http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmnjKpe848Y

this song solidified my love of female fronted punk rock. i never thought of riot grrrl as anything extraordinarily different from the other punk rock bands i loved until i got into more bands like babes in toyland, l7, seven year bitch, jack off jill. i fell under the spell that all little punk rock girls fall under; that dream of being on stage, shredding, howling, fuckin' shit up. of course i felt deep affection for music before i found these bands, but never the desire to make my own. i didn't think it was something i could do. then i realized that they didn't always sound pretty, just like me. i've never wanted anything so badly. when i was 14 or so, i started a band with some female friends of mine. kaytee didn't have a drum kit but kept rhythm best so she would hit couch cushions with her mother's wooden spoons and i'd mangle chords on her older brother's electric guitar which had a built in speaker. i thought it was the best music had ever sounded. kristen played guitar pretty well and her mom's boyfriend had a p.a. so we practiced once in her basement, but ended up watching "spice world". we covered hole's cover of "pale blue eyes". i was terrified to sing in front of even my best friends but was sure i would erupt with a bjelland-like fury once the stage lights hit me.

who am i kidding? it's still the dream.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XXRvL539LU&feature=related

this song reminds me of when i spent everyday with a baby in the backseat, and we'd drive along the coast of connecticut and sing songs and visit the book barn. it was a wonderful time in my life because i felt truly productive. i could see the baby learning and growing every day and i hoped i had something to do with his happiness. one late night i was giving him a bath and we looked out the window at the moon. i sang this song to him [though i never remember how it goes so i just sort of pieced together what i could recall] and it was the first time he asked me to sing again. he clapped his hands, splashing water out of the tub and all over me, and shouted, "again! again! sing, sara!" he always said my name when he spoke to me, as though i'd forget he was speaking to me. so i sang it again and again.

later we added some jonathan richman to our repetoire, "i'm a little dinosaur" being a huge hit, along with "vincent van gogh". he liked rancid's "radio" and "old friend". bright eyes had just released "four winds" so i woke him up with that one morning and we danced to the violins while making breakfast. it was a truly happy time in my life. i miss him very much.

there's a boy i work with who has refused to speak to me for the past three days. i have replayed every moment in between the time we last worked together as friends and when the stony silence began. i can't think of a single thing i've done, and it scares me deeply that i could offend someone so completely and have no recollection or understanding. please, friends, all of you - speak your minds! when someone hurts your feelings, say so. it doesn't always have to lead to conflict, and conflict doesn't have to seem so scary. keeping a friendship alive can really be so simple as saying "that hurts my feelings". and if someone wants to fight with you, let 'em! this was very hard for me to learn, but nothing energizes creative energy so much as rage. when someone had held anger in and they seem an opportunity to unleash it, not only will they feel better but whomever is on the receiving end of their tirade will learn so much about what upsets them and how they deal with their own anger or sadness. these are necessary things to know if one wishes to be a good friend. how can you help a friend through a tough time if you don't understand how they process it. lindsey and i have been good for each other because we process self loathing in very similar ways: we smoke weed, we drink 40s, we sleep with someone we shouldn't, we cry, we find a great song, we smoke another bowl and we move on. it's just the cycle. but you have to uncover that cycle. if you ask a friend, "what's wrong" and they unleash a torrent of "how can you ask that? can't you see i've been blank and blank and blank because i'm dealing with blank and blank and blank?" they are telling you what upsets them and how they deal with it. i know many people who don't like conflict and leave so many things unsaid, but it doesn't make sense to me because you end up only half-knowing people. the problem is also that this has been a discussion of conflict and not conversation. people don't feel encouraged to share their feelings or their ideas, or they don't feel welcome to. but in the context of conflict, both of those societal strangleholds are overridden by the energy of anger. people also hate being yelled at. i too, don't enjoy being yelled at, but i recognize that sometimes i deserve it and sometimes people need to yell. it's inevitable. someone is going to yell at you sometime, and it isn't the worst thing in the world as long as they don't take a swing. the next time someone is upset with you, fucking go for it. if you're strong enough in your self and your resolve, you'll come out the other side having learned something.

misunderstanding is inevitable; all we can do is communicate, share our thoughts and feelings, and realize that everyone is as weird and lonely as we are.

