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Sunday, September 9th, 2001
11:09 pm - s'been awhile
This must be the busiest year of my high school career. The most hectic - the most insane and confusing. I don't know if I like it, but the rush makes me a bit smug. Most of the classes deal with so much writing and thinking, Journal, so don't fret if there are these gaps between my entries - my time is going quickly, quickly - and before I know it it will be June and I will be graduating and hopefully,

God, hopefully, getting into some decent college. Princeton, if that's what Ma thinks I'll get into -but i doubt it

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Wednesday, September 5th, 2001
5:58 pm
There are so many things I feel! So many things going on - people who scream, people who give you looks, and all your thoughts jumbled around with homework and writing assignments and drawing assignments and reading assignments. Papers to sign. A twenty dollar bill that vanished in the air - where the hell is it? Oh, I feel cursed. Argh. But one must stay focused and disciplined -I have to write them in their order. Chronologically. Beginning with my first day of senior year.

I didn't sleep last night. Surprise, surprise. I couldn't - it was another one of those anxiety/excitement attacks and I couldn't force myself to dream or count sheep, even, correctly. And then I kept hearing these creepy, rickety noises in the attic, between the walls, the closets. All over the place. Brr.

But back to school.

I have Erdman again, can you believe it? Erdman for sociology! Oh, he is so wonderful - I look forward to his classes all the time, except this year I've decided to lay low on his projects. Last year I practically bled my heart for their perfection, for their accuracy and creativity and everything. This year I'm through. I'm relaxing - I plan to give my heart only to Creative Writing -

Must build a portfolio, you see, so I can apply for a Literary/Art scholarship. And Ms. Sherman -she seems to have a touch of Asian in her, or maybe I am just imagining it - she seems foreign, but she speaks so American and clear. Hm. And we have some things in common - the way we put stories on strangers -

And then there is Mr. Laird with his tuff of white hair and his face - bright and olive and radiant always. A nice guy, I think. I think I'll like him -

Sigh.

Am beginning to miss Surget and Mr. Emma and last year with Aileen and Jon and the lunch table with Cristina - and oh, I miss everything. If only I had savored it deeper - all those occurences and friends. If only I had! Time moves so quickly, Journal, I want to hold on to it. I want to find Pa's twenty dollar bill - he was so stressed today, Pa, he was in such a bad temper when he dropped us off in Walgreens - but then I called and for some reason started to cry -

What the hell, I say. Why do I cry for small things, Journal, I am so sensitive. I can imagine Ms. Sherman's face when we start doing those writing journals in class. Haha. Oh, I fear I will depress her and enthuse her into extremities. That is not so bad, I don't think.

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Tuesday, September 4th, 2001
10:24 pm - Tomorrow
Before I can start yappin about tomorrow - I have to tell you about Ma. (She finally found a job, journal!) Oh, am so thankful - thank God, thank God - finally - after all those interviews and endless searches - she's finally got a job down at the Bronx somewhere. I am so glad and relieved and - just grateful, and - happy, almost, though not completely. More like happy with a touch of anxiety and fright - but leaning to the brighter side, if you know what I mean - it's not a depressive episode tonight. It's a lot of nervousness, a lot of butterflies in my tummy and

I wonder if I will sleep tonight - I've been sleeping every night so far - but tomorrow's the first day of school and the last year of high school - I am jittery, journal, I am nervous again. Who knows what this year will hold? Argh. See, I've been sorting everything out - and I've come up with this:

Nothing.

Nothing! Absolutely nothing. I hate thinking about college or the future or my life after high school - it just, I don't know - it just scares me. I just want to write - want to go through this year and enjoy it, to savor every moment - and meet new people, to learn, finish - but there are so many things, Journal, so many things I still can't figure out -

Writing - money - Time, for instance. Why it moves so quick like this - why you cannot hold on to things - why, why, why, and how, how, how, and a bunch of I don't knows and I can'ts and I won'ts but I musts. I do not feel the senior-ness in me, though, am I supposed to? I guess - but, no, it wouldn't be surprising if they took me for a sophomore - ha,

ranks shmanks. Who gives? I do, sort of - I have a feeling this year will be exceptional. Different. I still have the poetry slam in my head - that dream of starting it in the auditorium or in the gym or something. Open mike for everyone - me being able to lead something, to lead people somewhere, to stand in front of a group and speak and release and feel happy at the same time - oh, to overcome this shyness! I've had this idea in me since the beginning of summer - but I realize...I realize I've begun to lose the fervor, the motivation -

Yes, that's what I need. Some motivation. I need to feel that urge to start this again. Guts and confidence. I have to start this poetry thing - I have to mold it and build it and - well, begin it, for chrissakes. I can't be nervous all the time. I can't keep putting it off and putting myself down -

This is important. This is a vision; a dream. We have to make it work - or else - or else I'll regret it and will be so disappointed in myself - and so will Mr. Surget - he is looking forward to it, I know - oh, I wish he'd forgotten everything I told him. "All talk and no action," he'll mumble to himself. All those dreams in the gutter, I'll think.

So we must begin. Tomorrow, Journal. I must begin tomorrow.

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Sunday, September 2nd, 2001
9:14 pm
Tonight I am so hurt I can almost die. I can almost feel my heart drop and crash and rip and tear and pull itself apart little by little - i am so hurt, Journal, help me, I am so hurt and confused and lost. I don't know why ma has to be so confusing. i love her, i love her, i do - but why, journal, why does she despise me so and why is it that one day she is so nice and beautiful and happy that i am happy, and proud that i am happy -

and the next she accuses me and hurts me and tells me i am really evil, i am a bad person - why the extremities? Why the sudden changes? i don't want to believe it - but everytime she says it i just hate myself so much for being the person she claims i am, i just hate myself so much i want to die i want to die i feel so guilty for everything for everything and i want to die and i want to die it seems as though if i were dead life would be easier for her, GOD i'm such an idiot - journal! an idiot! and i - want to -die. She said so herself, "Oh you should've gone on with it. Gone on with ending yourself!" Why? Why so harsh - I don't blame her and I partially admire my mother for speaking her mind, but gosh that hurts and pains and stabs. Why so harsh? So I lack guts! So I lack guts, but what if one day I acquire enough to do it? To do what you wished instead of thinking it? I don't want to believe you meant that! I don't want to! But now i wanna die. i wanna die. this is the worst time of my life, journal - all decisions and choices and wants and needs and hands tugging me and shoving me and telling me where to go and what to do - i don't know anymore! i don't know what i want to do! i have no clue where i want to go! i don't know, i don't know, i don't know a damn thing, journal, God, screen! So hard to put emotions into speech! So difficult to let people know what you think because you fear their tongues - you wonder if they have ears, if they have patience - argh! I am so confused and jumbled - everything I think is cut in tiny, tiny pieces that i shift together, that i sift and shift together but cannot finish -cannot build - cannot understand! A mess! A hundred fragments piercing every corner of my head!

