I felt a little crazy this morning. My alarm went off at the time I had set it for, which was somewhere around 6:30 am. But something about the light coming through my window, or something, made me feel very confused as to what time it really was. I was convinced that I had slept through work, that my clock was wrong and that it was somehow mid-morning. And then I got to work 15 minutes early, which made no sense to me either.

I got my nose pierced on a whim yesterday. I went in to a piercing studio after lunch to inquire about prices, and I walked out with a shiny piece of metal (and some sort of yellowy colored stone) through my left nostril. It hurts today... mostly because my nostrils flare pretty much constantly. Someone once told me it makes me look like a friendly dragon. While that is a comparison that is awesome, the flaring is not conducive to a painless healing process.

I have to conduct a couple of interviews today. Yet another aspect of this job that I feel terribly unqualified to perform. I don't know what exactly it is that I think would qualify me for these tasks. Maybe it's just that I still feel like an awkward thirteen year old trying to get through the grim days of early adolescence.

My ears are still ringing from the band we saw on Saturday night. And my mind is still spinning from the details I ironed out regarding my upcoming move. I will not be taking a car (I think), I will go home to my mom's house for a few days before actually going west, I will stay at least until Christmas.

I need to pick a last day for work. I might just work until Friday, August 8th. Which is my birthday. I think that would be a nice, dramatic way to round out my 22nd year and begin my 23rd. A real, honest to goodness fresh start. I think I like that.

The Upside of Being Entirely Aimless

I forgot to bring anything for lunch today. I have all of this delicious produce at home and I keep forgetting to use it. It's going to wither away to goo and I will have wasted my, well I was going to say hard-earned money... but that wouldn't really be accurate.

This week, though, I feel like I worked pretty hard. Justin and I have been working on this project that will eventually make it so that there is only one print copy of any journal on campus so long as there is online access to said journal. Which, in theory, is an important project because it will free up a great deal of much needed shelf space. But it means that we have to get rid of large quantities of these duplicated journals. So Justin and I were at other libraries this week gathering carts full of volumes to eventually ship off to other libraries. I got off pretty easy because he did most of the heavy lifting, and it was his car that had to really bear the brunt. Ah, the sound of an undercarriage scraping on cement. It was fun, though. I'm glad I volunteered him for this job and not anyone else.

It's Friday, and I'm very excited to sleep in tomorrow. That was one of the only things that motivated me to get out of bed this morning, actually. I thought of how I will be able to sleep in as late as I want tomorrow, and that fortified me enough to face another day at work.

What will I do in Portland? Where will I go in December when MG's job ends and she will potentially leave Portland? Will I ever stay anywhere longer than 6 months?

I'll go to Italy. I'll work in a restaurant. When I was in Guatemala we went to a beautiful little restaurant on our first night. We were staying in Antigua, the gringo tourist hot spot of the country. We sat down on the open-air patio and an equally beautiful, young American man came over and handed us menus. He asked, "how's your Spanish?" and laughed when we said all said variations of "extremely shitty." In that moment I created an entire back story for this guy. He dropped out of college, moved to South America, fell in love with a lovely dark-haired girl, had his heart broken by that lovely dark-haired girl, and was traveling around the continent, never staying in one place for too long, trying to forget about her.

So maybe that will be me. I suppose that anything is possible when you don't have any plans. That's the upside of being entirely aimless. One more month here, and I don't know how I'll stand it. I'm starting to get weird pangs of finality, like during the last few weeks of high school. That knowledge that you will never see some of these people again, that you will never take this familiar walk down the street again.

But, as I said, it's Friday. The weekend is spread out before me. I said "it's Friday" to a co-worker a little while ago, in a very cheesey, co-workerly, TGIF sort of way. He then said something about how it's dangerous to always wish it's Friday. He said something about the 'dangers of wishing my life away.' Well, Gary, I'll be on the west coast in about a month and a half, doing exactly what I wish. So don't worry about me. And I'm not taking my job too seriously until then, so don't worry that I'm working to hard or not enjoying the time I have left here. No worries on that front.

