Flatland

14:42, 01 May 2003

Still at school. The crying's over. I'm a machine now: blank and efficient. I am not sure how I will do on this exam. Concerns about failure remain. I have gone over the material many times. Now: practice the method of answering questions by taking practice exams. Professor has not provided sample answers, which makes the exercise nearly futile.

I don't want to do this anymore. But what do I want? I am hungry, but I don't want to eat. I don't want to go to the gym, especially as I have no magazines left to read. Perhaps when I go to my car I'll check to see if I have my weight-training log in the trunk; I can handle half and hour of lifting, I think.

I've spoken to Piyush three times: he called once before I left for the library, once two hours ago and I just called him before I began writing this. We're going to meet up to take a break together in a few hours. I got some feedback about my earlier entry. You are right, I think. It's unclear to me how serious he is about his comments. I've already called him out on the size-two/"you don't eat" hypocrisy. To which he said something along the lines of facing reality that I will never be a size 2, which is true, to an extent, but not what I wanted to hear. He is, most likely, joking about the fat pinching. He comments on his own (minimal) fat as well. I am, perhaps, oversensitive. And it is not as if I tell him how much it bothers me.

I'm not planning to address these problems, despite all your good advice. First, they cut to a key problem I have, which is drawing much of my self-worth from the opinions of others, in certain arenas. If someone thinks I'm stupid, I laugh it off. I know I'm not stupid. If someone says I'm fat, I do not laugh it off. If someone says I need to shampoo my hair, they are most likely right, since sometimes I do let it go too long. I should try to uphold my own feelings of self-worth in the face of these little jokes or whatever they are. Too bad it's not working.

Perhaps the machine is speaking here, but at this point I just don't give a shit. He's leaving in June, so it is not like addressing this issue is crucial for our future together. Our relationship has a terminal illness; there are just some hassles you don't need to get into with something that only has two months to live.

I wonder how I will be when I meet up with him later. Because right now I am blank. Defensive. Shut, again. I predict, however, that I will be fine. Normal-seeming. My only trepidation is that I will not like him. That I will not be comfortable. That I will feel we are "off." For all his faults, he is the best thing going in my life right now. Since when have you read entries from me that are so filled with happiness and contentment? I, personally, don't want to fuck with that right now. Not with a summer of solitude approaching.

It is amazing to me how absolutely flat my affect is right now. It is as if my teary morning has robbed me of all emotion. All motivation. I plod along. I want to stop working, but I keep on. What else is there to do? Will I still feel like this tomorrow? Is it all ruined with Piyush? I shall now consult the oracle: Will all be wonderful and normal when Piyush and I meet up later? "The wind blows the surface of the water this way and that. It scatters the waves about but in the end they reunite in the deep. The boat crosses the mighty river at last. Reunion says Yes, but you have to pull it together." Wise advice from a mobile phone, I tell you.

I will now obey the mighty Kyocera. I will pull it together. I will take more diet pills. If I can't cheer up, I will hype up.

The Smell of Failure

10:24, 01 May 2003

I'm crying again. The perfume set me off. I hate it. I know he'll hate it. I just scrubbed and scrubbed in the law school bathroom but the smell won't go away. Every time it drifts into my nose I recoil; the tears start again. It just won't go away, it's like a cloud that follows me around, telling me I'm not good enough. I just can't handle the pressure anymore. The pressure to be perfect-- a perfection which I am not. I can't smell the right way, I can't get rid of the little fat around my hip/belly area--at least not overnight--I can't shave my legs every ten seconds, I can't possibly have the right shampoo or take showers often enough. I can't be what he seems to want. The smell is back--its so awful--go away! go away! God, it's so disgusting. How did I like it yesterday? And I know he's going to hate it and it just won't come off when I scrub it.

And I spent $80 on it. $80 I don't have. I don't know how much money I have anymore. I know it's not a lot and I just can't face that. Frankly, I bet it's none. I'm into my Checking Plus account, I'll tell you that.

It's all a big pile on my head today. The unmeetable expectations he has for me, all the things I have to do in my life--all those errands that take up your whole day and keep coming back as soon as you do them, like that old arcade game with the gophers that keep popping up every time you knock one down. This exam--this exam!--tomorrow... I just can't do it. I haven't even done a practice test yet--I can't bring myself to. I wouldn't be surprised if I fail. Fail. My mother would be so angry-- no. Not angry; disappointed. Worse than angry. Disappointed. I would just crumble. My whole future would be shot. A fail on my grade sheet means I don't get a job after next year. It means the whole thing is shot to hell and then what will I do with my life? And then? And then?

It's all too much. It's so crushing that I can't do anything but cry. I can't imagine eating right now. Or having a cigarette. Or having a drink. Or any of the usual mechanisms people use to escape the horror of daily life. This, I feel, is inescapable, because it will still be there when I come back from my escape. Only it will be closer and heavier and looming, huge and black with a growing sulfurous pressure like a massive thunderstorm. And I could fail.

I have to go. I have to stop crying like this. I have to just study; just throw myself into it. I wish I could call someone right now and cry. But I can't; I don't cry to anyone. My mother would just offer me a solution--she would just say to go work on my studies and worry about this stuff after my exam. What a stupid, misunderstanding answer that is, which is why I don't call her when I'm like this. And why she knows that when I don't call her I'm drowning in my own brackish puddles. I can't call him-- girls that use the right shampoo and wear the right cologne and wear a size 2... they don't break down, they don't fail their exams, they don't cry--well, if they do, it's tragic and beautiful and their makeup doesn't run down their cheeks. I can't call anyone else-- well, there isn't anyone else, really.

And what will I do this summer? When I have no one at all. Alone alone alone. Can you imagine being all alone? I mean: all the time, every day. Casual smalltalk hellos and moving among the hoards in crowded places but still invisible until someone runs into you or maybe holds the door for you... but ultimately just a picture of yourself passed over by blank unseeing eyes.

It all crushes, it crushes and I crumble, enveloped by the smell of failure.