2:27 AM

Because I am horrible at accruing interest on my paychecks, I could only delay buying the print of Cousteau for six hours. I'm going to try to do a better job of holding off on the one of Woody Guthrie, but I'm making no promises.
I took a nap from 9 to midnight tonight, which was glorious except that I woke up to fifteen missed calls and text messages from several different people, an empty apartment and the realization that I'd spent my wild Friday night buying art and sleeping.
Actually, I really like being home alone on Friday and Saturday nights because it means I get to watch all of the obnoxious party-goers teeter home, drunk and loud, from the window. It turns out I like them a lot more when I don't have to speak to them, what with their surprise piggy-backing and bottle-smashing. The best thing is when they fight in the street, which happens quite often. If they stay long enough and enough of their friends try to break it up, the police come, and I sit on the porch with a drink.
Italian vegetable soup is perhaps my favorite post-nap delight. Judging by the rustling coming from the trash bag in the kitchen, I think it's safe to say our mouse agrees.

1:01 PM

I can not believe my luck. While searching for a new print for my bedroom, I found this gorgeous pastel of Jacques Cousteau, one of my favorite people of all time.

It's actually really neat because the artist, Devon Grey, gives you the option of having the image printed on a piece of a paper bag. He does all sorts of portraits, ranging from Nelson Mandela to Noam Chomsky to Aldous Huxley, and they're all so wonderful.
I'm glad my birthday is in a few months because I never know what to say when relatives ask what I'd like. I might have to ask for the one of Woody Guthrie, also. I think Jacques and Woody might look nice side-by-side.

12:30 AM

I got new glasses today! They're sort of big, tortoise shell-printed from the front and cream-and-taupe-swirled on the sides. I really just love them.
Oh man, I took forever picking them out. The saleslady was not pleased with me, but I felt it was not a decision to be rushed. If my relationship to my last pair is any indication, I will quickly form an unhealthy attachment to them, wearing them years after the prescription in the lenses changes.
In fact, when the saleslady asked me if I wanted to "discard" my old frames, I screamed a bit without thinking. It was like she was asking if I wanted to personally deliver the injection that would put my pet to sleep. Not only did I not discard my old frames (which I have now been wearing for six years), but I had new lenses put into them so I can continue wearing them another six.
I hope I never go blind, but, if I do, I'll still be wearing my glasses.

11:35 PM

The ladies' bathroom in my office building is a magical place. It is the only place I have ever been, in fact, that has both a chandelier and a menacing bloodstain. Also, there are peeling gold-and-black stickers on the toilet paper dispensers made to look like fancy filigree. I am not fooled, corporate America; I saw that bloodstain.
I forgive the loo its indescretions, however, because not only is there a bottle of seemingly-expensive, peach-scented hand lotion by the sink, but it has warm air dryers for your hands, which are a necessity in a building that is little more than an air-conditioned igloo. Sometimes I go there just to turn them both on at once and fit my whole body underneath.
A woman who lives half a mile away from my apartment got murdered. You might have read about her on CNN. She was pregnant, and somebody cut her baby out of her. I don't think I'll ever understand why people do the awful things they do to one another.
I'm worried about Alex. He seems unstable, and I think his ex-girlfriend is purposefully twisting the knife.
About a month ago, I got invited by Clark to go to a get-together for incoming students and their parents tonight. As someone who's gone through three years there, I was supposed to field questions about what classes are like and how to survive the city. I handled all the new people better than I thought I would, especially given my rather extreme lack of sleep lately, so I've decided to force myself into having a good day tomorrow as a reward.
I'm going to dinner with Caity tomorrow night. I hope she's in the mood for Thai because I've been craving chicken satay.
The next order of business in getting my life on track is getting my tattoo touched up. It doesn't need much work, but I feel like it will make a big difference.
I've been looking into getting a new print for my bedroom. My walls are bare right now, save a Royal Tenenbaums poster, Alex Grey's "Kissing" and a wooden windchime.
I don't like having to admit how little faith I have in humanity.

2:15 AM

I'll never make it out in the world by myself. I'm still convinced plants can feel pain.

9:34 PM

My mother likes to invent things that are wrong with me, and then try to convince me to go see a doctor about them. Six months ago, she told me I had a slight lisp, had had it since I was a child, and she'd never told me because she didn't want to upset me. I know I don't have a lisp, but I still watched myself say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" most times I walked past a mirror that week. Luckily, however, her new faux flaw of choice is my hearing, which, truth be told, could certainly be better. Now, whenever she says anything to me, I literally pretend she didn't say a word. So far, it's working marvelously.
I wear glasses, and today I had an eye exam. You know that machine optometrists have that bursts air into your eyes to dialate your pupils? Well, I managed to evade it for the fifth year in a row, and, while I'm feeling pretty good about my victory over what appeared to be certain ocular peril, it does make me wonder how much the eyes-in-a-wind-tunnel process is necessary in the first place.
I'm searching for something that someone you used to date can say to you that's worse than "I guess I think I love you again". Nothing springs to mind.
A few days ago, I started trying to narrow down the list of potential grad schools to which I'm going to apply. It's looking like Emerson, Johns Hopkins, University of Chicago, University of Oregon, Sarah Lawrence, BU, UC Irvine, Columbia, Brooklyn College, NYU, University of Massachusetts and Brown. They're all amazing programs. It makes me kind of nauseous to think about.
I don't know where I stand, or where I want to stand, with anyone. I feel like I go out with the tide. I'm not much of a Bright Eyes fan, but "One Foot In Front of the Other" sneaks up and gets me sometimes.

