I'm really starting to crack up. I'm trying to do too much. I have to stop making everything priority 1, because some things that I think need doing and that I could theoretically fit in to my schedule need to be downgraded in favour of things I can't fit in my schedule, like mental health and restful sleep.

Yesterday I sat in my bathrobe until 4:30, thinking about everything I had to do, completely unable to decide what to do, making first one decision then another, each one making me more and more unhappy. Finally I took a shower. In the shower I was almost crying because taking a shower seemed so futile. (whoah!) I called up boy after that and he came over and I ate some food and then he took me home to his family which was good for me. I can't believe I get in the headspace where I think seeing people would make me unhappy - it won't, brooka, it won't. I need to write down all my happy, well-adjusted attitudes when I have them, because apparently they're really easy to FORGET when I'm a little stressed out.

I'm so fat, I'm so ugly, I'm so incompetent, I'm such a loser, I don't deserve food without going for a run, I don't deserve to read a book without doing my reading assignments, I don't deserve to paint without seeing my boyfriend, I don't deserve to take a nap without doing my laundry. Stress is inspiring this ridiculous calculus in my mind. It feels so foreign and out of character, like I'm borrowing troubles. It feels so foreign and out of character that I'm embarassed to relate it to anyone I know, which is dumb, because it's exactly then that I need external support.

I'm halfway through the semester now. They've just released the preliminary exam schedule, which I'd been nervously awaiting without realizing it. I have exams on the first two days of the period, which is my total preference since it's over sooner. Working full time, an extra day of study doesn't help any more - either I squeeze study in somewhere there's no room for it or I don't; an extra week doesn't make a difference either way, really, except to prolong the school agony. So yeah. Now there's a specific end to the semester I can count down to.

Then I'll take a week off. I will sleep so much. I will twiddle around in my bathrobe, make grandiose plans to go out of town or start a major craft project, and then I won't do it, and it will be just fine.

But in the meantime I need to stop going insane. So far I'm not inclined to take any action to accomplish that. I should stop beating myself up when I miss a workout, maybe even stop scheduling them and just go out when I feel like it; stop panicking when I want to sleep instead of visiting my boyfriend; stop worrying about how clean my apartment is; stop thinking that missing a mark on a quiz is even worth worrying about; stop thinking that wearing the same socks two days in a row is a deep moral transgression.

Hah, or is this just another list of "I should"s that I'll go nuts over? I'm just a big ol' neurotic wonder. At least I'm cuddly.

No midterms this week. Slow down, slow down, sleep little traveller.

I think I'll paint Little My on my kitchen table. I want to be like Little My. And Pippi Longstocking. (I can lift up heavy men! And I have freckles, no one can deny it! All I need is pigtails and some pirate gold now. And a monkey.)