My two bosses are getting married at the end of the month, which is quite exciting. FOR THEM

I guess someone who's never been in a serious relationship can't understand the joys of getting engaged. I mean, I don't see what's so exciting about being eternally bound to someone else, who you don't even know what they will look like when they will be 75, and you have to share half your money with them and wear some ring that you'll probably think is ugly next year and move where their job offers come from or make them move where yours are, etc...

I reckon we should all just have kids together, and then sort of go with the breeze.

I am intentionally abstract. When I was in grade school they had us take a personality test to determine what type of learning style we had and what type of profession we would do well in. Mine turned out to be the type that likes abstract ideas, and the 'global picture', instead of detail and immediate information. I can't help that I write about my life like this. I'm a daydreamer who would rather let my thoughts float to the clouds in my spare time rather than writing about frustrating details, like what color shoes the man with the umbrella was wearing at the bus stop.

A million weary times around that sun. Does the Earth get tired of wearing that ball and chain?

If the Earth thinks at all, then we must be like its brain cells. I don't believe in a collective consciousness, though. I don't want to have anything to do with a lot of other people's consciousnesses. Count me out, I'd rather be an island.

But back to the original point: perhaps it is possible to do the same thing over and over again and either not be aware of it or be aware of it and feel as if it is new all the time. Would that be bliss? Could Sisyphus have possibly found joy?

I'm a porter of this world to the next sometimes. I carry things for people who are moving on but I am just a means for them, with no end in myself. I need to reverse this tendency and be a self-sufficient island. Forget the bosses, stop making copies, stop being neglected and unrecognized. carry only my own baggage, and strive to reduce it where I can.

There's a fog today, which is unusual for this time of year. Or maybe I remember incorrectly. Fog always makes everything feel moist even when it's not. They say autistic people find it soothing to be wrapped up, or sort of smothered gently, because it blocks out the millions of things that go on around us in the world that transmit messages which need to be encoded by our senses. Everyone has days they feel a little burnt out and overworked, and we could all do with a little fog to gently smother us and calm our nerves.

I got a haircut today. It's been a while since anyone else but me touched my hair. I look like a surfer.

It's dusk and the clocktower chimes as if it is taking deep breaths. After all, it has been standing there for about a century. And what have I to do, but hold on to my glass of guava juice and stare out the window over my empty dinnerplate, onto this dirty city, with crowds that pour into the streets during rush hour like water in a gutter. Why did I choose to move downtown? It's getting colder, too cold, and I think I might like to re-locate out of town and out of state. Lake Superior sparkles with a deadly sparkle that makes me feet feel numb to contemplate.

I keep the lights off and the heater on nowadays, sometimes with my desklight on so I can write in the corner. Why does the beginning of winter always feel like descending? I feel like I live in a basement, when I know I don't. Maybe my mind has moved my conscious self into a basement, somewhere on a back burner, and my whole self is just 'below'.

Then, I pick up a mirror and I see a glimmer of hope in the corner of my mouth. Now, there's a sight.

It's getting to be those long winter nights, when the sun goes down at 4 and comes up at 9. Most completely miss out on the daylight, stuck behind desks, staring at screens. My co-workers even refuse to go out on their lunch break because it's too cold. Sunlight wasted is such a pity.

When the light is gone most of the time, it's hard for me not to descend into sadness. It starts with listlessness and then the mind wanders into nooks and crannies where it shouldn't be, and some kind of mental monsters emerge and follow me around like thin ghosts. They come in forms of what should I be doing at this stage in my life, who am I? Where am I headed, what waits for me, am I digging my own grave? Are graves lonely?

Yes, the mind goes to places it has no business being in, like a nosy, snoopy alcoholic pseudo-private eye. I have no business thinking about deep, important dilemmas. I should be indulging in a moment's pleasure like the rest of the population.

I eat too much cereal. I can't get enough of it so I pour a second bowl in the morning, only to find a reflection of my own beautiful emptiness in the bottom, on the white glistening porcelain.

