Oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!

Let's hold a funeral. We'll mourn...well, we'll morn me. Or rather, we'll mourn the me I used to be. You see, lately I've been missing her. She was fun. She was completely mad but she was fun. She knew who she was and what was important. I don't feel like I know who I am anymore. One can say a lot of things about addiction but at least it gave me something to love. Lately I've been out of sorts. I feel like everything has gone grey. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to say good-bye to the old me so that maybe I won't miss her so much. But who would have anything nice to say about her at her funeral?

-The Dormouse

If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a lot faster than it does.

Lately I find I have been allowing other people to make my life decisions for me. I sit around and let them tell me what is good for me, what isn't, and especially which people I should be allowed to keep in my life. So I think I'm going to stand up for myself once and for all and you my (slightly less hypothetical) fans will sit powerless to stop me.

So here's the thing, I'm a grown woman. Certainly I make stupid choices and obviously I sometimes overreact to things. But as a woman who is recognized both socially and legally as an adult I am allowed to make these stupid choices. I am allowed to get drunk on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, or any other night of the week. The law says I can do that as long as I don't vomit all over the street or steal a car. I am allowed to do basically whatever I want so long as it's not completely against the law. Being friends with a man who is engaged? Not actually illegal. Talking on a relatively regular basis about things going on in our lives? Still not illegal. Even having a thing for the aforementioned man who is engaged? NOT ILLEGAL! So why, I ask you, is everyone I know trying to convince me that I have done something wholly wrong and unforgivable? I've made a friend, a friend who is funny and charming and intellectually stimulating. And yes, he is also pretentious, outspoken, and sometimes odd. And he's engaged. And I'm dating someone else. Somehow this makes it impossible for  us to be friends.

Only, I really can't understand exactly what is so wrong with our friendship. We're not sleeping together. We're not going out on secret dates (although those are fun). We're not even seeing each other outside of class. So what have I done wrong here? Why am I being shamed by my friends? Why am I being told I'm essentially the other woman? Clearly I am not. In order to be the other woman I would need to first be doing something other than engaging intellectually with another human being who happens to already be in a relationship with someone else. In this situation I am not doing a single thing wrong. I'm not even attempting to come between him and a woman I have never even met, or seen, or heard much about other than an offhanded mention of a fiancée. Fine, I admit it, I'm incredibly attracted to him. So what? Back the fuck off. Stop treating me like this is 19th century America. I'm not Hester fucking Prynne, I didn't sleep with a priest and conceive a child out of wedlock. Stop trying to pin a huge scarlet A on my chest. I'm a big girl and I can do what I want and it's really none of your business if what I want is to be friends with someone who shares the same ideas as myself in subjects that hold our mutual interest. Seriously, stop it. Even if you think it's a mistake it's my mistake to make. I'm a big enough girl to get myself into and out of these situations without you trying to make me feel like I've done something wrong.

-The Dormouse

Who...are...you?

So here I am. Reclining on a couch. In my friend's room. Trying to sleep. And sleep eludes me yet again. I don't understand it. I just want to sleep. Does anyone have the secret? I'd like it please.

-The Dormouse

If one drinks much from a bottle marked poison it is almost to certain to disagree with one sooner or later.

I drink. I drink a lot. I drink and I do terrible things while I'm drunk. I say things I don't mean. No, not true. I say things I do mean. I think that's the problem. I can't keep things to myself. I can't not say "I think we should sleep together" or "I used to be in love with you." I just don't know how keeping those things in works when I'm intoxicated. So I spill and I spill and I spill until I pass out. Maybe this is something I should learn to do without the help of alcohol? Or perhaps it's not possible. I don't know. I should at least try. But who am I kidding?

-The Dormouse

It would be so nice if something would make sense for a change

I have laid myself bare. To someone new. To someone I don't know I can trust with those raw, red moments of my life. What have I done? How could I have offered up to him my most painful, intimate, frightening secrets. I so nearly opened up entirely. This is not me. I haven't been sleeping, I haven't been eating (at least nearly not as much as I should be), I feel like I'm slipping out of existence. I want sleeping pills. I want something that will put me out for the night. Just so I can rest, so I can stop thinking. But pills scare me. I'll love them too much and then what will I have made of my life? There's nothing insightful for me to say here. I'm losing it. Can someone buy me a time machine so I can go back and make everything different? I hate the way it's all turned out. I want to scream, I absolutely want to scream but I feel like no one would hear me. I'm feeling too lost, too gone. Until next time...

-The Dormouse

I wonder if I've been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning?

