-------

Ugh.

Reason Number 2013: Dealbreakers, some more obvious than others

Zionism

at the risk of being a broken record, hats

(subheading: fedora, Panama, driving cap, tam, BERET, wide-brimmed, floppy, and, for that matter, hair accessories of almost any kind)

Burning Man

long leather coats

McSorley's as favorite place

dumb, contextless Sanskrit mantras chanted by white Brooklynites in an otherwise inoffensive yoga class

self-aggrandizing Macbook photobooth sessions

use of "no?" as rhetorical device, e.g. "Roberto Cavalli really nailed it with his fall '11 RTW collection, no?"

thinking Spanish is an easily-learned language

St. Patricks Day

real, raw emotions felt over sports you're not actually playing

espadrilles

limousines

over-involvement costuming oneself

New Years Eve (though even I'll admit there've been some good ones)

Guess by Marciano

Inception, obviously

elaborate smoking devices

people who discuss hand-rolled cigarettes other than to say "I think I'll roll myself a cigarette" or "Would you like me to roll you a cigarette?" or some other logistical concern

talking about how much you love the 80's

James Franco

parades

being offended

sudden acquisition of an accent

referring to Bob Dylan as a poet

for that matter, referring to any song lyrics as poetry, unless you're talking about Great White

piercings

uttering the phrase "style icon"

expensive, coordinated exercise clothing

refusal to wear sunscreen in predicaments that require sunscreen

elaborate menu substitutions

rudeness to service people

making fun of the homeless

bath products made to smell like desserts

diet tips

adult braces

refusal to make fun of people who do deserve it, goddamn it

LAN parties

poker

stringently and inflexibly adhering to a theme when throwing a party

insistence on making a particular face/affecting a particular posture in pictures for any reason

most quotes

ordering soup at restaurants in which the soup is not prioritized, or generally well-regarded

Las Vegas

most facebook status updates

pretty much all references to St. Tropez

prescriptionless glasses

Reason Number 2012: People be fluting

Rejection is a mother. And I mean mother on multiple levels.

Ahem, I'm never the kind of girl to pine over boys at shows, and I think this officially takes me to an altogether new level of lame, but:

Employment of atypical instruments, or instruments used in atypical contexts? Snags me every time.

Writing a cover letter is one of the least enjoyable yet most necessary tasks. Up there with tampon insertion and swallowing enormous calcium supplements, but at least those take two seconds.

Reason Number 424:Chickpeas

After revisiting "Too Close," I remembered when I first heard it and though Next was bemoaning the tribulations of relationships, ladies making things difficult rather than facilitating gigantic boners. There was a time when I thought boners were caused by changes in weather patterns, and that subway trains were not operated by drivers, and instead by some kind of all-powerful centralized computer system, but at some point reality hits and you realize Silk is actually five guys, not just one, and touchdowns are not tackles, and there is no fourth plate.

These are the things that keep a person up late at night.

In the daytime, there are chickpeas, imo one of the most versatile proteins ever, and alongside sea salt, olive oil, and a cast iron skillet one of my most utilized pantry staples. And! Not only can you mix them with pasta, a satiating curry or formulate your very own homemade hummus, you can also employ chickpea flour in certain baked goods. And did I mention they're more than just okay eaten straight out of the can?

Vegan cornbread was not a resounding success, but that's probably more because as a Southerner (by the Grace of God, of course) I have a very set idea about how cornbread should taste, and crumble in one's mouth. Namely: buttery, salty, sandy. Was worth a shot, though. And it was super easy. Might be good draped in peanut butter, or drizzled with honey, which I bought in fucking abundance (and for so cheap!) at Titan Foods in Astoria, for sure the best Greek market in the city.

Sometimes in brokeness I find myself more materialistic, or a different shade of materialistic. Like, I've been hoarding recipes on tastebook.com, a dangerously incredible recipe search database that allows you to save and store recipes in a folder! YES! I'm sure this is old news for most epicures who actually know how to use computers and internets, but I was very delighted by the possibility of storing recipes on these internets, because I feel like I always end up with a disorganized, daunting bookmarks bar, or forget where I found that white bean cassoulet recipe I was looking to try. Sigh.

