(This is one of my top ten favorite entries, absolutely. It is a Concept Entry, haha)

Here's the height of class -- today I went to Albert Heijn and bought 4 packages of ramen noodles and 75cl of Martini bianco. Full on ramen, the latter is for a highly scientific experiment: I shall record my findings glass after glass while re-reading the Hours. I anticipate interesting results. Hypothesis: by glass 4 I will have descended into complete incoherence while maintaining I am in the middle of a philosophical breakthrough. Alternatively, I may have an emotional breakdown.

Pre-alcohol: I am warm, dressed comfortably, seated in a comfortable chair. I have spent hours reading Edith Wharton criticism and am much in need of this relaxing experiment. All round, I am in a pleasant mood. I have been drinking water, and not ten minutes ago I emptied my bladder.

One glass down, 8:56, page 15: 4 glasses nothing, haha. Already my cheeks are hot, my brain is buzzing -- buzzing yet sluggish all at once -- there's an interesting finding. Not very sluggish yet, but that will be the sensation. I should drink slower. The idea is to finish the book tonight without dying of alcohol poisoning. Already, too, that question which has haunted me for -- two years now? -- no, I guess just over one: why do we choose to go on living? why do we love life the way we do? Earlier before I had a clear picture of what I was going to do, I felt like Clarissa in chapter one without realizing: walking along the streets of a city which is alive in its own right, loving every person, the dog walkers & the homeless men selling newspapers alike, the sun and the cold, everything, everything. Perhaps it is easier surrounded by life -- but I still feel that way now, and I feel it in despair -- is it the promise of the future? Haven't we all only resigned ourself to the future, accepting that happiness is our equivalent of a summer day in Wellfleet 30 years ago? Perhaps I don't believe I've had my Wellfleet yet -- perhaps the question is not mine to grapple with yet.

Two down, 9:28, page 37: Curious, I feel somewhat less intoxicated after two glasses than after one, and I drank both at nearly the exact same interval. I suppose one gets used to the sensation before it completely takes control. But not too sluggish yet -- still fluent -- handwriting still good. Now -- how much more satisfying to read this after reading much of her diaries, half of Mrs. Dalloway; to know who Vita and Ethel are, to know why Leonard tries to get her to drink milk. (Earlier today read a bit of L's autobiography -- a faithful, wonderful man -- and so alarmingly scientific -- I must say, & swear it's not just that I've had a bit to drink: I would marry a man like Leonard; I would be content [in a positive sense] in an arrangement like theirs). Anyway, one sees better what Cunningham has undertaken, armed with this knowledge. I'm afraid I have romanticised Leonard & Virginia: it is precisely that it is not at all romantic that it seems so to me: comfortable, companionate, simply loving. Yes, I could be very happy. And as to the soul, was that the other main thing? "More than the sum of her intellect & her emotions, more than the sum of her experiences... inner faculty... animating mysteries... same substance." A soul of the world, in the world, and somehow above/ external to the world -- I wonder. But I am not nearly drunk so we must move on --

Three down, 9:56, p 52: Do I read & drink like clockwork? Or is it the clock that suits me? Well my handwriting out [ought] to attest: I am still not legitimately drunk, so I suppose 4 after all. I fear the Hours might spoil the experiment after all: I want to remain lucid, for I am getting infinitely more out of it this time; yet I think I might understand even better fully out of my senses -- if I can continue to focus on the page. Well Laura Brown still terrifies me -- although a year ago I was actually afraid she was a potential future self: now I have depersonalized. I could never be Laura Brown, because if I marry, I marry a Leonard. (Suddenly I start to feel a bit drunk -- fuzzy -- out of control.) I could never be Laura Brown because if I felt as she does I would have the courage to go through with it -- kill myself, that is. I could not live her life. Well -- how often do I deny other persons existence in the presence [present]? If they exist in my past, they must actually exist in the past. Perhaps this is why I fear my father dying.

(bathroom break -- some water -- & some Pringles. <-- on sale at AH for €,99, a woo hoo)

That makes four, 10:24, p 71: I find myself feeling progressively sober -- how odd. I am drinking quite a lot. And yet some willful part of me does not want to feel drunk -- too much yet to absorb. Well, at page 71 there is much more time to feel drunk. I curled my legs under me and saw myself small, very small: thought of Josh seeing me: when I do that, he always remarks upon my small-ness. But I looked, not just thin and short, but actually small, inhuman, pocket-sized & collapsible. Earlier this evening I discovered mirrors too cast shadows -- I mean my mirror image -- on the same wall, not exactly opposite, my own mirror image, which is still not me at all, and there, there were four of me: me, my shadow, my mirror image, and my mirror image's shadow. My god, that terrifies me now: they all move differently -- yet -- they are of the same, yes, the same substance. Yes. And somewhere, a soul, perhaps?

