Monday, Jul. 28, 2003 | 10:32 PM

Tonight I watched the Cabaret video at a cast party. Why didn�t someone tell me how absolutely appalling I look? Watching myself was like staring at a car crash. I�m like this terrible mound of marshmallow. No wonder no one has ever loved me. Jesus H. Christ. How does one love marshmallow? Someone needs to stick a fork in me and put me between two graham crackers. How did I not get laughed off the stage? Appalling, I tell you. Absolutely appalling.

Also, it�s the end of my affair with Ivy. She�s leaving for Brazil on Friday and she declined at the last minute going home with me this evening. She�ll be gone for a month and then her heartthrob will be back. So good-bye to all that, you know.

Which I mean, is fine. I knew the situation. It�s not like it was anything really. My love affairs are never anything really and I pretty much know they never will be anything really from the start. I�m being done a favor so I don�t spend the next however many years of my life being retarded and forgetting everything like Sarah in Labrynth when she�s lulled into her room full of total junk, distracting her from her real mission.

If my silly romances are anything it�s only puss and blood in the end, so who needs them to be anything? I�d trade of all of that in a heartbeat for a nice weekend at the Plaza and a free brunch with a bloody mary. Love, my darlings, quite frankly, sucks. It�s ugly and hurtful and a big fucking mess. And it has never brought me one scrap of happiness that made up for the terrible awful no good very bad heartache that was the final result.

I�m not sorry for what I had with Ivy. It was nice�really nice, to be cared for and liked for who I am finally. Not to look in someone�s eyes and know they�d rather be somewhere else but were too weak willed to actually make the leap, �cause like, you know we jointly owned so much stuff together and who has the time to sort that out? It was nice to be with someone who wasn�t just there because it was easier than leaving. She�s a good sweet soul and I wish her happiness. I�m sure we�ll keep hanging out and being friends. Friends is good. Friends is nice. As long as the friendship has well defined boundaries. Boundaries drawn in thick white lines against the grass and someone can blow a whistle when the ball rolls outside those lines and say DO OVER.

Out of bounds.

I watched the show tonight, and I could see how talented I am. I know how talented I am. How can such talent reside in the body of a marshmallow? I want to peel away those sugary fluffy puffy layers. I want to be the right angles and hard decisions I know I can be. I want to strip away all that gooey sentimentality and roundness. I don�t want to be taken in. I don�t want to roll with the punches. I got so fucking angry at myself tonight. Because I am such an idiot. And I wish really that I could go back in time and have stopped myself from becoming this dippy round toned polar bear of a person. All folds and smiles and ill defined choices. I made myself sick.

I�ve made myself a big walking target and I�ve wasted so many god damned years trying to hide beneath this layer of flesh. What good has that done me? Have I ever dodged a single bullet? Have I ever done anything but slime all over everything in my life, infecting each circumstance with some soft hollow disease? I make myself sick. How could I have allowed any of this to happen. When I think about the last decade of my life (with minor exceptions) I am truly appalled. I hate myself for what I�ve done, for what I�ve allowed, for the person I�ve been. It�s disgraceful. Fucking disgraceful. I want to blot it all out. Just erase every last bit of it. What the hell was I doing and thinking. I�m overcome by nausea.

So I don�t care what it takes. I�m going to shed all of it. I am going to be tiny and well oiled and sharp as a tack. And someday you�re going to run into me and I�ll jab you with my pointy shoulder blades and the hard right angles of a sarcastic smile.

None of this means anything. I think I need to rid myself of anything soft in my life and focus on what actually bears any real fruition and happiness. And that means whittling down.

Do you know that when I think about you, when I allow myself to think about you, I can�t help throwing up? My gag reflex is so attuned. I think I should think about you more. Use you for what you�re actually worth. And by you I mean something intangible and undeniable except to me. Something I can�t really explain�all the compromises personified. All the shirks and hurts and loss and bad decisions. All the weakness.

I�m wearing the skirt I had my last abortion in. I think that�s appropriate.

I want to abort my life and start from scratch. Is that possible?

I think it is.