i want to go to princeton too. i believe her when she says i can do it, when she says "the fate of your neighbor is not your own" - but why does she say it so bitterly, and why does she say that i am rebelling, "Oh, so you think this is your way of revenge? Contradicting everything we say? When we want black, you want white? Is that so?" - maybe it looks like it but dammit journal, i'm not! Oh it is my fault for being such a liar! I cannot tell her, "No, Mommy, you are wrong." I am afraid, I have always been afraid of her - when I speak it is wrong and she screams or she denies it and says I am lying. But I lie anyway, I lie when she asks, "Is that so?" However much I desired to, I've never said "No, it isn't so." I have no choice but to nod my head and agree, and it hurts because it isn't right, it isn't true. It shows that I am weak - that I will sacrifice my character, that I will bring myself down to simply escape pain. I am a coward, Journal. She is not me! She is not me! How can she know who I am, how can I let her tell me that I am a bad person when deep down I know I'm not! I've vowed never to talk back to anything she says again - when we argue - it is hardly an argument, it is one-sided - she throws the daggers, I sit and cannot even dodge them they are so quick. Just take them as they are, Sarah, i say - you deserve every one of those blades. And so it is always like that. One-sided. I can deal with it later - I can swallow it and forget and understand, always, that it is my fault, though sometimes it isn't, but then one has to try and try to make it theirs, so that one doesn't feel so bad for not speaking out. But I forgave her that time, I forgive her now - maybe that's not the point - but those were traumatic times, i was but a little girl, and maybe that's what's going on - but gosh, I have nothing against that anymore! I remember it sometimes and it hurts, but I forgave that, I forgave that, I don't hate you for that, I forgave that - a million times I forgave that - i don't "plot revenge" in my head - just because i'm quieter than most doesn't mean i'm a queer or that i'm evil -

I'm not! Understand that, understand. You cannot generalize your daughter with everyone else - i want her to know that. i want her to stop telling me that i am like that - i am not - she's comparing to someone else - to another person - i am not the person - i am sarah i am sarah, mother, i am not so bad - i lie, okay, i'm a liar - i lie with good intentions - but it doesn't make me any better of a liar, that i understand - if you lie you lie - good intentions or not, you're a liar. and so i'm a liar. but i've learned - am beginning to learn how to face the consequences and i swear i was never sitting at home plotting revenge - i tell you my conscience expands like a damn tapeworm - ha! a tapeworm!

if i ever thought of anything like that i'd end up killing myself after because of guilt. i am always guilty - it's why i fear being happy - i'm sorry, whatever i did, i'm sorry. i'll go to princeton, i'll go to princeton, i'll go to princeton if it means you'll like me, if it means, as you say, you'll bless me, or "God will bless me" or whatever, I'll do it for the sake of myself, for the sake of you and everyone - i'm sorry, i'll do it, just please don't hurt me please don't hurt me i'm so sad, ma, so jittery and stuff - so jittery, see my hands they're shivering, see my eyes they're swollen from salt, see my heart, my head - they fight each other, they don't know what to do either, they don't know what to think and feel, they don't know what is real and what is unmeant or true or a lie, they are so confused -

so sad ma so sad God so sad i'm so terribly sad i'm so guilty and sad i'm so sad so sad so miserable i do not want to sleep i want to throw myself somewhere, i want to be a girl without decisions, i'm not bad ma, i'm not bad, i'm just confused, ma, God, journal, your girl is lost and a bunch of different winds, currents, waves, invisible hands flick her from one side of the world to another... i don't plot revenge, i've never done it, i never will, i'm sorry, whatever i did, whoever i was mean to - i'm sorry i'll try for princeton - i'll forget about new york - i'll forget about art - i'm sorry don't hurt me don't hurt me don't hurt me god don't please

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Saturday, September 1st, 2001
9:45 pm - God-given; wish granted
For the hundreth time in my life. I hoped for sleep to bring me clarity in the morning and He gave it before I shut my eye, the lights, the monitor. It is wonderful, and you are interested, now, hm? Journal asks, "How?" I will tell you, then.

You see, it was late night and I was watching TV with Jeb - Ripley's Believe It Or Not - - there was a story of a woman who was so beautiful when she was young, but at twelve was struck by some disease that gave her these huge warts and tumors - giant blisters and craters all over her body. She was wrecked, Journal - wrecked for life. Her face, her arms, her back - were completely covered with these ugly, painful, blistering warts - to imagine, to imagine that there is not one smooth stretch of flesh about her -

To imagine that! And I was watching that - horrified and sad for this lady - but, you understand, that is the last thing she wants. She is living proof that appearances are nothing compared to what you hold inside - she is there to tell you that. And I watched her - stared at her bumpy fingers, watched her show her cratered back - her face - and I admired her and at that moment I had to stop hating myself. I had to think for awhile, you know, and I realized that here I was: young, pretty, talented. (oh i doubt it! but i have to stay on!) and yet, so miserable. So miserable as though God hasn't blessed me enough to satisfy me -

OH, "but man should never be satisfied!" an old shrink said. I understand, but "man should be happy" once in awhile - now that may not be fancily put, i'm sorry, but it's true. And so here I am, content, thankful for all of this and scared that if I ask for death too often - and am partially happy when I am miserable -

Well, I just might get what I deserve. Eep. I curse my tongue for that, but can I help it? I don't know, Journal, my future -

It's all in fragments. Messy and dim. I wish for some optimism...

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Friday, August 31st, 2001
9:41 pm - Am coping
I can't write this. How does one write this - so much practice, practice, practice, and still I can't find perfection - anywhere. Not here, not through this black-rimmed mirror. Here I am with new hair a little past my shoulders: dark and soft and layered and wispy. At first I wasn't sure of it, now I am growing to like it -

Still, tonight is another one of those damn phases. I hate myself, again, Journal. I don't know if I hated anyone so much as I hated my own self - the feeling's back, you see. Tomorrow I want to wake up and find that I am beautiful. Like I was on Tuesday - like I am on various days. One day I am talented and pretty, the next I am untalented and worthless and a hag. I am tired of this, I am sick of this, I want it to stop before I overdo it and the awful deed is done - deep down I want to die, to die, to die. But I know that is only me not thinking clear - that is only me dreaming on a whim; a simple shift can kill - if you let it. I won't let it.

I'm sorry. I am so ungrateful. Damn this phase. Stop it already - I'm so tired of it - it's painful, I want it to end - this looking forward and seeing nothing but black holes, empty holes - as though five years from now I will still be seventeen and unmoving and putrid and stupid. As though I won't live long enough to experience it, even. I want to stop this. I want to wake up and love myself and have confidence and be self-assured and feel talented. I hate this. I hate this feeling. I hate, hate, hate myself. You understand?! I hate myself.

[ "Help," she cries reluctantly, half-knowing someone will and feeling guilty for it. And when she is fixed: "I apologize for disrupting your life." the girl states, as though reading a letter - solemn and unemotional and blank as some wintry statue, "I apologize for this disruption." ]

Make this damn feeling go away. I want to sleep and wake up and find the world new. Not better, just new. New. New. End this feeling - everything is distorted and irrational - finish it, I'm through. I'm sick. I see nothing straight. Nothing's straight - write and write, but still am so uncreative and unproductive and unsatisfied - Everyone seems to be better than me in everything, and I can't catch up or - do I even care to? Help me, someone; Help me, journal. My reflection is damned today - there is something wrong with it - or am I seeing things - I don't see myself, I don't - it wasn't like Tuesday or Wednesday or any other day - Oh, tell me it's a phase. Tell me it will pass and disappear! I don't want it, need it, like this here.