Five, then, 10:53, 92: Have I really had five? My god. I wrote in the margin about feeling disconnected from the girl who proposed this experiment to Lani just this morning but already feel disconnected from the girl who wrote that, scandalously, in the library's copie's margin. I suppose I am starting to write poorly & more illegibly. I suppose I am very nearly drunk, though some stubborn part of me says no, it shall not be so. Didn't I, the first time I read this, wonder who Lytton is? (was) My god, how I can read things without wondering. Could -- I think I am better at that now; also, i know who Lytton is. Also, I think I could marry a Lytton, or be a Carrington. Except for the self-loathing butt-fucking scene -- my god, forgive me, for I suppose I am now drunk & incoherent. I wonder if I underlined the same things the first time I read this. But Pam still has my copy -- and I wonder what she thought of it? -- and I love sharing my books, like I think in Perks of Being a Wallflower. Or maybe it was just Matt. I can't remember who I ought to attribute impulses of kindness to. Yes, I am a bit drunk then -- and it feels like: my head is racing, actually, not sluggish at all yet: the vision starts to spiral away, but I can still read at a normal pace. The handwriting is still legible. Lips start to go numb. Have to cross & recross legs else they fall asleep. Do have to go to the bathroom, but will perhaps put it off one more drink. I judge my level of drunkenness, I find, by how well I can urinate autonomously. Odd. I have had 1/2 this bottle I think I ought to stop. Yet won't.

11:16, before drink 6, p 97: Benjamin was the person I loved at my most optimistic moment. Still, I do not believe my one moment has passed. It is different: obviously I am not Clarissa Vaughan. Also, I stole "(terrible word)" from this book thinking I stole it from Sylvia Plath. But knowing I stole it.

11:31, mid-6, p 113 -- you know, the gorge starts to rise -- is that even the word? so bizarre, because I think, if it's the word, there is a park near my home called the Gorge -- I guess I am drunk & start to feel sick. I know to drink slower -- I will not ever vomit -- yet I don't really feel drunk, because I will myself not to. I would cite the Laura/Kitty scene as a reason the book is better than the movie, except all the greatness is nonverbal anyhow & I underline far less than anywhere else in Laura scenes. Richard, primarily, is what was fucked up in the movie, Richard so much more prophetic -- not the word -- in the book. I survey my margin notes and see I wanted to write something about right angles. I have no idea what. I would write when ideas come, but that destroys the thought process -- I don't know what is best. How would Virginia feel about being fictionalized? How would she even feel about L's autobiography? I suppose she'd have trusted him better than herself. But not Cunningham -- my, this book is quite presumptuous. Several notes ago I wanted to speculate whether this book -- or maybe VW's works -- could be my Hamlet. Steve said Hamlet was a play you could return to every few years to see how you have changed -- I have changed so much since reading this book, it is a decent measuring stick: yet somehow it contains an essentially 20-yr old Lauren and not, I imagine, the possibility of a 30 or 40-yr old Laurnen (can't spell my name?) But VW herself may hold that distinction and I can leave this -- beautiful in its own right -- book behind me.

11:58, really have had 6, 129: either knock pencils or books to floor, unavoidably. Yes, pretty drunk, I suppose, though I feel I have no objectivity: I could drink myself to death, tonight, & will myself not to feel it. But the handwriting deteriorates, & I sense I start to underline things I want to check for meaning later, not things I know definitively have meaning now. I seem to always stop in the middle of Mrs. Dalloway chapters. Louis will take too much out of me. It will be stunning. I wonder if I drank the rest of this bottle now -- or if at the outset I'd drank it more quickly -- if on 75 cl alone I could have killed myself. It is somehow attractive -- the possibility. The same reason I like to drive. I could kill myself, but will take steps not to. I like knowing that Nessa called V Billy - goat - &c. It pains me to think a year ago I didn't even wonder who Lytton is. (was -- I get confused.)

12:18, pre-7, though I may have lost count, 141 -- I am ridiculously fascinated with my teeth while drunk. Also before the night is over I shall have probably eaten every available piece of flesh in my mouth. I know not to drink more just yet. I know I don't wan't to vomit -- I know my limits even if I don't know wan't is not a contraction.

Seven - 12:38 - 1:5 155 -- drink it, for it has the potential to kill you (though it won't): it is possible to die -- and you love that. Seven martinis bianco, and you only knew you would like them because of Francesca, admit it. She ordered one and you said what's that. Can I try it? You liked it, & today you bought 75 cl for €4,39. Should have lasted the weekend, but you will drink it all tonight, won't you. You say, you aren't even very drunk. And I'm not -- this you, this voice, which inflicts Virginia & Louis I guess; me only when I'm passably drunk -- I can still read the book w/ clarity. Still I think my handwriting is good. I am drunk, yes -- limbs fail me, fall asleep when I fight for consciousness, 100 pages to go. My brain is -- still, sluggish is not the word. It -- pulsates, a bit. The vision spirals away -- tries to see something larger perhaps; I deny the searching vision and try to engage the brain. I suppose I've had -- 3/5 of this bottle. I piss, and then soldier on.

