the suffocating spot between acceptance and intention.  the people i have let go by.  the struggle to exchange, accept, and give.  closed and open.  the increasingly flexible nature of my metaphorical yet exceedingly palpable impenetrable shell.  explain this to me, this dissatisfaction, this guilt.  my orange ache.  this tightness in my tummy, in my chest.  the dense intense place all filled with nothing.  i should like for all the empty places to be filled up.  if i open, all that pressure can distribute itself in every cavity.  like drowning. inhaling water.  giving up. 

i feel like an infinitesimal point dreaming of dimensions i cannot be a part of. 

(apparently reading flatland in ninth grade geometry is having strange influences on my thinking)

(actually i've been thinking about selectively permeable membranes and digestion and energy and how they relate to my body and psychology, emotional digestion, chew this fear and swallow it distribute its broken pieces to every cell, the way i feel my emotions (or perhaps i resist feeling them) in my gut, how stress hormones stop digestion, how somehow emotional nourishment (which sounds kind of awful as i write it) can alter how your food nourishes you and maybe it can work the other way too.  all these fabulous biological metaphors for human interaction and feeling and such. yahoo. though  i do have this absurd history of trying to seat my shortcomings as a human in my body and physiology (erratic diet, too little exercise, the way my eyesight is getting worse so i don't recognize people at the appropriate distance) instead of in my fundamental fears of people and all their accompanying uncertainties.  but hey.  everything forms a single rumbling unit.  so...)

this is how it happens.  seems like summer has created larger and larger spaces between posts for more than just me in motime land.  but here i am.  i am feeling mild release.  stressful things absent.  until absence of stress becomes stress itself.  funny how things work.  yes?  studied all day.  sexy latte.  took my dang ol test.  think it went well enough.  no family in town.  no work to do.  yes yes.  not quite completely sighing.  much tension in my middle.  but.  yes.  something to babble.  let me see.  puzzle pieces on the street.  sweating in the coffeeshop all covered with sun.  healthy eating me.  i was. 

another curious thing about my previous week's stress festival?  i'll tell you.  yes.  i had been eating ever increasing vegetables.  being a funny juice drinker.  and family came to town so body was inundated with meats.  i mean.  meaty treats no doubt.  tasty dumpling yum yum dim sum morsels.  but.  i imagine my body friend was a little put off by the scene.  but here we go.  lots of time.  manual juicer.  observing the diet of mister raw food (the raw kale, collards, pumpkin seed, avocado combination actualyl quite pleasant, especially with added goddess dressing).  and learning about physiology.  and such.  renewed dietary reformation.  perhaps.  we'll see how it lasts.  i think it is a matter of determining the proper proportions of vegetables to feel satisfied with meal and nourishment.  though i am damn well eating other things besides vegetables.  just skewing my proportions accordingly.  we'll see.  though also thinking about a cleanse. 

what am i?  some damn neo crunch crunch hippie? 

my mother and sister are intent on the south beach diet.  curious.  though it is cute.  mum told me all about how she bought organic produce and was all excited.  charming.  if i can just get her to drink wheatgrass juice for her arthritis instead of just taking naproxen then we'll celebrate (she actually does tell some of her patients to drink it for certain inflammation problems in eyes and has seen it work so she ought to try it after all..she said the other day she almost couldn't finish taking out someone's cataract because her wrist hurt so much). 

a long pause ensued.

now. sleepily contemplating driving car to danceable place.  perhaps. 

well no doubt i should putter around my physiology book for further preparations for tomorrow's test.  but.  i do have all day tomorrow.  yes indeed.  i am pseudounemployed as summer break commenced and i was hired too late to apply for the summer session. so.  that fearsome void.  or otherwise relaxing wandertime.  depending of course.  on me and my emotional vantage point. 

somehow the past week or two were maddening.  school ending, my class beginning, family appearance while also having to work and go to class, sick with a cold, the thrill and anxiety of the new car, the absurd anxiety i brought upon myself in filling my car with acquaintances and driving up up up shortly after all my other crazinesses.  plus the bonus of almost being vomited on on the last day of school, losing my phone for a day (found again with the help of the marriot), my menstrual oversensitivity life is horrible feeling, and pg&e directly outside my window jackhammering holes in the ground at seven in the morning. 

meanwhile...i am afflicted with a mysterious rash post camping.   i suspect it may be river/bathing suit related as itchy bumps have appeared on my back and bottom.  totally weird spots for poison oak.  and i haven't erupted in weeping disgustoid blisters.  so.  yuck.  but maybe not ultra awful horrible yuck.  perhaps they will disappear by tomorrow. 

