every time i sit down to this journal-- occasions i'll admit are infrequent at best-- i reminisce with a looming sense of dread and anxiety. i think-- i really should document now the way i documented then, because what if i lose my perspective, and all of a sudden i'm 22? there are journals from years past i'd do well to delete, if only because they're illustrative of angry, ranting, wannabe adolescence, with bright spots of potential few and far between the silliness. (and god knows when i'm famous, it'll come back to haunt me, har har). but the past dozen or so entries i read and reread-- ones that cover a huge range of time and experience but somehow sum it all up, flawed and wonderful, in the end-- instill me with a sense of pride in who i was and how i handled things and what persevered: my love of words, my faith in writing as cheap therapy. i'm an embarrassingly bad photographer, and whenever the urge swells to blow a bit of paycheck on a better camera in the hopes of being inspired to create something like scrapbook-worthy material-- well, it dies. fast. because, hey-- i'm a writer. aren't i?

so that fear: it's that out of all that good but steadily aging writing will bloom, later, fresh mediocrity. regression and failed potential. even scarier: what if i misrepresent? what if i forget to write things down, or don't do those things i do remember proper justice? i foresee a lot of prose-y lists for the sake of preservation.

i have an unhealthily good long-term memory (unhealthy because most functional people move past disturbing minutiae and he-said/she-said after a certain amount of time, while i suffer with my fellow elephants) so i'm not worried about a year or a landmark simply disappearing from my radar. but just opening this page invited a huge amount of pressure and expectation, all self-imposed, all hanging over my head like so much atmosphere.

"flawed and wonderful." (even now i'm doubling back, self-consciously-- does that mean my end product is disingenuous?) i guess that's all i can hope for. and maybe the willpower to get this all offline and tucked away somewhere more appropriate than out there in the intarwebs.

so there's a start.

also, day 342890324 (YES REALLY) of 5 mg melatonin. do i actually need this stuff? aside from it being 3 a.m. and all...

Date:	2008-01-01 10:12
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	contemplative

something about new year's never fails to make me itchy. my right brain doesn't like the finality of it, the closing out and off of something. what if it ends and there's something i forgot to do, say, think, feel? no matter how arbitrary our human standards of time may be-- the continuity of the world is hardly interrupted by the demarcations of a calendar-- i still conjure up the image of something squared off and stored away, the ominous thud of the back cover on the last page.

and then there's the idea of newness, everything beginning again. it's like when i start a novel: getting past those first few pages is always somewhat of a challenge, because my fingers feel the chapters ahead and remind me how far i have to go before i'm really into it. some strange compulsion in me hates the flimsy paper in my left hand and the thick weight in my right. here it's square one, the head of the year, and three hundred and sixty-four daunting days looming. i feel like i'm on the edge when i'd rather be comfortably in the middle, tucked away-- april, for instance, with three months bookending me on one end and eight more in seasons i far prefer to spring.

i never make any resolutions, because january first is never going to feel like renewal, not in the way i'd like it to. so here's to getting through my last semester of high school, to lovely things old and new, to mixed metaphors and cinnamon muffins, humdingers and good socks, cashmere sweaters and snow days, pick-up kisses and warm hands, egyptian bangs and cockroach-infested couches, charades and phone calls, owing money and predicting the future, and-- naturally-- to finishing my goddamn fucking college applications before midnight tonight.

it's gonna be a good year.

Date:	2007-11-07 22:44
Subject:	waldesnachhkhs;dklfjst
Security:	Public
Mood:	frustrated

so close and yet so far...

