She suddenly realised that the day before her half birthday was a good time to get smart about this.

It sounded like it to him - he didn't like it when people called him a liar. People should have come across with whatever they had. He was out of there - but where did he go? He couldn't just disappear. He had no idea what was going on, but he sensed it wasn't the best thing ever to happen to him.

She answered the phone. The trunk was by her side, and her mother was the one on the phone. Nag nag nag, same as usual. And there he finally appeared, out of the trunk as if by magic. The steamer trunk had protected him and carried him through all of this, and he was going to rely on it to carry him through every single time. That was just how it had always been, how it was now, and how it always would be. There was nothing else for him to say that hadn't already been said, and he didn't know exactly what to do with the things he had.

There wasn't much - a couple of shoe boxes full of personal items, photos and whatnot, and maybe some clothes or some bags of effects. He traveled light, he never overloaded himself with things he didn't need. He didn't see the point, and he didn't want things to get out of control past his limits. That's the rule.

Thailand. Malaysia. And maybe Cambodia and maybe Laos. There's just no end to what can be done, but I'll have to admit right away that we won't be able to do every single thing, it just won't be possible.

Ah, the things we miss by sitting here, and the ways we change our minds about what is acceptable and what is not. It's just ridiculous, how much the climate changes and which ways the winds blow. The ladybugs sit there, and sometimes they even let you pick them up, but then they suddenly fly off without warning. It's ridiculous to think you can contain or control them, or that anything you say or do is going to help the situation or change the course of fate.

This is the best thing to do, the best thing to try. You just need to live and forget about everything else, because the living is the good part, and the good part can last for as long as you will it to. In fact, the good part is always just on the verge of beginning, and it's also so far in the past. Where nostalgia meets excitement about the future, that is the moment of now, the time where we can be thankful and hopeful at the same time.

It's a wonderful feeling, and indeed I am quite thankful.

Paying in advance was what he liked the most about his situation. The feeling the people owed him, not the other way around. Because owing people is terrible, he thought; one never wants to be in a position where one has to pay someone back. It's a dreadful feeling, and he did his best to avoid it at all costs.

This time it was something he knew was coming, something he would not be able to dodge. This was a tornado in Kansas in the heart of the tornado season, and it was coming right for him. He knew there was no way out or around - it would make a beeline in his direction no matter which way he tried to dodge.

He had never realised how many things in his life were black. Literally - as he looked around the room, more and more black objects kept poking their heads out, as if to say, here I am, I'm black! It was something he had never noticed before, and he wondered why it was. It didn't seem to be anything he could measure or control, it was just a fact and now he was being faced with it, too late to do anything about it, unless his next plan was to burn his house down and start over... and maybe it was his plan, maybe.

Here is where it starts and where it ends. New cycles, taking us around and around again. I am the queen of recycling, it seems - I am the best at getting things started up again, if not finishing them. This is good, though - at least I know how to start.

Let's go back in time to an era of Asia when things were less defined, where the word "borders" meant a lot less than it does now. Even today, though, some parts of Asia don't understand the concept of land ownership, of a human being able to possess a section of the earth. It seems ridiculous when you think about it, that something like a planet could be claimed, carved up, and divided into belongings that go to a particular person. How is that even possible? The truth is, it's probably not, but we have a go anyway, because that's the easiest way to make money, to sell land that we do not even own. How does that cycle begin? Who is the first person to claim ownership on something, to draw a border on it? One would think it is a government, and then the government is arrogant enough to think it owns something and has the right to sell that something. And then the cycle continues the next time someone needs money.

The mug shot, that was the name of the bar. Post traumatic stress disorder. Attention, there is something in progress. You might as well just tell them to run, because that is what they're going to do anyway, little guy. The evil baby is the one who finishes everything. But don't worry, we're going straight to our customers with this.

I can't believe it, after the taste of human flesh, one cannot go back. One has to channel these things into positive directions. So relax, it's just someone you know well, no reason to get upset. If you want to party, go back to the old way.

