This is just a quick story about how my brain works. If you nod your head while watching this, you must know me pretty well.

(This is a flash video that I don't feel like converting and uploading to YouTube. It was pretty boring anyway.

The other day I was at this gas station, and this chick was holding up the line yakking with the cashier. Instead of murdering her, I eavesdropped.

She was talking about one time she'd gotten so mad that she'd driven all the way to Atlanta.

Well, I beat that feat easily. I got so mad in March that I drove all the way to Charleston SC. And the only reason I stopped driving was because there was an ocean in my way.

Stupid ocean.

It's not that I don't care, it's that I wish that I didn't care.

Because there's just no point to caring. To any of it. It's all a waste of time and emotion. To care and wish and yearn and desire. To fucking know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will all be worth it in the end. And then to be dismissed over and over and over and over and over.

To hurt just for the sake of hurting, because that's all there is, and because that's all there will ever be.

It's all pointless. Nothing good will happen. Not for me.

It's not that I don't want to reply, it's that I wish that I didn't want to reply.

Being a good person feels wonderful, for a while. I live to be useful to the people I care about. Until I start to feel like I'm being taken advantage of. Once that happens, once that really starts to sink in, that's when being a good person feels pointless, like everything else. Friendship. Love. Everything. Pointless.

It's not that I don't want to be there, it's that I wish that I didn't want to be there.

Maybe even worse than pointless.

I feel like a fucking doormat. Again.

Dammit.

It's not that I don't care, it's that I wish, with all my heart, that I didn't care. That I would stop. That this would all just stop.

I had a bad day. It fit in nicely with all of the previous days.

Blow after blow land square and hard. He stands, somehow he's remained standing. His knees, however, have become weak. He wobbles. His mind wanders to escape the pain. He forgets why he stands. Soon, he will fall, and the count will begin.

I thought that I felt like writing something. I really did. I even had a couple potential topics in mind. But then, when I sat down at this computer, I lost all interest in writing.

So what I'll do instead is what I always do. I'll repost an old entry from back when I used to write.

Okay, I'm plagiarizing myself here, but it's okay - I gave myself permission.

I hate the Fall.

Too many things have happened to me at this time of the year. There are very few good memories, only memories of death and dying and loss and pain.

I look out my window, and I see that everything around me is dying. The sky is gray, the grass a dull brown. My yard is littered with fallen leaves.

The only things giving color to the world are the leaves. Many of them still cling to their branches, but inevitably, they too will fall and join corpses of their brothers on the ground below. And when they fall, when they spin or glide or spiral through the air, that is when they're at their most beautiful. The death of each leaf is a dance.

I like to stand outside my building at work, when the ivy leaves are falling. Sometimes, a leaf will get caught in the winds swirling around the buildings. Sometimes, a leaf will take a long time to fall, and it will dance in the air for me. If I'm quick enough, and if the winds are just right, I can catch a leaf before it hits the ground. Before its dance is over forever.

My grandmother used to tell me that it was good luck, catching a falling leaf. I'll hold the stem between my thumb and forefinger, and I'll twirl it for a bit, then I'll open my hand and let it finish its fall. Let it finish dying.

Sometimes I envy those leaves. Their most beautiful moment comes at the end of their lives. They don't have to keep living and remembering how wonderful things used to be. And when they fall, they don't have to get back up.

Sometimes I want so badly to reply, but that's not allowed. It's not real communication, after all. It's just an illusion, like everything else.

I've been having a really tough time getting my thoughts together lately. That's one of the big reasons that I don't write very often anymore. Another big reason is self-censorship, of course. And there's also the fact that I'm sick and tired of announcing to the world that I'm sick and tired. And I don't like to write when I'm in a bad mood. Fuck, it's a wonder I write at all. You people should be grateful for what little you get.

So, last night I was talking with OddlyFamiliarGirl and the subject came up of the worst things we've ever done. She went first, and I told her that I was going to go pee and when I came back I'd tell her what my worst actions had been.

It wasn't too tough to come up with some very bad things. Maybe it wasn't as tough as I'd have liked, but oh well.

I'm basically a pretty good person. I keep saying that. Maybe eventually it will be believed. I get so fucking tired of being accused of lies and manipulations and cruelty.

But I digress.

And now I'm in a crappy mood, again, so I need to stop writing, again.

I don't have anything new for Halloween, so I'll just repost this old entry.

Halloween is in a couple of days, so I thought I'd write about the only "true" story of the supernatural that I've ever been a direct witness to.

My grandmother died on September 27, 1998 in a nursing home. Before she went to the home she'd lived in a relative's home for about a year. Before that, she'd been in the same house for nearly 60 years. That's the house I'm talking about here.

I grew up about 100 yards from MaMaw's house, and I spent a very large part of my childhood in it. With my parents working all the time my sisters and I spent nearly as much time in that old house as we did in our own. All of my cousins would come over to play pretty often. We had Christmas lunch there. From the time I was about 10 until I was 18 I spent at least two nights every week in that house.

No matter how much time I spent there, the house still scared the shit out of me sometimes.

It's just a creepy house. The upstairs in particular - many of the rooms have crudely-nailed panels blocking access to or from the attic. As a kid I was always afraid of those areas and would usually sneak past them while watching carefully for an arm, or a tentacle, or whatever I was most afraid of during that particular time in my life.

But enough background. I was a kid. It was an old house. It scared me.

A couple of days after my grandmother died my cousin Jeff and I went up to the old house to look around. Though nobody had lived there for over a year, there was still electricity and water since my uncle had been using it for storage.

This was the first time I'd been in the house since MaMaw had died, and it was the first time Jeff had been there in at least a few years.

So we went into the house and were immediately stunned by how warm it was. It must have been over a hundred degrees there. The furnace was going full-blast and the registers were almost too hot to touch.

I went to the thermostat against the kitchen wall and, sure enough, it was set at the absolute maximum. I turned it back down to about 50 or so and Jeff and I continued our explorations.

The next day I mentioned to another cousin (one who's father was using the old place for storage) that I'd lowered the thermostat.

He got a quizzical look on his face, and told me that there was no way that the furnace could have been going, that there was no way that the house could have been that warm.

You see, when my grandmother had moved out of the house, over a year earlier, they'd removed the propane tank.

I confirmed this rather alarming fact myself. The house had no gas supply. The furnace had no fuel. The pilot light was long dead.

So that's the story of the weirdest thing I've ever experienced. If I was better at writing about scary stuff I bet you'd be shitting your pants right about now.

I want to say something now.

But, I won't.

How many times have I said it before? A dozen? A hundred? How many times have I promised myself and promised those who care about me?

Too many.

I've been wrong every single time.

How many times have I wished it before? A thousand? A million? How many times have I lost hours and hours and days and days of sleep wishing?

Too many.

That wish, like its opposite, has always gone unfulfilled.

So, tonight, I'm not going to say it, and I'm not going to wish it.

I'm going to think it, though.

I think therefore...

For the moment at least.

So I was coming back into my building at work. Right when I started to open the door, a young girl screamed at the top of her lungs.

This was weird because I usually don't have quite that effect on young girls. Not quite.

After I'd had four or five heart attacks, and she'd probably peed her pants a little, she said that I'd startled her by going for the door at the same time as her.

At least that's what she said. So maybe it wasn't my hideous appearance.