Apparently it is open season. Kman and I joke about 4 horsemen showing up in acid-washed jean jackets and assless chaps (a redundancy there), and calling themselves Apocalypss. They would bear guitars, and hammer out Poison guitar solos. No one got the memo that the '80s are over. So they are all pissed the hell off at Pestilenz. He was responsible for the outfits.

And it's open season. While their guitars gently weep, celebs are dropping like flies. We should've known when Mr. Kungfu died. That was a sure sign. Next up, well, not my job to predict. Don't want a reputation as a crow. Or something worse. Accuracy doesn't need to happen here. Not this kind of accuracy. Don't want to play in your dead pool. It's surefire way to catch the attention of the aforementioned band. They don't play nice. Or particularly well. You'd think that they would be taking lessons from Hendrix or something.

Probably ADHD, and they lack Ritulin up thereabouts. Practice isn't their strong suit. Understandable, really. There are bigger fish to fry. Those are still in the making, and with the King dead, there has to be another crowning. Not sure with what. But there again, not my job to predict. Only watch Macaulay Culkin. There has to be a child star out there to pay for the sins of the fathers and the sons. Turgenev would have it no other way. Neither would Tolstoy, truth be told. He was always about the morality play. But he hid it better. Far easier to play the Pater Familia card. You get further in society that way.

Again, not going to predict anything. But keep an eye out for the vulnerable train-wreck ones. Roll call early and often. Courtney, Lindsey are you there girls? Better watch the Twitter deck. Because something is gonna happen. It always does. And if you can scoop your co-worker, so much the better. Those horsemen need the PR machine. They aren't Santa and can't do it all overnight.

Again with the good intentions. Wanted to write a ton. Wanted to do lots of little things. But got sidetracked by actual people. And I will admit that is more important anyway. But still. The writing needs to be done. And the little things. So a tad frustrated, but will certainly get over it. Because it's not worth being pissy about, when there was more fun to be had than not. And the writing will get done. Because it must.

I may call it my annual festival of self-indulgence, but it is actually more than that. Much of it is introspection. It's my solitary day away from most people, and not doing things for others. Just for myself. I call it re-connecting. And recharging.

Thinking about what it was like. When these days were surrounded by surprises and birthday cakes. When the presents weren't overly expensive, just perfect. Because I wasn't picky. I wasn't all that aware, really, of what was out there in retail wonderland. Just that I liked paper dolls and Barbie, and the hand-made Barbie clothes were just as nice as the packaged ones. Especially if there was glittery fabric involved.

I did get to choose the shape of my birthday cake. That was an annual ritual that I miss. I would love to have a birthday cake baked by my mother. But since I live 12 hours away by car, it's not going to happen. And I really don't need the cake. I did spend an ungodly amount of money purchasing the birthday cake cookbook that she used from an online retailer. It was a bitch to find. But now I have my own copy. Ah, nostalgia. Helping me spend my money since time immemorial.

It helps that it's a rainy day. The first in about a month, so no complaining. But it is a rainy day. And that makes me think.

Generally the summers at home were sunny with perhaps an afternoon thunderstorm blowing through. But the heat was there. And the sun. And the sprinkler. And the flowers. And the raspberry bushes. And the green grass under my bare feet. Do I miss all of that? Not in my current form. As a 5 year old in my swimsuit, sure. But now? Not really.

In my inexpert way I am trying to sum up the odd feeling of sharing my skin with other selves- other me's. It's an odd feeling. I don't often go there. But those other me's are fun. They were full of life and joy. They were full of themselves. And they are still in there. Relics of when I was more of an essential self- before getting diluted by the world. Not sullied, but diluted by influences outside myself. There's probably a Freudian term for that. Something about developmental stages. But I don't know it. And I really don't care. It is just an interesting day visiting my ghosts. Overall, I like them.

Watched parts of the very plodding "Benjamin Button" last night. Glad that I didn't sit through the whoooollllleeeee long and interminable thing.

But there was one quote at the end that got me. It got me badly. Benjamin looks at the love of his life, Daisy and says something like, "I think I had a life before, but I don't remember it." I paraphrase because it's not out on Imdb, and I don't feel like watching it again. Actually it's sealed up and ready to return.

What got me, though is that I thought about my grandmother, who sits in a grey fog in a home with others in the same state. She was a vibrant, funny, rather mean woman, who hid her smarts and had a few wonderfully subversive moments. All that is pretty much gone.

My greatest fear is that she has those glimpses of her past, and knows what she has lost. That slays me. It got me last night. I cried for her for the first time. Because even if she doesn't know what she has lost, I sure as hell do.

While falling asleep last night I was thinking about regret.
Not in a harsh way, but in a generally accepting way.
Realizing that over time there is a catalog of regrets
that get carried around and mulled over and trotted out
in festive bows and bells on special occasions.
Nothing bitter about it, really.
Just realizing that the cause and effect that I have had
hasn't always ended well.
And that those effects might've been better served if
I had thought through things better.
But that wasn't my nature.
And it wasn't my nurture.
So that list of regrets slowly grows over time.
And I get to catalog the list and recreate it in the night.