the drive in was long and wet, the rain is pounding down on the bay area. there were rivers running across the lanes. everyone was nervous, driving like jack-rabbits. i just spent 10 minutes listening to the Co-Worker type and babble to himself while i looked out across the dark and clouded oakland skyline. i watched people run through the downpour, using newspapers as their shields. he tried to talk to me, but i couldn't look at him, it was too beautiful out.

he is being nice today. i think whether or not we get along is nearly entirely up to me. this is comforting.

this new book i am reading is making me even more aware of the way i communicate. words can have so much import, touch people in ways that sometimes even fingertips can't. i wonder how much what i write and what i say reveals about me, how much may or may not be being imparted to those i am in contact with. i feel like maybe i guard too much, that i am afraid of letting someone in. the only people that know me terribly well are those i have had in my life for an awfully long time. my brother, lauren, niki, jason, to some extent my sister, my mother.

everyone else, i think, only gets a small part of me. this bit, the giving up bit, has gotten so much bigger since i started writing here. but still, in the last few days i have been told by more than one person: "you are a hard person to get to know," "you are a mystery". it makes me wonder, am i really? do i really guard too much?

i wonder what it is that i could/should be giving up. because, in general, i don't like puzzles, i don't like mysteries. and i wonder if i asked those who knew me well, the ones that see how i operate with others, if they would say it's true. because a lot of the time i feel awfully exposed and laid out bare.

i know to achieve the prize you have to put your neck on the line; nothing and no one that i ever valued came to me easily. and sometimes it feels as if i am not choosing my desires, that they are choosing me. i am still working this all out, i am still getting the dirt of it under my nails.

i have another mystery bruise, this time on my left wrist. i think i am doing violent things in my sleep; i wake up in strange positions, with interesting aches. i wish i was more aware of what was marking me. i'd like the story to tell.

i put lipstick on today.