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.