Me and my gender identity are good pals at this point. We've tried out a few options and settled in where we are. But there is no going full woman once you've worn a cup in your jeans for a while. Not that I was ever fully the most feminine thing to ever happen, but being a girl seemed weird, vulnerable and difficult. I now paint my nails, draw things on my face with makeup and have a dress or two in my closet. It's taken me a while to form into a person at peace with both parts of my personality.

Very complex issue glossed over for brevity's sake.

There is something deeply spiritual about discovering new musical love. This newest, strangely engaging love of mine speaks to my queer little boygirl self and somehow makes me feel a part of something common to a number of people. It makes me feel connected, and unalone. It's beautiful and perfect and lovely.

Something just happened to my family that could not be more ridiculous were I to add on untrue fantastical details. It included SWAT, a rifle with a laser sight, the fire department, the hospital, 5 hours of nonstop harassing phone calls, an eventual arrest and a freakout in a car. There was a story in the paper about it. I cannot believe something like this actually happened.

You never really grow out of being that weird kid. Was hoping for at least a partial fading of my awkwardness with age, but no.

I never really go anywhere except work and school. Bars are lonely places unless you go with friends. And the whiskey here doesn't have water in it. Haunt coffee places looking concerned at logic homework and googling translations of german words with too many syllables.

My dreams have been of a particular caste recently. All warmth and good-smelling, lots of tumbling around. Strange how we let ideas get the better of us. They slip in when you're not paying attention and lay eggs of sneaky desire in your brain.

I need to do well in this logic class for a number of reasons. Chiefly, I need this class to satisfy the Quantitative reasoning credit or some such. It will also allow me to finish up my Philosophy minor. Most importantly though, it will allow me to prove to myself that I can do something that is hard and has defeated me before. Had the first exam yesterday, and felt prepared enough to over-answer in a few places. Really hope that this goes well this time.

Poetry used to really be an important part of my life. It found me early, as I can remember the construction and printer paper books we'd make and how I would ask to stay in during lunch so I could write. For me it has always served a necessary function, a more cohesive way to work things out than any sculptures I made. Reading one's own work serves as more of a diary entry than the most blunt and poignant one to my name. Writing is a thoughtful, contemplative and patient exercise. It's no wonder I haven't written anything in a while.

Bought a pretty little journal to encourage myself to put ink to paper, to draft, something. It used to be such a part of who I was and how I viewed myself, but photographs were as well and I find myself without camera or robust body of work.

The first real infatuation with anyone I ever really had was over his words. He was/ is the strangest bird. He lives in town now, and I always hope to bump into him. In early early high school I met him, much older. He was a poet, a singular man the likes of whom I've seen nothing worth comparing to. He's also a musician of sorts. He had a CD that he gave out for the drama club senior dinner that year, which obsessive high school me pretty much knew by heart by the end of the summer. Somehow what he wrote communicated for him, and only hinted at the strange and fantastic things he had inside of him. Wrapped a string from a shirt of his around a plastic bracelet, painted it with clear fingernail polish and did not take it off until senior year, where I sort of broke it off of my arm in a ceremonial giving up of childish ways. Luckily we are all weird things. I want to be able to use poetry to help me communicate again. There's so much I feel like I wouldn't get to say otherwise.

The day-night seems brighter to us
the moon behind the choke of clouds
the dark, it beams at us in waves
gin-soaked colors beat out our new allegiance.

There are many recurring things in my dreams, but the least common of these is places. I see the same people, the action even will be the same, but rarely the same place. Now I've dreamt twice of this hotel. It's on a beach somewhere, and it seems I'm always staying on the very top floor. I remember it as having 41 floors: you could either take the elevator that went so fast it made me dream nauseous or take the escalator up to the top floor which took forever. There are a lot of windows, and a lot of blue. I remember a pool outside. I wonder if I'll go there again.

Why is it that attraction to one's instructor makes paying attention easier? Or harder, I'm not certain yet. Sometimes I lose track of what he says when he's talking, because he talks with such a delightful accent. Pretty longhair'd men are my Achilles heel.

This semester is frightening. Retaking a class once failed, a science, a high-level class for my major and a language. But at the end of the second week, I am cautiously optimistic. More on this as it develops.