November 1995

I tried to steal something from work but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wanted to be mischievous. I wanted a little excitement. Walking home in the mist I wondered if I lack backbone. But I realize that it just isn't like me to fulfill a desire that primitive and petty.
I wait to start classes. School the enigma. Sleep a distant relative.

Imagination keeps me occupied. I dream wholeheartedly as if it's my profession. At work, at break time, I turn all the lights off and close my eyes.
Sometimes when I open my eyes from my sleep I see things. The other night I saw a creature of sorts running at me in the dark and shouted out for mom. When I turned the light on the image faded. Another night I thought I saw a huge bug crawling up the wall. But it wasn't there. Recently I saw a horse standing in my room. I just closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
I hope it's nothing serious.

She says I am just an angry person and will never be able to live with anyone. That I don't have a heart and am cold. I'm torn. What does my own mother think of me? Is it supposed to be natural for parents and their adult children to be so divided? Green is red to her and blue to me. Am I to accept that this is the way it is? She dwells. She bites her nails. She lives in regret and I fear being around it.
I'm tired of living on eggshells with my parents.
Am I as awful as she claims? Or are the things she says only spoken out of anger and without real conviction? Should I even wonder? Should I shrug them off?
I got up early and went for a run, but what's the use in physical maintenance when there's only emotional dysfunction?
I love better from a distance.
I should burn this entry out of my life.
Oh, dear Abby, help me!

The temperature's been in the seventies. Good for the soul.
There are people embedded in my heart's past. Iran. Iran. Keeps getting more distant.

One of my parents' oldest friends is visiting with us. Pari is an Iranian woman we've loved forever it seems. She hasn't changed at all. I've been speaking Farsi with her rather awkwardly. She reminds me so much of my other life so long ago. My precious Iran. Life is amazing and tonight I can feel the whole world out there, out there.

Windy. Cooler. Long phone conversations long distance. The scent of fireplaces fills the streets. I wonder if I am in fact healthy or if this curse is working within me.