Zombknee just can't shake her unfounded pretentiousness.

So, I told Mike about my little fit and how embarrassed I felt. He actually saw it as a break through. That for the first time I was in touch with my anger. That maybe I needed to be in a hellish relationship for three years to finally let go of my hold on my anger. That, maybe now that it has finally been unbottled, maybe I can address all of the things that bother me as they bother me, rather than continuing to bottle up all of the anger that I hold, always avoiding it, always running away from it, until it is a quite unmanageable explosion. That, since things have not be horrifically bad, my annoyance has come out in tiny, ignorable, passive aggressive bursts that disappear as soon as they come. I needed relentless frustration over several years so that I could finally express my anger. He may very well be right.

I do have short bursts of passive aggressive anger that are very well contained. I have been able to skate by without ever confronting my anger by keeping these stints of annoyance under wraps. But, now that I know that I will have a very embarrassing temper tantrum that I can't control, I will need to just not keep on letting things that bother me happen without saying anything. Add to that the fact that my fuse is completely non-existent right now. It takes very little to set me off. Think lighting a match in a pressurized powder keg. Yay, how fun.

Part of not being able to confront people is that I feel like I have no right to feel the way I do. Well, that's kind of thrown out the window now isn't it. I am definitely going to feel the way I feel whether it's fucking justified or not, so I might as well fucking say something about it so I don't fucking freak the fuck out.

So, there you have it.

At first, I felt really elated and really free. I felt like I was released, that I didn't have to stress over anything anymore. I felt like the only 2 times I really felt free in the past 3 years were when J was out of the country. No crazy, unreasonable, maniacally insecure fears to swallow inside while he tells me how mean and horrible I am and how none of my love and kindness and caring has counted for anything because I've destroyed it all in one fell swoop.

Instead, I feel rage. Intense, unreleased for 3 years, relentless fury. It's all coming out with no holding back. Kind of like my earlier freedom just came out. I am furious. I am angry. Like that zombie movie where they tried to breed humans with animal strength and agility but things go awry when the unconstrained violence and aggressive instincts take over any reason or conscience that once existed. I feel like a child with abusive, overbearing parents always screaming and yelling and hitting and punishing their kid to get them to adhere to insanely strangling standards. And finally, literally breaking under the pressure, the kid just loses it, goes off the deep end and just needs to act out.

I realize now that I was in an abusive relationship. The kind that I grew up with where people I loved and trusted told me constantly I wasn't good enough "for my own good" with the honest intent of making me see how terrible all of my faults are to wake me up and show me how vital it is to change so I don't become a monster which I already am, but now that I know, I'll be a better person and I owe it all to them. Three years of someone telling me how awful I am yet loves me despite and is willing to stick around to see me one day changed into a somewhat tolerable human being.

He also hit me. I can't get that out of my head. He didn't actually hit me. He pushed me down over and over until I was down on the garage floor with my sweater torn and the slight taste of blood in my mouth. I was so calm when it happened. Just like I told myself I would have to be the next time someone tried to rape me or, in this case, hit me. I told myself I would diffuse the situation, that I would take away their momentum. Not allow them to feed off my fear and off their power rush. And that is exactly what I did. Sarcastic comments like, "don't you think we should be able to spend a night together without me tasting blood in my mouth?" "Hmm, my sweater is ripped...don't you think that's just a tad excessive?" Yet, for all my calmness, I spent two hours that night in heaving, uncontrollable sobs as I was trying to sleep. My body was shaking from stress and tenseness.

Sigh. But, it's all over now.

I feel so shitty. Three years of frustration and anger at his unreasonable demands but having to shut up and take it because his reaction was always right and my actions were always heinous. And he becomes such a snivelling wreck that I need to sooth and concentrate on him and bend to him. Three years of sitting and taking it while he heaped abusive words on me for hours at a time. Silently letting him spew while I tried to show him that I took my "lessons" from all of this bull shit. Three years of not being able to say or do anything without being severely punished.

I feel SO angry. So goddamn fucking angry. I feel this anger like a prehistoric gas pocket deep inside me that has been cracking the surface from the inside out for eons until it shoots out with unrelenting force.

I need to take some kickboxing classes or some shit.

I think when I've broken up with J in the past, I've gotten to this stage and thought I felt wretched because I wasn't with him anymore and so I would just go back. So wrong. So wrong. A hell sentence. If I ever go back. I might as well commit suicide. It would be a kinder fate.

One of the other things I felt in the before-happy glow of the break up is that I finally had the energy and capacity to think of myself. To do things just for me. To fix my bike, fix my elbow, fucking just hem my fucking pants. With him, I had no steam. All of my energy was focused on not "fucking things up." On removing any element of contention in my life such as all of my friends, anything fun that I could possibly have unless it was 100% about him and only him.

It should be the opposite. My friends think I am better than I am and simply expect that out of me, even when I make mistakes. I shouldn't be with someone who has a deep, unassailable suspicion that I am unfathomably evil and will only cause pain and is constantly on the look out for anything that could possible reveal any merits to this suspicion. And, I'm always fighting to shoo away these fears. GOD. What a fucking life.

I discovered a really huge thing about myself and thought I would share. I have always had trouble speaking up when something is bothering me. I would just not know how to do it. I end up exploding instead when I can't take it anymore and that would be the only time when I would be able to express my feelings. For example, if a girlfriend of a roommate kept me up at all hours every single time she came over, I would not say anything until she did this several nights in a row and I would be on the brink of sleep-deprived insanity and my only choice would be death or talk about it...

Not very helpful. As if there could be a better way of doing things...

It's not as though I didn't know I needed to say something. I would just hope against all hope that they would figure it out that this was not an okay thing to do and they would remedy everything out of common human decency without my intervention. So, I would tell myself to wait just one more day, just one more week, and this will all go away. But, when the time comes when I told myself I would say something, I just couldn't figure it out. I just would have no idea what they hell to do or say to make things better. I would just be completely frozen as to what to do. Completely unable to act.

Well, I figured out fucking why.

Basically, when my grandfather molested me and I felt the need to do something about it to ameliorate an unpleasant situation, I told my mother. This accomplished nothing. In fact, it made everything a hell of a lot worse. I actually deeply regretted telling her. I guess I felt that if only I hadn't told her and then I wouldn't have had to figure out how incredibly callous and uncaring she was. I would never have found out that my feelings and needs didn't mean one iota to the person who is supposed to care the most about me.

And heck, if my own mother didn't care about my feelings when someone sexually violated me as an innocent child, then why the holy fuck would anyone else give a damn.

Lesson: Your feelings don't matter. No one cares about them. No one will lift a finger for you no matter what the situation would seemingly prompt.

This is why I have no idea what to say or do when something bothers me. I am, on a very deep, subconscious level, assuming with all of my heart that the other person is not going to give a goddamn fucking shit no matter what. I mean, it's easy to figure out what to do when you believe that all you have to do is tell someone what is going on and they will jump at the chance to make you feel ok again. However, if you feel like no matter what you say or do, they aren't gonna do a damn thing, it is hard to act, no?

So, how the heck have I dealt with anything in life if that's my underlying assumption? Well, one thing I can think of is that I've created punishments for people. I've tried to create consequences for their actions to motivate them to stop doing something that bugs me. For example, if I clean up after my roommates every day and then they make a particularly extravagant mess, I will stop doing my normal cleaning until they do something about the mess (which means living in a toxic wasteland for a month). Maybe they will get the hint? Yes, that's the other thing I do. I try to hint. Maybe my roommate will notice that I have "sounds of the ocean" turned up because I'm trying to drown out their noise so I can get at least a little tiny bit of sleep. Yep. It's retarded to be sure.

For the longest time (i.e., my whole life), I could not figure out why I couldn't just say shit that bothered me. When I realized that this is why I could never bring shit up, it really, really hit me. It was an epiphany in the true sense of the word.

Good to fucking know.

Happiness is a choice.

I was fretting about work and fretting about going to an upcoming family wedding and stress from the one thing was making me unable to handle stress over the other thing.

I really needed someone to help calm me down about everything, so I begged a a couple friends to just come be with me. So, one friend took me out for Indian food and we just talked on and on about it while he tried to help me figure out what to do and then he went home and I went to see friend #2 and we did the same thing. Spending the whole night talking about how horrible everything was just made me fucking despair. The next morning, I woke up and I was just like, "dude, I feel Awful. I don't want to feel awful anymore. There's really no use obsessing about shit when it's not gonna change anything. I've done everything I could to make a really difficult situation as easy as possible. I'm just gonna refuse to think about shit until it comes time to deal with shit. So, I faced myself in the mirror, slapped a fake smile on, and just told myself that I was not going to think about anything bad.

It fucking worked like a charm.

It lifted a huge weight off I felt sooo much better, Jesus Christ.

When it came time for me to fly out to southern CA, I decided to focus on how good it'd be to see my friends and my parents and not think about anything else.

When I got to my parents' house, and I felt myself starting to get bored, I was like, "oh crap, this could end badly," so, I starting unpacking shit, cleaning out my closet, went and ran errands with my step-dad, called up people, drove down to San Diego to hang out, then went straight from that to the wedding. Kept myself busy and occupied the whole time, but in a really good way. Kept myself occupied doing really fun things which I never get to do (at least the part about hanging out with people who don't live near me).

AND, the wedding turned out to be totally fine. Rather than me hiding out the whole time, trying to avoid my child molester and feeling really terrible and ashamed for acting really weird and not being able to tell anybody why, there were people totally watching my back, warning me and scuttling me away anytime he was coming towards in my direction. For the first time, I felt like people actually cared about me and shit. It was really nice.

I ended up having a really awesome weekend.

I have never tried at anything. I have only done things in my life that are really easy for me. That I put zero effort towards and I excel far beyond most people. I have been afraid all of my life to put myself to the test.

When I was a kid, my mom put me up to piano lessons. At a concert when I was around 12 years old, I had some technical difficulties with the beat setter on the electric piano and completely fucked up my solo piece. Afterward, my mom just kept on telling me how stupid, stupid, stupid I was. I think from that experience and similar ones, I just stopped doing anything challenging because I was so afraid of feeling the way I did the day of that concert.

When I do anything wrong and someone points it out to me, I feel sick inside. Absolutely, positively sick. I feel like I'm the world's biggest idiot, how could I have done something that fucking dumb, and that I'm just no good and a failure. I hate myself deeply whenever I make a mistake.

John would point out my mistakes allll of the time, and it made me feel like I was worse than nothing. I think that was maybe more my issues than anything else.

Forgiveness has been on my mind a lot lately. Forgiveness and acceptance of myself. I was glimpsing back at some of these entries and I remember learning about how it's helpful to try to tell yourself that in every situation you are completely, 100% loved and accepted unconditionally. If only I could tell myself that it's okay that I make mistakes. Then, instead of beating myself up and wondering how it's possible I could have done something so stupid and thinking of ways to punish myself for it, I would be done with all of that, simply forgive myself, and once that was over with, all I would have to think about is what to do now. Wow, so instead of just feeling terrible, I can just think about what I can do about it. How I can fix it. How I can make things better. Isn't that so much nicer? It makes you feel better immediately, and makes your life easier later. Now, doesn't that make a little bit of sense. I need to allow myself to be a fuck-up, to be a failure. There's nothing wrong with that. What that means is you're trying. For something, anything. My family in France was telling me that there's a French saying that if you never break any dishes, you have never tried to do anything helpful (I dunno, something like that). The point is that that the world's greatest chef broke a hell of a lot of dishes in his time and he got that way because he was willing to fuck up and break shit in pieces. My life isn't going to amount to anything if I don't fuck things up royally. (And, if that's the case, I need to just forgive myself of not amounting to anything...and, now that I'm forgiven, what the hell do I want to do with that fact?).

I just need to love myself more. Sigh.

So, I get discouraged easily. Basically, if I made one mistake, I think I'm not cut out for anything and my solution is usually to bail. If I'm not perfect from the get-go, there's no hope anyways, so why even try.

I was thinking that this is very similar to some clients that we have. They invest in these moderate aggressive portfolios or even moderate conservative portfolios, and they freak out when the market acts the fidgety, and they want to pull completely out of the market. Then, when everything has been up and up and everything is crazy over-priced, they are all excited about going back into the market, just to start the process over again.

In other words, life is like the stock market.

In everything you do, you have to assess your risk tolerance. Your risk tolerance may evolve with your age and with life experience or changes in values, etc., so it is by no means static. Once you have assessed your risk tolerance, you must assess each situation, for example, a relationship, a job, a hobby, a trip, etc. You need to assess how long you will need to be in that situation before you can cash out your investment, how much the situtation will cost you, how much you stand to lose, and how much you could potentially gain. If it is a worthwhile investment, you MUST commit to it until the time that you have asessed that it is safe to cash out the investment with enough principal to profitably reapply the funds to a new situation. In nearly every situation you encounter, you will see ups and downs. One week you will be at a loss, another week you'll be at a gain, and hopefully, overall, you'll expect a gain. But, if you have incorrectly assessed how much up and down you're willing to stomach, it always ends in disaster. There is nothing worse than investing so much, panicking, cashing out at a significant loss, only to be willing to re-invest when everything is at an all-time (overstated) high.

This is what I do. I'll take up a hobby or be in a relationship and then something happens, and I freak out, and I cash completely out of the relationship. Then, when things are perfect again, I'll reinvest. This is the story of my relationship with the 2 men that I've been madly in love with and every hobby that I've started only to subsequently drop. All I am doing is cutting into my principal and making a perfectly worthwhile investment a big fat drain.

When it comes to my actual stock market investments, this makes so much sense to me. I just do it. I know what I stand to gain and lose, I know how much risk I can stand, and I can see the bulk of my savings get eradicated and it doesn't phase me. I don't think once about changing my investments. I know what my strategy is and that's that. I see other people losing their head on the upsides and on the downsides and I know how counter-productive it is. I just need to get it through my thick head that all of life works like this. I need to stop abandoning things.

Oh, and the biggest lesson about investing, is that it's never too late to start.

I feel the need to express myself. Wow, I can't believe it's been almost a year since I've written anything here. Kind of want to recap my life of late.

Well, I just broke up with John. That is, about 2 months ago. That was a very difficult thing. What on earth happened with that one? It was such an odd, odd thing. I really have zero understanding of that relationship. I mean, I can dissect it and certain pieces of it make perfect sense in an isolated way. But, when if I were asked, "What happened?" in a very general way...fuck if I goddamn fucking know. But, let's start the dissection.

There are several reasons why I just could not stay broken up with him. Many of them are ever so slightly disturbing. Let's go into them. He is really messed up. Ridiculously insecure to the point of driving anyone absolutely MAD. He'd act totally crazy and jump to all of these conclusions that you had no idea where anything came from and it was unbearably frustrating. I also feel like I have trait after trait that causes unbearable frustration (my inability to communicate anything, especially feelings, my infernal "logic," my inability to trust anything, etc etc ad infinitum). In fact, I often distance myself and break up with people as an act of charity so that they don't have to deal with me which has the side effect of ending things before it can hurt us more because any relationship with someone as messed up as me is impossible anyway. On the other hand, my worst fear is that this self-destructive belief of mine is actually true. Breaking up with John because I couldn't handle his incredibly hurtful, frustrating traits meant admitting to myself that no one will ever be able to stand me.

I had a dream where there was this guy who represented John and some girl that represented me. Another guy was talking to the John figure and John was telling him that he was in love with me. The guy was like, "Ouch, I'm sorry about that," and John was like, "Huh?" And the guy told him that I was going to be a handful and proceeded to talk about my past - that my entire family was killed and that I was taken in by this man who took advantage of me. When I finally grew old enough, I was able to break away from him. Years later, I found out that this man actually was the one who killed off my family so that he could take me in and do whatever he wished to me. After hearing all of this, John took in a huge breath and said to himself, "What am I getting myself into to??" and proceeded to question if it would be better to run as far away from me as possible. This summarizes what I feel deep down inside. Oh, and also on the surface with every tiny little act and twitch of the face.

I just need to goddamn fucking learn to trust and depend on people. To stop believing that everyone is just going to hurt me and so it's better just to not have any feelings whatsoever. How lame.

You know, I think I must be something really special and great. (Here comes the irony of it all). Most guys who I've gone out with can't get me out of their head. After all, who wouldn't want me? I'm smart, I'm funny, I'm genuinely kind-hearted (if in a very gruff way), I've given very careful thought to the ideas that I have, and I'm very physically passionate.

John made me feel terrible about myself. He made me feel like I was deficient, that there was something inherently wrong and unlovable about me. I mean, not that I'm very hard to convince, but he would tell me these things over and over again. Ugh. Not good.

Huh. How interesting. I was in a bit of a bind because I agreed to go to a family wedding, momentarily forgetting that my grandfather would have a large role in it. In desperation, I asked someone to go with me as my bodyguard/guest. I immediately regretted my decision and how I could possibly trust someone with something so important and delicate. Well, I've just been talking to him and he basically said that he has been craving my trust and that he cares about me deeply and that he's been staying away because I've been mean to him because I'm too scared to trust anyone which makes them leave me alone because that's what they think I want and which makes me trust them even less. So, basically, I am very, very stupid.

I need to be stronger.

I've been unwittingly bewitched by an apple product. Specifically, by the seductive iPod Touch. Apps have been forced down my throat against my weak will. In fact...I've been playing games. Obsessively. Video games. On an Apple product. The blasphemy and sacriligiousness is endless. In my engagements in fake battles and strategizing against electronic rivals, I've discovered that I am a coward. I do not like to risk. I like to play it safe. And it makes me lose each time.

It's funny that I would be such a coward (and that I would realize it playing video games). Investment wise, I have very very risk-friendly. I can stomach vast losses and not be even a little phased. Not so with everything else. I take jobs that are beneath me, I am afraid to talk to strangers, I break up with people prematurely, I don't open to people, I trust very reluctantly. In almost every avenue of life, I try and try not to risk my feelings, my pride, my time and energy. It's stupid and shitty. I must try for things. I must risk. Isn't that what a great deal of the Year of Christina has been about?

Well, here it is again. I must try. I must face obstacles boldly.

I was at dinner and we were talking about how much rejection guys suffer from and that it is just a fact of life for them. If they want to go out with anyone at all, this is what they must endure. J gave the extended metaphor of a lion staring at a luscious gazelle. If the gazelle gives the lion a mean look, or stampedes away, or in any way tries to deny the lion its life blood and sustenance, the lion doesn't just give up. The lion doesn't cower away and get depressed. The lion attacks. He fights harder. He fights until the gazelle is his.

This metaphor stuck out a lot in my head. I think our dinner was last Thursday. I'm not so fond of it as it pertains to the conquest of hesitant women. But, it did strike me that I should really be more like a courageous lion who is serious about its supper. I need to get away from, "Hmm, the gazelle seems too strong, I'll never be able to catch it. I'll wait to spend my energy on something else..."

Fight and strive.

From meditation class. Everything is a cycle. Everyone and everything goes through cycles. They believe in reincarnation, literally rebirth. When they were talking about all of this, someone mentioned food, and it made me think it this way: when you consume food, it starts off as raw materials. You start with milk or honey or meat and you chew on it to prepare it to be processed by your stomach. Once it's in your body, you do all sorts of things to it so that it can provide you with the energy you need day to day. Then, it all goes to waste and you shit it out which provides nutrients for the grass that cows eat or the flowers that bees gather from, and you eat their milk, honey or meat, and the cycle starts over again.

I think that's like that with everything. All around you are these raw, unprocessed things, and if they look appetizing, you take them in and chew on it for a bit, then it goes into your body and your mind and it becomes a part of you, influencing your future actions and thoughts, then you spill out all of these actions and thoughts which other people feed on, and the type of shit you put onto others influences what you have to feed on later. Everything is interconnected.

What this really means is that everything you do, no matter how miniscule, has a very real effect on your life. Nothing is instant gratification. Nothing works that way. Things aren't that discrete. You can't want something, get it, and then never think about it again. It's all just one tiny, infintesimile cascading event which creates your life.

It's kind of cool to think of things this way. Everything you do is the creation of your life.

It also makes things that you hope and wish for not so daunting. Any step in the right direction is on your way to making it happen.

I think it also helps you stop wasting moments of your life doing things that aren't good for you. All of those moments matter if you want to create the life that you want to live.

Dude, everything is starting to make sense. For one, he always tries to convince me that all normal people behave in this prescribed way, but it still doesn't make sense to me that everyone would do this and that what I'm doing is so wrong. But, nonetheless, I try to comply because it's important to him. BUT, it's not necessisarily normal. It's kind of an unreasonable expectation, but it's still a valid one because it makes him feel safe and happy. He told me that when his mom would leave the house, he would grasp at her and stay crying behind the closed door because she left him...so, when I turn around and leave his sight for 10 seconds to get some water because I'm parched, he gets incredibly anxious and yells at me. I have no idea why that should make anyone feel that anxious, but it doesnt matter. He needs it, and it's almost kind of adorable that he needs that reassurance, and I'm perfectly happy giving him an unreasonable request for reassurance if that's what he needs. It's actually kind of sweet that he needs that from me. He also told me that he would bring home all of these trophies and his dad never looked twice at them. His dad just didn't value it or didn't know what it meant or something. J also got really mad at me for not praising him when he got this huge list of things he wrote down done (which included things like cutting his nails and doing laundry and 10 other things which ended up being quite an accomplishment for just one day).

God. I think I'm looking for a father figure. J always cares about where I am, what I'm doing and with whom. He gets mad when I drink with friends. He wants to see me be the best I can be, and he punishes and scolds me when I get out of line with his expectations. He is the father/mother I never had and secretly yeared for so badly. J wants me to behave and I want to break out of his fatherly tyrannical protectiveness and be free to do what I want when I want, but secretly, I love and need the structure and discipline.

I could be gone for an entire week and come back and it was like my mom never noticed that I had left for more than 5 minutes. I just always figures she trusted me completely or something (since I was such a good kid). But, J doesn't trust me. He wants to knwo where I'm going, when I'll be back, and he wants me to ask (at least implicitly, as in, to tell him first with the understanding that he has veto power) his permission. I've always told myself I loved the freedom of coming and going as I please, but I think it might actually feel really good to be demanded to confess all of my doings. "Oh...you actually care where I'm going??"

I was telling (a different) J about bringing a desk home by foot that took about 1.25 hours from store to home and he was a little piqued. I asked him this would bother anyone, and he said it's because people care about me and don't like to see me go through that. These things simply don't occur to me. People care? Huh? But, that was so silly and I didn't mind it...

This is what I want to tell J:

J, I love you. I love you more deeply than I've loved any other man. I love you unconditionally and I just can't do anything about that anymore. I'm ridiculously devoted to you.

You've been pulling away emotionally hard and fast lately. You sometimes feel really distant. You reject my affection in public to prove a point. You hush me in bed. You want to see me rarely, but get really mad when I just go out and play pool with my roommate. You are really, incredibly uncertain about us and would do anything not to get hurt by me. This is not good...do you agree? It's a horrible way to establish how we do and will interact with each other...And...I also overheard someone saying that you've been bringing girls home. So, tell me, what do you want to do?

I hate the god figure. I reject it. I'm afraid of it betraying me. If I could achieve (force myself) full union with "God," I could start to love people (myself included). Loving god is like having the perfect parents you never had. It's a cheap (but effective) way to resolve all of your parental issues and pretend your bad parents never hurt you and caused you all of these stupid adult issues. And really, what's so scary about giving yourself to a figment of your imagination? It can't really hurt you. It's just hard, that's all. And, not hard because it's fucking weird and not real, but because it's hard to let go of your defneses (your ancient, dysfunctional defenses).

But, I still hate the idea of god. It's more helpful to think of "god" as "the universe." The universe is completely forgiving and loves me because it loves life and accepts all life. It needs me to feel loved and achieve my, I don't know, highest state, because this is what makes life go on. I can swallow that line a lot better.

I've been out of my head stressed lately. I haven't been sleeping very well and my heart and mind is always racing. I've been taking a meditation class to try to impose calm on my hyperactive, fretful brain. Last night we were talking about the "Supreme Being" or whatever, which I have to try really hard not to roll my eyes all over about. We talked about "forging a relationship" with this supreme dude so that it becomes more real to us and we assigned him all of the attributes of a father, mother, friend, partner, and sibling. It was kind of emotionally difficult for me to sit through because I've never had a father, I'm an only child, my mother was never around as a kid, and I do a lot to try to push away all of my friends and partners. But anyway, as we were going through all of this, I was just like, "what the heck is the point of this stupid list."

Then, we did a guided meditation (which is where someone speaks while you sit quietly and concentrate in order to focus your thoughts on something positive which in this case was trying to, I don't know, commune with the supreme being or something). And, oh my god, I totally got it then. I still don't buy this whole god figurehead thing, but they talked about feeling completely accepted and it being a waste of energy to feel like you are unloved and dejected. And, it just clicked. Like, if you don't accept yourself unconditionally, you'll reject others and you just can't feel love and at peace if you're rejecting yourself and everyone else left and right.

I think they're just trying to trick your mind to create this persona that is all-loving no matter what, so all of the deficiencies you've felt all throughout your life when one person at sometime or another didn't love you when you needed them or abandoned you when you thought they'd be there would all disappear. When you hang on to all of that baggage, it just prevents you from moving forward. It prevents you from opening up because you can't, your hands are full with all of this heavy, useless crap that digs into your flesh, cuts off your blood, and keeps you sour and grumpy. But, like, if you feel like everyone should and will accept you at least on some level, you can be yourself and you can stop guarding.

It's a really weird thing to think about living your life as if you were always accepted in every situation, no matter what you are doing.

What this means is you never need to protect yourself. You are always protected.

Things I've learned from J in the past year that I do not want to forget:

1. J follows through. If something takes time, effort, strength, endurance, faith, he is undeterred. J follows through.
2. J makes me feel like he will be there through everything. Nothing can shake his determination. He has decided he wants this and he will never allow anything to get in his way. [Side Note: He decides on things he wants very thoughtfully.]
3. He expresses his feelings and is aware of them and is very good at his delivery of that expression to you so that you understand it well and feel good about it and closer to him. I guess this is basically saying that he is not afraid of being vulnerable.
4. He is sweet and kind.
5. He has a lust for life. He is a man of action and endless energy. He doesn't stop and think about everything. He just does it. Things don't stop him from doing what he wants (and he wants a lot of things.).
6. He goes after things calmly and deliberately (not desperately). Things will come in time and he patiently waits until his actions make everything fall into place (adjusting his actions if necessary).
7. He is mature, solid, self-assured.
8. He makes me feel steady, yet always striving.
9. He is incredibly supportive and ambitious and wants to see me be more than what I am. He likes to see me try and try harder (for things that are good for me).
10. He doesn't buy that I'm just not capable of anything. If something isn't happening - if I'm not making it happen - it's just because I didn't want it enough.
11. I am more likely to say, "fuck, I'm sooo tired" whereas he is more likely to say, "I have just a little bit of extra energy."

There are parts of J that I really, really admire (see above list). I like being around that kind of man. Plus, it's really fucking sexy. But, mainly, I want to be this for myself, too. I've kind of absorbed a lot of this to some small extent. I just wanted to list everything out now that I won't be seeing him any longer, so I don't forget, since I will no longer have that exposure.

And, here are some things that I wished J would do and be for me, but he just couldn't. These are things I think everyone should be able to experience all of the time (you know, ideally).

1. People do really shitty things. We're all guilty of it. Unless you're just sociopathic, you don't mean it, or, at least you've justified it somehow in your head and don't think there's anything wrong with it, really. In any case, sometimes someone just needs to snap you out of your obliviousness, and, if you really love and care about the person, all you want to do is make things better for them and are glad to have it pointed it out because it's something you shouldn't be doing to others. I will also sit on things that bother me and never share it, and it's a waste of time. People just don't know that stuff bothers you until you tell them, and most of the time, when you tell them, they'll bend over backwards to correct it because they care about your feelings.

So, it seems as though I'm into slowly, steadily building things up. Prime examples are Pandora and investments and the only video games I could ever get into were things like the Sim-type games and Civilization and such.

By the way, I now know what kind of music I like. I think weird poetic lines that don't make sense, super heavy acoustic/folk influence, sonoric synth, and crazy melodic/harmonic vocals.

Let's describe today's events. Woke up at 6am, got out of bed at 8am, started doing laundry. Did two white loads, one dark blue load, two brights loads, and one black load. This was in addition to last week's three loads of sheets, towels, plus other non-clothing items and two "loads" of dry clean only clothes. I have been doing laundry all day. By the time my last load finishes, I will have done 12 hours of laundry.

I kind of like having a boyfriend. Or, at least a boyfriend like J. I'm ultra-humanly productive when he's gone. It's great to feel like you have to get a ton of shit done while you have all of this free time.

I'm exhausted though. Girl called me up and told me I should come meet up with her and that sounds so unappealing right now. I don't know if I have any leftover energy.

Holy fuck, I'm fucking charged today. I got a lot of rest last night and I've been working my ass off since six this morning. Just took a 40 min breather, and I'm back to work now. Probably gonna be finished working in another two hours. 6am to 11pm. That's a long day.

Well now, these past few months have been quite trying.

I have this theory that I have very low levels of estrogen and when I'm around other women and they are waving their estrogen at me, I am at their mercy. Consequently, I end up adopting the mentrual cycles of any female in proximity.

Girl just got a new gf and her cycle adjusted and I just adjusted to her new cycle. But, this time, it wasn't even close to my normal cycle, it was at the polar opposite. And. It's been awful.

When you are that far off, it throws your body in a tizzy, but I think the worst part about it was that I had no idea what was going on.

A few weeks ago, I was having normal pre-PMS cravings and I was hungry and slightly bloated all of the time. I kept on thinking to myself that it totally feels like my pre-PMS shit, but I juust had my period, so that was totally impossible. What could this be? Why am I hungry and getting weird cravings and feeling fat? Am I pregnant or something? How can this be? Oh fuck...

Next week, I'm fucking irritable as hell. Everyone and everything is annoying me. I'm thinking to myself that it feels like I'm Totally PMS-ing, but how can this be? I just had my period a week ago, I couldn't possibly be getting it again already. I must just be getting tired of J and I must be finally realizing that I can't live my life like this and I should change everything and move on to something that will be able to sustain my happiness. All of this is so enlightening. I'm so stressed and have been stressed and working way long hours. Maybe this is all catching up to me. Why am I doing this to myself? I also spotted a little when J was fucking me. This has happened before when things got a tiiny bit too rough. It's not too abnormal. Fuck, maybe this is an ectopic pregnancy.

The following week I feel exhausted and weak and kind of achy. I figure it's because I've been stressed and depressed lately and not as active as I usually am, so maybe my muscles are just sore from disuse and maybe I was walking around a lot more than usual that day. So, I just go on as normal.

A couple days later, redness everywhere. What the fuck is this? My fucking period? How the fuck did this happen? Girl then tells me that she started a couple days earlier. She's excited. She's the alpha female. Her gf's period started right after hers and now mine. Yay for her... (grumble, grumble).

So, the lesson in all of this. Christina really, really needs to know what the fuck is going on with her body. It totally threw everything off when I couldn't attribute the cause of things accurately. I even had my suspicions. Very clearly. But I had to rule them out because of their improbability. At least I can recognize it in myself. I just (falsely) thought it was impossible. But, I really, really need to know exactly how I'm feeling. I need to be able to separate physical mood influences from external influences in order to function in this world at all. My ability to make it through my life in any way whatsoever failed, just completely broke down, when I couldn't figure out what was going on with my body. I started making really bad, faulty decisions and forming wrong, wrong, wrong cognitions of my world.

I had no fucking idea how important it is for me to be self-aware of what's going on with me inside and out.

But, like, I'm making faulty decisions and cognitions all of the time. Like I could really fucking get things right all of the time. I try to get closer, but people are stupid. At the very least, we are Not omniscient. How do any of us trust our own feelings and thoughts? I guess we do because we have to. The only worse way to go through life than having all of the wrong ideas is constantly second-guessing every idea that you have. But, maybe you don't have to do that. Maybe you can stop yourself from forming ideas. Isn't that what meditation and Buddhism and all of that eastern crap tries to get at? Be the observer, the non-judgmental observer. Step out of forming your own ideas which can never possibly be right all of the time and there's no real way of telling which ones end up being right every once in awhile anyway. You don't need to integrate everything that happens into your philosophy on life or even your impression on this person or this thing. You're just constantly trying to fit conflicting, random information into the way you've decided things should be. How fucking stupid.

Okay, I'm really fucking distracted right now. I want to finish this thought, but I really gotta tend to something.

J took me to the most amazing pho place that I've ever been to which is a very impressive thing. I just took L there yesterday and she told me that her old co-worker has been telling her about this place all along and that we could have been eating here for months. I paused for a second and I was like, if we went with him, I'd be so unhappy and annoyed and I'd be thinking the whole time that I'm only here because I want to know about good Asian food and that I can't wait to go back here without having to deal with him. Instead, I went with someone I like and I had a good time and it made me like J more and I have a really good memory of it. It's just not helpful to me to know all of these amazing places to eat if I got them by using people I don't like to find them all.

It's kind of like when I was doing all of this annoying stuff for L and then was talking about things that I wanted to do with my life which lent itself well to me having business cards and a website. L then offered to design them for me **because I've been doing so much crap for her**. Like, I don't want her fucking guilt design. I want her to design it because she loves me and knows me and think she could do an awesome job portraying who I am in my website/cards. I don't want a stunning website because someone feels like they owe me for shit. I don't want things unless they are done with love.

I had this dream last night that J and I were taking this weekend trip and couldn't find any parking and ended up accidentally staying at this old couple's house because at first we thought that it was a public area. Since there wasn't any other place that wasn't totally full, we ended up staying the night. The couple found out in the morning, and I was acting all cutesy and innocent so they wouldn't be mad, and then the old man said it was perfectly alright but started holding on to my hand a little too tightly and a little too closely to his chest (sounds familiar, right?). I started to get really afraid and it turned into a running away dream.

I've never ever had a running away dream like this. My running away dreams are almost always me running away from my family or someone really close to me. In this one, I was running away from an actual bad guy. I was running away from my grandfather. In all of my running away dreams, I've never run away from my grandfather. I've had nightmares about him, but never running away dreams. And, there was no flying in this dream. It wasn't this surreal, exhausting, lightening fast flying. It was a real life dream. We were parking with a real motorcycle, we were trying to get away by actually having to climb walls. And, the big huge thing was that J was there. ...I have Never. Ever. Had someone there with me. I have Always been alone. My running away dreams are about me. Independent, unloved, all alone Me. And this time, J was there. He was protecting me from this scary old man. He was helping me get away. He was there to put himself between me and the scary man if he ever got close enough to us. And, once we got away from him, he was there trying to figure out how to get us back home. Back to SF.

That's the other thing. We got away from him. We had a way back home. A real way back home, too. We were trying to run to a big city to find a bus back to SF. No weird flying. And, I felt hopeful that we'd get back and everything would be okay again. That Never happens.

Very weird running away dream. Very weird, indeed.

So, that's a major difference between L and I. She gets people to do shit for her and, maybe her life is a lot better and more successful and more luxurious or some shit for it. I'd rather have a far more dismal life but feel singularly loved.

Basically, using people is dumb and not worth it.

I admire, love, and respect M. She's so gosh darn awesome. We've been having problems with Girl and I've wanted to talk to Girl about things and didn't know where the fuck to begin. But Girl and M have had the same issue come up a couple times I guess. And, whereas I get really frustrated and annoyed and want to abandon and give up on things left and right, M is able to talk about how things make her feel. She talks about her feelings by themself. As if she owned them and they belonged to her and that's that. She doesn't talk about them as if they were forced upon her by the ghastly and inexcusable acts of others. Wow. I know so many people who do that. M is incredibly awesome and mature. And, I think I'm prone to kind of being like, "Fucking fix your shit or I'm so done with all of this...And, no, I'm not going to help you fix it by talking shit through and explaining myself or offering suggestions or anything." M talks about her [negative] feelings as if nothing else changes. There's absolutely no question that these negative feelings will crush and destroy everything. There's no ultimatum hanging above our heads. But, I think that the most effective thing that M does that I definitely do not do is she doesn't get annoyed. Annoyance is entirely external. It's a very clear signal to everyone that a dissatisfying act has been caused solely by the accused who has forced unwholesome feelings upon others who had nothing to do with contributing to anything whatsoever. M doesn't get annoyed. She can portray her feelings, I don't know, as if they stood alone. She also isn't quick to get defensive. I dunno. She's really great. The lack of passive aggressive sarcasm also helps.

I've been used to having all of the freedom I could want. I get to say how things are. I get to make my own rules. I think I sometimes act unnecessarily challenging/rebellious. Kind of like, "Well, this is what _I'm_ going to do, so yeah...Fuuuck you." I'm too by myself. I react to people sometimes as if we had nothing to do with each other. Crap. That's so goddamn fucking true. Fuck. As if my reactions don't affect other people and I just want to get my way however that gets accomplished (whether it's through compromise which I'm willing to undertake as a means to an end, or if it's by rationalization or what not).

I also let things slide and avoid confrontation until I can't talk about it without dripping with sarcasm and snide remarks or ironic intonation.

Okay, let's take a J-he's-oh-so-hot moment. We were lying in bed together which is always holy shit amazing fuck I need to fan myself and I asked him why it feels so good when he holds me or some similar pillow talk and he tells me it's because he's the right kind of guy for me. So, come on. That's fucking hot as shit.

I've only liked one guy as much as I like J and he was Mr. Unsustainable.

I mean, he fucking makes my heart beat fast for like a half hour after he calls me on the phone at work and we talk.

Like, what is this shit??

When I was growing up, my mom put me in a white, upper middle class, suburban school district that taught me, drilled me on how to take white people tests. It showed me how different white people are. You wouldn't really think it, but white people really do have a very distinct culture and set of social rules and there are just certain tiny, subtle, unnoticeable things that you need to do to get ahead and get along. But then, I was thinking, no fucking duh ruch white people have their own culture. No duh I was like, hmm, my family isn't like this. White people have a fucking monopoly on hegemony. Of course I would notice their odditites. I mean, if my mom put me into an all black or latino or Indian Reserveration or all Japanese school, I'd have an inner commentary on our differences. If she put me in a really poor or really rich school district, I'd fucking notice. But, white, middle class society is "normal." Just like IQ tests are supposed to be an "objective" measurement of someone's biological ability to learn and comprehend universal concepts. It has nothing to do with subtle social cues and cultural emphases on certain types of ideas and approaches to problems. I can't believe I spent all of this time thinking that it was a novel idea that white people have a certain way of doing things and that navigating white culture is something to be learned and doesn't come fucking naturally to anyone with "common" sense. I've been fucking indoctrinated. Whiteness is everything, the beginning and end of my world. Everything is to be contrasted against my white canvas. Whiteness is the starting point. Everything else is viewed as a variance, an anomoly to my whiteness. Goddammit, I'm not white, I'm Asian! But, I've grown up with a white center. I don't want a white center. I don't want a white center. I want a white ceramic plate that I can separate and put aside if I want, or I can pile other stuff on top of it and make something else, something hybrid. It should be an object, not the support structure that I stand on. I want to be in control of my white, not for it to be in control of me. For it to be the center from which everything emanates. Stupid white people.

