Whether we admit it or not, we all have something that lurks in the shadows of our unconscious, that comes out to remind us that we are not the pillars of strength we like to think we are. Everybody's fear is different - maybe when you sleep you have your nightmares of snakes, or clowns with hatchets. Maybe when you're heavily stressed you feel like you are enclosed in a small space. Perhaps when you're experiencing a particularly bad flashback from your days as a frequent imbiber of Owsley's Original, you realize that the thing cleaning out your refrigerator because it needs the space is the love child of Martha Stewart and Shub-Niggurath (a particularly disturbing shuggoth who's teats yield Windex and who's horrible insect-like voice keeps screaming "YOU MUST NOT NEGLECT TO USE LINEN SERVIETTES!"), and it needs the space for you.

(sorry about that)

My point is that we all have our own fears. Those of you with more complex and esoteric horrors might actually be luckier than those of us who's idee fixe is a terror of a more mundane kind. While you may rest less comfortably, your dreams filled with Eva Braun sodomizing your favorite pet or images of you taking the place of Brutus in Lucifers eternal lunchtime, you can walk through your waking hours fairly firm in the knowledge that your worst fear will never come to pass. But the rest of us must live with the fact that, though an instant realization of everyones fears might have the mundane getting the best treatment, the likelihood that we of little imagination are going to have to face our premiere fear is far greater than yours. And worse than the daily concern that there is nothing inherent in the laws of nature to prevent their occurrence, is that day when one's worst fear does, in fact, come true.

It is the day when the claustrophobe gets stuck in an elevator for a day with a flatulent fat man during a heat wave. It's the day the teenager realizes that the only 100% sure method to prevent unwanted pregnancy is abstinence (to be honest, I'm still reeling). It's the day the triscadecaphobe realizes that the "EI" tattoo he got on his arm (because he never wants to forget his girlfriends initials) looks JUST LIKE THE NUMBER 13 when he looks in the mirror

Now, I recognize that perhaps I'm being a little dramatic here, and I apologize for that. I also apologize if I've made you take a look and wonder at what your own greatest fear is (personally I believe some things are best left in the darker recesses of the mind, never to see light. Particularly the Martha Stewart thing). But I felt a need to get across to you the nightmarish horror I'm experiencing now that the internet connection in my office isn't working. You may laugh, but this is my fat man, my Cthulhu, my Martha, and I don't know how much longer I can deal with it.

On the upside, I don't know how much longer I'm going to have to. Not that I expect it to get fixed anytime soon (I've long since believed that Information Technology staffs around the world are run exclusively by English majors from Big 10 schools who realized that the fact their college teams had a great run does not mean they have any marketable skills). But I'm leaving the city for a few days, starting tommorrow (after work, unfortunately). Ben and I are heading down to New Orleans to indulge in a few days of Mardi Gras. I'll do my best to post an entry from down there, but to be honest I don't know that I'll be able to, what with the hurricanes a-brewing.

So that might be it for another week or so. I also want to say that all of you that you are invited to the first party at the apartment, which will be held on the ides of March (how's that for two references to ancient Rome in one blog?) An email wil be sent to all interested parties. That is all.