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The sermon for Aug. 20, 2002 is: promises, promises 12:38 a.m. Dear diary, good morning. It's actually a little bit after midnight, and I'm getting ready for bed. I called Stephanie tonight and listened to her cavil about this and that; after a while I felt uncomfortable and begged off. My old friends Timothy and Lisa Regul called, Tim because he had heard about Young, and Lisa because a year or so ago apparently I had sent her an email that had pissed her off; Tim called me an asshole for failing to save Young, and Lisa called me an asshole simply because, without proving a reason. Ah, well, I'm unfit for social service and for society in general, I actually didn;t need people calling to tell me that. Lisa moreover told me never to contact her again, an odd thing to instruct since I hadn't contacted her in the first place. I don't think I can call Larsen, since he seemed rather put out with me last time we had spoken; Danielle behaves entirely differently on the phone than she does in person (why does this happen? One should think that phone personalities would be far moer scintillating than the gross tedia of bodies at rest and in motion); and though I kinda think that this girl Lily has potential (she's a dancer from Sushi, for example; she knows of Shostakovich and June of 44 and Lovage; she dresses like Marlo Thomas in Free To Be You and Me), I didn't think I could subject her yet to my mad whorl of mania and depression. So I called Colleen. I have been ignoring Colleen for weeks. She went home to Michigan a month or so ago; and showed up one morning on my doorstep with the clarinet that she had played in high school. Thanks for the clarinet, I beamed, how was home? and then returned pointedly to my breakfast. I hadn't seen nor spoken with her since, though I've run into her friend Christine twice. If I still believed that I existed and mattered to people, I would imagine that Christine was giving me hints-- Christine said, apropos of nothing, I asked Colleen what she saw in you. Seeing my look of astonishment, she went on: I mean, honestly, John, answer this: now, are you the kind of friend who would give Colleen a clarinet? Of course! 'Cuz I've got one to give! Christine said, I don't know why she still talks about you. You're even more of an asshole to her than you are to me, and I gotta say, now, you're really some kind of asshole. And this morning Colleen emailed me asking me about my weekend. I wrote her back about Lily and about seeing "Possession" yesterday. But mostly I slept, I wrote, since I'm depressed. She wrote back hours later, she said: Yeah, I'm sleeping from 1-10 these days. And flaking on people. I guess I'm depressed too. Anyway, so I called Colleen. She was drunk. If I still believed that girls talked entirely in code, I would've thought that she asked me to come over. She wanted to watch "Meet My Folks" or whatever-the-hell that TV show is called. I demurred, since unbeknownst to her I had slashed the inside of my elbow and my right leg a little overmuch and thus was not fit for company, even innocent TV watching. Actually this was why I called her in the first place, because I tried calling Stephanie, then my friend Ray, and then spoke with Lisa and Timothy, and then I called a suicide counselor from EAP, and then I had nobody left to distract me from me and my little knife. Well, go watch "Meet My Folks," Colleen said like a commercial for NBC-- I want you to pick a girl or boy to win, and then I want you to meet for lunch tomorrow, and we'll talk about the show. Okay? Colleen doesn't know that I'm not going back to school. I said, Okay. Goodnight. Colleen said something as I was moving the phone back toward the receiver. I hesitated, and then I pulled the phone back. What was that? Colleen said, You didn't hear me? Sorry, no. That's okay. I'll see you tomorrow for lunch, go watch the show. I don't know if I'll watch the show. I'm sorry. Well, we'll talk about something else then tomorrow, okay John? Maybe. I don't know if I can see you tomorrow. I'm sorry. You're scaring me. I'm sorry. Stop saying you're sorry. You don't have anything to apologise to me for. Just--- John, I love you. Don't say that. Just--- Just don't do anything drastic. It's okay. It isn't anything drastic. Stop that. I'm sorry. Stop that. I'll see you tomorrow. You promise? I took my knife and I cut into my left leg. I told Colleen, I promise.
 
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