I think I don't like nights where there is pressure to do certain things. I always feel like I am doing the wrong thing.

I told my dad that my windshield wiper broke because I am in a bad mood and he told me that my windshield wiper broke because my windshield had too much ice build up.

I cannot decide who's right.

I'm feeling all sorts of foul today. Yoga didn't make me feel better. Getting a haircut didn't make me feel better. I want today to be better.

I feel like you are being unreasonable.
You feel like I am being unreasonable.
We're all being unreasonable.
There are no compromises.

Things I purchased today:
Shampoo
Conditioner
Razors
Mascara
Bras
Leggings
Tights

Seriously body? How did the upper half get so much bigger without my waist getting much bigger? At some point I remember wanting this.

Repeatedly it comes back to expectations of people. I don't like to not have expectations of people. It means I don't care. Colin said he expects respect. But what is respect? What is it that people do if they respect me? Does respect mean: I will call you when I say I will? Or is it more about gutteral feelings for a person? When I respect people I call them when I say I will. I compromise. I do things that they want to do. I have conversations with them that I find interesting. I tell them about my life and ask about theirs. Some people do this for me. Some people don't. But I don't want to discard the people that don't. Especially not when they are okay sometimes. I get so upset when people are disappointing to me.

But it evens out. I become satisfied so quickly with people. I like everyone so much.

However this speaks enormously about Knox at the moment. I don't think I've ever looked forward to seeing this many people when returned to school before.

I realized I like to be wherever it is that I like more people, which sadly isn't St. Paul right now.

Not to say I don't like you, negative feelings are just overwhelming the good ones at times.

I made a hat. Watched a show about Everest and decided I want to climb it. Was glad I had a new hat to wear on my trip. Went to work out at 10:30PM. Realized that I will never be in good enough shape to make it to base camp.

I am so tired.

(What do you want from me?)
(I want you to wake me up.)

I hate how much I hate Larry. I don't want to be such a resentful human being. Sometimes I wonder if I would hate him so much if my mom introduced him to the situation differently. Instead of "This is Larry and he's now living in our house," it might have been preferable if she started with dinner or something. Sadly, I don't think this is the case. I don't think there is any case where I would like Larry better.

I hate the feeling of staying in bed all day. My muscles feel atrophyed.

Christmas got better.

We got hungry and the hunger forced us to breakfast and from there to presents. Then I went to my dad's and watching a movie by myself with a giant glass of wine and knitting.

I am disappointed in my mother. The one thing I really really wanted for Christmas was to eat the meals at normal times and have things run smoothly and they didn't, not a single meal. Every meal has been several hours late thus far. It's a matter if principle I think. It's not about being hungry and annoyed, but rather it's a sign of things being not well, her inability to function as a normal human being. I guess really what I was saying was, "I want you to be a functional being for two days for Christmas." But it didn't happen.

Who knew I had such nice neighbors?

I woke up on Christmas morning, approximately half an hour ago in a panic because I forgot to move my car for the daytime plowroute and getting my car towed on Christmas would not be very merry.

I asked my brother to help me scrape the snow off my car as I was not dressed, but by the time he got his winter clothes on I was ready to go. He helped scraped the snow off my car, but as he cannot yet drive, he is not very adept at doing so. Of course, my snow got stuck in the foot on snow on the ground and I asked him to get the shovel. He asked why I couldn't get the shovel. I said because I was driving. He then continued to stand there while I tried to drive my car over the snow. So I asked him to get the shovel several more times. He couldn't find the snow shovel, so he brought me a normal shovel. Like for dirt. Then he went inside and sat on the couch leaving me stranded, unable to move outside. Luckily three of my neighbors came and helped me. I went inside, expecting him to have seen the neighbors come help, but in reality he just gave up and went inside. This did not make me happy and I told him so. That did not make him happy and he stormed off and now he refuses to see me because I'm bossy and mean and lazy because I insisted on driving my car while trying to move it. How ridiculous right?

So basically Christmas is ruined. I should feel worse, but I don't, because I don't feel like I was in the wrong. I think he is really irrationally upset and when Kevin is upset he just leaves. For example: he has lived at my dad's house for the past five years or so because he is upset with my mother. I mean he's 15. When I was 15 I got upset over things like this. I apologized several times and he insisted I was lying. Whatever. I'm not going to let it concern me.

Christmas was so much better before the narcolepsy got bad.

My dad bought a llama for a family in a third world country. I think this is my favorite present.

Merry Christmas Eve!

I went to see Avatar with my dad tonight. It was my dad's pick. I thought it was really awful. I will try to articulate my reasoning now:
1. The culture of the blue people was a culmination of stereotypes of lots of oppressed groups of people around the world. They acted like Native Americans act in Pocahantas. I was expecting them to start singing about the colors of the wind. They had braids in their hair, which connected them with black people. Yet they were animal-like, which equates all of these cultures with animals.
2. They were stupid. Yes, I know they call the white boy stupid repeatedly, but he's only stupid when he acts like one of them, kind of like how I would come off as stupid if I pretended to be black. He's stupid because he's pretending to be one of them, which really, the horrible white guy in the movie is right, he can never be one of them.
3. They needed white boy to come in and save them. Their knowledge simply wasn't enough. Not only did they need white boy to lead them, he had sex with the princess all the while knowing that he was betraying them. Way to be a jackass.
4. The message of the movie was really obvious: don't destroy other cultures. But white boy's presence was culture destroying. He was not an observer. He took over.
I spent the whole movie being ashamed of being white and watching white culture make a movie that was so terribly offensive. I don't think this is the way to approach race issues.

On the bright side, there's a blizzard! It looks so Christmasy outside.

Stupid thoughts on the ride home:
People changed in college.
I am vastly different from who I was at some point in time in the past.
The people around me are different/the same.
Things that once would have made me happy don't anymore.
I have different expectations.
I am not satisfied as easily.
When I am satisfied it's more satisfying.
I want to have a good time.
What is a good time?
When is the last time I had one?
I have the eery feeling that everyone I know has thought these exact things before.
I don't want to hurt anyones feelings and make them think I don't like them, because I do, but individually.
I like to do activities all the time.
I like to talk to people one on one.
I like to talk to people one on one that I don't know wholly.
I like to do things with people I know really well.
Also people I don't know really well.
How do I state that I've changed and they've changed without making it sound bad?
Because it isn't bad.
It just happens.
What's going to happen?
This is stupid.
It's annoying to think in cliches.
Do I normally think in cliches?
I think I might.
Oh no Larry is at my house.
My mom decorated the table all Christmasy.
I really love my mom right now.
I love Roald Dahl. I want to read.
I am going to write a blog post.

I do like my mother sometimes. I really do. I made scones this afternoon and she gave me a Christmas present early and it was a Japanese Tea Set with cute little tea cups that I've been saying that I wanted forever. Then she poured me some amaretto and we sat around talking. It was nice.

Sometimes doing yoga makes me hate my body. I think that means I am doing it wrong.

Other times I appreciate the lines it makes. I was painting several years ago and I overheard by boss say, "You aren't painting lines." But we are very full of lines, in a soft sort of way.

Today we were doing twists on the floor and I looked at my arm and it was so strange because it looked like my arm, but I had a hard time identifying at such. This happens with my legs sometimes too.

My body keeps telling me I should not go to yoga and I should stay in bed and knit. So tempting.

I can't sleep and so I figured I should post about something. Before I went to sleep last night I distinctly thought, "I'm tired." Tired both physically and mentally. I then thought, "Good thing I can sleep for a reasonably long time tonight." I woke up at 6:30 feeling highly disappointed.

I also spent a long time thinking about caring. What is caring? If I don't care what someone does, does that mean that I don't care about them? If I have to actively deny that I don't care about something does that mean I actually do care about it since I have to think about whether or not I care? It's just an odd emotion.

I'm always really hungry when I wake up in the morning.

My mother and I do puzzles together. By do puzzles together I mean that we have a puzzle in progress in the family room and we work on it at different times until it is finished. I really like doing puzzles. It's totally engulfing.

I have a resigned sort of confusion towards people right now. I don't understand, but it's okay. Either way things will be alright, because I was already expecting that. Now I just don't know. I think I might just say, "I don't understand."

I used to think I was exceptionally good at understanding people. I no longer think this.

I had this teacher in elementary school who always told us that we were pushing her buttons. She had a lot of buttons. We pushed them most days. Her husband also worked at my elementary school. He got mad at his math class and threw a bookshelf. He got fired and she left too because she didn't want to work without her husband. They were Hmong. There were a lot of Hmong students at my school, so it probably seemed like a good idea to hire them except they were awful teachers. Her favorite student was a boy named John. We made jokes about them kissing, not realizing the implications of this.

