Gah, the way my heart pounds when my finger accidentally brushes hers, or our feet touch under the table! I jerk back like I’ve been burned, and then some strange force pulls me forward again — everything around me starts spinning…augh! and she’s so unselfconscious and so clueless, she has no idea how all these tiny intimacies torture me. When we’re deep in conversation, and she takes my hand in hers, and in her excitement about the subject she leans in so close that I can taste the heavenly breath coming from her mouth: — I feel like I’m going to pass out, like I was struck by lightning. — And, Will! If I tried to turn that ecstasy, that intimacy into — !! You know what I mean. No, I’m not that messed up! But I’m weak! weak enough! — and isn’t that a kind of messed up?

She is sacred to me. Any lust shuts off when she’s around. I don’t even know how I feel when we’re together; it’s like my soul was twisting around in every nerve in my body. She has a tune she plays on the piano with the most delicate touch, so simple and so soulful! It’s her favorite song, and it makes all my pain and confusion and sadness feel so far away as soon as she sounds the first note.

All those ancient myths about the magic powers of music — I’d believe them all now. This simple song hits me so hard! And the way she always manages to start it up at the exact moment I want to shoot myself in the head! The turmoil and the darkness in my brain dissolve, and I can breathe again.

Will, what is life without love? It’s like a film projector with no bulb! As soon as you screw in the light, the most colorful pictures show up on your blank screen! And even if that’s all it is, even if you’re just projecting, it feels so nice to let yourself be a kid and just enjoy what you’re seeing. I couldn’t make it to Lotte’s today — this person came over to my place and WOULD NOT LEAVE. So what did I do? I got drinks tonight with a friend who’d seen her this morning :D Oh, I was so impatient waiting for him to show up, and I was so happy to see him! I would have picked him up and kissed him if I hadn’t been too embarrassed :P
You remember those glow-in-the-dark toys we had when we were kids, how they shone brighter in the dark if you’d held them up to a bright light? That’s how this guy was for me. Knowing her gaze had brushed across his face, his cheeks, his buttons, even the collar of his jacket made everything so holy to me, so — priceless! I wouldn’t have traded him for a million dollars in that moment. I felt so good, just being around him ^_^ You’d better not be laughing right now. Will, is it just projecting, when you feel so good?

“I’m going to see her!” I call out every morning, when I wake up and look out, ecstatic, at the bright beautiful sun; “I’m going to see her!” And that’s my whole day right there. Looking forward to that is everything, it’s all there is.

I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree about my taking that job Jim’s offering at ***. I don’t deal well with authority, and we all know how bossy Jim can get. My mom wants me to do something ‘productive’, you said; I LOL’ed when I read that. Am I not being productive now? and would I really be better off there as a beancounter than here counting actual beans? That whole world is a scam, and anyone who wears themself out working for someone else without it being their actual passion, their actual calling, for money or prestige or anything else, is a tool.

You’re making such a big deal about whether I’m keeping up my drawing that I’d rather just skip the whole topic than admit how little I’ve been doing.
I’ve never been happier, I’ve never been so sensitive to nature, all the way down to pebbles and weeds, in such a full and personal way, but — I can’t find any way to express myself, my imagination is just shot, everything I picture is so shaky and wobbly that I can’t pin down the outlines of anything — but I’ve been thinking that if I had clay or wax I could really get into sculpting. I am going to find some clay, if this goes on like this, and knead it, even if all I make is blobs!
I’ve started a portrait of Lotte three times, and every time I’ve made a fucking mess — which is especially frustrating because I could get pretty good likenesses not that long ago. So I’ve gone and sketched her silhouette and that’s just gonna have to do.

I tell myself on a regular basis that maybe I should try seeing her less often. But who could stick to that?! Every day I give in, and then I solemnly promise myself: tomorrow, you’re going to stay away, just for once, and when tomorrow comes, I still always find some incontrovertible reason, and before I know it, there I am beside her. Maybe, the night before, she said, “You’re coming over tomorrow, right?” — Who could stay away?!? Or she’s given me some errand to run and I feel like I just have to follow up with her in person; or it’s SUCH a nice day, I bike up to Pickton, and once I’m there, it’s only half an hour to her place! — It’s like I enter her field of gravity, and bam! there I am. My grandma used to tell this fairy tale about Magnet Mountain; the ships that sailed too close to it had all their metal torn off them, the nails flew off towards the mountain, and the poor sailors were crushed as the planks all collapsed around them.

