A bit morbid, I suppose.

I've always had a fascination with fortune tellers, with mystics who believe they know the future, with palm readers and tarot cards and horoscopes. It's kind of terrible really, this fascination. I used to read my horoscope every day during high school years, just to see if anything would come true.

Funny though. I never act upon my fascination. It goes against everything I put my faith in, but it's there, nonetheless.

Often I wonder what the next day will hold. I wonder if my dreams will come true, if luck will find me when I pocket that heads-up penny on the sidewalk. Don't we, as humans, desire to know our fate, the outcome of our tomorrows, our next ten or twenty years? Don't we want to believe in the fates coming together to stitch our every second, every minute? I think we do, deep down, but I know that it's this terrifying thing to admit.

If you could know when, down to the very second, your death would take place - would you live life any differently? Would you challenge your beliefs? Would you defend yourself, stand up for anything and everything? Would you be bold in every action, every word that comes from timid lips?

I don't know. I don't know if I would change everything or not. All I know is that I'm living a surprise. I'm here and tomorrow is not guaranteed, and next year is not certain, and I don't know where I'll be, who I'll be in ten years.

But I think that as curious a person as I am, and as much as I would love to go have my palm read, my secrets and future revealed...there is a part of me who lives for the surprise in every day. I live for the not-knowing aspect of tomorrow. I wake up every morning anxious, not because I'm dreading the day, but because I might meet someone new, or stumble upon an adventure waiting to happen.

Although, as a writer of fiction, there is that God role that seeps through every word my characters say. Sure, I am creating an entire world, a world where anything goes and the people I create dote on my every move, but there is still that element of surprise. My own writing always comes as a shock, especially when I'm writing stories. I don't know how the end will turn out. I don't know where my characters will end up. I just write, I just live, and whatever happens happens, for better or for worse.

Lord, let me live until I die -- Will Rogers