(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense

6/29/01

(added 7/15, Japan time) I just came in from moon-watching on my deck. I'd known that it was there before, but tonight was the first time I slipped out there. There's a lovely half moon, orange tonight as it sinks lower. The stars were beautiful, too—there's some light pollution to the south from the city, but I was still able to see many more here than in Seattle. I think it was Nathan, maybe, that remarked to me that he sometimes forgets that stars exist, living in Seattle. I could see the Big Dipper, and the irrigation ditch for the fields a block over was rippling soothingly. I love the night sounds here—crickets and frogs and running water. The dogs in the morning can be loud, but I'm glad to not be going back to living by I5. On a different topic, I talked to some of the neighbors, sort of. It was interesting, sort of. Kana-chan was riding her bike up the street, and I was playing babysitter to give Manami a break (some break—she did the dinner dishes). About five houses up and across the street, a family was hanging out in their garage, grilling fish and drinking beer. Kana-chan was shy, but I screwed up my courage and chatted with them for a bit. Where I was from, how long I'd been studying Japanese, how long I was here for, how I liked Hakodate, my opinion on the Mariners. Nice people—an older couple and their son and daughter (about 22 and 19, I'd guess, and the guy was kind of cute... heh). But I couldn't understand a lot of what they said to me, especially the old man, so I didn't really linger. It really made me appreciate the effort Manami's going to to make sure she's understandable. We had a yummy dinner out on the main deck tonight, grilling meat and veggies and eating them out of the pan... I really enjoyed it. Manami pointed out during Omoide Poro-Poro that I'd already been here a week, and that it felt like time was flying. I feel so much more at home here than I thought I would, even when I get frustrated.

6/28/01

(added 7/15, Japan time) Oh man, it's so late—midnight nearly. I get to sleep in an extra hour tomorrow, but I've stayed up more than an hour past my (Japan) customary bedtime. What can I say about today? I could have said a lot more if I'd started writing much earlier, that's for sure. I bought the first Kare Kano manga today, even though I've not yet finished plodding through the first Conan one. I'm happy that I'm understanding so much of Detective Conan, but it's a kids' manga and I'm sure that my previous knowledge of events is helping. And I read SO GODDAMN SLOWLY. It's incredibly painful for a speed reader like myself to suddenly be taking multiple minutes to read a page. Of a comic book. Not many multiple minutes, but multiple is multiple. Good things about today—it didn't rain, and I figured out a 6-2 bus stop near the cheaper of the internet cafes. I really shouldn't dignify it with that title—it's really more of a public computer lab with a soda dispenser than an actual cafe. I like the other one much better—it's very downtown-Seattleish—but it's incredibly more expensive. 500 yen for two hours minimum and you HAVE to buy food or drink. The cheaper one, on the other hand, is 220 yen/hour, and you don't have to buy anything extra (the soda dispenser is free-refill douzo, too). I may some weekend day arrange to have some email conversation with people and want to spend two hours in front of a computer, but other than that, I don't see myself needing a computer here for that amount of time. Bad things about today—still sickish, cramps, and getting into a mini-argument with Danielle the Snot during class. It was all under the guise of the "discussion" we were supposed to be having, but well, I took it personal, I guess. I think I may just pull her aside and ask her if she doesn't like me for real, or if I'm just imagining it. I'd probably feel better knowing, either way.