11:24 PM

Don't we become too easily mesmerized
by our mortality? Pop's prince remains
dutifully moonwalking along
our mandibles, and we
slap the sides
of our thinkers, Culkin-style, trying
to one-up Death
with Concept. While our brains are
twisting, striving to miss
the point entirely, we conveniently forget
that the punctual rotations we're riding
are limited, preferring instead
to envision the day when
our children, bound to the asteroid
like kites by their
pressurized-air tubes,
make
sandcastles from space-ash. The yelping
ticket-buyers
are desensitized to
losing a home, no longer interested
in Healing The World, going green only with envy
of aliens. Where
there exists no gravity, there can
exist no romance.

8:20 AM

Instead of getting tired, I just get headaches now. Last night, in place of sleeping, I read comic books and wrote a poem in my head about current events.

4:25 AM

It's never over. I should be smarter now that I'm covered in mosquito bites. Never, never, never, never, never.

3:45 PM

This week included a whale watch, three panic attacks, a shopping trip, a fight with Colleen, meeting my mother's half-sister and my maternal grandfather's third wife for the first time, a trip to Gloucester and Rockport, taco night with Marissa and Greg, zero work and loads of documentaries viewed alone.
I'm starting to feel like Ann Hodges.

3:28 PM

I've come to realize how much I really love being alone. It isn't that I don't love spending time with a select few, but, sometimes, I find that I'm my best company.
Dylan's been over twice in the last twenty-four hours to pick up things he forgot. How does one, in packing one's bag, not remember one's phone charger, computer charge cable and checkbook? He nervously knocked over an ashtray, and we didn't even look at each other when he was here.
Colleen returned from the workshop last night, full of stories about different breakthroughs she's made with people. She seems upbeat, so it appears to have been successful. Tomorrow night, I'm going with her to a completion ceremony. I'm not sure what that is.
Marissa came over last night. We talked about the ways in which people mutate and watched old public service announcement videos, warning against premarital sex and workplace accidents, on YouTube.
I need to find a new gore movie to kick my senses back into place.

7:11 PM

Yesterday, I locked myself out of the apartment with no cell phone while Rachel was at an overnight folk festival and Colleen was in New York at a four-day therapy workshop. I walked around the house and saw that Rachel's window was open, but there was a screen, so I took off down the street to Dana and Beckie's apartment to borrow a knife. I rang the doorbell, but nobody came, so I threw pebbles at their windows. Still no one came, so I walked back to my house, caught my next-door neighbor as she was heading inside and borrowed a steak knife. I walked back over to my house, hacked Rachel's screen in with the knife, dumped out the contents of the recycling bin, turned it over, stood on it and boosted myself in through the window, tucking and rolling onto her desk.
I felt like Lara Croft.

2:57 PM

Today, I am leaf in the wind: powerless to control fate, but still dancing.

1:24 PM

Sometimes when I start wishing that human beings were capable of consciously selecting their emotions, I try to remember that brains are only robots, doing what they've been programmed. I try to picture all of the little gears and conveyor belts desperately attempting to keep pace with the onslaught of input. I start to wonder how accurate our calculations can be, and I just think that if Microsoft had released a program with this many quirks, we'd all return it.

1:06 AM

I think I might be tired enough to go to sleep really early tonight, and the extent to which I am excited by this highlights how truly pathetic my relationship with sleep is.
Alex and I hung out last night. We watched 'Tim and Eric'. Tonight, I hung out with Greg, and we drank gin and rum and talked about a girl to whom he has taken a liking, a girl with whom I am good friends: Beckie. I promised him further investigation into the matter. Greg deserves the very best lady.
It's kind of nice having the apartment to myself at night. Rachel is here, sure, but she went to bed tonight at 9, so I could totally pull a 'Risky Business' moment if I wanted to. I don't want to, but I could.
Come to think of it, the feeling of the week has sort of been that feeling of profundity you get when you realize something irrefutably true about yourself, except I've had it for a week straight, and I can't identify exactly what I'm supposed to be learning.

