dreaming loving hoping and just having fun

This past month has been filled with ups and downs. I started to feel generally better. I think my meds are working and I have felt more motivation and stuff seems to be working out... I got a job working at a restaurant this summer and I was accepted to study in London in the fall. But so many things are going wrong...

My mom's sister died last week. She had been sick for awhile now...and I guess we kinda knew it was coming. That did not make it any better. It was the most gut wrenching thing I have ever experienced. I think the wake and funeral were the hardest things I have ever been through in my life. I guess I just can't express how I feel about it all. The night before she died, my aunt stayed up the entire night. She couldn't talk due things in her mouth allowiing her breathe, but she had just enough strength to write things down. She wrote goodbyes to her eight grandchildren and one grandson. They were displayed in a photo album at the wake and funeral. I barely made it through them. I have never read anything so emotionally charged. The notes all told the grandchildren things like "follow your dream" and "you are so smart and wonderful" and about how much she loved them. She also wrote a couple notes to her own children and to my mom. When my mom sat with her and said she was worried my aunt was scared, my aunt wrote "I'm too sick to be scared". My aunt then went on to write what she wanted at her funeral. Flowers that were in season, etc. The last thing she wrote was, "It's time to go now." The funeral was so beautiful. The wake was an open casket...it was my first and oh, so so terribly sad. At the funeral, we sang the songs she had written that she wanted us to sing. There were so many flowers. We went to her burial after the funeral. Her grandchildren read their goodbye letters. There was soo much delicious food...I'm sure she would have been soo proud about everything.

I wish there was some way I could really help my mom. This has been so hard for me, but I can't even imagine my mom...it was her sister. Now, both her sisters are dead. gone. forever.

My mom's aunt died last night. My uncle (the husband of my mom's sister that died a year ago) does not have much time. He did not seem to be doing well at all at the funeral...he could barely walk. He had been staying in Minneapolis with his son, but came back this weekend. His daughter took care of him until she had to go back to Indianapolis. The other night, no one could get ahold of him and he couldn't move. He is back in the hospital. It's only a matter of days, weeks, who knows....

I just don't know what to do anymore. I started feeling so much better about everything. Then all this comes along... all at once. I just don't know anymore. Death and despair are inevitable. They are the end. The only thing we have is to just try our best to make everything worth anything.

I just don't know.

i don't think i ever felt worse than i did last week. i broke down too many of those days and did not accomplish anything. however, things are looking up. i started feeling better saturday and it has just gotten better. i have felt better the last few days than i have felt in months, maybe even years. i think the medicine is kicking in. i hate to say that in a way. i wish everything was great without it, but hopefully this will get me back on track. with everything. i have actually begun to look forward to things. my motivation is back. unfortunately, the two weeks left won't let me bring all my grades up. but atleast i can finish with a bang.

my psychiatrist said she'd rather be shot than have either of my parents jobs. well, atleast i'm not paying for this shit.


i just can't seem to work things out. my prescription was doubled. maybe pills are the answer to all life's problems. maybe we are all too damn lazy to be happy and too damn lazy to work things out ourselves.

i guess some days are just better than other days. and some days are just nothing at all.

i broke down again. it seems like the drive between madison and fond du lac brings that out of me.


my mom's sister is dying. her only other one died last spring. i don't really know what to say. it's so painful to see your own mother cry. this makes me feel even lousier about everything i have been struggling with...what right do i have to feel so upset about my life when stuff like this is going on?

i'm really addicted to instant gratification...

i think i just have a hard time being satisfied. with anything. with everything. one piece of cheesecake? i want more. i'll eat it until i'm too sick to stick anything more in my mouth. or until it's gone. whichever comes first i suppose. i buy clothes? i want more. i go on a trip? i just want to go on another one once i get back. i fear i sometimes value quantity over quality. most days of the week, i'd probably prefer a shit bottle of wine over a glass of good wine. i guess there is stuff i do appreciate...my friendships, my parents' support... i just wish i could appreciate everything. and i do...to a certain extent. but i always seem to want more...

