1/20/05 9:03 PM: I stand at an interesting crossroad, once again.

I've never been in a place of more happiness in my life. I have the freedom and (for the most part) the time to do virtually anything I want. My writing is progressing at a decent pace. I'm rarely in a space of wanting for the attention of beautiful women. My singing is proceeding well, with greater control over my highs and greater avenues for my lows, becoming a highly regarded person in my business. As I very often tell people when asked how I am, "I cannot in any way complain."

Could things be better? Sure. I had to bust my behind for a considerable amount of time to be able to afford a new laptop that's probably two inches too small, but was all I could afford. During that time, with my attention divided, I lost two jobs, lost friends, lost time and lost data. As much as I have a relative sense of freedom, I am bound by past-due bills, unfinished works and a haunting sense that time is closing in on me. That I will end up alone and incomplete, failing to achieve the only things that matter to me, leaving no legacy to survive my passing.

So I am working on accepting my limitations, accepting people as they are and not allowing space for failure or stress to enter my mind. I am still wracked with passionate hatred and furious anger, seeing police officers successfully sue the city of Inglewood after they beat a Black teenager on camera. Watching that goofy political scion continue to boldly lie and deceive and get caught and still have nobody care. Two hundred thousand people have to die half way around the world for school children to wanna dig down and give money, while every single day their classmates and cousins and people living not forty miles away are dying and hungry and oppressed too (oh, but thanks to the "industrialized" nations for agreeing to "freeze" the debt of the region, while ignoring that the east coast of Africa got hit too).

I'm thirty two years old. I have a chronic inability to trust, after the events of the last two years. I have what could only be characterized as a "piss poor" attitude about the fairer sex, and a disdain for all carbon based life that's not much better. I'm afraid, a lot more often than I let on, in the lonely solitude of my Jungle apartment. Isolated and insulated from human contact, even my best friends barely know me.

Coming to this place was not an accident. I made conscious choices that led me here, and I don't regret them. My creedo is becoming "sometimes the old ways are best," remembering solitary years in Tennessee and Washington State, more often using people than relating to them. I changed and sought the comfort of faith only to have it leave me suspended in mid air like Wile E. Coyote, soon to take painful fall after devastating fall. In returning to misanthropy, to mistrust, to an almost completely nocturnal existence and a relentessly mercenary perspective and considering every action as one of evil business, I feel like I'm coming home.

It may be as close to having a home as I've ever had.

To be honest, I like it. Having such low expectations means that it's virtually impossible to be disappointed. Most things that happen to me are pleasant surprises, and the very few issues that come up are often circumvented by my overwhemling desire to prepare and make contingency plans. "Science," I often intone, as I outwit or out-think problem after problem. "Nobody said it was easy" but I seem to be managing.

With no assets, with no fear, with no real sense of attachment to any thing or much of anyone.

Which is not to say I am not awash with love. Dana, Inpu, Bernadette, Denzil, Chazz, and more ... so many names that I say so many times in every week, people that seek the best for me (when they can), that mean so much to me (as long as it doesn't become counterproductive). I won't go hungry, I won't go without having someone be concerned for me. If I disappear for too long, people come looking for me. So I've got that going for me.

So I can't complain. And I don't. There's no profit in it. Sure, I'd love to trust someone enough to have a child with them, but that seems as likely as Clive Davis knocking on my door and offering a "no recoup" recording contract with a million dollar advance. I don't traffic in "should" or "could" or "would" -- I live in the world that is, with all its wonder and glory and horror and fear. Compared to dust covered kids in Basra or bombed out mothers in Kabul, I'm living in the lap of luxury.

It appears to be the nature of people in western society to want more than they have, and my cultural de-programming hasn't removed that from my life yet. I strive for the release of the two projects I have to publish this year (sci-fi novel The Crown, which is now looking at an April release due to me dragging my feet, and Seraph out from Speakeasy Comics in the third quarter). I'm writing songs, I'm writing short stories, I'm dreaming up new worlds, desperate to surpass this one.

So I'm still here, and I'm not filled with hope, but I am driven by spirit. Grimly determined and forging ahead.