30

Could I be any more tired?
Answer: yes.
I believe the term for that is "dead."

But don't quote me on that.

"One more time" usually means seven.

29

But really now!
A freedom!

Not to mention late-start education.
What. A. Day.

28

A new kind of freedom--
sort of.
The ability without the tools?
Useless.
But definitely symbolic
of something
or other.

27

Seventeen revolutions around the sun.
Take THAT.

26

Even frickin' football players watch Glee.
popular culture!

25

What do you say after hello?

Goodbye.

24

Tennessee is a state, but also a man, a man whom I thought was a woman for much too long.

Gender confusion champion!

23

Allow me to say that your friends all have very strange names.

22

Close to the second-best day:

I'm glad not to be at school,
but I met the stupidest person alive.

The second stupidest, too.

I'm sorry you two have to live with those two.
I would cry.

21

Well, you know.

Possibly the most fantastic day ever.

--things that I love--only bigger--with more scope--

Thank you for the best birthday present of my life!

20

Bent over the keybord as I am, my spine feels compressed.

I sit up tall to stretch it.

19-Giant Robot Heart

The problem was that when Caleb was born, his heart was too weak and too small to circulate properly. And so his parents spent a few years hoping and praying and finding religion in hospitals before it became clear that Caleb's heart was never going to grow to the right proportion. His fingers would always be cold and purple, he would always be shivering in the summer. Caleb would never be a boy of strong constitution. His parents wept and gave up their hope. Caleb, who had never known any other way, picked up chess instead of baseball and wore gloves inside.

And then a miracle, the very answer to the question they had stopped asking, reached the ears of Caleb's parents: a surgery had been invented, a perfectly safe procedure (or so they were assured), which could strengthen even the strongest ventricles. The Robot Heart, the media called it, a metal contraption only slightly larger than the normal human heart, could keep Caleb's ticker ticking well into tomorrow and beyond.

18

She wore a pink dress and high heels and carried a box of books into the local jail. She had three more boxes in her car and felt out of place delivering them. At least she had put on the dress, though it made her look delicate like lace. Jeans made her look all of her nineteen years. And maybe the dress made her look older and maybe it didn't, but it sure made her feel older, and she needed to feel a little older in the face of criminals, she felt.

Maybe good deeds and jails just didn't go together, she supposed. But she'd gotten all these donations and she had no place to put them. It hadn't been her most well-thought-out plan.

Jails were scary. She wasn't even near a cell and this jail was scary. Pink dresses didn't go with criminals.

After all, she had never seen a criminal wearing a pink dress.

17

Holy shit.

16

I miss having time to read for fun.
Words!

15

When she finally had her own room, she began to wear dresses and read lots of books with words like "begat." She didn't eat much because she didn't have time, but her mind was full and she photosynthesized.

14

She and her family had different morals
and so they never got along.
They saw the bad coming
and steeled themselves.
But she refused to be jaded
and so was frequently heartbroken--
but at the times in between
she reveled in the beauty of the world.

13

The earth has traveled halfway around the sun.

12

The catch, the real problem, is that I always manage to convince myself that I have fun when I'm there with you, and so the disappointment is continuous. And when you remind me all the reasons I'm wrong, I remind myself why I never really feel like I'm fitting in a traditional family role. And that's what makes me think that I'm better off myself. Because I don't feel bad when you don't all remind me how bad I really am.

An unanswerable question: what is the role of family, precisely?

For example, I miss my sister now that ten hours and a time zone separate us. But when she lived home, we talked less often and saw each other just the same amount and I certainly missed her less. It's funny the way distance has an effect on missing.

An unanswerable answer: not to push you out, I think.

11

And in terms of quotations, you will never repeat my words.
But in terms of thought, perhaps you've paused to consider.

10

In terms of communication,
I hope that someday just one sentence will mean infinity to you.

9

"I think I may have to give up," the little one said.

"Why is that, brown mouse?" asked the larger of the two.

The small brown mouse shrugged. "Sometimes the price of a dream is greater than it once appeared."

8

This whole school thing is getting old, even though it still feels like the beginning. And days and days are melding together. So yesterday, tomorrow, last week, next month all might've been the third day of school, the first day that's painfully non-distinct. That's painfully every day.

And every day is today and I'm bored reading Grendel or Beowulf or Waiting for Godot, I don't even know anymore, whether or not this is September or June...

Except for not knowing where I'll be in a year.

7

Today, I am tired:
both ten and twenty days away.
This month will be monumental, doubly.

And today, I will get the cut on my knee that I will continuously scratch open for approximately the next three weeks. I'm just an idiot like that.

6

Sometimes I feel the need to tell lies for no reason:
"No, I don't love you."
"Grendel was the HERO, moron."
"I'm learning Russian."

I never get caught.

5

Today is a Saturday, so let me give you yesterday:

Nicole found out about this, about the scenes I'm giving you from my day. And then she tried to flash me in English class.

Be jealous indeed.

4

3

Oh, hello ridiculously time-consuming education.

2

This is the last day of a wonderful summer. Starting today and now and at this point in time, I am leaning, careening towards adulthood, towards a future I am forced to control.

Today, I am sixteen and have a very shaky concept of "the rest of my life." I project my wants and wishes to a November visitation that will never come--and I'm tired. I am very, very tired. That's the keenest concept I have of a future: this unending exhaustion, beginning even before the year.

And yet (here a joint composition of past and future) I haven't quite yet hit the point of hopeless. But soon.

1

On a midnight refusal to open Skype:
I am here and you are there and that is just something we're going to have to get used to. Takes me until September sixth to really feel as if I'm going to get used to it.

In a day after today, Nicole will complain that Project July has gotten too depressing for her, of late. I guess that's something of the catch.