Top 10 Reasons Why I Am Keeping My Phone Off Today, Staying Off The Internet, And Will Remain Completely Unreachable

10. You guys smell.

9. I've got lots of Diet Pepsi. Shit's not gonna drink itself. And I drink alone. Yeah, with nobody else. And when I drink alone, I prefer to drink by myself. Which is redundant in so many ways and I can't believe I just quoted that goddamn song.

8. Glen Danzig.

7. The Quiet Man has to start talking. Most of you don't know what that means. But I honestly think you will some day.

6. I'm going to be blasting a lot of loud instrumentals in my apartment. I can't hear them if I leave, and I honestly think most of you guys wouldn't like them.

5. My cell phone is low on minutes anyway.

4. The Internet is too distracting. Too much porn. I mean blogs. Yeah, blogs. Too many blogs.

3. I have decided today will be a day for writing and nothing more. No softball practice or hanging out or chores or shopping or anything else. Today I write and no one and nothing is going to disturb that.

2. I am basking in the aftermath of a glorious night with a beautiful woman who submitted to my clumsy charms. I will not pretend to know what the future holds other than to say she has foolishly agreed to be called my "significant other" and that knowing this makes my days seem brighter and more hopeful. On this blog, for the sake of both anonymity and symbolic accuracy, she will henceforth be known as Penelope - as in the patient wife of Odysseus, as in the woman whose arms I would brave every manner of island-dwelling beast and monster and wrathful god to be folded into, as in the woman whose unworthy suitors I would slaughter with a cheerful heart and absolute ruthlessness should they be stupid enough to step in my bloody path. Only two things threaten to render her blog-induced pseudonym a silly thing. First, not even the grandest war with the most certain promises of glory and bounty could tempt me from her side, and so neither her patience nor the aforementioned island-hopping trek back to her bed would be necessary. Second, to say she makes me feel like Odysseus is a horrible lie, because Odysseus is nothing but an epic hero whose bravery and cunning would thrill the hearts and minds of every tradition-bent literature professor and lover of the Western World, whereas she makes me feel like a demi-god. I want to be worthy of her. I want her to be proud of me. That's not the only reason for reason #3, but it helps. She is a large piece of the proof of something I am allowing myself to believe: that something out there, something good that can't be named and cares whether or not I feel loved, has answered my lonely scream and answered it with the only pieces of Heaven I believe I will ever know - other people. And if you don't get the Penelope reference, for Christ's sake go to wikipedia. I'm a writer, not a literature professor.

1. Got shit to do.

(P.S. Just wanted to talk about something funny and ironic in reference to the end of reason #2. I have a friend, a co-worker, who is a brilliant photographer. Some months ago I moved into a kind of "iffy" area crime-wise. There is graffiti, and I recently learned the graffiti artists are a bit smarter than I initially thought. Well, in some ways, at least. In particular, there is an artist whose tag consists of two kind of bubble faces - one laughing and one sad - and it took me some weeks before I realized the artist's tag was his own contemporary rendering of the tragedy/comedy masks of theater. Next to one of these tags - on the back wall of a veterinarian hospital in the path of my short, daily trek to work - are the words HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE. I have been so - forgive my Reznor-like self-pity - desperately, desperately lonely. So lonely that I was tempted to ask my co-worker to follow me to the building and take a picture of me standing next to the quote. But the world has been nice to me lately. Old friends, new friends, and a new lover have found their way into my life. And it's all happened in such a short space of time that it can't feel like anything but providence. I didn't ask my friend to take the picture mainly because it was embarrassing to ask for it, and equally embarrassing - should he have agreed - to model for a photo in public. But now I won't ask because, Dear Anonymous Wall Artist, YOU. ARE. WRONG.)