of note: 8/25/2012

1. watched tiny furniture, had only seen the last ~30 min before, why is lena dunham's life so eerily relatable, why does every girl (between ages 22-28 maybe) feel this way, seems like we're all fucked
2. why is jemima kirke so cool, how does lena dunham know everything, why is david call so dreamy, guess what i am a tiny baby 12 year old writing in my diary
3. in my room there is a full, floor-to-ceiling bookshelf with three stacks of books piled in front of it, 8 moving boxes full of books, and 3 other small stacks of loose books, also the only bookshelf i brought back from my apartment is now almost full and is in the next room, also i already gave jackson a bunch of my books that he brought home with him, i can't have any more books someone needs to physically stop me from books like separate me from my books although it might be nice to die from being beaten to death by a bookshelf like that person in howard's end
4. just noticed my dad's bongos are on the very top of my bookshelf, some other good finds include an early edition of little bear, a copy of oliphaunt, and a drum stick from some band i listened to in high school that i was probably really excited about catching
5. who hurls drum sticks into crowds of teens i mean what even
6. i yelled at a baby in a restaurant tonight for being a baby, that would probably make a good tweet
7. my hair is a complete mess, life's bleak

of note: 8/23/2012

1. someone told me today that they felt 'super awake', seems like i have never been/never will be super awake. contemplating taking a nap, it is 8 pm
2. had a dream last night that jackson and i survived an emergency water landing in a plane, it was like super easy to do, but then they took us to this convention center or something with all these other plane crash survivors and the 5th grade bully was there, but like grown up. she was still bullying people. i gave her a bloody nose and jackson told me that was uncalled for
3. when i went to the gym, a girl who looked a lot like the grown up version of the 5th grade bully got on a stationary bike diagonally in front of the machine i was using and stared at me for my whole workout, kept playing out some like sitcom scene in my mind where she approaches me after i finish and tells me she's sorry for everything and how like in the sitcom we would have made up and become buddies but felt there was a significant chance i'd just punch her irl, like, felt a lot of internal aggression toward this person who may or may not have been the 5th grade bully. avoided eye contact with her when 'wiping down' the machine and walking away, guess i won't actually punch the bully
4. looked at a lot of articles on just jared and tmz, just like kept clicking from one to the next, felt like i really did want to know how big big sean is, what ke$ha looks like in a high-waisted bikini, and where prince harry had been playing strip poker
5. went to the dentist today, he's my next door neighbor and he always asks about my writing, i always forget how interested he is, seems super nice. he said (re: my thesis) 'it's not about a dentist who lives next door to you and is also a serial killer, is it?' i said no, that's my next one and he laughed a lot and called me 'sneaky'. real cute, but also maybe like 5% scary.

of note: 8/22/2012

1. went to an organized writing marathon today, not really i guess, was just a few friends who wanted to get writing done and decided to do it together and then drink wine after
2. two of the people i was with told me jackson and i weren't cute any more, we're just a normal couple to them now, we have reached our quota for novelty/cuteness hehe
3. 'the ravenous audience' by kate durbin came in the mail, real scary/cool cover, kind of scared to leave it by my bedside due to women on the cover with long black hair contorting their bodies in nightgowns 'the ring-style'
4. watched american psycho with jackson for date night, his dad is reading my copy of the book right now and said in there patrick bateman gets manicures, jackson just held up his fingers and said 'dun dun dun' and then joked about his mum making room for me in the closet (jakey, halp! eee)
5. have been forgetting to tweet lately, need to 'get on my grind'
6. some things i have read lately: best alt lit short stories, '(whatever shit is raw)' by ana c, 'thank u for touching me' by marie calloway, 'having a coke zero with you' by lk shaw, 'having a coke with you' by frank o'hara, 'how to date a browngirl, blackgirl, whitegirl, or halfie' by junot diaz
7. there's a big ol pimple on the inside of my nostril, folks