Writing on paper is so awesome. On the backside, you can feel the groves of your writing, that you did. You feel like you did something, like you truly interacted with the world. You left your imprint. Just you and the paper, man. You, the paper, and a fucking pen. Ain't nothin' like it.

So, I have a thing for efficiency. This is known. If something is to be done, it should serve ten other purposes since it has to be done anyway. So, I'm trying to be nature! You live, your breath provides sustenance for plants, you die and your body provides nutrients to other animals and bacteria until you break down and feed plants again which provide oxygen to breath. Nothing gets wasted. It's so perfect. That's what I want to be. I'm a child of the earth, man. Mother Earth is my god. Hail Gaia.

One example. White people tests try to trick you. White people have been known to say that this is to test "true knowledge" because you have to really pay attention and really know your shit to not be tricked and get the questions right. Whereas, someone else might say that you pretty much know exactly what to do and how to do it and you have the true concept down, so why the fuck are you trying to fucking trick me? It's dumb, and I know what I'm fucking doing, so stop all of these fucking mind games, and let me do what I know how to do really fucking well, okay?

We were at this bar because J's from L.A. and has a thing for the Lakers or something, and he wanted to watch the play-offs. I was going to get some reading done, but it kind of dimly lit, so I sat by the pool table because that was the only decent light in the whole place. Four+ dudes end up descending upon me and they convince me to play pool with them and they buy me drinks and stuff, and, well, it was kind of fun. Because...I liked the attention. I mean, they were pretty entertaining. Not stupid, even slightly funny. And, they were teaching me pool (they were fucking amazing). But, like, J just kind of let me have my fun since he was just watching the game, and I think he thought it was kind of cool that all of these guys were after me and spent 1-2 hours on me and didn't get so much as a phone number because I went home with him. Yeah, I totally like that. I like that he likes that I get attention. I like to be shown off...It's so bad, but yeah, it's true. I really like that he wants me to dress up when we're going to see his friends. I like that he gets giddy saying to people, "Oh yeah, I'm with her." I'm so lame.

[Continued from last entry...]

He like wouldn't let it go until I told him for various reasons, but I think the main/underlying reason was that I was denying him access to me. So, for the first time, I had to really think about why I'm so adamant about not telling people my bday. SO. I guess it's because I feel like only stupid people who don't really like you or care about you make a huge to-do about this meaningless day and the people that really care about you know that you're not into holidays and they don't need to show off that they know this stupid, unimportant fact about you. So, I guess, somehow, I made this connection in my mind that if I never told anyone when my bday was, that I would only have real friends. Once I realized the reason for me not telling anybody, it kind of sounded stupid. I'll probably be a little less stubborn about that from now on, because it's So much easier to just tell people really quickly and have it be over and done with.

So, after I told him and everything, we talked about how much it bothered him that I wouldn't tell him and why. And, he made me tell him that I wanted to be in a relationship and that I really liked him and wanted him and all of this stuff that I never ever Ever say. I was so dry-mouthed and scared saying all of this stuff out loud and I just wanted to hide under his shirt. He made me fucking admit that I like him. Scaary.

I never tell people I like them. Can you believe that? I was a fucking wreck when it was forced out of me. I'm really glad he's the type of person to force that sort of stuff out of me. But, fuck, I was scared shitless. I just wanted to crawl into a corner and say, "Oh, god, please don't hurt me now." "Please don't hurt me now that you know I like you..."

I think I have a thing for Wells Fargo investment bankers. I thought my Berkeley in-branch financial consultant was really cool and hot. I thought my Hillcrest premier/investment banker was super hot and really nice and kind of sweet and cute. And, J works at the Wells Capital. Weird. I hate Suits.

So, more growing up happened. J got mad at me because I wouldn't tell him when my bday is.

Velveta cheese blocks. I have been having the hardest trouble accepting Girl's boy. She really really likes him and I just could not see why at all. He actually bothered me quite a bit. I thought he was way selfish and self-involved, only thinking about himself, but then I realized that she needed that to balance herself out because she's sort of the same way. I think he's a bad influence on her, but I think she's actually just like that and she just doesn't do illegalish things around me because I'm a square. And, I guess she likes him because he was an instant group of really super close, cool, funny friends. But, he was so dorky and I just couldn't see anything in him. He fucking looks like Where's Waldo with Little Orphan Annie hair. And, he wears linen MC Hammer pants with over-sized ribbed muscle t-shirts. His teeth are also bad. I mean, he has a really nice place (Really nice) and he makes lots of money and he's super responsible and has his life really together which makes Girl responsible and that's good for her. But, goddamn, that's not enough.

We hung out on Friday for the first time where it was just the three of us, and I finally saw that maybe there was something about him that was ok. He's actually really pretty smart and funny and quick-witted. And, they seem to have a lot of fun/good times just hanging out together. So, after that, I was mostly fine with the two of them.

But, I was thinking about it this morning, and they might be perfect for each other because of Velveta cheese blocks. Dude really likes velveta cheese blocks. Girl does not. Not at all. She left their velveta cheese block at a friend's place, but hasn't bothered getting it back from him. Dude wouldn't let it go and was making all of these jokes about how amazing velveta cheese blocks are and being funny and tongue-in-cheek about it because he knows she hates it. So, I think that works out really well for the both of them. He doesn't sublimate his personality for her and pushes things in a really funny way, so she doesn't get annoyed and also gives in to his needs. So, both of their needs get met. And, he's super fucking selfish to everyone except her, which she loves because I don't think she would respect someone that lets everyone walk all over him, but at the same time she really needs to feel pampered and special and have lots of things done for her. So, things like velveta cheese blocks keep them together, and I'm fine with this arrangement. I approve.

Hey, I think I did it. I think all of those years of me investing for some ambiguous, amorphous reason kind of paid off. Not completely, because things have been such a struggle, but I'm kind of doing exactly what I want (well, working towards it), in the industry I want, in the company I want. I'm not turning down jobs because they just pay too little. I think that's what I wanted all along. To just have freedom.

My first financial planning appointment was a really wishy-washy conversation about what is most important to me and how money fits into that so I use money in ways that actually mattered to me and not waste it on all of these things that wouldn't actually make me happy. That conversation just let straight back to my freedom. I just want freedom. I want to be able to do whatever I want and not have to think about the logistics of it. To not have to worry about if it's practical or even possible. That's why I like not owning too much stuff. I like the idea of being able to pack up and leave on a day's notice if necessary. I like knowing that if I really wanted to quit my job and go off and do something income-less for a year, I can just go ahead and do it. Maybe these are things that I'd never want to do, but I really, really love that feeling. The feeling that you just can. That way, you can concentrate on how you really feel, what your heart is telling you. Your practical mind isn't interfering in your hearts whims. My brain is too powerful. I need all the help I can get in getting my heart to speak out. What would you do if you had the world at your fingertips? I want to be able to answer that question freely. I don't want the real world nagging at me, dragging my true heart's desires down. Okay, enough lofty talk about my heart and crap.

So, I only have enough money to figure out my work situation. I still need more to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I can give a little bit attention to my personal life, and maybe a little to my social life, but it's pretty abysmal at the current moment. It'll be marginally better in a few months. It might be minimally acceptable in a year. I guess I'll see then if all of was worth it.

Hmf.

Goddammit, why did I have to like them so much?

S and I proved dialectically that she didn't even like this guy who totally broke her heart and she can't get over. It was actually really fun. Her given hypothesis was that she accepted him completely for who he is, and there was an obvious contradiction in that statement that she just was denying because she helps people and she fixes things. She's been spending so much time lamenting that he dumped her and wasn't willing to give things a try, but now it's painfully obvious that she would have just dumped his little butt given a little more time because of his general unwillingness to give things a try.

So, in the process of allowing this reality to sink in even though she basically already knew it (and just wouldn't admit it), she realized that the fact that she put so much faith into this doomed relationship was because of really deep issues that have nothing to do with him and that she just needed to work out for herself. It was really eye-opening for her and I really think that it was important for her to discover all of these things even though the process of getting there really hurt. Essentially, I am really happy that he broke her heart. She needed it.

Once I came to that conclusion, I was like, "oh fuck." She learned something really important about herself that may even be essential to her ever being happy in her life because she risked her feelings and opened up and got hurt as fuck. So, that's it. No more hiding and protecting myself from life. There, it's done. I have no reason to anymore except maybe deep-seated habit. Habit cannot exist with self-awareness. You cannot be hyper aware of an unconscious act. I think I can stop now.

It's so funny though. When I was telling S that it's so necessary to get hurt so you can learn about yourself, she kept on emphasizing that what's great about risking your feelings is opening up to someone and caring about them and experiencing lots and lots of good happy times. Plus, learning about yourself is pretty cool, too. I totally just gloss over the good happy feelings. They are not worth it to me. It took me realizing that being brave and getting hurt is an essential growth process for me to feel that that offset the risk of pain. I don't know. I just don't think I value happy experiences as much as the next person. One, I spent a lot of time thinking that highs only served to make the lows that much more painful. Two, I feel really close to other people all of the time, platonically and sexually (and yes, there's a reason why I said sexually and Not romantically). And, I feel an overwhelming sense of closeness and awe all of the time, all you have to do is set me in front of a big tree. I don't know. What's the big deal? What's so great about being in love? Fuck, does this mean I've never allowed myself to be in love? Goddammit. I don't fucking know.

In any case, I should totally be a counselor. I'm so goddamn good at it.

So, whether or not J turns out to be the love of my life, I think it was monumental that I actively tried for him just to see. It was so exciting doing this for the first time in my life. Fucking risking my oh-so-precious feelings. It totally changed the way I fucking interact with life. Instead of always thinking, "is this going to make me break up with him or is it still safe?" I can think "hmm, this isn't really making me happy and this other thing would make me feel so much better...why don't I make that happen?" It forces me to problem solve life instead of always giving up on it. Holy Jesus Fuck. J has given me agency in my life. I can't fucking believe it. I can't fucking believe how much easier and nicer life is like this. I mean, not that there's this magic change over night, but I can see it. I can see what I did and I can see what would be different (aka healthier). And, my old way does Not make any fucking sense whatsoever. Fuck, life is so easy. It's so easy to be happy. I want to be happy and scared shitless and to get through it and see where things take me. And, it's fucking rewarding as shit to take a huge leap where you can't see what the fuck you're leaping to, and then land on your feet...in a meadow of fairies and unicorns and rainbows. Shit yeah.

I can have everything I want in life.

S was telling me that her friend was reading this self-help book which she thought was total bull shit because all it said was that if you believe you can have everything you want, then you can actually have it. Her gripe was that it totally over-simplified everything and ignored all of the other stuff that goes along with just believing that you can have what you want. But, I totally believe it now. Just believe it and it will happen. But, it should probably be more phrased like, "You can make whatever you want happen."

Ok. One other thing that I have to watch out for. M is so incredibly helpful. I'm really glad I talked to him. He is definitely a victim of yearning for things that he's pushed away or has rejected him or that he just can't have, and once he has them all he wants to do is push it out of his life. Girls are alluring goddesses to him when they press their heels in his face and walk all over him like he's an insignificant fly. When they want nothing but to be in his presence, they suddenly become despicable beings that he needs to escape from. So, I think one way of kicking people out of your life is having a freak out. But, another equally harmful defense mechanism is looking for every reason under the sun to de-value that person. They both come out of fear. I can't just accept things as they are, see things with clarity and just relax and let go and let life happen. I have to impose my logic on it, my will. I have to warp and dement everything. I'm fucking tired of my twisted reality. I have human instincts. My body will run away from things that harm me and crave things that I like. I want to stop having my brain choose the things that I pursue or refuse to pursue because I'm too chicken. IT'S VERY CLEAR THAT MY BRAIN DOES NOT CHOOSE WISELY. Fuck. My brain's such a good convincer. I hate it. Stupid brain. Stupid smart brain. Figuring out life is hard. And everyone does it, too. Everyone does it themselves. Because you can't figure life out unless you learn the hard way. Having someone tell you how life works isn't really learning about life at all. How many people have been in existence, and we're all trying (some more than others) to do the same exact thing over and over again. I'm with Sade. Nature is a relentless, unfeeling machine. Heh, this goes against my ideals of efficiency. Crap. Dammit. Now I have to fucking rethink my love of efficiency. Because clearly this just Has to happen. Ugh, I'll save it for some other time.

Yeah, it's just a fucking cop-out. Wow, it's so stupid of me. Basically, what happens is I want to cut out and leave things because something is going wrong, which means that I don't have to own up to it or do anything about it. I can let things rot and die instead of just fucking addressing it and doing something about it and maybe even having lots of stuff in my life that is fucking ALIVE.

I've had a lot of stuff that I wanted to write down, but I think have been resentful of actually doing it. Just not wanting to be tied down to my pretentiousness. Then I thought I just really need to make it easier forme to write (i.e. code a web-based entry page that I can write in anywhere). In any case, I'm making excuses for not writing so long.

I wrote an email to H because I have been too lazy/busy/not in the mood to write her. She wrote me back that she totally understands and is excited for me for all of the things I'm doing and that she will always be in my life no matter what. I totally love her.

I'm really good at the logistics of life. I can navigate throught the significant, tough, and annoying chores of life quickly and efficiently and still do all of it a pretty damn good way. I'm really resourceful and can suck every last drop of benefit from things r create shitloads of benefit from nothing...as long as it's from something impersonal. I have so many friends who I think are really incredibly wise and good at life and relationships. I'm a fucking infant when it comes to these things. I'm a fucking idiot savant. But it actually ends up being really awesome. I help people put their entire financial and professional lives in a snap. It's so easy for me. And they tell me how to stop breaking up with people just because I like them. Yeah...

So, I'm totally back in love with L again. I always offer help to people I care about because I have trouble remembering that things that I would totally do to problem solve my own life aren't necessarily things that I should always do for other people. So, L has actually been refusing my help even though it makes a ton of sense since I can make certain things happen that she just can't. So, even though it would work out better for her materially, she's refused my help because she knows (better than I do) that it would just strain things and she doesn't want to risk that.

I was telling her about stuff and started tearing up and seeing tears start to run down my face made her tear up, too. I think she really cares about me. She totally spent a ton of time last night talking me through a bunch of stuf even though she had (wishy washy) plans to hang out with the bf that night. I think she's a real friend. I like having real friends. Lifetime friends. I've got L, H, A, M & M. And, I have parents. It's kind of nice.

Ok. So, this must be addressed and documented. I took a huge risk in coming to SF and trying to find a real and actual job with amazing people in a company that had real values and integrity. It's kind of been bumpy getting here (or maybe just figuring out how I can stay here) but I think it might be the best decision I've made in my life. It was a big, scary, uncertain decision, and I was willing to do it, and it paid of actually really quickly and easily and very amply.

I think it was very important for me to have done that. Oh wait, there was one other big, scary thing I did that had a lot of uncertainty...when I told my family about my grandfather. Everyone (almost) turned out to be overwhelmingly ncie and supportive (well, at least nice) about it. I think having gone through both of these things made it possible for me to do what I did last night.

I've been going out with S and he's such a great guy and he's like perfect on paper and for some reason, I ended up also being ridiculously attracted to him. So, basically I started liking him and he started to get too close, so I had my typical freak out, which caused him to freak out, and his freak out made me freak out even more until he had the ultimate freak out which way out-freaked out my freak out. His freak out was almost impressive. And so final. But, yeah...our freak out's had this resonance effect where each freak out amplified the other until it obliterated everything else, and all of a sudden, everything was over.

I've never experienced this before. No one has ever given me a taste of my own medicine. It was like I was seeing myself for the first time. He just totally cut through all of my well-crafted and logical bull shit (okay, sometimes it's super irrational, but it's always super involved) and he just laid everything out in front of me in clear, simple, and unmistakable terms (these are all euphemisms). It all boiled down to the fact that I wasn't brave enough to take a chance with my feelings, that I get so caught up in protecting myself that it doesn't occur to me that I'm actually the only one doing all of the hurting, and that I'm too stupid and self-blinding to realize that maybe it's really obvious that someone else likes me.

So, he was really fucking harsh and acted like he never really wanted to have anything to do with me after that. He said I wasn't smart enough or brave enough for me and that it's clear that I'm not careful enough with his feelings and that if I'm going to sit there and protect my feelings, he's going to sit here and protect his feelings and that he was just going to cut his losses here. My reaction was just like, "whoa." I was baffled and kind of speechless. He was so irrational but he made so much sense. He was me. It was like I was staring at myself in the face for the first time in my life. I felt awful afterwards, but he was so mean and out there was almost comical. It was like an unreal comedy playing itself in front of me because these things didn't happen in real life. But, what did happen was the cruelty of his words made me emotionally dead. And, I was actually grateful for that. For the first twenty minutes after he left, I wanted to do something really drastic, but somehow, when I was going through all of the things that I wanted to do (and, allof them were pretty wild and out there), I was able to tell myself, "You know what, Christina, you can choose not to do any of these things. You can choose to go to work tomorrow. You can choose to move on and be okay." That was so responsible of me. And, like, I think it was because of what he said to me. J makes me want to be a grownup. To be responsible to myself for my own actions.

So, I was just going to go on with my life and just regret for a really long time that I fucked things up with someone I might have ended up really liking. But, S & L managed to convince me to talk to him and apologize and just try. In fact, I think all they had to do was tell me that sometimes people don't mean what they say and that it's possible that they will talk to you again even when they say words like, "I do not ever want to talk to you again." And, having risked everything to come up to SF just to see if I could make a real life was such a necessary part of me being able to call him after everything he said (well, that and the fact that his litle monologue was such a classic "christina" call for assurance and safety).

So, L helped me figure out what I was going to say and I said it. I called and he actually picked up which I didn't think in a million years he would do. And, we talked and then he came over and he's still hurt and peeved, but we're talking and hanging out and I gave myself the chance to just see what happens with someone.

This was such a huge thing for me. After I decided I would actually do it, I felt really calm. I felt okay with whatever happened, because the important thing for me was to try and to risk myself. I fucking risked myself. I put my feelings on the line, holy shit. For maybe the first time in my life. Ho-Ly Crap. I think this means that maybe, some day, I can be happy and maybe even be able to love people and be loved without going through hell first.

L is amazing. I'm really good at forcing people to do boring and complicated life-changing things that they would rather ram a hot poker in their eyes than do. L is really good at making me risk my feelings and take a chance on people and getting my emotional life in working order. I think I love her.

I totally love M, too. But, he fucking scared me last night. He has major trust issues (probably even way worse than mine), and he told me that he couldn't imagine being able to trust anyone unless you did something really shitty to themand they still chose to stick around. I really don't want to be like that. I really don't want to do that to people. But, it's kind of true. Like, that's teh reason why we're so close. Because we tried to kick each other out of each other's lives and it didn't work and we still care about each other. That's not entirely true, though. We're good friends because we're good friends. Because we like each other and get along and like doing the same things together and have the same sense of humor and the same fucked up ideals.

Actually, we didn't try to fuck each other over until this weird, fucked up physical attraction got involved. I've never needed to kick H out of my life or L. I think it's the element of sex needs to be involved for me to have my freak outs. Sexual relationships are unsafe. Platonic relationships don't screw with my head.

So, this was a really good point. My friend was trying to argue to me that it's so silly to prevent yourself from loving someone because so much good comes from love that it way balances out the bad stuff. But, I said that in almost all cases, that is true, but when you love your grandfather (you know, just as an example), and then he molests you, after that point, the bad really just outweighs any of the good. You're so fucked up by then, does it really matter how much fun you had going to the park together? And, I mean, all of that stuff is in the past and it should Not be the prototype that I use to predict the outcome of any future relationship. It's just silly. The good does outweigh the bad. Just not with my grandfather. Fuck, even my fucking mom who fucked me over so goddamn fucking hard as a kid, I almost want to say was okay. She's been so nice and cool and supportive lately, it almost (almost) doesn't matter. I don't regret loving her. Wow. I don't regret having cared about her and letting her affect me emotionally. Crap. Oh my god. Does this mean that I forgive my mom? Eek.

I'm really glad I called him. It was really good for me.

I think about this occasionally. Possibly even a lot. But, I think that socialism doesn't work because it eliminates the process of evolution. Socialism proposes to equalize everyone. No one is special, no one can excel, no one can be better than anyone else. It removes the mechanism of natural selection. If someone cannot acculmulate wealth and status, who are we supposed to fuck? How are we supposed to decide who to make babies with and who to commit to to raise our babies? Socialism cannot work. Equality does not work.

When you excel at something, whether it's playing the flute or killing everyone in sight with a joystick, it releases dopamine (which cocaine tries to mimic). People need to be special, one of a kind, better than anyone else, even if it's in one tiny facet. People cannot transcend this need for the greater good. In fact, they really can't. People have to strive. People have to come out on top. People have to prove themselves. They have to prove their genetic makeup. This is how we decide to mate. Socialism is the death of mating. Socialism is as feasible as having test tube babies chosen via lotto.

So, I figured all of this out watching the first episode of heroes. All of these people (the heroes of the show) were singled out for their specialness. They have a special destiny. We all want to have a special destiny. We all want to show that our genes are superior. We are the ones to further along human evolution. We must show our strength, show our mettle. You make a really mean lasagna. So good, only two or three people in the world could make lasagna better than you. Word of mouth travels and people fly from the opposite end of the globe to experience your lasagna. You're in demand and there's only enough lasagna to go around. People pay you all of their savings just to have a bite and you are disgustingly rich. You wouldn't be able to do any of this with socialism. Your lasagna would be doled out with coffee and kidney beans. In fact, it's really not for everyone's best interest for you to even make your lasagna. Your lasagna is actually quite expensive to make. They're taking your lasagna off of the food disbursement list. Dude, is that really how socialism works? That's the stupidest idea I've ever heard of. That can't be right. So, like, what _is_ socialism in practice? Dammit, I'm not really sure.

I've been reading about the Enneagram which is whatever. I think it's a tiny bit of a crock, but it's marginally helpful. Basically, it assigns you a personality number. I've read through one through eight and I was a little bit of everything. But, I got to nine, the last one, and I think I'm a nine. Nine's have dealt with trauma in their life by pretending that everything is peachy keen and basically being in complete and utter denial about how bad shit is. Like, when my grandfather sexually assaulted me, I thought it was the best thing that happened to me. When I told my fam about it, they blamed me and did everything short of making me apologize to his face...but, I made it seem like it was my choice to protect the rest of my family from knowing something so awful since it fucked me up so much. When I was in an awful job that was making me really miserable, I found all of these reasons why it was so great. I wouldn't have made any real fucking use of all of those education benefits when I was so unhappy. It would've been a waste and I probably wouldn't have even done all that well.

The other thing that nines do is they adopt other people's lives so they don't have to deal with the reality of their own lives. Oh fucking yeah. I've wanted to build other people's businesses for them so I could participate and that would become my gig, my success in life.

I just really need to invest in my own life.

I started doing that a little bit by getting a place that I like and think is really pretty. I love the furniture in this house. It's trashy "shabby chic" or whatever and I love it. I've bought real and actual furniture for the first time in my life, and I actually hung up some fucking real pictures. I want to get plants for my room. I've gotten stuff so that my room will always stay clean (i.e. my mess will be above the ground instead of all over my floor AND will be contained). I really, really like it. I'm going to get plants because plants make you happier and healthier. I fucking love my room. And, because I can't afford to just get whatever I see right at the moment that I like regardless of price, I've had to really dig around for stuff. I found a really awesome 20 dollar dresser and a cool green table, all real wood (not that fucking ikea wood veneer bull shit). I have a real room!

I am so growing up. Like, instead of sabotaging crap with S, when I'm peeved about stuff, I give him tips about how to deal with me so we're both happy and feel better. Usually, I would just let things go until I was forced to break up with Guy. And, he's so nice.

This is supposed to be the Year of Christina. It's kind of funny that I came across a book that is telling me that I spend too much of my life neglecting myself and that I need to invest in my life more. This Is the Year of Christina.

There have been way too many people pulling me in all of these different directions. People who want me to run their lives for them. I can handle one or two. But more than that and it's so exhausting. Nines are very good at counseling. I think I would be, too. I just need to set boundaries.

I want to be more like S. He tries to do way too many things and fit everything in between things so he can get everything done. I don't necessarily want to go to that extreme, but I've noticed I'm a lot happier when I put effort into things instead of just dawdling around waiting for the next planned thing to happen. I did random things like scrub the really gross bathroom sink and get a suction cup hook for the shower so that my stuff won't get gross and moldy. I also found a really pretty soap dish that looks fucking gorgeous in the sunlight. All of these tiny little things that I don't really think is that big of a deal so I just don't do it unless it happens to be really convenient and efficient at the time really Really makes my life better. I'm actually quite happy about it and makes me feel like my life is...better.

Oh, another nine thing. Nines get mired in little details that they can concentrate on so that they lose sight of the big picture, and they also find little distractions that make them put off thinking about their real lives. Such a culprit of that. I got my estate and finances in order so I could ignore the fact that my life is nothing - hobbyless and careerless. I always feel an anxious need to hang out with people whether in person or at the very least on the phone so that I don't have to look at what I would be doing otherwise (which is nothing because my life is nothing).

Whelp, I am going to acquire a life.

S went to my work to pick something up from me but was in a big rush so he wouldn't miss his flight and I walked him out to the elevators. He kissed me goodbye a few times and the elevator rang and he caught one last kiss from me even though the elevator was waiting. I thought that was hot. It actually made me really horny. Kissing never really makes me horny. I don't even like kissing all that much. He's tried to kiss me before when I wasn't into him at all and wanted to be just friends and I didn't like it at all. Now, it makes me wet and sex hungry. S is so basic. There's nothing crazy about him. I don't quite know why I like him so much. But, I think I might really like him.

S was attracted to me but kind of cooled it because it didn't seem like we would last at all in a relationship (probably mainly because I kept on telling him he wasn't my type). That's kind of a sweet trait. But, like, one night, I jokingly told him that I would never date someone like him and that I only like to date cokeheads and crazy girls where there's no hope of ever having a real relationship with because it's safer that way. I think after I said that, he started pursuing me in earnest again. Why do I think he's so hot?

I think I want to open a financial practice for myself helping poor people. It's really fun and I totally have a natural knack for it. I'm finding that there are a gazillion people who want financial planning and who Really, Really need it. In fact, it's overwhelming. But, I think it's only overwhelming because I am currently doing it for free (for fun). But, I want it to be more than financial planning. I want to help people prioritize their dreams and desires with reality and to plan out what exactly they can do for how long. How much risk they can take without fucking their daily life over in order to pursue scary things that they are passionate but unsure about. I'm really good at inspiring people and getting people excited. About whisking away all of their fears and reservations and getting them worked up about something they dreaded even thinking about thinking about.

The fact that I talk about S in the beginning, rather than only write about him after I'm already over it I think is very telling. He's really sweet. And, cute. He had to fly to go see his grandmar who isn't doing well and is now on life support, which sucks, but he left on Saturday morning so he could spend Friday night with me and was all pissed off that he couldn't sleep in with me. And, he was like, "Oh man, next Saturday morning is the half marathon...I'm gonna have to wait until Sunday to sleep in with you...You're going to sleep over Saturday night, right?" I don't know. It's cute.

You know what. Penises do matter. Like, I wouldn't necessarily say that it's all size that I care about, but it is very important to me to have a beautiful, shapely penis. (Er, not to have one, but for Dude that's sexing me to have one). The right penis just feels absolutely perfect inside you. It does all of the right things, regardless of the sexability of the guy. And, how are you supposed to feel an overwhelming need to have a penis in your mouth if said penis is ugly. You want a penis that you want to put your face up to and kiss and play with and spend some quality time with. Who wants an ugly penis in their face? Beautiful, shapely penises are where it's at.

I was telling S how Girl ruined sex for me by trying to talk about it and dissect it until everyone felt comfortable and safe and there was no question about where everyone stood. God, it was horrible. She sat there forever explaining to me how she felt and asking me how I felt and what would happen if this happened and what would happen if it didn't. By the time she finally worked up the courage to actually do anything, I was so over it. S totally lit up when I said this and was like, "Now you know how _we_ feel!" It's so true, isn't it! I'm such a goddamn dude. I fucking hate talking about sex. I want action not crappy words. I want you to put your hand over my mouth while unzipping your pants and get on with it. If I show any reservations, you get points if you ignore them and press into me harder. Quiet down all of my fears and insecurities with your invincible cock, not fucking retarded words and cerebral crap. God, what a mood killer.

S was chiding himself for being so impatient, and I told him that being impatient isn't all that bad and that I think it's hot. And, he said that it forces other people to be impatient along with him. I never ever thought about it that way. It's so true. If you aren't naturally impatient, then you have to feel impatient and annoyed when you never would have felt that way in the first place. He made me think of it in a totally new perspective, which really surprised me. I usually try to (or like to think that I try to) look at things from all different angles. It caught me by surprise to have this totally new way of thinking about impatience (after all, who doesn't like impatience).

I like predators. And, I like to be their prey.

You can tell when I like someone when I buy really sexy little dresses and get excited because I think that they'll like it. I never really dressed up for BB. I mean, I do like dressing up in general. It's fun. And hot. But, I don't really think I usually have a specific person in mind as my lucky audience.

I really like that S likes that I'm a girl. I don't really think I am a total, full-on girl, but I definitely like to act like one. I like to put on sexy little outfits and pretend that I'm a 100% pure little girl. But, the rest of the time, I don't wear make up and I only wear things that are really comfortable, and I'm not afraid to lift things that are heavy. But, putting on an act is really fun. I'm really good at it, too.

See, S has the thing where he can be super masculine, but has weird feminine quirks. Can be super arrogant, but also has scathing insecurities. I'm so attracted to that, I don't know why.

Holy shit. I'm in a really weird place right now. It's like I suddenly forgot to write. I just proofread what I wrote a couple minutes ago, and I misspelled a ton of things. Like, more than mispelled. I mixed up words that sounded phonetically similar but were totally wrong. Like, "kind" instead of "can" and "for" instead of "from" and "much" instead of "my." Weird.

A bunch of people I know are having dinner at this Moroccan belly dancing place. The place is whatever, but they're a pretty good time. But, I told them I couldn't go and made some excuse about having too much stuff to do. I really wanted to, but I couldn't afford to go. Like, on top of my dreams where I can eat lots of fruits and it doesn't cost me any money, I also randomly start crying in showers and in bed and such because I feel so poor and I'm shocked at what my life (and my diet) has been reduced to. And then, I shake my head and am like, "Whoa, where did that come from?" I just don't know, I just don't know.

Oh, and Girl and her friend, Dude, wanted to go have lunch. I love Girl and wanted to meet Dude, because he sounded cool, but again, I couldn't really afford it, so I made an excuse that it was just too busy. I think for that one, I managed to convince myself, too. But, like, if I had the money, I would totally have made time.

So, this is what I'm eating right now. Bread with pbnj. Bread with pbnhoney (free honey provided by work). Plain, toasted bread. Honey roasted peanuts that were a free gift. Dried mixed fruits and nuts that were a free gift. Frozen pizza rolls that were on sale. I splurged on one whole frozen pepperoni pizza that was on sale. One night, I just couldn't stand it anymore and bought a Ben & Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie for $2.50 and justified it because I ate it for dinner, even though it was expensive. I spent 5 bucks on pasta, potatoes, carrots and celery to make soup that I've been eating 1-3 times every day for the past 3.5 weeks. Oh yeah, I've had grilled cheese sandwhiches because someone gave us free cheddar cheese. I've allowed myself to go out to eat once, but only because she came all the way out here to hang out and wanted to go eat, so I had no way out of it. She didn't finish, so I took her leftovers and the free bread and dip that we get at the beginning of our meal. So, 8 bucks plus 2.50 more got me 3 meals. I've probably spent under 20 bucks in food over the last 4 weeks. Oh, I also had a couple pears and apples that I ate with peanut butter. The pears and apples were free. That was a godsend.

Fuck. I'm a fucking goddamn fucking charity case. Please, just give me some cheese and apples and peanuts. It's the only way I can live. Oh fuck, I'm crying again.

I must amend my statement about not liking girls. I just don't like straight girls. SF girls are awesome for the most part, but especially the lesbians. And, the mostly lesbian bi's.

I'm beginning to have poor people dreams. I had a dream where there were a ton of tables with lots of different foods that were really healthy and amazing and good, and I could each as much as I wanted for free. Oh god, it would be so lovely if I could eat real food. Right now, my poverty has reduced my diet to overly processed, barely passable "meat" items and simple carbohydrates. Yeah. I really don't like being poor.

My friend is moving into this place with indoor jacuzzis, three lap pools, free yoga and gym classes a few times every week, a gym, and two saunas. I'm going to be spending a lot of days waking up in her bed. She designs bathing suits and one of her designs just went into production, and she wants to get us matching bathing suits to go to the pool together. Oh god, it'll be great. I want her to lay out a freshly washed and folded towel and bikini for me every time I come over. Maybe a mini bottle of shampoo and soap, too. A mint on my ruffled pillow would also be a nice touch.

I totally know what it is now. The two or three guys that I totally could not resist even though I knew knew Knew that I never wanted to be with them or even really liked being around them all that much smelled really, really fucking good. I read this thing about how people can "sniff" out people that they would make good babies with. If you really like someone's smell, it means that the combination of your genes would make really healthy and disease resistant offspring. Both boys who I was really unjustifiable hot for had the most amazing scent. What was really weird, was that I couldn't even really feel like I could smell it. Partly because I have an Awful sense of smell, but I still really liked to put my nose up to their skin and take long inhalations even though I couldn't really smell them. I loved it. They felt so nice and clean. There have been a couple of guys whose odor I really could not handle at all. I loved them to death and we got along so smashingly, and I even tried to be attracted to them and was, sort of, but I just couldn't do it. Couldn't swallow the smelly dick (okay, their dicks were fine, but their other bodily eminations...it was gross). But, I'm not really sure if anyone else felt that way. Maybe my nose was telling me that kids with these boys would have been medical disasters.

I fucking love the Mission and SF in general. I get absolutely wet with joy just seeing random things in the street. I fucking love the colors and the styles here. I really do get fucking wet and turned on. There's this display that I pass by all of the time that has these amazing and hot color combinations, and I just want to sit in front of it, on the sidewalk, scrunch my pants down to my ankles, spread my legs and twiddle the twat while I'm staring up at those bright layered shirts. I am aware that this is disturbing.

I'm an only child and have a very highly developed fantasy mind. My reality, however, is far less developed. I need to stop fantasizing about things and work on my real life.

Holy shit, I almost fucking forgot. So, I was in a stressed mood or something one night as I was going to bed, and, as I tucked myself into my nice, warm covers, I told myself in my head, "It's okay, Christina" and imagined myself patting my head in an incredibly comforting, affectionate, caring, lovingly patronizing way. Holy shit! This is fucking why I like mocking, patronizing jerks! I want to be a patronizing jerk to myself! Even by myself, I mock and ridicule my problems so that they seem small and insignificant. It's like it makes my problems disappear so I don't have to do anything about it, and someone who I look up to (which evidently can be me) who I feel warm and safe with shields me from all of these things and makes me feel nice and happy inside. Bicycle Boy totally does that. Like, to a ridiculous degree. Except, unfortunately, it feels really superficial (like, no ~real~ substance behind it). But, no wonder I fell (and keep on falling) under his trappings. And, yes, it also explains many things on my quick and dirty list.

I think my sexy lez girl made me pregnant. I haven't been able to stop snacking for the last few days and I just went on a midnight grocery run because I had an violent, undeniable craving for chocolate milk. When I walked out of Safeway onto the sidewalk, I gulped down like a half gallon of chocolate milky goodness. And, a few nights ago, I had an intense need for a dessert pastry and ended up finding a cherry strudel at a late night Mexican bakery to appease my needs. What the fuck is all of this?

Girl is really, really sexy when she's pms'ing. She gets all pissy and impatient and starts yelling randomly at things in this ridiculously cute way. It's fucking hot.

I was on the bus a couple days ago and these two girls were behind me talking about The most inane things humanly possible. Like, this girl who put make up on for their friend and made the make up extra heavy like an oh-my-god 80s freak, how could she even think to do something like that, it's so offensive that she doesn't know any better no matter how much you try to teach her the things that all decent girls should know. I was so disgusted I had to move, and move again when I could still hear them. But, like, when I looked at them, I remember noticing how hot they were. They were Really fucking hot. And, they really did have very good taste. They weren't just pretty, they did know exactly what to do with their hair and make up and clothes and all that bull shit. They looked really cool in addition to being pretty and hot. I found it all rather confusing and disappointing and disgusting. It made me not want to be a hot girl at all. Not that I am in that league at all, but it made me not want to strive to get closer to that even. Then it made me think about prettiness in general and how everyone treats you a certain way and that it gets very easy to measure your self-worth by how stupid people (especially guys) act around you. It's so shitty and it really does make you personality-less. Concentrating on your own beauty and attaining more and more hotness seems like it's just personality mutilation. It's like greediness. You get narrow-minded and ugly. Fuck that.

I think I have a neglect and attend personality. Intense avoidance and denial that problems exist followed by even more intense focus. Bicycle boy totally has that in him. I think that's why I'm so attracted to impatience in people and it explains a lof of items on my Quick & Dirty list.

I found this out in a very boring way. I was ridiculously productive at work today and have been for the past couple days because I've completely neglected a ton of rotating things. But, when I sat down and did all of it at once where I could concentrate on it and just tear through everything in one sitting, everything got done. I just really can't maintain things day after day. I might as well shoot myself if I had to live my life that way. Bipolarism is Awesome!

I really don't think masturbation is holy shit wonderful. It's like eating alone. I do it because I have to, I don't really enjoy it all that much. But, now, eating with someone. Now, That's holy shit great. I fucking love eating with other people. It's one of my favorite things. Eating, cooking, fucking (with) other people. Now there's some of life's greatest pleasures. Mmm.

Dude, I'm supposed to go to this party tonight, but I'm totally skipping out on it. It feels so good just to sit at home dicking around on my computer in my bed. So blissful and nice. I think I just like to be really focused. To have really focused and hectic busyness followed by highly concentrated restfulness. I totally work best that way, too. To have crazy stressful projects and then absolute deadness. I'm so much more productive that way. I can work at inhuman speeds and get an unprecedented amount of work done in a whirlwind flash, but then I need my rest. To force me to keep a steady level of workfulness and attention at all times exhausts me and I find it incredibly boring. But, like, not only do I get more out of myself, but I'm really really happy, too. It's a fuckload more fun for me. The feelings are just a lot more intense. An elevated state of productivity where I feel like I'm oh-my-god accomplishing so much, and then a period where just lying down on my motorcycle with the sun shining down on me feels like the most heavenly thing on earth (it's a lot more comfortable than it sounds, and I fucking like my bike, okay?). This is how I need to live my life. Fortunately I get away with a ton of stuff because my bosses pretty much always find me invaluable (for my genius!).

