I had the strangest dream the night before I came back to the city. I dreamed there was a serial killer who was murdering his victims by stabbing them with the broken stem of a champagne glass. I wasn't afraid.

I'll be honest. Tonight is the first night back in my apartment. Everyone I see says "How are classes? How are your students?" "Oh," I have to tell them, "I'm not a teacher anymore."

Not anymore.

I'll be completely honest with you. You, my blog reading public, because I can't really say this to anyone else. No one wants to hear it. Whenever I begin to talk about these feelings, it's like I'm opening my mouth and vomiting blood. Everyone wants to cheer me up, and I understand that drive. To distract. To help. It's like headlining in Titus Adronicus, but due to some horrible mistake the entire audience has been bussed in from Minnesota expecting a revival of Cats. You don't want to disappoint, but on the other hand you don't really want to sing "Misery" to a barely disguised "tribute" to Puccini.

I'm absolutely terrified. And not in that "Oh my God, I'm scared and thrilled" terrified. But that "I just jumped off the high dive and realized there is no water in the pool" just enough awareness beforehand to hear the crunch of my own skull on the asphalt kind of terrified.

I haven't been this scared since Eric left. When Eric left two weeks after September 11th, and I had to go on campus everyday terrified of seeing him. I didn't care about dying then. The few friends I had left decided to leave for California for Germany for some place safer. I stayed because I didn't care about safer, I didn't care about staying alive.

No that isn't true.

I wanted to die. I mentioned this to Kiss Kiss the other night, and he believes that I don't take care of myself. I don't eat right, I don't work out, I don't take care of myself . I tried all of it, it doesn't work for this level of depression. I was trying to explain it, but of course he doesn't believe. Not because he doesn't trust me, but because he wants to believe that there is someway to help. Someway to make things better. So did I when I found myself here five years ago. I took medication. I went to the gym. I volunteered for charities. I worked. If I found myself feeling badly late at night, I went to a bar or a coffee shop just to be with other people. I began ballroom dancing. I started blogging. I wrote in my journal. I went on vacations. Christ I even bought a TV to have voices in the house and a cat to have something to come home to. I increased my visits to my therapist. I saw a psychiatrist. I did everything I was supposed to do to "get better." To heal. To cope. To improve.

And yet here I am back to wanting to die. It was all I could do keep myself alive then when I at least had the job. Not just the job, but the belief in teaching. In something. That I couldn't die because these students needed me. That what I was doing was important. That I was changing the world in some small way. A few classes filled with kids. And no matter how much I wanted to die I graded papers and I made class plans and I showed up to meetings where I was paid in fucking cookies and I stayed up until 2 AM on AIM trying to help students write papers. Because I believed it was important, that what I was doing mattered.

And now, now I have to keep myself alive again. And as much as my friends like having me around. Well, I don't flatter myself that anyone needs me now.

In fact, most of the time I'm much more trouble than I'm worth. Don't believe me? Ask the Amazon, she'll tell you how worthless I really am. Or Kiss Kiss for that matter, who after being so kind as to let me stay with him rather than face my apartment, I kept awake with my ridiculous insomnia. Because I can't just have a fun night with him and go to sleep, because that mind of mine keeps ticking away about all the things I've done wrong, that I've failed at until, of course I end up driving the few people who do care into grand mal seizures of frustration because for whatever reason I can't get better.

And notice the word choice there, can't. Because any of you who think I have tried almost everything out there including meditation, yoga, martial arts, swimming, psychotropic medication, art therapy, etc etc haven't been paying attention.

And the fact that I feel terrible makes me feel terrible precisely because I know it pains others. Do you think I want my mother to see how horrible I feel? Do you think I don't know how much it pains her to see me like this? I know, and I try and cover the best I can to spare her. And trust me no matter how much of a pain in the ass I seem to be, I'm trying my best to pull myself together. Not just because I want to feel better, but because I want to stop being such a drain.

On the other hand, I can only pretend for so long.

This isn't the post I wanted to write. The post I wanted to write was about my friend Flair, a gay bartender who has currently made callbacks for American Idol. He called me to tell me when his callback is "So you either have to call and give me the 'You're great no matter what they think speech' or cheer me on!" He went to the audition for American Idol because his sister is getting married, but he isn't allowed to attend bachelorette parties.

"Three years ago my grandmother finds out I'm gay because she walked in on me having sex with the stripper, and I'm still not allowed to go to bachelorette parties. "

You have to love him. The only guy who can trump my male stripper stories.

Classic.