You may say I'm a dreamer

It's over. Or it's starting.
Something.

I'm feeling okay.

No, I'm feeling good.

Let me talk about what's really on my mind. Like, all the time.

So, there's this boy. He's really amazing. He's far away, but I can feel him everywhere. He occupies a very large chunk of my thinking space. I think about what he looks like, what he feels like, what I feel like when I'm next to him. When I fall asleep at night my hand is gripped around a blanket I've buunched up so it can resemble him, a little bit. But it's just that little that makes me feel a little good.

He knows everything about me. I'm pretty sure I know everything about him. But, somehow, we find hours of words to speak to eachother each night that we've never spoken before. How is it possible? I don't know.

When I listen to songs, I pretend that one of us wrote it to the other (only if they're good, of course). If they're sad songs then it's him and I watching someone else in pain, and trying to figure out how and why so we can make them feel better.

When I go to the dining hall to eat, I think about what he'd pick out if he was there... definitely the roasted vegetable falafel with mashed potatoes on the side. Cup of sliced cantelope. Vanilla fro-yo.

I read past 3 pages of bio notes, realizing that I actually haven't been reading, and actually I've been thinking about what I'm going to do when I go visit him. First the best pizza place in the world, three blocks from my house, then huntington village, then rent a movie, then...

When I hang up the phone after talking to him, I feel those few moments right after where we're both sill thinking about eachother and it just feels so good. I can feel his thoughts, and they're warm.

Even though I'm constantly (constantly) thinking about him.. I'm still able to hold down the fort here at school. Out of nowhere, my grades are good, I'm training for a lab job, I'm making some friends, I'm volunteering at things. I'm a whirl-wind college student.

Things are just better. I'm feeling better about myself. And things, as they usually like to do, seem to be falling in place. I'm worried he's going to think maybe it's a bad thing to let someone else have such a great power over how you feel about life, how you feel about yourself... But maybe you need something good - really good - to realize that life is full of good things. And if you have to kill time until they come to you, moping around isn't a good way to do it.

Maybe it just takes a little bit of honey to see what a sweet life tastes like.



Ah, because the world is round
it turns me on
Because the world is round

Ah, because the wind is high
it blows my mind
Because the wind is high

Ah, love is old, love is new
Love is all, love is you

There is so much time. Has there always been this many hours in a day? I really don't think so. I just reread a whole lot of my depressed entries and started thinking about all those time in high school I felt alone. Well, it's creaping up again... like that vomit you try to swallow down, but that gross taste just lingers on your tongue.

It's been about two weeks since school's started. I'll honestly say, I tried to keep myself "caught up in detail" like I always say. God, I can't even follow my own advice. These thoughts came out of my brain, out of clear logical deduction, not a long time ago either, and now I can't even follow them. So, okay. Keep myself busy and concentrate on the detail, right? Forget about the big picture until you've finished working out all the kinks, and then it'll be a nice put-together puzzle.

The problem is, there's that moment right before I go to bed, where I'm completely and utterly alone - in my room, in my thoughts, in my views, in my social life, in my un-social life. I'm staring at my bed right now and there's that moment I have every night and it's staring at me and I just don't want to have it anymore. My bed and I become this tiny little particle and everything else is dark and empty (partly because the lights are off, but not completely. It turns my room into this real-life metaphor and the dark makes me see more clearly. strange). Darkness is really really huge. I mean like, no end. Infinite. Each night I feel like I'm drowning in it, the darkness. I feel like I could do anything, and no one would see it, no one would think about it except for me. I lift up my arm to test this theory out. Nope, no one is saying anything. I put it back down. I turn over to the other side. Flip my pillow. Start fresh. It doesn't work. I'm still here. And is my sadness.

I realize, each night, that there is no one looking out for me. There's a very large lake right outside my window, and if I just dove in there and waited, I really couldn't think of someone who would come looking for me. I could think of a couple people who would say to eachother "hey, have you seen Shirley around? Hmm guess she's busy or something". I have to travel just under a thousand miles (try and just think about how big that number is, seriously) to find the closest person who cares about me. I walk around this damn school full of smart people who have all this potential to be nice and friendly and even close to me. But all I see is them walking around with their books and gap sweaters and their 2.5 friends, but mostly, their potential, and nothing else. I'm already a year into college... most of these people are set in their ways. And I'm not. Why do my cards always unfold this way? I am never set in my way. I want my way to be set, too.

