I have complied a list:


Things I Have Learned from Watching Baywatch

1. If you are paralyzed from the waist down, you just need to see a kid being attacked by a murderer and you will be able

to get up and save him.

2. If you have bulimia, it is probably because two men love you at the same time. Just tell the two of them you only want to

be friends and your bulimia will go away.

3. It is always easy to get a parking place near the beach.

4. Male lifeguards always put a shirt on when they leave the beach. Female lifeguards don't need to bother.

5. If you meet a beautiful but troubled girl, she is probably either a diamond smuggler or suffering from a split personality disorder. Do not accept her invitation to dinner.

6. Dick van Patten, though a senior citizen, can be surprisingly hard to quell in a fistfight.

7. If people are dying mysteriously in the water, it is probably because a giant electric eel has escaped from a nearby aquarium.

8. Girls who are thinking about abandoning their baby should just leave it on the beach. Chances are, a nice lifeguard will take

it home, adopt it, and raise it as his own.

9. It is very easy to outswim a shark.

10. Wild seals make adorable and easily trained pets.





Tuesday, December 8, 8:30 p.m.


I just got an e-mail from Lilly. I'm not the only one who got it, either. Somehow she figured out how to do a mass e-mail to every kid in school.

Well, I shouldn't be surprised, I guess. She is a genius. Still, she has clearly developed atrophy of the brain from too much studying, because look what she wrote:

Attention all students at Albert Einstein High School

Stressed from too many exams, term papers and final projects? Don't just passively accept the oppressive workload handed down to us by the tyrannical administration! A silent walkout has been scheduled for tomorrow. At 10 a.m. exactly, join your fellow students in showing our teachers how we feel about inflexible exam schedules, repressive censorship, and having only one Reading Day in which to prepare for our Finals. Leave your pencils, leave your books and gather on East 75th Street between Madison and Park (use doors by main administration offices, if possible) for a rally against Principal Gupta and the trustees. Let your voice be heard!



I am so sure, I can't walk out tomorrow at 10 a.m. That's right in the middle of Algebra. Mr Gianini's feelings will be so hurt if we all just get up and leave.

But if I say I'm not going to take part in it, Lilly will be furious.

But if I do take part in it, my dad will kill me. Not to mention my mom. I mean, we could all get suspended or something. Or

hit by a delivery truck. There are a lot of them on 75th at that time of day.

Why? Why must I be saddled with a best friend who is so clearly a sociopath?





Tuesday, December 8, 8:45 p.m.


I just got the following Instant Message from Michael:

CracKing: Did you just get that whacked-out mass e-mail from my sister?

I replied at once.

FtLouie: Yes.

CracKing: You're not going along with her stupid walkout, are you?

FtLouie: Oh, right. She won't be too mad if I don't, or anything.

CracKing: You don't have to do everything she says, you know, Mia. I mean, you've stood up to her before. Why not now?

Um, because I have enough to worry about right now — for instance, Finals; my impending trip to Genovia; and, oh, yeah, the fact that I love you — without adding a fight with my best friend to the list.


But I didn't say that, of course.

FtLouie: I find that the path of least resistance is often the safest one when dealing with your sister.

CracKing: Well, I'm not doing it. Walking out, I mean.

FtLouie: It's different for you. You're her brother. She has to remain on speaking terms

with you. You live together.

CracKing: Not for much longer. Thank God.

Oh, right. He's going away to college soon. Well, not too far away. About a hundred blocks or so.

FtLouie: That's right. You got accepted to Columbia. Early decision too. I never did congratulate you. So, congratulations.

CracKing: Thanks.

FtLouie: You must be happy that you'll know at least one other person there. Judith Gershner,

I mean.

CracKing: Yeah, I guess so. Listen, you're still going to be in town for the Winter Carnival, right? I mean, you're not leaving for Genovia before the 18th, are you?

All I could think was, Why is he asking me this? I mean, he can't be going to ask me to the dance. He must know I'm going with Kenny. I mean, if Kenny ever gets around to asking me, that is. Besides, it isn't as if Michael is available. Isn't he going with Judith? Well? ISN'T HE?

