I’m listening to Hail Mary Mallon (Aesop Rock, Rob Sonic & DJ Big Wiz). Green vinyl with white and black marbled in it, etching on the ‘D’ side. I’m sick with the paramedic plague. If you tell someone they take it all away and turn their backs. Which one is worth more? I made my choice. One day ends and another begins.

Yeah, it’s probably gone. As I embark on the year I become older than Homer Simpson I can’t help reflecting on that. I can’t trust the future but I have to keep faith in it. I have met children with cancer who have figured out what I can’t. Making peace with the inevitable. Being more than a diagnosis.

It’s all in my head anyway. The one place you can’t escape. Which way would I rather face in a free-fall? Cannibal Corpse have a song titled “Hammer Smashed Face”. I have seen one. Two actually. Conscious on adrenaline and coping with their bleeding souls with dignity and grace. I felt like I was using childrens beach toys to clean up an oil spill. Sometimes you just have to give up on containing the blood.

The written (typed) word is not having the desired effect. Some ‘talents’ don’t translate to the practical. They’re meant to remain as curiosities to be occasionally played with recreationally in the presence of contrived company. These entries have kind of become like the proverbial falling trees in the forest, each one nothing more than the evidence of my continuing fear of verbal conversation. I grew up being misunderstood time and again because I wasn’t being fully listened to. I was always the one who wasn’t communicating properly, left questioning my sanity as I wondered if I was imagining conversations I swore I had had while I stumbled over my words in disbelief that it was happening again. Nothing says you matter like having your words mangled, ignored or denied. Growing up no one wanted to hear my words, they wanted to hear theirs echoed. Choices were made that spoke louder than any words I could have said. I knew I followed the wrong dream but I was going to prove them wrong. Did I or am I just blind to what’s in the mirror? My psychologist recently told me I missed my calling; I don’t think I did. Actions have always spoken louder in my life. Besides, what would I have to write about if I wasn’t “injured” from living out the dream?