Mar 13 - you know the time

Happy Friday the 13th! =)

A slow, uninteresting day, even by my usual standards -- as you've no doubt noticed by now (and as I warned at the beginning), my life is quite the opposite of "wild and exciting". But I'm very glad you're still here following my spew of random thoughts and emotions, nonetheless. =)

I did get to talk to Exodus for a little while this evening, though -- very glad we were finally able to do that. Aside from Matt, I don't do much online chatting these days, compared to the chataholicism I exhibited several months ago ... in general, I'm more reserved and withdrawn these days. (And since I very rarely go out of the house, and virtually never meet anyone any more, I'm a Howard Hughes compared to most of the people I know.) Anyhow, I'm a bit worried I didn't leave the best impression on Exodus ... afraid that I was too awkward, nervous, uncomfortable. I hope I can make it up to him, though -- he does indeed seem like a very nice guy.

Other than that, not much news to report. I started reading Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice today -- I haven't read Austen before (so much literature to catch up on!), and this should at least make James a bit happy. =) Right now it seems like I'm going to be up for quite a while tonight, so I hope to get another chapter written on my novel.

Spent a while working on my homepage this afternoon ... mostly tweaking and subtle changes that most people might not ever notice, but so it goes. I have to admit, my homepage is somewhat of an obsession for me -- it's my equivalent of a bonsai tree. =) I suppose everyone has a "bonsai tree" ... whether it's a car, or a garden, or a stamp collection, etc., etc. -- something they like to "tinker" with, add to, refine, revise, polish, and so on. I'm never satisfied with my site ... it's a little over two years old now, and I've completely redone its look and design more times than I can count. Sometimes I'll spend inordinate amounts of time changing a graphic pixel-by-pixel, or gazing over line upon line of HTML code (all of which I write myself, by hand, in Notepad) just to make the most minor and trivial of changes. (And I know Matt can relate -- he's changed his page almost as often as I have, bless his heart. Not that he needs to do so anymore -- his current page is as beautiful and perfect as a web site can get ... in my ever-so-slightly biased opinion.) ;)

I don't foresee completely redoing mine anytime soon, though -- I'm reasonably content (well, as content as I ever *get*) with the current design, and I really want/need to focus the time and energy on other projects (mainly my novel ... I've neglected it too much). I don't even know how many people visit it, or how often; I haven't kept a counter on there in a long time (I don't really believe in them). It's not about that, though. It's my bonsai-tree -- and, more than that, my -presence- in the world, in a definite sense. As I've said, I'm withdrawn and something of a recluse by most peoples' standards ... aside from a few people I regularly e-mail with, it's my only way of saying to the world, "I'm here, and this is who I am, and this is what I'm passionate about, and this is a bit of my soul." Or, better yet, to borrow a line from Emily Dickinson: It's my letter to the world that never wrote to me. I'm not sure it, any of it, any of this, matters to anyone ... but, what the hell ... if it doesn't, I need the *illusion* that it does. I need to at least get by on the illusion that the poems I write, the drawings I draw -- or for that matter, the journal entries I've left here -- *matter* to someone, somehow, for some reason. And who doesn't want to matter? Don't we -all- share aspects of our lives, our thoughts, our feelings -- whether through keeping online journals, or writing poems or stories, etc etc etc -- don't we all offer them to other people because, at the root of it all, we want and need to *matter* ... we want and need to believe that someone out there is taking notice of what we say and do, and giving a damn about it. Unless you're a total hermit, you're lying to yourself if you say that you don't care what anyone thinks, you don't care if you've ever touched anyone else's heart or soul in some fashion. Everyone wants and needs someone to give a damn about them. Everyone needs to believe they've left some sort of mark.

(No, I don't wear my heart on my sleeve ... I hold it right out in my hands.)

And on that note... (are you missing James yet? *I* sure am!) I think he said that he'd be back at the end of the week, which is tomorrow -- so, as this may turn out to be my last entry, I thought I'd take the opportunity to thank him once again for giving me the chance to experiment with online journal-keeping -- he's a wonderful man and a great friend, honestly one of the nicest and greatest guys to enter my life in a long time ... and I'm indebted to him for the trust he's shown in me. (And no, I'm not saying all this just to butter him up -- what the hell would I have to gain from that?) And, of course, I must thank you, the reader, for consenting to put up with me and the pathetic ramblings I've consumed James' web space with. =) I dearly hope reading all this hasn't been a -total- waste of time. So to James, and to you, I extend my heartfelt gratitude, and I wish blessings upon you always. =)

(And if this doesn't turn out to be my last entry, of course the words above will still apply, whenever my last entry really turns out to be once James gets back.)

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