no no no no no no

I know I'm pretty singular, quirky--irreplaceable. It's a good feeling, when I can remember it.

Silliness with Meghan and Kara as well as nighttime Darjeeling Limited viewing with Harmony have saved my night I think.

If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, right? It might be slightly immature to ignore a message that contains unwanted questions and brings up undesirable insecurities, but at the same time it can't be worse than responding in all-out Lauren-Passion. Pondered answers range from viciously cynical to gut-wrenchingly punctuated and precise. The mature thing to do, I feel like, is to wait until my existential crisis is over. I am being very conscious about every decision I make and what it says about me right now. My decision to postpone a fb reply may seem childish, but it seems the lesser of all the possible evils. In any case, I feel like I deserve to be sought out in person or at the very least via telephone.

Harmony and I have bright ideas and aspirations for the near future, including early morning WAC ventures and a sex-zine and

"to say yes to everything, even if it's shocking and painful."

So, I don't really work as a person. I've got to change something and it has to be me, all me, completely internal, done myself out of pure will.

Gavin once told me over the break that my only real, serious flaw is my dependence on others. I can see more clearly than ever what he means. Obvious example being Alex.

Alex stays 3-5 nights a week, generally. The sex is pretty good, the snuggling seems sincere, and before the sex the dialogue is almost always fabulous. But I need to stop feeling like I need him (/just anyone?) to be in my bed at night (not even for sex, but just for holding). I don't need it. Alex is my best friend and sex+snuggling=bonus points. I am going to have to teach myself to enjoy spending time alone again. I used to love alone-time for reading and writing and listening to music purposes. Now I feel like I tend to consider this alone time more of a failure on my part to attract people to my side. Obviously this is not the case--I have several great friends here at Hendrix and of course back in Austin and all over the place. I see a lot of Meghan and Kara and Lily and Zach and Joseph. Harmony and I chill a lot at the House, and I know I could always call Katie and Anna. I've even hung out with Gavin a handful of times, and I never eat lunch in the caf alone. So really it just boils down to Alex, and that is just unhealthy.

Mostly I came to this realization very suddenly last night while listening to a new Decemberists song from Gavin and sitting with all my stuffed animals. I just sort-of burst into tears and started thinking terrible thoughts, and even sought out housemate Zach for sleeping pills. Of course, he wasn't home so I mostly just cried until I told myself to snap out of it and just fucking deal.

Alex most likely does not want to date me, has no romantic feelings for me. It doesn't matter what other people think about it, it doesn't matter what my English major nature wants me to reveal. He's my best friend and I have to TRUST the things he says to me, and I am going to TRUST his October words and his words from Saturday night when he said "we're friends and if you wanted to date someone we would have to stop sleeping together" which I feel like means "all I want from you is your friendship although the sex is a nice bonus." So I am going to have to stop focusing so much energy on it. Guh. Read more and do other things, think about something else.

Anyway, that's my only real epiphany for the moment.

Harmony moved in today, so my existence in this house is infinitely less awkward. We cleaned up the kitchen, gossiped with John Drew, bought dish soap and then cooked pasta with yellow bell pepper for dinner and John Drew made a good salad with feta cheese in it. It felt like a real house finally, and just in time, too. People start arriving tomorrow. Elliott is moving in in the morning. I'm picking Gavin up at the airport around 8 in the evening and Alex is arriving, too. I told him I'm at his disposal, he said he would call me around 2:30 and that he hopes I enjoy running errands and moving boxes.

I am scared.

The last time I saw Gavin was when he came to visit me in Austin, and we said goodbye in the Austin airport tearfully and with kisses and I pleaded with him not to forget me. It is going to be so odd to see him and not be automatically just... touching him. I mean we'll hug and everything but the context is so different, I feel so displaced already. It's easy for us to talk on facebook and gmail chats and to text each other as friends, although the conversations sound exactly the same, Muffin and Schmoo and all. I wonder if that's healthy.