GIMME A SIGN. anything.

smoke signal?




upside: i'm digging this weather, all ribbed sweaters and yoga pants.



as my favorite says: fuck a bagel.

what's an "i just knew" moment in actuality? someone called it a defense mechanism, in reference to the college selection process. then there was a conversation about parallels between picking a spouse and picking a school, which errs on the side of utterly unromantic, BUT.

for me, it's pretty simple to understand when i love someone. i give it freely and openly, and could probably say "i love you" straight-faced to most of my friends, and mean it. i don't hang around people i can't love-- what's the point in that? and i've always been pretty emotionally in tune with myself, rarely dividing subconscious sentiment from conscious decision, understanding my feelings* and being capable of discussing them with myself and with others. that makes me sound like a schizo. seriously, i'm okay.

my question is-- with a concept so vague and insane as falling in love-- is the "i just knew" moment a defense mechanism? a default excuse to explain away the decision to get married? what about when a commitment like marriage is entirely out of the picture? is it just a pretty title?

as far as i know-- and my point, bear in mind, is that i'm frustrated by feeling like i know very, very little-- it's a slow and confusing process, sort of like learning to ride a bike. (isn't everything nowadays like learning to ride a bike?) there's the comparable tipping over onto the pavement, and the scratched up knees and elbow-bruises corollary to any small success. baby steps, trembling shoves forward, and finally letting go.

when do you let go?




*the idea of that river in egypt is for another day. ho boy. the one time...

surely i was a 1950s wellesley girl in another life, 'cause flouncing about in that high-waisted skirt and granny blouse felt rather fabulous. on the other hand, the fact that i was dressed up as nutsy, neurotic franny glass likely had something to do with the costume feeling so natural. because i mean, you know.

anyway, halloween was a convenient excuse to whip out the spandex american apparel dress of sex, which is basically like a second skin except black and gold-glittery. too bad it was put to such mediocre use. to finish up a spectacularly retarded night, i was so busy futzing with my phone as i was driving back that i didn't notice the minivan parked in the middle of bradley. like, who the fuck even does that? they weren't turning or pulled over-- just plonked right there, smack in the street, hazards not even on. granted, it was equally stupid of me to be messing with my contacts list, but it was really late and the roads had been basically empty. anyway, just as it started ringing i saw the minivan and promptly slammed on the brake. except-- brilliant-- i was all of ten feet away and had nowhere near enough road to come to a complete stop. if there had been oncoming traffic, a nasty head-on collision would have ensued, but my impulses kicked in and i swerved around and into the opposite lane. i don't even recall thinking, "i should swerve;" it was kind of an out-of-body thing where i instinctively jerked my hands to the left. then, "hi, hey, oh god sorry, i almost just got into a horrifying accident, shit oh my god. 'sup?"

my last halloween at home. i suppose i can mark essentially everything from here on in as "last," but somehow that feels particularly crazy. also, it is november. what is up with that? why does all this finality seem so surreal? why do i even have to think about it at all? the disbelief is in terms of where i was this time last year, and where i will be this time next year-- three distinct points, and yet so disturbingly similar, i'm finding, in a few different ways.

in other news, i love john k. samson so hard. when he said "eh?" and everyone mimicked him with huge grins on their faces, it pretty much summed up the night. he was all scruffy and beautiful, and poor jess out of her country element even got used to all the chucks and skinny jeans surrounding her-- dare i say even enjoyed it. it felt all kinds of wonderful to go back to 9:30 club. better than watching ryan adams be a pretentious douche bag on tuesday night. he's brilliant and his music makes me squirm with joy, but he spent half the time fucking with his guitar and endlessly jamming with these really tedious riffs, and when someone yelled "SUMMER OF '69" i felt no pity. NONE.

i am only just realizng how sensitive my body is to caffeine. i'm on and off about this; i was addicted back in june to the point of an excruciating headache if i went without, and now i practically have a spaz attack whenever i drink a cup. (after juggling advil and coffee for about two weeks in california, i decided that this was a) not healthy and b) my mother would not be pleased when i brought the habit back east.) by the time school started, i was pretty much off the stuff except for the occasional frappuccino. but today i went to whole foods, purchased a normal cup of coffee, and within an hour, my hands were trembling and my heart was pounding. i still feel kind of dizzy and restless. moral of story: much as i love coffee, my nerves do not.

