i am fried. in history this morning, i started addressing one of Bruce's questions but halfway thru suddenly stopped. i couldn't remember either what i'd just been saying or what he'd even asked. it became funny, the class laughed, bruce was cool about it. still. i don't think i can do this much longer. my poor memory is being eroded by waves of chai-sugar.

less than 24 hrs til this polisci shit is due. legislative veto! who cares?
i feel kind of bad b/c last nite at dinner rebecca cleared her throat and informed us she had come to a minor epiphany. the "minor" aside, this was an announcement and it was important to her. "i realized i'll never be a good actor," she said. joel and ross treated that pretty lightly. (altho of course i don't remember WHAT jokes were made -- oh god --) i felt bad but i didn't know what to say. it reminded me, again, of my old friend shira. she entertained the dream of seriously being an actress; she wanted nothing more than to perform. one day she asked me, honestly, whether i thought that was realistic. i was torn: finally i resorted to metaphor. "you're like a carrot," i said. i forget my exact logic. it didn't even matter. i kept elaborating and talking in circles on the same theme until she unearthed the point. at no time did i ever have to say, "sorry, darling: no."
now she wants to be a lawyer. she'll make a damn good lawyer.

don't think that story had a moral. it just always depresses me when people can't be the things they want to be. when i was ten, i read this book called Bobby Baseball about this kid who wanted to be a pitcher. he was all right, good enuf for little league or whatever, but at some point his coach (also his dad) broke it to him that he wasn't going to make it as a pitcher in real life. that book made me weep. like Little-Women-beth-dying weep. the unfairness of things. i used to weep like that at hearing bernadette peters sing, too, knowing i'd never have a voice like hers. but i'm not going to be a singer anyway, or an actress, altho i once very much wanted to be both. doesn't make me weep anymore.