On Friday I will make a glorious return to Coryell Island.

Sundays make me feel sort of catatonic. Lay around knitting and watching the Jersey Shore and sort of half-thinking. The sort of thinking that results primarily in making jokes so things seem less important. I go back again and think of Laura's introduction for my writer's forum where she aptly called me "vulnerable." Maybe writers are intrinsically more vulnerable because displaying feelings to everyone is part of the description. It didn't occur to me that everyone can't do this.

I like the people I know from Knox. Knowing them now makes me think it was the right place for me, though I have not doubted that for quite some time.

I am sunburnt on half my body, the places the sunscreen missed, and the rest of me is the dull tan my body turns after too much sun.

While swimming in the pool I overheard a conversation between three adults who were sitting around chain smoking discussing hunting and gun rights. I then lay on my back and couldn't hear anything, but their kids playing in the water. When I resurfaced I heard one of the men say, "I'll say it again, guns don't kill people." I wanted to ask him what does kill people, but instead quietly went back to my chair and continued to read.

I biked 25 miles yesterday. I feel good.

So pretend you are drunk and really happy and riding your bike on the Midtown Greenway through Minneapolis at night and listening to this song and that's how I felt forty-five minutes ago.

Initial sleep consultation today to see if I have narcolepsy. Fucking scared.

People need to watch Robin Hood more when they are kids. I just can't pay attention to politics anymore because I just get upset because it seems so stupid and obvious.

The Twins are sucking so bad Cuddyer is pitching. 

Granola just kind of sits in your stomach.

What's weird is, I can't say "I think about this a lot. This is important to me," but I would be happy if people would say that to me, so why do I assume they wouldn't like it?

Being a grownup sucks. Instead of relaxing when I go home, I just clean and study for the GRE.

Things I need to do: Go bra shopping and boot shopping.

I got the urge to call my mother last night, ask her out to lunch, but I just don't have the time to wait around while she doesn't show up for twelve hours.

I know other peoples dreams are boring, but last night I had a dream that I had a huge and I mean fucking huge gap between my two front teeth and they had to put braces on, but everytime I smiled my teeth went back together so I just had to walk around smiling all the time.

My hand hurts from coloring. I spent approximately five hours yesterday with a marker in my hand. This shouldn't happen to anyone.

I wish I were an attractive rapper. Or an attractive poet. An attractive person reading stuff.

Here's what I would do if I could do anything I wanted today:
Sleep a bit more.
Get up and go to the pool.
Swim and lie in the sun.
Put on a cute dress.
Bike somewhere and sit out in the sun drinking something cool, reading and writing.
Take a nap.
Go workout.
Eat a delicious dinner.

What I will be doing instead:
Working from 9-7.

The problem about becoming obsessive about growing my hair and nails is that they grow such a minuscule amount, it takes ages to see any progress and feel satisfaction. 

I'm gonna go run the shit out of a treadmill. Then I'm gonna bike somewhere and study for the GRE and try to write.

This is a frequent argument I get into. I really like this article. 

"The other favourite hipster defense is, of course, to claim that people are being “too politically correct” or “too sensitive.” This is supposed to be a pithy insult which indicates that the person pointing out offensive behavior is too uptight, and not really part of the freewheeling hipster movement, but in fact, it’s just silencing. Saying that people deserve to be treated like human beings and that discourse should be respectful has nothing to do with being too sensitive, and everything to do with genuinely believing that people should be treated equally."

My inability to write is making me feel shitty. Like my inability to speak German. Like my inability to talk about things. Fuck. I need to sleep, things are getting to me.

It's about vulnerability.

I am trying to stop biting my nails. This is the longest they've been in years. 

Bought lots of eyeshadow so I can become the crazy eyeshadow lady.

For whatever reason, I've been thinking about the prospect of having to leave the Twin Cities in a year or so if I get into grad school and the thought makes me really sad. Sometimes I feel like nothing about me fits together.

I really like Nicki's pink lipstick.

My D bra no longer fits. Fuck.

