so this journal has of late become more of a writing journal than a personal journal, but hey, hopefully nobody minds too much. this is just the beginning of a story i started writing a few years ago and recently picked up again, at first in more of a polishing-it-up sense than a writing-new-stuff sense, and then i kind of, uh, did start writing some new stuff? anyway, just sticking it up here to post it, well, somewhere.

( There were ten of us to begin with—me and Cass, Celia with a buttonhole mouth, Mark, Garrett (black hair too long for his thin, shaded face), Ben who dreamed of gravestones only in August, Carolina who Believed in God and Wyoming who Didn’t, and the twins—Bought and Sold, we called them, Boughtnsold when we shouted them in for dinner, our voices echoing clamorously in the thin air.-- )

I’ve always thought of life as something that happens to other people. I wasn’t much of a doer at a young age—I always preferred books to people, and books to most other things. I preferred to books, in fact, to the point of being, in many ways, totally oblivious to the world around me. It’s only recently that I’ve begun to seriously consider the fact that all the things I knew intellectually to be true about the world around me might one day have an actual effect on the life I live.

It’s difficult to really discuss this because it’s such a weird phenomenon; in many ways I think the moments of sudden awareness and understanding I’ve been experiencing of late are epiphanies, jarring in that they have, in a relatively short amount of time, managed to change me from the kind of person who sees the world as a foreign country to the kind of person who considers, upon hearing new facts, how some day they might mean something more personal, more immediately meaningful. It’s the kind of person I’ve never before been.

I was going to sleep last night and I suddenly realized that I’ll die someday. Death scared the crap out of me when I was a kid, but it was always just a concept—I imagined, lying in bed last night, half-asleep, what it would mean if I died that night, the next day or any day, at any time. Thinking about it with my brain half-shut down was disturbingly similar to the sensation I experienced in the aftermath of my Canadian car crash debacle; I felt like I had only just realized what it meant to be alive, having accepted, in being born, some invisible contract, knowing that death was the price I would one day pay. The understanding that death was something I would actually experience—not just a conceptual sheet they would lay over my still-breathing body one day a thousand years from now, not something that could only happen to all the people I don’t get along with, don’t agree with, don’t understand—it was terrifying. And then, after a moment, as I slurred into sleep, it was comfortable, tangible. When I was a kid, death scared the shit out of me—or, more accurately, the idea of what would happen after death did. The great unknown; the endless, infinite abyss to which all atheists must resign themselves. It’s not even that having this epiphany will stop me from being scared; instead, I think, it’s just the beginning of that journey we all take, having signed the contract, having been born, the journey on which we all come to terms with death, or don’t, the journey on which we make the effort, at least. It feels normal—knowing that I have to go there too.

I realized the other day that on your wedding day you can’t see your fiancée. It’s traditional. I knew that. But I thought, suddenly, of what it might be like to stand behind a closed door waiting to walk towards your future, wondered how I would feel, having been left alone to my probably appalling thoughts for twenty-four whole hours prior to such a serious occasion, and I thought I knew, for a second, what it would feel like, and then I wondered if I’d ever get married all and knew, equally unexpectedly, that maybe I never would, and didn’t know how I felt about that (except, maybe, awful; except, maybe, like my expectations had let me down).

I was writing an essay for Marriage and Literature three days ago and I stopped short in the middle and realized that I have not, in recent memory, probably not in the past four years at least, been rejected because I can’t remember the last time had the balls to take a chance, and I’ve probably never had the guts to take a chance on something I really wanted—making friends, flirting, doing something with my writing aside from letting it age and become unappetizing on my hard drive (mostly, actually, letting it age until my hard drive crashes, which it always does, and then losing it all, and trying not to care). I stopped writing my essay. I tried to imagine being rejected. I tried to imagine smiling at someone I’d just met. I tried to imagine chatting with someone I knew, having run across them on campus, talking instead of flexing that tight smile I reserve for just such occasions, leaving my hands in pockets, walking in the opposite direction. I tried to imagine not overcompensating, laughing too loud, being too wry, trying too hard to be funny or fun or interesting. I tried to imagine not letting desperation manifest itself as pointedly not caring. I couldn’t do it.