I didn't try wakeboarding, but I DID watch my housemate swallow a live minnow.

Most definitely a great weekend. The weather could not have been any better on Saturday. It was perfect for sitting in the sun - clear blue sky, but a good breeze and not too warm. We were all feeling a little under the weather in the morning, for no particular reason and definitely not because of drinking. But I was fine after my nap on the dock.

In the afternoon we drove the boat over to the little nook of the lake that usually is a beach, but the water level was really high. We pulled the boat up on the the ex-beach and went for a swim there. There was this crazy drop off there, where it went from being about 2 feet deep to about 30 feet, like walking off of a cliff. And there will thousands of minnows swimming all around us, which was pretty creepy.

One of the guys really wanted to catch one, and he was pretty intent on making it happen. Jess said that if he caught on she would eat it. Clearly, she had no faith in his minnow catching abilities. He had the smarts to use a Dorito bag as a net, and you have to respect that. So he caught one after about 30 minutes of total concentration, and she followed through with her end of the deal. The minnow was pretty small... but still, it was pretty righteous to see her slurp a minnow out of her hands, swallow it, and then wash it down with a beer.

The lake was beautiful. There is no place like Northern Michigan. Granted, I haven't been to that many places. But the seclusion and the acres and acres of trees... I don't know. I think that's where I need to be. Or someplace like it, at least. Living in a little house on a secluded lake, knowing everyone in my little town, listening to country music. I used to think I was made for living in a big city, but I'm not sure anymore.

The Summer Solstice was this weekend. I wrote a short story for a class that took place on the Summer Solstice. Actually, it also took place in Northern Michigan, on a lake right next door to where I was. Where I had never been, but the feeling of Northern Michigan is so distinct to me, that I guess I didn't feel like I needed to have been there to get it right. So it's officially summer now. I guess I couldn't have started the season in a better way.

The days are counting down. We're all starting to talk about getting our security deposit back (or not, as the case may be) and it's starting to feel very real that I will be leaving here soon.

It's almost 1:30, so that's good news. And I've actually been doing work today!

I got my first speeding ticket yesterday. I was driving my roommate to the airport, using her car. And you know how some cars are just easy to speed in? Her adorable little Ford Focus is just meant to be zipped around in. I saw the cop and braked a little bit, and he still clocked me at 83 mph in a 70 mph zone. Oooooops. He wrote the ticket for only 5 over the limit though, which was very nice of him. That means no points on my license, which is a bonus. But it still means a $100 ticket.

As I lay in my bed last night trying to sleep, I got to thinking about cops. Isn't it a little funny that we hire these people to make us pay fairly sizable chunks of money if we don't follow the rules? I remember sitting in our minibus driving through the streets of Guatemala where there wasn't so much as a stop sign. It was a little crazy, sure. But they seemed to get along just fine without highway patrolmen lurking behind obstructions. Crime and punishment, man.

It's Friday, once again. And I haven't had ANY coffee today. That's how high my spirits are! We leave for Pellston, MI at 7:00 this evening. The waiting for a little vacation is always the hardest.

I don't ever want to be a supervisor again. I know that for sure. As I search for a job in the future, I don't want to be in charge of anyone. Because when it's good, it's good. When you have smart, rational, sociable people working under you, it's all gravy. But when it's bad... it's bad. Really bad. I'm talking awkward interactions at every turn and general discomfort. And I'm not nearly big-hearted enough or outgoing enough to overcome this sort of thing.

Here's to sunburns and drinks on the beach this weekend.

Fake crab meat

I just had sushi. I figured that imitation crab meat was made of, like, soy - so it would definitely fall in line with my new vegetarianism. Turns out that imitation crab meat is actually made of pollock, a mildly fishy tasting fish, which apparently makes it ideal for sushi. Not cool, Panda Express. Your use of the word "imitation" is very ambiguous. Work on that.

