This is my site. It's not yours. If it was yours, I probably wouldn't be writing in it. Or at least not as much. And you'd probably be the protagonist, not me.

This site contains no nudity. You should be grateful for that, after seeing how many home movies I have here. This site does, however, contain a fair amount of profanity, especially the blog entries. I could go back and change everything to give the site a more family-friendly rating but I don't fucking want to.

So, if you're under 18 years old, then you should leave this site, and get off my lawn. If you're an adult, yet some kind of pansy who's offended by adult language in a personal blog, it would probably be a good idea for you to leave also.

If you're too horrified to look away, however, I invite you to stick around and see what my little corner of the Internet has to offer.

Great, another fucking metaphor.

Deal with it. Or don't. I sincerely hope nobody still believes that I give a shit.

A flipping mosquito. Buzzing and darting and flitting around my mind. Just barely noticeable, most of the time, Until I notice it. Until it's there. Until it's everything that ever was or is or will be.

Or would have been or could have been or should have been.

Bzzzzzt.

People don't get it. I barely get it myself. Almost eight years now, and counting. Always counting.

Since.

It.

Happened.

I changed. Or the universe changed around me. Or I went insane. Or the universe went insane around me, to spite me.

Does it even matter what really happened? Or how? Or why?

Not to me.

Do the ends, maybe not justify, but perhaps neuter, the ends?

Bzzzzzt.

This fucking mosquito. Sometimes I'm able to sum up the strength to swat at it, but I always miss, and all I manage to do is piss it off. Redouble its efforts to distract and annoy and irritate.

Anyway, I fell.

And this, this is my reward for it all. And my punishment.

Bzzzzzt.

I'm not so vain to believe that I'm the first person this has happened to, but I remain optimistically stupid enough to hope that maybe, just maybe, I'm the last.

The good news is that my vision has stabilized.

The bad news is that my vision has stabilized, in the wrong place.

No more fluctuating, no more discomfort. I'm only using the eye drops when I wake up in the morning, and by now I think this is more of a reflex than anything else.

But I can't see as well as I'd hoped, as well as I'd been led to expect.

I had my 8-week checkup at Joffe. Right off the bat, I told the nurse dude that I was spending most of the time wishing I still had glasses. He had me look through a machine at a balloon - not sure what that test is all about - and then old me to wait for the real eye-doctor.

I told her the same thing. I can't read scores scrolling on the bottom of a TV. I can't read menus behind the counters at fast-food places. I see ghost-images of balls when I play pool. I remember fondly the pre-LASIK days when I saw much better, albeit with glasses.

She had me do the standard test, and I read the 20/20 line on the eye chart for her. Then I reminded her that there's a difference between making out the letters, and seeing them clearly. I was not seeing them clearly. Not at all.

So then she had me do that series of tests where I look at two different lines, one after the other, and declare which one I can see better. This is the same test that everyone who's ever worn glasses has taken. It's how they figure out what prescription you need.

Every other time in my life, when comparing these pairs of lines, I've always had to make them switch back and forth for some of the pairs. Some of the pairs were just too similar at first glance, so I had to see them again before declaring a winner.

But not this time.

For whatever reason, there was never any doubt at all. Two was better than one. Four was better than three. Six was better than five, eight was better than seven, and ten was better than nine. And, each and every time, there was absolutely no doubt. The difference was glaringly obvious. Like, twelve wasn't just better than eleven, it was a million times better. Those even-numbered lines were clear and sharp. Those odd-numbered lines were blurry and/or ghosty.

The results of this test seem to have convinced the doctor that I wasn't just pulling her leg for some reason. She'd already determined that there was no swelling or scarring or dryness in my eye. The only remaining explanation for my less-than-perfect vision was that they'd fucked something up. Or, as she put it, I would most likely need a second procedure to make everything right.

She also said that we could start discussing that after I'd gone three months. So, sometime in June or July, it's extremely likely that I'll be going under the knife/laser again.

