4/3/2001 09:31:44 PM

I have decided, that as of today, I am going back to being completely vegetarian.

It felt very good to say that.

4/2/2001 07:49:08 PM

"So here's the thing," he said. "The point I'm trying to make is ... rather, the question I want to ask you is this: what have you gained from this?"

"Nothing," she said immediately, without thinking. "I've learned nothing."

"So the last year has been a waste? The last 365 days, the last 8760 hours, have meant nothing to you?"

"I didn't say they meant nothing. I said that I've learned nothing."

"No," he said. "What you have learned then, is not to live the next 365 days the same way."

4/2/2001 02:02:27 PM

Okay, so I'm really not that angry and not that bitter. The thing is, I don't get angry very often. I get sad, and I get upset and I get frustrated just about daily. But angry? The truth is that I am lazy and getting angry is just too much effort for me. But I was angry last night, and it snuck up on me so quickly that I got disoriented. Usually when I get really pissed about something, it is something that has been building and building for a long time. This anger just inserted itself into my head. One minute I was fine, and the next minute I wished I had never bothered to get involved with trying to help solve people's problems.

I like helping people. One of the things that I like about myself is that I am almost always willing to sit down and listen to someone if they need someone to talk to. I'm beginning to realize that this isn't always a good thing, and sometimes by doing that - by making myself so availible - what I'm actually doing is allowing people to get more and more involved in the problem that I'm supposedly helping them through. I'm giving them an excuse to talk about it, to think about it, and by letting them vent to me, I'm probably just giving them the opprotunity to perpetuate their problem. And for some reason, last night, this made me very angry. Coupled with the fact that, yet again, I feel like I'm in the dark about certain things and feel like I'm trying to be a good friend to people who never let me all the way in, all of this made me ready to shut out everyone who makes my life complicated in any sort of way. In retrospect, that's not really what I wanted to do at all. But at the time ... I was so ready to say 'fuck the world'.

4/2/2001 01:43:21 AM

it's so fucking stupid to expect that you can help people be happy. they'll be happy or sad regardless of me. i should stop trying to help people because i only cause more trouble. fuck them. i should be working on me.

3/29/2001 02:13:56 PM

I didn't mean to watch MTV, but that's what channel was on when I turned on the television and I couldn't find the remote. But while I was searching for the remote (it was under a pile of crap that the cat knocked over) I did happen to see the video for "Weapon of Choice", Fatboy Slim's new single. Christopher Walken dancing was so fucking hilarious. That video made my day, and it's only 2:30. I mean, this is Christopher Walken we're talking about. Nobody really expects to see him dance! (or fly, for that matter)

I'll be laughing about that all day. And probably tomorrow. Brilliant.

3/28/2001 11:13:47 AM

I wonder if Elliott Smith has ever sat down and thought to himself, "Holy Shit ... Waltz #2 is one of the best songs ever written. Ever."

Probably not. But I have.

3/26/2001 11:14:55 AM

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
Soft and sweet
Let me hold it close and keep it here with me

And one day we will die
And our ashes will fly from the aeroplane over the sea
But for now we are young
Let us lay in the sun
And count every beautiful thing we can see
Love to be
In the arms of all I'm keeping here with me

Anna's ghost all around
Hear her voice as it's rolling and ringing through me
Soft and sweet
How the notes all bend and reach above the trees

Now how I remember you
How I would push my fingers through
Your mouth to make those muscles move
That made your voice so smooth and sweet
And now we keep where we don't know
All secrets sleep in winter clothes
With one you loved so long ago
Now he don't even know his name

What a beautiful face
I have found in this place
That is circling all round the sun
And when we meet on a cloud
I'll be laughing out loud
I'll be laughing with everyone I see
Can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all

-- Neutral Milk Hotel, In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

3/26/2001 12:28:14 AM

I'm feeling better, I think. Mac came over and we watched the Oscars and made fun of some of the ugly dresses (hello, Jennifer Lopez?) and the chick from the Bangles who really should have bowed out of the spotlight all together.

