I don't clean up after you because I like you and I'm generous, but because I hate you and you're gross, an open letter.

If it's unacceptable to be insensitive, sloppy, and reckless (e.g. perpetually leaving the kitchen in a mess, disconnecting the fire alarm then leaving the fire on the stove blithely burning), then I have no regrets about moving your things. A good roommate isn't defined by hollow gestures of inclusivity, but by sensitivity to boundaries, tidiness, and prudence in and with shared space. You were cognizant of, if not deliberate in, inconveniencing me. You were a monster, and I owe you no respect.

If, on the other hand, your behavior was acceptable, I still insist I am no villain. I was angry and drunk and cleaning. If I happened to misplace your misplaced belongings, if I happened to be insensitive, sloppy, and reckless, I guess that's just the shit ocean we live in. Because catharsis is important and so is a clean kitchen, I have no regrets.

But, on the nose, I'm writing this because I have regrets. Because you confronted me with aggression and I closed my door. Because you stopped my door with your foot and came into my room with your anger. Because your gendered insults ("little bitch") resonated for me in a place of fear; because, no matter how much I'd like to believe your straight-boy misogyny precludes homophobia, I can't. 

You occupy political positions with the authority of truth and neutrality. That flagrant aggression seems objectively preferable to passive aggression is because you believe in objectivity. Your various privileges blind you to the sexism and ableism intrinsic to the epistemic construction of the category "passive aggressive".

Flowers and Stasis

He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. In fact, nothing that any landlady could do held any terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, all the while racking his brains for excuses, avoiding the issue, lying--no, he would rather creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen.

Tian Luu writes:

I"m not going to say it again and I don't want to fight with you on any of this anymore. But I don't know where you got the idea that and eleven pm bedtime is an ultimatum. We have four part time working students in the house and most of us are in bed by midnight. I work half of the week at an office that starts at 9 AM which is considerably late for the working world, it's not a difficult concept to understand. Also, I'm not your mother or your family, being a house mate that pays to live at the house I can set any "ultimatums" I want. It's a basic courtesy and common sense to not be banging cabinets and tinkering with things at eleven at night consider you have to turn on the lights to do it because everyone is already in bed. Please just don't do it again. It's finals coming up and I've got heavy work days this month--I don't want this to be a recurrent issue. Also I don't know if and when I'll be moving out early but I've got broken dishes and a toaster that are still unaccounted for. I'm assuming you aren't going to want to part with the nice new toaster you bought so just keep that in mind. My toaster wasn't nice but it was relatively new and I don't feel it fair for me to have to purchase a new one on my own considering I rarely used it and definitely didn't break it when it was at the house. If you want to talk more about any of this later I'll be home, otherwise just try and be respectful and I'll try to be civil.

I saw this word one time. No, that's

	Yesterday 11:46 PM
Message:	It was the word: Hayes. Well, that's... shit. I always thought it was a good subject to start with. What do you think? I think this is really good. What are your thoughts? Why do you seem so upset. [laughter] Come on just give me something to close on. Your'e gonna send this to him, aren't you? [laughter]

Set The Tigers Free

I sang this:



to Branden last night. As a lullaby.

I think he cried.
but I can't be sure, because I'm

so high.

Addendum:
From Branden:
"Garrison i love you and i miss you. Have a great night and i loved hearing you sing. You're brilliant and sweet. I love you gare"
11:12:52pm
03/09/2011

03/07/2011

To Mads:
"I think the revolution is impossible this century, then."
11:39:46pm
03/06/2011

To Tyler:
"Woot"
12:01:58am
03/07/2011

To Branden:
"Are YOU ASLEEP. Sorry about caps lock"
1:00:51am

To Tyler, Branden, Alex, Airy:
"You know when you were thinking something rewarding/satisfying but you get distracted by something and then you can't remember what you were thinking but you try. And in that trying you realize you aren't thinking anything and somehow you had accessed oblivion? I...like that."
4:03:47am

To Hayden:
"I think thoughts are (the) actions that define "who" "you" "are". But I need postmodern distance from those last three concepts. I don't believe in a pre-linguistic, self-same, stable, coherent "self" though. So: "who you are" is a meaningless concept for me...mostly."
9:06:35am

To Alice:
"I really like that James Franco is tweeting seemingly arbitrary video bliss without context. i meant clips. but bliss is more accurate."
9:37:37am

To Airy:
"Almost exclusively if someone asks me, "what", I've already lost interest in them. Ya know?"
9:41:37am

To Alice:
"They're so gratuitous. One is thirty seconds of a lamp post?"
9:52:34am

To Mom, Branden, Airy:
"If you didn't like the smell of the fish isn't it just as arrogant to impose a glade air poisoner on everyone?"
10:28:11am

To Mom:
"Lol. It's okay. I like working on my ethics y'all"
10:30:57am

To Bodena:
"It seems like you took the internet with you when you left"
11:03:17am

"Same...thing?"
11:04:43am

"Without knowing how or what you did or how to get it back it's functionally identical"
11:07:48am

"At your leisure"
11:13:02am

To Branden:
"Kristin wouldn't let me recycle tian's expensive champagne bottle. I was suppppper annoyed."
11:27:22am

To Airy:
"I think i'm really, deeply h8ful"
11:29:54am

"Like...i'm trying to talk to kristin about roommates and it's just impossible because she won't let me h8. She is a bad-rooommate apologist."
11:33:44am

"Also-if she wants to drop out? Drop out."
11:37:45am

"It's like... Yeah. I hated school too. And then i stopped going. Then i moved to new york and then ohio. It's... Like a genuine option. Not going to school."
11:40:39am

"A lot i'm either hating myself to a debilitating degree. Or i hate everyone else. To a similar degree. Just... So much loathing."
11:46:09am

To Branden:
"Hey boy. You know i love you. I had to kill myself last night, if your conception of subjectivity is heavily contingent on performativity. Then i woke up at eight thirty am? And... I guess i'm in class. The class i stopped doing reading for at week three. And stopped attending week five."
11:47:43am

To Airy:
"I don't hate at you. Except for when i feel intellectually inferior. And that's really more of a self loathing with you as the context, not the object."
11:48:41am

