5/01/02 - 9:37 p.m.

Coming from a talk with a trusted friend, I remember thinking: They don't really understand me.

At that moment I knew I could've replayed the whole conversation in my head, deconstructing what they thought I was saying, the tack they thought would work, what I wished they'd asked, what I didn't say, knew I wasn't going to say...

I feel like a convict deciding he'll try to scam the prison psychiatrist. I don't really want to be a constantly-scheming evil genius. But that's where it's going. I'm getting older, and - if we're being melodramatic - my career seems superfluous. I'm not making enough new friends to replace the old ones. And I'm getting bad advice from friends who don't understand me.

Maybe I should try harder to make my friends understand me. Or really work at making my career better.

But I don't want to do any of those things. I want to ride this missle all the way down....