I'm not listening to anything right now because I was eating when I decided I really wanted write down some of the stuff that was going through my head. But I thought it would be worth it to note that today I've been listening to Tori Amos (Boys for Pele and From the Choirgirl Hotel and a tiny bit of Strange Little Girls, but it couldn't hold my attention today), Bad Religion (All Ages - it's an eponymous thing) and Tool (Opiate, over and over again). So it's been that kind of day.

Right now I keep thinking what it would be like to throw a punch. A good solid one, meant to hurt someone quite a bit.

Before I go further I should explain: I am thought of by some of my friends (from what I have been able to determine) as someone who is violent and has a short temper and poor self-control. But that's just what they think. What it looks like to me, from inside of my head is totally different. I do believe in peace, bitch. (to paraphrase Tori)

I think my problem is I tend to want to hit things but I don't really have adequate targets. I sincerely believe that it would be inexcusable of me to act so as to hurt someone. Violence is only forgivable when it is used to end violence, and thus it isn't even productive - it'll bring things under control, but it can't really make things better.

Punching bags and things are fine targets, I suppose, but they aren't the same mixture of meat and bone that a human is. That flesh that I feel when I hug someone is really hard to replicate. I'm not really afraid of my desire to hit things, or even people. I only get really nervous when it becomes and act of will to keep my hands in my pockets and away from someone else's throat. This has happened far more often that most anyone knows.

All too often an encounter with someone makes me walk away furious and then it take everything I've got to focus on something else. It happens a lot at work, I'll tell you. But then, like now, I'm easily distracted by this feeling. It doesn't take much, it's all subconcious when I'm not clearly thinking about it.

I'll be sitting at my computer, or better yet, driving in my car and hand will slowly curl into a fist. I typically don't even notice until my arm starts hurting because everything is clenched so tightly from the shoulder down. I have to think to make it let go and then it hurts even more.

What the hell could be making me so mad? My job's pretty decent - the mere fact that I've been employed for over a year at an internet business should thrill me. And it would if the bullshit didn't make me want to burn down the entire Net. My relationships seem to be going fine, and I no longer live with my parents. So maybe it's the news? People dying of a rare disease thousands of miles away. My tax dollars are going to fight a war in a country I barely know anything about. The W. is promoting secret courts in this country that will include secret evidence, taping the defendants with their attourneys, death penalty and no appeals. (Okey that one really did get to me - when the hell did we become Bolivia?)

I don't actually know. It's one of those wonderful mysteries about life that if I knew exactly what caused it or how it worked I'd be able to deal with it. Or if I couldn't then I'd be able to leave it alone. But it gets into my skin, it makes it hard to breath, it wears me out and distracts me from my work.

Somewhere in the past several years I've gotten to be more outgoing. I couldn't tell you when or how that happened because I wasn't really aware of it until very recently. I still have a tendancy to hide things like sorrow or pain but anger I used to keep to myself. And I used to be every bit as angry as I am now, if not more. I used to take my emotional traumas out on myself.

Somewhere in all of the crap I moved into my apartment that I haven't unpacked yet are some razorblades and probably some lighters too. I think the X-acto knife broke so I tossed it. I had no real use for the blades or the knife since I used disposable razors and the knife was for things like cutting animals for dissection or cutting cardboard or something. My only interest was in cutting myself. I used to burn my hands too, a little, but it didn't work out quite the same way.

It's a little tough to explain and even now I hedge a little at going through it. I can give a sort of clinical answer - it's the reason I was given when I sought professional help. In taking the pain to the skin and inflicting controlled wounds to myself I was trying to get some sort of control on my emotions.

What I remember of the time was feeling extremely brittle and numb at the same time. Deep in my chest I felt like there was large smooth rock that wouldn't go away. It was heavy and displaced my internal organs so that they had to work very hard. When its presence was really bad I wouldn't be able to cry anymore, it was nearly impossible to get out of bed and breathing became a chore. I just wanted to reach into my chest and tear it out.

Cutting, bleeding, banging my hands on the edge of a table, scratching my arms and face were ways to ease it a little. A lot of it didn't hurt. I don't know, maybe it was to distract myself, maybe I was hoping it would hurt so I could cry, I don't honestly know. I just know that the sight of my blood bubbling up through a slit in my skin calmed me quite a bit.

I don't hurt myself anymore, really. I haven't felt the desire to cut myself in over a year and a half, real life was hard enough in that time and maybe that's the challenge that I needed to get me to forget to hurt.

So how did I go from packing it all in and hiding my scars from everyone to just not taking any shit from anyone? I couldn't really tell you.

My friends would probably say they've known me for more than a year and half, some since 95, and that I've never taken shit from anyone. Well that just goes to show that you learn something everyday.