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Thursday, August 30th, 2001
11:38 am - To sum up summer
To sum up summer.

To sum it up. Hm. There was the sun, as always: burning, dying, revolving. There was the same old moon in the sky; there were stars. White specks. Diamonds. Pearls. "Pretend the sky is a black sea and the stars are seashells." Same deal as always. Occasional heat wave; a week of rain and pain. Then, (surprise, surprise) there were all these random depressions, and Papa's new passion for golf, and Johann dying, and my strange premonitions, Mommy losing her job, my social life diving to hell faster than society is and was. But, really now - What's the point? I'd like to tell you a dream instead. It's pretty interesting:


I am with a group of people: Ma, Pa, and several others. I have no exact numbers, only faces, and among them: two who are around my age - a girl who reminded me of Britney Spears and a boy, handsome but not to the point of me developing an attraction - and then there was an old lady, a pale and simple face man named Tom who wore a baby blue shirt - a few other white guys with everyday, one syllabled names: Bob was one of them. Bill was probably another one's, but I can't be sure.

I am scared, you see, and excited. Scared because - supposedly - of this group, one of us is a murderer. It was like living in some Agatha Christie mystery. It was so - oh, I hate to sound geeky - but it was awesome in that I've always been such a huge fan of her stuff, and now, here I was, living it - experiencing it - and being scared and anxious at the same time. Thrilled yet frightened because one of us is some awful killer, and we have no idea who it is - or who he's going to kill next.

To make it worse, the murderer plans to kill each one of us off, one by one. That is, if we don't find him before he is through. Papa is some sort of detective (he reminds me of his importance as I whine and plead him: "No, I wanna go home. I'm gonna stick with you all the time cos I'm scared I'll get killed!") so I cross him out of my suspect list. Ma - I cross her out because, well, she's my mother for chrissakes! The killer is not my mother, that I know. I am scared for my life and suspicious of everyone who gives off a negative aura. Half of me doubts I can outsmart this person; the other half is cocky and confident as hell. As though I had no chance of getting killed, when I knew full well each one of us was going to die in due time - if we were stupid enough to let it happen.

The group was inseparable. We walked together everywhere - a swarm of bees minus the buzz - in peace, in almost good spirits - until one of us is finally killed off - We were taking a stroll, I think, and we came across a bridge - which sparked up a little game. The object? To cross it and land on the other side. The obstacles before us goes like this:

land, bridge, sand, ladder on a hill, destination.

I went first. I walked the bridge, sprinted across the sand, climbed the ladder, and made it.

Then the second person went.

And the third.

The fourth was unfortunate, however. He crosses the bridge, runs across the sand, but when he climbs the
ladder -

(the dream suddenly magnifies and does this strange close-up)

A pale arm reaches out to pull/knock down the ladder's steps, and the man crashes to his bloody death. I shiver and get that very cliche "chill up my spine" feeling. That could have been me. That could have been my parents!

The scene then shifts to a room where everyone is contemplating. The atmosphere is dark and eerie - comes off like the picture in the game of Clue - you know, Miss Scarlet on the couch, Professor Plum with his pipe in the study - it is humorous almost - except it was more serious because I did not realize I was only dreaming. You understand that, right, how serious and scared I must've felt - to know that I would die any moment.

I remember talking to the old lady about Agatha Christie. We are having a simple conversation at first:

"So, what do you, uhm, DO, ma'am, when you're at home?" I ask nervously. We are sitting beside each other, on a dining table.

"Breakfast and flowers." was all she said back. She had on this dark pink lipstick, and her skin was old and flabbed and wrinkled. She looked like she must've been some sort of hoochie when she was younger. An exotic dancer, probably - someone who primped for a trip to mcdonald's or something.

"Oh. I mean, do you have any hobby - like something you do on the side?" What I was trying to do was get her to say something about books. Besides looking overdone, she gave off this writerish aura as well, and I needed someone who could relate to the agatha christie feeling. But she didn't answer me; she gave me this weird look instead. She squinted her eyes, pursed her lips, crinkled her forehead. And I understood it because - yeah, breakfast and flowers, isn't that a hobby already, you redundant idiot? I stuttered something stupid:

"I...I, uh, read."

The old lady sorta shakes, sorta tilts her head. Her hair is thin and wispy and puffed - like cotton plucked all over. I must've blushed at my idiocy. But then I really spit it out. Everything that was in my head. I leaned forward and spoke, "I read this Agatha Christie book, right - cos I like, read a lot of her books, and her plots are so good! You never ever know what's going to happen, or who the culprit is, or who the victim - "

The lady cuts me off to agree, "Oh? Yes, you're right, dear, she is the best."

I continue. "Yeah. And so now I think this thing that's going on is like one of her mysteries or something - and so now I've made up my mind. For twenty four hours I'm not eating or drinking anything cos it might be poisoned, you know." I lower my voice, "See, there's a lot of poisoning in her stories. And the killer - " I paused for a moment, "Whoever he is, could just, well, poison anyone he pleases."

Suddenly the man named Tom calls out, "Yeah! That's why I stopped drinking turpentine!" Or Neptune or Nectine, or something of the sort. I don't know why but it made me even more scared because I was suddenly thirsty.

I get to have some sort of conversation with each character in the dream - I remember having one with the Britney Spears girl in some corner. I think I caught her crying or something. I remember having one with the boy in an Old Navy store - he wanted to buy a track jacket, I guess, and I was helping him pick something out. To imagine any one of them as a murderer was impossible - they seemed so harmless! Still I was scared - scared out of my wits to be completely alone with any one of them (I made sure to avoid it, and always walked beside my Pa), in fear of being stabbed or killed.

There was a scene in the dream where the person had tried to burn me down in a house. I was in some house with Ma and Pa - all of a sudden a ball of fire is thrown at the window and, well, Mommy catches it and whiffs it with her fist. Haha. But, really, I was scared and kept on asking: "Who came in the house first? Who came in the house first?" Because knowing who did would tell me who the real target was. Which was, haha, me.

A thought suddenly pops in my head; a voice, I think, that said: The harder you try not to get killed, the higher your chances are of dying. I take a gulp and think about the words. It was probably the truth, I thought, but it's too late - I couldn't stop being so cautious now, and what was the explanation for that statement, huh? I was annoyed and frustrated. Deep down I knew the voice was right. It was like love.

The more you look for it, the longer it'll take to find you.

current music: "must've been -- late afternoon...." - british rock group?

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Wednesday, August 29th, 2001
12:26 pm - Money
There is something terrible about me.

Alright, there is something terrible in everyone - maybe more than one terrible thing about everyone - but, listen, there is something terrible about me and this money. It is so easy to say, as some jobless, carefree kid would: "When I grow up, I wanna be rich and give all my money to poor people!" And, oh, the honesty of it. The honesty of that wish.

