I have no privacy. But I feel so alone.

Lisa's baby was due about now. I've decided she had it and it was a girl. I've named her Rachel.

This morning the electricity came on for a few minutes, and when it did, Jonny said, "Hey, it's a black-on." This is what passes for humor around here.

But today when I am 17 and warm and well fed, I'm keeping this journal for myself so I can always remember life as we knew it, life as we know it, for a time when I am no longer in the sunroom.

Sometimes the rules don't work. Sometimes the rules cause the anarchy.

I'm the one not caring. I'm the one pretending the Earth isn't shattering all around me because I don't want it to be. I don't want to know there was an earthquake in Missouri. I don't want to know the Midwest can die, also, that what's going on isn't just tides and tsunamis. I don't want to have any more to be afraid of. I didn't start this diary for it to be a record of death.

But it's our curse and our blessing to remember the past and to know there's a future. —Charlie