“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generation, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”

Courtesy of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle…A Case of Identity

Remind me to tell you the story about the San Quentin inmates. It’s not a good one but I wanna talk it…

I am not often a movie-watcher. Name any popular movie and chances are, I have not seen it. I am catching up this summer, I keep finding movies I haven’t seen for $4, and others just keep turning up…including…

• The Hangover
• Role Models
• Harry Potter 5
• Sex and the City: The Movie
• He’s Just Not That Into You
• Scoop
• Harry Potter 1
• Brokeback Mountain
• Away We Go
• Harry Potter 2
• and as I type this: There’s Something About Mary

I am nineteen years old. If all goes well, in about three months, I will be twenty years old. Technically I have been an adult for almost twenty-one months, but I’ve never really felt like one, ever. Many of my friends say they’ve felt like an adult long before they legally were one, but not I. I loved being a child so much that I never want to stop. I won’t be an adult unless I am allowed to do cartwheels and play games. I feel young. I feel like I still need to be cut slack. I feel like I still don’t know any better.

It’s inevitable though. I did childhood, I’m done. There’s only one place for me now, and I’ll remain there until I die. Adulthood. It’s just a matter of getting there, or accepting that I am there, and I’m in no rush. I hopefully have many many more years of adulthood ahead of me, but my youth will soon come to an irreversible end. I’m savoring these last bits…!

Lately I’ve been having moments like: whoa. I live here. Here in this house, without my parents. I have a housekey and a frying pan. I grocery shop and wash my sheets regularly. If I didn’t come home at night, it would take a while for people to realize I was gone. Even right now…no one who knows me could easily find me. I can be independent here, which is something I adore.

I’m almost ready. I have been having many recurrent thoughts of the future, envisioning myself having a job in someplace or another, paying bills, cooking and cleaning, saving up money to go see someplace else. I can do that, is what I’ve realized. Which is how I know I’m almost there.

I don’t think we should have to be one or the other. I’m just not ready to call it quits. The stages must be a sliding scale. Continuous. And all I can know is, I’m progressing.

I mentioned my first goal for the quarter, but I thought of another one: become a great singer.

Something just occurred to me: I will never be a man. Now, as a nineteen-year-old female, you’d think this would be something I realized loooong ago but I guess I never gave it much thought. It seems strange that, although there is so much out there for me to experience, I will never experience simply being male.

At the ARC here in Davis there are basketball courts with people playing on them all the time. Any able-bodied male can join in on a game whenever he wishes! They’re not sexist over there, but since I am neither male nor basketball player, I will never feel confident enough to join in.

I like these types of man activities! I am a little disappointed I will never be able to participate in any male bonding activities. No guy’s nights out. No watching of games. No eating rudely. No eating of unhealthy snacks. No giving a great man to man hug. No looking normal in manpants. No being unapologetically gross. No bumping of chests. No tossing around of pigskins (I’m aware that’s probably not proper man-lingo). Dang it! ‘Cause even though I can (and at times, do) do these things, it will never be man to man. As much as my great friends make me feel like I’m just one of them, we all know I’m not. And I’m sure it’s quite different when I’m not around.

Though I’ll never experience those things (or anything…?) as a man would, I am so glad I get to experience the great things about being a girl/woman. And since no one can experience both, I suppose I’ll stick with being female! I’m better at that anyway.

Studying makes me want to cuddle with someone.

Now this is gonna be quick cause I have millions of things I couldbe/shouldbe doing right now. Winter quarter is ending which means the next two weeks are going to be comprised of 12-h0ur days holding myself hostage in the library in an effort to stay as focused as possible.

When things are stressful like this, I try to keep myself happy in other ways–nourishing food (especially marmite to keep my mood up, I’m a believer) and (when I allow it), sleep. But sometimes it’s just not in the cards…by the time I was able to fall asleep last night, it was only two hours before my alarm was ringing…time to get up for my morning run. A morning run can sometimes be more energizing than that third hour of sleep–the difference between two and three hours is not much of a difference anyway. I don’t really do the caffeine thing or the makeup thing either…so I just have to live with looking terrible and feeling exhausted it when I don’t get enough sleep. It’s only natural

Off to the library–tons to do before my 10:00 class…