Last night I was thinking about what kind of girl I was and decided that I am convenience girl. I am a convenient person. I am there and am something to do or seem like the right thing to do and then convenient time ends. I think this stems from my desire to always be around people and thus accept what they need.


Also: The Walker last night was really good. They had a Dan Graham exhibit which I enjoyed in the manner that I always enjoy things with lots of reflective surfaces (i.e. mirrors). I also really enjoy the Benches & Binoculars exhibit where they got lots of pieces together and hung them on a wall and places benches with binoculars at different angles in the room. Quasi MB- "In the Middle of its Story" was interesting from a poetic aspect. There were a lot of poems about the rain and showers and other things and then he drenched the paper he wrote the poems on. So if anyone has a chance to go to the Walker soon, I would recommend going.

People turn into computers. Computers turn into people. Fuck you, computer people, for not be good enough, satisfying enough. For most of you I make excuses: real people don't act like this. But other computer people make me angry. Fuck your presence that is not presense.

Fuck six week breaks where everyone turns into nothing, but mostly I decompose. When I went to visit Perpich I told John that I spend all day doing yoga and knitting and he said, "But what could be better than that?" I need something to wind down from. I'm winding down from a down into a deeper down and now I'm stuck. I want to go up up up.

Do I fail and become an inadequate person just because those around me don't live up to my expectations? Are my expectations too high and that's what makes me inadequate? I don't really know what others expect of me. I know what I expect of others and don't always live up to that.

What do you expect out of a person?

Oh teary Tasha.

It really doesn't matter how much I dislike Larry. It doesn't. I can deal with it. But he leaves my dog outside for long periods of time when it's zero degrees out and doesn't let him in when he barks. That is not acceptable. Treat people however the fuck you want to, but be nice to my dog.

Do you ever feel inadequate as a human being? I just feel like I am lacking something. No, I feel like other people feel like I am lacking something. I am lacking something.

Good, I'm glad to be continuing my streak of ruining friendships.

I really need to stop this. I do.

My brother posted the hateful comment on my blog. I know because he just used the word "trifling." He said kids at his school say "trif."

I think I might not be thinking.

This has always been a dilemma for me: Stay home alone or go somewhere and do something I don't want to be doing. Most of the time I do what I don't want to do, as I don't really like stay at home by myself. However, I've been trying to be more assertive lately and not do things I don't want to do. I will probably do what I usually do, eat dinner, sit at home for awhile, and then go out of lack of better things to do. The real solution here is to find better things to do. I am working on it.

This break is about balance. A lot of literal balancing, which I've gotten significantly better at and a lot of metaphorical balancing. I'm not sure what I'm metaphorically balancing, but I'm pretty sure it's something.

I got my first negative comment on my blog after having it for more than a year. I'm not quite sure what to think about it. I do whine quite a bit, they aren't entirely wrong. It's part of my charm. I also like a lot of things a lot. I think it might be split between those. I started this blog because Colin and Martin had blogs they wrote in a lot and I was in Italy and I was lonely and I wanted somewhere to post my poetry. Colin stopped posting poetry on his blog incase he wanted to publish it somewhere, but the large majority of the things I post on here are not of a publishable sort of quality. When I am happy and occupied I write less. When I am happy and occupied I talk to people more. However, there are many times in my life where I do not have the people around to talk to about things that I need to say and so I say them to my blog instead. I think it would be better to disregard what anonymous had said instead of responding to it with their own blogpost, but I never do what I really should do. Yes, I whine on my blog, but my life is happier than it appears on a computer screen. This is everytihng that is left over from my day, that wasn't able to come out of my mouth. If you don't like it, don't read it.

I just cried about everything. Everything everything everything. But now I'm okay.

My old dog, Caramel, made paths in the backyard. One path for all three gates as if she needed to explore the limits of our yard. Tanner just runs around like crazy, leaving paw prints everywhere. This is very descriptive of their personalities.

I should not bake things that need to be refrigerated for 3-4 hours or overnight. I have no patience. It's not even an impatience to eat as much as an impatience to see. But oh geeze I love baking.

Sleeping Beauty

It was as if life
had been one long
commulative yawn,
peaking at the middle
with a little squeal
of exhaustion
and she collapsed
into slumber
with few thoughts
as to what had been.

This week has seemed so long.

I don't want to wear clothes.

I accidentally woke up an hour too early this morning. While I was trying to go back to sleep, I heard noises coming from what sounded like the corner of my room. I could only imagine that some giant rodent was in my room. I don't actually dislike giant rodents, I just prefer knowing when they are there. The noise grew so loud, eventually I went to look and saw something outside my window. At first it looked like two paws of a larger animal, but then a little bird head popped up and I realized that three little birds were sitting on my windowsill and the noise I heard was them fluttering and bumping against the glass.

It's nice to see animals in winter.

Okay okay okay.
I know what I want all right?
Time is always the problem.

I think perhaps everyone has the same problems.

You had problems and I had problems because of the problems your problems caused me which cause problems with the problems that other people have and thus we all have the same problems.

I want to be in one of those places where I really love everyone. It's not that I don't, it's that everyone is making me really nervous right now.

I've noticed that when people workout, they don't look at other people as much as they look at themselves. Secretely, we're all making sexy eyes at the mirror.

I hear it's going to snow on Tuesday. My first thoughts was, "However will I get to yoga class?" I hope it doesn't start until 11:45 when I get home. It's time for snowboots.

No one looks as good naked as they should. The really skinny girls are full of bones. The old women are saggy. Everyone else has odd areas of accumulated fat.

Except then I thought about most of the people I've seen naked in an intimate setting and I have found most of their bodies to look better naked than anyone should ever look.

Thinking about bodies always makes me lonely.

I'm going to go run.

I really need to get out of bed.

Every weekend I go see really wonderful things and fall in love with the people in them. Really deeply in love. The nice thing about music is that I can listen to it at home as well.

Haircut

When I came home I found my mother cooking chowder and was offered a slice of homemaid apple pie. It seemed so normal. Except it was 2:30 in the morning.

Yesterday:
Sniffly
runny nose, sneezing
Today:
Sore throat

Uh oh.

In order to jump up somewhere my cat stands on his hindlegs to gauge the height and then steps back and jumps and thus rarely fails unless his fat brings him down, which due to his size, happens occasionally.

I feel awful tonight, just awful.

After years of careful analysis
I've come to the conclusion that nouns
are the problem.
Proper nouns especially.
To say:
I tried to sit down on the chair
but it fell out from beneath me
and I hit the floor.
To say:
I tried to sit down on the -
but it fell out from beneath me
and I hit the-
It would be melodramatic to say
I lost you
but to say
I lost -

Oh geeze my muscles are sore.

Things found under bed:

Tea ball
Box of bandaids
Spool of thread
Red solo cup
More socks
Anthology of short stories by Alice Adams
Advice from the Happy Hippotamus by Cloud Cult
Skein of blue yarn
Cardigan knitting pattern
Brochure for the Florence 2008 program
Headband
Tye-dyed t-shirt
"Egmont" by Johann Wolfgang Goethe
Box containing flashcards and bottle opener
Small German-English dictionary
"Life Before Man" by Margaret Atwood
Poorly knit hat
Condom wrapper
"Immensee" by Theodor Storm
"Bergkristall" by Adalbert Stifter
A clothes hanger
Post-it notes

Interesting things I have found while cleaning my room:

4 partially consumed wine bottles
High school year book
High Senior Thespian Society sweater shirt
500000000 knitting needles
600000000 partially used skeins of yarn
1 partially consumed bottle of margarita mix, which means we have to make guacamole and eat tacos soon.
500 badly knit hats
700 socks
Love letters.

As much as I complain about having nothing to do, break is quite nice. I woke up at 9 this morning to go to yoga and then I came home and made a turkey sandwich with Thanksgiving turkey leftovers and then I knit for 6 hours and then I went and sat in Coffee News with Danny and Colin. This is vaguely reminscent of break first year when all I did was go to yoga, knit, and hang out with Danny. Life is coming full circle again. I love it when life comes full circle.

We've had lots of mice in my house over the years. My old dog, Caramel, used to catch them and she would walk around the house with them, their little tails dangling out of her mouth. Eventually she would take them outside, but we could say, "Caramel, go get the mouse," and she knew exactly what we were talking about. Even Kirby, my fat cat has been able to catch one or two, but he doesn't display that sort of excitement. Another time, I found that the rubber base of the wall of the family room had fallen over. Upon closer inspection, I found several dead baby mice stuck to it, covered in shit. They must've been running behind it and reached a part that was extra sticky and died. It was a horrifying scene.

