Sometimes I feel as if it is utterly possible. Possible to forget about this Crime and Punishment paper I should be starting or the possible "D" on my art history midterm. Instead I want to knit a hat with huge earflaps and a gnomy point while singing off key to Death Cab. I want to string together beads. Yes, for heaven sakes, BEADS! How much would I love a string of green aventurine nuggets or skeins and skeins of beautiful handspun wool? It makes we want to break out a huge bucket and start dyeing me up some yarn.

Meanwhile I am trying desperately not to think about how although I have finally figured out what I want to do next year, there is a possibility that it may not happen. Instead I will imaginarily plan out my Edward Gorey meets Pablo Picasso Rose Period children's book and my future collection of hand crafted tea mugs.

People run by my apartment building shrieking and chucking bottles, and I feel so completely alien from them. I want to go back to my nightly lucid dreaming where I can click my heels together with breakneck speed and control my path of flight. And the only thing that can follow me is that gang of clever squirrels who clap their devious little paws together in pursuit. Only they may be able to catch me, only they and no one and nothing else, not even reality.

Old written thoughts on airplane to Florence, Italy - January 2004

I sit very still as the aircraft rumbles awake with the deep trills and whirs of a giant whale in the ocean. The plane angles upward until its nose parts the clouds. The foot of the man behind me pokes me in the ankle every couple of minutes. I have half a mind to suddenly lean backwards my seat in a sad attempt to smash the man in the nose. Instead, I turn on her right cheek to watch the rows of people wandering in and out of various states of consciousness.

A black woman in her mid-thirties has just finished reading a chapter in her book. She turns off the overhead light, places the complementary headphones over her ears, and leans back in relaxation. I think to myself, Is she listening to the same station as I am? The woman's eyes remain closed, channeling meditation. Yes, I think that she must be.

A bleached blond sleeps with her mouth wide open. Another woman with dyed red hair has propped her feet up, accenting the strange bony protrusion by her big toe.

A few hours pass, and I keep myself busy by watching the people walk to and from the cramped lavatories. A man with glasses frequents, seeming to enjoy feeling the thin carpeting with only his socks on. A mother takes her son, and when she returns I can see the heavy mole by her left eye. Otherwise she would have been a normal middle aged woman, but now, now she leaves me hoping that somewhere, the father is waiting with a bouquet of daffodils in hand.

Riding the bus home after work, I felt an extreme sense of desire. Amid the empty bus, I was an island, bursting with a voracious appetite, one I had not felt in ages, one that threatens to fling me to the concrete, one that beautifies otherwise ordinary men and women. For years I have revelled in my solitary nature, but suddenly and now almost violently, I feel the pressing need to break my habits, though I am not sure how. Why now? Is it because of this real boy I barely know or the imaginary woman that I have loved?

I used to stay up at nights, unable to sleep because my mind raced poetry. Sitting at my desk, I scrawled and typed words, sentences, phrases. These were illuminations of my thoughts vein-filled with the need to get them on paper, old torn notebooks of half finished geometry proofs and American history. Somehow, the need stopped. I peaked with little or no impressive work to show. People told me I was a writer, though they had no proof that I wrote. As much as I ache, I could never be an artist. I haven't the motivation or the inspiration. At least not anymore.

This unanswered question crops up in my mind: When did everyone I knew become real people? They were all characters to me at some point in my life. Things happened to us. Then they began writing, creating and being - being beautiful. I cannot accept the same in myself. A weak feeling overpowers me. Helpless I force myself to sleep.

In the moments before I fall asleep, I consciously push away the reality of the day. A shove and the walls fly sideways as if carted on squeaking wheels. Instead, the world transcends plasticity. I am film director, screenwriter, sculptor of my existence. The essense of all muy favorite films and songs become the soundtrack of my life shown onscreen. Everything beautiful and alive though real only in my mind. Yet in my imaginings, I fall in love again with all the words, images, lyrics, human fallacies that I had before.

As much as I wish I could I cannot swallow the choking swollen lump coming up in my throat. The heat gathering behind my eyes that pierce the darkness, the stifled thrashings in the bed, the cries of triumph in the night remind me of my still waking state before I lose the ability to sense that dropoff.

Sighing, we go tripping little new beginnings.