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Well, it's been a long time, hasn't it? I've been absorbed in the holidays, and I felt there wasn't much to say that wouldn't be gushing over "What I Got For Christmas" or moping over "How Much of a D!ck Charlie Brown Is," so I said nothing at all.

But I've finally gotten back to my webpage. I seized the moment, and cleaned up my prose section. There's a reason all the stories at the bottom have been deleted for lack of patronage (which sucks, because some of my favorites, simply because they're older, were ignored and now I have to type them up again to retrieve them), and I have taken steps to rectify that. My poetry section did marvelously well after I made a table-style guide to each poem, showing all titles available at once, and giving a brief idea of what each poem is about.

So I not only did that for prose, but I also put all my short stories on the Pathetic.org network, just so that they can never be deleted, no matter how rarely they're visited. This also means they're perhaps easier to read, although navigation might be a bit more difficult, since there won't be convenient little links at the bottom of every story anymore. You'll have to use your browser's dreaded "back" button (oh, the horror).

And what spurred this sudden activity? I was inspired. I caught a glimpse of sunlight on the white paper covering a table at work, and words sprang into my head describing it as a teardrop dribbling down, swelling into a puddle when the man at the window shifted. That became a story entitled "The Restaurant," believe it or not, and I highly recommend you go read it, just to understand what turn my life has been taking lately. Some of the better-informed of my readers may find me in nearly all the characters depicted there: the waitress who burns her fingers, the bereaved busboy, the red-headed heartbroken girl, the man reading alone in the corner. It's a slightly neat story, and even if it isn't, it's still short enough to not be too much of a waste of time.

So yes, I'm feeling empowered by my dual bout of creativity and industry. I might even start writing again, this time for a nice long comfy stretch.

I have four days left at home. Then I go back to school for the spring semester, to room with my (footless) new best friend (remember her? Bah, it doesn't matter), to begin rehearsing The Cherry Orchard (and continue to bask in my acquisition of the role of Varya), and to face CB again. And possibly slap him. That might be fun.

And let's not forget, soon (in February) I make the face-to-face acquaintance of Tiger, an online friend. My first encounter with an e-pal, and hopefully not my last (I'd like to meet the Dorks someday, you see). I'm still deciding whether I'm thrilled or terrified about this. It varies from day to day. On the saner days, when I'm thinking of it from an outsider's point of view, it sounds positively crack-brained- meet someone from across the country that I know merely through IMs and e-mails? But when I speak to him, and we're warm in our friendship, I can't wait to hug him for the first time and show him all the things I've told him about in all my letters. After all, it's never about the body (which is all I don't know yet)- it's about the soul, right?

Yet there's still that worry- I worry too much, I know, but still- that when he arrives, not only will we be awkward and not near as comfortable as we are on the anonymous wires of the internet, but something disastrous will happen, like an instinctive repulsion of some kind- on his part or on mine. Maybe he'll meet me and see all the things Charlie Brown saw. Maybe I'll see him and see all the things his enemies see. Maybe the brightness of the souls will be eclipsed by the unforgiving light of day. It frightens me.

But there's nothing left to do, now. He's coming, and I can't tell him not to just over petty fears. But I will say this: with all the possibilities I've imagined, I can't be surprised, no matter what happens. :o�

And if any of you know of that Diaryland contest about the best entries, are y'all getting nervous about deadlines and notification and such? I am. I know I was only nominated once or twice, but still. I wonder if they'll even let us know who won.

But anyway, go read The Restaurant in the Short Stories section. It's not bad, if I do say so myself.

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