I've been trying to diagnose this weird thing I have/do.

it's like I'm agoraphobic and anti-agoraphobic at the same time. I get stuck with my family and think it's all right because, hey, they're all right and my house is cool and whatnot. I don't need to see people, which is cool because there's not really anyone to see here anyway anymore except melyssa, and I see her when I need to (yesterday for hours, today on the phone for the same [okay, less, I'm not that good of a phone-runner-up]). not much choice in prescott. but, see, I get to this point when I don't see anyone for a couple days when I start to almost-panic because I don't have anyone and, yet, feel afraid of going out to find anyone. how much sense does that make? not a lot to me not a lot to me. but I feel, when it happens, this either clarity or extreme confusion that throws out feelings and thoughts that don't otherwise come. tonight

I made a mistake leaving antioch. I made a mistake coming back to arizona. I mean, I always say that I don't regret it and everything happens for a reason and yada blah whatever, but I'm voicing it now: it was a mistake. two mistakes, actually: leaving antioch, and coming to nau. if I had to leave antioch, and I may have had to, then I should have used the time to find another school that I felt strongly about. do you want to know what my thought process was in coming back? "well, why not? it'll be easy." see, 'cause even then I was thinking about grad school. I mean, I was between sixty and seventy credits by that point, so I figured it would be an easy way to finish. easy. see, that's the key. it would be easy. I wouldn't have to send myself to another school, I wouldn't have to find the money, I wouldn't have to go through recommendations and notes from the dean and whatever the hell else they'd ask for this time. easy, see.

I'm not going all self-effacing now or anything. I don't deny that good things have happened at nau, especially in this last term and (to a lesser degree) the one before it. I mean, when I talk about the a/a-a (agoraphobia/anti-agoraphobia), I think of the posse and parties and whatnot. but is that only because it's been so long since beer train? how many times did I try and start such things out here? three times, I think.

something jeremy said yesterday just struck me, really. something about being twenty-one and having everything open to you. I think the reason it struck me is because I said more or less the same thing to melyssa our last night in mexico. we were walking in the breakers and the moon was mostly full so we could actually see under the water and I was saying something along the lines of while I didn't regret what we did down there, we were all legal and there were clubs and whatnot. why not try? and, see, melyssa and I have had this discussion before, and we've decided (or concluded, I guess) that we don't have fun like most people. wallflowers, maybe. but then I've gone to parties and stuff that have been more *popular*, and I keep remembering that rave [industrial part] of kat's I went to and how much fun I had. I don't think I know myself completely. but there are parts I think I knew, and that was one of them. anyway, in mexico, I put to myself and melyssa, why not do some of those things? why not go to the whatevers in phoenix? the idea scares me, but I never thought I could have fun at the industrial thing either, or the posse parties or the assorted whatevers. I did. so why not something else? being open-minded is a good thing. I still feel like I've just turned 21, because what have I used it for? buying alcohol for the posse. going out with sunny-kristin exactly once. getting a beer at dinner a couple times. the world is open to me, and I haven't used it. I mean, it always has been, but now it is legally. this is rambling. where was I going? oh, right. how am I supposed to make use of it? in prescott? there's nothing. and as sick as I am of saying that, as sick as you are of reading it, I'm sick of it being true. there are bars for old cowboys. period. period, period, period. even in flag, there are bars for the straight college crowd. and this may be explained away through gay nights or I know them all anyway or something, but maybe I'm just determined to dislike flagstaff, too. maybe as much as I enjoy arizona, I need to go somewhere else. where? how, now? I mean, no matter how I slice it, I'm here for a while. I have no money. I have no degree. this is my doing. I chose to stay. I don't regret that, I don't, I don't. okay, new paragraph about regret.

it's a loaded word, no doubt. and I say that I regret leaving antioch. explanation try: accepting the leaving of antioch and coming to nau as neither positive nor negative for the sake of beginning arguments, I don't regret not applying to grad school last fall because I don't think I was ready. I think I've grown a hell of a lot in a short time, and I would be leaps better applying now (and later) than I would've before. but I also feel like I could apply now, but I have no choice but to wait another year. and no matter how I look at it, there's that year. spent at school (which means undergrad, which means nau), spent working, spent at home ... I don't really want any of it. I've overeducated, privileged, pampered, easily reneged upon, and, at the end of the day, a home to nobody but myself. and what will I choose? will it be easy?

