these days i fluctuate mostly between feeling like i'm completely out of control, like i'm just riding momentum and the pure kinetics of the process i've started, with no grounding even in my own emotions, and feeling strong and sure and sexy in a way i can't remember feeling before, like all the loss of self i suffered in philadelphia has been repayed at once, a showered gift of confidence and self-control. and i think both feelings have root in the same fact: in one fell swoop of a train ride, i left a career path, a school, a city, a man i've considered marrying, and every expectation i've ever had about what my life would be right now.


i feel like i've wrestled my self out of the jaws of ineptitude and mediocrity, been snatched just in the nick of time away from a plodding and miserable future. i was good at graphic design - i might have done it for twenty years before i ended up flinging myself off the bixby bridge. though, to be honest, i'm not sure i would have survived even through the next philly winter.


i want to go back to school next fall. i'm afraid i won't want to by the time next fall rolls around, so i want to be sure to get my applications done early. because i only have so much patience and creativity, i've limited myself to five schools. so far, they are as follows:


cornell (NY)

swarthmore (PA)

warren wilson (NC)

macalester (MI)

evergreen (WA)



a close second (sixth?) is the college of the atlantic in maine, which might get bumped up into the top five if i can figure out which one of the others to remove. nothing in california, not because i don't want to go to school here, but because i've honestly not found a school i want to go to here.


well, except for one. i still wish i was a boy most of all.