"My relationship to you is one of deep affection and awe."
11:49:19am

"Thank god i have you, amiright"
11:49:38am

"I do like the teaching assistant in this class. I wish i wasn't depressed. I feel like then we could be friends... Fuck. What if i start crying. Is... That's okay. Nobody will notice? Right? I...did not plan on crying. It's just i didn't sleep a lot"
11:58:44am

"Maybe... Maybe"
12:36:20pm

To Branden:
"Leaving class. :)"
1:10:56pm

"Reading then more class!"
1:14:52pm

":)"
1:21:06pm

To Hayden:
""no subject is its own point of departure" butler is always good."
1:42:58pm

To Mads:
"Butler is transferring to a private school. Are you hurt by that?"
1:43:33pm

"What?... What?!"
1:45:54pm

"What!"
1:46:07pm

To Hayden:
"Write this on that obnoxious anti-marijuana status: "subjects who institute actions are themselves instituted effects of prior actions, and ... the horizon in which in which we act is there as a constitutive possibility of our very capacity to act, not merely or exclusively as an exterior field or theater of operation.""
1:48:05pm

To Mads:
"I'm participating in a relationship in which those conversations have taken place, sure, and there are possibilities for explicitly linking that conversation with my intended present one, but now i'm more startled by your refusal to engage with me. Seems a departure. Dare i say a radical one."
1:49:43pm

"I was hurt when i read butler was transferring to a private school."
1:53:06pm

To Hayden:
"Also for the question of actions: "there is no ontologically intact reflexivity to the subject which is then placed within a cultural context; that cultural context, as it were, is already there as the disarticulated process of that subject's production, one that is concealed by the frame that would situate a ready-made subject in an external web of cultural relations""
2:08:32pm

To Branden, Airy, Kristin:
"I pulled obnoxious brian aside after class and told him he needs to speak less and quieter. I used a lot of feminist jargon but it was functionally the same thing. I'm hunry and tired and angry, but i'm still glad."
4:38:49pm

To Kristin:
"Also is the internet fixed"
4:39:40pm

To Airy:
"I mostly just said the reason he thinks it's okay to talk so much is because of male privilege. And so i told him he needs to stop. And i said he needs to talk quieter. ...because of male privilege."
4:46:27pm

"Lol!"
5:47:20pm

To Branden:
"Getting a sandwich at the library..."
5:52:54pm

"Damn it's snowing hard. Like just a winter wonderland"
5:53:21pm

"I just got it. Over priced. Incredibly so"
5:56:18pm

"Yes! I'll mention it to Asuu!"
5:58:21pm

To Bettilyon:
"Will the ficus tree lower the prices of food on campus? It should be cheaper-affordable for students. Especially those that can't afford a parking pass."
5:59:32pm

To Branden:
"The student government is holding elections. They're being obnoxious campaigning. I'll ask them."
6:00:06pm

To Bettilyon:
"Woohoo."
6:01:54pm

To Branden:
"This sandwich is good. NOT as gourmet as the price would indicate though."
6:02:30pm

To Google:
"D: axiomatic"
6:06:12pm

To Branden:
"It's just... I don't have a car. And i don't know the area. So i'm on campus and i either take the bus home and eat or i stay here and eat. Staying here is better for studying, but worse for my wallet. That sucks"
6:09:52pm

"Yeah! Capitalism is SOOOOOO terrible and the university is an integral component of its present functioning."
6:14:21pm

To Mads, Beatty, Airy, Boyack !:
"Is sedwick a lot more difficult to read than butler or am i just really tired and hungry."
6:18:00pm

To Boyack !:
"The whole solar system? Aren't there only like eight parts?"
6:21:35pm

To Mads:
"That's what i'm reading. She used the word pullulate? There are like six words i've never heard of on a page."
6:23:13pm

To Google:
"D: pullulate"
6:23:29pm

To Mads:
"Exiguous?"
6:25:12pm

"Yeah. I'm not understanding any of this. Just... At all."
6:26:35pm

"Knowing what those words means is hardly helping"
6:26:56pm

To Branden:
"I just noticed that i walk with my left foot sliguly turned in. Is that weird..."
6:29:47pm

To Boyack !:
"I'm...not getting sedgwick at all. This... Is so unpleasant. I'm tired and the sandwich i ate is hurting my stomach."
6:31:06pm

"She's talking about ignorance and i think she's talking about me... But i can't be sure. Like when you were young and people spelled around you. Before you could spell. It's infuriating."
6:34:18pm

"She's an iconoclast!"
6:36:22pm

"...better"
6:39:22pm

"I don't know what an iconoclast is. I just know sedwick is a huge deal"
6:39:58pm

To Mads:
"Axiomatic y'all"
6:43:55pm

To Airy:
"The only break i can imagine is going home... And i hate home sometimes. And ameena disconnected the internet and i don't my when she'll fix it."
6:56:20pm

To Branden:
"Wow. It is not at all quiet in the quiet study area."
7:07:02pm

To Google:
"D: pellucid"
7:08:03pm

To Branden:
"They're just hanging out and laughing a lot. Like... Why here?"
7:15:36pm

To Airy:
"I got outvoted so we got rid of cable. And so... She... Took the cable box this morning and then internet wasn't working. I told her she took the internet with her. she said she didn't she just maybe disconnected it. I said same thing. She said no. I said without knowing how or what you did or how to fix it, it's functionally identical. She said she'd fix it later. I said, by all means, at your leisure."
7:22:45pm

"Ahhhh. I want snuggles. I'm just reading sedgwick talk about how shitty it is to be gay hungry and tired at the library thirty feet away from a group of laughing people. They're so loud. Why did they come here to laugh and hang out?"
7:24:06pm

To Google:
"D: Nonce"
7:30:24pm

To Airy:
"Just...on the floor?! Grinnell > my house"
7:37:34pm

To Branden:
"Off and on"
7:41:46pm

To Branden, Boyack !:
"I've been reading for two hours and i'm not halfway done. With this first article."
7:59:14pm

To Boyack !:
"Would they have pears at the library would you think?"
8:35:32pm

To Airy:
"Not distinctly enough. I remember that being a beautiful experience i think."
9:03:00pm

"Reality becoming unflapped is painful? Or the pain is"
9:07:07pm

"That was a really good time. I like using the word "space" behind reality. Seems deliberately inaccurate/incomplete. Once that man i told to talk less agreed with me in class poorly so i just shook my head at him until he stopped"
9:16:34pm

