Yeah, it's late. Then I think. Therefore I am. Also late. And yeah, I've been reading my own back pages. Back when I used to write instead on just posting racy pictures that are getting me kicked off PayPal. Yes, really. Looks like they are not amused over there. What's become of our freedom? But yes, I agree, it's all so abstract. So fuck it. We can tell out grandchildren about the Old Internet and how much fun it was before the Invasion of the Fuckheads.

But ah well, moving on... To make the subslug work, I guess I should first mention "Lie To Me," the intellectually and otherwise impassioned love letter I wrote to Lauren Slater back at the height (I surely hope) of my madness. Sunday, April 13, 2003. Probably didn't peak on that exact day. Could have been last week. Selective amnesia being high among the prime benefits of dissociation.

And then I stumbled onto this bit from Sunday, April 06, 2003: OTHER PEOPLE'S PERSONAL SHORTCOMINGS MAKE IT HARD FOR THEM TO GIVE ME THE COMPLIMENTS AND ATTENTION THAT ARE DUE ME, which I never bothered to explain, but it's from some diagnostic assessment interview to determine if you're a narcissist. I think. Or maybe it was whether you're a Presbyterian.

In about 30 seconds, I learned that her husband was twisted with anger because his Mom had died a while back, then his Dad last August, and she was about to leave him and take the kids. "He needs to wake up and figure out what's going on. He has no idea." The compassionate type.

Personally speaking, if I were in this guy's shoes, I wouldn't get angry. I wouldn't be verbally abusive. I would simply and dispassionately kill her. All Part of the Service, II.

She kept telling me about this book called Rebuilding by somebody or other; she told me about nine times, but I kept forgetting. Forgetting won. Some guy. "Is he from around here?" I asked, because something about the way she was talking about this book made me think he was from around here.

"No," she said. "He's from the Boulder-Denver area." Which I found more than a little curious, seeing as the bookstore we were having this little chat in is situated midway between those two cities.

"Oh," I said. "I see."

"He's dead now," she said.

People are fucking insane, have you noticed that?

I told her I got divorced last August. A bit too obvious, I thought, but what the hell. Letting her know, just in case. She said oh she understood. Was I looking for something to help me get through it? To help me, you know, change?

I said, no, not really, I don't want to change. I'm more into books about psychoanalysis these days, and you know, personality disorders.

"Oh," she said. "I see."

But of course she didn't. How could she? Which is partly why I was chortling to myself in Starbucks later. Heh-heh. The laughter of the damned.

Spring ahead, I reminded myself. Fall back.

And on the same page -- though some would disagree -- these beginning and end bits from a post on Sunday, April 13, 2003 titled Border Patrol:

coyote moon, half high, half full
girl on the radio singing no one
could ever compare to you. middle
of the night, I'm out of cigarettes.
all day reading Alice Miller. not
reading really. what I do. tracking
something down.
....

but tell me something Alice, honey, where
does all that abusive aggression come from
then? when the true self blooms in the
gentle listening of someone as enlightened
as yourself (no other authors are cited),
is it all just perfect niceness after that?
and nobody anymore wants a piece of your
action?

and tell me another thing before you go,
what happened to all those references to
narcissism, leaving us with our little
personal stories but no common history,
no imagination, except for an undriven
darkness that, in truth, does not exist?

and why no mention of solipsism, leaving
me with your truth, the revised expanded
second edition, and me with this coyote
moon, half high, half empty. girl on the
radio, interrupted.

There's a family of coyotes living in the big open field behind this housing complex. I've been hearing them the last couple nights, baying at the full moon. They were just babies a few months ago. Now they've got big teeth I bet. I haven't seen them, but I know they're there. It's what passes for faith in these parts, Pardners.