Lonely guy at Rao’s tried to pick me up with lengthy conversation . . . which is sort of something I’ve always imagined happening at Rao’s. I wish I lived in the world where it was okay to go somewhere with a stranger named Heaven, but I have to assume he is a rapist, or at the very least that his desperately open manner is an attempt at manipulation and not simple honesty and friendliness. At least he actually did carry away with him what looked like an art portfolio, so he didn’t just make that up.

Random people at Rao’s:
-But will the truth set you free?
-No, most of the time it’s just a fucking burden.

-I’m the reincarnation of a female.
-So, love is just a very different thing for you?
-Ha, it’s very . . . dynamic . . . not one thing or another . . .
-It’s that way for most of us.
-I don’t understand men . . . [stuff] . . . as a consequence I’ve become a voyeur . . . [he’s gray-haired and bearded, brown-skinned, and sings now and then in a gravelly low voice, “it’s getting better”]

-[the college student trying to figure him out] So you’re still attracted to women? I have a strong feminine side myself, so I can identify with that . . . I don’t know if it means I was a woman in a past life.
-There are historical eras in which it is necessary to be attracted only to women . . . it is far worse than an exercise in fertility . . . it is an exercise in self-immolation.
-But there still has to be sex, doesn’t there? To keep us going . . . I guess it can happen outside of a partnership . . .

Also, because it’s useful for writing purposes to know how people meet, Heaven started out by saying, “Excuse me, do you know what the date is?” I looked at my watch and answered, the 26th. He’s said he’s not from around here . . . in my head I tried to connect that to why he didn’t know what the date was, probably because I expected he would be following the Gricean conversational maxim of relevance, so I asked him where he was from, expecting a foreign country despite his ordinary American English. He turned out to be from New Hampshire, though, and before that Boston, and his family’s from North Carolina.

We talked about living alone, because he lives alone now, having grown up in a nine-children family and separated from a wife and kids, and because I’ve been thinking fleetingly about what it would be like to quit school and live on my own in a room somewhere and have an exasperating working class job but spend every spare minute writing . . . he said to follow my heart, it doesn’t matter what other people think. Aww. He said that tomorrow or even tonight I could come up with the idea for a novel, but by the time four years is over, it will be gone. Which, of course, is true.

He walked with a limp – cerebral palsy.

I need people to answer a question for me.
Why are you in college?
What are your specific, personal reasons for doing this?

I think it's exciting. You thought it was going to be warm from now on but then oh wait, it's snowing! Keeps you on your toes.

Also, I realized the reason why sometimes I don't feel Jewish compared to people from Amherst, when actually I'm really Jewish, is because I'm not New York Jewish. And instead of being a "Jewish mother," my mom is a dirty hippie.

Also. If someone has had horrible things happen to them, and then does horrible things to you, is it still possible to feel bad for them?

Can I please just meet someone amazing in the next six days who will want to be my roommate next year and who isn't trying to get a single? Because I'm scared I won't get a single, and I'll get doubled with a freshman or transfer student who will think I'm a total freak for not having someone I already know to room with, even though I'm a returning student. And then I feel bad for not asking all my friends if they'll room with me, but there are some people who I know I wouldn't want to room with, even if they are my friends. Roommates is almost like a different relationship from friendship, kind of in the way that sibling-ness is, only without the shared history. Someone suggested trying to get a medical single but I'm not willing to have it down in any books that there's something wrong with me, I've done that before and I'm done with it, even if it is for a practical purpose. But I still might try to get an exemption from the meal plan . . . I'm willing to have it recorded that I have crazy food allergies or something.

They released Jill Carroll!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can't be dumb and say "there's good in the world yet," because it's not actually good, it's more like it's not as bad as could have been, for once. I mean it's only good in relation to the badness of what has been and what was expected -- "good" would have been for there not to have been a kidnapping at all, or a war, or war in general. I haven't read a news story or anything yet, just got the email from the journalism advisor. Maybe I'll stay in journalism for the amazing emails.

Now they can take down the enigmatically-puncuated sign on the student union building:

FREE
"Jill"

Dear UMass,

Why do you force us to buy phones and set up our voicemails and then have the only callers be drunk guys at 1 in the morning, people trying to reach some business or other, and TELEMARKETERS?? Why, why the telemarketers? Are you trying to encourage credit card debt? Why, UMass, why? I like having an official phone number that's not my cell, like I like having a school email address, but why the threat that if we didn't set up our voicemails, the cluster office would refuse to give us spare keys when YOU NEVER CALL US ABOUT ANYTHING IMPORTANT?? Why?

