My room is quiet, dark.  My curtains drawn.  I don't really want to get out of bed today.  So, I stay in bed for as long as I can.
        Unfortunately, dozing like this gives be a headache.  Always being half awake, trying to sleep when I'm not tired.
        So, after a few hours of fitful tossing and turning, my forehead begins to ache.
        And so I'm forced out of bed to load myself with Motrin.  I'm using Motrin now because I've taken so much Tylenol it doesn't work on my any more.
        And, frankly, I really don't know if the chemical makeup of Motrin is really substantially different that Tylenol, really, so the fact that the Tylenol doesn't work any more and the Motrin does work-- that might just all be psychosomatic.
        But, regardless, I'm taking Motrin now.
        And, I have a headache, now.
        And I'm out of bed, getting dressed and going outside because I just can't stand to be inside.
        But, the pain in my head is too great for me to drive-- and now I feel like I'm going to throw up.
        So, back to the condo, up the stairs, and into my bed again.
        Me, actually sleeping now, filled with painkillers and shivering.
        What a waste of a day.
        And, as for tomorrow. Well....

Feb 13, 2003:
Walked around.  Debated renting the Stitch: Experiment 626 game for my PS2.  Thought a lot about the last four years.

Feb 14, 2003:
Valentine's Day didn't really suck, today.  Hung out with Kim for a while.  Went home.

Feb 15, 2003:
Slept in.  Watched tv.  Looked at the ice on my windows.  Listened to Brian Eno.

Feb 16, 2003:
Sunday.  Went downtown.  The wind was cold, biting.  Came home.  Watched tv.
        There is nothing left in my world but the Geico gecko.  The Geico gecko keeps me sane.
        I love the way he walks, I love the precise digital green colour of his skin, I love his British accent, the little car he drives, everything.
        He should have his own show.  He should solve mysteries.
        Just walk into a crime scene four inches high, and very calmly and politely and rationally put all the pieces together, solve the case.  Happy ending.
        I would love to see him interrogating a suspect.  Walking up the suspect's chest.  Very politely making threats in that reasoned and mild voice of his.
        I would watch that show every week.
        I would buy the DVDs.
        I would buy the soundtracks, the remixes of the soundtracks.
        The novelizations, the comic books, the dolls and action figures, PS2 and Xbox 1-person shooters, and the card games.
        Would vow forever to love the Geico gecko, worship him like a god.

Feb 17, 2003:
Watched the news.  Bush was on.  He's always on.  They keep extending Iraq's deadline.  They want to attack Iraq, yet they don't want to attack Iraq.  It's kind of funny, actually.

Feb 18, 2003:
People are-- of course-- worried there's going to be a war.  And of course there's going to be a war.  Bush has pushed so hard that he can't back own, now.  Even if he wanted to-- which I'm sure he doesn't-- if he backed down now, he'd look like a fool.  So the only thing he can do is push on ahead, hoping someone finds something worth going to war over.  Of course they won't.  But this doesn't mean the USA will back down.

Feb 19, 2003:
People are worried there's going to be a war.  People are scared.  I'm not really that scared, though.  I mean, it'll sure suck to be an Iraqi, and the US troops will probably bomb themselves, but I saw all this in the early '90s.  This time it'll just all be better rehearsed.  The reportage will be more refined, the capture of Iraqi citizens will be more refined, the deaths by friendly fire will be more refined.

Feb 20, 2003:
I had a dream.  I was trapped in the house I grew up in.  And my dead Uncle, and my dead Grandmother-- and both the dogs we had to put to sleep when I was a teenager-- were there.  And they were angry with me, but I didn't know why.  And I tried to get away, leave the house, but all the doors were locked.  And so my dead Uncle, my dead Grandmother, and both the dogs we had to put to sleep when I was a teenager followed me around, scowling.  They didn't do anything else.  They just followed me around, staring and scowling.

Feb 21, 2003:
Ate a very good bagel today.  Sometimes you take what little you get, and hang on for dear life.
        Later:
        Driving late at night, listening to Discreet Music, and every second streetlight I pass underneath turns off.
        Remembering the most meaningless, pointless, trivial things.  Like, for example:
        Watching The Gary Shandling Show, in the evening.  And it's a warm summer night and I'm in the living room, and air is blowing in through the screen on the front door.
        Downtown after school, going to where my Mom works, and then getting a ride home with her when Dad comes to pick her up.
        Drawing crappy comics in the kitchen when I'm 12 years old.
        Walking to school in the morning, and it's raining, but it's warm.
        Waking up at 7:00 am, and reading chunks of Gravity's Rainbow before having to go to school.
        Standing behind the counter at work, waiting for Kim, or Robin, or Becky, or anyone else to pop by and talk to me.
        In Psychology class at University, working on a story instead of listening to my Prof.
        The first novel I finished writing, and handing it in for Creative Writing-- and even though it was crap, it was 400 pages long-- and the Prof. was stunned by its length, and the rest of the class was horrified.
        Buying back issues of Cerebus, when I really started reading and following it, back around issue #50.
        The first time I really heard, and understood, Brian Eno's music.
        A lack of energy.
        And then rage.  Lots and lots of rage.

Feb 22, 2003:
I rented the Stitch: Experiment 626 game for my PS2, and now I'm playing it obsessively.  Stitch scuttles and shoots and laughs maniacally as he plunges to his death.  I actually dream about it, sometimes.  And when it's quiet and I'm not playing the game, I can still sometimes hear the sound effects.  But then again, I'm sensitive to virtual reality.  After I play any sort of VR-type game, sometimes when I'm not playing the game I feel like I'm somehow inside it.

Feb 23, 2003:
Playing Stitch.

Feb 24, 2003:
Playing Stitch.

Feb 25, 2003:
Playing Stitch.

Feb 26, 2003:
Playing Stitch.

Feb 27, 2003:
Returned Stitch.
        Came home, watched tv.
        Saw Bush and Tony Blair on tv, today.
        There's a difference between the two.  They're not the same.  Bush is not evil, he's just stupid.  Blair, I think, is evil.
        However, which is worse?
        With Bush he's just single-mindedly pursuing some shiny object that caught his attention.  But Blair waffles, he jockeys for position-- sometimes he's on board with Bush, and sometimes he's not and needs to be convinced.
        Blair seems to be aware of the world around him and of what people think of him.  And so he wants to manipulate them.
        Bush, however looks like doesn't really understand what he says in his speeches, and he seems to think everybody loves him, and he "knows" God is on his side.  This makes him worse than Blair because at least there is a type of intelligence to what Blair is doing.  He has his agenda and his vision of Britain.  Bush, however does not seem to have an agenda, or even a plan.  He's simply after Saddam Hussein because Hussein has been deemed "evil" by some nebulous force somewhere in the datasphere.  There is no intelligence at work, here.  No plan and no real thought.
        Blair seems like he is forever weighing consequences, Bush does not appear to be.  This makes Bush more of a threat than Blair.
        This is because you can reason with evil, to be evil requires intelligence, you can make a deal with evil.  But you cannot reason with stupidity.  Stupidity is a reflex mechanism.  There is no point, no reason, or plan behind what stupidity does.  Stupidity does not understand its actions, or anyone else's.  And when it's given power it becomes a blind, destructive, purposeless force.
        Being stupid is worse than being evil.

Feb 28, 2003:
I walk alone at night.  I feel like I'm scuttling.

Next:  Wolf / Penguin....