Open Palms

This excellent day has so far included:

- good eye makeup application
- wonderful 94 degree weather
- rummage sale had the bread loaf pan i wanted
- beautiful pears at the market & a sale on parmesan
- my dad is making steak
- i am making bread

Y'know, I don't really have any problems right now. Not even little ones. I have worries, sure, but they are very quiet today. They are letting me enjoy all of this.

There is a lot going on, but it seems like things that I should really tell you in person. How do you write about massage therapy school? How do you talk about books and films that move you, and tell people that you are moved almost all of the time now? It's true - I get moved even by little things, like making your eyes go blurry at night so all you see are good colors. My limbic system must be so trashed with good vibes right now, it's great.

I'm glad Emily Eagan came to stay with my for my last night alone in my house. She's a really, really nice girl, and she gave me some really nice advice and comfort, just by staying with me. I have many kinds of friends, and with Emily, I have the kind of relationship where we can move along with our own independent lives for a long time without speaking to each other, but when we reconnect it's not awkward in the slightest. We just have more to tell and more fun to have. I want to be able to have this with more people, but I think both persons have to be of a certain temperament for it to work. Maybe it's because she's a pisces and I'm a libra?

I can't waittttt to move in to the new apartment with Kirthi. I know she is going to be an awesome roommate. We will have dance parties and cooking bonanzas and a big glass punch bowl! For all of our mutual friends that we haven't made yet! That's another thing - next year I have to make friends. I'll have to give up being shy for a while so I can do this. I think I can, I really do. After all, this summer I gave up sleep pretty successfully. Giving up shyness will be similar, I think. These days willpower is everything to me.

Also, a really important thing: I think I'm going to stop going out of my way to be nice to people who are not nice to me. That whole deal has to do with my retarded need to seek approval from every asshole I meet, and I think at my age I should be making strides to not do that anymore. It also costs me a great amount of energy to be absolutely nice to absolutely everyone, and that hurts my focus. Focus is incredibly important to have when you don't sleep very much. So enough of that.

I'm so psyched for New York and visiting Ioana. She's always going to be my best friend, this I know. There is an absolute understanding between us. I'm the best person I can possibly be when I'm around her, and I think she feels the same way about me. It's pretty wonderful to feel that way about someone. I'm only staying in New York for three days, though...but three days is still pretty good. Three whole days with my best friend in the whole world. 36 hours! I'd better sleep a lot before then so I can make all of those hours count.

Well, it's midnight. I think I'll watch a movie instead of sleeping. So easy!

Today in Anatomy class I touched a real human spine. The bones were chipped and dried out-looking, and arranged to dangle on two elastic strings so they could bend this and that way. Real bones are pretty different from the plastic skeletons you'll find in most science classes - they have more waves and spirals that bend and dip all around, like little eroded valleys. In the parts that had chipped away, you could also see lots of little holes in the structure, where minerals and skeletal fluids must have resided when the spine was still holding up a person.

It was a strange experience. I felt a little creepy touching it, because this was something that had been inside a real living person before, which was quite invasive. But apart from that slight feeling of unease, I mostly felt this overwhelming sense of awe and excitement that only comes to me when I'm learning about how our bodies and heads work. That spine fit so perfectly into itself; all those bones laid into each other just so, purposely arranged to give function and durability to a once-living thing. Like a kind of gorgeous puzzle. Part of a bigger puzzle of a once-living thing!

So amazing. I really needed this boost today. And I just ate a helluva lot of meat, so I need to pass out now.

There are literally(lol!) so many books on my bed that I haven't been able to sleep on my whole bed. It's partly because it's just really convenient to have all my books at half-an-arm's reach, but also because I am quite possibly having a strange love affair with all of my "bookish" interests, and I really like it. So every night I dig open a place on the left side of my bed, turn off my lights, and go to sleep with all these books lying next to me. All kinds of books! Autobiographies, contemporary fiction, russian literature, anatomy guides, massage therapy techniques!! I am a BOOK SLUT!!! AND ITS GREAT