Life really does throw you a curve ball sometimes. Yesterday morning I woke to the sound of my own fire alarm in my kitchen. I came downstairs in a fearful rush to find a small fire in my brand new toaster oven. I tried to extinguish it, but I took too long to understand how to use my extinguisher! By the time I figured out how to use it, the fire was much bigger, and I used it in a panic and then fled my house with my cell phone. I called 911 and the fire brigade arrived before much of my living room was damaged. I am living at my sister's girlfriends' house now. I was watching the news a few minutes ago, and I saw a bit on the recall of a certain product: my toaster oven. Fuck.

There was a big staff meeting at work today. They announced their plans to downsize. Following that, an e-mail was sent out clarifying what that meant: lay-offs. They were nice enough about it, but they made no indication as to go will go first. i assume I am safe, though, because my position is sort of central, but I sure will hate to see my co-workers go. Plus, they might cause some drama because I am much younger than them and have only been working here two years.

I am a closet Kanye West fan. I don't know, I am a sucker for those hip hop songs made out of old classics. I fell in love with 'To The Wire' when I first heard it and then I found out that all of the songs I ever loved that were made stylistically from old songs were done by him, such as 'Hard Knocks Life' and 'Oh Boy'. I think I like the fact that he knows of and admits to knowing of musical scores from Annie.

Does this guy



look like he watches this?

I've been gardening a lot lately, believe it or not. I have a little squash garden, and it being the perfect time of year, I am harvesting my squash. I also enjoy raising my own pumpkin for Halloween, it's a lot easier and faster than raising Christmas trees and very satisfying.

I've started having these mild circulation problems. It might be aftereffects of the injury, but I just feel limbs going to sleep sometimes and the back of my neck, too. It's scary.

Last night I had that girl from work over for dinner. I know, I know, but I figured I needed to have some evening social interaction. I feel guilty indulging in myself too often --- it's like that guilt masturbators feels that is in vain. No one should probably ever feel guilty about such things if it weren't for social convention.

It turns out that this Daniel Craig guy is going to be the next James Bond. I am glad that they are having this good director back who did Goldeneye. I think Daniel Craig will be a good bond face.

I've been exercising at the gym more lately. They moved some of the cycling machines to the far wall, away from the window and next to a wall-mirror, and since I ready go lift weights in front of the mirror, this was extra incentive.

On my sixth Christmas, I received a shiny red fire engine as a gift from Santa. It was bigger than a breadbox and heavier than a six-year-old could lift. I remember washing it down every day, like a real fire engine, and how I could ride it, almost fitting perfectly in the little seat at the front of it. But like a real fire engine, it needed someone to drive the back end. However, I rarely had playmates. So I could never drive it correctly or effectively, I just clumsily pushed it around.

Today it sits in my bedroom, a relic for the ages. I keep it as a reminder that it takes two to keep a straight line forward. So often, I feel I've been off-roaded, when trying so hard to keep my path straight. And I still don't have playmates.

I was sitting in my beautiful wooden lawn chair in my backyard amongst the moss and pine cones when my mother calls. I had to go inside and get the phone. She tells me that my uncle Steve is coming my way to visit me for a day. As she told me this, I sort of jerked back a little and fell over the back steps backwards. I think I even landed on my head first, and then rolled over. My mom was screaming on the phone because I had dropped it. I know now that my shoulder was dislocated and I had twisted my spine in some unnatural way, not to mention I was lying on at least three pine cones and my foot was caught in a prickly thorn weed. And I was in a lot of pain. I grabbed the phone on the grass next to me and said 'mom, I'll call you back' and I called my neighbor, Suse. She came over and immediately called the hospital for me, and somehow got me up to get in her car. She's a doll.

Long story short, I haven't been updating livejournal lately because I had a back injury. But I'm fine now. And I missed uncle Steve, thank god.

Fate sometimes works out all right.

