Lonely baking not in the sense that I’m really all that lonely, but in the sense that I intend to eat these cookies by myself. Maybe I’ve done too much thinking today and it’s making me feel empty. I’m in the middle of reading Argument and Song, and I stopped today when the music at the coffee shop was getting on my nerves. I had just finished reading the essays “Seasons of Mist” and “Reading Autumn,” and both sort of left me melancholy (of course) and thinking about autumn.

Today was a strange day sort of. On the surface, it was a perfect day even though it was rainy. I had lunch with my friends and then looked through the nearby antique store at a thousand hand-drawn prints from books that were like a 100 years old. It sounds very stupid, but there are several bird prints and bird egg prints that I want. Sifting through the bins to pick out ones that I wanted (ranging from $6-25), I kept telling myself that they’re drawings of EGGS of all things, but they’re very minimalistic and interesting to me. If I really want them, I might go back next week and sift through them all over again.

I have no art at all in my apartment because I’m soulless. Actually, I have no art because ordering prints/having prints made costs a lot of money and then framing them costs more money. Don’t get me wrong–I would like to have art and I appreciate art (or pretend to or convince myself that I do) enough to have something on my walls, but it’s not something I can really justify spending money on. Oh it looks pretty and would look nice on my wall.

I don’t know why these egg drawings are so appealing to me. I mean they’re eggs. I must sounds like one of those idiotic art people. Either way, if I do go through and get these prints, there’s a spot in my kitchen I would like to put them. I feel strange though separating the prints that were meant to be put together in this book that someone took apart to sell the prints individually. Really, I want to buy the whole crate of prints, but if I have reservations about buying 3 of them, there’s no way I can afford a whole crate. I feel incredibly petty and silly for thinking so much about this. I tell myself this is relatively cheap art that has history and is pretty cool so it’s not so bad.

I’m terrified now that I mentioned this someone is going to go to the store and buy all the stupid egg drawings, but I guess then I don’t have to worry about spending money on them. One of the reasons why I even consider getting these prints is because while I was in Tennessee, I toured a house that had these beautiful Audubon prints, and I do like birds quite a bit but on the surface symbolic level not the I can actually identify birds level. Bird watching seems like an incredibly time consuming activity. Either way, I find naturalistic (I’m not sure this is the word I want) bird prints/drawings very interesting in the fact that someone sat there and studied this bird to draw it and someone stared at a bird’s nest to identify the different eggs, draw the variations, and some of the prints (the most expensive ones) have drawings of the nests and the eggs. I think it’s interesting.

After rummaging through bins of bird drawings and bird egg drawings, I went to a coffee shop to read and write for quite some time. I left because the music they started playing was giving me a headache, so I came home and made lemon pasta. There’s probably about 3 variations of lemon pasta that I make: the classic one I used to make from high school, Lemon Fusilli with Arugula, and some sort of variation similar to this (making a sauce with pasta water and lemon and such) when I don’t have heavy cream.

Either way this was a very long way to saying that today should be a relatively perfect day, but there’s been this overshadowing melancholy feeling.

I’m not good at goodbyes because I’ve really never experienced that sort of parting. No one really close to me has died so I’ve never said goodbye in that sense. I’ve had really good friends move away but not that far so the goodbye didn’t feel quite so permanent. Even with all the break ups and failed relationships, you don’t really say goodbye. Usually it’s just anger or tears or a combination and just leaving.

There was one time when I said goodbye and I knew it was goodbye. At the door, I turned back and said, “See you later.” A couple months later, I found out he had gotten married.

I probably have a tremendous fear of attachment or caring too much about someone or I’m afraid to like someone. I’ve built a wall around my heart, and I think I’ve forgotten how to let myself really be vulnerable.

A question. You’ve asked me a question.
So?
It’s a chink in your armor. 
I’m not wearing armor.

I think I tried my hardest not to care and not to get involved or attached or anything because I already knew I would have to say goodbye. Really I should be writing this in my actual journal. I’m probably being confronted with the fact that I’ve somehow created this wall to avoid any sort of intimacy and vulnerability. Maybe I’m telling myself that someone will come along and take down this wall or whatever blah blah blah cliche cliche cliche. Maybe no one can.

I shouldn’t really care about this. Maybe in a few months I’ll be the one to leave. Will that stop me from caring about someone? Will that stop someone from caring about me? Without a doubt, if I do leave, I’ll have to learn how to say goodbye to all the people I do care about. I wonder if I’ll be ready for that.

By the time I left for Columbus all those years ago, I was the last to leave since Ohio State runs on quarters so we started a good two to three weeks after all my friends who were on semesters. I didn’t really have to say goodbye because my friends weren’t that far away and at the same time, I knew I would see them again when I visited home or whatever. How do you say goodbye when you know chances are you’ll never see them again?