Methinks Richard Buckner is like Douglas Coupland. Very, very good, but do not expect to escape unscathed. Probably because I'm listening to Richard Buckner's Bloomed CD, I'm so pensive I could... well, something. Cry? Except I'm not sad. I feel kind of good. I have coffee and food in my stomach. My room smells like the flowers my parents sent me for my birthday two days ago, which make me sneeze but which are so pretty I can't move them out of my room. I'm listening to fantastically good music and playing Bejeweled (which is like crack, let me tell you) and thinking about Curtis and writing and small things. An empty glass. A bar of soap. Goose bumps on my arms. I feel awake. Superconscious. I am alone and I don't feel lonely, which hasn't really happened in a long time. My hand hurts a little where I spilled just-poured coffee all over it. The back of my neck is all shivery from the music: steel guitars and that soft deep twang that fades away like a breeze dying. I bought a bookshelf today, and books that make me want to write. We Are Still Married and Hemingway's complete short stories. My parents drove down to have lunch with me. They like my haircut, though I didn't think it looked any different. I hugged them hard and they went back home.

It's just a Saturday afternoon and almost April.