Oh man, and the chickpea recipe options on this thing could distract me for days.

I've also been craving a cactus collection, which may or may not indicate I've actually lost it. But plants you can neglect! The kitties of house plants!

Reason Number 423: Alaia sandals, unflinching productivity

I should have known there would be more wintry mix before this capricious winter draws to a dribbly close. I never thought optimism would be my undoing, but like an idiot I'm gun-jumping, blasting choice arias from Handel's Messiah as I drink Coors Light from a repurposed peanut butter jar, stowing away thick sweaters and shearling boots, relieved over something that's not really over yet.

March gets me every time with its inscrutable whims, and now I kinda sound like Jonathan Edwards, but it could be worse. I could sound like Nicholas Sparks, or Rivers Cuomo, or James Franco (aaah I just dropped JF on this blog, it's definitely time to chase my favorite bottle of percocet with a handle of Evan Williams and call it a lovely afternoon).

Perplexed at whateverthefuckisgoingon, folding, unfolding, refolding clothing, uncertain what should be stored, what should be put to use, I unearth my Alaia sandals, the zenith of my Neiman Marcus Last Call discoveries. They are perfect sandals, distinctive yet neutral, unfalteringly comfortable, a means of elevating even the dumbest, laziest summer outfits. I know I will wear them soon, but for now I will enjoy this transitional climate, which is still preferable to that of January, I suppose.

I'm getting some super quality creative writing done. When I'm writing fiction it's difficult to know what will be funny, what will be tragic, and that sometimes makes me feel like a terrible writer, but then I'm like, wait a minute, it doesn't matter one bit, and it's how I live my life. One of the last times I had a serious good cry was over the stray kitten I used to feed smashed flat in the middle of 116th St. I'd like to say that's the worst thing that's happened to me in three years, but many other things just make me laugh, or feel stern, and not because I don't care, but what in the world else are you going to do?

Reason Number 422: Rupert Holmes says it the way you wanna say it

More breaking news: people are seriously not nice.

Adverbial crutches!

There's also absolutely nothing you can do about that aside from eat a bagel, take a jog, realize you're probably not that nice either. Or, if you're really ambitious, bake some bread, which is something I've never done before, but oh get ready because here it comes. I'm sure it'll be a failure the first, even the second time, and let's be perfectly honest, probably the third, but someday I'll bake a loaf worth swooning over.

There will also come a time when I will walk out on adverbs once and for all, and my writing will bloom with crisp promise. Not gloriously bloom or astonishingly bloom or even simply bloom, but bloom.

I know I said I'd write about dealbreakers, but here I am, dealbreaking.

Reason Number 421: First Iced Coffee of the Year, Not Counting the One I Drank in Los Angeles

Breaking news: People are not nice.

I think in every post I reference a bad pop song or unpopular vocalist. This probably won't change, and right now I'm absolutely dying to drop Glen Medeiros but I just won't. Or will I? Or did I just? The games we play.

I think I like being embarrassed more than other people do. In fact, I know I like being embarrassed more than other people do, because most people don't enjoy being embarrassed whatsoever.

At this stage in my writing life, I try not to compare myself to famous authors, because that's generally a pointless, grief-inducing strategy, but as I approach thirty my worries about my literary shortcomings are heightened to the point that I wake up sweaty thinking holy shit, Flannery O'Connor was only ten years older than me when she died and even boring writers I don't care about like Junot Diaz were starting to publish at twenty-seven and man oh man I'm not as young as I used to be, or think I am. But then there are total badass weirdos like Grace Paley who didn't publish until their late thirties, which gives me another decade, but decades fly by as they say. And I know I'll never be a Joyce Carol Oates, and I wouldn't want to be, and most likely I'll end up a Ronald Firbank, or an anonymous monk who transcribed segments of Beowulf and imho turned them into Jesus-speak, or maybe even an Aldo Buzzi if I'm lucky, and by lucky I mean perseverant. The point being I need to punch myself in the face and try harder.

