B00BUGFFGW EBOK (4 page)

john stuart mill knew several languages, advanced math, and read many 'great books' before he was ten years old. his father taught him. in his early twenties he had a nervous breakdown and didn't leave his bed for three years. he read poetry and started to feel better. he was a feminist and cared about human rights. five people went to his funeral

knowing these things makes it hard to study for a test in this class

i feel like i would get along with a lot of these early psychologists

my backpack broke and i am ingesting a lot of caffeine. i sat in a cafe for awhile writing 'i am so fucked' over and over in the margins of the notes i told myself to memorize

3.21.09

i'm reading 'the end of the story' by lydia davis. in my head the main character's romantic interest physically resembles someone important in my life, and their dynamic is very similar to my last failed serious relationship. i relate to 97% of what lydia davis says, but i'm not sure if it's because we've actually had similar thoughts, or because her style of writing makes me think we've had similar thoughts. i think a little of both. reading this book gives me thoughts like 'ohhh,' 'a-ha,' and 'yes, very similar to me'

i was feeding my cats cheez-its and one cat threw up a little on my leg. now he's licking his crotch

the other night i had four cups of wine, one gin and tonic, one 'red headed slut,' and two beers. then i threw up and felt better and drank another beer. this was over the course of probably four or five hours. seeing that written down feels bad. i feel excessive. i feel compelled to say 'this doesn't happen often'

a girl aggressively hit on me that night. i was with three people. the bar was closing, so we left. outside, a crowd of people stood smoking cigarettes, probably wondering what was going to happen next

a girl standing close to the door was alone and had a worried look on her face. i was drunk enough to approach her and ask if she was okay. she asked if i could walk her home because she was 'really drunk' and nervous about walking alone. she lived three blocks away. the three people i was with said we could walk her home

the girl walked next to me and i asked about her job and housing arrangements or something. she answered my questions, then said i was 'gorgeous,' asked if i was bi, if i thought she was pretty, and if i wanted to hook up with her. i said i wasn't sure of my sexual orientation but she seemed too drunk and would probably regret most things she was saying. she kept telling me i was 'gorgeous' and that she really wanted to 'hook up' with me, and maybe more explicit things. i'm not sure what i said to her

someone in the group noticed i was uncomfortable and stopped walking. then i stopped walking. then the girl stopped walking. someone said something about going to my apartment. i felt confused and probably said 'well,' 'i mean,' 'i don't know,' and 'what do you think, what are you doing' a lot. this probably happened over a period of two minutes, but it felt like maybe ten or fifteen to me. the girl wanted to come to my apartment. i said that would be okay, but someone else had a reason why that was not okay. the girl walked away angrily. i said 'okay bye'

i was probably 75% drunk at this point. i was drunk enough to talk to strangers but sober enough to decline a sexual proposition

after the girl left, we all wanted to eat something. i said i wanted pizza. my friend val also wanted pizza. a tall guy said he hated pizza. i have met people who don't eat pizza because it contains cheese or sometimes meat, but never because they don't like the taste. i told him this in a very loud voice and said he was probably an alien. there was a period where i was mostly making exaggerated movements and saying 'WHAAAAT!' and 'oh my god' in response to things he didn't like about pizza

we started 'play-fighting.' he pushed me and i fell and skinned my knee and tops of my feet and was bleeding a lot. he picked me up and apologized sincerely. we were all laughing

other things happened. there was a car and we got lost and were going to go to a korean place and then a diner and then i forget. we ended up at a deli in my old neighborhood and bought falafel. the deli employees remembered me. they speak with thick middle eastern accents and sometimes i can't understand them. i smile and shrug at them a lot. i think we like each other. i like them, anyway

one person left and there were just three of us. we sat in my living room and ate our falafel. no one said much. i finished my falafel and went to sleep. it was around 5AM. the tall guy and val stayed awake and had a 'relationship altering talk' on my couch

it was a good night. other things happened. those were the most notable. my cat is now 'spooning' my leg

