My papasan chair, the only piece of furniture I rightfully own, is one I didn't even buy. It was a Valentine's Day gift, one of those gifts you give because you bought it for her anyway and so now you've killed two birds. It is, on and off, a pocket where I throw my clothes from a series of days where I change at least twice per day. The papasan's base is white rattan and had been chewed to splinters in sections where the poorly kept Labrador owned by a Special K freak/bartender/roommate of mine a few years back. It came with a matching footstool whose matching black cushion is being flattened to a pancake under my ass as it protects me from the ripped black vinyl of the kitchen chairs that came with this shitty, furnished apartment where I spend most of my richest solitary moments.

And here I thought if I stayed late at work and noded, I would get to bed early tonight…

On my kitchen table/makeshift desk there is the boombox my roommate left with me, along with all her furniture, almost a year ago. It is playing Jump Little Children's album The Licorice Tea Sessions. There is also a new addition to my clutter is the invitation I got in the mail for my friend's wedding in September in Vienna, Virginia.

This will not be the first night I refused to eat after I got home. I think I will get by on a Cherry Coke and my mind. It's worked before.

My cordless phone sits to my right, its little built in called ID screen reads "EXT IN USE." I am always online. No one calls me anyway and if they do, they know better. They know they can either find me online, and if they can't get online, at least they know where I am. That I am somewhere.

I always take off my rings and watch when I type. It's hard enough for me to wear jewelry as it is. It feels like manacles on my hands, barring me from the freedom illusion that writing provides for me.

If I didn't have the internet, being alone so much would almost be a drag. No, scratch the almost.

While I feel I haven't done much in my life, I have lots of stories. I like telling stories, and people who've heard me tell them say I do well at it. I seem to think that because I turn life scenes into stories, or see them that way, that no one I know has as many stories as I do.

It's been a real blessing this week not to have to run all three fans in my room at once to attain a tolerable temperature, but I still can't tell if having no hair on my head is helping at all.

I wish someone could give me a backrub right now as good as I can. And a hand massage. I'm not tense right now, but soon I will be.