At this point in my life I'm pretty much ready to give up all personal relationships except for my sister. I'm glad she's been around this summer, because she spends time with me and listens to me. Everyone else? Not so much. I'm really frustrated by the way that everyone else has been treating me. I can only take so much. I'll be interested to see if I make any effort to make friends fall semester, or when I'm in France, or when I go to grad school, or ever... I've been let down again and again by people who were supposed to be my friends, and I don't know why I kept giving them chances. I'm not so naïve anymore. I want someone to come along and restore my faith in humanity, but I'm not holding my breath. Getting treated like shit constantly is starting to wear me down to the point where I feel like an alternative doesn't exist. I don't even bother opening up to people because it's been proven to me that no one cares. Ugh...I don't know what to do. I feel terrible all of the time because of my thyroid and sleep disorders, I'm being worked to the bone at home and at school, and I have no emotional support whatsoever.

Lately everyone's been ignoring me except to give me new developments on their sex lives. I don't mean just one or two people, I mean everyone. I'm really sick of it because I don't even care in the first place. I don't want to hear about it. I don't go telling everyone about private things like that, so I don't know why other people think I'm chomping at the bit to hear about what exactly transpired, what articles of clothing came off, how long foreplay lasted, etc. STOP. I don't care. I don't want to hear it. I'd like for people to talk to me about other things, rather than ignoring me except to brag.

Dream:
     Sufjan Stevens and I were at a Scholastic Bowl pool party. He was wearing a black speedo, and it actually looked kind of hot. He would do things like put his arm around my waist, but then go ask some whory bleach-blondes for their phone numbers. I was confused. He said he wrote "Chicago" about me. Later, we went to a bookstore, where he turned into a friend of mine. He bought a children's book written and illustrated by the members of Sigur Ros. We went back to his place and watched a Hitchcock film titled "Testicle". The main character had had his eyes plucked out and thrown in the bottom of the ocean. There were lots of scary first-person shots, where the camera was in a car that was falling off of a building. This sequence had a lot of Godard-style jump cuts, so you relived the fall about 6 times in the span of 10 seconds. After the movie was over, I tried to remember where I had parked my car.

Last night I had a bizarre dream that involved Beck, my former piano teacher, a really scary episode of L&O:SVU and a really weird episode of House:
     Beck was an ear, nose, and throat doctor. I went to see him and he asked if I'd want to go to a concert with him later that evening. I accepted and agreed to meet him at a bar. It turned out the "concert" was a broadcast of the aforementioned L&O:SVU, where the victims' faces had been mutilated beyond recognition with acid. Beck kept getting up to go to the bathroom, and every time he came back he was fatter, sweatier, drunker, and dirtier. After the episode ended, I pretended like I had to be somewhere right away. He asked me for my phone number, so I wrote down my friend Bryan's home number. Then I ran into my former piano teacher, who had grown his hair out and was wearing it in pigtails. He invited me to hang out with him. He smelled of weed. We went to a grocery store to do a scavenger hunt.
     I don't remember what else happened or how the House episode came into play. Weird.

I have about 98% functionality of my tongue right now. I can finally curl it up over my front teeth, and I can almost use it to wipe away food from my back teeth. I can eat pretty much anything at this point; I've had pizza, a sub, and soda. I still need to take very small bites and chew everything eight bajillion times.

I've put 4 lbs. back on since I started eating solid food. I'm going to start running tomorrow.

I got my violin out today and played along with whatever came up on my iPod for about two hours. I'm awesome.

I've moved on to solid foods (with some exceptions). I'm still taking very small bites and chewing very thoroughly. I'm still nervous to eat complicated things like sandwiches. I visited the doctor for a follow-up appointment and he kept emphasizing that I'm tough and I handled the recovery very well. I'm no stranger to pain. Wow...that was very country-song-ish. Anyway, I saw my epiglottis in motion, which was interesting. And gag-ful. I never used to gag when they stuck the scope down my throat, but today I did about 5 times.