i’ve been on the blurry edge of sickness for quite a few days now.  my skull feels tight, my stomach twisted, my head achey and stuffed with fluid.  everything is real but twice removed, as though i’m not really turning the corner onto my street or walking through the parking lot to class, i’m just watching myself pretend to think about doing those things.  i’d like to go study at artiste or notsuoh tonight, or go to the movies with ryan, but i just don’t have the energy.  this would be less depressing if i could either step back from the edge of sickness or go over the edge into convalescence.  this mild, half-assed semi-wilting i’m doing instead is lame.

i keep seeing things, too.  the deadbolt on my friend jessica’s door is stamped “FAULTLESS,” but i kept seeing it as “FRUITLESS.”  this morning, the texas eye institute on beechnut street became the texas eye balls, and an email from a professor right above a spam email in my inbox made it look as if my professor was going to tell me how to get “BETTER SEX . . . FASTER.”  just now i thought i saw a red tarantula crawling on my bathroom counter.  it’s a creepy, creepy, half-sick world i live in.

yesterday i had dinner with my parents, and afterwards my mom took me to express because she had a discount certificate.  i haven’t bought new clothes from a retail store in a very, very long time, and it showed.  my mom and i walked around and looked at clothes and jewelry and stuff, and i was really shocked at how expensive everything was compared to what i usually buy.  jeans for fifty dollars?  a shirt for thirty?  i couldn’t look at a pricetag without thinking, “thirty-nine dollars?  i could buy three pairs of pants for that.  three!”  i settled on a navy tank top that had a bra inside, figuring that twenty dollars for two clothing items in one wasn’t too bad.  afterward we went to the bath shop next door and sprayed all the various smells, one of which reminded me strongly and instantly of an ex-boyfriend.  i’ll forget how a person looked, how they moved, and how they sounded before i’ll lose track of the way they smelled.

it’s hard to think about or enjoy or look forward to much when your insides are broken.