Caroline No

I'm being the mopiest teenage girl in the world today - staring sulkily out my window at the rain, listening to Fiona Apple, staring at Polaroid photos and sighing emphatically so that my roommate turns to me and says, "Are you okay, Kathee?" And yes, I'm okay, I'm just tired and homesick and burnt out after writing nine papers (with three left on my to-do list and miles and miles to go before I sleep.) It's ridiculous, really, sitting here and getting almost teary-eyed over the train sounds in "Caroline No" and the fuzzy, circular cassette noises off songs from Hot Garden Stomp (one of my favorite Mountain Goats' albums.)

Things have been wonderful and 2008 is likely the best year I've had in a long time, but I'm tired and today I stumbled upon Amy and Shiree watching America's Next Top Model and an anti-drug advert showed a man making a cocoon out of pot and crawling into it and all I could think was, "Gosh, I wish I had a cocoon that I could crawl into."

Last night was sort of rough. I had some scary nightmares, woke up at three and then four, wanting to be somewhere where I felt safe and comfortable and not so alone, my shoulder aching and my throat all tight. I worried that maybe I had been screaming, but Karen was sound asleep. I tried to reason it all out, remind myself, "I do not want to be emotionally manipulative, I would never force people to choose between us," but I still felt sick thinking about the ways in which I am left alone and the things I know, but will not share with anyone.

Everything is complicated and tangled and you can tell I'm a bit of an emotional wreck because every single song I hear makes me feel jittery and a bit sad (like right now, who really gets upset about Matthew Sweet? I think he just makes me a little homesick, mostly for my childhood and mom making brunch on Sunday mornings. And BARR - don't even get me started on BARR right now, it's just too much and too close to home.) On nights like this, I can't stop thinking of Caroline Knapp and that "basic fragility" she writes so well about, or The Virgin Suicides or that first Bonfire Madigan show I saw, the one where there were less than 10 other people there, or I don't know - at least these songs are on shuffle, every time I feel like I'm getting too sad something ridiculous involving Tim Armstrong comes on.