i knew when i woke up that it would be a good day. i felt rested for the first time in a week. and i wasn't sick at all like i was on wednesday. i kept expecting the nausea to come back but it didn't. no headache or sweaty twisted sheets. just calm.

donna got money in the mail and paid me back part of what she owed me, so we went shopping. i got presents for my parents' birthdays, a shirt, a pink summer dress, and buckle shoes. it's nice to have some new clothes. i'm still working on the best part of my mom's birthday present. it's a book that i wrote. i have to print it out and bind it tonight. donna is going to write something for it too.

i feel kind of disconnected lately, when i'm at home. spring break is too aimless for me. i like having an agenda. time flows too freely. maybe i should drink some wine. but these are days we dream about when the sunlight paints us gold. and i believe we are the same.

donna read through the thing i'm making for my mom to check for shock value (it's really just a bunch of excerpts from this diary). we weren't sure if it made me sound depressed or happy. the goal is to seem happy, because i am happy, and my mom is always worried that i'm not. donna said the impression she got from the excerpts was of someone who is somewhat defined by loss, which surprised both of us. i used to think i was defined by loss, so maybe i still am, unintentionally. i used to be inspired by the intensity of emotion that i associated with loss. it's the negation of the negation... "this entire active �bad conscience,� as the true womb of imaginative events, finally brought to light a wealth of new disconcerting beauty and affirmation and perhaps for the first time beauty itself.� depth of pain causes an equal depth of beauty.