I wish that instead of having sex we touched each other's fingertips and had deep spiritual connections.

A random guy in Northampton tonight asked me if I wanted a ride and followed me. I knew that as long as I didn't get in a car with him he couldn't really hurt me, but it was the craziest fucking thing, trying to read the bus schedule but not being able to concentrate because he's walking right up to me, sketchy as hell, and knowing there are lots of things someone could do right there, flash me, touch me, because a normal person with good intentions doesn't ask a random person if she wants a ride and then follow her. It was the stop by the post office so technically a public place but not a lot of people around. This dichotomy of security and fear, because I knew I wasn't getting in his fucking car and there were people in the post office nearby, but also what the fuck would I do if he suddenly grabbed me or pushed me or something right there, I mean I wouldn't know what the fuck to do, like there was this moment of thinking there's nothing the fuck I can do about an immediate physical attack so I just have to see what happens. He backed off after he asked "do you want a ride?" again and I said "no" not even "no thanks" just "NO" and he said "are you sure?" and I said "YES." So no big deal, just super sketch, and parents tell me I should take a self-defense course while at the university. I was wearing clearly feminine clothes, my black film noir skirt and boots, so I wonder if just the obvious femininity of that is saying "target." Snow is everywhere, I have been so screwed up these past three weeks. It was like I didn't want to look at him, because I was so scared of the whole situation, but I did because I felt like I should know what I was getting into if he were going to do something.

Quote from linguistics class:
"Everyone participates in the week. Not everyone participates in bagels."
Similarly, in Jews class I learned that this word exists: beygele. It means a little bagel.
(Sophie:
"That is so cute! I want one.")

Post-it notes stuck on various surfaces and appliances in the Butterfield kitchen:

BACTERIA

FOOD POISONING

FESTERING GERMS

BACTERIA

BIRD FLU

STD

You're a fucking slob

YES, YOU

My dad brought me roses and made me a construction paper valentine which I put up on my wall. “Be my Valentine” spelled elegantly in glitter – he is so meticulous and artistic. Also I gave Sophie a similar sort of Valentine this morning, which I’d made when I’d come home for Shabbat a few weeks before and found my mother making Valentines for all her grand kids and grand nieces and nephews, the way she used to make them for Jonah and me. She used to make them for us and put them on the table so we’d see them when we sat down for breakfast on Valentine’s Day morning. I remember her making one for me in the shape of a cat head.

Sophie remembered how in elementary school she used to make them for everyone in her class, and they all had decorated paper bags for people to put them in, and they had Valentine’s Day parties that lasted half the day. I remember that too. It was really a big holiday. Now it’s just a day to remind me I’ve been single one more year. I also remember how in eighth grade, Tye, Erika then, criticized our lunch table for not sending each other those carnations you could order at lunch time in the week before to be delivered to your friends in their advisories. I said something to the effect that I didn’t believe in that stuff, and she said something like it still makes people feel good to get them when everyone else is. I remembered this and sent a few of these kinds of things throughout high school, the carnations and also candy on Halloween, mainly to Jessamyn.

Sophie advised me not to put the roses on the windowsill as it would be too cold for them, but up on my desk I’m worried they won’t get enough sun. Also sort of related to Valentine's Day is that I'll be in the UMass Vagina Monologues, in a new piece about transgendered women and again in Crooked Braid.

I drank the best wine I've ever tasted on a mountain in northern California, then rode the last bit home through an absurdly vicious winter storm. I love and despise my family so much. I won't see Mishi again until Jonah's graduation.

Tomorrow we are going to a warmer place.

