I feel hungover even though I did not have anything to drink last night, nor the night before that. Maybe that is why I feel hungover. I've got a throbbing pain in the back of my head and no painkillers of any sort to relieve it. I thought coffee might do the trick but now I feel nauseous.

Two days ago, I ran into Christopher on the train, had to ride all the way home with him to our stop, and then had to walk the same way home together, and man, that was painful, especially when he asked me why I didn't call him. And I could have told him I didn't return his way too numerous phone calls because he is the most boring person I have ever met, that even on just that short subway ride, I was ready to fall asleep listening to him prattle on about something or other at his job, and that all I wanted to do was put on my headphones and listen to Prince who I had been listening to prior to running into him, that maybe if he had just a smidgen of the raunchiness, of the sexiness, of the coolness that Prince has in even his least cool songs, then I would have called him back, then I wouldn't have ignored his phone calls like he was the fucking credit card companies. But I didn't tell him this. I told him I was in a monastic phase and not talking to anyone, and then there was still that whole walk home together with stilted, painful conversation until I reached my door and shut it giddy, so happy to be away from Christopher.

I am going to leave work early today to go to a meeting to queer the RNC protests. Rebecca and Luke are going to be there, which I am happy about. Rebecca sort of warned me that Charles Radcliffe was going to be one of the organizers of the meeting, which is funny, since I haven't talked to him in four years, since Halloween PCP where I was an asshole to him, and so that will be funny to see some person from a past time, from a different land, leading a meeting here in New York that I will be in attendance at.

Tomorrow morning, between 10 and 10:30, my dad is supposed to call me. I have learned from my aunt that he was in a prison for about the past year, and sentanced about a month ago to a year's time for intent to distribute drugs. He is at a federal hospital in North Carolina where he is being treated for his advanced lung cancer. He is in his last days and will probably die in this hospital prison. I have a lot less anger toward him after talking with my aunt last week, listening to her really, not much talking on my part. And sometimes it is just good to listen to other people and their experiences with life. Herta talked about life in these broad, general terms, sometimes with a tint of religion, but for the most part not, talking about the shortness of life and about letting people die with dignity, that the cruellest thing you can do is not allow someone to die with peace of mind. She wasn't demanding forgiveness, but just more a reconciling with what cannot be changed, with life's realities. And she told me about her own father, how she never talked to him before he died, and how it still troubles her many years later. That was the thing that really got me. My eyes watered as she told this painful part of her past that is still with her in the present, and I thought I had nothing to say, I thought I didn't want to have anything to do with him anymore, but it wasn't true. The heart, this one, struggles against other, sometimes stronger impulses. This act of love is not easy. It is not a natural impulse. It requires conditioning. I sometimes have to remind myself to be kind on days when I am not feeling it for this world. And maybe it was just the spectre of a future with regrets that has softened me, but without an imagined future, without telling yourself you are going to be a failure, a mediocrity, really it is only with this, that the present becomes something worth making the most of. A father's upcoming death, a son's imagined regret - both urging the most of this life, urging the most love possible spread, created. And I know there is stuff I have to do, that I am plenty capable of doing and I have to. I must.