I told Devon that all the wisdom I need, I can find on the oldies station. Tonight's oldie of choice? The Grateful Dead.

I told Althea I was feeling lost, lacking in some direction. I told Althea that treachery was tearin me limb from limb.

I keep putting off watching Magnolia. Because, I don't know. I'm wandering around, bouncing off carpets, looking for a place where the Divine glows neon, and there are these two big glowing signs that say "fuck" and "deep". And they point off in different ways, or maybe the same way. And I get this suspicion that what I'm actually looking for is somehow contained in this movie, and so it will be very ironical and faery tale when I finally give up and watch it, and whoa, there it was all along. Which places no small amount of pressure on Magnolia. Which might be why I'm not watching it.

Althea told me: now cool down, boy. Settle back easy. You may be Satyrday's child, all grown, moving with a pinch of grace. Honest to the point of recklessness, self-centered to the extreme.

It wouldn't bother, I think, if there weren't so much money involved. I wish I could be like a child at a wishing well. Just saying, give me a coin, any coin, watch it splash-- it splashed, let me do it again. And I wouldn't care about the coin, or even about the wish I made as I was throwing it in. I'd only care about the splash. I wish. Or is that not a good thing? GOD, I hate this day and age. Nobody knows what's good anymore. Everything is sociology.

Ain't nobody messin with you but you. Your friends are getting most concerned. Loose with the truth-- maybe it's your fire.

Devon made an upset journal entry a few days ago, and I sent her an e-mail trying to, I don't know, shunt some of my affirmation to her. Because I *do* have affirmation. Some of it. And she said, yay, but maybe just because, hey, I'm alive after all. And then, y'know, my last journal entry-- which wasn't exactly upset. But the only reason it wasn't upset is because of what Pebblin said, because I'm so goddamned macho. But then she e-mailed me, trying to-- cheer me up, shunt some affirmation at me. And it just struck me . . as this absurd game. She takes a turn, I take a turn, Daisy takes a turn, whoever takes a turn. Are any of us actually giving out any advice at all? Are any of us listening? I read it, and I just thought, no. Unh-unh, try again, ask me. Hit me, hurt me, show me you care. Like, what's she supposed to do? Like I've ever hit her, or anyone.

There are things you can replace, and others you cannot. The time has come to weigh those things.

So I find myself in all these positions to be mean. To demand, to be cold. To ignore people, things. But I keep turning them down-- I keep asking for the details. *What* are you reading, *why* are you worried, come for *coffee*, do you *love* me?

Look-- I wouldn't even be talking about this if I weren't trying for the free-association path to clarity.

I told Althea, I'M A ROVING SIGN. That I was meant to be a bachelor. Althea told me: okay, that's fine.

Luckily, I think nobody's taking me too seriously. That's kind of like being hit, and I like that. And, really, they shouldn't. Because it doesn't matter how much I think about careening Spike to a beautiful, glorious sod-all-else with another random car, I'm still going to be thinking, in some other part of my brain, "You know, my favorite track on the No Strings Attached album is 'It Makes Me Ill' and, yeah, that's odd, but you know, it's also Lance's favorite. And that's cool, because Lance and I have this, comraderie, both being flamers. Although, as I've pointed out: dykes don't so much flame, as smoulder."

Still, though. I wish somebody would ask. Give me a sharp upper cut to the jaw.

Can't talk to me without talking to you. We're guilty of the same old thing-- talking alot about less and less, and forgetting the love we bring.

I don't know what I'm talking about. You know that. I've just, I'm missing something. It's probably something blatantly obvious, like god or sex, and I'll probably find it in Magnolia, which I'm not going to watch now or this weekend.

Listen. I just looked up from the computer screen to this clock that hangs on the wall, and the moon is reflected in it. And I look around and I can't see the moon anywhere else, but it's in the face of the clock. The clock reads eleven-fifteen. I don't know what that means. I know that it vaguely pisses me off. Because it seems so close, I guess. Close to meaning something.

And we know alot about that, don't we? We're always close to meaning *something*.

Oh, shut up, Ale. Listen to Althea:

now cool down, boy. settle back easy. ain't nobody messin with you but you. this space is getting hot-- you know this space is getting hot. that's fine. you can't talk to me without talking to you.