From a friend's point of view, I suppose I was spacey today. Unless the friend was really close ad understood a thing or two about me, then they might call me preoccupied. I was in and out of current situations whiel I kept returning to a nagging issue which has been resting in the furthest back point in my head. This morning it emmerged from the folds in my brain and it's been wrestling with my conscious ever since. I'm a bad person. I'm a bad girlfriend. I'm so close to unfaithful that I don't see why anyone should trust me for more than a week.
I've never been someone's girlfriend as long as I've been Mark's. I've never seen such potential in any other boyfriend. The possibility of marrying Mark is very real and very scary. I've been scared of it in dangerous ways. I've actually been trying to sabotage our relationship ever since I first innitiated it over a year ago.
The first blow was when I agreed to a date with someone else the day after I had just been making out with Mark. I made out with her the next night, Mark the following night, her again, and mark again before I decided it was all too much and i broke it off with both of them. I told mark, "This isn't working out. I think I'm a lesbian." He said he agreed that it wasn't working, but he was actually pretty upset. If not for the imagery of me with a woman, I wonder if he would have hated me.
When the lesbian thing didn't work out, thankfully Mark was still playing the "still friends" roll really well. We hung out day after day. I thought the threat of marrying my father was gone, but it was still there, wearing a friendly face. When I learned that someone he liked when he was a senior in high school actually had a crush on him, I tried to set them up. I told her, "I'll ask him if he likes you that way still." Then I had lunch with Mark and tried for an hour to squeeze the words, "I still like her that way," from him. I don't know why it didn't work. As it turns out, Mark took my rejection much harder than I realized. He was lonely. So he put a lot of work in at the gym, obsessive amounts. And one day when he showed up at my door, he was overwhelmingly sexier than I remembered. I was really sad to see him go that night. But when he came back, I tried to keep him there. I didn't know how to go about leading him on, but I had a certain determination. If there was one thing i had learned about Mark by then, I knew he wouldn't make a move without knowing I wanted him to. So when I ran out of ideas to keep him busy in my room, I finally asked, "So, do you want to make out?" He seemed to like that idea. We turned down the lights and played some music, hopped into bed and picked up where we had left off three month before. That was December 10th, 2005, the day we decided to celebrate on our anniversary.

It seems every year I forget my coats at home. Actually, sometimes I leave them behind purposely because that way I have a lighter load the first trip. Also it's optomistic about the weather in the near future. Of course, every year I get a little pissed at my decision when these current temperatires come into season. Everyone around me has a coat. I have a rainjacket which I like very much, but it provides no insulation. If I had the choice, I wou;d be wearing my wool jacket today. The lining is ripped to shit, but it's still a snazzy looking garment from teh outside. Maybe I cou;d go to Joanne's and get some silky paisly patterned fabric to replace the lining.

Standing on his porch which has become the entrance to my second home, I was only kissing him goodbye. I was sending him off like a wife for her husband before a long business trip. I can't help but think of in a marital situation. It's either an option for the future or a dead end relationship. It's a little scary, but it's an option. I think it has a good chance. There is too much about him that I like. Strange things, things that I didn't even know existed in anyone.
He looked down the street and pointed out a thin man in a dark suit and red tie. "That guy is really tall."
I recognized him immediately and waved as I shouted across the street, "Hey Alex. Looking good!" Soon Alex was standing where Mark had just left and I was just his stay at home woman minding his house and his neighbors. Alex an I talked for at least twenty minutes, mostly about Mark. It turns out Alex is no taller than Mark. He's no more manly, either. In order to counter Alex's opinion that Mark seams like a borring guy, I told him of the most unusual thing could think of concerning Mark's prsonality.
"Blood lust. Do you ever get it?"
"Whoa." He meant whoa, too. "That's kind of scary. You're dating a guy who is turned on by blood?"
"No. That's not what blood lust is. It's more like a thirst for making someone bleed." Thinking back on Mark's description of the phenomeonon, I tried explaining it accurately. "He'll just suddenly get the urge to hurt someone. Like, if we were at a party together and he suddenly had blood lust, he'd hope someone would hit on me, because then he'd have a reason to punch the guy in the face. He doesn't want to punch me in the face. he wants to punch people in the face FOR me."
Upon learning this, Alex began to step away from me cautiously.
Alex doesn't get blood lust. Nor does he ever want to be violent against things or people. That's why I'm not with a guy like Alex. I think it's a total turn on that Mark will so willingly protect me as his girlfriend. He sometimes hopes someone will threaten his possition as my boyfriend in order that he may show people what he will do for me. If it's tedious, he probably would complete his task begrudgingly. But if all he has to do is kill a man, I think he might be more willing.