But, to be fair, I did check the ingredients post-purchase but pre-consumption. I could have not eaten the sushi. But then I would have wasted $5.95. And I'm not willing to go that far for my principles yet. I figure it's excusable. I've only been veg for a couple of weeks.

Funny though, because last night I had a dream that I ate meat. But in my dream it wasn't a (near) accident like it was today - I was eating beef in my kitchen and thoroughly enjoying it, saying that it was OK, I just wouldn't tell anyone about it.

You got me this time, sushi from the cafe downstairs. Never again.

Ew. I just googled 'pollack', and the pictures that came up gave me the shivers and half-gag. Vegetarianism confirmed.

Ben Folds kind of day...

It's so gloomy today. I think those are rain clouds out there... they don't even look like clouds. They look like layers of thick gray smoke hovering just in front of the actual gray sky. Gloomy songs keep coming on my ipod, too. Terribly depressing Ben Folds songs (it doesn't get much more depressing than "Carrying Cathy") and melancholy songs sung in french with violins and accordions making me wish I was sitting at a wrought iron table at an outdoor cafe in Paris. Eating a croissant, drinking a cappuccino. I know cappuccinos are Italian. But it's my daydream, so I can mix cultures as much as I want.

I have been going through resumes for what feels like weeks. I am helping the engineering librarian hire for a new position, and it's a pretty rad job (supervisor of the new Computer and Video Game Archive) so there have been many, many applicants. I'm not cut out for this, I tell you. It was only about a year ago that I was applying for jobs at this very library, sending my resume out in to cyberspace and hoping that someone would like what they saw. I had some experience, but I was pretty surprised when I got called for an interview. And then I got promoted within a couple months of starting here. And I'm doing all sorts of things that I'm mostly unqualified for, and I'm pretty sure that everyone here has a kind of distorted idea of my capabilities. So who am I to say if these people are capable of doing this job? I'm like a Roman Emperor, deciding whether or not they should be rescued from the jaws of the really shitty Michigan job market lion. Each time I delete a resume I feel so guilty! Like I said, I just don't have the objectivity to do this.

I have been so on edge this week. I'm just anxious to get going, I think. It's in my head that I'm moving. I just want to do it, to get started on this next phase. I'm just wasting time now. Well, I'm continuing to earn money, so that's important I suppose.

I got free coffee today. A girl I know from high school works at the coffee shop downstairs, and it's her last day. So she gave me free coffee. It was awesome! She's going to Spain. I got too excited talking to her about it, and asked her many questions and probably annoyed her. But sometimes I hear a hint of that weird combination of vicarious excitement/jealousy when I tell people I'm moving to Portland, and that feels pretty good.

We're going on a little roadtrip this weekend, to Up-North Michigan. It should be wonderful, just beach lounging and cocktails and boating. I want my whole life to be beach lounging, cocktails and boating. And it's the first of three roadtrips planned for this summer, with Chautauqua, NY for the fourth of July weekend, and Pittsburgh for a weekend in mid-July.

Well, "I Need a Lover" by John Mellencamp just came on my ipod. This song is definitely on my list of top 5 favorite songs of all time. So I'm going to take a moment to rock out silently, then I suppose I'll get back to deciding the fate of the masses who applied for this job. This feels so wrong! I hope that when I'm applying for jobs in just a month or 2, someone much better suited to judge people is doing the resume reviewing.

A part of my soul just died

From Paper Cuts, the NYtimes books/writing blog:

"What are you working on?

A biography of John Cheever. Happily I’d transcribed the last bit of research onto my laptop about a week before our house in New Orleans was flooded by Katrina. When I returned, a month or so later, my copy of Cheever’s original (unpublished, unabridged) journal was four linear feet of solid mold - about four million moldy words in all. My last interview for the book (maybe two weeks before Katrina) was with Cheever’s oncologist, a man of spiritual leanings who told me that Cheever had advised him, from beyond the grave, to cooperate. True story. So I’ve felt pretty good about the book since then."