Snakes are chopped up, your weird new pet. There is nothing good or bad about this, only neutral. If someone is seeking attention, don't give it to them. After months of practice, anything and anyone can learn how to dance. If there's an escapee, then you have to escape yourself, as well. You can sniff things out, but don't be surprised if you find scotch instead of what you were looking for.

People have to get over things, even though there is nothing really to get over. Things can appear to be safe, but indeed they are dangerous. A cloud of danger, a cloud of fear and fright. This is the end of the long day.

Apathy. Complete and total apathy toward everyone and everything, that was what he felt, and in fact that was all he thought he could feel, forever. Of course he knew at some level that it wasn't true, that he would be able to feel at some point in the course of the journey, but right now, at this moment, he couldn't even fathom it.

So he lay on the sofa and waited, watched some television, and generally killed time until it was time to kill some more time. He ordered a pizza and ate it half-heartedly as he clicked through the channels on the satellite. There was the usual array of game shows, infomercials, and general women's interest shows, all of which were pretty much useless to him, but since he felt useless himself, he was determined to be one with the useless things, in order to build up the strength he needed to be the king of the uselessness. Because it was important to have goals - even if you were on track to be the laziest person in the world, it would still require some effort on your part to become king of the lazies, the leader of those who loaf. And this was his aim, which he thought he would get around to soon... maybe tomorrow or the next day.

She wondered if it could be done backwards. Not in reverse, you understand, but rather the second part before the first part, the acts reversed as if it were a play where things started out in the middle of the conflict, resolved, and then were suddenly in a flashback that showed the audience how we got to the middle of the conflict, which was at the beginning.

Because this was how life really was - it wasn't a story where everything happened in a linear fashion and there was a nice dénouement at the end like there was in the movies or on stage. It was more like giving a three-year-old some paper and crayons and telling him to draw the history of the world in his own interpretation, without words but only with illustrations. And then trying to make some sense of that in the end, after he'd gone home for the day and it was no longer possible to contact the artist, as it were.

And this was about how much sense it all made, an amount of sense that was not measurable for two reasons: one, because it was two small, on average; two, because the outline of it fluctuated so much, not like a person who gains and loses weight, but like water in containers of different shapes.

The beginning was simple enough, everyone was happy except for our protagonist, or is that protagoniste, who was a bit fuzzy around the edges for all the things she couldn't understand about life and how it worked. She was young, she was green, and she was eager but too eager all at the same time. She found it frustrating that she didn't really get things yet, considering how many things she had indeed tried in such a short time.

She had this thing in her mind, or maybe it was her heart - she couldn't be sure if either existed. The mind was part of her brain, she thought, and probably the heart was part of the mind, a weak and romantic part of the mind where dust collected to cover the parts that once worked properly. This was what had happened to her, she thought, and now we come to the part where the conflict was, only this time it was internal rather than external. It was all inside her, this amalgam of head and mind and heart and body that apparently one could only control up to a point, and then after that it was all left to chance, as she didn't believe in fate. She wanted to tell the story. She wondered if it could be done backwards.

We like to think that our adventures will be romantic, not in the passionate love sort of way, but in the "and then our hero saved the day" sort of way. Rarely if ever are they actually like that. In fact, in my experience, you're better off having adventures of the mind, and in that realm only are you really free to adventure exactly as you wish.

This is the best of my memory; this is the worst of my experiences. I think that these will be the best times of my life if I can figure out exactly what to do with them in this different and unexpected way of mine. If I can do that, then everything will proceed as normal, or abnormal, and this will be the way we go through every act of every day - listening to the radio, socialising with friends, and whatever else it is we tell ourselves to do or not to do. It is by this that we cannot be normal, we cannot be the best of ourselves, and we cannot be the worst of ourselves, either.

This is all okay. It is all how things are supposed to be, if you believe in things like that. Which I don't, of course, because I have a good brain that works correctly.

So tonight is the night it all begins, and where was she? In her office, in a meeting, which was exactly where she did not want to be. In the office, she was reduced to an ant, or perhaps worker bee was a better analogy. Indistinguishable from everyone else, buzzing around unnoticed while all the other worker bees buzzed around unnoticed.