6/27/01

(added 7/15, Japan time) I've caught a cold (probably from sleeping with the window open last night, and I still haven't started that letter to Kate. I don't think my speech tomorrow is going to reach two minutes. I suppose that's not really so different from going overtime, but I'm still fretting about it. And the newspaper thing is going to suck. I very much liked Karl's suggestion for the name, though—"Hako da" tte? It's a pun on the name of Hakodate. Hako means box, so if someone said hako da! meaning "it's a box!" and you didn't thought you didn't hear them right, you could question them saying hako da tte? meaning "did you say it's a box?" Cute, very Japanese pun. I spent a couple hours hanging out with Karl this afternoon. He's really the stereotypical anime/CS dork that's easily impressed by a girl who likes computers, Japanese, and hell, is willing to talk to him. He's not really very interesting, but he's interested in me and I think that's better than being ignored. I'm really longing (as I do every night) for someone to be here to talk with. People here don't really talk to me—they either are like Karl or they ignore me. I did have a good conversation with Manami about "Sporty Restaurant," "Happy Price," "Santa Curry," "Joyful Vitamin," and "Beat the Price OFF!" to name a few Japanenglishisms. It was fun to explain in Japanese why I thought they were so funny, even if I did get horribly embarrassed about explaining the last one. I wish I had a camera for it! That and the "First Concrete Lightpole In Japan" along with the pretentious sign proclaiming it to be so. Happy priceless stuff.

6/26/01

(added 7/15, Japan time) I don't really want to write anything tonight. I'm tired, it's hot and raining, I've been scarring myself up, I didn't understand a lot of the homework, I feel guilty about not cleaning my room yet, I stink, I need to shave, I'm worried about getting a bus pass tomorrow, I haven't really studied for the kanji part of tomorrow's quiz and not at all for the vocab part, I don't want to do the stupid "special committee" newspaper shit, I wish I lived closer to town, I haven't worked on my speech for Thursday yet and I'm supposed to have Taguchi-sensei look at it tomorrow, my back hurts, I miss my friends, I have to get up in 7 hours, I was early, and I'm generally just in a funk. But I feel I should fill up the rest of the page, if only to keep up appearances. To whom? I guess just to me. I hung out a bit with James, Ashley, and Kristin today. James and Ashley are nice guys but I felt really out of place with Kristin there. I just can't seem to get along with mixed-sex groups very well. I felt like a total interloper, and of course no one was "sensitive" enough to tell and try to fix it. I really miss Brandon and Patrick and Kate and everyone else at home. Maybe they just do it to humor me, but they at least laugh at my jokes. Here people just kind of look at me. I'm starting to wonder if I'll pull back into full loner mode. I'm not feeling welcome, so perhaps I'll just be the stuck-up snot who doesn't talk to anyone. That's not particularly an appetizing thought, but I think it'd make me feel a little bit better. Not as much better as making some friends would be, thoguh. Steph and Amanda had half-invited me to go play DDR with them, but they didn't really pursue it. I really shouldn't complain—they've been pretty friendly, but I'm having trouble warming up to them. Picky stupid me. It's probably mostly because they're girls. That and the Sanrio thing really frightens me. Ugh.

6/25/01

(added 7/15, Japan time) Well, the first thing that needs to be said is that I really don't like sleeping on a Japanese futon. I'm actually sleeping on two, on a mat, and it's really only marginally better than sleeping directly on the floor. That plus all four pillows I've had in Japan so far have been awful means unhappy Jen (they all squish into an awful, hard, triangular mass that my neck and head strain themselves trying to "rest" on all night). Last night, I used Annie as a pillow, and the teddy bear was far better. I'm going to try a small couch pillow I found, because I prefer to be able to cuddle with Annie rather than squish her. I just entertained a terrible daydream. I started off my thinking I should email Dad, which led to wondering if he was home from Japan yet, which lead to wondering what he'd done in his last few days, which led to wondering if anything bad had happened. So then I got to thinking, if he died here or on the flight home, how would I find out? I'm assuming Mama would call me... what a horrible phone call. I may not personally like his company greatly, but still just the idea unsettled my stomach. Me and my morbid daydreams. I used to carry a card in my wallet with a list of people I wanted my folks to contact if I died. I always worried, when I got on a flight with my family, how my friends would find out if my plane crashed. Would someone go for weeks, months, without learning I was dead, just because they hadn't noticed I wasn't around and didn't watch the news? Would I even make the news? Yech. Morbid thoughts after a moody day. I think it's silly that banks here want you to show them your passport to be able to change traveler's checks. And the closing at 3 pm thing is ridiculous. I mean, what the fuck. Of course, if I hadn't been triply lonely, altruistic, and cowardly, I would have gotten to Aomori in time to try to use my driver's license instead. Bother.