If a part of my soul didn't just die, at least a part of my liver did in honor of Cheever's terribly alcoholic life. Ugh. To own a copy of Cheever's original journal... and then have it completely ruined.

I sure do spend a lot of time on NYtimes.com, don't I?

Somedays you just feel like Carnie Wilson trying to hang out with the 2 hotties of Wilson-Phillips

From the NYtimes Sunday Book Review:

"As quickly as bottled water became a symbol of healthy hyperindividualism — sort of an iPod for your kidneys — a backlash turned it into the devil’s drink. In 2006, the National Coalition of American Nuns came out against bottled water for the moral reason that life’s essential resource should not be privatized. New numbers surfaced: each year the bottles themselves require 17 million barrels of oil to manufacture, and, one expert tells Royte, “the total energy required for every bottle’s production, transport and disposal is equivalent, on average, to filling that bottle a quarter of the way with oil.”"

Oh dear. Paragraphs like that make me want to crawl in to a hole.

I had a coffee meeting with my boss this morning. She cried, and I didn't know how to respond. It was like when you are a kid and you see your mom cry. The world sort of spins a little slower, and for a few minutes the dynamics in your relationship are reversed.

She cried because the reporting lines are changing here, and she won't be my boss anymore. And she failed to tell me that this will be starting July 1st. She felt really bad about it (bad enough to cry, apparently), and she said she's going to miss me very much.

I saw this as an opportunity to tell her that I will be leaving at the end of the summer. Since she won't be my boss by then, I figured I would break the news so at least I have said it aloud to somebody here. And she has me in mind for all of these projects... so I figured it was only fair to tell her that I actually will not be here for more than another month or 2.

So. I feel relieved. And even more checked out than before. Oh, I'll keep doing the things that need to be done. But my mind will be wandering off, even more than usual.

It did feel good to say out loud, though. That I will be moving to Portland. I do realize that just because I said it out loud doesn't mean that it's permanent or necessarily true in any way. If that were the case, then "Sister Christian" by Night Ranger really was written about me.

Back to work.

I have an ipod again. And yes, I did rock out to "Hold On" by Wilson-Phillips during my walk to work today. It was very inspirational.

Don'tcha know things'll change
things'll go your way
if you hold on for one more day
yeah hold on

Oh wow... I just found the music video for that song. I remember watching Vh1 as a child and just waiting for this one to come on. This, and "Save the Best for Last" by Vanessa Williams. I was really into Adult Contemporary as a child, I guess.

Back to work.

The home stretch

I'm pretty sure that I'm actually Storm. As in the X-men character. I walked to work this morning and heard thunder rumbling all around me... but it didn't start raining until right after I got inside. I felt pretty awesome.

This day needs to end. I had three meetings today and too much coffee. My legs hurt terribly for no apparent reason. And I'm sick of staring at a computer screen! Get me outta here.

I'm reading some pretty intense books these days. One is entitled "Against Love." Ha. It sounds worse than it is. Basically, it challenges all of our modern notions of love, romance, marriage, and the like. It's extremely interesting. I was reading last night about how marriage actually had very little to do with love or romance or passion until novels became a form of entertainment and marriage wasn't just an economic agreement between two families.

Passion was what people looked for outside of marriage. That's what affairs were for.

Great book. I would recommend it, particularly to anyone who finds it hard to wrap their head around this love/monogamy business that everyone seems so certain is what everything in this world boils down.

I also have "The Monogamy Myth," "Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women," and "Interrogating Post-feminism" checked out from the library. I think I just heard The Commodore yell at me to get back in to the kitchen and make him a sandwich.

about 1.5 hours to go. Then, it's some red vino and possibly some homemade falafel, if I'm not feeling too lazy when I get home.

Channeling Mowgli

Just caught a glimpse of myself. That is what I look like today.

Yeah. Kind of a mess.

