by morning i'll be gone

today i feel: frustrated
today i'm hearing: nickel creek -- this side
today i'm thinking: still looking for that change...

I went to Chicago this past weekend. That was pretty cool. Parts of it were really frustrating and enough to make my brother do an 'I told you so' dance, but the rest of it was really, really good. I got to hang out a lot with Marina, which was pretty awesome. She's a cool person: incredibly funny, down to earth, highly intelligent. I don't know. She's neat. I even got to hang out with Jordan for a while, which was unexpected and delightful. She's a riot. And Randy was good, too. I think he's really distracted right now, though, what with going to the O'Neill Conference so soon and wanting it to go well. I can't wait to hear about it when he gets back. I hope he's not too nervous.

Since getting back in town Saturday night, though, I've been in kind of weird, hermit-like moods. So to anyone whose phone calls I haven't returned (and to those who I haven't called despite saying I would), I apologise. Things are kind of...shitty here. Right now. And I'm kind of worried that whomever I hang out with will get the brunt of my irritated rants, which no one wants.

I don't know. Going to Chicago kind of reminded me of the things I'm frustrated with and sick of in my life right now. Chicago is a safe-haven: a place full of friends and interesting places and constant adventure. It's my favourite place to be and I find myself happier there than I am anywhere else. And yet, it's a place I shouldn't go to for a while, at least on a permanent basis. But I want to, you know? I'm sick of everything else and I want to get out.

I realised (a little more fully) this weekend that I desperately do not want to go back to school come August. Yes, there are some pretty cool things at school waiting for me (like, you know, NO TUITION), but there are a great many more things that will be frustrating and painful. Most of my friends have graduated or transfered, and while I realise this is a basic part of college, it's also really irritating. Despite what anyone may tell you, I'm not good at making friends. Friendly acquaintances, yes. I can be quite friendly and welcoming and all that. But there are very few people I let in and they have earned their spots and are well aware of where they sit. Thus, every time I hear from my mother or my godmother or my teachers or my estranged therapist that it's not a big deal; I'll make new friends, I get frustrated. I don't want to make new friends. I like the friends I have. I don't like other people. Merr.

School has classes and Denny's coffee and $5 movies and that's really, really cool. But it also has a lot of conflict and a lot of stress and a lot of decisions and conversations that I don't really think I'm equipped for right at the moment. And whatever conflict, stress, drama, etc. I have already been introduced to, I'm tired of. I'm done. Thanks, but I've gone through this too many times; it's old shit. Let the new shit begin.

Then there's home. Fuck. Home.

I find myself in constant conflict with my mother. It's like high school all over again! She's a lazy slob and yet she accuses me of being sloppy and careless, which only results in many a diary entry akin to those bygone days of what my long-standing friends refer to as the Rob Carroll Era: all frustration and 'fuck's and 'I hate my life I wanna die'. Wahhh! Pity Me!!

Jesus. It's so disgustingly droll.

And Grandma's getting worse. And their house is getting messier. And Grandpa's becoming more ominous and irritated and I swear there was a day that he didn't use that ridiculous looking walker, I remember it very clearly. ...It was any time before 2004.

I mean, I used to like going to visit my grandparents. I used to go out of my way to do it. But now? Now it's torture. And the more times I see my grandmother, the more I realise that the disease that's plaguing her is manifesting itself--slowly but surely--in my mother. And in just a few years, I'm going to have to start this whole stupid, painful thing all over again. And I'm not ready for that.

So I want to drop out. Or transfer. Or run away. I want to go find a shitty apartment on the wrong side of the city and start tending bar. Or stripping. Or maybe I'll lose twenty pounds and start taking pictures for no-taboo age-play magazines. Or I'll act. Or I'll write. Or I'll go work at Outback and keep Marina company. Anything to get away from this: from school, from Carbondale, from home, from anything I spent hours of studying to get to. From responsibility. From caring. I don't want to care. I don't want to work in the nursery. I don't want to clean my grandparents' house, or listen to my mother's nagging, or know anything about basic cell and organelle structure. It's all become so blasé, and I'm tired of feeling stupid and boring and sad.

...But Chicago was good.