I finally left the house. No real hurry. My load can't deliver until 20:00 tonight south of Nashville, which is in central time. So I have 20 hours to go less than 500 miles. I won't complain. I prefer this to going back to Concord and standing around all day. As much as I hate to admit it, I seem to be well suited to OTR truck driving. At least if I'm getting home on the weekends. As I've heard old timers say, in trucking no two days are alike. That's one of the things I like about it.

I'm trying to bolster my spirits a little. I'm kind of down. I spent last evening putting old diary entries into my blog. I finished out 1991 and January of '92, but skimmed through the rest all the way up to 2000. The one sentiment that keeps crossing my mind in regard to the life I found in those pages is “what a fucking waste.”

I'm sickened at how much I've plotted, schemed and dreamed, and how little I've done. My last triumph was a book I wrote twelve years ago and never finished. The last song I recorded was done in 1994.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself. This is no “woe-is-me.” If anything, I'm angry at and disappointed in myself. What a fucking waste. I could have accomplished so much. If only I hadn't been content to lie around on my ass and daydream of the day when I wouldn't be laying around on my ass.

I was stunned to look back upon all my mistakes. At all the wonderful opportunities and experiences I passed up. I read those and just shook my head. Who was this dumb fuck? It seemed like every time something good came my way I brushed it aside. I passed up a project with Mike Peeler to explore a band with some middle-aged wanna-be's? I decided against recording other musicians when I had five bands wanting to hire me? I passed up a relationship with Justice because her instability frightened me, but I had an off-and-on affair with nutty Carmen for years?

I suppose the thing that gets me most of all is that I'm still essentially at the same spot I was at twenty years ago. I keep saying “I'm not dead yet.” But I might as well be. I'm still just the thing that sits by the lake and stares at the water.

I'm most angry at myself because of the potential I've wasted. I could have done great things. But I did nothing but dream about doing great things. That's always been enough for me.