That was kind of like an epiphany too.

last night = not my finest hour, lj. i got myself a little bit wasted for the first time ever and ended up a) telling my whole buddy list that i taste like thunderbolts and zeus, which, woah, b) insisting at great length that mara tell me a secret i could not really expect her to know, c) repeatedly saying, plaintively, "don't *judge* me," to everybody in the room, d) telling jonny a number of start-stop stories i'm pretty sure he didn't want to hear at all (and possibly, i am a little fuzzy on this, complacently informing him that he is ugly but we're best friends anyway), and e) drunk-dialing phil, apologizing for drunk-dialing phil, and then crying after he hung up and calling him back to say that i couldn't let him hang up on me because it made me miserable. although i might not have said it that reasonably. it is hard to know.

i also videochatted with corwin, who will, i'm sure, be delighted to tell all of you exactly what a ridiculous mess i was.

i have class at nine, but i'm not sure i can get back to sleep now that i've woken up once. maybe i'll try to have a little nap.

I know I never post here anymore, but I was moved just now-- I've been lying in bed, fucking around on the internet for the past hour and a half, and I just realized I was about to go to sleep using my newly clean jeans as a pillow. Oh self...never change.

School's been going pretty well this year. My roommate, Jamie, is pretty much the best ever-- we are, of course, appallingly unproductive most of the time, and also pretty much living in squalor, and today she turned the temperature of our fridge down so far that all our sodas froze, but on the whole we are the most badass living-together team ever. Our friend Mara told us today that half the time when we talk to her we sound like an old married couple, because we throw the roommate "we" around so much. It's true. I spend most of my time at school speaking for Jamie and then, when people look askance, waving an airy hand around as if to say, "What, she would agree." We watch a lot of Xena: Warrior Princess in our room. ...yeah, I don't want to talk about it. (Ahahaha, kidding, I totally do! I have learned so much about the ancient world from Xena: Warrior Princess, namely that all the history you've ever learned is a lie, constructed by the patriarchy to hide the fact that anything important that ever happened in the past only happened because of Xena. CPR, Jesus, the Arthurian legends, probably the invention of the telephone-- thanks, Xena. Where would we be without you? Seriously, though, Jamie has bought five seasons of Xena over the course of the past three weeks...I would say things are getting out of control, but that's not true. Control was lost a long time ago. I've given up on attempting to manage the situation. At some point there will be no episodes left to watch, and I will probably have to nurse my roommate out of a severe state of depression. Things to look forward to in the coming months, ftw!)

My summer accident scars are pretty much healed up, although there is still a wee bit of skin-growing going down on my lower leg. Here is what I have to say about my scars: the ones on the thigh are kind of appalling and not that attractive, which is of course unfortunate but I think I can deal with that. The huge scar combo on my lower leg is actually kind of a thing of beauty. I am psyched to be sporting that shit. Nobody will ever mess with my skirt-wearing self again.

The most exciting thing that's happened to me thus far this year is probably...well. I'll preface this announcement by explaining that last year, Jamie and I made semi-friends with this kid named Jonny, who shares our major, but we were friends in a sharing-classes, running-into-each-other-on-campus, occasionally-eating-dinner-together way. Jonny is a douche, and also kind of a hotass, although probably nobody should ever mention it to him because I think he hears it too much for his own good, and he's a bit of a pretentious fuck and also pretty phenomenally messed up in the head. For all this, he's actually a pretty good guy. He's a lot of fun, he's always incredibly frank, he's, I don't know, I guess charming would be the word; and to be perfectly honest, the more I've gotten to know him, the more I've been won over by the fact that he's basically just a boy-shaped tangle of throbbing neuroses. Which is actually the point of this entire paragraph-- "the more I've gotten to know him."

