**Ok, my dears, I was not very happy with that last chapter, but let's try again, ok?  For those of you not familiar with the word 'ibid', it comes from the Turabian style of citation in history papers.  When you have a citation from the same book more than once in a row, you write ibid, then the page number.  It stands for all the information you just covered, basically. Plus I like the way it sounds. Ibid. **

            He sighed in contentment and sat down at the potters' wheel.  After an interminable day, it was nice to have Independent Study Art.  He could tune out the monotony of his present life and just let go.  He centered his clay and sank into a meditation like state, wetting his hands with slip and hypnotizing himself. 

            The scent of the room was lulling; paint, clay, paper of all kinds, turpentine, and stale cabbage thick with familiarity.  He amused himself for twenty minutes, building the lump up into a graceful tower then pulling it down into a strong, squat cylinder.  Inspiration struck and he stroked a tall, slim vase into being that could have modeled for Vogue had he formed it out of flesh instead of clay. He smoothed out the finger dents, enjoying the hum of the wheel and pressure against his hands. 

            So when someone trilled his name, right next to his ear, he started, jabbing his thumb into the fluted neck, shearing off half of the vase, ending its life when it had barely begun.  Blinking at the destruction of his creation, he turned to the now quiet girl standing just close enough to irritate him.

            "Jeremy! I'm sorry... I called your name several times, but you were, like, zoned out on me…" The petite brunette bit her lip and tilted her head artfully.  She pleaded for forgiveness with enormous blue eyes emphasized with lots of navy eyeliner and mascara. 

            He sighed and scratched his nose, then rubbed the slip off with a clean arm.  "Yes, Trish?  You have my attention now."  He strove to keep the irritation out of his voice and be civil.  At the encouraging lack of unbridled anger in his voice, Trish perked up and beamed, showing off thousands of dollars of dental work.  Apprehension grew as he watched this careful flirtation and he immediately began to dread the moment when she stopped grinning at him and started talking again.

            "Well.  I was sketching over there, and, like, I was wondering…" She giggled.  He sighed inwardly. "Yes?" Jeremy turned fully away from the wheel and folded his hands in resignation.

            "Homecoming is this Saturday.  You wanna?"

            "Want to what?"

            "Go with me, silly!"  She shook her head cutely, showing her amusement at his amusing thickness.  Fidgeting with the hem of her miniskirt, she watched his reply with confidence and chirpy attention.  Rejecting her would feel like swatting a baby sparrow.  Oh well, everyone has a bit of a sadist in them…

            "Trish, you know I'm gay.  Why are you asking me out?" This wasn't the first offer for a date he had received.  After frosh year phys ed, he came out.  It wasn't fun.  Friendships were broken forever, people didn't look at him the same way, and there was a whole new range of jokes and words to use against him.  On the same count, he found out who his true friends were, made new ones, and gained respect for his honesty and courage for facing up to those words and jokes.  So Barbie dolls still considering him on the market irked him.

            Her smile grew a bit fixed. "Well, yeah. But so was Josh, and…"  At that name, he groaned inaudibly.  His ex-boyfriend, the one he came out for, turned out to be bisexual.  Not pretty. This episode in the Days of Their Lives managed to confuse the girls who couldn't wrap their pretty little heads around the concept of bisexuality.  Suddenly, gay men could be converted back to being straight, if only you were pretty enough; if only you were charming enough. 

            "No.  Josh was not gay.  He liked girls and guys.  I don't like girls in that way.  Unless you have suddenly developed an excess of testosterone, I'm still going stag."  Damn, now I've confused her.  Any moment now she'll giggle at my joke weakly, pretending to understand…sometimes I hate people.  I'll just blame this on Josh.  And maybe the color blue.  Not like that's any less weird than Trish Lachlan trying to put the moves on me…geh.

            As if on cue, she giggled halfheartedly and wilted.  "So, no?" 

            "Nope. Sorry."  He turned back to the uncomplicated clay that he could bend to his will so easily and didn't watch Trish extricate herself from rejection unexpected grace.  He slicked his hands and smoothed out the amputated neck of the vase, smoothing the blunted edges and soothing its little clay soul.  And the world continued.

**Ok. Better?  Poor Jeremy.

mispeled: Thanks for the tactful clue.  I wasn't too happy with that first chapter, and I'm afraid I have created that nightmare in my mind all too clearly. Luckily it hasn't seeped into my dream world yet.

Emer: See, its going somewhere! I have more skele-plot written out, I just have to get around to writing it.  I think one of the freakier (and strangest) was when everyone in the world always kept a salt and pepper shaker in front of them at tables.  I had committed a crime of some sort and had the compulsion to keep two salt shakers in front of me.  I had to help some guy out of the country.  The best part of it was when even my unconscious mind questioned the wisdom of the whole salt shaker bit, after I convinced a bartender he was drunk and seeing double.

I worry about myself.

Adios for now. **