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Friday, May 25th, 2001
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5:25 am - maybe.
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| Monday, May 14th, 2001
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9:00 pm - i died a second time.
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it is monday and someone broke my guitar, the silliest strangest little acoustic guitar ever, the one i write all my songs on.
i am homeless now and longing to be found.
i am a dancer and a sweet spun pretender.
put me to sleep forever.
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| Wednesday, May 2nd, 2001
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6:16 am - already dead.
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i was singing to myself this song, and now i can't remember it.
and it makes me sad: to know that it was here, that it was so much a part of me, and that it still lingers in most of me, but to not be able to touch it, to not quite wear it on my lips.
and i think (aloud) that maybe this is the sadness that i feel with my love, the emptiness that time and distance and so many layers of misunderstanding have left behind.
i am sad and i know i love no less,
but i am sad, and i don't remember the tune,
just that it exists
and is the most beautiful thing
ever.
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| Tuesday, April 24th, 2001
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3:17 am - a note.
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dear diary,
it is late and i am awake still because i can't sleep, but i can't concentrate either.
i wrote songs for several people and the song for [anonyme]... i put a piece of it on my voice mail today. i felt horrible because i knew that if i gave songs to anyone, other people would wonder, is there a song for me? and of course there is. and of course there are. but, (this):
it is harder to write a love letter than a letter to a stranger.
oh, diary, you're a mess. of metaphors and literal things and bullshit and truths and would-be aphorisms and i just wish i could sleep, dear diary, dear anyone listening,
dear [anonyme], listening, still, i hope.
dear diary,
it is harder to tell your mother that you're gay
than it is
to tell an entire room of strangers.
dear diary,
why is there so little difference between frustration -- which seems not to really be targetted anywhere but sort of aimless, but i could be wrong, except that i'm talking about what the word means to me:
but i could still be wrong.
but why is there so little difference between frustration and anger?
and anger, it seems, definitely does have a target.
i am thinking of targets because i am remembering vegas and taking down the dartboard off the wall and the beautiful halo pattern of holes. i still can't throw a dart. like a paper-airplane, i know. i guess i get distracted. i guess i don't care about darts very much.
direct object. indirect object. transitive or intransitive verb. whatever.
dear diary,
when i was growing up i was always told: do the best that you can. you can't do any more. and that will be enough: because it will have to be.
and then now: i am doing the best that i can. and when someone tells me that isn't enough, i do two things. there's a part of me that has horribly low self esteem and says "oh." and hates myself. and thinks, maybe if you are saying that, maybe i'm not really doing my best. maybe i can do more, and i just didn't realize it. and a part of me that feels a little better, stands a little taller, says "fuck you. i am doing the best i can. if you want more than that, teach me. if you want more than that, you don't want me. if i want to do more than that, i'll learn. give me time. give me space. help me up."
but then. all of this is about... all of this. this tangle i'm getting myself into, day after day. getting depressed and coming dangerously close to failing classes and having to work day and night and day and night to try and repair it. the stress and insomnia that come with it. the comfort of human company, of words through wires, a gentle voice, a somewhere.
maybe even just the simple comfort that someone is reading this.
and also discomforts of every thing that pulls me deeper into the abyss i make.
oh, diary, didn't i say i'd stop with the metaphor?
i'm depressed. i'm sad. i'm afraid.
i was in love and i don't know if i am anymore, because the person i loved told me that things weren't right. and i agreed. and she told me to go away and never come back. and she told me that she didn't want to try and make things right, and she said "ever."
cages with glass walls. sorry, dear diary. but you're my place for words, and i need words right now, and nobody is awake, and i am writing
for my life.
all i want is to be able to put my trust in love,
but i don't know what love is,
oh, love.
tell me you love me.
tell me you'll be honest with me.
tell me everything you can.
i want to trust love, but.
diary, tell me this:
she says that she loves me and cares about me still.
and i understand. understand the breaking up over distance. understand as much as i can. understand a lot.
okay, i don't want to broadcast this to the whole world. but i am depressed and alone and nobody will talk to me. talk to me. fuck you, world. fuck you, diary, you don't say a damn thing either.
"loves solitude, but hates to be alone". is me. wholly.
but she says that she wants to be with me,
says that she cares about me,
and then will be so angry and so bitter and so...
okay. maybe i can't even say that.
will do things. say things. that hurt me.
that she knows hurt me.
and if she doesn't: i say it. either way.
and doesn't stop. and makes it worse.
and then says: i don't know what happened, i couldn't help it.
and i know it's against what i believe to not want that.
but... i want "i love you" to mean,
i won't deliberately hurt you.
if someone is going to be my warm place,
i want that to be a safe place.
i don't think that is so much to ask.
i'm writing too much.
i am afraid of my life. i am afraid for my life.
i want to die tonight but i don't. want to die.
i don't want to be alone.
this is a suicide note.
this is a plea for help.
