I am well-satisfied with this month that has seen me through late summer into fall. There is something about late summer that drags at my heart. It burns brightly at its end with no promise of abetting and then relentlessly it is swept away by the breeze. I have not yet felt the crispness of fall, but I feel strange tonight, looking back and longing yet feeling a peculiar attachment for this present time. I guess I have been doing what I'm doing long enough for it to have made an imprint. This is the time of the Treo, the blogs, my yet unyielding grapple with the meaning of technology and my strange desire for it beside my relentless passion for what is natural. This is as I have said a time when I am to connect my past to my future. I am changing. I am energetic, running away from this shadow that threatens always to drop on me, pinning me down like a heavy cloak, and I might crawl from beneath it with only the greatest effort. I still have no words to describe the shadow distinctly. I know only that it is not adulthood, for the life I am carving out for myself is agreeable to me, and in time I will be a full-fledged adult and if I lose this shadow, a happy one. But if it overtakes me, if I become dead and numb and careless, then life will be worthless to me.

Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

Again, the photographs. I know you must be tired of hearing of them, especially when you cannot see them, but they are obsessing me. Really no wonder I have been so obsessed with the way I look. I guess anyone would feel that way taking a crash course through their own past and staring endlessly at photographs they haven't unearthed in ten years or more in an attempt to order them chronologically. I note the changes in my look and it sends me on long mental journeys of how I felt at a certain time of my life, or more unpleasantly, how blatantly bad I look at times. And more depressing, though I'm on an upward swing, I do not look my best right now.

I'm going to talk about my appearance now, which is something I try to avoid doing, because I end up deleting these entries anyway. I have a sense of guilt about it, like it's immoral to think too much about the way I look one way or another, because it leads to unhappiness, but really not thinking enough about how I look has made me pretty unhappy as well. What I noticed tonight was that a year ago I looked worse than I ever did in my life. On our wedding day I looked great, but my weight was an issue even then. Even more depressingly, why can't I lose weight? I've been trying for a year and a half now, to no avail, except for a brief period two months ago when I got down to 120 (very briefly, like for a day or two). It makes 115 seem so unearthly far away. But it's absolutely unmistakable: with a few exceptions, my weight has the biggest impact on my look. My hair color, whether or not I'm wearing makeup or what hairstyle I have, makes very little difference.

My weight is the most decisive alterer of my appearance. The second most decisive alterer is whether or not I am tired. It's impossible to tell in any of these pictures if I'm wearing makeup, and whether or not I'm happy doesn't matter either. In almost all of these college pictures I remember deliberately forcing a smile and in one of them, actually starting to cry right after the picture was taken, and I don't look old or overweight there. In the pictures of me when I was unwrapping Johnny, I think I look over thirty, and it's probably because I was doing it at nine a.m. after going to bed at five a.m. I try not to sleep so much anymore because I want to make sure I have full days, but if it's going to age me it's not worth it (Besides, I'm going to start a dream blog, so even my sleep time will be productive. I have my best dreams after I turn off the alarm and sleep for another hour).

I feel really awful for talking about my appearance this way. I keep telling myself it doesn't matter, but I need to lay it out and resolve it so I can move forward and worry about other things. When it comes down to it, what I look like won't really impact how happy I am. I know it's a lot more than that. But how you look impacts the way other people treat you, which definitely impacts how happy you are. It may be trite, but it's true. I don't want to live off other people's compliments, but I want to live feeling worthy of being complimented. Maybe that's wrong, I don't know.

Also, one more thing. There is this picture of me that was taken my freshman year of college. I'm afraid I might have thrown it away in my more religious period because of my scanty dress. I don't know. I remember being 115, possibly 110 lbs. and looking unspeakably grand. I'd do anything to have that picture again for reference.

I don't want to live in my past, but right now, and I know I've said this before, I need to connect my past to my future. That's what this time in my life is about.

