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.

I woke up this morning and felt not so great. For reasonable reasons. I managed to make it to the caf for the German Club exec meeting that we have over brunch each week. Then I went back to my room and lay in bed until my ATP meeting (Don't want the Lifetime movie "Confessions of a Go-Go Dancer. It's not as fun as it sounds). I went to Family Video and had a nice conversation with the guy that works there. He is so nice. He always makes me feel better about my pathetic amount of dvd rentals. Then I went back to my room. Which means I was only out of my room for a maximum of maybe 2 and a half hours today.

Tomorrow: I will leave my room more.

I always forget how smiley I can be when something makes me happy. I just smile to myself for a long time. I haven't done that for a long time. At least a month now. It feels really good to feel good.

Why do I feel like I go through my entire day and don't talk to anybody?

I just hate it, you know, when things kill me like that and they kill me because I like it and I don't like it all at the same time.

I need a goddamn roommate I can tell these things to.

No one else blogs ever.

Write a goddamn blog. Please?

Need: something to lift you from your boots out into the sky, something to make you like little things again

In class I am lacking. I read stories and love them, but can't articulate why. I become confused when I search for explanations of motive. I say, "Why does she do things that support the patriarchy," when most things I do support the patriarchy and I do them without question. Then I wonder, "Why is this story surreal and why is it when you come to the end you find out that none of it actually happened and it was all made up in her head," when I am fairly certain that I have made up most of my life in my head. Language is gone. All of them. German, English, I can't even read people anymore. I want to go through every story, line by line, like it will help me understand.

I realized it didn't help me to disappear for a bit. I started to miss people I didn't realize I would miss.

The Future

I wait for it
as if it contains a hover car
or the cure for skin
and aging.

But even land bound
vehicles only interest me
as a means of getting
from one place to another
and for once
my skin is not the problem.

Above all else,
in this I have faith.
It didn't occur to me until this morning
that it is possible for it not to exist.

Reading stories that are really good always make me want to talk differently.

Sometimes I pretend to have forgotten his name. When I make lists, count them on my fingers, he conveniently disappears. It's just three letters. Not a big deal. I pretend not to worry about it.

It is like having a book out from the library. It is like constantly having a book out from the library

I always think a lot when I work out. I like gyms because they baffle me. Working out is an intensely intimate situation. People wear very little clothing, they are sweating, people make noises. It could be equated with having sex. Yet, we expose ourselves to lots of people while we do this. We put aside our vanity in order to have vanity. I recognize that not everyone goes to the gym for vanities sake. I also acknowledge that the main reason I go to the gym is for vanity.

Today I saw someone both in the gym and at History Club, but we made no acknowledgment that we had seen each other earlier that day, because earlier we had been working out and I had been red faced and sweaty because I haven't worked out for a long time.

On the way to the gym I saw a girl kissing a boy on the neck. I had heard gossip about them a few days earlier. It was like witnessing gossip. The sad thing was, I know they aren't happy.

One time a friend and I were talking about our passive aggressive punishments. When we get mad, our version of getting angry is to ignore the person that we're mad at. The problem is, those people never notice. I'm not angry at anyone, so don't think that. It's just that whenever I distance myself, I always want the people I am distancing myself from to notice that I have disappeared. But those people never do.

I lied. I am angry, but I'm probably not angry with you. To my knowledge, the person I am angry with doesn't read this. Those people never do.

Well, some of those people do.

But when they aren't people anymore they stop.

The lymph node behind my ear is swollen and slightly painful. At least, I think it's a lymph node. Web md is being really unhelpful because you can't pick "behind the ear" as a place to hurt. Other research tells me this could br a sign of infection. Let's hope not.

I am sitting in a coffeeshop and there is a boy in the coffeeshop sitting in a table opposite of mine and we both looked up and looked at each other at the same moment and it was really unnerving and I immediately looked down and opened my computer even though before I had been reading a book.