To Tyler, Mom, Kristin, Hayden, Emily, Branden, Boyack !, Bodena, Airy:
"Fucking blizzard what the what?"
9:18:11pm

To Branden, Mom, Hayden, Emily, Kristin:
"Walking to the bus stop... I thought i would die halfway! Surely! My feet are soaking?! Jesus. Jesus!!"
9:21:56pm

To Airy:
"Walking to the bus stop... I thought i would die halfway! Surely! My feet are soaking?! Jesus. Jesus!! When people get here there's this... Moment where they expect a celebration. Cause we all made this trek. But we're... All just cold and wet"
9:23:18pm

To Hayden:
"What is it? I had to run through the snow... For some reason. i've never experienced this. The sidewalks on campus are just under the four ish inches of snow"
9:24:18pm

To Emily:
"Shit. Shit!"
9:24:33pm

To Mom:
"'m... Expecting the bus to be pretty late."
9:24:50pm

To Branden:
"I'll have to scrub the tub first to even get that! I ran... In the converse. My feet are wet. What a fucking trek. The one thing late stage capitalism should supply is no treks! Jesus."
9:25:46pm

To Airy:
"I'm going to try. It's... Such an accomplishment! I kept picturing myself dying and freezing to death halfway. THE BUS!"
9:26:35pm

"Why is it making my"
9:27:13pm

To Tyler, Tian, Mom, Kristin, Hayden, Emily, Branden, Boyack !, Bodena, Airy:
"THE BUS WON'T GO ABOVE THIRD AVENUE?? If the fucking bus can't make it how can i??! What the Fuck am i supposed to do with that information but huddle on the bus for warmth and cry???"
9:29:11pm

To Emily:
"Walking up from third avenue is incredibly difficult on a pleasant spring day..."
9:30:12pm

To Hayden, Branden:
"No. You don't fucking understand what that means. That's five blocks uphill in six inches of snow in leaky tennis shoes."
9:31:43pm

To Bodena:
"No. Yeah. But me and my leaky tennis shoes can."
9:32:14pm

To Branden, Airy, Boyack !:
"I was already crying in the library from being tired and hungry. Now uphill six blocks in leaky tennis shoes in... Four? Inches of snow with freezing wind."
9:34:11pm

To Mom:
"Wait in the snow?"
9:35:47pm

To Emily:
"Walking uphill six blocks in four inches of snow i guess is just what i'm doing right now."
9:37:07pm

To Mom:
"I texted everyone. Ameena said if the bus can't make it she can't. Call the uta and a congress person to complain. That's my plan when i get home. This is unacceptable."
9:38:11pm

To Bodena:
"Still just walking..."
9:39:07pm

To Mom:
"I guess not."
9:39:42pm

To Mom:
"I'm at sixth"
9:40:25pm

To Branden:
"It's fucking slippery. I keep slipping"
9:41:19pm

To Mom:
"Yeah. It's slippery on steep"
9:43:11pm

To Airy:
"I can't stop crying. I'm just naked in the bathroom crying."
10:09:03pm

To Tyler:
"The bus dropped me of at third avenue. Had to walk from there"
10:10:07pm

To Kristin:
"I guess i thought texting would suffice. I'm dropping out of school."
10:10:29pm

To Airy:
"I'm trying to look in the mirror to tell myself that i love myself but i can't."
10:14:22pm

"It's... No. No. Cause it's... All just repeated. My day was a synecdoche for the structure of academia. And i'm dropping out. I'm... I have to be done. I'm done"
10:16:10pm

"Okay. Can we skype after. I just... I just need to be held. I need you or branden to hold me because you are the people that keep me from such radical alienation but you're both so far away and i don't understand why. Why i have to be naked crying on the bathroom floor"
10:17:32pm

"And standing up means picking up these pieces that have been stabbing into me for so long and they're on the floor. Everywhere. They're scattered everywhere and standing up requires collecting them all again for another fucking obnoxiously metaphorical trek through the snow and i can't. When i was on the bus i kept thinking i can't do this and even when i got home all i could think was i can't. I can't do this. I can't. And i fell apart. I just fell apart ari"
10:20:09pm

To Boyack !:
"I...broke down in the shower. I'm... Still just crying naked in the bathroom. I'm dropping out of school john."
10:24:05pm

To Kristin:
"I... There was this profound alienation i experienced when the bus driver said he was only driving up to third avenue. And i stark feeling of hopelessness. And i kept thinking a couldn't do it. And even when i got home all i could think was i can't. I can't and i'm still just...crying in the bathroom. And it's all this trite synecdoche for academia, but evaluation is unethical. Grading students isn't grading some autonomous subject that makes rational coherent decisions between success and failure or effort and being lazy. It's an evaluation of who had to walk farther in the snow, but more than that it's an evaluation of how different students are different manifestations of the discursive hub where different regulating pressures articulate an intelligible agency. And the difference between an A and an F is functionally indistinguishable from the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Thats unethical in any permutation."
10:32:51pm

To Boyack !:
"I've already dropped out too. I'll... Can i send you a long text. Six pages length"
10:33:24pm

To Airy:
"I love you."
10:33:40pm

To Branden:
"Yes"
10:33:50pm

To Airy:
"I'm still dropping out. Evaluation is just patently unethical. I can't... Endorse this system with my continued participation. Will you support me."
10:35:45pm

To Boyack !, Branden:
"I... There was this profound alienation i experienced when the bus driver said he was only driving up to third avenue. And a stark feeling of hopelessness. And i kept thinking i couldn't do it. And even when i got home all i could think was i can't. I can't and i'm still just...crying in the bathroom. And it's all this trite synecdoche for academia, but evaluation is unethical. Grading students isn't grading some autonomous subject that makes rational coherent decisions between success and failure or effort and being lazy. It's an evaluation of who had to walk farther in the snow, but more than that it's an evaluation of how different students are different manifestations of the discursive hub where different regulating pressures articulate an intelligible agency. And the difference between an A and an F is functionally indistinguishable from the distinction between heterosexuality and homosexuality. Thats unethical in any permutation."
10:37:27pm

To Branden:
"Cried in the shower... Then cried naked on the bathroom floor. Now i'm crying on my bed. I'm going to smoke a bowl. I'm dropping out of school branden."
10:38:18pm

To Airy:
"It's be with you and branden. But branden won't have me. I don't think i've dealt with that emotional blow yet either. I think part of my crying is still about that."
10:42:04pm

"I need you and/or branden."
10:44:21pm

"Thank you."
10:51:48pm

To Boyack !:
"That doesn't address the ethics or the depression"
11:31:55pm

"Then Fuck why waste my time here"
11:34:45pm

To Airy:
"I keep hearing the line "i want spam" being repeated in my head. Sometimes it's charlie (from the chocolate factory) saying it."
11:46:23pm

"Oh"
12:00:12am
03/08/2011

Let's play a game

Imagine for me, if you will, that you are slowly being crushed to death by some sort of machine.

