11-06-03 @ 10:55 am EST

Ten more scenes to go. These things move like sludge. I know I'm getting things done lately, but it certainly doesn't feel like it.

I never really realized until the other day just how many scars I have all over my arms and legs. They're all very small and hard to see, but they're there. Most of them are from cat attacks. A few are from blisters I got, from my blue sandals. I still have the scars I got in 2000 from walking across the Walnut Street Bridge. That was in May; when I returned was when the whole Four Board thing fell apart and I was flamed away. That was also the same trip on which I saw the video for "Bent," recorded an episode of the Dragon Ball Z Garlic Jr. saga on Eric's VCR, learned that the name of the band which performed "Everything You Want" was Vertical Horizon, and on which I bought my very first Adiemus album and listened to "In Caelum Fero" to a horrendous thunderstorm on the way back to the airport. (Buy Songs Of Sanctuary and listen to "In Caelum Fero" during a thunderstorm and you will see why it's so memorable.)

My memory may be lousy, but I clearly remember almost every time I've been hurt. Mentally, that is. While I was enjoying myself on that trip, E. on the Four Board was responding insultingly to one of my last friendly posts there. What was so bad about my post? Merely that I had said hello from Georgia. That was considered "off topic," even though everyone else on the board, E. especially, regularly meandered off topic in such a fashion.

I'll be darned if I can remember where I got some of these scars, though. I always knew there were some there but not that many. I looked over my hands and feet and arms and legs just to see. In particular there is one maybe half an inch long extending past a freckle or mole or something on my right hand and I often find myself rubbing it. There are a few relatively decent ones by my left knee, and I think a good-sized one may be left on my right outer calf, where I either knocked it against the keyboard stand or where the cat scratched it a while back, I can't remember which.

And the thing is, I don't even care that any of these are there. I see those commercials for the antibacterial pastes, urging you to apply them before a tiny scratch on your finger turns into a scar. And all I can think is, big deal! So you will have a tiny little scar on your finger. Like it will matter? Who looks at your fingers but you? I would understand being upset with a scar on the face, or with giant unsightly scars...but the tiny ones, in places that nobody ever really looks anyway (like my ugly legs), who really gives a damn that they're there. The commercial makes it seem like you should panic if you are in the slightest danger of receiving a tiny little scar. The way I see it, scars are sometimes things to be proud of. They're signs that you were hurt, yet you lived through it. You're still here.

Am I advocating MAKING scars on yourself? No. I'm not advocating interfering with the healing of wounds, either, such as I have done (which is why I have most of these scars in the first place...I just have a habit of picking off the scabs until nothing but a scar is left). If somebody wants to go and do those things, fine, but I'm not saying anyone should. I'm just saying that a little scar is nothing to be ashamed of. I really don't understand all the overreaction I see in the antibacterial commercials. Scars have history. I just remembered all the above by thinking of the little round scars on both sides of my ankles, for example...and this little white scar on my left leg, I'm pretty sure I got it from one time when Pepper got her claw stuck there. We were outside on the pavement and she clawed me and got stuck...she freed herself and I saw blood go dripping down onto the pavement. It was a lot of blood for such a little wound, and I felt ill...see how much these little things can make you remember?

If only mental/emotional pain could leave visible scars, so people could see those and really believe you when you say you have been hurting. If you have a huge physical scar on you, people will stop and ask, "Wow! What happened...?" It's not so if the scars are mental. That's what's so bad about mental anguish. It leaves no marks. You can only see it when you look in people's eyes. And what if you can't look someone in the eyes? Or worse yet, if you don't want to? If there is no wound, no scar, society assumes the pain does not exist. I'm sure a lot of people already know how much harder it is to be in pain and yet not be able to tell anyone about it, for fear of being told to get over it or shut up. I, and I'm sure many others, live with that every day.

I'm not even sure what this entry is supposed to be about, and my head is hurting, so I think I'll meander...

Yesterday morning I discovered something very odd about Detective Kristeva. Namely, that he is not himself. Or at least, not who he thought he was. Don't get me wrong, he really is Detective Max Kristeva, but...well, he isn't. At least his mind isn't. It hasn't been since he was eleven. But he didn't even know that, and neither did I. I think it's rather weird all the things I'm just now learning about him. This has been by far the weirdest discovery of all. I'm not even sure how to put it into words without sounding nuts, so I won't try beyond what I already said. I'm sure I'm the only one listening by now anyway. o_o

Well, I don't have anything else to say that would make sense anymore...so tar...