6/24/01

(added 7/15, Japan time) Sigh. Didn't really do much today other than worry about things like money and postage and damnable itching. We went to the top of Hakodate Yama today, but the clouds were so thick we couldn't enjoy the view. It was still awing, I thought; it was like being suspended in a vast nothingness, with occasional wisps of cloud scudding by in front of my face. Really surreal. I noticed today (well, a day or so ago, but really thought about today) how little I'm speaking. I feel like I should be babbling my head off, but instead I'm being damn closemouthed. Sigh. Of course, even if I could speak fluently, I don't know what I'd have to say to these people. I've been pretty removed from my normal sources of conversation, and I don't really want to talk about Jim (I did, a little) or my family to Susumu and Manami. I'm just not good at small talk, in general, and the fact that I can't understand long strings of abstract discourse kind of hampers things. I'm not a die-hard musichead, so I can't really talk to Susumu, and what do I know about talking to a housewife? I miss my friends tonight. Every night on the news I get a taste of Seattle by way of the omnipresent Ichiro coverage, and I always look for Zach in the crowd shots of Safeco Field... but it's not chatting with Kate, watching movies with Patrick, or going to dinner with Brandon. Brandon leads to Indian food leads to karee pan (curry bread). The idea is weird enough (curry-stuffed bread), but this morning topped it : curry stuffed DOUGHNUTS. Very tasty but ultra strange. Amusing "English" seen lately—the instant coffee mix "Blendy," the "Happy Price" sale stickers at the market, and the "Santa Curry" at the Lucky Pierrot. Hell, everything at that LP was like the Santa nightmare in The City of Lost Children on crack.

6/23/01

I am still alive. I can not find the apostrophe on this Japanese keyboard, and local calls are metered here (10 yen for 3 minutes) so I shall keep this very very short. Life is good—my mother is a great cook and my father loves Jimi Hendrix and plays guitar. Sweet. School starts on Monday. Not so sweet. Ja ne!

(added 7/15, Japan time) I was so tired last night that I went to bed at 11 after only a little reading and no writing. The test yesterday sucked, but I don't think I did terribly. Mostly I'm just hoping I don't get stuck in Yamada-sensei's class. I've decided that I really don't like her. Anyway, yesterday was fun; Manami had her ikebana (flower arranging) class to teach and Kana-chan got taken to her grandparents', so I had the house to myself for a while. I answered two phone calls and took a nap—it was a good afternoon. Susumu got home around 6:15 or so and we had dinner together; didn't talk much because I'm still sort of shy around him. Or was. After dinner we went to go pick up Kana-chan and we spent a while talking about music. He loves Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn et. al., so it was fun to compare other tastes. There was a beautiful yuuyake (sunset), so after we got her, he took me on a drive all around Hakodate. It's really a nice town, and the waterfront really reminds me of the Piers at home. It may be weak to admit it, but those little similarities really help me feel more at home here. So anyway, we got home around 9 pm and chatted and played with Kana-chan for a while. I like the fact that I'm living with people who have a small child—they use easy Japanese with her so it's not strange for them to use it with me. Thank god... On a completely different note, it's really funny to look at how sloppy my handwriting's gotten in just the few days I've been writing. I miss my keyboard greatly, scuzzy as it is. They've got a laptop here which Manami said that I could use for email if I wanted... I'll have to pay them back for phone time after I figure out how to use it—even local calls are metered here (how's that for odd). (Later) What a great day! I woke up earlier than I wanted (about 9:30—Kana-chan was being pretty excitedly scream-y), but nummy breakfast and a shower were awaiting me, so I decided not to mind. I'm really glad that they're cool with me taking showers in the morning. A lot of Japanese families wouldn't let me do it, or would feel a little put out. Many Japanese bathe at night, with everyone sharing the hot water. But Susumu takes morning showers, so it's okay for me to, too. The shower is funny—it's an entire room, actually, with a bathtub along one side. Anyway, so I had their really tasty thick bread (among other things) for breakfast and then didn't know what to do until Susumu invited me to go to the park with him and Kana-chan. There's a big dam that we walked on, and Kana-chan played in the river for a bit. I put my feet in, but it was a little too cold for my taste. We got home and almost immediately went out again; this time to Kentakki (KFC) and to Toys R Us to buy me a small frisbee. It's a kids' one, so it's too light, but Susumu and I still had fun after a picnic lunch at another park, throwing around for a while. Kana-chan "played" with us, too, but she couldn't quite get the idea of how to throw. She kept on doing a bastard combination of a pitch and a bowl. Funny stuff. At home, later, I got to help make some sort of dango (dumplings) for the HIF potluck. Small dango got mixed with kiwi, strawberries, watermelon, mango (which made me miss Brandon), mango juice, a little rum, and some sugar and lemon to make a sort of fruit salad. I kept on nibbling on fruit and Manami taught me how to say "don't snitch food" in Japanese but I've forgotten. At the potluck I found that I got placed into the "advanced" class. It's not the "super advanced" one, but I hope it'll get me some fourth-year loving. Thankfully Yamada-sensei isn't teaching it, and James, Karl, and Adam, three of the students I find I can talk to so far, are along with me. Ashley isn't, which is too bad. I spent a while talking to him tonight and decided I really like him. It feels weird though, because he just seems the all-American jock boy who wouldn't usually give me a second look. Actually, he reminds me of Thane. Hadn't thought about him in a year or two...