Also, LA's pretty cool. I drank my first iced coffee of 2011 there, but fuck if I'm going to count it. This fine New York morning I scaled the stairs in the New Science Building to drink the yuppiest iced coffee in town, and right now I can't think of any better way to spend four dollars than delicious caffeination, which is not a word, and the idea of making up words is really dumb unless you're David Foster Wallace, who should have read this blog because listening to "Rhythm Nation" would totally have given him the fortitude he needed to not kill himself.

Sometimes I ask myself why the J. Crew factory online store is only open on weekends, but then I realize I know exactly why, and feel embarrassed for thinking about the J. Crew factory online store in the first place, but since I like being embarrassed I continue thinking about the J. Crew factory online store, and smile.

And next time: dealbreakers.

And, in the near future, an -ly adverb-free post. It's like Oulipo all up in here! Constraints. Challenges. Life being a highway and all.

Reason Number 420: Floral Arrangements turn you into your Mother, acceptance follows

There's a time in every lady's life when she says goodbye to her ravaged red cowboy boots. They are no longer wearable, not only physically, but stylewise they no longer pack a punch, or even seem useful. Not throw them away, but stuff them in a shoebox, save them for a niece. This sounds like a metaphor, and not a very good one.

The time it takes to walk from my house to Fairway (hearthearthearted) is exactly the time it takes to listen to George Michael's "Freedom 90." Like, we're talking down to the last second. Trial and error led me to this exhilarating conclusion.

Today, as I skipped at the prospect of blueberries on sale and then subsequently felt self-conscious about my exuberance, I spied some hipericum, and although I've never purchased personal-sized, pre-cut flora in my entire life was inexplicably inclined to put them in my basket alongside my chard. I'm now searching for a receptacle to put them in, but since this is a new experience for me, I have no vases, only an empty tin of Irish oatmeal, or maybe a tall plastic cup. I will let you know how this goes.

I know I've mentioned this before, but there really is a Janet Jackson song for every emotion I could possibly feel in life. It's both terrifying and strangely comforting to turn on my ipod and listen to her wise advice and spot-on observations. Sometimes it's a good idea to wait awhile, nice packages are alright, lots of things don't really matter, and who doesn't love an escapade, or want to encourage another person to participate in an escapade?

My dweebiness knows no bounds. In other news, anything related to celebrating St. Patrick's Day is the biggest holiday dealbreaker. My word problems continue. But I temper my inclinations with vigilance, and small, average words.

Reason Number 311: A Well-Stocked Pantry

Sometimes it frustrates me that even after all these years I still wake up wondering whether my life would be better if I were ten pounds lighter, and frantically trying to figure out how to attain a greater lightness. This is indicative of my inability to sit with myself, to respect myself as I am, and to strive for improvement in areas that actually need it, because doing that is more difficult than going on a diet. I wonder what people who don't fret about their bodies do with their thoughts, but I don't envy them because I'm sure they have other things to fret about, and I maintain a general happiness in cohabitation with this preoccupation (rhymeskies!). I don't know this will ever go away, but maintenance makes me resilient. And there are times that are better than others, and those times are extra wonderful, but that doesn't mean I should give up when things are sub-wonderful.

I think I'm almost at the point where I can write about it, like, in a nonfiction way. I've yet to read anything that's captured how I feel about eating disorders, as most articles are full of generalizations about control, or theories on how recovery happens, or triggering personal accounts. Not that these things don't help some people, and it's also worth noting that nothing anyone can do or say to an eating disorder sufferer will make them want to recover unless they reach a point at which that life is no longer sustainable, and this often happens in a very tangible and tragic way. These are strangely contagious illnesses, too, and oftentimes I've found companionship with fellow sufferers has been painful, though at this point in my recovery that is a lot less true.

