i started to feel really present today, thank goodness. i thought i had strep, and then the next day i could swallow and all the pain got squeezed into my sinuses, and today just a little pain and otherwise i'm fine. emilee in my department had a sore throat, too, and had to go to er because she got dehydrated from not swallowing. i still am not craving a lot of interesting foods, and i still have no desire for coffee after about two hundred straight days of drinking it. funny how the virus began with a sense of just general despair, because that's what s. is going through right now. now it's my turn to see how empathetic i really i am, i suppose, though i hope his isn't an illness at all and he can do all the busy stuff he needs to get done by the end of the week.

i worked on my dress all day in preparation for seeing a professional wedding gown seamstress at 5pm this evening. she tucked in the sides a little bit to make it fit better and straightened the hem where it was crooked, and suddenly there i was in my wedding dress, my real wedding dress, and it looked perfect to be. though she wasn't as enthusiastic--she said it was nice and i did a good job, but she didn't understand why i didn't want a fancier gown. i don't understand, either. i just don't. i think the one i made is fancy enough--simple, elegant, and mine. i hope i can stay as proud of it so i feel okay that day. on saturday i show it to my mother, and if she gives the gentle, sad look that lets me known she's unhappy and doesn't want to tell me, well perhaps i'll cave.

then all night i've been drawing. my face is stinging and i can't find the energy to search for the camera and photograph the drawings, but i think i'm sticking with this format for the grad show. splices of paper, the rejects of paper, all pinned to cover the wall. fragments of time and how the fragments change, disappear, wither, hold. pins and their shadows marking time and its passing.

tomorrow i go to the studio for the first time in a while. i'm not looking forward to it, not wholly. i love my quiet house, my time with my dog, drawing underneath my chandelier, weaving the parts of my life together as much as i can.