12:48 a.m. I'm going to have to check and see if what's happening to me is typical of the online journaler, especially the online journaler who (very rashly, very stupidly) decided a while ago to write every day. I'm coming up on a year now, and I'm burnt out, bored, looking for new horizons ... and most of all, I'm terrified of repeating myself like a bad meal.

What needs to be done? I know what needs to be done. I've got to get a theme, an interest, a mailing list, an inspiration. Maybe look at some new property. Plant my flag across the street on a bigger, better piece of real estate. Something that doesn't need so much work.

Or maybe I should go a little deeper. Yeah. That's it. I've only been slicing a micrometer from each day to examine here in outer space. Maybe it's time to dig through the silverware drawer and find the cleaver.

Give you a little more for your time here. Maybe a word-of-the day. Today's word can be despond, as in slough of. You're doomed if you don't look up words you don't know, you know. Consider this a bit of motherly advice. And I know, I know. I've said that before. But it bears repeating.

I can take my temperature and my pulse and contrast and compare the shape of my day to the shape it took last year, but this information is of absolutely no interest to anyone unless I draw a universal chalk line around my shadow here on the sidewalk. Or unless I'm bleeding profusely -- which, at the moment, I'm not.

I think the most important aspect of this writing experiment is honesty. As a former reporter, I know the value of telling you the truths you need to know so that you can make an intelligent response to what I try to describe. I can't emphasize this enough.

There are so many, many truths.

And I love them all. Each day I try to pick one that I can talk about, one that doesn't hurt any family member or offend any friend or divulge any state secrets. Some days my responsibilities force me to look in the darndest places for an obscure little fragment of the scene I can hold up to the light and talk about. Some days I have the whole empty field to myself and anything I want to write about is fair game.

Today is not one of those days, of course. Today I do the snarky fan dance of distraction and point you to the big bag of Hershey's kisses that I've been lugging around, even though I don't really like chocolate. I've been having a few each day with my tea, and lately I've begun to think that the English really are brilliant to schedule a tea and sweet nibbley break around four in the afternoon. Hits the spot I never even knew was there, I say.

And you know what? I feel better already. Just mentioning the bag of kisses has put me to rights. One authentic moment, one fractal glimpse of the whole, and I'm confident you can intuit the rest ... and you will be correct. That's the inherent power of the truth.

May you have a good many kisses in your day, too.