Diary Entry 53 — Tuesday 8 March 2005 (Common Era) — "Counter Coast Weekday Walkabout Pseudoache (Anaïs Nin Breakdown Edition)"

Dear Diary,

I feel nervous, I think. I don't know what I am feeling, if I am feeling. Wait—yes, I can call myself nervous because one thing I am going to have to do if I am to "be a man" (act as an adult human should) is to make judgements, and it may be best to start at home. So yes, I am feeling, and what I am feeling is nerves. "Stress", that nasty invisible beastie, that scapegoat for all our sinful frailties, that ad hoc constant in the equation that explains why all our buildings are falling, seems to be wearing on me.

I had my camera with me today thinking of taking WASC pictures (I will actually take them tomorrow at the presentation and skip track; it is all a weird schedule tomorrow) so it turned out that in ART I took to arranging mirrors in various ways and seeing what cool photographs I could take, using all the reflection power at my disposal.

"Y'all are pretty, why don't you want to be in a picture?" I said at one point.

Thursday there is to be a scrimmage meet.

There was a lacrosse game at Acalanes, so when practice was over I took some photographs of that.

Parts of "Letterbomb" have been floating in my head lately.

I must learn to do and feel what I must but now can't,
If I get lonely I can write some lines for Brooke Durant,
Driven onward by respect for what is perfect,
Not needing to brag about any secret project.
And not needing to line always in sucky couplets.

Bless me! Help me! Someone forgive me! But there is no one. Oh sure, my parents love me and I have friends and friendly acquaintances, and all that, but there is—and I want—but I am—I need to go do my homework. Yeah, that's it.

!!!,
[real name redacted],
to survive the Great Depression of the 2010s?

ADDENDUM— So I just emotionally snapped, and I am consoling myself with philosophy and music. I listened to some selected tracks of American Idiot and I put on "Abba Zabba" maybe four and a half times. And I may put on "You're Not Alone" and "Cannot Stop the World" soon, or maybe not. Not, I think. I feel better now. Sometimes I snap and everything just seems horrible, and I do see how many feelings are insane, but the seeing doesn't stop the feeling of them, and all fall down. Mother said I was acting weird and and I hated that, and I was starting waxing hysterical just a bit (not as bad as many times past). I am almost a fucking adult now, and I have got to be ready for life. I must remember that every time life feels miserable that there is no real viable alternative. You have this life, this one life, bound to this one body and even through any hopeless pain and confusion, you have to cling to it because your only other choice is just total nothingness. I may have said this before in an earlier entry, but now I am just going to write, I am going to write my fucking soul (should I have one) out for a while, and then I will do homework, and I know that this is bad for my sleep (esp. because there is not a late start tomorrow), but these are special circumstances (as circumstances always are?). SO—life. Mine is easy. But I am fubar'd so that even the good life feels bad much of the time, and I am 17 years old and I have my DL and I am so close to adulthood and I have got to get ready and remodel myself (as I unceasingly pledge to do) if I am going to be anywhere close to making it somewhat on my own (my parents are a big help, paying for college, and all that). I have got to learn to be strong and steadfast if I am ever to survive a new Great Depression or build a fusion reactor or learn a trade or save the world or e'er be brave. (Quoting that poem I made again.) An adult, a real man, all that. I just have to keep remembering when things get tough that there is no way around life, you just have to live it as best you can, and suffer in the specific way you think you ought. This writing will likely be so horrible because I am writing quickly and not taking all that much care, but that kind of stuff is part of what the Diary is for, to say what [...] comes to me when I sit here with this file open, to get it down, to get it out, to tell someone exactly what kind of hero and/or bigot idiot shithead I am, even if someone is just a Microsoft Word file, that could be destroyed easily, destroying the records of my past beyond recovery. SO I am fucking telling someone, and I am cussing, too, although the best grown-ups don't feel like they need to use any meaningless intensifiers to say that which they have to say. As long as I am writing free like this with reckless abandon so I can say anything as I am expressing myself, my big grown-up crybaby self, I will say in this addendum what I had been planning to say in its own entry. I can tell Microsoft Word. I have said in these pages how I masturbate sometimes (i.e., almost every day), but I have never really said what I am thinking about. I imagine what it is like to be a woman. To have a woman's body, and have breasts and a vagina, and all that. The fantasy can take various forms (no pun intended!), but that basic premise is always the same, and it is almost always what I think about when I beat off, which is way too fucking often. So maybe I am a deviant, but that's okay. And I have too asked my self, hey, what if it's fucking normal? Here, have an anecdote: I remember once when Mr. Kolda gave us a journal question that asked if you were someone from the Civil War, who would you be? And I remember [redacted] jokingly murmured (word choice?) "Clara Barton". And I remember when I used to be on the sluggy.net boards, and once, I forget the topic (it must have been sth interesting), I remember that the user (she was a moderator) called [redacted] admitted that she imagined being with girls in a man's body. I fear that I misremember that, but as I have said, you can't libel someone in your Diary. And there are other anecdotes. I feel good confessing, even though my strange (but are they now?) thoughts ain't a sin. I feel good writing like this, discharging myself into virtual pages. I will have to be more forthright with you Diary, should I still be holding back. Someday I will print this page, along with the others. SO anyway before long I am going to be an adult (I also hope to be a real WRITER) and so mostly what I have to do is learn to take care of all my business quickly and efficiently. But I have said that a thousand times. I feel tranquil now, almost. I can be a real WRITER, even though these recent sentences are losing interest and coherency now that I have quickly done the confession of sorts that I had been thinking about for a while. SO if I do all my work efficiently I can have time to write things like this and write fiction that I can maybe even get published for real money and real bylines. I just have to hold on to this feeling of maturity and calm. I don't have to get manic, I just have to get sensible. And so I have a secret project, this writing of over 40 000 words, that I can show to no one except a significant other, should I ever find one. But I am okay for now. If I can calm those tides, avoid those emotional snaps, I will get through all right. For the intellect, I have you, Diary, and once I settle into sensibility my fiction, and for the primitive—there is always my right hand. Okay, I am getting digusting! I need to find a summer job NOW. I need to earn my own money. Get independent, and all that. And so to homework, I guess, but I want to sleep. I think of setting the alarm so I get 4 hours or so sleep, and then doing homework in that morning, but that seems to fail often. I will make a decision. I know I am trying to avoid doing that, but I think I might do my PRC at lunch tomorrow. It is only two problems (I forget how long they are, though) and I understand this vector stuff so far. I can get through this. Just forget the unwanted thoughts. Maybe I will find the right motto or poem that can inspire me for anything. The ones I have now are good, but not omnipotent. I am such a good diarist. [redacted] would be jealous, maybe. I must hold onto this feeling, Goodbye for now, friend Diary, but I will return, and with more zany or serious entry titles. Bless me. Bless anyone who almost deserves it. —[real initials redacted], 2353!