I am reading a book of short stories for my fiction workshop. We pulled authors names out of a hat and that was the book we had to read, but my book is perfect for me right now. It's called "Self-Help" by Lorrie Moore. A lot of the stories are written in second person and are instructions on how to do things. My favorites have been "How to be an Other Woman" and "How to be a Writer." Coincidentally one of our prompts this week was to write a "How to" guide. I had to pick a different prompt. I picked the prompt where you find a picture of a person and pretend someone has just asked them what they want most in the world and we have to answer in 400 words or less. I posted that below.

The problem with being anywhere is that sometimes the wrong things happen. I'm in a coffeeshop and Iron and Wine came on and I like Iron and Wine except a lot of times it makes me really sad and I don't want to be really sad. I want academic music. Like, I'm studying with a cute hat on type of music. Like I'm filling this role of me in a coffeeshop, drinking tea, with too many books and a computer and an umbrella because it's raining. I think about how I want to write things, but everything that comes in my mind is sad and then I think how I want to write happy things, but I don't really want to write happy things, because I don't really want to read anything that is happy, even when I am happy myself.

Another story about a boy and a bicycle

He wanted to bike across the street, but the cars and buses and the perpendicularly moving bicycles were preventing him from doing so. It was imperative that he cross the street, even more imperative that he do so immediately. He had almost gotten his chance, when a van turned onto the road, thus blocking his crossing. It, of course, was not as simple as this. After he crossed, he would want to bike for two blocks before he took a left and went south for several miles and then he would finally reach his destination where he would feel relieved. This relief was all presumed and not at all promised, but he felt if he could at least cross the goddamn street then he would on his way to this alleviation. To make matters worse, it had started raining in the approximately four minutes that he had been standing there, his foot perched on the peddle, ready to push off. It was not hard rain, but a cold miserable drizzle, which was almost worse than something pouring. There was a romantic association between pouring rain and when a person is going to profess their love to a girl, but there were little to no positive benefits that stemmed from the chilly droplets that always seemed to land on the worst possible spot on his neck. The lights were timed against him. The sky too, had joined in this brigade. That feeling of certainty that he had woken up with, that yes, today was the day that he was going to do what he thought about doing every day, but never actually did, had dissipated, had dissipated in a manner so quickly he wanted to call it violent. Confessions of love never go quite right though and he wasn’t sure if professions of love could be planned at all. Every single other time that he had told a girl about his deep profound feelings he had been drunk and none of his feeling had been deep or profound at all and could be summed up entirely with the statement, “I think you are pretty.” He turned around, even though he still wanted to cross the street. This wasn’t new. He wanted to cross the street everyday and never did.

I have crazy morning hair
to match my crazy morning face.
I make eggs and they too,
look crazy.

I am going to eliminate all the things from my life that make me feel bad. It's an experiment.

I think it is bizarre, that the people who tell you that you are crazy or not crazy are the same.

But it's always nice to be told that you are not crazy.

Regardless
of whether of not it's true
it's important to give you
none of the credit for any
of my feelings.

But don't worry.
I also feel this way about religious figures
and politicians.

Sometimes I randomly get the urge to just delete my facebook, my twitter, and my blog. Not in a move of angst or aggression, but as a way to clear my thoughts and be a real person. None of them are actually satisfying, except for the momentary thrill I get when someone says something directly to me.

I probably won't do it. And if I do it, I will plan not to tell anyone and then tell everyone. Subtly is not something I'm skilled at.

I like to think about life as stages. Those stages repeat. Usually when things get really really bad, things get really really good to make up for the really really bad. And then when they get bad again, there is a grieving process. I can clearly identify where I am in these processes and I know how it turned out last time I was in this place, except I don't want it to turn out that way. I have been actively working to make sure it doesn't. What happens if it does? Then it does. And life will go on.

But that's true about everything. You know, except death, but that's rather irrelevant to this post.

Other things I thought about today:
Workshopping. Shopping for works. I then pictured going down a grocery store aisle.