I have also been asking myself tough questions about my writing. This morning, the bottom dropped out of my stomach as I posed this question to myself. It would be exactly like if I asked Nathan if he loved me and he had to stop to think about it. I asked myself, "Do I really want to write anymore?" and in the silence in my mind that followed, I felt this intense fear. I clung in my mind to my stories and characters, but stubbornly, the way I am afraid to let go of what is familiar. Maybe I am doing it out of habit now rather than passion. The thought really scares me.

Instead of journaling, I have taken pictures. Part of this is because I just don't feel like sitting down and writing things anymore. It takes a lot of time and hurts my back and bores me(right now I'm just writing to sort out this mess, not really out of a desire). I don't love taking pictures and I'm not good at it, but it takes just a second to take a picture of Henry on our new bedspread, or the flower on my cockscomb that I grew from a seed, and I love going back and looking at those pictures, and printing them out. I don't really like reading my old journal entries because I feel so critical of them, and of myself.

But I don't feel that way about my stories, weirdly. I see them as something strange and beautiful, kind of like those pictures of me in high school and college when I was 110 lbs. I feel disconnected from them, but I feel this intense passion to reconnect with that again, with that body, and those stories. Not because I want to live in the past, but because that's the beginning I want to take to my future. I don't want to erase all that's happened in the past three years. They've made me who I am now. I don't want to have illusions about who I was then, because I was really uptight and unpersonable. Something has happened to me in the past year so that I feel energized and full of passion for life and experiences and people. I love that, but I don't love myself as I wish I would.

It's not that being thinner would necessarily make me happier, but it would be an accomplishment. When I was twelve, I could run a mile without stopping, and still go on, not winded. I remember running once for what felt like forever, and feeling like I could just keep running until I had to eat or sleep, because I had almost limitless energy. I could be that way again. The fact that I ever was gives me so much confidence. I don't want to compare myself to other people, their bodies or talents, but knowing what I did before, I'm completely convinced I can do it again, and that's what gets me out of bed to run or swim in the morning when I don't really care if I'm thin or not. I desire that energy. Combined with this passion that I've developed for life, for places, for people, for knowledge, this living-like-I'm-dyin', I feel like I would be near-unstoppable if I were physically fit, capable of defending myself or others, truly strong.

I have found a new barometer by which to judge my actions, or rather, it is an involuntary barometer that is improving me perhaps without my say. For every weak thing I do or begin to do, I ask myself if I would admire myself for it. I have felt so critical of myself lately, so ugly, so awful, and out of it has sprung this quest to improve myself. I don't want to become a slave to style magazines; rather, I could not admire myself for doing that. At the same time, I want to look right and decent and keep from embarrassing myself. I feel like my hygeine is always falling short, just like the housework. Every time I turn around, there's hair where hair shouldn't be, there's stuff under my toenails, my tee shirts are shrinking up and showing my stomach; to say nothing of my wildly oxidizing jewelry, scuffed shoes, &c. I don't understand why I don't see anyone else with these problems! Do they spend all their time at home cleaning their jewelry and ironing their shirts? What am I supposed to do?

And I think we should be saving up our money to go to Japan, but all of a sudden I hate all of my clothes, and I'm trying to chill out, but I honestly don't think I'll be able to face this winter without a new coat. I have three and I can't bear them: The sleeve is torn on my black trenchcoat, my silver puffcoat is too small, and my brown duster doesn't match any of my clothes. I need black. That's so selfish! There are people who need coats and I have three, and I want a different one.

I know I need to just cool it and love myself, but somehow that conjures the image of kicking back in a faded tee shirt and messy bun with a big belly. I try to be Spartan but I just get stressed. And I don't want to be a shopaholic. And everything seems worse at 5 a.m., but at least it's keeping me up.

I have been quiet about doing this scrapbook as I examined my feelings and thought many times about coming to write about them but I never knew what I would say.

Now it is that end/beginning time of the week that I always half-look forward to, half-dread, Sunday night, when Nathan has gone to bed and I stay up a few hours later to get back on track for my night schedule. I thought that I would write of my feelings tonight but even now words fail me.

