In a little under two hours, I'll start my 48th trip around the Sun.

I'd like to say that I'm excited about my birthday, or maybe even interested in my birthday, but the truth is that the only emotion I can summon is one of shock.

Shock at the ways things have turned out, at the ways I've screwed things up, and at the ways that I still find little sparks of hope that I blow onto with all my might only to see them extinguished by the next wet drop of reality.

But, mostly, shock that I'm still here at all.

This is what I think. No, scratch that. This is what I believe.

See what I did there? Subtle as a turd in the punchbowl. That's just how I roll.

Poet and don't know it.

What I believe is that we're two different species. So far, we're still close enough that we can - and must - interbreed with each other, but the end of that nonsense will eventually come. Maybe even during what's left of my lifetime.

Crazy. I think they're crazy, and they think that we're crazy. We can't both be right, can we?

Well, yes, we can. And are.

It's all a matter of perspective.

This story I heard tonight was pretty fucked up. But, the thing is, the guy would never have said the things he said if they hadn't worked at some point in his past.

In order for those words to have ever worked, he had to have been dealing with a crazy person. A girl.

Redundant, I know.

Anyway, vive la différence.

Most of the time.

If I was going to write something here every day, I wonder what kind of crap it would be? I mean, if I'd made a resolution for 2012 to write more often, and then I'd been a big giant slacker and not written hardly anything until early February, but then I decided to at least try, I wonder what I'd write?

Boring mundane bullshit, or boring sad bullshit, or boring generic bullshit?

Hmmmm...

Time will tell, I suppose.

And now it's February already. And I haven't written anything here in almost a month. But that's okay. Nobody cares. I certainly don't care, so I can't imagine any of you readers giving a shit.

The same words, after all, can only be expressed in so many ways. A thesaurus only goes so far.

Except for an irrelevant interlude spent at CornerGirl's house, eating a yummy dinner, today has been uneventful.

I've felt distant today. Distant from all of this bullshit that I use instead of a life. The last time I felt this way for any length of time, I wondered if I'd died in my sleep, and I was naught but a ghost waiting for a bright light to guide me to a better place. Or, at least, a different place. Well, no such luck, then or now. I'm still here. Still muddling through. Managing as well as I can.

Armed with my new-found distance, I've been able to ask myself how and why. I've been doing that a lot today.

How?

Why?

No matter. It is what it is. I keep saying that. Saying and accepting are two different things, by the way, in case you were wondering.

I'm able to ask myself these questions, but the answers remain as elusive as ever. This should be over, but it's not. I should know better, but I don't. I should have moved on, but I've instead remained rooted here. In this fucking gray place.

For the last couple of hours, I've been downstairs. Watching a movie. Shooting pool. Then I had an idea. An idea to write something. What, exactly, I didn't know. Still don't know. I don't really think this counts. Fingers banging into keys. Words emerge, if I'm lucky.