That's right, ljfriends and ships in the night-- Jonny and I are kind of best friends now. Which is convenient, given that a few days after I returned to school, just following a pleasant, chance-encounter, how-was-your-summer roundup with Jonny, I informed Jamie that I was going to friend-woo him until he gave in to my advances and submitted his best friends for life application. "Ha!" she said at the time. Little did she know that within three weeks of our return to academia, Jonny would have a) collected my phone number from me, b) begun to call me on a daily basis so we could chat about Barry, c) taken to having study parties with me, d) told me all his secrets, e) shared all his girl problems with me and f) told me we could have slumber parties together. You know what we call this shit on the internets, people? EPIC WIN. Or maybe we call it FRIENDSHIP, FOR THE WIN. You may pick whichever phrase you like best! The point is, late this evening, after spending half my day with Jonny, he IMed me and we had a chat in which he told me that he was feeling emotionally drained and thought we should make cookies together.

\0/

So friendwise it is shaping up to be a good year.

The only problem I have with this Jonny situation is that he was pretty much my goal for the semester, and, dude, there is nothing left to do there. I mean, we can keep doing what we're doing, but I am scrawling that item off my mental list. So I have to come up with a new goal with which to occupy myself for the next few months. I am not going to make any hasty decisions, but it might involve a kid who hears voices. THAT'S ALL I'M SAYIN'...FOR NOW.

This entry is probably long enough for the moment...I am terribly tired, as always, and I have class at noon, uh, today. Oh Spanish-- you are not the language for me. (And on that uplifting note--)

wonderful golden rule days.

back to baltimore any day now-- cross your fingers for me, kids. we'll see how this goes.

okay, let's just pretend i followed the mastercard format and explained to you that i paid $50 dollars to see the white stripes at the grand opera house, and was lucky enough to get put on the guest list for the virginia show (thanks to corwin's wild and crazy white stripes connections), and that (when i pay corwin back) i will have spent $6 on gas to drive to virginia, and something like a billion dollars on posters and a t-shirt, and blah blah blah, rocking shows, heard all my favorite songs live, yes, yes-- and then let's skip to the part where i say--

meeting and hugging your number one superstar girlcrush: PRICELESS

HI, I MET MEG WHITE LAST NIGHT. SHE IS THE SIZE OF A LEPRECHAUN AND SHE SPOKE SO QUIETLY IT SOUNDED LIKE SHE HAD A CRAZY ACCENT AND SHE WAS ALL TIRED FROM THE SHOW AND SHE WAS DRINKING A CORONA AND I HUGGED HER.

( my brain kind of broke immediately afterwards )

p.s. UM. i feel like the closest i am going to come to expressing what an exciting moment it was for me, really, is by posting a string of internet hearts stretching all the way back from eighth grade to the present, because that is pretty much how long i have been enamored of meg white.

p.p.s. thanks, btw, corwin, for your pointed, "oh, allie, don't you want to give meg a hug?" i mean, thanks, BOTH SARCASTICALLY AND TOTALLY SERIOUSLY.

After months and months of putting it off, I finally finished watching the third season of Doctor Who, and when I say "finished watching" I mean "totally binged on the last five episodes of the season and nearly had about twenty heart attacks in the process". There is practically nothing I didn't love about this season-- Martha was a brilliant companion (and yeah, one of the things I DON'T love is the fact that she won't be back), Jack came back!, David Tennant was so gorgeously layered! And the Master! I just...*flails*

I'm appalled, however, at how many people I've talked to over the last few days who, in response to my Doctor Who squee, have said, "Oh, wait, is that show still on?" or, even worse, just, "Doctor Who?" THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. I love this show so much, I've loved it since I was ten, I want EVERYBODY to love it the way I love it!

More on this later; my face is covered in green sludge, which I have to go wash off now. Um, the green sludge is a facemask, btw, not, like, monster goop. Although I am often covered in monster goop...it's a job hazard. (Ha.)

It's weird-- I realized today that, for the first time in a long time, I'm totally over everybody. All the people I used to have crushes on. All the people I used to want to be friends with. Probably some of the people I am friends with, although that's more like me being over them being over me.

I don't really feel happy about it. I just feel kind of empty. You never realize how much space you let other people occupy in your brain until they start to disappear.

I get worried sometimes because I know I could live alone. For the past few years I've been living like a person who needs people, but when it comes right down to it, I don't-- I'm bad at talking to people, I'm bad at getting to know them-- I'm basically so bad at everything involving other people that at a certain point isolation becomes preferable.