But tonight... tonight she would be a princess, a princess preparing to be a queen. She would dress in the traditional red, a veil over her head, and all the women in her circle would all but worship her. They would gather around in her honour, for her honour, in honour of her honour, as it were, and they would celebrate. It would be half fun and half sad, as it was intended to be. The fun part would be the dressing up, the jokes, the food, the friends nearby. The sad part would be the thinking, the wondering, the end of an era. Tomorrow her new life would begin, in an entirely different setting and different way. It was difficult to think about, impossible to imagine, but she was ready. Ready to dive in blindly, ready to accept whatever challenge was coming her way. She had faith, she had belief, and she had her loving family.

And suddenly the week was busy, crazy busy in fact, and she had no idea where to start with taming it. There was always this need in her to tame, as well, as if busy were an unwanted behaviour that the owner in her wanted to condition out of the dog in her.

She had no idea how she was going to fit everything in, but she was certainly going to try her best. She had no other choice, she was locked into certain things and it was all going to happen whether she did anything or not, so she needed to buckle down and make sure she did in fact do something, or it would all pass her by.

This was the best of the best, and the worst of the worst at the same time. This was the sort of thing she thrived on, contradictions and paradoxes. Her mother called it self-sabotage, the art of appearing happy, being bored, and embarking on adventures all at the same time. It was fun, her mother said, but not terribly adult or responsible. She had no interest in being adult or responsible, though, and it was enough for her to live her life and go along enjoying the things it threw at her from all directions and distances.

Everybody wants something, don't they, he thought. Since five o'clock in the morning he'd been pestered by people who were demanding things - some reasonable, some not. And they always came in bursts, didn't they - they couldn't be spaced ot like normal, they had to all come at once or not at all. It was ridiculous, almost comic, but somehow it had failed to make him laugh.

He was tired more than anything, just wanted to sleep and enjoy the feeling of unconsciousness, but unfortunately unconsciousness wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Even in dreams he was plagued with obligations, things that the people in his dreams expected him to do or be or say. These were difficult situations, awkward, because he wasn't the type to say stuff just to say it.

And right now, this very second, what he wanted more than anything was milk. A nice, cold glass of milk with some chocolate chip cookies would really hit the spot. Unfortunately, finances did not allow for such indulgences, but he was going to do the best he had with what was available... and what was available wasn't much. Crackers, maybe, or perhaps some processed chicken in a can. It wasn't The Ritz, that was for sure, but it was a bad pun, too.

He thought about how much he hated this situation, but even more he thought about how much he despised his reaction to it. There was a time in his life that it wouldn't have mattered, that to him the difference between the deposit being there and the deposit not being there would have been nil in his head. He was a much nicer person then, very loose and free with money - if it was there, it was there, if it wasn't, it wasn't. It was no big deal either way, and that was the way he always liked to think about it.

Except that that wasn't possible anymore. Something got rewired in his brain along the way, and now the deposit not showing up was a very, very big deal indeed. He checked his bank account every half hour, actually, and had to stop himself from checking more often than that. And of course, with a watched pot never boiling and all that, the money hadn't come, the deposit nowhere to be found. It had left the other account with no problems, so that wasn't the issue - it was just that some other bank had decided to hold onto it for a day or two, to get the interest. He thought that was truly unfair.

The bed was comfortable enough, she thought, or rather it had been comfortable a few days ago when she first found herself in it. Now that she had been lying in exactly the same position for the better part of a week, she had lost track of what was comfortable and what wasn't anymore, and in fact she took her general numbness as a sign that comfort wouldn't have even registered in her brain anymore.

She did feel hungry, though, hungrier than she had since arriving in the bed, and she wondered exactly when the man who brought the food was going to come back and try again. He'd been attempting to feed her for a while now, to no avail. She hadn't been hungry up to this point, and despite his insistence that she try to eat something, she hadn't been able to scrape together the energy to do so. He had made some idle threats about feeding tubes and whatever other drastic measures, but she had ignored him, and now she knew that no further persuasion would be necessary - she would happily eat of her own accord now.

Only the man hadn't come back in a long while, and she wondered just when she would get the chance to do that eating.