Meanwhile, Carrie and Jake have been planning a night of sophisticate drunkenness with Karen. Jake bought cheese and Carrie bought herself an ice cream cone. Karen was contacted to buy the whine. Now that she had it in hand, she called them back and awaited their arrival in her room. The stored piles of junk on her bed had been removed and put away. So had the stacks of books on her desk, the scatterings of laundry, and the trash.

I like doughnuts. I can't not want them. If I see one, I want to eat it. It's so inexpensive and so munchable. And it's glazed with what can only be the most deliciously edible topping. Sugar.

On with the story
When Carrie and Jake finally arrived, ....actually I don't want to tell this story anymore. Not at all.

I'd like to illustrate Ann Arbor as a massive plane balancing upon a tall, narrow pyramid. The tip is fastened to the dead center of the city. The land bends under the pressure of extra weight like a fishing poll snagged on weeds. As people flood in for football games, the south side of the map sinks dramaticly and the north end becomes elated and light. It floats up in the absence of its residents. Only the few who remain at home can see it tip upwards at an eighty degree angle, the most grandeous rollercoaster. Some loose their grip and slip off, roll down the streets until they plumet into the black hole of the big house.
In the summer, the bending dips and trenches of massive student weight all straighten and smooth themsleves out. Ann Arbor becomes as flat as a prarie, not stressed or pressured. The city becomes light to the point where things seem to float. The growing grass is just the packed down ground being released upwards.
The more sudden popluation changes that occur around holidays such as Thanksgiving or spring break cause an elastic whiplash in the ground. The pavement cracks as the outer corners of town are released from traffic moving down the highways. They swing upwards and curl in, then bounce back again and again, reverberating into a quiet, flat plane just as the departed students are kissing their mothers hello.

Once upon a time, on a night just like this, following off and on rains that left shallow puddles zagging through the sidewalks, a girl was very tired. And the cold, damp weather did nothing to excite her taste for adventure. Still, her weekend evening chores dragged her back and forth on a long walk. On her way, she became aware of a rare earie silence. When she paused to look around for the souce of the silence, her eyes were met by no people walking by, no lights in windows, no music or telivision sounds to be heard from the neighborhood in which she lived.
"Where is everybody?" She asked herself. "It's a weekend and everyone should be out, drunk, loud, and obnoxious." But there was only the distant sound of cars downtown and a calm conversation in a house around the corner. She trudged on, trying not to splash rainwater on her ankles, wishing she were with someone safe.
She only met a few locals and a couble of older business men when she crossed Main St. By the time she crossed back over, it was even more deserted. The form of a gangly man under a bridge was barely vissible, outlined only by reflections of street lamps on the wet pavement he stood on. But he became more identifiable as he walked closer to the girl while she waiting at the crosswalk for their unavoidable encounter. He caught up to her just as the traffic stopped for pedestrians. It would be a long walk home, and she would be followed every step of the way.
As she walked on slowely, hoping he'd pass, no sound interrupted the steps of her shoes and the sloshes of his steps, immediatelt behind hers. But suddenly, he broke the silence with a painfully unignorable word.
"Karen?"
Turning around and finaly seeing the face of her pursuer, she recognized him immediately. "Hi, hi, it's you!" she responded.
"Hey, where are you going?"
"Just back to my house. I'm turning in early tonight."
"Well since yo udon't have plans already, you shoud; come with me to a party. It's on East Paris. You know Kim, right? It's her house!" He obviously didn't consider getting sleep much of a plan, so she played along with the idea for lack of a better tactic. At least she would have some company on her walk to bed.

Jesus Mom! You are begging me to come home for a w eekend, but before you were ordering me to get a job for the weekeneds. And you are now asking me for teh second time to join an honor's society sorrority. I'm am neither the honor student type nor the greek system type. I'm not willing to do work for some group I have no connection to in order to have a few extra pretty words on my resume. If you ever want to see your daughter again, ease up on the pressure. Otherwise, teh next thing you know, she'll be no more than a hunched over, sex-starved, pale, overworked, coughing, sleepless working zombie. I'll complete my homework on the way to work, remove my uniform on the way to class, check my email on the way to honors meetings, clean my house while I eat my dinner, etc. But I'll still have an entire weekend to devote to my mother. You get it. And I'll sleep in between sentences. So when I wake up from dreams I'll have to reorrient myself in the rooom I dozed off in only a moment before.