But then you reach the point where you actually work - grit and dirt for your money - and something terrible - something awful sweeps over you. Remember when I wrote about people and chemicals? How everyone's just one big mixture - a transparent solution - that with the right catalyst or reactor or environment, can elicit a certain reaction? An unexpected one? An electric spark of blue, a sudden explosion, an eruption of bubbles? Apply that to humanity, in general, and you get a sudden shift of personality. A cynic who becomes a poet. A timid girl who blossoms into an actress. Now, apply it to money. The terrible thing? Once you have it, once you've worked for it, there is this huge chance of you becoming an evil, damned miser about it. Unexpected, but possible and true. There is such pleasure in watching money grow and grow and so you hoard it. Such greed in investing, depositing, never using or lending, only watching it flourish. It's so grotesque, Journal, it makes me sick.

I now realize that that's the way I'm *starting*, STARTING, sTaRtInG (how can I emphasize the word, enough?!) to feel about my money. And I hate it. I am aware of it and I hate it. Only recently I've begun to hate those bills - I hate them still - they bring up so many arguments in the house, round the world. But there is some importance in them - not to make them your master, but your servant - and that's what I intend to do. Except money is so infecting and so awful and so addicting. I want to run away from it. I want to stop this - it's so selfish. That's why I've been using and giving so much of it away recently. If I don't, I'll grow cold. Money is so much more than green slips of paper - [DUH] - okay, well, that's not what I mean exactly - but so much more in that it's sinister. And I'm not being artificially pious or anything - I'm not - I have no right to be; there is no innocence here. I want money like anyone else wants it. But, I have to give and give and give, you understand? If I don't I'll rust and turn out exactly what I've always avoided to be -

Unfeeling and miserly. Terrible thought. Caustic. Who was it that said - was it Mark Twain, I think, that said - that, though he detested money, it would be dangerous to leave him with a thousand dollars? And so money scares me. If I don't lose it, I tend to it as though it were my child. MUST NOT let that happen, you hear? Must not let that get to me and change me. Must not let money transform me. I comprehend now. You really don't know everything until you experience it. Now I know why some wealthy people are snotty as all hell - they've succumbed and surrendered. I feel sorry for them, almost.

I know I'm not even close to rich - but I still can't let that get to me. Must be one (of an uncountable amount) of the weaknesses I've been, ahem, "blessed with". Am scared of it - so scared of it - maybe that's why "being rich" isn't one of my life's goals. And that's so selfish - to not want to be rich - because it's an honest aspiration: to be rich and help how you can. I know myself, though. And like Twain, giving me a load of money would be very, very dangerous. I will probably do nothing but stare the dollars down until they burn. Me. Until they burn me.

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2:21 am - Shopping [well, a quarter of it]
It is exactly 2:11 in the morning, Journal. I've done my school shopping - spent 200 bucks on a belt, a burgundy pair of jeans, checkered pants, red corduroys, a plum v-neck, a black rodeo shirt and a pair of beige, suede shoes from aldo.

I am so hip it's unbelievable. Yes. My hipness is unbelievable and so is my ability to withstand so many hours of not sleeping. I slept so well last week! - considering most of the time I had to wake at 6 to do the morning shift till 2 - then had to help Ma with the cleaning, or dry the dishes, or babysit Meg, or be depressed, or write, or worry that Mom hasn't found a job - and to think the school year's almost here! Oh, Lord. Please hurry. Why hasn't she found a job? She is so intelligent, ugh, she is so intelligent and we need the damn money. How do you sleep with so much crap in your head? With so much guilt and waste and anxiety. Being happy. Feeling guilty for being happy. Being miserable again.

[sigh] Just being.

Tonight has nothing to do with insomnia, though. Maybe a little. But it so happens that Jeb was "hearing noises in the attic, I swear, am I the only one hearing them?" again, and my conscience, Journal, is so huge it encompasses the universe. It's like the tapeworm that rolls itself in your intestines - remember seventh grade science when Ms. Boris told us that - that tapeworms roll themselves up tiny balls, tucked in some corner of your digestive tract or whatnot - but when you roll them out - they can stretch to the length of two classrooms? That's how my conscience works. Like a super, goddamn tapeworm.

And so I had no choice but to beg him, "Please go. Please sleep. I'm tired. Please." I was so sleepy, Journal. My eyes were barely open, my mind so close to beginning a dream. But he comes back again, this time more pitiful than ever. He sits on the chair under my desk and fumbles with my mail.

"Oh, fine! Fine!" I grumble. I heave some sort of dramatic sigh and all of a sudden - sleep decides to leave me, and insomnia takes advantage of the moment. "Aha!" It says, "I got you now! You had your chance, but now you don't! You tiny, vulnerable chunk of carcass!"

Evil bastard. What can I do? I put myself in Jeb's shoes and concluded that if I didn't accompany him to bed - that would mean depression in the morning and depression in my dreams. That would mean tomorrow "God's gonna shoot me with His hammer." for not being sweet and nice to my little brother, "He will shoot me with a hammer, or I'll die and kill myself." Ha! He laughed when I said that - said that I was crazy and scary and "Gosh. You really are creative. So can you sleep in my room?" I sigh again, mutter a bunch of complaints, try to make him feel guilty for bothering me, then feel guilty for doing so - and head to his room - blue fish lamp and all, black iron headboards, a pile of clothes heaved on a wooden dresser.

I'm not sleeping in his room now, obviously. Said I had to use the computer. Said I would check him every fifteen minutes - and when I find him sleeping, said I'd go back to my bed and sleep, too. Decent agreement, no? But now my conscience is banging on me again because it's five minutes past my promised fifteen - and I still haven't checked up on him. There hasn't been a single peep or creak, though. Thank the good God, Journal. The boy's sleeping, I bet. But I'm not. How ironic. Hm. Yeah, how ironic. =) Ah, well. Am not so bothered by it. I'm fairly content as of now - just scared something might come up to ruin it.

Like Ma not getting a job soon, for instance. She has the stuff to be the head or manager of anything. She has the skill, the knowledge, the brains. Do they not see that? I wish they would. God? I wish they would. I wish You'd make them see that...

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Tuesday, August 28th, 2001
11:09 am - Something that passes
I know I will be happy today and I am scared. Shirts and shoes and belts and blue jeans are everywhere. The girl's ready to raid the mall with her paycheck. Ah, yes. This vague vision of a "used but decent; s'long as it gets me anywhere" car is diminishing into the distance. Aw. Stay awhile, this and Christmas will be the only times I'll splurge. Promise. The rest I leave for you and your rickety engine. Oh, I know, no one loves you - but I will - I mean "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" about your "chipped exterior" - we'll get used to our imperfections. Hell, just take me places.

