when i stay out so late i get bug bites.

i'd rather have a clean break.

i don't get my favorite machines,

cats,

uptown and its loonies,

i don't want the calls from home

the e-mails from oberlin.

all-or-nothing missing

all-or-nothing nostalgia.

i only have a handful of intentional bedroom decor toted from chicago to new york. a homemade stuffed cat, whose white felt body has turned all to pills (just like the knots in the fur of real, live neglected cats!). a white index card, i found picking up in the neo-theatre one night. the card reads "Everything is all right." it was taped over my bed at home, and it's taped over my bed here. it calms me.

etc.

i called home for the first time today. not because i wanted to, but because i'd promised that i would, the date was prearranged. i cried a few tears when i hung up, not because of homesickness, but because

they're still there.

eight-hundred miles and i'm still reporting back to parents. they're just as frustrating to talk to. and i guess i feel like i just want to be over here and not worry about chicago and i want everybody in chicago not to worry about me. i'm not asking them to worry. i'm not even thinking i miss them. i'm not thinking anything.

insensitive bitch.

i'm thinking:

gee, i want some one to go to brooklyn with tomorrow night.

i wish getting to brooklyn and going to this (totally inexpensive) show wasn't so fucking expensive.

i want to be on rowing crew.

i want to be in a play.

costume shop, i definitely want to sew in the costume shop for a while.

hey there, girl from l.a., can you tell i'm testing you by the music i play when you walk in the room? so far you've epic failed. just a heads-up.

if i smoked cigarettes it would be easier to meet people. i should smoke cigarettes.

i think i might be lying, when i say i want a clean break. but contact with "home" (my "permanent address" sounds better, more of an arm's length sort of thing) just makes me angry. and then contact with friends feels contrived and like i'm clinging to something that just keeps pouring through the spaces between my fingers and i just want to open my hand and let go already. and the reports from obelin are depressing because

i guess i haven't learned how to be happy for others. or happy for certain others. or...something. that isn't right.