I've been laying low for the past couple days trying to regain my strength. It feels really good, but I want to be around people a lot, too, so I discovered the perfect solution. It was a stroke of absolute genius! Instead of partying or whatever, I'll just have very quiet, small get-togethers and we'll just eat! Doesn't that sound oh-so-perfect? Just have dinner or brunch with someone and chat. It's fucking brilliant.

I very much dislike factual entries ("I went to dinner with John and Amy at an Indian restuarant and ordered a chicken masala and rice pudding for dessert. Then we went to Amy's house and watched a Netflix movie. We stayed after the movie and played Scrabble"). That shit is fucking boring as hell. It makes me want to scream, "WHY ARE YOU FUCKING WASTING MY TIME?! I just wasted 4 minutes of my fucking life reading your shit hoping that there would be a fucking point at some fucking point. Your life sucks and makes me want to drill a hole through my temple."

That being said, I am going to proceed with a factual entry.

Holy fucking shit, my weekend was crazy as fuck. I had this web project I had to complete before my friend left the country and he fucking took forever getting his shit to me, so I had no time whatsoever to do it. On Friday, we met at a coffee shop and talked about shit and then I went home and went to bed. Pretty tame. Went to work the next morning (with the huge monitor) to work on his annoying crap. Rushed to be at a good stopping point with just enough time to go home to change and leave for the restaurant that we were all meeting at. We ate, went to a friend's play, and I got back home around 10 so I could have a nice restful evening at home. The second I get home, Girl calls me like 10 times to get me come to this bar she's at. Tells me that she's been having a bad night and she's not sure she can ride her scooter back home. So, I'm like, "God fuck" and I throw on my coat that I juust took off and run to the BART and run to the bar when I get off BART. I get there and she's fucking dandy as hell. She's dancing, fine as can be, with a hot girl and she's joking around with all of her friends. Meanwhile, I'm out of breath, worried as fuck, and stressed in general. So, we hop a couple bars and then we go to her friend's house to hang out. At around 2am, we all get sleepy, but lo and behond, there's no blanket for me. After 20 min of trying to figure out the sleep situation, Dude finally realizes that he can give up his top bed sheet. So, for a half hour, I try to sleep on this love seat with a thin fucking bed sheet, and I just can't do it. So, I end up walking my ass home. My adrenaline's all worked up because it's cold as fuck outside, I'm walking briskly because all I want to do is be home, and it's an iffy neighborhood late at night. When I get home, I can't fucking sleep. Then, my mom wakes me up at 10am because they're almost at my place. I hang out with them until 1 or 2pm. Call up Dude that I'm supposed to hang out with and he wants to hang out right then. In about two and a half minutes, I gather my mc jacket and pack a couple things, then ride over to Oakland. We hang out, it's really fun, then Girl calls me and I leave his house to meet her and her friends at a restaurant. We eat, we go to her place to hang out for an hour, we go pick up her friends to take them to the airport, then we get back to her place again. It after 9pm at this point, and I'm fucking pooped to shit. I just collapse on her bed and we hang out and talk. Then, we end up having several really intense makeout sessions that get us both really worked up and very uncomfortably wet. Find it really difficult to sleep. Next morning can barely wake up, make it to work 10 min late. Get home and pass out on my bed. Wake up and shower and work on stupid web project until almost 6am. Take a nap, wake up, get to work 3min early. So, that's been my last few days. The week or so before that was almost as busy, but with more reasonable sleep. It's kind of fun, though.

So, BB called me up and had a bike that he thought would be perfect for him. I went and saw it and hung out with him. He's so fucking hot and sexy, goddammit. At one point, he was leaning over and his shirt collar was hanging down and I caught a glimpse of his chest hair and I was totally checking it out. I'm so fucking disturbed. I can't get over how he looks at me and directs my movements. Even when we were just hanging out in his room with his friends, and he looks at me and points at this free spot on his bed next to where he's sitting in his chair at the desk. It's so minor, but it's so hot. He's just really fucking sexy. It's so goddamn annoying.

I really fucking like being a tease. All I want is to get someone so worked up and be really difficult and out-of-reach so that they feel like it's not really okay for them to make a move on me, but to get to the point where they don't fucking care anymore and just end up grabbing me and doing what they can't help but do to me. I don't know if anything is hotter. I'm still not 100% sure I can lez it out, though. Girl is really petite and cute, but I find her kind of puny. I'm not sure if I need a boy's body or just a more athletic, meatier girl. Like, Dude has mushy girl arms, even though he's a decent boy size, and I think that's unattractive, too. And, I wrapped my arms around this girl while I was on the back of her scooter, and she's got an amazing, perfect, firm yet thin body and she felt fucking phenomenal. So, I don't know. Maybe I just like people who are very lean and very fit. Lean, not skinny.

Oh yeah, BB also had a really bad fall and was showing me these massive scrapes all over his arms and shoulder and legs and his swollen finger that broke that he set himself. I'm sorry, but it was fucking hot. He's been racing around on his little bike like nothing happened. Shit! I need a fucking dildo. I've decided that I just like people who endanger their lives. Hot, hot, hot!

Holy shit, my social life has exploded in the last couple weeks. I think it has everything to do with the amazing weather. It has so helped my mood. I'm going out all of the time, I have no time to do anything, I'm having to tell people to leave me alone because there's not enough of me to go around! Hah. But, anyway, I've been having a lot of fun lately. My friend that I have had and will for the rest of my life have the biggest crush on her thighs called me up out of the blue after not talking for over a year, and we're living a mile and a half from each other now. We hung out a couple times and it's been really awesome. She's a lot of fun. Oh. So, when we hung out, it was a really gorgeous and warm day, so she shows up in this tiny, pleated mini skirt and tons of guys are whistling at her and she's stopping traffic while guys are yelling out the window to get her number. And, we go back to her place and she's shuffling about in her bed, moving around, her skirt sometimes lower, sometimes much higher, her legs sometimes down, sometimes very up. That's my girl.

So, I think orgasms for me are a full-body experience. I can come by just rubbing a finger on my little clit or inserting various things inside me, but it takes a lot longer. I come a lot more intensely and a lot more quickly when my whole body is clenched and I'm moving about in pleasurable agony. I think my own body movement turns me on.

Ok, how eerie is this? She used to play hockey and aggressive inline. She's impatient and used to (not so much anymore) take lots of risks with her body. Fuck, I'm so in love. She does what she fucking wants to and lives life on her own terms. She wanted to go to grad school, but fucking refused to study for her GRE's. She was interested in actual research and spent her times learning and exploring her field or whatever, and ended up totally bombing her GRE's, but is still going to UCB based on her awesome research studies. So fucking cool. It's fucking hot. Oh, and she's really into seducing straight females. We slept together last night, nothing kinky, just really tame spooning and interlocking legs (fully clothed). I had a dream that a hot naked female was straddling my face. I wonder what that could mean...

The girls at work are so fucking awesome. We went to lunch with this girl and she made a comment about me that wasn't super complimentary. It was pretty innocent and I didn't think negatively about it at all, but they were all super quick to defend me and afterwards, they were talking about it and were totally offended and indignant for me even though I didn't care at all. They're like my little gang. So cute! (Oh my god, they are making me so girly).

So, I always end up either making friends with my roommates or officemates or other forced-circumstance mates of some sort, or, making friends with hyper social, very friendily aggressive people who talk to me because they think I'm cute. Thank god I'm cute and dress myself hotly. Otherwise, who knows if I'd meet anyone. I mean, it kind of works out, because I do like people who kind of take charge, but still. It seems like it would be beneficial to be more out-going.

Oh, so, how awesome is this. The girl that I went on a date with is totally into being full-force, daring, aggressive, and putting yourself out there. Fucking hot! She's also really into staring at herself naked and being naked all of the time and taking pictures of herself naked. How fucking perfect can that be? She's also into I guess prostitute role-playing where she has full and complete say over another person and has every right to make them do whatever she wants. HOLY FUCKING HOT. I am so fucking glad these people find me. Ah, pleasant female shudder.

So, I think that I must be a really cute girl. Sometimes I don't necessarily think so, but people will come up to me that are kind of hot and super out-going, who, it seems to me pretty much can have whoever they want because they're so uncreepily friendly and nice. And, they go out of their way to talk to me and keep on calling me. Yet, on the other hand, maybe they just do this to everyone, regardless of the person's cuteness, and that's what makes them so out-going and nice and friendly. Hmm, I don't know. Let's just call it a qualified confidence-booster. A confidence-booster with caveats.

Well, they also talk about how cute I am in an unexpected tone of voice. Like, they think that I am particularly cute. But again, maybe they just say stuff like that or think that stuff all of the time, and that's what draws people to them.

In any case, I'm starting to think that I might be super cute.

I nailed myself really fucking hard in the clit Twice tonight. Riding a bicycle meant for someone well above 6 feet tall when you are 5 feet even is not one of the wiser decisions you can make in life.

Oh my god. I have my very first date ever with a girl tomorrow night. At 6:15 pm. I'm so excited! She's pretty darn cute. Way fucking (intimidatingly) wild, but I think I'm willing to see if I can handle it. I'm so excited! I met her at my boss' birthday party and I was trying to be all discrete about it, but her best friend totally noticed. My boss was so shocked. Her bf told her that I was totally flirting. Boss said I was totally straight. Bf said I am totally not. The first thing my boss said to me this morning was, "Were you flirting with someone at the party??" "Was her name *Girl*??" So, now I have to give all of the details about it. It's kind of funny. Everyone at work was in shock. I gave them my line about not believing in sexual affiliation. Shrug! Cute girl, sushi in the mission, Hot!

Wow, it's been such a very long time since I've talked about myself. Hmm, well, I just got over (more or less) a really fucked up fever. I was asleep for 6 days straight. As in, I lost a whole week of my life. Almost like I was in a fucking coma or something. I was puking mucus. I could barely walk to the bathroom. I was really fucked up. I was so despearate for human contact/comfort. Yet, no one came for me. It was really sad. It made me really sad. It made me want to move back down to San Diego where it's warm, but also where I can count on people. Being sick made me feel very, very lonely.

My office is so incredibly girly. But, I really like it. I don't want to have any boys in our office. Girl told me that we are all going to be friends for life. Other Girl was telling me how incredibly lucky she felt to have us in her life. It's kind of weird. But I like closeness. I like making people feel good and feel loved. I like feeling a special, singular closeness to people. I think I like this most.

One thing that is also really cool about my job is that they think my clothes that are too thin and tight are really cute. My last job, the girls and gay men were like, "Should that last unbuttoned button really be unbuttoned?" I'm going to test out my lace-trimmed work skirt.

I get discouraged so easily. I give up completely and turn my back on things at the slightest hint of doubt of glowing success. I need to figure out something about that.

Dude, my roommate just took me sailing at Berkeley marina. Fucking awesome. I officially love sailing. Though, it was really calm, so I have yet to experience stormy waters.

Free financial planning comes with my job, so I've been writing up my budget for them to look at. It was goddamn fucking depressing. For the first time in my life, I've been living pay check to pay check. After writing up my budget, I now understand why. Making no money and paying ridiculously high rent SUCKS. Once upon a time, I thought I would be perfectly fine with it, but I'm NOT. It's one thing when you don't have many needs and don't feel like buying a new ipod every 4 months, but having to sacrifice things that you really like because you're spending way more than you make fucking Sucks. Like, and I'm not talking about sacrificing fifty dollar dinners twice a week, I'm talking about giving up my car because spending $400 a year on insurance is tough. Fucking _tough_. That's not right. And, I'm not sure I can afford fucking ceramics. That is downright shitty. Ugh. I'm not even sure if I can make my annual Roth contribution (yeah, I'm a fucking nerd). But, these are things that mean a Lot to me. These are things that my identity hinges on and I don't feel like I can afford it. Well, maybe my financial planners can help.

I'm going to watch fireworks tonight with my roommate.

That's kind of cool.

Today, I actually made a commitment and let someone know that I definitely wanted to hang out with them. In fact, I initiated it!

My parents are coming up this weekend to visit me and bringing up stuff for me. I feel so loved!

Okay, 3.5 people that I'm in love with. My landlord is so awesome. Sat up and chatted with him for an hour or two. I knew I'd like him when we first talked.

You know what, I was really afraid that they would hate me because I was kind of awkward when we hung out, but we talked again today and we chatted and it was nice. Why did I get all paranoid? I've never really experienced this before, but I've also never forced myself to be super social when I didn't 100% feel like it. I hope this retardation is fadeable.

Okay, so let's talk about the freak-out. One, I was really surprised because they gave me $200 for Christmas which was really nice, and they started talking about how much they wanted me for all of these Christmas things and that I should really, really come, and it was just so...different. It's like when you're a war prisoner and you get beaten senseless every morning, but one day, instead of mangling you with a club, someone hugs you and gives you something warm to eat and drink. It's so unexpected and painful because you've had to deal with something so awful for so long and all of the pain of every other morning comes out because this one time you don't have to brace yourself for the beating. You don't have to steel yourself against the pain and you can finally start sobbing from the humiliating shittiness of all of these years.

Wow. Maybe that's why I like to be mocked and degraded. For over ten years of my life, people have shown more respect to a child molester than to me. They've given him priority. I am expendable in comparison to him. He has gotten all of the consideration, I've been the one to blame. It's still that way. Well, I guess they invite the both of us, but they know that when I see him, I occasionally burst into uncontrollable tears. But yeah, he still gets to come at my expense. And, I kind of understand why it's that way. It still sucks. Whatever. Such is life. Except, I'm still kind of pissed about it. It's so goddamn unfair. But what is life if not unfair. Sigh.

Fuck, so I understand it intellectually, but, I think there will always be a part of me that's just like, "Why can't I be a part of my family? Why do I have to be face to face with my goddamn child molester in order to see everyone all together? Why is that the goddamn fucking norm in my life? Whatever. It just hurts and maybe it will always hurt. At least my parents are coming up to see me. That's really nice.

So, from about age 14 to 23, xmas for me has been ~2 months of dread followed by a week of nightmares. My last three xmases have been with people who care about me and know how bad xmas is for me (I'm counting this year!). I think I can slowly get rid of these xmas issues.

Everytime someone mentions making me a part of something, I step back and close myself off. Kind of like when you are dating someone for a couple weeks and it's nice and then they tell you they love you and want to spend the rest of their life with you and that you should move in together. When someone tells me that they want to hang out with me, unless they are one of those rare people who I can have three hour conversations with five minutes after meeting, I feel like they are moving too fast. Future plans of any sort scare me off. Fuck, I gotta get over this.

I just bought myself an xmas present - glittery pencil grips!

Okay, I have two favorite artists now, and both of them have done work on some of my all-time, holy shit favorite things ever (The Trial and M. Butterfly). FUCK.

I really need to figure my shit out and not bury myself in my work. We were exchanging xmas presents and they invited me to all of these xmas things, and it made me start crying. I'm really cold and detached and can't handle anything passing that barrier. And, like, I would rather fucking work than spend xmas with these really nice, cool people. I'm fucking afraid of people. I keep myself separated from them, big time. It's so retarded. I don't know why I do it. There are only a few people that I feel safe with. I'm totally uptight with everyone else. People invite me to stuff, and I'm just like, "uh, ok." I'm totally non-commital about everything. Even to someone saying "we should hang out." I try to act as much as possible like I don't like people, I think mainly out of a fear of rejection. So, if they were just being polite and didn't really want to hang out, I can tell myself and everyone else that at least I didn't act all excited about it in the first place. Or, I'm afraid that I'll be really boring. But, I'm only really boring because I'm afraid to talk or say anything because I don't want to get close to people. GOD. I need to fix myself. So fucking badly. I've got to stop doing this, holy fucking shit. I need to address this about myself. I. Am. Afraid. Of. People.

Like, I just have never had a real xmas since I think 7th grade. It's just so weird and painful to have someone make me feel like that actually want me for xmas.

Girl wanted me to come over and spend the night so I could be okay.

Holy fucking shit. It's the day before xmas eve and I'm not freaking out. I'm a little premenstrually irritable, but that happens pretty much every month nowadays. I've been hiding away, working. Maybe that has something to do with it. It was kind of intimidating and definitely annoying that it was so crowded everywhere today, mostly with people carrying handfuls of shopping bags which is annoying in and of itself, but it didn't send me into inconsolable xmas misery. I also have no contact with the t.v. which is a harbringer of xmas nausea and holiday inundation.

Speaking of hiding in my work, I need to stop applying for jobs that are way beneath me and doing all of these things that they should be paying me way more for. It's really retarded and getting to be very tiring.

Dude, my roommate was featured in some newspaper article as a go go dancer. He's so awesome. Girl and other Girl were telling me how I know all of these really interesting people. Girl lives in this super bland, conservative part of SD, and I guess other Girl lives in a pretty conservative part of town too, so they think that I knew all of these "edgy" people. But, I don't know. It's weird that I feel so much more at ease with druggie dude and go go dancer boy with several huge facial piercings. I went to this "young professional" party and it was like totally Groan City to the max.

Oh my god, I've been unsick, cooking and eating way the fuck better, and I feel amazing!

Oh weird, I had my first flying dream where I wasn't running away from people. In fact, I met some of my friends while I was flying and was showing them how I learned how to do it. And, my flying wasn't this really strained bicycling. I learned how to extend my arms and lift up my legs so I could just totally jet along on my merry way. The flying wasn't strained, it was really fun. And, it felt really good/good for me because I was working out my arms. It was a good dream.

I am happy. I've met two or three people here that I'm absolutely in love with.

My job is so fucking, fucking awesome. Girl used to work in a dungeon and we were talking about doms and daddies and nipple clips and chains and it was really, really fun to be talking about all of this in a financial planning office - one of _the_ most conservative jobs in the world! All of this was brought on by her saying that I couldn't leave this job and that if I ever thought about it, they would have to chain me to my desk. I was like, "Whoa, that's so funny, because my last job said that to me all of the time" and she said that maybe there's something about me that makes people want to chain me up! Hah!

Like, I find it so odd that I get along with delinquent people because I'm so uptight and straight and narrow. I don't really drink, I don't smoke, I don't do drugs, even pharmaceuticals, I'm even a little bit of a workaholic in a way fucking conservative industry, I'm really responsible in a million ways. I'm a fucking goody two shoes and a square.

I'm really subjective. I either like things or I don't, and everything is colored by this. Every tiny little thing is one more tick on the list to reinforce that I like or do not like something. I see things as positive or negative wholes. I don't really have things that I like about something and things that I hate. It's more like, I don't like something because it stems from this core and therefore its entire interface with the world is a symptom or effect of this core that I don't like, so I can't like anything that results from it.

Dude, I think I just get along with poor people who are in a lot of debt and don't really have prospects. People who are trying to make something of themselves and have normal, respectable lives...we just don't get along as well. My new roommates kind of suck, but I finally got to talk with the last one for a bit, and he is totally awesome. He actually has a sense of humor! It's awesome. We were joking about how you achieve a certain maturity in life when you are able to cut vegetables for yourself. I just feel way more at ease with him than the two accountants of the house.

Oh my god, I'm such an amazing and talented cook. I had a craving for a grilled cheese sandwhich today, and then I had a craving for a grilled cheese sandwhich with tomato soup (which I've never had before, but it sounded good). So, I went to the grocery store to get the stuff for it, and I came back home to start cooking, and I realized that I have never made tomato soup before, I've only had it once in my life, and that I had to figure out how to make it solely based on taste. It turned out fucking delicious. _Fucking_ delicious. I wasn't even that hungry and I had to make another sandwhich to finish off the soup, it was That good. Ok, so I'm way the fuck impressed over grilled cheese and soup that is made with water, salt, basil, and tomatoes. But, fuck, I'm vain and in love with myself. Whatever.

Holy fucking duh. No wonder I've been so fucking freezing cold and lazy lately. I'm fucking sick. _Still_. I woke up this morning with my throat filled with mucus. I thought I was better, but I just got totally worse. I've been really cold and exhausted and headachy lately. It's okay to rest and be lazy. I'm fucking sick.

It's so fucking cold. I'm so miserable. I'm wrapt up in a blanket with a fleece robe and pants on and I feel child to my core. There are so many things I want to do, but I'm afraid to leave my blanket. I can't get up for fear of hypothermia. I just braved the cold to finally hang up my coat and ran back beneath the covers shivering. Now I have to warm myself up again. I'm considering bringing my car so I can go places during the winter and I'm also considering buyig ski pants or a bib. I want to be a walking down blanket.

I was looking for stuff to put on my wall, and did a image search for Kafka related stuff and I found this graphic novella of The Trial. It was so amazing. I contacted the guy who did it to see if I could get a signed poster or at least a tiff so I can print it out super big. I was looking at his other stuff and I have a favorite artist now. I didn't think I'd ever have a favorite artist, but for some reason, I really love his stuff.

I was at a party last night with S and he's a total sweetheart, which unfortunately, I disdain. But a girl was there that he said, with admiration, was super nice and sweet and lovely to anyone no matter what. Of course, we didn't get along so well, but when he came over and she started talking to him, it was so easy to see that they were kindred spirits. She really admired and respected his kindness and he felt the same about her. I wonder if he could be attracted to her, or if he fell into my trap where I only like assholes (they would be bitches in his case). I shouild ask him if he would date her. Like, I didn't really know it was possible to be attracted to nice guys. I just couldn't imagine it. But, I saw it with my own eyes. Weird, but it was cute. Nice guys just bring out the worst in me. They make me into an evil bitch, and I end up walking all over them which I would never do to an asshole. I think what happens is I don't really want to do stuff, but they provide the ideas, the means, and they put in a little extra incentive on top of that so it makes it difficult to say no. So, I end up doing things that I wasn't really enthused about, and they went out of their way to make it happen for me, but I don't care, and I just get bratty, which makes them try to fix things and be extra nice and it just snowballs. Me and nice guys don't don't mix. Like oil and water.

My work just gave me an outside contracted project. It's been really fucking cold lately. I'm kind of (really) glad to have something productive to do that will be warm and indoors. The cold sucks.

You know what. I think I'm slowly figuring out what I like and what I don't like. What I like to do and what I don't like to do. It's really cool. Maybe that's why your teenage years are so anxious, depressing, and moody. You're at the point when you realize other people's opinions (e.g. your parents or teachers) are not necessarily your own, but that you have no idea what the fuck yours actually are. You're just really fucking confused, don't know what tofucking do, don't know where you stand on anything; it's just tough

Girl told me my skirt was cute. It is kind of cute, but really, it's a pretty plain, basic skirt. I just look really good in it. It's not the skirt that looks good, it's the fit of the skirt. I'm actually kind of surprised that she commented on it, because the beauty of the skirt is that it makes me ass look incredibly shapely. That is the one distinct merit of the skirt of this pretentiousness entry. Why would a girl say something about that?

I am angry at myself for liking BB so much because he is not totally in love with me. I am used to boys being head over heels. But then, I was thinking tonight that maybe it's just younger boys who do that. Because, you have to be pretty dumb/inexperienced to fall in love with such a cold person. I pretty much give no one any reason to be in love with me (which may or may not be my own distorted view). But all of the guys I've dated that are 24 and younger have been totally in love, and, one guy who was the oldest I dated. Like, I've always thought (ever since turning 25 or 26) that there was an insurmountable gulf separating those who are 24 and younger and those past the age of 25. So, there may be something to this. 24 year olds are just idiotically susceptible to puppy love and a host of other things I just don't understand. By the time you reach 25, you are old and jaded and don't believe in such foolish things anymore. Girl said that her dad warned her that boys aren't worth anything until they turn 35, so maybe boys between 25 and 35, I should expect no crazy retarded love from. Whether or not this is true, I think it would be a helpful assumption. It's probably bad for me to expect love and adoration without providing any green lights or positive signals.

The girls that I work with are very outwardly caring and it's starting to rub off on me. And, I like. Mostly, I'm a total grump, but deep down inside, I'm decent-hearted. They are pushing that to the surface a little more, so I don't feel so cold, detached, and leave you feeling empty and deserted even if I do stuff that is holy shit generous and great. I love them, oh my god.

I think I had my first laughing dream last night. I've been having weird animated dreams lately. Maybe it was watching this food network Pixar thing last night before going to bed. I dreamt about this cartoon fish and its animated hijinks and I woke up because it was so funny and woke up laughing. It was kind of embarassing because I think I woke up Dude with my laughing. But the really interesting dream I had a few nights ago was real except that it involved an animatedish tiger. A really hot animatedish tiger. A few people and I got off of some sort of transportation vehicle into this really barren world and were wondering why it was so sparse because we heard the place was really popular. It turns out that you could change the entire world based on what you wished for or something. Someone ended up wishing us into the tiger's manor. The tiger was the ruler of this world who, though hot tempered, was very kind and just. (Hot!) Two boys were caught stealing groceries which was a sever crime because it wasn't a nice thing to do, and the tiger punished them by making them slap themselves in the face as hard as they thought was fair. So, the guy slaps himself very gently, and the tiger is like, "Are you sure that's all you deserve?" and the guy tells him that he just got the angle wrong and had to stick his elbow out a little more, and the next slap had some noise to it. So, in this dream, I guess I'm the tiger's maiden. And the tiger has a lot of responsibility and sometimes it's overwhelming, and I'm the only one that wakes him feel better about it. I'm like his retreat from everything he has to think about and be responsible for. So, sometimes he gets really fed up and pounces on me in a fit of frustrated anger, and he sees me all weak and little under him, and I think we somehow fuck after that (well, it's more alluded to in the dream, I do not dream about the mechanics of a tiger's penis entering me). So yeah, that was pretty much my dream. Hope you liked it.

Fuck. I like all of those awful, unsustainable things in a guy because, well, I am probably deathly scared of being in a relationship that is capable of working, but also definitely in large part because I am all of those fucking things. I love male attention. I'm selfish and very emotionally immature, especially when it comes to relationships of any kind. I'm totally fucking full of myself but riddled with insecurities. I am Narcissus himself. I just want to fuck the mirror image of myself. All of these things that I like in a guy that I don't want to like in a guy I have to fix about myself. I have to stop being all of those things myself. That's my fucking fix.

I am so hot for BB, I fucking hate it. He is No good for me. He does drugs and he drinks a lot even though he's always really composed which is kind of impressive, and his life is actually sort of depressing. He's really irresponsible and doesn't handle his life and sometimes makes me not want to deal with mine (especially going to work on time). But he's so fucking hot! He has amazing, powerful thighs, a pretty shaped rear, and a stunning back. When he lies in bed, he sprawls out and it's fucking sexy. He pulls on my hair and makes me do things I secretly want to do. I can't get enough of his body. It feels so fucking great. He has a really strong, vibrant pulse, probably from all of the exercise he gets and the drugs that he does. His voice is so soothing, occasionally intoxicating. And the way he holds me is insanely assuring. UGH! Okay, I have to be less selfish and less immature. Then, I won't think he's hot.

Fuck! I always think it's so hard to find a guy that will fuck me the way I want to be fucked. And, I mean, not every guy does, but I still keep on managing to find them. I seem to be pretty good at narrowing in on them and possibly bringing it out in them. So, I need to get it out of my head that I'm never going to find these guys.

But like, they tell me that it's really hard to find girls who are like me. Does that mean most guys are not like them? Or, maybe a lot of guys are just into that and it's not something girls are into. Or, maybe I just attract these guys? Should I even fucking like this stuff?

Oh yeah, his hands are really fucking hot, too. Big, manly knuckles, kind of flattish, slightly wide fingers, rough skin. The hands of a stoic, lone cowboy.

Tigers are really hot creatures. Fiery, unpredictable, graceful, mysterious, cunning and intelligent, focused, really precise control of their strength and prowess, thick and furry, they're so hot!

When I was younger, my favorite animal was the orca because they are really intelligent, but also powerful hunters. But that was before I ever had sex. Now, I like tigers. Predatory cats are my favorite animals.

Pretentiousness is highly entertaining. Possibly because I was an only child. I crack myself up with how dorky I am.

Girls scream at how cute something about you is. It's really odd and not what I'm used to. I'm having trouble adjusting to it. Guys don't really say much about it. They'll "compliment" you by noticing it by looking at you a little bit longer, or maaybe they'll say really casually, "that looks nice" and just kind of point at your really sexy heels or nod at your curve hugging skirt.

Fuck, I only date guys that I don't want to be dating. How am I so retarded? And, ever since the Ex, I've been incredibly drawn to these selfish, immature, uber-confident, sterling men. They're all pretty much the same. Him and SD had a huge part in making me so superficial. I was talking about this with Dude, and it was very interesting if very unhealthy and dysfunctional. Let me now catalogue all of my crippling weaknesses.

1. I seem to be hot for men who have a temper. They don't necessarily need to get angry at me, and it's possibly detrimental to them if they direct their anger at me, but I do seem to like guys who are prone to losing their tempers.
2. Guys who are really confident, really skirting the line of arrogant bastard, but just shy of that. Couple that with a few insecurities which probably force a bit of overcompensation, and I turn hot and bothered.
3. Guys who have a lot of natural athletic ability and who know it. Balance, bodily control, strength, they have it, they're good at their chosen sports without trying, they even like to show off a little.
4. Okay, I can't deal with anyone who isn't really down to earth, so that is a prerequisite.
5. Guys who are forceful.
6. Guys who are really selfish and immature. God, why are they all so selfish and so immature?
7. Guys who are really nice and natural and who get really caught up in the moment, so that they are incredibly in love with you when you are in front of their face, and then get distracted with other things the rest of the time. I just love that intensity of feeling. The intense need for your body, for your touch.
8. Guys who think it's incredibly wonderful to be petted for hours on end without being requested to reciprocate. This arrangement just works out really well.
9. Irish hair. I am just physically addicted. Furry chest feels so goddamn good! And, a guy with really nice forearms topped with a lusty, golden Irish coat. Fuck. It's like giving a deprived kitty catnip.
10. A guy who pulls my hair and likes to make me feel bad.
11. I am such a sucker for good sex. Dude would make fun of me for having such "specific" needs. Throw me around like I'm nothing and I won't be able to get enough no matter what else I have to deal with.
12. I'm pretty sure I like a guy with strong opinions. Sometimes I have pretty strong opinions. It's probably nice to agree on a lot of them, but to be able to have opinionated arguments without it getting personal is fun.
13. A nice voice. I am such a sucker for a really nice voice. I'm not completely sure what it is but, I'm just going to say that it's a nice, comforting, reassuring, maybe even protective voice.
14. I like boys who are boys. Oozing with manliness. And, it's a plus if you are secretly gay or have weird feminine quirks.

I really need to take a boy hiatus.

I am really sensitive to people's moods.

I really like doing things that I'm good at. I'm pretty decent with my fingers. I have a really steady hand and good minute control. Maybe from playing the piano (and flute and euphonium) for so many years. I can pet a man or a dog or similar furry creature for hours on end and still find it fascinatingly entertaining. It's also why I like throwing clay. I found an unlimited use clay studio (just have to pay for clay). Perfect. No schedule I have to adhere to, can do whatever I want. I'm excited to be working with clay again. Clay feels good. Just like furry creatures feel good. And, both require a decent amount of creativity. After all, the whole point of petting someone is that you put them in utter ecstacy, and you have to change things up a lot to make someone sit still for so long. (And, I'm so good at it!) Oh, and both things produce quite a reaction. You can tell when the object of your petting is experiencing the most abject pleasure, and when you are throwing clay, the tiniest movement produces the most catastrophic effects. If the clay has any sort of thin, symmetrical shape, you feel accomplished.

That's what I want to do. Practice making crazy, thin shapes. Nothing pretty. Nothing complete. Just practice. It'll be really fun.

When my friend took my dancing for the first time, they took me to all of these 80s hipsters nights, and it was pretty fun. Had never gone to anything else. So, when I went dancing on my own, I always picked out these 80s hipster places and since I was always the one prompting the dancing, everyone just went along with it. But, Dude wanted to go to this hip hop place, and I figured I'd try it out. At first, I had no idea what to do, but it ended up being really fun. I just went to a place that was playing 80s stuff and I didn't like it that much. They were playing hip hop at first and I liked that so much better. I think my friend was right. Dancing to 80s is really goofy. You almost necessarily have to be making fun of yourself. You have to dance like a comedian. It can be really fun being silly, but sometimes you're just in a mood to really get down and lose yourself in your body and other people's movements.

I didn't get to dance all that much last night, but it was fucking fun. So much fun. I used to need to get really drunk to be able to dance. I think I can be totally sober or at least close to it and still cut a rug. I was having a ton of fun even dancing by myself. I went with this guy that I couldn't really dance with, so I danced next to him but not with him at all which meant that I couldn't dance with anyone else, either. But, still fun. Evidently, I dance like a girl and move like a girl moves.

Hmm...actually, I've never seen a boy move like that. Even a boy really well-practiced at moving like a girl. Not that I have a wealth of experience with that. Maybe at that point, they're so convincing that I just assumed they were girls. And, I mean, not all girls move like that either. A lot of people are on the awkward side. Maybe don't pay attention to their bodies because they're too busy thinking about their bodies. I want to see a pretty, feminine boy who is as sexy as a really hot, sexy girl.

Okay, so I like things to be perfect. I don't like to compromise on things. I want to be smart without being pretentious. I want to be a Dude but still feminine and sexy. I want to have money without being greedy, make money without working. I want be trim and fit without obsessing about diet and exercise. And I want to be vain and still be humble. Basically, I want the best of both worlds all of the time and I don't think you have to settle for less. You just have to be centered, have a sense for quality, and be naturally attracted to it and not give in to the bad things that usually accompany it.

Unfortunately, when things turn out not to be absolutely perfect, I get really really bogged down. My friend had to slap some sense into me yesterday, and I was a lot, a Lot happier because of it. Sometimes perfection takes patience.

Everyone I work with is pretty prefectionist. In some ways, I really love it. I love that they don't compromise their values and they have a sense of how things should be and that they like to do things the right way (the socially responsible way, the most efficient way, the prettiest way, or whatever). They will always do things in a way that I agree with, that I am morally okay with, and that makes sense to me. But, they also have control issues. I don't want to become obsessive compulsive. I'm really easy-going in a lot of ways and I want to keep it that way. Yes, best of both worlds. Perfectionist yet easy-going. It's fucking possible, and I want to live it.

It's only 7pm and it feels sooo late. Cold, dark. It's the pits!

Winter blues is setting in. But, I don't have to give in to it. I did a bunch of things today that I really didn't feel like doing. I just have to acknowledge that things are harder when it's cold and dark, and to force myself to do stuff anyway, and then I feel a lot better. Like, it helps a lot that there isn't this pent up childhood trauma rearing its ugly head at me.

I only get one day off this xmas. I work xmas eve and for the rest of the week the day after xmas. It's actually kind of a relief. I'm glad to have something to occupy me 8 hours a day. And, my friend offered to cook up a huge xmas feast with whatever requests I like up here. My life doesn't have big huge things that suck anymore! Fucking sweet!

I just might have to throw in the towel and become Ms. Corporate USA. I spent a few hours of my Saturday learning about typography so that the forms that our clients will see and the process manual that we train with will look prettier. I spent my weekend learning about things that are completely unnecessary for me to do my job, but will improve our business. And, I did it because I thought it was interesting.

So, this brings about a point which I am loathe to admit. I make fun of my friend a lot. A Lot. He is a typographer. I mockingly call him a Font Engineer. I, unfortunately, now have to admit that I really respect and am very interested in typography and document design. I like it a lot. I like that I can be creative and almost artistic in an incredibly functional way. To even use a little bit of psychology/cognitive science to improve the ease of use for informational documents. The perfect melding of function and prettiness. I put in a request to get "The Elements of Typographic Style" from the library. I. Am. Such. A. Nerd.

Dammit!

You know, I just don't trust guys who have spent time in Asia unless they have family there or their family is from there, especially if they've lived in Japan. I just find it disturbing.

I wait for stuff. I wait for stuff before I do anything at all. It's so retarded. I just end up never getting around to stuff because I wait forever for circumstances to creep up that make everything super easy and painless for me. But, all it does is just make me procrastinate things and get really frustrated waiting around for it and lose interest in it and a host of other things.

I want to found a charity. I really should be in business for myself. I identify way too much with my job. At the very least, I should be salaried and be able to make up my own hours. I can't stand having to leave at the end of the day if there's still stuff left to do. I want to be able to work until I'm dead when things are crazy to keep everything running smoothly, and then work 2 hours a day for a month. But, I also want to work for people who can't afford to pay me. They need it so much more! Or, work for people or companies that want to do things better, but can't justify the cost. My various ideas for charities have rotated, but that basic premise always remains the same.

Right now, I think I want to found a non-profit for financial planning for people who can't afford it but could really, really use it. So, I thought to myself that my work could teach me the ins and outs of running a planning firm which would mean that I would have to put in a ton of time learning how to do my job and then improving the way I do it so I could have a huge chunk of time for other stuff, and eventually I could get around to learning everything else. But, fuck, as helpful as that is, there's nothing stopping me from just learning about the financial planning business on my own. I can just fucking read about it. I don't know, am I just narrow-minded or something? I see the best way to do something, and I can't do it any other way. I'm way too into efficiency and nothing wasted whatsoever. I gotta stop it! I can't just sit around and wait for my life to happen. We all know what happens when we do that (San Fucking Diego). I'm starting to neglect things. Gotta focus. This is the Year of Christina. I shall overcome!

Dude called me to tell me he was about to leave to pick me up to go back to SF and asked me how I was doing. I told him that I was doing "good." I've been using that answer a lot lately. (I don't say that I'm good unless I am really very good). But, after we hung up, I did a little dance in the kitchen singing, "I've never been so happy, I've never been so happy." I have two places that I'm really happy to come home to. My life is more put together than it's ever been. I've never been happier and calmer about my life. It's totally not perfect, but it's a real life. Fuck!

I have such great parents. I was actually able to spend a holiday with family this year. It was fucking awesome. I totally love my parents, they're so cool. And, three people I like called/msged me to wish me a happy Thanks, possibly four. I think this is the first holiday I've had since junior high where I felt really loved all around _and_ safe and secure. My life is getting so much better. Fuck, maybe one day, I'll even be happy.

I passed by this Mexican taqueria and there was a death metal band totally rocking out. I thought the taqueria was having a live music night, on a Monday. It was actually the apartment above. I could see a drummer and several head bangers. Really cool.

I have deep trouble giving positive feedback to anybody in any shape or form.

I like to please people. I like doing things for other people and all I want in return is their approval, a pat on the head, and to be told that I've been a very good girl. This is horrible! How the fuck did I become like this? That's all I ever wanted from GofDnG. I just wanted her love. For everything that I did, I wanted a fucking head pat!

I think this is what makes me so attracted to abhorrently selfish people. Why I get so flushed and why my little heart flutters.

I really like that my job does not accept my faults, but in a really supportive, loving way. Just a general feeling of, "we know you can do better, so work at it. we'll wait for you."

