Today I made the discovery that when I don't overfill the dryer, my clothes actually come out dry.

The only things that can make me drive in the snow are yoga classes, work, and seeing certain people. Sadly, these are the only things on my schedule today.

While I was running this morning I got a craving for butter.

On Tuesdays I always try to get shit done after work and instead end up sitting on my computer for way too long. Bought some nail stickers, but was too cheap to buy conditioner even though I'm almost out and it doesn't actually matter if I buy it today or in two days as I really do need more, but it seems like it matters and I don't really mind an extra trip to the store and would like my nails to look nice tomorrow rather than the next day.

I am going to drown my athletic sorrows in Annie's Peace Pasta and Danny's puzzle which I have taken over.

Awful day in swimming. When I try to go fast, which is everyone else's moderate, I just end up flailing all my limbs in a ridiculous manner and then crying underwater because I can't keep up with anyone and feel like I am just trying to be athletic when really I just want to sit on the couch eating pizza and drinking lots of wine. This is why I never did sports as a kid.

Plan for the day:
Yoga, lunch, puzzle, snack, work, swimming, dinner, sleep.

I went to Alabama for two nights and three days, but somehow it felt like months. Coming back was nice in ways I cannot describe. I wonder if things will always be like this.

I stopped biting my nails again and yesterday I accidentally scratched my cheek, but this morning I struggled to take the plastic off my new box of tea. Whenever I open a new box of tea, I think "there are 50 tea bags in here, this means that it's been 50 days since the last box of tea, though slightly less since sometimes I drink tea with other people" and it seems a larger marking of time than anything else except for my bottle of 100 iron pills almost being empty. I've been craving meat lately, specifically red meat and I don't even like red meat. I can only assume that my body is lacking some sort of nutrient.

I ran 6.2 miles and now I don't want to move or function or do anything at all.

Sometimes I think I couldn't be any happier or like people any more, but then I am happier and do like people more and it's amazing the depth of something that is entirely intangible.

I am now going to listen to only songs that talk about birthdays.

New Skins episodes and turkey pesto sandwich on foccacia bread. Excellent.

My birthday has been so great thus far. I like everybody I know so much. Taking shots every time someone says "Happy Birthday" at a birthday party is a great drinking game. People are great. I sound drunk, but I am real sober and so excited to go out to dinner tonight.

I'm so excited for my birthday party I woke up at 7am and couldn't get back to sleep, which means I'll largely be sleeping at my birthday party.

I really shouldn't read the news in the morning. I get much more upset about all these terrible injustices that normally my tired self just ignores.

I feel really bad for everyone who has to tolerate me at work tomorrow for 7 and 1/2 hours when all I will want to do is for work to end so I can eat my pizza and have my birthday party.

If any sort of alcoholic shot reminds you of me, what would it be?

Things I ate this week:
Large quantities of lasagna
Slices of baguette to accompany said lasagna
Chocolate covered strawberries
Pizza stolen from roommate
My favorite all natural cheese puffs
Lots of crackers
Bacon
Eggs fried in butter

Days I skipped my worked out:
2

So it stands to reason I would gain approximately 500 pounds, right?

No, instead I lost a pound. I would attribute it to muscle atrophy, but I would like to think a pound of muscle atrophy does not happen in two days. Clearly eating is the way to lose weight.

My roommate is not home so I should probably eat a giant piece of lasagna while there is no one here to see.

Did you know it's still not Saturday? This fact has been bothering me all day.

I am late to work every day. When I am running late I like to do things like my hair and talk about how late I am running.

Decided to read Ellen Kennedy instead of Sarah Manguso this morning. Ellen Kennedy reaches me on a colloquial level that Sarah Manguso does not. I think I also like her because Chad said I sound sort of like her and I like the idea of sounding like someone else.

Any way, you should read this and it will be like we read some of the same things this morning.

I don't understand why there are still so many days until my birthday party.

I went back to sleep at 10:30 and just woke up now at 3:00. My body is tired.

So many things.

Valentine's Day was really good.

Either I'm going to have a cute candlelit dinner or the fourteen candles on my table are going to burn my apartment down.

I don't really care about the corporate nature of Valentine's Day or that when I'm alone it makes me feel so terrible, I'm just excited to celebrate it.

I am so frustrated with yoga right now. Not my personal practice, but with the changes made to the yoga classes by this man. After class today I expressed my frustrations to one of the yoga teachers, one of them being the lack of emphasis on form and alignment and the teacher said, "Oh, we're trying to avoid talking about alignment because people felt bad when their bodies don't move that way." I could rant for a very long time about all the flaws in this statement, but I need to do laundry and wash the dishes and shower and eat lunch. Probably I should just do yoga by myself where I will get equally as much help with actually doing the poses correctly.

Not that I'm very stressed, just my cheek.

Stress hive is really upset today.

My morning was so excellent all I want to do is tell everyone how excellent it was, but I will refrain.

I feel very self-conscious about posting something I wrote right now. But I'm going to do it any way. I didn't get accepted into the U of M and all I want to do is write and this only reinforces my illogical believe in fate, which is not related to anything else I believe.

Yeah, so I wrote this when I woke up and I believe there is value in showing people raw things:

She had a dream that her stomach ached. When she woke she found that it was in fact aching and all the night before had meant was her dream-self telling other people in her dream, who were equally as much herself to wake up and take medication. People make jokes about how often teenagers sleep, as if exhaustion were funny. She no longer sleeps this much, but continues to tell everyone when she didn’t sleep well.

