Sailing to Monoceros

Up to this point in my journey, although I often get queasy on the prognostic cruise through life, I have been able to steer a safe voyage. Even though maintaining an even keel was not easy, I secured the ballast on my own. Minor bumps and bruises from the rolling waves, never altered my itinerary. Now I find the jig is up, along with the untamable flapping jib.

I am typing this now, sitting alone at the kitchen table, on a Sunday evening. A scary warning hitched a ride with this morning's sunrise and beeped me a jangling S.O.S. "Batten down the nauseous hatches sailor, a tempest brews in your coffee pot."

How can I navigate the crest of a mile-high whitecap? Signals predict an explosion with more foam than a Colgate shaving cream factory. My long overdue Ship of Life upchuck can no longer be controlled with Tums.

Journal, you are my benevolent port of refuge. Under your warm and endless blank sheets, a girl can weather the worst of squalls. With you as her sanctuary, she is captain of her protected literary craft. Her pen will always obey orders, because she controls the strokes. There will never be mutiny, while she is at the helm.

You crave "incessant thespian whining" in the same way that she craves succulent sweet strawberries, dipped in melted milk chocolate. In friendly addition, when she divulges her long list of daily grievances, you will not make that asinine wisecrack. I speak of the grammatically in arrears - as well as the disgusting retort - full of typical nincompoopery, "Shove yuh gripes where sun don't shine."

A journal gives its author unlimited space to be obnoxious. Unlike some significant others, her sounding board validates a need for histrionics that "raise the house roof." A journal is privy to the real reason why its writer hosts those tightfisted "rage parties" - the ones without any refreshments.

As a convenient result, she can lift her journal's roof, any old time she wants. She knows that no matter how much of her understanding literary accomodation caves in later on - due to her "temperamental aerobics" - it will stick around for the messy cleanup, without any usual guilt- provoking conditions.

This point is truer than ever, when she suffers from unforgiving mental fatigue. Sitting on the bed, with her open journal on her lap. she is aware of the pen slipping from her cramped fingers. This exhausted writer can only cry herself to sleep.

Throughout the dark night, her tolerant journal waits alongside its worn-out author, who, wrung dry, is now in deep slumber - except sleep is brief. All too soon, her alarm clock decrees another round of difficult daylight, while tousled hair burrows into that still-saturated pillow. She is one of those frantic mice, in the direct sight of Farmer Gray's legendary shotgun.

By this fidgety point, her tormented tresses are worthy of that mocking commentary, "Washed-out blonde with fried-to-a-crisp ringlets." They always say this, so they think, behind her sore and drafty back-scarred with more holes than a hunk of Swiss cheese.

Loyal as ever, when said writer quits hitting the snooze button, her journal smiles by her scruffy -side to offer unconditional aid and comfort. What is even more sympathetic, a journal will never judge its author, nor speculate why her nose hides under "slimy-green mega-snot."

A journal will not inquire why a pesky skunk is on a rampage to spray its author's expensive new Adidas footwear.

A journal can not urge its author to sprint on her "burly legs" right over to the mall, for the one-hour-only sale on Scope. Or inform her how to stockpile three super-size bottles of this urgent mouthwash - just for the price of one.

An author needs no shilly-shallying in the sock-it-to-me department. She is free to challenge her journal. She is able to fume at will and with fiendish flames blasting out of her "snotty nose," she can smack her journal - right between its pages. As a perpetual good sport, with no connections to law enforcement, a journal relishes - in the midst of this myriad of inadequacies - its writer's "silly juvenile tantrums."

Journal, I have important decisions to make. Taking advantage of your anticipated assistance comes first. Before I officially begin, I should set the scene with narratives from My Crazy Existence interweaving both past and present. As they evolve, please prepare to support me on this unusual journey - a journey of transporting us both, deep into the unknown. Neither of us can predict what is about to come as your pages unfold. Trust me.

You may as well know now that I use this expression imploring your trust when I am insecure, so you will be hearing these two little words often.