ANXIETY AUGH

also this week is going to be hell. I CAN FEEL IT. three tests (please, hudock, muscles on monday!) plus one ten-page paper plus the nyu deadline looming. that's not to mention part I for umd, but hell-- it's umd. if i actually wanted to go, my worry levels wouldn't be at approximately negative 6. oh, college park, how i absolutely do not want to spend the next four years of my life with your zip code, eating taco bell and languishing.

october 28th: weakerthans
october 30th: ryan adams
november 1st: panic

let countdown no. 384297 begin! (no. 384298, of course, being for december 15th, also known as Doomsday. hoorah!)

Date:	2007-10-19 11:59
Subject:	but it's a pretty song
Security:	Public
Mood:	complacent
Music:	october-- whitacre

i rarely have legitimately good dreams. last night's was unmistakably sprinkled with weird, but overall? i'm pissed i had to wake up.

i am a fan of phone calls, ping pong tournaments, late-night fast food runs, and phone calls. i am not a fan of breakouts in unfortunate places.

i think it's starting to rain.

i have a feeling that pete yorn's music for the morning after is this fall's album. it's weird because the past two autumns, it's been new albums only: sophomore year was x & y; junior year was how to save a life (and, arguably, continuum). interspersed throughout was definitely ryan adams (at least love is hell), so i guess that sort of counts as old-ish. but this is something i've been listening to intermittently for years in my mum's car, and all of a sudden i'm blasting it every day (in MY car, no less, ahaha). there are only a couple of songs i'm not a huge fan of, and there are, predictably, the stand-out favorites that can rest happily on repeat. but the album as a whole is starting to form those irrevocable ties to my life-- the ones that mean that, in a few years, i can listen to "sleep better" and there i am again, thinking about this or saying that or feeling [insert silly emotion]. (see post about musical deja vu.)

i've found that, to cope, i either write shit out or make a fucking playlist. the art of the mix tape-- the term is used here for artistic purposes, of course, as i think i bought my last cassette tape in 1997-- is a precise art indeed. pete yorn is featured prominently in several of my most recent creations-- more incriminating evidence. also allison crowe's voice makes me want to claw my face off in envy.

i tried making it james morrison, but it was too... well, i suppose i can't try to make something fit the season. anyway, much as i love that voice-- too bouncy, too contrived. i will never be a music critic because that made about as much sense as the fact that yesterday i came home, promptly plopped on the couch with spaghetti, grapes, and mango smoothie, and proceeded to watch the hills and paint my nails.

hellooooo, late october! i've missed ya.

i hereby pocket away today as an autumn day with all the trappings. hokay, so it warmed up a few degrees by noon, but who's counting? the morning made me smile, all chilly and turning the heat on in michael cera, drinking coffee and busting out the big black sweater. no matter what, the fray will always be my autumn-heralding music. there's something cozy about it that that strikes me as crisp and pumpkin-smelling and all those other hallmark-card adjectives that basically mean "leaves are pretty when they change color." totes synonymous with "there are certain people you just keep coming back to/she is right in front of you..."

just-- take my word for it. kay?

Date:	2007-10-12 17:39
Subject:	don't spill on my car
Security:	Public
Mood:	calm

once again, i'm going to resolve to update this on a semi-regular basis. even if i have absolutely nothing to say, kind of like now. blah blah blah i'm hungry. i did have a really good lunch today, though. god bless silver convertibles and friends who bring you sandwiches to the car as you summarize articles on the scientific relevance of chocolate cravings. mmm, chocolate. SPEAKING OF WHICH there was chocolate cake in chambers today-- au revoir, ms. french!-- but i was too stuffed from panera so i didn't eat it; also i was distracted, har har.

i always find that my dreams are more vivid when i nap. is that strange? typically that means that my nightmares-- which aren't really nightmares, by the by, but just creepily bizarre dreams-- occur during those abbreviated sleep cycles. but when i'm in deep sleep, and at normal night hours, they're blurrier, and about fifteen minutes after waking up, i can usually remember only vague details, traces of sensation. anyway, this morning i woke up at 7:03 (after being pestered twice 45 minutes earlier to no avail) and was like-- well, fuck that. so i didn't show for first period and half-slept for another half hour. i suppose it was similar sleep to a nap, because i can still feel that dream-- at least the significant part(s) of it.

note: ALWAYS smile like that. if only you knew the backflips and handsprings going on in my stomach.

