I tried to write my short story which I'm calling 'Shopping Center Carnival". It was hard. My character is a 13 year old girl with an alcoholic dad and shell shocked mom. They're poor and I think at 13 years old, it's really traumatic to be poor because that's the age you really get caught up in the money thing, if it doesn't hit you sooner. Scratch that. It does hit you sooner, but it's like you're not quite aware of the significance of your status until you hit adolescence.

Then for some reason, writing it made me sad. This character has the most wretched circumstances. My own childhood wasn't this bad, but that's how the character is coming out. It's all really depressing. I'm also listening to Ultra by Depeche Mode, so maybe I'm adding to my own misery. Maybe I need to play happier music.

I think love is a funny thing. Sometimes you're so into and it 's such a blast and such a trip and other times, it's like "ehh, whatever". I had a friend Karl and he said he could be in a couple as long as he had alot of down time and alone time. I'm wondering if I'm the say way. I went out last night and now I just feel this intense need to cocoon and be alone, to listen to my own thoughts and to block out everybody else's.

Well, at least I did write a littlie bit. I may have to start frequenting cafes again. When I wrote in cafes, I wrote alot because I felt like I needed to write something to justify my existence for benig in a cafe, on a school night when I could be at home, listening to my cds or watching TV.

I wonder if I'm too practical to fall in love. I keep thinking if it's not easy and stress free, I totally don't want anything to do with it. Love should be easy and everything should fall into place, like you're in the zone or something. And right now, there's alot of struggle and stress going on and I hate that. This is not a good sign.

I was reading my horoscope today and it said I'm the type of person, who won't get involved in a relationship unless I'm successful in some way. That sounds so true for me. I know part of me thinks that I'm like totally worthless unless I'm a published and well paid author, and I won't be able to think about falling in love and bieng in a relationship till this happens. Which means of course I'm doomed and fucked, because it might not ever happen.

It's funny to me. People in my writing class think I'm disciplined, but I'm really not, at least not how I'd like be discplined anyway.

Sometimes writing is so hard. How do you trust the voice that's speaking to you and telling you a story? Sometimes character start stories and never finish them. It's hard to tell whether you're getting a whole story or just a snippet or a life.

I feel very sad too, like something has happened to one of my friends or will happen. I don't get that anything will happen to me, but that something will happen, something not that great, for one of my friends. I just can't tell who. Sometimes I hate that I get intuitive flashes. Like how do you know if they're true? How do you know you're not like Russell Crowe in that movie, A Beautiful Mind", and talking to yourself and having one big delusion.

God, I so related to that part of the movie. Sometimes I feel like I'm living on a huge delusion and all of my friends know it but won't tell me. It's a terrible feeling.