9:15 a.m. - December 20, 2004
So he writes
A fulfilling return it would be had I remembered the necessary steps to update the other site and chose Non-Descript for passion, not by default. If there were somebody with a carriage return key protruding from the forehead cheerfully emblazoned tempt fate, it is me. Perhaps I want to be discovered, confronted, have a family member say We always knew you were a fairy � uh, I mean gay, or an acquaintance mention s/he was the one who sent me the email saying only I know who you are after googling me and coming to Non-Descript. A good scare and true to form when I�m rattled, I shut down and flee, stuttering the entire way. A model prisoner here � I�d never rattle the cage�s bars � but meek and cowed I am when others shake my nest.
It has been nearly a month, one marked by a near-absolute lack of writing anything at all. Christmas cards, a signature on a check, To Do notes, invoices � there has been no writing, none, aside from the last touches on the student workbook. A month is not a long time but the longer I went without talking to anybody or to myself the more I would lay on the couch or bed and watch comedy reruns on Nickelodeon - !!shows for the whole fa-a-mi-ly!! - and realized that the costs of writing, and writing poorly at that, outweigh drowning in the empty spaces brought about by gloom and silence.
There hasn�t been much going on: I work, I read, I sleep, I eat toast.
A few weeks ago I caught a glimpse of a grey � white? � hair on my temple but as quickly as I recognized it, I couldn�t locate it again. Since then I�ve been observant and sure enough, I see one at a time on both temples more frequently. I am not 30 years old and grey � white? � hairs surprised me for a while until I realized how neatly the change harmonizes with that worldview my (former) therapist called destructive: I am an old man regardless of my biological age. No time for wisdom or tobacco pipe-old man, but always in a state of hurry and speed up, a life of benchmarks experienced out of order. I think I became an adult when I was 8 years old, had settled on a jaded perspective like a buoy in the dark when there was no life preserver available. To go from years with the neighbor, then to puberty � what a silly step, no need for embarrassment because everything is biological only, a mere body � by then my worldview was set and that�s the way it is now. A compressed life, lock-step with that old conviction I would die young, in my twenties: How fitting gray � white? � hairs arise now, just like an old man settling into the descent with certainty there is less ahead than came before. To think I misunderstood the roles Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos play, my own pagan trinity! The end is coming naturally and I need not speed that up, too. A relief, a jarring, melodic, whisper boom relief.