I don't know why my Beta photos affected me as they did. All the others I looked on with a sense of nostalgia or humor, even the very worst. I guess I'm not as good as I thought. When I see those pictures when I am with all the other girls my age, my heart breaks. They were all so pretty, just as every sixteen-year-old should be, and I looked awful. I wore my long, long hair straight back from my forehead, and my glasses were so large they scarcely stayed on my face. I had this baggy shirt and teal cardigan sweater vest over the shirt, and a long tartan wrap skirt all the way to my loafers. In a way I scarcely recognize myself, I guess because I never looked in a mirror then.

It made me feel so insecure! I don't know why. I can't be that different now. All night I've been going over all aspects of my appearance and lamenting how uncool I still am, how even now if I were around a lot of other girls my age, I would probably be so out of style, and moreover since I have no basis for comparison I must be profoundly hopeless of improving myself. I still have no idea how to act or dress, and I'm still not sure if I should.

For the first time today my photos hurt me to look at. There's no getting around my awkwardness. Away and starting over in Arlington I had forgotten, but these pictures bring everything back to me, taunting me, reminding me that if only I were home once more, if only...

I argue round and round with myself. After all, I spend half my life wishing I was there again, shy and ignorant and in control of my life, never having known that loss, too insecure to smile properly at the camera and yet so secure I never looked into a mirror or spent more than a few minutes dressing myself every day. Wasn't it better then? Does my appearance really matter so much?

It gnaws at me, and I think again that I shouldn't even be writing this, or thinking of it, this puritanical nature that tells me these thoughts will never bring me happiness, that true happiness can come only from my meditations and peace, and yet this desire flames ever hotter inside me to be beautiful. Who doesn't want to be?

I am almost done with the scrapbooks. I only bought one but I have pages to fill three, so tomorrow I will buy a red and a white one to complement my black one. Then when I am done with my scrapbooks, I will start on my stories. I will make a different kind of book, sort of a scrapbook/journal of all my stories since I was six years old. I thought since the beginning of this project that by the end of it I would know what I needed to do next and so I do. And when I am doing with my story journal, perhaps I will know what to do after that.

In November I will attempt another novel for NaNoWriMo and this time I will succeed. I am determined to write only and exactly what I wish. My stubborn desire to write "Cambriel" as I did only led to frustration. And I'm convinced when I am done with my story journal, I will be more comfortable with my writing voice again.

Yesterday I found a Grosset & Dunlap book at an antique shop in Comfort. After dinner wih Lydia at der Lindenbaum, we took a late-night walk around the town and saw, to my amazement, swarms of bats circling a light pole, chasing insects. They are so strange: I see why they are the stuff of lore.

I retired later reading my book A Little Mother to the Others, remembering again the absolute silence of country night, which once amazingly I took for granted, not knowing differently. After breakfast we saw Truer der Union and the old Comfort train station, of which I took several pics for the purpose of the half-dozen stories I've started that take place in abandoned stations.

I want to revamp my writing notebook with stories most important to me featured, because having taken it on the trip I realize that nothing I want to work on is in here.

Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

I get out here and feel entirely different. Suddenly the world's problems seem so far away. Pollution and crime can't possibly exist. There is no greater safety than these uncivilized places.

Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--

We're on the road between Hico and San Antonio. All around are hills, dotty shrubs, and prickly pear cactus. So far we've visited the Hidden Valley chocolate store and we have a few places where we plan to stop on the way home. Tonight we'll reach Comfort and perhaps have dinner with Lydia. I can't wait to see the little towns. I got the best antique books in Fredericksburg and I hope to have similar luck now.

Unearthing my old pictures and scraps put me in a mind more to archiving, and it's hard not to snatch everything I see for a memento. I haven't been on the computer more than sparingly and it's made a wonderful difference for my home time. I do a great deal more and feel more lively. I bought us some web space for email addresses and Nathan's music, and right now I have no plans to develop it for myself. I'm happy with this blog and my Fiction Press account.

Sent from Amanda's Treo @-'-,--