I'm getting better at coping. I used to force myself to continue my activities when I felt a discrepency coming on, I used to ignore them, pretend they weren't creeping up on me. But they pass faster if they're acknowledged and they pass faster if I stop and they pass faster if I leave and I hide. So I do and I'm right and now I'm okay.

I almost feel that now that I'm back in NY and seeing everyone again, people I haven't really seen for a year, I feel like I'm going through a 12 step program of re-assimulation, or something. It's kind of fun, but painful at the same time, because people I was once so close to are now so far away and it pains me to see that space.

I'm back in NY now. And I'm glad to be back. It feels better being here than it did being in LA. I was really depressed in LA. But I think I was fairly manic in London and I was countering while being in LA. I've had a lot of strange thougthts and wants in NY though, especially the first week where I was pretty much alone.

I'm reading "Lila" by Robert M. Pirsig. It's the sequel to "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintence". It's really smart and strangely is tying right into my classes this semster.
The part of currently reading is a philosophical analysis of insanity, or maybe it's a metaphysical analysis of it. I'm not quiet sure. But either way it makes me think of my own lapses with sanity and the first time I was truely able to articulate how I felt different than I thought I should. Pirsig says "Sane people don't realize what a bunch of role-players they are, but the insane see this role-playing and resent it"(page 362, UK publication, Alma Books 2006). In seventh grade, my choir took a class trip to Knot's Berry Farm Amusement Park as a reward. I had been going in and out of focusing on the present all day and finally as when we were leaving I really wanted to leave because I was tired. I was tired because I'd spent the entire day with people and did't have a moment to let my guard down since I wasn't alone. It's this "guard" that is sanity. As we were waiting for the bus I said something to the effect of "I'm so sick of carrying around this fascade and being this character in my own life"(I was probably less eliquent as I was a 7th grader). The boy I directed this too was completely curious about what I ment by this. He didn't understand and I couldn't explain it too him anymore than that. If he didn't feel it, why would my words make him understand? I felt like a character in a play, but I couldn't walk off stage and be the actor, I was trapped in the character forever.
Then twice in high school I gave up playing that character.
Now, I'm better. Mostly. Now I'm better at knowing when I can't keep pretending anymore and I shut myself up in my room alone, until I feel better. That way no one has to see me not playing. It scares people when you stop playing. I've seen that look in their eyes, it's not one I want to face again.