basically, virginia is perfect. i'd have driven for longer if i had to.

sorry. i've been busy.

i created an entirely new language from the insides of my head.

i wrote a 6-page fake history for that language.

it's basically a william carlos williams cult, and i'm down with that.

i wrote a 9-page paper about "blackberry winter."

it's a pretty good short story. i hope my paper does it justice.

i finished my third and final novel in selected french readings.

i took my french conversation vocabulary final.

i can wow the french people with my knowledge of french slang.

i wrote a 6-page response to a study i had to read for israelite history.

i responded to 3 hemingway stories and 3 faulkner stories.

i read king lear-- doesn't sound impressive, but it's a horrifying play.

i managed to get my heart of darkness paper down to 4 pages.

i had to cut my thesis in half, but i'll be able to resurrect it next semester.

i have never worked so diligently before.

also, i'm going to virginia this weekend with my roommates.

i'm going to spend the weekend away from school and work.

it's been a long time since i've been so excited about a vacation.

i'm going to visit a boy named jeremy.

(i've been writing again.
i could not be happier about that.)

i dig up my god pot--
not proof, but
the only evidence from which
i could hope
to scrape the earth.
he lived before,
buried remnants
of civilization cycles,
weathering rocks
of ages.
i do not believe or
disbelieve history.
i do not question
the carrying wind.
i accept museum
shelves for
what they are and will be.
i make my visit.

i walked by the flowers today, and i thought about my mother. she loves flowers. she can tell you the name of any flower you walk by. she can tell you how to take care of any flower you walk by. this is something that i appreciate about her.

but i got to thinking, for the rest of my life, when i see a group of beautiful flowers, i am going to think about my mother and how she could tell me its name. it scared me.

i'm not angry about how you know flower names, mom, or about how everybody in the world will die someday. i love that you know the names of flowers. but i'm concerned about having an identity. let me explain.

my mother is flowers. my mother is a bumblebee. my mother is a pair of hands on the back of my neck in a good way. she is home, her voice is my voice, i am her knitting needles. i am her spun yarn. she is spun yarn and she is me.

when do i not walk beside something that i have not connected to another person? what single thing about me is not something i received from another person? except for a few people who are kidding themselves, we are all this way. we are all tiny parts of the people around us, the people we have met in our lives. even in the least significant interaction. i remember the eyes of the man who sold me ice cream in porto rafti. he is greece to me. he is ice cream to me. he is abstraction, he is my life.

roark is a vacuum and a lobster. roark is the state of oregon. why is roark the state of oregon. florida is a pine needle. i am a rake. i am a red metal rake.

i remember cherry blossoms in tsuyama. japan is the color pink. japan is an airplane.

i remember osman getting a ticket for not wearing his seatbelt when i drove with him in cairo. osman is egypt, osman is africa, osman is a traffic ticket. i am osman. osman is my life.

things that happen everyday. i ate dinner in the cafeteria with beth and jayci. we are peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. jayci is an olive she does not eat. beth is the left side of the cafeteria. beth is a pair of white earrings. i am beth. i am those things.

katie, beth, and i splashed in the lilypond tonight. 284 foxridge road is water. chlorine is an action figure with no arms. ellen and josh are marriage. my luggage is a house. my luggage is a house.

my luggage is a home.

a ladybug is a three-year island prison. that does not mean what you think it means. that does not mean what i think it means. my thoughts are a ladybug.

what in the world can we possibly be, except everything? who are we? how are we different? what is happening to my brain? am i a part of everybody around me? is there anything that is only me? who started this all? what were people when there was only one person?

i want to think the thoughts of the only person on the planet. i want to be completely myself. i know what you're thinking, katie. you're thinking "how am i not myself?" and i am serious. you are asleep above me and i feel crazy.

i like it. you are sleep, katie. you are a bunkbed. you are greece. you are osman. we are the same.

i feel crazy. i am crazy and i like it. i am you. you are crazy too.

i am a subway car. you are a kitchen counter. you are distance. you are responsibility, you are disappointment, you are happiness, you are fulfillment, you are risk. so am i. we are not anybody, we are everybody. we are each other.

how does it feel? it feels like everything.

by the way, here are some flowers. here is a picture of you:

beth wanted us to take bunny pictures, and made me put on bunny ears before i got to brush my bunny teeth or wash my bunny hair. so here they are. enjoy.







for the record, now my hair and teeth are bunny clean and there's no bunny camera. life is like that.

happy easter, everybody.

katie and i wrote this dada poem:

present day huddled
miserable airplanes, But made
images. their warming
pitter-pattered iron merrily
hands winter's monotonous
will right, in not sparkling
flickering country, of least, our shall by
trepidating the books us
shed there. on we flight
our sad round at the
be our the They
with in rain, open the
find at a a fire in

and i wonder if you know
that i never understood
that although you said you'd go
until you did i never thought you would
never thought the words you said were true
never thought you said just what you meant
never knew how much i needed you
never thought you'd leave until you went

well, my family is staying in hawaii for another year.

