I can't sleep, which is unsurprising. I feel reasonably okay. Reasonably meaning that I feel like shit, but am not crying or horribly panicking in any way. I am going to tell all of my readers (who are dwindling due to my poor blogging habits as of late) what I am thinking right now, but some parts will be really vague.

1. I really like the movie "500 Days of Summer" I saw it while drunk summer '09 and instantly hated how much I loved it. It's like a chick flick for uncertain young people who are too fucking cool to go watch romantic comedies in theaters and too fucking uncertain of everything to want or be in a relationship, but really like the notion of love. I am thinking of it now. The scene at the end with expectations versus reality. I feel like I have both expectation and reality running through my mind, but neither of them are really what is going to happen. What will happen will be something in the middle. Probably something painfully in the middle.

2. I just emailed Monica to ask for a writing assignment. I read over my blog posts from last April to figure out how I make myself feel better. It made me miss my little room with all my pictures hanging up and all my dresses in the closet and all my nice little routines. It made me miss sitting on the Gizmo patio squinting at my computer. It made me miss going to Kaldi's and writing papers. I miss German class. I miss German Club. I miss my sorority. I miss my sorority sisters. I miss having to create a huge document. I miss having classes until midnight. I miss my comforter. I even miss Knox parties.

3. I was in Maddie's kitchen and her roommate from Thailand came in really mad because the landlord won't let a guy from Ghana move into the building because he said he will make things "dirty" because he's black. It was awful enough that it wholly distracted me from how I was feeling. I didn't realize people were openly racist like this. I have to admit. I come from a very white neighborhood in St. Paul. A lot of my friends are white. But somehow I've always very actively cared about oppression and bigotry. I remember being a very small child and reading lots of books about the holocaust and wondering why anyone would do such things. Then in college I read a lot of books by "women of color." A lot of literature by Chicanas. Black feminists. Black feminism always appealed to me more because a lot of times black feminists are not separatists. I can never be a black feminist. I am a very white person. I will always be one of those educated white feminists who likes to talk about feminism, who likes to comment about gender, while being incredibly hetereonormative. Somehow I love it. I've always loved it. I like reading books by feminists. I like being a feminist. I like doing things that are clearly anti-feminist because it gets me off doing something that is so against what I believe in. When I get mad at boys for acting like ourselves I say, "Why do we live in a society that raises boys to be this way?"

4. Monica wants me to write a double sonnet crown. I will take this challenge, but they will not rhyme. They will not be wholly formal sonnets. They will be the correct length with no rhymes. They will be about what I always write about (boys and love and food and absence).

5. I talk about writing a lot because I am a writer. If I were to introduce myself in any manner possible, I would say "I'm Tasha and I am a writer." I hated calling myself a writer for a long time. I felt like it was a preemptive title, but it is who I am.

6. I asked Julia things I do when I feel better as she knows better than anyone and her suggestions were these:
And to feel better in general:
- Take a bubble bath.
- Knit something. Perhaps a pair of slippers for me. Like these ones:

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/113-32-crochet-slippers-in-eskimo

http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/plain-or-cabled-slippers

I like the colors of the green ones and the cabling and strap of the beige ones.
- Cook Thanksgiving dinner and/or any other dinner
- Make pancakes and/or French Toast from scratch
- Drink whiskey and dance wildly to La Roux
- Cry
- Read melancholy poetry
- watch movies about baby animals
- find an animal shelter or pet store that will let you pet tiny, fuzzy kittens


When I think of more things, I will send you another message.
And then I will dream about laying next to you in a warm bed, staring up at the ceiling and sometimes looking out the window. While eating cheese and bread and roasted garlic tomatoes.

What a wonderful friend Julia is.

7. I am having three Thanksgivings. I still feel really thankful for lots of things despite feeling like shit.

8. Current life plans: Come back to Austria next year. Figure out grad school shit in the summer. Apply to graduate school. Be an academic fuck who gets to talk about books and art and abstract concepts all day.

9. I really need to take a shower.