So, I slept after all. Maybe next year. I read from the Steinbeck biography until 4:45 a.m., at which point I decided I'd only be in a lousier mood than usual all day today if I didn't sleep. Here in Atlanta, the smoky skies are with us again, and I see that there's now smoke as far north as Tennessee and as far west as Mississippi. I'm trying not to think about the 400,000 acres already lost to the fire, or all the alligators and turtles and snakes and pitcher plants and anhingas and black bears that have been incinerated since that power pole fell in Waycross on April 16th and began this conflagration. I'm trying to think of the fire as a force for good, a source of regrowth, renewal, etc.. And I'm trying not to breathe, but you know how that goes.

I lied about not working yesterday. Well, maybe I cannot call it a lie since when I wrote I wasn't going to spend the day in acts of unwriting and mutilation I did mean it. However, during the bath my resolve faltered, and I ended up spending the afternoon with keyboard and scalpel and sutures. I only took a section of the Pectoralis major and the heart's right ventricle. And who needs that stuff anyway?

A good Kid Night though. Byron showed up about 7:30, and after dinner we watched Ryuhei Kitamura's Godzilla: Final Wars (2004), which was really just all sorts of awesome. Douglas Gordon, Captain of the Gôten (played by Don Frye) is my new man hero. Then we watched the episode of MST3K where the crew is forced to sit through Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973), and the three of us laughed until we were ill and dizzy.

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I have parted from Radagast. While the wizard slept, I mounted Suregait and we rode swiftly along a steep mountain pass I was fortunate enough the espy, west of the Daemon Angren, and so there was no need to approach the watchers at Nargroth. There were no encounters with goblins or Uruks. We are now at the southern limits of Gorgoroth, and I have made camp. From the moon, I see it is almost midnight. I could ride no farther this night. Likely, Radagast watches me from somewhere on high, as a hawk, and he may yet summon the eagles and try to force me to forsake the quest. I can not say, Inwë. Perhaps I once again have made the wrong decision, but I knew he would not allow me to continue. Regardless, the mountains are at my back now, and the blasted plateau of ash stretches out before me. With Suregait, I have some hope of reaching my destination in only another four days or so, if we ride hard. I will sleep as little as I may. The sleep only brings dreams I do not wish to revisit, anyway.

But I know the man setsuled pursues me. I do not know how, nor where he might now be, but I know that...no, I will not write that down. I shall eat a bit of the lembas given me by Radagast, and I shall try to rest in the manner taught me by the elves, eyes wide open, for I am too near the crater of Orodruin to shut my eyes. It is said the mountain rent itself all asunder on the day when the ring was unmade, but in my dreams it remains a lake of fire seething below vaulted arches of stone. In my dreams, setsuled Kinslayer leads me down ancient stairs to those flames and reveals to me his dark plan for the world.

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Okay. I need to find some food. And coffee. And then get dressed. I leave you with this Keith Olbermann clip, which better expresses my dismay and anger at the invertebrates'...er, congressional Democrats' decision re: the continued funding of President Asshole's war against Iraq than I could myself express.