In other news, I found my old blog today - the one I used to write in during my freshman year at Pittsburgh and my sophomore year at the always challenging Macomb Community College and then U of M. It sucked me in for a good two hours.

Luckily, there was such detail in it of events and things that I don't even remember happening that I was able to feel that I was reading about the life of somebody else. And it was all so long ago. It sort of blew my mind.

But it's nice to see that I haven't changed at all. I'm still writing in a blog when I should be doing something else. I'm a little more cynical than I was then, but that is to be expected.

The funniest part was reading the plan that I had for myself during my freshman year. Sometime at the end of April as my freshman year was winding down, I made a list of the goals that I wanted to accomplish in the next year. I was pretty sure about them, too. It was cute. They were pretty ambitious. Needless to say, I never went back to Pitt and therefore didn't accomplish any of them. I wonder how exponentially different my life would be now if I had stayed there. I'd be much further in debt, I know that much. Exponentially further.

I used to said 'juice' instead of 'peace' at the end of my entries. Haha. I think I got that from my brother. What a silly thing to say!

Juice,
jz

Wednesday = $2 latte day

Did you know that there is more caffeine in plain old coffee than there is in espresso? I was a little shocked when I discovered that. Something about the little shots of espresso and the consistency of it always made me assume that it was much more potent. Not so.

I just found this article via some convoluted digital path that I think started somewhere on facebook. Basically, my friend Natalie is a badass. (That's her in the picture.)

The weather this morning during my walk was so nice. It reminded me of driving to school in the morning during high school. And having that distinct, anxious springtime feeling.

I think that someday I will go to library school. Get my Masters of Information Science. Partially because I don't know what else to do. But I think it would be a good job for me. That's if libraries even exist in the future. Everything's going digital!

Plus, I'm always looking for new and exciting ways for my friends to call me a crazy cat lady. And going from being just a library staff member to a full-fledged librarian would really pump up their artillery.

Speaking of crazy cat lady... I love lolcats and I'm not afraid to admit it. They get me through my workday.


more cat pictures

Back to work.

Monday, Monday

What a lovely weekend. I stayed in Plymouth with my roommate, at her parents' house. They were out of town, so we were sort of house/dog sitting. Living the domestic life for a weekend. A little too domestic. On Saturday night the two of us were lying in her parents' bed with one of their dogs between us, reading before we went to sleep. The only things missing from the old married couple picture were a couple of pairs of reading glasses.

Speaking of marriage, we went to the Plymouth bars on Friday night with some other girls, and while they were busy talking to boys our own age I was having a serious conversation with 45 year old man (who is currently going through the final stages of divorce) about whether or not monogamy is possible. After I told him what my name is and he said, "the only affair I ever had was with a woman of the same name", I came to the conclusion on my own that monogamy is not, in fact, possible. At least not probable. But it was all very innocent, very "I'm-old-enough-to-be-your-father". And he wouldn't let me buy my own drinks. And I'm 100% sure it was better than talking to the clowns my friends were talking to would have been.

I went to church on Sunday. For the first time in a very long time. The last time I went to church (when it wasn't for a wedding or a funeral) was probably Christmas 2003. The sermon was about lost sheep, which I felt was pretty fitting. My favorite part, though, was when the pastor had a catch phrase at the end of his sermon. He said, "Go with God" in a very final way, sort like "Seacrest, out!" And I had never been to a Lutheran church before. They sing everything, every little response. It sort of reminded me of the talk-singing that happens in musicals.

Clearly, I am not cut out for organized religion. Too many things makes me giggle.

I spent many minutes out on the front porch this weekend in Plymouth. Drinking a glass of wine in the dark, watching a thunderstorm blow through. We watched the rain fall and sang as many lyrics as we could think of with rain mentioned in them. I think I will remember that for a very long time.

