Having mashed the knuckle of my index finger into a purple expansion, then grated the entire knuckle off my pinkie while making cole slaw for the first time, then sliced the thumb knuckle while sorting, boxing and/or shredding the 5 billion antiquated patient files at my mother's clinic, and then said mean spiteful misdirected words to the knuckle of my pointing finger, all on the right hand and leaving only the middle finger for healthy, self-esteemed usage, I'm assuming that it's that one weekend above all weekends, the moment of truth, the penultimate communal gathering, the temptation that should never tempt.

That is: having reflected honestly to myself about the past five years, leading me to make seven.five notches on the belt-half named Shame, leaving one.five to the other side; having recently read The Count of Monte Cristo and Lolita in order to come away with the distinct agnostic impression that above all else God must have sunk his lecherous claws into my nymphet thighs and claimed them as His own when I was but a wee tot, jealous jealous man that He be; having cried for three out of three of the past three days simply because I'm premenstrual and that's what happens; having dreamt of elephants on a sand plain after the apocalypse, slowly giving up and letting the nuclear snow cover them with only trucks and horned toenails remaining, plus a pack of separated coyotes howling within the slush they've packed into circles; having (angrily) felt for some time that the only three available fornication choices for intellectual lesbians appear to be: traumatized (straight) women, professors, or re-virginated defiance; having not so recently begun the long climb towards convincing myself that a "career" has always been my priority... yes, having all this, all this, I am left only with the belief that it is Pride Weekend in B-Ville.

And likely I will participate, partially out of that envious curiosity about those who actually feel positively about the sexual proclivities with which they have been afflicted, and partially from the niggling feeling that I might be a hypocrite and that bitterness and hopelessness don't accessorize well with the freckles recently touched upon me by sun and oceanic summer and the banal but gentle, developmentally-disabled salty air.

Of course, I've been invited to go tubing... so why the conflict?

P.S. Now I know it's so: my sister just called requesting that I bring over a sledgehammer and vacuum-cleaner.