I can't really handle news like this.

It is an intellectual blind spot. I understand all the stuff around it, I see the spot where something could go, I can even look right at the blind spot, but that's as far as I get.

How am I supposed to understand a computer that is both off and on? I shall have to get one, I suppose. Then I shall have to create a post that is neither published nor unpublished, but exists in some kind of "superpublication." This will be a great victory for me as I can finally do what I am still failing to accomplish: Become a writer that is writing all the time and yet never writing at all.

Wait, I think there is already a term for that. The term is "hack."

Chemistry lab is calling me...I must go to it.

I had another lab this day. It was for my history of biology class and we worked with hydra, those wacky plant/animals in pond water that can regenerate like their mythical namesake. They're too small for me to engage them in any sort of epic battle, but I'm sure they could do some damage if I ingested them.

In my lab notebook, I've gone a different route and am writing up the experiment from the perspective of the hydra I have named "Ishmael." Ishmael's day did not go well. He was just swimming along and then some asshole cut him in half. But he's a trooper. Just keep swimming along. With his...one good tentacle.

Pray for Ishmael.

I've just received free pizza and I've chosen to convert the Calories into thoughts. I use Calorie with a capital C to denote a kilocalorie, not those dinky little gram calories.

The free pizza was delicious. It gives me energy to...get more pizza? Yes, that sounds right.

I spent some time before class actually getting some work done and not running around the blogs, livejournals, myspaces, and facebooks in a frantic attempt to convince myself that I am not alone.

I noticed that I felt a bit lonely as I lay down for bed last night. I set aside the fact that I was physically alone and wondered what was different than all the other nights I've been going to bed alone. I concluded that it was because my room was cleaner than average and all the open floor area was throwing me off. I wrote a bit in my journal. I felt comforted by seeing the entry I had made the night before. Not for what it said, just that it was there. When I come across something I wrote I feel, however irrationally, that phew, I'm still here.

I haven't done much in the way of actual creative writing since my class ended. I've just dipped my toe into the real world and avoided trying to come up with my own. It's an odd feeling this time, playing around in my journal. I feel as if I'm suddenly dating someone who I used to date a long time ago. I don't know.

I'll start out by just writing out the alphabet but assigning a word to each letter: Armadillo Bravo Chuckwagon Doris Encounter Frolic Grail Hypotenuse Ichor Joule Kite Ladmo Music Nary Ossified Pancake Quiet Rustic Salamander Tonnage Urchin Violin Wall-eyed Xylophone Yelp Zero.

I figure that in time certain trends will appear. Looking back over the past few evenings, I think I have a small obsession with xylophone and xenon. Perhaps it's because I can't think of much else that starts with X.

And now it's time for class.

I am very pleased. My sister and her fiance are flying in tonight. My sister is one of my favorites and she is pregnant with twins. I found this very thoughtful of her since she knows I don't want children of my own but that I am enamored with the idea of being the uncle who teaches them how to get in and out of trouble and to give them books by Roald Dahl.

I can hardly wait.

I was going to write about the party my roommates and I had this weekend. Well, I guess I will write about it. Juxtaposition and all that. For this party, we created an ad hoc currency that could be exchanged for alcoholic drinks. A makeshift bar was set up in the kitchen and when guests arrived they would receive a slip of paper with a condition written on it. For instance, "Find someone who was born in another country," "Find someone who knows the difference between a meteorite and a meteoroid," or "Find someone who is wearing matching underwear." When they fulfilled the condition, they could bring the slip of paper to me and I would make them a drink and give them a new slip of paper. They had to provide proof to get their drink and they couldn't ask any of the roommates or people they came with.

It worked out pretty well. There were questions that appealed to everyone, from the science-minded ("Find someone who knows the second law of thermodynamics,") to the groping-minded ("Hug someone from behind that you don't know.")

So another weekend passed with partying into the wee hours of the morning, sleeping a few hours, and then getting up for work.

Meanwhile, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, communities, local agencies, and international volunteers are striving to stop human rights violations and to help a country raise itself up by its non-existent bootstraps. I think I'm sounding pessimistic, but the challenge is monstrous.

And yet we have a force of nature at work there that goes by the name of Jarod Sibbitt that is working unflaggingly on the side of good.

Today I will pick up my paycheck from my part-time job at a pet store and use $20 of those dollars to help Jarod free someone who has been wrongfully imprisoned. I don't consider myself a contracted player for the side of good (probably more like a free agent) I believe that someday as I lay dying I will be glad that I helped someone get home to their mother. And I'll be glad that Jarod gave me that chance.

I know it's sort of a trickled-down theory of morality, but I'll take what I can get.