10.12.01 - 10:48 p.m.

I'm really leaving, really moving out this time. This is the first time I'll be taking most of my stuff - about 95%, I'd say - when I go, and not going away after Christmas or summer break or for any school-related activities. I don't have someone else's schedule to tell me when I'm coming back or a move-out date to bring me home again. After this I'll have to find the trucks, the movers. I have furniture, a big bed that doesn't all fit in my car.

And as I packed, I thought about poor Bassett and how she always gets the hand-me-downs. It isn't enough that she's the fourth and last of the cousins as well as my little sister. It isn't enough that Moom doesn't even remember what time of day she was born. I get the cool armoire, while my old one sits in her room. I get the first pick of the dishware and she waits for me to get sick of it so she can use it. Yes, we both have cars and TVs and VCRs, but it's just the cruel (and lucky, for me) twist of fate that I take the couches and plates and patio furniture because I need them first. (Actually, Bass, the red patio chairs are still in the storage shed. If you should need them. I am a city mouse, you are a Lancaster mouse.)

I know what it's like to be too late for things, but I've never felt like my whole life has been that way, and I hope she doesn't either. It's not like I try to take anything away from her, except the top bunk when we were kids, and if it were up to me, she'd always have the best and shiniest things I could buy her. But it doesn't always seem like others feel that way or even remember her feelings. And Bassie, you are not my afterthought. I lauve you.