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	This week's ReEntry editor is an angst-filled 24-year-old divorcee who's latest relationship failure can be read about from start to finish in her journal (it lasted all of three months). Last year she drove 2,000 miles to be extras in Kevin Smith's new movie, "Dogma," and someday before she dies, she wants to own a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Meet... Emily Thomas Buried Hopes

April 1, 1999
Everything but the Baby

"I want to scream. I want to yell. I want to shake my fist at the heavens and cry, 'Why why why?' So much melodrama lurking behind my rather meek exterior. Someone else's happiness has completely ruined my day. All afternoon I've just grumbled about, marinating in my own bitterness. I feel like my heart is turning into this little black stone that is incapable of feeling anything charitable."

Shana (be sure to pronounce it so it rhymes with sauna) lives in Phoenix. She makes me laugh in one paragraph, then I'm reaching for the Kleenex the next. Her journal is mostly about her and her husband's struggles to conceive a baby, mixed in with bits and pieces of other things that go on in her life. It's full of ups and downs as she tries each month to get pregnant and I find myself praying each time she will. I have faith that someday her dreams of becoming a mother will come true, and I can't wait to read that entry.

Abandonment
Stone's Obscurity.Com

"I know I've kinda joked about it here, how I'm looking for a muse. But in that instance you could have replaced the word 'muse' with 'girlfriend' and it sentiment would have been the same. No, this is different. I need inspiration, I need divine intervention, I need a real, honest-to-goodness muse. I haven't felt like a true artist in a very long time. What can I do? I should have gone to art school when I had the chance. I am afraid I can't do it anymore. I'm afraid the inspiration will never return. I am afraid I've lost something truly great and I don't know how to get it back. I am afraid of never finding my muse again. I wonder if it might be time to turn off the computers. It may already be too late."

I think the real appeal I see in Stone is the fact that I have no idea who he is. I mean, I read his journal every day but I have no clue what he looks like or what his real name is. He's an HTML genius, in my opinion, and he's probably the first guy I'd ask if I had a question about coding. Besides playing obnoxious April Fool's Day jokes on those who are on his notify list, I find him to be a very interesting person, who has great taste in music and movies. Right now he's going through a somewhat un-creative period when it comes to his site, and it seems to be carrying over into the rest of his life. But when he finds his muse... look out. It's going to turn into something really special. And by the way... where can I get an application for that 'girlfriend' job?

Pruritic Papules
Event Horizon

"Last night I was scratching my right forearm in a dream. It felt so good! All the pleasures of the world, all of its earthly delights, were wrapped up in that one gesture. Gradually I began to wonder if there might be some hidden meaning.

For example, why did one forearm itch, and not the other? Why didn't my entire body itch symmetrically?

As I woke up, I realized that my right forearm actually felt bumpy. I got up and looked at it in the light of the bathroom. Aha!: classic allergic contact dermatitis.

But why? Immediately I thought of our new cat, Han. Was I allergic to Han? If so, why did I only break out in a rash on my right arm?

Then I saw a linear scratch on my forearm, and I remembered something. Yesterday on my walk, I stopped to take photographs of some moss growing on a boulder. In fact, here's the picture. I'm showing it large, because I love the detail in the moss leaves; it was what made me stop and get out the camera and macro lens in the first place.

There I was, imagining this great picture, only it happened to be just out of reach. I get pretty singleminded when this happens. I scrambled up halfway onto the rock, brushing some annoying twigs out of the way with my right arm to get a better view.

Ahhhh... 'annoying twigs.' Poison oak!

Oh, no...

I went back to bed, thinking "try not to scratch, try not to scratch, trynottoscratchtrynottoscratch..."

Oh, but it was so tempting, so terribly tempting!

I don't know how I got back to sleep, but I did.

For some reason, I'm resisting the temptation to scratch my arm right now, even though I've spent the last 20 minutes writing about it, thinking about it, thinking about how good it would feel to scratch it, just a little...

Let me change the subject."

Susan is a pathologist who lives and works in California. She writes frequently about medical stuff, which fascinates me, and also about her hubby and young son. Being an avid Star Wars fan myself, I admire this quality in her and her family, and she might be the only other person on the planet who is as excited about the release of Episode I as I am. She is extremely intelligent, which is obvious from her entries... but she thinks of great ways to tell her stories. She's also get a great design easy to read and navigate.

February 3, 1999
more.than.this

"She'd been out walking her usual route along State Street. With her headphones on, she didn't hear the crunch of gravel behind her as the 80+ year-old woman plowed into her. She claims she was looking at her speedometer. She was going 40 miles per hour. Her license wasn't even suspended. Mom was only wearing her pink sweat suit, tennis shoes, and her walkman. No ID. The police saw she was wearing a wedding ring and a mother's ring each of us kids' birth stones set into a gold band. This unidentified woman had family that needed to be found. She didn't die right away. Her neck was broken, as were a wrist and ankle. She was thrown approximately 50 yards into a field. The paramedics showed up and took her to the hospital. At 10:53 am the doctor on call decided to pull life support. Dad later said that he will be forever grateful to this doctor for doing what he was not supposed to do. We later learned that two police officers walked up and down our neighborhood, knocking on doors and holding out a Polaroid picture of my mom. She was so puffed up and bruised that nobody recognized her. They skipped over our house because they said it didn't look like anyone was home."

Heather's journal started out as a way to record her thoughts and emotions during her pregnancy. Needless to say, it's grown into much more. The above entry just broke my heart. Heather was only 10 when her mom died. There is no bullshit to be found in this journal, she writes from the heart. It's almost like we get to watch little Bayley (who was born in November) grow up from reading Heather's entries. I think she proves that there is definitely More Than This.

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