1:48 PM

It's a good thing I work for my dad because I talk to myself way too much to work in a real office with real office workers.
I've never been much into comic books, but Alex lent me the first couple of issues of 'The Maxx', so that's how I spent last night after I got back from my grandparents' house. It's strangely engrossing, and the animation reminds me of the more stylized 'Calvin and Hobbes' stuff, when Calvin imagines himself as dinosaurs and insects.


I want to visit the ocean in the worst way.

11:08 AM

The upside-down octopus' secret.

There is an urchin buried in
your chest cavity. I will dig for it, but there's nothing
but soft mucus inside. I will crack you open
when you
hand me a drink, throwing tools
to the floor around our feet, and, with the
sweetest voice I can
wrangle from the
depths of the raspy
throat I've been trying to keep
from you these past couple
of weeks, I will strain to pour myself
into you. I would burn our
fingertips together, melting and mixing waxes, if
you gave me
the chance, but where
did you get the idea that I
want anything permanent? We are strays together, nomandic
servants of the curse, making
our pilgrimage
to the tangles.

11:01 AM

Pillars of spit hold up the Coliseum in your heart.

Everyone seems so powerfully in transit
these days, and with
no clear path. Where go the wanderers? I dance
the only way I know how, shifting
and avoiding the others. You've got
eyes like scythes
some mornings, and I catch
the backlash
of your mother's phone call
that afternoon if I can't get you
to forget, but
your arms are some of the tightest I've ever had
to hide me, and you're a lover
in your own right.

10:56 AM

A eulogy for Salvadore's LoveKitten.

Your lips spew
the strangest of prayers on
your days off, but
what a shame it'd be if your grandchildren
never heard about
the time
you threw up
into a snowman, Sam. Maybe you didn't
consider this scenario, but I did. If you went mute
and deaf
and blind, decrepit and
grey years from now, years
past this moment in
the Kitchen of Moths, I'd tell them
with every detail afforded to me.

10:53 AM

Marcy and the sushi that went through the washing machine.

I've been standing on my head
for nearly a week, teetering and struggling
to align my thoughts with any natural center of gravity I can find
in my torso, but
she's got hairknots and all kinds
of daisies to offer. She holds them out so vulnerably
to anyone who'll stand
in front of her. I don't think
you've got the patience for someone so desperate
or human. You've never been
the giving type, but,
for one reason or another, I can't imagine you accepting
those half-dead, veiny pinwheels with
faces like your family. Where would you put them?

I've got four colors
in my hair, but no flowers. You've got
your own ideas about socialism and swollen, bloody elbows
half the time. I'm a firm believer in
feeling as much as possible, but this is getting ridiculous. You want
all my inhalations dedicated, and if you're
going to write something, you'd better
move 'em and fast
because you've got
a hard road ahead if you think
you're getting anywhere on
your looks.

9:12 PM

A visit to my paternal grandparents' house tonight for dinner with the cousins from Michigan ended as it usually does: my mother drank too much wine and started describing just how racist her side of the family is, my dad tried (and failed) to quiet her, my cousins tried to out-Catholic one another with the story about the one time they drove through Detroit and saw "gang-bangers", my aunt complained to my grandfather about how the grand-daughter of L.L. Bean is buying up all of the property in Maine so she can't find lobsters anywhere, my grandmother had a meltdown in the next room because she dropped a piece of pizza on the floor, and everyone commented on how pale and tired I look.

2:25 AM

Sometimes I get really lucky.
I thought today was going to be awful when I first woke up. I couldn't sleep all last night because I kept thinking about Dylan being in my apartment, and I couldn't even begin to focus on work. I thought it would be awful, and the day was awful, but the night wasn't.
Alex and I drove until we ran out of gas, and Stephen, who punched Tony in my honor when we were in sixth grade, had to pick us up from the Air Force base. We ran into Amy and her mother.
Then we got gas, got coffee, went back to his house and got stoned. Neither of us had seen "Edward Scissorhands" in such a long time, and it was disappointing to think of how it has been mass-marketed, but the overall effect of the line of husbands' cars pulling into their individual driveways shut us up.
On the drive back to my parents' house, we agreed that our night had had the potential to turn sour many times, and we agreed we were grateful it had stayed an adventure.

5:09 PM

Last night, I spoke to the older brother of one of my high school ex-boyfriends for almost an hour about habitual smoking, Stars and whether it's possible to love someone for your entire life.
This morning, one of the contractors who is remodeling my parents' downstairs bathroom brought over a ten-week-old puppy, who proceeded to nap on my knees in the sun.
I don't know what I think is possible.

3:26 AM

I wish I was there the day man discovered his hands and all the things he could use them for.

