I'm...confused. I feel lost right now, and I'm not quite sure why. [laughs] well, at the precise moment, I've been fighting with Dreamweaver for the last several hours trying to make a particular thing work. I'm trying to create a real webpage. As much as this blog is helpful and nice to have, it's not quite what I would want to direct potential employers to. But that's not what's bothering me the most. I am, at this moment, balanced on the pinnacle of a peak I call (or invented just now) Mount Frustration. I climb this mountain through procrastination, yet, when I am moving toward this peak, I feel like I'm moving downhill, paying no attention whatsoever to where I'm going. Yet, it is not downhill, because it is when I am at the top that everything else feels like downhill, in a good way. I mean to say that I am at the exact place at which a step in any direction will begin my movement toward some fate. I can't see the end of any road. All I know is that I am ready to act, but I hesitate, not because of fear but out of simply being caught up in the view. For several days I have felt the mountain breeze in my hair, the cold air in my lungs, yet it is at this moment that I have reached the point at which I look up and see all around me. It is so joyful to see...just...world in all directions. My first step is whether to go to bed or do some job hunting tonight, and I'm going to do some job hunting. The second is already determined for me; tomorrow night I'm going out to help my uncle rewire data cables in the office of one of his clients. In a month, I could go to visit Natalie's aunt in New York, who works for Newsweek and has lots of contacts (Natalie is going and invited me, though I have to pay for my own plane ticket). And, seeing Jackie today for, literally, the first time in over three years, made me realize that I have more than a casual desire to contact old friends, those people whose faces bounce around in my head because I had some sort of familiar contact with them. ...But in some cases I don't know where to start. It's almost like I was just bitten by wanderlust, and it surprised me, though I've been throwing sticks at it's nest for several weeks. [laughs] On top of it, the combination of my basil plant, that I tend to think about and care about more than myself, and my godson Malachi, who is truly adorable and a pleasure to be around, have finally stirred up my mature instincts to have second thoughts about never being a father. [laughs] like my own father, I still never want to be in charge of raising a child, and I still fear having a child like myself, but...the idea of children is no longer bitter to the taste. Of course, I would never dream of punishing my child by not having at least a second for him or her to play with growing up, the idea of which DOES still frighten me in significant ways. [pauses for a moment in thought] But the other thing about this moment is that...I have no desire to put it in poetic language. There is nothing in my head that I want to write about, and anyone who writes knows how much of a burden it is to have a need to write constantly, how much easier it is to breathe and hold up your head when that need is lifted for a day or even an hour. I suppose you might say that I am getting it out by writing in this journal, but that's just it, this is...oh, it feels so natural to be writing this, like peeing or something. When I'm done, I won't have to go again for hours, and I feel no more pressure. [smiles] it's like falling. Anyway, I feel more relaxed than I have been in a long time. but I think I lied about getting more job hunting done tonight. I'm starving, so I need to get a snack, and I'm yawning so much I can't see the screen half the time. [grins and shrugs] So I think I'm gonna get to bed. It was good talking to you, whoever you are. Sleep well.