The only positive side there is to this realm of negative is that I'm getting all of my work done. But then what? I'm telling you, days were never this long before. I have like... hours after class is over before I eat dinner. And after dinner? I still have hours before I go to sleep. What the hell am I supposed to do with all that time? I want something to do with this time.

Somehow everyone at school who I let in my life last year (who is still here now) has become an aquaintance. I know at least 150 people at this school. That is a heinously large amount of people. Some of them were more than just "people" too. There were my people. I liked being with them. In my spare time I would think about hanging out with them, or about times we have hung out in the past and at least cracked a smile. All these people are here, and yet here I am, monday night, writing in an online journal. Confiding to the abyss of the internet.

It's just after midnight now and I'm afraid to go to bed. I wish I could feel the sheets against my skin and just fall asleep immediately. I don't want to feel anything now, especially not that moment.

I'm really not feeling this... school thing. I don't know what it is... I went through this last year too. I just lied in my bed the first couple nights and could think of a thousand other places I'd rather be. I feel sort of, I dont know, hollowed out. I don't want to be here. I can't talk to Greg, and I'm wondering how he is. I can't stop thinking about him...

I'm just gonna lay here and get lost in my music library.

(Click here to post your own answers for this meme.)

✓ I miss somebody right now.	✓ I don't watch much TV these days.	✓ I own lots of books.
✓ I wear glasses or contact lenses.	× I love to play video games.	✓ I've tried marijuana.
✓ I've watched porn movies.	× I have been the psycho-ex in a past relationship.  (God I hope not... but it's kinda possible.)	✓ I believe honesty is usually the best policy.  (I'm a compulsive liar, but I try to be honest. I swear.)
✓ I curse sometimes.  (sometimes.)	✓ I have changed a lot mentally over the last year.	× I carry my knife/razor everywhere with me.

( it goes on... )

Okay its 6am. I haven't gone to sleep. I have a million things going through my brain, but who am I to think I'm gonna solve all my problems lying awake in bed. I miss Greg. He's coming to ny in about two weeks. I get to see him and then not talk to him for six months. His idea. I'm not gonna start on that one.

I just saw pictures of girls from work all drunk and laughing at parties together. It made me feel weird. I don't think I'm jealous... I mean I'm not friends with any of them. But I guess It would feel good to be in one of those pictures.

The sun's coming up. I have to call work in about three hours to ask if I'm coming in this morning. That's really soon.

I had the day off today and played piano for about 5 hours. It felt wonderful.

I'm moving. My dad got a new job in Jersey. We have to start selling this house and looking for a new one. My parents said we'll probably go to Brooklyn. I don't really care that much. In fact I think I'm glad. It won't really affect me since I'll be in Chicago most of the year at school, but even for when I'll be around during the breaks I don't think I'll care. If I really had some desire to drive out onto the island to visit anyone I can just hop in the car and go. It's not that far. Even if it was far, I still don't think I'd care. I think I outgrew this place a long time ago. I've had a lot of chances to start fresh, and I've fucked up many of them. Maybe this one will turn out good. I'm hoping it'll turn out good.

The blinds in my room are officially unable to keep my room dark, and my room isn't filled with sunshine exactly, but I can see everything now. Maybe this is my cue to try and sleep again.

Goodnight. And hey, I'm gonna pretend there's someone out there reading this so... thank's for being there, someone.

My cousin Anna came home from Israel last week. She lives in Baltimore, and stopped by NY to come see my family for a couple of days. I think she's the only family member I could consider a friend. I really like her personality, and she just seems to get people. A people getter. She went to college somewhere in Maryland or Virginia, and she decided to take time off from school... college that is... to go to Israel and "learn". She went to live in a few different homes for people her age looking for religious guidance. One thing I forget to mention about Anna is that she's the only person I've ever met who wholy (no pun intended) and truly believes in God.

The thing is, whenever I see Anna, I start questioning my life. Isn't that crazy? That someone preaching a little religious conviction can get me to doubt my everyday way of thinking about things?

So this is what happened. Anna and I were sitting at my kitchen table, talking. We talk a lot. She was telling me about how she spent her year, in those homes, with other girls somewhere in the realm of their mid-twenties (Anna's 26). She told me that she wasn't some crazy self-righteous believer. Hard for me to believe her, I asked her to just tell me how she got from being a pre-law student in Maryland or Virginia to an accused crazy self-righteous believer.