I saw another mouse tonight.

Good good, I'm glad everyone knows more about my life than I do.

My table is being annexed by a middle aged man with papers that he's looking through. I'm feeling thoroughly alienated.

The people at the table across from me are on a date or if they are not on a date they should be on a date. The woman has a nice face. The man looks bland.

There are a lot of Mac students here, talking too loudly. We all feel self-rightous about this space.

There's a seeing eye dog in Dunn's. It makes the atmosphere intensely more enjoyable.

Why does tonight feel so lonely? I want to talk.

I feel kind of bummed today and don't know why.
Am considering going to Dunn's and sitting with a book and my knitting.

I think I could like everything and everyone if only they showed up in my life at the right time. The problem is that often people show up at the wrong time or I read things before/after I should. I like it when things happen when they should happen. When things happen as they should.

People talk about poetry as if it were an afflication of some kind.

"Oh, she came down with a case of poetry, she hasn't been the same ever since."

Also, one of my favorite things to read about is poets. Like they are another species which I want to be a part of, but only the sincere poets, not the poets who are poets just to give themselves the label.

Those beautiful darlings
sitting and drink their coffee
as if no one was watching
but they watch each other
in a momentary eye-flickering,
finger twitching glance
and scribble love poems
on napkins which they leave
face down underneath their cup.

COLIN I LEFT MY KNITTING AT YOUR APARTMENT. I WILL USE MY PHONE TO COME GET IT.

I will also use my phone to be friendly again. I'm sorry, I get so phone shy when I first come home and Jenny and Danny kept calling me.

I saw a WONDERFUL dance show tonight. I never use caps lock, that's how good it was WONDERFUL. Moslty only two dances were WONDERFUL. But they were so good.

Dear Mother and Larry,

This is the second time tonight I've been woken up by your arguing. Please stop, I have to run a 5K in an hour and a half and I couldn't get to sleep until 4AM because it was 59 degrees in the house and I was freezing.

I'll make the goddamn rolls if you'll just be quiet for a bit longer.

-Tasha

Is it okay that I miss you? And you and you and you.

It always seems wrong to miss people.

Breakfast
Yoga
Lunch
Borealis (yarn store)
Knitting
Dinner (I'm really hungry)

Good day thus far.

I hate money

"Someday I wish you could be financially independent."

"I hope to be financially dependent someday as well."

"No, IN-dependent."

"That's what I meant."

My mom needs a hip replacement and can barely walk so I went grocery shopping for her today. I just love grocery shopping. I find it so satisfying. I am really good at making decisions while grocery shopping too. I think that's why I love it, all the decision making.

This break I want to wake up. I shut down during fall term. I want to be places again and get upset about things and happy about things.

I slept for 14 hours yesterday. I must've been exhausted.

It is so good to be home/There are things at school I will miss

I really like seeing the fields filled with wind turbines with all of them moving.

Yeah, I'm home now. Let's hang.

Doesn't a breakfast bagel with bacon on it sound fantastic right now?

(Bring me one?)

I'M DONE.

I was outside with Anna and someone in the distance started making bird noises and then Anna started making bird noises and then someone elsewhere started making bird noises.

My butt is for real going numb from sitting here too long. But I am on page thirteen of my revision.

Sigh sigh.
Still writing.

I'm working on this story and a bunch of things in the story just came up in real life. Everything just works out too well. I just want to show people my story and say, "See look, I understand what you are saying. I do that too."

I hate writing about emotions.

From now on I am just going to describe processes that are emotionless. Do those exist?

I find writing fiction really difficult. I find writing really difficult. This is because I write about things that I find difficult.

For my next story I am going to write about something I am indifferent to and see how that goes. The problem is that I am generally not a very indifferent person, I either like things or don't like things.

It's comforting.

I say: everything is fine.
It has been drizzling for several days
and I say
that like it means something.

This is what it is to wake up
in the morning
and hear tires on wet pavement.

But I say
everything is fine.

I wish moods weren't so transferable. I wish that other people didn't have to have negative moods that transfered. Meaning, I wish people didn't do awful things to people I like which make them upset and then in turn make me upset because I'm upset that they're upset because I don't want them to be upset.

I have a terrible time working when I'm listening to music I like a lot, because I just get so excited about it I can't concentrate.

My mummy has to get a hip replacement. Apparently it's genetic.

I wanted to make a joke about genes and jeans, but then refrained.

Finals Update #1

I think I haven't started talking about finals yet, because I am less except to go home. It's sad isn't it?

Here are the things I have left to do:
1. 3 journals for Latin American Women Writers
2. 7-9 page paper for Latin American Women Writers
3. Correct mistakes in my Germany essay and make the works cited page.
4. Revise two stories.
5. Workshop 3 stories.

It doesn't seem like that much and it isn't really, except for the story revisions. I am not living in a place of either of those stories, nor do I desire to be in a place of either of those stories.

Life is okay otherwise though. I want to write a poem, but I don't have the right words right now.

I realized that in my facebook status, after I posted it, that it made it seem like I would list things I want to be doing right now on my blog.

However, I will refrain from doing this. They aren't very articulate. Or they are and I just don't want to share.

Julia once asked me how I felt about my arms.

I told her that they were my arms and it's just how they looked, like it was normal, like they were supposed to look that way.

I decided music is too emotionally overwhelming for me right now, so I am reading texts from last night.

Oh Thursdays. When did you become Friday?

Isn't it nice, when someone you don't know very well, but dislike for whatever reason, justifies your dislike of them?

Also, when you like someone that you don't know very well and they justify that.

People just keep acting very much themselves.

I might be becoming too radical. I need to go live on a mountain somewhere.

There is a hornet stuck inside on the third floor of the library. I cannot help but wonder how it got here.

I just feel lovely right now. I'm not sure why. I just do.

I love it when people are happy and excited. It makes me happy and excited even though I have no reason to be.

I like to picture emotions as little floaty things that fly around the air.

Everyone has some phase in life where they are obsessed with something. Like a band or a movie or a person, but I'm more talking unobtainable obsessions. With the advent of facebook and other such sites, we can witness the obsession of others. I just woke up from a nap and so my thinking might be fuzzy, but I started to wonder if these obsessions are actually saitsfying. To be so in love with something that will never love you back. It seems rather silly. I say this while knowing I have my own obsessions, authors that I love too much, but still. They are not my life. I think though, the degree of obsession in other people interests me a great deal.

I think I'm looking for something satisfying. I have no great obsessions currently. There are people I find interesting, I'm reading good things, but I don't know if this is something that can sustain me.

Maybe this weekend. I say that before every weekend, before every term. But maybe. Because I am satisfied, sometimes. I just tend not to state it when I am, but rather I state it when I am not.

When something is wrong, I like to pretend that I don't know what it is, even though I really do.

WHAT IF I HAVE NARCOLEPSY?

Okay, so I've definitely talked on the third floor of the library.

But these people have been talking on the third floor of the library for like an hour. They are talking about their drinking habits and the worst hangovers they've had and about how Chris doesn't remember much. I don't know who Chris is.

I want to make a paper airplane that says "be quiet" on it and throw it at them in a fit of passive aggressive rage.

Mostly I'm enraged because I can't seem to get any work done. I especially cannot write and I have a story due tomorrow.

Chris peed on their landing.

I know who one of the people talking is.

One of them is also eating in the library.

I am so hungry, I just want to eat forever. Dinner was not satisfying.

People on either side of me are talking now.

Library

Ugh today.
Ugh tomorrow.
Ugh yesterday.

I need something to look forward to.

I failed at showering. I shaved legs twice and forgot to put conditioner in my hair. I'm extra clean now though. Maybe I succeed at showering.

Also, not eating dinner until 11:15 makes me really crabby.

Marla lived in Texas.
All the boys described her as hot.
She even liked to drink her beer warm.
Sex was good year round except during her period
when she would masturbate till her arms grew tired.

Mary lived in Minnesota.
She liked men.
She didn't like men.
She liked everybody.
She was promiscuous.
She was a prude.

Marla wondered what snow looked like,
how the naked branches of trees felt.
Mary thought about the cyclical nature of her life.
She wanted a new boy.
Things with the old one had turned cold.

Do you ever meet people or re-meet people and you just get a feeling from them and that feeling dictates everything you feel about them from then on?