i feel as if god has forgotten that i exist, as if he has forgotten that my life is supposed to be part of his larger plan. it is april, and it's been a difficult year for me. last year was likewise difficult. in having many things happen, nothing has really happened to me. i see my decisions affect the people around me, and i wonder whether i am just meant to be some sort of minor character in another's life instead of the protagonist of my own life. things happen around me and i don't see any divine connection between them. i am not seeing a great thread, a great unification, in my life's events. maybe there really is no plan? i need to stop expecting discernable purpose. katie sat across the table from me at dinner and told me about some of the things that are working out in my life. for instance, i get to study something that i truly love at a university. as graduation looms (and boy is it looming, even an entire year away), i am finding it more and more difficult to enjoy english studies without wondering whether i will be able to get a job i can enjoy. but there is more than that in my life, probably. i mean, i am alive, right? i need to figure out why i am alive.

and so i suppose i will live in hawaii with my parents. i cannot afford to start out somewhere else. i cannot afford to pay rent. i would not be able to get a job until after june 10th. i've been trying to build my spirit back up and reconstruct my heart. i just don't want that to be undone. i think i might be undoing it right now. i think a third summer on the planet's most isolated island chain might really deteriorate me.

sometimes things work out for people. sometimes it takes a very long time. we can never know whether things will work out as we are waiting, or whether we are even waiting for anything at all. and even if what is happening to me right now is "waiting," i still have to be alive every second of every day. ladies and gentlemen, that sucks.

my evening in pictures.

katie and i found the setting on the camera that makes us look like fake people:


and i got a dog:


we cooked my dog and ate it:


joey whittled me a boat (out of a larger boat):


then i made him wear bunny ears, and he didn't hate it:


all in all, i'd say the campfire was a good idea:


and, like all of my nights, tonight ends in bed with katie:

when i designed,
god lived inside of me
as i designed.
i fed us with
repulsive sandwiches.
who let me live that way?

god has of course
not changed,
but i have changed
and how i am changing even now!
how a line is lies before
the ink dries,
and how the parts of me
break and litter
the dirty carpet.

my hands cannot gather my feet,
or my ears talk through my mouth.

i have changed,
am unconcerned with
my face arrangement
or the position of my feet.
i know it incomplete
and who has let me live that way?

i have changed, have changed,
am changing now!
i smile in the morning
not making a bed
but straightening my long back
on grey tile.

or gray--see how i have changed!
am changing still!

perhaps i am
the only part of the world
that can change.
or perhaps not!
i live this way.

it's been three months since robin and i broke up, so i think i should be able to mention his name here again. i can say that the worst part of breaking up is that for a long time afterwards, regardless of how you are doing emotionally (and emotionally i am doing quite quite well), your body has an involuntary physical reaction to even the sight of your former partner. it feels like getting hit with a baseball bat right below the ribs, and it does not quickly leave. i wonder how long that will last. i guess i'll let you guys know when that feeling stops coming to me. i'll be the guinea pig.

i haven't lost any of the peace i got from the things in my last post. i was expecting it to slip away from me, but it has not left. i can really do this. i am going to make it through the semester. i've been working at it. i know it takes work, and i am going to do the work.

i'm going to come out of all of these things better than how i was before. i can almost feel it as it's happening. it's exciting.

here's a question for my panel of experts -
are relationships supposed to be that difficult?

i wrote out a lot to myself today, and i want to be held to it. here it is.

stop thinking that people do not care enough about you to be hurt by you. that is irresponsible and simply not true.

if you draw on yourself with permanent marker, you will regret it. stop doing that.

when you are in the mood to work, work. you are not always in the mood, but you will always have work. you should get work done when it can make you happy.

you look like your grandmother, but you are not her. she is dead and you are alive. your life has not been decided.

stop being upset that you do not know where you will live. the answer could be anything, and you probably do not want the truth about it right now. trust that there is some reason.

read poetry, but put the books down once in a while and have an experience. literature is important, but you have to go out and live things.

when you get an idea, write it down or you will not be able to remember it. an idea is nothing when you forget it, and you will regret your carelessness.

do not worry about whether or not you will ever see him. you either will or you will not, but you have accepted happiness and must also accept sadness.

stop thinking that you look bad in your clothes. you either do, or you do not. you probably do not. and if you do, it does not matter. they are your clothes and you will not buy more.

it is good to tell people what you want sometimes, but hold back once in a while. you do not need what always you want at any given moment. nobody does.

when you are sad, paint your toenails. you love that and it is not difficult to do. stop forgetting that small things like this exist.

leave your room at least once a day or you will feel awful about it when you are trying to go to sleep that night. if you do not have a place to go, go driving. if you do not want to drive, go to the library. if the library is closed, sit in the lobby and read. there will always be the lobby and there will always be books.

