july 7th, 10:58 pm (2004)

I know how to tell I'm crazy. Because I just started smoking cigarettes. Only a crazy person would start smoking now, after all we know. I was thinking about addiction tonight, sitting on the front porch, smoking a cigarette. It's like I've traded one addiction for another. I've pretty much given up sex. I haven't given up thinking about it, or taking care of it once in a while. But I used to be a real sex addict. I don't even wanna go into that; I might could be arrested for that.

I have to change subjects here for a minute. I'm lying on the bed covers, naked as I sleep, writing in this book. I just heard a distant knocking sound and a muffled voice. At least I believe that's what I heard. And I thought of a segment for my "Neighborhood Association" book or whatever it is to become (play, etc.). The two ladies who live next door say they're sisters. Not that I don't believe what I've heard tell (R was the one who told me that). But what if they were actually closeted lovers? One of them might be in the upstairs attic room spying on me, naked butt exposed, perhaps even masturbating - or at least touching herself. And the other one caught her and yanked her back and threw her anger out the window at me for being here, banging on the window and hollering something at me like "You should be ashamed of yourself!" But was she really saying it to me? Or to her sister/lover. Maybe it's a requieted love the older one feels for the younger one. Perhaps they're second cousins and they both nursed ailing parents until they were way past marrying age, and they ended up together. Do they even have an intimate relationship besides the bland chatter during commercials of "Wheel of Fortune" and "Jeopardy" while eating their plates of food in their matching hand-me-down La-Z-Boy chairs? Ah, yes, they never fail to touch the other kindly if they pass within comfortably reachable range. Sometimes they sleep in the same bed if there's a storm or a movie on TV at the foot of the bed. The younger one is 61 and has been on disability for several years. The older one is 64 and not sure if she wants to (or can) retire in a year's time. Partly because she's not sure how she can spend every day with someone whom she loves but cannot share the news with. (What kind of sentence was that?)