How is it that people from so many different places can end up so similar in terms of mannerisms and speech patterns? Especially in terms of social groups. How is it that hipsters are hipsters and nerds are nerds and they are so much alike across a great region?

When I think in my head, I think to people that I want to say things to. It's difficult when I shift locations because all the people I want to say things to are in a different place from me and once the thought has passed, it won't come out properly.

When I'm sad I tend to think in cliches, resulting in bed writing. I'm scared I am going to write in cliches for my workshop.

Science appeals to me a lot in that I know very little about most areas of science and thus it appears to be simpler than it actually it.

Sometimes when I'm at work I see headlines that seem like they shouldn't be real.

Like "Pregnant 15 yeat old shot."

And "Body in wall might be missing grad student."

Also, 500th blog post!

Tonight is the first night I've cried in a really long time. Not counting Saturday when I got drunk and cried about my mother. Or not counting last Monday when my brother told me that my dad is seriously trying to get rid of my cat. Okay, so I've cried a lot. But the rest of the time I haven't cried. And I haven't cried about a lot of things that I probably need to cry about. The thing about being so anxious and I have trained myself to immediately try and do anything that will make my anxiety go away, which doesn't ever really solve problems, it just distracts me from them.

Like right now I am going to go watch tv and not think about anything. This will not get my German reading done. Nor will it deal with any of the obvious emotional problems that I'm having. But I don't really care at the moment.

Writing makes me too depressed. I need a new major.

I'm writing a really epic poem that I can't post on here.

But I think I might read it at off-Knox or some other open mic.

Toothpaste

I was actually able to sleep in till 11 this morning, which is really late for me lately. When I woke up I had a dilemma. Do I get ready and then eat lunch or do I eat lunch and then get ready? Usually I eat and then several hours later I get ready when I am at home in the summer and don't do anything till evening, but having class at 1 starts a whole new dilemma. Today I decided to get ready and then eat lunch, but I hit a problem: toothpaste. I don't like the taste of toothpaste while I eat, but I don't like the taste of toothpaste after I eat. What is a person to do?

I often wish
that cake didn't exist.
It sits and stares
and says "Eat me."

I like to look out windows
more when I feel this way.

Any kind of screen really
and then picture myself
looking out.

Last night I went back to my room after getting gummi bears for Club Fair and a season of an unnamed tv show (unnamed because I'm embarrassed, but if you know me, you probably know what it is) and I read for awhile (schoolwork, but it's for Latin American Women Writers, so it was really enjoyable) and then fell asleep. Sara came and woke me up to go to Jazz Night, realized I was too deep in sleep to go to Jazz Night and then I fell back asleep for several more hours.

That was all incredibly pointless.

Anyways, I woke up around midnight, took a shower and realized I was very awake. I watched some episodes of the unnamed tv show and tried to go back to sleep, but I kept thinking. Uusually when I am awake at 2:00AM and don't want to be, I get unhappy, as was the case last night. But I wasn't unhappy about something in particular, I was unhappy about the fact that I seem so unhappy and don't quite know how to fix it. It made me wonder if people are ever really unhappy about anything except the loss of their happiness, which sounds awful and selfish, but it's just something to consider.

Life, I am told
is about the grieving process.

"He was a war vet, you know."
Catagorization of what was lost.
More judgemental yet,
"She was never really the same since he left her."

People are there
or they aren't.
It doesn't make a difference really.
It's like being in this room
or that room.
The light is better outside,
but a person exists just the same.

The distinct difference being,
I was happy this way
or that way and really
that is what I am mourning.

Usually after naps or after sleeping, I have this moment of clarity that some would call crabbiness where I realize that I am in a rather perilous state. The rest of the time I'm okay, just bored.

I just want working internet.

I could delete the last post, but it was written in a moment of passion of the fear of losing my cat. My dad wants to get rid of my cat because he scratches up the furniture. I am very attached to my cat. My cat is very attached to me. My dad wants to get rid of him sometime in the next couple of months.

So school.

