I was in a good mood when I got back from school, too. I had a positive entry to write. Now I guess it will wait. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m probably going to put it off so long that I forget it.

It’s already lost its poignancy for me anyway. I don’t care if poignancy—dammit, I do care if it’s misspelled. One second.

Poignancy is spelled correctly. Like I was saying, the entry’s lost its poignancy for me anyway. Tomorrow the moment will have passed. It passed when I picked up the phone.

One hour seventeen minutes ago I had an entry to post.

I don’t remember what it was anymore. I… I was on the phone.

But wait, I did. Just after hitting submit I recalled. I recalled the entry I wanted to make… and it seems pointless now.

Two entries, actually. I’m remembering more.

I spent over an hour in a conversation I didn’t want to be in. I spent over an hour in a conversation I felt like I needed to have.

I wish I hadn’t. I wanted to come home, put an entry on my site, and move on to some work before going to bed. Instead I answered the phone. The fucking phone. I answered questions that I have a million times before. Because I felt compelled. Because you deserved it. I really did feel compelled; I really did think you deserved answers. But now it’s past midnight and I’m tired. I have work in the morning and I had work this evening, dammit. Work I didn’t do. Work that will prey on my mind tomorrow.

Not that it’s your fault. The blame is my own. I couldn’t just hang up the receiver when you started to protest. After our conversations I feel like this, angry at myself and how I let myself get snared in everytime. During the conversation, though, I just keep answering your fucking questions.

There’s something fucking wrong with me. I don’t know if it’s that I don’t give you enough attention, or that I give you too much. I keep thinking that it’s that I give too much. I’ve never been good at being dismissive.

All I know is that there’s something fucking wrong with me, and I wish I didn’t have to deal with the situation at all. More and more I envy the Tyler Durdens of the world who can simply say “This conversation is over” and have it be done.

And don’t tell me that if my time was so precious, really, I wouldn’t be spending it writing bitter little entries on my pathetic website. That I could have used these five freaking minutes productively. I know you’re fucking right. I don’t know why I feel compelled to do these pathetic entries. It’s my catharsis. So I can fall asleep easier. So I can get up tomorrow morning and hide from my piles of unfinished work again. Yeah right, more like tomorrow afternoon. I’m just avoiding things again just like I am right now as I write this.

Whatever. This entry… is over.

We sped across the plains under gloomy sky. The low, grey clouds seemed to rob the world of its color. The grass had lost its vibrancy, becoming a sickly yellow-green, and the skin of those around me took on a jaundiced cast.

A pool of blood congealed on the stones of the inner courtyard. Indeed, blood was everywhere upon the fort. Not one wall remained unmarked; not one rampart was unstained. In empty rooms evidence of the soldiers’ last stands made its slow way from scarlet to black.

But no bodies. No bodies. The Enemy had removed them, robbing us even of the chance to assuage our grief by funerals. The Enemy had come; the Enemy had slaughtered all; the Enemy had departed.

The King kneeled in the inner courtyard and leaned against his sword. “Please, Lord, let this not be,” he said. “In my haste and folly I have brought death down upon my household. Acting weakly, I have incurred a great lesson. But, Lord, let not these deaths be. The rumor of these events was great enough to teach me; the threat of their possibility made me wiser. Dear God, these deaths need not be. Please let me not have innocent blood on my hands. As You will it Lord, but I plead with you, let there be no more senseless death on my account.”

As the king spoke thus, a soldier came out from one of the fort’s high towers, holding across his arms the broken pieces of a sword. He strode across the courtyard to the king, and the king, seeing the soldier, rose. The king took the pieces of the sword; examined its hilt. He remained silent for a moment.

A tear ran down his cheek. “This is my son’s sword,” he said. His voice wavered. “My son, the prince, is surely dead. His blood, too, is on my hands. Therefore shall my grief never be contained.”

How do you hang up on someone when they won’t say goodbye? You don’t want to be rude, so you don’t hang up. Eventually you’re rude in another way. Your insistence in ending the conversation leads you to raise your voice and change your tone.