I have no real desire to be social anymore, at least not right now. And this is somewhat unusual for me. I'm going to see a concert on Friday, and we're going to Britpop night on Saturday, and between now and then there's still a David Lynch movie night and undoubtely other social gatherings that I'll feel obligated to attend. And sometimes it's just so much, having to get off the couch and get in the car and drive somewhere, only to feel like it's not really me who's there, but rather a person inside my body who is going through the motions while the real me hid somewhere else.

"It was only proper, I supposed, for the first thing in my life that had ever felt right to be the last one to be proven wrong."

from Wonder Boys, by Michael Chabon

(I chose to reuse this quote because I like it, and because unfortunately, it did not win an Oscar for best adapted screenplay.)

3/25/2001 06:18:39 PM

I'm not sad. Not really. It's these out-of-sorts days that say "Get back on medication! You'll be happy and you won't care what your friends think!" And yet, I get caught in a bit of a Catch 22 because getting back on medication means going back to a therapist, and going back to a therapist means getting my shit together and finding someone on my HMO and making appointments and spilling my guts; none of which I feel capable of doing because I'm not on any medication.

Matt had yelled at me about something stupid, and I walked behind everyone on our way to the bar. I didn't want to talk, I didn't want to say anything stupid, I just wanted to be left alone. I sat with them at a table, but I wasn't really with them. I let them all talk and have fun and I smiled when I was supposed to but it wasn't convincing. The DJ played some stupid song that made me cry and so I went to the bathroom because I didn't want them to see me upset because they've never seen me upset, and I thought they were the kind of people that I could be honest with, that I could cry in front of, but I was wrong. I wasn't wrong about them though, I was wrong about me. They wouldn't care if I cried, they'd be good to me and try and make me feel better and they wouldn't judge me, but it's really me who has the problem. No matter what they think about me, I won't accept it.

When he finally asked what was wrong, I cried anyway. I felt stupid and I told him so. But what I didn't tell him was what I needed to tell him, because that would have been wrong and unfair and out of place. I told him I was going to miss him when he left, and that I was afraid we'd never talk again. He said I was wrong, and I pretended like I felt better, but I didn't. And I don't.

And I need a friend like him, and I need friends like Ashley and Jessica and Kathleen and Loren and Brandie and Valerie and Sami and Ryan and Carrie ... but I refuse to believe that any of this can last. And every day I am more and more surprised by the amount of love and acceptance that people show me, but every day I become more and more afraid of what will happen when it's gone.

3/24/2001 12:36:47 PM

Anyway. I'm home. I'm too tired to write about the whole trip - I think I'll just make a big old "TRIP!" page when I get all my photos back. I didn't get to use Matt's dad's digital camera, so I have to wait until I can get the film developed and scanned and so on. But we had fun. It was fun. And I'm glad I'm home.

I think.

My apartment seems weird. We got dropped off last night and I was planning to drive to my mom's to get my cat and do some laundry, but I was dizzy and sick and just decided to go to sleep. My roommate's boyfriend came over, and my friends were scattered elsewhere, busy with new boyfrends and ex-girlfriends, and finacees (Congratulations Kathleen and Paul!), and so on. And I was home alone. And it was the first time I had been alone in over a week. And it was so strange and so sad, that when I was asked to go to the diner with some friends, I just couldn't even force myself to get out of bed.

And it doesn't really matter - any of that. Because I'm home now and have to deal with things on a much bigger plane than which bus takes us where and how many American dollars are in the Danish Kroner and whether or not there is meat in this dish.

Blah blah blah. I'm still all jetlagged and sad and not making any sense. So I'm going to go to my mom's and get free lunch and play with my baby cat and call Carrie and do laundry and watch basketball.

In this friendship there lies a price
To be naked but only in my mind
Look out of my window.
Always a painting behind every word
As I interrogate, the picture brightens.
Look out of my window.
I just want things to be simple.
Like an asprin you pump in my eyes,
You fill my brain 'til our friendship dies.
Look out of my window.
I just want things to be simple.
Is it friends now or a comfortable war?
Can we walk hand in hand
without our palms getting warm?
I'm excited to know you
but sad to stand at a distance.

-- Mrs. Torrance, My Window