17 May 2003 - 2:26 p.m.

Why yes, this is a Teen Girl Squad" tank top I'm wearing! Thank you for noticing!

Dude, I just wrote a really bad poem. I wish I could write good poems. Or, rather, I wish I had more time to write good fiction, which is something I'm actually capable of, but it takes me for fucking ever. Even though I think prose is generally a lot easier to write, it takes me a lot less time to write one and a half pages of crap than it does to write twenty pages of crap, and a lot less time is what I have until my final project for workshop is due.

Dude! My Martha Stewart Living just came, and there's a whole section on mosaic crafts.

Yeah, see, this is why I'm totally unable to write anything approaching a story or novel chapter. After turning in my thesis, I feel entitled to a couple of days of gnatlike attention span. I was on kind of a roll with the first two stanzas of my poem, and then it occurred to me that I do not have my friend Kang's address.

Which is of utmost importance. Where will I send his wedding invitation a year from now?

So we talked for a while. He had work to do, too, but he had to fill me in on his allergies.

I need to know this stuff, y'all!

At least I have until tomorrow to tweak this piece of crap, or rather, find 4987590 ways of amusing myself in lieu of actually trying to make the piece any good.

Fuck it. I graduate in one week. One episode of grad student-itis is allowed, no?

I helped Cranky May load up his Tennessee-bound U-Haul last night, which I'm doing my best to forget about. I must say, it was probably one of the hardest good-byes there'll be over the next few weeks, since Cranky, unlike my other professors, won't be here after I'm gone. Hell, he won't be here this afternoon. But he does make it to Pittsburgh every so often, and would probably make a point of getting in touch with me, which is more that I can say for many of the folk I've met down here.

I don't know what the big deal with traveling is. It's kind of sad, since I tend to make as much effort to see people who live really far away as I do people who are right near me. Oh, well. Maybe I can lead by example. Or downright rudeness. Gus, be forewarned that our wedding invitations will probably say something like "Gus and Big J are getting hitched, so get off your complacent asses and come witness that shit!"

I really like being called "Big J." It's sort of the equivalent of calling some enormous guy "Tiny," but not quite as degrading. Because while Tiny may wish he was not so friggin' huge, I have few complaints about being all half-pinty and shit.

I'm sorry, but you'll have to excuse me. Mosaic crafts are a-callin' my name.

What I'm wearing: "I have a crush on every boy!"

What I'm reading: "And the rain beats on my roof..."

What I'm doing after this: mackazeen.