I will always maintain that the reason eating disorders are ultimately harmful is because of the toll they take on one's productivity and existence. You never regain what you have lost (PUNS!) in the process. And that having something(s) to live for and take comfort in--in an overarching, personally significant way--is the only way to climb out.

Recognizing that this is not about bodies, really, and coming to terms with the subliminal factors, is a trying process, but it's the best thing you can do. The translation of "my thighs are disgusting and need to be diminished" to "I am miserable about the fight I just had with my mother" is so crucial. This is something I need to work on. And often feelings about body parts are so deeply ingrained you don't exactly know what's bothering you, but in this case you just have to dredge and plow through the sadness and anxiety and self-hatred.

I will now step off my soapbox to say I've spent my entire life hating "Lady in Red" for what I thought was Chris de Burgh's faux-British pronunciation of "dance" but today I found out he actually is British, born in Argentina. So fuck me.

Reason Number 112: Singular Pluralism, Warm Showers, Literal Diarrhea, Beasts

Someone, somewhere thought naming a band "Vertical Horizon" would be a great idea. It's always weird, and more than a little lame, when you can precisely identify an artist's* motivations. I would bet at least two boxes of Publix brand popsicles that the word "paradox" played a substantial role in the dreaming up of this brilliant moniker. Can a horizon be vertical? I dunno, but wouldn't that be cool? And like think of the connotations of horizon, like so much space, into infinity. Space! Infinity! Deep thoughts into deep songs.

Champaign is also no stranger to transparency. Clearly, these folks sat down and thought, who the fuck doesn't love champaign?** And, by that rationale, who wouldn't love a band named after a benign alcoholic beverage served at even the most milquetoast breakfast gatherings?

Every time I read anything I'm guilty of immediate analysis of the writer's intention, and not even consciously at this point, but in most great shit, these intentions are complex and highly subject to debate. And that makes literary analysis, and the possibility of discussing that analysis, so exciting for me I could dance in a circle.

Today, I am run ragged. I sit down to write, feel that familiar throat knot, but am somehow less inhibited in exhaustion. Maybe I should exhaust myself more often. Along with being wet, being tired is one of my top most intolerable feelings, but today, between taking re-taking bad camera phone pictures of black wool coats, I realized the only solution is plowing through anyways.

I'm working on deadlines here. Hiatus from my brain. I need to write something I'm proud of again. I will write something I'm proud of again. I just have to sit and write embarrassing things and not be afraid.

*ha! I'm calling the band member(s?) of Vertical Horizon artists. I need to go to either go to sleep or be a total blogger hypocrite and do the deed for goodness' sake. I've always wondered whether goodness is, in this case, a singular or plural possessive. Good thing I'm not ninety and will therefore use this word sparingly for the next several decades.

**I don't really love champaign.

Reason Number 111: March Approaches, Imminent Self-Fortification

You know, in life, really bad shit happens.

Like Youtube starts inserting advertisements into otherwise unadulterated Destiny's Child videos.

Kenneth Cole appears in news articles because of some stupid insensitive comments about Egypt and inspires people to pay attention to his disgusting and embarrassing clothing, even in infamy.

The Project Food store runs out of Kashi Go Lean Crunch and 1 percent milk in the very same day.

Golden raisins happen to innocent baked goods.

You find yourself liking particular Kelly Rowland songs for no reason you can identify consciously.

You purchase unflattering pale-colored pants you can't afford while too tipsy to control yourself.

The month of March.

Staples begin creeping out of your always stalwart, perfectly-constructed clog boots.

You begin to wonder if, in your heart of hearts, your self-defining hatred of all cheeses might be dissipating along with the vestiges of your suburban childhood.

You use phrases like "heart of hearts" in place of something that means anything. And then you're like wtf do I even know myself one tiny bit?