2:17 AM

I'm excited to work from home tomorrow. It means I get to sleep in a bit.
Loss is an epidemic, and everyone has caught one strain or another lately. Tonight was rough. Caity and I grabbed dinner alone, which gave me a chance to give her a present, but I soon found myself at a drug- and alcohol-free birthday party, listening to a bunch of people talk about a guy I never met who died the other night. I didn't like most of these people when they were three grades below me in high school, but I tried to suck it up and put on for Caity. It was obvious she needed the shoulder to soak, and a lot of the attendees were being disrespectful of her feelings.
I want the people I love to know I love them before they go into the ground. I think a lot of people realize that too late.

4:05 PM

I'm not a neat person by nature, but I love everything about highlighters.
The office is oddly relaxing when I'm swamped. It's calming just to plug away at something I know I'll be able to put down and walk away from before dinnertime. I started applying for student loans today, though, which instills in one's gut exactly the opposite feeling.
Money makes no sense to me. I miss when having five dollars made you queen of the playground, even when no one had any idea what you should buy.
I've been in an on-going debate with myself for some time about whether the Beatles were really as great as everyone says. I still can't decide if universality is equivalent to popularity, and whether either of those things are equivalent to talent.
The Screeching Shrink Next Door about blew a fuse today trying to mask her banshee cries with several sad-looking white noise machines. I don't really understand why she bothers with them; she has to be aware of how her voice carries. Maybe she took one Public Speaking course too many.

12:28 AM

I'm back at my parents' house. The whole place smells like paint.
I don't know if everyone gets like this, but sometimes I'll think I'm so sure of a decision I've made until I'm presented with a glimpse at the alternative.
Greg and Marissa called me to see if I wanted to lay in some grass with them today, which I thought was the most appealing offer to see someone I've had in a long time. Marissa and I spent a while trying to discern whether a girl reading on a blanket some ways away was this girl she was supposed to call. I had to go back to my apartment to find my toothbrush after less than an hour.
None of the relationships I have right now are satisfying. I think it's part to do with the fact that I'm splitting my time between two seperate places, each with its own set of friends and rules and memories, and part to do with something else I haven't figured out yet. Whatever it is, the ex-boyfriends have detected it like blood in the water and have come crawling out of the woodwork intending to re-evaluate the circumstances. I'm not interested.
Tomorrow is Caity's birthday. On Friday, one of her good friends died in a car crash. We were supposed to be going bowling with about twenty of her friends who I don't really know, but, instead, I'm taking Caity out to a one-on-one dinner. I don't know what to expect.
I'm almost excited to go to work tomorrow, if only to focus on something not related to anything else in my life.

12:52 AM

I am drinking jug wine from a mug marked with a Parliaments brand logo. I wish this was a new low.
I like how my bedroom is arranged now. It's cleaner and appears larger. I still have to clear off my desk and the top of my dresser, but I think I'll save that for another time. I hope I can get to sleep tonight because my bed looks so inviting.
Rachel went to sleep, and, when I finally came out of my room, Colleen and I got to talk a little about the state of things. This situation with Dylan is frustrating, but I'm really trying not to put her in between us. I just feel like I'm giving up an apartment on which I pay rent and utilities, a place I felt safe, to do so.
Alex and I got coffee, got stoned and watched "Aaahh! Real Monsters" before I left today.
Either my eyes sting, or right behind my eyes stings.
I think I just need one person for all the time. I need someone to skip stones with, and I'm really disappointed by all these people who need to swim in the water to feel like they got an experience out of it.

9:29 PM

It's worse here than I thought it would be. Colleen and Rachel keep asking how I am in different ways, and I don't have anything to say. Everything in this house reminds me.
My parents want me to go to the hospital if I'm still the same tomorrow. I don't think I'm going to. At least here, I get to feel like shit in my own bed.

1:51 PM

As I was laying in bed last night, my brain starting firing all its stupid neurons at warp speed, and I was treated to visual enactments of my fears set to distorted clips of music. Never have I been so frightened of "The Obvious Child".
Because I have the best father in the world, I was allowed to skip work today. I never got to sleep, and I felt nauseous until about two hours ago.
I have this giant anthology of short stories, and I'm going to start reading more of them, aligning myself with the theory that one becomes a better writer from experiencing other authors' work. Plus, I noticed that I start to feel stupid really quickly when I am not actively engaging myself, and, if nothing else, it'll serve as a distraction.
I am supposed to go back to my apartment today. I talked to Colleen, and Dylan won't be there, but I don't feel good about spending the weekend. The deal was that he'd be moved out, but now he's just going to stay elsewhere when I'm there. I'm considering staying here for the night and hanging out with Alex. Call me a five-year-old, but the space just doesn't feel like it's mine, anymore.
In my present state of self-examination, I've realized that I doubt everything. I don't trust anyone to own up to their intentions. I don't believe in anything. I know it sounds like a huge generalization, but it's true. I've never identified with any song like I identify with "I Don't Believe You".

