Writing this from one of the new Mac computers, which is delicate and roundly animated and not manly. Since computers are one of those comforting fortresses of androgeny for me, I'm considering stomping back across the room to the ancient Microns, with their soothingly incomprehensible error messages and wavering screens.

Things are... good? here. Everything is busily stewing around inside my head, so much that it's hard to pick anything out. Yesterday I didn't check my email once, can you believe that? Not once! All that time away from the soothing blue light of a computer screen... my own computer is soundly non-functional, which could be frustrating as the semester commences. We shall see.

I didn't tell you about the capeoria or the bean burgers or the Theory of Everything class or the weather (foggy) or the birthday party at church or the night-blooming Cerius. Maybe next time.

love,
alex

I should, of course, be accustomed by now to the perpetual shifts from dark to light, dark to light, the flickering moods that come with exaustion and uncertainty. I have formed so much of myself by now - have such a concrete idea, on some fronts at least, of my own persona and power - that it makes me intolerant, torn. I want to snap at the redneck boys in the line behind me - do they come out of the womb that way? - and fling myself at the haven that is my program, I am unsteady on my feet with the irritation and adoration and sheer pure worn-outness. I am.

love,
alex

The happy ending is only delayed. Fairytale courtesy of Flea.

Love,
alex

I'd forgotten the extraordinary vividness of things here, the distinctness of each branch of each tree on the mountain opposing, the peculiar dark weight of the shade beneath the trees. It's easier to remember the mountains in winter, brown and indistinct, then to remember this kind of extraordinary fecundity. The sun appears, disappears, the clouds open, pass, all in a space of ten minutes.

love,
alex

A summer full of late nights and 6 ams did not prepare me for this kind of tired. I knew this would happen, I knew I'd forgotten how to be this busy. I think I'd also forgotten about being this lonely. Or maybe that's not because of college, that's because he's not here. I have very little experience with missing people. I've missed a country, and a time, and a person I have been, but I haven't missed someone else before. Strange, that.

love,
alex

So strange, all the faces! All the people just like I remembered them, except taller and with longer hair. It's easy to forget how much we live with each other, here.

I have too much to do, I know. The room is still in boxes and morning will come awfully early, at 7 am, right before the new freshmen do. I miss the boy. I'll be fine.

love,
alex

Back from Boston, where the streets are paved with pidgeons and the air smells of clam chowder. I like cities.

I got home last night, slept for six hours, got up again at five to spend some time with my family before I left for school. My dad and my uncle are driving me up, using the trip as an excuse for fly fishing and manly beer-swigging pipe-smoking sorts of roughing it.

It's a wierd set of moments to be in between. I'll talk to you all when I get there.

love,
alex

"You're a great big girl, Alex!" the three-year-old said today. "Tall like dragons!"

love,
alex
who is tickled pink to be tall like a dragon.

It takes him ten minutes to get from the couch to the door, and by the time he gets there he's shaking and grouchy. "We have a doorbell, you know." he says. I know. I rang it three times and he didn't hear me until I banged on the window. His eyes are clearer - cataract surgery since I last saw him? - but he makes me repeat every sentance. "You mutter." he says, which is true. My own mother can't understand me half the time, but this time it really feels like a failing. I give him back the book I borrowed, and he tells me to put it on the mantel. "I wish we had time to sit and talk about what's going on." he says. "I'm so out of it today." I tell him I'll call next time I'm in town, and then think, that's probably not what he meant. He's frustrated with my muttering, and tired, and shaky. I say thanks, and goodbye, and go.

It occurs to me when I get in the car that a man with two fake knees and arthritic hips could, without shame, repair to a wheelchair. In fact, I've seen one in his house. I'm willing to bet he only walks when there's a visitor.

All the heroes are really, really old.

love,
alex

All better.

Love
alex

The betting pool is now open whether my relationship will outlast the week. Fuck.