Date:	2007-10-08 21:37
Subject:	a moose that's high on pot
Security:	Public
Mood:	distressed
Music:	gwyneth walker in my brain

re: october 8th, 2006.


one year later. different boy, same nausea.

i've said it before, and i'll say it again: my life is a joke. sitcom writers should pay me royalties for my daily material, simultaneously silly and tragic. i mean, whatevs, i could be jennifer aniston if i REALLY wanted to.


meanwhile, when i sing a G sharp, glass shatters. what's an alto in second soprano's clothing to do?

Date:	2007-05-21 23:13
Subject:	here we come
Security:	Public
Mood:	anxious

sad: we juniors have been reduced to being excited to sleep. an almost oxymoronic phrase, but jesus, sleep is beautiful. as am i when i'm not baggy-eyed, slouchy, and drooling at my desk. ah, HSA week.

in a month and a half i will be aching for autumn, skritchy leaves and scarves and things; but for now, there is nothing so bright as the prospect of summer. california, then mexico, then california again. bikinis, ice cream, sand, sun, sea-swimming, cousins, keeping their pretty prius to myself for the duration. work clothes with a tan, snotty journalists, coffee lackeying, uc berkeley grad students, newsprint, research. books. an incredible amount of books. sourdough and chowder on the wharf, san francisco skyline, airplanes and the bart and walking by my lonesome with music. mild substance abuse, new faces, movies and malls and maybe socal. and later, north carolina with hicks-- but this is to be pocketed away, another chapter. for now, i'm all about the west coast and turning seventeen in puerto vallarta.

just a little more to go...

Date:	2007-05-10 21:54
Subject:	always full of singing
Security:	Public
Mood:	distressed

what is it about music that resonates so much in us? there are triggers for all the senses: the smell of matzah ball soup is an hour at my grandma's house when i was three; a glimpse of the new york skyline is a tug at my heart for a minute walking down bleecker; the taste of caramel is autumn; the feel of a pen is long-ago inspiration. as a writer, i'd think that a lyric, a phrase would elicit the sharpest deja vu-- endless associations of mundane words with lucid memories, the linearity of syllables to moments in time.

i'm musical to an extent: i've played piano for years, i sing, i know basic theory, i can figure out songs by ear. but all that can't possibly account for the almost pavlovian responses i have to certain notes, riffs, chords, songs. a single "g" is suddenly a pitchpipe while i'm quaking onstage, and my entire body jerks to attention before i remember where i am. a dinky pop song from the 90s heard crackling in the car and i'm five again, on the school bus growling down custer to kindergarten. an album is a semester, an artist a season, a genre a mood. and most rattling of all, i don't only associate songs with people-- a song (or two, or three) will effectively become that person until one day i hear it whispering over the speakers at a restaurant and i clam up and glaze over until the moment's passed.

it's uncanny enough to make me cry, blush, laugh, sigh, all at one song. and it rarely fades; sometimes one song will apply to another person over time, but that's a different case. it's sort of unsettling, sort of romantic. i know that in ten, twenty, thirty years, i could hear a song on the radio and it'll all come flooding back. i only wish that didn't scare me so much.

i got a national gold award.

Date:	2007-04-21 18:13
Subject:	i live for the cheesecake factory
Security:	Public
Mood:	pleased

scholastic art & writing awards region-at-large gold key in journalism.

a mouthful! and rather snazzy.

i think i've worked harder this week than i've worked this entire year. no kidding: sunday work session, flat night 'til 9, drafts, writing a paper until 2 a.m., math studying, epic apush reading, epic apcp reading, french project, flat editing and it is not even thursday. i have a bit more to do, but the homework levels are comfortably back below shoot-myself ranks, even if my sleeping habits are not. i still haven't adjusted since spring break, staying up until 1 or 2 and coming home to nap for five hours. not brilliant.

