I hate the fucking residency permit application. So far it has cost me $146 and many days worth of time.

Sometimes I still feel like I've five years old and it's just an accident that everyone is treating me like I'm twenty-two. I saw the honorary Austrian Consulate today. I am too little to be doing this.

I have never been so happy to find myself at the gym in my life. I smiled at myself in all the mirror. I rejoiced when a very large woman walked in so I didn't feel like the largest person in the room. I was much less happy when my abs and hamstrings hurt a lot, but I was still in a great mood by the time we left and went to the grocery store.

5 beers deep, going to do a core workout. I need atleast seven beers to be drunk, so I'm good right?

I wonder a lot what type of girl I am, as though that can be defined simply. I didn't wonder this when I was in a relationship for a long time because I was one of those girls who was in a relationship for a long time and that's just how it was. Now I wonder it frequently. I think I am feeling inadequate at being whoever I am supposed to be.

Last night I was walking my dog and it occurred to me that walking him was one of the few things that kept me happy and from missing everyone too much.

When I went to visit Danny at Carleton we discussed how people are like animals. We eat and then wait around so we can eat somemore and sometimes we mate, but that doesn't happen nearly often enough.

Someone just articulately explained how I feel while getting over someone (not that I am particularly getting over someone at the moment, it was just so good):

"But I just want to be miserable over someone else."

My mother on my brother's behavior:

"I don't know why he keeps doing those triathalons, they make him so tired."

Remember how I posted about my mother constantly trying to feed me? I got to her hospital room and she offered me everything that she ordered for lunch and went on and on about being worried about me starving.

It's my first day to sleep in snd my mom calls at 10 AM from the hospital, asking me to pick her up immediately. My dog, hearing that I am awake has a heart attack of joy and starts sliding around my wooden floor. So much for sleeping in.

I would like to note that when my mother is home and not in the hospital we have a very good relationship. I come home usually between 11:00PM and 3:00AM and often she is still awake and she offers me food and I say no and then she starts listening off other foods that she could make in the future and I say that sounds good and she tells me how cute I look and that is the end. If I am home during the day, the routine is pretty much the same although sometimes I accept the offer of food and she talks about how cute I am for longer as my look has not been rumbled by the evening yet.

I'm developing these cute little muscles from my cute little bicycle.

Well that's that. Atleast I'm being honest with myself.

Watched Pride and Prejudice while drinking gin gimlets with Jenny tonight. Started crying when Mr. Darcy proposes for the second time. The reason that story is so great is that it shows a bunch of males presumably acting shitty and then they all apologize and say it's out of love. This never happens in life. Thus the tears and the messed up knitting.

I am going to ride my beautiful bike to Borealis (a yarn store) and listen to Caroline Smith because she matches my bike so well. Hopefully this will not kill me.

I have no work until Monday June 5th.

I need to stop writing flash fictions about people I know.

I am jumping through hoops to get my residency permit for next year and it is making me tired. Other things making me tired: little sleep, not receiving text messages until the day after they've been sent, approximately 500 people in places that are not here that I desperately want to be here. Okay, this list is probably more like 20 people, but that is a huge number.

I've been feeling very confessional lately.

The Austrian Visa application is a terrifying form in German.

My legs hurt so bad from my bike ride yesterday. It's really intense that amount of pain that I am in just from biking.

I turned it back on again in the next minute. I have little to no willpower.

I got so mad at my phone that I turned it off.

This is my bicycle. It's really great.

New bike, new dress, whiskey, coke, hanging out with Jenny by the river = a good night.

Things kids said at work today:

"Squirrels are my favorite animal because sometimes they crawl up girl's pants."

New bike new bike new bike. I am so excited, how am I going to make it through the next 2 and 1/2 hours?

