Christ, I just wrote this whole fucking story about my dad, and now it's erased... can you fucking believe this shit?

Ok, I'll try it again. Sitting down? Putting some Radiohead - I Might Be Wrong - on to try and clear my head.

First off, I got my first e-mail today. From Sam, who noted I did not have any friends and enjoyed spying on people at work. Seems very nice.

Then... doing some searching (read as spying) on my own, I run across JuJuBee, who has got the craziest goddamn tattoos I've ever seen, and I said GODDAMN... and wrote her hello.

So, then I went and told her I had a tattoo I was thinking about getting. And I figured that would make a perfect story for here. So, here goes.

Back when I was twenty or so and in college, I got the news that my father had lung cancer. He was a chimney, and I knew he was going to get it sooner or later... to this day I'm not sure if he got it from the smoking AND the agent orange or not. He was in Vietnam for one, two tours. I never really got to talk to him about HIM.

About the time I was twenty three, four, I was living in Brooklyn and he went and got brain cancer. He was doing chemo, radiation, pills. He lost his hair, lost a shitload of weight...

But he didn't change. He was the same guy, sick, not sick. He was afraid of nothing.

One day, he'd come home from the hospital after being there for about two weeks. I decided to go and see him.

Got there, there was an ambulance outside. I was like, 'Shit...' and waited for them to bring him out.

The Cult - She Sells Sanctuary is on.

My Aunt and Grandmother (his sister and mother) were there, along with his girlfriend, who he was living with, Eleanor.

I decided to wait outside, A) not to get in the way and B) because I didn't want to embarrass him in front of his son.

He gets out on the gurney, oxygen mask over his face, sees me and waves. Just waves.

Now, he's sick, he was in the hospital for two weeks, he's a wreck. And he just waves.

The guy was afraid of nothing. We'd talked one time and he had told me he wasn't afraid of dying. I have no idea how he was able to conquer that fear... it's another thing I never got to ask him.

Get to the hospital and there are no additional nurses in the ER. So the one nurse asks me to take his clothes off. I do that, telling him I'm sorry.

A day later, after he died, I heard it. I'm sure I heard something while I was in the room with him... but it wasn't until the next day that I heard him say "I want to be alone with my son."

But I didn't hear it. I was concentrating on getting a doctor to help him.

Wow, now Marilyn Manson - This is the New Shit. Strange selections for this conversation.

So, a month later I find this pad. First thing I see is this, in his block writing. "GOT CANCER WHY BE TOWRN APART COME TO OUR LAST REST STOP"

I have no fucking idea what that means, but it scared the shit out of me. And then I see this.

It's simple, it's linear... probably looks like one of those celtic things people get on their lower back... blah. But it has some severe meaning.

I write. Did I tell you that? I write fiction. Horror, drama, sci-fi, David Lynch shit. I haven't gotten that tattooed to me yet because it scares the hell out of me.

To me, it looks like a doorway. I don't know to what, but that's what it looks like. Then I have an image of his hand coming out of my back. Seriously.

My dad was the coolest person I've ever met. I find that I lost out of finding the answers to some secrets, things I'm sure I'll figure out on my own.

Christ, how can I end this with Zepplin's Gallows Pole...?