Dear Diary/Journal/Bob 3.0

[Virlomi]

Dear Bob,

I GOT IT!! I GOT THE JOB!!! Finally!

[VelvetElvis]

Hooray! *throws confetti*

[Rei]

Dear Bob,

Why?

~Rei

[powerfulcheese04]

Dear Bob,

Can I have a hug, please?

This week sucked a lot and it just hit me.

[Young Val]

*hugs kimmie*


dear bob,

heather told me yesterday that she's seen me grow so much in the last year. i don't feel like i've grown so much as spread myself out. i'm working with the same amount of strength and knowledge, but i'm using it to cover a LOT more space. i feel like i've been stretching myself thin and it's only so long before there's a rip somewhere.

seeing henry last night really shook me. but not in the same way i thought it would. oh, don't get me wrong, bob. i'm still in love with him. i still want him. i still don't understand any of it. but.

there are things i'm not willing to put up with. and i just began to realize that last night.

i just want us to work it out. i know that we can. i just don't know if we can do it before it's too late.

we are rapidly approaching too late.

it's not just that, though. i'm just wearing myself out. i'm just completely exhausted. mentally. physically. emotionally. i just feel so entirely defeated sometimes. oftentimes.

i just don't know how much longer i can keep this up.

[Dr. Mobius]

Dear Bob,

Can I have a hug, please?

This week sucked a lot and it just hit me.

[Petra456]

Bob,

I'm so so so tired. So very tired.

- me

[Jayelle]

*hugs Kim*

[zeroguy]

Dear Bob,

As much a I hate (hate hate HATE) writing papers, especially at this time... I still say, I gotta love Poe. He has always managed to be interesting, no matter how many times throughout my schooling I've been through that period and genre of writing. The guy is just awesome.

-me

(Edit: I'm all alone on the board! It's not that late, come on!)

[ValentineNicole]

Bob,
I've put on weight. I know it. I can't avoid eating at home. I eat as light as I can, but I can't avoid it. I'm panicking. It feels like 10 pounds. It probably isn't. f***.

[eriador]

Dear Bob,

Today I had to hang around after school for a study session for one of my finals. I had about an hour after school to hang out, so I hung out with friends. At first I just hung around with one group of friends who was talking about how much fun it was when they were in Europe and were getting stoned and drunk every day. Around me, who has never drunk, never smoked anything, never done any of that stuff. But the way they talked about it made it sound fun. Great. Exactly what I've heard about in health class. Sure, it probably isn't great for me, but I really wanted to try it out. So, feeling insecure and like I'm missing something, I go over to another group of friends and guess where the conversation goes? That's right, about getting stoned before finals. f***. Even better. Me, who hasn't been to a single party that wasn't chaperoned out the wazoo. They start talking about the next party they're gonna throw. Damn. I don't know what to do. I want to at least give it all a try, but I don't know how. And I have school to think about too. Like figuring out how not to fail French class. But at the same time I want to have some sort of life. f*** f*** f***. I don't even think that I really have any good friends. Sure, I hang out with people, but I still don't have anybody that I really connect with, somebody who I can talk to. Maybe if I were to hang out with people more, I could connect with them. I'll probably resolve tonight to just throw caution to the wind and just go for it, but I'll inevitably not. Damn. I don't know what to do. Then there's the whole problem of my parents. I'm sure that they wouldn't have THAT much of a problem with me going to parties and hanging out with my friends, but there's always the possibilty that they will have a problem, so that will probably keep me from doing anything. The solution seems clear, that I need to grow some balls, but I doubt that I'll really do anything. Maybe I'll find some sort of encouragement. I just need to get the hell away from my family and spend more time with friends. I know my parents want me to have fun, so they probably won't complain too much if I go for it. Maybe I should just talk with my dad. He'll understand. He's open. But what if I tell him what I'm thinking and just get shut down by him. f***. f*** f*** f***. Unfortuneately, I'm guessing that nothing will come of this. Nothing. 'Cause I can't work up the conviction to change the status quo, however crappy it is. Why don't I just do it: because I don't want to make anything worse, because as much as I tell myself that I don't have anything to lose, I know that things could be worse. Wow. This sucks. Somehow I'm put in mind of a Proust quote: “We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” Maybe that will turn out for me, but my cynical self doubts it. I feel like s*** right now, by the way. And my computer won't let me join the chat, so I'm stuck with my family for companionship. That really sucks. Not even The Beatles are able to cheer me up now. f***.

[Bevis]

Dear e,

Trey Parker once visited to his old high school as the guest speaker for an assembly. The faculty wanted him to tell the students how to be successful in life or some such nonsense. He tells the kids, "Don't do drugs. Stay in school. Work your ass off & graduate. Then get high paying job that requires little time & effort. That's when you start using drugs & drinking & screwing."