Somehow the belief has entered my mind that it is entirely unacceptable to have feelings for people. I make a good effort feigning nonchalance, until several bottles of wine takes down my defense and it seems once these things are spilled they stay that way forever.

Austria has a reality show called "Austrian DJ." So typical.

Painting my nails red and blue for the Twins game tomorrow. So excited.

More often than not, when I cry I am probably not sad, but angry or confused or overwhelmed in some manner.

Roommate: You need to edit this post because there are fifty bigillion errors right now.

Roommate: There's nothing on my ass right now!
Tessa: I have a cork. It doesn't fit.
Roommate: Yes, it does, it's open for you.
Tessa; Clench, clench. see, right there, it's corking his ass.

The bronchials
What are the bronchials?
People who live in the Bronx

My roommate is half asleep on the couch. He has said:

You're cute, there's a cute boy in my dreams. 

Make me a baby. 

Will you make me a pelican baby?

Ringo has an accent. 

That was really mean, I'm sorry. 

Am I douche bag? 

Hehehehehe. 

(Tessa: He's lost his mind)

No, it's right here, it's in my head! It hurts!

If I sleep right here, will it hurt?

But it already hurts!

Tasha, I don't know if we can do this

It's really hard to eat lobster with this fingernails

Would you ever date a scally?

British people who are kind of skatery. They are your type actually

Will one of you fuck me please?

(bare ass)

You can use a spoon

Hehehhe

Spoooon. 

And a multitude of things I don't remember because I am betrunken. 

Also, I hate people. 

And like people. 

It's like when you get crushed you get crushed forever and never return. 

I want it to be Friday and go to the Twin's game. 

What if it's never cold in Minnesota again? All of our jokes will be useless.

Quiet, mind. The unsettling always happens.

I have been forbidden from riding my bike to work this week because it's so fucking hot. This is ridiculous.

Other people become more and more like their mothers, but I make the inevitable crawl towards becoming my father. I am eating blueberry flax seed granola with strawberry yogurt and bananas. The idea of going to sleep at 9pm is appealing. I am excited to work out today and lament the fact that I do not have enough time to do so everyday. I expect soon I will be doing triathalons and getting sports injuries.

Life has been better than I thought life would be upon returning home. I like life like this, where all I want to do is tell everyone how goddamn happy I am and how there are all these nice little moments where things just feel good.

It's surprising to find out people were more aware of you than previously thought. 

There are beeer bottles weverywhar!

I checked my spam mail and one of my messages was from Sexytime and the message subject was, "Do you want to have sex?"
Seriously spam mail? I obviously didn't open it due to viruses and things, but seriously spam mail?

Also Krista drunk texted me and it made me really happy. And lots of people just make me happy.

I have dated boys like this. 

All I can do right now is lie in bed naked and I have to be at work in 40 minutes. I am never going to a midnight movie again and drinking and eating lots of shitty foods.

This is my dark mark. Because I am a dark wizard, obviously. 

This is one of my favorite films from Infinite Jest. More people need to read Infinite Jest so I can talk about it. Everyone reaches page 100 and just gives up.

Granola makes me really full, really fast and I can never finish my bowl in the twenty (yes, that's right, twenty) minutes I give myself to eat it.

Going to see Harry Potter tonight at midnight. I don't like Harry Potter enough to go to the midnight showing I think, but I want to go because otherwise it feels like a party that everyone is invited to and I'm not. I probably won't cry or get very emotional. I will probably get annoyed with Harry, continued to be annoyed by the prettiness of Hermione when she is supposed to have frizzy hair (because obviously this is what makes people ugly), and roll my eyes because lots of people crying about something I am not crying about makes me uncomfortable (see: Lost finale).

No one ever thought the government shutdown would effect beer. 

Last week I looked for tables on craigslist and now there are a table and four chairs sitting in my apartment and getting this much done almost feels surreal.

Lawning mowing at 7:15 in the morning. The worst.

I have been happy lately.

So tired. I am going to sleep at 8pm every night from now on.

I just want to play pool. It is quickly becoming one of the best part of really good weeks, which means it's really good. I can't decide if it's pool or the company. I can't decide if that is too honest. I don't know. I just don't. Whatever. Whiskey.