of note: 8/19/2012

1. am currently lying on my back in bed with my laptop on my tummy, it is almost 4 am, i feel very sleepy
2. am wearing an old jersey/'singlet' of jackson's he gave me when i visited him in december-january. remember when he wore it in a series of semi-nude photos he sent me before we met irl, sometime last year.
3. have been/am on skype with jackson for the past 7 hours. things we have accomplished while on skype: made 'mugshot' versions of ourselves via bbcamerica.com/cooper, discussed visual details of forthcoming collaborative ebook, jackson ate lunch and dinner, i ate a snack, read aloud and laughed at old rejected submissions to UP circa january 2012 (this is very mean, i do not recommend repeating it), talked about sex, showed jackson my boobs, played text twist, watched 'lil bitch' and 'lil bitch 2', read and discussed 'poem in which words have been left out' by charles jensen, talked about christian bok, looked at each other's poems
4. ate 'taro' flavored frozen yogurt today, it was light purple and v. cute, tasted yum like starchy coconut, found out later it is a root samoans eat that makes them 'big and strong' (read: obese), calories/fat/carbs in the frozen yogurt i ate were very low, feel confused by this
5. think my back is finally better, have been experiencing stabbing/radiating pains in my lower back since mid-july, friends asked me tonight how it was doing before we did a walk and i can honestly say it didn't give me any trouble, feel 85-90% okay as opposed to feeling only 50-60% okay earlier this month, never went to a doctor/chiropractor though i thought about it a lot lol, think daily yoga stretches and regular exercise have helped me get to where i am now without needing a professional opinion :)
6. did a series of self-portraits for tumblr where i put my face on a total of 9 men's faces circa 1864

of note: 8/18/2012

1. woke up at a normal time but didn't get out of bed until 3 pm because i felt hungry
2. didn't do much of note today, spent most of the day watching house hunters international with my dad, reading grow up outside on the deck, and going to dinner at an 'asian' restaurant called jasmine that is located in a strip mall.
3. when we did the part of the meal where we put everything in to go boxes, dad put his in upside down and then tried to 'flip it' when it was dripping all over the plastic bag, ended up shooting sauce from his mixed vege entree all over his own shorts.
4. my fortune said 'your home will be visited by good health and wealth', mom's fortune said 'a banker is someone who lends you an umbrella on a clear day'.
5. door to the bathroom was open with no lights on, walked past and saw my dad doing a sitting down pee
6. jackson and i are both sick. we have been on skype for 6 hrs 10 min and 59 seconds.

super big retrospective!! of note: 8/15 - 8/17

1. have been spending a lot of time feeling alternately overwhelmed and ecstatic about the creative writing class i'm teaching in the fall, have been manically adding/deleting readings from the syllabus

2. right now, internet writing from blake butler, socrates adams-florou, xTx, frank hinton, shane jones, mel bosworth, ana c. and richard chiem, sasha fletcher and daniel bailey, chad redden, russ woods and steve roggenbuck is included alongside 'classic ass bros' like ernest hemingway, lorrie moore, nabokov, updike, david foster wallace, joe brainard, allen ginsberg. seems good.

3. i have read and reread a whole lot of really good things by these and more writers and maybe will spend time making a list of what i most enjoyed but right now i am feeling too hungry to do that

4. basically all of 8/15 was spent doing things to 'craft' my syllabus, 8/16 was a mix of doing syllabus and doing things irl like going to the gym, and 8/17 i spent in washington, dc alternating between panic and euphoria

5. on 8/17 i got up at 8:00 am, drove to washington, dc and arrived at the state department at 10:45 am to get documents authorized. this is a really scary place. it is like a more cramped version of the dmv and a more insane version of the afterlife reception waiting room in beetlejuice. many people seem to know each other here and come here a lot. this seems very bad and scary. the room is v. long and narrow with chairs in rows of three against one side wall and a place to form a line against the other. the door is the back wall and a row of plexiglass windows with women behind them is the front wall. once you have your forms filled out, you stand in line until a plexiglass woman calls you up and takes your forms and gives you a number. then you sit down between two strangers and wait. they stop giving numbers at 11:00 am but continue to authorize forms until each number has been addressed. i read 'grow up' while waiting for ~1.5 hours for my documents to be authorized. while i was waiting, the nice/trim ethiopian man next to me was replaced by a larger smelly man who slept on my arm and apologized for  jabbing his elbow into my upper arm whenever he woke. while i was waiting, a man experiencing substance-induced psychosis with symptoms resembling paranoid schizophrenia attempted to pay for his authorized documents by digging through his pockets to produce ~25 crumpled $1 bills. while digging, he was also attempting (unsuccessfully) to balance and hold 1 big gulp cup, 1 subway soft drink, 2 wrappers from subway, a fedex envelope, and his returned documents via a series of 'juggling moves'. he became increasingly frustrated by these unsuccessful attempts and began to throw his personal belongings onto the ground/at the walls. his 'acquaintances' called out to him repeatedly and told him to stop this behavior, as he was in the state department and 'smelled like alcohol'. one of them approached him and tried to calm him down by collecting/counting the money and giving it to a plexiglass woman while the high person paced up and down the length of the room. this would have worked i think if the man hadn't banged into the trash can, upsetting his balance and causing him to grab his money from the acquaintance, shout 'i don't trust you' and return to throwing things. during this experience, the plexiglass women stopped calling out numbers. a middle aged middle eastern man in a suit who had been ahead of me in line when i arrived took photographs and video footage of these events while the high person's acquaintances questioned the legality of the middle eastern man's activities. eventually we had to evacuate the room after the plexiglass women called the police. then they brought him outside, brought us back in, and locked him outside. after the police arrived, the plexiglass women returned to authorizing documents and calling out numbers.