3.29.09

life without the internet

i would be moderately overweight and probably would have graduated college on time

i would talk to more people and spend less time analyzing conversations

i would have higher self-esteem but feel less inclined to question my purpose in life

i don't know how many boyfriends i would have had, but definitely wouldn't have had one in particular

i might get pleasure out of telling myself i was addicted to something

i would write sci-fi stories about the apocalypse or cat-faced humans

maybe i would be happier if i had unlimited resources and lived something like tom clancy's life

but i don't want to be tom clancy

tom clancy probably wears a baseball hat when he has sex

people who own tom clancy books might sometimes accidentally see his name on a book while they're having sex

that might make them like tom clancy more

3.30.09

my body is taking advantage of my ability to endure anything

my cat is licking the other cat's head

i want someone to lick my head

i no longer wear shirts when alone

i come home and remove all clothes but underpants

there would be boundary issues if i did not wear underpants

people might come over and sit where my bare ass and vagina sat three hours earlier

ass and vagina

i want to replace my vagina with something more practical

but i still want to feel orgasms

i wish i could just feel orgasms

i would never leave my apartment

i would have to sit in the bathtub, probably, and hold onto the edges, feeling orgasms until i died of starvation

4.01.09

i'm rating all ads on facebook as 'offensive' and it's making me laugh

i took a break to look in the mirror to see if i am still attractive

i moved my mouth from side to side to check for zits

i raised my eyebrows high on my forehead

the look on my face was suspicious

i thought 'pink panther theme song'

then laughed almost inaudibly through my nose

laughing aloud when alone is strange

the room is forcefully quiet afterwards

laughing with others is somehow better

sometimes my laugh in front of others becomes unnaturally loud, like something in my brain tripped over a volume cord

4.03.09

looking at the internet for more than ten minutes is the same thing as looking at the internet for three days straight

i briefly felt compelled to write an epic poem about snack foods

3-7 seconds later i realized this was a terrible idea

i don't know where this idea came from

i am in a race with myself to see how fast i can go from one website to the next. when i do this i feel like i am actually 'surfing the web,' then think about the phrase 'surfing the web' and kind of shake my head at myself without moving

some moments are not meaningful at all

'meaningful' is not the right word and neither is 'introspective,' it's a word that exists between those words

i think some moments exist to be simple sentences that don't necessarily have a greater purpose than to be exactly what they are

i think most animals experience life in simple sentences and most people do not. or maybe they do. it depends. i don't know. i am done thinking about this

4.06.09

i just felt a distinct urge to delete this entire blog and every presence of myself on the internet

that urge was replaced four seconds later by an awareness of extreme tiredness, and an awareness of the smell of cigarette butts

i am at my friend's house

she smokes. i haven't smoked for three weeks, maybe more. not because i want to live longer or avoid cancer, i just realized how much i dislike the social encounter of asking for cigarettes, showing identification, possibly having small talk about cigarette brands or possibly feeling 'judged' by the cashier

i stole candy from the bulk aisles at the grocery store today. i feel okay about it

i thought if security caught me, they would either arrest me or ask me to spit it out, and both of those things would be funny to me, so i felt confident eating the candy while walking around the store

no one seemed to notice what i was doing but i still tried to create a diversion by coughing

5.09.09

productive tasks of the day, in order:

—woke at 9:05AM without an alarm

—checked email, facebook, twitter, statcounter, edited things, responded to emails

—watered plants, fed cats, ate a banana

—wiped fingerprints off macbook, put face close to the screen to make sure i was being thorough, felt puzzled by small white dots that don't appear to be coming off, never seen them before

—looked in mirror to see if i looked noticeably fatter from eating chipotle yesterday, kind of looked a little fatter

