Thursday, Jun. 05, 2003 | 3:41 PM

Whoah.

I was just reading some of my older entries. I read this one.

I had that dream two days after I got pregnant-- which I wouldn't find out for a few weeks. That was incidentally, the second to last time I�ve had sex (if you subscribe to the idea that sex involves vaginal penetration via a real phallus.) That was a year ago. Jesus Christ.

I�m pretty fucking psychic.

I have changed so much in the past year. It�s almost like I�m not even the same person anymore. I look back on my life a year ago with a sort of detached curiosity. What on earth was I thinking? Marriage? Family? Blech. Thank GOD I didn�t do anything profoundly stupid like have a kid. A year ago I was one of those insanely boring people who only talks and thinks about her relationship. What an enormous waste�and I�m not saying he was a waste or anything like that�I�m just talking about me. And how obscene it was that another person took up so much space in my head.

Learn from me kiddies�if all you can think about is someone else, even if things are good, it�s a very bad sign.

Have you ever noticed how tiresome most people become when they get in a relationship? Douglas Coupland wrote something about that in Generation X-- it was one of those little definitions on the side panel. Can�t remember the word, but the definition of it was something to the effect of how two interesting people become tedious as hell when they hook up with each other. The example was �Sorry Bill, I can�t go out for drinks. Mandy and I are going to pick out flatware and watch the weather channel.�

I don�t get serial monogamy. I really don�t. I know people who�ve basically never been out of a relationship since they were like, sixteen years old. Just a couple months between one ending and the next beginning. And I think it�s that people are afraid of being by themselves. Eh�who�m I to judge, right? Maybe some people just like having a boyfriend or girlfriend all the time.

How boring.

Or maybe I just got all relationshiped out. I dunno. I guess I can only speak for myself. But the idea of spending all my time with one other person, of only making out with one other person, or having to compromise all the time and have someone else living in my house and sleeping in my bed�it literally sends a wave of terror and disgust down my spine. I think I would be the absolute worst girlfriend.ever. And I honestly don�t see myself ever being able to be faithful to anyone ever again. I love seducing and flirting and winding up on the couch with someone brand new, discovering what someone�s like. In the past couple weeks I�ve made out with four people. They�ve all been people I care for very deeply and I have romantic feelings for all of them. The idea that there would ever be someone who was so special to me, so important that I would renounce all others for that person is just, well it�s just plain retarded.

There are people in my life� OK I�m thinking of someone in particular now�there�s someone in my life that I can most definitely say I am deeply in love with, and he�s in love with me. And it�s wonderful. I�ll love him probably til the day I die, and we�ve talked about possibly at some point in the very distant future having kids together if we ever want kids (we would both have stopped drinking and smoking at that point and we�d completely have our shit together. Out kids would be so damned good looking that it�d be crazy.) But the idea of exclusively dating him, of trying to put that relationship in a neat box and call it My Boyfriend is just stupid. At least now�who knows about ten years from now. I�m deeply in love with him but does that mean I can�t be in love with anyone else? Why should it?

Bear with me here�you know how you try a certain food as a kid�say, tomatoes�and you hate it, so you don�t ever eat it again, and you tell yourself �I hate tomatoes.� So you don�t eat tomatoes for ten years. And then maybe one day you try tomatoes again, and you love them.

That�s kinda how my whole life has been since January. I had this very narrow idea of Who I Was and What I Wanted. It was based on kinds of crazy things, and it was very false�like I was playing someone else in a TV moview. It turns out that over a long period of time I had changed a whole lot and hadn�t realized it, or rather I refused to realize it. Sometimes even when things are bad, you cling to them because it gives you a sense of identity.

A year ago I was domesticated and so boring�just a whiny dull little hausefrau who wasn�t doing a fucking thing creatively, and who�s soul purpose in life was waiting around for someone else to decide to love her. Now, I love to go out. I love to work my ass off on my art. I love to make out with lots of different people. I love shaking things up. I love being in new and different situations. I feel really really good about myself (for the most part�there are occasional lapses.) I even look different now. People treat me differently. It�s strange and kinda wonderful.

I used to think people were doing me a favor if they liked me or wanted to spend time with me. I used to feel so terrible about myself and it�s because I handed my self image to someone else and let that person tell me who I was and what I deserved, which wasn�t fair to him and wasn�t fair to me. Now I know my own worth. Now when I go to a party I don�t wonder whether people there like me or how I appear to them. The only thing I worry about is maybe I won�t get to talk to everyone I want to talk to.

A year ago I always asked other people for advice. Now I almost never do. A year ago I would fall apart if someone hurt my feelings. Now I hardly ever do. A year ago I was terrified of the world. And now I�m not.

It�s never too late to become what you might have been.