She told me that the whole point of Judaism is not "believing" in God. It's not about believing in anything. She feels that people were put on the earth to find happiness. The only way to find happiness is for each individual person to figure out what it is that gives them the most pleasure. What kind of job, family, house, whatever. So the whole point is to understand the different levels of pleasure and be happy in the end. Now, there are 5 different levels of pleasure, according to this religious conviction of hers. And no, this is not Maslow's hierarchy of needs although it sounds similar. According to Maslow, you cannot achieve the next level of need until the level before it is completely stable and satisfied. This is different. These levels are just different categories of pleasure. The reason they're broken down is that you can't trade a large amount of one level for even a small amount of another level. You can, though, achieve all or none or some of the levels in any order at all.

Okay, so level one - physical and material pleasure. Chocolate cake. Sex. Money. Anything pleasing to the five senses, basically. Level two - love. You wouldn't trade, at least not rightfully, someone that you love for a large amount of money. And, just to go on a tangent, the way love is viewed in Judaism is first two people get to know eachother and determine whether or not they are compatible... mentally and emotionally. Then, they get married, and once they are married they can begin to fall in love. Once this happens, they sanctify the marriage by having sex. Only then can the love really start to grow and it can turn into starting a family, etc. The difference between this and the western view of things, is that here we do it backwords. People spend sometime together and have physical relationships first. Then, they spend enough time together that they become attached, and grow to love the other person. Once they are in love, they get married, but theres is a problem. One in, how many, two, three marriages in America end because once two people get married they realize they are not compatible with one another. It was an interesting thought.

So that was level one and two. Level three is having a cause. Having something to fight for. There is something about joining the peace corps or marching in a rally you really believe in that can get you to give up some of the things you really love. Level four is creation. It's having a child, making art, expressing and bearing your soul for unyielding criticism from the world around you. I'm not sure about level three, but I think I've caught a glimpse level four before. When I used to practice violin day in day out. There was something so soothing and, well, pleasureful about bringing dots and lines on a piece of paper into a story of sound, with characters and ups and downs and feeling. Just to have that power in your fingertips feels so overwhelming. I would foget to eat, forget to study, forget to talk to my family. It was one hell of a level.

So this conversation started to get really interesting, with Anna. I was so completely understanding everything she was saying, until she started talking about level five. I hated that everything she said made so much sense, until she brought religion back into the picture. She said level five is about "being like the divinity" . In Judaism being like someone means that you are close to them. And being close to God means you understand that he created this world and runs it and being tranquil with the idea that everything is organized. I just can't get my mind around this one. I don't think everything is organized. I think this whole world is chaotic mess, to tell you the truth. I really don't think I'll ever feel this "level five", but maybe I can just be okay with the chaos. Maybe I can just take the other four levels in stride and end up somewhere and be comfortable with life. Maybe thats the real level five. I was so close to really seeing eye to eye with her, but there are just some things still getting in the way. Sure I could be stubborn, and I probably am. But I just don't believe in organization, and I believe in coincidence. I believe in accidents. We are alive on this earth because we happened to be the right distance away from the sun. If we were any closer we'd all burn to a crisp and if we were any farther we would freeze to death. This doesn't mean there was some divine intervention.. We were not picked by some god to be the one planet that could have life on it. It just happened that way and if the sun were a little hotter, it would happen to mars too. There are just so many occurances that happen in the world.. and I've studied logic all my life. If someone tells you that they rolled a die 6 times and got the combo 1-2-3-4-5-6, would you believe them? What if they told you they got the combo 4-6-6-2-4-3? Yeah the second case if more believable, but the first one is just as likely. There are just so many things and situations and possibilities in our lives, that any two similar outcomes can bump into eachother at any moment. It's all still possible without a god.

Woah. I didn't know I had all of that in me.

Sure I'm probably sadistic and a narcissist, but hey it's just an opinion. I'm not about to start some revolution. Still just Shirley trying to figure out what she wants to do, where she's gonna do it, and who she's gonna do it with. Something about that Anna, though.

How do you know when you're depressed? I'm not talking about that textbook time-limit bull. Real people don't function like clockwork. I mean, everyone feels depressed, I'm sure. This world isn't that great. Shit gets people down. But how long is too long, in terms of feeling depressed? Feeling lonely? Just plain old sad. There are times, mid-day, where I feel like I have to curl up into a ball and just cry. Why am I crying? Yeah I have a reason right now. But I had a reason yesterday too. And the day before.