You are lying between two slabs of, let's say, concrete. An elaborate system of gears and pulleys is pressing the two slabs together (mustn't forget: with you in between).

Now on one of the, let's say, thousand gears, one of the teeth is missing. So, with regularity, the gears catch and the entire mechanism sighs for a moment, and an instant passes within which the crushing stops its inevitable forward motion.

You experience a sort of bliss.

Remember: you are still being crushed to death by some sort of machine.

Austin

But I can't find that calm, I feel this anxiety especially in my forearms.
and the history channel used to have this show called the universe, and sometimes in the midst of that show i would lose myself to eternity. but now I feel actively tethered to the pain of my humanity

and maybe there's solace in the existence of love, or there should be
but the very concept of love, for me, feels evacuated of meaning
like all of the hope and comfort and beauty that should fulfill and exceed the very word "love"; contained in it as in a box;
the cardboard got wet and all the meaning of the word dropped out the bottom, shattering in the dirt
or something

So now it's just a word that these people say and for brief moments it's as a salve but largely I feel the contours and emptiness of it.

And I think I need this act of dialogue, this articulation of my feelings in relation to the unadulterated positivity and beauty that I understand you to be. Because when you wrote back it was exciting and when I watched your video I felt better. And pausing from myself to write this, I think, has been sustaining.

a thread from my heart

I took a thread from my heart while you slept

and delicately stitched it to your leg-

it was the nearest part of you and it felt so important,

disquietly necessary

But then you put me on a plane,

set for two thousand miles to the west.

And I began unraveling at the edges as I flew;

by the time you found the vein from my heart

sewn into your leg

my arms had fallen off.

When you ripped apart the “seam”

you left me bleeding and armless

under a mountain.

Hobbies

I was the smart kid early. In grade school it was always Melissa and I competing for the crown, though I don't know if she saw it as a competition. There's a picture of her and I in kindergarten. I'm cutting paper, but with right-handed scissors, and they seem to be causing me a lot of grief. Maybe it started there. I remember in 4th grade she memorized the Gettysburg address before I did. I chalked that up to a loss for me; one point, Melissa.

Eventually that identity marker became confused with achievement, and simultaneously (I think) achievement that was simply at normal levels became subpar. Over-achievers were the only people worth knowing, or teaching, I'm not clear on the intricacies of valuation in education, but over-achieving was important. I didn't have anything else going for me, so I tried that hat on.

Now I think it's important to mention I wore it well. Not only "now" in this writing, but now in this "stage" of my life, marked loosely from halfway through my freshman year of college to some vague point in the future. Because from every social evaluation I can identify in society's consciousness, I'm a failure. I can feel my inferiority, my worthlessness. I feel it pressing against me in most social interactions. It might be every single social interaction, I can feel it pressing me down and compressing me; my lungs, my ears. Sometimes I lash back: "I was valedictorian, you know?" National Merit Scholar, President of the National Honor Society, I was in the Marching Band for four years (clarinet section leader), my debate team won state.

I did everything anyone could have asked. I sought out leadership and volunteer opportunities, and I had an impressive resume. But part of this process was filling out applications that asked what my hobbies were.

I never had hobbies. Now it seems like a creepy and invasive question to ask children. It seems the most explicit question regarding parents involvement. "What did your parents have the resources and motivation to encourage you to do in your free time apart from those things that the dominant culture more pervasively encourages, like mainstream sports and television?" Eventually sports became an arena for me to unfavorably compare my gender expression, so all I had was television. Mostly, my free time was television.

Up until about last week, I was really embarrassed about that. Now I think it gave me a more nuanced appreciation of story telling and made me a good listener.

Crumbling in college, when all of the neoliberal phantoms that moved me through my days began to drown, I kinda started finding myself. I think some legitimate hobbies cropped up from that process.

I don't like fashion. Eric mentioned, "Oh yeah, I forgot you were into fashion". He said nice things after that, but mostly I was uncomfortable because I didn't have anything behind that identity marker if he were to press. I'm not interested in fashion, but I'm fascinated by clothing. Clothing as artistic expression in our everyday presentation to the world. Marked, almost violently, by class, race, and gender. And definitely violently marked by imperialism and capitalism; most of our clothes are made in sweatshops. I want to investigate the possibility of nonviolence in what we wear. I want to sew and construct my own clothes. I want to apprentice with a tailor.

I think while quilters are definitely marked by violence, I think quilts, in their construction, appreciation, and circulation are the most nonviolent of all artistic mediums. I want to think about the veracity of that statement. I want to experience that world. I want to make quilts.

I made bread yesterday. Flour, yeast, oven: bread. It was rewarding. I think I'm beginning to develop hobbies.

I don't have any money with which to experience these hobbies though. I need to learn how to get a job.

Live Blogging! I tell you what I'm doing over several hours

3:17 pm: I think about cleaning up. Specifically adjusting the blanket and quilt on the futon. Branden seems to do that, sometimes he even seems obsessed about it. I don't because Justin is in the other room and I'm worried he'll hear me? I get excited about my hulu queue. There is a new episode of: Legend of the Seeker, Secret Life of the American Teenager, Heroes, Firefly. I have The Book Group already in my queue. I start it. I decide blogging about my inability to clean will help me cope with the concrete ways in which Social Anxiety make my life "bad". The internet goes slowly, or fidgets, or maybe is just sad and it skips on the opening to The Book Group. I miss what I compose in my head to be important constructive narrative components...or something. I'm upset I don't see everyone's couch, is what I'm trying to say. Ameena has a blog: I like the Au Revoir Simone song. Now the song is Matt and Kim and I hate it.

