2:05 a.m. I'm not feeling as sprightly as I did last night. Sort of cloudy, aimless, as if I've lost my way. In fact, no matter how much I try to cram into any one day, by the time 7 p.m. rolls around, I always feel as if I'm going in circles, not making any progress.

In another month, I will have reached the major milestone of writing every day here in this journal of the air. Every day. I'm not superstitious about claiming a perfect year, because I'm much more worried about what I should do with myself and this effort after the miracle one-year-mark has been met.

There are only so many ways to go. Stopping is an option, and it's not an option. I'm not yet ready to write only when the writin's good -- my taste-o-meter is still in the shop. Plus, I've promised to speak at JournalCon in October, pinning me to the calendar at least until then.

I could make the entries much, much shorter when I don't feel so good -- like right now -- in spite of my absolute certainty that this will be the one and only entry that someone very discriminating happens to read ... and bounds off in a huff.

It's highly possible. When I was first discovering journals I came across many references to the beloved and truly wonderful John Bailey and his Journal of a Writing Man. I hopped on over and came to a cryptic entry about leaving for five days for some prescheduled surgery, and so I shrugged and wandered off.

Thank God I wandered back, or I would have missed on of the best journals on the web. (And those five days were the only lacuna in his otherwise perfectly consistent writing.)

So, I worry about short entries.

But, so your visit here isn't a total loss, let me point you to three entries I've read today that are the sort of entries I wish I'd written today:

First, Linda takes you to Arlington National Cemetery and a touching, very moving meditation on a funeral in this most historic of places. I've been thinking about it a lot today, and then when I saw a photo of a soldier placing flags in front of the graves in preparation for Memorial Day, I actually felt as if I'd been there, thanks to Linda's poignant description.

Second, a tour de force: Mo has just returned from a Mediterranean cruise and instead of a handful of postcards, she paints ten vivid word pictures that will not fade. Breathtaking, exquisite. Trust me.

And third, it's not a feminist rant, because Viv is too restrained for that. And it's not a hand-wringing lament, but you will feel a sense of lost potential and it will make you hopping mad, depending on your age and the amount of time you've served in the peculiar prison of the mind that young girls are sentenced to. Oh yeah -- it's all about string bikinis.

So there you have a trio of beauties, and I'm a much better reader today than writer. But that's the point, isn't it? We're all swimming in the same big ocean of thoughts, and treasures like these enrich us all.

Off you go.