I know I am at least twenty different kinds of insane, but I have to admit to you: I freak out when people do not respond to me in a timely manner (my own relativistic definition) and in like kind. I begin either to think I am not liked or wanted, or I start worrying unnecessarily, sometimes to the point of hyperventilating, near tears, &c.

Okay, I overstate a little -- it is not ordinarily that bad: except last night, it was. I haven't had an email from my dad in over a week. The last one I sent was Thursday morning. And he, of all people I know, is always very very prompt in replying. I started to worry -- what if my grandfather has died, and he doesn't know how to tell me? And last night it popped into my utterly ridiculous head: what if he's dead?

Oh my god. I do sound crazy.

Today, still nothing -- though I have to remind myself it's but 6:30 in Ohioland and he would ordinarily check his email in an hour or two. But still. No matter how irrational I know it is, I worry.

And I have communicated with a handful of MC professors from here, some solicited, some un-. Sometimes their replies are enthusiastic, sometimes short and businesslike, sometimes, most frustrating, both, and I don't know what to make of any of it. I don't know which people want to hear from me and what exactly they want to hear -- whether I am honestly me or calculatedly adapted to them, still somehow I rarely get a response that doesn't make me wonder.

Apparently I don't know how to talk to anyone. Or -- I don't know how to engage in satisfying written correspondence, because I don't know how to take anything at face value.

You'd think from this I'd learn to be a more open, timely correspondent myself. You would think.

Well -- I have decided to reclaim my paper diary for myself, and it has been a very fulfilling, revealing exercise so far. Only now that I've tried it do I realize that I actually do have thoughts I'd prefer to keep to myself -- as a result I'm being more honest -- and this is all good for me. So I will rarely be transferring my diaries to dland verbatim. I don't know exactly what will become of this forum -- I intend to keep it up, but I fear the leftovers will be scant. But we'll see.