the first thing my dad said was, "this apartment smells like gas." i'd been smelling gas for the last two weeks, but a) i wasn't sure if it really was gas and b) i didn't know what to do if it was indeed a gas leak. so i let it be. chris was pretty much on the same wavelength as me. "it smells like gas, but i don't feel like telling anyone about it."

so my dad moved the stove and proceeded to take a lighter and set the entire gas line on fire. he just flicked the lighter and, *poof*, the entire rope connecting the stove to the gas line went up into flames. i immediately freaked out, but my dad assured me that it was no problem. "so what if part of your kitchen is on fire? it's no big deal." he rationalized, "it's better if it burns than if it doesn't." i didn't see the logic in this.

i called the maintenance people, and a mexican was dispatched to the apartment in under ten minutes. he inspected the area in question and then came back a few minutes later with another gas rope. he must have had a box of these things lying around somewhere. which makes me think this happens all the time. biweekly, even.

"so what's the worst thing that happens with a gas leak?" i asked my dad, to make small talk.

"it leaks and either the apartment blows up or you die from carbon monoxide poisoning."

"oh. so it's a lose-lose situation?"

"yes."

well, thank god that's taken care of now. we'd have let it go on for months, years, without taking any sort of action, until one day i either went to work with no eyebrows or, perhaps, dead.

speaking of dead, later we ended up talking about jaclyn dowaliby. does anyone remember her? they made a movie about her starring shannen doherty as the mother. jaclyn was a girl who was in my grade school in midlothian who was kidnapped and killed. i was always obsessed with her when i was little, because i had kind of known her, she had my same name, and she was a little girl like me, only dead. i had almost seen her as a sort of sister figure- my helpless, sweet, midlothian name-twin found slain in a basement. she had lived only a few blocks away. maybe we would have grown up to be best friends. at least i assume we would have, if only the unspeakable hadn't happened.

there are certain figures that i feel incredible bonds with. jaclyn dowaliby has always been one of them, more so when i was little. she even looked like me, a tad, with her dark hair and brown eyes. looking at pictures of her now, on the internet, i am shaken. another incredible bond i have always felt is with anne frank. i am certain, about 97% certain, that if past lives do exist, my past life was anne frank. some people like to think they were cleopatra or some other sexy egyptian; i think i was a girl in an attic keeping a diary. she seems more optimistic than i would have been, but maybe living through her life hardened me for this one. even when i look at pictures of anne frank, i feel that connection. when i read her diary, it was like reading an old journal, or blog, entry that i had scrawled out a few weeks ago. i'm not a mystic, but i'm just saying- there's something there.

anne frank and jaclyn dowaliby. how can i explain? i can't. all the gas fumes have gone to my head, and i'm not being coherent.