I am deathly afraid of people. I get choked up and frozen. I'm getting better, though. I need to open up more. A fuck of a lot more. Right now, my attitude is, "I'm sure they will think I am retarded, so I will coweringly inch up to them, wait for signs of approval to slam me in the head, then coweringly inch again." It really should be, "You know what, I'm a cooler person than at least half of the people in this world, and most people are nice to even really uncool people, so let's chat it up and see what happens. If they aren't in the mood, they can let me know and we can chat some other time."

This is what I want. For someone to treat me like their little kitten who has been playing with a big ball of yarn for awhile and finally got it all unravelled and got herself all tangled up in a colorful knotted mess, looks up at you expectantly like, "look what I did," and you scratch her under her chin or on top of her head and tell her that she's a good kitty.

I went to this museum, and there were these rocks that were cut out, unfinished, and placed in pretty, fitted wooden stands. The rocks were meant to look like a piece of the mountain which it came from. The only thing I could think of when I saw these was this dude with an electric saw going deep into a pristine, untouched mountain range and hacking off chunks of rock everywhere. It put a pretty unpleasant picture in my head. But, who the fuck knows, maybe they were random rocks lying around, and the artist just cut them in such a way that it looked like it was the top of a huge mountain. (Somehow, stealing stand alone rocks is better than cutting into massive rock face). And, it's not like we don't see dismembered rock everywhere we go. Marble floors, quartz watches, mined gold and iron, coal power. At least this artist thought that nature could be stripped away from its natural home and would still be beautiful in its present (cut off) state. Didn't need sliced, 90 degree angles or refining. Fuck, no...it was just a depressing exhibit. Nature sliced and diced. Makes me sad. Makes me feel like I should shed a tear, but I can't because, really, I don't care. Everyday of my life I mine nature and whittle it down further and further, and I couldn't have it any other way. But, I can still be slightly depressed about it when it is called to my attention.

It just feels so wrong to be so disconnected from the origin of things.

I have a job that actually adds to my level of happiness.

In fact, my job is pretty much the highlight of my life right now. I walk home smiling. It's really awesome. One of the big differences between this job and the other can be summed up by saying that the other was pretty much scared shitless that I'd leave because I made things so much easier and what if they were fucked when I'm gone. This job would more be sad and despairing if I left because they think I'm so great and don't want to see me go. They want to make sure I'm not indispensible and not putting anything into place that only I would be able to do, but they also want to keep me and get someone else to do all of the things that aren't fun or fulfilling for me to do when we get to a point where that's possible. I don't know. It's basically the same premise, but the attitude is so much different. Yeah. A "What about us/What will happen to us?" versus a "But we love you."

I really, really love special treatment. I love it when someone thinks of something for me and makes sure it's there and I know about it just in case I want it. I love it when someone takes care of everything for me even if/especially if it's not something they normally do and they're happy to take the extra steps for me so they can absolutely make sure that everything is covered and I don't have to do any extra work. I like to be serviced.

Yeah, I totally should be a financial planner. Dude was telling me about all of this debt he's in and how stressed out he gets about it and how he doesn't like to think about it. And, we were talking about some other stuff and I randomly said that most of the time, people seem to commit suicide not because of a huge, earth-shattering event, but because it would just be so nice not to have to comb your hair and shave in the morning and deal with all the cumbersome, endless details of your life, and he totally agreed with it (too much). And, like, I just want to fix everything for him. I just want to help people out. I just want them to be less stressed and not have to think about this crap and be able to enjoy themselves. I want people to be able to stop worrying. He's really good physically and likes to do all of this athletic stuff, but is paranoid to do it because he can't afford an injury. So senseless! I just want people to be happy and I want to make them happy in a really easy, controllable, fixable, neat, little area that spills into everything else. I want people to have what I want so much for myself. Freedom to live life on their own terms.

Like, a ton of people can just do that and have faith that they will find some way to adapt and get by. I am not like that. I need to feel secure. Need a safety net. A massive safety net. I guess a lot of people live just fine without one. Not me, though. So, that's probably why I give so much importance to a stable foundation of financial support. For me, it's necessary. I will fret and make excuses and not do anything if I don't feel like I can totally hit rock bottom and still be okay. It might be healthier for me to let go of that a little bit, but I'm not super concerned about it. There are other things on my plate that I should deal with first.

Or, maybe not. Maybe it's yet another symptom of me not being able to take on challenges and risks. Not being able to commit to things fully. My indecisiveness. My lack of motivation. Bah!

I totally do not understand what makes me attracted to guys and what doesn't. Sometimes it just does not make any sense whatsoever.

One thing I really miss about San Diego is this amazing carrot cake that I discovered just before I left. It was so moist, and the frosting wasn't this disgusting stale sugar crap, it was real cream cheese frosting. It was the most amazing carrot cake ever to be beheld upon my tongue. I want some right now, oh god how I want some.

Intentionality is a very important thing for me. It is really important for me to feel like the people in my life have good intentions. Intentions make positive thoughts and feelings and actions and if any of those things stem from bad intentions, no matter how positive the real outcome, the environment that you have created is nevertheless negative. (Kind of a "hah!" instead of a "that's awesome!"). For me to really respect someone, I must believe in the positivity of their intentions.

I think the people in my office are good people.

It is also a very loving office. I feel very loved when I'm in that office.

They are actually concerned with making me happy and very much want me to have a fulfilling life and a fulfilling day at work (which they have more control over).

I like things that are perfect. The perfect word, the perfect city, the perfect office, the perfect body. I just really like feeling like this is exactly the way things should be, that this fits perfectly and anything else is difficult to imagine.

I also like high contrast. I like guys to be really manly because I am so cute and petite. I like guys to be coated in hair while I am neatly bare from the neck down. I think it's hot when a guy has rough hands because my hands are so small and soft. I almost think it's a form of penis envy. I marvel at all of these things because I don't have them. And, I really like it. In fact, I'm such a sucker for these things, it's really bad.

Ok, let me reiterate. I have the coolest job in the world. Like, one of my job requirements is that I be confident. I am not allowed to be unsure of myself. It's so awesome. And, they're fucking nice to me. They bought me lunch because they felt bad that I had to do annoying job stuff one day. The co-owner of the company stamped 260 sheets of paper herself because she didn't think that I should have to do that. Oh, and they told me that I absolutely am not allowed to take crap from anyone. They said that if someone is mean to me I can tell them that we refuse to do business with them. They also tell me how great they think I am and get really excited when I fix things or make them better. They like actually care about me or something. And, they appreciate me and crap. It's so...different.

I definitely work better under higher expectations. I like being expected to do things that I know I can't do very well currently. It's nice to have to try.

Holy fucking holy crap shit. My new job is awesome so far. Okay, so I only just started today. But, everyone I work with seems really fucking nice. They were giving me some big overviews of things and it fucking made me happy. It made me happy and excited. I am happy and excited about my job. Everyone there is really smart, too. Oh yeah, that's the other thing. I will be working with smart, funny, nice fucking people. Holy shit! Smart, funny, nice people who work hard and know what they want and go and do it, but who care about other people and want to make other people genuinely happy. And, I work in a building with a ton of fucking history. AND, my boss thinks I'm cute! And, they're totally un-uptight, yet know when to look professional because they're totally serious about what they do because they love what they do. And, they refuse to do all of these things that would make them a ton of money because it's a pain and they don't enjoy it and it's not beneficial to the clients which they love. Holy fucking holy fucking shit! I'm going to work with people who like what they do! People who don't compromise themselves for money, status, peer pressure. Wtf?? Dear god. It's opposite twilight zone (noon zone? late afternoon zone?) Uh, nevermind. Why the fuck have I been living my life the way I have for the last 27 years? Who knew? I'm a very lucky person.

God, it's so much better this way. To never let yourself be forced into compromising positions and to care about other people. One, you'll always be happy, so you can think about other people and not your own misery all of the time. I don't think that people who are maniacally selfish can be happy people. When you always think of yourself and only yourself, wouldn't you feel really lonely? Or, at least annoyed that other people don't feel as highly about you as you do? I don't know. I like being connected. And, I don't mean having people walk all over you. People don't know what the fucking want. It's not about giving in to their demands. That's not genuinely helping people. Sometimes, you have to be a mean bitch and that would be much better (for everyone). Sigh, I'm really happy that I (may) get to have meaningful interactions with people. I'm an advocate of tough love. But, I also need it to be not only someone worth loving (and they refuse a lot of clients that aren't "good fits") but something worth loving (like big huge events that effect your entire life).

Holy fuck. I can see a future. A future that I want. Whoa....

Okay, I will stop now. It is only my first day. Daily grind monotony may set in at any moment. Who fucking knows. Not me.

This may be a very inspiring experience. People who don't compromise their values or their happiness and have a full-time job ensuring that their clients never have to sacrifice theirs. People who expect me to have courage and take risks. To throw myself out there and have faith in my own ability. People who expect me to falter because they are pushing me so hard, but also expecting me to take it all in stride because it's part of the growing process. Like momma birds who push their hatchlings off a cliff and expect them to fly. There's room for them to free fall to their deaths a little bit, but mostly they don't make it to the bottom at full speed and splatter; mostly they figure it out and start flying.

In essence, the way they run their office is the way I want to run my life.

So, I got this job in financial services. I feel a little bit weird about it. It's Very corporate. But, it's also helping out people who are typically fucked over. I hate how people who have money are the only ones who know how to make even more money and get to have everything. I just want to help people who don't have a fucking clue about anything that has to do with their finances to be able to work as little as possible and do the shit that they actually want to do. So, it's weird. If I do this, I'll be a total business professional with status, suit, and salary. On the one hand, it's nice to be making decent money. On the other hand, I'm going to have to reconcile possibly making six figures or whatever it goes for with...me. I never thought or wanted to be making a ton of money. Maybe I don't have to. Maybe I can just work for people who can't afford to pay me anything. Whatever. This is all of course dependent on if I turn out to like doing this.

Dude is really excited for me about this. He's practically salivating that I'm in the financial industry. His eyes light up at the prospect of me making shitloads of cash. It digusts the fuck out of me. It makes me totally rethink everything. I don't know. Money is just there to support you. I don't want to buy and sell people. Have shitty people doing my bidding so they can participate in the gobs of money I'm throwing out just because I can. FUCKING DISGUSTING. I just want to be able to say no to things I don't want to do. To not have to accept crappy situations just because I need the money or because it's so cheap, I can't say no. Aside from that, I'd like to take trips and possibly take people with me who can't afford it (because almost all of my friends are in the poorhouse). But, I don't want to lead anything but a reasonable life. Extravagance is just not in my blood.

I asked my mom if she's happy now that I'm in a job where I can make a lot of money. She asked me if it would make me happy. I said that I might really like it. She said that that's all that matters. I told her that there's a lot of potential for making tons of money with high net worth clients, but that I'd probably want to work with poor people. She made absolutely no sign of disapproval. Wtf, when did my mom get so cool?

Holy fucking shit. SF is so fucking cool. What the fuck. People just seem to care about the things that I care about. Or, at least it's really easy to find. Fuck. SF is really fucking cool. I already kind of miss it. I miss SD because I have friends here and because I have a real place to live. These things are not hard to find. And then, SF will be perfect. SF will make a really fucking awesome home base for awhile. I'm excited.

I've never liked the perfect, sculpted male body. I just find it annoying. The perfectly sized pecks, the six pack, huge, tight biceps topped by strongly defined shoulders. Disgusting. Like, fuck. If you spend that much time on your body, getting it exactly right, you should just get it over with and fuck yourself to death. I _Hate_ the gym body. But, a guy who's really interested in something and does it for fun, but, in order to do this, he just happens to need to be really athletic which happens to give him an amazing body... That's a totally different thing. And, it's really hot. Too hot.

I like being a girl. I like the way girls look. I think girls are incredibly beautiful creatures, and it makes me feel fortunate to be female. But, when I feel like that about a guy... Marvelling at the beauty of a powerful, highly trained male body, that's a totally different story. It fucking makes me want to be a guy. I don't think I've ever experienced that in my life.

I used to be so anti-looks. I used to completely ignore the way people looked at all. But, I'm not anymore. I like things that are beautiful. I like things that are naturally beautiful. I like the way lines and curves come together. I like things that look right, that look as they should be. I like things that are flawless, as though everything came together perfectly and nothing should be anything but how they are right now.

I'm hitting another lull. I need to sleep and eat better. And I need to get a real place to live. I don't think I sleep very well on the shitty, lopsided mattress that I have.

I think I have a chemical addition to Irish hair.

Why is it that I am so cynical and suspicious of anything that might be construed as complimentary? I feel like someone is trying to dupe me. Not necessarily that I don't believe that it's true. It may very well be. But, if someone is laying it on really thick, I can't help but feel like they are applying carefully learned rules of the game on me. Like, Dude who literally said to me, "I'm a monogamous kind of guy."

But, even with him pulling cheesy fucking lines like that, he did really like me and I know he was basically driving at the fact that he wanted to be in a non-casual relationship with me, but it still sounds so fake and, well, stupid.

Hmm, there I go again. Keep on thinking about other people and not myself. Concentrating on if someone else's feelings are true, when, really, if some dude is trying to express his true or untrue feelings in that way, maybe I just think he's retarded.

Well, this is really interesting. I feel bad that I don't think I like this dude. He's really nice, really kind of fascinating, really friendly, has a soothing voice (which I think is another one of those weird things that I'm really into), he's ridiculously fit (sigh), he has a firm, confident grip, and he has that Irish hair. He doesn't say stupid things all of the time. He's not a pretentious up and coming young professional, anxious to climb that ladder. He seems to like me, though I'm not sure why since we have such little in common. Yet, the only thing I'm really interested in is access to his lovely Irish hair. And maybe his voice. It's not very low, but I can actually feel its vibrations when we sit close to each other. But, anyway. I guess this just means I just don't dig him. And, I feel bad for that. Oh well. If you don't like a guy, you don't like a guy.

One of the things that me and Dude do not have in common is that he's really passionate and committed to things. He's really good at something and he totally makes an entire life out of it. On the one hand, it's cool and certainly interesting, but I wonder if it makes it difficult for him to have good friends who don't have one of his interests since he talks about it a ton and is always doing stuff related to it. Well, Dude is a total design nerd and we still get along. He keeps on fucking trying to talk about fonts and crap, and it's a constant battle, but things somehow work out. But, we've also known each other for forever, so we have like half a lifetime in common.

There are a couple of people who give French/Spanish lessons in this coffee shop. I think it's really cool.

Okay, so I kind of envy that passion. I wish I felt the same way about something. I wonder if it's just a personality thing. That these people are just passionate, committed people, and the thing they are so into is more or less arbitrary. Maybe I just don't have the heart.

Hey, it's a possibility. And, if it's true, maybe I should be concentrating more on finding heart instead of experimenting with different activities that are supposed to waken my nonexistent heart.

I definitely have trust issues. I think it extends beyond people. I have trouble trusting that a passing interest of mine will still be there for me when I need it. It sounds like it all comes down to fear and risk. I know for a fact that this runs in my family. My cousin refuses to fly anywhere by himself. My mom questions the stability of the architecture of her home and sometimes needs assurance that the second floor won't collapse. Excuses not to do stuff.

I'm like the most daring person in my family. It's so pathetic. My uncles think I'm crazy for riding a motorcycle. I accidentally rode my bicycle to my aunt's house 20 miles away, and they still talk about that. I go camping in Mexico and they fear for my life. But, then again everybody does that. Everyone is always telling me to be careful. To watch out for the bad people. I hate it.

So, I have this firm belief that as long as you act like a decent person, and you aren't an idiot carrying around super valuable things in every pocket, you should be fine. Nothing anybody says can shake this belief of mine. I'm not retarded. I can take care of myself. Please shove off. (I get safety lectures a lot).

So, I guess I can risk tangible things with zero problems. My wallet, my life, whatever. These things are replaceable, and if they're not, once you lose it, you'll never notice it's gone. Hmm, so it is the uncertainty I can't stand? If your wallet is gone, it's gone. You know what is gone and you know what to do to get it all replaced. There are no what if's, what could've been's. But, instead of this clear-cutness, you have all of these infinite possibilities. A chaos of possibilities and only one point that you can see with no clue of the past, present, or future.

Ugh, I just caught a glimpse of a guy who has really amazing hair (glance at forearms -> glance at base of neck -> pleasant, feminine shudder). I. Have. Problems.

I have trouble picking. There are a million things that I can see myself trying. But, to commit to any one of them is such a harrowing thought.

There are (at least) two things in question here. One, what to do. Two, am I ready to find something that I want to do? The second question is far more interesting.

Ugh, why am I so tired and out of it today. Today and yesterday. Maybe it's the second hand pot.

Random guys in SF are way better, too. Even SF jerk-offs are better than SD jerk-offs.

I don't think one should trust any guy who right off the bat tells me that he can only date one girl at a time and lists off all of these traits and preferences that make him such a gentlemanly commitarian.

I think I have attention over-suffiency disorder.

I was exploring the city with my friend this weekend and I know exactly where I want to live, now. It was a big weight off my shoulders to have one huge thing in my life settled. It felt really good.

SF is just cooler in every way imaginable. Everything about it is Better. People just aren't really lame and don't make any sense. SD has always felt incredibly airy and superficial, and now that I'm in a city where it feels more like people make their own independent decisions and look for things that would actually make sense in their lives, that vague disdain for SD is becoming more and more concrete. There have been things that I've looked for in SD that I haven't been able to find when they're such basic things, and I've just taken it for granted that that's just how things were. But, they're everywhere in SF. There just isn't nearly as much useless shit. SD is like pure crap with a pretty face. SF is an extremely high level of function...so high that you actually sit and marvel about the genius, thought, and care that went into it, in an incredibly beautiful, unique, practical yet stand-out form.

I was reading some of the entries that I haven't put online yet, and wow, I had way too much time to think. It's amazing how physical distance makes a whole section of your life disappear. I'm still having memory flashbacks of DnG though. Maybe when I start a full-time occupation, that too will fade.

Yes, my cuteness is completely just insecurity, lack of confidence, a nervous habit. I do it because I'm not sure what the right thing for me to do is, and it's almost a plea for forgiveness. My cuteness, at its worst, is helplessness. I've got to tone it down.

I feel so proud of myself. I'm being incredibly productive. I'm actually doing all of the stuff that I need to do. This may be the first time in my life that I have done this, at least to this extent. I feel like I'm on the verge of actually being capable of being happy (because I am doing things that, though hard and trying, will lead to greater life satisfaction). Dude is such a godsend. I have so many doubts and uncertanties and excuses, and he's so supportive about it. I'll work myself up until I'm frozen in a state of inaction, and he unfreezes me. It's calming talking to him about all of the crap I say to myself to prevent myself from doing anything at all. I'm actually kind of amazed that he puts up with it when really, he has every right to shoot me on contact for all of the things he has to listen to from me. I should send him a fruit basket.

I picked up this book by one of my favorite authors - The Bachelors by Henri de Montherlant. It's really kind of interesting because he's extremely misogynistic and the four novels (tetralogy) that I've read are almost solely about female stupidity, yet, The Bachelors barely has any female characters at all. Nope, it's about two very eccentric bachelors that make up all sorts of excuses and end up never doing anything whatsoever for their whole lives. This book scared the fuck out of me. I can't end up like that.

Books are a fascinating hobby. Dude and I were talking about what people do with their time. Mothers that we know who do virtually nothing but watch the news, buy trinkets, watch the home shopping network, etc. They find value and entertainment in what they do, it occupies their time and their minds very effectively. Yet, I could never do what they do and they probably could never enjoy what I do. I feel a need to only do things that are productive yet take no effort. This limits many of the things that I do, and usually leads me to dawdle around doing nothing instead of doing something entertaining yet non-productive. I'll do something social like eating or drinking or camping or hiking or watching movies (and sometimes T.V. if absolutely necessary), I'll call up my friends and chat, I'll cook, I'll take walks, I'll read books. Doing anything social where you are interacting with real, live human beings in real life situations is pretty much always good for you. Eating is a great social activity. Drinking is almost an unfailingly fun social activity. Camping and hiking is good for your body, but more importantly relaxing and rejuvenating. Good movies are a great experience. Keeping in touch with friends, hearing them laugh and being involved with each other is a necessary and really awesome part of life, especially when you have real friends. Cooking means eating and that's never bad. Walking is good for the exercise and really getting to know where you live and sometimes finding really cool things you never knew about. Now, reading is something I do because it keeps my mind awake. I think it's good for your brain. But, of late, I've read a good number of books that have really opened my eyes. I don't know if it's because I'm becoming a little more anxious about my life and am kind of doing some intense soul-searching, or if it's just because I'm reading a lot more than I used to. But, reading is actually helping me lead my life. Better. I'm really glad I like to read.

I am at a very difficult time in my life.

It's really hard not giving up on things categorically at any hint of an obstacle. Really fucking hard. The only thing keeping me going with this is that I only have to do this for one year, just to see how it goes.

I hate living by myself. I want roommates again. It's frustrating that I cannot have this immediately. When I feel a need for something, I usually prefer a flurry of activity until it happens. To work fervently until I have it. Instead, I must have patience and operate within normal channels.

Fear of rejection or a lack of confidence. Is it the same thing?

You know what. Charity is stupid. It's humiliating when you ned it and despicable when you don't. Gratitude is so debasing. True charity is helping people without them knowing it, making them think that either they did it themselves or that it was luck, and fully knowing that you will get absolutely shit for it. People do it to obtain friendship, for self-satisfying pleasure, for the hope of something in return, tit-for-tat. They want to soak up the gratitude and appreciation. There's nothing worse than doing something for someone without even a thank you in return. Equal exchanges are better. For everyone. Who wants to feel indebted to another person? Who wants to give to a selfish ingrate? When someone gives freely to you, don't you just take and take? When you love someone, you kind of take their life for your own. Their good fortune feels like your good fortune. There's nothing wrong with that as long as it goes boh ways. It's nice to feel like someone is "on your team" as they say. Some people have a tendancy to adopt other people's lives excessively. Sometimes I have that tendancy. It's 100% for fear of having to deal with my own life, and it's probably unfailingly with selfish people who have no qualms taking and taking.

So, fuck. I need to concentrate on my own life. Fuck it if I screw things up. Fuck it f I have no idea what I'm doing. Nobody's going to care about my life except me. I need to accept that my life is my own and to stop avoiding it.

Humiliation, degradation, callousness in the face of someone's agony while they beg fo your mercy are such big parts of the human psyche. Where do they stem from, what purpose do they serve? Why do people enjoy it so much, why do some people actually crave it be done? That's one part of humanity I never learned in my psych classes. Why would someone enjoy their own subjugation? I guess it's like a pack of dogs. The weaker, submissive dogs are free from having to think and decide and taking any responsibility from their actions. But, to actually take pleasure in the abuse? To take comfort in someone's callousness? Maybe abusiveness and callousness is a show of power. I know it's functional to be attracted to power. That docile trust is so alluring. To put yourself in the hands of another, to be subjected to their worst cruelty yet always knowing that even with this power you've given over to them, they will do you no harm. And he who does this, amazed at how far you will let him go. Your faith, devotion, trust in him. It brings you closer. To give your will to another person. That is a very intimate thing. "No, you have to be gentle. No, you have to be kind. No, you have to make me feel like you love me." No. Now, "Do whatever you like." That's love...just not on an equal footing.

But, to make someone whisper the numerous ways they love you, to treasure every moment with you, to worship every inch of you...isn't that humiliation, too? To have someone shower you with adoration.

I guess this is all just different versions of adopting someone else's life. The first is when you adopt his (or hers), the second is when he or she has adopted yours, and then, the third would be if you both feel the same way. You're both interested in each other's pleasure.

That's what I love so much. When someone is acting entirely for their own selfish pleasure by taking advantage of me, and then forcing me to enjoy this degradation. God, the power he must feel. For me to take pleasure in what he takes from me, and then ask him for more. What he wants becomes what I want. I don't think I want to want this anymore. I want to figure out what I want outside anybody else. Too easily do I adopt other people's lives.

It frees me to feel my own pleasure. When I know he only cares about his pleasure and not mine, it allows me to feel whatever I want. To enjoy myself without pressure. He's looking out for his pleasure, so now I can feel free to look out for mine. Otherwise, I feel pressured to assure the guy, "Yes all of this unselfish, generous pleasuring you are doing is working. Feels good, oh so good." I think it's because I don't feel okay in demanding or asking for my own pleasure. I feel uncertain. I don't really value myself, do I? I'm not confident, I'm not assertive.

That's why I'm so mean. I don't feel like I can politely refuse people. I don't feel like I can. Like, I don't have the right. I'm mean to people so that they will stop wanting to approach me.l I can't just demand politely and simply that my wishes be respected. It doesn't occur to be as a possibility. Why would anyone listen to me?

That's why I get so frustrated. I don't feel like I have a right to ask for anything, but I still feel like people should have the commen sense/courtesy to respect my unknown wishes. Nobody gives a shit. They'll take as much as they can, or they are so caught up in what they want and feel, they don't have the time to anticipate my every need. This is why I couldn't stand anything in SD.

Fuck, I have a lot of really shitty memories from my time in SD. Crappy roommates, a really crappy job, a fucking crappy apartment. What the fuck was I thinking? Why didn't I do anything about any of that? No wonder I'm so bitter and grumpy. I still feel really awful about DnG. I sometimes find myself thinking about it still, and then, trying to push the bad memories out of my head. I'm so retarded.

I think I have a tendancy to stick with things, even if they don't work. For fear of complete disinterest in everything else.

If I live my life they way I usually do here, I'm going to get lonely really fast.

Goals: Find a job, find roommates, find a ceramics studio, walk around the city. I just need to put myself in contact with people. Connect more, isolate less. Maybe I'll follow Dude's suggestion and take up drawing of the human form.

Goddammit, I'm already really bored.

I'm going to get a book from the library tomorrow.

Yeah, maybe drawing isn't a bad idea. I'd like something that I can do anywhere.

I want to stop watching movies, though. It seems like an avoidance of life. But, I guess you do sometimes need a mindless break from life. Not that the movies I like are mindless. Reading could also be called an avoidane, I suppose.

San Diego has made me so caught up on appearances. I'm glad to be rid of that influence (at least more so).

It was kind of hard coming back up here the second time beause I didn't have the support that I thought I would have the first time. So..., why not? I pushed away that support. I think it's still out there. I should reach out for it.

I need to forget about the two guys who make me feel like I'm not good enough. Feeling inadequate is a shitty feeling. Not particularly good for you. I need to figure out how not to need the approval of people who make me feel like I'm not good enough (or, rather, the ever-unattainable utter love and devotion).

Christina, can we please try to fix your life, already?

Can you stop giving up on everything?

Can you please put yourself out there and try things that might not work?

Can you stop worrying that everything you do might turn out to be a waste of effort (you know that's just an excuse)?

Invest in your own fucking life. Fuck. Isn't the principle "the earlier you start, the better"? So start. Fucking start.

Oh yeah. My stepdad gave me a speech about how they are always looking out for me, how they want to be involved in my life, that I should tell my mom what I'm up to and that I love her, how I'm always welcome in their house...I responded with a blank face. I think he wanted to hug me goodbye. I do notknow how to do such things. I can't bring myself to hug my parents. I can't bring myself to tell them, "I love you." I think the only thing I understand is sex. It makes sense that someone who wants to fuck something is attached to me as someone he is fucking. I can buy that. I can even play the part. Dude told me whatever I need is mine, all I have to do is ask. I just said, "uh huh." I don't know how to accept kindness and generosity. Not one tiny bit. Ex would never do anything nice for me. I knew I could count on him for anything I needed, but I had to ask for it. It was an open invitation that I actually took to heart, but I never had to ask myself, "Why is he doing this, why is he being so nice, how am I supposed to respond to this?" Dude, I don't know.

I'm not a benefit of the doubt type of person.

"Maybe things won't work out, but why not try."

Ugh. I'm starting to become really sluggish, I'm oversleeping, and my thoughts are becoming my main form of entertainment.

I don't have a strong tendancy towards happy thoughts.

So, I'm not yet at the point in my life where I could retire happily. That's for sure. So, I still really have to find a more significant driving force in my life. One that takes up more of my time. Or, if not one, several significant threads that occupy my thoughts and my time. Motivation. I need a motivating force. Maybe financial consulting would be good. I think I'd like to be fully in charge of an aspect of several people's lives, makig sure things work out for them. Allow themselves to enjoy their lives and not worry and stew over such a dirty, disgusting thing as money. Maybe I could specialist in people who have nothing. I mean, that would be more fun, and obviously more challenging. I think I'll talk to Tom Corbat and see how he likes it. That guy was a pretty big figure in my life, at least as far as the direction he sent me.

Ah, to be human by being utterly inhuman.

This 27th year of life, Christina Tran will Enjoy Herself.

When I was without my cell phone for those long, long days, I really went back in time. I made my own dress. I found this fabric on clearance. It was really, really soft and looked incredibly warm, so I thought that I would make pajamas out of it. It would be like wearing a blanket around the house. Dresses are way more comfortable and seemed easier to make than pants and a shirt, so I decided to go for a dress. I have no idea how to make dresses, so this is how things turned out. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing when I was making it, just totally pinning things randomly and then sewing, and then trying on again to see if it looked wearable. I'm actually really fucking proud of myself for producing this.

So, I write all of this stuff about OD, who fucking reads this shit, so I would just like to explain a couple things. I never like to say nice things about people, so I gloss over all of that. (Girl is obviously a big exception for a lot of different reasons). I feel like I like him more than I am really emotionally prepared to like anybody at this current juncture in my life, so I consciously try to exaggerate negative things. It makes me feel better. Basically try to come up with reasons why I should like him less and not be so attached or concerned or something. It's definitely a level of friendship that is foreign to me and causes me concern. I feel it not to be right. I don't know.

What the fuck. My friend is tell telling me that it's all totally normal to feel this strongly about a friend. To like, miss them and shit. I don't fucking know about that. Is this really what normal humans feel? It's pretty fucking intense. I don't get it.

Hmm, well he says that since we aren't seeing each other every day like we used to, it's normal for me to miss that, which I guess makes sense. And, he says that I'll get over it, but fucking duh I'll have to feel it first.

Okay, FINE. I will allow myself to experience the sensation of missing someone. There.

I guess a part of it is that I hate the idea that I am feeling this sensation when the other person doesn't. This is something that I have always refused to do and will go at length to prevent, in other words, overcompensating by acting and trying to make myself feel far less attached than circumstances permit.

So, OD and I talked for a really long time. I didn't write about it because I didn't have anything to say about it. I guess that means I don't know what to make of it. But, I might as well give an account of what happened if nothing else.

Hmm, I'm not even sure what to say. Fuck, I'm not even sure what happened so I guess I'll just try to remember the night in chronological order.

We all ended up at Dude's place and were watching T.V. It was pretty lame, so I wanted to either go do something else or go home. OB BBQ plans fizzled out, so we just went to OD's place where my bike was. Didn't want to eat or drink anymore, so that kind of ruled out anything that would have been open that late, so tried to sober up so I could ride the bike back home and ended up lounging around in his bed, talking.

This is where my memory gets a little fuzzy. In no particular order, we talked about how much he likes me in all of these different ways. How he feels abnormally close to me. How he doesn't want anything between us to be sexual and why. (The why being that sex does weird and fucked up things to his head and subsequently fucks up beyond recognition his relationships to people, because of our chemistry issues, and probably some other minor reasons). How he never allows himself to touch or be touched by anyone, from hugs or a pat on the back to even just sitting close to each other. I told him that it's very true; I'm usually very touchy-feely and I never felt like I could make any physical contact with him. He said he wished he wasn't like that, kind of understood it to be unhealthy in general and specifically for his views on sexual relationships which is his only outlet for any physical sensation. He told me how Dude was telling him that he should have different people fulfill different needs and couldn't expect it all to come from one person. I told him I was still a little bit in love with him and he said, "No, duh" and told me he was a little bit in love with me. Um, let's see... He said something about three outcomes to us hooking up and going further that one night - 1) it being this weird thing, indulgence, he said, that only happened once and would just kind of be uncomfortable, 2) us becoming fuckmates and it ruining everything between us, as what usually happens when he gets involved, and we'd never be friends again, or 3) we'd get married and live happily (or complacently) ever after and the whole bit, and, how he didn't want any of those things to happen. Also said he wouldn't want us to fuck in those circumstances, either, because it wouldn't have given it the importance that it deserved (except I think he used a different word). He asked me if it ever bothered me when he talked about girls because I wrote something in pretentiousness about it, so I told him I was referring to how obsessed he is with beautiful women and how I had thought to myself at the time that I wouldn't want to go out with someone like that. And that he was so entranced with all of these girls which had made me question at least once why he didn't also find me attractive. He talked about a certain body type he was drawn to and that plenty of other guys would love to fuck me, just not him. That he has thought or fantasized about me and mentioned one or two specific things, but that you just get over all of that stuff so you can be friends. Um, what else? Oh, I should trust that he won't ever hurt me and that he wants to be as close as possible (although I don't remember if he said as close as is possible with me and him being the two different people we are, or "as close as humanly possible"...maybe he didn't specify). He told me how profoundly he missed me when he was on vacation because it was the longest time we had been away since we've met and that it really threw him for a loop when I told him I was moving away. Said he felt like he could talk about anything with me. That there were so many things that he is attracted to in me that totally overshadows my physical appearance. He said that when I ask him for his help, it's like a gift to him, like a tangible iteration of our friendship. There might be more, but I'm not going to spend forty minutes trying to remember it all.

So, that's my recap.

I guess there may be a small possibility that he doesn't hate me.

Actually, I felt a lot better after we talked. In the morning, that is. In the meantime, it was pure pain and torture. To hear that someone you love likes you and values you really fucking hurts. I just wanted to hurt myself to distract myself from the pain. It was really deeply and intensely painful. Don't ask me why. It made me wish he would just slit my throat, out of empathy, compassion, and kindness. "Please, don't make me feel this. I'd rather feel a steel blade enter my neck, gently easing all of the pain and hopeless effort of my life." Fingers caressingly closing over my throat, taking away any last miserable breaths that can never know love or happiness. I don't know. It was like he was trying to rip love out of my heart, or into it, or I don't know what the fuck. I don't fucking know. You fucking tell me what's going on. All I know is that when I dug my fingernails in my skin, pressing them down my arm, I felt much better.

And, in the morning, I felt fantastic.

Okay, bad thing that Christina does. I'll sit and be bored and not do anything about it because I'm waiting for something to happen in 30 minutes. I should just go and do something else. I am retarded.

So, I didn't say something that was obvious, but I should. It's totally dumb that OD doesn't think I'm hot. What the fuck? What kind of world do we live in?? I mean, I've never really thought I was particularly pretty by any means, but no one has ever really complained about my body. Non-offensive is how I would describe myself. Guys are fucking pervs. They want to fuck anyone who isn't utterly grotesque. And OD is constantly in love with at least 5 girls in his visual vicinity. So, what the holy fuck? It pisses me off.

Eh, forget it. It's not like he's my ideal sex god, either. No, I don't care. I'm still pissed off.

Wait, forget everything I said. The reason why I leave an impression on people is because I see all of their good qualities in a light that they never really see. I magnify them because I think it's so amazing that they have them. I accept it with everything else because I am in such awe that they could even have them in the first place, that it makes any faults okay. I see people the way I think they should see themselves. And, I also take a genuine interest in them. I think that most of the time, people just take a superficial interest in other people. I think I take a little bit more time and try to figure out how they're really feeling and I notice things that other people don't really notice. Yeah, maybe that's the big thing. I just notice things about themselves, the amazing qualities people have, and I notice their moods and thoughts. I don't know, I just pay attention, and actually give very particular attention to them. Maybe the reason they think I'm special and memorable is because I make them feel special and memorable.

I think I want to call up Dennis when I'm up in SF. He gets a lot of schmoozers after him. Just call him to have coffee because I admire and respect him and just want to talk about what he's up to and just be around him because I think it's healthy for me. A good influence. He left a pretty strong impression on me.

I've never really sought people out like this before. It's kind of fun. Meeting random people in your life that you really get along with in certain (sometimes very specific) ways and actually keeping in touch with them. It's fucking awesome, man.

I saw two people yesterday from work. It was really great. I had no idea that Girl who worked for me would miss me so much and lament being there without me. I have to admit, it felt pretty awesome. Oh yeah. But, it's definitely nice to know the kind of impact you have on people's lives. It makes me feel good. I woke up this morning feeling really good about myself. I also kind of feel like I want to hug and kiss all sorts of people.

I like having fake crushes on girls and pretending I'm in love with them and acting like I'm in love with them. I obviously like girls who are cool and willing to play along with me on this.

I definitely like to be emotionally effusive. I was looking through some stuff yesterday, and someone had described me as having a bubbling attitude. I can get like that sometimes, even though it's weird that someone would say that about bitter, cynical me. An emotional outpouring. It's fun.

I think that might be why Other Dude hit me so hard. He's so emotionally restrictive which forces me to be emotionally restrictive, and I felt all of these things about him that I felt inhibited to express when ordinarily I wouldn't think about it and just do it. So, when stuff happened that allowed all of that to be expressed, it came out in a huge, explosive flood. It was finally all released at fucking once. And, of course, as we all know, it really fucking caught me by surprise. I'm coping with it better right now. Assimilating it into my everyday emotional landscape.

Right now, we are sitting in a coffee shop together. For the last few days, I've been hanging out with all of these people I love and I'm feeling really good about myself and some of the things I've done in my life, or maybe even how I've led some of my life. All I want to do is hug him, or really anyone else I care about, except that he's the only one within hugging distance, and talk about how great he's been in my life. But, I don't feel like I can do that. I never really have. Not unless I'm drunk, or I'm moving 500 miles away and won't see him in forever. And even hen, it was just short snippets of sentences. He's really awesome and stuff, but he's not really all that emotionally satisfying. At least for my type of person, or our type of relationship. But, that's okay. Maybe it's healthier.

Hmm, so I guess there are just certain feelings that I'll never be able to share with him. I get to feel those things a lot with Girl. And, occasionally with other friends. That's good enough. I like that I get to feel it. It's kind of like, Girl is sitting in a chair, I'm kneeling on the floor with her, my arms resting on her lap, I'm looking up into her eyes, maybe holding her hands and I'm telling her how much she means to me and how much it means to the world that people like her exist. I kind of stroke her hair and give her a big, warm hug for a long time, squeezing hard saying, "Oh, Girlsname." I don't know if that explains it very well. It's a nice feeling. It's totally over-the-top, grandiose, epic even. Okay, it's just really cheesy. But, it's all in good fun. It's easier for me to express it in a kind of mockery of it. Almost a caricature of how I really feel, except it is how I really feel. I just want people to experience good things. I don't know.

Maybe that's why dogs and kittens like me so much. Because I act like I like them so much and just want them to feel good. I just want to share in this moment of them liking me and me liking them. That's totally it.

I want to write this down so I remember to think about it later. Dude told me that it's really awesome to read about me discovering the parts of myself that he knows and likes about me. That it might be a bit egocentric, but he's glad I figured it out.

Crushes on girls are safe because nothing can ever amount to anything. Rejection is the given, the only outcome, so it's safe.