the combination of all of this has put me in a really weird place, has got me thinking. i feel accomplished, having stayed on top of all of this work without having a mental breakdown-- i've cried only once, not for schoolwork, and briefly. i feel nervous, looking ahead to the next slew of work i have, which includes a twelve-page paper i've barely even thought about. i feel both exhausted and restless. i'm bored, i'm apathetic, i'm sluggish, i'm irritable, i'm jealous. i am in a mood. i want summer and adventures and ice cream and music and walking and sleep and books and movies. i want this year to be over, i want to be seventeen, and above all, i want out. i really, really want out.

i hate this.

it's strange: i should really feel more vindicated. i was so genuinely afraid of liking somewhere more than new york that going to chicago held all sorts of anxieties and qualms, all of which built up to the point of probably not enjoying it as much as i could have. there is so much going on in my life that kept me from bringing my whole self there, but i know that in the end, i kept myself from this trip that should have been fabulous and then some. in a lot of ways it wasn't toronto-- it was less intense because i kept human (and boring) sleeping hours, less cohesive because of all the down time, less exhilarating because i was so tightly tethered to my friends. which is fine. i like having a few people to rely on. i feel like i'm misjudging by saying i'm disappointed, because they were such thoroughly different experiences, but that's all there is. i wanted the intensity, the cohesiveness, the exhilaration. i wanted no sleep and whirlwind goings on and new people. i didn't let myself have any of it. and there wasn't a whole lot of it to have.

i feel a little relieved that i'm not the only one who feels this weird sort of empty about chicago. we all sat around trying to place it, and even those who had a blast admitted the huge disparity between this year and last year. don't get me wrong: there were moments i'll remember for a long time to come. wandering down rush, standing under the bean, good conversation, hair trains, people-watching at johnny rockets, beatles pictures, percy's first passover, red dresses, night skylines on the water, the subway, kinky stores, ferris wheels, bus cramps, phone calls. and there's always the drama-- more like the cold war than general hospital, but drama nonetheless-- that is part and parcel of the people and the place. the music trip facilitates that unfailingly. but after all of it, i just don't feel rejuvenated, renewed. i only feel sort of grudgingly reminded of my life.

back to the feeling vindicated: it's not to the level i'd hoped, but i do feel a sense of relief that nothing, no matter what, is new york. i don't know-- maybe it was the midwest thing, or the wider streets, or the fewer people, or the lack of hustle and bustle i crave in a city. i'd love to go back sometime. but there's a reason it's the second city.

to brighter things: the singing. oh my god. a thousand times oh my god. i still harbor my weird stage fright, but honestly, singing on that stage with chambers is one of the better things i've experienced in my life. by the last song, i unstuck my fingers from my collarbone and toughed it out without, you know, dying. walking off, we were all crying and laughing and hugging and just buzzing. it was pride like i've never felt in my whole life, looking out into the audience like that, grinning. the judges, of course, were speechless. i am still speechless. ak;sljdfl amazing.

i'll come up with more later, for posterity, self-preservation, what have you. in the end: chicago's pretty swell, i miss new york, i fucking hate medieval times, i really like bread, i'm not going to college, and i'd like my own jess mariano, please. extra pickles, and hold the ketchup.

and now: chicago!

back sunday.

i've never been really shy, per se. of course, the social dynamic has gone through stages: at age four i was still tugging on strangers' pant legs to tell them i was having a baby (it was my mother, in the hospital, in labor with my sister; i had on a pink-and-blue dress and was clutching my grandma's hand at the mall); at eight i noticed that i hadn't grown into my ears yet (an illustrious occurrence that took place half my life later) and was accordingly demured; by age thirteen i was sufficiently self-conscious, crossing my arms like a scarecrow and staring down at my hands, belly, feet. despite that depressing downward spiral of discovering your space and how you inhabit it-- being ever more acutely aware of it-- i've never truly had a problem with my presence, or making friends, or getting irrationally terrified or socially awkward. i range from cautious to crazy. i've gotten shaky during piano recitals and not batted an eye during a vocal solo in front of hundreds and vice versa. either way, there's never been extreme fear, nor bravery-- just wavering, comfortably, someplace in the middle.