Today I heard this girl talk for the first time. I had seen her before, but hadn't heard her speak and she sounded just like she should sound. I didn't like her much, I didn't like her before, but this dislike was based off nothing.

Or seeing someone and thinking that you are supposed to be friends with them, but aren't sure why. But then you are friends with them and they are exactly how they are supposed to be, even though you weren't sure what that was.

I'm losing faith in speech to get to know people. I meet them and I just know.

I am questioning the value of willpower.
I must have some right? I get my work done instead of doing things I'd rather be doing.
How does willpower get measured?
Let's say I wanted a cigarette.
Does the amount of willpower I have increase with the amount that I want a cigarette?
Should I be rewarded with something greater? Or will the desired reward just be what I desired to begin with?
I think this is a common problem around finals time.
I want to do everything but my work.
This takes an intense amount of willpower.
Can't I be rewarded with all the things I want to do?

Oh geeze.
Some people.
It's really too much.
In a good sort of way
Also, an awful sort of way.
A could be even better way.

I'm listening to a song this is making my eyes go nuts, but I'm listening to it, so it's not really logical for my eyes to be reacting. Does that ever happen to you?

Secretly I've always wished someone would make a secret about me for Knox Postsecret.

I think most people do.

I think some people have made secrets about themselves. I know that some people have made secrets about themselves.

Fuck getting good grades, fuck going to Austria or whatever I end up doing next year. My new goal is to be a secret.

But how does one make themselves a secret for another person?

SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE.

Both my roommates are in the livingroom watching tv. I don't know why I haven't joined them. I just can't. I just want to lie down and listen to music. Then I just wanted to lie down outside, but I had no one to go lie outside with me. It's really warm in my room. I'm considering just going to sleep. I have an invitation to go play drinking games at midnight, but drinking games are something you do before you go out or early in the evening so you can get drunk, not at midnight when you have things to do the next day.

I want all these stupid things and I keep sitting here getting angry with myself for wanting stupid things.

I've been happier lately, just right now isn't great. I turned off twitter texts because I am sick of them. I just want texts from real people. It's starting to annoy me again in different ways, facebook and twitter. I came closer to people and now I am going away again.

Quick quick let's be close.

I have nothing against vibrators or dildos or any sex toys really, but I feel like masturbation with someone synthetic would even further remove a person from humanity.

German Advent Festival.
I-House
Tomorrow, Sunday November 8th
3-5
Stop by
Decorate a cookie
Make a paper snowflake
Watch a German movie


PLEASE COME.
I will be so happy.

I long to write a poem about longing, but I don't have the words.

It just has come up a lot today.

First in hunger and then in conversation.

I hate that awkward time between going out on Friday nights and the afternoon. Meaning right now. Meaning what do I do for the next hour and a half?

The Future

There is a crusty old man
walking down the sidewalk.
smoking a cigarette and holding a cup of coffee.
This seem ominous.

I think it's funny when couples develop names for each other like "kitten" and "muffin" and "baby." I always find something really satisfying when people say my name.

Why do I come off as naive?
I have always come off as naive. Regardless of what I've done. People who know me really well, always laugh when I say that, but people who've just met me tend to find me naive. Like I've never done anything I'm not supposed to in my life before. Which, certainly, I am not the worst person I could be. I base my moral standards off of completely abstract ideals that I invented myself, but they still exist. There are still things I do and will not do, but I try not to make them based off of a religion or capitalism.
For awhile I thought it was because I havwe big eyes. I have big eyes, I know I do, and they open when I find something interesting or confusing or cute or attractive. I use them to express things.
Do I have a little voice? I might have big eyes and a little voice, though my voice is loud when I'm not shy.
Why am I shy? I'm shy because I'm scared I don't match up to standards I should, but those standards are things I hate. I don't match up to patriarchal standards of womanhood, though I wear skirts and have long legs, I just don't do things correctly because I don't want to know or know what the correct things are.
I hate admitting these things about myself. I hate admitting I have big eyes and long legs, because that sounds attractive, but attractive for all the wrong reasons.
It should belong to someone else.

You know what I hate. When people say "real girl." There shouldn't be a real girl. Who the fuck is a real girl? This isn't passive aggressive, you know I feel this way.

I really should sleep.
Thurdays are always confusing.

Carolyn has told me that my blog posts are short and vague. I agree with her. I think more people might read it if I would just post about everything that is going on in my life.

But I kind of like my vagueries and really if you ask, I will probably tell you about anything going on in my life or thoughts.

I like workshop because I get to sit and knit and talk about what I thought about things for four and a half hours.

Also, I like snakes and poems about snakes and essays about snakes. They symbolize the male (the phallus) and the female (think Medusa). And they are neat.

Things are going to be okay eventually. I feel like I keep writing that over and over again, but really, I mean it. The problem is that I'm not sure of the definition of okay and how long I've been not okay for.

For a period in my life I thought the definition of okay was being able to sit in my room by myself and not have a panic attack (I just get overwhelmed you know, with all the thinking). I can do that. In a mindless sort of manner that I hate.

But yesterday was really truly awful for awhile and I felt miserable, but then I felt better and that was good. I felt better in such a good way too. I felt appreciated. Feeling appreciated is such a nice feeling. People don't appreciate each other nearly enough. Instead of "I love you," we should say, "I really appreciate the fact that you are here and we share things." Any ways, multiple people made me feel appreciated and it was so nice that I just felt nice about everyone and I love feeling nice about everyone. I appreciate feeling nice about how appreciative everyone is.

Maybe my emotional variance is coming back.

I needed a break, I think. I just felt too sad and too happy and my body couldn't tolerate it anymore. I hope that my emotions are coming back now though. I would like to have fun again.

You know,
she cute and she's fashionable
and sometimes that's enough for people.

Let's quantify each other in surveys,
an accurate scientific method.
I like you as a six.

Wine makes me feel slidey in a way that other alcohol doesn't. Things become slower and drippy.

Everything is constructed.

I had a lot more to say about this five hours ago, but I started to feel this horrible sense of despair. I feel like my whole life I've been told, "things are this way," and then I realize that nothing is really any way, it is only our saying what it is that makes it that way. It's not like a conclusion I just reach today or anything. I just used to like things that weren't abstract a lot, like material objects, not like in a materialistic sort of sense, but any sort of thing I could touch or see or smell, but now all of that has stopped feeling real too. I'm not sure why. It started lying in bed one night when my bed started feeling distinctly not real. Lying in bed by myself always makes me think of lying in bed with other people and I was thinking about that and then I tried to comfort myself with the solidity of my bed, because people aren't solid at all, not really, and then it occurred to me that my bed was also not solid and I was purely constructing it out of the want for it to be there. Them all of my thoughts began to seem absurd.

Something more absurd: I'm meeting with a potential real-sorority in 12 minutes. I feel like they can tell I don't like Greek life from the look on my face. I bet you are wondering why am I doing this if I don't like Greek life. It's because I'm bored too much and lonely too much. I know, they are shitty reasons.

In one of Kurt Vonnegut's books he says something about how no one wants to listen to anyone talk about their dreams. But I am abstaining from Kurt Vonnegut for the moment because he tells too many of the same jokes in multipele books, so I am going to talk about my dreams.

There were vampires in my dream. They went around killing everybody, but not recklessly. They were good at disposing of bodies and if anyone caught them they just ate them too. The vampires went on vacations on an island. They killed everybody there. I was friends with one of the vampires. She didn't kill me, except she almost did once in a public restroom because someone was talking about sex and got her into the mood. We laughed about it later. Then we went and stayed on a cruise ship. People kept disappearing. Then I woke up to too many emails and too much to do. I always find the German word "Shade" more appropriate in this situations. Just said it, "Shade." (It's phonentic, so pronounce the e.)

This is like those times
when you get a random craving for food
Eggs sunny side up
with bacon for a smile
even though you're not really sure
if you actually like eggs.

I think I know why nudists live in colonies. Skin is lonely when it's by itself. It seems kind of pointless.

(Done with last essay, onto new homework)
(The last two days have been spent doing the homework that I haven't been doing.)
(Tomorrow will be this way as well.)
(Wednesday will be better.)

I am tired of writing this essay

I wish I could take pictures. It was the one art I never really did at all. I am not very good at it. I appreciate it though. Looking at pictures of other people always makes me want to look at pictures of myself as if I need to remind myself that I am me and not them.

I don't think I understand plots. My life doesn't really have one. I mean things happen, but they don't have in a nice order that I can write. I think that's why I can't write this story. Everything is internal.