Anika woke up in her bed to find it was a new month. She had dreamed some prophetic dreams, some things that involved nostalgia and future nostalgia and imagining things that weren't and would never be. But they were positive dreams, despite all the confusion and time travel, and she was glad to have had them and understood them and been entertained by them.

The entertainment went further as she sat up and realised that some of these things were actually real - she looked out her window to see clouds on one side, and city sidewalks on the other, glossy with the reflections of having been watered down. She thought about what the feeling would be like, sitting down in clean pants on that wet curb, letting the warmth and the wet soak through to her skin. In most circumstances it would be unpleasant at best, but these weren't most circumstances, to be sure.

So out the window she went, completely confident that there was no longer any multi-story fall awaiting her, and no quick death or slow death or indeed any death at all. She was walking on air more than figuratively, and yet she could feel the dampness of the bricks beneath her bare feet, still cold from the night air.

There was a hallway, a long, dark hallway leading to god knows where... she was being led down the hallway - no, forced down it - by an arm that was attached to a person she couldn't see. She assumed it was a man, quite a large man, in fact, because the hand was simply too big and too strong to belong in any other configuration. She would not, for example, have let herself be led around like this by a woman.

She expected there to be some end to this journey, but so far that didn't appear to be the case. They were just walking and walking, turning at junctions where the hallway crossed with other hallways, and she was trying not to think too much about how many turns there had been or where they were now in relation to where they started. In fact, she thought, it was quite possible that they had been walking in a modified circle over and over - it was impossible to tell, though, because the hallway had no distinguishing characteristics, and theoretically it could indeed be one big circuit, and she would have had no way of knowing. There were some left turns and some right turns that they had made, so who knew the pattern?

Such complete opposites in one brain, he thought, such ups and downs all in the same set of thoughts, just hours apart. The highs, the lows, the English, the French... all crammed into one space and labeled as him, as his mind, allegedly a cohesive whole, but really just shattered shards glued together quickly, haphazardly even. Barely even adhesive, never mind cohesive.

So now his goal was to carry this stuck-together bundle of pieces through to the next level, whatever that was to be. It remained to be seen, of course, because not only had he not seen the next level, he had never known anyone who had. He had heard of people, of course, those mythical friends of cousins of sisters of friends who only exist in the realm of urban legends, but never any real people, aside from the odd celebrity here and there, and who knew how reliable even those stories were? Celebrity gossip was so rife with nonsense that it was difficult to tell.

But he was destined to put all that inane chatter to rest, as after this no one in the world would be able to talk about anything else with any level of seriousness. He was the real deal. And he was starting.... now.

To watch the mighty fall, to see something so sad as a once-strong man being pathetic and weak... but still trying his best to feign strength... it made me cringe, it made me look away in embarrassment, and it nearly made me want to cry. The same thing happens ninety percent of the time when you meet your heroes - they are never who you have built them up in your mind to be, and so when you finally see who they really are, it is often disappointed. Some people even get angry - they think they are angry with their hero, but really they are angry with themselves for having bought into the hype, for having been so gullible.

But anger or no, this situation is a learning experience, a chance to accept that we are the ones who need to be smarter about what we do and who we idolise. It's not just a matter of choosing someone and sticking with it... on the other hand, who wants to do research that might lead to an unpleasant truth? It's a difficult way to live, being faced with harsh realities all the time, and as honest as it is, it's not necessarily good to be confronted like that all the time.

Oh, the feeling of reduction... boiling it down to nothing but a thick paste of delicious, viscous frosting, the sweetest substance known to man. A wonderful flavour of caramel, sugar burned brown until it has that twinge of being toasted. Odd how sometimes we burn things and find that inedible, and then other times we burn them and find them superlative.

Maria, Maria... I think even if she had accepted the medical treatment she refused, it wouldn't have made a difference. She still would have died before she turned 30. Horses are such dangerous animals - I understand why people like them, and I certainly like them, as well, but I don't understand why people feel the need to ride them now that we have safer options available to us.