12:58, how it passes, 164, haven't started #8 -- It is enough... so many things are, I guess we convince ourselves. Just to complain about the movie: Clarissa never "unravels" in front of Louis; and Vanessa is never presented as a typical idiotic mother. "she has the life she is leading & the one she creates" -- as if Vanessa, an artist, knows nothing of this. For diaglogue alone I pan the movie, I pan it.

p106, 1:06 p167 1/2 8th -- no, that is not fair: you cannot equate the fin with the headaches (I like understanding these things, & thinking, wishing, Cunningham's got it all wrong) the fin is benevolent, real, omnipresent: hope, a rare sight, & beloved. Headaches rather evil, portending far worse consequences, the onset of madness. The fin is not madness. Don't lead me, even drunkenly, to suspect malice of the fin. The fin is comfort -- death if you like, but a peaceful, silent one, free of regret; not insanity, or loss-of-self, or unavoidable destruction. No...

"Better really to face the fin in water than to live in hiding"(169) -- yes --

--> 172 though I prefer the movie, L & V, at the train station: I'm dying here, & the self-preservation, though am also attracted to the "middle-aged couple going home."

1:29, 8, if I've not lost count, 183: I am most egotistical when drunk. Spatially + literally: if my vision seems to spiral, everything spirals around me, my immediate body & the space I take up (+ a little extra for the soul?) I have had too much. I will finish the bottle. I fear being Clarissa and having a Sally who plainly loves me more. Allison Janney is not the book's Sally & (I should stop drinking because after 5 min consideration I cannot remember her name) is not Laura Brown but now I see every character through the actors in the movie -- okay, but detracts --

Finished 8 - or 9? I forget, and page 199, and it is 1:50 -- it's that the novel is infinitely subtler, & more urgent. I fear I'm killing brain cells but her name is: Julianne Moore & I knew that. "It is enough" -- what is? To live, to simply be -- I suppose, a gift, a triumph even -- enough to be alive. "It is possible" -- both to live and to die, we make the choice every moment. Why? Not just out of fear. I love life, and it's not even June. Every moment -- in pain & glory -- all is possible -- no matter how predictable I feel -- I could choose -- & as to the soul: it wonders why I put myself through this to illuminate itself when it is so clearly here, always in control, all along -- yes I will finish the bottle, & the soul accepts, bemused...

9 gave way to 10 - 209, 2:06 -- the real & the unreal; what you could say happened; what you could pretend did not. I wonder how even my closest friends perceive me -- closest friends, I imagine, Lani, Josh, Benjamine, yet I lay no claim to Benjamine and imagine he knows nothing more of me, now. Neither Lani nor Josh, why I experiment with alcohol & the hours & my soul. 3 short chapters, less than one drink to go. Funny. Once I cried when Richard died -- now I either am too egotistical, or, understand.

Ten? Well, I can say I finished the 75cl bottle &, nearly simultaneously, the 226 pg novel, and it is, definitively, 2:27: All over, "heaven only knows why we love it so." "the not-yet-dead; the relatively undamaged; those who for mysteryous reasons have the fortune to be ALIVE." The poets & geniuses die, I suppose, after a life of torture, leaving those such as myself hoping to do something more than get drunk and [admire?] -- I want to understand: death: not an escape, but a [final?] freedom. Life: only to understand other lifes: Love: for acceptance, for Lonerd [Leonard], who I am irrationally sorry for -- I would love one as devoted as he. For the possibility -- to realize that "almost" is enough. Children? No jealousy. There are many ways to create -- but that's the thing. & at the end, "all you have to do is die." I am not afraid. I am not this body -- if I am annihilated with it anyhow, I don't mind. I understand. To the experiment -- this is at least equal to "as drunk as I've ever been." 75 cl of Martini Bianco is a lot. I am -- swimming, but each wave crest threatens to drown -- & I am afraid to sleep, to give in. I am always afraid to sleep when drunk. Not in control -- it would overtake me. I will wait. But as to life -- I live for loves and Leonards & simple pleasures. As to souls, it doesn't matter if they die w/ the body: I am -- this is enough. Death -- always possible: a comforting possibility: for me, a last resort. For I still anticipate my Wellfleet -- happiness, I feel, stretches on before me. More always -- until, death. Not afraid. Will straddle that window ledge, & pull the other leg across when it is time. Until then, I am happy: as Clarissa, never to be Laura, in search of Virginia's capacity for creation.

Happiness or death -- yes -- simple as that. (I will not die tonight -- though I love that I could have.)

(Miscalculated -- faced myself in the mirror emptily -- will remain awake until I am sober) -- 2:46

And the hiccups come like the visions I have of my father dying.

Conclusions, 12:21 the morning after: I sat there hiccuping, loudly and painfully, for what seems to have been hours now, though I was only peripherally aware of it at the time. I don't know if I really sat there that long or if I fell asleep in the chair, but it was after 6am when I went to bed and getting light out. I slept dreamlessly until 9 and could not fall back asleep. I am not just a little hungover. Not hungry -- feel even water threatens to induce vomiting. The cool air was a welcome shock but I felt nothing walking in the city -- felt transparent to the city, but no feeling for it. Feel a bit cloudy, and cannot trust my body to do exactly what I tell it to yet. Perhaps the whole thing was insanely stupid, yet I feel like I got something important out of it. I don't remember -- reality comes back -- and I try to love it. I do love it.