At least one of my younger sisters still regards me as a suicide risk, I realized recently. Probably because I make the same joke too often about taking a trip to the Arctic Circle and allowing myself to be eaten by a polar bear.

I've added the stipulations that this bear-dinner would be at least 20 years from now, and that I'd take some sleeping pills first so I don't feel pain when the bear gets me. For some crazy reason these don't help calm her fears. It sounds like planning. I know I have to stop talking like that. But saying it sometimes helps me get rid of wanting to do it.

Rereading the paragraphs above makes me laugh. Unfortunately I was entirely serious, and my sister has known it.

I'm more of a flight risk than a suicide risk, really. The fantasy of walking off into a forest, leaving everything behind, is an important one to helping me cope. It's also another thing I wouldn't do because I have 2 friends who depend on me for their jobs. I just have to keep the work going.

Have to speak to a lawyer today -- which is the immediate cause of my anxiety at the moment -- and then figure out again how to cover the expenses this time. Payroll, rents, bills...

I'm trying to find reasons to be happy and find interest in living. Difficult, though. There are just a few people in my life. One sister is always working, and also takes care of her mother in law, so don't see her enough. The other is in Utah and I can't afford to go. (I have a couple of other sisters but the younger two are closest to my heart.) My closest friend lives on another continent. So everything's far from me.

In the last 5 years things have been at times very dramatic. First my brother killed himself, then the next year I had to help preserve a friend. That second thing helped preserve me. It's more possible to cope when you're fighting for someone else.

But now? Just constant worry. This is more wearing than crises. I feel as if I'm a structure which is rotting at specific points that I need mathematically in order not to fall down. That sounded confusing. I think I am referring to the St. Louis Arch in the show Defiance.

I lost my little brother the same year Dottie lost her son to suicide.

One thing that I find touching is what a good friend did for me. Since we deal in domains, that's what he went for -- and found me a domain mentioning my brother's name. I can't print it here, for business privacy reasons, but it's a surprisingly good one. He must have jumped into an auction to get it.

.......... Okay, simply writing this (and pacing around, and crying some) has helped.

One thing I know I want to do in the next year is write a book. Partly because of the individual I'm in a business struggle against, which I can't talk about yet, maybe later. I have some beginnings of a science fiction/alternate timeline story which I hope to develop. To publish it, even though it'd probably be self-published, would feel tremendous. I would probably do it using B&N's self-publishing system. But maybe it could be an ebook available on a site of my own. Have to write it first. I should look at Jondude's books for inspiration. He's a man of creativity, which takes a lot of life-force.

Christ, what an ego I have. Comparing myself to the St. Louis Arch.