It is raining outside, or at least it was a few minutes ago, and I have on Jessica Pratt’s only album and have just eaten a chewable mint-flavored melatonin and am waiting to fall asleep

I wonder in what ways I have changed, and in what ways my face has aged

Recently I told someone, I think my father, that I am now “one hundred percent myself”

What was I before? Something lesser

Maybe this happened because I have had longer to determine what exactly that meant, or maybe I feel more comfortable keeping that personality dial all the way to the right

Mostly I can be myself because the people I am around like me best when I am myself

I don’t know! I like being myself though. I like it a whole lot. How could you not by yourself? Who are you then?

I was miserable for a long time. I am OK now

No one has threatened to kill me for being myself

They have only given me confused looks when I made a joke that was too much for them

Well, that’s fine

Can’t please all those creeps

Jesus lord this album is amazing

I emailed Jessica Pratt the other night and said as much. I invited her to my house to sit by a fire and drink a bottle of wine. She lives in San Francisco and we are the same age. I thought it couldn’t hurt to ask

I am quitting my job on Saturday. Or at least I’m telling them I won’t be around two weeks from then. And I will be free to sleep in as long as I wish, and write in the afternoon when I wake up

And in late September I will have time to return to Virginia to see my sister and my grandmother

I haven’t been home, or whatever you want to call it, in over a year

I will borrow my grandmother’s car and see Lexington and Richmond—and at midnight I will drive down those old roads in Nokesville and hope no one recognizes me

No one will be out, there is nothing to fear

No one was ever out when I used to do that

No one there knows me anymore anyway

They probably think I’m dead

I wonder now, as the melatonin darkens my head, if I really am dead

I’m serious! I think about this every day

If I am actually dead then I am OK being dead

It sure feels a hell of a lot nicer than being alive

(But how long have I been dead???)