3:23 pm: Ameena has an eventful life. It seemed important. Made me think about school. Was going to write something about my dreams or goals, but my consciousness felt vertigo; I went to check the dictionary to see if vertigo was the word I wanted. The word I wanted was spinning, felt my brain spinning from within my skull, but the real spinning had to be my consciousness in my brain. Couldn't think of the words to describe it, gave up and wrote vertigo even though, to me, it's reminiscent of rich white women on prescription medication (Will and Grace?).

3:40 pm: There's some noise outside the Green Room (GR), Branden probably just returned from coffee with Jeremy. I thought it'd be nice to take a break from The Book Group to talk about how much I adore it. While watching it, I thought I'd write something like: "I'm composing a list of distinct things about this that I like" and then "My list is full and now I'm teeming with excitable enjoyment. Or enjoyable excitement". I also thought some very specific things that I liked, but now I'm embarrassed to write them (maybe it's because now someone comments and the comments make me uncomfortable). One of those things was the wall paper.

3:55 pm: I really liked that first episode of The Book Group. Now I'm going to edit my brother's Sterling Scholar portfolio, specifically the page on being Debate President. The trick, as I see it, is to articulate winsomely the qualities of a leader. The ones that my brother possesses. I mustn't lie like Chelsea Irving (is this slander?)

4:02 pm: The Word document is converting. I don't have the newer version. I opened up iTunes. I was planning on listening to The Books. But then saw Mirah because right now my library is organized alphabetically by album. Then I decided on St. Vincent. What conclusions can be drawn re: my character from this information? The document is open now.

4:04 pm: Don't like the words "fortunate" and "responsible" in the line "I am fortunate to be responsible for...". Going to use a thesaurus to find something I like more.

4:08 pm: I decided what he meant by "fortunate" was: this is cool. So I think "I have the distinction of" more accurately speaks to the honor of the position and something that favorably speaks to his character.

4:11 pm: Is "accountable" a good word? Is accountability specifically favorable in a leadership context?

4:14 pm: Opening an article on Mary Tyler Moore and (second-wave) feminist leadership in my attempts to find a theory of leadership with which I'm comfortable. (Had to thesaurus the word "concept" to come up with "theory". Convinced "second-wave" isn't going to provide leadership qualities that are "feminist enough" for me.

4:26 pm: The article, written by Allyson Jule used the phrase "delicate vulnerability" that I liked a lot. I also noted how much I really liked the Mary Tyler Moore show. And Rhoda.

4:28 pm: In the next paragraph A. Jule makes a rousing case for Second Wave feminism and I feel bad for saying I wasn't anticipating much. I really like Catharine MacKinnon and a lot about the Second Wave. I don't know why I said that other thing before, maybe I was trying to seem hip. I "genuinely" do not know if that last line was meant to be ironic or not.

4:34 pm: Halfway through the article. Mostly it makes me want to watch Mary Tyler Moore. I googled: "Toward a Truly Radical Feminist Theory of Leadership". I ended up on the wikipedia for "Radical Feminism". When it mentions "leadership" it is just to say, "Those nutcase feminists couldn't get anything done. It wasn't democracy but paralysis!" That was a paraphrase. It did say that all "class-striving" was "male-identified", which I sympathize with.

4:40 pm: Finished the article. At the end there was a transcript of that first interview where she gets hired. With that "I hate spunk" line that I say from time to time. I really liked it. She asked for a Brandy Alexander when pressed. Now Mirah is playing. I haven't found a better word for "responsible". Am I doing this wrong?

4:45 pm: I found an article, "Spatial imaginaries: universities, internationalization, and feminist geographies" that I wanted to read because the abstract looked nice, but then OU didn't have online access to it. I have to admit that part of the reason I pursued reading it was because I'm telling "you" everything I'm doing. I thought you'd be impressed.

4:59 pm: I'm liking my new article, which is essentially everything I wanted: Feminists in Social Work: where have all the leaders gone. Lazzari et al. It's going over theories of leadership. At the end of one theory (transactional leadership) it is mentioned (Does Lazzari do the mentioning? How do I incorporate the et. al? Just like that? Lazzari et al mention?) that the leader "takes responsibility for the outcome". That's accountability, right? What does that even mean? What accountability could there possible be for a debate team? Is that just social ostracization if they don't win state?

5:04 pm: Moser & Moser and Rao & Kelleher rejected the "valorization of heroic individualism" (fuck you transformation leadership theory)

5:09 pm: Sometime seems "up" with the font. Convinced this is ultimately "better". Began typing to note that I briefly contemplated adding in the words "I am honored with the distinction of...". Ultimately rejected the idea because it seemed redundant and too self-congratulatory. Now Josephine Foster & the Supposed is playing.

5:14 pm: bell hooks tells me that I should articulate a form of leadership that my brother embodies that breaks free of an ideology of domination, etc. Should I have capitalized the b on bell because it was the start of that sentence?

5:17 pm:

"A feminist theory of leadership should apply to, and closely monitor or observe, all levels of leadership power and influence, both formal and informal; the sex differences that exist; gendered expectations; and the process and goals of leadership. This practice involves reconstructing power as empowerment, for example, making decisions with others, sharing control of resources and educational curricula, and generating ideas or ideologies and knowledge. Redefining power in a culture grounded in power hierarchies (that is, patriarchy) is no easy task." (Lazzari et al 352)

I can't get out of the block quote. I'm scared. And I don't think I cited that right. Where should I put the full citation? I've been "live blogging" for two hours. Is this productive? Illuminating for me or the reader? I don't know. I don't think so. "fuck". "FUCK"

6:04 pm: Watching a longer commercial so I don't have to take commercial "breaks" during the show. The commercial is of 1.5 minute defense of robots. Honda: "You guys! Robots aren't evil like tv and movies say they are!!"

6:55 pm: The weird commercial drama has come to a resolution. He stole the door, diligently churched it up, and brought it to his apartment so that Patrick Dempsey could tell me my relationships would only be fully realized when I bought State Farm insurance of some kind, as some sort of promise. While I always intended on mentioning the weird commercial drama that took 3 breaks to unfold, I was also planning on commenting on how the second and third episode of The Book Group never really lived up to the genius of the first. But where I think the genius lies is when they're in the actual book group. And I'm absolutely in love with Janis. Which is to say the third episode started getting good.

7:05 pm: I think I'll watch Secret Life now.

7:12 pm: "My family called you and asked you to bring me water?"

7:14 pm: "Falling in love, is such an easy thing to do. Birds can do, let's all do it, let's get to it, hurry and do it. Let's fall in love!"

