October 12

Laura returned from her weekend spent at home with a string of plastic jack-o-lantern lights. They will join our string of non-functional shell lights in the quest to make our room the oddest mix of odds and ends and culture clash in Butterfield. I'm considering buying some green fake spiderwebs and using it to cover the furniture. Happy early Halloween!

This weekend was fantastic. Four great things happened. First the rally on campus on Thursday, then Liz came to visit, then I went to Washington D.C. to march for LGBT equality, and tonight I saw Regina Spektor. A lot of little great things happened too, but mostly during the time span of one of those four. Tonight my friend Dan said something that made me feel really hopeful. I've been in a severe writing slump lately - feeling like writing will never again come easily to me. He asked, "If you couldn't write, would you die?" My first instinct was to say of course I wouldn't die, my life would simply be much dimmer. But then I realized that dim life is not life enough for me, so if I couldn't write, which is the the only thing I want to be good at, I would die. Hope ensued from this realization because since I know I wasn't born to die, I must have been born to write.

This week I have to crank out what is possibly the most daunting paper I've ever written: a 7-12 page paper, independent of three annotated sketches, for Art History. I'm simultaneously terrified and enthralled by it, since it seems like it will be fascinating, and dare I say fun, to write. I also met another Phoebe this weekend and this fact is important because I totally downplayed the novelty and the sheer enjoyment I took in calling someone else by my own name. I've never met a Phoebe before, except for one that was a bulldog. She draws monsters in a little notebook. The person, not the bulldog.

Song of the day (I haven't done this in a while) is "In the Flowers" by Animal Collective. I have a feeling I'm going to be happy to see the end to this week.