6/21/01

(added 7/15, Japan time) I still haven't mailed those postcards I wrote for some people on Tuesday. Feel a little bad about that; postage and an international phone card are priorities numeros uno and dos after HIF responsibilities are over tomorrow. Anyway, my host family is great so far. I've only had two times where Manami and I didn't understand each other, and considering that one of those times was her not getting what I was referring to when I asked how to say "commercial" (she thought I was asking about QVC), I think I'm doing okay. I'm not really using any fancy-pants grammar, though, so I don't know how proud I can be. Kanade is cute, and kinda fun to play with, but the fact that I can't understand her babyish talk at all makes me pretty uncomfortable. Manami and I communicate really well, and she's already made me two ultra tasty meals (udon and maboudofu)—what's there not to like? Susumu's also nice, but being a guy and cute to boot (and only 7 years older than me!), I've had a lot of nervousness about talking to him or in front of him. I expect that'll fade. Weird cultural thing of the day—in the States, Susumu and Manami would sleep in one room, and Kana-chan would sleep in another. Here, Manami and Kana-chan share a room, and Susumu has his own (decked out with rockposters and at least six guitars that I remember from my peek in). Bizarre. It'd be like visiting someone else's apartment to have sex, having to get up and go back to your own room and all. I don't really get it.

6/20/01

(added 7/2, Japan time) I'm simultaneously very nervous and very relaxed. I'm still scared about what's to happen over the next few days, but despite all my initial butterflies, I feel really good after that bath. I stripped up in the room (that I share with four other girls for the night), and had to fiddle with the yukata for quite a while to get it to fall so that I wouldn't trip or something. Weird, here, that it seemed like it was made for someone taller than me. The obi I had to wrap around twice; the mix of embarrassment and liking how I looked was interesting to parade down the hall. I went into the baths with my glasses still on, at first, to check out the lay of the land, so to speak. I needn't have worried; everything was more than easy to figure out. So I stowed my glasses with my yukata and Birks in the antechamber, grabbed myself a stool, and took my first ever public bath. It was odd—they've got hand-held shower heads that you use, while on your stool, to rinse. It was a bitch getting my hair done with only one hand, so I ended up laying the head down. I regretted that a bit when I had to pick it up with soapy hands later. but only a bit. After washing up and rinsing off well, I slid into the ofuro. Well, "slid" isn't really the word, nor even "inched." "Centimetered," perhaps—that water was DAMN HOT. But once I was in up to my chin... oh, I never wanted to come out. Jim can vouch for the wonders of a hot bath. I didn't stay in long, because I didn't want to get all woozy, but I must have been bright red after that boiling. Some other girls came in while I was towelling off—the irony of my inner, snidely superior, feeling about their hesitancy didn't go unnoticed. Only 20 minutes of experience separated us, but I already felt so much more worldly than they. I restrained from making any comments about it, though, thank God. Silly me.

