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	This week's ReEntry editor is an avid believer in the work ethic and the middle-class American Way, driving a shiny new car, working 50 hours per week, not smoking pot, not shooting heroin, nor having sex with 11-year-old girls. Meet... The Gus Musings of The Gus

It's Halloween yet again, time for kids to examine their candy for hypodermic needles and razor blades, and I thought I'd add to the general level of terror with a few of the scariest entries I've read in my recent trawlings of online journals.

resignation
Down the Rubadub in a Terry Nutkins Stylee

My first is from Rory's Journal, Down the Rubadub in a Terry Nutkins Stylee, and describes something that few people have the chutzpah to ever experience or document: helpless resignation to the hand of the Man. This passage embodies what I love most about Rory's writing: his clearly unstoppable love for writing, and the indication that writing is an outgrowth of a personal project to make life itself into a canvas for art. As with any great art, there are causalities and detractors, true, but what comes out in the end is a more articulated understanding of the human condition.

"Strange it was, what came over me after I'd resigned myself to this fate  actually, not really resignation, more acceptance. 'The key to happiness,' I'm often found telling myself and others, 'is acceptance.' And making the best of a bad situation, I guess. That's what I did  suddenly it didn't seem so bad that I'd be spending six months, or a year or more in strange jail, in strange country; I mean, what was the point in getting upset about this fate that I couldn't possibly alter? And what a learning experience...and what a great ending for The Book, what a great place to write The Book! Shit, what happens happens, and that's the way it goes  ya just gotta get used to it."

new college experience
Ellen's Online Diary

My next entry comes from Ellen's Online Diary and reports on something extremely well-documented in the online journal world: the first day of college. Ellen has obviously mastered brevity as an artform, somehow managing to describe all the subtle nuances of the end of childhood and the onset of adult independence with a few perfectly-constructed sentences tuned with stunningly-positioned emoticons. Note Ellen's sassy inner thoughts, contemplating perhaps wearing a dress tomorrow to show those co-workers who called her scruffy when she wore jeans. I wish my girlfriend was half this expressive. Someday Ellen will show her kids this entry, and they'll really understand what it means to head off for college for the first time.

"Today was ok! I went to work in my jeans because I was going around to the college. A couple of people called me scruffy but nevermind. Might wear a dress tomorrow....I feel like it but I don't know :)

"I went to college. It was ok. Met some cool people. Didn't understand some of the stuff but I am sure it will get easier soon. :)

"Not much else for now......"

a different view of sex
Wendy's Journal

I get my final bit of journal scariness from Wendy's Journal. Wendy has a distinct writing voice, chock full of whimsy and delightful randomness. Best of all, she routinely examines issues with refreshing, unexpected viewpoints, completely devoid of cliché or aggravating sentimentality. Take for example this passage about her view of the relationship between sex and friendship, and how the two can never really co-exist. It's an extremely sad view, but only because of the persuasiveness of Wendy's argument. What if she's right? Are we genetically driven to misery? Wendy's understated brilliance scares me more than any petty Halloween hobgoblin ever will.

"Having sex with someone you love has got to be the worst thing you can do to them. If you love someone and love all these tiny things about them that miraculously come together to make up this irreplaceable experience, the one thing you should do is save them from yourself. You can have sex with anyone, after all. Taking a relationship with someone you care about and translating it into some sort of 'romance' is by definition reducing them to that exact act you don't need anyone you love to complete."

Original "ReEntry" concept by The Gus () and other DIARY-L participants.