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18 May, 1996 11:42:09 PM smells like skunk in here. i turned this place upside down trying to find what was causing the smell, then went outside and discovered that the whole damn neighborhood smells like polecat. an unexpected smell for an urban neighborhood like this. i love the smell of skunk. it's a rich, bittersweet fragrance that i could almost start to chew on. it's just on the verge of being really vile, but it still holds sweet, and that's what i like about it. for the last few weeks, any time i've sat down to write something for this website, i end up staring at the wall, or watching tv. i try to read. tonight it was Kafka. the other night i think it was something called "tha art of kissing," which was very funny, even though i skipped ahead to the parts about painful kissing. but any time i try to say something or try to read, the words just resist me; they look like groups of people i've met once and who all know each other, who gather around in an inpenetrable silence of smiles and heaviness; trying to read Kafka at the diner tonight, my attention skidded around on the pages, my own indifference slopping around in front of me. it's just my character. i get so depressed some days that there is nothing i can do. during moments of lucidity i'm astounded at how i can maintain my professional life when nothing i say or do at work corresponds even metaphorically to what i'm thinking. i'm thinking if i change my approach, i'll start writing again. if i decide to be more prosaic, and to narrate more, maybe the new angle will clear my stinkin' head. but then i realize that i'm aspiring to something it makes no real difference. i've reached thousands and thousands of people. reaching and making contact is supposed to be it's own reward, but i find it a dead-end. for every person reached and every contact made, there's an ensuing emptiness which is more painful than anything I can describe. i think i'll leave the computer on tonight, and i'll leave it open to this page. it's going to be a restless night. and i want to get up and write something here whenever i leap from bed. last night i woke up repeatedly. i get a sharp, pin-stuck feeling when i think about that slap of clarity that accompanies waking up in the middle of the night and thinking that there is someone else in the apartment with me. there never is. but sometimes i am suddenly awake and expecting to hear someone saying something; what that something is i don't know.
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