Then as you prepare to squirt the heinous three dollar Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo conditioner hybrid (NO TEARS? More like MANY TEARS because I'm POOR, with the worst split ends) into your outspread hand, you take comfort in wtf. Something as dumb as a healthy heap of unrefined oatmeal in a bright green bowl will get you to apply lipstick so red it repels certain insects, and thinking of weird inside jokes makes you smile broadly enough to showcase the crimson smears all over your front teeth to strangers at Fashion Week events.

And in spite of crusty black ice patches and sinus impairments and resounding halt in professional success, the Project Food Store will never stop carrying Colt 45 tall boys. And after twenty-seven years of daily pixie stick ingestion, your teeth are free of cavities. You discover a secret C Town(town (town)) so close to your house you could practically throw a stone through the window if you could throw a stone at all. You fall onto your knees, get right up and poke your gigantic bruises without a single flinch, look down at your boobs, which are bigger than they used to be, and then at the end of the day you open your freezer to the comfort of APC jeans and supple, untouched chicken breasts, and deduce with a sigh that soup is imminent, and in your control.

Official Story Time

You Can’t Ride That Man, He’s a Ghost Man

We were married beneath the auspices of a rollicking coaster, our hair spun sugar in the gusty lurch of overhead cars—the splendid screams, the raising of desperate hands, the suckling on spoonfuls of frozen raspberry lemonade, the scent of rapidly-generated fried doughballs that exploded in our mouths, our hands. I flipped his bangs with my free finger, and repeatedly we reeled through Monster Plantation until the bedraggled animatronic shag mammoths retracted their acrylic claws. I spread even sandwiches, intercepted afternoon calls, rigged extraordinary windsocks, noteworthy backsplash murals, but it wasn’t long before David met his ghost boyfriend behind the washing machine. Pinching my flesh into shrunken shirt dresses, selvedge denim, I began to launder away, in coin-operated machines, to achieve that desired delicate softness, light lofty warmth, while David spoonfed his ghostman chocolate ice cream, watched it dribble down his transparent esophagus, occasionally prying fingers in, to taste. Alone, I watched gumballs spiral down intestinal shafts, waiting for a pink, settling on recurring green, stale, unfit for bubbles, belabored, jaw-throbbing smacks as my legs dangled from the behemoth dryer, vibrating, pulsing imitation radiance. The bras and sheets so dank, but in front of me a freckle-breasted woman with serrated teeth airing clean purple towels. Flapping and flying, buoyant in the warm milky din, her mouth rounded in anticipation of aftershower. STOP, I pressed, releasing my towels from tumble. I held them, smelled something like my skin in the folds.

Reason Number 111: Delusions of Grammar

Sometimes, I want to be important.

I am a bad writer, getting worse and worse, especially late at night when coffee makes me fall asleep and no matter how many Wham! songs I listen to I want to hibernate.

Reason Number 110: Self-Queery

Sometimes you have to motivate yourself to do certain things by doing the exact opposite. Pleasure reading, fiction writing feels laborious so in response I force-feed myself queer theory, which for some reason feels less taxing than prior theoretic pursuits. It's also somewhat better than cleaning behind the toilet, another delay tactic I employ in desperate situations.

Hocquenghem's "The Screwball Asses" is strangely engrossing and hilarious and rich with new and exciting information I'm probably misinterpreting like crazy, my reaction saying as much about me as it does about him or Noura Wedell, his translator. I AM THE OTHER and by that I mean in possession of vagina sinkhole object receptacle subject exogenic cumshot shitbucket bourgeois phallus receiver.

I've learned several words, and actually took the time to seek their definitions. Oh hi online dictionary revelry! "Unequivocal" is everywhere, all the time, and I always assume I know what it means though I never attempt to use it in conversation or otherwise, but now I know precisely. But I'm gonna make you work for it if you don't know already, which you probably do unless you're a dumbass ignoramus like me!

But even though I went to Brown and majored in English reading theory still makes me feel like I'm watching the Super Quartz Rose Bowl, and I don't think I'll ever understand Cybernetics, or the particular sentence structures theorists always seem to employ.

In other news, bodegas don't sell heavy cream or raisins, and I find this very off-putting.