this semester has been a disappointment. in so many ways. it's nothing that has happened. there's no one else to blame. it's just me. i've been feeling really down lately. kinda about everything. i have been feeling so apathetic lately that it's beginning to show it's toll on me. i feel like an ass. i haven't been hanging out with my friends. i spend my time alone. or with john...the one person i've talked to about all this. i need to stop talking to him about it. it's just turned into me complaining about everything.

i was just reading over journal entries from the beginning of the year and i seemed so positive about my future and the present. now i just feel bummed. the future seems so far away and i just can't seem to appreciate the present. and there are so many things to be happy about. i miss so many people. i miss my therapist. i think it's about time to go back to one. i wish my old one would move to madison. i'm not depressed. i don't hate my life. i'm just in a stump. a rut. i just need to snap out of this. maybe it's the weather. it probably is. i hate winter. i hate wisconsin more than anything for it. i hate that when it gets cold, there is nothing to do but sit inside and drink. i don't want to sit around and drink anymore. i want to live. i want to experience things. i want to go out. and no, i'm not just talking about going out to the bars and drinking. i'm just looking for something more than that. i'm not sure what.

there are so many great things about this year. i have the most amazing art history professor. i love my school. there is a plethora of great shows coming up and i've been to several this past month alone. i am in love with john. in love. crazy in love. who would have ever thought? i want to take some time off. but next semester offers so many art history classes i really want to take. i'm wondering if i should try for an art education degree. i mean, it won't make great money. but i'd love doing it. i don't know.

i need to start making an effort at everything. i think spring will help. fuck, i can't wait until spring. i don't think there is any way i could live in wisconsin after school. winter just depresses me. i need to start working harder in my classes. they are all classes i really like or atleast can do well in if i just put in the effort. no math or science this semester. thank goodness.

i need to make an effort with my friends. i miss them. i hope they understand that it's not that i don't want to hang out with them. i just have been wanting to be alone a lot lately. i hope they don't think i want to spend all my time with john. it's not that. it's just that he is the one i talk to about this stuff. i don't want to be a fuckshit and bum out everyone by being a fuckshit. you know? i don't know.

my inspiration's back...

i've been spending a lot of time at chazen lately (i wish it was still the elvehjem though...) and reading a lot about warhol and lichtenstein :)

guess i'm not going to be able to go to the umphreys/keller shows

shit...

i'm in a rut. maybe it's the weather. i feel lazy as hell and haven't gone to my morning classes all week. ugh. i need something to snap me out of this. soon...

ok, so i also decided that i want a little movie theater in my vermont house too....

This past year, I have really started to figure out who I am and am coming to terms with everything in my life. I decided that my dream is to one day move to NW Vermont and build a beautiful house with a big kitchen where I can bake, a library with floor to ceiling books, a huge garden, and a path leading to another small building where I can paint and develop photographs. Looking out of my house, I want to be able to see the mountains. I decided NE Vermont would be perfect because I would be half a day away from NYC and also from the ocean, an hour from Canada, and close to a lot of beautiful parks.

I've also finally figured out my major and atleast what I want to do with the next couple years of my life. I've decided to stick with Business and Art History. The business part doesn't excite me quite so much, but it is going to be my base that will get me the money I need to be able to fulfill all my crazy dreams. Since my prospects of getting into the business school here aren't looking too good, I have decided to just complete my Art History degree here, then go to grad school for Business. And I'm even considering accounting...who would have thought!? I am really happy with this decision beacuse it allows me to get a broader education now before I focus later. The Art History program here is so flexible so I am going to be able to take a lot of classes that interest me. And next semester I get to take Intro to Buddhism! So since the program is so flexible, I might be able to graduate here early (that is, if I take a couple semesters with full loads and take a bunch of classes this summer). We'll see how that pans out, but if it does happen, I'll be going to grad school the year that I would have been completing my senior year here which kinda excites me... Although I have no idea where I want to go to grad school... I was thinking of Milwaukee or Minnesota, but this cold weather lately has been making me rethink that.

