saturday may 25 2002    |    1:33 a.m.

so. i don't much know what to say. i'm not the best company at the moment. i'm not at my best in general.

i've been . . . out of sorts the past week. scott and i broke up, and suddenly, one hour to the next, i lost my closest friend. that's not supposed to happen. patrick is getting married this summer. everyone else i know is . . . i don't know, it just seems like everyone's running on fast-forward, shit together, eyes and thoughts elsewhere, ahead. meanwhile, i kind of feel like the guy in that radiohead video, the one for "just," where he's sprawled on the concrete and he's, as one might say in madrid, alucinao. cause present and yet indiscernible.

unlike the strung-out video guy, though, i want to talk about it, damn it. because it's just sitting heavy in my head and in the pit of my stomach and i don't really know what's going on. but nobody really wanted to stop for the guy in the video -- they just wanted him to get up and keep walking.

so i give myself ample license to self-indulge, wallow, and pine.

i feel like shit.

in other news, work is the same and life is generally the same, although duller somehow than it was three months ago. i bought a carton of broncos yesterday and also started reading the edge of paradise: america in micronesia, my second professor kluge book. (these, you see, are highlights.) i have change on indefinite loop, interrupted only by rufus wainwright when i need a slightly different kind of lift, or drop. attempting to smile taxes the muscles of my face; at work it's different though, that's an art, call it the art of the façade, retail survival, whatever. silver lining: i called patrick sobbing on sunday night after the whole thing went down and he welcomed me back with open arms. also, my parents make me laugh and feel a little bit less cast off. and we got a new computer, and i have internet access again, and that's good too.

i'm sick and tired. sick and tired.

an old man who came to buy a book about some hotshot football coach / horse racing magnate dude started talking to me at work today. i was making the small talk but he was actually interested, and he asked me what i want to do, and i said blah blah write blah, and he said, persevere, don't give up on it or yourself, and i got teary and neglected the line and wished he'd been able to stay and tell me heartfelt well-intentioned things and maybe hold my hand. i never had a grandfather, you know.

fuck. i'm making myself sick now.

will you carry me across the sea?
will you carry me?