3:08 AM

Even though I was exhausted in the early evening, I can't sleep. My nine-to-five takes up the two-hour window during the day when I can sometimes nap, so now I have to take caffeine pills in addition to all the coffee. They make me really shaky and disoriented. When I cut out the caffeine all together, I never feel quite awake and I still can't sleep. If you ask me, it's 2009; sleep should come in pill form by now. I'd still have a bed if it did.
Where do people form their life strategies? I figure it's probably something they construct along the way, but, if that's the case, I feel like I missed some crucial mass experience. Sure, not everyone approaches things in a uniform manner, but I feel so far off from the median response.
Speaking of alienation, I've found myself listening to a lot of the music I listened to all the time in high school. Pouring over the Unicorns and the Magnetic Fields seems expected at a time like this. I can't decide yet whether it feels like regression or coming full-circle.
It's strange to think that it only took nine days for me to forget how to love.

12:18 AM

I feel like I have no skin at all. My nerves need protection even from the wind.

11:29 AM

At work, my desk shares a wall with a Feminist psychologist who specializes in shouting at men with phobias, or at least takes on a disproportionate number of men with phobias who want to be shouted at as clients. I tried to ignore the voices at first, perpetually turning up the volume on my headphones, but my ears starting ringing, and I could still hear them. I realize it's a violation of their privacy to listen in, but because my hand is forced in the matter, I figure I might as well enjoy the stories of childhood whimsy and horrific sexual encounters.
In the few days I've actually been into the office, I've started quietly cheering them on as they make personal breakthroughs. I wish listening to someone's deepest secrets through thin walls was a socially-acceptable way of getting to know them.

12:03 AM

I don't really know what to do with myself. I feel restless. My thoughts race from fingernails to line dancing to consumerism to giant squid. I want to be near the ocean.
I went into work today. Usually, my dad lets me work from home, but I had a dentist appointment a few blocks from his office and no way of getting back to the house afterward. It wasn't awful being in the office since it was just the two of us, but I'm still not looking forward to going in again tomorrow.
It looks like everyone I know seemed to inadvertantly get the summer off because of the lackluster job market, which would be a bad thing except that I would've killed to have a couple of months to relax. While I'm positive I'll be grateful for the extra money next year, forty hours is a long time to spend doing paperwork every week, especially when considering all of the extra paperwork that grad school applications are going to be.
My parents have been screaming at one another all night about who is the bigger liar. There's been rain, hail and a tornado warning today, so I've been stuck inside. Even the cats are running away from them, darting under sofas and behind doors with their ears back and flattened so their heads look like the Batmobile.
If I don't get my hands on something more substantial, I think I might implode.

12:39 AM

Some things are best when brand new. For instance, there is likely nothing better than brushing one's teeth with a brand new toothbrush while wearing a brand new pair of socks. I found myself in just that situation today, and, when I realized my good fortune and grinned, toothpaste oozed out of my mouth and onto my sock.
I decided to spend the next hour or so of my day trying to immortalize the feeling I felt at that moment. Unfortunately, I failed. Fortunately, these guys didn't, lightly remixing "I Don't Believe You" by the Magnetic Fields, one of my all-time favorite songs.

9:02 PM

I am not looking to craft new connections. I don't want to further complicate my life or anyone else's. I'm just trying to get by unscathed.
The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that I shouldn't get attached. It's not so hard for me, since I have a difficult time warming to people, anyway. It just seems like a lot of people are trying to pull me closer when I've got my arms outstretched.
It isn't reverse psychology, and it isn't some desperate attempt to make them want me more; it's just that I'm generally a fairly solitary person, and recent events have only cemented the idea in my head that I'm better off that way.

3:39 PM

Sometimes I wonder whether there is a significant and noticeable difference between deep space and the bottom of the ocean. I wonder whether the average person could tell the two apart. I sort of doubt it, and that really bothers me.

2:26 PM

Reconnecting is a strange art. Lately, it seems like I've been getting calls and e-mails from loads of people I haven't seen or spoken to in years, all wanting to catch up and some wanting to explore old thoughts and feelings. I suspect everyone is feeling the immenence of change, and, rather than evolve, it seems simpler to revert to something familiar.
Maybe it's that I very recently ended a relationship, or I look at it as moving backward somehow, or I just feel safer avoiding people, but, a select few people aside, I don't feel much like grabbing coffee with people with whom I went to high school. It's not that they are bad people or anything; it's just that I was never close with many of them, and, because of how I've been told I was perceived then, I think I'd feel as though I was being appraised.
There is what appears to be a monsoon outside my window. It's only been raining for about five minutes, and already the yard is flooded. Oscar, my dad's dog, hates the thunder and, despite being seventy-five pounds, has taken shelter on my lap. I'm glad I took him for a walk before it started pouring.
Work is a nightmare. I just can't force myself to sit down and begin. I get so anxious thinking about how long it takes to make any progress that I never even start. It's completely self-defeating.
I've been spending more time with my younger sister, Catherine, in recent months. Before she and I started seriously trying to forge a relationship two years ago, the only person I got along with in my family was my father. She's sort of a built-in confidante. It's kind of neat to be related to someone I think of as a friend.