6. after going to the state department, i had to mail the documents, and then i had ~5 free hours until my friend's party in columbia heights. i spent this time driving to my 'regular' nail salon in georgetown, which was closed for the week, driving to an alternate nail salon and getting a shitty manicure, eating sushi at dean and deluca, driving to dupont and having coffee/working/skyping jackson at soho coffee & tea, buying alcohol, and then driving to columbia heights

7. at the party, i met a cat named carmine, had a lot of really good food prepared by my friends, drank the maximum amount of alcohol i could to still be able to safely drive home to maryland, and talked to my friends from my program about both grad school-related things and personal things (basically 'catching up' from a summer apart). it felt very good and relaxing to be around these people again, wish we had done things throughout the summer but then maybe we would have less to talk about now, idk. feel good about going 'back to school' and seeing them a lot more in the near future.

8. in the next week, i will participate in a dentist appointment, an optometrist appointment, a possible hair appointment, an organized writing marathon incl. other humans, multiple unorganized writing marathons by myself, a date night with jackson, a possible shopping experience and a possible second night in a row of socializing (tonight 8/18)

of note: 8/14/2012

1. i accidentally deleted my draft from 8/13 so i am ignoring that day, that day didn't exist
2. went to ukazoo (bookstore) to look for anthologies to teach with, felt nervous/anxious walking in and remember thinking 'i am getting awkward again, i was so much better last year, living at home makes me scared of everyone'. had to ask a cute black guy with glasses where the anthology section was, he was really nice. felt really calm and like 'in' my body while doing a kneel on the floor to read all the titles in the anthology section. picked up 'the norton anthology of short fiction: shorter third edition' for $3.99 and 'mondo barbie' for $4.49. saw 'there is no year' and 'bed' in the fiction section. looked for more used books because of buy 3 get 1 free deal but all the other books i wanted were new, left with just the two. felt good to know megan boyle worked there and liked working there.
3. read a 'digital galley' copy of buttercup's novella 'treees' (as stephen michael mcdowell) while on skype with jackson while he was reading it too. did a blurb together.
4. conversation with jackson: 'we're cool baby' 'we most certainly are' 'do cool people say that they're cool?' 'only the coolest ones' 'cool'
5. there is a lightning storm happening outside. jackson and i are about to watch 'funny ha ha' on skype. it is 'date night'.

of note: 8/12/2012

1. last day in annapolis was a perfect pool day incl. lunch, lounging, and swimming laps during adult swim. found some ppls hairs in my swimsuit when i showered after but hey, nothing says swimming pool like other people's filth

2. spent probably a total of an hour checking my freckles for signs of melanoma

3. finished reading 'the outsiders' today and did a cry, probably only about 20% as hard as when i read it as a preteen but still, i impressed myself. MAYBE I STAYED GOLD!

4. really freaked out about the olympic closing ceremony, good job britain thanks for producing some good music through the ages and giving birth to john lennon, david bowie, annie lennox, freddie mercury, eric idle and the spice girls

5. 'liked' this reblog on tumblr: 'i wanna live in an cozy apartment where it rains a lot and it snows and i live near a coffee shop and read books all the time and fall in love with someone' via hercoralcloset, post has 71,114 notes