I'm not sure if I can handle reading the blogs of others, though I would like to. It's sad when people are happy and it's sad when people are sad, so either way I just end up feeling badly.

I want to separate my life from my life. Essentially, create something different.

I continue to repeat myself. My life becomes longing for not my life.

I had a dream about a boy named Thomas. This Thomas was not any of the Tom's or Thomases I know. I think I might only know one. He kept showing up in all my dreams and I said, "Go away Tom, this dream is not for you." He didn't listen and continued to show up any ways. A lot of things are like Tom.

Sundays Always Make Me Feel Like Hiding.

The security I find
in material things
once again returns
after I grow weary
of everything else.

I need to drink less.
This is true.
It would be okay, if I didn't do detrimental things while drunk.
Also, I seem to make plans with everybody and plan plans with everybody else.
I am so much more socially adventurous.
Then I wake up and wonder if I can actually do any of them.

Also what a great secret.
It's not Holden Caulfied specifically. Just like, a boy. You know, the kind that gets killed by everything metaphorically and loves everyone, but at the sametime is depressed by everything.
Maybe I was fucked the first time I read this when I was fourteen.

Okay, so this was going to be completely different.
I have now been to all the frats on campus which only took me until my senior year to complete, except I hate going to the frats and I dance and it all seems wrong and then I question my femininity because I don't dance like that, I don't rub up against boys the right way at frat parties because I don't like any of the boys there and if I did, they would be the wrong boys. So I go and dance and my hips dance and the rest of me is in my head and my hips probably don't look very good because the rest of me is somewhere else and I like my entire body to be in the same place.
I keep thinking I want something different. On Friday I saw the play "Kitty Kitty Kitty" and there were lots of masturbating clones cats having sex with one another and yet I could relate when Kitty Kitty lay on the floor and said "Something needs to change," because I said that on Thursday at Jazz Night. Life is becoming an echo of itself and this means it will change, I have to make it change.
SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE.
I'm sick of feeling like everything is wrong and everyone is wrong. I am going to make it so that everything is right, but right not necessarily being good, but right and everyone being right in that it's just right, you just know. It all seems to be based on feeling lately. Like "this feels right, even though it's obviously not." I don't care about realism or logic or anything. I'm going on feeling for right now. I'm going to do what I feel and what I feel usually leads me to feeling awful, but at least it's better than this, better than the lying in bed apathy that I have.

I can't write any poems.
This isn't writer's block.
This is a
block.

1. Things keep feeling less and less real. Simon and Dee and I went to Steak and Shake and I told them how sometimes I feel like my bed isn't real and I am making it up completely and Dee agreed and I wondered how, if my bed, a material object, no longer feels real what can feel real. Simon suggested maybe people will become more real and that is what I want. I want real people.

2. Look, I'm sorry I wrote about you on my blog, I'm sorry I've a passive aggressive Minnesotan and I get drunk and I feel things and I express my feeling more. I want to express them all the time, I just don't. But asking other people how angry I am and talking to other people about what I said is equally as passive aggressive and I meant what I said.

3. I just want to write poetry, but I can't articulate anything.

Yes, I am bewildered. But it is still on my blog. Erin is reading everything you are saying about me. We kept getting her to drink. Yes.

fGezsr, I really want something better than nprmal to happen.

Partaking in the usual spirits for the usual reasons. I would prefer that unusual things happen, but this is unlikely.

Headache.

I think I am starting to write too many words and my words are starting to get lost amongst themselves. I need to start writing more poems. More poems with not very many words in them.

I think my body said I needed it and I did what my body said even if it was illogical.

I really like going to Jazz Night. It makes the week end better. I just feel good.

It's still illogical. I don't care. I'm just going to let it be until it kills me. Everything kills me. I like/dislike everything too much and then it kills me.

John Williams and I were kind of discussing this at Jazz Night. I said that I want my life to be above average, and he said I should be happy if my life is average, but I'm not like that. He told me not to give a shit. I said that I always give a shit and I would be an entirely different person if I didn't. He agreed.

I'm sorry for the things I blog about while drunk. I know people (person at least) is mad at me. Maybe multiple people. I don't even know. I need to be more confrontational. Let's have a confrontation.

And you let's actually talk, I really want to. And you, I'm so glad we've been spending time together, it's made things so much better.

I like to talk to people anonoymously on my blog while drinking. It's slightly less embarrassing than actually talking to them. I just feel the need to contact everyone I would ever want to contact. It's horrible.

But you all know who you are. I found that out this week. It's very strange. But it's not strange at all. I'm glad it's like that, except I'm not glad because people are upset with me, but they are only upset because we are passive aggressive and haven't actually talked. I don't actually mean to do bad things to anyone. Let's actually talk.

I have drunk munchies and no food. Bummer.

I wish everything I wanted to do right now didn't make me feel guilty.

I'm fairly certain pictures are an entirely inaccurate way of identifying people.

I'm also fairly certain that people who have a lot of picture of themselves have at least a small degree of vanity.

She was the first human without a body.
They took her traveling to state fairs.
People paid ten dollars to look at an empty box.
She was inside or she wasn't.
Without form, she didn't have to be anywhere.

They marvelled, how beautiful.
She was the best looking empty box, but it was no comfort.
They only said she was a woman
because her speech was curvey,
emotional like having multiple orgasms.
She's never had an orgasm, nevermind several.
She didn't have nerves.
She didn't have emotions.
She couldn't smell anything.

Her mother had bones and cut away
flesh to reveal the full uterus
without a body.
Bones mean terror, her mother said.
That's why we are stuck to the ground.
She was not stuck to the ground,
she could not stick to anything.
If she could have longing, she would long to be stuck
but she had no tastebuds.

Other people tried jumping out of their skin
to be like her.
There are now three traveling boxes.

But you and me

It's not just you,
You know.
Overwhelmed by the grass
The dew drops!
You cried.
Things greater, you could barely stand.
So we didn't.

I don't like this distinction.
People like you and me.
As if no one else liked it when it rains.

But do they?

I am frustrated with people again. I don't know what happened. I was just sitting in class and everything seemed so awful. Awful in the sense that I have been struggling to relate to people lately, which normally isn't a difficulty for me, but I've had trouble deciphering why people act the way that they act and the things that they do seem terrible, though my description of terrible doesn't seem to match up to anyone else's version of terrible. This sounds silly and may sound offensive, but I don't mean it to be, but it seems like in Christianity, with my limited knowledge of it, goodness is emphazied and the fact that there can be people that aren't good is emphasized even greater, but I always have assumed that people are good or try to be good and altruism above anything else applies. I never really thought that could be untrue until the past year or so and since then I've tended to assume bad things about everyone preemptively. I feel so silly. It feels stupid not to trust the intentions of others and hate the things that they are doing and feel like they love things all wrong. How can people love things all wrong? That is so contradictory, but in my head it's true.

This is not to imply anything greater on my side. I always like to talk about people in terms of planets. Usually I feel like I'm on a planet and sometimes people join me on my planet and it's a fairly accessible place to get to, but right now I feel really far away and like I'm purposefully going further away. Not from everyone. There are some people I like a lot. That's the other trouble, even when I like people I don't know how to get to them anymore. The idea just terrifies me. But it's what I want, so badly.

I'm being melodramatic. I wrote some poems today though, I will post those next. They are also melodramatic. This is my tendency as a person. Last year in Italy, I wrote a poem, with my usual level of melodrama and my advisor said that he used to think poems should supress those things, but he was starting to think they should push them and sometimes I agree. Like right now. Rosario Castellanos in her essay, "If Not Poetry, Then What?" says:

When all of my books of poetry are collected in a single volume that opens to a first line that affirms the world cries old sterile, like a mushroom, there's nothing left to do but quickly proceed to explain. Well as commentators made me see in their good time, the mushroom is the antithesis of sterility since it proliferates with shameless abundance and nearly a total lack of stimulation. Actually, what I wanted to say then was that the world had a genesis as spontaneous as that of the mushroom, that it had not sprung from any divine plan, that it was not the result of the internal laws of matter, nor was it the conditio sine qua non for the development of the human drama. That the world was, in short, the perfect example of fortuitousness. If this was what I wanted to say then why didn't I say it? Simply because I don't want to do so.

I've been stuck on this goddamn section of her essay for weeks. I haven't been able to write my journals because of it and now they are due on Tuesday. But I like it most because of what it grants the writer. The writer may or may not know truths and may or may not write truths, but whatever she writes it doesn't matter because she is doing what she wants to do.

I'm not sure any of this makes sense. I want someone to talk to.