i want to make this an open invitation to share your grievances. if i've ever done anything to upset or alienate you in any way, and i'm sure [knowing my sense of humour] that i have, i want to hear it. i truly and absolutely want to know. i think of my life as a chemistry experiment. you begin working with what you have, but over time you observe reactions and you begin to tweak your recipes and change the tools you use. i've been conscious of myself as a work in progress for almost eleven years, and i would like to finally see some sort of results for my effort but that has yet to happen. my life is still riddled with drama and difficulty, loneliness and miscommunication.

i see a distinct pattern with my co-workers. they never like me. scott is the one and only person that has stayed a friend after working together, and i asked myself why. i know at starbucks i was nightmare; i was totally irrational, always angry, and after my first year i saw no reason to work as hard as i had been. i caused drama, i spoke rudely to people, i picked fights and i'm sure i got people in trouble. i thought i had learned something when i started at the film academy cafe, but it's obvious now that i didn't. even two of my best friends who would eventually work there talk to me significantly less than they did before. and again, i understand. i never worked as hard as i could have, i always had friends around and in the courtyard, smoking pot and playing hackeysack. i fought with ivan and got jenny in trouble [unintentionally, but still]. i don't blame people for not staying in touch. besides, what's done is done and all i can do is learn from it.

and i thought i had learned when i started working at bowery coffee. i work incredibly hard and am careful to the point of paranoia with the cash register. i offered to come in off the clock with my own beans and my own milk so i can practice and become a barista. i hesitated about sharing my thoughts and my time with my co-workers, but prestin and i had such a blast working together that we ended up going to the bar across the street and smoking weed down the block. kayvon and i started having these really great conversations, swapping ideas and stories about the world and asking questions of science and feeling. let me share a great memories with you.

prestin, lance, kayvon, boris and i sit at a candle-lit table in tom & jerry's bar on elizabeth street. we drink beers and talk about the bullshit meeting we'd just come from. the conversation strays and prestin pipes up with "can i read you guys something i wrote?" he takes about an hour to rescue his journal from his behemoth messenger bag, but once he finds it he throws it on the table, takes a sip of his beer, and cracks the spine. a few dry leaves of tobacco [i assume] fall out on to the table and he begins to read. his voice has a warm tone to it, but also a bassy depth and a quality of light; his voice is Monterey, California. he reads this poem about his old hang-out spot at a former workplace. there's an inherent nostalgia in the subject matter, but his voice carries that nostalgia even further with a built in crackle of not-yet-perfected technologies. a line jumps out at me: "loose toothed stones", and i run my tongue along my teeth to make sure they're all still there. prestin finishes reading and returns the journal to the vortex of his bag. we all clap quietly and say "thank you". kayvon says he likes the delivery. i share the line that caught my ear, and by this time prestin is near glowing. how often do you see a young man share his mind? it is a beautiful moment.


i'm scared that my body doesn't always know what's wrong and what's right according to my brain, because sometimes when i'm at fault i feel a deep guilt, and other times i feel nothing. i want to feel badly when i do badly, because that's how one learns to do better. i want to be a good friend and i still keep hurting people's feelings. i don't expect to get along with everyone, but...

all i can do is shake my head and keep asking, "what is wrong with me? why doesn't anyone like me? why don't i like me?"

i thought i'd grown. i'd just found a different way to waste my time.

lindsey and i switched rooms, so i live downstairs now. i wasn't wild about the switch, since now i have fewer windows and have to deal with stairs all the time, but i'm beginning to enjoy my new space. it gets really warm with a little ceramic space heater and the bed is comfy. i forgot how much i enjoyed rearranging my room when i was a kid; moving the furniture every week for a while, just to try out something different.

i'm pretty deeply unhappy at work, but enjoying the company of my coworkers more. i've gotten distinctly better at making coffee, and i hope if i keep practicing like i have been and going to classes at count culture's training lab, i'll be satisfied with my own work by the end of the year. once i feel confident in my skill on my own terms, and i know i can be consistent, i'll feel comfortable either asking to become a barista or seeking a new job. i just need to stay positive and remember that this has nothing to do with my personality flaws and is only a question of training. i'm almost there. but, i'm always almost there.

i really enjoy working with kayvon. we bonded over the cure, the smiths, malcolm tent. he's very intuitive and he's seen a lot of the world. he's sincere and pretty ridiculous. we have a blast working together, and sometimes have deep conversations about science and feelings. i always feel doubly lucky when i make friends at work, or at least when i feel excited to work with someone and know i can rely on their good work and their good companionship. that's really rare.

