So break me down if it makes you feel right

Good morning or evening, depending on when you read this.

I am Manuel de la Rocha (as some of you know) and yes, I do live and have returned. Please, for those who know me, spare me your animosity. I am here to _recover_. Not to fight. For those who don't know me, the invitation is there should you desire a meeting. Please give me some advance notice before you 'drop in'. Thank you.

-Manuel

What a _strange_ week it's been.

If anyone needs me - too bad. You won't find me, because I won't be here and I _really_ don't want to be found. Not right now, not with everything going on.

I find myself disinclined to spend any more time under the same roof as the womanthing who broke me and my father's killer. I ... I just can't.

Charles - I am of my majority now, even here in America. I believe it is time to discuss my departure from all of this. Assassins, vampires, broken hearts that will never mind, all the best of me given and spurned, links, life, death, sex, empathy - it's all just _too much_. I'll take my chances in Spain, or find alternative arrangements here.

Manuel de la Rocha

I'm going to go take a walk.

I should be back by Sunday later this evening. I find that things around the house are a little unpleasant for me, so I think I'll try to get a little distance. All of you who haven't had your families assassinated enjoy spending time with them.

It's not even my holiday. I don't give a toss what happened to cause this day of thanksgiving. It is absurd to get this angry. Yet here I am, about to go take a walk into the woods and scare the shit out of the people on the ISS again. Assuming they're in orbit over North America.

(For those lacking a sense of humor, I'm really not sure if I can sense the ISS astronauts or not. But when I've got to let it all go, straight up is the direction I send it. Only thing I have to be careful of are passing birds - I've already been shat on once.)

I was on my way down to Medical, to see if I could get any final instructions before I was escorted to my appointment with the vet to look at Frank. He was on my shoulder, like he usually does when we go out, when I felt somebody grabbing at my body, grabbing at my very life, sucking it away.

I've felt that before. While I was in the bath, months ago. When Rack used my empathic link to Amanda to try to siphon away my life from me.

I'm fine. A little dizzy, but I'm fine. But when I picked myself up off the ground, I saw that Frank ...

Frank didn't make it.

Whatever lifedrain there was was only strong enough to knock me down, but it was strong enough to snuff him out like a candle. The fall didn't get him - there's no obvious damage that I can see.

I felt him die. He didn't have much as far as emotions or a brain went, but I felt it wink out, snuffed like a candle.

I suppose I won't be needing that escort to the vet any more.

I think we all know who did this. There is only one person in the entire Mansion who possibly could.

Like father, like daughter, I suppose.

I'll bury him in the Rose Garden. I think I know the perfect spot.

Disturbed's new album Ten Thousand Fists _rocks_.

That is all.

PS -

You were bold and strong, and ready to begin your life
All for nothing, you were sacrificed
You began alone, and so it will be when you die
All for nothing, will you be remembered?
You did decide

Guarding yourself from the love of another
Left you with nothing tonight
So now you know why the Devil is laughing
He left you with nothing tonight
You did decide.

Is exotic body-art a new hobby around here?

I saw the decorations Ms Blaire was sporting. Very retro, very ugly. If you're going to do body-mod, at least have the good grace to do it _right_, hmm? Or maybe she's trying to set a glam trend!

Regardless, they're ugly. Hideously ugly. I mean, really. Claw-marks? Passe. Definitely passe. Unless mauled-by-a-bear is the new In Thing?

I decide to get academically ambitious and try to cram three courses into my summer?

SHOOT ME.

The work's not all that hard, and it's all stuff I like, but I am working myself ragged here to try to catch up. I want to graduate and move on, not sit back here and take English for Idiots and Foreigners. Again.

At least Microeconomics is interesting. It's all interconnected. Which leads me to my Finance course, which leads me smack into my Business Math course.

It's funny how someone in-tune with emotion like I am is taking the driest and dustiest and non-passionate courses I could find...

I'll be trying to staunch this nosebleed that I've had since last night. I'm running out of gauze.

Damn, I've been having some real brain-mushing nightmares. Did not sleep well last night. Anyone want to hazard a guess why I'm dreaming of blondes and swords and evil?

Bugger the studying, bugger everything else.

I am going to lay outside. On a blanket. With a pitcher of cool drinks. And not much at all for covering. And all I am going to do today is soak up some sun.

The sun and I haven't gotten along like we should lately. I'm getting dreadfully pale.

Marie-Ange, if you and the new girl would like to go out later today for coffee, let me know. For that, I will get dressed and be presentable.

Ahhhh, the sun.

Manuel

I now have a much better grip on myself and upon circumstances today.

When you people get all worked up, you people get _all worked up_. Had to take off for a bit before I did anything _really_ drastic. But the stress levels have dropped significantly around here, back down to tolerable levels.

I can deal.

Thanks to Mr Summers for dealing with his own shit, and to him and Amanda for helping me deal with mine. Finals are always stressful, and if I devote enough of my concentration to making a thick-enough shield so that I can block you lot out, it reduces me to the intelligence of a sea-slug. And I'm actually giving a shit this semester, so I can't just blow off the work to keep myself sane.

Let's see if we can keep things on a fairly low boil until the semester's over, now, shall we?

EDIT: Amanda's enrolled me in a DJing contest at one of the local clubs. I know you lot would probably much rather see me bleed out slowly than see me perform, but assuming I make it past the prelims, it would help my confidence and my faith in my classmates to see a few of you there...

SON OF EDIT: Well, after spending much of my day in consultation with Charles, I may or may not be performing at the club contest after all. He believes, and I am forced to concur, that threatening to sanitize everyone's emotions to my liking tends to, as he puts it, be disinclined to acquiesce to my requests for a public outing. I've got some hard work to do to earn the priviledge of going out and competing. I also have a homework assignment - to write a short paper on passive aggression and how to avoid it. *sighs*