David Sedaris is doing a reading at the local Borders tonight, which I guess is supposed to be a big deal that I should be excited it about. It's supposed to be pretty huge - you have to go get a wristband early today and then come back for the reading in the evening. They must be expecting a pretty big turnout. I've read only a couple of essays by him, and I can't even remember if I liked them. It's pretty amazing that he built an entire career out of telling stories about his life. He must be pretty talented if people keep coming back for more. Obviously, any negative thoughts I have about him are rooted in magnificent jealousy.

I stayed up too late last night watching a movie I had already seen. When my alarm went off this morning, I shuffled downstairs to the shower. I was a little fuzzy around the edges. So fuzzy that I couldn't seem to control my flight path and rammed my right foot in to a wall. I think I may have actually broken the pinky toe. That makes 2 times I have stubbed my toe so hard that it actually broke. Maybe I have just have incredibly delicate, fragile toes. That would be pretty ironic, considering I have mammoth feet that belong on the body of a man about 3 inches taller than me.

There is a man who comes to the library nearly every day. He looks at pictures of women. Nothing too explicit, just pictures of women with cleavage showing, the occasional bikini shot. Because this is a public institution, I can't do anything about it. He told me he likes me hairstyle. Another library employee told me that he used to compose soft-core sexy stories on library typewriters. He looks relatively harmless in his over-sized Hard Rock Cafe Hong Kong shirt. And I guess he's just a hop, skip, and a jump away from the man I was conversing with at the bar on Friday. Let's just hope he's merely a lonely old man and not a sexual deviant.

I'm going to blink my eyes and the summer will be gone. Everyone I know will continue to spread out across the country. Everything will change. But it's exciting. Soon (well, not too soon) we'll all be homeowners and car owners, even children owners. Porch owners, yard owners, mowing lawns and tending to salad gardens. I hear tomato plants are particularly difficult to grown. It's just as well, I hate tomatoes anyway. We're all going to build up our little homes and worlds. Freaky.

Is it usually this hot in June? It's like we went from 50 degree weather in may to 80 degree weather in June with no pleasant early summer medium.

Portland on my mind. I should re-read all of the fiction of Michael Byers this summer so I can get in the right frame of mind. And relive my school-girl crush. Sigh. He was the most brilliant teacher I had in college. And ever. I actually spent a good 15 minutes lying on the throw rug in my bedroom last night after reading over the comments he made on a story I wrote during his class. I'm not sure why I was inspired to dig that out its' hiding spot. I read his comments, I believe I let out a long sigh, and entered a montage of memories from his seminar that I took. I used to hang on his every word. I almost cried a couple of times. He was really good.

Wow. I shouldn't have admitted that.

Two choice quotes

"I would soon learn a lesson men have known for years: that it’s possible to be attracted to somebody you don’t like."

"Even cynical women can be reduced to buttery puddles by a pretty face. "

(I'm doing many, many important and productive things at work right now.)

Friday? More like Fry-day... 'cause it's so hot

Record high temperatures today! After our extended winters, I always forget how hot Michigan summers can get. 90 degrees in early June is a little excessive, though. I stepped outside a few minutes ago to get my coffee fix, and it felt so good out there! After a couple of hours or so of sitting in air conditioning, I start to get a little freaked out.

I remember during the summer when I was a kid I would be inside shivering from our central air, and then I would go outside and love the humid heat that would hit me like a wall. Man, we had the best backyard, too.

I keep getting drawn to all of these articles about feminism. Maybe not about feminism necessarily, but with Hilary dropping out and Sex and the City consuming every media outlet for the past couple of weeks, everyone seems to have a lot to say about Women. I don't know where this femisist streak came from in me, but it's been there since I found my mom's old copy of "The Feminine Mystique" when I was 15 and read it, just for fun. Then I read "The Vagina Monologues" and went through a pretty righteous feminist phase. I was so ahead of my time!

This article was originally from the New York times and then posted on jezebel.com (my number one favorite website); it reignited some of those old flames. I'm pumped for the book featured in this article to be translated in to English next year.