I spent my teens & early twenties stoned, drunk and generally out of my gourd. I barely remember high school. Now I get to spend 40 hrs a week at a place I hate so I can support my family. I definitely suggest staying sober a bit longer.

[starlooker]

Dear Bob,

This morning my co-worker asked me if I could be anywhere, where would I be? And the real answer is, I would be on my couch. With a fluffy light blue comforter wrapped around me. With one cat curled up at my feet, and another curled up right next to me, so I'm very warm and snuggly feeling. I would be in that state of mind that happens right before you fall into a deep sleep, only cognizant of being warm and with random throughts floating through my head like whisps of smoke.

Just like I was this morning.

Before I woke up in the cold and drove in the fog to this place where I'm in a cubicle at an ugly computer doing a job that I don't feel like I'm effective at at all with nothing in my day that I'm looking forward to, other than going home and lying on the couch with my cats.

I forgot my watch. This does not sound like a calamity, I suppose. Let me assure you, it is. The consultation rooms do not have clocks that I can subtly check to time the sessions. I need the flippin watch. I think I'm going to buy another one on my lunch hour that I will just keep up here.

I want a do-over on today already. And I haven't even DONE anything.

[Gravity Defier]

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The requested post was not found.

[Young Val]

dear bob,

some jerkoff i went to college with has been nominated for a f****** pushcart prize.

a pushcart prize.

he's 24 years old.

from the official website:

The Pushcart Prize - Best of the Small Presses series, published every year since 1976, is the most honored literary project in America. Hundreds of presses and thousands of writers of short stories, poetry and essays have been represented in the pages of our annual collections.

Writers who were first noticed here include: Raymond Carver, Tim O’Brien, Jayne Anne Phillips, Charles Baxter, Andre Dubus, Susan Minot, Mona Simpson, John Irving, Philip Lopate, Philip Levine, and many more. Each year most of the writers and many of the presses are new to the series.

Our Pushcart Prize editions are found in most libraries and bookstores. Each volume contains an index of past selections, plus lists of outstanding presses.

.....a f****** pushcart prize.


and what am i doing with my degree? with my life?

oh, that's right.

f***-ALL NOTHING.

[Jayelle]

I so understand how you feel, Kelly. I want to kick all the people who are younger then me and published.

[Young Val]

dear bob,


um... my mom and i finally hit our absolute breaking point.

and i told her i was done. completely. with her.

.....


after all this time. i finally can't take it anymore.


the more i look around me, the more i realize:


i have absolutely nothing.

[VelvetElvis]

You have a towel, yes?

[Clover]

dear bob,

Why is it when ever I really really want to talk to him, he's never on? Where has he been this past week? I miss his hugs. I miss our awkward conversations. How is it that this guy I barely know is the one I want to tell everything to? I miss him. I miss him. Only two more days till I see him...

(ha. and here I am thinking I didn't like him anymore...)

-Nell

[Jebus]

Dear Bob,

today I have a little piece of retardedness from the world wide web for you.

I know, I know, Bob, you're looking at me with a smirk, you think you've seen it all in the three incarnations of this thread. Nothing could surprise you, right? Well don't ask me how I came across it, the series of links I clicked on today brought me through a blur of brilliantly useless information, but eventually I found myself reading about a piece of internet drama revolving around a YouTuber called "lonelygirl15". lonelygirl15 is the handle of a girl named Bree who puts up regular video blogs about her life and it's relationship woes and teenage dramas. Bree's updates became one the most viewed things on YouTube, with the usual obsessive fans (you know the ones who really help you feel better about your own priorities). The thing is, Bree isn't a real person, she's an actress playing out a script cleverly designed to hook the voyeuristic idiots of YouTube. This was discovered I don't know when and now people are up in arms about how dare she trick them and whatnot all that self-righteous rubbish...

What's retarded though, Bob, is how unbelievably fake these videos are. I just don't get how anyone can see them and think that that they were real. Now admittedly, I was coming at them from the perspective of already knowing they were fake, but still I only watched two of them and it seemed painfully obvious. And I think honestly that the people aren't angry because they were tricked, they're angry because they now realise that they are f****** retards. It was like... an awakening of sorts, so fair play to Bree, is what I say.

[/Blogsh*t]

[Yebra]

Dear Bob,

So I didn't get in.

Maybe I should be feeling upset, or releived just to know, but I don't. I just feel nothing.

What does this mean? Just that I have no idea where I'll end up next year, so my situation is unchanged. I'm working my ass off for the rest of the year to have somewhere to go to and I don't care where.