7:20 pm: Grace, the Christian, is starting a masturbation campaign. She's calling it "Just say 'me'" (tm).

7:32 pm: "I don't like schemes...hijinks or shenanigans" Ashley is so cool.

7:34 pm: "Jesus never said 'just say no', Nancy Reagan said 'just say no'". Grace is getting kicked out of the Teen Abstinence Group. Also the "Just say me guy Joe" is handing out stickers. Grace's masturbation campaign is all over school by lunch.

7:40 pm: Ricky (the slut): "If you're my girlfriend, you're going to be sleeping with me" Adrian (the slut): "Don't try that approach, I don't like it" I like the way they're couching this in terms of empowerment, and they're broaching the unease parents have with talking to their children about masturbation.

7:43 pm: WTF Is that the Olympic gold-medal winning gymnast Shawn Johnson?

10:31 pm: Stuff happened and I almost started reading Tao Lin short stories, but I'll go back to watching Secret Life.

10:39 pm: I texted my mom to ask who the better gymnast was. It was Nastia. I loved her. Grace's mother got called into the counseling office. Mom: "Well I'm going to get kicked out of church" Grace: "I got kicked out of TAG (Teen Abstinence Group)" Mom: "Not for this" Grace: "Yeah! Can you believe it?" It's funny to me because Grace had sex a while ago and she thought that made her responsible for her father's death.

10:42 pm: It's Joe! The incredibly bad actor that I'm sure is some sort of joke. At first I was just offended that they could find someone even more awkward and stiff than the main cast, but then I realized it was an intentional casting decision. Now I'm just really glad that I'm in on the joke. heh heh, good one casting director.

10:44 pm: Amy (the girl who had the baby) and her sister Ashley were talking about just say me. Ashley said it was something everyone just does. And Amy said "I don't do anything without thinking about it". Ashley said: "Really? Have you met your son?" And I lol'd

10:54 pm: OH NO! Apparently it takes 4 days until masturbating isn't fun anymore! I discovered this through a montage set to Mr. Sandman that features the girls content in their bed on Monday-Wednesday. But by Thursday they're bored. And on Sunday they aren't even in bed anymore! They're just doing home work.

11:39 pm: I really, really love Janis.

headphones in the dark

My eyes are hurting. I was wearing my headphones in the dark. My eyes don't hurt anymore. They've adjusted to the brightness of the computer.

I tend to think before I write. Think and think. Wallow in my consciousness before I can say anything. Is it my "social anxiety" refusing every thought. Crushing inferiority. What is it crushing.

I read somewhere [source amnesia] that every cell in our body replaces [itself] every seven years. I'm repeating that wrong. Maybe. I can't be sure. Source amnesia. It could even apply to the phenomena! Everything, this whole paragraph is an example. Every word choice could be the wrong one. Is it even called source "amnesia"? Is it even considered a "phenomena" or simply a "concept". That we hear things, even if they say, "Your body doesn't replace itself every seven years, that's obscene and delusional", then, seven years later, I write in a blog, "every seven years I'm [brand new]".

Long chains of (cause and) effect with a source that doesn't exist. May have never existed. Recently I've been considering the viability of lists as a solution to this immateriality of being. But even that consideration is immaterial, mostly it's not there (here? in my head. Is my consciousness a place). Mostly I'm not making lists, mostly (eternally?) I'm in a dark room wallowing in my consciousness.

Am I real? Or does the real world hold nominal superiority; must I get a job in sales or manufacturing.

Should I spend some time dissecting intersecting class, race, and gender privileges that resulted in me even saying those two career possibilities?

Was that last bit "necessary"?

and I can't believe it?

Dr. Irvine (Jill?) didn't post feedback to my midterm. The midterm was weak, Shayna Daitch even said "It could be better", which seems a foolish thing to say, but the midterm was weak. Maybe strictly from the perspective of what I "should" turn it, but even that doesn't make sense. I couldn't think of a better word than "post", and initially I didn't like it, but quickly following I thought about mail, sending things through the post, and I liked the word again, I think.

Madeline isn't saying a lot, but she says she received feedback.

Lindsay Pease hasn't provided me with any feedback, but the context is different because she sent me a nice message and I responded with a long and perhaps "needy" message and she hasn't responded to it and I think (hope) maybe she is preparing something grand, but I think probably it's more than on her hierarchy of who to care about I am low and unimportant, and I think that's a redundant thing to say.

And Kate Sheppard is someone that I've ignored, but the context is different. There was an interview for the newsletter and I responded after a delay and I included a metaphor as my answer to "What will you do with your degree" and I was mostly proud of it, and she didn't include it in her "write up" for the interview, but I still think what she did was rather good, and she asked me to respond and instead I didn't. I hope she just posts what she has, or maybe even I hope that she doesn't. I think I just hope that she doesn't mind that I never responded.

And I wanted to say something about suicide, even though when I talked to Ginger? Her name couldn't have been Ginger! It was Stephanie, although I don't think I ever used her name-she had so much OU paraphernalia and she talked about her cats or her plants and I think that's when we were supposed to bond. Tomatoes, she was growing tomatoes. And that was probably before Toulouse ran away, I don't think we talked him running away, just when he was around, but what I wanted to talk about was the first meeting, the one Lynn Lewis had offered to walk me to (and she was so fond of the paper I wrote about "depression"), and she asked about suicide, and I think if I had said something about it, --- for some reason I have these images of ET and I don't think I saw that movie more than once, but when all of those people in hazmat suits and big tunnels of plastic (am I making this up), but all of this scientific -I think I'm trying to say that it stops being real, or it becomes too real, I don't know if it has anything to do with "reality", but there was just something scary about the way the question was posed, so I said "no", and of course I could never talk about it after that.

But really there's just this moment I'm trying to "expel" or "get out" or "articulate" and I don't even remember any of it, I remember the memory of it, what I actually remember is hiding in the car, I even think I called Branden, but Caitlyn and Shagah knew precisely what to do and they held him as he cried and they waved down the police, although it was the firemen who showed up first, but that seems too surreal, it was all surreal, and I don't remember who told me because I know that I stayed in the car until it was over. I stayed in the car when his parents came, no, I have this all wrong. They invited his roommate over (isn't it terrifying/beautiful how pronouns are ruining what I'm trying to say) to their place and I don't think I ever even made eye contact with him, (even later when we saw him in the library and Caitlyn talked about nothing, but it was shiny and plastic, this conversation of nothingness they exchanged and it felt safe and detached, even after her holding him when he was so broken), but all I'm trying to say is Caitlyn told me, probably much later, but she told me a fireman had said something about "There must be something in the water this is the [number] [suicide] this week" and I can't believe it.

