Sometimes it's fun to go back in time and then I realize wow, I haven't actually freakin' changed at all

College Senior Me. Thems were heady days.



So I'm kinda bored tonight. Wednesday. I have a shooting pain down the right side of my neck and into my arm, I think because I spend more time than I should on the computer, hunched over like a hobbit, pounding away at the keys and swishing the mouse back and foooorth baaaaack and forth, it has caused me to have some kind of early-onset arthritis. O no! Or it could just be a pulled muscle. Probably.

So, like I said, I'm bored. And when I'm bored, I go digging. Tonight I pulled out my college diary. Here are some precious excerpts:


October 20th, 1994
Whoa. In class, Travis was like, "I'll call you later, we'll go to the bars later." He's pretty confident, huh? So I'm like, whatever. He looks kind of like a duck or like Percival from "Little House" (a hot Percival). Got to to the Griffon. Went straight to the bar. Travis was nice but I didn't really expect him to hang out all night. I was feeling kind of self-conscious and couldn't act stupid and hang out with Sam and Jen. Eventually Travis said, "Where to?" it was all very--planned? Mechanical? Expected, maybe? I suggested we go sit on my porch. We were talking and the leaves were all over the ground and the moon was so bright and then he just went in for the kill. He is a good kisser, though not that imaginative. He's got gorgeous hair. I wonder what kind of conditioner he uses. We were making out, very politely. It was nice. Warm. We stood up, kissed more, standing in the leaves. He has a little, smooth bod and a tiny butt.

October 26th
We went to see "Pulp Fiction" and it was weird and stupid and brilliant.

October 29th
An empty bed means more bed for me. MEN ARE ALIENS. Why do we like them so much?

Halloween, 1994
(editor's note: This excerpt is from the one and only time in my life which I ingested hallucinogenic drugs. I certainly don't condone this type of insanity. And you can absolutely tell by reading the following...)

Phase I: So we all ate the shrooms with water, this ritualistic thing...and waited. They were dry and powdery and shriveled up and didn't taste that bad, actually. Anyway, at first, we felt nothing. For, like, an hour. Then we smoked that pot we found in the street (editor's note: I have no memory of this. Pot from the street? Well, it was New Paltz...)
Brown root beer candy. Basic dumdum lollypop and white cup. Peach snapple. The porch. Trick-or-treaters. A group of high school kids came up to trick or treat and I felt really mature and cool, like, "Yeah, when you get older, you'll have a house like this and trip with your burnt guy friends on Halloween instead of going out. Like me." Then the beginning of the very scary self-consciousness started.

Phase II: Matt's couch. Keri is crying but not voluntarily. Tears are flowing from her eyes, and she keeps saying, "But I'm not sad!" Seth shows up and gives her his stuffed hippo to make her feel better. Why don't these guys do things for me? (self-examination: the huge rips open up in closed-off portions of my brain)--laugh, laugh. Matt is doing slapstick. I think I'm laughing more at myself laughing at him. We go to Mobil. Everyone in town is dressed like a zombie, it seems. They were all in Mobil. My whole body was kinda tingly, kinda numb, like it fell asleep? Keri was clutching these black beads, and her cup of iced tea, still crying, but not sad.
Bubbles. Cigarettes. Paranoia. Like everyone not tripping "knows". Matt and Chris saw a bike across the street and went, "That guy dressed up like a bike is so cool." Us: "That IS a bike!" Them: "No, no it is not. We're going to go talk to him." The idiots went across the street and stood there for ten minutes, talking to a bicycle. Come back. Chris: "Yup, it was a bike."
Then I started to see things perfectly clearly, like weird. I am strange. No one will love me. Thank god I didn't start thinking about forever or something. I put a pillow over my face and freaked myself out. Keri took me home. We layed on the bed, listened to Nine Inch Nails and I cried for no reason.

Phase III: Awful stomach pains. Bathroom. I'm on the toilet, struck with fear that Keri will call an ambulance, "We've got to help her!" The door breaking down, while I'm broken out in cold sweats on the bowl. The feelings are all so foreign, scary, moving through me like monsters and I couldn't control them. The guys come over again. They want ice cream. Go to Mobil again. Chipwiches. Back to the porch. Ran into Jay, he said, "How did you like it?" I said, "I like it, I'm okay," like a little girl. We held hands for a moment, then the spell broke.

November 14th, 1994
My room smells like sour peaches from that fucking stickup I have behind my bed. I am laying here in the yellow light, reminds me of Oneonta. I am thinking about a night in Walt's room when we stayed up all night, until like 7:30 AM and laid wrapped in the sheets, talking about our families, our friends, things we loved. I am thinking I never really knew the boy and he never really knew me which is terrifying because I thought for the longest time that he knew me better than anyone. Does this mean that no one really knows me?

November 24th
In Performance of Lit class. On my desk it reads, "Hey, are you troubled? --(no doubt some fucking concerned hippie)--Write it out, then throw it away - if that doesn't work, tell God. He listens."
Then under that, someone has responded, plainly,
"God is dead. We killed him."

November 30, 1994
Shit List
1. People who hog the copy machine when you only have one page to do.
2. Being in desperate need of coffee but having no change.
3. Boys who play head games
4. Boys who don't even realize they are playing head games
5. People who obsess about one thing and talk about it constantly (boys who play head games)
6. white baseball caps and flannels
7. People who are rich, but only buy clothes at the salvation army
8. Having a creative idea you cannot express
9. When I eat saltines right before bed
10. Itchy hat head


December 1, 9994
Manny told me I'd be making a mistake if I didn't student teach. he told me I was dangerous. He said that a woman who is beautiful and intelligent is dangerous. It wasn't even a come-on. I appreciated his advice but I think my mind is made up. I want more time.

December 7th, 1994
I cannot sleep. I have just decided that when I go to Seattle with my word processor, I am going to bring all my journals and formulate one whole year of my life into some kind of book. Some sort of thing, and show it to a million editors and keep writing and get rejected a lot, until someone tells me there is "something about my writing" and decides it would make a brilliant book. That's me. Thats....yeah.

An intense poem (I think I wrote around Christmas 1994. When pot smoking made me an undiscovered, raw, brilliant poet):

"In a world of warring sexes,
of men who hurt and women who analyze,
we found truth.
We made sense. We found a soul ship that cannot so easily be destroyed."

Shit, reading this stuff it's kind of painful to realize how dependent I have always been on approval from dudes. This is something to work on. I am working on it. I have the backpack filled with all the provisions, and I am prepping to climb the mountain. But it sure is a high mountain.