6/19/01

(added 7/2, Japan time) So I'm sitting in my sleeping clothes on the top bunk of a sleeper compartment. Left-hand side, to be exact. Hopefully no one else will come for the other half of the compartment; we've got all our luggage on their top bunk. I've been making Dad my pack-horse, so I'm kind of wondering what I'm going to do when he runs off to catch his next train tomorrow morning (I don't know if he's going to make it—he's only got about a five minute layover, but hey, that's what the JR Pass is for). I'm scared shitless about tomorrow. I'll have to find myself a taxi and get to the Donanso and even then I can't collapse; they're going to start testing tomorrow and I just know I'm going to do terrible. I've regressed to the vocab and grammar of a two-year-old. It's very depressing. I can't understand a lot of what gets said to me, and when I try to say anything back, it's been pretty bad. I'm totally expecting to get put in the intermediate class, which'll suck big time. I've got my third-year book with me and I feel like I should study, but at the same time I really just want to read my book. The age-old problem... well, at least since college started. Oh, and my Discman is starting to be on its last legs—the bit that latches the lid down doesn't spring out right as of the trans-Pacific flight. Poor thing's served me well for over six years, including having been stolen and all. It still has the evidence sticker on it; worn though it may be, I've always thought it was cool, and shamelessly enjoy people's questioning looks when they see it. Silly me. I wish I'd brought a camera so I could have taken pictures of Nagoya Castle today, but I hate cameras so I suppose it's probably for the best.

6/18/01

(added 7/2, Japan time) Meant to write something yesterday but was way too bushed. Flight was 10 hours across the ocean and I only snagged about 2 hours of sleep. That plus about 1.5 hours sleep the night before added up to as good as nothing. I had a mini-ecstasy on the train to Nagoya from Osaka (my life-long love of the minature, especially minature landscaping and architecture, seems to have been advance preparation for me to nearly piss my pants in excitement as to how the cities look here) and then craszhed to sleep just as strongly. Of course, since that was about 9 pm, I woke up this morn at 6 am and couldn't get back to sleep . Wandered around the city until 8:30 or so; followed some kids to school and saw countless little markets. I may not understand half of what's said or even a smidgen of what's written, but it's all so beautiful, fascinating and -tiny- that I love it all anyway. Dad's pissing me off of course, assuming I know (or should know) a lot more than I do, and he's pushing me pretty rude to explain everything. And he's being as embarrassing as ever. Blah. We forgot his JR Pass in Nagoya today when we went to Nara, and he wanted me to try to convince the JR guy to give us a ticket without paying anyway. I'm not comfortable trying to pull that shit in English, and he was being an ass about trying to make me to it in Japanese. Ah well. Toudaiji (a temple that happens to be the largest wooden structure in the world) was pretty damn impressive to have seen, and I got to pet some deer, so I suppose the day wasn't an entire loss. In other news, the bathtub at the Nagoya Marriott is exactly, and I mean exactly, perfect for my size. How conveeeeeenient!

6/16/01

The thing I dislike the most about international travel is how little damn sleep I'm able to get the night before (two point five hours, baby). I had Lady Marmalade, of all terrible things, haunting me for at least an hour or two before I could fall asleep. God help me.

7:10. We're running a bit late. Of course.

6/15/01

The moment of truth and all that. I will be pulling out of my driveway in about five hours and not coming back until August. I'm likely going to have forgotten something essential, and I'm sure I'm going to be reduced to speaking like a two-year-old for the first few days... but it'll be an adventure, no matter what. I don't know if I'll be updating this at all (hopefully I will, with oso interesting things about everything except natto, the existence of which in the world is a travesty), and I have no idea what even email access is really going to be like. But if someone gets it in their head to send me mail (which would be really cool, unless it's a letterbomb and then I'd be unhappy, as, no doubt, would also be my host family), here's where:

c/o Sakurada
80-40 Jinkawa-cho
Hakodate, Hokkaido
Japan 041-0833

And I think that's about all I can possibly say at the moment about that.

