It started with liking the sound of the lap steel guitar. From then on, I was doomed. Once you love the twang, you can't help but love country.

No one I know also likes Steve Earle!

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So I realized a fundamental difference in mine and my parents' approach to life. I was just thinking this morning about how the point of life is to enjoy it as much as possible. I don't mean some shallow definition of "fun", I mean the point of being alive is to deeply appreciate being alive. I did term it at the time as "having fun". And then I was like, Oh well my parents would disagree*. But then I thought, No... no, that's not it. They're human, they'd have come to that conclusion. We just have different ideas of a good time. To them a good time means security, means having more than one backup plan and being able to provide well for their family. They don't understand and don't really support my desire to, for example, write, or work in non-profit art orgs. Because that kind of risk is simply not their idea of a good time. That sort of fun is icing on the cake for them, whereas for me it is -the point-. And for me, security is my icing on the cake. (And it's like, mm, aha, I can say that now while they are paying for me, right?) Security is something I would like in addition to achieving my specific ambitions. Security will follow when I have achieved my dreams, whereas their dreams will follow when they have achieved security. See what I'm sayin?

It's a culture thing AND it's an age thing. And it's something I just have to accept.

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These days are a dangerous time to be an attractive male in the presence of Ms Philadelphia Hale. I'm serious. I don't know what is up, but something is Happening To Me. It's pretty wild. Put me in a situation where I might possibly find an attractive man to want, and I WILL. Three nights in a row, four, I Will. Maybe it's rejection syndrome, a permutation of 'the rebound'. That's one way of looking at it. Another is that, like I've said before, I'm free now to use my affections as I please. Another is that I REALLY WANT SOMEONE TO SNUGGLE WITH AND KISS ON A REGULAR BASIS IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK.

Everybody comes across the wanting, eh? I guess it's just a matter of how classy you are when you put it out. Well fuck classy man. I am XXX-HARDCORE PRE-TEEN when it comes to figuring out what I feel about these things. Italics! Caps! Bolds and Links! It's all here, enjoy the 11560700th show of me talking about how loooooonely I am!

It's to the point, my friends, where when I notice my thought patterns I think, 'Don't I only act this way when I'm kind of drunk?'

Here's the emotional pattern of my diary: lonely. ambitious. in love. ambitious. rejected. lonely. ambitious. lonely. in love. obsessive. in love. over. lonely. ambitious.

And I suppose for 'ambitious' you could substitute any of the following--self-absorbed, delusionary, lazy, absent, narcissistic, shallow. If you so chose.

Tsk tsk and shake your head at my self-indulgence. I hear it's a failing of introspective writers.

5:46 p.m. 2004-10-24