It's kind of a scary thought?

I don't know...I think I'm probably a little bit miserable right now, because I'm getting that pinched tingle in the bridge of my nose, and that means my brain thinks it's time to cry. It is not time to cry, brain, pull it the fuck together. I've been crying all over the place lately, it's getting pretty ridiculous.

I'll probably be fine. I'm going to go to sleep now. When I was a kid, I used to come up with the most ridiculous fantasies when I was going to sleep-- I mean, they were pretty fucking epic, and, okay, they're kind of like my guilty pleasure. I write these ridiculous novels about my alternate lives and just store them in my brain. I'm sure everybody does it, it's not a big deal. But it's hard to daydream about anything interesting when you don't know what you want anymore.

i need to go to sleep but i can't go to sleep right now.

i'm pretty sure the ratio of emotional wreck to rational human being in my body is going to be wildly out of whack for the next few days. i know there's a sane person lurking somewhere inside of me, but i think she is currently hiding out in, like, my toes. most of me is having an unexpected and entirely unwelcome existential panic attack.

(you're looking for something, but you don't know what it is. a line you read, maybe, or the way it felt--) i keep waiting for the real world to make me feel something other than frustrated, but it never does. i only cry over things i read because they make me wonder when my life will stop being emotionally unsatisfying and start meaning something to me. i'm tired of hiding behind fiction, but i don't know how to stop.

disturbing fact: if you search for 'deep throat' on google video, and then only look at the search results that are longer than twenty minutes? um, yeah, for reasons i don't entirely understand, one of your results is the film 'it's a wonderful life' in its entirety.

what?

p.s. i sometimes suspect that the only impressive skill i really possess is the ability to read janet evanovich novels at a truly tremendous rate. i'm serious, give me one of those books and i will finish it in approximately two minutes flat. (okay, hours maybe. still. it is kind of astounding, but not very useful as skills go, especially since, um, janet evanovich. whatever, they're good for wasting time.)

finally home for the summer, and celebrating by beginning to muddle my bandom picture folder into some sort of order. i know, some of you are probably going, what? that's your big project? well...there are a lot of pictures there. that's all i really have to say for myself.

currently pretty tired because i just got back from visiting katie at princeton a couple of hours ago; i had a lot of fun, but i'm pretty sure i'm coming down with some sort of illness. my throat is all sore and i've got a headache.

p.s. haven't unpacked any of my boxes yet. um. i probably can't just live out of them for the next three and a half months, but i' m finding it very difficult to motivate myself in any useful direction. dear finals, way to sap me of all energy, forever. <3 allie

heyyyy. it's, um. really really late. reaaaaaaally late. i am not seeing things correctly at this point, everything is a little blurry. OH BREAKFAST, HURRY UP AND GET HERE. I NEED TO FINISH THIS PORTFOLIO AND THEN EAT YOUR LITTLE SAUSAGES AND THEN I NEED TO SLEEEEEEEEEEEP. sleep sleep sleep. love it lots.

p.s. i made the transition this morning, at last. i've moved beyond fob and panic!. i am well into the my chem. ain't no good, children, but there's no turning back now, i am in too deep, up to my birthing hips, as it were. OKAY SERIOUSLY I CANNOT SEE. :( breakfast, please show up soon, i want some toast. :(

p.p.s. patricia keeps speaking german and it's really kind of a trip right now. breakfast!

okay, so i'm watching an episode of project runway right now-- from the second season-- and i actually really like project runway, like, a lot, but i'm having a slight problem with its judges at the moment. because, um, sometimes heidi klum is kind of...how to phrase this...everything terrible about the fashion industry? like when she says things like, "that skirt...it's like somebody is hiding a huge butt in there," in this tone of kind of amused derision, like, a butt, what's that about?

heidi klum...i hate to break it to you, but having an ass is not actually a crime. you can wander through life with your tiny derrier, that is fine, but do not go around acting like anybody who has a little, um, "junk in the trunk" should be removed from society and housed in a containment bunker where nobody will ever be forced to look at their abhorrent curves.