i'm also feeling a combination of loneliness and desire for solitude. i find myself feeling left out only to realize that if i were invited, i probably wouldn't want to go out anyway. david's always telling me about shows and absolutely nothing sounds interesting.

let's not talk about the boring sad stuff; let's share the good news. i've taken a bass lesson with matt siffert and been practicing like a fiend, and i'm shocked to say that i think i've got some potential. daniel gerstle, bass player of the extended family, is living with us for the month and offered to teach me some of yula's songs. i half-jokingly suggested i could potentially fill-in on bass for the band while he's traveling in africa. he actually took to the idea, and so did yula. how absolutely incredible is that? i feel really confident that i can learn her songs, since i already know and love them. actually performing live is a totally different question. i get butterflies just imagining it. scott sablan recently joined the band also, playing french horn, and i'm happier still to know i'll be making music with one of my best friends and future business partner!

i'm a lucky girl, i guess.

i read a blog that dana reposted, i think it was something hayley wrote; the subject matter being rape and jokes about rape. hayley's message was, essentially, that rape jokes are not funny because they demean the suffering of the survivor and they can trigger flashbacks or overwhelming anxiety for someone who has been attacked. this is interesting to me as a rape survivor who will make any joke that presents itself and was more disturbed by milky getting beat up in "this is england" than any rape scene i've ever come across in a movie.

it's fascinating to me where people decide to draw their moral boundaries. i get passionately mad when someone thinks "rape" and "sex" are interchangeable terms. i get violently mad when the focus of an investigation is what clothing was worn, or how much alcohol was imbibed. i had a strange moment last week, walking home from david's house on third ave, when some asshole tried to grab my hello kitty bag. i yelled and swung at the guy, and a security guard from a nearby school chased the guy away [kitty bag is still in tact, thank you!]. when i got back to david's place, i was talking to kriss and tasha about the whole ordeal and kriss said, "well you probably looked pretty drunk." this young man has been one of my closest friends for five years, and if i had been attacked that night in a more serious manner, i honestly don't know if i could count on his reaction to be more enlightened. what an astonishing blow to my trust and confidence in him. i was telling doug about the incident, and his defense of kriss was, "well a girl with a kitty bag stumbling around manhattan does look like an easy target". how am i supposed to feel about that sentiment? very few men have any understanding of how deeply scary a statement like that is, and even fewer see how unproductive and immoral it is to blame the victim in any situation. my physical well being should have nothing to do with what i'm wearing, or what i've had to drink, and everything to do with the simple kindergarten logic of "if it isn't yours, don't fucking touch it."

so i'm obviously someone who is vocal about my experiences, about wanting to help other women, about wanting to kill every rapist and molester. i am also one of the lewdest, crudest, rudest people i have ever met. if there's a joke to be made, no matter whom it offends or how vile the punchline may be, i'll make that joke because there's laughs to be had. it probably ties in with my crippling need for attention and semi-sociopathic detachment from my actions and their consequences. i wonder why i would make a rape joke when i find nothing really funny about rape. maybe sometimes the telling of a joke has nothing to do with the comedienne but everything to do with the audience. i don't find it funny, but i know that you will and if it's my goal to make you laugh, i'm going to say anything.

i wonder how many scenarios in my life have been examples of choosing a successful social situation over defending my truest thoughts and feelings. i wonder why i didn't know better sooner, although i've only recently started talking about what happened to me when i was a child. i'm going to be more mindful in the future, that while crassness has it's own special zing, i want to live by what i know is right.

i was told recently that no one flirts with me or makes any romantic advances because i have widely professed how much i hate to be hit on. this entry addresses my feelings on this issue. i use male pronouns because this is a reflection of what i've experienced more frequently in my life.

