August 1991

We ended up staying in L.A. a week longer than planned. Saw millions of Persians. Beverly Hills, Melrose, Westwood. I came out to Dania and her cousin Clayton. We visited Nasreen, the Arab woman who sees "Mat Mariam", the Virgin Mary. She lives in a small apartment just outside L.A. and has turned one of the bedrooms into a shrine to the Virgin. I saw with my own eyes statues that were dry upon our arrival start to drip with olive oil. You could pick them up and see there were no wires or cables attached to them. I thought after seeing such a beautiful holy thing that I would be happy, but I've come back to feelings of fatigue and sorrow. I guess the world I live in is far too realistic. I suddenly feel that I'm too young for the things I've done in life. That I've been wrong. That I've been a fool to look for love. And wonder if love will ever happen. What if I look back when I'm older and I hate everything about my life?

We're all crippled somehow.

In L.A. we also visited with an Assyrian woman who's known for telling fortunes. We drank Turkish coffee and waited for our fortunes to dry in the small cups. When she read mine she said that I should stop bringing up the past, locking myself up in a room and pondering. It's funny, I'm doing that now. I think I always will.

Today's my eighteenth birthday. Beluse gave me a pair of ugly black tennis shoes from Payless. I hate them. But it was really nice of him. Mom and I packed my things and sat on my bed and cried. God, I'm gonna miss her. Friends called from Chicago saying they miss me. I miss them.

It was a calm and quiet day. On my last night here I saw the most beautiful shooting star. It was so close, it seemed.

I'm home, lying on my bed and writing in my journal. There will be many nights like this once again. I unpacked, putting mom and Turlock behind me. Bell said he missed me. I told him that I missed him, too. O.k., deep breath.

Lisa says I got chubby and my shoulders broadened.

Marcelo and I went to Sidetrack, a video bar. Marcelo drinks non-alcoholic beverages and sings along to showtunes. We were still horny, so we went to Vortex. Some twenty-eight-year-old Italian guy tried to pick me up. I flirted with him, but I wasn't about to go home with him. He kept saying, "Come on, sleep with me." He was big and strong, and was rough with me. He had a huge hard-on and was rubbing it against me. I thought it was kind of tacky but liked it. Don't worry I would never go home with anyone. I got rid of him.

Drove around in Melisa's '78 Oldsmobile and laughed at ourselves.

Desiree invited me to do mushrooms with her. I really didn't want to, but did it anyway. I don't want to discuss it. Came home and sank into a depression like never before. It felt like the end of the world. I didn't want to deal with anything and hated myself. Stayed in my room, cried, and talked to myself.

Orientation at Columbia downtown. Lisa went with me. It was boring. On the train home there was a crazy drunk guy playing with some poor girls' hair, trying to give her a carton of milk. We pretended to know her and invited her to sit with us. The man left her alone.

Mom and I are back to empty phone conversations. 'So, what are you doing?' "Oh, nothing." I feel like I should put some meaning into my life.

Life bores me. There's nothing to do, no one to be. I need meaning.

True, I'm making things more complicated than they are, but damn it, I need meaning. What will ever become of me? I don't have the brain for numbers. I'm not smart like that.