Please don't read this, I just convinced/promised myself that actually sending it to you would make existence quantifiably more interesting.

I think it was junior year specifically, because that was my least "fulfilling" year- I had debate, band, all of those ap classes, even symphony in the morning; I was very tired, unhappy and felt like I didn't "want to keep doing" what I was doing. But in high school generally, I have the memory that I would tell myself that the only reason I was going to school was because maybe I'd get to see you.

I'm "pretty sure" there were some mornings where I'd forget to say something like, "Maybe you'll get to see him today!" and I would just go to school without any real reason, and maybe that's why I've so convinced myself it was a lie. I remember thinking, "You know, I woke up every morning with the hopes of seeing you" because it was always in the context of a fantasy; I was telling you, sometime in the future in a well-decorated apartment; or I was just telling a friend; or maybe I was writing it in my memoirs. I think I mostly "just had the thought" of getting out of bed only with the hopes of seeing you, I don't really remember experiencing reluctance at waking up transform into enthusiasm because I thought of maybe running into you in the halls. Maybe once.

I feel confused. I wanted to write this because I felt so empty and worthless, meaningless, the universe felt so arbitrary and it was 8 am and I was crawling into bed, defeated, and just let my mind wander. I remember thinking, "These thoughts are interesting", although I don't remember what thoughts prompted that thought. Eventually I was thinking about, although I didn't label it at the time, back when my life wasn't as consumed with detachment and meaninglessness. This era, loosely defined from 7th grade until my spring semester freshman year, was contextualized by specific romantic urges. There was always someone I'd think "endlessly" of.

And it was mostly a secret, until it wasn't. But still I tried not to talk about it because even now I think of how embarrassed I am. I'm so humiliated, in nearly every interaction I have, at the thought of mentioning any attraction I've ever had. Even now I'm afraid to type the word "obsession" which is what I think it really was (and is), and as I'm writing this message I'm convincing myself that having a "romantic obsession" is really what gave my life "meaning" in this era loosely defined from 7th grade until my spring semester freshman year.

And isn't that interesting?

Cognitive Dissonance

'I "should" be falling asleep.' I try to think sarcastically, but really I'm terrified of when obligations will want me to wake up and I won't believe in them. I never believe them (I seldom believe them). Sleeping Garrison always thinks it's some sort of exaggeration and everything just needs to "take a step back" or "chill out" or something. I like Sleeping Garrison a little bit better than the Garrison that's afraid that he's not going to sleep. That one is me. I like the me that isn't me more than the me that is me. Me=person typing. Or it can mean Garrison. I don't know if "or" is the right word. I don't know if any of those words were the ones I meant. Probably both. I feel like I just keep typing words and regretting them a little right before they finish. And then a whole lot more when the sentence is done. Like when I'm typing the words I think, "Yes, you're getting somewhere. Just keep trying and these small failures will add up to a Success". When that doesn't happen, I pause sadly; I think I just keep hoping it'll happen eventually. Like at the paragraph. But I think I'm done now. "Fuck."

I wanted to write about why I want to email Tao Lin. I want to email him something like,

I want to hide in your bed, and I want you to be comforted by that when you see my body under the quilt my grandmother and I made and it was the only thing I had with me when you picked me up at the airport.

But when I think that, I think "at best", he would maybe just email me back something interesting and maybe send me some interesting things. It would, if everything went "according to 'plan'", be "just another relationship" that doesn't include touching. I think that caressing someone's (my) cheek is a very good thing to happen. Once Branden cried, but he was lying on top of me so all of his tears fell on my face. It felt warm. I should have been crying, or, I think he would have been comforted if I was crying, too. I think even I wanted to cry, but wasn't. Not as much as he was anyway. But I felt relieved because his tears kept falling on my face and he would rub his face on mine so both of our faces were smeared with tears and maybe some of them were mine.

I told that story because I want someone's tears on my face. But I don't get that. So I send a lot of text messages and read Tao Lin's blog and John Campbell's webcomic and I listen to music. When I'm falling asleep, or sometimes while I'm in the process of reading or listening, I think about emailing these people and "endearingly" requesting of them to take me with them into their lives. To let me sleep in their beds and maybe help with the cleaning. I'm entirely convinced that if someone would just cry tears onto my cheeks when I wanted to cry, but wasn't really, but was comforted when the tears would smear "evenly" on both of our faces, I would be satisfied with "life" and everything.

I think that's what I wanted to say.

But I just remembered that it isn't.

I wanted to mention that I'm trying to get Branden to fulfill all of my "desires" for "social interaction". But he's "long-distance", and sometimes I don't have very good service. And I don't know where to go from there. So I pretend like "celebrities" will fill in the gaps.

Things happen in "my life"

There are classes. They look fine, really. Splendid courses. I could learn a lot. Of course I've already taken Dr. Irvine's class, but when reading off the list to my mother, I hesitated and told her it was "different". I don't like mentioning failure, and they don't even dress it up as nothin' different. Dr. Irvine has given me an F and a D and a lot of moral support. I was planning on finishing that final, planned on her fixing up my gpa, advising me (I still can't enroll until she does something on her computer) and maybe writing me glowing recommendations.

But I'd really rather do this. Or maybe even they have an internship. But I don't know how to run away. Don't know if I need to talk to someone about getting the internship to count for course credit or something. In my head, I'd write an incredibly personal cover letter and I'd talk about my hopelessness, my detachment, my inability to succeed. I'd hope I'd come off "intelligent" and "endearing".

I dreamt about running feminism in debate, but I think an unpaid internship with the aclu prison project seems more "authentic". Feel like debate is for a bunch of "insincere" "ugly people" who are "fifteen minutes away from" playing dungeons & dragons every thursday night over over-cooked spaghetti squash with cinnamon and "brown" sugar.

Still lonely.

Oviedo

I want to believe in the narrative structure of my empty thoughts. Of course empty isn't the right word for it and I blame the computer screen, even with the sunshine turned down. I don't know what it's called. It's not bright. Brightness.