this is a page in a diary that doesn't exist. so.
dear diary,
i hate diaries. i hate journals. i used to burn pages out of diaries, and i still do, and i still will.
i hate the idea of taking even a single moment in my life and reducing it to words on a page.
language, for me: is for communication.
language is for action.
a diary that sits on the shelf is dead language, dead skin, a shame and a sham and a horrible waste.
one of my friends from junior high died in an accident while i was in high school. three years before that we were talking about diaries because she was crying, to me because i was her friend, crying because someone had stolen her diary and read some of the words on the pages in it.
i couldn't understand, really, and i'm still not sure i do. i thought: she must have meant for SOMEBODY to SOMEDAY read it. just not that person, not now.
but, no. she said, maybe me. maybe when i'm much older. maybe when i have children and they have children, but not before then.
grandchildren are a strange thing to dream about. maybe not. so much can happen. i can't imagine my children. let alone theirs. even the plural seems an overextension of imagination.
but i did. i did imagine her grandchildren, and her sixteen-year-old granddaughter reading her grandmother's journal and laughing at the curves of her handwriting and at the outdated slang and at her childishness, but also seeing how much certain things don't change, the insecurities of childhood, the terror of not fitting well into an adult world you're too eager to enter, but completely unwilling to compromise to be a part of. and the whole mess of tumbling about until you learn to fit where you want to fit, and to make the world fit around you where it must.
dear diary,
i don't know what the point is, and there isn't one.
i really am desperate.
i really am alone.
i really want the phone to ring but it hasn't all night.
i really want someone to hold my shoulders and say "it is okay," and "you are alive," and "i am here".
i don't know why i'm writing about personal messes of my own life and of someone else's. especially when, thinking more, i feel horrible writing about someone else's life so candidly and so without permission,
because this isn't a diary.
it's a webpage. it's a dumb little script that puts text in a giant database, and carts it off onto various little web pages.
so i shouldn't post this. shouldn't write it at all. but it's too late and the problem with the web client i have is that i can't go back and delete this now.
i guess i can set it "private". it's what did with other journal entries that said too much. and then last week i deleted all of the hidden entries, unhid them, put them someplace else as a record of things i'd written, more to myself than to anyone else.
dear diary,
it's funny that all of the hidden entries were just to you.
because i do write journal entries for people who read. and some for myself. and the most private ones are all the ones that are there just to be written. just to be done.
i hope i never have to explain why that's sometimes important.
dear diary,
i don't know why i am telling stories about diaries and about how one of my best friends died each year that i was in high school and each year that i was in college. life is pretty shitty sometimes, isn't it? but you would know. you collect these things, these words. store them and serve them out. i shouldn't even bother personifying you.
dear diary,
i do it because what i really want is also about words and about language:
i want someone to talk to me to remind me that language is still something about feelings and about things that you can't communicate.
because language is communication. and it is this tangle of meaning and nonsense. but it's also a vehicle for the struggle against itself.
language is a suicide note.
language is a cry for help.
language is just another fucking word in the dictionary.
dear diary,
don't bother to remember this entry.
can you just help me to sleep?
can you sing me a lullaby, because when i try to sing one, my eyes well up with tears and i can't go on,
and i am more awake than ever before?
dear diary,
can you hold me in your arms and tell me you love me?
can you fall asleep by my side?
can you whisper in my ear and make me believe every word the same way you believe a rock exists when you hold it in your hand?
then, dear diary, what good are you?
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| Monday, April 23rd, 2001
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4:13 pm - seeks solace.
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i am teardrops and i am a mess of everything,
tangles of accusation and
a terrible day
and i am looking for comfort... :(
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| Sunday, April 22nd, 2001
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8:57 am - inept.
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i don't know how to sleep.
or dance.
i feel so old and so far from everything.
at least i have a good parking space.
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2:54 am - index.
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i feel pale but i just ate some soup.
or maybe
soup is something
that you drink.
current music: tom waits - "invitation to the blues"
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, April 21st, 2001
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4:52 pm - three year old memory of an identical sofa.
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she is sitting next to me and asks: "have you ever been in love?"
have you ever been in love?
have you ever been in love?
have you ever been in love?
so now i am alone here and sitting at the same corner of another sofa which looks exactly the same. i am afraid of identical things. i am afraid of mirrors, even though i am captivated by them. does this make any sense? it doesn't have to.
i feel so alone. the rain reminds me of everything that memory is made of.
time. and "stuff". like what is inside pillows.
in my dream i am an amnesiac and when i come out of the bathroom identical with the bathroom in some different apartment in some different city in some different fucking year i am confused and wonder who i am, what time of day it is, who is the president of the united states of america, what is going on.
nothing makes sense but it is a dream and knowing this calms me enough and in my dream i go to the theatre and the actress is polish and in the program the actors playing her mother and (brother?) are also with the same last name as her, though she is the star and her name is listed on another page. my parents are there to remind me that part of me is polish too, but only a part, but part enough that it is okay to feel like i should be onstage weeping beside these actors instead of watching them from the balcony.
this probably doesn't belong in any of my journals. this is not me.