In fact, though, it's quite interesting to read about the people who died before me, who died too early, whom I outlived. It's both frightening and empowering at the same time to know that I made it longer than the king of Sweden, or that I've lived almost twice as long as some actresses and musicians. I have staying power, I'm going to be here for a long time to come, and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

And in the meanwhile there is a storm brewing, a mighty, twisting storm that is the craziest and most terrible of all storms known to this world or any other, and as it pulls trains off the track and causes accidents and mishaps, it swirls around and causes itself to become a whole new entity, a body of mass that is not only itself, but much greater than the sum of its parts. That is its greatness, that is the reason it garners respect wherever it goes - not out of authority, but out of plain old fear, which in its own way is a kind of authority itself.

And this storm, it carries with it everything it can, and this is the best way for it to build its mass and grow its population. Oddly it doesn't get weighed down by the growing number of burdens it has, but rather it pulls even more strength from them and carries everything along in a great, sweeping tide of recklessness combined with complete mathematical control. And these are the contradictions, that it is great and weak at the same time, that it is control and lack of control simultaneously. And the paradox is wonderful, it spins of its own accord.

When Kevin walked along and suddenly found himself down in a dark hole with no way out, instead of crying or feeling frustrated, he decided to make the most of it and sit and enjoy the darkness and the quiet. Also, he had a curious nature, so it made sense for him to explore the dark and and find out everything there was to know about this place where he suddenly and inexplicably was. He was not the sort of boy to be afraid or to shy away from discovering things just because they were in that great unknown expanse of darkness.

As he wandered around, Kevin found himself wondering if this morning when he said goodbye to his mother would be the last time he would ever see her. He wondered if she would cry. Of course she would - she would call the police and they would search for him, but they would be looking in the wrong place because he was not where anyone would expect him to be. In fact, he was not sure if anyone would be able to find him even if he were in the expected place. He figured that was probably for the best, and set about his new path.

I'm a little disappointed with myself. Okay, a lot disappointed. I could be making so much money, and yet I'm getting paid by a twenty-something whose business pretty much pays for my lifestyle, and I can't even get that together.

So I'm kind of sitting here mourning my life, wondering where it all went wrong. And maybe that's an important step, maybe that will help me start to turn things around, who knows?

I just need a situation that I can enjoy and profit from at the same time, something where money and love are in fact the same activity. And you would think that wouldn't be that hard, as there is so much I love to do and so much I am good at doing. And yet, as soon as you tell me I have to do these things for someone other than myself, I completely lose interest. I mean, where is the fun in doing things for a project in which I have no emotional investment? And of course, if something is not fun I simply won't bother with it.

So here I am, pity party, and so forth. I need to pull out of it and just get with the program. Any program.

I'm starting my Friday early, just after midnight. Why? Because I have this desperate need to get back on track, to suddenly catch up with everything I'm behind on, which is everything I've ever done since I was six years old. Where are those days? Gone, I suppose, but they just keep making new ones for me to try, and those just keep getting better and better.

Today, or rather yesterday was... full of relief of all kinds. But now I'm rested, or rather I will be, and then that means I need to buckle down and do some work, for god's sake. It's time to stop messing around and get the ball rolling, or take the already rolling ball and push it in some kind of useful direction already. But what does use mean? Ah, here we go again with the heavy philosophy, which is probably not a great idea seeing as it's after midnight and I haven't been to sleep yet.

And sleep I will, because I have the help I need and the voice that lulls me. I enjoy it, I look forward to it, and tonight that's the last voice I'm going to hear. What an interesting thought to sleep on.

Already the new appears to be old, and the young appear to be old, as well. So how do we preserve things? This is where preservation heads over into creepiness... keeping the dead in a perfect state of not rotting, not decomposing, not heading into nature. It's beautiful and terrible at the same time, that paradox of beauty we all love so much. Keeping the old new, while it is still getting older and older and no less dead.

So we dance while we can, do what we ought, and eat and eat and eat. Although it has to be said, I've eaten nothing yet today, so it's hard to say what is possible and what is not. If I can listen to these swimming strings all day and not think too much about what I have to do, then there is still hope for me in this universe, I can still be the floating goddess that hovers over the beach and lounges in the treetops, shaded and sheltered and revered. This is the perfect situation, it is the perfect way to go about things in this life. One has to have separation from the world, as well as the best of both worlds.

