How the hell do you stay sane when you're PMSing? it's so unfair to the poor men I date...

proof

of how far guys will go to get laid in high school

Resolutions

- get blogging again, and do it right
- avoid the temptation to get pets or tattoos before I graduate
- focus on my academics more
- don't do things I know are a waste of my time and life
- stop being so damn non-confrontational about this relationship and determine, finally, whether this is the real thing and whether I'm going to keep going with it. or not.
- don't develop any new addictions
- don't let despondency make me unproductive
- work it out so that I can 1) leave the country, 2) learn another language, and 3) learn an instrument in the next few years
- spend more time with my friends — make more of an effort — love like this is worth any price
- get a bartending license
- learn about grants and scholarships so I can continue being happily useless to society
- spend less money than I earn
- hustle better
- become un-depress-able and endlessly good-natured, like my mom
- become funnier
- finally develop the careless kind of style that comes from real confidence
- recover and maintain the sense that I'm going to tie it all together somehow, that thinking and reading and learning have a higher purpose, that I might someday make something beautiful
- stop interrupting people and generally become a better conversationalist
- stop using the internet to procrastinate
- stop being nostalgic
- stop being boring and then whining about it to my poor loyal friends
- learn to cook a little
- recover what Anna once saw in me and called "negative capability"
- stop being crazy/petty in relationships; be more honest, more confident, and less self-doubting
- don't skip classes or reading for stupid reasons
- don't buy shoes that don't fit

Yes, this means I'm back to blogging, and will continue to be back. I don't like who I am when I'm not productive. Nevertheless, something's happened to me — I took a horrible ego-blow somehow, and I've lost some of my motivation, confidence, sense of self. I'm 9 months into a relationship I don't understand, and I can't even bring myself to say the words to him, because I don't even know if I mean them. I have no idea what I want to do after college. I've got a great (unpaid) internship but still feel like I'll never make anything of myself. My exposure to literary New York has been depressing at best — so much talent and so little money. I don't feel exceptional and unstoppable the way I did once. I feel like a crumpled corsage. My relationship with my parents has shifted dramatically since my dad temporarily threw me out of the house last summer, and I'm facing the fact that I'm on my own after this. And I'm still in love with Leo, and for that matter, with everyone I ever loved, and there just isn't enough of me. I feel like I'm losing it. I hope it's a junior year thing.

never leave your laptop alone with renata

will blog more after this monster paper is done in two days

in the meantime (click to enlarge)(no pun intended):

just one more thing

I've been out of sorts lately, but I think I'm turning a corner. A fortuitous combination of inspiration, return to health, and resolution of some of the doubts that were plaguing this relationship, has left me ready to start blogging again, to feel young and excitable, to stop looking backwards, to let myself fall in love if I can — all of it. I hope.

But I have to take finals first. Hang in there a couple more weeks?