Good day? Maybe? I didn't do much of anything. I started making my wings. I finished Cold Days. The ending was fairly satisfactory. I started reading Homeland, which is the sequel to Little Brother, and excellent. It's about a kid my age who's at loose ends, which is excellent and I just what I want, except that he has all kinds of tangible skills is part of a revolution, which makes me feel inadequate. Still, good book. Tomorrow we're going to a play about Tesla, which should be fun, or at least it will get me out of the house with the people I like, and that's great.

I had a nice weekend. I saw Clair a lot. I went to see the Hobbit, and it was surprisingly great. Knowing who is going to die makes that movie hurt so much. I didn't have high expectations for it, mostly because I was super burnt out on Lord of the Rings, but it was delightful. I especially enjoyed how the 7th doctor decided to hang out on Middle Earth and pretend to be a wizard.

Operation: Human Statue should start this week, rain permitting. I was going to go downtown and scope things out tonight, but instead I slept in. I've been keeping crazy summer unemployed student hours, where I've been up til three or four, and sleeping til around noon, which is kind of horrible, but fun too.

I'm reading the latest Dresden Files book, and it's actually quite good. It's amazing how he's using all the mythology he built up to create something epic. I'm curious if this was the plan since the beginning or if he was just able to recognize patterns/themes and put them together. Anyway, exciting!

I am not a terrible person, but right now I am a kind of shitty friend who cancels plans, and doesn't answer emails, or facebook messages. But, like, I'm trying. Kind of. I want to try. I know that I'm doing poorly, and I want to be doing better. But wanting something and being able to accomplish something and actually doing it are three different things. So I'm sorry world, I appologize for my failures, but I also don't care that much because caring would just make me unhappy and I don't want to be unhappy. Sometimes not communicating makes me happy, or no, it makes me less unhappy, so sometimes that's what I have to do. Not sorry, not really. Goodnight.

this is not a good blog, but it's one I want to write right now, while it's quarter to three in the morning. There's this thing I'm aware of, that cancelling plans is really nice for social anxiety, because then there's something you don't have to do. I'm really introverted at the best of times, but right now I'm dreading interacting with anyone who isn't parents/em/clair. Which, that's good, because those are the four most important people, but it would be nice to get along with the rest of the world, but it's kind of not happening. I have plans with another friend tomorrow, but they mean going to his house, which I have never been to, and just going somewhere, and being somewhere, and I hate all of that so much, and canceling this plan would make my life so much better, but not really, because I would enjoy hanging out with him before he heads out of town. But it would cause me anxiety. It is causing me anxiety. fuck.

3

The day itself was kind of a wash. It was rainy again and I didn't go anywhere. I read some, but not much. I ate cereal, and sandwiches, which is good. I wrote a little story. It wasn't anything I planned on writing, but the rain was an inspiration. I think it's going to turn into something, but I'm not sure yet. I spent too much time on tumblr.

The awesome part happened when Clair came over, because she is my girlfriend and my favorite and we hung out, and it was super super great. We told stories and laughed a lot, and poked at each other, and it was the best, like actually, the best. Hanging out with Clair makes the day a win.

Tomorrow is my mother's birthday, and it is supposed to be sunny, and I need to go to the library on campus. That can happen in the afternoon, and then we are going to have a nice family dinner. That should be nice. Probably.

people are not my jam

Day Two. It's the second day of summer, and I did very little, and am not that proud of myself. I actually managed to get a fair amount of writing done, but it was adding little bits to very many storys, nothing substantial that feels like an accomplishment.

I went to the dinner party. It wasn't enjoyable. I don't like people. Dead cats are bad. Other people's grandparents are uninteresting. Trying to be polite is dull. Not making jokes about birds that are called Boobies is hard and unfair, and I was so mature, I didn't say anything, it suck. BOOBIES. I only want to see my people and no one else. Ugh.

I still haven't done any of the communicating with people things from yesterday's list. I fucking hate communicating, even with people I like. It causes me anxiety, and not doing it causes me anxiety, and nothing about this is good.

I've been listening to The Specials self titled album, and Searching for the Young Soul Rebels by Dexy's Midnight Runners, and I am enjoying them both a lot. It's interesting because they're from a similar era, and have similar vibes, but are still awfully different. The Specials remind me of being a freshman in high school, where I knew some people in this not-ska-Hold-Steady-loving band. I saw them play a handful of times that spring, and it was kind of fantastic. It was one of my formative listening to music experiences. There's this one dance move, an up-down step thing, and whenever I do it I'm reminded of being fourteen in an all ages show held in coffee shop in Hopkins, dancing, and feeling not quite cool enough to be there. Weirdly, that's all good associations. I am never not awkward, but sometimes I can enjoy my awkwardness.