2:38 AM

I just got back from hanging out with Alex. He's a good companion for me, I think. We listened to Oingo Boingo, smoked and, in his basement, we talked about the occult and growing up. He showed me the computer he built entirely from parts from 1995, and I hadn't been to the North Bridge since the last time we went, so we suffered the dive-bombing mosquitos to go sit there in the dark and listen for voices.
I killed an earwig when I got back to my parents' house.
Yesterday, I listened to the Violent Femmes' self-titled album for the first time in years at Greg and Marissa's. During my sophomore year of high school, when there was an addition being put onto the house and we had to stay at my paternal grandparents' house for four months, it was the only CD I had. Let me tell you, it's an off-putting feeling hearing something you've only ever listened to privately being played in front of other people.
Leland called today. I hadn't spoken to him in a couple of months, and, apparently, he obtained, and then lost, a girlfriend somewhere in that time. He doesn't seem too broken up about it, though. He has been planning to move to New Jersey and apprentice as a glassblower, so he'll only be in Baltimore another month or so. I'm thinking I may go visit him.
I never noticed how my parents' house smells before. How strange it is to think that we only notice something when we have something else with which to contrast it.

1:30 PM

I've decided that I should go outside more often. I'm pretty sure I photosynthesize my nutrients. Plus, I like the birds.
Enlisting Rachel's help, I finished cleaning the apartment. It's all spic-and-span now. My bedroom looks more welcoming and comfortable than it ever has, so I'm excited to come back on Friday and bury myself in the blankets.
I hope Dylan has moved out by then. I just left his clothes where they were.
Maybe I'll take a bath tonight after Alex drops me off. I haven't taken one in more than a year, and a bath a la the soothing vocal stylings of Stephin Merritt sounds right up my alley.
"I don't want to get over you..."

10:03 AM

So far, I've made progress with my cleaning. In my bedroom, I picked up all my clothes, sorted them into clean and dirty, vacuumed the floor, rotated my bed ninety degrees, started doing laundry and fed Winston and Zeus. I also ran around like a madman in the living room, mumbling to myself about cleanliness for the better part of an hour because I whole-heartedly believe that I'd enjoy life more if it was narrated.
At this point, it's unlikely I'll even get a chance to nap today. I was awake all night, as per usual, but after I'm done cleaning, I have to catch an hour-long ride back to my parents' house from Rachel and see Alex tonight. If I'm lucky, I'll crash sometime around midnight or one.
I've been looking at Man Ray's portraits lately. I went to a Surrealist photography show in Baltimore the last time I visited my ex-boyfriend, Leland, and they had gotten hold of a lot of his stuff. If you're not familiar with him, Man Ray is a pretty neat guy.

7:24 AM

Do you ever find old notes you've written to yourself on scraps of paper? Do yours feel as much like ominous warnings from the past as mine do?
"I've got all these new relationships, and, like babies, they haven't got any sort of balance, but the way I've taught myself to approach these things is not nearly as half-heartedly as I have been lately, so maybe it isn't so much a matter of the difference between causation and correlation as I'd anticipated."
"I don't know what sort of love I'm expecting or how that differs from the love I'm looking for, but I've realized in the past few nights of sleeping and only sleeping in his bed that the only thing all of my ex-boyfriends have in common is chipped front teeth."
"I like people with unrealistic expectations."
They're everywhere, these notes. I find them tucked in school notebooks, under dressers, in the corners of pockets and in the closet. Every so often, one will turn up at the bottom of my bag when I scoop a handful of coins.
When I was young, I had a lot of little games I played when I was by myself. When I couldn't sleep, I used to open our heavy back door, put a chair in front of the closed screen door, turn on the porch light, sit in the chair and lightly flick the screen with my finger whenever a moth landed on it. The moth would be propelled forward, and I'd wait for another moth to land. I'd climb high up in pine trees and silently study my neighbors and the people who jogged on my block. I wouldn't move for hours.
I'm having a difficult time trying to make connections.

6:21 AM

I'd really like to go to India. I've never traveled. I've never even been out of the country. I'd really like to go anywhere, actually. The only exception is Las Vegas. I would never go to Las Vegas.
Later today I'm going back to my parents' house to work from there for the week. My dad has been asking me to stay with them more often because I haven't been doing so well. I've been increasingly anxious over the last year, I have stomach pains, and I only sleep two or three hours a day. Sometimes I can't eat.
I've been spending a lot of time trying to picture insects doing cartwheels. Ants aren't that interesting; millipedes are better.
Outside, it's very bright. The forecast said we were supposed to get more rain, but it looks pretty clear. It's been raining here most days for almost two months. People I know, happy people, have told me they're considering getting those lamps that mimic sunlight because all the darkness has made them glum.
I wish I had a kite. If I had a kite, I'd lay on my back and watch it twist and dive. I'd fly it from the tops of buildings.
Loneliness doesn't pang in my stomach like guilt or sweep over me like grief or weigh me down like depression. It doesn't bubble and fester in my chest like anger. I don't know what to make of it.

