May 12th. A whole thought of walking to do.

For some reason, when reading Nino Ricci's very good the Origin of Species this past weekend, the quote "April is the cruelest month"—tossed off in passing by a minor character, and not sourced—stuck in my head as being from Chaucer. That was "April with her showers sweet," though. I guess the cruelty-accusation came from Eliot. Anyway, it hasn't been April for a minute now, so maybe he was wrong.

Last night I dreamt—in my fucked up way of things, and as well as Dan Yemin saying "Hey Alexander!" at the corner of René-Levesque and Greene, and having shampoo-covered sex with some woman who thought my toes were disgusting—that I got an A+ in English Montreal Lit. I'd managed to convince myself, over the past couple days, staring at the blank space where the letter grade was to show up on the My Grades page at My Concordia, that I deserved an A-, maybe—à la limite—an A.

When I got on my computer to check this morning, I remembered the dreamt A+ and the heady glory of it and I realized that it was never going to happen. I cursed my brain. And lo and behold, there, lying in wait for me, was a B+. I really hate myself right now. This is a fucking bird course; 31 people got an A or A-, and I was part of the 20 or so who didn't. English is my fucking thing, man. And the worst of it is that that god-awful B+ in that class I should have been able to ace with my eyes closed was the best fucking grade I've gotten in an English class yet. Basically what I'm saying is that I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me.

Hastie asked me a few weeks ago why I cared so much about marks and all that shit. I didn't give him a very convincing answer. I don't even know if it's something I can rationalize, anymore. I just care. I care so fucking much, and I'm so fucking useless anyway. And that little difference between an A- and a B+ is the difference between a 3.33 and a 3.47 on the semester. It's not like a 3.47 is even respectable, but it's... it's getting there.

I really, really have to get my shit together for next year. Finally I have a bunch of courses I actually want to be in, I'm on top of things, I know how university works. It's gonna have to be a fucking shower of As. I am going to need to bathe in them to be happy. Fuck me. Fuck my life—or at least, the mess I'm making of it. And this is really too melodramatic for me to want to leave here; I feel like I haven't matured a bit since I was sixteen, but I need it to remind me that I need to start fucking trying harder.