the difference between flirting and hitting on someone is reciprocation and awareness. i despise being hit on. there is nothing i like less than being trapped by some asshole in meaningless conversation. i don't care to talk to him, and he doesn't care what i'm saying because the whole scene is just temporary license to look at my tits. the weak and unimaginative compliments, easily given and never specific to an individual; "you look nice"...what does that even mean? i do not look "nice", i look like i might rip your god damned head off. oh you mean "i look good"? i do not look "good", i look like a girl who has no problem being bad. i look "hot"? i look "sexy"? the english language has a thousand words that relay a positive visual experience and yet they seem to be lost to so many. however, i love flirting. i crave it. flirting feels like exercise, with my brain and body fully engaged. talking to someone new is exhilarating enough, but when you begin to sense that positive energy and the conversation really gets rolling; the first brush of the knees and a loud laugh accompanied with a brief touch...flirting can be creative, fun, and above all: electric.

flirting is a conversation. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. it is nothing more than a conversation, in which two people exchange ideas and attempt to understand each other and maybe learn something. honesty is the focus. there is absolutely room for compliments in this setting, but they differ from compliments while being "hit on" because of content and context. a flirtatious conversation will slowly unearth some gems like "that's a great idea" or "you really know a lot about this". a positive response to another person's existence does not have to sound creepy or be based on anything physical. this is possible and effective. if a woman does not ask you a question, she isn't interested in you. i don't know if men do this also but it's a fairly efficient way to express that you aren't interested in the conversation continuing. if you're trying to instigate more talking, racking your brain for something new to say, and aren't encouraged by the person you're talking to, maybe you should just go with "see you around".

another important point to note is body language. many are very expressive of their genuine emotions without any conscious thought and i feel like this is especially true in women [or they may just be easier for me to read]. when a woman is speaking in short sentences, and her eyes constantly searching the room, she is being hit on. when a woman is laughing freely, sharing her ideas, and making eye contact, she is flirting. these reactions could not be more opposite. if you are talking to someone and you see they are physically pulling away from you, why would you continue talking to them? and yet, i see this daily. don't waste a woman's time when she's already bored with you.

we need to truly listen to each other. so many approach relationships as a process of fooling each other, trying to delude each other to maintain the sense of closeness. it's scary, and it's useless. just be real with each other and no matter how fucked up you are, there is someone who will put up with your shit and find some sort of happiness doing so. isn't that why we flirt? to search for that tolerant and enjoyable creature? and we "hit on" people to acquire the purely physical. understanding and properly expressing your motivation is vital.

and that's what i think about that.

heartbreaker,
when you are able to break a promise to the woman you love above all others, what is a promise to me supposed to mean? what did laughing for hours mean? what did "i love you" mean? what do friendship, honesty, trust, loyalty, solidarity, and helpfulness mean? do you know what they meant to me?

heartbreaker,
when i asked you, for weeks, what was wrong with me as a human being in my attempt to become a better person, and you said nothing, did you think you were helping me? when you finally chose to angrily throw my flawed actions in my face, did you think you were helping me then too?

heartbreaker,
when you held me in your arms for the first time, did you want to give me the world? why didn't you?

i am on the verge of writing something tremendous. i have an entire book plotted out. yes, finally! here it comes. i must finish my work before halloween. i worry that the Great Pumpkin will not feel my sincerity, but i know Kitty does [and some of my most beautiful friends]. i think the difference between all of us is the simple fact that i know my heart is good, even if i can't show it to you or share it with you. my heart works hard. my heart makes people happy, makes people dance, gives my friends energy. if you could see it once, why can't you see it all the time? how could you forget about a thing like a great heart?

i have tried so hard. i hope that matters in the days to come.

what upset me so deeply about las vegas was that it made me feel small. curled up in a ball on the floor, shivering under my blankie, cursing the voices making love above me; i felt like a child again, when i could hear my mom and her boyfriend in their room, and i'd be so embarrassed and never felt like i could leave my room. once, i had to go to the bathroom so badly but was scared to leave my room, so i peed in a cup and hid it in my closet. i was maybe eight years old. my mother exploded when she discovered what i'd done. i couldn't explain myself, though. it would mean confronting what had happened. the whole scenario made my stomach do backflips. i had hoped to never feel that way again, and yet that feeling was forced into my life by people i loved and trusted to protect my happiness.

danielle yelling at me makes my hands shake like my mother's screams used to. when you're fighting with someone who doesn't understand why they're angry, why you're angry, or what anger even really is...it isn't a fight. it's loving a brick wall. i cannot do that. would that i could be strong enough to provide for all exactly what they need. would that i were strong enough yet to provide for myself. but i am lost, and to admit that is to admit that i cannot guide others. it is time to hand the reins to their rightful owners, and remove myself from any situation i feel is beyond me until i grow closer to grasping it.

