keep a fire burning in your eye
pay attention to the open sky
you never know what will be coming down

i dont know what happens when people die
cant seem to grasp it as hard i try
its like a song i can hear playing right in my ear
that i cant sing, i cant help listening


-jackson browne


Work has been cancelled today due to a lack of interest. To be honest I just want to be out of here and in law school already. I'm antsy and depressed and life is just a disappointment right now. And I'm taking it out on other people rather than realizing that the person I'm really upset with is myself.



I've had a really shitty year. So have a lot of people. I think this year in general needs to just die a fiery death. I thought I'd be with joe on new years eve, and we could start things over. I would have liked that. Instead of that, I'll be starting the new year alone. Unlike some other people who are really excited about being single for new years, I am scared. It is just one day, but in anticipation of it, its a big deal. I'm tempted to not do anything for new years, but to sleep through it. Or to go somewhere far away. To get a tattoo or to write a letter to everyone I've lost this year.



I think I might like to change some things about my life. Maybe I'll go to church this sunday. I'm not sure if it will help, but maybe it'll give me a moment of something familiar and supportive. I need to read more. I need to read the paper more. Without the bliss and thoughtlessness that love gives, my life has some pretty big holes to be filled.



ps- i got a jens lekman cd for christmas

Asked and Answered:

To simplify things for less concerned and perhaps less attentive readers, I'll reduce the 10 steps for being a real friend to 3 basic principles that can be said a million different ways.


1- You will be a good friend if you make yourself available for your friend when they need you
2- You will be a good friend if you reserve your judgment until after you talk with them
3- You will be a good friend if you are honest about how you feel when you talk to your friend


If you follow these three guidelines you won't have to worry about being false, or too selfish or cowardly. you will have better friends and people won't think you're such a shit.

good. so close. maybe next time you'll have the balls to stand behind your words, put a name to them. but good. you're ten steps closer to being a real friend. =-)

I had written a very long blog, but as I was in the middle of it my coworker interrupted me, and made me feel a lot better. So although I am not done with the blues, I decided to delete that entry and try again.

I am in a position now to look at where I've been, and what I've done in the light of moving forward. I have made many mistakes but I've also been very lucky and done very well. I've known special people who have treated me kindly, and given me a sense of comfort and confidence when my surroundings weren't warm. When I think about high school I think about childhood and when I think about college I think about a first change that happened in me. My best friends saw me through it, and if I could reduce all of college down to one name, Joe.

Without exception Joe was the most wonderful person I've ever known. He is the only person in the world to have loved me so kindly. I am a better person for it. I would like to never have to say goodbye to him, but I realize that in order to have the best hopes for his happiness, I have to let him go. I have to trust that my own feelings will tell me where my life should go and that the love I would have liked to have given him would not be the same if it wasn't whole hearted.

In addition to how wonderful of a person joe is, there were other pluses to being with him. Friends that I had thought I'd lost after our breakup were coming back into the picture and that felt really promising and good. The dream that I'd once had of getting married and raising a family was returning to mind and the charm of that thought was very great.

But butterflies were missing. Maybe I've read too many femminist/femystical novels about women staying in marriages that lacked passion for undying devotion. Though maybe I feared that the rarity that is a man who will love and cherish only you would not be so easy to come by again. There is no clear explanation that I can give. I am not so good at expressing myself sometimes. All I know is that it was not an easy decision. And I'm sorry for the hurt I caused. But I had made a mistake and I'm to blame. I wasn't strong and I was selfish. I couldnt stand the thought of losing him but it just wasnt right. You can love someone and not be in love with them.

I will always care about him. I will always be sorry for the pain I've caused.

Back to me. I have to try to take care of myself. I have to listen to my feelings and trust that they are telling me something important. I have to deal with being alone and taking care of me. I have to understand that not all of the people who once cared about me understand me, and that a lot of them will never try.

I am a strong person because I have done this. I have done something that has made me unhappy because I had to fix a mistake that I'd made. I made a decision about my future and about myself. I have let go of the only person I've ever loved because my life has challenged me to prioritize loving myself over my fear of being alone.

No one wants to be alone. But I dont want that fear to hurt me anymore. Maybe now I'll take that problem more seriously. It's time to take care of me.

I hope everyone else can understand. I will miss him.

I have to read.

Sometimes its only a combination of frank and elvis that can reach the melancholy me.

Welcome to the christmas party. grab some food, an old friend, or a new one that is really quite terrific(or terrifically promising) and lets get down to whats good.

Everything finally is coming together. It is amazing how beautiful life can be when you have the people you love close by. I had a really terrible evening last night with some old friends. It was the most fake thing I'd seen in a while and everyone seemed aching for something real. We were out in public, at a nice restaurant in nice clothes, and it was all wrong. None of us are ready for that world. The world of the nicely set table in some remote, cold restaurant where the floor is overly slick with laquer and the tables so close together that instead of feeling cozy one feels censored.

I had seen christina and elizabeth only hours earlier and that felt so right. We were cooking in jeans and tshirts in her kitchen. We were baking, and with no sort of drive behind us other than to catch up and enjoy one another. Last night at dinner there was no sort of electricity or drive to reconnect. We were well pressed, and telling one another that things were just as they should be. No one was upset. No one was worried. No one was anything other than working hard and living life like usual. Couple life. Nothing changes. Schedules are maintained.

No one took me seriously when I told them something serious. My world has been changed within the past month in a significant way, and instead of anyone responding to that, they made jokes. Maybe I'm too sensitive all the time. Or maybe they just didnt know how to respond to something serious because they didnt want me there, or my real life which they are hardly a part of anymore.

I peeled all of the nail polish from my nails waiting for the torture of that dinner party to end. Who the hell were these boring people who'd stolen the bodies of the people I used to enjoy so much? Yell at me. Tell me off. Tell me that you couldnt care less about my family because you have your own shit to deal with. Tell me you think I'm cruel or heartless, or that I hold a grudge or whatever it is. Tell me that you dont have time to deal with me because there is too much drama it would cause. That your life is too busy, that you work too hard to keep yourself on track, maintain your fucked up image of who you need to be to someday make the people you love and fear proud of you. because then i would respect you. then i would understand you. and sure, this is a blog and certainly not direct. But maybe i'm not perfect either. Maybe this is my own rallying cry.

I'll save the rest of this for in person. I'll take my own advice. this time.