One foot in front of the other? I'm not going anywhere. I'm stuck here and there is absolutely no part of life I have any control over any more that can give any meaning to me.

I don't know what I'm doing.

[fawkes]

Dear Bob,

We're baking cookies today. I hope my sister doesn't come over. She'll probably be sick anyway, then just spend the whole day coughing on the computer. God, I hate her so much sometimes. No, almost always. It drives me crazy how fake she is with our parents. She acts like the perfect child, even though she smokes, tokes, and drinks all the time. I remember not too long ago, she came home from a club at 6 a.m. and brought a guy up to her room and "slept" for a few hours. I promised not to tell, but maybe I should.

It's not like mom or dad is really fooled by all this, of course. They're not stupid. They could tell when she came over for dinner one night drunk. They complain about her all the time, how she's unreliable and and does stupid things. It just bothers me how they act like it's ok when she's over.


Anyway... Cookies! Yay!

[zeroguy]

Dear Bob,

YES!!! A week or two ago, I randomly remembered the ICQ number I used to use, several years ago. (I actually didn't know what the number was for a while; it just popped into my head one day as a number I really really remember.) Since then I've been trying to remember the password, and I finally got it today! I'm just glad to finally get that number back, I've had it longer than any other screename or anything.

Thank you, ICQ, for not deleting really old accounts that haven't been accessed in years.

-me

[ValentineNicole]

Bob,
A little back story to the past week of my life...
I saw him.
I also spent a week with Brian, at my parents' home in Tennessee.

Yesterday had to have been the most confusing day of my life for quite some time. I spent the morning at Dollywood with my parents. It was a lot of fun; however, I felt rather guilty because I could not stay long. You see, despite telling him that I could not meet up with him until later for fear of appearing rude to my parents, Cameron spent the entire afternoon messaging me angrily. Nevermind that the earliest he claimed he'd be there, to meet me, was about 3. Nevermind that I only got TO the park 30 minutes before he began saying that he was there. He was angry.
He had every right. If I'd driven that far, I'd be angry, too. However, I cannot fathom making my parents spend that kind of money simply to waste it. I did a few rides at least.
He threatened to leave. I ended up having a screaming, hysterical conversation, in the middle of a children's park. Then, Brian took me to go meet Cameron. We hugged, we talked...I cried, lots. It was depressing and sad and awkward and emotional and wonderful.
I thought about a lot of things.
Cameron and I, we had what you might call an idealistic love. It was unconditional. It was emotional. It was intense. We felt, however, that we had to be perfect. Love isn't perfect. It never is, and it never will be. It's not about the only one person that you could ever be with. It is about picking that one person and putting yourself completely into it and into them. It's not the refusal to look at any other person. Jude Law is attractive. Orlando Bloom is attractive. Josh Hollaway, Clive Owen, and Heath Ledger are attractive. Brian is attractive. That doesn't mean I found Cameron less attractive. That doesn't mean I love him less.
Brian and I - we're not perfect. Albeit, our relationship has barely lasted long enough to compare. He's goofy. We tease eachother incessantly. We're overly comfortable with eachother, almost in a way most people might find gross. He reads way too much porn. I go on about how I'm going to marry certain actors. I whine, and I'm immature. He can be a bit blonde, and he can be tactless. He'll tell me I need to lose weight. We have fun. We have a lot in common. He'd be my best friend even if we weren't dating. We just share that much.
Anyway, that's about where I'm left. I haven't found the answer to my nonexistant question. I haven't discovered some miraculous answer to what would make my heart satisfied. I haven't found out what path to follow, what to do. I don't know if I should explore more options.I don't know if the man I'm supposed to follow to the ends of the earth is right in front of me, or in Orlando, or in Toronto, or out in LA somewhere waiting. I don't even know if I believe in that.
I do, however, believe in happiness. I know I will be happy again someday.
Just...let me make the right decision, please.

[Rei]

Bob,

I have realised that I am pretty much entirely without a home, now. I'm either at my parents' house or at school, but never at home. I want to make a home somewhere and soon.

~Rei

[fawkes]

Dear Bob,

WAAAHOOOOO! Jon got tickets to Flogging Molly! We're going in February! YES!!!!! *jumps up and down like a giggling fangirl*

[Miss Abbie]

Dear Bob,

Darren is scaring me. He's talking about just taking a bunch of pills and just sleeping or showing his father his cut up arm and hell if I don't know what he feels like right now. Hell if I don't know him well enough to believe that he'll do it if he gets desperate enough.