BONUS, did this tweet:

of note: 8/11/2012

1. funny how what you read as a kid sticks the hardest in your mind, even stuff you don't realize til you're rereading 'the outsiders' and finding material you lifted and dumped directly into the manuscript you're working on now, fifteen years after you first read the book
2. i wonder if we're all writing from the kids inside of us, or if maybe just the dumb or lucky ones of us are doing that
3. jackson's mom got him a black turtleneck and it makes him look like either a mime or someone trying to look french. he's threatening to buy a beret and 'other french looking clothes'
4. had a dream last night that my parents saw me cybering jackson by peering into my room via a glass panel above the door like the one i had in my bedroom in my old apartment in washington, dc. [editor's note: did it anyway today]
5. had another dream last night in which jackson had a vagina

of note: 8/10/2012

1. wearing ck 'in2u' always makes me feel nostalgic for italy because i bought it when i was living in florence as an undergrad
2. did shopping today, got a white cropped blouse from new zealand-born designer rebecca taylor and a longish red tulip-hem skirt
3. did a swim today, 'getting back into it' so i set a goal of 20 laps and ended up doing 50
4. i don't know how to interact with little kids besides smiling at them and waving and maybe saying 'hi' or 'hello'
5. towns with french names always sound charming (basing this decision off reading guillaume morissette's interview for creepy faggot magazine)

of note: 8/9/2012

1. spent the day sailing and then lounging by a pool, greetings from annapolis
2. my face is legitimately made of the softest skin you could ever imagine
3. i am an elm tree
4. there is currently enough food on this boat to last us 3 years, there are four boxes of rice alone in here, how did all this food get here even
5. remembered a dream i had from 2-3 nights ago where i was in a city with my parents and my mom and i were having lunch on the roof of this skyscraper while my dad was busy down in the city doing something else, when we see this boxy, low-flying plane clip the top of a skyscraper (like the needle of it os) and the top comes off and hits another building and it like tips over and hits the next one, and the next one, and it's like dominos, and soon we know the building next to ours is gonna hit us, and my mom and i are holding hands and i'm saying 'we're gonna die' and she's telling me we don't know that for sure, but i can feel it in my gut and i close my eyes, and then the building is moving sideways and falling and then i open my eyes, and i know my mom is dead even though i can't see her face and i'm too scared to look, and everyone is dead, and i go down maybe 120 floors and only find 4-5 survivors and there are just all these bodies everywhere, and when i get to the ground floor both of my parents are there, like my mom's back and alive and there's this small group people and it's the end of the world and the zombies are coming, and our leader is telling us we have to get out of the city and into the woods because they'll be here in half an hour, and we have to grab clothes from our suitcases that will be good for walking 100+ miles per day in, and i woke myself up from the stress of trying to find the right outfits for that, like i just don't have the right kind of clothes for that in my regular closet let alone a vacation wardrobe

of note: 8/8/2012

1. spent a good portion of the day packing/preparing the boat for a sail tomorrow, will be gone sailing until at least monday (in any given harbor, sometimes there is internet and sometimes there is not. it is important to try to 'go with the flow' with this haha.)

2. see where the tide takes me lol

3. ready for the olympics to be over, shut it down london

4. read 'james ganas was my best friend and im sorry he died so young of cancer' by james ganas. was an enjoyable experience. if someone had presented 80-95% of these poems to me and told me they were written by steve roggenbuck i think i would have believed it. i don't mean that in a negative way, but i can see how it could be perceived negatively.

5. sometimes when i respond to emails for UP Literature i feel like i am playing a role. like i am a little shit who is also too nice for you to get mad at for rejecting you or asking you to change things abt your submission. this is a really fun role to play that i recommend trying and also could probably be satisfying as a 'personality type' if i could pull it off irl.

of note: 8/7/2012

1. no matter how early i wake up, my parents will always have been awake for at least five hours before me
2. feel like i want to 'break into' the farmers market 'scene'
3. dad, overheard talking to the tv: "'Positivity', hah. Is that even a word? 'Positivity'." (asked him later if he was being serious, he said "Yeah! I've heard of positive, I've heard of positively. What in the world is positivity?")
4. i think the positivity(lol)/negativity of my gym experience is in direct proportion to how few/many people are also in the gym, with 0 other people being optimum for pleasure
5. a real life example of what jackson and i fight about: 'you have such a good face' 'it's not as good as your face' 'yours is better' 'yours is' 'you have the best face' 'you have the cutest face' 'you have the prettiest face' 'you have the cutest pretty face' 'you have the prettiest cute face'