I finished reading Canada's Game: Hockey and Identity. I thought this book was interesting because it takes an academic approach to hockey and Canada, which are both things I think about a lot, but my thoughts mostly involve exclamation points, CAPSLOCK, and curse words, not jargon. (Although I overuse the word problematic in my everyday life, which is the bane of all feminist students.) It wasn't a great book, but it did open up some new ways of looking at things. It's essays, so it's not surprising that it was a little bit scattershot. I wish it had been more direct/better, but oh well.

My next nonfiction book to start is John Dillinger Slept Here, which is about prohabition era Saint Paul, and I am super excited to start it!

I read a bit more of The Sirens of Titan today, but not much. Hopefully I will read some more before I go to bed, but no promises.

We went to Half-Price books after dinner, and I found two things. Bi any other name: bisexual people speak out, should be interesting. Plus, the name is a pun, and I'm a sucker for puns. The other is Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South During the American Civil War. It is a present for Emma, but I might read it.

I watched "Journey to the Center of the Tardis," and was disappointed that it was a real action adventure story instead of an episode where the Doctor and Clara decided to not go explore a planet, but instead explored the Tardis, and tried on different clothes, and drank tea, and hung out by the swimming pool. I can't decide if I'm thrilled by the episodes since the Ponds departure. Clara herself is lovely, but I haven't been thrilled by a lot of the story lines? But it could all turn into something splendid by the end of the season; Doctor Who does that sometimes. RTD did that all the time, but I wouldn't put it past Moffat.

No significant cooking happened today. I have been eating poorly this week. I can't find the good noodle pot, which has stopped me from making pasta salad. We bought things to make sandwiches so tomorrow should be better.

Tomorrow will also be better because I am not going to stay up past three tonight, which I did last night. Also, I am going to see Clair tomorrow, which is great. I'm going to end on a positive note.

Day One

It's the first day of my summer break and I am full to the bursting with good intentions. Last night I made a list of things to do and stuck it on the window above my desk. It feel down after less than an hour, with an even number of items crossed off as left untouched, but that should change. Two of the tasks left involve electronic communication, and I should get to those tonight. Responding to an email from a new friend should not need to be on a to do list, it should be autimatic, I should have done it days ago. True fact: I'm bad at communicating. Truer fact: I'm bad at peopling, whatever that means.

My goal is to use this summer in a productive and enjoyable manner. I'm not entirely sure what that means yet. It would be nice to make more money than I spend. It would be nice to connect with the great outdoors instead of hiding away in the air conditioning day after day. I know I don't want to get rained on. I want to spend time with my girls, I want to read a lot of books, I want to write a lot of things. (This here is part of that last desire. I'm going to be a better blogger this summer, for real this time, I'm not just saying this. I'm going to update regularly and coherently. Really!)

My plans and hopes for the summer don't include a lot of people so far, and that's how I like it. People take energy, and I want to use my energy in ways that don't make me miserable. People don't make me miserable, not all the time, but they can, and right now thinking about people and having to be around people and having to interact with people, all of these people related things, they are causing me a fair amount of anxiety, more anxiety than I need.

Thinking about how little I like people has made me begin to start dreading the dinner party I have to attend tomorrow night. Before I had only been unenthusiastic, now I have active negative emotions about the event. I've spent tonight at home, mostly writing, reading, and hanging out with my cat. She's execellent company.

Oh god, I sound crazy. Like, a different kind of crazy than usual.

-The only thing I cooked today was sugar wax. I overboiled it twice, and gave up on the idea for now.

-I finished reading Kraken, by China Mieville. It was awesome. I read more of Canda's Game: Hockey and Identity, which is interesting. I started reading Kurt Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titans, and so far it's great, as expected. There was plenty of reading, it felt like an accomplishment.

-The wifi connection has been unreliable, which is sad.

-I finished the second season of Lost Girl, and it was good but not great.

dinosaurs bc why not

weird moment of the day: ran into the boy i went on dates with last year. only like three, so not a boyfriend, but the only boy i've ever gone on dates with. it took me three weeks to realize i really did not want to date him, like, at all, wanted actively not to date him. so i told him that i didn't want to date him, but didn't really explain myself very well, but it's kind of hard to say I DON'T THINK YOU'RE A VERY QUALITY PERSON without sounding mean, especially when you're as bad at talking about feelings as I am. but that's last year.
I was sitting in the saint paul student center, computing, tumblring, because this is my life goddamnit, and he walked up to me and said something about how it would be strange if I was living on the saint paul campus again, and i said yeah, it would be, which is why i'm not, i was just there bc of asl. then I looked back down into my computer. I never took my headphones out.
why the hell did he talk to me?
I made it pretty clear that I don't like him. is this a normal part of human interaction that I'm failing at? my sense is that you don't talk to people with contexts like this. i have seen him around and purposely not talked to him before. I have purposely gone out of my way to for sure not talk to him.
anyway. hopefully I will never have to talk to him again, but I thought that last december so...yeah. that was weird today.