After I wrote that last entry I decided to finally check in on an old friend. I've switched phones, so I have no idea the last time we chatted. He's one of those people who is close in spirit but off in the periphery. Long periods of silence. I say I don't have anyone, but I don't reach out either. He isn't socially connected to anyone else I know. I worry one day I'll message him and there will just be someone else on the other end.

Soon into the conversation he was making jokes about having end stage renal failure. He wasn't joking about having it. He makes jokes, like I do, to undercut serious matters. And it's better not to burden anyone.

He's like, fine though. "Fine." As fine as you can be as long as you go have your blood cleaned out three times a week.

The second (third?) time we had a whiff of something, it didn't work. Who knows if it ever could have, but it couldn't have worked then. The timing was all wrong. He was soon to be gone with the army, and it was way, way too close to my own heartbreak. I can't remember the chain of events, but I found out later he went off and married someone with the same name. Not that it means anything.

He told me once that an angry entry I wrote about him here put a woman off of dating him. Back when small websites showed up in search engines. It wasn't his real name, part of his screen name. Eventually I changed it, I think. I don't want to go back and look. And I've never questioned the validity of the story. I don't think it matters.

Eventually I'm going to have to go back and look. At all of this. In the past handful of months I've reached out in multiple ways to try to pay for this site since the link doesn't work for me anymore. No responses. Gmail won't recognize notifications about notes as anything but spam. I can't give this all up. I can't. I know I should embrace impermanence, but I can't. There's too much here. It's 20 years. It's a reference tool. It's the most consistent thing I've ever done. I can't. I don't know how I'm going to save everything other than the small torture of copying and pasting 2222 entries. I used to be able to re-read this. Now when I do, it's baffling. I am amused, I cringe, I hurt. Maybe I could pay someone to do it for me.

I am afraid of losing things because I have before. I need my records.

In my dream, my mom brought me cigarettes. I was part disappointed someone gave in, part nervous I wouldn't get out again.

"It's a secret," she said. "Shh. You can keep some things to yourself."

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In other news, a new study finds that being around water could make people happier.
*cries in 14 degrees Fahrenheit*