2001-05-08 - 10:06 a.m.

I have been in a great mood the last couple of days. I decided to use the full moon as an excuse to make a change in my life and I've been practicing guitar each day and writing towards my novel the last couple of days. Productivity is so satisfying!

I am getting more excited about this writing project of mine each day as I see that it is possible for me to actually complete this. The tricky part will be avoiding telling people about it so that I am not forced to let people read it. I know it sounds weird - to be writing a book I don't want people to read?! But its just that there are certain things I'd rather people not know about me. If its all published someday or something, well then people like my mom will just have to deal with it then. And of course by then my mom can use the excuse that this book was all about a phase in my life that I've outgrown. (hahaha)

Last night I was going through my old handwritten journals from 1999 for inspiration on my book and was surprised at all the spontaneous poetry I had written in them, and how much of my journal was very raw and sensitively written about my feelings and about my feelings with others. I realized that there is a difference after all between my handwritten journals and my online journals - In my online journal I write more generally about my life, and I do go back and edit for spelling and content. But in my handwritten journals I have doodling and angry thoughts and acid trip revelations and tortured poetry and spontaneous descriptions of whatever the scenery is where I am writing - like on the bus or on the road etc - I think I am going to make a switch back to the handwritten journals for a while, or at least carry one with me wherever I go again - I don't want to miss out on spontaneous inspiration . . .

my dreams have been curious lately -- I dreamt last night that I had brown skin and was married to a bear of a man and we lived ver close to the earth. In my dream I discovered I was pregnant and was so happy? Hmmmn I have been having baby thoughts lately -- and I am YEARS away from having a relationship or children. Could this be my body's way of preparing me biologically for the idea of making a child? Or could this be symbolic of something else I'm starting in my life - like my book . . .?

I often wonder what would happen if I really did have a baby right now. If I went out and had sex and accidentally got pregnant. And I didn't realize it in time for RU 486 and for some reason decided against abortion. My fantasy is that if I did decide to have the baby I would move to LA and me and Jim and Larissa would rent a house together and they would help me through the pregnancy and my child would grow up under their influence, like the Weetzie Bat books. That's wishful thinking, of course - about the outcome of a situation like that, not about having a child! No way am I making a kid anytime soon . . .

In another dream later on I was back in school at Agnes Scott again, only the quad had been divided up so that all the buildings were in one straight line instead of in a square facing each other. In my dream I was trying to get to the 3rd floor of Rebecca Hall and found myself continually in the wrong dorm on the wrong elevator. As I was finally walking into the right building I ran into Jason King, a boy I had a crush on in highschool, and he was going to Agnes Scott as one of the first men admitted to the school. The strange part is that as I woke up for about 10 or 15 minutes this morning I was convinced that Jason really did go to my school and that the dream had been based on memory. How strange! I went to a women's college in Georgia and Jason never left Abilene. This shows me how powerful a dream or an idea in a dream can be-- that it can take hold of your waking mind and transform your memory.

I go to see Beatrice again today. I'm not looking forward to therapy in the slightest. I feel so good the last few days and I feel I'm making progress in my life. I don't want to go back and be swamped again by old feelings of worthlessness and self-critical thoughts, which occrurred for 3 days after last weeks session in which Beatrice asked me questions like " Why are you such a failure?" " Why are you such a cripple?" I feel I have made alot of changes in my life over the last couple of years, and all of that growing and improving has been a result of self-cultivation - I've been really trying to understand myself, improve myself, love myself, and feel my feelings whatever they are. And I can see change for the better. I wonder if therapy is any help to me or if I can do this by myself. I know I know I can hear all my friends and family telling me what a great opportunity this is and how much it can help me if I don't give up on myself. But I need to do this for me - I need to make a committment to this or not depending on how *I *feel about it. So I'm going again today - and I'm going to really try to stay with it and get down and dirty with my feelings and open up to Beatrice and see what good can come of this. But I reserve the right to stop any time I want to and choosing not to continue doesn't have to mean that I want to stay crazy or that I'm doomed for failure in all my relationships. It just means that therapy won't be my avenue for self-knowledge, I'll find another one.