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3:06 pm - out of the past.
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power and internet access just came back after 17 hours of downtime. and here i am.
when i came in last night it was still pounding rain, every walkway was a waterway, i was shivering and wrapped in four layers.
today it is sunny and i wish i were at the beach. i am going to put on warmer clothes and i'll write more later.
current music: curve - cuckoo
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| Thursday, April 19th, 2001
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3:53 am - what was i thinking of?
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tonight and longing and silence and afraid and as many different kinds of words at once as if i could hold them like a blanket, let them wrap me like rainbows through a waterfall.
i am lost, surely, completely. listening. i have a memory of stumbling across the room in a room that wasn't mine and smiling when you let me hold you. i am trying to write poetry and i don't know where i've left my voice.
somewhere around a broken circle.
if my week for naming is over, so, i am still thinking about names, always freedom and its opposite. listening to an old johnny rivers record. laugh away. tonight i felt a moment of strength like a lost language.
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(comment on this)
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| Wednesday, April 18th, 2001
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10:06 am - eye.
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| Tuesday, April 17th, 2001
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2:17 pm - eight seventeen on four seventeen.
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i had almost forgotten and then found the note that was supposed to remind me about today, to say, here, look at this, and it made the corners of my mouth turn every which way at once.
this is a journal entry that makes no sense, la la la.
i want to draw a picture of you. i want to be lost.
there is a shadow over the sun today: why?
to do to-day: learn a new skill. fold laundry. breathe.
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4:33 am - insomniac.
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drinking tea. stumbling in and out of sleep. lonely whispers to myself. pictures of movie stars and of total strangers. writing poems on scrap paper and then throwing them away. listening to quiet music. thinking about flying into the sun.
current music: death cab for cutie - we have the facts and we're voting yes
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| Monday, April 16th, 2001
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5:32 pm - passed out.
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i passed my comps!!!!%%%%%%%%%%*%********%%%!~~~~~
current music: x - "i must not think bad thoughts"
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| Sunday, April 15th, 2001
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8:54 pm - weather like a pause.
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i feel unalive and i don't know why.
today i made posters on a letterpress. vandercook 4.
i miss...
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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2:52 am - fish nailed to the wall.
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sober and alone and lonely and loud. there is a song i want to sing but i don't know how to put the words together so they make sense. and after being awake all day i still can't convince myself that i'm tired.
for so many reasons i am unhappy in my own body.
goodnight. i am sorry.
current music: carole king - tapestry
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(comment on this)
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| Saturday, April 14th, 2001
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2:16 pm - able.
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i think i may have actually passed but i'm not burning my book before they post scores on monday.
definitely i have forgotten what the difference is between jealousy and bitterness.
i feel a decline somewhere.
at least there is this strange scattering of compliments. i don't necessarily know what they're about. everyone i know is silent, however. maybe everyone is a stranger after all. maybe i'm crazy after all.
there isn't a drug strong enough to take this away from me.
current music: nine inch nails - "last"
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(comment on this)
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12:49 am - lip gloss and tired feet.
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tonight was my first foray into runway modeling. i am exhausted and stressed out and studying for tomorrow morning's exam after which i will sort of relax (until they tell me i failed and have to take it again).
stressed out as fuck.
i feel completely isolated. does anyone still read this anyway? i don't know when i last got a phone message, i feel like i should leave for months and maybe nobody would notice.
current mood:  stressed
current music: death cab for cutie - something about airplanes
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(comment on this)
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| Friday, April 13th, 2001
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2:14 am - twos.
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i cried into the back of a turtle until i realized: i am crying into the back of a turtle! and started laughing through my tears until my laughter was the loudest thing in the otherwise silent room and then i thought, maybe i should listen to music, and put on some quiet music and tried to read and instead just cried on the pages until the pages turned, and they didn't make me laugh as much as the turtle did.
and then.
i stopped. went outside. looked at the moon. when i came back in the music was still playing. lifted up the needle and kept the record turning and picked up my guitar and played a few notes and smiled a little sadly. i closed my eyes and imagined you here in my room, sitting close to the floor while i sat cross-legged on the floor, i was singing quietly with my eyes closed, quietly and then louder and then quiet again, singing, and you were kissing me and i put the guitar down to kiss you and put my arms around you and there was the arch of your back and (closer) your lips and then further away, nothing else.
maybe we can go for a walk later when everyone is asleep, and we can be tired and giddy together and in love and everything will be funny and alive.
current music: son, ambulance - "the invention of beauty"
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(comment on this)
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| Thursday, April 12th, 2001
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12:15 am - a sleep that won't ever come.
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something about everything
is making me smile.
i don't know what it is.
i know: not to fight it.
current music: jeff buckley - "corpus christi carol"
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