i become more comfortable admitting weakness every day. i am a rape survivor, a child of alcoholics, a college drop out and a drug addict. i am needy, selfish, inconsistent, dishonest, lazy, angry, sex driven and negative to the core. i have father issues and absolutely no firm grasp on my sexual identity; i am promiscuous and have exercised little regard for fidelity. and that's okay. because that's who i was. and nine tenths of the battle is admitting that i have done these things, that i have been that person. now, a great period of change can begin. it will be tremendous. i see so clearly the woman i would like to become, and the world i would love to help shape.

my heart is not strong enough to love my friends and at the same time i have the audacity to proclaim that i'd lay my life down for a political cause. yes, i would die for freedom. i could answer that without a moment's hesitation. if i had to choose between one more sweet breath and the liberation of the masses, it would not even be considered a choice in my mind but a duty, a responsibility as a free and thinking, passionate and outraged human being. my people are under attack. women, the poor, the intelligent, the alternative, the gays, the marijuana smokers....we are hated by the society that raised us, and there is no room here for growth anymore. i see this so clearly, and as i open my mind to accept death, i cannot help but allow how i see life to be revolutionize. how much time i've wasted, how much poison i've put into my body, how much energy i've poured into the temporary and trite....

...and still love seems like a wonderous thing. as much as i crave self sustaining liberty i crave the confines of another's arms. i've forgotten what a kiss tastes like, or the sweet smell of sweat on the back of a man's neck. i can't recall the feeling of sharing my life with another, and can only compare it now to the luxury of being able to expect the joy that is world/inferno. i can't even bring back remnants of rage from lost lovers; it all seems like such a far off dream, such a vain waste and such a lofty desire. the happier i become, the more i wish i could share it with someone.

and at times i think i will never escape this cycle.

if you have any love for me, reader, pick up derrick jensen's "endgame". you will not regret it.

having a very hard time writing; don't want to force it but don't want to forget. i'll come back to this later.

i made a friend on the train; his name was Bommon and he was from vancouver. i flew to los angeles; the flight was pretty dull and i slept a little. i met up with max and brett, then went back to brett's house and hung out with his roommates kyle and koontz, smoked delicious weed and snuggled. then sleep! the next day, i tried west coast chain restaurants and play in the pool, then got dressed up and saw world/inferno, who played beautifully as always but the crowd was lackluster; though some people i really love were in the crowd. i saw my my best friend from high school fall in love with the inferno and i danced. i saw a kid i hadn't seen in years and had really missed. i slept well and enjoyed a cool morning of reading Jensen's "Endgame" and smoking on the front porch. i had lunch on a picnic table and enjoyed the sunshine and palm trees. i traveled to san diego, saw the pacific and the beginning of hilly deserts. i saw a border patrol car and i yelled "chinga la migre!". we stayed at a beautiful motel with two hot tubs and drank a lot of rum. we met up with the kids at an apartment near the venue. we smoked in the car and walked fast through the cooling night. the venue was a dark bar with round cushioned benches and a friendly bartender. it was doug's birthday so they played go with it girl [and cats! and california!], and jack brought doug up on stage so we all sang happy birthday and danielle presented a cake with candles. it was beautiful. what a way to turn 40. he inspires me to never stop having fun. anyway, the set was great and max was crazy drunk so we left for the hotel and poured him into bed. i took a long hot shower and then slept well.

arrived in las vegas with some turbulence. played a few slot games with tasha and had a ridiculously good time. took a cab to old vegas, started a moshpit at a street fair, drank dollar shots in a crummy casino, had a blast at the show. glamour ghouls, lust, just the best party...helping the band load up and then hopping a ride with the phenomenauts in their space craft back to circus,circus. ian playing the ukulele and singing AJJ songs together. we played a few games and then went back to our hotel, where doug slid out of the cab and back to the craps table. i got hit on by creepy guys and went to bed. then everything sucked and i wanted to cut off my ears for four hours until brett and i got into the car and drove back to los angeles. we listened to the radio and took turns driving. it was a fast but beautiful trip, and after we got back to his house we smoked and went to an organic market for dinner supplies. the boys who live here are really funny and i enjoy their company. we watched an amazing movie "syrus" and went to bed early. i slept twelve hours, i think. now i'm up and stoned again and writing; going outside for a cigarette soon and i just might have a beer too, because it's after noon where i'm from.

