el nacimiento.

What if I turn into one of those people who make elaborate plans and never follow through with them? What if all the dreaming never takes shape in reality?

it feels the way you told me it would always feel.

Today, while waiting for my next class to start, I decided to walk to one of my favorite nooks of campus (it's a secret location, I don't want anyone else to know about it). My stomach growled, so I began to calculate whether I could afford buying coffee to help me through the next five hours of class I had left (earlier this morning, I checked my bank account, and it kind of freaked me out). Then my thoughts shifted to how I would ever earn money again. Then I thought of how far away Europe is. Then I thought of the GREs. Of PhDs. Of languages I want to learn. Of places I'd like to travel. Of Chicago. Of Portland. Of New York. Of Nashville. Of balancing all of this. Of other people I know who have jobs. Of living in Berkeley. Of affording to live in Berkeley. Of re-registering my car. Of getting out of shape. Of a certain boy. Of men. Of the next generation of powerful women. Of the brevity of life, how all of these things will never get done.

And I began to hyperventilate. I lost my appetite and had to lie down because my vision went blurry.

Then I systematically put barriers around myself for the next year. I put them around San Francisco, Berkeley, and Los Angeles. I told myself to stay within the confines of these 370 miles just for the time being.

Then I tore them all down when I found out I have an offer to teach English in China.

So I'm back where I started, only this time with my sight set much farther in the distance.

beach boardwalk.

I spent the weekend in Santa Cruz with Amber. It was quite the Memorial Day weekend. We arrived at 11PM Friday and I never stopped moving (except to sit sedentary in the car for 8 hours today) until just now.

The sky was gray pretty much the entire time we were there, but we walked to the beach anyway. I met some amazing people and spent time with some of my favorite people in the entire world. Santa Cruz and Los Angeles are like sisters who don't get along. They have many similar features (bars, delis, beaches, house parties, highways), but they play them out differently. So differently that they cannot relate to one another and they've slowly lost contact over the years.

My best friend is having a baby. She is 21 years old, and we have been friends since the second grade. Even though we've lived apart for 4 years, I talk to her at least once a week (usually more) and feel closer to her than ever. And I feel that, in many ways, she is still a child herself. Hell, we're all still little helpless kids. But regardless of what her actual age may be, or what her financial situation is, or her status with her boyfriend, she has decided to become an adult. I will stand tall beside her and love that child to death, just as much as I love her. I worry, of course, that this will change our friendship. It will, inevitably. It makes me terribly sad and terribly sick inside. But I know that she is doing what is right for her. One day I'll look back at this strange time in our lives and think how odd it is that things could have ever turned out differently. C'est la vie.

autobiography.

I kept the cup once full of lemonade I had held so tightly as the freeways passed us in the cold of dawn. I kept the empty container of sugar you handed me as we pulled out of the driveway, the sugar I placed on your lips in the middle of the night and in the morning as you left for the ocean. I kept the sheets in a pile on the floor. I kept the soap and the brownies and the ice in the freezer. I kept all the pieces I could hold onto. And I know that one day those pieces will mean more to me than any reality ever did. It's because when I think of you, I think of impossibilities. Tangible objects prove to me that you exist as a small piece of my world. They will prove that you were a part of my existence long after the freeways stretch farther than we are willing to drive.

taking a deep breath.

I had honestly forgotten what I looked like without glasses. Weird. They're an extension of my being.

I am exhausted, and even though I kind of just want to watch Freaks and Geeks, I'm going to go out with my friend Zach.

Life moves far too quickly. I only have 4 weeks left here, and I cannot admit that to myself. Or anyone else for that matter.

I would apologize for the general lack of quality in my entries lately, but I think I'm the only one who cares really. Well, I plan on changing that soon. It's a promise.

warning sign.

I have found myself writing during, between, before, and after all of my classes, on the bus, on the grass, while sitting on benches, in the middle of the student union, in bed. I apologize that I have begun to find catharsis elsewhere. In the mean time, I have several boring updates followed by several vague assertions about the roots and directions of my own inviolable happiness.

I have a job interview next week with a small feminist press.
Tuesday was Alex's birthday, and we did lots of cool LA things: Cinefamily, Kogi at the Alibi Room, Yogurtland, other things *cough*.
In the last 3 days, I have given myself 11 hours of sleep and have drunk 6 cups of coffee. Today, it began to catch up with me, and I'm back to hating the world like usual. Phew.
Nina's party turned into a kickback because Facebook Events is evil. I had a lot of fun and ended up falling asleep on the stairs after going on a McDonald's run.
School is a bitch, and I've already put it in its place.
I have two recommendation letters for Ph.D. programs, so if I choose that path, I'm on my way.
I'm thinking of living in Berkeley this summer.

When I wake up, I look in the bathroom mirror. I try to wipe away the smudges of mascara from beneath my eyes. There is a mysterious set of scratches on my arm. I run water over my face, try to wake up in pieces. I think of previous versions of myself, how I have washed myself clean of who I was before, of the versions of me I had offered up to other people. I am pretty much sure I like this one best, and so to everyone new, I offer the best I know how to give. Someone else, someone whose name is not worth mentioning, argued with me about this, told me that my growing up would be the most painful thing he would ever have to witness. Why couldn't I just be the way I am now at a time long before? Well, things aren't that simple.

I don't know what I'm saying, only that my anger has turned to acceptance, and acceptance has turned to complete happiness in all of the bad decisions I thought I was making. So he was wrong, I was right, and now we're both happy. Now we both no longer have to deal with each other's neurotic ways. Now I no longer have to look at him and think of all that he will never be. Love never should have turned us into those people and love never will have to be so cruel again.

keeping it plain and simple.

Having a massive party at the apartment tonight. Super excited, super busy.

link me, sister.

My new blog is up over at the Westwind site. It's a travel piece about my experience driving to Wisconsin. It has PICTURES, teehee!

How the Midwest was won.

rien.

Aujourd'hui, j'ai un examen dans ma classe de francais et je suis tres fatiguee, et je ne veux pas le faire, et je ne comprends la langue, et je pense que ma vie est absurde. Et, peut-etre, je veux aller a la campagne avec un bel homme, je sais un homme que je voudrais amener avec moi. shh, c'est secret.

All I really want in life is to sit on the beach, in a park, in the middle of the forest, and read and eat omelettes. Are these things compatible at all? Probably not. Until then, I will settle for sitting in my apartment, studying, imagining all the other places I'd like to go.

This is one of them:

maybe.

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think too much.

then on friday.

After class (which I need to stop attending hung over), I spent the afternoon in the Botanical Gardens writing, and I think that maybe I have forgotten what it feels like to write things that actually mean something to me. When I wrote the last sentence, I felt clean again. I spent that time writing a treatise on the mutability of all human connection and how clean we all must feel all the time because every interaction that we ever take part in is terribly clean, terribly disconnected, terribly temporary.

And I thought: Isn't it sad that (though you may feel happy now) you may never be able to imagine all of the happiness you have not yet experienced? Isn't it blissful that your next step will only lead you to a life apart from the happiness you know now and into a happiness you never could have defined without leaving your past behind you? Isn't it terrible that everyone you love is replaceable? Isn't is liberating to know that every person you meet, who you spend a night with, who you have a conversation with, has the ability to show you new ways of feeling mundane things?

Isn't it wonderful, depressing, fabulous, futile, freeing, devastating? Doesn't it make you want to give up and settle? Doesn't it make you want to run away and scream at the top of your lungs?

My response to this epiphany is to drink margaritas, stand on the top of a tall building, stretch backwards, and watch the city sparkle upside-down.