10:37 p.m. - July 12, 2004
A good scent from a strange mountain of sorts
I did not anticipate people asking for a password. What do I tell them? That I've quit Non-Descript, that I prefer they no longer read this madcap nonsense, that the craving for solitude outweighs the tenuous obligation of reciprocal reading? I am touched in a foreign, not quite comfortable way by those who have asked for a password. I don't understand their motivation and suspect that again I am faced with a decisive moment, to step out and be open. I don't know any of them beyond the facile or cursory interest in their lives; we are not friends in any appreciable sense and I owe them nothing. I would enjoy having them as friends, to ring or be called up and talk about the important and trivial events in our lives, visit and hang out, form a corpus of interconnectedness. The type I lack, the type I yearn for.
Even Ozwald asked and I worry I hurt his feelings by rebuffing him, but I don't know what else to do.
Talked to Shannon for an hour and a half, discussing plans for a new website. She's agreed to design one for me. Asking wasn't as difficult as I thought it might be. It makes me wonder if acquaintances - friends - don't mind or may even want to be asked for favors. Self-reliance is a dead end, isn't it? It felt good to ask despite my trepidation. It felt very good.