as I was driving back from flag for the last time with all my stuff in the back of serenity and my parents driving behind, I was listening and singing to r.e.m. and crying along. damn. I may have been singing to my parents or a thousand different friends or myself or all of the above. anyway, the lines that got me -
"This decision is mine. I have lived a full life
And these are the eyes that I want you to remember.
...
I will try not to burden you.
I can hold these inside. I will hold my breath
Until all these shivers subside,
Just look in my eyes.
I will try not to worry you.
I have seen things that you will never see.
Leave it to memory me. I shudder to breathe."
I don't care what they meant it to be. to me, it was this damn surrender of feeling to what's easy. I'd rather sleep in my old room and its high schoolity because it's beautiful and spacious and the food's paid for and I don't have to go anywhere because, really, where is there to go?

what I really wanted to do was find somewhere I fell in love with. not a rah-rah thing, but something I cared about. something separate from me. I mean, everything that's really core to me is a part of me, even though it can be detached (writing). everything's started in me. I don't get very very close to people or places or things because, at the end, I think, "well, that can be replaced." well, guess what, self? they can't. look at this. look at the antioch thing. I've spent a year and a half trying to make nau replace it, and in the end, it's only succeeded it. antioch wasn't great, but it was a start. I wouldn't be who I was now if I hadn't gone to antioch and then nau, but isn't that stupidly obvious? say I'd gone to antioch and then grinnell or antioch and then sarah lawrence. I hate what ifs, but what if? internally, maybe I'd have missed kathryn and kal and jarin and all of 'em. externally, I certainly wouldn't have met kat and lauren and aly and kyle and sunny-kristin or had the anderson or brooke wonders or dr. gruber or jay or even dan crawley. so. so. SO WHAT? where do I get with all this? I regret but I don't? I regret but I enjoy what I've done anyway? because I do. I DO. so what's the problem? it feels like I've stopped again. even during last semester, when I didn't have enough money to buy food even, I felt like I was moving forward but here in this house in this town if feels like time's stopped and I even forget to take pages off my calendar. that's it, isn't it? it feels like there's no forward motion here, no matter what I do or what I write and I'm not going for anything. but there is. I mean, I think I should live in the moment and all that, but the moment has to lead to another.

I hate having to use money for anything. even, at this point, doing nothing costs money, thanks to my distance from everyone/melyssa and the price of gas. this is also a problem.

so what am I going to get from this? that I haven't gotten already, I mean. keep going forward, because even if the feeling's the same, the circumstances aren't. difference grows.

further to my journal yesterday:

I talked to him about it. evidently, yesterday's status debate is a status of convenience. it is easier, says he, to let this other guy have the in-a-relationship status because it both placates him and also beats off other potential one-night-lookers-for. it makes sense to me, since both juliana and I have done this on satan's website (facebook), both independently and, once, together.

damn it. this kind of makes me like him more.

okay is relative.

see, I've known this guy for close on a year now (nine months?). problem is, he goes to school in phoenix and lives in louisiana. I see him sporadically, at best. and tuesday night, when I was down there seeing my cousin, I got to do everything I've ever wanted to do with him. sexual. nonsexual. postcoital naked talk debate about hemingway. as I told kristin-sunny, such people aren't usual, in my experience. I liked him a lot before. I liked him the first time I saw him. I liked him through words, when I couldn't see him. here's the problem: facebook informs me that, as of about a week ago, he's in a relationship.

once again, okay is relative. but I'm certain this is not okay.

I'm not going to be the other man. his mouth says he likes me a lot, as do his fingers (and I'm talking about words here as well as various sexual opportunances). whilst in the friend stage, he went through a relationship, and I went through whatever the hell those deals were. this is past the friend stage. I like him, if you hadn't gotten that. but what does this say? about him, about me? he sure didn't say anything. am I just one of those people who is utterly iceberged, and that he just wanted to say he slept with me because I'm attractive (he says), no matter what relationship point he was at? does that connote "scummy"?

I usually assume the worst of people. I wish they would stop reinforcing said worst.

it's really not fair for the weather to be doing this when my temporality is already fucked up. I just asked my mom when we were going to set the christmas tree up, to which she replied (obviously and post-haste), "it's may." damn you, cold during summer! damn you, confused school breaks! damn you, whatever part of my brain is supposed to figure out what time of year it is based upon factors other than cloud cover and temperature!

last night, jeremy asked me how I was feeling. answer? peeling, tan, tired, and unsure. off-the-cuff then, but true stretched back and through now. major emphasis on unsure, though the peeling isn't very attractive either.