but somewhere in the past few months i've developed a crippling stage fright. yeah, i've had those bad days where auditions made me seize up or well up or what have you. but singing in a chorus of fifty is not and has never been an intimate setting, at least not in the way of a high-stress audition. this has always been my comfort zone: the solidness of a group around you, the singing and the breathing and the standing together. i really can't place it. it just starts, this little tic, and my head will jerk and it'll spread and i'll shake and stutter and have to sit down. i ignored it in rehearsals for a couple of months, accrued it to standing on the edge or thinking too much or some combination. but in several performances since then, even after switching to the comfort of the middle of the choir, i've had to sit down on stage so that i wouldn't fall off the risers. the only way i've been able to perform at all has been exhausting myself before performances (jumping jacks, laps, dancing like a fool) so that i have zero adrenaline, standing in rows further back, and pressing two fingers to my collarbone like the freaking world is ending.

i know it's all mental, as i know that it has its basis in petty goings on, external things that spread to internal, things that shouldn't make me feel so nervous and judged and worthless in a performance situation. what bugs and baffles me is that the fear is so completely new, not to mention paralyzing. being in choir-- women's is fantastic but chambers is what has really kept me sane the past few months-- means the world to me. i love taking an hour and a half of my school day to sing. it's something i know, something i'm good at. and i won't have it for long, so i feel like i'm squandering it on this weird and unfounded neurosis. i wig myself out and it's not at all healthy. question is-- yo. what now?

sdf;klgjaskl

(check out the american ireland fund website, on which a picture of the walt whitman high school chamber choir is featured under EVENTS: the 2007 something-or-other (a.k.a. "drunken irishman night." seriously, the prime minister did not stop cracking alcohol jokes. i swear he was asking for it). basically you can tell i'm there by the sad peep of pulled-back brown hair in the second row. if i'd only calmed down enough to stay up front...)

hey, can you do parentheses within parentheses? one of the great mysteries of the universe, for sure.

that's it-- the dc music scene has officially blown my eardrums. it seriously feels like i have cotton stuffed down to impossible depths of my ears. and it's funny, because i was standing next to the amp (=smart) at washington social club/these united states* last night and it was on my left side, and my hearing today is noticeably skewed to my right. i think i already had marginally below-average hearing, partially because whenever i thrust my ipod headphones at friends to listen to a particular song, said friends wince. (i definitely get paranoid about listening to music in quiet public places for fear that there's, like, an awkward drumbeat or something that everyone can hear and i just look blissful and oblivious and generally stupid.) but i had a flash-forward this morning of straining to hear like a bubby at age twenty, hand cupped around my (left) ear and everything. upside: beethoven?

anyway, the show was lots of fun-- i've really missed going to them. my attraction amongst all the cute indie band boys to the nerd-tastic asian violinist of tus says so much about me. anyhow, the persistent ringing in my ears didn't dampen the mood when i finally got to awkwardly introduce myself to jared, who so fabulously played the cowbell despite his malfunctioning keyboard. story: my writerly grandpa was his and evan's professor at maryland-- and jared apparently still gives work to him as a fiction-writer, as do i, so we totes bonded-- and so when i said "do you know such-and-such, i am his granddaughter, yo," it was like a role reversal. he was all, FOR SERIOUS? and i was all, you have a pink fanny pack. didn't get to talk to evan, but jared was completely sweet. ah am famous!



*there was also this, like-- satanic band who used red lighting and sounded, like this one girl said, like evanescence with a dude. definitely, uh, sat out on that one.

p.s.-- we seriously almost crashed a freaking fiesta that was going on simultaneously in the church. these latino bouncers bewilderedly directed us to different doors, but history repeated itself throughout the night as scene kids scared the twelve-year-olds and twelve-year-olds scared the scene kids. amazing.