6/14/01

(sad laugh) Ah, Chris Hall. You never fail me.

6/13/01

Reading—it makes me so very sad. It's the sadness that comes with the realization that while I know exactly what it looks like to have my hair blown forward and into my eyes while driving from my perspective, I'll never know how it appears to others. My whole life I've been searching for the author, and the truth is that the author doesn't exist. All that I'll ever find are pieces ripped from unfinished books, cracked and stained mirrors. I wonder if that's part of why I'm always so sad. Because I started reading so early, and developed such a sense of what it was to have an external perspective, and I'm now starting to think about how I'll never ever have that.

I was so angry at my brother today, and wanted to hurt him so badly, that I didn't for the sole reason that I would never have been able to hit him as hard as my anger would have demanded. Explain that one.

It couldn't work. Even given the faint possibility that he'd want to, how could I ever face his family again? If I thought things were ackward with Eric before... but it doesn't matter, because it won't happen, and if you're reading this, I know that it won't happen, don't worry. It's just that that knowledge doesn't keep me from lying awake, quiet, too quiet, in my bed, staring at a ceiling that I don't really notice.

Whoever uses AOL, use a different browser. My logs are so full of aol cache proxies that I trip over them in my sleep, and that's no fun, is it?

I'm terrified about Saturday. More frightened, in some ways, than I've ever been before—perhaps because I've had so long to think about this one. Everyone wants to talk about what a good experience it'll be and how fun it'll be and how good it'll be to get away and how much I'll love it and how envious they are that I have the time/money/etc to be able to do it. No one understands how scared I am, and I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, for how to convey how I can be so damnably afraid of something I'm so "lucky" to be able to do? I should be grateful and excited, not lying awake at night with nothing but incoherent fear running through my head (interrupted by occasional fits of depression related to a sampler of topics—choose one, choose any, choose all!). But no, that's not right. I'm the always calm, always collected, always knowing of what to do Omni Jen (somewhat skitzy at times, but be damned if she doesn't always pull herself together and be alright in the end, what a girl!). I swear, if I weren't me, I'd laugh myself silly.

6/12/01

I feel like I should say a great deal... talk about Noah (whose last name, if creative searching online does not lead me astray, is Webster), talk about my new CDs, talk about dinner with Jim on Thursday or dinner tonight with Jason/Jeff/Kevin, talk about moving or talk about leaving for Japan on Saturday. Instead, I don't know what to say about anything at all, other than this—I found it intensely soothing tonight to delete and move around files on Dante, as a poor substitute for my near nightly screwing around with Laeren.

6/11/01

Almost all moved out. Woot.

6/10/01

A birthday present—I found my Leatherman. It was in my car, of all places; I must have taken it out (or perhaps it fell out), and someone had placed it in the dash (likely Mom—that's her place to stash things). Anyway, I was very happy about it. Until I discovered that my Malcom MacLaren CD is missing. Goddamnit. In a lot of ways that's even less replaceable than the Leatherman. While I could find another Leatherman, albeit lacking the sentimental value of the one that Jim gave me, it'd be rather difficult to look Peter up in Prague and ask him to re-mix that CD for me. It's GOTTA be in one of my other CD cases. At least that's what I'll tell myself until I rip those boxes apart and look tomorrow. Sigh.

6/09/01

It's very late. Early. Something. I'm going to bed.

6/08/01

Of course, it would be that I would watch sad, romantic Moulin Rouge right after seeing him today.

I hate movies. I hate what they create in me; the awful little part of me whose hopes are dashed every time that Patrick and Brandon don't come rushing around the corner to make sure that I'm alright, the terrible delusioned part of me who sobs when there is no email from Jim when I get home. Because coincidences and dramatic changes of heart and come-what-mays and happy endings are not for us in the real world with real lives and real problems, but rather the stuff of stories and only the stuff of stories. It is the art of crushing that part of ourselves that foolishly dreams that is the key to having any semblance of a so-called happy life, and the dreadful pain of burning that hope out of ourselves is just that. A dreadful pain that hangs over us, until one day, it can finally be ignored, and our lives move on, as lives always have, and always will.