[Useless entry alert]. Dude has been with the same dude for 14 years. He seems like a pretty cool guy. I've never met him.

I notice weird things about people. Like faded pinhole ear piercings that are almost completely gone. Or, when someone talks to his mother, he never refers to her as "mom."

I kind of like that about Dude. He notices stuff. I'm not sure about him noticing these really nitpicky details, but he makes observations and conclusions about people that can be pretty accurate. I think he's a little obsessive about it, though. And maybe paranoid sometimes. He's also occasionally prone to jumping to conclusions. Perceiving something and granting it intentions that were never there. Kind of seems a little anxious and insecure. But, most of the times I feel it's very insightful.

So, this is how extreme my dysfunction is. I asked my friend if he wanted to hang out, but he had something that might happen, so he told me, "maaybe." I guess this hurt me a little and certainly made me think that he liked me less than I thought he did and that I shouldn't depend on his friendship. And, a little down the line, I kind of thought I should get the fuck out of here and that probably was so that I would never have to deal with talking to him. Fuck, I can't believe I do this. Over something so fucking minor. When it's minor like this, I usually push these thoughts away and get over them on my own, but how much do I really get over them? How did I get this way?

It's been like this at least since high school. Phil told me that I needed to build up a sense of rejection and be okay with it. Told me that people will be brats and assholes to you but will like you just the same. He was more referring to strangers and my shyness, but it's all the same to me. Whether a complete stranger answers, "I don't know" and offers nothing else to a question or if a friend says "I don't know" if I ask him if he wants to hang out with me...I just come to the conclusion that they hate me. Maybe this is why I act so cute. Just so people don't have the opportunity to reject me. I bet this is is. Whenever I come up to people, I kind of enter into their peripheral space and signal something like, "Hi, over here...I'm sorry...I had the tiniest question I wanted to ask you, would it be okay if I got your attention for a little bit?" Then, I'll start asking my question like I hate that I have to ask it and inconvenience anybody, but they are so incredibly wonderful for hearing me out. Then, I act all relieved with I get answered and act like they've saved my entire day. It's all very subtle and shy and cute and I think it actually makes people happy to help me out. I mean, I do everything. I ask their permission, wait to actually receive it, acknowledge (and exaggerate) their inconvenience, and thank them profusely and make them feel so smart for knowing something that I couldn't figure out. Nooo chance for rejection there.

This is probably why I have the friends I do. People who really, really like me...I mean, more than a normal friend really should. And, well, a lot of the times, people whose opinion of me I can take or I can leave. People who I admire and respect and find incredible in all of these ways, but whose views just do not mesh with mine at all. Heh, I mean, I may even think their way of life is far better than mine (or, at least healthier, which I guess I don't even give a shit about and may possibly disdain...), but their opinion of me would never be aligned with my opinion of me, at least in that "cosmic" sense, so this gives me freedom. Freedom for me to call them up whenever I want to, freedom from thinking about rejection. Hmm, it's kind of like, if they reject me, it's not really like I'm rejecting me. Like, something from outside my fucked up world is rejecting me, so it never gets to me. It gets deflected. It is incompatible with my world and just can't enter. It gets rejected like a drop of A blood in a B blood stream. Not that I purposely seek these people out. I've only met a couple people ever with views quite like mine, but, I mean, who does? It's generally rare. But, I guess it's possible that I could have friends whose views didn't differ quite so much.

Oh yeah, my friend has been curt when answering questions I've been sending him. Well, maybe not curt, it was a text message, but pretty much as short as possible. This also leads me to believe that he hates me. Both of them did this last night.

I woke up this morning wanting to get plugged back into life. To get a move on stuff - moving up north, getting a job. To be more active and push forward, blah, blah, blah. I will not deign to believe that it has nothing to do with feeling like all of my friends hate me.

'I saw this book, "The Science of Boredom" and I thought of you because I don't know anyone else who thinks so mcuh about boredom'

Having my life wide open is making me more patient, less annoyed, more motivated...no, less unwilling to do things, is helping me cope better with my boredom, is giving me time to think about what the fuck I'm doing (in every tiny, daily, unconscious thing) in life and in relationships. And, when my thoughts get out of hand, it forces me to seek out something productive to do because I can't just wait for work to start or do things to prepare me for work to start. In general, I have to consciously seek out what I am to do. I must act alive. Not mindlessly walking through life with some unwavering notion that this mindless walking will eventually lead to tasty brains.

Work. You're given mindless tasks for purposes you barely know about except some bull shit they feed you. You take it as a given that you must follow these orders every single fucking day. You float through life like a zombie. All of your goals are given to you. Your whole life is centered around this fucking job. When you eat, when you sleep, when you fuck or masturbate. Bah!

Most people can handle work and have a life. Maybe it's not ideal, but they can do it. I cannot. If I do stuff, I will end up skipping dinner or not showering for days, sometimes not even taking a shit. If I tend to all of the things I need to do on a daily basis, I won't be able to do anything else. That's probably why I always end up switching from mind-aching boredom to whirlwind glamour and excitement. I'll either just do a bunch of stuff and get carried away with it, not thinking of anything I have to do, or I'll think about the food that I have this much time to make, then the hour or two I have to take a shower, and then how I need to go to bed an hour after that. Then, I end up doing nothing. I just don't work in two hour increments.

Except, I do now that I'm jobless. I don't need to stress out about if I'll have enough time for everything, so I can do whatever. I am free to happily occupy myself while I'm watching my laundry. I can do whatever I want and it doesn't matter. By not worrying so much about wasting time, or, rather, drawing out activities that could be done in a shorter period of time by watching them closely so that there will be zero idle time because I took too long to press a button or what not, I am actually far more productive. If I forget something and have to make 2 or 3 trips, I'll just make the extra trips instead of saving it for the next time I'll be over there anyway (and then end up never doing it for months). Last night, I went out after 10 pm to run three errands. I got back in time for a decent bedtime. I would never do that when I had work. I would just say to myself that I have to get up early, and if the errands took longer than I thought, I'd feel tired the next day, and I have to be asleep by 12:00, so I should just stay put and wait for bedtime. God. Am I obsessive compulsive or something? What the fuck? Perhaps this is one of the causes of my laziness. Worry. Oh, and psyching myself out of stuff. Maybe not worry, but just giving up on stuff if it's not a guaranteed success, with ample time for fuck ups. Or, something like that.

I just made some rice for lunch. I wasn't sure if what I made would be enough or too little. After further deliberation, I decided I could just make more if it wasn't enough. I would ordinarily stress over this decision and worry that I wouldn't have enough time or energy to do this again if I fucked up and didn't make enough. Work sucks. It fucks you up.

I made a few hundred dollars. I feel so proud of myself, so accomplished. I suppose I could just go get a job really quickly and make several hundred dollars a week, but that sounds really uninviting. At least this way, I was doing something I believed in, that mattered to me. I felt helpful. That my hours of work, even though it really wasn't fun, had a positive impact on something I gave a shit about. I should find something like that. I wonder how long that fulfillment would last if I was really annoyed with what I had to do. I should probably go for both. Contributing towards something I believe in. Feeling that what I do everyday furthers some cause. AND, doing something enjoyable. How fucking simple. That's where I should start.

I've been going about this the wrong way (I think). I've been trying to find this mysterious passion that I will always love to do an never get tired of. Maybe I should just start off doing something I care about. That seems easier, because I don't fucking know how anything is going to be without doing it every day. So, how am I supposed to begin to look? I should just start doing whatever in a place that is doing cool or meaningful shit.

You know what? While I'm camping out down here, I'll go check out Outdoor Outreach. Why the fuck not?

So, now I'm just kind of thinking that Other Dude can stand pretty much anyone for any length of time, and it doesn't really mean anything about how much he likes them or anything. People that he can't stand, he'll see every day, every minute that he's free. I just fall somewhere in that pile. (Can you tell that I like to devalue myself?)

So yeah, this is exactly what I do all of the time. Feel like something is going away, so I push it even farther. In fact, I never wanted it in the first place. I was just mistaken about it and now that I see things more clearly, it turns out it's better this way anyway. How perfect things turned out. Eh, whatcha going to do?

Fuck, I know I do this. I know that what I'm doing right now sounds suspiciously like this thing that I do, yet I still believe this is the exception, and the lies that I like to tell myself are actually true in this case. I want so badly to believe it. Fuck, it's comforting. It's comforting to be certain of something and try to move on. At least you know what to do about it. Remove that, and there's only anxiety. God fucking dammit. I've been fucking through all of this fucking shit before. This is what I do. My M.O. I thought I got over it. And, I did when it comes to my general life, but not this. This is capable of way the fuck more hurt.

Dude, I don't know which fucking way is up or down anymore. I've screwed so much crap up in my head, everything is just a blur of confusion. All I feel certain of is that he doesn't give a shit about me anymore than any random person, which is exactly the one and only thing I felt certain about with my ex. Am I making it all up in my head? Do they contribute to it at all? Argh! All of this just makes me want to never talk to him again. "Look, our friendship is all screwed up now. There's nothing to be done about it anymore. The only thing to do is to scrap it before it causes anyone any more grief."

This is one of the problems I had with my ex. I screwed so much stuff up in my head, and it didn't make any sense, and I knew it didn't make any sense, but there was so much of it, I couldn't keep any of it straight. So, when it came time for us to talk about things, where I would have to explain this irrational mess, my mind would just go blank. I knew that as soon as I said it out loud, it would sound so ridiculous, there would be nothing to discuss. So, my mind couldn't even begin to verbalize it in a coherent (or even incoherent manner). I literally just could not think of anything. My head would become empty of all thoughts. Yeah, I know. Lame.

Wow, this is going to be a lot harder to fix than anything I could ever think of. Impossible; I'm kind of thinking of the word impossible.

I mean, obviously all of this crap is exponentially heightened because I'm feeling it towards someone who isn't in love with me. So, in that sense, it's good for exposing all of these dysfunctions without mixing in other confusing variables. But, it seems like I should stay away from him until I get over this. Over whatever this is, I don't even know. I still have no idea how all of this got started. Exploded from nothing.

So, I just recently wrote that both ex and Other Dude make me feel insecure. Is it them or is it me? Like, my ex has fully admitted that he has severe commitment issues. I mean, I actually approve of that (in theory). Who wants to be stuck with the same person for the rest of their lives at the age of 24? But, it certainly validated my insecurity. And Other Dude falls in love with girls left and right. I think he's in love with at least three separate girls right now. So, am I looking for this? Is this just a coincidence? Do I only allow myself to fall for wandering types? Kind of a fear of failure, so I can only invest in surefire failures so I don't have to take any real risk?

Okay, time to leave this line of of thought before it takes over (though it's probably too late. Good night.

My friend was telling me that movie stars get paid a lot, but they're getting paid to take huge risks that most of us aren't willing to take. I think it's true to a certain extent, but their egos are also stroked and coddled incessantly. It's like a stroking contest. "YOU, my good man, are a singular talent." "You light up the stage." "Darling, you were marvelous." Just isolate yourself with people who "believe in you," and there you go. You're an invincible star.

Dude is totally great. He can drive me to a state of rabid frustration, but he's always easy going and cool with everything. I like it. It's calming. Even if I sometimes want to ram a burning rod into his eye socket, when I pull it out and tell him I might have been a little rash in doing that, I know we'll always be back again, totally cool. He's a fine friend.

Fucking awesome. The holidays have just started to creep around the corner. When Halloween stuff starts popping up, I think that Thanksgiving is right after that, then xmas. Unpleasant thoughts. But, before it really started to plague my mind, Dude invited me to his family thing for xmas. This year I am saved. I have at least one acceptable option. Yikes, I really don't have much of a life right now. I hope I'll be okay. But, maybe it's better. I can do whatever I want, go wherever I want. Fuck, I can skip the entire holiday season if I want. Go camping for two months. But, if I see one goddamn xmas bell or shiny ribbon or xmas light in the woods...One family singing xmas carols...

I'm really kind of enjoying myself here. Having no established life whatsoever. I didn't think I would. I thought I'd get bored real fucking quick. But, I've got friends and family, a few things to do. Maybe not hugely important things, but worthy things that I would never have time or patience to do otherwise.

Not to mention pretentiousness. If I didn't have pretentiousness...Hmm...that's kind of interesting. Right now, pretentiousness is that thread I was looking for. The one that ties all of the random, disconnected activities in my life together. Together into a story line. My story. The story of me trying to get from being as big of an asshole as I know how to my friends so that I can die without anybody caring...to willingly letting people into my life. From not letting myself experience any joy or happiness, satisfaction or contentment out of anxiety that I would start to depend on something that will disappear into thin air...to actually doing things that might contribute to my happiness. Basically, letting go of this impossible control I feel I need. Forcing everything out of my life because I'm afraid of losing it. Holy fucking shit. Where the fuck did this fear come from? (Oh, from losing a bunch of things). It's been a real guiding force in my life, hasn't it? Jesus Christ.

My friend's calling me...I'm going to get back on this one. Seems kind of big.

So, that was what was so different about the ex. We made plans together. Plans in the future. I wrote him into my life. I didn't really think of what my life was to become without putting him in it. Lulled into a sense of security. Not even that. Maybe a sense of certainty. Fuck, faith even. Maybe that's why it drove me so crazy. Never allowing myself to trust in the stability of anything, I couldn't handle any waver of that trust. And, that's what hurt so much. Why it was such a huge sense of loss. You allow yourself to believe in something for once and then it slips from your fingers. Not really a big deal. It happens all the time, except, I'm so fucking afraid of it happening, I just don't even try. Fucking try my hardest not to let any possibility of it arise.

I think I kind of wrote Other Dude into my life...but like, just as a friend. He just made such a great buddy. Had this vague vision of always living together, in the same city, house, whatever. It was just more difficult imagining not living close to him. Who would I take random trips with all of the time? Who would I etcetera, etcetera? Otherwise, it's like, "Who can I stand for long enough for this trip?" or "Who would want to do the things that I want to do in a way I wouldn't think is stupid?" But, whatever. Decent things come and go. Maybe we'll still hang out a lot. Maybe we won't. I always seem to manage to find a couple people that I really love and respect and can get close to, even if we don't get to see each other or talk to each other every day.

I miss Girl. I hate that she's on vacation for two weeks. Oh well, I'll talk to her when she gets back. It'll be fun telling her how much I's missed her and how hard it was getting along without her. "Oh, I don't know how I managed."

I have a big, fat, fucking scrape under my chin from climbing out that window. I'm usually very good at breaking into windows. I must've been ass drunk. How the fuck did it get under my chin?

The embarrassment just never ends. At least this way, if I publish it online, I will be forced to acknowledge the reality that I pull this kind of crap and will be shamed into preventing myself from ever doing it again. It's a novel hope.

Last night, I got stupid drunk. I had told myself I wouldn't stay over at my old apartment because there was a very good reason I moved out of there. I forgot this in my drunken stupor and got stuck in a situation I really did not want to be in. And, my motorcycle was parked two miles away. And, my keyes, wallet, phone, jacket, and helmet were locked in my old roommate's car. I didn't feel like dealing with everything, so I locked myself in my old roommate's room under the guise of checking me email. But, I really just wanted some fresh air and to be far away from this place that I had tried to escape from.

[Finally got home after trying since 8 am. Let's continue my story, and I might as well throw in this other one, too.]

In my drunkenness, I got pissed off at the thought of having to answer to everyone why I wanted to get away from them. After stewing over this a bit, something just clicked inside me, telling me I shouldn't have to do anything I didn't want to do, and why I let other people dictate to me suitable actions I need to take, so I...so I...broke out of his room and climbed out the window. I dumped his window screen, jumped into bushes, and sat down on the sidewalk a few feet away. It felt really nice at first until I realized I would still have to explain myself. I tried to get out of it by waiting until people went to bed, then calling old roommate to unlock his car so I could go home. But, I ended up having to face my mess.

My mom never asks me where I'm going, what I'm doing, never since like 3rd grade. I'm not used to it. It, in fact, makes me feel closed in and threatened. This is my excuse.

I was appalled at the thought of having to admit weakness and that I needed to take a time out from the house. That's the real reason.

It kind of reminded me why I wanted to leave San Diego so badly.

So, now the other story. My motorcycle wouldn't start. 3-4 hours of trying to start it. Stepdad drove down to help. Pretty fucking bad morning. My mom is really pissed off at me.

Aldonza. Mom abandoned her as a little baby. Became a kitchen maid and whore. Men grab at her, abuse her. She spits in their faces and tells them to fuck off...and spreads her legs for coins. Shaky, tough exterior. Knows abuse, taking and giving; feels safe and comforting to her. Hates life, hates the world, just a huge dung heap we must crawl through. Tenderness is the worst cruelty. Anything but tenderness. Anything to hide any reminders of what she's never known and can never have because she won't allow herself to trust it. Please, no reminders of any remaining shreds of humanity, of shattered, buried faith and trust. Please don't access that part of me.

How the fuck did this guy access that part of me? I'm pretty sure I shouldn't entrust my feelings to him. It's very possible I have good reason not to.

This is really stupid. I've (accidentally) opened my feelings up to someone who doesn't feel the same way. Fucking duh I'm hurt. This is so retarded.

Sometimes I think he likes that he can have this effect on someone. How he adores the attention that he gets almost unfailingly from this one type of person, how he is so comforted at the knowledge that Girl will always drop everything and follow him wherever he goes, how bored he gets with people who want him, and how frantic when they don't. Kind of like me. I guess it's human nature.

I've been so ridiculous. Giving this so much importance. A male has rejected me. That's what it boils down to. All of this talk of magical feelings never known to me before. Unbearable beauty and magnificence newly plucked. Duped into blindingly intense euphoria through supernatural forces beyond my control. Whatever. I liked a guy and he didn't feel it. It was bound to happen at some point. It's not something I go for. So, I will stop going for it.

I haven't had any semblance of a relationship since my ex moved to be with me after I moved to get away from him. What a wake that guy left.

I mean, I'm not trying to be such a brat. So, I have this need to rewrite history. The history was never accurate to begin with. Like I really know how I actually feel about anything. But, honestly, this guy just hasn't been making me feel so hot. I was much happier with far greater distance between us. And, now, that distance shall be literal.

By the way, I am fully aware of the irony of talking about never having running away dreams anymore, and then literally escaping from people that I care about by breaking out of a window, disappearing to another city, given the means. That's pretty much how my dreams go, except they are usually looking for me, and a lot of the times, it's family. I'm deathly afraid of facing them. Why am I so scared? I'm pretty sure I'm afraid of being loved. Maybe it's that cold exterior I'm afraid will be penetrated.

He's also really adaptable. He's been with so many girls that he's despised, and yet they seem to love him. Girls he would never be friends with in a million years are all a-glow being in a relationship with him. How does that even happen? It's hard for me to grasp. He certainly can be charming. My ex was like that, too. Infinite, impervious surface. When I am with, well, either of them, I get so caught up. I need to step back for perspective. I guess they are sweeping men, and oh, how I've been swept.

Finally got some sleep. Yay. And, I'm really happy and settled with this. I think it was a trigger reaction. A learned response. If it isn't apparent, guy and ex are pretty similar. I think Guy brought up a lot of the same feelings. More of the same bad feelings. Maybe a couple of the same good feelings, but different good feelings besides. I think the bad ones were the trigger, though. Triggered that hyperventilating fear that he would stop caring about me.

The number one thing with the two of them is that I would never feel secure in their "love" for me, or whatever you want to call it, even though they throw out all of these signals that I'm the best person ever. Yeah. That's so, so, so fucking it. 100 fucking percent. They both fall in love really, really easily, and fall out of it really easily.

God fucking dammit. So, that's what you need to get me to fall in love with you. Be entertaining enough that I never get bored of you, and make me always feel that they way you feel about me will change at any moment. It's not even love. It's just fear of losing something I think I've been confusing as love when it's fear. Like religious types. To fear Ex is to love him. To tremble in the face of Guy is to know love for Him.

Hah! What a gold mine I've found. Some real hidden gems. Here is my old college try at poetry. Odes to Cyn:

There once was a girl named Cyn,
Who met a guy with a dirty grin.
His name was Tom
And they got along,
But his grin got him a kick in the shin.

I know a girl that goes to SC.
She complains and complains 'til you're dizzy.
So I tell her, "Shut up,"
And, "Stick your words up your butt."
But she goes on complaining endlessly.

My friend always tells me she's fat,
But, I know a guy who thinks she's all that.
He may not be cute,
And he's a horndog to boot,
But, there was still something there to attract.

Oh Cynthia, how I miss her so.
Without her, college really does blow.
I miss the abuse,
But, oh, what's the use!
I'll have to make due with insults in letters she wrote.

I really missed Cyn in college. We were so funny. I felt my sense of humor shrivelling up and dying not being around her every day, cracking each other up. Cyn and Er. We were such buds. They put my abs in such pain and torture.

It's been so nice and relaxing being back home. When I told my stepdad I was going back up in a couple days, he told me I should just relax and take it easy. (He might have just been mad at me for thinking of riding the mc up in two, three days max...6 to 10 was his preference). I have nothing calling me back to San Francisco. I have nothing calling me anywhere to anything.

I was hanging out with Dude and his roommates yesterday. It was really nice just having a bunch of random people around. I miss having a bunch of roommates. That's kind of what I liked about the South Park house. A house full of people. As long as you each have your separate rooms.

We went to this Southern barbeque place last night, way fucking south. It was this total dive place, incredibly amazing sides...red beans and rice, sweet baked beans, fried okra, great sauces, and the most scrumptioous sweet potato pie. Best sweet potato pie I've ever had. It was really fun. A little mini-adventure. A place where everyone couldn't help looking at us a little funny, for certain pondering, "I wonder what those two people are doing here." Anywhere for great food, duh.

I think I like writing in a notebook. It's just that much more revealing. How sometimes my writing will be hurried, sometimes harsh, sometimes done with great flourish. Kind of a clue of my mood with I wrote certain things.

One really beautiful thing about having an entire beach to yourself in pitch blackness is the sound of it. I was sitting in the sand, right at the shoreline, perfectly still, when my friend comes up. I can hear him walking in the sand and then slipping into the wter a few feet away from me, but I can't see him at all. All he is is sound to me. Everything was so still. I could hear the wind, hear the waves, hear everything.

This will be one of those completely meaningless and unnecessary entries. I'm sitting in my room. I slept in a little today and also took a nap, so I'm not sleep. My parents' house is really boring. This is another place where I should not live. But, it's still nice to have around. A safe harbor, a refuge that always accepts me, dull as it is. I like having places to go to and stay whenever I want. Hiding places, escapes.

I haven't had any running away dreams lately.

Dude blew up at me today. I got annoyed at him for calling me about every little thing when he can really figure it all out himself, and he blew up at me out of frustration. Then he hung up on me. He's really quite temperamental. He was at work and was talking about the shit he had to deal with because he got stuck at this place. It made me wonder if anybody else was in the office to hear him. I called him back and we talked about it. I still prefer that kind of outspokenness, though. Prefer it to someone being silently nice. At least when people blow up uncontrollably, you know they don't mean it and you know there's something else wrong (the point being you are alerted that something is wrong so you can talk about it). And, you can also laugh about how outrageous their reaction was (sometimes). There's also something to somebody making a total fool of themselves and you understanding and liking them anyway. "Dude, whatever. It's fine." Shake your head, roll your eyes, and move on with it.

So, things like this. Think that's why I haven't had the running away dreams. I'm just the slightest bit more ept at dealing with things. Possibly enough to scrape by. Under lenient standards.

Another thing I'm good at and I really love to do is outward expression of emotion. Sometimes it will happen when I'm dancing and drunk. Get dizzy and feel my body moving and someone else's body moving with me, and I get this wrapt up look on my face. It happens sometimes when I'm talking to people I love. It also happens when I'm fucking. I definitely also have a lot of what some people have called "signature" facial expressions.

It's kind of odd. I try so hard to keep down so many feelings, but I'm so good at expressing them. Maybe it's all the same thing. I feel comfortable with exaggerated minor feelings so I can keep down major ones.

I want a video camera.

I just love being carried away, those times when it happens. I don't know. It doesn't have to be sexual. Sex just comes more naturally to me. As in, I'm not afraid or threatened by it like I am with so many other things. But, I would like to be able to freely express and get carried away with at least the expression of feeling (if not the real, actual, and scary feelings themselves).

I really need to rethink my move situation. My friend said I could stay with him as long as I wanted, so I figured I'd hang out there and try to find the perfect job, the perfect area to live, and the perfect roommmates. What he didn't tell me was that he lives in a studio with a living space smaller than my tiny, tiny room that barely fit a bed plus a desk. I made a really sudden move without thinking. Now, I've realized that I can't go back up there without first having a place of my own to stay. Either that or a job and a hotel. Oh well. On to try number two

Oh my god, I have my very own room and a real bed to sleep in. Oh, heaven on earth.

Oh lord, I can stretch my feet and I have a real and actual blanket over me. I've never woken up in such glee and delight. Over the last maybe three years, my friend's life totally changed directions. He's become obsessed about money and has really been tramping straight towards this coistered and extremely ascetic life of guilt and deprivation. We haven't had regular contact, so I had no idea how extreme it had gotten until I saw his studio. A man should not be living in that spaace. Not him at least. He's been there a year and a half. After I saw it, and he mentioned it casually/jokingly himself, I asked him if there was something wrong and if there was any cause for concern. I don't think he gave me a straight answer. I think some excuses were made. I mean, when I make suggestions about the very few and minor splurges he makes because I happen to know and like a place that has it for dirt cheap and he should look into it, he thinks I'm beg incredibly spiteful and mean-hearted. Out to hurt him and make him feel horrible. And, if I suggest making any sort of impulsive purchase, he freezes up and squints his eyes, not looking at me. I just had no concept that someone could be so sensitive about a wasted 60 bucks. At least to take it so personally.

I think boredom is setting in. It's a lot easier for me to seek out the people in my life when I'm bored than to do anything more substantial about it. I guess it's like seeking out entertainment rather than work. Like microwaving a salisbury steak instead of cooking a steak dinner. It's instant. My other option is to work on my cover letter. Fuck, I guess I'll go do that. Make breakfast, set out to some coffee shop, and write a stinking cover letter.

Ugh, I must, I must. Otherwise, it's endless days like this.

I talked to Dude last night, and it was really good. I admitted that he had an effect on me instead of just pretending that nothing he could ever do I could care less about, and just closing myself off forever to him (or, until I got over it). So, we cleared some stuff up, and ta da, we are still friends, and even closer, to top it all off. I deserve a gold star.

I think I've also been confusing my loneliness and not dating anyone for at least 3 or 4 months, who knows how long, with feelings for this guy. I definitely am continuing to have erotic dreams and the like (but not about him). Just general horniness, loneliness, whatever. So, is that enough? Are we done? Do I have enough excuses for accidentally running into all of these feelings? I think that's totally good enough. I am satisfied with it all. Packed all of my feelings in a neat little box, sealed and perfect, can now just tie it off, stamp my label, and ship it away. No need for this thing anymore. Heh, I don't know what I'm saying. Clearly, I need for all of these things to just settle and not try to break things in half, stomp them into the ground, grind them down with my foot, destroy, destroy, destroy...which I'm so much fonder of doing. Yep, I have trouble letting go of my control over my feelings. Which, I suppose just makes them get out of hand until everything else is subverted to them and I have no idea what is going on at all. Ack. Whatever! This is all still pretty fresh. Okay, fine. I will admit this one last little thing. I still like the sound of his voice. Which, I'm thinking is not a good sign. Goddammit, why did I just say that? Hah, I'm acting so fucking retarded. Dude, this is totally because of a couple of things that he just told me, like, an hour ago. Things to confuse my befuddled mind. Something will have to be done about that.

Now that I've kind of allowed myself to open up a little bit, I can really tell when I'm closed off and when I'm not. I'm becoming way more conscious of it. I can feel the change, exactly when it happens. When I'm talking openly with someone, and when something sets me off and I just turn it all off. It's really kind of awesome being aware of it. To know what exactly is making me clam up and to then be able to figure out why and to, fucking holy shit, maybe even do something about it and not fucking turn into a block of ice. To possibly acknowledge my feelings and shit. Holy fucking god. It's also kind of tiring.

I'm not very honest with myself. I thought that I could make all of this go away by just thinking about it a little bit and making up all of these reasons why it's so undesireable, which was all well and good until I talked to him again. Fucking great. Why can't it just be that easy? I fucking miss having him around and shit. Just to randomly talk to whenever. Why won't this go away? Why the fuck do I like someone who doesn't want to have anything to do with my soft, warm spots? Why is he in my thoughts? This wasn't ever supposed to happen to me. Maybe I just need to go fuck something and have that part of my psyche fulfilled, and then I won't mix all of that stuff up with him. There are all of these guys who seem to be trying to catch my eye, but they all seem really retarded. I'm so impatient. This should all have gone away in an instant. Ugh, must wait for time to pass...lessen the intensity...

Perhaps I think too much.

To commemorate my new acknowledgement that I may have feelings and get hurt by people, we soaked clams in a bath of white wine, steamed them, opened up their shells to their widest, then devoured them, one by one.

Ugh. I've been procrastinating putting all of this stuff online. Just fucking gotta do it and move on with my life (aka, move on with pretentiousness which is my life).

I fucking feel like I've been caught masturbating in front of my co-workers. I've been sitting there for hours and hours at an office party or something, it's boring as hell and I have my own agenda. Pulled a pillow from the couch over me, not really thinking about it in my boredom and need to alleviate it, innocently slip my hand down and start fingering away. About to come, think I'm gonna get away with it, after all, I'm just twiddling my clit instead of my thumbs, when someone just tears the pillow away from me. Fucking holy shit embarassed as hell, don't know what to do or say, trying to make up excuses, any excuse I can think of, to just make this embarassing moment pass. Just feel fucking stupid as hell, and now I'm left with the aftermath. Better do some real good convincing about what the fuck just happened and how you let it.

So, enjoy my pain. It's down an entry or two.

Perhaps it is an unhealthy sign when you have allowed yourself to feel the tiniest bit of anything, and it mortifies you to the above extent.

I think I am clamming up. Not letting anybody in. "I don't feel like talking." Perhaps it started with my friend who shunned me when I wanted to ask him about something. I will try talking to him tonight and see if that pries open my shell slightly.

Dude rented Marat/Sade and said I should watch it, so I did. It was really an awesome movie. Really had a lot of my views on life and consumerism and such. Not Marat, though, obviously. He was just the foil in the movie, played not so very sympathetically. The only thing I've ever really known about Sade is his sexual tendencies. Never knew he was a philosopher or what not, too. I agreed with a lot of his stuff. How oppresively indifferent and unchangeable nature is, more relevantly, human nature. How you can despise it as much as you want, but you need to accept it. How the only thing left to do is revel in the pleasures of the body and your self-important life. He made man into a hero because man is so small in the face of an unyielding and impenetrable nature, he is the only thing that can be controlled, affected in any way, the only thing worth living and striving for; everything else is futile. The forces of nature, death, the human condition...what the fuck are you going to do about that? Don't kid yourself. Enjoy your body, every individual act. That is all you have. He believed in human experience. Your own. Savor every moment. Let movements, revolutions, fads, calls to action pass you by. Pompous usefulness, foolishness. Explore yourself instead.

You might think that you must keep vigilence or people and institutions will take advantage of you. Fucking right. The are taking advantage of you. They always will. When it gets too apparent, people will naturally oppose it. The world will circle and circle around you, shifting power and control in every direction, always remaining exactly the same but with different names and faces. Pull yourself out of the circle.

So, now what am I left to do? I need to try and find a life. A life worth living... Guess that's the theme of the year.

So, what do I want in this life? People, that's a no-brainer. I'd like to have time and leftover concentration to read. Watch movies. Camp and hike. I guess these are all things that keep me thinking about stuff. I want to try to understand life better, and myself. So I can live it better. But, all of these things just seem like random things to do. Disconnected events with very little meaning. I feel like I need something to tie it all together. Like, a purpose or fucking something. What the fuck is it? What the fuck would that be? I don't want to just have a bunch of things I like to do. I want to be something. What the fuck does that even mean? I don't fucking know. That's why I'm so goddamn fucking lost right now.

Some random thoughts: I think I would like to bring darkness into people's lives. Like Kafka. I bet UCB has some Sade philosophy books. I should go there. Fucking college. Oh well. Moment to momen. I like being wrapt up in the moment.

No fucking wonder I felt crap for this dude. We ate and made amazing food together, we took amazing trips together, we watched amazing, provoking movies together, we had amazing conversations together (every once in awhile). All of thse awe fucking inspiring experiences. What the fuck else was I supposed to do? We also spent so much time together.

My friend asked me if I was starved as a child. The fact that I always need to have water within reach and my voracious appetite. It's very true. My mom did leave me hungry a lot.

I shall now present to you, the topic of...gulp..."love," as interpreted by Zombknee.