Why is it that the sadder I feel, way down deep, the easier it is for me to pretend to feel happy? True, for work I can't go moping around being all existential or anything. I put on my mascara, my madeup smile and fresh "hey, how are you"s. People around me at home, my family, my hand-picked family too, they don't understand what I'm feeling. I've tried so hard to let them in, but each time I do I find out something so dissapointing about someone I thought I once knew. It just makes me even sadder than when I started off. Something like.. "you're not depressed, come on. Theres really no such thing as depression. If it's in your head you can get it out" or "comeon, just be happy". Do you really think that'll help me? Just be happy? If it was that easy I would've figured it out a long time ago.

And so, I play nice. I take it easy with the heavy thoughts around them. I don't let them see me cry. I pretend to have the time of my life, when I'm really just killing time. But recently I've noticed it comes so easy to me. Lying, that is. Maybe I've been doing too much lying. I have no idea what it would be like to just be completely honest with everyone I know. Maybe that would cure me. Or maybe, it's the lying that's saving me from going over the edge.

These two strangers, a boy and girl, traveling in opposite directions - one's going west while the other's headed east - meet in the middle, just for a moment. See, normally this doesn't happen, but there are a very few people you find where if you take just that extra second to stare into their eyes, you find their souls screaming your name, a warm hand on the small of your back, and most importantly, someone to stare back into yours and find the same thing.

Leave it to me to find the one good thing about Illinois a month before it leaves Illinois for good.

"I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen-I believe that people are perfectible, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is regularly visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones who look like wrinkedly lemurs and bad ones who mutilate our cattle and want our water and our women. I believe the future sucks and I believe the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone's ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline of good sex in America is coincidant with the decline in drive-in movie theatres from state-to-state. I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe they are better then the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to germs so that one day we'll all be wiped out by the common cold like the martians in War of the Worlds. I believe that the best poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed siberian shaman. I believe that man's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really DID taste better when I was a kid, that its aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, and that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time(Although if they don't ever open the box it'll just be two different types of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older then the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of casual chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe that anyone who says sex is overrated just hasn't done it properly. I believe that anyone who claims to know what's going on will lie about the little things too. I believe in absolute honesty and sensible social lies. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, and while all life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you may as well lie back and enjoy it." She stopped, out of breath.

Well hello again. Nice to meet you, livejournal reader.

Let me start over.
My name is Shirley. I'm russian, transplanted from Israel to New York to Evanston, IL where I currently sit and watch the weather change, study organic chemistry, muse at the people around me, and continue my attempt at being a musician. My social life is 100% effed up (thank you highschool). I spent my first year of college in a dazed relapse. I always lose at that "Never have I ever..." game because of that one damn year I tried to be the first teenager to defeat the world. Over the course of 18 years, I learned that I think I know everything. More importantly, I learned that I really, really, don't.

So here's to you, me, David Bowie, spring, peanut-butter and jelly, and long and rainy sunday nights that make people want to write epically.

Okay. College is better. I think I was way to overwhelmed with things to realize it in the begining.. But I'm 1 quarter older now. It's not much, but it's something.

Winter break went well, but ended badly. I'm not sure if I could write the sterotypical "first time back from college" entry. I'm also not sure what to do about this crazy relationship I'm in. Just a few months ago I was crying in my bedroom, wasting 2 and half rolls of toilet paper, ready to go to a shitty state school so that I could transfer into Case to be with the boy I loved... now I don't even know what will happen to us. Part of me wants to cut off all ties with anyone and everyone from back home. And the other part? Well, it doesn't really matter. The first part is dominating.

I think I'm going to take a break from lj and figure myself out. I'm in college now. I need to grow the fuck up.. step outside my dorm room and see what's going on with this world.

Could I be more vague? No... no I couldn't.

Sorry, but I'll see you guys later.

So this is it.

Northwestern.

My room is wrong. This doesn't feel right.
I miss my cat maggie. She ran away the day I left... my mom said she ran to chicago to look for me.
It isn't that great maggie.. you should turn around.

Is it weird that I dont like going to freshman socials to bump and grind with drunken frat boys?

Is it weird that the one boy I miss is the one I can't stop arguing with?

Fuck. I dont know if I can do this for 4 years.

Where am I going to live next year?

Just finished reading Death of a Salesman. This has been the first novel / film / form of entertainment that has made me pick my brain for a very long time. I miss that feeling. Lately I've just been an observer, not so much a participant.

