Life is so rich! Music everywhere and beats under the skins of everything I touch and the subway under my feet and the hot summer air combing my hair into thick locks and something new to write down every minute. And I'm stuck taking trig notes on my fire escape in my pijamas because I can't go outside until I've studied for my two tests on monday and test and half-final on tuesday.

I don't even care. I don't even mind my period or the fact that we're not having dinner tonight because mom made black mole at two. I don't mind not going busquing with Matt or seeing Harry or going to the thrift market or sipping Bailey's in someone's apartment over a Dylan debate. Studying isn't so bad. Granola bars are enough. My sister is good for conversation or music when I'm tired and the stuff I'm learning is interesting enough to keep me going.

For example: I can't describe how awesome it is that my history final is a paper on the history of Greenwich Village with photos and primary sources. Reading about the Village's writers is almost as fun as actually reading them. And did you know that the Village is the only US neighborhood to have its own definition in the OED?

I ran into Ron Singer on the street the other day and asked him which books he would recommend and he sent an email to Maria Fahey giving me permission to borrow a copy of Literary New York. "Don't lose it or forget to return it, though, because those are out of print and could cost up to a hundred dollars to replace," Maria warned me.

It turned out to be an incredible book, worth more than all of the rest of my sources put together. So I went on Amazon and found it on sale for $0.73. I ordered two. I'd recommend it to any lit nerds like myself out there who're interested in the Village. If there even are any.

I was skimming my second quarter notebook looking for some math stuff and I realized that it was virtually bereft of any creative thought. There were depressing inky drawings of satyrs and blackbirds and such and a few copied poems of other peoples' but nothing new or original. No jotted thoughts or images or even ideas for later use. The backbone of my play was at the very beginning but after those few pages it was just class notes and sketches and grades and homework. I must have really had it bad.

I'm a million times more alive now than I was then. I've never been so open with myself or so strong before. I've never been happier.

And I keep thinking of all of the incredible people I know and how much I love them. I see friends flocking back to the city where the Mud Mobile is putting ice in the coffee again and drunken parties are blossoming on rooftops. I want to photograph them and call them and poke them over facebook and write about them and tell the world what I think of them. And it's almost summer and now I can!