Insomniac yet again.

Ronald's birthday party is today. I think I'm going to get him a gift certificate.

I finished writing the first episode of the REUNION REALITY SHOW's second season, which doesn't even premiere until January 30, and I'm very excited about the twisted plots I've got cooking - even in the first scene. I was fearing a sophomore slump, but I'm guessing that the show's four or five fans will be pleased at exactly how fucked up I've made things for the characters. (I would say more, but I'm actually trying to stay spoiler-free. God, that's so obnoxious when you're talking about your own work. Now I know how George Lucas feels - and why people rightfully hate him.)

I've made goal at work both days this week. My intention is to make goal everyday for three months to save myself from my own disastrous performance in November. My performance review is due this week, and my December scorecard should arrive any moment. I'm a little scared. My supervisor Ethan told me that it was my job not to worry about the larger picture and instead to keep plugging away at daily good results, which I've been doing.

I can't sleep. I can't find my Luvox, which just yesterday my therapist told me to put in a place I frequented during nightly routine. I moved it from where it was, and now I can't find it.

My therapist also told me that I should write a love story. And one of the fans of REUNION REALITY SHOW - my kickass 8th grade algebra teacher Ms. Davis - agreed with him.

She told me that one way to remind yourself about the feeling of real love is to write down a story of real love. Romantic love.

But I don't know anything about fulfilled and fulfilling love. I know unrequited love and unrealistic longing. I know relationships that you destroy because you're scared to move forward. I know bitter loneliness and walls and boundaries and wrong choices. And I know tricking yourself into thinking that love is really that way, not the romantic and fulfilling way. I know love is work either way - and I've seen others in love before.

Someone asked me why, if I didn't feel I knew anything about love, someone thought it would be a good idea to write about it.

I think I should write about love because I don't know anything about it. And I'm curious. Write about it to ask myself questions about it. To visualize it. To create it as an actual emotion or segment of hope within me, rather than just picture it as fantasy.

Can you create feelings of real love within yourself out of nothing? If love isn't offered to you, can you create it anyway? Is it something you can dream up? Is it something I can understand enough to eventually know it?

I read John Irving's A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR once, and it dealt with that kind of situation. Of course, since it was Irving, the situation was less real than the emotion within it.

My greatest love story lasted five minutes. My second greatest one lasted two weeks. Nothing lasted. I wouldn't have known what to do with a relationship that lasted. I still don't know.

OK, I'm going to try Kacoon's suggestion of masturbation as a sleep aid again.

And, ahem, I'm going to find my Luvox.