Straight No Chaser

Five Thousand

after this entry, this journal should hit five thousand views. i'll withhold my comments.

i feel funny tonight. i had mapped out my evening as tamely as possible: scrabble with mom, conan o'brien, marcus/phone, sleep. crossword puzzles, stuff like that. i finished one book today, started another. the second one sucks and i can't get past page four. i wasn't satisfied with simply returning it to the shelf. i sharpied a giant black skull on the title page and threw it under the bed, without which ritualistic denouncement i'd probably have had to finish reading it. i'll need a new novel to replace it. i can't not have a book to be reading, in case of lulls.

i think i should feel jealous, or unhappy, but (quite surprisingly), i don't. which is nice, sort of freeing. this is probably what health is about, what it means to participate in a healthy relationship. i miss marcus. i responded to his voice in every imaginable way, earlier. i'm going to have a great time collecting his gifts tomorrow. still, it feels strange to be without the usual burden of discontent, putting off sleep but not because i'm afraid it's going to be too difficult.

none of which is why i feel funny. i don't know. i should just write something. i should read strange's book. i should dig marry your baby daddy out from under the bed (the river styx of the bedroom, if you can imagine) and read a few more pages, see if i can't find some cultural balance. i should explicate, in approximately four hundred words, what exact thought process prompted me to purchase a book called marry your baby daddy, expecting that it would be a suitable followup to on beauty and leaving cecil street. (actually, mom professed to be way more impressed with leaving cecil street than i was.) i think i just wanted a crap book, i thought it would relax my mind, serve as something cute to read on the plane. but unfortunately, this: my literary mind has apparently done what my gastrointestinal system has done these past eight years. my stomach rejects crap now. i haven't had a mcdonald's burger, or any other sort of beef, since i was twelvish. or i hadn't, before two days ago, when i thought my insides were going to fold over on each other like a croissant if i didn't sneak a tiny bite of my brother's quarter pounder. i don't think it even hit my trachea before it came back up.

i can never tell for whom i'm writing anymore, my audience or myself. i filled the renoir journal through the end and moved on to the beaded, olive green clothbound one i got from anthropologie. a perfect illustration of my priorities: aunt susan gave me a fifty dollar gift certificate for some birthday, tried to help me pick a cute skirt or some beads or something, and i insisted, no, i must have this journal. i guess i was fifteen. i hadn't even cracked it till i got home on saturday. it now contains the intimate details of three indepedently roiling obsessions, none of which i've had the nerve to explore here. i only put things here when i'm sure they're of a manageable yikes factor.

this powerful revelation, i am an exhibitionistic journaler, should be immediately followed by an immediately powerful statement, and therefore this journal is no more. it won't, don't worry. i don't really see the relevance in those kind of standards.

but still, this view count thing, closing in on five thousand, begs the question: what the hell am i saying? what is it, keeping you so rapt that, collectively, you have chosen to click on this link five thousand times? is it my merciless use of italics? is rapt too strong a word, is it just something to do? no, i don't think so. it's good for the ego, to be read, and i think i believe that you've got to say something worth saying to be continually read.

sometimes i think of leahjoy as my most loyal, most genuine reader. which i know isn't completely fair; there are those of you who have read longer, commented more often, et cetera...but really, there is no parallel to the level of her effusive encouragement, which is always welcome, because as shaky as i may sometimes sound when it comes to my own merits, in actuality i am one thousand times less confident than that, even. so. thank you for that, and for calling me "comptroller shannon." i appreciate both deeply.

after my shower i put on, like, shea butter lotion and stuff. i can't wait to get into bed with me. i smell so good.

okay, here's what i want. i get way more views than comments, per entry. and beyond that, i get way more views per entry, on average, than i've had unique commenters since the advent of this journal. and so, maybe you could do me this favor, and if you've read more than a couple entries, slash, have contributed to the coming five thousand and therefore consider yourself a "reader" as opposed to a stop-in, then drop me a line, and tell me something about yourself. that i don't know and couldn't find out from your bioblock. even if you are grim or katrina or christina or zoo. even if you are the mysteriously missing (and missed) highly evolved aaron, who is missing and missed. because i'm curious, i think. or maybe this is just me atoning for the fact that i can't be as interesting as grim, today.

also, ernie, i'm glad you're okay.