2002-09-03 - 1:02 p.m.

Writing Assignment: Write about a place.

There aren�t enough windows in my room. Maybe there have never been enough windows in any of my rooms � maybe that explains why I can�t stay there, why the walls seem to close in on me. When I am in my room, I can only seem to check email, or clean, or sleep. The living room has more light, but the air conditioning doesn�t work as well, and before I know it, my legs are stuck to the vinyl couch, and my body is covered in a thin veil of sweat. The front porch is better � it�s where I sit when I get home from work, because there�s lots of light, and I�m trying to erase the past eight hours, sitting under fluorescent lighting. I read out there, and sometimes I smoke cigarettes, if I have them. It�s nice out there when the bugs aren�t bad, in the late afternoon, when the sun has already passed by overhead.

At night, when the walls close in on me, I go to Barton Springs to go swimming. There are no walls there. Sometimes there is a moon. Other nights, it�s ten o�clock before I know it, too late to go swimming. If I stay at home, I know I�ll fall asleep; I can�t even read in anything resembling a reclining manner without falling asleep when I�m at home. When the inevitable panic begins, I head to Spider House. There is just enough distraction there to ensure that I get something done. If I sit outside, there is no danger of the walls closing in on me. Sometimes I can see the moon. There are colored lights, and if I sit in just the right place, not quite conspicuous, in a corner somewhere, I can almost pretend I�m one of the students. I can almost pretend there is a reason that I go there.

There is the place inside your head that you don�t want to go to. That�s why you go to Barton Springs or Spider House at night. That�s why you fall asleep as soon as you get home from work. Because you don�t want to go there, because you never want to go there. Because it�s too painful, and it�s too hard. At work, you can always find some sort of diversion. The whole world is at your fingertips, but some days your body acts like some sort of weird computer virus, and all you can do is refresh your hotmail account � refresh, refresh, refresh � for email that never comes. Sometimes, it all becomes apparent, but usually you can hide it, until your body betrays you. Your stomach hurts, and you have no appetite. In a shockingly short period of time, your clothes are hanging off you and your ribs poke out just a little too sharply. There�s a clarity that comes with this, a clarity of mind even as your body grows smaller. You know that you�ve been through this before, and you know that it will get better, but that is little consolation now. Now your stomach hurts and now you have no appetite and now the saliva collects in your mouth as you lean over the toilet bowl wondering if you�re going to actually throw up this time. You�ve stopped wondering when this will pass. Your body is mourning what your mind has already rationalized. This is your body�s mourning period � and it�s taking its sweet time.

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