112818 break broke me. i have almost zero interst in doing this anymore. i guess i’m not a writer. it doesn’t even matter if milliecomes down here anymore because who cares.there’s no trance, there’s no reverie, there’s no concentration to be broken, because i don’t give a shit. i’m just going through the motions, for some reason, becasue i don’t want to admit that this is fully pointless. there’s no urgency anymore. there’s no fun anyore. so maybe i’ll accidentally type something kind of cool--so what? No one’s ever going tosee it, so it doesn’t matter. no one’s ever going to see it, so it doesn’t matter. no one’s ever going to see it, so it doesn’t matter i have a sleep deficit i can never refill. i am so deeply, bottomlessly fatigued, i can’t even begin to explain it. y brain, my chest, i ache with tiredness. my nerves sing out like a dried up river system longing for water once more.. a planet that used to be gushing lost its atmosphere and turnedinto mars. that’s how tired i am. all i can think of is sleep, return to sleep,smoke escapes from the rickety chimney of a little cabin in the woods somewhere, and my concsiousness returns, a supplicant at the grainy door of that cabin. i don’t hear millie getting up. did she sleep through her alarm? well, i’m going to let her, i’m going to pretend i didn’t know that. why? it doesn’t matter why. yes, i’m not going to write down all the stuff megan told me, all the basically adult stuff she’s going through. it’s ok, i handled it ok i think, but it’s still a bit too much for me to process by typing in the dark of the morning. my reaction to it is too complicated for my sleep-addled brain to make sense of, and plus i just don’t want to put it down, in case someone *does* see this eventually, especially her. even though i don’t know why it matters, because no one’s ever going to see this. it doesn’t matter because no one’s ever going to see this it doesn’t matter because no one’s ever going to see this. it doesn’t matter because it doesn’t matterbecause it doesn’t it matter it does it doesn’t it it matters it isn’t be because it because because no one it no no one is it is it si tits it sis tis sit tits hit is sit ti hit tit si no one’s ever going to oh god i am fully dreading the presentation in san diego how did it come to this? I went full tim from wait but hwy on this one. i have truly procrastinated the fuck out of this one. i really didn’t think i was going to do that this bad. i have a day and a half til our little dress rehearsal and i’m all but paralyzed with fear. i have nothing but notes and random artifacts. i’m full of self loathing, and i’m full of other-loathing. i’m shellacking on the layers of hatred because i’m so afraid and remorseful. i don’t want to do it, i want to retreat, i want to never have said i would do it. i’m overhwlemed. i have so much work to do, so many promises unfulfilled, i’m so behind with the basic tenets of my job, and then there’s this. this shit i have to do and pour myself into. i don’t even like avid. i don’t even like avid. the curriculum is out of date, dried up and wispy, and i’m supposed to oh whatever fuck it just feels like so muchbullshit except the tiny little flecks of stuff that don’t. sometimes in the middle of an unconscious barrage of disdain about the whole thing, i catch a glimpse of what i imagine kiana’s face to look like. you know she’s so strong and confident and yet she’s never once showed her face on the camera. or i catch a glimpse of kyle’s odd eighties-movie voice, earnestly talking about procrastination, trying to figure shit out for himself, for real. or jared, talking about writing letters, and i can’t tell if he’s bullshitting or not, but what if he’s not, totally? or i catch a glimpse of a tutorial that somehow i managed not to walk all over and shut down, a real conversation about which people say at the end, “that was a good one.” Or riley and noah and their trampoline, getting ready for their first time home alone without their parents. or any number of other little indefinable moments where it seems like there’s real people on the other side of that screen. in those moments, i like avid. but it’s not because of college, or academic writing, or any of that shit. that shit’s just the card game that keeps us all sitting around the table. that shit’s the obligatory thanksgiving meal. that’s the shit we stress out about way too much, fretting around the house like a full on family in a small kitchen, trying to live up to society’s expectations. what do i know about college? I’m not a goddamn guidance counselor. i can’t tell these kids what to do. i don’t know if they’re going to get any scholarships or not. i don’t know if they’re going to survive their first semester or not. i barely even know what college is like anymore. how many of them are going to have their parents pay for them to go to a fine upstanding four year institution so they can daydream about milton and shakespeare and take acting classes and have epiphanies? how many of themare going to stretch out into the long golden afternoon of walks in the woods, hagning out in cedar creek, scaling abluff as the sun cuts a rakish angle across the big jupiter sky, golden, and how many of them are going to return to gail’s place for nachos and coffee and and endless ongoing scene of conversation and wide-eyed people watching and people loving and strange, sudden connections with people who come in and out of the woodwork like musical motifs? how many of them are going to spend four--or five--years just stretching out into becoming who they are? what does avid have to say about any of that? Do people even do that anymore? Or is college a buffet line for the customer now? for these kids? why are they in avid if they’re ready for all that? was i ready for all that? When i think of college, i think of a mauve bicycle. pot banana bread. sitting on top of a stone arch watching people walk underneath, to a class i was skipping so i could be warmly stoned and watch people. the click click click of leaves on the sidewalk getting sliced by my bike tires. a river of people, souls, smiles and laughter and impromptu love, improvised affairs, vegetarian pot lucks, beer, sleepovers, being like puppies, working odd jobs and making friends. living in pajamas. a safe world of discovery, with just enough raw exposure, just enough danger to make it stick, to make it real. *it was like living inside a classical poem--* we were in a snow globe of magic. it was bigger on the inside than the outside. walking barefoot on the plaza. getting lost in the woods, finding our way back by the position of a mighty constellation, a mighty warrior woman in the sky, blinding in her pinpoint clarity, beckoning with fecundity across an infinite sky of brilliant clear cold insanely intense magic. magic. ghosts in the tunnel at rocheport. sex and music and warmth and shared meals and improvised love. a playground where you could learn about the jazz number that life is--until it isn’t. does that exist anymore? Are they going to get that? or are they just going to get the classes they need, the credits they need, so they can maybe get a job or maybe drive for uber or deliver eggplant and empanadas to financial analysts and marketers? what do i know about college? there’s all this stuff i’m supposed to tell them, but i have no idea if any of it’s true, and more importantly, if any of it’s important. i don’t know what an untriggerd potential half assed crap poet has to offer. except mad love. i guess i gotta go do this stupid presentation i fnothing else just to buy myself a little more legitimacy, a little more time to figure a little bit of this out. because of those moments. because of those fleeting connections. because i’m lonely, and no one’s ever going to see any of this. #nationalconference