My mother finally got her hip replacement surgery. Apparently they woke her up and she started getting hostile, screaming to see her children. One of the nurses called me and I could hear her murmuring in the background. I drove to the hospital, low on gas, already crabby. When I walked into her room she started squealing and tried to get out of bed to hug me. Then she asked why I was crabby. I told her I was tired, I was crabby, I was low on gas, it was a Wednesday, and I hate hospitals*. She then decided to do a psychiatric analysis of why I hate hospitals. She decided that maybe it was from when she got her appendix removed when I was two. This is quite plausible as this is my first memory, however, my memory of this consists entirely of riding the elevator with my dad. Then she continued to list off every other time in my life that I had been to the hospital, completely ignoring and excluding what actually makes me hate the hospital. I was almost in tears by the end of this conversation. She then yelled at me for looking upset and asked where my brother was and proceeded to cry and hyperventilate because he wasn't there. Then she got in an argument with the nurse because the nurse didn't want a patient who had just gotten a hip replacement to walk by herself to the bathroom. Finally she got so mad at me she told me I should leave. I'm still not sure what I did.

*When I was fifteen before a speech party (yes, I was on the speech team in high school) I fell down on the ice outside of Julie's house , blacked out for a period of time, managed to get up and get Julie from her house and the whole car ride, my dad, my brother, and Julie were asking me questions and I kept repeating "I don't know," over and over again. I have no memory of saying this, I do remember trying to figure out what week it was and what had happened in the past few days. My dad asked if I wanted to go to the hospital and I was so scared of the hospital that I said no, evening though I obviously needed to. I got to the party and Pulp Fiction was on and I talked to my boyfriend on the phone, but couldn't figure out if we were actually dating. Sometimes I worry this affected my intelligence.

I want to do something. I am getting sad from all this restlessness.

There's this guy with the loudest voice ever sitting in Dunn's and essentially saying "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me." What a load of shit.

She came up and asked if she could share my table. Things are righted.

My boss was really crabby today and gave us lots of lectures on our behavior. I respond by laughing, as laughing is the way I respond to everything that makes me uncomfortable. I went to Dunn Brothers and no tables were free and this guy waved me over to share his table and it was so nice and he told me to return the favor and now I desparately want to even though I don't much like sharing a table. I finally started my visa app. I have seven days to finish. Why do I only procrastinate on things that are really important. I think the people at the table next to me are in AA and have a sponser/member relationship.

There s a woman wandering around and I am too scared to tell her that she can share my table.

I want to go to a party.

The next logical question of course, is do I feel bad about myself? And no, I don't think I do really, I think I am just confused about a lot of things and to clear my mind I bought clothing, but then I went for a walk with my dog and everything was still there.

The next logical question of course, is do I feel bad about myself? And no, I don't think I do really, I think I am just confused about a lot of things and to clear my mind I bought clothing, but then I went for a walk with my dog and everything was still there.

I bought three dresses. I use dresses like other people use men: to feel better about myself.

Apparently the life phase I am at is where my emotions match up with Lady Gaga songs.

My body has a tendency to react before my mind or rather, my body is doing things and my mind is confused as to why.

I saw my Uncle Eric tonight and it was really great.

Things kids said at work today:

1. I knew a girl who got so hot that she took off her skin and sat around in her bones.

2. There's a spider web in the corner, that means there's a ghost.

3. One of my cousins, her dad died on father's day.

4. Boop boop boop boop boop boop.

I desperately need to sleep, but I just want to plug the personal yoga lesson I got from Jenny today. It was super good, so you should come to her next yoga teacher in training session.

Things I want to do everyday this week:
1. Read
2. Write
3. Work out
I will be a good-looking well read writer if I do this the whole summer.

I'm making carrot cake for my dad. Later we're going out for Thai food because, you know, Thai food and carrot cake go super well together.

All of you are welcome confusion. Inside I am quite bored.

Today I was supposed to cook dinner for my dad, but he said we could just go out to dinner instead. I am the worst daughter ever.

I really liked people here tonight and being here tonight. I am so tired though I am starting to feel sick.

I'm in the sort of mood where I want to spill all my secrets. Secrets might be the wrong word. I'm in the sort of mood where I want to spill all my feelings.

I finished The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao today and afterwards I felt like I had died. I almost cried, in Dunn Brothers, reading that fucking last line. I walked out dazed, bought a six pack of beer for tonight. I wasn't carded even though I haven't been to that liquor store since last August. I must look old today. I got a haircut. It looks pretty much the same since most of the hair she cut off was in the back and even then it was only an inch. I don't know what to read next. I was thinking One Hundred Years of Solitude but I don't know that I can do that right now. I wtote something today. For the first time in a couple of weeks. I would post it, but I can't.

