I had a drink at the tap room. I'm tempted to keep going with kamikazes, but my stomach has been so sensitive lately that I'm hesitant.

I want my hair back. I want it long and thick. The appeal of it being short has worn off. Dammit, I always do this. Make impulsive decisions, enjoy the thrill for awhile then wait for time to wear off the consequences of my hasty actions.

My memories elude me.

Transcribing diaries makes me realize just how many notebooks I lost when I lived with that crazy woman in Milwaukee. I strive to remember every nuance for this book that I'm writing. But I can't send myself back to that state. I also realize that even with the stuff I had, I fixated on certain details and forgot others.

Like this one conversation. In the conversation, I became obsessed with wondering whether I had been pedantic. Whether I had talked too much and listened too little, or if my interest in the content of the other person had been clear enough. I had enjoyed the exchange, and expressed that, but the emotions of the exchange superseded the details.

My mind has been spinning for the last couple of days, trying to remember the details. I can't figure them out, what has been developed by later observations, what has been tainted by memory, and it's making me crazy.

My sister is somehow all a part of this. I either didn't write down our conversations or I lost the diaries where I did. She had always been very influential, I always valued what she said, my fridge had pictures of her plastered everywhere, and each diary was filled with letters I had always meant to send. Now that she's gone and I can't call her and say "what did I say then? what am I missing in these books of mine?" it makes me acutely aware of how little detail is really in there. I keep a better diary than anyone I know and yet so much is missing, I don't think I can ever fully capture the past. And it's a bit of a sobering realization.

It makes me realize how fragmented and blurry our lives really are.

Perhaps I will have a drink in a little bit.

Sitting here, thinking about how my first impulse after having a little bit to drink is to write, I think about the questions I've mulled. Art versus writing. How little my question has to do with practicality and how much it has to deal with innate impulses. And somehow, by seeing where I've turned to deal with these thoughts, I wonder if I haven't answered my own question.