9/11/07 Tu 7:06 pm	Holy fucking shit. Well, this is a new one. This has been a pretty life-changing series of events for me. I've had these before (going to college, moving down here), but this is having a pretty sizeable effect on me. And, it's definitely been opening a lot of emotions which was good, but I think now it's gone too far. I've tapped into something that is way too intense to be revealed to me at this point in my life. I feel like I've been happily mining for gold, finding little nuggests here and there, but then I pierced the core. All of a sudden, with a small flick of the wrist and bang of a pick ax, I got through to everything that was hidden inside. I'm just standing there fucking wrecklessly banging away and out of fucking nowhere, shards of gold come piercing out of this hole I've made, shooting into my face and my eyes and everywhere it can get to me. After overcoming the initial shock and horror, I'm left scrambling to try to put my hand over this hole as slivers of this razor sharp crap I've been trying to reach all of this time shoot into me, and desperately trying to find something to plug it up. Yeah, this morning I was in a lot of pain, I'm not gonna lie. I'm just totally in amazement at how painful feelings can be. Fucking out of nowhere, goddammit. I think by now I've managed to plug a lot of it up. It's really kind of interesting this new exposure to stuff I don't really ever, well, okay, never in my fucking life have I really allowed myself to get anywhere near feeling. Except maybe under one situation that didn't really count because it was so fucke up, well and for a lot of other reasons, too. I'm kind of glad that I'm capable of feeling these things. I mean, it really has opened my eyes. I definitely want to experience this again, but definitely not fucking now. No way could I handle it. Maybe someday, perhaps after finding smaller and less intense mines of gold, I'll be able to face something like this again. I need to develop harder skin or come with more protection, or find out how to trickle the gold out rather than having it explode in my face with no warning whatsoever, or maybe I can figur out how to soften the shards so that it doesn't hurt so much.
7:37 pm	You know, it's a real goddamn fucking nuisance that people read this thing. How the fuck am I supposed to talk openly about my life with the people who are in it are reading about it? Fuck.
7:39 pm	Okay, so I fucking kissed a guy. It's probably painfully obvious, but whatever. I haven't really talked much about him here, but I've known him for a decent amount of time. I'm pretty good at straight-up, bold-faced, denying to myself lots of things, but I'm utterly incapable of doing that when it comes to sex. This is such a bad thing. My ideas about sex can't be helped by this at all. Not one tiny bit. I think I lied about hating kissing. I don't like it because it's too intimate, and if I'm not super into someone, it's kind of like, what's the point in kissing each other all of the time? Kissing is just way too revealing. So yeah. I kissed someone that I actually like in pretty much every way. It was kind of a different experience. But, it was really weird. I mean, we've been friends for awhile. For a long time, I've thought of him as a friend and strictly as a friend. Okay, so I have fantasized about him, but who doesn't do that if you think someone is hot or pretty or whatever. I fantasize about all kinds of people all of the time and it doesn't mean anything. But, we've really just been strictly friends. So, it was weird. We kind of just stopped right there. The stopping was almosdt as weird as the starting. Possibly slightly weirder Maybe a lot weirder.
9/12/07 W 1:49 am	Okay, I'm going to cut the fucking bull shit here. To myself and everyone else. I'm getting way too old for this stupidity. I need to own up to the feelings I have. At the very least to do it here if not in real life... So, I used to not be attracted to this guy. I pretty much thought he was awesome from the frist or second sentence we exchanged. Just thought he seemed really cool and simple and down to earth and just got this sense that he would make sense to me. Turned out to be all true. But, didn't really feel like he was my type at all. There was exactly one moment when I looked at him for the first time, like really looked into his eyes or closely at his face or something, and he looked really beautiful to me. Something I had never noticed before. But, that passed fairly quickly. Then, for some reason, I started to become really attracted to him. There was this time period when I was having really intense dreams every night. Um, all sexual dreams. And, he was in at least a couple of them. I'm not really sure what set it off. Why I had them, why he was in some of them. It happened a few months ago. Hmm...I have no clue what started this attraction. Maybe proximity, maybe an extremely horny phase (in combination with proximity). I don't know. But, we definitely were hanging out a lot at this point. Oh well, I can't remember if there was anything that set it off right now, or even guess. I can't believe how freely I'm admitting this. I've been denying it for so fucking long. (Maybe it's because I'm a little drunk right now). I've been making excuses to myself about this, trying to make myself believe that there was nothing wrong or unuusual about having these thoughts. Well, I think at one point, we were flirting a bit more, but he's got some pretty fucked up ideas about love and sex and gets kind of crazed, and I saw it and it totaly turned me off. Like, 180 degrees. But, then, after a few weeks, it was just all there again. And, he's been very slowly growing on me ever since. So, then we kissed, and then he pulled back, and I just let him. I mean, to be honest, it didn't feel super right. Didn't flow or something. But, it definitely exposed me to how fucking strongly I feel about him. I have no idea if I'm in love with him, but I do for sure love him in a pretty substantial way. Just his ideas and thoughts about crap, his cynicism, the things that we do together when we hang out, and all of the things he introduces to me. I guess he's pretty entertaining which is a big huge thing that he says he selfishly seeks constantly. So, that thought runs into my head sometimes. He's been joking about how much he'll miss me when I leave and I'll sometimes think that maybe it's only because of the entertainment value I provide. I also don't think he's super attracted to me because he hasn't come on to me strongly which most guys seem to do. And, because he finds people that he respects and actually gets along with physically dull. And, because, well, he didn't try to fuck me when we kissed. Yeah, I don't think that any guy has ever been this hands off with me. So, when I was driving today, I started thinking and trying to figure out why all of this has been driving me so crazy lately. Now, I don't know if this is just me trying to rationalize things and therefore squash my feelings, or if this is all too true. But, like, I think I might be so anxious about this because I can't have it. If he was 100% into i it would allow me th chance to reconsider things and feel it to not be so ideal. I was also thinking that this is stupid that this is so difficult and confusing. Nothing should feel so weird and confusing for me. Nothing I shouldn't stay far away from. So, I have no idea if I'm trying to make myself feel better because I feel rejected or if I've tapped into what's really going on. I have no idea how to tell the difference.
2:33 am	I still feel lucky that I'm able to feel stuff like this with someone. It gives me hope.
6:55 am	I don't understand this. Not at all. I'm crying like a child who hasn't seen its parents in days. I don't ever remember crying so deeply before. I don't even know how to describe it. I feel like I'm crying from a core that I never knew I had. Doubly painful because of its intensity and also its newness. I don't even know why I'm crying. Is it because I feel like he doesn'twant me? I might even infitely prefer being friends. It was so perfect. I don't want to deal with this fucking bullshit that happens to me when I'm fucking someone. I think it's because I feel like I might have lost something irrecoverable. Either by things just being weird, or because he's just disgusted by what he feels to be a big mistake. Yeah, that's exactly it. I feel like I fucked up big time. What if, with some fucking rush of fucking horniness, I fucking ruined a frienship with someone I've never ever fucking gotten along with so well. One stupid, rash, fucking bone-headed maneuver. I just want to run away and hope this goes away or fixes itself or that I'll forget that anything ever happened. But, the fucking other thing is that I'm afraid I've opened up all of these feelingsd for him and I won't be able to just be his friend. What if I fucking always want more? Once you find yourself becoming really attracted to someone, can you go back? Can you lose those feelings? At least we didn't fuck. Ugh, I probably just need to wait for all of this to sort itself out, and run its course.
3:45 pm	So, we talked about it a little today. I guess he was trying to save ourselves from our own destruction. Little did he know it was too late. Whenever, I hear the sound of his voice, I hear the sound of someone who cares about me. And, he's like hugged me like he really cares about me. I'm totally far gone and retarded now. As scary as it is, I think I care more about him than my ex. As far as his views and the things we do together. But, the stupid thing is that some huge element of chemistry is missing. He's just not into cuteness or patronization or even banter, which is like all I'm good for and all I want and need. So, why can't we just be friends? I now have this stupid association with him. As this miracle caregiver that fulls this desperate need I have for affection. Now, he is in this category where I can only have a love-hate relationship. I need to figure out how to get out of this love-hate thing. I do it all of the time. I desperately need comfort and affecion, then I feel like it's not returned or something, and I get really scared and just turn ice cold. How do I stop doing that? Yeah, I should make this a primary goal of mine. I'm sure it ties into how I can only feel true closeness when fucking in a way that dissociates my feelings. All the fucking same thig. I'm just 100% totally insecure about the stability of people's love. Dude, I fucking need to figure this shit out right now. I can't fucking be doing this stuff forever.
4:59 pm	I am so emotionally feeble, and it ruins amazing friendships. It is time to grow up. I refuse to let this happen this time.
5:41 pm	I get so hung up on reciprocity, so worried that I will like someone more than they like me. It consumes everything and leaves me blind to what I might actually want or what would be best or what would have any outside chance of working at all. I will fucking let this go. I will.
7:29 pm	My mom is being shockingly supportive and non-naggy about my huge, wreckless, and unplanned as possible move. I think her husband really tempers her. He's pretty awesome. I really like having him as a stepdad. But, she also knows about all of the crap that I've had to put up with at work, and she's been pretty understanding and supportive about that.
7:40 pm	Another thing that really fucked me about all of this stuf is that I had no advanced warning. It's supposed to go the other way. He fucking took the back door unnoticed. I spend all of my time guarding the front entrance, building walls around it, and he just bypassed it all. Didn't see him as a threat, as an enemy. I saw him as a friend. A really awesome and harmless friend. Someone who's not supposed to be capable of hurting me. And then, boom, he was right there, just slipped into my most vulnerable spot. So underhanded. Oh well. Tonight, I will try to figure out how to be less vulnerable.
8:41 pm	You know, all of this has been kind of helpful in helping me get over stuff. Just all of the closeness I've felt with various people lately. Just goes to show that I am capable of finding cool people that I really like. That it's not going to be just one guy forever.
9/14/07 F 8:17 am	It's really awesome not having a job. Everyone has to get up and go to work and you don't.
8:19 am	I think it's the fear. Not anything that actually is happening, bu the fear of fucking not only of it happening, but also the taking away of what has happened. It's so fucked up. How am I supposed to learn how to deal with all of the ups and downs of it happening when I never allow it to happen. Need to let it happen more.
8:27 am	Okay, so my first reaction may have been faulty. I will not halt in my tracks and obliterate all feeling. I will instead proceed caustiously and fucking just as friends. I will allow myself to be close to someone, but just as a fucking friend. Otherwise, I will just grow to hate him. I already started a little bit. This feels a lot better anyways. Now that I kind of realize I was obsessing about reciprocity with no other aim.
8:53 am	Fuck. I wasd fucking contemplating never talking to him for a really long time. This is my solution to every emotional problem I have. Yeah, real healthy. Real fucking healthy.
9:23 am	I feel so proud of myself. Well, and really stupid for having the gross reaction I did. I gave it way too much meaning, when it's not really a big deal at all that you realize that you care about your friends. It also is prety vital that I've actually gotten some sleep and didn't drink yesterday. Yeah, that helps a lot. I also saw my ex. I felt this total urgency to figure out what the fuck happened between us. I've been running away from all of my problems with him for so long and never tried to really, really resolve them. Yesterday, I was totally determined to sort all of those things out, so I would never, ever repeat any of those things again. It was actually pretty helpful. After letting go of this fear that I've always had about whether or not he really, really, truly and actually loves me and will continue to do so, I saw things with a lot more clarity. No more agonizing and blindness. I could talk rationally and make him understand instead of going off the deep end and overracting and turning the conversation into a circus. And, without this hang up on reciprocity in addition to all of the really close friendships I've managed to make and very recently really appreciate, his aura of power over me really faded. I think I could actually be friends with him without wanting more. But, who knows. Wow, I'm really glad all of this happened. I spoke with my friend today, and he made a really annoying comment that he makes occasionally and then we hung up. I called him back, went straight to voice mail twicfe, so left him a message and asked why he made that comment which stopped the conversation shor when I really was just leading into asking about something he said that I was interested in and that I was sorry if he took it the wrong way. H ecalled me back and said that when he hung up, he wondered why he made that comment and that he was glad that I called him back. I feel so fucking proud of myself for doing that. Yeah, I'm fucking non/anti-confrontational. I think I would ordinarily just be angry and think less of someone rather than having to tell them that I was unhappy with them. It actually feels kind of good to fight and then resolve. There's actually some kind of bonding in it. Interesting. Oh, so when me and my ex were talking, nothing really new came up, but I kid of saw things with new eyes. A lot of our problems arose or were exacerbated by me completely shuting down and running away after coming to the conclusion that every hiccup that we had was a sign that he didn't care about me anymore. Rather than talking through our problems, I abandoned him preemptively. Duuude. What an infuriating bitch I am. Hah! Perhaps there will come a day when this shall not come to pass. When I can love, and more importantly, be loved freely. Fuck, I have huge fucking issues with being loved. Ex said that I'm really awesome and amazing and that I should just take it for granted that other people feel that and that he always got frustrated when I just wouldn't understand that that was always the caseno matter what else was happening at the current momment.
10:12 am	So, this is all kind of embarrassing. I'd just like to remind everyone that have good cause for trust and love issues. Let's recap. Grandpa - molester. Mom - molester supporter. Family - sympathetic but action frozen. Uncle - punches little girls in the face. There's more, but let's not beat a dead horse. Forgive me for all of the cringing I've caused. But, I kind of needed to do it. I don't want to be like this anymore. And, I won't. I need to be able to be close to people without wanting to gouge out my jugular from my neck. And, so it shall be. God, what would I do without pretentiousness?
10:21 am	I'm impatient. When I want something done, I want it to be done now, to completion. I'll do whatever it takes to get there. I really, really like to just stop everything and pour everything I've got into a problem or whatever and finish it.
10:46 am	Oh yeah. And, I put way too much importance in physical affection. It means way too much to me. Ex was saying that I need to be okay with everything and that a guy should just be there to augment and share in it. I kind of fall more ino thinking that this is my one salvation and I put all of my hopes of being whole and okay into it. I deny it so much that it takes on this very dire dimension.
7:51 pm	I feel really bored and lonely right now. This is why sex means so much to me. Because I have _nothing_ else in my life. That's probably what I liked so much about this guy. He was the world's best distraction. Whatching really awesome and weird movies, taking trips, talking about really interesting ideas and fucked up cynicism all of the time. I need o stop relying on distraction. Maybe it was bad that I had such a great distraction all of the time, at least in one, single, unstable thing. I think I'm starting to rely on my pretentiousness. I really like writing in this. I really like flushing out my ideas. Dear lord knows I need to. It's kind of like having a really intelligent conversation with someone. Plus, well, I've had a lot of time on my hands lately... People tell me I'm intelligent a lot. It always weird me out. I always wonder how they come to that conclusion. Not htat I don't think I'm smart. I do. But, as far as how other people decide that. I always feel like I've never said anything very astounding, yet from just simple small talk, they think I'm smart. I also don't really think in terms of intelligence. Unless someone is absolutely brilliant, I don't ever really think, "Wow, this dude is real smart." I do think in terms of stupidity, though. People are certainly stupid or not stupid to me. Or, there are people who make sense to me and people who don't. Maybe that's what I do. I mean, I've only really thought one, maybe two people were really smart...and, of course a few Berkeley profs. One was truly brilliant, the other just darn smart. And, even then, one was science smart and the other academic smart. Two things I don't super value. Kind like, "um, big deal." As far as introducing me to amazing and crazy ideas that I've never thought about before, "eh." Just authors and professors. So, what makes people call me smart? Vocabulary? The ability to put two ideas together? The fact that someone might have actual and real thoughts of their own? I don't know, I'm not super impressed by that. I guess what I really look for is just people who, well, just fucking make sense to me. Oh, and there's people whose opinions I really respect. That's really important to me. Maybe only two people I've really felt that way about. A bunch more, but in more limited ways. I'm tired. Actually, I'm fucking sick of preparing to move. Ugh. One more day of this. I can get through it. I'm such a fucking brat when it comes to things that I don't want to do or are not fun or meaningful for me. Wah, whine and whine.
8:37 pm	I think the only thing I like to do is be around people I feel comfortable with. How bad is that, I wonder? That's why I liked the ex so much. He was always enjoyable to be around, just not even doing anything together. I just liked him, I guess. It's so weird growing up as an only child, never seeing my mom at all since junior high, maybe before, being on my own for the majority of my life. You would think I would know how to entertain myself. But no, I need people to do anything. I can't entertain myself. Yet, the vast majority of people annoy me.
8:44 pm	I find it really quite hilarious that I have no hobbies, no goals, no interests, a complete inability to entertain myself, and yet people find my life exciting. People are always talking about the adventures I get into or about how they can't wait to hear what I do next. Maybe it's because I make split second decisions. And, because I paint a good picture. I've been thinking more about doing some writing. I clearly enjoy writing. Either that, or I'm a masochist. It would give me an excuse to learn about things and experience new things. My old boss told me out of the blue that she thought I could be a writer. Kind of found that odd since she's only seen me write work related thing. Just memos and emails, and I guess the website. Nothing amazingly creative. Sometimes I like the words that I put together.
8:55 pm	I can have such a big head sometimes. Was talking to Dude that I recently me, just chatting, and he made it sound like he's been doing nothing but talk about me with all sorts of people all of the time. I thought that was awesome. I can leave a pretty strong impression on people sometimes. I think it's because I'm kind of weird, but in a pleasant way. And, if we really want to go into it here, I guess I'm smart, I'm not remarkably pretty, but definitely not bad considering that I'm smart, nice, and down to earth. I'm really cute which disgusts the rational side of me, but, fuck, I'm endearing even to myself (those few times when I've caught my cuteness in action in the mirror or after taking pictures).
9:05 pm	I think I like older people better. They're just so much more interesting. They actually have things to say. And they care more about the things I care about. Just seem to have more interesting conversations.
9/15/07 Sa 7:44 am	All of this happened because he stopped. The whole thing felt weird. Very different "styles." But, I think I just really wanted it. Wanted to force it. Yeah, I was forcing it, trying to give everything I had into it when it didn't feel right. Then, he stopped. Took all of that away with no explanation. It was like my uncle who spent so much time with me and loving and caring about me and then, one day, he punches me in the face and I'm faced with the reality that love can never be trusted. No matter how certain it seems. Fuck. This is it, isn't it. With several people in my life, I had an unbreakable trust that was broken severely and completely with on single act. Now I'm spending the rest of my life looking for this act. Just waiting for signes that it will happen. When everything that we've built up is totally obliterated in the blink of an eye. Usually (okay, maybe every time), it's on my end, on false anticipation. Not that I ever even let it happen. I prefer not to build anything substantial up, unless tricked or forced against the wall. So yeah, due to certain circumstances, I told myself it was okay to open this part of myself up and it was brushed aside. Heh, worse fucking thing that could have happened to me. Oh well. It was good. I'm over it now (or, at least I think so), and after all of this obsessive thought about it, I've determined that it's not really a big deal. Whatever. At least I opened myself up. _And_, got over it. It's good practice.
9/16/07 Su 7:42 am	Dude, I spent, what...two extra years with this stpuid guy after we really shouldn't have been together. It's so odd. I just ignored all of that stuff. All I wanted was to make sure that he wantedme so I wouldn't feel abandoned. I mean, maybe that's not it. It's just really confusing, though. How I could be so in love with someone who's views on big huge topics that underline my every thought and action differ so completely, someone who is too caught up in his daily activities to take trips and someone who fucking hates being in nature. I ignored all of that. I mean, our conversations never bored me, we had decent sex, he had great chest hair and forearms, and he found me irresistible. Kind of lame. I mean, the being around him and never getting bored or annoyed is a big huge fucking deal, but jesus, what a foundation for dysfunctionality. Plus, the fights. We hurt each other so much all of the time. I don't know. I'm kind of thinking that it's this fear and anxiety that yet another person I've really put a lot of trust in is going to snap it all in an instant. It's a blinding force that traps me into things that aren't good for me, just for the sake of, I don't know, some hope that trust can last. Except, that it can last, just not while you're in such an intense relationship that doesn't fucking work at all. So, as someone once told m, I might want to see things as they truly are, not how I want them or or judge them to be. Need to stop wanting things that aren't there or that won't work. Why did I want this other guy? I think I was just obsessin about how he never made any moves on me. No guy I have ever felt to be less attracted to me. Even my gay friends. Fuck, even my girl friends. Hmm. Yeah, I think it drove me crazy. Fuck, I'm so lame. That overshadowed everything. Our lack of physical chemistry, his lack of chest hair (how infinitely boring is a bare chest), the total lack of playful fighting, the fact that our bodies are shaped and sized totally differently...Of course, nothing's perfect, but I don't know. Gotta see things as they are.
9:26 am	Okay, I've done enough self-reflection. Time to start living my life with all of these new things I've learned.

So, this is going to be long today. A ton of stuff has been happening to me in the last couple days, I barely know where to begin.

Hmm, so I am finally, finally free of my job. I was really happy and nostalgic to leave. Perhaps a little too happy, though. But, it was really great. Big happy hugs goodbye to everyone. Probably going to keep in touch with two really awesome people in the office. So, best of both worlds. It felt so goddamn fucking liberating to leave. To be free from that place! But, it's kind of cool. The guy I was training to be my replacement it turns out I got along really well with. His sense of humor is just my speed and he's pretty clever. He's also an incredible judge of character and really outspoken. Even though I only knew him for less than two weeks, I think we'll keep in touch.

I really like people who are outspoken. As in, they can't help mouthing off and getting themselves in trouble...they just don't have that restraint. I definitely prefer that to trying to deal with people's pettiness and trying to guess their insecurities and dysfunctions. For most things, I just really prefer having everything out on the table. No lies, no pretenses, just two people face to face as they really are. It also really helps me out and smooths over my complete cluenessness. We can argue over all of these petty things and really what it does is point out things that I would never have thought about and just generally eases conflict by putting it all out there and working everything through right off the bat. That's awesome.

Okay, what else happened. Oh, I've been incredibly emotional lately. In a rage over all of these San Diego annoynaces that I have to deal with, really sentimental and nostalgic about leaving work, really grateful and filled with love for all of these amazing people that I've met. Like, now that I'm moving on from a job that never really fit me at all, I could finally let go of all of that discontentment. Even though I'm a fucking cynic and a bitch, and my outlook on life could use a little brightening, I do feel like I'm a very positive person. I like to have a positive impact on this world or whatever. I think it's because I refuse to associate myself regularly with anyone I don't deeply respect. This means that I can only have two or three decent friends at a time (probably at most), but I'm just filled with amazement at how wise or caring or funny or fucked up or whatever these people are. I think when you're around people like that, you care more about how you affect other people, especially these people that you give such a hoot about. I mean, since they're so awesome, you want them to experience awesome things because they deserve it.

I've also been really goddamn sentimental about leaving Dude. I mean, he's just my roommate, but I think I care a lot more about him than I really thought I did. It's actually really kind of hard leaving him. I mean, I know we're friends and stuff, but I've really just had him stuck in this "roommate" category. We've had a lot of really incredible memories, and he's definitely made this city fucking bearable. I feel really kind of silly missing my fucking roommate so much, but I guess he probably will be one of the best friends I will ever make in my life. I mean, being around him is just so easy. No fucking fuss. I don't think I've ever known anyone in my life to be less annoying than him. And that's saying a lot for me.

So...speaking of being really fucking emotional.......

In the course of all of this stuff going on in my life and saying goodbye and shit to everyone, in a drunken state, I accidentally let go of my impenetrable emotional barrier. I'm just a fucking wreck now, and I want it to stop. I want to regain my composure. In fact, this really sucks. Something has been penetrated that should not have been penetrated. I'm not equipped to deal with this sort of stuff. It's just so very odd. Why did this happen? I guess some things just get to you, get under your skin without you even knowing about it. Oh well. Just give me a couple days and I'll recover. Kill the feeling, kill all feeling! Feeling only leads to pain!

Why is it such a big deal for me to leave this city? I've never allowed myself to miss anybody before in my life. I recently let go of that hang up and now I'm missing all sorts of people all over the place. Not that it's bad or I regret it or wish I didn't feel this way, but it's just really fucking weird. It's also really fucking weird that as much as I hate this city and the stupid superficial looks-are-everything tinge that everything here has, I really feel like I've made some incredible friendships. Seems kind of weird. Maybe there is something to making a city your own by finding people you like and doing the things you like, and all cities have their share of the good and the bad.

Okay, I think that's all I've got as far as that stuff goes. I am leaving San Diego in two days if things go according to plan.

I went to Mexico this weekend. It was the most amazing thing that I ever experienced in my life. We were going to go snorkelling in this fucking tourist trap, but the tourist office said that the water was way too murky, so we ended up going 50 miles south of our destination. Holy fucking shit, it was incredible. It was pretty much completely isolated from almost all human life. One of those places where you have to drive out and purposefully seek human contact in order to find anybody at all. We just totally had the entire beach to ourselves. Such a ridiculous feeling. Like this entire sea was your playground. And, the water was just unbelievable. It was so amazing, that we went again at night. Fuck the pitch blackness, I wanted to swim around free as can be under possibly the most incredible night skies that I've ever seen. There were so many stars out. But, the fucking ridiculous thing was that...the water was fucking glowing. I don't know what the fuck it was, I couldn't even venture to explain it (though, ionic/electrostatic bull shit was spat at me), but with every fucking movement, we fucking sparked and glowed. It looked like fucking little fairies and pixie dust were exploding from our every movement. We were like cosmic beings. It was straight fucking CG out of the lord of the rings. If we swam through the water, we left streaks of glowing light behind us. I mean, I can't even begin to describe it. Fuck, it was magical. There's just nothing else to it. Fucking magical sky and fucking magical water. Fuck.

Last night really made me think about making a life out of travelling. It's just really amazing to stumble on random things, like this fucking magical fucking fairyland, or an American Legion buffet, or a swarm of hundreds of leopard sharks. It's just so fascinating seeing how other people lead their lives, or just what's going on in the world that you would never know about unless you stuck your head out of your fucking wage slave hole and sought something else out. Something besides fucking casinos or malls or movie theaters or any of this fucking manufactured entertainment. Even scenic tourist traps or resorts. Fuck that. I want to be in the muck and the grime. I don't need to be shielded from reality, from the sometimes overwhelming poverty that the rest of the world has to contend with. I mean, as a foreigner, maybe you'll never get to know how things really are, but at least put yourself in the middle of it. Fuck going out of your way to be "comfortable" and fucking well-serviced. What a waste of time.

And, I almost need to be victimized, brutalized (psychologically and otherwise), so that I can wash myself of all responsibility for all of the emotions that I am feeling. It's not my fault that I feel the way I feel, I had no choice. It was forced upon me. When someone tells me that they love me or whatever people do, that forces me to admit consciously, verbally, that I have feelings for them. That doesn't work so much for me. Maybe you can feel it in every movement of my body or the expression on my face, but I don't have to admit to any of that. There's room for interpretation. I have a way out. If it turns out that you don't care for me exactly as much or more than I care about you, I can disavow everything. I had never admitted to it.

I mean, I can say the words. And, I have (well, to exactly one fuck-figure and no other). But, there's something to confessing to that in the midst of such intense feeling and physical expression of that same thing. It's too much. I have done that, though, but I couldn't do it all of the time. I can only take it if it's rare.

So yeah. If it's not obvious. I've been giving this a lot of thought lately. I've been thinking why, ahem, certain people have so much power over me. Kind of also wondering how unusual this is and if I can find people who complement me. So far, there've been two and a half. Everyone treats me like a fucking princess here. Running around serving my needs. I hate it. I don't want a servant boy or a doormat. But, my needs are so specific. So fucking specific.

And, you may be professing yes, he is imparting the most sublime ecstasy known to female kind, but I can live with that admission. I'm not above that. I will whole-heartedly admit that I am helpless in the face of someone's cock. That nothing in the world comes close to making me feel the things that it makes me feel. I can admit all of that as long as I don't have to admit that someone means a lot to me.

The other thing that I need when I'm fucking someone is to feel like this is my entire world. To feel like I live and die by someone's cock. Like there's nothing else but his dick inside me. This is why I kind of like to be handled roughly. I like feeling completely enveloped by someone's power over me. I like feeling like I can't stop him from doing anything that he pleases and my only option is to love every second of it. I want someone to exercise their will upon me. Really, I want to feel helpless. So I am forced to give everything, every last thing that I have...either give or have it taken from me. I wonder if this is dysfunctional and how dysfunctional it is if it is.

That's one reason why it doesn't work when someone is sweet and respectful all of the time to me. I don't know. I just want something else.

God, I'm so fucking fucked up. I think I can only fall in love with self-centered people who like to demean me when they fuck me. I'm pretty sure I need someone that I'm in a relationship with to be self-centered, one, to counter my self-centeredness, and two, to force themselves upon me because they want to be close to me and not care that I make it really, really difficult for people to get close to me. I also need people to be shitty to me when we are fucking. If someone is all fucking lovey-dovey, I want to kick them out of the house and say, "Holy god, leave me alone, what's wrong with you?" To feel truly close to someone, I need them to tell me how they couldn't care less about my feelings and only want to enjoy my body because they like it so much. In some retarded, fucked up way, I need this in order to allow myself to feel close to another person. I don't believe in love. I won't believe someone if they are telling me how much I mean to them while they are gently, lovingly, respectfully pumping my cunt. I can't feel like someone truly cares about me unless they are telling me the exact opposite. That is what feels safe to me. There is nothing for me to doubt and question and mistrust when they are telling me that I am nothing to them but a lovely piece of meat. All of this sounds pretty fucked up to me. I don't think this is something that I can really hope to change. It's pretty goddamn ingrained. Oh well. Can't change everything. What's me is me. I'll just have to live with this one.

Another thing that I kind of like about myself (though, who knows if I should or not), is that I can have really intensely focused emotional responses. This is why I inspire people and get them to buy into things. It's why I like sex so much. It's why I like food so much. I spend a lot of my life really even-tempered. Don't like to get too excited about things, don't like to show my feelings to people. It's kind of like the person that never ever curses, and so the one time in the two years that you've known him, and you hear him curse, you know he's reallly, reallly angry. So, when I show any type of emotion, and usually it's very intense and focused, a lot of the time, it takes people by surprise. And, the other thing, is that they feel it to be very genuine. I mean, it is somewhat rare for me to show that side of myself. And, when it does come out, I really do truly mean it. So, people will get caught up in that. And, I like it. I mean, in the event that I really feel strongly about, for example, how incredible and awesome I think someone is, I really want them to know how special that is to me. I want people to know why I think that they are such amazing human beings. They should know it. Every once in awhile, your best traits should be pointed out, because usually your best traits aren't the easy ones. It helps you to remember why you have them and to reinforce how important they are to you and to the people who love you and who you care about.

I watched two survival movies in the last couple weeks. They were exciting and cool and stuff, but really kind of sad. People sit there all of their lives not taking any risks whatsoever. Just sitting around in their cubicle, pushing paper and trying to please their boss. So, they have to watch these survival movies where highly trained men are being hunted by highly organized, powerful, and very rich organizations. Or, those stupid survival reality shows. People are watching people kept on their toes, using every possible resource they can think of or make up, fighting every minute of their lives to get through an unsurmountable challenge. All because nothing in their lives is remotely challenging except maybe getting to that Labor Day sale early in the morning before everyone else buys all of the good clearance items. These are our fucking petty concerns. We have to watch on T.V. people doing worthy things. It's so bad. I think if you remove all of that, people would get antsy in their lives and try feel the need to risk their own necks. Take away roller coasters, action movies, and all of that rot. Safety...Fuck safety. Sometimes, it's gotta be all or nothing. And if it doesn't work out, use your own goddamn fucking ingenuity to work something else out.

Christina, there's a whole big ole world out there. Go out and live your life. Do it, do it, do it! What are you waiting for?? Get yourself a life worth living. At least try, goddammit. Just try.

Was going through some stuff while packing, and I found a couple of things I wrote down. One of them is a strengths and weaknesses thing I flushed out. I'm pretty sure this was around my 26th birthday when I had an "Oh god, I'm getting old" panic attack. I wrote this for possible grad school apps.

Weaknesses: lack of direction, hurdle I had all my life, have so much passion, ability to inpire about things I barely care about, but no outlet. Strengths: synthesis of info. Accomplishments: overcoming depression, yes, a loaded topic, should be forthwright, as Admissions Committees probably very good at determining my success rate - still functional (see GPA @ UCB), starting over, makes me multidimensional/compassionate. Realized that I have fears & misgivings, admittance allowed me to overcome this. OMG, I've never challenged myself.

Fuck, that's so true. I've never fucking challenged myself. I think I'm one of those classic cases of only doing things that are so easy I could succeed with my hands cut off and my eyes gouged out, and anything that might require some effort on my part I try to sabotage. Goddammit.

Now, here's a flashback:

Jesus, my writing used to really stink. I hope I don't still write like taht. I probably do, oh well. When I look back on this little bit of literary work, I hope it's interesting if nothing else. Hell, I'll settle for good penmanship. I'm home alone in Irvine (big surprise) * btw, it's 7/1/2000 *, but I also FEEL alone. I think it's mostly my own fault. I push people away (yes, that means Dude), probably doing a real good job of making them feel unwanted and intrusive, oh yeah, can't forget annoying. I feel so sad, and I'm not so much into that "life" thing right now. I've raelly lost so much of my ambition and motivation. It's been so long since I've had an obsession. Without them, I think I'm less productive and less driven. That is bad. I'm also tired all the time. When I'm doig something that requires any sort of energy, I sometimes just want to quit, sit-down, and rest. What do I have to live for? I've never really been able to answer that question, although there have been a few things that have occupied me. For awhile I had my "self-improvement" trip; I had the IHS webpage; then there was that whole money thing with JobOp and investments and such; there was also a minidisc thing, but what do I have now? Nothing drives me. It takes so very little to get me down. I wish that I could find something so intriguing and self-enveloping that my big view on life doesn't ruin it for me. (Or, I could change my philosophy, but that takes brain-washing). I'm so stupid for pushing Dude away. I push people away when I'm feeling depressed, because I somehow feel good that I'm confirming all the reasons I have to be depressed. So, when I'm feeling most down, I make myself fell worse, and I make sure that I've alienated all the people that can help me. God, this lifestyle doesn't seem right.

Wow, that was tiring typing that out. Depressing people are really tiring to be around or ever hear about. I'm not saying I'm the happiest person in the world now, but I'm not that big of a drag anymore. I felt so justified at the time. Now, all of that just seems really stupid. Someone who was just way too into her own head for her own good.

Oh lord. Five more days plus today in this godforsaken place. Hallelujah!

If I feel like someone is a truly good person, I'll often feel so much love and devotion to them, even if I don't know them that well, or we barely interact. I feel that way about two people I've met here.

Let's talk about Girl. She is so centered and grounded, it's just a shock. I get caught up in all of these random things, my head going off in all of these directions, and she'll say something to me to make sure I realize what's really at stake or what's really important and she'll just stop me in my tracks. She opens up this whole world for me where I can see the possibility that I might, one day, be truly happy. I go chasing after demons, and she looks after me, making sure that I grow my heart. She amazes me. I love her.

Ack, cut short, will continue later.

I really hate asking for help from people. I can't stand it. And when I can't do something without someone's help, I get really, really pissed off. I also sometimes feel like people should offer to help when it's really obvious that I'm struggling with something, but I'll refuse to ask them.

I've kind of had some regrets and doubts lately about what I'm about to do. Mainly because I've made 2 or 3 friendships that I feel really lucky to have made. It'll be hard to leave that behind, but I got Girl to promise me that we'll keep in touch, and she says that as she's gotten older, she's come to really value the people in her life. So, I think we'll still talk when I leave. And, my other friend, he'll always be around. I'm pretty sure I can just pick up that friendship where we left off whenever. He's lived in San Diego all of his life, and my parents are here, so I know we can just hang out whenever I'm in town. That makes me feel a lot better. If you manage to meet someone you can really trust and who makes sense to you, that's a really rare thing (at least for me). Hang on to those people, dammit!

My friend was also telling me that now is the time for big mistakes in your life. Whether you are a spectacular success or a spectacular failure, you'll learn from either one. It's just important that you do one or the other and don't settle for a mediocre pass. Life isn't pass or fail. Life is graded. There's a big difference between just getting by and realizing your full potential (or at least some of it, jesus). It's a little bit harrowing to be doing all of this, but I fucking gotta.

This is why I need to move as fast as possible. Should spend as little time as possible in this limbo period where I'm still here, but have nothing to keep me here. The more time I have to think, the more time I have to doubt. This should all happen in a flash. That would be best, I think.

Ugh, four more days of this week, and four more days of next week. Thank the lord for labor day!

Dude, I'm so addicted to food. We ate dinner at this club place and were dancing with our sushi chef afterwards. I was so fascinated watching him slice and roll sushi all night. I was fucking mesmerized. It was so hot watching him, and he wasn't even all that cute. Oh, the way he handled those avocados! I've got problems.

I was over at my friend's place and picked up a Cosmo magazine that was sitting there and started flipping through it. Cosmo disgusts me. All it is is female strategies to nab guys and keep them. Ways for girls to be more appealing to guys and understand their needs (and what to buy to do so). So disgusting! That's what Sex and the City is. Just a bunch of middle aged women riddled with insecurities and filled with stupid, nonsensical bull shit, who've read way to many Cosmo's in their life. It's a bunch of people trying to act like puppets, following a really bad script. It takes out all learning for yourself, not to mention obliterates all spontaneity. You have to fucking learn who you are, how other people are, and how those two things interact. Life isn't fucking memorization. It isn't a "when guys do or say this, this is how you should respond." Sigh, I just need to accept that people prefer this cut and dry and never having to think bull shit and just tune it out and move on.

My stepdad is going for an investigative biopsy of the liver. Not supposed to be a big deal, but we were talking about how his brother died of liver cancer and all of this other stuff. My stepdad's retired and my mom is getting older, too. It made me really, really sad to think of their death as a real possibility. It made me want to stay living close to them. I don't want my parents to die. That would be very lame.

T.V. and video games are the worst things to ever happen to man. (I played a video game this week). It just trains you to want and need short cuts and not be able to function otherwise. Everything is wrapped up in neat little time snippets. It's satisfying and gives you closure without any work and does it immediately. Life is not neat or satisfying or instant. I get so fucking impatient all of the time. Subconscious or not, I'm always thinking, "WHY THE FUCK ISN'T THIS PERFECT _NOW_!!!" And then, I give up on things. "Oh, it's too fucking hard." "Why isn't this working without me having to do anything?" I'm too fucking impatient to live my life. I want things now, all now. If it's not here now, it just seems so far off that it's inconceivable. It just makes me want to go back to what's easy and in front of my face. Goddammit, like a zombie. I need to learn to work at stuff. Fucking sigh.

I'm so sick and tired of hearing people complain. I mean, complaining about every single little fucking thing. I don't believe in complaining, unless you're doing it to try to figure a way out of something. There should only be three options when you have something to complain about: fix it, refuse to do it/leave it, accept it and just fucking do it. If you're still complaining about shit, then that's a sign that you shouldn't be doing it, so stop doing it! I mean, some things are worth seeing through to see if they're fixable, and you might try re-working things this way and that, but if it's still shitty, then find a way out of your shit. Some people positively love milling around in shit just so they always have something to whine about. When I hear people take fucking pleasure in complaining, I want to shoot them.

I don't believe in medicine. I very much believe in consequences. I feel fucking tired right now because I was drinking last night, went to bed late and woke up early. I refuse to drink coffee or anything that would make me feel artificially better. If you do something stupid, you should feel the fucking consequences of it. Consequences are there to prevent people from doing stupid things. They also are a message for you to fix things. My body is tired and wants rest, not some cover up to fool me into thinking I don't need any rest.

I think people who like to complain like it because it makes them feel better about the shit they put themselves through. There are some people, for some retarded reason or another, who force themselves (or maybe feel trapped) in really shitty situations. Since they don't feel like they can fix it or leave it, and it's way too shitty for them to just accept, the only thing left for them to do is complain. They have to release their anger and frustration somehow, and it's usually by being bitter, resentful, and whiney. Fortunately, I still believe that I have choice and control over the situations I find myself in. That's everything, isn't it?

Dude, what the fuck is wrong with me. The other thing I learned in college, aside from refusing to force yourself to do anything unless you're actually interested in it, was that you should follow good people. That's the only thing I care about. I need to be around people I can respect. I've been so unhappy with this for so long. It's been really stupid of me. Why am I so worried about my future and my security? Humans were meant to survive. Any type of living organism was built to know how to stay alive. Everything will work out. I hope I never put myself through this shit again. Hard lessons, man, hard lessons.

Speaking of hard lessons, after reading Animal Farm and realizing, once and for all, that life is something you have to work at and not something that's handed to you on a silver platter...that was rough. I'm such a fucking spoiled, bourgeois brat. Gotta work at life. Hard lessons. But, I think I might be able to handle it. Handle working at stuff. I'll give it a go.

Okay, I think I've discovered why Zombknee is a part of the living dead. She's killed herself, not all at once, but in tiny increments. Killed herself by being afraid to pursue anything that was tough or hard or, really anything that wasn't a guaranteed thing right in her face and shoved down her throat. She's made herself into a zombie. How sad. I need to try to re-animate myself. There are tastier, more fulfilling brains out there and I need to stop banging myself against an impenetrable wall because I see brains moving around on the other side of the glass. Oh, the brains I could be having, if only I could snap out of this and just like, I dunno, put myself out there. And, I'll discover that going to find the brains is what I needed. I'll forget about the actual brains and just need the finding part of things. Striving, searching. Not knowing what will come up next. I've got to break out of this complacent need for a sure thing. I'm a fucking goddamn zombie, dammit! Fuck.

I'm way too much of an idealist. I gotta snap out of that. What's worse, is I'm a lazy/incompetent idealist. I hold everything to the highest standards and think that it should be like that without me lifting a finger. It's really unreasonable and it just makes me really, really unhappy.

Hah, maybe what I should do is not to try to find a better place and a better job, but the worst place and job humanly possible and try to endure it, so that I can learn to be satisfied with shit worse than shit and so that anything else will be a step up.

You know what. I'm really glad to be out of here. I'm surrounded by totally miserable people. It just gets you down. I've heard a lot everywhere that it's death to be around nothing but bitter, resentful people. One person is so lonely and depressed, he would do anything just to hear another person's breath. Someone else has been married maybe thirty years and her husband hasn't a clue that she hates his guts. And, another person does everything he can to appear the nice little doormat, but is seething inside and lashes out with really vicious comments about anything and anyone he can complain about. And then, there's me, who can't confront anybody about anything that bothers her until it festers into an explosive, dripping, pussing wound. (I'm getting better at that, really I am). I'm really going to miss a couple of people who have managed to hold together my sanity, but the last thing I need is people with big, huge, seething chips on their shoulders. It's not healthy for me. I shall escape!

I was kind of depressed last night when I started to pack a couple of things. But, thinking about it this way, it makes me feel better and help me cope with these final days or weeks or whatever.

I really, Really don't like monotony. I get tired of things. That's probably a bad thing. There's a lot to be said for novelty, heh. I don't really like being able to do the same thing really well. I'd kill myself. Continuous improvement, I could go for, but not doing the same thing in the best possible way with no change. I like change and I like learning. I know some people who are scared to fuck of any sort of change and it takes them a really long time to adjust to it and they grumble, grumble, grumble. I grumble when there isn't any change, and if there still isn't any change, I'll start shouting until I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. I just wouldn't be able to do it. I mean, no change means no thought. I'd kill myself.

I was looking at my hair just now and it's kind of short, so I had to hold it up really close to my face, and I caught a whiff of it. Oh my god, my hair smells really nice. It's heavenly. I had to take a few more whiffs, longer, more fulfilling whiffs. Aahh.

Okay, so moral of Animal Farm is that the world is shit and will always be shit, and that's just the way things go (says the Donkey). So, since you can never ever change the shittiness of the world, you just have to trudge along through it the best you can. Surround yourself with good company, try not to do any more crap than you absolutely have to, and pick and choose the limited things you can and pursue it as much as life will let you. Try not to get caught up in the bull shit that everyone preaches will profess you happiness, which is usually a vicious cycle of grasping that only works to their advantage and gain and not yours. Just...Do shit and be around people that make you happy, not what other people tell you will make you happy. Fucking ignore them! So, yeah. Fucking duh. Anyone in the fucking world could have told me that. Too bad you always have to figure shit out yourself even under the soundest advice. Guess you just have to learn your lessons hard for them to work (unless you're stupid and docile). But, even then, you only know what you're told, only doing things by rote. Need to be told what to do at every turn.

The time for words are no longer! The time has come for actions, swift and violent, strong and merciless!!

Like, I dunno, sometime this week. Gotta finish this one thing up before I do anything, goddammit.

Okay, there are a few things that I like about myself, that I think I'm good at, and that I really like doing. Let's outline these out, maybe it will get me somewhere.

I'm really good at seeing possibilities. Like, in a flash, seeing what would happen, how it'd work, going down all of these different paths, and figuring out what would be best. I'm really good at coming up with things and making them work out.

I get really excited about things. More so about ideas and projects. I get really caught up in things and it's very contagious. I'm good at setting things in motion and getting other people all hyped about it, too.

