I've got fire water right on my breath
And the doctor warned me I might catch a death.
Said, "You can make it in your disguise,
Just never show the fear that's in your eyes."

Your brow is sweatin' and your mouth gets dry,
Fancy people go driftin' by.
The moment of truth is right at hand,
Just one more nightmare you can stand.

--from Stage Fright by Bob Dylan

There are things that scare me. They number in the hundreds if not thousands. I'm afraid of living things like spiders and bumble bees. I'm afraid of cold lifeless things like razors and needles. And I'm afraid of things that happen like airplanes falling out of the sky and people forgetting I exist. But of all the things that I'm afraid of, at the moment I'm afraid of myself.

I know that sounds terribly cliche, but it's fitting if only you understand. My biggest challenge this semester will not be the computer applications course I'm taking with a professor who sounds like a bored/boring kermit the frog. (its terrible because he causes me to yearn in a very intense and sincere way to be entertained while having to endure in it's stead: terrible boredom) My biggest challenge will be my Autobiography class. Aside from reading a ton of books and writing a ton of papers, this course asks me to prepare and read aloud my own autobiography that I'll be writing during the semester. (Coincidentally, I just finished reading a memoir by David Sedaris called "Naked". I highly reccommend it.) There are many aspects of this assignment that will be challenging; such as finding something meaningful to write about, and finding the courage and the voice to say it in. And I'm going to have to ignore the whole "reading it aloud" aspect because I don't want it to turn into a false waste of time.

I'm sure the autobiographies will bring up ideas that will help me get started, but for now I have only the brief history of my life to recollect in order to find some sort of angle, some sort of connection between the events of my life, and the heart that drives me onward. But right now I'm too overwhelmed by the "right now" to even attempt the big picture.