And Alex? He'll call me to say he's here. I guess I'll invite him to stop by the Brick House so we're only in one car and so he can see it. But that will take us upstairs to be alone in my room. And when he steps out of his car, we'll hug but am I going to tug his hair, is he going to feel my curves, and importantly are we going to just kiss? When we said goodbye at the Goodge St station I hugged him and he kissed me, the kiss was all his doing, I didn't know if he would want to leave it on that note but he did, and then I cried when I turned back at the lift to see him still standing there, watching me.

So my question is, what the hell do I wear on the day I am going to see both my most recent ex who still calls me Muffin and the boy I slept with in 6 different countries who is my best friend and may or may not want to continue to sleep with me? I don't know if I can ever look good enough to step outside my house on a day like that. I don't own the right clothes or the right body! I'm not sure anyone does.

I'm sitting here in my huge room in the Brick House and laughing at myself. Because we're not sick of hearing about Alex yet, let me say something on the subject:

I actually just spent 5 minutes trying to think of how I could refer to him. OU lost the championship and I sent him a message that originally said "I'm sorry, hon," and then realized it might be a little to affectionate and familiar and so changed it to "I'm sorry, friend."

Friend? Really? Oh, dear. I am actually ridiculous.

In other news, I'm sitting in my huge room in the Brick House. Oh my god. Hendrix better not really try to take this away from me. I love this room. It's huge. And I have my own bathroom and a door that opens to a wooden staircase outside so I don't ever actually have to go into the rest of the house (I'm not saying I don't want to, it's just cool that I could). There's a recliner a previous resident left and I'm sitting in it right now. Serious bonus points. I have a mini fridge and a microwave and a sink with cabinets and hooks above it that I dangled some mugs from. I have a desk I don't need because I always write papers lying on my tummy in a bed, but whatever it looks more professional. The only problem is that the house was already lived in when I got here... by 4 boys. It is a mess. It is trashy. It's huge and has potential to be beautiful and amazing. The kitchen is a real kitchen but a complete mess. And it smells. The fridge was not cleaned out before break and is full of bad things. Dishes were not washed before the break and are scattered across the countertops. Most of the cookware is going to be gone with Drew who is dropping out, so hopefully the mess will be cleaned but I don't know who is going to empty the fridge so we can start anew. The living room is trashed with loose magazines and papers and clothes and old beer cans. Stuff is just everywhere. It's kind of disappointing--everything needs to be vacuumed and mopped and Windexed and everything needs to be sprayed with Febreeze and the cat just kinda poops wherever it wants (Harmony's soon-to-be-room whenever she gets here, the one next to mine, has cat poop in it so I don't envy her and I would like to thank Blake from the bottom of my heart for keeping our door CLOSED to the cat unless he was supervising. Although Blake also did not take out the trash and I desperately want to vacuum my room and windex all the mirrors and clean the bathtub.

I will have pictures eventually once Gavin gives me the rest of my posters back so I decorate completely. Right now I've only put up one concert poster because a screw was already in the wall perfectly above the mini-fridge.

I don't know where everyone is--Drew's out and Zach was here earlier in a towel but I guess he put clothes on and left, and Harmony was supposed to come this evening but hasn't, so it's just me and the cat. The pooping cat. It's name is Hobbes but it isn't orange so I'm not feelin' it. Also I'm a dog person but we'll see how that goes.

I'm playing that silly game again. I'm getting up at 6:30 in the morning to make 9 hour drive and I still find the time to play this stupid game. Oh dear.

so this is the new year

Official Score

Frisbee: 1
Me: 0






















...Okay, I know I shouldn't be looking at it that way. I should be mature, self-confident, and not feel threatened. But he knows I'm driving up to Conway on Tuesday. He chooses Monday to go up and then changes his mind to going on SUNDAY in order to "play Ultimate" and he "is so excited."

It's difficult not to feel slighted.