How am I supposed to be a writer if I don't write?

This week, this week I will write a lot. 

Big fucking storm.

It's calming.

Lovely weekend. Sunday night laundry. Studying vocabulary. Feel like I am in college again.

Loans figured out. Doctor's appointment approaching. There are always things. I just want there to be no things.

The writing is sort of shitty, but.... 

I can't read his poetry objectively.
I can't read his poetry.

I have lots of things to do today, so here at pictures I took of myself in my pretty bathroom that you should come see if you haven't.

Looking through pictures. I like how I look sloppy drunk here, though I'm not. I don't know what I look like when I am sloppy drunk, but I can only imagine I seem to be spilling out from everywhere. 

Finished "Richard Yates." I think it took me so long because the book made me feel shitty. It was about a 22 year old dating a 17 year old obese girl. At first the 22 year old was easier to relate to, but by the end of the book he had turned into this monstrous person. There was very little plot, per usual in a Tao Lin novel, the only narrative that really existed was the abuse of the 22 year old to the 17 year old. I am excited to be reading something different.

Added something to the list:

Clean apartment after parties.

Drunken fourth of July posts are funnier than other drunk posts.
I am making a list of things I want to do with my week off. I am pretty sure I won't achieve all of them.

1. Finish reading Richard Yates, the Lorrie Moore book I bought and the books of poetry by Mary Carr and Mary Ruefle.
2. Make dinner for family. Make dinner for friends. Somehow also eat healthily this week.
3. Go to yoga class.
4. Do stuff with weights with Dad.
5. Go running.
6. Start a knitting project.
7. Make significant progress in GRE book.
8. Order planner and have it sent to the right address, not Knox address.
9. Get my car working.
10. Sleep a lot.

I love America. That is so fucking hard to say and so many people will be critical of that and my inner Marxist just fucking screams at me, but I do. I love the constant refills of drinks, the fake smiles people give, the friendliness of everyone, I love my friends, I love grilling and then going swimming. Today we were at the park, and we were the only table of mostly white people and it made me so happy and I just kept drunkenly talking about how proud I was to be American. I love the diversity and I acknowledge that there is racism, but we are making progress and for the amount of diversity there is, people are still pretty fucking friendly. This sounds so fucking sappy, but I am happy to live where I live and know who I know.

Breakfast is just the absolute best thing.

Party was really good. Lots of people came. Danny made delicious drinks and we drank together and everything felt really right. Now we are going to go out for breakfast.

I need to start writing poetry again. I don't know what to write about.

I've read this a number of times, as I know quite a few people have, but this section has never struck me before:

I submit that this is what the real, no-bull- value of your liberal-arts education is supposed to be about: How to keep from going through your comfortable, prosperous, respectable adult life dead, unconscious, a slave to your head and to your natural default-setting of being uniquely, completely, imperially alone, day in and day out.

Sometimes I feel like I don't need to write anything at all because everything I could ever want to say has already been said.

Upset like no other.

Looking back at Austria it looks like
loss
loss
sleeping
sleeping
loss
drunk
loss
loss
drunk
sleeping
loss


And now I come home and am really happy most of the time until I am blatantly reminded by the things that are gone and I don't want any advice like "you'll feel better" or "be optimistic" because it will really only make me angry and actually I am not doing poorly it is only when I am reminded of all my stuff in trash bags in the basement (which is no longer true as I have moved it all back upstairs) that I begin to cry endlessly and think about my cat and dog and house and I keep trying to explain to my dad and he just says "What is it from your room that you want?" and I just can't explain, because it's not one thing, I just want home, I want home preserved the way it was. My dad told me today that I'm at the age where I can't have that anymore, but I think I will always want that. I just need people to be patient with me. I will move out of this selfish "my life is really hard right now because things keep going away" phase soon.

I am so excited to see Eric and Shannon (my uncle and cousin). It has been way too long. I am even charging my camera battery so I can take really flattering pictures of us in the 97 degree (36 degree Celsius) heat during the Twins game.