My plans for this weekend include going to a psychic! I'm excited.

Back to working slowly and mostly daydreaming.

Here is a breakdown of what runs through my mind each workday as of late:

60%: work-related stuff. It may be sad that only 60% of my thoughts pertain to projects-at-hand, responsibilities, and to-do lists. But hey, I get it all done. I think.

5%: Coffee/food. I am nearly always thinking of my next coffee break/snack/meal.

5%: articles that I read online.

10%: Moving to Portland. I wonder about the rainy weather, I look up jobs or pictures of the city... it's a wonderful way to distract myself.

20%: tattoos. Yes. Pretty much whenever I have a free moment, I am thinking about covering my body with tattoos. Or, at the very least, getting another one. I want a big one on my arm somewhere. Highly visible and badass. It may seem like an overestimation to say that 20% of my thoughts are taken up by this, but trust me, it's accurate.

Well, we just had a fire drill at the library and I almost had a heart attack.

Strung out much?

The misery train has pulled in to Apathy Station (it's an ok place)

This morning was quite a battle. For the first two hours of work I sat here and devised a plan for how I was going to email my boss and take 4 hours of sick time this afternoon. It all seems unnecessary now, but I was pretty miserable. For no particular reason. But I suppose I'll stay today. Though my bed is sounding mighty appealing.

Nobody at work has said anything about my haircut, even though it is pretty noticeable. I take this to mean that they don't think it looks good, which I think is awesome.

I have spent most of my morning staring blankly at my computer screen. I have various papers spread in front of me, so as to give the appearance of doing things. But, I have my medium organic Peruvian coffee and my vegan cranberry heart-shaped bar thingees, so I'm doing a little better. I don't know. It's the clouds outside, the clouds in my head, the utter lack of direction that is swallowing up my entire existence. Once in a while it's almost enough to make me snap and I feel myself standing just on the edge of some kind of breakdown. On one side of a thin glass wall, ready and willing to throw a chair and watch the pieces fly.

You'd think that these swells of anxiety would propel me towards making a commitment to any sort of decision about my future. Goals and the like. When will I stop wallowing in my stupid blog and start living my life?

There is a poem I read once, about how the reason that anyone keeps a journal is to examine their own filth. I promptly wrote it down in my journal.

I did, however, commit to vegetarianism yesterday. Just in time for dollar burger Tuesday at Bar Louie. It's a test of will! I need more of those, I think. My moral fiber is feeling a little weak these days. I need some sort of ideology to cling to, even if it only has to do with food (at first).

Damn, this is good coffee.

"Sarah says I can sleep here!"

There's a drunk girl somewhere outside of my window, rolling around in the warm air squealing about how she is sleeping on the grass. Sarah told her she could sleep there, apparently. Some soft-voiced boy is trying to change her mind. I hope his intentions are good.

The things we do to ourselves in the name of fun, in the name of being young, even in the name of temporary amnesia. You'll never catch me rolling around on a lawn at 11:20 pm on a Sunday night. At least wait until the bars close. Have some dignity, woman!

My new haircut makes me feel a little bit like a French prostitute. In a good way.

I spent this weekend sleeping and floating somewhere far away from any thoughts of my life. A weekend well wasted.

As if a haircut could change me. Could somehow exteriorize the massive leaps that I don't seem to have the guts to take. This is what happens: I reach some point of near-desperation in my life for whatever reason, and I do something drastic to change my appearance. Like my appearance was the root of the problem. And that changing my look would fix it all. It would make me a new person.

Women can relate to this. I have permed my hair in such circumstances, chopped it, grown it out long, then bleached that long hair, chopped short bangs in, chopped it off again, dyed it back to dark brown and chopped it yet again. And it never really made a difference - except for when I bleached it after a bad breakup. People treated me very differently... blonde me was quite a different gal. I'm glad she's gone.

So here I am again. New haircut. Same worries. I'll never learn.

I'm already looking forward to coffee in the morning.