"so" is how i open most of my entries. and, how i open a lot of my (spoken) sentences. i also end a lot of my sentences with, "you know?".

this morning i was pleasantly surprised by an im from a d-lander while i was still wiping the sleep from my eyes. i didn't get a chance to finish my coffee, and i was very late to work, but it was a really nice way to wake up. and besides, i still got here before anyone else, so if you won't tell, i won't.

and now i am here at work, and i have already finished the stuff i left for this morning and i am just kind of sitting here. and i have already read my morning diaries. she always has something ready for me by the time i get to work. and this one usually has something for me too. i like his diary, it's like listening to an old friend recount their day, one that you keep in touch with for history's sake, but you aren't sure how much in common you both have anymore. it's familiar.

but it's this one that i always wonder about. i don't know why. this one excites me no end. perhaps it's because they remind me of all the ones i had super-secret-don't-even-tell-your-best-friend-crushes on when i was at cal. or maybe it's because he or she writes about things i think. puts words to that itching discomfort that comes from being quiet too much, the kind of quiet that makes your tongue feel like sandpaper in your desert mouth. whatever it is, i wish i had the guts to try to contact them. i have all kinds of questions. i should just be brave.

as i told my morning raconteur, i am all about being brave in the face of adversity.

last night i hung out with my brother right before i went to bed. we only had a few minutes together, he had gotten home late. and he has been surrounded by this palpable overwhelming sadness lately, i can feel it everytime i am with him. he had brought home great big pieces of mat boardish paper, and some worked up photos and drawings and writings he pulled from his journal and he is making a book for his friend. i sat down with him, he concentrating hard on cutting around the images cleanly, me reading the words taken from his journal with wet eyes. he wrote about the well, the saddest things that we feel, and it tore me apart to read that my brother was feeling that. and i knew there was nothing i could do about it. it's everyone's task to climb out of their own well.

and i looked at the pictures he had drawn and all the people had such tired and sad eyes. and i asked him if he saw everyone's eyes as sad as he drew them and he said he does.

this puts a hole in my heart.

because i know what that is like.

and it makes his eyes heavy, and sometimes glassy, because he is looking at people so hard. he is looking for something there.

i know that looking.

he is looking for something real.

and i have no advice for him, and he hasn't asked for it.

so i am at a loss, the one who knows my heart best is twisting and hurting inside and i have nothing i can do for him.

but i trust him, and i trust time.