And I can see where this is going. This means he has friends in Conway already. This means when he moves in before classes start, it's them he's going to call to help him move and to hang out with and to go shopping for furniture.

I honestly feel like I should just say good-bye to Alex now and get it over with. Because our last good-bye involved a kiss I'm not sure it really counted, and the long messages and skype conversations since were also kind of a hitch in it. But now, now that I had begun to convince myself that continuing a close friendship was possible... it's time. He said he was glad he talked to me at midnight on new year's as well, but I was tipsy so he probably just didn't want to upset me. Oh well.

I really need to get back to Hendrix so I can find some other things to think about.

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before?
really truly cook, trip on shrooms, take absinthe, have sex while others were in the room, cook naked, drink beer in the shower, a great number of things involving foreign travel and living in England

[2.] Did you keep all of last year's resolutions?
I doubt it as I probably resolved to lose weight, which I did but I gained it back.

[3.] Have you any resolutions for next year?
Absolutely.

[4.] What countries did you visit?
England, Ireland, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Spain.

[5.] What would you like to have in 2009 that you didn't have in 2008?
some self-suffiency, less dependence on others, more of a sense of self-worth

[6.] What date in 2008 will remain etched in your memory?
December 4, the day I left London. I'm not big with dates, so I think I might also say I don't think I will ever forget that beach in Barcelona.

[7.] What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I'm not sure. Probably not getting disasterously lost/mugged in any of 6 foreign countries.

[8.]What was your biggest failure?
anything involving the opposite sex from September to December

[9.] Did you suffer any illness or injury?
I had either the stomach flu or food poisoning back in I think February and that was kind of awful. I told Gavin to bring me "the big knife" so I guess that means I would rather have died than been experiencing it. I also had a kind of epic cold from Thanksgiving until a little while after I returned from London.

[10.]What was the best thing you bought?
That's difficult. The red dress with white polka dots from the vintage store in Paris is up there because of the memories associated with it, although one could also say all the plane and train tickets I bought to other European countries were the best. Maybe even the shrooms in Amsterdam.

[11.] Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Probably my own, to be honest.

[12.] Where did most of your money go?
Pints of Guiness, Foster's, and Hoegaarden.

[13.] What did you get really really really excited about?
Ethnic food! The weekend my roommate went to Barcelona and I got to cook and eat naked--and yes, not alone.

[14.]What songs will always remind you of 2008?
Werewolf by cocorosie, both God of Wine and Motorcycle Drive By by Third Eye Blind, I'm Yours by Jason Mraz, Inherited Scars by Sage Francis

[15.] Compared to this time last year are you :
[A] Fatter or thinner? about the same
[B] Happier or sadder? just as confused as ever
[C] Richer or poorer? so much poorer

[17.] What do you wish you'd done less of?
crying for no reason

[18.] How will you be spending Christmas?
It was nothing special.

[19.] Did you fall in love in 2008?
Yes, although that did not ultimately work out.

[20.] How many one night stands?
None.

[21] What was your favourite TV show?
I got really into Reba.

[22.] Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.

[23.] What was/were the best books you read?
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, She Came to Stay by Simone de Beauvoir

[24.] What was your greatest musical discovery?
My Brightest Diamond, Shearwater, and probably most notably Alex is instilling an appreciation of rap and hiphop in me.

[25.] What did you want and get?
A lot of sex. Seeing Okkervil River in London. Dresses in Paris.

[26.] What did you want and not get?
clarification, the joy of completing a short story, skinny

[27.] What was your favourite film this year?
I didn't see many new films this year, but I continued to watch The Darjeeling Limited constantly.

[28.] What did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
I turned 20, and drove with Gavin from Austin to Conway. Hollis had made me cupcakes which was the best surprise of the day.

[29.] What one thing would have made your year more satisfying?
if I had cried less when drunk, and handled things with Alex much better at the beginning

[30.] How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008?
cinch belts and high-waist skirts, or skinny jeans with cowboy boots

[31.] What kept you sane?
quite possibly sex.

