I’ve met so many people here, but I still haven’t made any real friends. I don’t know why people seem to be so drawn to me; everyone always really likes me and tries to latch on to me, and it makes me sad when it turns out we aren’t really on the same page. What are people like here? I mean…same as everywhere! People are all pretty much the same. They basically work non-stop just to survive, and if they ever do have any free time it freaks them out so much they do everything they can to fill it up again. buh, people!
But they’re good people! Sometimes, when I can get outside my head a little, I get together with some of them and try to let myself have fun — hanging out laughing and chatting over good food, going out biking or dancing, that sort of thing. And I feel better afterwards; it just means I have to forget that there’s so much more to me than this, that there are parts of myself decaying inside me that I have to hide from everyone here. Eugh, it’s like squeezing my heart into a tiny box! But no one really ever gets people like us :(

I just…I just still can’t believe she’s really gone! Sometimes I wish I’d never met her! Then I could tell myself, don’t be an idiot! you’re looking for something that isn’t out there, but I’ve HAD it, I’ve felt that connection, I know what it’s like to be with someone and feel like I’m more than myself because I was everything I could be. God! We connected on every single level! And I felt like I could talk to her about the whole way nature spoke to me! Every conversation was this endless back and forth of the deepest feelings, and the most amazing puns, and even when we were just being goofy there was a kind of genius to it. And now…maybe if I’d met her sooner we could have had a bit longer together. But I’ll never forget her…so grounded, so amazingly patient…

A couple days ago I met someone named V., a friendly, sweet-faced guy, fresh out of college; he, quote, “still feels he has a lot to learn”, but I think he’s used to being the smartest guy in the room. And I mean, sure, he studied hard enough, it’s kind of hard to miss, but — well, whatever. He knows his stuff. When he heard I drew a lot and knew Greek (which is like having three heads out here), he came and found me and started throwing all these names around, from Ruskin to Parry, from McLuhan to Frisk, and he kept telling me how he’d read Gibbon’s whole Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, and how he owned a first printing of Benjamin’s “The Work of Art In the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”. I mostly just let him talk.
I did also meet the county district attorney, though, and he actually seems like a sincere, genuine guy. I keep hearing how adorable it is seeing him with all his kids (he has nine!), and people are always talking about his oldest daughter, who I think is about my age. He’s invited me over, and I’m really looking forward to visiting him. He lives in a mansion in the country an hour and a half from here. He moved out there when his wife died because he was in such bad shape afterwards that living in town so close to the courts was too much for him :(
Otherwise, it’s been one long line of self-important nobodies, just unbearable people, and the worst part is how hard they keep trying to impress me.

Bye! You keep asking “what I’m actually doing”, now you know.