I've been seeing variations of this around. I'm bored and I can't sleep, so what the heck.

Airline miles. First I saved enough to go to Hawaii, then I saved enough to go to Hawaii first-class, then I saved enough to go with somebody special. Now I think I've got enough to go first-class with somebody special, but nobody wants to go with me.

Baseball. When I was a kid I was a pretty big fan of the Reds. I played little league and stuff, and I could run fast and I could whack the crap out of the ball. But I couldn't field for shit.

Cats. I have two of them now. I used to have three, but poor Happy died last fall when I was busy. I've always been more of a cat person than a dog person.

Dangerfield. My funniest Rodney Dangerfield joke is, "I never got any respect even as a kid. Why when I was kidnapped my parents got a call saying if they didn't pay $5000 they'd see me again."

Every time I think that things are getting better, they suck even harder.

Farrah. The way I found out about Michael Jackson's death was that KittenDamsel told me a joke. "What was Farrah Fawcett's dying wish?" "That Michael Jackson would die."

Goth. Laptopgirl told me that she used to be goth. I really really really want to see pictures from those days. I bet she was hot.

HatGirl. Yay!

Igloo. That was just the first thing that popped into my head that started with that letter. I bet they're hard to build.

Jackie was the name of one of the first girls I ever had a crush on. It was second grade.

K as in the letter K. It's a bad-luck letter for me when it comes to women. As opposed to all of the incredibly fantastic luck I have the rest of the time.

Launa was my mom's name. If I were to ever have a daughter, I'd want to name her Launa.

Meow. That's what Buddy is doing right now. He thinks that he's starving to death because he hasn't eaten since midnight or so.

North. I wish I'd done more exploring when I lived in Alaska. I mean, I did quite a bit, but I should have done more. I want to go back someday.

Oppossums. I don't like them and their beady eyes.

Pickles. They suck. Their smell contaminates everyting around them, and God help you if you get pickle juice on something because that smell is never going away.

Quack. Part of this entry fragment that I like: If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck - guess what, it's a fucking duck. Call it a cherry pie all you want, but it's still a damn duck.

Rise. That's what the Sun is going to do before too long. I should go outside and watch.

Sometimes I wish I'd never told her the truth. But only sometimes.

Tornadoes. I'd still like to see one someday, as long as it's not coming straight at me.

Underwear. I wear boxers. You know you care.

Vanquish. I don't know why I thought of that word. Maybe I'm tired.

WeatherGirl has always been nice to me. Her dog sucks, though.

X-rays. I've had my shoulder and my foot and my knee x-rayed. Oh, and my teeth. No super-powers yet, though. I'm still waiting.

YoungGirl and I had dinner Sunday evening. It was nice to have the company.

Zoo. I like the Tazmanian Wolves. I think they're cool-looking. They smell like skunks, though.

You ever get a desire and at first you don't pay much attention to it, because you figure it's just collateral damage, and then it grows and grows and sometimes threatens to consume you? And you can't think about anything else, even those things that are much more important and much more noble and even much more realistic?

Yeah, me too.

Most people probably think that I'm a pessimist. They're wrong for thinking that, but I guess I understand their mistake. It's just that I try to prepare for the worst.

The problem that I have is that "the worst" is an ever-changing thing. What was "the worst thing" yesterday is nothing but the fucked-up past today, and there's an entirely new "worst thing" for me to prepare for.

I've told RockGirl, several times, that I expect to be murdered someday. And, not only that, I expect that I know exactly who my killer will be. It's just common sense. A trivial extrapolation that a child could do while sleeping.

But that's in the far-off future. I won't have to worry about that until a million other bad things have happened. And I'll wait for each and every one of those things, and I'll endure each and every one of those things, because they must be important or they'd certainly have stopped by now.

I used to joke about the bad things, until they happened. After that, they didn't seem all that funny to me anymore.

I'm in a good mood. That doesn't make any sense at all.

It must be denial.

What will tomorrow bring?

I don't know, but I bet it will suck, whatever it is.

I know that I'm probably jumping the gun. Things fall apart all the time, but I have a feeling that it's not going to happen this time. I'm not sure why I feel this way. Probably a combination of optimism and desperation.

I found myself sitting in my garage last night, planning my route and coming up with a rudimentary itinerary. I gave very little thought to getting prepared, but I never do that. That's not the fun part, after all. That's the part that will suck. Figuring out what to take, what to leave. Who to tell and what to tell them.

Who to invite?

Whoa, where did that thought come from?

I must contemplate this idea further...

I could lose power at any second. That's kinda exciting to me. The lightning outside is crazy, like living inside a strobe-light. I want to vomit some words here and then I want to go back out to my garage and watch the lightning some more.