I'm _just fine_. I will spend the next week in a funk which I will reuse to blame on any stupid boy. Thbbt.

love (is a form of indigestion)
alex

It turns out that just before closing is the time to go to the co-op, for the open aisles and the people in them. The real eccentrics are in the crowd - tired-eyed women with shoulder tatoos and flowered skirts, smelling of their day jobs, men with many binders in their grayed ponytails staring at the hiring board. Outside pretty mothers with European accents chivvy children into hushing, having one more croissant so mommy can talk. The people all look familiar, like I should have known them years ago. Like they're all from my hometown somewhere. By the window two Hmong sisters are chain-smoking, laughing, clutching at each others' arms, and the man at the bakery counter smiles at me.

love,
alex

Boston: 3 days away. Campus: 8 days away. All traces of sanity have left the building.

I'm hoping what I post here will be less wierd and anemic once my room is packed and I'm re-unemployed and I have my life again.

love,
alex

This is so not accurate.

"Wackiness: 62/100
Rationality: 56/100
Constructiveness: 62/100
Leadership: 80/100

You are a WRCL--Wacky Rational Constructive Leader. This makes you a golden god. People gravitate to you, and you make them feel good. You are smart, charismatic, and interesting. You may be too sensitive to others reactions, especially criticism. Your self-opinion and mood depends greatly on those around you.You think fast and have a smart mouth, is a hoot to your friends and razorwire to your enemies. You hold a grudge like a brass ring. You crackle. Although you have a leader's personality, you often choose not to lead, as leaders stray too far from their audience. You probably weren't very popular in high school--the joke's on them!

You may be a rock star."

Twenty Questions to a Better Personality

love
alex

Please excuse any atrocious grammar and phraising in this entry. I got four hours of sleep and spent the day drinking strong coffee, and now my vision is blurry and my hands are cramping up. No caffiene tolerance at all. After cup #4, a couple hours ago, I could not stop moving. I climbed up and down the retaining wall behind Petsmart, did a few laps around the parking lot, speedwalked up and down and up and down the fish aisle. Now I'm crashing and my fingers are cramping up and I can't spell. Pfft.

There's a reason for all this caffiene. My mother has decided, in her infinite wisdom, that my whole torso is growing pear-shaped and requires new, expensive implements of busom-hoisting. This entails a mall run. Now, I'm the girl who's been wearing sports bras and men's t-shirts since the fourth grade. Androgeny is awfully convienient, and the activisty look requires more in area of hemp pants and less in the way of great shoes.

My mother is determined to fix this. What she does not understand is it's a slippery slope from filling out t-shirts to wanting better shoes to worrying about one's hair to ... that worst thing... lipstick. Femininity has eluded me thus far, and its attempted reentry into my life makes me very, very nervous. I found myself sneaking out of the undergarment department (a place that has always struck terror into my heart, what with all the wierd bows and the rows and rows of impractical fabrics) to stand next to something like 3x terrycloth bathrobes, or hiking boots, or garden tools.

I think I'll go put on my Carharrts and boots and wander around the backyard drinking beer and cursing. That will probably make me feel better.

love,
alex

My mother and I headed out for margerine and toothpaste and ended up with Veggie Booty and Red Stripe. I enjoy my family.

And I have temporarily decided to ditch stalkerproofing, because I want to brag. That's me with the pants.

love,
alex

I woke up this morning at 10:30. That's the latest I've slept all summer, a full eleven hours of sleep. I'd forgotten what it was like not to be tired. I was learning to compensate for my usual lurching about and staring into space, and now I feel oddly adrift and, well, healthy.

Things are sort of rushing towards me. I'll be in Boston in 8 days, on campus in two weeks, and then everything will be different. It's a wierd feeling.

love,
alex

I'm sitting here with a pot of near-inedibly spicy soup on the stove, with a mug of miso on the desk in front of me, gingerly sipping and trying to remind myself that what tastes like a cupful of brine is actually good for me. It's the annual How to Feed Myself Olympics. I always hate the miso part. Next up: green tea! Dear Japan: I know you all, collectively, will outlive me. Between the raw fish and the miso and the green tea, I suspect you've seriously earned it.


love,
alex

Storm coming in.

The clouds are already heavy outside my window, all the sounds echoing back down to earth. Newark, New York, Washington. I don't know what to do. I've been terrorized before, and this is not that. This is being caught between the buildings and the people in them.

There's no point in how I feel about any of this. My world, despite what the newspaper tells me, is much much smaller than that.

love,
alex

Good or bad, ad breaks included, this is the voice of my childhood.
It is not the same thing as thinking for myself.

love,
alex