I hope so. I hope they don't try/succeed in talking me out of it. There will be no cost to me, and I'm sure they don't relish the idea of doing free procedures on people. But, as things are now, I'm not exactly a glowing endorsement for either LASIK in general or for Joffe in particular. That's gotta count for something.

I'm looking forward to it. I want to see better. To be fair, I already can see better. It's like the partial success I've had has given me a taste of how things could be. Will be, I'm convinced, once I heal from the second correction.

It's calming, actually. I'm no longer stressing about blurriness or ghost images. I'm no longer wondering just how long it's supposed to take for my vision to get better. Now I know that it's not going to get better on it's own, so I can stop worrying about it.

I'll have to go through all that crap again. The prescription eye-drops. The trying to sleep in the sunglasses. The burning and itchiness for a few weeks. But, after I go through all that one more time, I expect to finally have what I should have gotten the first time.

Clear vision. That will be nice.

I used to have all these metaphors. I liked them. They were useful and just barely descriptive if someone was paying enough attention.

I lived on my tip-toes. Sometimes that wasn't enough. Usually, it seemed, that wasn't enough. I'm only so tall. Drowning is drowning, whether it's by an inch or a mile. I was constantly aware of that fact.

Usually, back then, it was waist deep. That was the average. Ostensibly safe, but too close for any type of real comfort. Rogue waves would overwhelm me, knock me down, all the time. Now, now it laps at my ankles. Not much at all, really, until I remember. Until I think about it too much. Like I'm doing tonight.

It only takes an inch to drown.

All I have to do is fall, and then I could drown. All I have to do is lie down, to rest, and then I could drown. A big enough wave, and I could drown.

Some people think I want to drown, to die. They're wrong. I want to live, but I'm not sure it's up to me. I'm at the mercy of the waves.

I'm in shock, still, after all this time. I'm just in shock. By all of it. Me. Her. Us.

Don't pity me. Learn from me. Run, at the first sign. It's not worth the risk.

Run!

I remember the first thing I heard. Advice with a warning. Unsolicited, unwanted, and untrue, I knew with all my heart. Territorial posturing. I paid it no attention.

I remember the second thing I heard. Brutal, catty, matter-of-fact, and untrue, I felt with all my heart. Judgmental envy. I paid it little attention.

And the third thing I heard. I remember that all too well, for I said it myself, to myself. Temporary insanity, I wished with all my heart. Sour grapes, as the old fable goes. I paid attention, though.

My life is, quite literally, behind me. For I have turned my back on my life.

I have not yet walked away, but it's only a matter of time. For I cannot simply stand here forever, and turning around is not an option...

...or is it?

An hour ago would have been better, I think. That was when I really wanted to write something. But I was in the middle of a movie, so I kept watching it instead of writing.

Anyway, nobody cares about my excuses.

I've been shooting a lot of pool over the last several months. A lot. One of my regular opponents, and also one of my newest good friends, is a dude at stupid Jack's. I'm better than he is, but he's been improving quickly. I kinda feel like I need to watch my back a little.

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about various pool stuff, and I (stupidly) mentioned that I used to post movies of shots and runs on my site. My friend, naturally, asked me for my URL so he could watch the movies.

Oops.

I changed the subject. I don't remember what I changed it to, that didn't matter, as long as it was changed to something other than the URL of my site.

This site.

I didn't want him to know the truth about me.

Because, see, if my friend watched my movies here then curiosity would probably lead him to my main blog here.

That would be bad.

I don't want people to know. I certainly don't want friends to know. It's not really that I'm ashamed, I don't think. It's more like I just don't want pity or advice. The former does no good, and the latter is crap I already know.

Get over it, and other bullshit like that.

Assuming one waded through the recent inane bullshit, and one got to the meat of the blog, the meat of me, one couldn't help but find out the truth about me.

It's all there for the reading. I'm splayed.