[32.] Which celebrity did you fancy the most?
I remember telling Alex in a bar in Barcelona when the music video for "Make it Mine" came on the telly, "Jason Mraz is the epitome of my type of man." James McAvoy gets points from Becoming Jane.

[33.] Which political issue stirred you the most?
the economy sucking has sucked

[34.] Who did you miss?
Gavin, intensely.

[35.] Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned this year?
Chill out.

[36.] Quote a song lyric that sums up your year...
"How do I get back there to
The place where I fell asleep inside you?
How do I get myself back to
The place where you said

I want something else
To get me through this
Semi-charmed kind of life
I want something else
I'm not listening when you say
Good-bye"
--from Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind

I want to write an anthology of short stories called "These Things Happened."

I absolutely refuse to be the first to speak. He knows I'm on facebook, I know he's on facebook. He knows when I'm on facebook that I'm on skype. And three or four times this has led him to log onto skype and say something so random or irrelevant it's awkward. I know I'm thinking about it too much. If he wanted to talk to me, he would. I want to ask him to call me at midnight on New Year's. What purpose would that serve? Whenever I've even vaguely referenced anything leading back to our sentimental/sexual moments he's dodged them. It could be that the references were so vague that he didn't get them, but I tend to imagine the worst. I want to say "since you aren't doing anything on New Year's Eve I thought you could call me at midnight; after all, if we were in London you would be my midnight kiss."

WHAT A BAD IDEA.

He never sent me any postcards from Greece. What the hell should I expect? I thought I could maybe count on his friendship, since he answers my messages. But this is absurd. The moment we get back to Hendrix all I will know is an overwhelming disappointment.

and right now, I honestly truly believe that I think I wish I had never gone to stupid London or at least never shared that stupid bottle of wine that stupid first potluck night with previously mentioned stupid person and I definitely wish I had never gotten lost on Oxford St that night after Walkabout on Lily's birthday with him and MORE THAN ANYTHING I wish I had never stayed in the room with him that Saturday and gone out with everyone else and not stayed and not had sex and not fallen asleep and not kept doing it for months on end and I wish I had never cried or vomited or confessed or given that handjob or ANY OF IT particularly fall break and Barcelona and I HATE THAT RED DRESS with the white polka dots and I hate dinosaur ties and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the word "sous-cheffy" and the phrase "so it goes" and I hate myself a lot right now too.

I spend a great deal of time at work, which is a little frustrating because I never have time to just sit at a coffeehouse and read. Yet I am making a decent amount of money, and I do enjoy talking to the ladies I work with. So much for writing about my daily life, eh? Alex and I have been sending messages back and forth ever since we left London, and today I realized I had nothing interesting to say about my day without going into unnecessary detail about a not particularly interesting job. Does anyone actually want to hear about the how clueless the north Austin store was and how cute this old lady was who kept trying on ugly jackets? No, not really. I spent all day in the fitting room though, in my black skinnies, surrounded by mirrors. So if I learned anything today, it was that I need to be hitting up the WAC quite a bit upon returning to Hendrix in, what, two weeks?

I think about that return more often than I should.

Each December I have ever experienced in college has been one where my position in life and with certain people was completely unclear to me. Now that Gavin and I are most certainly only going to be friends, I have no real base to begin from. I have no idea who I will spend my time with, who will want to see me on a regular basis and not just "every now and then" (the words I got from Gavin when I asked if we would still do our homework together and read each other interesting bits from our textbooks). Despite what I tell him, I'm still terrified that Alex is going to conveniently forget my existence when he gets back with his frisbee comrades. I sneakily get him to say that we will do things in January so that at least if he does abandon me, I can be self-righteous and smug and say that he lied, that he was breaking promises. It's either very immature or very clever, and I can't decide which. I don't know why I distrust him so. I trust everyone else from London to keep in touch, and that's silly because he's the one who writes to me every day! He responds to my messages without fail and I haven't gotten Zach to reply to my texts half the time... and yet I absolutely believe in Zach's friendship.

