The first few days of autumn already have me crazy and contentious, ready to trick myself into depression. Summer was simply not long enough, I realized in class, restless again. Now I scan for clocks in cafes and glance at the watches of dinner companions, my palms ink-stained with appointments.

...

I'm uncomfortable with what I am at this moment: a student who must measure intellectual progress by the finished pages of a book, by the unwieldy and too-quick accrual of knowledge. I think I would rather not-know, besieged by complications and ambiguities, the frustrations that compel obsession, that search for phantoms in a photograph, a book, cinematic fantasies, my own writing, writing that exists outside of the realm of grades and honors.

...

I'd rather write to distill, only there's not time for the poetic, no space for reflection, only for being busy.

...

Still my (first!) lunch with a sweaty Enemyalien had my weary brain tickled awake again, as we ranged over some of the usual suspects--school, writing, cats, the politics of commemoration, and (gasp) the future.

Conversation--with anyone but those who know the often loopy way I circulate ideas and thoughts--is nerve-wracking, especially with smart and incisive people who could, potentially, make you feel stupid in only a few sentences. I mean, I can make a whole house with writing; within fiction, I can explore experiences, understand empty spaces, recall phantoms, or at least banish, to a certain extent, blatant prejudices and ill-formed thoughts, sentences that dangle without (ill) meaning. But, outside of writing exists a more unruly and dangerous world, where I can be very dangerous as well, with my unruly and lazy tongue.

However, retreating to corners will not make me any less intimidated by the space between the spoken and the written. The frustration at not being able to explore in speech what is explored in writing seems to be, at this point, very crucial to my development as a thinker.