My apartment is nice. The livingroom is oddly shaped. The kitchen is fully functional. My room looks really good. I hung my pictures, moved the bed by the window. I'm happy to see people that I haven't seen for awhile.

My window looks out onto the Science and Math building, which we call SMC (pronounced smack). SMC is one of the least attractive buildings on campus. Not to say it's unattractive, it just less appealing than the other buildings on campus. I like to have my blinds open. My bed is right next to the window. What this means is that in the mornings all of the SMC students will be able to see me sleeping.

SMC is interesting. I went there today to get my internet working and the computer center is in the basement. To get there I walked by all these storage units that had things like "fairy dust," "the missing link," "first years."

Driving was a cultural experience. There is this one area on I-80 in Iowa where all the cars drive in the left lane and all the trucks drive in the right lane and the only time anyone changes lanes is to pass people in the left lane. I like how when you drive with the same cars for a long time you form a bond with them. When I passed into Iowa the people in the car in front of me waved their hands in the air in joy (they were from Iowa). Leaving Minnesota felt right in the way that it felt wrong. I had Dunn's and Breadsmith, a Minnesota tattoo on my foot, and I was listening to music made in Minnesota.

I'm glad to be back. I just needed to be somewhere different. Here is not necessarily the right place, but it works.

Galesburg has a new bookstore. It's oddly shaped, but for a small bookstore it seems to have a good selection of books. Also, it has free wireless and tea and coffee. I'm really glad Galesburg has a bookstore.

That's all. I actually am really optomistic, even if I don't seem like it. I know things are going to get better. I just have difficulty taking bad things right now. Sometimes I'm slightly fragile and sensitive. You know, just sometimes and slightly.

Okay, I need a break. Not a summer break. A thinking break. For the next few months, nobody is allowed to die or leave or stop being friends with me. I need to be happy. To be happy, I need these things to happen.

I'm at school. I want classes to start.

When I drove home the girls in the other cars
had on dresses that hung off the shoulder
and sunglasses that reflected the street lights.
There were no men in these cars, but instead
on the street, in groups of t-shirts and ripped
pants, taking no notice of the women in the cars.

When I arrived home, the lights were off
and my cat had fallen asleep on my clean
clothes. I put my purse down and realized
that the feeling I had thought was hunger
for the past several days, was not hunger
at all, but a completely different emotion
that was related to consumption in the way
that hunger is related to a diet. To eat
what you want and what you don't want
and to feel guilty afterwards.

I was successfully okay the entire day today.

See, I can do what I need to do.

One time
I was driving at night
and I hit a rabbit.
I asked,
"Why was the rabbit in the road?"

This is almost the same.
Only instead
the rabbit and I talked
and planned a time
for him to be in the road
And after I ran him over
he reinflated and asked
"Why did you hit me?"

And all I could say was
"Why were you in the road when you knew I was going to be there?"

The counselor I was seeing last spring kept telling me that I was angry and I kept telling her that I wasn't an angry person except with my mother. This isn't true. I get angry a lot. I get angry because I expect a lot out of people and when they don't meet my expectations it crushes me to the point that I get angry because I want them to be better, because I trust them to be better. I expect people to keep the commitments that they make. I expect people to be nice when I'm upset and in return I expect them to trust me enough to talk to me when they're upset. These expectations make me feel completely unreasonable. I shouldn't expect this, right? Simply change my expectations and then the problem is solved. But it kills me to change those expectations. If I change them, it means I don't have faith in you and if I'm friends with you, I want to have faith in you. I want to able to have high expectations out of the people I care about.

I have let some people down lately. Some people have let me down lately. All of these people are overlapping. I want to love everyone again.

No one has commented in forever. Luckily this coincides with me having nothing to say. I have to make things better before I even start to process anything.

I'm just sick of feeling this feeling that I don't want to say because I hate how it sounds when I say it.

Earlier in the summer I sat on a playground with a friend and we talked about why boys don't like us and we came to the conclusion that we look okay, it's some deeper flaw.

I should set blogger so I can't post at 2 AM.