The Hate List, 2007

109.  How you made me feel like I’m difficult and crazy and no one else could ever put up with me.

Diary entry, September 16, 1986

Oh, I could talk a blue streak about family, divorce, and such, but I’ve worn the subject to the ground.  I go see a therapist, which helps.  He’s nice and I always get to talk about what I want to talk about.  I think everyone would benefit from therapy, just to help them cope with day to day life.  I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with me at all—in fact, I think I’m better off than most because I get to get all of those yucky bad feelings off of my chest.  At least I have an alternative.

Tomorrow is Crying For You, Later

I buried the doll behind a tree.  Just as I was arranging some sticks and dead branches to camouflage the grave, a small, fluffy champagne-colored thing appeared from behind a bush.  It had large, dark eyes, and a face so flat it almost curved inward.  Barely clearing the ground, the moving fluffball either had no legs, or legs camouflaged by mass amounts of fluff.  Its head seemed too large for its body and in general the creature was so odd that for a moment I thought it must be some kind of alien from outer space.  Only once it barked in a friendly sort of way did I realize it was a dog.  “Hello,” I said, a bit uncertainly. 

The dog bared crooked teeth at me in a comical attempt at a smile.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

The dog just wiggled its nose at me.

When I then sniffled, drying the last of my tears with my sweater sleeve, the dog shuffled over and gently head-butted my ankle.  I leaned over to pet it, which the dog seemed to like very much.  Suddenly grateful, I kissed its head.  It smelled like vanilla cake.

Escape

One must still have chaos in oneself to give birth to a dancing star.

                                       --Friedrich Nietzsche

To Remain

Notebook, February 12, 2008

The clock

            is a lie that

                        I must keep

                                    unwound

Predictability

is a lucky thing

A coin with two heads

or two tails

                        as the case may be

And yet too late

just one second too late

maybe

The joy was in

the terror of

the box

The Surface

Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?                --Robert Frost, Flower-Gathering

Do you know me in the gloaming,

Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming?

Are you dumb because you know me not,

Or dumb because you know?

               --Robert Frost, Flower-Gathering