"I want problems. I want Laura's problems. Do you realize how great a journal could have been written about her struggles with anorexia? I can't live vicariously through her anymore, because she's off to Remuda Ranch tomorrow for inpatient treatment. Minimum stay: forty-five days. Equine therapy. Art therapy. Daily sessions with psychologists. 'They say they're going to retrain my brain!' she told me over the phone tonight. All this, and a clever catch phrase! And a trip to Arizona! Can I drop all my fall semester classes and join her? This is sick."

If you'll excuse the cliche, Laurie is in a class by herself. I've been following her writing since the now-defunct Zen and the Art of Psychoanalysis , and it continues to astound me. There is a certain magic ratio she's hit upon, of analyzation and slice-of-life detail writing. She manages to make you care, and that's no simple feat. How much I identified with her high-school self, and then her college self, as I made the transition.

I chose an entry that I doubt she'd ever choose herself; all of them are so flawlessly written, but I needed one, and thus found something that touched me. One of Laurie's strengths as a writer is her ability to create characters of the people in her life. She did this especially well with her anorexic roommate, Laura. I've struggled with an eating disorder for several years, and been in the hospital many times, but it is difficult, as the patient, to imagine what a friend is going through when they see you in such a state. I felt awkward around people I had known all of my life. Laurie's portrayal is honest; she expresses her completely valid frustrations. Reading it was sometimes difficult, but it was necessary. Another element of this entry is that it is utterly naked about its wish for conflict and dramatics, which is often felt but rarely admitted by many writers. All I can really say is that I respect Laurie enormously, and am looking forward to the day when I'll walk into a bookstore to find her novel.

Oh, the trials of being a telemarketer....

"Take me off this fucking list, or I'll hunt you down and killl your family." "Sir, I must find a supervisor to fulfill that request. Could you please hold?"

I admit, I knew this kid in college, so my bias is slight. It's all the more hilarious if you try to picture who Ben is: tall, gangly, and so stereotypically gay he'd give Richard Simmons a run for his money. I can remember evenings in Great Barrington sitting on the pavement, smoking Lucky Strikes and discussing Dolce & Gabbanna's finer points with him. I took thespark.com's personality test, and apparently, if we were both drunk, we would have a 100% chance of hooking up. Given that I spent most of my time at college drunk and/or high, I'd say that the intelligence of computers doesn't endanger our worth just yet.

"In reality, attempted suicide is the way back into life."

I wanted to highlight one of the more interesting projects that has sprung up on diary-x.com. The password for express is public, and anyone who wishes to express an opinion or make a statement is welcome to do so anonymously. Since you don't know who the drama (and, usually, it is drama!) is about, and lack the background of archives, you simply have one entry to see into a life. It reminds me of people-watching at outdoor cafes in New York; millions of lives, totally separate from each other, each with their tragedy and comedy, and I am privy to this one conversation, this one kiss.

Speaking to Darcy about the project gave me some interesting insights. "Online journaling has somehow evolved into a technological popularity contest. It's a shame when journalists write to attract readers, and not to express themselves," she said. A project like Express, whose idea was derivative of the now-defunct site "Release", is a way to combat those sorts of feelings about the online journaling community.

"The disadvantage of that careful conversation is my words. That should flow easy, fast if not furious. Stick in my hands like hardened rice. I miss them."

Every diarist has hit a wall at some point. Suddenly your life just doesn't seem interesting enough, or everything your write seems cliched, pretentious, or just plain shitty. Ironically, one of my favorite passages by April is the one above, despite a professed lack of articulateness. The simile just speaks for itself: Stick in my hands like hardened rice. Can't you just taste it?

"I was just coming to have a drink and get away from the family and then go back home, I said. He asked if my family made me stay home on the weekend, and I knew he thought I had meant my mom & dad kind of family. I told him, no, my family doesn't keep me at home, but if I stayed out all night, my daughter would miss me. Oh so you're a mom, huh? He sized me up, and told me he had a two year old girl. You don't look like a mother, he told me."

Sometimes, I read a journal because the writer's life is so much like my own that it makes me cringe. Other times, I read it because the writer brings an entirely exotic world to light. Judy, strangely enough, falls into both. She lives in Europe, she has a baby, and yet I can identify with that sense of living a life that is by no means over a beaten path. I have no idea what it would feel like to be a mother, but she has a way of creating a kinship with her readers that is really extraordinary. Her baby is beautiful, too. That je ne se quois - she's got it.