I seem to be Spurting again. Sorry.

I was reading mochapixie today, who doesn't swing by and say hello nearly enough but then I suppose the same could be said by her of me. And she was talking about people who lie to themselves, here, in their diaries. And it made me think. About whether or not I'm lying to myself about stuff.

I don't think so.

I think I have been as honest here as I have been anywhere. I hate it when I have to start four paragraphs in a row with "I" but such is a diary, I suppose. Thing is, I remember when reading that remembering stuff that I had...omitted? But by now I have forgotten what I remembered omitting.

Over this day, I have been attempting to remember. It's not coming. Other than the stuff I've been frank about omitting, that is. Like in the Burlington Saga. There is stuff that I don't know that I'm quite ready to put out there into the middle of the universe yet, and I'm okay with that. But other stuff.

Because there honestly are a whole lot of things that make me not really such a fabulous brilliant person. I don't mean that in the self-effacing sense, not at all. I mean it in the realist sense. So much that I have been stupid about. So many things that I have done wrong.

I think the worst thing is my reaction to shame. If I get embarrassed, or ashamed? I hide. I run away. I do not call back. I ignore emails. I am amazingly excellent at avoiding people if I want to, I am stellar. My training came early, with my first bill collectors, at 16. Seriously. If there was like a Miss America talent category of Avoidance? I'd so win.

It's terrible. And it makes me feel terrible, and it makes everybody else feel terrible. I have had friends that thought I hated them when in fact I just could not deal. I have imposed awful situations on employees that I could not deal with (the situations, not the employees) any more. It's my last major vestige of being a real depressive. I struggle with it constantly. I have to grit my teeth to make phone calls, puff up my chest and do self-affirming statements at myself to write emails. And I must admit that this is not necessarily *reasonable* shame. This is left over from catholic guilt and a friendless childhood shame. This is nobody actually notices but me but in my head it's a horrible big black ogre shame. This is the kind of stuff that others shrug off. Or at least manage to be communicative about.

That I think is the thing about me that I am the most ashamed of. That is the hardest for me to deal with. And it is only getting mildly better with time. Very gradually.

There were other things. I still forget what they were.

Okay, NOW the boy wants to chat with me? Hey, guys? Stop being weird and confusing and moody and shit will get a lot better. I think he's trying to be nice to me again but in that strange macho way. Jeez.

It would appear that I have run out of things to say on that front. I mean the front I was originally talking about.

So, I think I will wind this up.

With the note that I am trying awfully hard to be as honest as possible here, with myself, with whomever is interested in reading. Things I have said here I do not tell other people.

Which is probably one of the reasons that the people who do read, I find so compelling. I want to know better. Because these are people who have seen -- read -- me more naked than I almost ever am. Ever am, really.

There are people who think I am tough. And there are people who think I am tough with a soft caramel center. And there are people who think I am cynical. And people who think I am just soft (though not as many of those). Most people want to think that I am acting tough but mostly soft caramel center.

All that is silly. I am pretty damn tough. I have some major cojones when called upon. And of course I have a heart. I don't think I'm all that cynical, personally, though many would probably disagree. I think I'm opinionated, not cynical. But I don't think it's so simple as a tough exterior and a soft center. Sometimes the soft is on the outside. Sometimes the tough is. I was in the back of a car driving down broadway in front of what had until recently been the world trade center today, and I saw all the flags and signs and everything from people all over the country, all over the world, and I started tearing up, crying. In fact, remembering it now, I cry. Signed by children, by high school students, by companies. Prayers and thoughts and people trying their damndest to reach out to a place full of hurting people. And the driver said to me "It's still kind of sad, huh." And I replied, "Yeah, it is." Because honestly I did not want to talk to him about it. It is possible for me to be both protected and terribly, terribly sad at the same time. This is not, I believe, abnormal.

On that note, I take my leave. Because now I'm just thinking of all those people, and honestly, for all the words written about it? I don't think there's anything really anyone can possibly say.

onehanded