vianegativa | Train Nazis with Razrs and No Caffeine

The first four days of 2006 have been the set-up for "The Year of Spontaneous Combustion."

So many people I know have had crises both personal and romantic in nature that I feel like I'm spinning end over end. I'm hoping it's just the post holiday slump, but there are so many friends of mine in pain and conflict that it's like stage dressing for Les Miserables. Everyone seems very raw & grey and withdrawn; even my own bear family isn't immune.

In fact, the whole week thus far has seemed to be an exercise is masochism for me. Work is down a key employee, the weather looks like a set-up for a Hitchcock film, and I have been very, very exhausted. Tonight I'm meeting a buddy for coffee after some errands so I can try a spot of escapism from my own woes. My guys are very understanding about my need to hide occasionally, thankfully. I could use a vacation, in fact, somewhere sunny and warm with no phones.

Ah, cell phones. While I love the little devices I have been trying very hard not to snap my swank new Motorola Razr in two. Calls seem very ill-timed lately and bursting with other folk's drama. I'm at my own end of energy, so I feel compelled to really only answer my family's calls, which have been put on a soothing ambient ring to prevent me from dashing it into the forehead of a fellow train commuter or better still one of the FAR too power-mad conductors.

You've got a conductor's outfit on, not a Nazi's. Back off the imperious bit, aye?

Overall the past few days feel very surreal and out-of-focus, like my whole reality has been imagined through a fever fugue of some sick kid in bed. The lyric "You wouldn't understand; this isn't how I am" feels right at home as I whistle it.

I hope a good stretch by a fireplace with a new friend & a cup o' joe will start things moving towards the right.