Despite the warning signs in every aspect of my life, I plow forward and don't give too much thought to consequences. What's that called again? Oh yes, denial, that's right. Lovely, blissful denial.

This morning I spent all my time sorting through classical music and downloading the best of the best of the free stuff. Morning turned into afternoon; eventually I had to go out because I made a mistake with money and had to fix it. All my mistakes end up being about money eventually, don't they? And yet, I never seem to learn from those mistakes.

Walking home was a nightmare - the weather is getting truly hot now, and with the sun directly overhead I kind of got myself into trouble with overheating. By the time I got home the situation was semi-critical, and I had to sit in the dark and the air-conditioning with a pitcher of water, until everything was okay. It offset the rest of my day, though, as I still feel sort of out of it and not quite on the planet I'm usually on.

And now, bonus... migraine! The icing on the cake. Today is a write-off, officially; I'll try again tomorrow to be the super-me.

And now we are finally here, in the hottest part of the summer, but still it is not hot, and not really like a true summer. But I have a new table and I am happy, so there we go.

In fact, so much seems new around here, I hardly know where to hang onto anything familiar, or if anything familiar even exists anymore. My social life is blossoming in strange and odd ways, I can't even feel my throat anymore because it is numb with overuse.

And now I am in my default solitude again, but I have to say today was one of the few social interactions I've truly enjoyed. Over the hours I strain to think of what was said or done, but certainly none of it matters now. I'm full with baklava and I've had more caffeine than is humanly possible, and it feels really, really good.

These are the final fifty words, so make them count. Not count like one, two, three, but count like mean something. But what is the meaning of anything, really? There is none, and that is part of the beauty of it. We can just enjoy and not have it mean anything.

So, allegedly there are six secrets to this week, six projects that are going to define what this week is about. But they're not so secret if you're here reading this... and of course I know by now that you are, because I check my referrer stats. Ha.

One is that I want to start on a new music piece. I've selected a little ditty by Mozart, yay.

Two is that I want to get my writing done on schedule everyday this week. This will no doubt be the most difficult of the six.

Three is that I want to get my skin fully moisturised and my hair cut.

Four is that I want to eat healthy things.

Five is that I want to get down the road to repairing and restoring my typewriter.

Six is that I want to catch up on my photo count, which means I need to take about eighty photos this week.

These are all simple things in their own right, but we'll see if I pull this off. I have a good feeling about it, actually, because I have a lot of motivation and I feel like following through on this. I'm ready to begin.

So what do I do on days like today when I don't feel like writing and don't have the time to? I do it anyway, because that's just how I roll. Sure, it gets a work harder everyday, but what difference does it make? We just keep rolling and rolling. Me, my cipher.

So now I'm trying to catch up with things I don't even know why I attempt. There is just so much in this world to be doing, and so little money to be made at it. I'm thinking eventually I'll have to go underground like the crazy homeless autistic woman who lives outside with her computers. I have no idea how to put together what most people would refer to as a normal life.

I need to do some stuff that will make me money and make me happy, but I have no idea how do organise that or put things together in the right order. I'm an artist, not a business person - that's what it comes down to in the end. So I guess I need to hire an agent or something, but that was in another country and I can't quote any further about that.

And when she woke up from the dream she was the biographer of the composer, and this was the best time for writing about the music and the life of the most brilliant musical talent on the planet.

This is the planet where everything is backwards, where the women have the power and the men are subservient. Where artistic endeavour is the most important thing in the world, and science and math are merely side projects. Where progress is seen as keeping things as old-fashioned as possible, and moving forward is considered taking steps backward.

As you can see, there are some continuity issues, so one has to work out the details as one goes along. This should not be a problem, as there are several months in which to do so, and no one has to be serious until autumn... and late autumn, at that.

So this should give one plenty of time to work out the kinks and get the roller coaster running smoothly and quickly. Of course, if there is wood involved, then the bumps are intentional, which in this case would be the best possible scenario anyway, the thing that is coveted the absolute most.