“I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“But…”
“No buts. Gotta go. Bye.”
“Why…”
“Bye.”
“Just answer…”
“No, really, I gotta go. Bye.”
“But…”
“Bye.”
“But…”
“Good. Bye.”
“Just tell…”
“Look, will you let me hang up, please?”
“I will, but just…”
“Argh. Goodbye, I’ll talk to you later.”
“But…”
“Bye bye.”
“But…”
“Bye.”
“But…”
click

FUCK FUCK FUCK. Just let me hang up. I don’t want to treat the people I know like fucking telemarketers.

I woke the same as any other day
Except a voice was in my head
It said seize the day, pull the trigger
Drop the blade, and watch the rolling heads

The day I tried to live
I stole a thousand beggar’s change
And gave it to the rich

The day I tried to win
I dangled from the power lines
And let the martyrs stretch
Singing

One more time around might do it
One more time around might make it
One more time around might do it
One more time around
The day I tried to live

Words you say never seem
To live up to the ones inside your head
The lives we make never seem
To ever get us anywhere but dead

The day I tried to live
I wallowed in the blood and mud with
All the other pigs

I woke the same as any other day you know
I should have stayed in bed

The day I tried to win
I wallowed in the blood and mud with
All the other pigs

And I learned that I was a liar
Just like you

I went on to the consideration of wisdom, madness and folly. And I saw that wisdom has the advantage over folly as much as light has the advantage over darkness.

The wise man has eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness.

Yet I knew that one lot befalls both of them. So I said to myself, if the fool’s lot is to befall me also, why then should I be wise? Where is the profit for me? And I concluded in my heart that this too is vanity. Neither of the wise man nor of the fool will there be an abiding remembrance, for in the days to come both will have been forgotten. How is it that the wise man dies as well as the fool! Therefore I loathed life, since for me the work that is done under the sun is evil; for all is vanity and a chase after wind.

I was sitting here, in front of the computer, during my dad’s birthday party. I got a little bored. I checked my email.

There are a lot of people in the room. Adults and children. None of them particularly staring at the screen. But passing by.

So what did I get in my email? Notices from a linux server I manage; Dictionary.com word of the day: “effulgence”; Messages from the CSS list I subscribe to; and, of course, two rare pieces of spam. Abused Teenage Models.

I could have left the Abused Teenage Models alone. Haven’t they been through enough already, in their young lives? I can’t abide them in my email box, however. I move to delete them, but one of them pops up while I do so; a pause as the hard drive works, my insistent hitting of the delete key is ignored in favor of some strange processing priority, and splayed across the screen is the visage (and, of course, more) of one of the eponymous models.

Alt-F4. No one sees. Exhale of relief. Pause.

I am still bored. I decide to check my friends’ sites. I start with Bo’s, as is my habit; but I do not delude myself. I keep my hand on Alt-4. I know the chance of going to Bo’s site and immediately finding Abused Teenage Models Wearing Elephant Costumes. And, of course, my paranoia is rewarded: Two entries of interest, and then, “Tim, you should read this.” I see just enough of a sliver to know: that says bondage porn.

How about Tanya’s, though? Tanya’s site is fine, right? Her entries can be risque, but the casual observer won’t see them, won’t be offended in the act of simply walking by.

I’ve scrolled halfway down Tanya’s site, and my aunt asks me a question. I respond, we have a conversation. The conversation is over. I turn back to the computer, and my eye immediately falls upon: the flashing letters WTF over a large, decontextualized breast. Tanya’s prominent boob logo, forgotten, has been flashing behind my head while I talk to my grandparents, two aunts, an uncle, and several cousins.

No one has said anything. Tanya’s logo is, perhaps, obscure. Many had to have seen. I am hoping that no one understood.

It was the first day of class. My pencil broke, so during the break I went to the sharpener near the door. The knob that makes it easier to turn the handle had broken off. I started winding the handle slowly, and that’s when the door opened.

You came in, looking like Rainbow Brite, and I thought, You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen.

Rootdown’s friend Ryan and Tanya’s friend Liz have the same Weezer shirt.

I’m reading your sites again, and trying not to be paranoid. I haven’t slept all night, and I think that’s making it harder for me not to believe that everything has been directed from central casting.

Did you get the gun?

Are you afraid?

Is he there next to you?