There's this girl at work who likes me. Her name is Laura. She talks to me at lunchtime. Today I was reading a book and enjoying my bag lunch when she finally asked me out. I didn't know what to do; I hate turning people down. She is pretty and she talks about things I find interesting, and we share a sense of humor, but I don't want to get involved that way with her, or anyone for that matter. It wasn't really a formal ask-out, but then they never are, are they? She just asked me to go have drinks with her after work one night with subtlety. She did it so tactfully and with such art, that it was almost hard for me to break her bubble. She even took my turning-down of her offer with ease. I am impressed. She asked for no excuse, and to tell the truth I was dreading having to explain.

I wonder if she, or anyone at work suspects that I am an autosexual. I wonder what would happen to me if they found out. They are a little conservative.

I really hate the lighting in this one bathroom at work. There's this neon light that makes the room really dark and although the mirror is really large and nice, no one can look good in it because it's dark and unnatural-looking. It brings out all the bad spots and contours on my face. I hate starting off the day by seeing a terrible reflection of myself.

I have another hair stylist appointment this week -- the third in a month. I don't know, I can't find a hairdresser that will do it how I like it. I have hair that is long, not long enough to touch my shoulders but long enough to be a styling issue. I know it's sort of gay for a guy to be this concerned with his hair style, but I just don't want to end up looking like a contestant on Rock star INXS, but neither do I want to look like a little boy.

I think I will stay home from work today so I can go in the sauna. I reserved it for an hour and I am really looking forward to being alone in there. I hear they even have mirrors on all the walls and ceiling!

I don't know where exactly my fascination begins.

I can't figure out where it is in the process of self-gazing that I stop really associating my own body with a reflection, or photograph. I just look at myself in the reflection or photograph and it seems to me to be another person, almost. It's still more connected to me than other people's images are, but mine, though commonsensibly I know it's me, just seems like someone else. It's the object of all of my affection and obsession.

It's so stunning. That hair, that chin, those eyes...they are a thousand times more beautiful than anyone else's. I keep a photograph of myself in my wallet and I often am paralyzed with amazement by that image. I am in love with the look of it, with me! I love the way I look. I love posing in the mirror, taking photographs and looking at them in succession. On my computer alone, I have over a thousand digital photographs of myself.

Let me tell you about my mother. She used to take me to the pool with my siblings and make me wear a girl's bathing suit. I was the youngest of five kids, and everyone except the two oldest had to wear hand-me-downs. I have no idea why we didn't have hand-me-down boys' bathing trunks, but I am sure that whatever money it would have cost to get me a pair, even if it meant we couldn't eat for a couple days, would have been worth it to save me later nostalgic humiliation. At the time, though, I apparently didn't notice anything was wrong. My sister, Lucinda, says she was embarrassed for me, but I was oblivious. I just had a good time, playing in the baby pool and then in the shallow end of the adult pool. I just didn't care what else was going on in the world and I had a lot of fun. Now, being older, I run into problems with this care-free resistance to worldly social conventions. I do it subconsciously. It's obviously due to my mother thinking it was all right to raise her children so liberally. I must say, I did have a blissful childhood. I am also a happy adult, on the most part. I probably wouldn't want to wear a girl's bathing suit now, but there's still lots of things I don't know that I am suppose to give a shit about. It doesn't even hurt to know that people sometimes laugh at me. I just have all the happiness and all the pain I'll ever need right within reach all the time.

Yesterday I was downtown with Kate and Tommy. We were walking around a corner and they started looking at a display in a store window. I caught the reflection of myself in a mirror on the side of the display and I just got this shiver down my spine. I wanted to keep looking but Kate and Tommy asked me if I was all right and I looked at my reflection and said 'yes everything is wonderful'. They sort of gave me a weird look. I tried to hide that familiar feeling of being enamored and walked down the street with them.

This is me. Every time I see my own reflection I am doomed to being frozen. It's my curse, but it's also a blessing, because it feels so good that I might as well be on drugs.

My doctor says I am an autosexual.

My mother always told me, you have to love yourself before you can love other people. I don't know...I just can't love anyone else.