Apart From (on the LIRR)

Why does being on the Long Island Rail Road always make me so depressed?

Maybe it's staring at my eyes reflecting specks of light of the world with my forehead pressed against the cold window.

Whatever it is, it stretches my heart too thin and my blood feels like water and my veins throb-- longing for a thickness again-- for something sweet and thick and right.

And always, it's on the return-- the return to a life not a part of anything... an isolated life that I've felt since I began to write... perhaps even to think.

My eyes looked beautiful on that video-- ringed and sinking, sparkling but glazed over. As if everything was imbued with the meaning that I've always seen there...

The train is shaking, so I have to pause.

***********************

Anyway, I just changed trains at Jamaica, but it's too cold to write!

A New Journal (The Japanese Sea)

It's kind of strange to be starting a brand new journal (if this page will even stay straight!) but this is the perfect day to do it. It's chilly and crisp today-- in the 40's somewhere and I'm sitting on the cold marble steps of the NYPL. It's 10:40 and it's not open yet.

A lot of people are here, standing apart (like in "City of Angels" or that Prilosec commercial) and one guy keeps looking at me.

I feel the coffee and cigarettes on my breath and feel content in these, my favorite jeans, my Columbia sweatshirt and gray wool coat.

And it is good and right that I don't have to go back to K-house.

But now that I've christened this journal, I should probably try to get some reading done... Here in the morning air (perfect).

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Ok... An hour and five minutes later and my eyes are already tired of reading... Or maybe it's my head. David Bell's The Cult of the Nation in France. And I should (would) like it because it's about "identity"... I don't know why I'm so tired now that I've been sleeping in a bit. Maybe that's why. Maybe it's all come crashing down around me.

It's strange to write on a page without margins... I feel like I could go on writing clear across the binding. But somehow I stop myself. Is that education?

Anyway, I want to rest my eyes for a bit before I keep reading.

The Old Young Woman

Back at Columbia in the undergrad reading room on the ground floor of Butler. I have a horrendous knot in my neck that makes it basically impossible to read because it hurts to put my head down. It almost feels like a gland, except that I don't think I have a gland back there. And besides, I really shouldn't make any excuses about not doing my reading because I just flipped through the whole of Musical America (with the flier that IronChef and I designed still on the back).

Everyone here looks so young. They are all so fucking young, and I feel so old. I feel like the four years that I spent here were the truest age-- making the closest and most raw friendships and acting on every impulse.

I used to laugh at VJ when she said she's rather die than get old and I don't feel like my friends in their late 20's or early 30's are old at all... but now, as for myself, I feel a panic-- that I am so very old. It feels compounded by what my voice teacher said-- that if I wait too long, I'll be too old for singing too.

Going back to choir is going to be weird tonight. I'm really nervous about it. I'm not sure how to act. Now I"m extra nervous because I left my music at K-house. I'm starting to feel burnt out from this semester. I know there's only three more weeks of this reading and the papers, but it doesn't feel like anything is going to really let up until after the comps in August.

Anyway, it's almost 6:15. I suppose I should try to get through this book in the next hour and a half.

Later...

Dreamless

Listening to this is making me miss G-school. Sometimes I miss those kids so much... It's weird. They're like the last real connections that I made. And I liked the way that teaching made me feel. Maybe that's a good sign.

Anyway, I feel weird right now... so angry at B. Like I hate him more than anything for betraying me... for betraying my trust. And every time I let it come out, he says "I'm terrible. I know I'm a bad person," and so I say "no, you're not. You're a good person and I love you." And although I mean it, I also don't mean it at all. And part of me wishes that his dreams will never come true... the way he robbed me of my dreams.

Is it possible for someone else to take away your dreams? The answer is definitely "yes" and it hurts even more =when they're what you're relying on to get you through life on a day to day basis...

And now I feel broken and it's not getting better at all.

In fact, the sinking permanence of it all is only just starting to settle-- and the vow that I will never trust anyone like that ever again. I wish I never trusted him to begin with ! I was foolish... He wasn't trustworthy to take care of my feelings, and that was clear form the start...

But by the time I saw it, it was too late...

Now I don't know what to do with him or my life and I feel it all sliding away-- everything I ever wanted is already dead before my eyes.

I HATE HIM!!!

A Scholar? Or a Hooker?

With Elvis in Pick-a-Bagel, using the same green pen with which I read Lefebvre's French Revolution the other day. (It's up to the part of the "Comeback Special" when Elvis kicks the "Big Boss-man's" ass!)

Anyway, I really don't want to be at work today. I'm really tired and cranky and I have the worst cramps in the world. My mind is blanking and I don't even have anything to write. I wonder-- what is the point of keeping these journals? Am I trying to capture time? To avoid loss? (Tonight will be a memory too...)

There is such a jappy girl talking so loudly in that particular voice and cursing a lot. I hope she shuts up sometime soon. Good... She is hanging up.

I can't wait to go have my hair colored and cut. It's so in a rut right now. I think my hair is thinning in general. It doesn't grow as fast as it used to. It's no longer super thick.

Ugh. That woman is back on the phone again...

The ginger from the sushi here smells good-- soothing.

(I never looked for trouble, but I never ran)

I wonder if I'll ever get to where "I said I"d get." No, really-- Why am I so defeatist? I want to be a great scholar. I wonder if I can. Am I good enough at history? I guess I just don't know yet.

(We're trapped in a world that's troubled with pain).

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Later...

After 6:00 PM.

That was truly the most bizarre thing. I left work and was smoking a cigarette and waiting for the bus to stop and a woman came up to me-- dressed okay with earrings and a bag, and asked me to pay for her dinner. (I was holding my wallet with the bills sticking out, looking for my metro card.)

"Well, I can give you a dollar," I said.

"A dollar?!? Look at you! You're loaded!" she replied.

"No, I'm not. I'm a student and I only have $10 to get me through the week," I answered.

Then she tried a different tactic and said-- "They're killing us! They're just killing us!"

And then she asked me if she could be my "madam." She actually asked me for my contact info! WTF?!? I got rid of her with $2.00 and a cigarette, but damn!

In other news, the crush is growing and growing... It's delicious.

In yet other news, I suck as a dieter. I can't stick to it and I deserve to die.

(Wait-- what year is it? 1995? 1997? Fuck... 1995 was almost 10 years ago!)

The Mover

Ok... Today's a little better. I've made right choices so far, and let's see if I can get through this month... until my birthday.

I is so fucking cold today. Patty Kiernan said it would be 68 and sunny and instead it feels like 48 and it's drizzling and I have neither an umbrella nor a jacket. AND (At!) my hair is straight...

I wonder what BritProf is going to say about my proposal. Why do I feel like I don't know how to do this? All I want to write about are historical ideas, but is that history? I think this is where I'm going to need the most training and will have to struggle to find my niche.

I am going to move things. I have to move things. I'm so tired of treading water, but it takes so much energy to do anything else but sink!

I wonder if I should go back. I wonder if Eva's waiting for me.

I think I'll head back now.

Eating

Why am I doing this to myself?

I just ate spaghetti and meatballs for lunch and had a dessert. Am I trying to kill myself? From this moment on, I'm going to be good through my birthday. Then I'll reassess.

I feel sick and I hate myself.

Here with Big Mama Thorton and hot coffee.

I feel dizzy already.