THAT kind of day.

WHEREIN...

you wake up an hour later than you intended.

you forego a shower for the fourth?...fifth? day in a row. because you're only gonna get dirtier.

your hair decides it keeps no secrets.

your clothes fit badly and you can't decide if it's just because you washed them or you're gaining weight.

you rush out of the house with toothpaste in the corners of your mouth.

you go to work in the costume shop:

and you sew on an industrial machine for the first time UNsupervised;

you fold fabric and swat spiders off your blue jeans;

you hit your head on the above mentioned sewing machine.

oh, now, after a few hours your clothes are fitting fine.

you should be working.

you should be more efficient.

you should waste less time.

you shower.

you waste time.

you go to class.

you realize too late that your fly was most probably open for the two hours you spent in class.

you love midnight bike rides and don't want to go indoors to face your laptop and the paper yet to be written.

you are pleased by how your shadow's hair cut looks in the street lights.

you try to work.

you're not sure about this paper you're writing: you might be writing too familiarly, not formal enough. ??

you realize that your wealthy, spoiled roommate never says "thank you", and that "thank you" still means something.

you fill eighteen hours with good and bad that all melds into a haze called mondaytuesday.

two minutes. battery life. did everyone hear about the pavement reunion?

this is me in bronxville, ny.

this is me two weeks into school

(three weeks into living in a place with actual factual hills)

and still not sure what the fuck i'm doing here.

this is me still feeling the smoke of a found cigarette in the back of my throat.

the second cigarette i smoked today,

not because i was pressured into it,

not because i needed to or even necessarily wanted to.

just 'cause i could.

that seems like a good enough reason for college.

(it's the reason i keep going to all sorts of auditions that i'm not totally qualified for.)

this is me outside in the dark

raping the moon and the stars

with the white glow of my laptop.

i'm just chillin'

cause i've literally studied all day.

i'm just airin' out

so my roommates aren't like

"you been smokin'?"

i'm just wishing i had some fucking friends.

thank you?

this morning, i went to unlock my bicycle which i had only locked up for the night eight hours earlier.

i found a pink post-it note stuck to my bike seat.

it read:

"Hey. Tonight I turned your bike light off. I'm not looking for any sort of reward, so I won't reveal my identity, but I just want you to know that someone is looking out for your battery. I hope I have restored your faith in humanity just a little bit."

i have no idea how to even begin to react to this note.

i am grateful. sure.

as i laid in bed last night, trying to fall asleep only to wake up five and a half hour later, i ran through lists in my head and

did i turn off my light??

crossed my mind.

of course you did. it's bright, you would have noticed if you hadn't.

well apparently i hadn't and i didn't notice.

so i'm grateful, and i wouldn't have known to be grateful if they hadn't left the note.

but i think, like a lot of people,

i am thrown a little off when people are...... when people aren't... humble?

yeah, i guess that's it.

a reward? that this person would mention it, is odd.

and the part about restoring "my faith in humanity"

well that implies that i have very little or was in some way lacking faith in humanity.

which i am sometimes, sure.

but last night/this morning, i felt pretty good.

stressed out and tired, but my general faith in humanity was pretty high.

i wasn't really thinking about it, but if you had asked my, my response would have been okay.

but now my faith in humanity is through the roof!

only after some one turns off my tail light!

damn,

i think i'll jump off a building and just trust humanity to catch me before i hit the bottom!

so tonight, it think

i'll tape a post-it note to my bike seat that says "thank you."

my roommate suggested taping a lollypop or some "reward" there, too.

i have an orange lollypop that's about a month old,

so i think i'll attach that as well.

thank you mystery person.

i'm truly grateful that i don't have to worry about buying triple-a batteries today.

ghost girls in the new worlds.

as i may have mentioned before, i went to the same school for jr. high and high school.

in jr. high, i had three very close friends. they had been my friends in elementary school and we stayed close in the entirely different world that was seventh grade. two of them, jennifer and ewelina, decided to go to a different high school, while elizabeth and i decided to stay at the one we were already at.

fine.

so freshman year started and i honestly can't remember almost anything about it, but this one thing i can remember so clearly: in the hallways teeming with students, i would hallucinate.

i would think i saw jennifer and ewelina in every tall or short blond girl. i would look at the back of a girl's head and be so sure just for a split second that that girl was my girl, my friend.

and she never was, and in my realistic, calm mind, i knew that they weren't at my school, couldn't be.

but that didn't matter,

i hallway-hallucinated on and off for the whole first semester.

and i'm thinking of this because here i am at a new school, with new people, and visions of old people.

yesterday i saw a girl with corey's face. and upon closer review, i could see that, her face wasn't all that similar to corey's but just for a second, i was so sure. the eyes and nose and mouth were so close.

also yesterday,

i saw elizabeth.

not actually elizabeth,

but for just a moment

that girl was elizabeth.

she was just finishing rounding a corner,

and her shoulders were slumped

and her head was tilted

and her arms were swinging in that limp lanky way

and her stride had just the right bounce and width to it.

and i felt my heart and body recognize that girl as elizabeth,

the same way i would feel when i saw her at school, walking down the hall or around a corner, with that same stride.

i breathed in sharply and exhaled with a "whoa."

i tried to give a disconnected explanation to the girl i was walking with.

i don't know if the hallucinations are a signal for some latent homesickness or something and i don't know how i feel about them.

worth the walk. found the supermarket. still a little lost.

i have the kitchen floor everyone dreams about.

this morning i rolled out of bed and rifled around for my sewing scissors and gave myself a shorter hair cut than i intended.

i wrote haikus for each of my roommates over tea and newly bought cereal and soy milk, and stuck the mini-poems to the refrigerator.

i milled about my shared bedroom and listened to jan talk very generally about me to a friend on her telephone.

i took a positively joyous bike ride to walgreens on my newly tuned up bicycle.

(i had a great little sojourn to a bike shop yesterday. the shop was a bit over two miles away and i walked my flat tires on over there, occasionally dragging my heavy old ride up hills and thinking it'll all be worth it on the return trip. along the way i met a sort of tough-looking older guy with a mountain bike and he asked, "why aren't you riding?" and i said, "it's flat." and he said, "oh i wish i could help you patch it, but i don't got all the parts." "that's okay," i said, "i'm going to the shop on mclean. thank a lot though." and he got on his bike and rode away. and then these two old guys standing in a front yard asked, "why don't you ride that?" "it's flat." "there's a place up on mclean. they'll help you." "yeah, that's where i'm headed," i said. we said "bye" and i just smiled so broad to myself. 'cause these people were somehow with me, rooting for me, wanting me to get back on my bike and ride ride ride into the sunset, carry myself off campus, fly like the wind down steeply punishing hills. and then i got to the really happenin' avenue of mclean and walked the final block of my sojourn. "i need a new tube, can you teach me how to change a flat?" i asked and the guy had a heavy accent and ultimately decided that my inner tube was alright and filled my tires with air and tightened up some loose parts and i put some more grease on my chain. all for free. nice guy. and i think the two mile ride back was the best bike ride of my life. never has my bike been so quiet and easy to ride.)

something to think about the next time someone asks you what your superhero power would be. or just something to think about.

"You will know the future when it comes, until then let it be,

to know the future is to bring sorrow in advance,

it will all come clear in the light of dawn

and let all that comes now turn out for the best."

- Agamemnon (lines 252-255)

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.