When I'm angry and alone, I think. I guess I always think but a lot of the times it sounds like this. Annoying, bulky, too many Ts, unselfconscious.

From Moab I was inspired. I wanted to write about my family or place.

But in bed that next night, I listened to Blind Pilot and fantasized about Kellen.

About reading these lyrics on my face, to him. I had a contented and maybe amused facial expression. I told him secrets unintentionally.

God, does anyone else just hate my words?

They're so fucking pretentious.

Why can't that stop?

Why can't I write like I think?

I can't think with this computer screen.

I can't write with my thoughts.

I want to claw at the veins in my forearms. It's less of a thought and more of an image, and a visceral impulse.

I want a tone like the one in my thoughts. The word "warm" won't go away in my attempt to describe it. I think it's closer to orange, with the sun turned down. When the jalapeno is roasted. Chipotle, but without those connotations. Mixed with watermelon and hot sauce. Don't think about the sweetness, but of the butcher that hates watermelon. Combine her with the distaste towards the man that hates pumpkin.

Maybe all I want is the color of pumpkin. but without ever thinking that word.

I prefer sensual to sexual. Strictly in tone. Maybe it's the keys.

They're square and pretentious. Or precocious. I don't have a grasp of the different shades of meaning. It's Mac. They're Apple keys. The white ones. Nobody can write their thoughts with these keys. Excluding the type of person that can. Who knows what they write about. Presumably celebrity gossip, indie music, and technology.

They probably don't write about whispers. Clever, subtle whispering about existential despair.

Those don't get written about on macs.

I'm not done because I want to write about Kellen, but I also want to mention all of the veins in my forearms snapping like the silk wrapped around corn on the cob. Pull, rip, dispose. Compost.

Kellen isn't veins. It's just that his name is lying around the house.

I fantasized. I (used to?) believe that whenever I fantasized I was creating an alternate universe where those fantasies occurred. In concrete reality it means I can never experience what I fantasized about, this universe is defined by the absence of the material conditions of the alternate realities I was creating.

And Blind Pilot.

There was the missed connections posting.

But when I think concretely about him, it's sexual but not in a way I can compellingly describe.

Sensual in the tone, or context. goal?

I think it's mostly about the end of Branden.

He provided the narrative ability to think about the limitations of Branden.

What are we doing?

Now I want to be done because I itch.

He's a Very Important Person

Is anything any easier that you're so "good looking"?

what?

Ha...uh. You know when you probably shouldn't talk to people but you accidentally do?

what?

I always notice when you're online. I don't know what the point of facebook is, really. I don't know why you would agree to my friend request. But you are incredibly good looking, almost unreasonably so. Also there's this "awesome" factor to take into account. SO sometimes I don't feel good about a lot of things, and right now is one of those times. I noticed you online, I was overcome by my curiosity. I needed to know if you always feel good about a lot of things.

And now I feel "stupid"

ha

well, no.

i very often do not feel good about a lot of things

think my looks are insignificant far as that goes

But aren't they ever just a little comforting?

and think that your infatuation has less to do with my looks than my having been a debate role model to you

You mean to say you aren't as good looking as I make you out to be?

no as far as feeling lonely, impotent, and alienated go, no comfort at all.

What is a comfort to those things, for you, of course?

and yes, i mean to say that your attraction to me has as much to do with admiration as anything else.

what?

As far as feeling lonely, impotent, and alienated.

what comforts me from being so?

I think that's what I'd like to know.

Unless I'm crossing certain boundaries.

nothing really. or very little. or nothing at all.

that all just comes.

The comfort?

no, the discomfort

and it probably doesnt get easier.

Well that last bit was probably almost unnecessary.

Unless you find that knowledge comforting.

Well, I do feel a little better. It's probably that infatuation, or admiration, or I don't really know. But you seem very Important, and you spoke with me for a bit. So I feel a little less "small". In a relative sort of fashion.

A week later and he refuses to show

why?

Why do you get to decide that?

Everyone keeps telling me that this is just what guys do, that guys are so terrible. But I looked into your eyes! and you listened to me for so long. And when you left the week seemed sincere. And I think you're actually a very good person.

You have to be a good person. And I can't believe you want me to feel like this. With my blood turning to poison, my chords in my chest turning black. Why won't you just make it make sense to me.

you make me feel like scum

I mean, like, I was so excited Sunday night because it kept being closer to monday. And all week I've been waiting to see you. This morning, I woke up too early and couldn't think of anything to do to wait for your call, so I read some Kafka, fell back asleep. I decided 2 was a reasonable time to expect you to wake up, then by 4 you'd call you could be over by 6? I was planning my day accordingly. I kept having these beautiful daydreams.

munch. munch. munch

i mean, you just made me feel so good and safe and warm. And everything was so good.

And then I turned into this obsessive, desperate guy.

And I started realizing all of these terrible faults!

Character flaws.

They're bubbling up from every ounce of my being, I see them on my breath. Can feel them in the veins of my palm.

It's so weird to be ignored.

And I send messages to all of these good looking guys, I have such media-dictated high standards.

And of course they aren't attracted to me, because they've grown up with the same media.

And everyone wants someone that looks like they do, I assume they're the top.

But they're probably being rejected, too, right?

Just like I reject people.

But then there are the people that I'm not rejecting, because they aren't requesting. And I'm not making any advances on them, because they're just in my league. Or...the same league society says we are..or however that works. I haven't worked it out.

But we all thing we're much better looking than everyone else, when really we're all as attractive. We're all 6s. And we want 9s.

But we don't get 9s.

And I think you're a 9. And you were in my bed.

And you don't want to be there anymore.

And it's...there's this terrible lie we all tell ourselves. And we know it's a lie, but we live in it, constantly being disappointed. Then all of a sudden this whole world we've created is true, and someone says we aren't ugly, or uninteresting. That the problems we are constantly thinking about aren't petty or redundant.

And this whole terrible lie seems real. And beautiful. And ... then you get to wrench this world away from me.

This lie come true, my world torn to shreds. And I don't even know how to live in the lie anymore, so of course I'm obsessive.

Because I can't just go back to the lie after I've held it in my hand, known it for what it was, called it by it's name.

I am only left with convincing you.

And just as unlikely as that lie that I was living in since..puberty? Since my first crush in seventh grade.

Just as unlikely as that, I'm still waiting for you.

Hoping for you.