-

I imagine myself as a little girl. She is dark haired and dark eyed and fair and your everyday bookworm, but I cannot call her Sarah. I look at her and cannot call her Sarah; I cannot bring myself to refer to her as "I", but only as "she", as though she was not me at all, but someone else. When I think of her, I am hurt. It is sudden. It springs out from nowhere - from a simple line in a book, a scene from a film, the baby girls that ask for munchkins at work -

I am hurt. It still hurts. It is still there. You think it has gone away, but it hasn't and I wish it would - I don't know how anyone -

God. I love my parents. I do. I just can't comprehend how and why they could do such shit to me. They're good people, though, this I know and am sure of. I was six, seven. I was seven, eight. I was hit - and yes, I know, a lot of children get spanked when they were little - but not a lot of it stays and marks them for life - but mine - changed me. I know it did. Something about throwing up in the car, taking a shower, and hearing them talk about my grave.

Hurts. Hurts as though it were still fresh. As though bruises were still green on my temple, blue on my thigh - as though last night I was tiny and crying on my pillow because I was so sure my mother detested me and I had no clue how to make her like me. Lying on my side - foot in the gut - bandages and screams and, again, foot in the gut. A broken ruler. Scared to say goodnight, scared to say anything - I grew mute as a pebble. Shunned my own self and now I am old enough to blame no one but me for not realizing it and changing it soon enough -

( To "be normal" was all they asked. Well what is normal?
How do you define that? And if it was so easy I would've been normal as the time by now. If all it took was a simple command to "be normal" - I woudn't have to go through all that confusion. The problem is - there was something wrong with me. I curse at that, you know, I curse it to all hell. I curse myself, then, for not being able to define normalcy. For being stupid. )

Still hurts, though. Keeps flashing in my mind - me at six, at seven, at eight, at nine - on and on. Was I really so terrible, I want to ask. Just pains to imagine, that's it. I'm easygoing, you know. I forgive and forget - but it still hurts. Still, still. I imagine her - and to think she is me, poor thing, I wish I can save her - but that would mean saving myself, ha, that would mean that I'm a nut who has no clue what she's talking about -

Trying to save someone alive only in your head and in old photographs. I stopped shining in photographs when I hit 12. I stopped smiling for the camera all the time. But now I try, at least. That's a good sign - right, Journal? Smiling for photographs.

current music: compaq - "monitor hum"

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Monday, August 27th, 2001
12:27 pm - This mystery
They won't believe me, that's why I can't say it to anyone, and I can't type it to anyone - or let anyone know except here, on this blank space of this screen and in some corner of my head, and to anyone who reads - but let's pretend they don't exist, lets make believe they cannot hear what we are thinking, and "what are we thinking exactly?" Journal asks.

I am a bit psychic.

Ohno, Ohno, see! I knew you wouldn't believe, either, but that's the significance of writing your dreams down! I'll give you proof.

1) Plane crash - I dreamt about that friday - except I didn't dream of the woman, no, I dreamt of someone closer to me - my uncle; I dreamt he crashed while flying on a chandelier, and 3 days later - this happens. I dreamt I was sifting through his music and crying and feeling pathetic when he died - and three days later a singer dies in a plane crash and I grow miserable and enter one of my depressive episodes the same day (not for the singer, like i said in the prior entry - not for the singer's death, but just that I grew depressed for no reason).

2) I dreamt again, on Friday, that Mommy was vaacuming and I was scrubbing the wooden floors. I dreamt that I was about to go to Hazel and Mia and Aud. I dreamt that, while Mommy was vaacuming, she was mumbling: "I can't go, I can't go, I can't go." Three days later the same thing happens: I am in the basement, dusting wooden shelves - Mommy is in the bathroom vaacuming and she says I can't go swimming with the girls. And in MY head I am mumbling bitterly, "I can't go. I can't go. I can't go." Exact same words i say to Audrey on the other end of the line. "I can't go. I can't." (As though I haven't said those three words enough in my life, ha.)

3) Bad auras. I sense bad auras. Bad omens. Dark atmospheres - know what I mean? All of a sudden I'll just freeze and get very sad. As if I could feel something negative coming and I can't put my finger to it, therefore I won't be able to stop it or know it or help it. It's a very "I'm hopeless" feeling - I know what's coming and I'm hopeless, I can't stop it. Except it's never exact! Never clear!

4) Johann's death. I dreamt of it the night before - of getting a phone call and hearing someone say, on the other line, that a "cousin" had died. For a moment, in the dream, I assumed the person was speaking of Jamie or Marie. Never came across my mind that it was Johann he was speaking of. So cryptic. The next night Tito Alex brings the news...

and I think nothing of the dream until the day after.

So odd, Journal. My intuitions are rarely exact - but they fit and are so eerie I scare myself. We must keep this hushed - there was a quote once that said (it was worded better than this; I just put it simply) - if you praise yourself, people won't believe you. if you put yourself down, people will believe you. if you keep silent, they've got nothing to believe.

So we don't say anything, hear? Nothing. It would be difficult to, anyway, the world brims with skeptics. How can I look anyone at the eye and tell them the reason I am so sad is because I feel like something horrible is going to happen, but I don't know what it is. They'll laugh at it. They'll think I'm queer and won't think anything of it. What's the point, I say again, what is the point. No one will believe - and if they do, they'll end up envying you and thinking you're a fake. Hurts like hell, those things, you start to believe them yourself - when people dis you -

but you know you shouldn't. That's why, to avoid conflict, you keep your mouth shut about it. It's not like I'm extremely psychic or anything. More like an extension of common woman's intution.

current music: fugees - "ready or not"

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9:49 am - Months of many deaths
I've believed that ever since Lolo Jo died, believed it more when Johann did - even more so, now, when out of nowhere Aaliyah dies - and I know I lean more to rock music - but this woman was wonderful - really, her voice and figure and face and to hear she just died, "just died!", she just died,

died, just like that. plane crash. "plane crash! can you believe it? just died like that?" made me hurt almost as much as when Johann died. Bothered me. Death is blind and unkind; death is blind and unkind; death is blind and unkind - it always bothers me, always! as though I haven't gotten used to it -
as though it hasn't happened enough for me to have built some immunity against its after effects -

and not only death in the literal sense - but figuratively speaking, too. Death of friendships - oh no, I'm not being cliche - it's true, Journal, my friendships are dead, buried - my fault, actually - and don't get me wrong and think that I'm trying to make you pity me. I'm not. I'm simply saying that I have no friends who actually -

well, God, it's too depressing - my social life - too miserable to even describe. Too pathetic. I might as well make it simple and say I have no friends for the mere fact that I have no trust from my parents due to the other *mere fact* of me lying all the time. Forever lying. As a kid I lied for the hell of it. Recently I lied to get off - for protection - who doesnt? I do more than most - it's awful -

And so these are the consequences. Am so timid, now...so shut-in - inexperienced - (adjectives to name an overgrown fetus - premature - unable to relate to friday night hangovers and the like, "wish I could" all the time, "maybe some other time" to all the invitations) Speaking of invitations,

Mia and Haze - probably the only two I've ever considered my true friends - called to ask if I can go swimming - right around the corner there they were - "Aud's off to college on thursday! Let's celebrate fore she leaves...please, Sarah?" Was nice of them. But couldn't. Mom threw a tiny fit - "too late...why must I make all the decisions..."