I don't think I'm a pessimist. I don't think I like the word pessimist or optomist. I think I'm just such an optomist that things disappoint me. Like this weekend. This weekend could be really excellent or it could be just another sort of lackluster weekend.

I've been reading a collection of Pablo Neruda's poetry and I think I like his love poems better than most other love poems, because I think he articulates love beautifully. I like this one a lot. Also this one. I like them because they are so unashamed in their declaration yet they are so inarticulate in a purposeful manner.

I am writing a blog just to write a blog even though I have nothing to say. That statement always seems like a lie. I always have things to say even if they are just the samethings repeated over and over. Somethings need to be repeated over and over. But whatever I have to say, I don't want to say it here.

On sharing art:
One time I got into a discussion about how sharing art with people you like a lot can ruin that specific piece of art/music/writing/movie if you have a falling out with them. I considered the option of sharing nothing with nobody, but I like to share things with people. Oh well.

Also, taking a nap before workshop and then trying to finish my work in the time left is an awful idea.

I want to go outside.
I miss being outside.
I didn't spend enough time outside when it was nice.

Let's go outside, okay?

I've had a lot of struggles with people lately. I like them a lot or I dislike them a lot or I like them so much I dislike it. I've liked people a lot the last couple of days. It's been really nice. I hope this continues.

I have gotten no work done today.

Blair sent me this lovely video though. The real question: Why didn't we get tattoos of sharks?

Clothes have been bothering me lately. I feel really far away from my skin.

People are nice at the wrong times. Like when I don't want to like them because I resent them for whatever reason.

Autonomy:
noun, plural -mies.
1. independence or freedom, as of the will or one's actions: the autonomy of the individual.
2. the condition of being autonomous; self-government, or the right of self-government; independence: The rebels demanded autonomy from Spain.
3. a self-governing community.

Some people really don't understand how to live the meaning of this word. It's something I feel is necessary for people to develop.

I'm still in the library

Some people are just beautiful when they do things.

I'm in the library. My chair is taken, which is probably for the best. When I sit there I generally work for about half an hour and then fall asleep. I'm trying to write, which makes me feel oddly guilty when I have other homework I should be doing. I like to think of locations as solutions, but that is often not the case.

I feel like the lights should be off, but I'm scared of the dark. I feel like there are things that could make this lying-in-bed-apathy a worthwhile experience, but I don't know what they are. I think about tea and making some. I am always hindered by the fact that I cannot do any work in my room until it is clean and I cannot get out of bed to clean it.

I should go work out, but I am fairly certain that I work out for the wrong reasons (to be thinner) and it makes very little difference.

I might go to the library.

One time a friend and I had a conversation about listening to people read poems or prose they have written or anything really. When people read things that are interesting, I think about other things and then come back to what they are reading. This might be rude, but generally I find it means that I like what they've written.

I think people like bodies differently. Which may seem really obvious and is hard to articulate, but the differences often struck me in writing, particularily in writing by women.

I also think it is possible to glorify the body without objectifying it. At the same time, I think there is a point, in a certain state of mind where it becomes too much about the skin and you forgot that there is another person there or you forget they exist as more than a body.

Oh geeze, me and bodies. I just like them so much. Don't most people?

There was a cat outside of the PR office today. He was curled up in a dry spot and he looked up every time someone paused to look at him.

We called the Humane Society. It was very sad.

Most of the time, I don't have vague dreams. My dreams are obviously a direct reflection of what I am feeling. Normally I dream about people I know and that are on my mind. Apparently no one is on my mind. For the last week or so, dreaming has been like watching a movie. I am the spectator. Last night I dreamed about a man who had a creepy little niece who did horrible things to him, but no one believe him. Then I dream that this girl was in chemistry class and accidently ingested some of the chemicals which made her start giving birth to giant bees. I do wake up less bothered though. I don't confuse these dreams with real life.

I do nothing, for hours. I have things I probably should be doing, but I don't do them. Time is flying, but nothing is happening.

I did have a good weekend though. I got to see lots of people that I enjoy seeing. I spent too much money and ate too much food and lots of general acts of gluttony.

On Saturday I was in Kaldi's with Dee and Julia. We were playing Boggle. Both Dee and Julia are excellent at this game. I am not so good. I find lots of three letter words. An old man that I've seen in Kaldi's before comes up to me and says, "Excuse me for staring, but you are a very pretty young lady." I hadn't noticed him staring. I had been looking at the boggle board. I wasn't sure what to do. I mumbled, "thanks" and kept writing things down. My boggle game continued to disintegrate. The situation made me really uncomfortable. I'm not sure why.

I just get scared, okay? Because when I care about things, I worry.

I need to write more.

Geeze I'm drunk, let's say everything, let's say all things. Guess which one is about you!

1. I just need reassurance that we can be friends.

2. Since you've started dating him, you've been less fun.

3. Since you've started dating her, you've lost all your personality.

4. I am so glad we are friends.

5. I do miss you. Really.

6. I miss you too.

7. I still think you are awful. I also think you are awful and you are awful. If it weren't for the three of you, I wouldn't have so many goddamn problems.

8. Let's be friends.

9. Let's not be friends.

10. Mostly lets be friends.

11. I will post a sober post tomorrow.

My life just lost all excitement.

I need a new source.

You're A Pretty Human Being

I've written before about how I always make the assumption that everyone is sad or everyone is happy and usually it reflects my feelings in some manner. Lately I've felt that everyone is sad and it's nice to see people happy. Except I don't know that anyone is really happy, I just make more assumptions about these so called happy people.

Laura told me a nice story tonight about how Dan listened to a song in the morning and then she came back to our apartment and I was listening to the same song and then later the same song was playing in the caf, and I just liked it because everyone was listening to the same song on the same day which means that it must be right for something.

I think I believe in fate, but I don't know what that means, just that I like it when the right things happen at the right time and I feel like eventually things will be better. I trust in the fact that eventually things will be better.

I went to the counselor today and we talked about how I struggle with trusting people, but I have trust in the notion of feeling better again and maybe that's enough for right now. Then I told her I feel it's silly not to trust people and really, I sort of have a great deal of trust in that I like to tell everyone everything. I'm not sure what I don't trust. I don't like the notion of being delicate.

I hate it when people act horrible in a manner that you expect them to. I want people I don't find smart to be defiantly intelligent and people that I am distrustful of to be trustworthy.

You know how on campus there are people who are known pretentious assholes and this is general knowledge. Do the people themselves know it?

I would like to talk to more people more often.

More about the asian beetle:

During work I read that in the winter asian beetles hibernate. That's why you find dead ones everywhere in the winter. They aren't dead, they are simply sleeping. That's why there are living ones everywhere in the spring.

More things about me:

I'm overwhelmed by very little right now. Thus I am in bed with readings.

I heard the other day that when you kill an asian beetle (the bugs that look like ladybugs, but aren't), they release a smell that attracts other asian beetles to the spot. This really doesn't make eense. Why would anything flock to the spot where another of it's kind has suffered a vicious death or murder? On Shark Week, they have a special where they talk about how the sharks flee from the scent of other dead sharks and they test out a shark repellent that is based on that theory. Can you imagine if mass amounts of human beings flocked to cemetaries? Is burial the equivalent? But asian beetles can't bury their dead. They just fly around without paying much attention.

Getting in front of a camera is like getting in front of a person.

I have nothing to say. I am awkward, the things that come out of my mouth are different from what is in my head. I am self-conscious.

It's interesting though.

I need some goddamn emotional stability. I've been up and down the whole day. I just want to stay in one happy place.

Planes

She had wanted to disappear her entire life, so when the plane she was on disappeared off the radar screen, it was like a dream come true, aside from the fact that she was dead, which could also be thought of as another dream come true.
When she left, she hadn't meant to take an entire airplane with her, even though everyone secretly desires to knock off the happily-after-newlyweds, glowing with rays of happiness, and fondling each other as the plane hit the air or the crying baby that could so easily be snuffed out by one of those little blue pillows that do very little to aid comfort.
It was convenient, her life represented by a green beeping dot on a screen, ticking like her heart until it stopped and felt as if she had fallen from the sky. It was a sensation that she had felt many times before in her life like when her boyfriend had broken up with her or when she found out her mother had cancer. She had to admit that it was much more pleasant this time, especially the sequence of the following days, as there weren't any.

I think I am very very angry. But I don't know what I am angry with and I don't know how to stop being angry. I can place some of my anger towards certain people, but that's not enough. I need to figure out how to make it go away.

I was running an errand and I saw a man on a bike take out a paper bag with a bottle in it, drink from it, and then stick the bottle back in his coat. That's the kind of day today is.