it is fine to hate money, but you still have to get a job soon. if you want to drive, you need gas. gas is expensive and you love to drive.

throw away your old underwear. it is disgusting to keep them forever. also, when a sock gets a giant hole in it, throw it away. socks do not have feelings and they do not care if they belong to you. that is stupid.

katie is usually right about things. stop fighting that and start listening to what she says.

if you get your hair cut short, you will regret it. do not do that. also, you do not look good with bangs. this is not going to change.

the world is a sad place sometimes. you have to learn to be ok with that. sometimes you will have things that pills will not take away, but you are not going to stop being alive.

if you take the time to write a letter, send it. you cannot be upset with him for not reading what you do not send. also, you cannot be upset with him for not reading what you do send.

read your bible sometimes. even if you do not like to admit it, it makes you think. even if it does not stir deep and wonderful thoughts of god, it makes you think. you need to think.

people with blue eyes are the same as you, but with a different eye color. your father has blue eyes. so does ellen. so do both katies. if you have children, they might have blue eyes. you have to stop seeing them as bad people. this is stupid.

stop caring about whether the boy in your english studies class wants to have a conversation with you. everybody is not for everybody. nobody is for nobody. you are still a special person.

if you drink a great deal of soda, you get headaches. stop doing that. you hate headaches. also, take your medication. you hate headaches. also, you hate being angry.

if you have to cry, give yourself five minutes to cry in a bathroom. it is better to be around people.

do not sign off of aol if you are just going to use katie's screenname to check his away messages. that is stupid and you are not stupid.

if you put off homework until the morning before class, you will be late to class and you will regret it. if you are going to work in the morning, sit down and work.

do not kiss people for whom you do not care. you do not want to make that list even a single name longer. it is a bad list and you do not want to make it longer.

try harder to believe people. not everybody lies.

like the things that you like. it does not matter what other people think. it does not matter what other people think. it really does not matter what other people think.

stop speeding so much. you do not have money to pay for a speeding ticket.

do not feel guilty that you left the duct tape man in your car all night. he is not a real person. he does not care that he is in your car. also, he will never talk back to you. it is alright to talk to him, but stop thinking that he is going to tell you his name. he does not have a name because he is made of duct tape. if you cannot stop, then take him apart and throw him away.

get out of bed earlier. you hate going to chapel with wet hair and it is always your fault when you do.

stop giving strangers honest answers when they ask you how you are doing. you do not care to tell them and they do not care to hear. just keep walking.

you will either have children or you will not. do not have to think about this. stop worrying that you will be a bad mother. you are twenty.

design quilts again. this relaxes you and you will be creating again. also, follow through and finish a quilt sometime. it is nearly always worth the effort.

call your mother even when you are tired and do not feel like talking. she will always be important to you.

do not be worried about leaving college without a husband. you will leave college without a husband. if you get married, you will not be married for a long time. it will be fun to date after college. you will be able to do whatever you want. even if you never get married, you will not stop being alive. this does not matter.

stop making stupid faces when pictures are taken. if you cannot think of a nice smile to show, do nothing at all. you already have enough pictures of yourself making stupid faces.

you do not have to answer your cell phone every time it rings. you are not slavishly attached to your cell phone.

when you are thinking clearly, write. there will be time to do the other things that you have to do, even if you must stay up late to finish them. take advantage of a clear mind.

do not sleep if you want to escape being awake. stay awake and learn things.

you wanted more. you asked for more. here is more.



the stage looked incredible. lights came through the trees and out the windows of the houses. you can see ben gibbard on the bottom left, with his guitar stance. he really had that down.



we made friends with the guy in front of us, and he took our picture. the flash was on, so we unmade friends with all of the people behind us. it was all pretty neutral.



this is a pretty good picture of ben gibbard and me together. i'm glad you can't discern the contents of the speech bubbles, because it was some pretty heavy stuff. i won't tell, ben. our business is our business.



for some reason, we were sad on the drive home. it could have been anything. maybe not finding a steak n shake immediately? maybe that it was midnight and we wouldn't be able to see our beds for another seven and a half hours?




it didn't matter whether we made good time, because the dorm wouldn't open for us until 7. so when we stopped to get gas and some drinks and saw that the gas station dude was watching the oblongs, we stuck around for a while. i passed the time by daring katie to eat things.



she wouldn't eat this.



she wouldn't eat this either.



she wouldn't eat this either. she was zero fun.



she did enjoy a nice coke product, though. we left the gas station at about 3 a.m., and i could no longer hope to sleep in the car after furiously drinking a gas station cappuccino (the best kind of cappuccino!) and burning my tongue.



so i made myself this little friend and talked with him for a while. he has not yet told me what his name is, but as soon as he does i'll make sure to tell you all. i will tell you all.



i'm not afraid to make stupid faces anymore. this makes me feel powerful. and now i will develop my tentative thesis for my critical essay of heart of darkness. i guess it's back to my familiar life.

it was completely worth the 14-hour drive.

i'm angry.