Raised her voice, her hands. We were vaacuming the basement after Jeb had his sleepover. It was 4 in the afternoon. The moment she said that I knew it was over. The moment I breathed into the line: "I can't. I'm sorry. This sucks, I know..." I knew it was over. Gone like all my other friendships. Gone and I had no control over it. Fate kills you. I wonder, sometimes, if there is ANYTHING i have control over there in this world. It feels like I don't - like there is some invisible finger tracing my path through the sand - and I can't tell it where to go, and I can't raise my arms and wave and say Stop, Please Stop, Please, Please. No, I have to sit and say It's Not His Fault, It's Not Her Fault, It's No One's Fault But Your Own. If you're misunderstood, if people do not understand who you are even when all day it is gleaming in their faces - you can't change that, you cannot change that. It happens. People go misunderstood and unnoticed and forgotten. I will believe that. I will believe that it is always my fault - but I had no control over this - over Audrey's low, bored voice on the other end - she doesn't care about me. Haze doesn't care about me. Mia doesn't. Not that I expect them too. But it's over. I am forgotten. I am always forgotten.

I had no control over Johann's death, or the way the trees bent and the sun commenced to burn and the earth did not stop revolving even when he did - I had no control over that. I tried to. I tried to hope, to pray. Oh, but damn you, Fate. Damn you - damn your blindness, your random choosing from this top hat we call Earth. You kill off anyone you choose - Wherever your finger stirs is where the changes lie. Is where the shifts take place. If I blame anyone then I blame you, but I blame me, most of all, for believing it.

Curse, mutter, curse. Was so depressed yesterday I couldn't move - no, not for another torn invitation - No, not for the knowing that all my friendships are torn and broken and useless and worthless and unfit for anything - No, I love my mother - I can't blame her. I put myself in her place and I think I might do the same thing under stress, after all I've done. NO I am not repressing anything, Journal. It's true. I beat myself up for this. And so it's not

that I have no close relationships with anyone - maybe God -but I fail Him too many times, I disappoint him - Oh, no - not that - it was a random depression -

Too many random depressions. Was teary and stuff. Couldn't move. Ha. I was stuck there - and was having delusions that I was molding the air between my hands - you know, creating something, but I couldn't, and I was just frozen -

catatonic, almost, just frozen - and it scared the hell out of me cos I couldn't get the hell up and do something. Was so useless. Had a vague idea of plunging myself into something dangerous or life threatening -

I know it's illogical, irrational, spur of the moment. But had an idea to go into something crazy later - I don't know - Peace Corps? Get stuck in Africa or someplace, forging for food - but saving humanity -

I say, what's the point. Why try, I say, if earth is not heaven and earth is not hell. Why force it to be either one? Why are we so compelled to live - "Only the good die young" - funny, I hear that song all through work -

It makes you sick, those words. Who came up with that - makes you miserable - makes you think to prove your worth you gotta go get killed off by a plane crash. Crazy. The prettiest flowers wilt so quickly -

I wonder. Was so depressed yesterday - must've cried a dozen times and it still wasn't enough. My relationships are so fragmented. I am not the same. I look at baby pictures. I look at when I was a kid - God, I am not the same. Am growing doubtful of this writing - of art - of everything. Am doubtful. Won't make it. Am useless. What am I doing -

Tuesday we go shopping. Materialistic me. I might buy something to make me happy.

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Saturday, August 25th, 2001
10:42 pm - Stepping out
(It is only the night that peels you)
(reveals you)
(unfolds you)

The ghost unglues itself from its skin to stand at one angle of the yellow walled room and look: black rimmed mirror, stereo, girl. Monitor hum. Central air buzz. Besides these two - silence. Or, rather, silence?

shift eyes: polka dot bedspread, stuffed animals, ivory headboard - like pearl vines, heart shaped. The bed creases and creaks because a girl has sat down on it;

freeze gaze: she smells nice - conditioner, face wash, baby cologne, deodorant. Fresh from the shower - hair below shoulders is wet, towel under it - legs and arms and muffled breath.

Furrow brow: she holds on her lap two envelopes. OPEN HOUSE, one says. Thin cardboard and black type. Smiling faces and buildings and numbers. She's had these before. Yellow and blue envelopes - crisp from the universities. She fumbles with them, reads, frowns. Frowns deep. The air around is sinking. Her hands flip and fumble the thin -

I move away.
There is something painful about this scene.

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Friday, August 24th, 2001
3:56 pm - Jeb
My brother's all grown up. Thirteen. The kid's thirteen already. Already - can you believe it - the kid's already thirteen - it was, it was, it was but a second ago that we sat

on maroon sofas, the ac turned on, a bowl of cheese nips or potato chips between us - watching nickelodeon. ha. nickelodeon. I loved the kid. I hate him sometimes - what he does, though, its the things he does that I detest sometimes -

but, hell, I still love him. All of a sudden I love Jeb so much I could buy him a horse. Ha. Not that he asked for one - but if he did, I think I could. Gave him 45 bucks instead and a koala beanie baby taped to a hallmark card. He liked it - I came home from work and he kissed me, said thanks, rubbed his eyes a bit.

(Sniff)

I love Jeb. Even if he annoys the sanity out of me I still love him. Always will. Why kids have to grow I don't know - =( Wish they'd stay young and sweet and smiley forever...

Irrational thought, though, forgive me.

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Thursday, August 23rd, 2001
11:03 am - Dream
Strange dreams last night. I remember them only in fragments - but significant fragments, I think - and speaking of dreams, Pauline's been giving me a lot of hers -so i've been getting practice. I haven't been consistent with mine, though - ohGod, look at me, I never finish what I start. Pathetic. [sigh] Anyhow, these are the pieces of my dream in all their vagueness:

1) my Tito Rene takes the form of a fat man. This fat man is sick, is groggy, is dying from the looks of his face. We stand on an opulent-looking balcony of some sort. Above us dangles a glass chandelier. Above that we can see a black stretch of sky with stars. The sky is beautiful, perfect, velvet. Eventually, this fat man dies and what he wants - and what we also want (except for me) is to place him on the chandelier so that Tito Rene may fly to the sky, with the stars. I don't think it's right because I look at the chandelier and it is so thin and fragile, "what if it breaks?" i ask myself, but I don't ask anyone else. My insides are shifty and uncertain. But they never guess - And so, we go through with the plan. We place Tito Rene on the chandelier, and the chandelier wobbles, then flies to the sky. Higher and higher - we lift our heads to look at it soaring farther and farther until it is nothing but a speck of glittering light. I hear it zoom. I hear it fly - the "engine" humming. It starts to sound like a plane: it flys farther, higher, deeper into the sky - all of a sudden there is the sharp whistle. The shriek. It is descending head first onto some faraway ground. The chandelier falls with a sharp thud, and my Tito with it. I think I remember a spark of fire in the distance.

I leave the room and feel calm at first. Then I walk to my Tito's room and begin to cry. I miss him. I am fumbling with his tapes and cds; I am looking through his clothes. I am crying - my soul is miserable until my eyes open to a crack and I realize it is a dream.

