Happy Birthday to Ethan Ryan Kaplan!!!!!!
my brother is officially a quarter of a century today. I used to hate his birthday when I was a kid because it meant I was not getting a gift that day. What a horrid child I was.

Sometimes I stare at my face in the mirror for such a long time that it begins to change form. My eyes become larger and slightly off center. My nose seems to be smaller and my lips take on a frown even if I am smiling. Every flaw becomes magnified and no matter how hard I try I can not hide them, nor can I look away....I wonder if anyone else does this.

Some people are scared of me I think. I see it in their eyes. Fear. Maybe a lack of understanding? Fear is more likely. What is there to fear I wonder. The mystics, as well as the root of most religions and most psychologists say that the only two emotions are love and fear. They say the one that wins is the one you feed, like the Indian fable. I try not to feed fear, but it is human to do so. But can fear feed you?

Onto happier things...new haircut today. We (me and Pam my haircutter) went crazy with the experimentation annd I have to say it came out quite nicely. There are layers of color and streaks of color. This adds up to a palate of about five colors.Black on bottom (on about an inch of the bottom layer), my natural red, a mahaganey, another red brown and then neon type asian red streaks. Funny how the happy part of my day is so superficial, hey I will take what I can get. Ok well that is not all true. I sound like a depressed freak. I had a fine day. I started a new book, Cities of the Red Night by William Burroughs. Good so far. It is funny how people use one anothers favorite books or authors to help them sefine who we really are. Everyone asks the question, I do it too. I should try an experiment. Next time I meet a cool person and he/she asks me what my favorite book is, I am going to say Da Vinci Code. Then we shall see what happens there.