i keep thinking of this mister who took an interest in my befuddled head.  a fairly fascinating creature.  he has been eating raw food for five months.  seemed simply but carefully and deliberately put together.  quite open and happy.  reminded me of this lovely though troubled young lady who lived in my co-op.  also of m with whom i correspond a bit and with whom i hiked with one morning after a night of dancing and nonsleeping and shared soup and bread when she was visiting the bay area.   but anyway, i met him because of some dancing affinity that made him decide to talk to me.  and then, rankled and rumpling in my heads interior, i wandered to and fro--dancefloor, tent, river, woods.  felt rather rickety and trouble navigating without flashlight (which i forgot).  i felt poisoned.  which was silly.  but what was in my head.  felt my disconnect from other people most intensely.  and felt foolish at my wish that my dismay be noticed.  that someone who knew me would just ask me if i was ok. but, of course, not wanting to intrude.  oh how i work so hard to imagine i am invisible and escape self-consciousness only to end up desperate for someone to notice me.  trapped in the patterns i have already set.

but ultimately mister raw food tries to talk to me a bit.  and i keep cutting this short and going somewhere else.  because.  just because.  but then i am heading up to find the sun.  both cold and knowing that quiet high up spaces often make me feel better.  and i randomly intersect with him on the path.  and act weird.  i am going to find some sun.  thinking of the rocks.  he mentions going up to just the spot i am thinking of.  and comes along. ok.  i feel like i am going to ruin something.  somehow.  we shimmy up those rocks into the sun.  perfect spot.  he wants to know the whys and hows of my feeling miserable.  and i babble much too vaguely (life confusion, social struggle, lack of footing, etc) and start to cry.   and he was totally accepting and unfazed which i appreciated.  and we talk.  very curious morning.  the wherefroms and the what do you dos.  and the i just ended a four year relationship.  talk of these dancing in the forest events, how we ended up there.  he goes on about intention, intention in these gatherings.  choices.  choosing to be open.  longing for connection (retrospectively this confuses me as he seems to be quite good at forming connections with humans).  and such.  my state improved.  and then...these various acquaintances, including those of the car, appeared at the spot.  how curious.  imagined i did of alternate morning where i did not run into mister raw food on the path but most likely still would have ended up on the rocks in the sun to calm down and run into acquiantances instead and probably had a totally different species of conversation.  hmm.  and so.  i decided to stay amidst this feller.  and we fetched his fruit to share and found quiet across the river spot to eat melon and such.  waded to a dry patch of rocks and briefly napped in the sun.  later back amidst tents bites of funny dried seaweed, collards with avocado and pumpkin seeds, a mouthful of kale.  a few people met.  another nap in his tent.  i resist urge to latch onto this nice body next to me.  which i imagine would have been totally reasonable but, as is customary, i was scared to intrude.  hate it.  

that's it.  except for this long farewell hug from which i was reluctant to let go. 

oh dear.

but now.  now i should go to bed.  so the morning jackhammer will not be too terribly brutal. 

quite tired.

another weekend adventure.  the stressful choice to drive three other people to a spot near ukiah.  egads.  unduly stressful.  but i did not kill us all after all.

a forest, a river, a swim. 

a multihour mental mishap (a most impenetrable shell, everything false and wrong, i could not connect to a thing not even dancing, intense isolation, awful)

climbing rocks into the sun in  the morning with a stranger who took some interest in my struggling head.

the embarrassing situation of bursting into tears with said stranger and feeling better slowly more. 

quiet morning with said stranger with wading, melon, seaweed, sun, napping, conversation. 

i like to think i made a friend.  but.  such pity-inspiring situations leave friend making most suspect. 

implications of intentions for future contact. 

but: the repeated theme is i overestimate the strength of connections formed with newly met people, thrill at the thought, disappoint at the distance and quiet upon remeeting, mild confusion resentment weird feeling of hopeful self-deception poisons interactions with awkwardness and all things inarticulate, potential destroyed. 

(i called him since he mentioned perhaps we should convene this day.  i felt awkward.  disappointment crept in.)

this overanalyzing second guessing very much ought to stop. it poisons everything i do.

a curious crunch of filled up time has ensued lately.  working my job, attempting to get to pottery occasionally, six hours of physiology class a week, combatting fatigue (ladies, gents, i have been drinking black tea instead of coffee and making wheatgrass spinach grape juice).  plus contracting the runny stuffy nose child spread virus, so eager to pounce upon me as soon as i am touched with stress at mild busy-ness.  plus and also yes the family came to town (a mellow visit, happy mom despite a broken tooth the night before she came and resulting pain and worries).  very much super weirdness: i am the co-owner of a new corolla.  i drove over big san francisco hills for the very first time (previously only a veteran of our flatter stretches and highways) in my little unit.  funny cars are.  it has been six years since car regularity.  it is like an extra little mobile room unit.  perhaps will break her in with a little camp out trip northwards this weekend.  it's like a new feature of my little drama of pretending to be an adult. 

more another time.  as really i ought to be sleeping.  possibly i wonder maybe.  did those tastes of espresso gelato affect me?

though i should note, my sister, mum, and i were in golden gate park on sunday.  my mother was quite astonished at how much dirt could accumulate on certain hippies.  a most curious business all.

wanting to endlessly grumble but not feeling so articulate. 

