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.

We discussed this. I got permission to write this.

We went into this with good intentions. Maybe not the best of intentions, but still good ones. Innocent ones. Nobody was supposed to get hurt. It wasn't supposed to end like this, but it was supposed to end. Someday. But not like this.

We were so well-balanced. Not lopsided at all. Not the way my last relationship was. That was so fucking lopsided that there are many who wouldn't call it a relationship at all. Well, fuck them, I say. It most certainly was a relationship, just a very lopsided one.

Anyway.

The two of us, we were balanced. We knew each other quite well. We trusted each other. We liked each other a lot. And we'd each learned some tricks in the last three years, so that part was fantastic. And the timing was good. We needed each other. Each of us on the rebound, each of us desperately seeking distraction, neither of us looking for anything long-term, neither of us ready for anything serious.

Nothing serious with each other, I should clarify.

It was supposed to be fun, and it was certainly fun. It was supposed to be a distraction, and it was definitely that as well. It was supposed to be casual, though, and that's where we fucked up.

We didn't want to progress at all, but we did. We went from fuckbuddies to boyfriend/girlfriend before either of us realized what was happening. This was bad, because neither of us wanted that kind of relationship. Neither of us was ready for that kind of relationship.

Not with each other, I should clarify again.

So we found ourselves in a dilemma. The casual relationship we'd initially tried to have wasn't going to be enough for us, but the more serious relationship that had developed - it had developed too soon. It was doomed, from the second it began.

These torches we carry, see, they're not for each other.

We asked ourselves and each other a question.

Would we have a better chance trying to tough it out right now, or should we wait a few months and see if we're ready then?

We both came up with the same answer. Whatever might happen in a few months is irrelevant. What's relevant is that right now, there is no way we could make it work. We're both in love with someone else, and those feelings must and will take priority for us, even if they don't deserve it.

This is not about waiting or hoping for a lost love to come back into our lives. Nope, this is about acceptance. When we can accept, in our hearts, that we're alone, then that is when we'll be ready to stop being alone.

This may take a long time. It may take forever. It may never happen. Such is life, and such is love.

I'm thinking that I won't bother writing a blog entry about last night, as the title pretty much says it all.

'Cause I'm all efficient and shit.

And rabid.

And straight, in case the title made you wonder.

I'm in a pretty weird mood today. Lack of sleep I guess, the blame for which is shared equally between a bout of insomnia keeping me awake and a thunderstorm waking me up.

I want to write today. More than that, I want to be a writer. Whatever that means. Vomiting words and somehow having them splatter into readability. A Rorschach test to reveal things about the writer, and maybe about the reader as well.

You ever just have one of those lives?

I'm waiting again. That's what I do. The present holds little interest for me, and the past is annoyingly immutable, so I wait for the future. I hope that, once I finally catch up with that elusive asshole, that this will all make sense. That I'll understand why I've endured.

I need to get out of this house, and out of this mood.