling her.  After all, I had no idea what was happening between her and Joe, or if anything had been happening, and what she thought of me I got the feeling s he didn't want to talk to me, and so that question was answered for me.  I wonder what will happen If I don't go to Manhattan...

Another topic I distictly recall when conversing with Robin is writing.  I told her how I haven't been able to write anything for so long, and how I'd start something, then stop because I didn't like it.  I told her about the latest such attempt, which has only a unappropiate, temporary name-Hmless, It was going to be a story about the plight of homeless people, and hmless is the name of the file.  However, in a sudden flash of creativity, I wondered what it would be like set in present day America, if the Confederate Army had won the Civil War, and slavery still existed.  I wrote a brief scene introducing this, but all progress stopped, due to a lack of interest and a lack of time, or reason to make time.  I told Robin this premise and she found it interesting, especially when I told her how the main character would see the black homeless man, who was really an escaped slave, and aid him.  I told her I didn't know how far I wanted to take it, but she came straight through with the idea I had at the back of my skull-that even if the Confed's had won the war, that slavery would be abolished eventually, it was onyl a matter of time.  Thus, the theme of my book and the plot.  The main character, the teeange recluse and cynic beguns the transformation between the "a lterante timeline", and life as we know it today-filled with racial strife still, but without slaves nonetheless. I've done some prelimenary research on the subject, on the Confederate States of America, and I think I've found my split from this timeline and the alternate one.  I, right now, plan to change events of the Antietam campaign, in which Lee's battle orders falls into McClellan's hands and Lee is forced back. I plan to have Lee withhold the plans, eventually defeat McClellan, and march to Washington.  The battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg to the Confederates) in Maryland happened on Sep 17, 1862, five days before Lincoln begins the Emancipation Proclamation, published in the newspapers on Sep. 23, 1862 (he wanted to wait until the Union forces held st rength on the field), and the Confederates were crushed.  If Lee's orders never falls into Union Hands, Sharpsburg would never happen.  Instead, Lee would probably defeat McClellan somewhere else, and march onto to Washington.  Thus, I plan to have Lee take Washington, and, Lincoln, failing to escape, is captured.  Then, Confederate forces, their morale boosted, and Union troops, their morale withered, by taking of Washington and Lincoln, will destroy the Union Army. Lincoln will be forced to surreneder, and the Confederate States of America will live.  About 130 years from then, my story will take place, and slavery will die.  Of course, I will need to do a lot mroe research, to see how the Confederate system of government really works, etc. I have ideas, but I need to create a whole 'nother reality, almost as if a fantasy writer.  That means I must have the Confederate States of America, as we know it, down pat-in order to create a present-day society based on that.  It should be a challenge, but I think I can do it. What a great story it would make, one truly worth writing.