mmmarilyn;

about 11p

Why is it that when I feel my most dynamic and capable, I also am afraid of interpersonal interaction in an even more intense and crippling way than when I laugh awkwardly, smile a reassuring smile--"it's okay, I'm at least as bewildered as you by this exchange, insignificant though it may seem."

It's because I feel like I need to express a lot more--but it's also because I doubt the amount of interest the average person is going to have in this bullshit. I worry about monotonous things that people worry about. I worry about money like everyone does, that I'll ever be able to ignore it; I worry about Bo and me sometimes because I pursued him & I wonder if I'm the girl he would ever ever have chosen on his own or he just loves me because I obviously needed it, and him, so badly. I worry about whether people like me, and whether that really even makes a difference in whether I'll make something out of my life. It should matter, shouldn't it? But an objective assessment can only take what's real in its effects into account and small affections from assorted people— WHAT IS IT THAT MAKES THOSE THINGS MATTER? What is it that rewards people for happiness granted and bequeathed? Is it its own reward? Of course it is, but is there something beyond that? And does pain———people say that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger. Will that strength be worthwhile? Will it pay off? Is it worth vying for pain just for the intrinsic value that may or may not result, of being capable, strong, a Valuable person in a way that is instantaneously recognizable?

I think my adventure upcoming is partially designed to answer some of these questions, at least enough to satisfy myself. I'm a tough critic, but I do put a lot of faith in the fact that some people can sometimes display confidence. Bo, in New Orleans. A few of the top-notch programmers at my old company. Becky, when she's entertaining people and they're obviously entertained, e.g., perhaps when we're eating bean dip and playing PIT.

RING RING.

I've been unbearably goddamned emotional as hell in the past week--I look at the way that the hairs & muscles on Bo's arm align themselves and I get a lump in my throat, look out the passenger's side window & blink seven times, quickly.

I see the smoggy skyline of Atlanta, something that has welcomed me home time and again from long drives, the everyday ones and the longer ones,--& I wonder whether it'll ever mean as much to me again--and maybe peaks like that are scary, partially because of the unknowing, and partially because of the sense that of course it won't ever be the same thing.

I see two girls playing in their driveway in swimsuits with the garden hose and my eyes are overflowing and I don't know why and now, in recollection, I blame it on evolutionary hormones. They hit me like a slug, how badly I already want to talk to my own little girl about how to get along in this fucked-up world and tell her that part of the beauty is that even the smartest people, even the ones burdened with the greatest genius--even for them, the harshness of reality, in all its wonders--it is crippling. And the greatest accomplishments--they are only so because there is such a strong chance that they might not ever have happened.

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2007

2006

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mmmarilyn, v2

10 September 2004 through some vague point in summer 2006, contains lots of long introspective posts through an escape to Europe, deciding to move to NYC, falling head over heels for that boy.

mmmarilyn, v1

Very pink, from 7 april 2004 to 1 september 2004, composing the bulk of my most drunken and mad times. It's particularly bizarre when tinted with all that childish girliness.

txt

A few entries from a time without a digital home.

the question is wrong

my senior year at georgia tech (summer 2002 - summer 2003), somewhat sparse.

curiouser && curiouser

midway through gt: the exhibitionism really begins.

minor diaryland adjunct

sporadic hidden entries during my tumultuous sophmore year in college.

the beginning

fall 1999 - spring 2001.

Marilyn C. Cole (email), 27, New York City, an apartment in the Hamilton Heights end of Harlem, since August 2006. Before that, Atlanta, Georgia for seven years, through a Georgia Tech computer science degree and three years of learning how to be a grown-up and still have fun. Before that, ten years in Savannah, the place that gives her stability, that she considers to be home. Before that, short stints in middle Georgia next to a lake; on Tybee Island next to the beach; in a suburb of Dallas, Texas during the peak of Dallas (the nighttime soap opera); the middle of Oklahoma for the birth of her little brother; and Nashville, Tennessee, where she greeted this mad messed up world.

Attending New York University's Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, taking coursework toward her Masters in Computer Science, with debatable ambitions in the direction of a Ph.D. in something or other.

Simply head over heels for a musician whose songs makes her woozy, whose words make her happy, who she wants to marry one day.

Strawberry-blonde hair, blue-green-yellow eyes, pale skin with freckles.

academia, acoustic guitar, acting intelligent, adventures in the car, after-rain smell, alanis morissette, angelina jolie, ani difranco, articulateness, artificial intelligence, audrey hepburn, avocados, bad pick up lines, beauty, being egotistical, being insecure, ben folds, bertrand russell, bisexuality, björk, black eyeliner, blackberries, bloody marys, books, britney spears, bubble baths, candy, cat power, cemeteries, cheap red wine, collar bones, conan o'brien, cooking, cool points, crisp pickle spears, dancing, dar williams, daria, death cab for cutie, dismemberment plan, douglas coupland, drinking, drugs, eating outside, eeevil, elvis costello, english accents, etiquette, falling in love, feminism, firefly, fishnets, flowers, freaks and geeks, frolicking, fun, getting my way, gilmore girls, gin and tonics, girls, google, grammatical correctness, greek mythology, hal9000, handwritten letters, happiness, harold and maude, harry potter, harry/draco, homemade t-shirts, hot hot baths, intelligence, jem, joel, kids in the hall, kissing, kittens, knee-high socks, knitting, late night conversations, laughing, life, luna lovegood, magnetic poetry, making things, margaret atwood, math, max rebo, mazzy star, messy hair, milk, mirah, modest mouse, my computer, my mama and daddy and little bro, night swimming, nintendo, nonsense, not waiting, nudity, new york, originality, pi, pie, pillows, pinky and the brain, radiohead, rainer maria, reading in the bathtub, red popsicles, richard bach, road trips, robots, rocking out, roller coasters, sandals, sarcasm, seduction, sexuality, shoes, sifl & olly, simon & garfunkel, simone de beauvoir, singing very loudly, skirts that twirl, sleep, songs: ohia, soup, stars, staying up too late, subversive literature, sushi, swings, sylvia plath, tetris, thai food, the beach, the color pink, the history channel, the month of october, the simpsons, the smell of bookstores, the windows down, the word indeed, thrift stores, thunderstorms, virginia woolf, weezer, wet trampolines, winks, words.