RRRRReasons Squared: Time Sinks, Literary Gestation

I don't think I ever really know what comes of stories until they're actually produced. I wish my process were more spontaneous and carefree, as opposed to a few words at a time, my timidity getting the best of ideal productivity. Caution kills, literarily. It's going back and fixing things in the most exacting manner possible, but generating fearlessly. I have no problem looking like an idiot in life, but somehow on paper I'm in junior high school again.

I'm thinking of putting my indefatigable knowledge of obscure pop music to good use. And I don't mean making more operatic versions of more Blues Travelers songs, although that's not even kind of such a bad idea.

I thought of this when I found myself skipping down First Avenue singing the entire Beauty and the Beast soundtrack after a glass of prosecco. I was not by myself, though. Internet loser admissions part 2345667.

In terms of structure, my idiocy knows no bounds. And discourages me from writing, or finishing writing. I've never been good at arranging. In fact, I'm very bad at arranging. But admitting you're awful at something doesn't mean you shouldn't try really ridiculously hard. I think I haven't followed this rule as much as I'd like.

I feel like this is why collages make such abounding sense to me. I haven't made one in awhile. Probably because they're dumb and for teenage girls. I am proud not to be a teenage girl.

Why hate Valentine's Day? Hate is way too passionate. This holiday calls for indifference, or hanging out with your least favorite friend and sharing a King Kobra. Or even a more average drink. I'm a sucker for little glittery heart-shaped pieces of pink paper, though, and my adoration of candy knows no bounds.

This feels a little more like a livejournal entry than I would prefer.

Reason Number I Don't Even Know Anymore

Writing is difficult. An understatement. I keep thinking any minute it's going to be warmer than it is now, which is defeatist.

Revision is ugh. I'm losing words, and feeling my writing become more lucid and more frenetic simultaneously. The story I'm working on is grotesque and campy in ways I haven't played with yet. I don't know if it's good or bad, but I'm having a good time fictionalizing. I guess that's all that matters for now.

In other news, I made soda bread, which was not amazing, but certainly tasty.

It's not the act of producing words, it's putting everything together, determining the overarching structure, the decision-making that accompanies structuring.

What a suckfest post.

Reason Number A: Soft Peaks

In spite of weather so foul I can't even formulate a scathing aside about it, and in spite of not being in possession of a stand mixer, I managed to create soft peaks with just an egg white, a whisk, and a green bowl. Not to mention monster hand and wrist strength, and epic determination. Pancakes are well worth grueling efforts. And these required cornmeal in addition to plain old flour, with grand textural consequences.

I'm beginning to wonder if a well-constructed, impeccably-fitted boot cut jean is not so bad. I tried on a pair while in Georgia, and they were bizarrely flattering, and I might even go so far as to say an exciting way to reinvigorate denim after years of ankle constraint. I did not buy these jeans, as I felt it would be impractical and perhaps too brash to do so at this time, but maybe in summer?

Too much Janet Jackson is never a bad thing, and I say this with absolute, empirical certainty.

Reason Number &: Oreo Cookies and Unwieldy Poetic Frameworks

I think one of my greatest skills in life is ruining. I actually sneezed chocolate (a full five minutes after eating chocolate) onto one of my favorite shirts, a cream silk blouse with a nipped, slim fit that goes with just about everything, or did before I ruined it.

I also destroy even the most resilient shoes that, on another person, might remain pristine, unscathed by vicious sidewalks and precipitation.

On any given day, I have a rash.

I overuse mediocre, frivolous words like "extraordinary" and "humiliating" and "extreme" in both adjective and adverb form, and now that I've brought up adverbs I may as well admit they threaten to ambush my every utterance.

I will never understand how a person doesn't trip and fall at least once during the day. Forward movement is perilous, and often I don't see how it's done, in the literal sense that my glasses are fogged, or smudged, and I always forget to bring the right kind of cleansing cloth, and worsen the smudges with improper fabric like rayon. (cough, rayon is always an improper fabric)

Often, my upper lip gets stuck to my teeth when I smile at nothing, or at something that makes no sense to anyone around me.