That happens to me already. I woke up a few times in my TMP video class. The first time, Andy tapped me under the chin to wake me, but I was certain that it was actually Mark slapping his tounge against my head. The second time I saw serving plates full of meet entrees. At least four of them were meat. But as I was about to say, "We do not need this much meet!" I was cut off by a nudge. I was three words in when I realized there was no meat on my table, only a computer. The third time I woke, I looked around and asked Andy, "Did the professor just say something about a dog?"

I'd like to be a sleepwalker. I wonder where I would go. Maybe I wou;dn't go anywhere, but I wou;d instead fuck Mark in my sleep. He'd have to have an erection. And if I woke him up in the middle of the night for sex, he wouldn't take it too well. Crappy sex, that's what you get.

I like waking him up with my mouth on his cock. I haven't done that in a while. My worst fear, actually come true once, is not being able to open my jaw enough to give head. Actually it's not my worst fear, but I still don't want it happening. And it did happen. My jaw needs to be examined. If I'm going to continuously have a problem opening my mouth to take bites from a sandwich or suck on large objects, some sort of action must be taken to keep the closed mouth episodes to a minimum.

It scares me. I have an extroardinarily large oral cavity. But recently, there have been long instances in which my mouth size is limitted due to a kwirk in the hinge of my jaw. It's all clicky and it gets caught somehow. Then it just rights itself again twenty minutes later.

Jesus I'm tired. I think I'll take a nap.

The girl sitting to my left has a really cool shirt on. Every so often I look around and notice that most people have more interesting shirts than I do. My clothing is simple. Jeans, tank top if it's warm, t-shirt if I haven't shaved under my arms, hoodie if it's cold. And I wear the same sneakers every day. I'm very loyal to my yellow striped adidas. I think they're interesting because they're designed for broomball which is played on ice. There is a row is narrow drill holes along the soles on each shoe. Also there is a sort of canal along the outer edge. tracing the inside of my footprint. These are to facilitate the expansion and contraction of the rubber in extreme, quick temperature changes.

I feel like my shoes are smart. And I feel like they have a certain personality I'd like people to see me associated with. That's a strabge thingabout me. I find apersonality in inanimatee objects, and then I choose them as my friends if we get along. If I were to loose my shoes, it would be like miplacing the contact information of a friend, or maybe more like that friend moved away without saying goodbye. Fucking bitch.

Sometimes my objects gradually ween themselves from my interractions. Other times I replace them because they screwed me over. For example, the exacto knife I used to use regularly failed me in a most crutial time of need. It wasn't long before it was in with the new and out with that bastard fair weather friend. I will never trust those exacto knives again. But I'm aquainted with many utility knives and we seem to get along swimmingly.

Duct tape and I don't get along. He's a really popular guy and a lot f people like him. Maybe he's nicer to them than he is to me. He just doesn't know how much better I can do. Duct take is comparable to a dealer who gives you shag when you're expecting hydroponic. You use it and you think you've got a good fix, but you can go through a whole roll of duct tape and anything you hang up will only fall down hard again and again. It's only made for ducts and it's no longer up to code for even those. Duct tape can just go to hell. Or prison.

While I was drunk teh othe rnight, a brilliant idea came to me. This idea was the best, the idea to end all brainstorming. I', sure it was good and if I could remember it the morning after, I still would have known the idea was good. But of course I have no idea what I was thinking other than maybe it included animals.
Maybe it didn't.
I was going to make my comic based upon this idea. That I remember. Also I m=remember that I paid Colleen back, all of her 7 dollars when we returned home from the liquor store. I remember that she didn't have pockets and when she gave me the money innitially, it came from her shoe and her bra. Who knows where she put it when she got it back?! Not Colleen.
When I was a sophomore in highschool, I dated a boy who opened my locker on the first try with what he called "The Junior Touch"... I knew it was corny, but still I let him put his junior touch to use. He took me to homecoming, took me to a party, got drunk and promptly forgot the whole evening before he took me home. I was mad.
It seemed there was no reason to have even gone to homecoming with him considering he'd forgotten it. It may as well have not happened. And sine that night, a girl called Becky something has been telling persons of no involvement that "Karen, the little whore, gave her virginity to Mike in his car parked in the garage that night."
The truth is he was too drunk for that to have happened. And I'd already given it to him once on his bed the previous week. It hurt and I bled on his sheets. And Mike's best budy found it.
Thinking it was funny, and not infact a serious embarrassment, Mike recounted the find telling me, "He's like, 'Was Karen a virgin or something? Either that or she was on her period because there is blood all over yoru bed.'"
I love a guy who knows how to make a girl feel special.
If Mike had only gotten me extremely drunk upon asking me out, and kept me that way for the month leading up to our break up, I wouldn't be dwelling on it. Maybe I'd still call myself a virgin.
(Well, not anymore, but you get the idea)