In reading She Came to Stay (by Simone de Beauvoir), I began to absolutely question myself. I question how I see myself, how others must see myself, what exactly "myself" even is. Sometime I wonder if I am doing things in layers. If I am consciously acting out a conscious version of what I pretend is my subconscious, if that even makes sense. Am I fooling myself into fooling myself? I don't know. My head hurts just thinking about it.

So it's a good thing I'm reading Invisible Monsters now, because it's well-written and not as deep, certainly not philosophical. I'm entertained mostly by the number of things I find that are obviously being referenced in Panic! at the Disco's song Time to Dance.

I need some serious New Year's resolutions, but the only ones I can really think of are

1. lose weight
2. save money
3. write more
4. stop being effected by every damn thing ever

And on that note, I am going to write or read now.

I am considering a revival, don't worry. More when I am not exhausted.

What exactly have I been up to? Besides, that is, drinking incessantly, and somehow catching an inconvenient cold from one of my companions.

Last weekend I went to Dublin. I am not sure how to sum up the experience, to be honest. We went with no plans but where to sleep (because I had spent days finding and booking the hostel, and no one else wanted to do any of the work I imagine). In retrospect that was a bad idea. The other two ladies on the trip went on day trips to see the Irish countryside, whereas the two blokes and I wandered around the Temple Bar district and Trinity College on our first day there. Dublin, it turns out, is one of the most expensive cities on the planet, and not just as a result of the euro. On Friday, Alex and Joseph and I went to Burger King before a rugby game and our meals were 8 euro. Almost 16 dollars. And while we were ashamed of stooping to Burger King, it was really all we could afford. At least pubs and restaurants had lunch specials during the day, but in the evening an average dinner was 14 euro. So we ate at Burger King.

The three of us went to a rugby game that was enjoyable. You know how mascots are usually elusively silent? The person wearing the lion suit at the game was not so. He had a very heavy accent and yelled at the crowd that they were not cheering enough, which I suppose was true to a certain degree because what was coming out of their mouths weren't exactly cheers. Alex kept a list going and the one I remember best is the guy two rows behind us who stood up and yelled "you fucking wanker!" As for the game itself--I had trouble understanding it. Like football, all the players often ended up in a pile. However, unlike in football, the referee would only very seldomly blow his whistle at this and usually someone would emerge from the pile victoriously with the ball in hand. I never figured out what caused penalties, or why the game ended when it did. The time stopped at least 15 minutes before the game did, and we started to leave twice before realizing that the game wasn't yet over. However, I had a good time trying to piece together what was going on, and it was faster-paced than football because time was never stopped.

On Thursday we had gone to a pub by our hostel, but this night we felt compelled to branch out a little and go to the famous Temple Bar area. However, none of the pubs there would let us in because we are under 21. The drinking age is undoubtedly 18 in Dublin, so we still don't understand what kept us out of the pubs that night. Luckily we did not have the same problem on Saturday and got gloriously drunk before our 8am flight back on Sunday morning.

As for Saturday, we had planned a trip to the Guinness storehouses and Dublin Castle, but we lost one of our number and instead spent most of the day sitting in the lobby of our hostel, falling asleep on each other's elbows jackets and taking shifts to go eat at nearby pubs. The waitress at the pub we ate lunch at was a real hoot and a half, though.

We returned on Sunday morning and from what I understand all collapsed into bed for most of the day before performing some last minute homework miracles.

A typical day for me here in London begins with the toasting of a bagel in my oven and then eating it with cream cheese and a towel on my head as I either read Ginny/Draco fanfiction or perform general facebook stalking. I have one class each day, usually for 3 hours. Before class I usually eat another small snack, and then walk with my headphones on if it is being held at our classroom, although half the time we have class at a museum or we meet at a tube stop to have class as we walk. Afterward I will usually grab a cheap bite to eat with some of the class and then go back to my room to read before fixing myself dinner, then going out to the pub, which is usually followed by Greek takeaway. We've been frequenting a club called Roundabout on Thursdays because they have Jack and Coke for a pound fifty, which is fucking amazing compared to the three to four pounds we pay for pints at pubs.