FtLouie: I'm leaving for Genovia on the 19th.

CracKing: Oh, good. Because you should really stop by the Computer Club's booth at the Carnival and check out this program I've been working on. I think you'll like it.

I should have known. Michael isn't going to ask me to any dance. Not in this lifetime, anyway. I should have known it was just his stupid computer program he wanted me to see. Who even cares? I suppose dumb Army guys will pop out at me, and I'll have to shoot them or whatever. Judith's idea.

I'm sure.

I wanted to write to him, Don't you have the slightest idea what I'm going through? That the only person whom

I can see myself committing to for all eternity is YOU? Don't you KNOW that by now????

But instead I wrote:

FtLouie: Can't wait. Well, I have to go. Bye.



Sometimes I completely hate myself.






Wednesday; December 9, 3 a.m.


You're never going to believe this. Something Grandmere said is keeping me awake.

Seriously. I was dead asleep - well, as asleep as you can be with a twenty-five-pound cat purring on your abdomen — when all of a sudden I woke up with this totally random phrase going around in my head:

'Well, you're his girlfriend now, aren't you?'

That's what Grandmere said when I asked her what was so ingenious about Kenny having sent me those anonymous love letters.

And do you know what?

SHE'S RIGHT.

It seems totally bizarre to admit that Grandmere might be right about something, but I think it's true. Kenny's anonymous love letters DID work. I mean, I AM his girlfriend now.

So what's to keep me from writing some anonymous love letters to the boy / like? I mean, really? Besides the fact that I

already have a boyfriend, and the guy I like already has a girlfriend?

I think this is a plan that might have some merit. It needs further work, of course, but hey, desperate measures call for desperate times. Or something like that. Too sleepy to figure it out.



Wednesday, December 9, Homeroom


OK, I was up all night thinking about it, and I'm pretty sure I've got it figured out. Even as I sit here, my plan is being put into action, thanks to Tina Hakim Baba and a stop at Ho's Deli before school started.

Actually, Ho's didn't really have what I wanted. I wanted a card that was blank inside, with a picture on the front that was sophisticated but not too sexy. But the only blank cards they had at Ho's (that weren't plastered with drawings of kittens on them) were ones with photos of fruit being dipped into chocolate sauce.

I tried to choose a non-phallic fruit, but even the strawberry I got is kind of sexier than I would have liked. I don't know

what's sexy about fruit with chocolate sauce dripping off it, but Tina was like, Whoa, when she saw it.

Still, she gamely agreed to print my poem on the inside of the card, so Michael won't recognize my handwriting. She even

liked my poem, which I came up with at five this morning:

Roses are red


Violets are blue


You may not know it


But someone loves you.


Not my best work, I will admit, but it was really hard to come up with something better after only three hours of sleep last night.

I hesitated somewhat over the use of the L word. I thought maybe I should substitute Like for Love. I don't want him to think there's a creepy stalker after him, and all.

But Tina said Love was absolutely right. Because, as she put it, 'It's the truth, isn't it?'

And since it's anonymous, I guess it doesn't matter that I am laying open my soul.

Anyway, Tina goes by Michael's locker right before we have PE, so she's going to slip it to him then.

I can't believe that this is the low I have stooped to. But like Dad said, faint heart never won fair lady.




Wednesday; December 9, Later in Homeroom


Lars just pointed out that I'm not exactly risking anything, seeing as how I didn't sign the card and even went to the extreme

of having someone else write out the poem for me (Lars knows all about this, on account of the fact I had to explain to him

why we had to go into Ho's at eight-fifteen in the morning). He helped pick the card, but I would be happy if that was the extent of his contribution to this particular project. As a man, I cannot imagine his input is at all valuable.

Besides, he's been married like four times, so I highly doubt he knows anything about romance.

Also, he should know by now we're not allowed to talk during homeroom.

Wednesday, December 9, Algebra, 9:30 a.m.