Wednesday, 12 November, 1997 08:16

I still don't know where I'm at re:sleeping. I went to bed around 22:30 last night and slept until about 04:30. I'm not sure when I'll go back to sleep, if ever.

I have the reputation of being a cheerful person. I'm not really sure that I like this.

It was brought to my attention the other night at the hospital that I was not my normal self, that I was expected to cheer people up, put people in a better mood.

Karen also expects me to be able to get her in a good mood when she's down.

Normally, I enjoy doing this. But sometimes I just wanna say, "Fuck it! Someone cheer ME up for a change!"

People have a tendency to put other people in little categorical boxes, and I'm usually in the Pollyanna box. But my actions/words are not altruistic at all: I just don't like being around grumpy people. I am not by nature cheerful. I'm pessimistic and fatalistic to a fault. But I do approach everything with a sense of humor.

This is a cold, gloomy day in Northeast Kansas: forcast is for a little snow, maybe, otherwise continued cold and cloudy. The maple leaves, which hadn't even turned color last week, are now a sickly yellow and are heaping up on the decks. Sitting outside smoking early this morning, I heard geese flying over, south for the winter. Gotta be the loneliest sound that there is. Sitting, smoking, watching the leaves dropping. There was no breeze whatsoever, the leaves were just worn out from clinging to that old tree all summer; they just give up the ghost and let go, joining their bretheren on the ground, dying, waiting to become something else... food for future forests/grass/whatever. Humus.

In the faint light from other people's porchlights, the dropping of the leaves seems random. Some drop like rocks, others sway to and fro, unsure of exactly where they want to land.

Cowboy comes and sits on my lap, watching the leaves with me. Each leaf makes a tiny sound when it hits, and his head turns to the sound. He studies the location until he is sure that there is no danger coming from that leaf. Or until the next leaf lands.

And the geese, they have someplace to go, and a schedule. They need to be there on time, or all of the good places will be taken, and they won't have enough strength to go north when summer comes again...