10:15 p.m.
/
02 January, 2004

A new look for a new year. I changed my layout because I felt like I needed something to truly reflect me, and it had nothing to do with the fact that I completely ruined the last one by playing with the code to see what happened when I hacked it up.

New Year's Day was pretty crap. As was New Year's Eve. I miss being invisible and ignored. It was always the best seat in the house. You could watch everyone and learn about people, but I can't seem to do that anymore. Not when I'm constantly in the middle of things.

I have noticed that I no longer have to concentrate on speaking though. It's not as difficult as it used to be to hold a conversation; to think up and then analyse everything before I said it and then to examine the responses to determine how to behave. I don't find myself doing that so much anymore... until I remember that I used to do that and then everything goes to hell again as I get self-conscious.

I haven't been able to write recently. Everything seems so quaint and childlike, particularly my 'Choice' story, which is slowly becoming the most difficult thing I've ever had to write. It seems it's only ever appreciated when it's cartoonish and without any measure of subtlety.

I hate to deal with obvious, inexorable misery and self-absorbed angst, because it's shallow. Am I really the only person in the world who is fascinated in the lengths that people will go to hide their pain and misery, even from themselves? Is it just me who is more affected by someone desperately trying to convince themselves that they are okay, they're doing fine, than someone droning on about the pain and suffering they feel each and every day? Because, in all honesty, I would probably slap the latter person around the face and tell them to pull themselves together, not sit there and endure the performance the way fictional characters are supposed to.

I don't know, maybe the story I really want to write is beyond me and that's what's making me so frustrated and bitter. That's probably it.