Wow, exactly 2:00 am. I'm seriously a psycho, because I think that means something.

I'm just sitting around at 2:00 in the morning, thinking about everything that's happened in my life in the last three years. It's almost uncanny how similar my life now is to my life three years ago, considering all the changes I went through.

In the spring of 1998, I spent the majority of my life in my room. I tried to kill myself on April 27th of that year. I lay in my room, a pile of pills in front of me, trying, unsuccessfully, to talk myself out of downing them two by two. I remember watching the news that morning, thinking about the last breath I'd take, then regretting my decision fully and not being able to do anything about it. Is that me now?

In short, no. I'm wiser and happier than I ever was when I was 14. But my outlook and opinion on a lot of things has come full circle. I went from being a 14 year old teenager whose main concern was to be liked, to being a hardcore punk whose main concern was to be disliked, to being an artistic, creative young person who didn't care whether or not she was liked, to being me, with my main concern being people liking me. The difference? After much hardship, I realize that being "popular" and being genuinely nice to people are two different things. I used to want to be the former. Now I want the latter.

Another thing passing through my mind was the lead character in "The Bell Jar", or really something she said. She said she couldn't possibly write a novel because she hadn't had enough experience in life yet. And she wished she'd had an affair with a man or something as equally as interesting, so she could write. Or, better put, "How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live." -Henry David Thoreau

I used to think I hadn't lived enough life, and I do know that there's a hell of a lot more life left for me. But think of everything I've done, good and bad. I tried to kill myself twice. I took care of my sister for a summer when my mom worked and my brother was nowhere to be found. I was 12 at the time. I've been alone and celebrated it; I've been alone and despised it. We got evicted from a fucking trailer, for God's sake. I stole those flowers from the gas station when Megan, Katy, and I went walking up Eureka. I work at a liquor store. I had a lurid, three-day "affair" with my brother's roommate in secret. I fell in and out of love. I got my heart broken in the process. I've suffered through two bouts of social anxiety disorder and had three therapists. I've hated and revered my father. I've done the same with my mother (I seriously think it's impossible for me to respect both of my parents at the same time; it's always either one or the other). I got drunk at my aunt's wedding and swung around the dance floor with my drunk grandfather. I've lived with my mother being an alcoholic for years. I lived through my brother getting kicked out and me telling him he should "leave so we can just be happy again." I wrote a 40-page short story fortelling a future that didn't happen. I played drums for awhile. And I'm still alive; that's the biggest accomplishment of them all.

So, I think I've got something to write about. But, in reality, I don't feel ready. I don't feel like it's possible for me to write any story worth reading right now. I've got too much mischief in my blood. I mean, hell, I've just now taken up smoking. Think of all the fucking drugs I've got to pump into my system before I get fucked up enough to write anything worthwhile.

So that's what I've got to say at two in the morning. (As I type with a cigarette in my hand and a mischivious twinkle in my eye.)

"I was so full of scotch that I could not stand up." -Tim Armstrong