I am wiped out. Oh man. I spent the day cleaning. Although I'm not done yet (I have a huge pile of clothes to sort, and my desk is a wreck) things are looking remarkably neat and clean.

The impetus behind this is the fact that I'm going to L.A., yet a-fucking-gain, this weekend. And I wanted to bring some stuff for my parents to store, and some stuff for them to sell, while I had the chance. I actually intended to clean out my closet, but I didn't get that far today. (And unfortunately, I can only clean it during the day, because the light in there is broken.)

At about two this afternoon, I thought to myself, "Self, should I play with my Sims for a while, or start cleaning?" Then I answered, "Self, if you start playing the Sims, the next time you look at the clock, it will be midnight." So I left the computer off and started cleaning.

I started with the birds. (No, I didn't actually clean the birds. Although I'm suddenly picturing myself catching the birds and cleaning their feathers with a tiny squeegee, which makes me laugh.) I moved their cage over to the window and then cleaned out my dresser, using Lysol spray with bleach. (I opened the window so the birds could breathe. This small trip across the room freaked them out, but I didn't want them inhaling bleach. And once they had the window in front of them, they both got very interested in the scenery.)

I cleaned out every dresser drawer and wiped them down. I vacuumed every corner of the room. I sorted stuff. I got rid of two trash bags full of stuff, a chair, and a table. I threw out three bags full of trash.

And so I've been cleaning for six hours or so, and I haven't played with a single Sim. Dude. What's that about?

There are pitfalls to having a lot of people you know in real life reading your journal.

First of all, everyone always wants to find their names mentioned in here. Which is actually kind of cute; I like to be able to make people feel famous for a brief shining moment. Abby and Ash were sad that I hadn't mentioned their brief visit a few weekends ago. And Probst was wondering why he hadn't seen his name here recently. (Little does he know that my notify list hears all the juiciest details about him, far from his prying eyes.)

The Man With Whom I Should Have Had Sex Back In The Day And Who I Should Really Find A New Pseudonym For just wrote and said, "Hey! I see something about ME! Yes! Yes yes yes, oh I am vindicated and fulfilled. Except for the part where I'm not actually in the 'real' part, but hey, that's okay. I can deal. I'm not hurt. I'm in the right hand 'read this if you want' section, but THAT'S OKAY."

Apologies for swiping the quote, but that's what he gets for whining about it. He's hella funny. He used to have a journal. Be sad that he still doesn't. But looking for mentions of the self is pretty common. Charlotte and Bruce both recently admitted the same kind of cheap thrill. And I know the feeling, because I am always checking my stats obsessively, hoping to see myself linked somewhere.

I'm sure only Tim feels differently-- he probably dreads seeing his name, because he's mentioned a lot, and it's all in the context of the Sims, where he's grabbing my ass, wearing a teal tuxedo, being gay, and having kids, for the love of god. None of these are things he would ever, ever do in real life. Trust me. (I know. Who wouldn't want to grab my ass? I wonder, myself.)

But you know. Sometimes I write things that have broader implications-- that could actually affect my relationships with people. And man, I don't have the energy always, to go through the list of people who read this and wonder how each and every one of them might react to something like, say, my misanthropy entry.

This hasn't been triggered by anything specific. I'm lucky. My friends are pretty cool, generally assuming that these "deep" "emotional" "issues" aren't things I necessarily want to talk about. I enjoy the generic, "How are you doing?" question, to which I can answer across the whole spectrum.

Sometimes I want to have conversations that merely skim the surface of the emotions I explore on the page. And other times, I want to really delve into the things that maybe I don't say publicly. Sometimes it's nice to confide in someone about those (few, very few) issues neither the journal readers nor the notify listees get to hear about.

Oh, and there are rare occasions when I like to talk to my friends about their lives, and their problems. Not often though. I mean really, yawn. (Just kidding there, mes amis. Blowjob face.)

Which brings me to the below little essay. It's not something that I think many people would be affected by-- only one, probably, and I can always handle a conversation with one person. But I want to disclaim right up front and say that I wrote it while drunk, and it's not factually accurate at all. It's a representation of my distorted emotional state at one point in time.

I'm sober now, and things are clearer in the light of the early pre-dawn day. It's just here because it's interesting from a writing standpoint. That's all. I'm a bitchy, maudlin drunk.

"I don't want to be alone."

This is what she would have said, if the thoughts had been willing to become words. She thinks of it when it is too late. But now she is groping for something to say. She wants to say it correctly, she draws a blank, and she can't think to say this.

She wants his instinctive understanding. She wants his valiant attempt. But he's waiting for his chance to leave; he implies it over and over.

She wants him to care in a way that he does not.

As she falls silent, he decides to leave her there. No doubt he has his own justification of this. He leaves her there in her car, drunk, crying slightly, unable to articulate any concrete need. He doesn't know what to give her, so he takes himself away. Leaves her with the one thing she doesn't want: silence.

It makes her think of someone else, her friend, who she often turns to in times of crisis. She has never thought of him as unselfish, but she suddenly realizes that's what he is, in the most fundamental of ways.

Let's say she has a problem, a situation, a thought: X. She brings X to her friend. He evaluates it on its own terms, or in the terms of the girl. He doesn't first try to apply it to his own life, or assess the implications on him as a friend or a human being. He doesn't wonder if he's better than her because he has more or less X, or handles X differently.

She has never realized this before. It's a kind of security that other people don't have, the security to see something as totally divested from the self. It's a security of the self, of the mind. It's a way of being altruistic that doesn't involve martyrdom or reward. It is something she loves about her friend.

This man doesn't have this quality. He goes into the house without trying to have this conversation. He cares without actually caring; he cares until it infringes on his own personal drama. He is quick to call it quits. And she wants the security of someone who can put his own Xs aside, once they have been examined, and look at her X. She wants this tonight.

She wants a phone call when she gets home, a message to see if she made it home alright. She was drunk, after all, behind the wheel, spouting premonitions of disaster on the road.

There is no message waiting for her.

She doesn't know anything else.

"Yes, Abby has a walk-in closet, and she's been hiding from our parents in there, with her lesbian lover, in the nude, wearing a strap-on. In the closet. I can't even make a joke here."