Albert’s back and I’m leaving. And I don’t care if he’s the best, most amazing guy in the world, better than me in every single way, I can’t go on seeing him in front of me with this wonderful person who’s his. HIS!!! It’s over, Will! HERE COMES THE BRIDEGROOM! And he’s a sweet, kind person, the kind of guy you can’t help being nice to X[ Thank god I wasn’t there when he came home! It would have torn me to shreds. And he’s such a decent guy, he hasn’t kissed Lotte once in front of me, God bless him… he’s so considerate towards her, I’ve got to love him. He’s been really good to me, which I suspect has more to do with Lotte than his actual feelings towards me. Girls are smart that way, and you can’t blame them; if they can keep both guys on good terms with each other, that’s two guys fawning over them, and that’s always a win for them… as rarely as that actually works out.

I’ve got to say, though, Albert is… pretty great. He’s so put-together, he makes me look like that much more of a spazz… not that I could ever really hide that. He’s deep, and he knows what a special person Lotte is. He doesn’t seem very negative, which as you know is the one thing about people that sets me off more than anything else.

He respects my judgment, and the fact that I’m so attached to Lotte and so into everything she does is an ego boost for him and makes him love her that much more. And if he does niggle her from time to time a little jealously, I can’t really blame him, I mean, *I* wouldn’t feel terribly safe with this maniac around :|

Well, I wish him all the best! Whatever I used to feel around Lotte is gone. What even…was that? infatuation? insanity? eugh, who cares what you call it! It speaks for itself. I knew everything I know now before Albert came back; I knew nothing was going to happen with her, and I didn’t try to make it — I mean, as much as you can be around so much wonderfulness without hoping maybe — And now look at the doofus being all “whaaaa?” when the other guy actually does show up and walks off with the girl.

I grit my teeth and sneer at my own misery and sneer that much more at anyone who’d tell me I should ‘just, like, get over it, that’s just how it had to be, man’. You pathetic losers, leave me alone! — I go rambling through the woods, and when I come out near Lotte’s and find Albert sitting with her in the gazebo in the garden and I can’t take it anymore, I get into this manic silly mode and start clowning around, doing all this goofy shit. “For God’s sake,” Lotte said to me today, “please, no more scenes like yesterday night! You’re scary when you get so hyper.” — Honestly? I just kill time these days until he has to go do something; then whoosh! I’m off, and it’s so nice to be with her alone.

Oh my god, Will, I’m so sorry, no! That bit wasn’t aimed at you at all — the whole sneering at how annoying people are when they tell you to just deal with it? Um. It honestly never occurred to me that you might be thinking anything like that. And…you’re basically right! I guess if I’d just add anything — and I’m saying this as friends, like, we’re cool! — I’d just say, I’m not sure the whole kind of either/or thinking you’re doing actually applies that often in real life. Feelings and situations have as many shades of grey as…as in that stupid book :P

So I hope you won’t take it the wrong way if I grant you your whole argument and still try to sneak between your either/or.

You’re saying: either you have a chance with Lotte, or you don’t. Cool. If you do, go for it, make this thing happen that you’ve been wanting so badly; if not, man up, and try to shake off this miserable feeling that’s sucking up all your energy. — Dear Will! that’s very well said, but it’s also…easy for you to say.

I mean, would you go up to someone who’s dying slowly of some chronic disease, and ask them to just stab themself and get it over with? And doesn’t the same pain that sucks up all their energy also rob them of the courage to set themself free?

Okay, sure, you could counter with a related analogy: Who wouldn’t rather have their arm amputated than let an infection put their whole life at risk? — I don’t know! — and we don’t want to keep going round in circles with analogies. aaaaanyway. — Urgh, Will, sometimes I have these bursts of energy, like I just want to jump up and shake it off and run, and — if I just knew where to go? I’d be out of here.

I haven’t kept up my journal for a while now, but I happened to pick it up today, and I’m…amazed by how consciously I walked right into this! I’ve seen exactly what I was doing this whole time and still acted like a little kid, and I see just as clearly now, and it still doesn’t look like I’m going to smarten up anytime soon…