I'm kind of frustrated with German Club, which is rare for me. It's kind of my fault that I'm frustrated. But I end up doing everything and I shouldn't be, but I don't actually make people do things that they are supposed to be doing and when people don't do it, I end up volunteering to do it. I need a backbone, so I can actually tell this to people.

Consumption

This idea of consumption is one of my favorite things, I think because I am so terrible at it. I always consume too much of anything that is put in front of me, whether it's food, drink, or people. I eat until I feel sick, I drink until I throw up (not usually, this is for example only), and I adore everyone until they are not around anymore. Last night I went out for pizza for a friend's birthday and later we ate cake. I was hungry, so I ate a lot and when we ate cake, I wasn't hungry, but ate a large piece any ways. My body felt physically larger, though in reality my stomach was digesting the food. I hate that feeling, but I did it anyways. Why do I do that? Why do so many people do that? I stepped on the scale this morning expecting to have gained several pounds, but my weight was exactly the same as the morning before. Then I wondered, does it really matter what I eat? It must, there must be some correlation between what I eat and how much I weigh, but why is it that I can eat very little and not loose weight and eat a lot and not gain weight? I realize there is probably a scientific explanation for this, but as a person overtly aware of their consumption, as I think most people, especially females, are, it's difficult.

People: I'm starting to think that we make up attachments to other people and if I just stopped imagining any sort of attachment, I wouldn't have a problem besides spending lots of time by myself. But would I feel lonely if I didn't like spending time with people that much?

It all just kind of seems made-up.

Trains

When he was a baby, his mother momentarily let go of the handle of his carriage without applying the brakes and his pram rolled off of the train station platform and directly in front of the incoming passenger train. He was pushed forward for thirty meters before the train finally came to a stop. For the next two days he was an international news sensation and his mother did not stop crying out of guilt and relief over what had occurred for at least the next month.
Logically he should have suffered from all sorts of psychological issues because of the experience, like perhaps a large aversion to public transportation, but in fact he turned out to be exemplarily normal. In his early twenties he got a job as a personal banker for a large bank. He was moderately good at his job, even winning an award one year for being the most polite banker at the branch and an award for having the neatest pressed pants the next.
Therefore, everyone found it rather shocking when he had both of his legs cut off from trying to jump onto an empty car on a moving freight train, eventually dying from blood loss.
His mother resumed her crying for the next year, dressing only in black and started putting together an organization that educated the common citizen on the dangers of trains.

I think I like shopping because I get to make decisions even though the rest of the time I absolutely hate making decisions. Shopping is especially nice when not shopping with my own money. However, I do wish that buying things and making decisions as to what to buy didn't make me feel so satisfied. It is such a capitalist past time.

Why is it when I drink, I feel the need to talk to everyone? It always makes me feel all kinds of awful in the morning. You know, bad in not-hangover sort of way, even though I feel that too. I should ban myself from the phone or the computer and only talk to people for real.

I wish food would just enter my room.

I just want to hear what you have to say.

I don't care that we never talk or have never talked.

I don't care that we have talked, but don't really talk, like really really talk.

Just talk to me and I'll talk back at you and we can have a goddamn talking party or a dance party or a drunk party or any type of goddamn party that you would like or dislike.

I'm just sick of throwing myself so faraway and everyone else throwing themselves even further away.

I wish my sincerities were some kind of poetry. Then I realize they were some kind of poetry, just not worth publishing and then they become a candid sort of image-less admission.

Also, I feel like my gender and women studies minor is teaching me that nothing is real. My race is constructed, my sex is constructed, my culture is constructed. Sometimes I lie in bed and feel like nothing is real. Not my bed, not my pillows, not my cloud covered comforter that my giant golden retriever ripped a hole in, I wonder why people want to me to quantify my experiences with images, when obviously all those images have been constructed. I wonder if I am a real person. I write stories about boys who have relationships with girls who are not real people living in the real world. I have started writing about myself from the outside, because nothing around me is real enough to describe.

Things that came up tonight:
1. Drinking makes me feel better only if I'm with people that make me feel good, thus if I'm sitting in a movie not talking, I probably don't feel good.
2. I really want everyone to be reliable. It makes me upset when they are not reliable, partially because I hate being upset with people. I think you think I cry because you think I want more than friendship with you, but I cry, because I'm scared I can't have even that.
3. I like spending time with people I don't normally spend time with.
4. I appreciate a lot of people a lot and mostly I get upset when I feel like I'm losing the people I need.
5. This list seems like a list of cheesy and sincere things I never want to admit about people, but I am admitting, because I am drunk and crying.
6. Feminism was dicussed a lot tonight and I hate that I'm scared to admit I'm a feminist, because I date men and love men and a lot of my friends are men. I meant to write more about this, but it got over-shadowed.
7. Let's have an honest party. I'm incredibly self-conscious. Just tell me what you think of me and be done with it, so I don't have to worry anymore. I'm an ugly fuck with awful opinions? Just fucking tell me. It's the worrying about being otherwise that is the problem. I want to be otherwise, but who knows if I am?
8. Geeze, I hate being this honest.

I stopped reading before falling asleep. I've read before falling asleep my entire life until lately. Colin and my advisor both told me to read. I think they are right. In August I started reading "Nine Stories" by J.D. Salinger. I had to stop reading it though, because I read "A Perfect Day for Bananafish," which was a really marvelous story, but like many marvelous stories I couldn't deal with it.

Also, I am taking the Dylan Thomas class and going to Wales over springbreak. I love Dylan Thomas. I love the prospect of Wales. Mostly I love the concept of going somewhere different. I've needed that.

You return in a mass of hair.
I ask how you enjoyed your time as a mountain goat.
Have you lost some of your virility amongst those hills?
Nibbling on trees.

After it rains the hairy beast shrinks.
I swell with absorption.

I liked you better when you had to ability
to be human and naked.

I feel immensely dissatisfied with myself at the moment. I have the strange sensation that I have chosen to wear the wrong thing every single day for at least a couple weeks. I need to make a change. I don't know what.

I feel like that bug stuck to poster board, only I'm stuck to my bed.

I've noticed a pattern in my behavior lately. I have down days and up days and on the down days I am rendered helpless. I worry about my mental state and my life and it concerns me a great deal how others percieve me. On my up days I spend the whole time making up for what I didn't do on my down days. I'm productive, I talk to people. I do all the things I should've done last week. That's all. I have to go do the things I was supposed to do last week. German Club needs cookies.

Today at work I was making posters out of foam board and when I sprayed the glue, a bug came and landed on the board and got stuck. What if one day you stepped somewhere and could never move again?

It's strange to watch people grind on each other. I think it's not supposed to be watched and that's my problem. I'm supposed to be grinding too, but I don't. It's like watching sex, only everyone has clothes on and they are moving to music. I like to watch the eyes of the person in back. It's like watching sex.

I had a lovely afternoon of reading and sleeping in the library. I always forget how much I like the library until I go there again and then I start going there all the time.

What about a mountain?

Would a mountain be enough?
Mountains are bigger then men.
Most trees are bigger then men,
but not all.

In third grade we adopted trees.
Everyone wanted the one that was wilted
and dying.
What fun is there in having a tree
that is already flourishing?

Is the loss of someone bigger greater?
Mass times cigarettes smoked
times time spent together
times time not spent together
times the mountains and the trees
and times me.

I remember:
in the midwest there are no mountains.

Is a cornfield enough?

I went and now I'm back.

I wish there had been more people outside.

At the sametime, I'm glad there wasn't.

I really want to smoke (yes Carolyn, I'm sorry Carolyn, I have no will power), but I am scared of all the people outside. I don't even know that there are people outside. But I am scared of them nonetheless.

I stayed in with Caitlin tonight snd we watched Titanic and ate popcorn and drank and it was really lovely. Titanic is so much more sincere with you've been drinking. It's nice having a good time like that, it really is. A good time, with a person that you live you, but don't actually see that often.

Here's a lovely article about Perpich. If you don't know, that's the arts high school where I spent 11th and 12th grade.

Bed soon. Tomorrow will be better. Not that today was better. Tomorrow will just be better.

Roger Taylor (the Knox College President) has braille on all of his business cards. I have been awarded the lovely job of putting the business cards in the braille machine and slamming down the handle in order to make the little dots. My palms are bright red.

All the clocks say different times. I'm going to follow the one in the middle.

