Didn't drink last night.

Not sure how. Voice in head telling me I needed to take a night off. Too much drinking makes Tobias go kaboom.

And yet, today I’m feeling sort of depressed. I woke up at seven fifteen, which is my usual time, and hit the snooze button. Once. Then twice. After the third, I realized I still could not bear the thought of getting out of bed, so I stopped messing around and set a new alarm for seven fifty five.

When that alarm went off I masturbated, first grinding my pelvis into the mattress before finally going to the hand to finish things off. I wiped the three drops of semen off of my lower stomach with the pair of white briefs I had worn all night. It’s drying next to my bed now.

Finally I got up, took a hurried two minute shower to rinse my physical body, wishing the water would do the same for me internally, where I feel dirty and gross, lazy, indulgent, sinful. Then I dressed and groomed. Then I made the mistake of reading my yahoo mail before opening up my journal. I learned a few somewhat disturbing facts from my high school friend Dean Cole, who wrote me a long message

Dean says Conor Doyle is dead, that he OD’d on something. Scarce on details but it's a suicide / OD / unclear. I remember Dean wasn’t thrilled with life – probably depressed and unexcited about things. He's one of those guys where I'd love to get together with him and get his take on the world but I guess it’s too late for that now. I haven't seen him in nine years, since our high school graduation.


Somehow Dean got the information on a few other people from high school too. Ian is in San Francisco working for a money management company. I’m worried that he’s more successful than me, how pathetic is that? Same goes for a few of the other ex HHSers that Dean provided updates on. Screw them all. I want to be the only successful one. The top dog. Why am I wired like this? I don't REALLY want to be the only successful one, that's a lie. I want others to do well. I don't want to be so jealous about other peoples' successes. I need to work on this.

As you can see, I’m a bucket of sunshine today, a rod of distilled light, pure and beautiful. Lots of good cheer and happiness here. I know it seems like all I’m doing in this entry is bitching but I’m here to tell you that perception is reality – I really am just bitching about everything. I feel crabby and out-of-sorts, as if you couldn't tell. It’s going to be a long, long day – I will be performing a few work-related activities as late as ten or eleven tonight. And, no doubt, I’ll be here very late supporting change controls. I have a hard time believing I’ll be out of the office before six thirty at the absolute earliest, and much more likely seven thirty or so. I’m so sick of planning, man. So fucking sick of it, you know? I could deal with a day of just working on my application and stuff, but I don’t want to plan more work and then sit around.

Lately – meaning this week – when I have down time at work I open up a browser and start looking for articles to read, but what I really need isn’t just another blurb about a terrorist attack or a review on Batman Forever. What I really need is something real. Right now, I don’t want candy in my life. I really don’t. I want rice, beans, meat, eggs. I need core-foods. Probably the best thing for me to do is to pick up a good book – maybe re-read The unbearable lightness of being or something. That’s honestly what I’m most hungry for. Something serious and real.

I’m just so tired of everything around me. I’m tired of my sister Jenna calling me and leaving excited, upbeat messages asking me to call her back. It was difficult for me, at times, to keep smiling when Ari was here. And then when he is on the phone with Cal – even though it was just for a few minutes – I’m thinking terrible, dark thoughts. Ari's laugh is genuine with Cal, but forced with me. My friendship with Ari is strained. We have nothing natural.

So you can see I harbor deep suspicions, unjustified, and mostly ridiculous – but when I feel or think them, they appear to me, internally, to be very, very real. I look around and I see everyone in the world clamoring for attention. Seemingly interested in nothing but self-promotion. Get your face out there. Find a way to get in the newspaper, or, better yet (much better!) on television. And if it isn’t fame, it’s money.

In fact, when I really look at it, it’s been getting difficult for me, lately, to do anything that doesn’t directly have to do with work. This week pretty much all I’ve done is work, at least until last night. Tuesday and Wednesday nights I sat around and made progress on my program. My program! What the hell am I doing? I didn't get paid for this. I did it for what.. fun? To keep the darkness at bay? Because if I don't fill my head with project related thoughts, it fills itself. And what my head is best at filling itself with is: pettiness. Which leads me down paths of self loathing and disgust.

I think I write more upbeat journal entries when I'm hung over, or drunk. Being sober brings out the worst in me.

This is Tobias Urban signing off, with another ultimately useless, waste-of-time journal entry.