This weekend is my first solo weekend. I take the train from Waterloo to Alton on Friday and stay at a Bed and Breakfast that night and Saturday night before heading back to London on Sunday to see what messes my comrades have gotten themselves into whilst intoxicated. I imagine I'll be spending most of my weekend walking and reading Sense and Sensibility. It will be pretty tame, to be honest. If you think it sounds like I drink a lot here in London, it's because I do. We get 80 pounds a week for food, and I always put 20 aside for future travels. Of the 60 pounds left I spend about 20 on groceries. Of the 40 left I spend almost all of it on drinks and late night Greek food runs. Maybe a lunch or two. Although to be fair I did go see My Brightest Diamond last week and bought a shirt for 15 pounds (mistake) and the week before I bought a pair of skinny pants at H&M for the same. But I do drink a lot. What can I say, I'm enjoying it.

Next Friday we are all heading down to Brighton (the coast) to visit one of our professors. She has promised to take me to Virginia Woolf's old house and to the spot where she drowned herself. I'm going to try to finish To the Lighthouse before then in order to prepare myself. The weekend after that begins our fall break, over which I am going to Amsterdam for 3 days, Brussels for 3, and then Paris for 4. I'm not sure how I am affording any of this, to be honest, so I will probably be paying my parents back for the next decade of my life. So far however I believe it has been worth it.

Alright, alright, I have Internet now. I've had my classes but who wants to hear about those? I'm sure everyone mostly just wants to hear the story of when I accidentally met Paul McCartney.




Which hasn't actually happened yet, but I'm still here for two and a half more months so give me time!



All of my RP friends will be pleased to note that on my first tourist day here in London, I went with some of the others on my trip to King's Cross where we saw Platform 9 3/4. Let me say--not as exciting as I would've hoped. It's not even actually between platforms 9 and 10, just off to the side. They've got half a cart glued to the wall as if someone were coming back through the barrier I guess, but it looks kinda cheesy. On that same day we went to see Tower Bridge, which is famous apparently, although not that exciting, to be honest.

There is a pub right down the street from us called The Malburough Arms (probably spelled differently)that we go to every couple/few days and get some pints (3 pounds each!). That's been rather fun, actually, which I am sure ought to be frowned upon. But I do like the beers they have on tap here in London.

This past week I went to see a few plays. One was an Ionesco play called Exit the King that was meant to be absurdist although I didn't think it was so completely absurd. I liked it, the themes centered around death which is always ever so uplifting. That play was double billed with a truly odd play called The School of Buffoons by some Romanian playwright, and its message in the end seemed to be that art is inspired mostly by cruelty, although I didn't understand that until the last few lines which were the head buffoon yelling "CRUELTY" over and over again while cracking a whip at the floor. Those two plays were actually in the upstairs room of a pub called The Lion and Unicorn pub, which was pretty neat. A couple nights ago I went to see Fragments by Samuel Beckett, which was basically five short bits in one play, kind of like some short stories in a collective anthology. I still have mixed feelings about it, but had been very pleased to see old people in the audience.

Last night I ate some truly delicious Chinese food. We accidentally found this one restaurant while looking for a different one, and out of pure hunger chose it instead. For an appetizer the four of us (there are 12 of us on the trip and 3 are boys, so it was myself and the boys) ordered some kind of duck that we put into sweet tortilla-like pancakes and it was seriously tasty. I had a chicken and sweet corn soup for a second appetizer and then my main course was stir fried beef over crispy noodles. For dessert they served us oranges! Anyway, for all of that and my Chinese beer it was only 11 pounds. I was very pleased.