I return to sleep.

2) I wake up in my room, in a chaotic house. Everyone is dressing up to go somewhere. I have no clue where, but doors open and doors close. People - people I know slide in and out of our bathroom - Mommy's voice is muffled, she mumbles something like, "I can't go. I can't go. Just the three of you should go." I have no clue what she's talking about until Papa tells me we are going to tcc and we should wear colorful clothes. I figure it has something to do with a holiday - except I am unware of time. I am happy, suddenly, because I know I'll be able to see Audrey and Hazel and Mia and the twins. But Papa repeats it again, "Make sure you wear colorful clothes." I wonder at this and I become frustrated. Why? Why must we wear colorful clothes? I am agitated, nervous, angry as I hunt through my drawers for something colorful. There is nothing there! Plaid shirts, rainbow stripes, all of them cheap looking and wild. I am not the type. I find jeans, I find different colors - but I like none of them and none of the colors look pretty on me - I want to cry and cry. In my mind I had planned on wearing my blue bell-sleeved shirt with my denim bell-bottoms, but that wouldn't be colorful. It would be all blue. Dull, but so what? It looks good on me. All of a sudden I spot a greenish silver shimmering long skirt tucked in my drawer. The texture is mesh - smooth yet ripply like a mermaid's fin. I unfold it and ahh. It is beautiful. I will wear this! I cry to myself. Except it isn't mine - it is Ate Angela's. She barges into the room and gasps as she catches me marveling at her skirt. She is not mad, but relieved that I have found it. Inside I sulk and am sad. I remember seeing Tita Gigi come out of our bathroom and Mommy vaacuming her bedroom, vaacuming everything. I remember seeing a big, coffee color stain on my wooden floor and while Mommy is vaacuming I try desperately to scrub it back to dark wood. If she sees it, she will scream and become more angry and irritated than she already was.


3) First I am in a cafeteria - the same cafeteria I was in some other dream - it is very deja vu, the feeling. I sit with Jeb and Mommy, in front of me there is a boy who reminds me of Ren. In fact, I think he is Ren, but he isn't. He is Jon's friend? Strange, but that's what he says. He says he is Jon's friend, and the whole time we are talking about Jon and my English class. He is fumbling with Staind's cd in his hand and I am smoking a cigarette. I remember very clearly that I am smoking a cigarette - a Virginia slim, I think - and it really was very thin and long, the wrapper was rolling off and gray ash was trickling out. But I inhaled and exhaled, inhaled and exhaled. I couldn't taste it - the smoke. But I was smoking it hard as hell. The boy's name is Shnief, he tells me, or Shiek, or Shneep or something, haha. Before I know it, though, I find myself in a mental institution - I am the only one sane. Everyone around me is solemn and eerie looking like zombies and ghosts from horror movies. Their flesh are either pale or mud-brown, their eyes dark rimmed and sunken. I spot an old man inside a conservatory-looking room. He is tending to some plants and I ask, slowly and cautiously if he has any idea how to get out. "I want to get back to the cafeteria," I say. He doesn't seem to understand. He points the way outside - outside meaning, outside where there are sun and trees. But that is not what I want - I only want to go to the cafeteria. His face and the place is so dim and scary that I give up and just follow the direction. As I walk away a fat woman comes - she is so grotesque looking, so creepy with her thin gray hair coming over a fat, egg-white face, and a mouth so small and thin, turned into a frown. She looks like she woke from the grave. She comes in from the other room and on one hand is clutched a small, sharp knife. I am afraid. I find a girl with a red dress clinging onto me. She is frightened as well. She holds on to me like a leech and we run because the fat woman, her back to us at first, spins around, her arm moving up and down in stabbing motions - she starts to chase us. We run out of the conservatory and into a dark living room, slamming the conservatory door.

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Wednesday, August 22nd, 2001
1:16 pm - Am reading a third capote
They say the film is good, so I though I'd read the book: Breakfast at Tiffany's. I suppose, Journal, I can simulate some great interest in it - you know - lift my chin and cry, my arms flung dramatically at the sky, "Ah, so magnificent, this book!"

Maybe it is. Very realistic - about New York, too - which is funny, now that it comes to me, that I promised to write about the city - and instead, here I am reading about it. Oh, Capote's a good writer, but this one's so filled with dialogue and 50's slang - which is no problem, really, just that I can't feel at home. BUT, But, but, the book isn't all very boring. I guess it just depends at the time I read it. You can't really get interested in a lot at midnight. Especially with droopy eyes and foggy thoughts. It's better in the afternoon with coffee or iced tea, with your head plopped on the arm of the green peppermint sofa, on the gold colored pillows. Then you have the right mood, the right effect.

Here's a quote from Holly Golightly. I relate to it pretty well:

"No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is. You've had that feeling?"

Yeah, I have. Too many times, in fact. Characters - characters like her make you hate yourself, journal. Not extremely hate - but it makes you wish you were more like -

Well, take any old character in any book. Sometimes you grow so fond of them you start wishing you were them - and so you read, but at the same time you are searching for clues that may show that, in some tiny way or another, the character does resemble you!

Then again, not completely.

I figure, Journal, that everyone is just one big mixture - Oh I sound like an idiot, I do, I DO, don't I? I feel like I'm writing the paragraphs for one of those "10 stupidest..." lists. It's funny. Anyways, I hate to take you back to chemistry, but it's the only way I can *analogize* this idea. I figure everyone has a drop of everyone else around them - concentrations of a certain type more visible than others - But, with the right temperature and the right environment and the right - what's the word - catalyst? reactor? - yes, with the right everything - certain aspects of their personality may spring forth

out of nowhere! Just like a clear solution - depends what you mix it with and where you mix it with - do you understand, Journal? Do you comprehend? Simple philosophy but true in a way - you have to admit, no? You understand?

No?

Ha. I didn't think so. My thoughts come so jumbled now, that's why. I need to clarify them - school returns in two weeks. Time flies. It does, it does, and it makes me sad for some odd reason. Like I wasted something - missed a chance. Don't know. I want to go to Soho and feel artsy as I stroll past thrift stores. I want to buy something unusual. I crave something unusual - something different, complicated. I think I'm a bit excited; I think I'd like to get a perm. Hm. And some cranberry highlights. That would be nice.

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Tuesday, August 21st, 2001
2:01 pm - it's a beautiful day.
The weather, yes. As for my world, particularly, i am filling my ears with aimee mann whose voice is starting to sound like mine.

Can You Save me,
Save me,
Can You Save me?

Teach me, rather, how to be a bit numb. I think I have a problem with walking down the sidewalks on hot afternoons. As though cars were humans. As though headlights were eyes and windows noses. As though screeching tires and sirens were angry voices. I am having these delusions, Journal, but I am not crazy, only timid. To end my insecurities would be wonderful.