He talks about why can't he tell his girlfriend when he can tell me. I don't know, I get him, I guess. That's the reason we started dating, and also the reason that we broke up, but I get him. It doesn't really say anything about the state of their relationship, people just attach to others in different ways. We have different needs filled by different people, and I'm lucky enough to be the counselor friend. She's the girlfriend, which means... I don't know what it means, but somewhere along the line it creates a kind of distance for him, maybe. It shouldn't be such a problem either way, but he's the type that, more or less, needs a girlfriend, and I just worry that these doubts that he's having are going to, you know, take them apart. Then what for him. Then what does he have?

Bob, I'm really... I don't know, I don't have any idea of what the right thing to do is. Do I tell someone? I feel like I owe his mother something, but I owe him more. What's going to be best for him in the long run? What's the right call to make?

Who am I to decide?

[powerfulcheese04]

BOB!!!

I was named Volunteer of the Year at the HSPCA!!!!!!!

[Young Val]

dear bob,

d'you think if i keep telling myself that i'm ok, eventually it will be true?


i'm ok.

[Mahatma]

Dear Bob,

Today an old high school friend found me at the mall and we talked for a minute. Nothing much, just, "How are you? Last minute Christmas shopping? Me too." But it was nice, and it made my day.

[Miss Abbie]

Dear Bob,

Marion: When you coming home?
Harry: Soon.
Marion: When?
Harry: Soon. You’re holding out, right?
Marion: Harry… can you come today?
Harry: Yeah. I’ll come. I’ll come today. You just wait for me, alright?
Marion: Okay, Harry.
Harry: I’m coming back, Marion. Marion?
Marion: Yeah?
Harry: I’m really sorry, Marion.
Marion: I know.

I'm home again, for a few days, and halfheartedly making sure the little girls don't kill anything valuable during their sleepover. Everything is so... calm, I guess. Normal. Like nothing ever happened. Like I've been here for the past week. There's a stack of Juvenile Orion books my sister wants me to read at the other end of my favorite couch. It's warm. It's like I remembered it. It's the same.

Makes me feel sort of like a stranger.

Am I the same? I don't feel like I belong here anymore. I look at my beautiful kitchen, the living room, the lake, and they're all so forgiving. These walls have seen me do so many awful things and they still protect me from the wind and the snow. I can't believe that I forgot them, but I did, and now I can't see anything without feeling so guilty. My sisters, the little ones playing in the study, what do they remember?

What does my father remember?

I didn't want to ever think of any of this ever, ever, ever again. I burned my journals to forget. I didn't know of any other way to live with what I did. The best way to keep living when you've done something you hate yourself for, I mean, I always thought it was best to forget. When you can't forgive, what else is there? It was such a long time ago, but it was still me. I'm still Abbie. I'm still the person who... did things. I...

I can't forgive myself and I don't know how to forget again.

My grandparents, they haven't moved on, covered it up like I thought everyone did. My grandfather wouldn't say anything to me other than to yell at me for speaking to my sisters, or playing with them, or singing with them, or... anything, I guess. He talked about me to other people. He called me That Goddamn Queerbaby. My grandmother, she told all the other grandchildren about how beautiful they are, about how proud she is to be related to them every f****** day. In front of everyone at Christmas dinner she told me that maybe I would like a salad instead and why won't I consider plastic surgery.

I know I'm hideous! I know, okay? Why couldn't she leave me alone?

They wouldn't pay for me when we went out to dinner as a family. There were no gifts for me underneath their tree. It's not that I wanted to have the presents. I wanted them to want to give me something. I wanted to be important to them, to be worth anything.

I wanted to matter and I don't matter to anyone. Not my grandparents, not her. She made me remember all those things because she wanted me to do something close to "feel half the pain I feel when I realize you're my daughter," and she's my mother. She's my mother. Isn't that supposed to mean something? Doesn't that mean something to other people?

But don't worry, Bob, I've got to go and put on a happy face and tell the little ones to go to bed. I'll put on a happy face and everyone will think things are okay again.

Even you.

[Young Val]

dear bob,

every time i try to write an entry to you i just get very very frustrated and feel like throwing things. and i'm not exactly sure why.

i'm going to watch buffy and drink diet coke and try not to sulk.

[Rei]

Dear Bob,

Could you, would you please, please, please get them to post my grades already? Apparently one of them is ready as soon as the school decides that they ought to post it and I need to know if I've passed the stupid thing or not. It would be really, really nice to have some closure on this semester already.

~Rei

[Jayelle]

Dear Bob,

Buffy Season 3, a blender, awesome knives, socks and a Librarian Action Figure.

Good Christmas, one and all.

JL

[Eaquae Legit]

Dear Bob,

Today I learned that it's possible to get a muscle spasm in my tongue. Apparently I need to yawn more carefully.

Edit: I also managed to injure my thumb. Not my day at all.