I'm listening to all the Dead Can Dance I have recorded on the computer. I'm faking doing any work. I've barely been able to get anything done this morning.

I'm so terribly afraid of everything it's hard to keep from crying. Outside it is bright and very dry and quite warm. The blustery winds of the last two nights have calmed down as, I imagine, have the fires the winds kicked up.

I've never known what to do with heat waves in January. I like the rain and I miss it. My parents tell me I was born on a drizzly morning. On my first birthday the party was inturrupted by torrents. When my first brother was born my parents feared getting to the hospital because lashing rains knocked trees and telephone poles onto the roads. I maintain I was welcoming him.

I don't remember the name but I was born under the Aztec sign for the rainmaker. I don't need too much rain but it's always a sight I welcome. It calms and quiets me.

2002 was a drought year. I think 2001 was as well and 2003 isn't looking to be very different.

I don't want to open my email because I'm afraid of what I might find. I'm tired and I feel hollowed out and impotent.

I didn't realize how depressed I've been until I was on the phone last night with my boyfriend and he said something to knock it loose. He didn't mean to. Something had annoyed me but he called me on my reaction and the tiredness that lives in the base of my spine leapt to my sholders dragging them down. My joints creaked and I was desperate for a way out.

Life is not a game I play well. There are precious few games I play well and when the going doesn't look good I start wishing I could play something else or just get on with things.

sometimes I have a temper, sometimes I don't. But I almost always start to resent things when they get steadily harder and harder. I suppose it's perfectly human. but I can't settle for that which is perfectly human.

Even my boyfriend wouldn't let me off the hook. The world needs changing and I don't see anyone else doing it (or doing it right) and so I go about doing things that I hope will lead us all to something better. I don't mean to be grandiose about it all, I just don't have any intention of doing what normal people do.

I wish I could though sometimes. I wish I could just build a normal career, have some kids, a house, an animal or two. Drive home through rush hour, prepare something while watching Must See TV, and wash it all down with Soma and seltzer water.

I used to think of such a notion with a shudder of horror running through me. Now I just wish I could find something that would satisfy me.

Lack of sleep makes everything achy and sore and every sound I hear reverberates through my chest like I'm a leaf hanging out, just waiting for my fate.

I'm tired. No, I'm exhausted. And I haven't even done anything yet. I haven't even started.