Mar 14 - dot dot dot

Yep, me again -- though you'll be happy to know I did get a note from James, and he does have net access back, though lack of time and computer troubles keep him from returning to the journal just yet ... so you have to suffer with me one more day. But at least you can rest assured that this is the end of my online-journal career. ;)

Actually managed to get two new chapters of The Midnight Room written last night -- I think I'm back on track with it now. It's a long way from being finished, though ... I've had numerous "false starts", and not long ago I recently restarted it from scratch. But this time feels like "the right time" ... it's taken shape inside me -- and I'm happier with the scenes I wrote last night, than I've been with most of the previous work I've done on it. Not that I still know much of what's going to happen, or how it's going to end ... I can't work that way, it doesn't suit me. I keep a notebook of random notes on scenes, characters, plot and concept points, etc., for the novel -- but I don't believe in letting it take shape that way ... I give the characters, the voices, the narrator's soul and world, time to take shape inside me. It has to be told in the narrating character's voice -- not filtered through cold, predetermined omniscience. It has to be the character dictating to me what he wants to say -- not the other way around.

Anyhow ... *sigh*. Not in the best of moods tonight. It's been a few days -- not many, but it feels like it's been months -- since I've last chatted with Matt, and the ache of missing him is overtaking me again. What can I say? ... I'm sitting here, my eyes half-shut, swimming in a sea of disembodied images and a chorus of ghostly voices, all somehow reminding me of Matt, no matter what they show or speak of ... as if they all radiated from the very -concept- of him. This half-remembered dream, this fragment of a memory, this randomly-recalled piece of a friend's conversation, this line from a song, this scene from a movie ... a thousand thoughts, colours, sights, sounds, are washing over me ... and they all have the bittersweet tint and taste and touch of him.

...I live in a part of Texas (San Antonio) that hasn't truly seen snow in over a dozen years; I was about eight or nine (I'm 23 now) the last time I felt snow upon my skin. Sometimes, some of my friends tell me how lucky I am that I don't have to deal with snow ... when they go on about snow waist-deep in their front yard, snow blanketing their cars, snow here, snow there, so much damned snow. But I *hate* to hear about it. I *miss* snow ... it's been so long that I can barely even remember what snow is -like-. Missing it, thinking of it, longing for it, for so many years, has made it a beautiful and sad symbol in my mind of every blessing in the world -- the blessings I do and don't have -- that I cannot take for granted.

And no, that paragraph wasn't just inserted there randomly -- my point (and I do have one) is this. Are you in love? Do you often share the company of someone who means a great deal to you? Then please, *please* don't let a day pass by when you take him or her for granted. Appreciate them every day, and thank whatever higher power or greater force you believe in every day for their presence in your life. For what feels like a lifetime, I have missed, and dreamed of, and thought about, and hungered for, and ached for, the man I love and cherish above all other people and places and things upon this earth. And my greatest prayer is that, once we are finally united in the flesh as well as the spirit, I will find a way every day of my life to show him how much he means to me.

So as this -will- be my last journal entry, and you've put up with my pathetic ramblings so far -- will you do one last thing for me, if you are able? Take the man or woman you love into your arms, and tell them that there are no stars in the farthest reaches of the heavens, that shine brighter than the light in their eyes. Tell them that they are the point from which all your hopes and dreams emerge, and to which they are all compelled. Tell them that no artist in all the history of mankind has ever created a work more beautiful than them. Tell them that all the angels conspired in your favor, the day they came into your life. Tell them you love them, and hold them tenderly in your arms, and tell them that you have found your paradise upon this earth.

And with that, I take my leave ... thank you once again, gentle reader, and goodbye.

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