I have almost fully cleaned both my room (besides the closets of course). This has not happened so completely in four years.

There are nice things in my life. And confusing things in my life. I like the idea of math and science because in my head this is a rational baseline from which everything must stem. Irrational behaviors do not occur. Things off the mark are counted only as an anomaly and forgotten. Things travel in patterns. I'm quite certain that there is a level of math that I never got to where things don't work this way at all otherwise all the people I know who like math oh-so-much would be far less disturbed human beings. I keep trying to figure everyone out like answers would help, but probably not as there is nothing much I can do either way, anywaya.

I found a bunch of letters and cards and pictures while cleaning my room. Mostly from senior year of high school and first year of college. I tried to throw them away, but I can't.

Card from Blair: Tasha! Happy Birthday! There's no mail today so this is going to be laaaaaaate. Gustavus has laaaaame cards. I hope you have a FABULOUS birthday! I missss you!!!!

Card from Elizabeth: Tasha! Haha, I thought you'd like the baby on the front! Any way, I hope you have a really good birthday and I wish I could be there (or both of us at home). Hopefully I will come and visit you soon! Happy Birthday!!!

She never came to visit me.

There's a letter from Julie from before Thanksgiving break first year talking about how she is so excited to be home with everyone. How different from now. There's a letter from Joseph. Weird. A birthday letter from Julie.

Card from Grandparents (grandfather now passed away, grandmother immobile: the enclosed check for SIOU purposes only.

*Self Indulgence Otherwise Unthinkable.

There's a huge pile of senior pictures.

Oh and love letters. What do I do with those? What do you do with love letters after you break someone's heart?

Spent another day sleeping after work. This is getting really bad. I am wasting my life. Next week: start drinking coffee, stop napping. I don't have any plans, but it's fine either way because I have stuff I need to get done. I guess I could still see people.

I love the feeling of my legs after shaving, right as I get out of the shower. Other places I like: boys cheeks, above where hair grows.

Life doesn't feel the best so I'm going to get a haircut and wash some dresses. Maybe get drunk this weekend with Blair. It'll be just like being a teenager again!

I feel like I have chronic fatigue syndrome.

I'm tired of getting nothing done. Also, I spilled butter on my shirt while eat breakfast. I didn't know people could spill butter on themselves.

Today I am going to finish cleaning at least one of my two rooms. I will I will I will. I cannot work while everything is messy around me, instead I just sleep.

(I dreamt we had a toilet in the kitchen and everyone kept walking in on me. Kevin's soccer coach, which is strange because he doesn't play soccer, came and ate some Indian food that Danny made and didn't like it.)

Today a five year old girl held my hand when we walked down to the bathroom and told me she liked sketching better than working on her project because she could just sit and talk to me. I need more friends that are five. To them, I'm really cool.

Getting ready when I'm at home takes much longer. I don't know if my bed is more comfortable or if the toast making is too time consuming or if I just sleep better and thus cannot wake up, but it is so slow.

The lasagne was finally finished at 10:30. I burnt the roof of my mouth I was so hungry.

The one good thing about everyone living at home with their parents is the posting of funny interactions that everyone has. Parents say the darndest things.

According to my mother the secret to good lasagna is a sprinkling of cinnemon. She said this and then read the back of the noodle box to figure out what order to put the ingredients in the pan.

There were a few years in high school when I didn't eat anything. I was very thin and could wear things like size zero jeans (but they made my knees look bony). Now when I'm hungry I'm like a monster. I need to eat or I see myself fading.

There was this middle aged woman learning to swim at the pool today. It was really endearing.

Sometimes I still wish I were in Wales. I liked everything a lot for those 10 days and I love liking everything.

Like many small children, I hated showers and it was difficult to get me underwater (actually, it was quite easy to get me in lakes, swimming pools, and the ocean, it was just showers I hated). Now I still struggle to actually make the trek to the bathroom though I do so almost daily (there is a missed day every few weeks), but once I get under the water, it is the best place.

I feel vindicated. Atleast the reason why I was upset was not in my head.