 She bought milk on her way back from work. As she put it in the refrigerator, she thought to herself, “I finally bought milk.” But it was gone by Sunday when she had to go out and buy milk again. She has a hard time remembering to clean out her car and do the laundry. She never thinks about socks until the morning.

Her father tells her that he’s found the cure for cancer, weight loss, and muscle tightness. She thinks it might be something revolutionary, but it’s only magnesium oil. When asked why people don’t use this more often, her father says, “Because people don’t like the word magnesium.” On occasion, she watches a show about people who are addicted to strange things, like eating couches and bras.

 The first time she travelled by herself she was ten and on a flight to California. The man next to her was traveling to Thailand. It was going to take twenty-four hours and all he had was a bag of chips, which he offered to her at the end of the flight. She wanted to take the chips, but remembered she wasn’t supposed to take food from strangers. Her tape came unwound. Most people were already using cds. Once it started unwinding, it continued to go until there was ribbon everywhere.

When she’s living by herself in foreign country her landlady gives her fruit in a bowl as a housewarming gift. She hoards the Äpfel and the Birne until the edges become soft and wrinkled and she cannot eat them anymore and is forced to through them in the food waste bin where they become covered with spaghetti sauce and noodles because it’s the only thing she knows how to make. 

I didn't get into Minnesota. I have to leave again. When I cry while I'm swimming I swim much faster, but water gets in my goggles. It's not even that I like Minnesota so much, the school or the state. It's that leaving is scary. I'm scared of so many things, all the time. My lists of anxieties are inexhaustible and yet I continuously force myself into situations that make me nervous. At least people will speak English. They will in fact, be remarkably good at speaking English as it will be an MFA program. My poor dad pick me up approximately two minutes after I found out and had to deal with me crying in the car about how I just wanted to stay here where everything is going well for me. I had consolatory pizza for dinner with my dad after swimming, although to him it was just pizza. We bought plane tickets so I can visit Alabama. It will be okay.

Ah fuck, well something bad had to happen sometime. At least I'm going swimming so that if I start crying I'll be crying in the water.

As Friday mornings are generally the only mornings in which I am allowed to do nothing at all, I like to spend them as comatose as possible until my muscles ache from atrophy and I am filled with longing to get out of the house. The sign that I am twenty-three and not sixteen is that this longing occurs around noon rather than late in the evening.

I like the feeling of being sleepy and knowing I can go to sleep. I like Alabama, and kale, and bacon, and waking up early so that I can make breakfast. I like a lot of things right now.

I made a gym friend. This has never happened before.

1. Woke up and drank English Breakfast Tea and whole wheat English muffins with strawberry jam.
2. Went to barbell strength class. Added extra weight.
3. Drank a smoothie and read White Noise. Appreciated that the main character of White Noise also struggles with speaking German though he's the head of a Hitler Studies department.
4. Went to yoga. Worked on my headstand.
5. Got accepted into a third graduate school, which is not high at all on my list, but flattering none the less.

Today has been a good day so far.

The thought of leaving Minnesota is so heartbreaking. But I'll do it, no question.

Got into a second grad school program. It's surreal. As Michael Martone said, because Michael Martone just called me "This is the only time you'll ever be treated like a football player."

I read the same books of poetry repeatedly, the same way I listen to the same songs everyday. Eventually I will buy new music and new books, but will still read the old ones. I've been reading Sarah Manguso a lot lately, because I always read Sarah Manguso a lot. Poetry becomes different in a happy place, I can't even imagine feeling feelings that would require such lines.

Perfect sort of weekend.

I think I'm excited for the Superbowl because it seems so quintessentially American. I spent most of my life resenting America, being American, and now I just want to sit around drinking beer and eating meat slathered in sauce watching commercials for their entertainment value and though I know all of this goes against many things I believe in, it seems utterly part of my identity.

(Also there is nothing nicer than waking up on a Sunday feeling wonderful and knowing that later will be wonderful too and not just the ordinary tired, hungover Sunday)

Whenever guys are punching a punching bag in movies or tv shows, some really cute girl comes up to them and asks them about their troubles. I think this might be male fantasy more than anything else.

Why is it so satisfying to leave early and go home to bed?

I have this huge fear that we will run out of things to eat and drink at my Superbowl party.

My heart does this thing where it jumps in my chest. If anything, the arteries should be anchors, but they're not. I get a new email and realize it's only notification of the book I've just bought. I'm reading White Noise by Delillo partially because I feel like I should and partially because I like Delillo. I've read The Body Artist, Falling Man, and Underworld. I especially liked Underworld, with all that trash piling up everywhere. Yesterday at work my boss and a coworker were discussing a novel and my boss said, "Tasha would know the author," and I was worried I wouldn't, but I did. I need to read more.

My primarily goal in life is to be like Leslie and Ben on Parks and Recreation. You know, besides going to grad school and writing and stuff.

If only I could simultaneously curl up in the fetal position, draw, drink tea, and eat organic cheese puffs.

Spent most of the day exhausted and crabby with horrible cramps and somehow reached the conclusion that my cramps were not premenstrual cramps at all, but pregnancy cramps (I don't think these are a real thing) that happened to occur right when I was supposed to get my period. After a traumatic dinner with my mother though my body has decided to actually let my period start so despite my terrible mood at least I am not pregnant.

I have been the crabbiest person all day long. When I'm crabby there are people I like enough that I am still happy around them and then the rest of the time I just whine in my head.