2003-06-10 - 5:35 p.m.: truth serum

i felt weird about the "online-ness" of this diary for the first time the other day. felt like i was under glass... crafting a caricature of myself whose features i wasn't even aware of. it bothers me. i don't want to be a cartoon... or a daily column... i don't want to exist in someone's mind as a set of words or ideas that may or may not be true. i don't want to be a performance. you know... performance can be an EXTENSION of who i am... but not the whole thing. and... well... if you're a performance to me, too, that's fine. that may even be cool.. a living diary. one that talks back. but if you know me...if i know you... if we've known each other as living breathing entities with multiple dimensions, some good, some bad.... don't allow me to try to wrap that all up in words. don't depend on that. if you do, you're being cheated. i'm being cheated. i'd like to think i'm a decent writer. maybe i am. but i'm not decent enough to be honest. this whole thing is so processed that it's just barely digestible. or maybe it isn't.

not real. a performance. but trying to be real. trying hard.

when i finally write fiction, you'll know it. believe me.

so i guess.... i have to choose whether i'm okay with living under glass or not. if that's even possible to say. i've wondered about that... you know... the kids who are set up in play areas with toys and other kids with psychologists peering at them from behind one-way glass... not supposed to know they're being watched. i wonder if they get that feeling in the back of their necks that people (sometimes) get when eyes are upon them. i wonder if they think that feeling is normal. does that mess you up? will it mess me up to write when someone's watching? has it already? is my attempt to be honest really just an attempt to *appear* honest? who is my audience? is it me now, me in the future or you? have i made you up completely? are you my dear diary? or are you every voice that's ever praised or criticized me in my life? are you my justification? are you the one whose love i've been trying to earn since i was born?

what am i doing again?

i think you are all of that and more. i think you are a game called 20 million questions and i'm throwing out guesses fishing for the yes or no that will end the series of maybes that keeps me stretched tensely over every possibility my mind has ever adopted or conceived.

maybe an animal. maybe a mineral. maybe a plant. maybe everything.

"so much could change when you're in the pocket of the sun..."

for such supposedly intelligent beings... we depend a whole lot on other things to illuminate the world for us. if they lie we're screwed. you'd think we'd come with built-in metaphysical flashlights. well maybe we do.

"there's nothing like the world to bring you down.... and i'm nothing like the world... keep me around..."

here i am in the world: went to the ACE (american council on education) conference for women today and ate lots of yummy shit and listened to awesome women talk about how to be awesome women... one in particular was particularly awesome and taught me a lot about the things that women do to kill themselves in conversation... basically inserting apologies and disclaimers into everything we say to make ourselves less threatening to others.... it works too well... i'm going to have to give "maybe" a little vacation, i think, just to test this idea.... if it works you can start calling me badass, because i will be. right now i am sitting in my pink towel given to me by an aunt with odd taste in towels typing in words to be transferred to d-land because i don't trust my dial-up connection because i haven't paid that particular bill in a while and it could cut out at any time (i have the money to pay it but something bothers me about having to pay a $70 set-up fee for a line that it turns out was never disconnected from the last user so i'm silently revolting by accumulating late fees... brilliant) so that i can someday come back and print this all out and snip out pieces for future novels because i've looked back at things i've written in the past and thought they sounded better than what i'm doing now and am a little bit afraid that i'm getting stupider as time goes by... but i have to end now because i must put on clothes (meaning shorts, underwear, ankle socks, a grass-stained t-shirt and a sports bra) to go to practice to do my first round of navy seals exercises, which i'm dreading a little because i hate that boring, strenuous, repetitive shit that tires you out more than invigorates you, and pick-up, which is going to be fun as long as i'm not killed by the navy seals. yes. that is my world right now. and the radio's on. and woodrow is running around. he is actually sort of potty trained (i say sort of because all i really did was notice where he shits on the floor and put a box-top there... he now shits on the box-top)... i know it sounds gross, but hell. you haven't seen my apartment... grosser things have likely settled in by now.... my next place will be either much nicer or far away.

okay gotta go.

inward...outward