What can one do?

I write you now from a tent.

A good tent. A big tent. But nonetheless,

a tent.

My house, my home, the place where I grew up is all in boxes. I'm supposed to sleep on a matress on the floor in the study. My family lived there for, something like twenty-three years, and now, it's all wrapped in cardboard and ready to go.

It's hard.

The final straw for us was the death of our cat, Walker. Walker was the best fucking cat that ever there was, and I mean that. I know how all cat owners think their cats have personality and how they're "special" and all that shit, and maybe I'm just a sap like that, but to my family and to myself, that cat was just the best. I could write a hundred entries, just about him, but suffice to say, he was 18 and a half years old when he died (which is just a few months younger than my little brother), he was born in the kitchen of my house which we will soon be departing, and he was in many ways the glue holding my family together. He was the best, and I really miss that little fucker.

Anyway...

so, here I am, sleeping in my friend's tent in a back-yard in a suburb. My WiFi internet connection is somehow working, and I'm tired and a little bit drunk. What's sad to me is that while my friend is out of town I feel so much more comfortable, so much more at home in this tent than I do in the house I grew up in. I feel like it's been gutted, and all that's left is the skeleton of some place I used to know quite well.

So I chose the tent.

I guess I've always liked camping.

-BR 8.4.04