Anyway, I find it really amazing, this play. Everyone seems to think that their child is the special child. All the other parents have the normal children, but yours is the real diamond. But how is this possible? We can't all be special. 90% of the time... this has to be wrong. If we were all special, in effect, we'd all be mediocre.

So how do you know who is special and who is just another Joe Shmoe? And is it really so bad to be average? Do we all have to be monetarily successful and be "well liked" to feel alright about life, or can we just be satisfied with making it by okay.. nothing big, keeping food on the table, raising a family, and making a decent living, nothing special.

It's fascinating. Arthur Miller wrote this play in six weeks at the age of thirty-one. It hits new levels of depression. At the opening show on broadway, everybody who was anybody was there. When the show ended, there wasn't a sound. no applause. no nothing. Dead silence. Grown men wept. Everyone, the best of the best and the worst of the worst, realized that this is what life really is. Arthur miller created a goddamn legend at thirty-one.

So what's the irony? By revealing the devastating fact that none of us are special, and we have to accept the fact that life is okay at best... Arthur Miller became legendary. Want some more irony? Arthur Miller passed away on friday, which was the weekend that i read the last scene, the actual "death" of the salesman.



I'm going to Colorado on monday to visit Allie. I miss her. Turns out there was a mishap in planning and she actually has school for most of the days I'll be there, so she's taking me to be her "shadow" one day and she's skipping the other days... because she is allie and allie is cool.

No word from any schools yet. So far I've gotten interviewed by every ivy league school I've applied to, which would be six by my count. I have a Tufts interview soon, and then maybe all this college stuff will cease to occupy my life for a moment or two.

I think an awesome goal in life would be to see all of the movies on this list: http://www.imdb.com/chart/top

When I came home today, I was in a pink mood. The new color scheme is the product of my sentiments. The black and white completely clash and make my eyes hurt, but thats the fun part.

Things at school are feeling surreal. From now until June the time will pass like a splurge of insomnia. We're not really awake, but we're not really sleeping either. I pity the teachers of second semester seniors.

Currently in the stage after brainstorming (what is that?) for planning some summer trip thing. Prom is still in brainstorming mode though. I just hope I don't have to be the only planner this time - it's too much time, money, and responsibility for me to hold in my lonely hands.

Good news - I've officially completed my physical education requirement for JFK High. Never again will I have to change into smelly gym clothes at the sound of a bell to participate in activities in which I have absolutely no skill, with people I will never see again for the rest of my life. I can say though, that the one thing I learned from 12 years of gym, is how to legally serve a volleyball. After that I wouldn't know what to do if my life depended on it, but, if you need a server, I'm your gal.

Temporary Top Schools: Northwestern, Tufts, Columbia

I guess this entry's pretty mellow. I'm not complaining about much. I did alright on my midterms. My new Simon and Garfunkle CD sounds pretty good. Overall, at the moment, life gets a B. Perhaps a B+.

I got into Binghamton today.
At least I know I'm going to college. yay?
Not much news other than the unholy amount of work to do over this vacation.
But, who gives a fuck... it's vacation.

I'm gonna go crawl into bed and not wake up til Saturday.
Peace.

Woah I just realized something.
The next time I will be in school it will be 2005.
The year of my graduation.

Shit man.

"Most of all, I'm afraid everything I love will be lost from me when I graduate."

I come home from school to an email from my guidance councelor which reads as follows:

"Shirley, I just got off the phone with someone from columbia and they said YOUR DECISION WILL BE EMAILED TO YOU THIS EVENING

AAGGGHHHHAGAHGHAGH!! GOODLUCK!
-Mrs. Baker"


O_O




Holy Shit.



come home.
check email.
not there yet.
walk around my house.
check again five minutes later.
still not there.
agonize for 3 hours.
go to www.yahoo.com.
sign in.
typed the passowrd too fast.
sign in again.
(1) new message in the inbox.
click on the inbox.
page is loading.
page is still loading.
load you goddamn page.
okay, page is loaded.
subject - "Columbia Admissions Decision"
It's here.
my pulse gets faster.
click on email.

... this is it.

i read it.



...



i got..



...













...











defered.

Wow i feel like a grade-A generic asshole right now.
My friends are widdling down in number.
What a fucking mess. And, you've managed to piss off one of the few people you've got left. Good job Shirley.

Edit --
I miss Allie.
Counting down the days til Feb.