March 15, 2001 — A bitter kind of sad

Once again I've a hell of a lot of work to do, but I want to write a journal before I get caught up in work and stumble to bed at 5:00AM without writing anything. Actually, I can't really blame work for my stumbling-to-bed-at-5:00AM last night since I was talking to Lindsay on AIM until almost 4:00AM. But I'd like to pretend that work was entirely at fault, if that's okay with you.

I only managed to sleep until around 11:00AM this morning in spite of my late bedtime. I can't remember why. But I'm already quite tired and will have a hard time forcing myself to stay awake long enough to do everything that I need to do tonight. I think I do this to myself entirely to prove how ridiculous my priorities are: by the time I finish this, I'll be too tired to do much of the work that I actually need to do before I go to sleep. Brilliant.

But anyway. After I finished writing yesterday's journal, I rode the subway until just after midnight. When I got home, I wrote this in my journal at iam.bmezine.com:

I just got back from riding around on the subway while reading the ending of "The perks of being a wallflower" again. This quote really got to me this time through: "She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time." I wish that that were true for me. I've been bitter for years. And sad. But I don't know that it's the sort of sad that will go away until I can give up on being bitter and cynical, too. Being bitter and cynical has always been my way of protecting myself from getting truly attached to anyone or anything. I'd like to try to stop. I'd like to be sincere, and I'd like to be able to care for someone without being paranoid or jealous or selfish. But I don't think I know where to begin anymore. Everyday it gets harder to picture a world where safety isn't a sarcastic comeback away.

This was depressing for a couple of reasons: first, I think it's pretty accurate, and that's depressing in and of itself. But it's also depressing in that it's more honest and to-the-point than I've been able to be in these journals for a long time now. That it was an exhausted, half-hearted entry that happened completely by accident just makes it worse. A frustrating state of affairs.

But back to today. Amy came by to visit, and she and Jeff were nice enough to let Johnston and I tag along for a showing of "O brother, where art thou?" at the cheap theatre downtown. It was sunny out and it felt like spring, so actual jackets were out of the question. We instead elected to all wear hoodies, basically making us into a group of people that we couldn't possible resist teasing if we were to see them on the streets. It was fun seeing Jeff in my Saves The Day hoodie singing bits of the same song off of the acoustic EP over and over again, though.

The movie was fantastic. The best bit of dialogue went something like, "So you sold your eternal soul to the devil in exchange for learning to play the guitar?" followed by, "Well, I wasn't using it at the time." Unfortunately, I still don't know how to play guitar, but I'm pretty sure my eternal soul went missing a long time ago. Or maybe it's just been misplaced. I'll let you know how that turns out.

Since returning home, I've managed to get absolutely nothing accomplished. Jeff yelled at me to make up my mind as to whether or not I'd be visiting Lindsay in Oshawa this weekend, and I've spent the rest of my time napping or wasting my life away on the Internet. Hold your applause.

A logical person would now get to work on that lab due tomorrow and all those Web pages that still need to be built. But I'd rather get something to eat. These last couple of days seem to be following a trend...