i think today was a good day. no reason really. it's unbearably hot and my feet hurt from walking and i'm hungry and completely without food, but i'm happy. i got my office key today which is exciting to no end and also got some neuroscience books from the science library. i love being in there. i love it because i'm so hyper-aware of how little i belong, and i feel like everyone knows it, and i know it, and we're all giggling to ourselves over the small matter of my existence in this place built to be a vertical pH scale. of course, probably nobody notices me at all, but no matter. it's too fun to pretend.

and then this morning, having zero breakfast food and $1.85 in my pocket, i set out to find both breakfast and coffee. i went to a convenience store on thayer st., shelling out 50 cents for a pop-tart, and the man behind the counter was cracking me up. he just came to providence from africa and is reading Kafka's Metamorphosis. He saw me with a stack of books and said, hey, i'm reading the Metamorphosis by franz kafka. I'm reading it in french. have you read it? and i said, well, yes i have. and he busted out laughing and said, i asked a girl yesterday if she'd read it and she said yes too. his smile was so big i was afraid it might hurt his face. i was outdone though, because yester-girl had read it in german. then he told me that kafka wrote a story only two pages long (two pages! he exclaimed) about a man waiting for judgement. what's that about? he said. why does he do this? he said. i tried to tell him about The Trial, a big long book about judgement but i could tell he wasn't listening. a big long book about judgement is not nearly as interesting as a two page story about judgement, apparently. anyway, i thought the whole exchange was pretty funny.

getting coffee wasn't quite as fun, but i did get to read about the search for female love, which is fun. i mean, what could be funner? 'cept maybe the female search for LOVIN'.

:-) hee hee. happiness.

i've been trying to read about string theory this afternoon, but can't make myself concentrate. my insides are ichy or something and it's hard to sit still. i was driving to school and halfway there realized how much i'd rather be walking, so i pulled over, parked, and walked the rest of the way. i'd be walking now but it's too damn hot. but mark my words, come sundown there will be walking. if my mood lifts there will be singing as well.

"The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness." (Speak, Memory).

a good way to start one's autobiography, i think. today, though, i'm not so concerned with eternity. it's just not bugging me at the moment. "Eternity is simply time without us." i'll take that. right now i'm far more interested in foraging for food, which is a lot harder than one might think. especially if one is not at their house and is foraging at school, and a still-in-summer-mode school at that, when all the cupboards are locked and fridges are empty.

oh well. guess i'll have to make it home and eat those leftovers. not that i mind leftovers at all; in fact, i like them very much. but it's so hot even the birds are swelling and my stomach feels all achy and bored.

but before i head home can i just say, completely off subject, what is it about summer winding down that causes these internal shifts, these urgent moments of maybe reidentifying oneself as a person, or the acknowledgement that somehow that person is not the person that came out of the snow or pulled on one of the new yellow flowers hanging low over the sidewalk. i feel this, i know others feel this (many many), and my question is why. does it have anything to do with summer at all? or is it just a seasonal retrospect that i'm only noticing now because everyone seems so restless and so ready for change. and then, why do i feel so happy about the whole thing, so proud of everyone, so secretly happy with myself for feeling this shift too.

get out your quills, all ye that i love. i want answers. and a breeze. and a muffin.