Last night I was offered a very nice compliment. Actually I received a bunch of compliments because I was wearing a pretty dress, but one stood out from the others. It wasn't about my dress and it didn't come from me looking pretty at all. I think it's something people have been trying to tell me for a while and I've just neve realized how flattering it is.
I'm sure Sarah's judgement was not impaired enough to discredit her comment about me being funny. She was drunk, but she was definately honest drunk, not stupid drunk. You know when people get to a certain point far from sober and way too close to their listener? That's where Sarah was. Luckily I was just passing by so she didn't have a chance to say much. But her comment started a conversation. Alex agreed that I am indeed funny, And she went on to say how rare it is for a girl to be as funny as I. So that made me feel good.

I wonder if she's right. Funny women are around. But I don't know of many who have a sense of humor like mine. I can think of loads of times when people have laughed at my comments and admitted that they never would have said it themselves. They never would have thought of it.

It's a bit of a bummer that we don't take the word "comic" to literally when we're talking about comic books. I would have an upper hand.

I've been called racist a few times. I guess I cou;d write about that.
The most recent attack on my ethics was during my critique of a thirty second video I made. In the few moments assigned, I zoomed in on the face of Josephine Baker in three of her painted portraits and created a dialogue between them. I thought it was interesting because I was appropriating someone's artwork after he appropriated someone's fame. And I created three personalityies out of one person, using my own voice split into three versions. It was a triple split of ourselves for both me and Josephine. Nothing was said about any of his. Nor was anything said about Josephones nipple, vissible in two of the paintings. Nor did they say anything about the rediculous things I had the images saying.
Instead, I was asked, "Why did you use a black woman. What does that mean?"
I answered that her race had no influence upon my decision in using her. Then someoen said that the only thing that made me think it wasn't about race was the fact that I am white.

For weeks I'll be dreamfree. But once I vaguely remember where my conscious spent the night, the odd memories will come flooding in every morning. Last night was another story maker in a line with every other night this month.

I've noticed a bit of a trend. A few days ago, I was with my boyfriend. It was really good, better than usual. And with my eyes closed, I had a sudden rush thinking I was with someone else. My first response was congratulating myself for doing something so bad. Then I decided I should stop right away because it was SO bad. But before any gyrating had lost rhythm, I realized it was my boyfriend, Mark, and there was no cause for alarm.

Since that night I've had multiple dreams that start with another man. And when I touch this other man, hold onto his arm or let him rest his hand on me, I second guess the action and worry about my loyalty. But when I look again, I'm relieved to see that it's actually Mark. I can continue flirting and just feel lucky that I don't have to stop.

Last night, my story began with Aaron, a co-worker who I believe has a thing for me. We were in a well decorated room with a brightly dressed bed. There was a red comforter, some teal and yellow cylindrical throw pillows, and a headboard that continued up the wall and across the ceiling. It looked like the bed in a makeover your child's room contest.

Anyway, Aaron sat on the bed. I sat next to him and he wrapped his hand on my knee. I held his bicep and the feeling of disappointing recognition dawned on me.


I think I have a guilty concious.

Please allow me to introduce myself. If I had a secretary, he or she could do my introduction. BUt I am just a single college student trying to master independence before I start paying people to work for me. I'm paying attention every day and seeing myself as a parasite in the belly of my parents' bank. Sometimes I'm more of a needy pet, someone you like to have around but hate to clean up after. Maybe they like cleaning up after me.
On the plus side, I'm feeling more and more optomistic of my ability to live without a crutch of friends and family. Or maybe I'm just thinking that I'm part of their crutches every once in a while. We're all much luckier than we feel. At least I am.

Work sucked today. It will probably suck tomorrow, the day after, and the day after that. The silver lining is I don't have work Friday, nor do I have class. But I'm still missing the first lecture of the semester to be at work.

I like the lectures. It's like going to the movies with all the students and faculty of the art school. We're a pretty cool community to get together. Sometimes the lecture is good, sometimes it's not. When you walk out of the theatre with all your class buddies, you have something to talk about.

Ups and downs...