of note: 8/6/2012

1. worked on revising my english 101 syllabus for the fall semester all evening/night last night so this is pretty late, don't worry i slept i'm just writing it now
2. things always take longer than you expect them to. jackson says tasks will usually take the amount of time you have for them, he was quoting or paraphrasing someone and i probably got some of that wrong so i'm not sure if what i just said even resembles what he meant originally. also (case in point from the future (8/7): my mom just walked into my room with a list of groceries in one hand and a diet coke in the other to read me the list and see if i wanted to add anything) living at home with your parents makes everything take longer because they love you and want to talk to you all the time, especially when you appear busy.
3. think i will always remember the summer of 2012 as one of my happiest times but also as the summer my body turned against me via a string of mild-moderate heath problems that so far remain self-diagnosed and self-managed/cured including lactose intolerance and lower back pain, just seems like every time i start to figure out and overcome one type of physical discomfort a new one appears
4. every time i go to the wholefoods in mt. washington i see another shop i want to stop into (charm city cupcakes, uncle wiggly's) but by then i'm too tired of buying food to stop and actually go in
5. read 'measure my waist with a measuring tape in a car park on a hot day (and i will try my best not to write a poem about it)' by lk shaw, really liked the design of it, diy, irl, kewl

of note: 8/5/2012

1. man on the stair master at the gym had these arms that could have been cut from marble, his skin was literally glistening, i stared at him for way too long, couldn't look away, kept thinking 'why aren't you on tv, why are you here and not in london'
2. started raining right as i got home today, has been raining all evening and night, seems like a real good/comforting rain
3. had 4 'steps' to the revision process for my thesis draft due september 1, finished step 2 today :)
4. i feel very tired, but in a satisfying way, feels earned
5. had time to relax after working today, finally got to read 'dear dj' by mason johnson. got really excited to read this via hype and cuteness involving editing process/cassandra gillig, was not disappointed, was a real cool ebook. things i still want to read: 'american idle' by jae dyche and patrick trotti, 'i imagine you in your house, cleaning your chest' by sarah jean alexander, things by mike bushnell and buttercup mcgillicuddy that they gave/sent me to read

of note: 8/4/2012

1. video is the encapsulation of everything i love about kiwis, and hopefully also my future children
2. you could call my current look 'outdoorsy' but really those lumps and bruises you see are the result of me getting trapped in a car full of mosquitos, falling up an escalator, and body checking the easel in the upstairs hallway
3. mom has taken to calling my writing projects 'papers' as in 'good luck on your paper'
4. had to stop writing to literally bask in the sun's warmth coming through the window, getting to look out my window see nothing but trees/sky/sun every day is worth everything i whine about and more

5. keep hearing something that sounds like a chainsaw coming from outside, it is dark out, not really sure if i'll live through the night

of note: 8/3/2012

1. when i agreed to go to dinner with parents tonight, mom suggested i come 'dressed like that' i asked 'in my pajamas with no bra?' and she said 'no, i guess not'
2. at dinner, dad said 'jackson should play basketball with that body' (as if this is revolutionary, and also knowing jackson's history with the sport), i said 'he did play basketball', he said 'no, i mean, he still should', gave him my best 'fuck you' face
3. think i have spoken a maximum of 50 words today
4. calmly staring out the window over the roof watching the sun disappear through the trees in the backyard while i work
5. another influence for the novella i'm at work on has been the vashti bunyan album 'some things just stick in your mind', don't feel these influences consciously as i write but on a more subconscious level when i hear them after having spent the past two years with it

of note: 8/2/2012

1. dropped off 8 large black trash bags to goodwill today full of old clothes/shoes that had accumulated in my parents' house from my teen years, felt nothing
2. told jackson i have a crush on nathan adrian, he said 'damn'
3. top 10 movies i have seen for the first time so far this year: drive, moonrise kingdom, norwegian wood, antichrist, dancer in the dark, shame, grindhouse: death proof, martha marcy may marlene, blue valentine, to rome with love
4. during olympic swimming the 'take your marks... beep' at the start of each race still makes my palms sweat as if i'm in it (even though i haven't swam competitively in 6 years now, and real talk i never got anywhere close to olympic times)
5. did a little cry watching gabby douglas do her last routine before winning gold, keep thinking 'the gabbies are killing it this year' and 'she's the gabby gabby of the sports world'

of note: 8/1/2012

1. i think 'call me maybe' is the world's most effective anti-depressant
2. found an old student's tumblr from last summer, feel 100% certain that if she had come to my office to talk to me about odd future and kreayshawn (incl. in her reblogs on tumblr) and not to cry about the unfairness of her B+ grade i would have given her an A
3. every time i hear 'cashin out' by cash out i just want 2 chainz to do a remix
4. seems like sgt. pepper's lonely hearts club band is a really influential text for the novella i'm writing, 'a day in the life' in particular
5. was issued a parking ticket in washington, dc* today by an officer who says she witnessed my car at 4:48 pm, seems difficult since i didn't park there until 5:26 pm (text message to jackson telling him i just parked seems bloody brilliant in retrospect)
* no, dad, i don't miss living there