...As my hands shake like crazy.

Remember Ashley, the eleven-year-old Hilary Duff fan that IMed me? Our little falling out? I still wish she could understand that I care about her. :(

Ashley's also a Jesse McCartney fan. Ashley/Hilary told me how cute he is. I've never heard of him--apparently he's a pop star or something--but sometimes her buddy icon is a picture of him. He's all right, for a younger crowd. Anyway... I got an IM from "jessem01*" the other day. Mysterious, eh? I wish I had saved it... But it wasn't a long conversation, so I didn't. Anyway, he IMed me. I asked immediately, "Is this Jesse McCartney?" He said it was. I asked him if Ashley was still mad at me; he said he didn't know. I don't remember how the rest of the conversation went exactly, but I remember him saying that he and Hilary... or was it he and Ashley?... were cousins. Hilary had also told me that she was cousins with Ashley. A little strange, hm?

That ended when "he" just didn't talk and eventually I signed off.

Today "hilaryd659*" IMed me. (Does this come as a surprise to anyone yet?) I tried to introduce a neutral subject by asking if she had updated her diary yet. She said she hadn't. I said, "Okay. Maybe I'll be able to get into it then. It has been giving me an Error message lately." After I had said that, an idea hit me. "What is the address again? Maybe I am typing it in wrong or something."

She asked, "What address?"

"The one to your diary," I responded.

"I don't know my password," she said.

My first reaction was pity. (Maybe I was getting tired and slow-witted...) I hate it when I forget the passwords to things! Then I remembered that most sites will e-mail your password to you if you forget it, so my next reaction was, Oh, good, she's probably forgotten that; I'll tell her. It hit me just as she wrote, "So I'll have to make a new one."

Ah. I went with my second thought, a tad bit altered: "Can't Diaryland just e-mail your password to you?"

"YES," she said, taking me by surprise. All caps! She never used all caps. So her plan was foiled... What next would she say?

"I want a new name," she told me. Ah, the truth comes out! Not the whole truth, though...

"Why didn't you like your old one?" I inquired.

Crafty girl. "I don't know," she answered. Seriously, how much originality does it take to come up with such befuddling answers? If only we could all have 11-year-old wits again!

Sigh. I gave up. She was typing something else now, anyway.

"Do you want my new name?" she asked.

"Sure," I answered without hesitation. "Your old one doesn't appear to work anyway." And I would like to get further into the mind of this girl. Maybe I'd have more success with her new address than with her old. What will her new name be? I thought drily. HilaryD44 or something?

"Jessem01*," she wrote me.

Jessem01. Uh-huh.

"Okay. That's interesting," I said. (Why didn't I just give up?)

"What?" she asked. Trapped again!

Okay, this time, ALL the guns were coming out!! "Jesse01 IMed me the other day," I typed rapidly. "And, oh, I might add--he claimed that he and Ashley and you are all cousins."

HilaryD659 signed off at 7:06:03 PM.

And that's when I started writing this entry. Wow.

Why am I undertaking this seemingly futile project? Why did God bring this girl across my path? I can't help but wonder, and wonder, and wonder, every time she IMs me anew. (Because, yes, she IMed me--on MSN and AIM both--several times, while I was writing this diary entry.) I found out some interesting things, though, through some crafty questioning of my own. So now I have a LITTLE more of her story and why she does this.

I don't know what the heck to do now, though; it is beginning to get tough to keep talking to her. Round and round and round! Our conversations get nowhere and all the while I'm wondering if I am just setting her up for more hurt in the future. She got mad at me a couple times for not giving her my phone number and bringing up safety again. It was actually pretty interesting--in the same conversation, she said, "I'm mad at you; I don't want to talk to you; bye" and then later, "I'm sorry I was mean to you. Are you mad at me?" and then later again, "You're sounding like my mother, so I'm mad at you again." Wow.

I can't help but wonder if EVERY age is full of drama like this? I've seen it in junior high and high school, obviously, and have thanked heaven I am out of both; today I hear of it in college, and now I've seen it in even elementary school! Has the world gone mad? Perhaps it was placed here, just as Martin said in Candide, "to make us mad." It certainly does a good job from time to time!!

The worrisome thing was, after she asked me for my phone number, and I refused, I asked her, "Would you give me your phone number if I asked for it?" And she said yes! If she would tell me, then who else would she tell?

I need to stop thinking about it, because it's only making me worry more... And I still have homework to finish, and tomorrow is the SuperBowl, so good luck on me getting anything done then... Not that I am a football fan, but I go to the parties and socialize. Goodness gracious... Father in heaven, hear me, and please protect that young girl of Yours. Love her, Jesus, show her where You are. I love You, Jesus. In Your name, Amen.

-Stephanie

*Screen names have been changed.