Last week I sent an email to my high school yahoogroup. I was pretty stoned at the time. I said, living here makes me realize that I really am all alone, and that none of the things that I thought mattered when I was younger (when I was in high school) actually do. We all have to fly the coop some time I guess; if we could just find a murder to hang out with that would be fantastic.

This is my newest obsession. Simon Baker, where have you been all of my life, seriously?

Also, one last word on FNL. I love that they actually take the time to wrap up the storylines, like Jason Street and Smash Williams. And that they seem to be working on new ones, like JD McCoy and that other fullback. I love that they have feasible arcs. After all, the kids have to graduate from high school some time.

Also, about Julie coming home at dawn from being in the lake all night with Matt getting her cherry popped - HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I remember the days.

The second song is from a guy named Fink - this was the song that was playing as Saracen was driving down to his mother’s house to become an emancipated minor in that episode of FNL. I heard the first three bars and was hooked. How can you not love the sound of thumb against bass string, knowing how that feels like?

Still sick. I wish I could miss playing the guitar so much to actually want to play.

This morning I woke up and didn’t feel as shitty as I did last night, but am still coughing. My intake of breath in when I cough is gravelly; like there’s phlegm that I can’t get to. I’ve been drinking copious amounts of tea (thank god I have some at home) and eating Knorr instant soup.

So I called in sick and said I didn’t want to further infect anybody, and so I’ve been spending all morning and afternoon reading in bed and watching DVDs. I finally got around to watching the Darjeeling Limited, and that made me wish I was a boy, who has trouble expressing my emotions.

I don’t know; I’m doing this thing lately where I sort of sweep everything under the rug and try to avoid things. You know me, I’ve always been an overanalyzer. I figured this was as good a time as any to try to fix that. I’ve always been more comfortable acting like a petulant child, who throws tantrums when she doesn’t get her way, so now it’s time for me to put up and shut up and be patient and not try to be everything and do everything and say everything at once.

Just - I don’t think that’s going very well. There’s being sophomoric and then there’s being impulsive and then there’s this, which is trying to actually grow up. Step back and just - be brave.

In Friday Night Lights you can tell if the money shot - the moment when someone is redeemed, or an event that is unspeakably romantic or honest - is about to happen because the music swells up into a crescendo of Middle America single-guitar rock.

Someone had described Vonnegut’s books as (and I’m paraphrasing here) bitter pills with sweet centers. He was one of the truly pessimistic optimists - he was a sincerely happy person but was pragmatic enough to acknowledge that the world is fucked up in all sorts of ways. You can’t survive the firebombing of Dresden without doubting the morality of human nature.

Funny thing, this whole business of being a secret optimist, or a secret romantic. I wish I could stop being so fucking sensitive and just be this hipster-ambivalent-cynical-noncommittal person, who thinks nothing is of consequence and nothing ever turns out right. I guess because I (mis)take that for strength. So that if things don’t happen, or don’t turn out the way I want them to, I can go, so what? To really take pessimism to heart.

This is so fucking juvenile.

But I’ll never be a cynic because I love the overanalysis, the use of words to describe the abstract primal nature of emotion. Because I like rooting for the underdog; you can get more mileage out of those types of situations.

I’ve been listening to the new Snow Patrol album for, seriously, four days straight. Nothing else. I go to work with my big-ass headphones and listen to the album. I get to work, plug the iPod in, and repeat the album. All day since Monday. And you know what? The album is like falling in love comfortably. You know the type of tranquil love when everything just falls into place? That kind. It made me all giddy and warm all over the first couple of days but since yesterday I’ve been so fucking angry.

And then I realized it was because when the love of your life is far away the last thing you really should be listening to are songs about early morning hair smelling.

I’ll never be a cynic because I secretly like hoping, I guess. There, I said it.