Good-night, February

I think the paradox of this page is

that it is not one which I could

recommend to the population of its

recurring evidence, simply because

the underlying point of view, while

sound, sometimes exhibits the very

bitterness it seeks to discredit,

even subdue. I discovered this 

point of view in myself at a very 

young age - approximately 6 or 7 - 

and to obtain my university's bac-

calaureate degree I found it liter-

ally expressed in my honors thesis:

I rue the influence over the mind's

reach into all its possibilities, in

the existence of any external com-

pulsory power. In that project, I

cited this horror as the touchstone 

of the nation state, but so it is,

also, of sectarian orthodoxy and

other crime syndicates. 

From a mind conscious, at the age of

Hopalong Cassidy, of the corrupting,

limiting influence of compulsion, it

is very difficult to do justice to

the emergency whence it arises - the

fruition of youth - if one has ever

been subjected to such compulsion.

And who has not? To my knowledge,

red mug, blue linen is notable for
at least exploring this point of

view at the moment, although alter-

natives are both plentiful and ad-

mirable: accepting constraint of

possibility, in calm delectation

of the remainder. Indeed, they're

so admirable I'd regard another as

more superfluous than exemplary.

I can accept the complaint of mal-

adjustment in the blog, therefore,

but not in its point of view. I can

so little accept the tolerance of

compulsion, as a model to suspend
over the life depicted on every page 
at this address, that this refusal  
is what must shape it. Now, against 

the advantage of blogging's always-
recurring immediacy, lies the pathos 

of its swift effacement of previous

entries, even if you might say one

should be grateful for these "born

again" dispensations. I am not 

grateful for that; there is a story

here, as well as a viewpoint, and

their relationship is vital to the

page. Still, there are grounds for

adjusting the voice, by the tone
and terms of the model being pro-
posed.

Even as I resolve to pursue these

matters, I am more cognisant every 

day of the limiting compulsion of

the closet here. I do not refer

only to the guytummy thing, but 

to the feudalistic integration of 

every social policy in Virginia.
This is a tiny, hermetic culture;
associates of mine are redundantly
enmeshed in all its ruling threads. 

Everyone I know subscribes to the 
terror. Its rejection, being im-

possible, mitigates the burden of 
the closet, rather, as something
of a refuge of sanity. I return to
my object, which is not to inhibit
the mind behind that face up there,
a little less, but to keep it open.

I return, then, to the alarm I

felt for my own mind as a child.

I would like this page to find a

voice to speak to him. I want to

find the default face of a greater
freedom than that of expression.
I want to see the face of the
freedom to think.