Small comfort to those whose pain is still pounding nails into their hearts. Because in our sad little real worlds, we come home, alone, and do dishes, alone, in the dark. And we wait for the pain to go away.

6/07/01

I just noticed that all my dates were screwed up, but I think I tracked down the error. I'm going to bed, because my head feels like it's trying to let Athene out, and it's making me dreadfully cranky.

6/06/01

I was planning on moving some more of my stuff away tonight, but I don't think I have the heart to; I think the rest of it is going to have to all go out in a big batch. I've still got more than enough things falling around the place to make it feel lived in, though—it's hard to believe that I've already carted out two bookshelves and six boxes of stuff. Small boxes, to be sure, but six nonetheless. Funny that just a year and a day ago I was chomping on the idea of moving out of the dorms... coincidental, that. Anyway, I find it interesting that I've come up against a wall of small trips. Some of it is because they're things I don't want to pack up until the last day (big furniture, toiletries, clothes), but I think more the point is that I can't let it bleed out slowly anymore. It needs to be done and gotten over with, and I think I'll start it on next Sunday or Monday. It may not get all moved out on that day, but I'll start sleeping at parent-house that night.

At least Niko's there.

6/05/01

Constant sprinkling rain a perfect match for my mood. Faint drops kissing my lips, damp—too light to be annoying, too heavy to ignore. Cloudy sky, enough sun breaking through on the horizon to give tantalizing hope, yet too dim to pour any true feeling in. Light wind, fluttering hair around my face and into my eyes, but not quite enough to justify the hassle of tying it back; nothing's been enough of anything today. Not frustrating enough for anger, not sad enough for depression, not good enough for happiness. Nothing tastes quite right, conversation doesn't quite flow like normal—the glow of life is just slightly enough dimmed to be noticed, without being completely extinguished. Nothing quite wrong enough to truly complain, and nothing quite right enough to be distracting.

One of those days where I wonder if perhaps I should have just stayed in bed.

6/04/01

A lovely date with Kate. She's smart, she's funny, she's insightful, and she never makes me feel as if she doesn't like me or as if she thinks I don't like her. Why can't there be more women in the world like her? Girls suck.

6/03/01

Yesterday would have been Jim's and my year-and-two-month anniversary. I was rather irate with Mom for bringing him up that day of all days. She talked about how much he'd impressed her once, before she knew him very well, by getting out of the car with her when another guy bumped the Lexus. Here was this boy that she barely knew, acting the perfect gentlemen... and that's just what he was. Too fucking goddamn perfect for me and my screwed up little mind games that I play, too perfect for me and all my shit. I think there's not quite anything else in the world that's ever made me so profoundly sad. Not even my father, because there's just nothing that I can do in that situation; while perhaps I could have done something to keep Jim with me, happy. I miss everything about him. I miss smoothing his hair and crying on his shoulder and savoring his cooking and passing him his toothbrush in the mornings. I feel so fucking weak for it, but I can't help it. I just can't fucking help it.

6/02/01

Yesterday had good and bad points. In other news, I'm contemplating a full redesign of everything. How frightening is that? I don't know how serious I am about it, but it'll give me something to think about while I'm marooned among Japanese cows.

6/01/01

It's 12:48 am; I've been awake for a very very long time now. And I have at least an hour, probably two, left of stat mech homework before I have a chance of sleeping.

Forty-second hour decision: screw homework. While I am possessed of the same disturbing alertness that has evidenced itself all throughout this "day," I can barely hold a pencil without shaking it everywhere, let alone construct a mathmatical relation.

Going to bed for the second time today. I should study for my Japanese test, but I think I'm going to limit it to skimming grammar before I go to sleep. I'll get up early tomorrow and cram kanji at the Roma. I had a quiet night alone tonight... I rather want to get it over with.