10:21 PM

I agree there, Talking Heads: Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens.

8:57 PM

I just got back from the barbecue. Marissa's friend from home, Arianna, brought her boyfriend, and the girls from the first floor of their house came up, so it was a little bigger than I had originally thought, but it was good to just relax for a few hours. Someone put on the Sex playlist on my Ipod, which consists of such classics as "You Sexy Thing", "Love Machine" and "Gay Bar". I'm such a lady.
I'm starting to realize how much I really value my time spent alone. I don't intend to be mean to people who infringe upon it, but I really cannot be bothered to indulge them, either. It seems crass, but it shouldn't be my job to entertain.
Also, I feel really unnerved by the death of the Disney World monorail employee. I mean, who goes to work expecting to die less than that guy?

7:14 AM

So 4 AM was a bit of a stretch, seeing as it's past 7, and I'm not even yawning. I tried laying down and getting into sleep mode and everything, but to no avail.
I cleaned my bedroom, though, and I'm making progress on the living room. Well, I partially cleaned them. I can't run the vacuum or start the washing machine because Rachel, my other roommate, is sleeping. Our washing machine sounds frighteningly like there is an animal trapped inside when it's on, and I have easily five loads to do, so I better just wait until she wakes up in a few hours.
I've been thinking I might re-arrange my bedroom once it's all clean. I realized that I haven't moved the furniture since I moved in over a year ago, and maybe it's time for a change. I want to rotate the bed and hang that "Royal Tenenbaums" poster I haven't had a chance to hang.
Greg and Marissa (two of my good friends) are having a barbecue at their place today, and I am probably a lot more excited than I should be. I guess I just haven't been to a barbecue in a really long time, but that doesn't really seem like a reason to be this amped up. It must be the magic of hot dogs.

My Girls - Animal Collective

I dare you to not get into it. Do yourself a favor. They're unstoppable.

3:36AM

I just finished a documentary called "Who the #$&% is Jackson Pollock?" about this kooky, old, female truck driver who bought what she now believes is an original Jackson Pollock in a flea market for five dollars. In trying to prove its authenticity, she first contacts experts of the art world, who all immediately dismiss it as a phony. Refusing to be told she is wrong, the woman then hires a forensic scientist specializing in verifying works of art, who finds fingerprints on her painting which match fingerprints from Pollock's studio. Watching aesthetics battle logic is a bit exhausting, but the little Hungarian scientist is mesmerizing. I think I would listen to him speak about anything.
I only slept three hours last night (and by "last night", I mean "today from 11 AM to 2 PM"), and I have to clean the whole apartment tomorrow, so I'm shooting for a 4 AM bedtime. Whether that is realistic remains to be seen.
I'm going to be a wreck when our Netflix trial runs out.
Going back to work next week sounds dreadful. I'm a paralegal contractor at my dad's law firm, which is not nearly as exciting or high-paying as the amount of syllables in the title suggests. Essentially, my job consists exclusively of summarizing depositions for trials. It's pretty mind-numbing paperwork, but it pays a lot better than the jobs I've had in summers past.
The mouse living in our kitchen makes so much noise when he gets stuck in the trash can (which happens more frequently than you'd think) that I've found myself keeping a frying pan in the living room, creeping into the kitchen silently, frying pan at hand, to swat the invisible home invaders.

2:08 AM

I spend a good deal of my time watching people. Our apartment sits at the mouth of a four-way intersection, and because I'm no good at interacting, I watch them play out their lives from inside. We live in a bad neighborhood of an economically-depressed, crime-ridden city, so a lot of what I see is sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds pushing strollers and gang members yelling things from their passenger windows and people pushing shopping carts full of empties to deposit and twelve-year-olds chain-smoking on the corner.
My dad really hated this place when he first saw it. I guess he didn't quite understand how I was going to fit into it all.
Sometimes, the chaos is joyful. Although firworks are illegal in this state, people were running down the streets, lighting them in their hands and throwing them up to the sky, screaming and pointing at the bursts in the dark. There were little kids being held underarm while their parents assembled cheeseburgers. No police came all night because they only would have disturbed it.
I actually derive a strange sense of safety from the lack of coordination here. Because the police are overrun with arsons and muggings and homicides, the little things slide, which probably sounds like a bad thing, but in the absence of any institutionalized system of punishment for small infractions, a community-based system will emerge. In my neighborhood, we have Mr. Good, a six-foot-seven ogre of a crack dealer. Sure, his facial muscles dance around his smile and he's got teardrops tattooed on his cheek, but he's probably the safest person to take a walk with in this place.
There are loads of people like that in the world, though.