feeling rather trapped at the moment.  not quite able to realize my evening's wishes (cannot find a ride to a party in redwood city of all places).  feeling an urgent need to dance to clean out all these unkempt mental spaces. 
the mates are all out of town.  the modicum of social interaction that helps me feel fairly sane is quite lacking.  so i am lonely.  self-critical.  thinking of all my manners of confining myself.  fear. anger. frustration.  my silly haphazard job.  things are not proceeding as i would please. i will sit here pouting like a child. 

i tried to make it a healthy mindful day (dry brushing body for better toxin release through skin, tongue scraper, why i even used the juicer, egads).  but somehow fell short.  got too tired (caffiene withdrawal or poor judgment of how much to eat). 

just not up to snuff. 

i am inclined to go to bed--almost--just to fall away from my way of pounding myself with judgments.  but.  in theory some movement amongst humans could do me well.  though it is often most tricky.  when i am pressing my face into the dirt sometimes humans make me want to dig myself in deeper.  and when i feel this way dancing can be therapeutic.  but not to not quite the right music.  (psytrance, more often than not, is the right music)

so this is idiotic. 

rrrr. 

well well just lumbering along then. 

i miss my traveling roommate.  though the remaining roommate m is  darling nonetheless.

hesitantly started the red queen: sex and the evolution of human nature.  but also acquired various other books (calvino's castle of crossed destinies, annie dillard's pilgrim at tinker creek, and, at zithereen's suggestion, john rechy's city of night) in the course of the week.  more mad rampant book buying.  tsk tsk.

i ran into k, girlfriend of t, with whom i rode up to last weekend's adventure, in the middle of duboce st.  right on the yellow line.  paused.  and we walked on to golden gate park among the drums with fairly interesting chatter.  charming.  though the noe valley to upper haight stroll which i occasionally undertake always slams me with fatigue once i start to make my way back home. 

the desire for miles of walking is...new...but not so new.  back in the day there was a time or two where i walked down mass ave many miles til drained.  and once walked along the charles river and crossed an unknown bridge and ended up fairly lost in the late night hour.  and now...now it is walking up and down the dolores st hills, past the park (maybe a pause), up church, to buena vista park, maybe all the way to golden gate.  while unemployed i had hoped to walk to ocean beach...or at least to twin peaks...but didn't quite get around to it.  or maybe to the legion of honor.  and trees and grass and view and all that. 

i did, in friday, walk from pottery (fourth street) to my home, with much bookstore detour in between.  quite proudly i fashioned a piece composed of podlike pinch pots affixed to eachother and smoothed and carefully placed.  much fun.  sometimes, clay, i love you so much.  squish squish.

anyway...summer employment is uncertain.  my father today told me that he could get me a job at protein design labs.  or i should try genentech.  and i said i suspect pipeting things the whole day through might make me explode.  but but.  oh.  but.  i suppose.  oh.  i am supposed to do things that numb the mind for foot in the door purposes?  i guess.  earn your place through mucking boredom.  um.  i guess.  the advantages of corporate work.  the whole idea makes me cringe a bit.  mister rational, he is. 

my mother has said at various points in time that she chose father for his genes.  for his math skills and level head to compensate gene-wise for her shortcomings...i think of this when dad gives me parental advice as mister normal voiced rational suggestion father man in contrast to ms flustered i don't understand you i repeat myself endlessly should ought to must mom.  though dad certainly has the advantage of being absolved of responsibility for my upbringing, comfortable distance less emotional, and a whole other family to place his bets upon. 

a curious business.  so i did talk to the dadster for quite a while.  i think he bent me out of shape a bit and i found myself more on edge than i thought i was.  coffee exacerbeted.  but i began complaining about the medical system and all it's shortcomings.  also about frustration over how no one will believe i am capable of anything because i don't have enough letters next to my name.  and all that.  unexpected venting.  always a surprise to find that my father can be a useful character to talk to.  the strangeness of having half his genes.  eerie. 

a lonely litlte creature am i.  quiet brooding by myself day.  came and went it did.  not feeling awful terrible.  but palpably pining for human interaction.  feeling quite inadequate.  toyed a while with calling nice random boy who wrote his number in my little notebook after meeting him on haight street.  but.  bided my time til the day was cold.  and whittled away at my mild optimism as i reflected on the many disappointments (mainly boredom and wantings to escape) resulting from phone calls with mostly strangers.  and the disappointment is all the more slamming me in the face when i put so much thought into decisions to contact.  but.  there is next weekend.  and next and next.  social fear procrastination is this one's worst one. 

perhaps all that walking helps redirect static crumpled brooding energy into elsewhere places legs and feet and eyes and inner ear.  and my butt, though quite small (my mother's bottom inherited you see...my sister's bottom is in contrast quite caucasian), will surely become a most lovely place with all these hills i climb.  yes?

well well. i floated through the past week. but heaviness returns.  worries and wishes for different.  though not feeling like nothing can be changed.

so.
this is ok.