(...ah, yes, i did just actually use the phrase "junk in the trunk" in this entry. i have no regrets.)

p.s. also, they are obsessed with things looking expensive. what the fuck does that even mean? half the shit in this country that IS expensive is so ugly i wouldn't let somebody give it to me for FREE. sheesh. this is a fun show, but it does drive me a little crazy.

p.p.s. um, edited to add-- okay, so heidi klum actually is kind of a crazy bitch, but not in a fun way, really, just in an i'm-too-much-of-a-pussy-to-actually-be-super-bitchy-so-i-just-say-terrible-things-in-my-pleasantly-accented-voice way. oh man. heidi. chill out.

so you know how i am always going on about how maybe i should be less crazy all the time?

it occurred to me recently-- probably some time around 2:45 this morning-- that actually what i need is a little MORE crazy, ALL OVER my life. like jam, it should be spread a bit thicker.

time for social psych. peace out.

following a tumultuous final battle, i recently conceded the war on band slash, succumbing at last to its puppyish charms and supergay photo shoots. although i am experiencing some residual shame, it's fading quite quickly-- how could i be expected to withstand such an overwhelming onslaught of flippy hairdos and TINY TINY HIPS? tiny hips are like the musical equivalent of nuclear warheads. you just can't say no to that shit.

in conclusion: ( words fail me )

fin.

( ahahahahaha )

just thought i'd share.

so, some people were smoking up in my suite's bathroom tonight, and the guys from down the hall just stopped by to ask me whether or not people were getting high in here. "uh, not right now," i said. they laughed. the cute billy goat boy said, "put a towel under the door or something," in a moderately derisive tone. i would, i thought, if i had been doing anything. don't come complaining to me, cute billy goat boy...it's not my fault. sigh.

if you are not careful, you too could become the kind of person who spends an entire lunch period reading the wikipedia entries for every member of fall out boy, even though you have no interest whatsoever in their music, and then, like, for dessert, surreptitiously looks up pictures of gerard and mikey way. um. so, y'know, avoid that if you can. for your own good, don't become me.

in intro to fiction and poetry yesterday, i was so bored-- so dangerously close to falling asleep-- that, in hopes of rescuing my grade from the decimating effect a mid-morning nap would probably have on it, i started to compile a list of every fandom i've ever been in. this was a little difficult for a number of reasons-- first, because i had to decide where to draw the line between a fandom i'd passed through so quickly it didn't even count and a fandom i'd spent a brief but pleasant amount of time in. also, was i going to count fandoms that weren't even fandoms but i'd scoured the internet for fic and read everything i could come up with, no matter how shitty?

and so, as crazy ryan continued to drone on and on and on with his stolen literary criticism, i began to write.

ten minutes later, i'd reached the end of the page and i still wasn't finished and i was like, "holy fuck, what on earth have i been doing with my young life?"

reading SO MUCH FANFICTION, apparently.

Soooo, you know how I used to go on and on and on about my future children, and the oldest one is going to be named Jameson and my younger son will be Malcolm, and they will be, y'know, forces of nature?

( I may or may not have written a poem about Malcolm, and I may or may not have handed said poem in to my IFP teacher, and when he asked me where I found the inspiration for said poem, I may or may not have. Um. Told him. But it's not like he thinks I'm crazy or anything. )

Credit for that last story goes to Lindsay, of course; I called the poem "The Man, The Myth".

Oh poetry.

If only IFP weren't going to suck this semester, what with my TA being a PSYCHOTIC LUNATIC WITH AN INSANE GOD COMPLEX. Dear Crazy Ryan, way to make me cry, <3 Allie

I AM GOING STIR-CRAZY.

:KJL:KSDFJSDFSDF

WHEN WILL I SEE THE SUN AGAIN? IT NEVER SHINES HERE IN BALTIMORE...OR SHOULD I SAY, GOTHMORE? AKJLDKFJSDFDSF PERHAPS I WILL WALK OVER TO THE BOOKSTORE TO DISTRACT MYSELF FROM THE FACT THAT I HAVEN'T DONE ANY OF MY HOMEWORK AND IT IS DUE TOMORROW.

OKAY THAT SOUNDS LIKE A PLAN.