11:24 PM

"If I ventured in the slipstream
Behind the viaducts of your dream,
Where immobile steel rims crack
And the ditch in the back road stops,
Could you find me?
Would you kiss my eyes?
Lay me down in silence easy
To be born again?"

If it's not like that, it's not worth it.

8:58 PM

I'm supposed to be on a paddle boat in Knoxville, Tennessee right now, hosting a 4th of July party before the wedding on the 6th. Not my wedding, mind you, but I bought the silly dress and everything. I'm supposed to be with Colleen, my best friend, and Dylan, her brother and my (now) ex-boyfriend, dancing and trying to keep cool in the Midwest heat. This was my one hard-and-fast plan until the Fall Semester begins.
It's weird to think of the places we're supposed to be.
I'm aware, though, that it's likely a very good thing that I am not there, and am, instead, here.
I looked into adopting an iguana, and it seems people are just giving them away, terrariums and all, in my area on CraigsList. I'm trying to force myself to wait at least another month before making the decision, but it's been a-stewin' in my head for a little more than a month already, and I'm making no promises.
I found out today that I made First Honors on the Dean's List last semester, so the grad school crisis feels somewhat averted for now, as I will be able to rationalize procrastinating the filling out of the applications for at least another week with this ammunition. And to think, all that I had to do was write forty-seven pages over the course of a caffeine-pill-fueled, quadruple over-nighter during Finals Week, lowering my immune system just in time for me to catch the horrendous two-week virus that was going around. Why didn't I become a quivering, paper-skinned academic sooner?

6:33 PM

My dreams are always vivid, but lately they've been annoyingly morally pointed, as well. I already spend a good portion of my waking hours wracked by self-doubt; it seems excessive that my brain reenacts ten-minute clips of conversation while I sleep. It's like a bad film montage, complete with voice echoing for no reason.
I talked to my friend, Alex, for quite a while last night. He just broke things off with his girlfriend of a year, so we were commiserating, I suppose. He sent me some of Louis Wain's paintings. Wain started painting cartoon cats early in his career, but they became increasingly kaleidoscopic as he became more delusional. They're sort of like Prohibition-era LOLcats, come to think of it, though perhaps Wain wasn't LOLing so much as he was stuck in an asylum.

I wonder if it's easier to deter boredom if you're schizophrenic.

9:45 AM

Still awake, I am trying to convince myself of my own mortality. It's the only way I can think of to make myself tired.
Sometimes I think about what I was almost named. I wonder if this is a common fixation. I used to think about it obsessively when I was really young. I would imagine how different I would be if I'd been an Evelyn or a Victoria, and somehow it was always a matter of my favorite colors changing, since that seemed the clearest indicator of personality when I was seven.
There is a strange man in a striped shirt and pressed pants taking photographs of my apartment from the street. I don't think he can see me. It becomes creepier if he can see me. All I can think of is Raymond Carver's "Viewfinder". I don't see any hooks where this man's hands should be, but I don't have a very good look at his hands, either.

6:19 AM

Do you ever get the feeling that you're on a Ferris Wheel when you're not? Breaking up makes me feel like a writer for "My So-Called Life". Which only made it two-thirds of a season before it was canceled. Two-thirds of a season in 1995.
I'm narrator-of-two-thirds-of-a-season-of-a-teen-television-drama-in-1995 down.
How odd it feels to be single now. Maybe it hasn't hit me yet, though that seems strange since I was the one who ended things. I feel like I should have been prepared for a decision I made. I am on my own. It's unsettling to think about, which is likely an indicator of some terribly stunted realm of my psyche.
I should probably be tired since I haven't slept. Unfortunately for the parts of my body that ache for a bout of glorious slumber, I have a two-week free trial of Netflix, which has been fueling my round-the-clock addiction to "The Office", Sherlock Holmes and a multitude of documentaries on serial killers and child prodigies.
Lately I've been thinking I might get an iguana for additional companionship. Winston Napier "Bun" Rabbit seems to get along well with reptiles, and Zeus the Fish has no opinion.
I feel like the only person not really affected by Michael Jackson's death. Does this make me somehow inhuman?
Grad school is a heinous, looming beast on the horizon. Applications aren't due until December, but I really have to finish them (and start them) by the beginning of September because my class schedule next year is intense. I haven't taken the GRE, I haven't compiled a solid portfolio, and I have yet to even settle on the schools to which I am applying. I'd be going for Creative Writing, and, right now, it's looking like University of Chicago, Emerson College, Johns Hopkins and a couple of others. It all makes me a little nauseous, truth be told, but, at this point, even if I didn't want to further my education, I'd be looking at grad school as a seventy-thousand-dollar, two-year vacation, postponing busywork in a cubicle.
What promise will today hold? Maybe I'll go for a walk.