It feels like I have a lump in my stomach that keeps getting rolled over tearing at my insides. Though it's probably the pizza that I ate not too long ago- I'm leaning toward nervous tension about school in the mourning. Everything that revolves around school for me this semester has been a torturing nightmare and I want it to be over- completely over- but that won't happen for a long time. I'm scared. I tell everyone that I don't care- trying to convince myself that it's what I actually believe but it isn't. If I didn't care I wouldn't feel this way right now. I do care. I care a whole fuck ton. I'm not lying when I say that I wish it was over though. I've never been a student, conventionally. I love learning. I love experimenting and experiencing but as far as being a "student" goes it's never been my thing. I've always struggled. I have motivation issues. Really I just don't see the point. I can't seem to justify in my head actually working at things that I'm expected to work on. I have no idea what that says about me except that I'm a lazy bastard- which I admit.

right now I feel like hiding. I feel like pulling my covers over my head like I used to when I was a little girl afraid of her own shadow. If I could I would hide there forever and never come out. I was looking through some old journals of mine last night when I had trouble sleeping. I came across a work in progress that never made progress beyond what I had scribbled that day last year. I have no idea why I didn't develop it...

****
I'd rather not be here. He has no idea. I wonder if he even notices.

"It totally sucked." He said stirring sugar into a cup of coffee. "I missed the train and then next one smelled like someone had died on it..."

I'd rather no be here. He has no idea.

"...And then this guy got on and stood next to me and he smelled even worse. It was ridiculous. The guy fell asleep within two stops, still standing up, and he started snoring."
The waitress appeared, "More coffee?"

I should just get up and leave. Get up and walk out. Make an excuse, any excuse and go.

"So anyway, I get off and am walking down the street and I see this thing on the sidewalk and it looked like a necklace so I picked it up." He took a red beaded chain out of his jacket pocket and lay it on the table in front of me. "Check it out." It had a red cross charm on it.
"What are you going to do with it?" I spoke for the first time. He shrugged.
"I don't know."
"You aren't even religious."
"I know." He pushes the rosary to another space on the table and pours more sugar into his coffee cup. I take the little bowl of plastic creamers and begin stacking them in an semi-intricate tower. The waitress sets a plate in front of each of us but instead of food I see a face on mine. The face is frowning at me and I look away and over to another table with a man and woman sitting across from one another. She is telling him a story. I watch her gesturing with her hands and I watch him pick up a glass of milk and take a sip.

I'd just really rather not be here. I should just tell him that I don't feel well and get up and walk out.

"Wow! Did you see that?"
"What?"
"Milk just shot out of that guy's nose! You didn't see that?"
"No."
"But I saw you watching them."
"What?" I shook my head to look at him. "I didn't hear you."
"Never mind."

I should go. I stare at the rosary on the table.

"Aren't you hungry? You haven't touched anything on your plate."
"I guess not."
"Are you ok? Is something wrong?"
I stare at him but I can feel something burning in my eyes so I look down at the face on my plate again and this time it's smiling but the smile is sneer. I can feel eyes on me from multiple directions. He's looking at me but there's someone else. I can feel it without looking up. Someone is coming.

"Oh, wow! What are you doing here?" a female voice broke my silence.

I should really leave right now.

I look up to see Sarah. I see her smiling at me and she looks to the man sitting across from me at the table.

"This is Josh. Josh, this is Sarah. She's... I work with her." I watch Sarah smile and I can see that her lips are moving but I can't hear her words. All the sounds around me are fading away and all of a sudden I can feel myself beginning to grow smaller and smaller. My body is shrinking.

****
And then there was this...
****
Harold was standing in front of the dairy section at the grocery store. Just standing. His eyes studied all the different packages before him: the cheeses, yogurt, sour cream. He began to walk down the aisle toward the milk. He stopped in front of one of the glass doors and opened it and retrieved a gallon of milk that had a blue plastic cap. Harold turned and walked down aisle 9, home to pasta and instant rice and such things, to Sam who was pushing a half full shopping cart.

"They have thirteen different kinds of cheese here. Thirteen!"
"You actually counted them?"
"Why not?"
"Do you think that's a lot?"
"I don't know. How many kinds of cheese are there?"
"I don't know. There has to be something like hundreds, right?"

Harold put the plastic carton of milk with the plastic blue cap onto the plastic seat designed for small children. "Should we get some?"

Sam thought for a minute. "Do you even eat cheese? I thought you were trying to be a vegan."

Harold picked up the gallon again and brandished it up to the fluorescent lights above. "I guess not!"
"You always do shit like this."
"Like what?"
"First it was yoga. Then it was guitar. Then it was bonsai trees. Pottery. Rock climbing. Have you forgotten about that comic book that you were working on six months ago?"
"No." Harold smiled. "I'm still going to work on it. I just needed a creative break."
"You're hopeless!" Sam shook his head and started pushing the cart down toward the canned food aisle ahead, leaving Harold standing alone.

"What about the cheese?" Harold called after him. Sam stopped and turned around.
"Forget about the cheese, will you."

****
I don't know if anything above has any potential but they were some of the more solid blurbs that I had written down. Feel free to criticize but I will remind you that they are undeveloped ideas and nothing that I've spent any real time working on.

that first part about the girl shrinking. That was me. That was real. I remember that day in fragments. I remember sitting there thinking about how if I could just shrink or disappear right then and there that it would somehow save my life. I remember that I used to fantasize about that a lot but since then I guess I had forgotten about it- until I re-read the above last night.

my feet are cold again. It's becoming a pattern- a normacy. I think it's becoming a metaphor too. My cold feet. Cold feet in life. Cold feet in love. Cold feet in school. Running away with my cold feet. I quit.