Audrey is leaving the thirtieth, and what kind of friend have I been to her? She was so sweet to me, so intelligent - "I always considered you as a role model: girl that's been through a lot and knows her way round the place, y'know." I told her today in a letter. She leaves for upstate New York - a christian college - and you wouldn't imagine her to be, well, spiritual -

All our rings and earrings. All our platforms and heels and lipstick. No, you wouldn't imagine. I fit the part in a way - I'm quiet - but her, no, she's as "experienced" as they get. As tainted, too. But she has this vision and I admire her for going after it. She is everything I wish I could be, Journal, yet I'm not jealous at all.

current music: "save me" - aimee mann

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Monday, August 20th, 2001
12:44 pm - back at me.
"...I have nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion." - Jack Kerouac

Tell me that's not true. I promised you I'd talk about the city today, about the buildings and the people and the very homey but very polluted air it gives - messy but comfortable, I like to say, that's how the city is. But, no, I come back to speaking about myself and how I feel. Let me do this, then tonight I swear I'll write about the city, Journal - if my eyes can stay open that long which, for awhile, they haven't been - Been tired and sleepy - slept through most of the morning, through the rain - Yes, it was raining again, through the gray in my room - Slept right through it, past it, all over it I just slept. Like a child.

And so I've concluded that my future is hopeless, is dim and filled with empty, black holes. It is too depressing, my future. It seems like everyone's got something wonderful waiting for em at the end and though sometimes I like to imagine I do too - maybe fame, maybe money, maybe a novel or a book or two - it is only a dream and deep down I know the next few years will hold nothing but, well, mud and dust and other unwelcome stuff. I don't like it - who the hell would - would like to know, inside, that their future is so disappointing - I am reminded of it everyday!

Most nights, in fact, when I eat dinner and hear Pa say over and over again until my ears begin to cry blood, "Six figures! Six figures you'll both be making if you study hard!" Pa with his big, hearty laugh. All smiles. The air around him thick with jokes and optimism - I wish he'd infect me with some of it. Would make life brighter, less hopeless.

Audrey is off to college on the thirtieth.
Peter's left for Boston University.

When the time comes where will I go, what will I do - Journal!? Hm? What will become of neurotic little sarah, what will she do with her life, and if she does something with it, will it be something beneficial - will it be something worthy? (I scream, I scream, I tug my hair) Help me! little by little the world is revealing itself to me and I do

not

like

it

one bit, no! No surprise if the rest of my life should be spent confined in some institution afraid to move because I am afraid to err or fall. What with money and all. To write a novel is my ambition - is that dull? Is that a stupid, selfish goal - to write a novel? I don't know. But it's so hard to just tell people. Oh, fancy dinner parties and filipino parties and family parties and all sorts of parties where the ladies with diamonds oo and aah and ask, "So what are your plans, young lady? And oh! So pretty you are!" Grumble, grumble, drink my pepsi down and mumble something foreign. To tell your parents, especially! - and they have good intentions for me I know - they want me to live well off, make money, help the family, help the world - Don't get me wrong! I do too. I do. But I feel so embarassed, do you know, to tell them, one night, when Mommy is asking about our future and what she'd like to see us become -

I'm afraid I'll disappoint them, y'know, Journal, you comprehend? "I want to finish a novel." Ha. So funny, so dumb, almost - I mean, there is honor in writing a novel - but it's not like Jeb's goal: wants to make lots of money, buy Papa a ranch, a house, wants a mansion, a golf course, want to play professional basketball and become famous. He lets it out easily - it's easy for him to say because they approve of it -

I approve of it too. It's an honest-hearted ambition - it's what I'd like, as well, I want to help everyone. I do. But I don't want to do it by sacrificing myself. Dear God! I have but one life to live - I wish to live it doing something I love, at the same time earning decent money for it - money that'll go out - and believe me, I remember saying, once, that money isn't important -

Well, it isn't. But, once you've had it in your hands - once you've learned to gain it through hard work - you understand that it does hold some importance. I cannot prance around saying Money Is Not Important, when I know full well money helps the homeless, but Hope is so much better. And to give love is so much better. But money, too, has its place - just not my top priority, right now. I feel I need to make the world proud you know - I fear I'll fail, I do -

I'm pushing off college - and the letters, the mail, the searching and the visiting - I'm putting all of them off, I throw them in the trash, I pretend they don't exist, but Look. Here I am complaining about them. Everyone's leaving, Journal. Everyone has some wonderful, brilliant plan in their heads - I, on the other hand, wonder if I should even attempt -

Scared that if I do, I'll disappoint everyone. I always disappoint people. The world expects so much...

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Saturday, August 18th, 2001
3:58 pm - Now you sit in my room -
and how does it feel, now that the walls are yellow and not blue? I like having the computer here - gives me "immediate access" to ms word when I feel inspired. Gives me immediate access to you! Don't you feel special =) Now I can write and revise all night - ah, so swell, Journal.

So far the days have been peaceful. Work was tough on the toes, as usual, but Ray was nice - as always - patted me on the back (which is a *must* for the overly sensitive, ha) and said I was doing great, keep it up, "oh, and check out your paycheck." I was washing the coffee pots in the sink, smiling to myself. Strange that he didn't mention anything about Thursday's mess - hm - but, hell, I'm thankful for that. I am so calm today it's unbelievable. I know the feeling's transient, though - sweet things never last too long - but I'm trying to savor it as much as I can before it leaves. So stay, Peace, please. =)

Almost done with my collage.
Revised Johann's poem.
The house is clean.

So much serenity, Journal - it's almost frightening. Tonight, if I find myself gripped with insomnia, I will write about the city. Expensive - but I think I'd like to live there when I go to college. You don't need a car, that's why - bikes mostly, and the subways.

But, tonight, Journal, tonight I'll write about New York because it's inspired me. The people in it, especially.

current mood: peaceful

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Friday, August 17th, 2001
10:53 am - Emotion
Emotions, emotions, emotions. One gets so sick of them sometimes - you fear being too happy, you feel guilty for being miserable - as though being sad means being happy, and vice versa. So sickening. Last night, for instance, I was sad. Ha. "What else is new?" Journal cries. "You are always sad! Even when you smile you're sad. Even when you laugh you're sad. So what the hell else is new!?"

Stop screaming at me, Journ. I've had enough of that - too much screaming and crying all over the place, and I've had enough. I stomp my foot at all that crap. I can't take a decent shower without worrying if someone were yelling for me, or at me. I hear people calling me - shrieking - and so I run upstairs. It must've been a million times I've done that. I barge in the room and say "Yeah?" or I ask "What is it?" and everyone stares at me like I'm crazy, and they reply back: "Huh? No one's calling you." Wish the world would whisper sometimes, Journ. Be soft and calm. Understanding. One day I'll get what I deserve, I know - though I have no clue what that would be. Punishment for being so sad - hm - I never wondered at it, but it must be something terrible.

Anyways, I've finished Johann's poem. I'm actually pretty proud of it, if you want to know. Worked hard on it yesterday afternoon - and coffee, oh man, coffee helps. Does you good. I've been sleeping too much nowadays - fatigue I guess, for what I don't know, but I've been tired. Worked on this collage yesterday morning, too. I'm appreciating this, hm, creativity? Yeah. I'm appreciating it, but the world around me is blue.

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