I refect as if Michael Stipe could hear me...

Michael, you don't know me, and likely never will. We travel in completely diffent spheres: Yours the kingdom of the incredibly gifted and revered, and me here with my computer and my Internet friends. But you know, being borderline is mostly about being alone. Alone and scared. Do you ever feel that way, surrounded as you are with your fawning entourage, your legions of fans and the closeness you experience with your family.

Well, in that respect, anyway I am like you: I am very close to both my mother and brother. Dad and I are working on it, but my illness, with its over half-century of anorexia and bulimia, the cuttting, the suicide attempts....Michael, after your friend Kurt Cobain killed himself you said that you would never have the courage to do that. Michael, my dear, courage has nothing to do with it. Suicide is the most cowardly and selfish thing a human being can do, short of murdering another. So you are wrong there, I'm afraid to tell you. I bet you never actually went through with a plan. Oh God, I hope you never do, because your words and your quiet kindness toward the less fortunate touch me deeply. You would be so sorely missed if you died prematurely.

But tonight I am sitting here alone with my cat and I am frighened. The shadows stretch longer and more menacing at night and it is so mufflingly quiet that I can hear the blood running through my veins. I have to promote my book soon and I don't know how in hell you deal with the media, Michael. They are all over you like a swarm of voracious hornets, waiting to bite you and taste the glory that comes with being a Superstar.

I never wanted to be a big, famous, adored person with my writing. But I do want to show everyone who said I would never amount to anything get published and receive some recognition. One nurse on a particlarly horrible mental ward said all my writing would ever be would be a "nice little hobby". Just like that. Then she went on to say I was on the "Fifty Year Program" at the hospital and would eventually end up on one of the geriatric wards, where half-dead elderly semi-vegetables lie like dish-rages in Lazyboy chairs and wait for God.

I am scared they will discover me again and take me back there. One is never really free of a bad experience because of the feature of memory. I play your tapes in my Walkman and think of you overcoming incredible odds, coming from Decatur, Georgia, a place smaller than my town, being shy and lonely as you devoured cherries and Patti Smith's vocals. Remember those teen years, Michael?

But I am getting off-track. I just wanted to tell you that being borderline is like experiencing that fight/flight feeling most of the time; like you have to constantly stay one step ahead of your emotional demons. I pray that you never know firthand what it is like to be mentally ill. I know if I was with you in some fantasy and had a panic attack, you would not laugh at me and point your finger in a gesture of disgust. Those memories never fade.

I guess that is all I wanted to say to you, since you strike me as such a good listener, being so good with Drew Barrymore and Courtney Love. They know what emotional pain is all about.

And you do too, ever since Kurt and River Phoenix left this world in such agony. They are at peace now. It's the ones left behind who must dwell in their own personal "lakes of fire". Thanks for letting me gab on like this. Want a coffee? Black, with no sugar, right?