Afterwards we went back to the flat and retrieved two of the other girls before setting out to go to Bloomsbury Lanes--a 50s bowling alley turned into a club. It still retains its bowling alley, and there is also a bar and booths to sit in with 50s American food being served. It would have been fantastic if it hadn't been so crowded--the bar was even out of the cheap beer it had on tap, so the boys and I were drinking gin and tonics all night. And despite having about 6, one of which was a double, I never got drunk because the line at the bar was always so long that I had time to completely recover from whatever I'd been drinking. The highlight of the place was definitely the large hipster boy clientele. We want to go back for dinner and drinking during the week and think we will enjoy it better then.

I had some kind of cheap Greek lamb thing at about midnight and then trekked up to bed. Today my roommate and I have been planning a trip to Dublin for the 18-21. The weekend after that I am going to discover Jane Austen.

I'm here.

We don't have Internet yet, and I don't want to pay to have it, and I don't have a converter plug thing ANYWAY, so god only knows when I will be able to update regularly. (Don't even get me started, I'm pretty effin' irked about it).

But, I am in London, after all. Our flat is tiny, and we have to trek up several flights of stairs to get to our room, in which there is a small kitchen and two slender beds, and a hotel sized bathroom.

Mostly we walk around a lot, and are trying to deal with things like groceries and having to buy our own TP at present. Fun to come later.

So I leave in less than a week, but it still feels like years.

I planned my Bronte and Ireland excursions in great detail, and Liverpool in general. I still need to go to my parents with the list and get the amount of pounds approved, although I don't think I will have much of a problem because none of these trips are very extravagant.

I hope I get excited soon... right now I'll just be glad to get out of this damn house.

I think I will apply to work at the American Apparel on Oxford St. in London, as well as the Urban Outfitters. You never know what might happen.

So far, I have purchased three concert tickets: Shearwater, My Brightest Diamond, and I THOUGHT St. Vincent but she canceled and now I am trying to get Gavin to call and get a refund on my ticket because it makes me nervous to use the telephone. If I can get my St. Vincent ticket refunded, I may go see Camera Obscura with Frightened Rabbit, or just save the money and use it on Okkervil River. Oh God, London, I love you already.

I have planned my Jane Austen pilgrimage, and am waiting to hear back from a bed and breakfast in Haworth concerning my Bronte trip over my fall break. I ought to plan Galway and Liverpool but I'm getting afraid of money so I am going to wait a little.

Before I go, I need to eat copious amounts of Mexican food. What, me, gorge myself on tacos? Ha. Never.

I don't want to be worried about money, but I am.

I'm selfish, impatient, and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control, and at times hard to handle, but if you can't handle me at my worst the you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best. - Marilyn Monroe


I'm headed to "the bay" tomorrow with my mother and with Kristin. I am taking a shitload of books. I want to read, maybe write, and definitely relax.

I've just returned from Chicago, and I'm not sure what to say except that something has got to change. Perhaps it's perfect that I'm going away to London for these few months, perhaps when I return I will be a different Lauren, one I can stand, one who actually deserves... things.

Against the unfamiliar background of Chicago I think I have remembered why it is I should not like myself in the first place, and although I felt like a giant hippo around all the hipsters, my loathing had much less to do with weight than I predicted. I don't feel unattractive when Gavin is around--period. I sometimes feel like I'm the chubby girl on the arm of the attractive boy that passersby glance at and wonder, "how the hell did she get him?" but that wasn't the main problem.

It's difficult to explain, but, things will be different now.

I've been planning my literary pilgrimages in England, and they are not going to be cheap. This is made extra-stressful by the fact that Coldwater Creek is giving me less than 20 hours each week. I've started to look for a second job, but I don't think it is going to work out very well. I emailed a resume to several places on Craigslist, and I am turning in applications to Michael's and Barnes and Nobles, but in reality I think these places are on the look-out for someone with an open availability and who... I don't know, isn't me.