I always forget how to dress for work.

Things to do tomorrow:

1. Work
2. Eat lunch
3. Work on organizing both rooms.
4. Read
5. Write
6. Knit
7. Hang out with people?

A list.

1. I got pulled over today for the first time. I was going 31 MPH in a 30 zone and I was terrified of getting a speeding ticket. I was also crying, this was unrelated to being pulled over. The cop told me that one of my headlights was burnt out and to have a goodnight. He smiled a lot.

2. I called Glo because I was crying.

3. I was crying because I feel so terribly out of place and because I haven't had thoughts like that in a long time. My thoughts lately have been more like "I would like another beer," "That boy is cute," stuff like that. Instead of this thinking bullshit.

4. I kind of want to forget about people and hide in my room and read.

5. At the sametime I really want to be around people. I want a boy. I know I do. It's terrible.

6. I want to sit down with someone and tell them lots of things. I don't know who this someone is, rather I know lots of someones that it could be. I just want to have a really nice serious talk about my life right now and that's never how it works.

7. A week ago I wanted no serious talk.

My mom: We could go down together and get more money on the EBT card (foodstamp card)
Me: You want me to go down to the welfare?

I'm learning so much about social class.

I am about to go use my mom's food stamps. What?

I made blueberry pancakes for breakfast with my mom and brother and it was one of those nice moments where I enjoyed spending time with my family and we ate delicious food and didn't argue.

I want someone to spoon with tonight. If I were a different person I would write a craigslist ad requesting a big spoon.

I need people to stay in my house all the time.

I am really lonely at this moment.

I just don't feel very well today. Not like sick unwell, like unhappy unwell.

I walked home at 1:30 in the morning after a party because I was scared to sleep in a basement with centipedes. No one quite comprehended my fears and I didn't completely understand them either. The whole way home I thought about this poem that I wrote about centipedes sophomore year. I wondered if it applied to the current situation. I wasn't sure.

People reveal their insecurities while drunk and I find it endearing and sad. Like how Katie lifts up her shirt while drunk. I really miss Katie. I show my insecurities often anyways. I talk about writing a lot. How I want to do it more. The things that other people say about themselves always surprises me. It's like having a zit on your face and no one notices it except for you, but it overwhelms your face, it's all you can think about.

On the bright, happy, literal side, I got to listen to Emily record 3 writer's yesterday and it was really cool, especially Kristin Naca. I had no idea there were so many writer's in the Twin Cities (they recorded more the other two days they were here).

Going to listen to some writer's read. I am very excited.

I feel so disconnected with people in St. Paul right now.

It's been rather nice having Knox people here. Also it was nice seeing Art Academy people today.

I don't think it's a permanent disconnected. I'm just not in the flow.

My dad finally figured out that my brother smokes weed. I figured it out in the spring of 2009 before I came home.

I haven't sat in one coffeeshop since returning home. This is a record.

I woke up and missed everyone all over.

What do hipsters wear to bed?

There are some Knox people sleeping in my house.

I went to Carleton with Colin to see Danny today, it was a good time. Then I went to the Loft, saw a reading and hung out with the Knox people who are in my house.

I want to post some writing soon.

I need a lot to sustain me.

Tonight I was lying down after a small bit to drink and suddenly I imagined my body as stone. I haven't thought about things like that for awhile, like the realness of my body. Where I am in space.

Do you ever think, "I don't want to shower today, I already showered yesterday, why do I have to do it again?"

My backaches something awful. This is what happens when I switch beds.

Blogger was down so I haven't been able to post. Unfortunately I was not really busy and that's why I've been abnormally quiet. I'm home. I almost killed my mother on the drive and she sensed how tense I was and tried to comfort me by repeating every five minutes how much closer we were and how once we crossed the Minnesota border it would all be better. She totally ruined the border crossing for me. Normally I love it. Then I went out to a huge dinner with my dad and brother where I ate calamari, french onion soup, a popover, bacon wrapped scallops, green beans, wild rice, and molten chocolate cake. I also drank an entire bottle of wine by myself minus the half a glass my dad drank. Party hard. When I got home I flipped out because Larry (my mom's boyfriend) cut down this bush I like a lot in front of my mom's house. This inexplicably caused me to rearrange my room.