I think I might go to culinary school or get my masters in Art History. I'd love to open a dessert/coffee shop or maybe an art gallery. There's too many things I want to do with my life so I'm pretty sure I am going to go back to school about 18 times.

Ok, enough of future talk. I love this house. I couldn't ask for better roommates and I love this neighborhood. It's so peaceful and beautiful. We went over to the rooftop garden at Monona Terrace for the first time a couple weeks ago and I absolutely love it there. I think we're going to stay in this house next year again because we would definitely not be able to find another house this nice for this price.

So I went to the podiatrist today...turns out the pain was actually a problem in a joint. I got a steroid shot and was bandaged up. I now have to wear a boot (well not an actual boot this time, but a big open toed shoe with velcro straps) for a week. But atleast it's looking like I won't have to get the pin removed...atleast not until winter break. Shit.

P.S. Just got back from the Yonder show. Fucking great.

After two weeks of increasing foot pain, I finally dragged myself to UHS and spent 2 hours there getting it looked at and getting x-rays only to find out that the pin in my bone put in during foot surgery five years ago is coming out into the soft tissue. It looks like I have to go back to my podiatrist, not an easy task considering it's really hard to miss classes right now to make a trip to Fond du Lac. And it's looking like the earliest time I can go is a week from Friday which means a)the pain will continue for another week and a half, b)I will have to miss Plants & Man which I am NOT happy about, c)my mom will have to leave Fond du Lac at 6 am in order to pick me up and take me back for the appointment, and d)the minor surgery means I will probably be laid up for that weekend which I am not excited about either. Feet suck. Especially feet with shitty bones.

The day after my parents left for Ireland, I received a book in the mail my mother had sent me entitled "Life Lessons for My Sisters." I thought it was sweet of my mother to send this book of poetry and other motivational "lessons" since she knows I've been stumbling as far as decisions about my future go. I'm pretty sure my mother thought the word sister, though, means that it is for girls or family members and didn't notice the black woman on the cover next to the words "Previously published as Life Lessons for My Black Girls." Or maybe she's just trying to tell me something.

I missed both nights of Umphrey's. shit.



Breathe easy, the less you have to offer the less you stand to lose
Think slowly, the more you have invested the more you care to claim
Dream focused, as often as you've wandered you carried too much weight

..

we picked up a bottle of jack...along with some cheap vodka and rum. needless to say, it was what i needed after the week i had. i can't believe brandon went to the raq show... jenna and i had been planning to go for so long but didn't due to the lack of alcohol and the abundance of homework.

shit.

umphrey's is tomorrow.

:)

I just spent 4 hours at the coffee shop studying for my math exam tomorrow and I'm not even close to done.

Finite mathematics sucks.

Have you ever randomly felt like you were in a movie?? I was walking to the grocery store with my music on just about as loud as it can go and the music moved me forward along the sidewalk. I felt like I was in a movie...almost like I could see what was going on from a different perspective and everything was just my life. It was like I could look at my life two dimensionally without viewing it that way. I realized how much different things are 2 dimensionally.

Does that make sense? Or maybe I have really just hit the bong one too many times today.

When I was walking back to the house, I was approaching the corner of our street, the sun was setting and again I had my music blasting...this time it was the song "Make Everyone Happy/Mechnical Birds" by Modest. And as it got to the end of the song where the music is chaotic and makes you feel hyped and rushed, a firetruck came blaring down the street about to turn at the corner. A car coming from the other direction kept driving and rammed into the firetruck. Now for some reason this scene seemed really bizarre especially due to the music I was listening to. The firetruck then paused for a minute until it crossed the street to park while the other car parked right where it was. Firemen ran out of the truck and ran around the truck while the other car sat idle in the middle of the intersection. Neither the car nor truck looked dented at all. Now if the firetruck was in such a hurry to get to an emergency, would it really pause for a scratch or two? I don't know why but it just seemed like a crazy scene.

I wish I could have been part of the beatnik generation.