Those little tree-shaped car fresheners are like poison. Sitting in a car with one of those things in it is like burying yourself in the bosom of an old woman (who has just srayed herself liberally with her favorite perfume) for an hour. That, mixed with the odors of passing skunks in the night, made me lose all sense of coherence and tolerance in my mind. My breathing became shallow, I felt a dull headache, and felt like I was going to start drooling. People's senses must be so totally dulled to think those things actually freshen!

Got me to thinking, is it bad or good to be so sensitive? Like, I like that I can sense minute differences in my environment; but that something like a tree freshener, that other people are so used to, affected me significantly--that's not too great in terms of survival in a world populated with people like that. As far as perfume goes, I think people should only be able to smell you if they are close enough to kiss you.

Ugh. I can smell it in my clothes, on my skin. Give me subtlety and fresh air any day.

Alex was badmouthing this guy who he had deemed was a bastard. This guy apparently gave Alex no credit for skill in a poker win Alex was particularly proud of. "I was completely sportsmanlike the whole time [during the tournament], and this guy, he's just bitter. He thinks he's the shit." And on and on. I said this to him:

There are people who mistake courtesy for weakness. That becomes a weakness on their part, because you know that much about them when they know nothing true about you. Your strength is hidden while their misperception is revealed. Let them think what they want to think; it is to your advantage in the game.

---

My mind is, not without some sadness, opening itself to the idea that many things I hold dear are about to change.

I think I may be soon(er than I expected) to be moving out of my little house here at Eagle. I love my house. I love it so much. There is very little that I do not love about it. But I should, perhaps, move closer to school, at least into Berkeley (if Allah wills it). I fear that this fragile dream will shatter, should I leave it.

And Alex, he is thinking, in soon-terms, to be applying to theatre grad school elsewhere. Like, Minneapolis or something. It does not take a brain surgeon to know that our lives will be very, very different without the other's presence. We won't be friendless--we are social people--but the other person is so very important.

I have thought before, that at this point (for who knows the future), my loyalties are equally divided between a hypothetical romantic mate and Alex. Should I find a man who could take that role, who was what I needed and wanted, he would not be less important than Alex; but he would not be more important.

I think I would miss Alex like crazy.

And just... things are changing around me. There was a wild place near my house where old train tracks lay; there was a hole in the fence that surrounded it, behind which fields of pampas grass and berries lay. Lizards lived there, and people made sculptures from stray blocks of cement. I didn't go there all that often, but it was important that it was there. I walked out not a week ago, to find that the fence-hole had been effectively blocked by a layer of uprooted plants; looking past and through the fence, I saw that they had gotten rid of just about All the pampas grass. Oh.

falling... asleeeeeeeeeeeeep...

12:55 a.m. 2004-03-23