Painography.

Life has been so fucking weird the past few days.

Doctor told me and my dad it looked like one of my molars had been taken out with a pair of plyers.

We never found the tooth.

In case you're wondering, my mouth hurts like a bitch. I've been borderline delirious from Percocet. I'm getting fitted for an implant or something later this week, for now I'm just chewing out of the right side of my mouth.

My dad got mad when I kept insisting I didn't know how it happened. I still have no memory of that nine minutes.

I was forced to take a week off of work and start therapy again. Now that school's out for seniors, the only things I have to do are go to graduation rehearsal and therapy. Sid's invited me over for hookah the other day, but I turned him down for reasons that should be apparent.

I don't mind talking to John. John is my therapist's name. He's relaxingly normal. After I told him about what happened at work, he suggested we try to do some kind of repressed memory thing, but I told him I wasn't ready for that. He asked me a lot about dreams and stuff, but I don't remember my dreams that often.

He said that it was important to try, but that he wouldn't rush me because of the state I was in.

What state? Yeah, it hurts, but I'm fine, like, emotionally. I can't be shocked by violence I don't remember happening, can I? People are acting like I'm crazy or something.

I'm just confused. And kind of stoned off these meds.

Anyway, me and John talked a lot, went over the alloted hour again. A lot about my dad and stuff, and how I like my job. Not so much about the time loss, for some reason.

I'm not really allowed out, or in the mood.

I've been bored. Watching crappy free porno vids. Not even really excited by them, just out of vague curiosity. I look at how the shots were set up, the composition, the aesthetic values. Porno has more aesthetic values than most people recognize. I know that's weird to say, but it's true.

One site I was watching videos on was all fucked up. I can't remember the url. The videos seemed normal at first, but they started skipping and the audio sounded like Godzilla was trapped in a porn studio or something. Just, really really fucked. That's the only word I can think of. The video was all distorted, it'd go from grainy to vivid to static and back again.

It gave me a goddamn headache. The noise and sight of it.

Like I said, it's hard to remember it exactly. Probably 'cause of the percs.

I was allowed out for graduation rehearsal. It was nice to see some people, but I felt uncomfortable in the crowd. I kept jumping when people said something to me.

I'm just frustrated, I guess. Think I'm just going to stop taking these pills. I feel like I'm in a goddamn fog, stumbling and grasping.

And people wonder why I don't do drugs.

I hate the outdoors.

Just, being in the open, it bugs me. Gets under my skin. I can deal with it, act normal at a bonfire or whatever, but the feeling is always there underneath, gnawing at me. I was taking a walk back to my car and I went through this path with trees alone and I just wanted to scream.

Anyway, I made it home, but I haven't slept. I keep staring at the clock and thinking about when I was a kid.

I've always been a clock-watcher. Mom taught me that it was important to allot your time wisely. An hour for reading, an hour for homework. I know, I was a fucking dork.

One time I was looking at the clock on a Saturday morning. I was twelve years old and I had just woken up. As I watched, the clock went from 7:42 AM to 8:01 AM.

Nineteen minutes.

It happened again the next Monday after school at detention, except this time when I came back to myself I was knee deep in mud in the woods behind my middle school.

I told my therapist, she sent me to a doctor. Thought I might be having "absent seizures". They said "absent" in French or something so it sounded more official I guess. Basically, they thought I was having a seizure in which I was completely catatonic for a space of nearly twenty minutes.

Never mind the fact that my catatonic self would've had to've walked half a mile into the fucking forest.

They glued wires to my head and read my brain waves and flashed bright lights in my face and made me fall asleep with the bulbs still sparking an inch away from my nose. Tests came back negative. I wasn't epileptic, I didn't have any manner of seizure disorder.

They tried to tell me I was drifting off because of my ADD. I know what drifting off feels like, I've been that way my whole life. This wasn't it. They essentially shrugged at me, and I never got an answer.

It didn't happen again for six years.

To the day.

Yesterday.

I checked the clock at work. It said 3:46. When I came back, Eric was snapping his fingers in my face. He asked me if I was drifting off again. I checked the clock and it was 3:55. I wasn't drifting off.

When I came back to myself there was blood in my mouth.

Resurrection.

THE SUPREME DIARIES OF BROTHER SOUL

So, yeah, I guess the whole "writing reviews" thing didn't work out. I kind of wanted to be Roger Ebert, but over the past year I've come to realize that I can't stand critics. I don't want to be the kind of person who picks apart another person's art. I like appreciating beauty, and I like discussing great films and comics, but to be the kind of person who tries to tell other people what to like and what's good and what's bad takes a higher sense of self-importance than I possess.

I've realized a few things lately. The most important was why I came up with the idea of "The Supreme Diaries" in the first place. I am in search of the Supreme. I'm not sure why I capitalize it, but it seems appropriate. The Supreme is the highest level of truth and order evident in the universe. It is the cloud that I want to stick my neck into and let the moisture dot along my neck.

The name Brother Soul reflects what I have discovered: myself. My soul. I am a firm believer in the existence of the soul and that I need to maintain the integrity and purity of my soul. The "brother" part just sounds cool to me.

So, I'm Brother Soul. I'm in search of the Supreme. And I'll be writing about it here.

I had my first confirmation class with my pastor this past Wednesday. We talked about what it's like to be a pastor, what some of the beliefs of the United Methodist church are. I was raised in this church, its influence has hung over me spiritually since I was a small boy. The best thing it did for me was instill in me a desire to do help people, to accept all people, and extol the virtues of a gentle life.

I'm still not sure if it's the right path.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm met to lead people spiritually. I can't really know until I discover my own truth.

I'm sorry of this type of dialog offends you. I am familiar with the grounded atheistic rhetoric, having espoused it myself for a few years.

But the fact remains: there must be an opponent. A flip side to the coin. Sometimes I wonder if it's Joshua or if it's Abel, if it's a savior or a victim or a sacrifice shot with an arrow of mistletoe.

Or maybe a champion.