Side story: I rearranged my room as a small child because I could see the top of my head in the mirror when I sat up in bed and I needed glasses so it was scary shit seeing my little dark blurry head popping up. When I was a first year in college my mother changed it back without asking which caused a series of panic attacks when I returned home, but I didn't tell her because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Last night, still kind of drunk, I decided I needed to reclaim my room.

I spent all day cleaning my room at my dad's house and it's still not clean because it was a mess and then I went for drinks with Blair, which was really nice because I haven't seen her since August.

I've already bored. I don't know how to call people when I first get home. It makes me nervous.

Leaving Galesburg, going back to St. Paul.
My heart feels like Knox just broke up with me.

I'm pretty sure one of my roommates left my a present of a elephant shaped incense holder. If she didn't, someone broke into my apartment to leave it for me. I'm going to cry it made me so happy. Things keep appearing in my room. Like nice notes from people I like a lot.

I hate missing people. My tpying just got really bad. Sleepying time.

Graduation is kind of strange. Everyone in the audience gets really excited everytime they spot their child, the robes are really hot, the hats don't stay on, and most of the ceremony was them giving out honorary degrees. I don't really remember walking across the stage either.

I cried after dropping my mom off at the hotel. I miss everybody. I miss people from school and people from home and I can't express to anyone how much I like them and I miss people that never want to talk to me again and that feels awful and I miss people that I shouldn't.

I'm nostalgic for everyone and people keep saying such nice things. Text messages are making me teary eyed at this point.

My family is generally one big disappointment all the time.
They didn't come to see me the night before commencement because they didn't want to drive forty minutes.
They are running late for commencement and I have to leave their tickets in my car.
My brother wants to leave immediately after commencement, but I told him he has to stay for lunch.
After lunch my dad and brother are leaving immediately.
I feel neglected.

I'm crying for the first time this week, not because I'm sad but because my brother is being mean and wants to leave as soon as the ceremony is over. I forget how bad he makes me feel.

Senior Week

There was a party on a roof. We discovered it after hearing noise down the street walking home from a 24-hour diner. I had eggs and toasts. The waitress with the mullet made fun of me for my measly meal, but she called me sweetie and coming from her I didn’t take it as an insult. On the way out, some guy told me I had a nice dress. Kara said she wanted to punch him in the face and called out “Fuck you,” as he walked away. As we approached the party, we realized we knew people, but only in the way that most people are known in college: I had seen them before. We had classes together. I couldn’t remember any of their names. We climbed up the metal fire escape, drunkenly clutching the railing.
“Where the fuck are we?” I said when we got to the top.
“I don’t know,” Kara said.
We said hi to some people or she said hi to some people and I stood there feeling like I wanted more to drink even though I had been drinking for a solid thirteen hours. We ran into Bob who said, “I don’t know where the fuck I am.” He ran inside only to come back out and pee off the roof.
There were a couple of people making out a few feet away from us. Inside people were dancing, their hands up in the air.
“Do you want to go in there?” Kara asked.
“No,” I said. “I definitely do not want to go in there.”
A girl came up to us. I had class with her first year, but I hadn’t since. She’d missed a term or two and then transferred schools. We acted like we knew each other. I lit a cigarette. After she walked away I said, “It’s time to leave college.”
“I think it’s time to leave this roof,” Kara replied.

Remember when I was kind of drunk in a casino a while ago?

Remember how much more fun that was than packing?

Senior week day three: Drank mojitos and other items with my roommates and a bunch of other people that I lived with sophomore year. We looked at pictures, it was all very nostalgic. Kettle came over and we chit chatted. Much calmer than last night which was nice.

Dinner has made everything feel better.

Third worst hangover of my life. I've been in bed all day long. Then I got really sad about all the people who weren't here anymore, but then as my sickness cleared I got more cheerful.

Why do I only get phone calls while I am sleeping? One half an hour nap and I got three phone calls. Three!

Jusr vomited from drinkign for thr first tine since Juoly

uggghhhh

Ahhh party hard.
I haven't drank this much in a while. Luckily it's over a period of time.
Party hard!