Recently, I've dreamed about little besides $evil_project. These are dreams that make it seem I should be getting paid for being asleep. As with real life, I don't seem to accomplish much asleep, either, unfortunately.

Two nights ago, I had a dream that broke the boring pattern. I don't remember what it was about except that it wasn't about $evil_project. I remember being happy in my dream. And then the dream froze, and a hamster wheel of death appeared. I realized I was watching my dream on a screen. I was bummed that it locked up, too, since it was a fun dream before that happened.

I do think the point of that dream is that I spend far too much time with farley, my ibook. And that farley's hamster-wheel-of-death has been spinning far too often for my peace of mind.

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In blixco's recent diary on the thrill of gambling, he cited mine and ana's story as an instance of gambling. It was gambling, but, at the same time, it wasn't really. When I gambled (past tense now that I can't just think about myself), I did it with my life. I drank vast quantities of booze, I drove very fast, I took strange pills from people I barely knew. I sometimes did all of those simultaneously. All I wanted from it was to feel, and the adrenaline rush of risking it all was really the only thing that worked. Yes, it's melodramatic. But for a year or so of my life, between scraping myself off the floor and screwing my head back on, I gambled. And I didn't care if I lost.

But toxicfur didn't lose then.

I had everything to gain by moving up here - to love, to a friend, to a new job (using my expensive education), to a blue state. I had almost nothing to lose. Sure, I could have gotten here and ana could have decided that I just wasn't the one, and that would have really, really sucked, but the move would have still be worthwhile. I still would know ana. I want to think we would have continued to be friends.

Because we were friends first, before we even knew we were real people. The biggest gamble I took was asking for ana's email address, and then writing, and then being honest. Even then, the odds were in my favor. If I lost, then what had I lost? Another imaginary internet friend? Didn't seem like such a big deal in those first few months of exchanges, and by the time it was a big deal, I'd grown accustomed to honesty and openness. Who knew it could be possible?

My relationship with ana was a gamble, but the odds were stacked almost entirely in my favor. And toxicfur WINS!