—responded to text messages, sent text messages to be responded to by other people, didn't respond to one text message on purpose, felt spiteful and confused and unexpectedly sad and betrayed a little, wondered if i will ever respond to that text message

unproductive tasks of the day, in order:

—unsuccessfully tried to go back to sleep

—laid in bed conscious of time passing at a slower than normal rate, looked at objects in my room, tried to feel satisfied but mostly felt 'i need to clean'

—felt my face for zits to pick at, none really, mild disappointment

—tried to mentally reconstruct the physical sensation of being kissed, via memories of good kisses i've had

—realistically imagined showering

—realistically imagined outfits i could wear today

—realistically imagined going to a party tonight

—realistically imagined getting an iced coffee and going to the library to do research for a paper

—attempted to realistically imagine what my paper will contain but felt panicked and unable, tried to construct a productivity timeline to ensure i will complete the paper by monday at 2PM, failed at constructing productivity timeline, updated blog

5.19.09

i went to new york for the first time

i missed my bus, so i drove

i listened to 90's emo music and current hip hop music

when i arrived i was dehydrated

i was in my car in brooklyn somewhere

there was a red light so i stopped and so did the car next to me

a light-skinned black guy rolled down his window and gestured for me to roll mine down

there were maybe three guys in his car i think

i rolled my window down

he said 'i think you gorgeous' and licked his lips

i could tell he wanted me to notice his lips

i said 'hahahahahaha' and was smiling and didn't know what to say

i think i said 'thank you, that's nice of you to say'

he said 'where you finna go?'

i said 'i'm going to the bell house'

he said 'where you finna go? you wanna get money?'

the light turned green

i gestured 'no' and rolled up my window, still smiling and laughing

i drove away waving at him

6.12.09

i can't stop using my tongue to feel my chipped tooth

last night i got drunk and cleaned my room, it was okay

i don't know why i just wrote 'it was okay'

i think it was because it would make that line look complete

that line was a little too long

that one was a little too short

but since they were together it looked okay

that line just interrupted the 'flow' thing i had going on

so did that line

and this one

that one 'brought it back' okay

i feel like i've entered a parallel universe and i'm overlapping myself

like in 'being john malkovich' where he enters his own portal and sees all the other john malkoviches

malkoviches bitches

i feel a little insane

something is happening in my stomach

i wanted to type 'malkoviches' for about 20 lines just now but i resisted, i feel powerful

i broke my arm when i was eight and it didn't heal properly so my arms are at different angles when i type

that will never change

i am powerless to my eight-year-old self who tripped while running toward a balance beam

6.19.09

every thought i had while walking to school

i need to go out the back door so i don't have to interact with the maintenance guy who told me 'girl, if you wasn't a tenant...i can't say no more! but i like you.' why can't attractive men my age tell me those things. who is going to fall in love with me. do i want to fall in love? what is 'falling in love,' what does that actually mean? am i attractive enough today? no shower, no make-up, i think i look completely androgynous. i need to find a reflective surface to confirm this. am i skinny enough? am i a hipster? can girls be hipsters or are girls just either 'inclined to have armpit hair and an armpit hair lifestyle' or 'dress kind of retro-y?' i am a piece of shit probably. if i think i am a piece of shit does that not make me a piece of shit? i am not a literal 'piece of shit,' so i shouldn't use that phrase. maybe that phrase is okay to use. piece of shit

worms are on the ground. worms come out when it's raining because they think 'sweet, the whole world is like 'underground' now, can't wait to go out and live in my ultimate version of reality now,' but then people step on them or the sun comes out and they dry up. is that sad? i don't think it's really that sad. or maybe it's the saddest thing, i'm not sure. it might be inaccurate, i am anthropomorphizing worms. rubber bands are also on the ground. if i was an art student i might have a piece of art that was a slab of wet asphalt with dead worms and rubber bands on it. i don't know why. that piece of art would probably be criticized harshly at whatever art school i was attending. it is good that i don't think i can be an artist