I'm sitting on the pad of my futon, waiting to be moved out. my room is empty save for what needs to go in the truck. I hate moving. hate, hate, hate. okay, so maybe it is like riding a bike, and you get better as it as you go, but what if you really fucking hate your bike?

tried to get my portfolio back from the anderson today, but no go. I didn't actually expect her to be there at eleven in the AM, but I thought she might have 'em outside. failed miserably at seeing kat, too, though I am glad I got to see everyone last night. actually, I'm glad I got to have a couple extra days up here, though it's playing havoc with my temporality, since I feel like I should be going to class. the empty english building is nice, though, as I well know from the night.

and, by the way, how do I have so much nonsense? I calculated, and I realized that the only *stuff* I really need (and that's barring food and soap and clothes and whatnot) can be condensed to (1) orion, (2) whatever notebooks I'm using [currently, two], (3) pencils, (4) book[s] to read. end. that's it. I haven't been carrying my phone at all of late, and it makes me both happy and more conscious of how other people are on them all the bloody time. having the damn thing is enough - why must I also carry it? fmphrah. nonsense, I say.

they're here.

last night, I learned what having kids is like.

alex's birthday, right. so a condo of four twentysomethings now. three of 'em drunk off their asses, unable to even crawl to the bathroom to upchuck tequila in, right. somehow, when I do lug all three of them into separate beds, they all find the wherewithal to get out again and start trying to drink out of the toilets and take more shots. would have been easier if I could've just tranqed 'em all. funny thing is, I would have if I'd had such.

anyway. the point here is not to cry unfair, but rather to relate the dream that happened after. started out in the english building, third floor, so late the sun was coming up already. I was there with kat and we had art projects, ala giant third grade things, on display for poetry that the anderson was supposed to come inspect, only she hadn't yet. talking to kat, debbie came by, I start telling the story of how I got the idea for mine. flash forward to the story itself: I'm in my car and the anderson's with me, in the passenger seat. we're driving along a road in the dark, and while it's in the woods (and the pine trees are huge), the road's like a six-laner in phoenix and there's a huge, huge parking lot at the end. it's raining, and a very dark night. we get to the parking lot and little shacks of single apartments are scattered around, all with cars parked around 'em. now, I don't remember if we go to one in particular, or if we just pull up to a random one, but we go inside. it's a party. there's a guy I dated for a few days (in real life), and I hear his whiny, queeny voice from another room and want to leave, but the anderson goes slow and the guy, upon being told that I'm there, comes shrieking out. he's drunk, and can't wait to unzip his pants for me. I know he wants to have sex, but I don't want to let him even though I'm carrying over from real life that I'm horny as hell. I get the anderson to leave and we get back in the car and drive into the dark and the rain and the forest. if much happens after that, I don't remember it.

I'm fairly certain I know what some things mean.

also, I got a little drunk before anyone else did and sobered before they were drunk, and learned that to music when I'm drunk I don't keep my clothes on. then again, all I need is, say, three shots to lose inhibitions, and I can sober quickly and be drunk-fun on them. end.

quotables / the shipping news

"he held out his arms. no mistaking what he meant. transfixed, she hardly breathed. one flicker of movement, and he'd be all over her, pulling her clothes up, wrenching the brown stockings and pressing her down on the stones with the shore flies crawling on bare skin, quoyle, entering her, ramming his great chin into the side of her neck. and afterwards some silent agreement, some sore complicity, betrayal. she burst out. ... 'do you know how he died? my husband? I'll tell you. he's in the sea. he's down at the bottom. I never come beside the sea without thinking - 'herold's there.'' ... she slid down the rock, safe now, protected by grief. quoyle stood away, hands dangling, looking at her."
(bril. simply.)