Lately I've been having the kind of dreams that are almost real and they are filled with people from Knox, so I get confused as to what is real and what's in the dream. I woke up in the wrong stage of the sleep cycle today and now everything feels heavy and tired. For a minute I tried to convince myself I was sick, but that doesn't work as well as it did in high school when I convinced myself and my parents that I was sick most days.

Oh no. I am out of wine.

I keep writing things and deleting them.

I'll summarize:
Glass of wine.
Going to SASS meeting later, because I miss being around people.
I feel like life is on the verge of being interesting again.
Negatively on my part is habitual. Just don't listen.

I do not like
the concept of adversity.
I would rather not do things
of my own freewill
than do things
because supposedly I cannot.

But the whole trouble
with adversity to begin with
is that it is thrust upon us
like moles or freckles
or men.

So cheers I must say
and throw back a glass of wine
and hopes a poem comes out,
unlike with a mole or freckle
where you hope nothing comes out
or with men
where all sorts mess can come leaking through.

I always feel funny after workshop and have nowhere to vent it. I usually then stay up late too late doing nothing, until I end up upset and crying for no reason. I'm really confused. I feel like I am in a transition period. There was the summer period and the end of summer period and the beginnign of school period, but now I am in a place that is really different from all those places. Several times every week I come to the conclusion that I am asleep and someday I am going to wake up and realize I haven't thought about anything for a long time, but if I think that several times a week, haven't I realized that I am just sleeping? I got into an argument about this with the counselor last spring. I said that I was emotionally flatlining and she said that I was just stable. But I'm never really happy. I'm not usually unhappy. I was unhappy today because my bike was stolen. I am unhappy late at night a lot, especially if I have spent a lot of time in my room, but that's normal, at least it's normal for me. I want emotional variance. When I have emotional variance, I will want this stability back, but that's how it is.

Today would've been so much better had my bike not gotten stolen. I wish I saw more people more often. I have talked to five people today. The two people I live with, the secretary of the public relations office, a campus safety officer, and a police officer. Things just sit in my head.

I wish Kaldi's were warmer. I think coffee shops should always be warmer than other places, even though you are drinking coffee and it's cold. the problem is that I sit for too long and let my coffee get cold and then I get cold and then I just want to go home and take a nap, but I have work to do and it's cold outside.

My bike got stolen. I loved riding my bike. I rode it everywhere this summer. I really think that people shouldn't steal transportation. I was locked to the bike rack. The lock is still there. I'm guessing they cut through it. I called campus safety and they said that a lot of times bikes get stolen and then they get dumped across town somewhere. The police are coming next. I hate it when people do things I don't like. I hate feeling this upset about something that someone has done to me. I would rather it be raining or something that I can't blame on a person.

I read the same books of poetry over and over again and listen to the same songs over and over again and every time they are completely different as if I had never read them at all and every time they are perfect, as if they knew what I needed and comformed to that. You know what I mean?

Here is a really lovely poem by Pable Neruda. I stumbled across it one day. It reminded me of a time when someone asked why I loved them and I couldn't figure out why so I made up a list of adjectives, none of which were true.

When I drink too much caffiene it makes everything feel warm in an unpleasant manner, even though my skin is cold. I miss a lot of people, but I feel like there is a reason we're not talking right now. I want to talk to a lot of people. I just want to talk.

I also think that all of my favorite people are also my least favorite people. In a good way.

Go to Writer's Forum. Today, Alumni Room. 4 PM. Laura's reading and I'm introducing her.

Also, go to Writer's Forum May 10th. I'm reading. No excuses.

The poet in me is wounded I think.

I am writing prose though. Prose about wounded poets.

My favorite people are really just the ones that tell the best lies.

I am strangely cheerful today.
I'm going to Des Moines tomorrow.
I'm triyng to finish both midterms that are due on Tuesday so that I can have fun all weekend.
For some reason the term seems almost over even though there is a month and a week left.
I am homesick and I like it, because before I was "somewhere other than home or here" sick and I am not one for taking adventures all by myself, though in a month I can start filling out an application to go to Austria.
I think things will be okay, I just don't know when.
Everyone in the G-Burg is in a relationship except for me and I don't really care, except I must a little because I had that realization, but only a little in that now I will have even fewer people to spend time with.
I went from having zero community service hours last week, to having seven and a half this week. Look at me help the community.
I like fall weather because I have cute boots, a cute jacket, cute scarves, and cute hats and all of that makes me feel cute and I like feeling cute, so you better not tell me I look otherwise.
I like to romanticize everything I do, even if what I am doing is drinking tea by myself. I turn off some of the lights so things seem more surreal.
I wish I could drink coffee and then I would drink endless cups, but it makes me crazy crazy.
When I am happy, I am always happy inspite of something.
Maybe that's why I couldn't be happy before. There was no one I was spiteful towards.
That's all.

I cry over nothing and then when something happens, I don't feel a thing. I get upset over the fact that I don't care, but not actually upset over the thing itself. This is what happens when people are unhappy.

I'm not sure what this means.

I wrote a post and accidently clicked to leave it.

Thank fucking god.

I almost told the truth. Wouldn't that be awful.

I went to the Humane Society today and walked dogs. I wish it wasn't so sad. Whenever anyone walks by their cages they jump up and down and bark as if that will get more people to take them out, but it's the opoosite. It's intimidating, being surrounded by a bunch of jumping, barking dogs. When you leave they still howl. It's awful because you can see their good habits deteriorating. It's all about getting attention because they don't get enough. My favorite dog really liked to play fetch. I didn't take him outside, he was already out on the other side of the fence. He had a ball and I told him if he just dropped the ball on my side of the fense I could throw it for him, not expecting that he would be able to do it, but he did and he kept doing it. Then I had to leave. I felt awful.

Later I was tabling and I got a lot of people to sign the petition I was tabling for, which is really excellent, but there were these two first years that struck me. One signed the petition and said "I can't believe I've been here a month already" as if he wanted to have a conversation, but I called out to other people to sign the petition and he realized a talk wasn't going to happen and left. Another first year just hung aorund my table and started informing people about the petition, except he didn't know what he was talking about so the things that he said were wrong. He made me uncomfortable, but I felt bad because he's obviously really lonely. That's not the first time he's done things like that. The one and only Knox football game I attended he tried to get into a conversation I was having with an alumni that I knew. He didn't realize she had graduated. He's trying so hard and failing.

I've been avoiding the cafeteria. I like to make food for myself. Lately I've liked being by myself. Maybe not liked. Maybe lately I've been by myself, but I would rather be that way than other ways. I think: I am not actually like this, but if I am like this now, isn't that how I am? Either way I will be different later. When I leave here, next term. I just want to be somewhere new and taken as I am now, not as I was, not as who I am friends with. You know those friends that look like each other? I've never had a friend like that. I want a friend who looks like me and we can do similar things together.

I just want to lie in bed and drink tea and listen to music.

I've had the window to post a blog open for hours. I wonder what I meant to say when I opened it.

Why is it always a question of planets with me?

I'm broke and my debit card is expired. This was bound to happen eventually.

I was mostly social this weekend. It was mostly fun. Nothing spectacular.

I want something spectacular.

I really do think people are good. I've always thought that. That's why it kills more more than anything when I lose faith in people, because I don't want to, because I don't think they are actually like that. I just want to love everyone and I want it to be easy, but it can't be.

I kept writing posts and then I decided to make a video as this is a novel thing.

I want to be doing well because other people are doing well.

Sometimes the thoughts in my head congeal into nonsensical words and phrases. You know, like emotion.

I am considering whether or not I am avoiding people. I think not, but maybe.

Do you ever feel like the longer you are alone the more normal it seems? The first couple weeks back I couldn't handle all the time I was spending alone. Now I'm used to it. I find things to do like puzzles. Like watching tv shows. I think maybe I need to see people though.

My body has been more of an inconvenience than anything else lately. I just want to leave it somewhere.

My tummy hurts. It's hurt for two days. I've tried eating and not eating and when I don't eat my tummy hurts and I'm hungry and when I eat my stomach hurts more.

It's kind of a bummer.

A Lifetime movie
warned that "sadness is catching."
I question this logic.
Is sadness catching
or do sad people simply catch
each other?

In the way that a spider's web
catches it's prey.

Don't you get tired of me?
I grow weary of myself even
My complaints, my sadness
and each day I reveal it
as something new
as if it had never been
that way before
and would not be again
though I am always sad
and always complaining.

I grow tired of you.
Mostly with your unrelenting
tolerence of the way I am.

I preferred the yelling.
Validation is still validation
even if it is completed with a bottle
of whiskey and a puddle of vomit
after we complete our worst suspicions.