Have you ever been imprisoned, Nuala? I was... I spent over eighty years in a glass bottle, like a genie... or a city... I could have waited until the earth crumbled to dust. But still, I waited.
- Neil Gaiman, The Kindly Ones

It matters not. A man who has no future... has nothing to give...
- Christopher Priest, "The King is Dead"

"The Apotheosis of the Future Mrs. Clark"
I think it was junior year during one of those bullshit busy-work moments that are synonymous with Catholic high school religion class when Amy Walburn told me how much she wanted to meet my wife. For some reason, it had suddenly occurred to Miss Walburn that whomever I was going to eventually end up with was going to be one hell of a woman.

I really didn't know what to make of this at the time. I mean, it was a nice thought, but hardly something I really thought I should consider too much. I mean, Walburn was dating Matt Brown at the time, and Matt Brown was simply an idiot. A colossal freaking idiot. What the hell did this broad know about who people should end up with? Besides, that was the year I was taking my favorite Kevin Smith film a little too literally, and I figured this was her way of shooting me down gently... you know, like the old "Let's just be friends" routine.

So imagine my surprise when Kate Jeffries -- the woman who is as "just my friend" as they get -- said the same thing sometime last year. And then Erin Tuttle wrote it in a letter. And Crochet Club (and I'm talking about Crochet Club when it actually meant something in it's Kristin Buel led hey-day, not the anemic spattering of yarn-twirlers you see blathering all through Friends on Thursday nights now) once told me that it'd be hard to find someone "good enough" for me.

The fabled Right Girl For Me has been described as everything from "amazing" to "lucky" to "Kate Hudson" (though I'm pretty sure that last one was a joke stemmed from my odd affinity for Jeffries' Almost Famous poster), and I have no idea why. Honestly. I'm not that great. I'd even go so far as to say I kind of suck. I don't know what super creative, comic-book-reading, Bubble Boy-loving, generous-to-a-fault, funny-as-hell uber-goddess these people think I should be waiting for, but I seriously doubt that she's coming. I don't even think that she exists.

A little patience, a lot of tolerance, and an appropriate respect for the sequential arts. That's all I'm asking, really. And hey, if she can pretend to laugh at my lame jokes, even the puns, that's always a plus.

"The Red Badge of Courage" or "Now Presented in HDET"
I was given a gift a couple of days ago. One of those strange moments that you'd swear was in a short story for all the symbolism you could tease out of it.

I just wanted it to be known that I appreciate it.

"Dear God Make Me a Duck So I Can Fly Far, Far Away From Here"
I'm trapped.

Between the killers outside my door, the stories I still haven't finished, the songs I've sung, and all the other odd choices, I don't have that much wiggle room left. There's a guy I used to know who'd probably be fairly pissed with me right now.

If anyone can see a way out that I can't, I'm willing, as ever, to take suggestions... of course you'd probably need to know what the hell I'm talking about... All of it...

And we can't have that now, can we?

"Clark's Freaking Losing It"
I'm afraid to answer the door. Seriously. It's me peeking out the eyehole and screaming at everyone who comes to the door. I thought Will was going to sell me out, and Will's my dag, my dig, my doog, my dog. I thought he was an assassin... or at least an errand boy sent by grocery clerks to collect the bill. He just wanted to borrow My Crazed Roommate's copy of The American President.

So yeah. I'm nuts now. Thanks.