"wavey ran to get away, then for the sake of running, and at last because there was nothing else to do. it would look undecided to change her pace, as though she did not know what she wanted. it seemed always that she had to keep on performing pointless acts."
(I want to write like this)

"'all of a sudden, something behind him. a hairy devil jumped down the hole like a hockey puck ... red eyes. says to me father ... 'be back for you ... after I washes me pots and pans.' father ... ran forty miles.' ... 'my wife,' bawled quoyle, 'is dead.' ... 'I know that,' said tert card. 'that's not news.'"
(best drunk dialogues ever)

"'edna says the only reason he didn't get her was because she was under the copy desk looking for paper clips when the shooting started. remember how there was never enough paper clips? quoyle, they shot at mercalia on the freeway last week. show you how crazy the scene is, I made a joke about living in california, about LA style. fucking bullet holes through her windshield. missed her by inches. she's scared to death and I'm making jokes. it hit me after edna called what a fucking miserable crazy place we're in. there's no place you can go no more without getting shot or burned or beat. and I was laughing.' and quoyle thought he heard his friend crying on the other side of the continent. or maybe he was laughing again."
(she covers so. fucking. much. ground in this book)

"he'd call him up that night. tell him. what? that he could gut a cod while he talked about advertising space and printing costs? that he was wondering if love came in other colors than the basic black of none and the red heat of obsession?"
(colors. she's very colorful.)

quotables / the sweet hereafter

"and then there were those folks who wanted to believe that the accident was not really an accident, that it was somehow caused, and that, therefore, someone was to blame. was it dolores's fault? a lot of people thought so. or was it the fault of the state of new york for not replacing the guardrail out there on the marlowe road? was it the fault of the town highway department for having dug a sandpit and let it fill with water? what about the seat belts that had tied so many of the children into their seats while the rear half of the bus filled with icy water? was it the governor's fault, then, for having generated legislation that required seat belts? who caused the accident anyhow? who can we blame?"
(just like it)

"...some bungling corrupt state agency or some multinational corporation that's cost-accounted the difference between a ten-cent bolt and a million-dollar out-of-court settlement and has decided to sacrifice a few lives for the difference. they do that, work the bottom line; I've seen it play out over and over again, until you start to wonder about the human species. they calculate ahead of time what it will cost them to assure safety versus what they're liekly to be forced to settle for damages when the missing bolt sends the bus over a cliff, and they simply choose the cheaper optoin. and it's up to people like me to make it cheaper to build the bus with that extra bolt, or add the extra yard of guardrail, or drain the quarry. that's the only check you've got against them. that's the only way you can ensure moral responsibility in this society. make it cheaper."
(scary. also, this guy's voice is very lawyerly, very different than the other chars. nice diversity)

"it just wasn't right - to be alive, to have had what people assured you was a close call, and then go out and hire a lawyer; it wasn't right."
(different voice. all his characters are very morally definable. also, this is how I felt after our crash in ohio)

"at that moment, I hated my parents more than I ever had. I hated them for all that had gone before - daddy for what he knew and had done, and mom for what she didn't know and hadn't done - but I also hated them for this new thing, this awful lawsuit. ...why couldn't they just stand up like good people and say to mr. stephens, 'no, forget the lawsuit. we'll get by somehow on our own. it's too harmful to too many people. goodbye, mr. stephens. take your law practice back to new york city, where people like to sue each other.'"
(good. true.)

"they were all sitting in the living room watching television together, like a good american family - it was the simpsons, which was the one show the whole bunch of them thought was funny. me, I can't stand that show; it's insulting."
(this is just for me. glad someone [even a fictional someone] gets it, too)

quotables / beloved

"but maybe a man was nothing but a man ... they encouraged you to put some of your weight in their hands and soon as you felt how light and lovely that was, they studied your scars and tribulations, after which they did what he had done: ran her children out and tore up the house."
(defeatist? disillusioned? important for writing a simi.char)

"'a man ain't nothing but a man,' said baby suggs. 'but a son? well now, that's somebody.'"
(I suck at writing parents)

"what she called the nastiness of life was the shock she received upon learning that nobody stopped playing checkers just because the pieces included her children."
(great language)

"as though a handful of myrtle stuck in the handle of a pressing iron propped against the door in a whitewoman's kitchen could make it hers. as though mint sprig in the mouth changed the breath as well as its odor."
(everything in 3rdP has to do something for char)

there was a thunderstorm today. it made me want to Write Shit. specifically, I stood in my window (in. not behind. not in front of. in.) and thought, "lawdy hey, it's thunderstorming, and I want to Write in that Dang-Nifty Journal I gots." verbatim. so, here it is, several hours later.