The Island
Yesterday, I had a random encounter with Dan the Man, my amigo since 1981. We're both post-undergrad losers living in our parents' houses and we live less than a block apart, but it was the first time I'd seen him since before I moved back home. I just checked my U of M email account and replied to a two month old email from Neutral Man, with whom I've lost touch. I never got around to seeing Daddy Dylweed, his lovely wife, and bouncing baby boy before they moved to Farmington. (I mean, they are in Farmington, not on the far side of the Moon, but it's emblematic.) I had multiple phone conversations with Sardine while she was in NYC over the Summer, but not really since she's been back, even though we're only an hour apart. No man is an island, but I've always made of point of saying I make a pretty good isolated peninsula. It seems like since I left Ann Arbor I've made every effort to see that all my bridges have been out of service. Why? I've got to believe part of it is embarrassment. I have an odd relationship with embarrassment. I can scream like a madman and dance like a fool in the middle of a crowded park, but I am terrified of letting anyone know how horribly I've screwed up my life. I took five years to graduate from Michigan, out of laziness, but also because I was terrified at the prospect of graduation and so put it off any way I could. Since then, I've only half-heartedly tried to get a real life started. Actually, I've only been doing that since September; May 2002-August 2003 was a fifteen month fucking party. I have been, I still am so blindly, stupidly prideful.

Those whom gods would destroy, they first make proud. I've done a fine enough job of that myself, thanks.

And for fuck's sake, the first person to ask me how I'm doing or if I'm okay gets a brick to the face. I love you guys, but when I post this sort of thing I am not crying for help or comfort; my deepest love goes to the few of you who instinctively understand this.