This probably isn't going to make any sense to anyone but me, but I don't care. I don't know why you people read this crap anyway. Inertia is my guess.

---

I can close my eyes, when I'm in the right mood like the one I'm in right now, and I can see.

A single bright point of light, directly ahead. It outshines, without even trying, the smudges to my left and the smears to my right, and even the fading spotlight behind me.

People think, people wonder, people question, people doubt, people question some more. But people just don't see. It's right there.

All I have to do is close my eyes, and everything is perfectly clear.

So I had that thought dangling from my brain. When I finally dislodged it, I sat down here to write an entry about it.

But, as it turns out, I've already written the entry. Over three years ago. Oops.

I was wrong about being okay, when I first wrote this entry. I might be wrong again this time - the bruising is much more severe, after all. Time will tell.

---

(January 2006)

The other night, I drank a bottle of yummy Alaskan Smoked Porter and wrote a bunch of snippets of boring crap. One of those snippets was this:

I think about a couple of my friends who've recently started reading my 'blog. I try to keep things light for them - but not too light. I want to come off as neither a lunatic nor as a child. This is easier said than done. Especially when I'm both. I want to come off as insightful at times, and as brilliant at others. This is easier said than done. Especially when I'm neither.

We'll see if I can write anything coherent without alcohol in my bloodstream. I have my doubts.

The problem is, I don't seem to be able to write anything that's either interesting or well-written unless that writing comes from my heart. My emotions are the source of everything I've ever written that I considered readable.

Because of this, I tend to stick with those same emotional topics and rehash them to death. Beat that dead horse into bloody pulp.

So someone new to my 'blog comes along, reads some of my drivel, and makes conclusions based on it.

Conclusions that are often less than accurate. Or at least not timely.

SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: This is the third time I've restarted this entry. I know what I want to write, but I'm having a hard time deciding how to write it.

But what are people supposed to think about me, when they read my 'blog?

Read something from the Fall of 2003, and you'll be so bored that you'll never read anything by me again. You'll probably volunteer for a lobotomy to prevent accidentally reading something I've written.

Read some of the later stuff, and you'll feel a little sorry for me. You'll think my writing is insane, and obsessive, and overly dramatic, but some of what I write is at least interesting and/or well-written and/or entertaining.

But what are you supposed to think about me?

I read back through my old entries, and there is of course one theme that keeps popping up. That fucking dead horse. I write about it because it's what I know, and it's what I feel, and it's - I guess comfortable would be a good word.

But it's not me. Not anymore. Not, at least, to anywhere near the extent that it used to be. That's what I want people to think about me when they read my 'blog:

I'm okay. Or I will be.

I get better all the time. Every day I wake up with a little less pain, and every night I go to sleep with a little less feeling that the day was wasted because she didn't share it with me.

I think I'm what you might call emotionally bruised.

But that bruise is fading.

So what should people think about me, when they read my 'blog?

I'd like people to think that I'm a person, a human being, just as capable of pain, or passion, or selfishness, or friendship, or stupidity, as anyone else. I'd like people to not be afraid of me, or of hurting my feelings. I'd like people to know that they don't need to tiptoe around me. That I'm stronger than I seem.

I'd like people to understand that there are some things about me that they may never understand, because I don't even understand them myself.

But that's okay, and so am I.

The problem is that, sometimes, it does no good. Pretending that the monster in the closet doesn't exist is both futile and stupid when it does exist. Lurking, waiting, salivating.

"Suck it up," they say.

"Suck this up," I so badly want to respond.

But, I don't say any such thing. I'm nice, after all. And people generally mean well, even when they advise stupid shit like that.

Some things simply cannot be dealt with by sheer act of will. Some things are, get this, actually hard. Some things, they take time, and too often time is a concession we're not given. So, too often, we find ourselves pressured into ignoring the problem, pretending that it's not as bad as it really is. Trying to fool the world and ourselves into believing that everything is okay.

And then one day we explode into a million pieces.

Ignoring problems doesn't make them go away. Acting normal might fool some people, but it never fools the most important person, the person doing the acting. So what's the point? The inconvenient truth is always always always better than the convenient lie.

And the thing is, I suck it up a little bit every damn day. How else would I get out of bed each morning? How else would I ever leave my house? How else would I breathe?

I do all I can to get through this, and that is, by definition, all I can do.

Okay, maybe I could close the closet door. Maybe I could turn on the lights and banish the shadows but, eventually, I'd have to sleep. And that's when it would get me. In my sleep.

No thanks.

I'd rather be awake, And see that monster coming. And hear the hinges squeaking and the floorboards creaking. And feel and hear the soft whimpers from my throat as my body tenses up from fear.

In case you were wondering, I'm in a weird mood right now.