i just can't do anything right at this moment in time, but damn i'm having fun and i'm talking to people in a new way.

i am as important to myself as you are to yourself. that is the universal law. it is the only one i will heed. this is my ethos. this is me.

i worked at a tex-mex restaurant up in litchfield. i was a busgirl, and my mother was a waitress. i remember one of my first nights working there;i was having some difficulty. it was during the dinner rush, and i couldn't get the food to the customers at the bar fast enough so the bartender picked up my slack. at one point i was bagging a delivery when i heard my mother talking to the bartender in the kitchen. they were complaining about my inability to keep up, the way catty waitresses usually do. years later i myself would be that waitress, complaining to the cook and the bartender about the errant busgirl, but this was my mother. i heard the bartender say, "she sure didn't run track!" and my mother's agreeing laugh. i felt crushed. i felt all energy to keep working slip away, and i'm sure i moved like molasses in winter for the rest of the night. i don't remember confronting my mother about the situation, but i did pose a question as a hypothetical situation to the cook. her idea of a reassuring me was to inform me that some people say things they don't really mean in order to fit in. oh good, either my mother thinks i'm an incompetent loser or she's a conformist liar.

and i remember all throughout my childhood, waking up to hear my mother downstairs. sometimes in summer she would be play grateful dead's "american beauty" on the old stereo and my eyes would open from sleep at hearing the needle hit the record, giving birth to a fuzzy blast of noise. the sun-drenched living room filled my heart with joy as i jumped down the steps and ran outside. those were the best of times. but more often than not, i would wake up and lie in bed, listening to mom sputtering curses at me from downstairs. my bus arrived at 6:30 am on school days and it was a bitter battle to get mom to understand how alarm clocks worked. i hated the way she would wake me up; it was always annoying or mean, never kind or helpful. so i started setting an alarm for myself in middle school. she refused to give up her sacred motherly right to ruin my day, and would beat the alarm by just a minute or two; often it would go off in the middle of her tirade and infuriate her further. on weekends, she would scream from downstairs, "get down here and feed this god damned cat!" it never occurred to her that the cat didn't need to eat at eight o'clock in the morning, or that we could feed the cat a thousand salmon and it would still rub against your legs while you tried to cook in the kitchen, or that getting to sleep in on saturday or sunday was something i very much looked forward to. imagine what it would feel like to lay in bed every morning of your life, waiting for your mother to scream at you for something that made no sense. every. day. every day. i could hear her speaking in just above a whisper, running down all my faults and flaws. cat unfed? shoes by the door? books on the table? atrocities, all of them. i wasn't allowed to keep things downstairs. all of my things had to be in my room. i understand that it's a small house and it gets cluttered, but how would you feel if each time you came home you saw nothing of your own? shoes by the door make a house feel like home, books on the table remind me that i have a place. i never felt that. i never felt welcome, i never felt home.

and when i would get express how sad i felt, or how angry i felt, or how lost i felt, my mother would respond with anger. she'd make me feel guilty for all that i had, for ever asking for more. the only time she responded kindly to my angst was one morning on the first of february in two thousand and eight. i had been contemplating suicide, and i told her i wanted professional help. she brought me a glass of apple juice. it was nice, the apple juice, since my throat was a little dry from sleeping, but i never did get professional help. i don't remember being encouraged to be better, only punished for not having done well enough.

how could i have ever expected to be anything but paranoid?

why don't you understand what i want? and why don't you understand why i'd rather die than live right now?

maybe i'll look back at this when i'm forty and laugh, but for now...

why must everything be so much more difficult than it needs to be?

david asks me to "try for my friends". i'm finding it hard to understand why i should try when people aren't trying for me. am i being selfish? am i being ungrateful? yes. i'm being childish and i reserved the right to stamp my feet right now because i'm frustrated and it feels good. i have put right here on this god damned website a journal, eleven years of my inner dialogue, and yet everyone in my life keeps throwing up their hands saying "i don't understand you! i don't know what you want! what do you need?!"

i'm probably wrong. my friends are probably all terrific and kind-hearted people, and i'm just the ape flinging shit to get more attention. because that's all i've ever wanted. attention. and i don't know how to turn that off. and i may just kill myself to get it.

how could you not see the big picture?