1. what did you do in 2005 that you'd never done before? went to san francisco
2. did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? for next year - write every day
3. did anyone close to you give birth? Davida!
4. did anyone close to you die? no
5. what countries did you visit? California
6. what would you like to have in 2006 that you lacked in 2005? driver's license
7. what date from 2005 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? April 1 - admission decisions
8. what was your biggest achievement of the year? I wrote
9. what was your biggest failure? not getting into bard
10. did you suffer illness or injury? I got the flu TWICE and I injured my neck on stairs.
11. what was the best thing you bought? corset!
12. whose behavior merited celebration? Davida! and Mishi, for letting me come stay with her. and lots of others.
13. whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? can't say here
14. where did most of your money go? FOOD
15. what did you get really, really, really excited about? college!
16. what song(s) will always remind you of 2005? the shins for the month of june. killers songs "Mr Brightside" and "Somebody Told Me" remind me of flying to San Francisco. Elliot Smith's "Pictures of Me" reminds me of driving around San Fran with my sister. "all these things that i've done" reminds me of walking around campus and feeling like life is gorgeous.
17. compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? SO MUCH HAPPIER
ii. thinner or fatter? about the same
iii. richer or poorer? right now, poorer, but in general richer because i have a job
18. what do you wish you'd done more of? writing
19. what do you wish you'd done less of? stressing about high school
20. how did you spend chanukkah? chanukah is gloriously long. in the beginning i was at my aunt's house, very sick. then we came home and my brother was here the whole time and i got my mom the lord of the rings dvds and LIFE IS GORGEOUS
21. what have you learned about yourself in 2005? if i don't write it is LAZINESS and a WASTE
22. did you fall in love in 2005? like when you dream about them? just a little
23. how many one-night stands? zip
24. what was your favorite TV program? i actually don't really like tv. i think it's because my parents let me watch as much of it as I wanted.
25. do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? um the designers of SPIRE
26. what was the best book you read? it is going to be a tie between everything is illuminated, the god of small things, and midnight's children.
27. what was your greatest musical discovery? ipod and itunes CHANGED MY LIFE. the shins and suzanne vega
28. what did you want and get? to get picked for the poetry thing!
29. what did you want and not get? the exiting of certain demons from my head
30. what was your favorite film of this year? a more interesting question would be, what was your greatest film discovery?, and that is going to be THE DIRECTOR SERGIO LEONE and revisionist westerns in general
31. what did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? i was 18 and i probably did nothing
32. what was one thing that would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? passing my driver's test
33. how would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2005? skirts! and i thirsted after tall black leather boots until I GOT THEM.
34. what kept you sane? knowing i was going to leave high school
35. which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? jonathan safran foer?
36. what political issue stirred you the most? GLOBAL FUCKING WARMING. FUCK
37. who did you miss? see, i don't actually appreciate other people
38. who was the best new person you met? the favoritism inherent in any possible answer bothers me
39. tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2005: GET ENOUGH SLEEP. it could change your whole outlook on life
40. quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

"I got soul, but I'm not a soldier"

-- the killers' "all these things that I've done"

Everyone thinks the worst thing about getting the flu is throwing up, but it's not. It's the fever. The pain where my hips rested on the bed was unbelievable. I had to move constantly, I tried to lie on my side but my stomach couldn't take it. I thought about running up hills. I thought about races. But making yourself hurt for around twenty-five minutes is different from feeling this thing happen to you. They told me it was a 12-hour flu. I'd thrown up at 3 in the morning. So now it was 10:45, 11 AM . . . I cannot express how slowly time went by. I'd look at my watch, I thought I must have lasted through hours, it had been less than ten minutes. Throwing up is a diversion.

Today I went for a run in 10 degrees. When I got back Sophie noticed that frost had gathered on my shoulders and hat.

Last night she surprised me with sparkling cider to toast me for winning the poetry thing! Later I gave her fuzzy socks for Chanukah/end of exams.

Linguistics was painless. Just the fiction conference left, and packing.

Fuck college. I oversoaped the washing machine. Let's just go home.

The warmth today felt gorgeous. But the rain in your face didn’t, and you fought not to slip in partly-frozen slush.

My environmental policy final is tomorrow, but I can’t study for it anymore. I got As on all the midterms. I think our professor has made me sick of it. “I fought these wars,” he yelled at our honors section. He made us get into fights with him and we didn’t even understand what side he thought we were on.

Cap-and-trade. Incentive-based. Behavioral not technological. I feel like I’ve really learned something. I feel guilty for knowing I won’t spend my life on this.

I won something! There's this 5-college poetry fest. A lot of people on my floor submitted to it. From the submissions they picked two people from each of the colleges. One of them is meeeeeeee!

This means I'm going to have to read in front of a bunch of people. OH MY GOD.

I wanted to jump around and tell people on my floor, but I couldn't, because I didn't want to make the other people who submitted to it feel bad. My roommate submitted to it. To the fest. What a horrible word. Fest.

Number of times word "people" has appeared in this entry so far: 6. I actually tried to edit some instances out, but it didn't work.

I have linguistics tomorrow! (And tutoring. Jesus Christ.)

Boy from car, Saturday night: "Baby, my love for you is like diarrhea: I just can't keep it in!"