I'm good at putting things into the light that I want it to be in. Basically, on a whim, I'll have made my decision about something and proceed with a bombardment of arguments to substantiate it. I can make something into the best thing in the world or the worst thing in the world. One day, this is the brightest idea ever, the next day, how could anyone ever think something like that stuff up?

I read Animal Farm this weekend. It was a pretty interesting view. But, I don't think Orwell was cynical enough. He supposedly wrote it to denounce Totalitarianism, but I think Animal Farm can be about any type of leadership. Basically, anytime you have a group of people who are smarter than most of the other people, life is shit. The smarter group takes advantage of their power and control and the stupid people are so easy to dupe, the smart group can't help but think they deserve better, and, the dumb ones don't know any better, anyway, so why the hell not? That's the way it is and that's the way it will always be. I mean, sometimes smart people are born into a class where only stupid people belong, but, that works itself out. Either they'll find their way up to the smart class, try to oppose it (effectively or ineffectively), or they'll try to live as far outside of everything as they can. And, the stupid people buy into it by force, promises of a chance to be a part of the smart group, fear of some arbitrary evil, and lots and lots of pretty words. All of those revolutionary ideals out there to make our current injustices and oppression disappear are just there as a mechanism to get people to believe in the revolution enough to put a different group of smart people in power to do the same exact thing.

So, I really need to give up and stop getting angry about how people never get any real information, how everything is dumbed down, how mind-numbing our general culture is. It's not something that will ever, ever change. Most people are just fucking dumb. They don't want to think about stuff, they just want to be force-fed their thoughts and given retarded things to care about, and given enough entertainment and petty, easily attainable goals so they don't have to be faced with guiding their own life. I'll just have to muddle through and guide my own life and find my own goals. I mean, really what it seems like I'm angry about is that the things that I want and feel are important aren't readily available. Isn't that what I'm decrying right now? So, shit. Life's tough. Gotta deal with it. I can't just stay at home watching the Home Shopping Network, happen to see something I've been needing all of my life but just didn't know it, buy a "fix your life" kit with an extra "be happy" attachment if I act now, put it all on credit, pay in installments, return it if I'm not satisfied, and expect everything in my life to fall into place. Oh well. No wonder people prefer to be force-fed. Otherwise, shit gets difficult. Oh, and uncertain. That's the killer.

I think one of the major problems with the living situation is that my room is in this shitty spot in between the living room and our apartment courtyard. So, I can hear absolutely everything that goes on. I can hear everything in the house, and on top of that, I can hear every conversation that anyone on the ground floor has in the courtyard and in their living room. It's pretty miserable. There are bratty kids, annoying and obnoxious adults, and a creepy roommate. Not sound conditions for an unhappy, tired out girl.

I need to get a grip. I'm starting to do weird and drastic things. I'm definitely thinking about doing a whole lot of weird and drastic things. Maybe I will try getting away this weekend. Maybe do something really tiring and physical.

I think I've met my end, here. I'm frustrated with everything and anything. I hate it all. I hate this city. I hate my job, though sometimes it's okay. I goddamn fucking hate my roommate. He creeps the fuck out of me. I'll come home, and he has his door closed, and as soon as he hears me in the house, he opens his door a crack. Once, he was in his room with the lights off, probably sleeping for the last hour (said old roommate), and when he hears me, he jumps out of bed, opens his door, and then goes back into his bed. It's FUCKING HOLY SHIT CREEPY. I feel fucking spied on. I feel like all of my movements are being watched. I'll be lying down on the couch, in the house by myself, just trying to recoup some energy, and then he comes home, and all of a sudden there's all of this tension. I feel like a doe in the meadow. Munching on grass, as content as can be, and then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a black panther encircling me. Every movement of mine is being watched. I'm totally fucked. I can't fucking take the pressure!! I'm fucking high-strung enough as it is right now with the hours I've been working. I need to come home and be able to fucking relax. Not be driven so insane that I have to drive to the park for a half hour at 11 o'clock at night just to calm myself down before I can sleep. He's just so weird and skulky. He'll skulk in the living room and, since we're out there, he'll go in and out asking the most retarded questions just for any kind of human contact. He fucking asks how to spell English words. How to spell English words! Like, if you really need to talk to someone that badly, could you at least come up with something that wasn't so fucking out-of-your-mind retarded? Something that made any sense whatsoever? Like, a question about UCSD or hiking trails, fucking something that would make fucking sense to fucking ask me. The reality is that the living room is common space and he has a right to do whatever he wants in it, including listening in on every word and movement I make, and if I want to avoid that, I need to shut myself in my room or leave the house.

I'm pretty sure I've lost my patience with everything. I think I'm spent. I had a decent night's sleep last night, and I feel fucking dirty rotten. I feel exhausted. I've put a sour note on pretty much everything in my life, and I'm so done with it. Now, I'm faced with living a life I don't want to live until I make some serious changes and start living a different life. But, I'm all tired out from this life. I feel like the only thing I have energy for is to make a clean break and just figure shit out along the way. That's how I work anyway.

Another thing about helpless misery is that it's so awesome to blame someone else for everything and not have to agonize about how you're fucking things up. Like, there are all of these family things that everyone goes to, but I can't go because I'll start getting nightmares again about being trapped in close quarters with the grandpa. I used to feel so fucking wretched and awful because I couldn't go and how that would make my family feel that I would always, without fail, turn down any situation where I would have to be together with everyone. It would cause me grief for days at the very least. Now, I don't give a shit. If my family can arrange for this big get-together, but they can't arrange to include me in on it in some way that doesn't put me in post-traumatic syndrome mode, then, why the fuck should I care? I've told them how it affects me and that I can never ever be put in a situation where I would be in the same house as him, so if they don't want to see me, they don't want to see me. It's like shifting the burden from me having to prove that I love them and care about them when I always refuse to see them to shifting the burden to them. If they love me and care about me, they can make an effort to include me in on shit. If not, then what the fuck am I supposed to do about it? I hope this newfound indifference will get me through xmas this year. God, what a fucking depressing topic. I hate my past. Crap, my future's not looking too bright, either. Need to make one.

Okay, let's try for a mood change here. I'm in serious need for one.

Trust is really important to me, probably because it was broken so many times for me (crap, depressing topic, must stray). People seem to trust me pretty whole-heartedly on some pretty fucking intense things. But, like, I definitely haven't lost my ability to trust people. I'm pretty confident with my ability to read people. Maybe that's the thing that I really trust. I just whole-heartedly trust in my ability to read people. I mean, part of it is definitely that I haven't lost my faith in all people to not fuck up and be a real asshole given extreme opportunities for self-gain. There are certainly people out there who will do that in an instant, but I think I can tell the difference. It seems like a big trust-building thing is when someone does shit for you that could be for absolutely no reason whatsoever except a genuine interest in your life and/or well-being. Like, that stuff really catches you by surprise. Like, my stepdad helping me out with my car/bike. Or, when I offered to put my name and credit down so Dude could buy out this business he works for, he was pretty surprised. I think stuff like that brings people closer. As long as it's rare, heh. If you're constantly running around, waiting on someone hand and foot, then that just gets to be annoying. Really fucking annoying. And, it's not really being a good friend, imo. Gotta let people do things for themselves.

It's really weird to think where I've come from. I grew up in the Irvine Bubble where people are ostracized for living in an apartment complex and not owning their own townhouse. I mean, our family met the bare minimum for being okay because we owned a condominium instead of a huge, separated single family home, but don't think that people didn't look down on us for that. My highschool boyfriend was disappointed in me because he felt that I didn't have enough ambition. My friends owned beach houses and their parents gave them brand new luxury cars for their 15th birthdays. My friends graduated high school with maxed out retirement accounts. Everyone wanted to get into the best university possible and make a big name for themselves as successful working professionals. Our social gatherings were studying together and taking SAT classes together. Even when we were goofing off at philharmonic orchestra concerts or at my house (the only house where overbearing parents wouldn't ruin any semblance of nerd fun), we would play word and metaphor games.

Okay, so some may say I have a flare for exageration...or, at least emphasis...so, let me clarify a little bit. We did hang out the beach and fuck around. We did talk openly and naturally about inappropriate topics in inappropriate places and would get a lot of looks and often thinly veiled fascination/eavesdropping. We were obsessed about talking about sex and were fully aware of our raging sexual repression, but even then, more often than not, we'd talk about it academically. And, it wasn't just sex. It was anything emotional, like a moving dance or anything random. We'd dissect all feeling, all emotional reaction and remove it from ourselves. We'd wrap it in rationale, in strict, brutal logic. Strip it of anything remotely human until there was nothing left but pretentious words that we could pat ourselves on the back for explaining it so precisely and breaking it all down into a simple (or very complicated) formula. We took the life out of a lot of things with our formulas. I still do that. The word and metaphor games...those were actually mostly my fault. It was kind of a nerdy truth or dare. I'd ask my friends to describe other people as a food and to say why they were exactly like a certain food. Or, I'd make them choose between two different scenarios that were really shitty but in completely different ways. I actually learned a ton about my friends that way. Way more than if I asked them direct questions. And, it was interesting and it made them think, which I guess is never really a bad thing. It was really good for learning what was important to them and how they think and stuff. I was really fascinated with that for awhile. Of course, all of my friends were really smart and even witty, so it's hard to get too bored with that.

I used to be really interested in people. Used to want to get to know people really well, everything about them. I mean, what's more intriguing than people, heh, the human condition? But, unfortunately, people are really petty. After awhile, all of my friends, like, all of them, even the ones that I never hung out with but just occasionally would talk to, would start telling me all of their secrets. All of their stupid secrets. Like, who they had a crush on, who they were mad at, and all of this fucking gossipy bull shit. I was interested in stuff like personality traits that they thought were most important in people and how and why they came to think that was so important, or what type of stuff embarrassed them most of all. I wanted to get entire personality portraits of people. I wanted to know their life history and their current values or whatever shit, and see if I could figure out how they became the way they did and make sense of it all. I wanted to see how they reacted to certain things and put that together with everything I knew about them, just to see. I like, wanted to read people's minds. I mean, it was very interesting to know who people were attracted to and try to figure out why they ended up liking that particular person. That was interesting. That was a riddle to solve. But, fuck, it got to be way too petty. I got sick of it all and I think pretty much from then on, I never really cared about getting to know anyone. Well, it wasn't just that sudden. A lot of it had to do with a roommate that I had that I tried to do that with. She opened up to me and I did not like what I saw. And, I had to live with her. She was prejudiced and self-righteous. I mean, a really cool, nice gay dude that everyone loved because he was just a neat guy asked her out and it was like the worst offense in the world to her. It was an insult that someone knowingly homosexual would ask her out on a platonic date-like outing. I totally lost all respect for her, which really sucked for me, because I was supposed to live in the same room with her for the rest of the year. Like, I really just didn't feel like finding out how crappy people were. I thought she was really nice and perfectly cool until I started having soul-searching conversations with her. Lost all of that by being curious. Learned my lesson. Sometimes it's better to keep your distance, to not delve. Probably took that lesson too hard, but I guess I have a tendancy to do that. Well, I guess whenever someone learns a lesson in a really bad way, they usually take the moral of the story way too far.

But, anyway. Back to Irvine. I just think it's really odd to grow up like that, and to be so much a part of that life (willingly), and yet to be so far from it. I mean, I was a pretty miserable teen. But, there were parts of Irvine I really, really liked. I had really great best friends and a great group of random friends to hang out with. I absolutely loved all of my high school teachers...er, most, I mean. Totally bought into all of my AP and honors classes. I mean, fuck, the teachers were really entertaining. They really were amazing teachers. Fuck, if I were forced to hang out with any of them, I'd enjoy myself. As far as instilling Irvine values, though, I don't think I really left with much of that. I do feel a need for security and shit, that I'm not seconds from a bottomless pit of poverty and malnutrition, but I left with no need to climb that socioeconomic ladder. Actually, my teachers weren't really like that at all either. No teacher of mine really stressed that or even talked about that. In fact, my favorite teachers were total hippy flower children and believed in volunteering and didn't care about money and thought there were more important things to be concerned with. I think I was kind of drawn to that more.

Ugh, but enough of my Irvine past. More analysis of that will come later.

Helpless misery is such a great thing. What better to snap you out of your dull, complacent agony than a situation that you can't do anything about no matter how hard you try until you get so mad about it, you take swift and drastic moves. I'm getting excited about my life again. I'm going to start trying out a ton of different things. Anything I could possibly have a remote interest in. Just do it and see. Going to remove this silly obstacle in my way. This rut that I'm in that takes up all of my time and energy. I refuse to accept this as my life. Dude was saying how it's so hard to try to care about his life, to pretend that it matters to him and actually do stuff about it. I've definitely been in that boat. On my 26th birthday, I was kind of scared out of that. But, even then, it was just trying to plan ahead for a time, somewhere in the future, when I might possibly have a geniune interest in my own life and when I wake up with that realization, I would have nothing but broken pieces of a neglected life to put together unless I started working towards something, anything, right now. It's tough to work from scratch. Real tough. Depressingly tough. If I managed to work up any type of true enthusiasm for my life, I wouldn't want to fuck it up with the hopelessness of my situation. But, aside from that, one major thing lacking for me is anything, anything at all, to get excited about. I don't have anything and I really don't know much of anything. I haven't really tried much stuff out. Must take random jobs, talk to random people about their jobs and hobbies, take random classes and lessons, whatever. Even if I don't get a lifelong career or passion out of this, at least I'll fucking find a hobby. An interest of some sort, a fucking preoccupation. Must...take...charge...of...my...life....Must...do...it...Must......Care......

I think I'm fucking sick of San Diego. I mean, it's beautiful, there are a couple places that are cool, it's got everything under the sun that you can want. It's got beaches, mountains, snow in the winter, desert, your ritz, your grunge and filth, Mexico, and the 2nd best weather on the globe, but fuck, what's all of that worth when the people here are shit. I think I've checked out completely here. I don't know. Sometimes I think that I'm just being real dissatisfied and disgruntled, and that's my natural state of being which has very little to do with anything else but my fucked up mind...but, fuck, I loved SF. I wonder, though. Are cities like friends and lovers? There's a sea of people out there, but you can only get along with some? So, you fuck them and/or hang out with them but not others? Do you live in some cities and there are only a few of them out there that you can get along in? Or, are cities where you find where you can get along? You go into the city, doesn't matter too much which one, and that's where you go to look for the things that you can live with? Can someone answer this for me? Like, not my fucked up, wandering friends, but someone older? Maybe someone who's done some wandering and can tell me if it worked out for them?

Like, what the fuck is up with this shit? This seems to be a theme right now. Everything is absolutely perfect, can't get any better, but there's just one thing that I can't fucking deal with one tiny bit, drives me crazy, makes everything feel like a big pile of shit, and who wants to deal with a big pile of shit? Let me get the fuck out of here.

Fuck.

Maybe I'm the one fucking things up. Maybe I'm the one ruining a perfect thing. I'm scared of the possibility of being satisfied and content. I know that for a long time, I fucking did this shit consciously. I was so afraid of getting used to being in an okay state which would make feeling crappy that much worse that I never allowed myself to feel okay. Everytime there was a glimmer of happiness, I'd destroy it as completely as possible. Am I doing that subconsciously now? Wouldn't be fucking surpised. Goddammit.

Maybe the solution here is to stick with something and try to make it work instead of trying to find something perfect that I don't have to adjust to at all. Crap, that sounds so much less appealing.

Well, one thing, though, is that you can't just do this with a lost cause. I mean, maybe I could be perfectly content with certain situations that aren't ideal if I tried hard enough, but it would compromise too much of myself. So, I still think I need to find something that I actually believe in, or at least not actively disbelieve in. Like, maybe some things are fun and okay to do and I would like to do them, but I really want to believe in what all this stuff I'm doing is supposed to accomplish, or, you know, just being okay with it would be nice, too.

My world's been too limited. I don't think I'm going to fit in the neat, little, professional mold that everyone's been trying to make me strive for. No thanks. I've gotta fling myself out into the world. I'm gonna do it. I gotta. I gotta figure out my shit. Figure out what I want. This certainly isn't happening by trudging along in what I'm doing. I gotta experience shit! Force myself out there. Yeah, this all sounds like bull shit, but, by "there" I mean getting out of this wage slave rut that I'm in. I gotta snap out of it. I don't think I have enough discipline to force myself to do it on a daily basis. Like, to be in a routine, but consciously wrench myself out of it by pursuing random activities or whatever. I don't think I work that way. I'm too lazy. I'm a victim of inertia (and so full of crap). But the crapfulness that I'm so good at makes trying to wrench so difficult. What I want is to turn my world upside down. Nothing familiar. Since I won't be able to do all of my normal activities or inactivities, I gotta do something else, right? It's time for a move. A big fucking move.

My cell phone died. It wouldn't charge at all anymore. For the first two or three hours, I thought I would go insane. I felt like I was in prison. I couldn't talk to anyone, I couldn't get anyone to come hang out with me, I couldn't call for help if I needed it! Just screams falling into empty silence. No one cares, no one ever even knows. It was horrifying. I wonder if I would have gotten used to it after a few more hours. Maybe I would actually go out into the world and try to talk to real people. Put myself out and be social and shit. Maybe it's the cell phone that's so isolating. Creates these artificial connections to the world to prevent you from really interacting with it. I really think that all of these luxuries and bull shit that we have and are forever inventing just disconnect us from everything. That's probably why I like hiking so much. You go somewhere isolated (which is kind of the irony), but you have to to get away from all of this distracting bull shit you have to endure every day (i.e. ads), and you have to really, really involve yourself directly in the world that you are surrounded in, or you'll die. I wish people would wake up to this shit so I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore. I wish people would reject this shit and be angry with it, so my world isn't one big advertisement. One steady stream of images, sounds, scents, whatever it takes, that have been studied very carefully to access all of the recesses of my mind to freak me out and make me pliable to do whatever I can to aleviate this need (i.e. buy something). I just want to get out of it all. I wonder what it's like to be human (yeah, I know, whatever that means...). But, like, what it's like to be directly involved in everything. Not to be separated by buildings, sidewalks, streets. To not require a telephone or internet to communicate with people. To not have my main form of communication to be listening to some disconnected voice or even text on a flat surface written by god knows who with god knows what purpose. To actually walk about and speak to people with their own thoughts and experiences rather than everyone with a conscious or unconscious ulterior motive to sell you something or spitting out random crap that has infiltrated their brain through years of relentless, streaming, passive and agressive advertising (my favorite product, this thing that I want to buy, my favorite t.v. show and all of its inherent messages about how life should be). That's another thing. How would we act without t.v.? Our view of reality is so fucking distorted. Fucking actors running around in situations that kind of look like life, but so far removed from anything that ever really happens. I'm sick of it all! I want to hang it all up! I don't like the world that I'm forced to live in. Wait, why am I forced? What else is out there? Is everything the same, or am I stuck in a twilight zone of my own volition, or even worse, of my own making? Well, I gotta find out. I gotta see if there's something else out there.

Went snorkelling on Saturday. It was fucking fuckingly awesome. Surrounded by five foot sharks in 3-4 feet of water. Of course, they were harmless leopard and shovelnose sharks, but I didn't know that at the time. Only saw two leopard sharks (though, it might have been the same one), but saw tons of shovelnose sharks (maybe some of them were the same one). It was such a fucking thrill. With all of the sand kicking up, you can only see about 2 feet in front of you, so all of a sudden, you're sitting on top of a huge shark-looking creature and trying to figure out if you need to swim for your life or follow this thing around because it looks really cool.

Seeing sharks a foot away from me made me realize that I've never really done anything life-threatening before. I've gotten myself in hairy situations, but nothing's really as unpredictable and scary as coming face-to-face with hunting creatures.

I think I would like to face death more. My stepdad said that he wanted to get a little sail boat and take my mom to Catalina Island on it and then go camping. My mom thought that was the shittiest idea ever. Fucking bitch! If anyone wanted to do that with me, I'd pledge my life to them that instant.

Me and Guy were driving around really fast on this curvy, gravelly road, and it just started to mist/sprinkle a tiny little bit. A car came up unexpectedly in the opposite lane and he jerked the slightest bit and we spun out, ended up facing the opposite way on the opposite side of the street, the only thing stopping us from flying out of control was running into a bushy hill. That is my best driving experience.

Me and Dude went hiking on this bare rock face, sun reflecting on white, glaring rocks, cooking under the heat. Hiking up loose dirt slopes. Had hands, knees and toes dug into the dirt and still felt like I was going to slip straight back down any second. Whenever there was a bush more than six inches tall, we huddled under it for shade to try not to die from heat exhaustion. Finally got back as the sun was coming down. Checked the thermometer, and it had cooled down to about 100 degrees by then. One of the best hiking experiences I've had.

Went hiking on this beautiful trail and was having a jolly good time, chatting and hiking. On the way back, Dude said that there was no way that we walked over a bridge coming there and that we must have made a wrong turn. I wasn't so sure, but couldn't say for certain that I remember the bridge. Sun was going down and it was starting to get pretty dark. Ran back and forth down all of the forks in the trail, in a panic, trying to find the right way before everything got pitch black. Finally found footprints that looked like the bottom of my shoes and made it back with about 20 minutes of usable light left. Totally fucking awesome.

The best times that I've had hiking are when we leave the huge, cleared trails and put ourselves in the middle of a ton of thorny bushes. The best feeling is when you're like, "What the fuck am I doing, and how the fuck do I get myself out of this mess. What the hell was I thinking??" I guess the important part is that you make it. Eh, details.

I think that's why the whole sailing thing is so appealing. Out on the open ocean, trying to get from safe, secure land to a tiny little dot surrounded by vast watery nothingness....how scary is that? I'd totally love it.

Right now, my life is totally desk job wage slave. Need to transition. They're such opposites, it's going to be really weird. It's hard letting go of a half-decent, steady paycheck.

I was stuck at my mom's place this weekend, taking care of Dog while they were on vacation. I had a huge two story house all to myself. God, it was fucking boring. It was so silent. It was mind-numbing. At first, I thought I would go insane, but I got a little used to it. It made me really fucking domestic. I washed dishes, cooked meals and snacks, did laundry, helped wash a car, took care of the pet dog. I also ate a lot. I think out of boredom. The domestic life kind of sucks. It's bearable, but I think you start to get obsessed with food and cleanliness. Pretty awful stuff. But, I don't think I would've been able to make it through the weekend without company, and having a pet helped a lot. So, you have to be married and possibly have a pet, too, to stand domesticity. I guess TV would help. Hiking also helped a lot. Oh, and I went shopping. And ran errands.

I went hiking with Dog yesterday and she's a real sweetheart. Like, I grew up ridiculously independent. I was pretty much the only person to look out for myself. If I needed a ride home from school or if I needed to eat dinner, sure, my mom would sometimes do that sort of stuff, but I couldn't count on her. If it was 11 o'clock at night and the bus dropped me off with a week's worth of luggage after a school trip and my mom wasn't there and wasn't picking up the phone even though she said she'd take me home, well, I just had to walk it. Same with pretty much anything else. I learned how to take care of myself and I expect people to do the same. I think it's detrimental to hold people's hands through everything. How the fuck are they ever going to learn how to take care of themselves if you always do everything for them. A lot of the time, my attitude will be, "Well, figure it out. Why are you asking me about it when you're perfectly capable of figuring it out yourself and doing it?" I mean, people say I'm super supportive and stuff (at least about some stuff), but I'm a firm believer in independent thought and responsibility. So, we were hiking and there was this really steep spot that I wasn't going to be able to make. But, rather than turn back, I just slowly made my way down and tried to grab a hold of dead, thorny plants to make my way down without sliding too much, and I was thinking to myself, "I really got myself in a bind, now I gotta figure out how to get to the bottom of this slope without dying, sigh." And, I proceeded to do so. Well, Dog had a slightly easier time because she's lower to the ground and has four legs, I guess, but she kept on going ahead to make sure that she could do it, then came back for me to make sure I could make it, too. She was incredibly protective and seemed really worried about me. Kind of caught me by surprise. If I were there with someone, I don't think I'd be like that. Maybe if I had an easier time, I would go first to make sure I could do it, but, I'd just wait at the bottom patiently while they figured out a way to do it. Maybe I'd give some tips on where would be a good spot to dig your foot in and a slightly less thorny bush to grab onto, but I'd let them make their own way. It's kind of different. Like, I did the same thing with the new roommie. New Roommie was bored out of his mind, so Old Roomie was telling him about all of these things to do here. I threw in a couple things, but I don't want NR to be exactly like me and do all of the things I like to do and go to all of the places that I like to go. I thought that NR should just figure shit out for himself. And OR told me that NR is really depressed and said to him that he goes crazy when we're not around. It seemed like OR felt sorry for the guy and felt like we should be understanding or help him out, or something (at least that was the impression I got from OR), whereas I just thought, "Fuck, that's really scary...I hope to god he figures out something to do." I mean, plenty of people move to new cities where they know absolutely no one. You just fucking deal with it. You don't just grab onto the first person's ankle that you see and hope that they drag you around to wherever they go. I'm like that at work, too. People call me all of the fucking time, and I could fucking give a shit about their problems. I'm happy to help people when they need it, but if it's right there in glaring, big letters on the website, I'm not going to repeat it to them verbatim. These people have got to figure out how to figure things out for themselves. I do not coddle. I'd rather save my energy for when people have real heavy shit to deal with. Like, I also don't mind getting people started on stuff. I'll spend an intensive amount of time and energy at first, so you can get the hang of it, but if you keep on asking for my help, fucking forget it. I'll set you up, but you gotta take it and run with it. I'm not going to push you all the way to the end. And, if you expect that, get the fuck away from me. My mom did shit for me as a kid. She barely fed me and I saw her for like 5 minutes a week throughout high school. I'm also an only child. The only thing she ever did was give me money in college, which I used to my advantage, but only so I could be financially independent of her. I couldn't stand the thought of needing her. I mean, my parents or whatever are really nice and great to me now and we have an almost normal relationship, and it's lovely and great, but it surprises me when they do things for me. I don't like asking for help. I don't really like needing anyone. I also like keeping emotional distance. I don't know. I'm exagerating a little bit. (I'm in a harsh mood, if you can't tell). And, I've gotten a lot better about this (you can't get much worse than I was in high school). I don't know. My brain's tired. I'm going to call it quits now.

I'm more tired than words right now. My arms feel really tingly and my legs a little bit, as if I didn't have enough energy to pump blood through my body. I'm still at work. Was at work until midnight last night and 11 pm the night before. At least today I got a lunch break. I tried calling people to take a short break so I can find the energy to keep on doing this. Was thinking of calling bestish-friend-dude-who-hasn't-been-picking-up-his-phone-lately, but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. Even though he's gotten mad at me for not calling and was yelling at me to call him more, I just keep on thinking, "he probably won't pick up...do I want to experience that? naw." But, one of my friends is coming to work to keep me company. That's pretty awesome. Like, I know people pull this shit all of the time, working late into the night and stuff, but it's been fucking busy since April or May, and I'm just not cut out for 15 hour work days.

I know it's technically tomorrow, but fucking get off my back. I'll put it on 07/19/07 if I fucking want to.

It's 2:30 in the morning and I'm still at work. I better be able to sleep when I get home.

I've just worked for 11 hours without a break. I hate my job.

I am just leaving work now. I was at work until almost 11 pm yesterday. I hope tomorrow's not like this.

Sunglasses look way too cool for me. I tried to find something to shield my eyes from the sun, but they all made me look like I should be going faassttt with my hand up making some cool gesture, and screaming, "Yeah, man!!" So, I'm just going to get nerdy eye glasses and put tinted lenses in them. Tried to get something that would look okay as sunglasses. And yes, I did make use of a camera phone (god, I hate those things). ...Much thought went into this, yes, very pathetic.

I used to joke around a lot that I had a fear of abandonment. But, god, I fucking do. And, it's really bad. Some people manifest it, like Dog, by getting really paranoid when you leave her sight. I'm the exact opposite. If there's any sort of indication, imagined or real, that you are going to abandon me, then all of a sudden you've never existed to me. (That's why my favorite song is "I Don't Believe You"). It's really fucking severe. My bestish friend hasn't been answering his phone when I call and hasn't been returning my calls if I don't leave a message, so I just stopped calling him and never really felt like talking to him at all anymore. When he got really pissed off about it, it made me think about it, and...so...I guess when he did that it basically (at least to me) was a clear message that he didn't want to talk to me and stopped liking me. So, I was just like, "fucking forget this" and turned to other people and things. And, today, I needed a ride to get new lenses because Dude is borrowing my car, and I was like, "Since you don't have to drive Dude around because I let him borrow my car, can you drive me somewhere? Dude can't take me because he'll be at work 'til midnight." And, Dude was like, "Dude, you can just ask me, you don't have to sell it to me." Well, yeah. I feel a need to fucking sell it. I don't like rejection. I don't want to give someone the chance to say something that I will take as him not liking me anymore. Fucking fear of abandonment. That's why I make excuses for wanting to see people (06/03/07). It's why I refuse to miss people. It's why I act so fucking cold-hearted all of the time.

So, as a recap here, Christina's Fear of Abandonment comes from all those people in her life who were supposed to love her unconditionally, but ended up doing things that most people agree no human should ever have to experience in their life.

You know, sometimes it surprises me how unabashed I am in this thing. I've mentioned this before. Still surprises me from time to time.

I like raw humanity. No frills, no facades, no bullshit. Just raw, unadulterated people, as they are in all of their dirt and grime. I think that's why this bio makes me like myself. I like feeling like things are real.

So, I think another reason why I had to sell driving me around to Dude is because, well, why would anyone want to drive me around? There has to be some reason. If there isn't some personal incentive, then I would have to admit (to both me _and_ him) that we are actually friends instead of just roommates. Scary admittal. What if I'm overstepping boundaries? What if he laughs in my face or quietly disapproves and tries to hide it from me? And there, I've identified another fear of rejection/abandonment quirk.

I mean, just to clarify, I do admit that I have some friends. In some circumstances, it's cut and dry. We call each other and hang out for no real reason whatsoever. The only reason left to attribute it to is that we like each other and are friends. It's different with a roommate or co-worker, though. We're in forced circumstances. We talk just because we're both there in the same spot. It's different. There's room for interpretation.

I'm not going crazy about the new guy anymore, but it's still not very enjoyable being in my apartment anymore.

It used to be really nice and relaxing being home. Could cook and eat and watch movies without being self-conscious about it. Now, I can be gone for the entire weekend, and the second I come home, it's just the tiniest bit of a drag. It's just like, "Oh yeah, this..." Well, I don't know. It is a lot better now. Maybe it'll get better yet. I'll wait at least a week, heh.

I've been picking up my flute and piano lately just to see if I remember how to play. I can still do a lot of the stuff I used to know. It's actually kind of fun. Like, once everything gets mostly automatic and you just start playing without thinking about it. I think I just want to do fun and useless things. My friend had me watch Cold Mountain and Nicole Kidman plays this spoiled, aristocratic brat that only knows how to do useless things like sing and play the piano and dance, etc, but she's forced to learn how to be useful because of the war. There's a monologue that she spews out when she gets really frustrated and rants that if anything has a purpose or function, she was never taught it. She only knows how to be and do pretty things. The more useless, the more she practiced it. That's what I want. To do only useless things like playing music, hiking, and ceramics. And, somehow, I will survive off of this.

Girl was telling me that I was acting like a total chick. And, it's so true. Like, one of my big problems is that I think it's okay for me to feel like I can't be in my own home and I'm okay with being forced out of it. I mean, it's not like I like it, but I will allow it to happen. I allow a lot of shit to happen. I don't have that thing in me that says, "Dude, it's not okay for me to feel like this and someone needs to stop it." If people scream and yell at me, I just try to diffuse the situation by responding calmly. People can be inexcusably rude to me, and I just ignore it so as not to start a fight. This is a very, very bad thing. I'm decent at brushing shit off, but I really need to stand up for myself better. I forsee lots of impotent frustration in my future if I don't.

So, talked to the ole rooommie last night and he actually thanked me for telling him. That was kind of cool. I was pretty nervous about talking to him. Just said that I really need my space and my privacy, I'm not super social, and if I don't have it all of the time, I start to lose it. Sounds great, right?

Well, was hanging out with my friend last night, and, who comes storming out of his room as soon as he hears our voices. It's Chucky. He lays himself right on the couch and jumps right in the conversation. Somebody calls me, so I go into my room to talk and stay in my room while he stays in the living room to talk alone with my friend. For fucking 20 minutes while I'm sitting in my room. I come back when he's gone. When we're sitting there and talking again, he finds some other excuse to come out which is cool, it's fine, but then he fucking sits down again and starts fucking chatting it up. I kind of leave the conversation for a bit doing some random things, and he just sits out there alone with my friend for another 20 minutes. God fucking dammit. He did that fucking three times that night. Three fucking times. Three times he sits out there while everyone else clears the room except the person that doesn't have a room to shut himself up in.

So, I'm going to have to take a harder line with that kid. Gonna just have to break it to him. Just going to tell him that I need to have a separate life from him. Girl suggested that I tell him that I'd like to invite him from time to time to stuff, but that I'd like to invite him (i.e., DO NOT BARGE IN). And, it's totally true. I would totally hang out with him. Once in a while. But, if he keeps on going like this, I will never want to catch one half glimpse of him ever. I feel less scared talking to him this time. Oh, how cute, my little Christina is growing up right before my eyes...

So, I talked to the roommie again and I was much braver this time, and it was awesome. I kind of made up some stuff, but it's okay, I think I pretty much got my message across. Told him that I need to have a separate life from my roommates, that it's fun to hang out with him and going out that one time was cool, and I'll totally invite him to stuff, but that he should let me _invite him_, if I'm in the mood to hang out with him, I'll ask, but, otherwise, I'm really not all that social and want to keep to myself. I told him it was uncool that he was hanging around me and my friend all last night and that I was planning on spending time alone with him because we hadn't talked for awhile and I wanted to catch up alone with him. Said that I'm really used to my other roommate now and that's why we can hang out, that he's probably the best roommate I've ever had, but that even then, we got to know each other reeaallly slowly and that at first, he was never home and I was never home, and I prefer it that way. Told him I'm sorry I'm not super social, but that's just the way I work. Period. So, yeah, that was awesome. I was a tad bit worried because he said something about how he hopes he can be friends just like me and the other roommate, and I'm hoping that he's not still expecting that (just more slowly), but I think he gets it a little better now. And, he seemed glad that I told him all of this which is a huge relief to me. It was really good for me to do this. Really fucking good. Pretty much starting to overcome a big phobia of mine.

So, I've been thinking a lot about all of this stuff lately. Like, why Dude annoyed me so much and why other roommate doesn't and how other people have been annoying me lately. I really think a lot of it has to do with choice. In fact, I think that's why I've been annoyed out of my mind about Dude (who I went snorkelling with and ranted for pages last week or whenever that was). Like, with most people, I can't hang out with them all of the fucking time, so I kind of reached that with Dude, or at least was on the verge of it. Then, other Dude kept on inviting him to all of these things so that it was just the three of us (i.e. intimate contact) without telling me. So, I just fucking found myself hanging out with this guy in close quarters that I was trying to take a break from. Drove me fucking mad. And, it kept on happening over and over again, until I blew my top. I think I really value my freedom of choice...

So, why doesn't my cool roommate ever bother me? Well, I've been kind of thinking about that, too. For one, he doesn't attack me every time I enter the household. If he wants to talk or hang out, he'll just kind of sit around the living room or do shit in the kitchen and just be in there by himself, doing his own thing. So, if I want to talk to him, I just start talking to him. But, I think he pretty much always gives me the option of totally ignoring his existence if I see fit and leaves me in peace if I don't want to talk to anybody. It's simple and easy. No pressure. I'd say that's the biggest difference. I don't think I ever really feel any pressure to talk or do anything with him, unless I want to.

By the way, I've decided what I'm going to call this thing. It is officially my autobiography. Which, it pretty much is. Words about myself that I want to remember 10 years down the line to see how much I've changed (hopefully, how much I've grown), to remember super enlightening things I've thought but have long since forgot about, and, I don't know...I think that I'll just be interested in who I used to be when I'm older. Heck, I'm interested in what I was thinking two days ago. Plus, I think I just really like to hear myself talk just to see what I'll say. Yep. I find myself incredibly interesting and intriguing and I want to know more about myself. Writing about myself does help me to get to know myself a lot better. Get to flush all of my thoughts out and get down to what's really the issue a lot of the time. I've got a ton of kinks to work out, but this thing, this "Autobiography," actually makes me like myself more. I find myself very entertaining, even to just myself. I'm a fucking only child, okay? I spent at least the first 17 years of my life having only myself to entertain me. It's called adapting. Not vanity, not egocentricism, adapting.

I've written a lot in the past couple days. I hope I don't get tired of myself.

I am an only child. When I was really young, I was the only child in my extended family, too. I was the only baby for all of my aunts and uncles. This has contributed to my infuriating stubbornness. I like being able to decide and do whatever I want. I need my freedom. I DO NOT like to be subjected to anything without my express approval. I will not have my hand forced.

This is probably the main reason I can't stand my new roommate. He's a nice enough guy, but literally (fucking _literally_ aahh!!!), every time he hears my voice in the house, he comes out and starts talking to me. He forces himself on me. He makes me tense and afraid to talk to my other roommate, because it's just a dead giveaway that we are home. It identifies us as targets. Fuck, it drives me fucking crazy. Fucking, Fucking CRAZY. I can't be in my own home without being subjected to his presence. I can't open my mouth and speak without being pounced on ruthlessly, relentlessly, without fail, every single goddamn fucking time!! My choices have been nearly eliminated. I have no freedom at home. The only place I am safe is in my room with the door shut. It's fucking boring in my room! I spent the last few days staying as far away from my house as possible. Monday night, I came home after midnight. Last night, I came home at 10. I thought I was safe that late at night, but fucking NO. The second I opened my mouth, he fucking appears. No lag time, no warning. UGH.

That's the other thing. He never fucking shuts his door. I don't even have two seconds to hear his door open so I can do I head dive into my room and shut my door. He sneaks up. Fucking Chucky! Dear fucking god. My sanity is already wavering. This can't help.

So, my first impulse in this situation is to consider moving out. I can't even be in my own home, what's the point in living there. However, my cool roommate is slowly introducing to me the idea that I should speak up about things and ~resolve conflicts~ instead of trying so hard not to offend people and bring up negative things at the expense of my own implosion of anger and frustration. Hmm, so how would I go about this? I could drop hints, like suggest getting a job. Show him things to do around San Diego that he can do by himself...Is that too indirect? I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea to scream at him that I don't want to talk to him every second that I'm not at work. Um, I'm new at this. I think I'll ask around.

So, Girl said that I should just tell him that I feel uncomfortable around him and that I'd like some room to breathe and my own space. I was like, "What?? You can say that to someone?" But, I guess it does make sense. It's better than the alternative which is me not feeling comfortable enough to be in my own apartment. I guess I could just say that I'd like to be able to walk about the living room and kitchen without constantly having to be social. That I'd like to have some peace and quiet to myself. Like, it sounds totally rude to say that to someone to me, but, thinking about it, it's probably way the fuck better than just running away to my room everytime I see him. "Set some boundaries!" Girl says. So, it shall be. I will set some boundaries!

