New Journal Entries Begun November 11, 1999


Ambition is the folly of youth, 
and regret the folly of old age. 



11/15/99 8:37:56 PM
Some don't come home. You have to remind yourself amid all the noise of reunion and celebration that some don't come home. For every tear of joy you see here today there must be two shed in solitude at the news - at receiving the official notification. Those anointed ones!

11/17/99 9:53:05 PM
That was the original plan, to sit it out in our little love nest, protected from the harshness of life by a simple piece of corrugated metal overhead, a string of grass mats around our perimeter, and (most of all) by our sheer distance from anyplace else. Too soon that was all going to end. In war, it is never long before the heat its explosion catches up with the flash of its light, arriving only a little while after the boom of recognition rattles your chest. And the lump in your throat? You chase it down with whiskey, when you can. 

If I were to characterize myself today, I would say that I am a syrupy romantic that - left out over time - has fermented of its very own essence into a cynicism the exact flavor of vermouth.