My ISP, NetZero, just did something spectacularly annoying. Now, when I sign on, it opens this giant browser thing that swallows up my entire screen, taskbar and all, and I can't get rid of it. This is annoying beyond words. I want my DSL back. Whimper.

In case that rousing opening didn't clue you in, this entry will probably be rather random and disconnected. I wrote a real, heartfelt entry the other day, but I can't post it at the present time. At some point, you'll get real and heartfelt. Today, you get random and disconnected, perhaps with a treat inside, like a box of cracker jacks.

Okay, I'll just go down the list of things I have to write about. My birthday is coming up in a mere, uh, twenty two days. It's going to be depressing, turning twenty six. It seems like I will be aged and decrepit, when I am twenty six. I realize it's actually not a decrepit age, but it seems like I have no excuse not to be a grownup, now. And I am so not ready to be a grownup.

I've been resisting temptation to buy myself stuff, rationalizing that my birthday is coming up and I will put it on my wish list. So I did! This mostly applies to those of you who are related to me (and you know who you are) who can go here to buy me presents. If you are so inclined.

Also on my list: Corina and Wes are coming in May. They're arriving on the nineteenth, and the great news is that my school ends the fourteenth. I know they have other places to go and people to see, but I'm available for them as soon as they want me. Now we just have to make sure Jen is on the plane with them, and I will be one happy little camper.

I was an hour late for class today because I stayed up until five in the morning downloading songs off Napster (while I still can) and reading. Well, I hung out with Michael for a while first. But that's a whole other entry. Anyway.

Some of the songs I got include the cover of Five to One by Marilyn Manson (and that is one killer cover tune, right there), the cast of My Best Friend's Wedding singing Say A Little Prayer (which is the best part of that movie), and Shaggy's It Wasn't Me which features the lyric, "Picture this, we were both butt naked, bangin' on the bathroom floor." Or it could be "buck naked." Either way, that song kicks ass.

I also got How Do I Live by Leann Rimes (shut up) and For the Longest Time by Billy Joel and 3AM by matchbox twenty. And Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel from the Charlie's Angels soundtrack. And What I Did for Love from A Chorus Line. And the version of Sugar High with Renee Zellweger singing, from Empire Records.

If you hadn't already guessed, my musical tastes are wildly eclectic.

I told you that Joey has been unhappy with the program, right? Well, that's not something that's unique to Joey. Deb had major problems with the program, and if she hadn't gotten pregnant, she might have quit anyway. Laurie hasn't always been happy with it. And it's rubbing off on me a little, so I've been a little down. Among other things, I am worried that Joey and/or Laurie are going to quit. And if either of them are gone, things just will not be the same.

Joey hasn't made as many personal connections as I have in the program. For instance, in addition to my two girls, I consider all of the guys on the literary magazine as friends, and there are other friendships, I think, that are growing. Joey hasn't really gotten that, and she feels that there's not the level of closeness that she would like to see among the students. I guess I would like to do more socializing with the group, but that's partly my own fault. There are social opportunities I don't always take advantage of.

Also, there are some fucking annoying people in the program this year. Both Joey and Laurie have an extra class with the most annoying guy, who never shuts up, has major attitude and is a complete moron. I certainly wouldn't be as happy about life if I had to listen to that asshole for another three hours a week.

But most of all, Joey is unhappy with the program itself. It's disorganized and there's a lot of insider politics. One of my professors has practically made a career out of badmouthing the program and telling us our degrees will be meaningless, and our school is the mockery of the academic world. I tend to write him off as having his own axe to grind. Somehow, the second year students manage to simultaneously worship him and disregard his words. I have the stomach for neither.

Damn, I don't blame Joey for getting upset about it. In fact, I worry that my head is too much in the sand, and I'm not looking at it practically enough. What will my degree mean to me, in the end? In a way, I already gave up on finding the answer to that question. I went into this program knowing that I wanted to take the experience on its own terms, get as much out of it as possible, and not think too far ahead into the future. It wasn't a "practical" decision at all. It was a dream.

And when I look back on it, I can see that this was the right thing for me to do, the correct decision. This move meant a hell of a lot more to me than just joining a graduate program and getting a degree. It's all right here in this journal. I've grown as a person and creatively, too. That workshop the other day (which, sadly, my friends missed out on) was just an underlining of my creative rejuvenation.

So yes, I'm following my dream. But at what cost? Joey seems to be worrying about it. And that makes me worry, too. I don't want to graduate and have a meaningless piece of paper, and a bunch of debt, and regret. I guess I don't mind the meaningless paper and the debt so much. I just don't want the regret.

Candle

My body, diagonal and horizontal lines like paper. Use your tongue to write my biography, a marriage on my sternum, a nervous breakdown between my legs. Solar flares from each eye, a faucet of scald, orange, dripping my body off my bones like a body-shaped candle. The words of my story pooling at my feet. I am a slender wick, too hot to touch. Chase the flame down with your mouth, extinguish every flash point. My hand curved like the curve of a breast, my breast the pale pink of a snail. What solution should I arch my back towards? Paint the wax back on me, give me a shell. Your cage withholds me, lava pouring when I part my lips. Wait until my body has melted and cooled, wait until I can be recreated according to your mind. Bubbles are reserves of air, beautiful things. Helicopters might help, but the only way I can help (I believe) is to open a paper clip, etch words in the wax, smear blood in the grooves. Watch my autobiography melt at my feet, a party dress worn by an arrangement of bones.

"'Somewhere out there,' I thought, 'someone is writing Benton/Carter ‘shipper fan fiction.'

It came to me in a sick flash..."