K, that's it. I will say, "Sometimes I like to keep to myself and I'd like to be able to walk about the house without feeling the need to engage in conversation. I'd appreciate it if you let me keep to myself when I feel like it, even if I'm out in the living room or kitchen." That sounds totally doable.

I think when I was growing up (or somewhere, I learned this somewhere), we communicated by dropping hints instead of saying anything outright. My mom is definitely the queen of that. She's utterly incapable of being straightforward about anything that bothers her. The only things that we could talk about were totally external. Like, the way that I said, "Pass that napkin" had to communicate that I was really mad that she said that she would take me to Yosemite four years ago but never did and that I really wish she would keep her promises and how am I supposed to trust her anymore. So, I think I run into that all of the time now. I try to drop hints about stuff that is bothering me, and if you don't get it, then the hints just keep on getting more and more intense, and everything gets way out of hand and no one ever has a clue about what the fuck is going on at all. That's what I was totally trying to do with the new roommie. I'm deathly afraid of telling someone directly that I do not like their actions, I guess because I was never taught that or shown that growing up, so I just try to drop hints. This is actually how I've dealt with all guys, or, really, anyone who has ever tried to talk to me or befriend me when I really, really found them difficult to bear. I just answer them in as short of a response as possible and try to avoid them at all costs, assuming that they will eventually realize that I really could go the rest of my life without ever exchanging another word with them ever ever again. What a lot of work to just avoid telling someone I'd rather be left alone. But, how could you say that to someone? Does that really happen? If someone keeps on talking to you without any prompting whatsoever, over and over again, can you really tell them you'd prefer not to be disturbed? I don't know. I'm going to have to work this out in my head a little more before I can adopt this supposedly new and improved thing.

Dear god. Yesterday, I met my match. In fact, I might have met my new idol (or nemesis). I haven't decided yet. For the first time as of yet in my life, I met a girl who can eat more than me. We went to her favorite Thai place in L.A. and she ordered six dishes for us (three people). And, after ge can'ttting ourselves in the most wretched, abject pain from overindulgence, she convinced us to go straight to another place to eat. I totally thought she was joking, so I went along with it, and then I found myself in another restaurant while she ordered two pounds of crawfish. The other guy just completely shut down after that and wouldn't touch another bite of food, but I never had crawfish before, so, what the fuck, I started chowing down. I stopped after working up a pile of crawfish shells because I figured that it was almost gone. I wiped up, cleaned off my hands, and then looked into the bag. It was just as full as when we started. I felt sorry for her eating the rest of it by herself, so I dove back in, saying to myself over and over and over again, "Just one more." I ended up eating twice as much that way. God, she has an incredible appetite. So impressive. I'm not sure if I'm really excited about it, or if it will lead to my eventual downfall. Or, maybe it will be an exciting downfall. So, yeah. She could be a source of amazing and fun gorging adventures, or a source of incredible pain and suffering. But, I had did have a ton of fun, through it all. She's actually really cool. Has a total bitchy sense of humor. Knows she's really hot. But, is still deep-down a really nice person who almost tries to hide it because she doesn't need to call attention to everything kind and considerate she does. Basically, almost everything I like in a girl.

You know, my friend was asking me what my type of girl is and as I was describing it, he was like, "Oh, so, you want to fuck yourself." And, it's so fucking true. I do want to fuck myself. In fact, the only girls I can stand are exactly like me (or, at least what I perceive myself to be, since that could maybe be slightly distorted). I like girls who are sexy (yeah, I think I can be sexy, so fucking what), who are open minded about sex, who are total insulting jerks, who love getting flak back, who are incredibly nice people but try really hard not to show it, who've got some curve to them (they can be curvier than me, and that would be ideal, but not too flabby or big-busted), oh, and if you want to be specific, boobs in the B-C range (hey, it's a preference), deep black/brown/red-auburn hair. It'd be nice to be slightly on the athletic side, but not a total jockster. Hmm, this deserves to be an official list.

My new roommate is driving me insane. He moved down here during the summer and will be starting school in September. Meanwhile, he has no job, no friends, no fucking life down here. He's a cool enough guy, real nice, a total sweetheart and all that fucking crap, but after 8 days, I can't stand the sight of him. So, I've been a little edgy and maybe somewhat irritable lately. I'm not saying that I haven't got a hand in this at all. But, fucking GOD. It's like having a roommate with a little brother. Every time you come home, he's sitting there waiting for you to play with him. You come out of the bathroom, and he's calmly sitting there, staring at you expectantly. You shut yourself into your room because it's the only place that you're safe and if you need to get some water to drink or something, he pounces on you, hoping you'll shower him with the tiniest bit of attention and affection. Ugh. He's just a fucking ever-constant presence. Every time I turn around, he's staring at me. He's like fucking Chucky. You're in the kitchen, and it's head is turned and it's eyes are following you. You go to the bathroom, and the doll's moved right behind you, staring at you. You go to sleep at night, and you see the doll on the shelf above your head, it's head is pointed down at you and it's staring. Maybe I should just commit myself right now.

Hmm, maybe it would be worthwhile to take a vacation.

Alrighty, here's the plan. I'm going to start by volunteering with Outdoor Outreach. It's for kids, so we'll see how well that goes over, but it's a start. A lot of the jobs out there are for camp counselors which means I'll probably be making just about 12k per year. So, yeah... I said I could live off of that, but we'll see if I really want to. Plus, herding a bunch of 12 year olds around might not be my thing. I was thinking more along the lines of teaching adults who just want to fuck around. Not so much kids who need to do this stuff so they won't commit suicide. But, who knows, maybe I'll get into that or something. What I really want to do is start my own school. That'd totally be the best of both worlds. I could choose the people I want to be around. People who are there because they actually want to be there, instead of this crap about people trapped in dead-end jobs that they hate and having to deal with that undercurrent of disgruntlement and bitterness because I'm trapped here, too (and all by our own choosing, which is the worst part of it). Get to be outdoors. And, get to run my own business. I think I'd have to have that. I'd have to have something to think about.

I'm actually kind of excited about this. I've been thinking about all sorts of things that I could do. Taking personality tests, career placement tests, assessing my skills, my values, my needs, etc, etc, and trying to come up with shit I could do with myself so I don't want to stab myself in the heart every single day. I've come up with a few things that I'd like to try, but always with a little doubt. Little voice in the back of my head saying, "Would you really be into that?" "How do you really know if you'll like that? "What happens if you leave this sure thing that you've got right now and you hate the next thing?" And similar thoughts. But, I totally want to go straight into this. The money thing is a little scary, but fuck it. I'll definitely start with doing this on the side. But, I'm totally into this.

Yesterday was a really decent day. Had a really awesome breakfast with my roommate, then ate burgers on the beach, then went for a hike, then had a home-cooked dinner. Even went running on the trail. Eating three square meals was awesome, but I think the hiking and running really did it for me. I'm becoming Ms. Outdoor Adventurer. Okay, definitely not, but it is really good for me. And, I like it a ton.

You know, people ask me what I would do if I didn't work, and I never really have a very satisfactory answer to that. But, I guess one thing that I would do all of the time, is go out to the mountains or something and go hiking and camping. Maybe I should do that for a living. I think REI has an "REI Adventures" thing. Maybe I could be one of the hosts or whatever you call it. I like speaking to crowds of people, too. Uh, maybe I should look into that...

Hmm, colleges have lots of stuff for pretty cheap. It would mean that I'd have to hang around a bunch of people in their late teens...shudder. But, it's at least half as cheap. Maybe I'll take some rock climbing courses or something and ask the instructors how they like what they do and how they got into it. I could probably travel a lot doing that, too. Dude, why the fuck not?

Dude, so Dude left me a present. So fucking awesome. It was a snokelling light that attaches to the other side of your goggles and anti-fog cream I can smear all over my goggles. How holy fucking awesome is that. And, a note saying I'm the coolest holy shit roommate ever. So, I've mentioned here before that I'm living with a roommate almost as cool as I am. I will now go into a short tirade of his awesomeness. Unfortunately, he knows about this website and will subsequently read about this because I told him that if he wants a stitch of gratitude from me, he'd have to read about it elsewhere because I'm perfectly incapable of expressing any sort of gratitute to anyone, especially the gushing kind. I'm not really into letting people know that I actually might like them or think they're cool in any sort of way, but this is basically my autobiography and must not be censored. He's like the easiest person to live with that I've ever lived with in my entire life. He gets my twisted sense of humor and, well, sometimes freaks me out with how sick and twisted he is, which is way too awesome. Um, yeah. This is way too gushy. I'm going to stop now. So, anyway. I haven't been up to snuff lately, but this morning I felt happy or something. I don't know. I was really happy and excited about it this morning, but now I'm at work and stressed again and totally losing steam. Suffice it to say that it was really nice and I really needed it, and I had a few hours of okayness this morning.

Such an eventful weekend. Let's start at the beginning. On Friday morning, woke up around 4:30 am to get to work around 5:30 am. Stayed at work until 6 pm, went home, decided not to take a nap and go to bed between 9 and 11 pm. Roommate said a cool show was going on, went to that instead of sleeping. Came back and asshole jerk roommate decided that I was going to watch the beginning of The Descent. Got fucking freaked out, especially since my nerves were already shot from being up since 4:30 am (it was maybe 3 am when we started watching). Tried to go to sleep afterwards, but couldn't. Tried turning all of the lights up, asked for CD's so the house wouldn't be so dead silent. Finally ended up being okay with lying in bed, trying to sleep around 4 am. Was able to kind of doze off a little. Had nothing but incoherent, jumbled dreams, slipping in and out of consciousness. Woke up in the morning, giving up on sleeping, but still in bed because I was too tired to get up. Got out of bed around 9:30 am. ...So, this is the setup for Saturday.

Desperately wanted to go snorkelling. Needed peace and serenity after last night and after the last two months. Roommate wanted to go, too, but couldn't in the morning, so waited for him in the afternoon. Had to be back at 4:30 pm to let new roommate in to move in, so, was starting to feel a time crunch. Then, I hear news that Dude is coming along and we're going to have to go shopping for snorkelling gear and such. So, I flip out a little. At this point, it's like 2:30 pm, I've had nothing to eat except a few cucumbers and some bread and cheese, and I've already way overtopped my quota for time spent this week with Dude (after just coming out of a state of perpetual annoyance with him). So, I try to calm down a little bit, looking forward to getting in the water. Well, they're starved, too, so we decide to go eat before anything else. Of course, I thought we were just going to hit the water and then get the fuck back to the house, so I didn't bring my wallet. I am annoyed and stressed and I am supposed to have dinner at 6 pm, so I just decide to screw it and wait to eat. Didn't want to deal with them covering me since they already covered me for last night. Well, bad fucking idea. No sleep and no food. Fucking lethal combination. Add to that stress and annoyance and anger that I have to deal with Dude. So, they get on my case that I should just eat something if I'm starved, but, I've already decided I wouldn't, so all of this pressure is too much for me to handle. I walk out and can't stop crying for like a half hour. I'm out in public. I walk to the store that we were going to to get snorkelling gear and try to stare at rollerblades to stop myself from crying. I calm down and walk back so that they don't worry too much. Then, roommate starts talking to me and I can't handle that, and start crying again. God. What a fucking mess. Oh, and, I'm also PMS'ing. So, wow. What a day. A ton of other details that I don't really need to mention, mainly involving Dude driving me crazy. I end up being 2 hours late to dinner.

So, yeah. Either I need to always get enough sleep and eat enough food, or, I need to fix all of the current frustrations in my life. Well, both would be good. But, for God's sake, at least ONE.

So, Saturday night. Tired, barely awake at this point. Made everyone wait, but they're really nice about it. Started eating around 8 pm. I sleep over there, go to bed around 9 or 9:30 pm. Dude has been married this whole time but never said anything about it except that he was "planning on getting married" and only told us now that he is getting a divorce. So, Parents are taking care of their dog because he doesn't want it anymore. One of the sweetest dogs I've ever met.

Sunday, I do laundry all day and play with Dog. Take her to the dog park, play fetch with a tennis ball in the backyard. Took her for a walk in the canyon trails with my mom. Step dad washes my car for me because he can't stand how much dirt is caked on to it from camping. Talk to my mom, try to get her to relax and take things easy for everyone's sake. Dog follows me around wherever I go. Falling way hard for this dog. My mom hates dogs. On July 20th, when Parents go on vacation, Dog will go back to the pound. My apartment does not allow furry creatures. I really don't want to have a dog right now in my life. But, she's the sweetest little thing. It was so fun. Going to the park with her, going for a little hike with her, randomly playing around with her. I can't let her go back to the pound. Made being at my parents' so much more fun, too. Usually, it's kind of boring. God, what am I going to do with a dog. What a fucking twisted turn of events.

So, that was my fucking weekend.

Just for the heck of it, let's continue on with the bitterness. Really stressful morning. All sorts of stuff coming at me all at once. Built-up stress and onslaught of more stress set off really intense cramping. Had to take a double-dose of Ibruprofen, and now I'm eating hot tea and chicken noodle soup when it's 80 degrees in our office. Oh, and in between all of this, had to sit and talk to a group of people. Fun fucking stuff.

I've been watching a slew of horror movies lately. Really gruesome stuff, but all in good humor. I think I'm pretty much okay with watching 14 horror movies in a row, as long as they are totally outrageous and over the top. I start freaking out when they're too real. We watched this really, really crappy horror movie called Opera. It was just bad. Not good bad. Bad. But, it was very realistic. It was in an urban setting and it was about a real person in her daily life who had this guy obsessed with her and made her watch as he mutilated and murdered anyone who got close to her. That freaked me out a little. I had to spend 10-15 minutes in my bed, rationalizing that no one was going to burst in and kill me as gruesomely as possible. Watching all of these movies directly before going to bed doesn't help. But, last night, we watched Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and that was totally fine. The whole bit of going to the woods in a deserted town where there are weird people and going off and doing stupid things like goofing around in abandoned, scary houses is so far removed from my reality, that it's all totally okay. I can deal with that. Getting murdered in your ordinary life - scary. Getting murdered out in the middle of nowhere with no sane human beings around for miles - shrug.

I don't really have that many needs. I'm not a shopaholic and I'm not into the high-flying life of luxury and refinement. In fact, I'm sure I could get by on a $15,000 a year salary and be totally content. So, I really barely need to work to sustain myself and my entertainment. Except that, as pathetic as it is, my work is my entertainment. It takes a bulk of my time which I would have no idea what the fuck to do with otherwise. I've always thought that I could totally just forsake work for the most part financially, but was at a loss as to what I would do instead. Well, I think maybe I should start acting like I'm retired. The only way to find out is to do it. I think I'm going to start travelling a lot more. Maybe one big trip each year and two small ones, and on the weekends I'll try to get away, too. And, I'll start up ceramics again. I just bought a really warm wetsuit and snorkelling stuff. Went snorkelling at La Jolla Shores. Floating on top of the water letting the ocean swish you around was so serene. I'll go snorkelling all of the time. It's really close and really easy to do. I should really be trying out a gazillion things. Whatever it is. Why the fuck not?

So, that 2 hour nap and 8 hours of sleep last night were a real help to my outlook on life. It definitely is a lot easier to catch up on sleep after not sleeping enough than to sleep much less after sleeping way too much. It feels a fucking lot better, too. I think it's totally the way to go. So, everything I don't like feels a lot better. Even tolerable. Complacency is such a wonderful thing.

So, this is kind of cool. I used to think being miserable was really comforting and safe and was always really uneasy when I was happy because I thought that any second, it would be taken away from me. Might as well just go back to being miserable because at least that was always there for you rather than indulge in an incredibly temporary, useless happiness that only served to remind you of how bad your misery was. Now, it seems really tiring to be unhappy and I hate feeling like this and I just want to feel better already. Thank god. Wanting to be happy seems a lot healthier than wanting to be miserable.

I feel dirty rotten. This weekend was so stupid and so bad. Possibly had more to drink in a day then I ever had before on Friday night, then went hiking the next afternoon, then had a bunch to drink again that night. Got home probably after 3 am, went to bed closer to 4 am, woke up at 730 am and couldn't get back to sleep. Was so hungover and messed up on Sunday. Sunday was really tough. Was such an effort to pull myself together. Felt so fucking awful in the morning. Having all of those ridiculous thoughts that you'll probably never actually do. So dumb. Went to bed at 11 pm that night, couldn't fucking sleep for some reason. Woke up at 5 am the next day for a really stressful day where I had run around making sure everything was going right and make tons of phone calls to fix a bunch of stuff that was going wrong, and also speak to a crowd of 100 people. I'm not in a good way. Must...pull...myself...together.

So, is this a good thing or not? I've been way too depressed to go to sleep. This is usually the opposite of what I do. Admittedly, it has it's downsides since I'm tired and grumpy, but I've been too miserable to be by myself, so I've put myself in the company of other people. That definitely improves my mood. It also prevents me from oversleeping. And, today, I was so exhausted, I ended up taking a long lunch and napped for two hours. Restored my energy a bunch, but also gave me something that I needed to wake up to. I think that's much healthier. My first impulse on Sunday was to isolate myself (that whole disappearing act thing). But, after that passed, my next impulse was that I just couldn't stand to be by myself. That's at least a half step up. Woo and yay for me. God, what the fuck. What's my problem? Sounds like this is all a distraction. Using other people to avoid my problems. There's something wrong that I don't think I'm admitting to myself, and even if I did, I don't think that I'd know what to do about it. So, what the heck is it? What's bothering me right now? What's making me feel like this?

Hah, well, there are a couple possible culprits that I (hah) don't really want to admit. Imagine that. I've had a dream or two that is a pretty clear indication that I'd like something that I wish I didn't want because of the possible ensuing complications and confusion. Really didn't wish I feel that way...how did I let myself do that? There's also the on-going wish-I-knew-what-to-do-with-my-life that's always a source of aggravation. Throw in a few other random dissatisfactions, and there you have it.

God, I'm so sick of this. It's such fucking effort to be unhappy. I've got to be miserable about this and miserable about that. It gets to be real tiring. Sounds like it'd be way simpler just to be okay with things. It may even be simpler to do a little here and there to make things that you're not okay with okay, rather than just spend so much time hating it.

I think a good start might be sorting out my feelings and figuring out if they will be persistant or if they will just fade. Maybe it's just a phase? I need to do that about a lot of things.

So, what do I feel and what's important to me...?

This is totally not sustainable. Everyday, when I come home, I have to spend 1-2 hours just recovering from my day. Sometimes, I'm just sitting on the couch, with my head in my hands, not having the energy to even adjust my position. Sometimes I think that I'm just not capable of dealing with life and that I should just give up. This is probably just an excuse to so I never have to learn to deal with anything.

So fed up. So exhausted.

Homemade butterscotch-toffee with coffee ice cream is just about the most heavenly creation in the realm of physical possibilities.

One other thing about not being super confrontational, is that instead of bringing things up when they're small, minor, passing issues, I wait until I can't stand it anymore and I'm so fed up that I get really snappy and bitchy and bad. I'm positive that that's my mom's natural state of being. She won't say anything about anything that bothers her, so when she does snap at you, she's really snapping at this one tiny thing you did and everything else that she's been seethingly angry about for years and has never told you about and you have absolutely no clue about. Wow, what a crappy/stupid way to live.

So, let's see. There are/were two major angry events that I've had in the recent past. One was my annoying roommate who watched T.V./played his stupid fucking Wee (or Wii, or whatever) 24 hours a day. He moved his monolith T.V. out in the living room without asking me about it (but asking our other roommate about it) and the sound just funneled straight into my thin, thin door. I could hear it at pretty much any volume and on top of that he had really annoying, screaming, brainless friends come by in loud, obnoxious groups. At first, I thought that he was just using it as stress relief from finals and then that he was just doing it during winter break. So, I figured I'd just wait it out to see if it got better.

Hmm, crap. So, the second angry event is this guy that I have to see all the time who scavenges off of everything I do and benefits from all the things that I spend hours and hours on figuring out and making work. At first, it was just natural that I'd be supportive of a friend and why shouldn't my friends benefit from me figuring out and fixing my life? But, it gets kind of tiresome when someone's not super appreciative and it gets really fucking annoying when you've busted your butt in very painful ways to get somewhere and he's been sitting on his ass acting helpless and whiney and reaps in everything you've worked so hard for. But, rather than talking to him about it, since he's most probably leaving the state in a couple months, I've just settled for waiting it out and having a somewhat strained and definitely less close friendship in the meantime.

It's really hard for me to tell someone that what they are doing hurts me. In fact, I have no idea how to do it. What the heck would I say to him? Why don't you ever thank me? Why don't you ever offer to help me out in return? I think that it's unfair that you benefit from so much of the stuff that I do when it's so one-sided. I think you're lazy and need to get off your ass and do stuff for yourself. You're obviously unhappy with the state of your life, you can do something about that. Why do you whine and complain all of the time when you could just fix it? You can't just use someone else's efforts to get themselves out of a rut have a more functional life. I don't know. Maybe it would actually be beneficial for him to hear this stuff. I guess one of the problems with me talking to him is because of that whole thing where I wait until I'm pissed off to no end and at that point it's really difficult to get anything out in a reasonable, constructive way.

So, this whole thing about waiting shit out. I'm thinking that that's no good. I really need to find some way to stop myself from doing that. Well, I'll try. Heh. Blah. I'll try to figure that out at some point.

One thing that I have been doing, though, is talking to a bunch of people about how unhappy I am with this dude. And, though it may not be as productive as actually talking to the guy, it has been really helpful. People have been pointing out my stupidities and getting me out of really illogical circles of thought. In fact, Girl has been really really great. She's really good about listening to my shit and being understanding, but the best part is that when I start getting really bitter and mean, she just kind of stops and is no longer supportive and accepting and she just tells me straight up that I'm being unreasonable and need to quit it. She's like my gauge, telling me when I've gone to far. Because, it's true. It's unacceptable to get as angry as I am when I should mind my own business about my life and let others be even if I think they could be happier (and less annoying). That's not something for me to decide. Not one fucking bit. By her telling me to mind my own fucking business, it's really put a stop to my growing levels of anger, made me sit back and look at myself, and made me fucking ease up about things. I've felt a lot better because of it.

Oh, wonderful stream of consciousness.

My room is so boringly depressing. I've got absolutely no decoration in it whatsoever except a picture of Huck Finn. Huck fucking Finn. What the fuck? Why do I have that? Paint by numbers Huck Finn! It's so confusing. I don't think I've ever put any effort into decorating anything. Well, I guess at the Poe house I had some postcards up. But, I think that's been the extent of it. It's not like I spend every waking hour at home, though, so that's definitely one reason for the lack of effort. But, I know I'd be so much happier having a pleasant bedroom. My office, though has a gazillion things in it. This is really the first time I've actually put something of myself up on a wall. I've got airplanes coming out of walls, artistically arranged umbrellas, photos that my friend's taken, ceramic pots that I've made, cheese packets hanging behind me, Teen Wolf staring at the back of my head, I even got a frickin' fish tank here. Sitting at this desk for over 8 hours at a time was just way too awful and depressing. I had to do something about it or I would have lost my sanity (which already hangs in the balance). Oh, must not forget the glowing frog and monster magnets. It's a regular wacky cubicle.

I need to figure out how to get angry at people. I have this tendancy to just give up (on people and things) instead of getting angry that things that I think suck are happening. When you get angry at someone, you are kind of saying that you're wholly committed to this thing and you want to keep it, so why is this fucking crap happening? But, the important part is that you are making the assumption known that you still want this thing, but just that it needs to be fixed. Me, on the other hand, I am far more likely to say that this is all bull shit and that I wipe my hands of it all. It's really kind of shitty.

There are two reasons why I do it. Of course, they all come back to my wonderfully healthy relationship with my ma. One, she used to get really angry at me when I was little. Like, she would blow up at me. She'd call me pretty nasty names, tell me how stupid and awful I was and how I should be really very motivated to change my godawful nature because no one should ever be able to stand to be how I am. So, um, it never really worked out that way for me, though I'm sure she had the best of intentions... And, what I did get out of it was that it was really pointless to ever get angry. It just made everyone feel bad, left me literally shaking for a little bit afterwards, and didn't really get anything productive done. I think I made a little private vow to myself to never get angry.

[FLASHBACK]. I was in the car with my mom and she had a really stupid song on the radio and so I turned it to another station. She turned it back to her station. I turned it back to mine. Back and forth once or twice more. Screaming ensues (all on her part). Names are called (all for me). Finally, she turns off the radio completely. We get to where we were driving to and I hop out of the car as fast as possible (before she can even park). I'm left there shaking, feeling as awful as can be, feeling like I went through all of that over nothing and that things would have been much more pleasant if she just said something more calmly or, really, would have done anything more calmly. I make a vow never ever ever to get angry at anyone ever in my life. Lesson learned: Anger is senseless no matter what in every circumstance to ever exist.

The other reason I can't express anger to people is because of that implication that I am committed to what I am getting angry about. It's an admittance that I, indeed, am invested in this thing and am inherently interested in making it better. I'm just not capable of doing that. It's so ridiculous and makes no sense whatsoever. I'm not completely sure why I can't do this, but I just can't. I'll do whatever is possible in order to not admit this. When I want to hang out with people, I'll guise it in some thing that I need. I have a craving for guacamole and you make it just great. I don't want to see you at all, but I want your guacamole. I haven't seen you in forever, but I need someone to help me pick out a tent. Can you come because I need an extra person? I have no need to see you and catch up with you, I just need an extra body...for the tent. I act so cold and heartless because I can't admit to anyone that I have feelings and that I might be capable of having attachments to other people. So ridiculous. So stupid.

The only thing I can think of that made me this way is getting constantly hurt and betrayed and variously abused by various family members. Not completely sure how something like that affects an impressionable, young girl, but, this is probably one of them.

Fuck, why am I like this?? I gotta figure this one out. It's not super healthy.

Oh my fucking god. I am a fucking corporate fucking zombie. Unless I'm away camping, I keep on fucking coming back to work. I just find myself walking here, against my will, because I'm obsessing about stuff that needs to get done. I'm so pumped full of adrenaline constantly for the whole day and when I finally get to go home, I can't stop thinking about it. And, then after an hour of thinking about everything I need to do, poof, I find myself sitting at my desk at work doing it. I've got serious problems.

I was going to go hiking/camping this weekend but my parents convinced me not to (by bribing me with food and coercing me with guilt trips), and I seriously regret it. As sad as it is, I need to be out in the woods or what ever, in the middle of nowhere, hiking on some trail, otherwise I'm back at work. How dumb.

I keep on closing my h3's with h2's!!! What's my fucking problem?!?! Oh god, I need to de-stress.

I would just like to say, for the record, I am a very interesting person.

I really like being flustered. Oh my god, it is so hot. If you insult me ceaselessly and become increasingly insulting the redder and angrier I get, I will drop my pants for you instantly. I love getting to the point where I'm incredibly flustered and insulted and mad and I'm so white with anger that I can't even do anything with myself anymore. At this precise turning point in your insults, you could push me onto my hands and knees, have your way, and I would have no choice but to enjoy it.

Important note: insults must be done with humor and wit.

Why do I tell people all of my secrets? I never used to be this forthright.

My parents are so awesome. My stepdad tuned up my moto for me...lubed the chain, changed the oil/filter, cleaned spark plugs, checked coolant and brake fluid levels, fixed my left turn signal. Heck, he even cleared off all of the gunk on my suspension and front controls (there was a lot of gunk). And, all I had to do was take them out for a cheap breakfast. How cool is that? And then, my mom makes us Alaskan king crab and lemon garlic salmon for dinner, strawberries and sorbet for dessert. It's so neat having parents. I wonder if this is why people like parents so much. They're super nice and stuff. And, they don't even ask for anything back, really. It's like they care about your well-being for the sake of caring about your well-being. Who woulda thought?

Wow, I got off of work at 5pm yesterday and it was amazing. I had time to eat dinner and energy to clean my room, wash dishes, take out the trash, take out my moto, go to the store, go grocery shopping, cook dinner, and sit around and relax. It's like I could actually execute my life instead of running around doing other stuff. What a new and wondrous thing.

Those pictures of Mexico (see 05/21/07) are instantly calming. That was a fun trip.

Work's been rough lately. I've been doing 12 hour days, staying past 9, rushing around all day with no time to eat anything but extra bags of chips and sometimes not even having time to take a stinking piss. And, not only that, but I'm so hyped up with adrenaline after coming home so late, I can't go to sleep. Staying up late into the night in bed, trying to go to sleep, obsessing about all of these problems and if there's any way around it. I wish I was getting paid more.

I just embarked on a three-day Dude and Food Fest. It was so ridiculous. Three days in Mexico with a dozen drunken dudes and enough food and beer to gorge on for days on end. The utter dudeness was astounding. Even my roommate was totally duded out. But, it was a really great trip. Started off really overcast which I could've done without, but on Saturday, when we went hiking up the mountain and through the tide pools, the sun started coming out. We hiked up and down maybe three tide pool cliffs and ended up on the last one which was jutting out into the ocean. Sat down on the cliff with our feet hanging off of the ledge in this little circle of smaller cliffs. It was way too fucking beautiful. There was a flat ledge coming out from the side, creating a little waterfall and two or three swirl pools, and we just sat there watching the waves crash on us 20 feet high, making these foamy sea swirls. And, when the water rushed out, we could see a farm of glowing sea anenomes underneath us. Totally made me want to go snorkelling. It's so great being out and about and hiking. Then, when we walked back, we took a short cut through the rocks and boulders on the shore. It was a little rough, but hearing the waves crash down on the rocks and gurgling down them as the tide came in was too amazing for words. Like, it was really just incredible. Maybe it sounds kind of stupid just reading about it, but I was almost like tearing up it was so beautiful.

I totally love camping and hiking. Even though it's kind of rough and you get caked in dirt and sweat and human grease in thick, repulsive layers, you can't beat being out in fresh air and being surrounded by dwarfing trees and mountains and such. I don't know why I'm so in love with it. I wonder what makes someone really into nature, and other people into bowling or T.V. or race cars. I'm really not into hustle and bustle. It just makes me really tired. Like, amusement parks or shopping malls. I get wiped out. I just love the calm and peace of being outdoors and away from all of this city crap. (Even though I love the city and the food and all of the people, as long as they are cool, and all of the random things going on). I love feeling really small and insignificant in the face of all of these things that have been living and existing for centuries, so far removed from everything I know and who could really give a shit if I live or die as long as we leave each other alone to live as we need to live. I don't know. It's neat.

Why does it always seem like I'm either running around left and right, always rushing to do a million things, or I'm sitting home alone staring blankly in my room with absolutely nothing to occupy myself? I remember being so busy I had no time to stop and rest and do anything for weeks, even sleep or shit. Like, after two or three days of needing to shit and not being able to, not to mention the sleep deprivation, I just stopped my entire life and refused to do anything with anyone until I could spend plenty of quality time with my toilet and my bed. That was a pretty intense time. But, now it seems like it's totally one or the other. Every day or few days it will switch between burn out worthy stress to relentless empty void. I don't like it.

So, zombknee was supposed to be my general website that I could give to any random person and they wouldn't be scarred for life and avoid me like the plague. But, when I started to think about what the fuck I would put on it, everything sounded really stupid and boring and useless and a worthless waste of time. There just isn't anything about me that's kiddie-safe. So, I gave up and decided to just be me and all me so the whole world can see the frightening black hole of my consciousness. Eh, who cares and why not.

I was going to start identifying people in this version of my text (yeah, I just can't bring myself to say web log, or "blog" as they say...I will have to come up with an acceptable word to call it...journal, diary, log, just can't say any of those things.) because it was stupidly anal of me to be so secretive. But, I just realized that it actually wasn't me trying to be secretive. I was trying to protect these people from the ruthless embarrassment and humiliation that I subject myself to with every entry. So, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it.

I was in the shower this weekend when my roommate had to take a very urgent shit. He rapped on the door with a controlled violence, and he made some meek excuse about how he had to get ready to go out really soon, so I told him that I'd be just five more minutes. Well, he couldn't take the agony any longer and rather than crap in his pants, he charged into our roommate's room when she was gone and made use of her toilet. The whole time he was in there, he thought of how he could justify all of this to her and he decided that, if she came home, he would look her straight in the eye, put his hand on her shoulder and say, "Liz. ...As one human being to another....." Oh god, I can't stop cracking up about that.

Oh how frustrating. My last pretentiousness file disappeared when my hard drive died and the last upload was corrupt, so I lost everything I wrote from 8/29/05 to I think sometime in June 2006. I thought I had accepted it, but then I realized I'd be willing to spend hundreds of dollars just to get that one file back. It's almost a year of my life. I feel like a year of my life is missing forever now. I bought the same model hard drive as my fried one and switched out the circuit boards and, lo and behold, it worked! Oh, but, lo and behold, it was the wrong hard drive I saved! I saved my stupid OS hard drive that pretty much has nothing but very replaceable program files on it. So, now I have to go through the whole thing again with my other hard drive. I'm worried because this other one powers up, but doesn't spin up. Hopefully the circuit board is damaged and isn't providing enough power to spin up the drive. Otherwise, the hard drive is fucked and I don't know what I'm gonna do to get back my life again! Or, at least that one file. How stupid. Actually, I think my OS hard drive had my emails and aim logs on it. That's worth saving I guess. Why do I think it's so important to be able to look back one day and see who I was when I was a retarded twenty year old? Will I even care when I'm a bitter old woman? Why am I such a nerd?

My new website was really satisfying the first couple days and now it's not anymore. I think it's because I used to watch so much T.V. when I was a kid. I grew up on T.V. Now, I'm really impatient and need to be entertained constantly and if something doesn't offer me instant gratification every second that I'm alive, it's frustrating and worthless to do. I suddenly feel really uneasy and it's no longer this unreachable ideal, and so I should just give up and scrap it all. I do this with everything in my life. This trained impulse makes me want to quit my job, break up with my guy, and move out of this city. If everything around me isn't moving like a whirlwind, captivating my interest and going exactly as it's supposed to without pause, I get antsy with it. I'm feeling antsy right now. I need to calm down.

I've recently discovered that the one and single thing that attracts me to men and women is their scathing mockery of me. It is a direct relationship. The more intensely and frequently one mocks me is exactly the amount of increase in my attraction. Aside from initial novelty, I've noticed that this has been alarmingly true of everyone I've dated. After the novelty wears off, there's nothing but niceness, respect, and romantic love and I just have no idea what I'm supposed to do with that. Even bigwangman who was an exquisite piece of meat didn't really do it for me in the end. He had a really biting, sarcastic sense of humor, but it unfortunately wasn't directed at me. Maybe a little bit, and I was a little bit attracted to him, but when it really came down to it, it just didn't satisfy my needs. There have been people who were hilarious and incredibly caring and kind, physically left nothing to be desired, and any number of perfect and ideal things, but what I need is to be insulted and degraded and mocked. ...Wow.

It feels so nice to be writing in this thing again. It somehow makes my life more real or more exciting or more worthy or something.

So, here's my first up-to-the-date news reel. This weekend, me and the roommie went to Anza Borrego to go camping. It was the most surreal experience. First of all, we went against local wisdom and decided to go on this weird route that took us to the bleakest, most depressing part of the park. It basically looked like a nuclear wasteland a century after all life was eradicated from all surrounding areas. Then we finally got to the campground and got to some hiking. It was really boring and monotonous, so we cut through this hill and trekked down from the top of the peak that we were on, down into the valley where we were slashed by cactus, thorny brush, and dodged scavenging coyotes. Then, we somehow found our way back to the campground. After setting up the tent, we decided that we needed beer to wipe the memories of cactus spikes burrowing into our skin, so we drove into town and came back with a few minutes of sunlight left to start a fire and cook our dinner. We got the fire going and wind started bellowing into the campsite blowing gusts of smoke from wet firewood directly into our eyes. We were starved and had these short 6" skewers to work with, so we had to sit right on top of the fire to cook. For two and a half hours, we were screaming in pain from the smoke in our eyes, every once in a while interrupted by a, "Oh god, these kabobs are delicious." Then, when the fire died down, we tried to get some sleep. The wind was blowing so hard, it was thrashing the rain fly against the tent. It sounded like we were in the middle of a fierce battle. Every few minutes we'd be startled by a bellowing commotion, and we'd wake up in a panic that some predator was about to tear into our tent. In the morning, the wind died down and it was peaceful and calm and we looked out the tent and there was this incredible sunrise. There was a sliver of this vibrant orange over the horizon, enveloping the entire Salton Sea, and we packed everything as fast as we could so we could get the fuck out of there and go back to sleep in a real bed. We passed through Julian on the way back and had an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet at the American Legion with a sign right at the door telling hippies to use the backdoor (No Exceptions), and that marked our return to civilization. Such a harrowing experience.

So, this guy just came in and had a baby last night and he was talking about it all excitedly. I tried to muster up some enthusiasm, but I just couldn't. My co-worker also just proprosed to his live-in girlfriend last week and everyone was surrounding his desk, looking at pictures and grilling him on everything that happened, and, I knew I was supposed to hop to it and do the same thing, but I just couldn't. Instead, I went over to my desk, put on some headphones, and blasted music while finishing up some work. Not really into the whole domestication thing or even hearing about it. Can't even fake it.

Oh dear god, Christina is resurrecting her dead weblog. So, it's been quite a while. When my computer fried, I just sort of stopped writing (yes, it takes very small obstacles to make me give up six years of regular writing). What can I say, zombies have very little initiative. They only pursue brains within smelling distance.

You may ask, "What the fuck is with the whole zombie thing? It's quite stupid and really has nothing to do with anything at all." Well, I fucking like zombies, okay?

I looked at my other website and didn't like some of the things that I read. I've decided that I'm a newer, more sophisticated being now and should have a new, stupider website to reflect that. (But, this one is themed...um, very loosely, but still themed...So, it is automatically cooler.)

Let's back-track through my life a little bit. I am living in Hillcrest with a roommate who is almost as cool as I am, and I sometimes try to pretend that I care about my life (just in case, one day, I will actually care about my life and at that point will be scrambling for a life worth caring about). K, summary complete.

Some important things of note. This new web page has been moved over from it's former web host and marks my complete severance from The Ex. This is all that will be mentioned of The Ex, I'm sick and tired of having him in my life and in my text.

This is something new that happened that is really big for me. Ever since telling my family about The Thing (not feeling like going into it any further than that), I've been able to stand up for myself a little bit better. If something is really angering, I don't feel like I have to just accept it anymore, I feel like I can bring it up and make it better and everything will still be okay. It's also been a relief to be able to just flat out tell my family, "No, I will not go to that" or "No, I do not ever want to hear about that," and they just understand. It's been such a huge load off my back. I should thank Lynn for that.

Lots of other stuff has happened, but that's about as much as I can take right now. These intriguing stories will trickle in when, well, I guess I feel like writing about it.