i just finished making brownies. i ate dinner not long before that. before i wound up here on the couch watching national news, i made my corkboard from scratch for a wall in my room that screams 'empty' all too loud. iraq is a mess, neenah is a mess, my work-week is a mess, my closet is a mess. i have a new mattress that performs much like a sleeping pill, but i still can't seem to sleep through the night; like may others, this past week has been doused in tylenol PMs. while going to bed the last couple of nights, i've thought of what it would be like to close my eyes and never open them again. i have the choice to open them again, unless the unexplainable were to happen. i know there have been times where i've finally pulled my feet under the covers and turned onto my left side, my favorite, and said 'i wish i could sleep for the rest of my life, i wish i didn't have to wake up.' but i do; i need a challenge. i need to be annoyed, bothered, intimidated.... inspired. an ally and an enemy, love and hate. to feel love and to feel no love. lately, feeling no love brings me to believe that i have all the more love to spend on myself. years of love. there are problems and crisis and experimentations and disasters everywhere we look. i'm beginning to think that life is hell on earth and the few, superbly rich moments that we have are just moments that occur in a heaven-like bubble. no golds and silvers, just black and whites. not everyone gets to sapor an English patisserie cake drizzled in Swiss chocolates and delicately whipped creams. that's a heaven bubble.