Deep sigh of relief. He loved it. Dearest Dormouse why must you panic at the littlest of things? You know that essay was beautifully put together. You know that he respects your opinions otherwise he would not have expressed an interest in reading the aforementioned essay. And most of all Dormouse you understand that you're intelligent, you know your shit, and there was no reason to believe that he would think anything else. I think, my dear Dormouse, that we really need to sit down and think about the way you value yourself.

In other, different news, tonight we're going to think about...Peter Pan?

"Dormouse," you are undoubtedly wondering, "why are we going to think about Peter Pan tonight?"

Well, I'm glad you asked. You see Peter has been showing up in my life lately. We were tasked with reading the story of the Boy Who Would Not Grow Up for one of those pesky (but terribly wonderful) literature classes I take as part of my never ending quest to obtain a useless degree. And in reading his story I fell in love with Peter all over again. I confess, he was the first boy I ever fell in love with as a young girl. There was just something about Peter that I found so intoxicating. But no matter how in love you are with Peter you know he's going to break your heart. You know he'll never grow up and you will and inevitably he'll leave you because you are a grown woman and he will never be a grown man. I find though that this is perhaps what I like best about Peter. He is someone on whom I can depend to break my heart. Now, does that seem odd? That I would love that I can depend on him to break my heart?

Peter and I have a complicated relationship. Well, as complicated a relationship as one can possibly have with a fictional character. But then I suppose one can have a truly complicated relationship with someone who doesn't exist, especially if one is in love with him. Maybe if I look at the way I love the Peter I can find the explanation for the way I love the only other man in my life I have allowed to break my heart with the consistency Peter does. But that I think is a complication for another time. I think for now I will allow you to draw your own conclusions. Until next time...

-The Dormouse

The time has come my little friends to talk of other things...

This is not a feminist blog.

"Why, Dormouse," you might say, "we, your adoring (and still mostly hypothetical) fans, were under no impression that this was a feminist blog. You did not have to tell us that."

And of course you would be right. I did not have to tell you that this, my blog, is not a feminist blog. Except lately I've been thinking that perhaps it should be? That perhaps I have some things to say about the world and the patriarchy and all those lovely feminist things my Women's Studies minor has been cramming into my brain for the last four years. Perhaps I should put my views out there? I certainly do have a lot of them. But something stops me from wanting to feminist blog. It is, I think, one thing to be a feminist who blogs and another thing entirely to have a feminist blog. Perhaps I am afraid that some of the things I say will not match up to the internet's standards of feminist blogging? I certainly know I don't always say things "a good feminist" would say.

"Dormouse," you are all now calling out, "why are you even thinking about a feminist blog? You know you can still have this regular old blog and say feminist things sometimes. We will still love you."

I know my adoring (hypothetical) fans. I know you will still love me. But, if I don't give myself some direction in my pointless internet ramblings will I still love myself? You see, this is the question I have been struggling with of late. The interwebs are such a strange place to be. They make you question yourself far too much. I think for now I will just shelf the feminist blog thing and we can move on to the real problems tonight.

Adoring (hypothetical) fans, I think you deserve the truth from me. Tonight I had a panic attack over an e-mail. You see, I sent the King of the Hipsters an essay I'd written that he'd said he wanted to read. He said he wanted to read it a month ago. I only just got the courage (in case you were wondering, the formula for courage is as follows: 1 part feeling pretty good about yourself, 1 part feeling sort of sexy, 1 part feeling pretty intelligent, and 3 parts not getting enough sleep for an entire week and thus having poor decision making skills) to send it to him tonight. And now I've sent it. And it's gone. Out into the world of the interwebs where he will log in to his e-mail account and read it and maybe like it but maybe not and e-mail me back. Unfortunately, I have suddenly lost all of my courage and I wish more than anything that e-mail came with an "I absolutely regret the decision to send this" button. I find myself wanting his approval and fearing deep down inside that I will not get it. I am terrified that I may seem adorable, charming, intelligent, and maybe even sexy in person but that it's all a front for this monstrous creature who cannot even send an e-mail without seeming like a complete freak. Suddenly I feel awkward and stupid and so very small. This is not a feeling I enjoy. I do not recommend it for your futures my adoring (hypothetical) fans. And now, even though I want nothing more than to calm down I find myself obsessing. I find I am sitting on my couch dreading the moment I will find a reply from him in my inbox. This is the moment of realization I suppose where I find that being in lust with S was a lot easier. That through it all I can be more confident of my sensuality than I can of my own intelligence. I cannot flirt with my intelligence. I don't find my academic prowess to be particularly sexy. Yet here I am, attempting to gain approval through my intellectual pursuits and I am worried that I am failing. Perhaps things are easier when they are sexual. Perhaps I should stick to that? I don't know. After all of this you, my adoring (hypothetical) fans, will find me, the Dormouse, completely at a loss. Maybe you can figure it all out? Until next time...

-The Dormouse