I can never tell a not circuitous story, full of pauses, tangents, sideways glances into space.

I lost my virginity to a song from a Disney movie soundtrack. I'll let you guess which one. I would insist this was not my idea (it wasn't!!), but at this point the fact that I let it happen makes me just as guilty as the penis-wielder that pressed play.

What if I were to write a series of sestinas that is actually an enormous sestina?

What if my coat weren't always covered in cat hair?

What if I were to stop complaining right now?

I could, after all, be listening to Luther Vandross in a cold room.

Instead, I just ate two oreo cookies that reminded me to eat more oreo cookies, and often.

A man rang our buzzer, the reason being that he had an extra copy of our keys. He wanted a reward. "I could have stolen your plasma TV! Or your iPod!" he said. We don't have a plasma TV. But thanks random man for not stealing from me. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

ETA: Editing. A reason for gratitude. A way to make adverbs disappear, and melt reiterations, and just make things better. Can be repeated until things are better.

Reason Number: Cold Clandestine Showers of Indeterminate Value

I take showers brief enough to make family and friends balk, question my degree of cleanness, which I will defend almost as much as Mozart's Clarinet Concertos, or hating Inception. The brevity of my showers is intensified (can brevity be intensified? probably not) when the water spurting from my spigot is lukewarm and it's 24 degrees outside, or less, probably.

Things are strange when there's more than an inch of snow on the ground in Georgia twice in one month. And here I am, addressing the weather.

Ely's been biting in increasingly formidable and damaging ways, and there is the possibility of putting him to sleep, which may be for the best, but as Doug pointed out like the astute pseudo-adult that he is, the thought of Ely's smell vanishing from the house is bizarrely off-putting and sad and strange. Sometimes I mark eras in my life by the lifespans of pets. When Ely was born I was fifteen. I wore dark makeup. I wrote solely about disease and heroines with embarrassingly Baroque names. Probably while listening to embarrassingly Baroque music. And having embarrassingly Baroque crushes. We never got along very well, our relationship wavering between red rockets and bared teeth, snarling standoffs over the years becoming more strained, and as it stands now he barely tolerates me unless no one else is in the house, in which case in desperation he squeals for me to pick him up and swaddle him in blankets, which I refuse to do out of sheer terror.

In other news, I spent the day dressing models while wearing only black, which is something I hadn't necessarily foreseen. I also ate an entire miniature pizza in front of them, which did not make me feel bad about myself one bit. A feat.

I'm thinking of doing a prose poem series about sports. Back to basics. 1B Delgado on the DL.

Less thinking, more doing.

I remember when I used to try doing experimental things with my writing, like writing about miniature golfing in Middle English. Sometimes I wonder if doing this detracts from storytelling or if it enhances what could otherwise be ordinary. I guess both.

I'm going to bed before ten thirty. Tomorrow morning, I will walk past Hollister while wearing all black on my way to dress models.

Reason Number ?????: ??????

Bulldozed. All I want to do is search eBay for deco blouses and suede boots and Chanel flats while my cat bites my feet. New beginnings, new anxiety, new desperately seeking reasons not to. Thesis advisory, joblessness, the silver lining (which certainly is NOT the fact that I just said "silver lining") being endless time to work on thesis without money for recreation, distraction. I want to take a road trip somewhere, revisit, rewrite, edit my life into oblivion and reconfigure. Reconstruction is the name of the game. The name of the game? Cliche, apparently. The names of trees in my brain always. Sometimes I feel the person I was at fourteen was a different beast altogether, and other days I wake up, her again, and terrified. But all I want to do is write, but now I'm too scared to write, and sometimes even read. But I gotta choose a thesis advisor, and go to yoga, and spray medication up my nose, and put one foot in front of the other foot. And there are a billion books I've been meaning to read but haven't, having been busy, so here I am.