What's happened to me. What's been done to me. Who I am, and why. Word it however you want. It's what I've become, and it's why. One just has to read it, and accept it as the truth that it is.

Jump back far enough, and boy I used to write some doozies. Emotions boiled inside me constantly, and every now and then they'd bubble to the surface, and every now and then I'd let them spill out through my fingers onto the internet.

Oops.

It's just too much, to expect anyone to understand. I'm convinced that 99% of people haven't experienced what I've experienced. Am still experiencing. Will continue to experience. Nobody will understand unless they go through the same thing. And I don't wish this on my worst enemy. My worst enemy deserves better.

Lucky, that's what the 99% are. Unlucky, that's what I am.

Heh, notice how I blame luck, and not intentional cruelty. Even though all available evidence points the other way. My mind, my heart, still cannot accept that this was done to me on purpose, out of malice.

Go ahead, prove me right. Justify this. Make this worthwhile. I fucking dare you.

I was all set to write an entry, an hour ago. Now, not so much.

Seeing better this morning that I had for the last couple of days. Still not perfect, but better. At my 4-week appointment, I tested 20/20. The doctor spent some time looking at my eye to make sure that the ghosting I'm experiencing is because I'm still healing. It is.

They eased my concerns, again. That's all I really wanted. For them to pat my head, rub my belly, tell me I'm a good boy and everything will be okay.

What I'm dealing with, and I thought I made the term up but somebody beat me to it, is a foul-weather friend.

This is bad enough, I suppose. What makes it worse is that, every single time without fail, I forget who I'm dealing with. I think that things are better now, that the rough patch has smoothed out, bullshit like that.

I'm not stupid. Really, I'm not. I just seem to have blinders on in certain situations, when dealing with a certain person. Then reality once again knocks me upside the head, and I get angry at myself. Not for being a nice person when help is requested, but for expecting any sort of niceness, or even common courtesy, in return.

Anyway, grrr.

Tomorrow is my 4-week checkup at the lasik place. Because, as I always say, timing is everything, my vision has taken a turn for the worse.

I've always had the slightly fuzzy edges, and I've always had the ghost images when I look at pool balls. Some days these have been minor nuisances, only things I even notice when I'm looking for them. But, starting Tuesday morning, they've back with a vengeance. Also back, as an added bonus, is strong the ghosting effect that I'd hoped to never see again.

My eye is itching, like there's something in there that shouldn't be. But I can't find anything.

This morning I printed out some eye charts and set them up 20 feet away. I can, with a lot of effort, get lucky and make out the 20/30 line on these charts. Anything better than that is well beyond my abilities. A week ago, I bet I could have read the 20/16 line, or maybe even the 20/12 line.

I hope the doctor tells me that things are still just healing. I hope she eases my concerns like she did last time.

It's really annoying to spend all that money and go through all this hassle, and maybe I'll still need to wear glasses. For the last couple of days, I've felt like I needed them.

I'm thinking about having a midlife crisis. It's been a while since I've had one.

I had my last one when I was 27. I wore a lot of hats.

Maybe this time around, I could pick something more interesting.

I had it, for about 15 minutes tonight as I sat in my garage watching the lightning and drinking a yummy Night Tripper. I had it.

It was awesome.

I spend the bulk of my life looking for that particular mood. I see it often, but catch it seldom. Like the last pea on the plate, evading the stab of the fork. It's so hard to catch.

It's me, that's the point of the thing. It's the me that I want to be, need to be, deserve to be, am resigned to be, am fated to be.

Am.

It's so nice to be me for a while. Even though it never lasts very long. Emotions feed on themselves, a feedback loop ensues, and it becomes overwhelming. Self-defense kicks in. I hate it when that happens.

Eyes roll, and I persevere. Love and hate blur together, and I persevere. Longing and disgust fight for supremacy, and I persevere.

When I'm me, I persevere.

At other times, not so much.

I miss me.