One of my all-time favorite books is Earth Abides, by George Stewart. In that book, the people have a Winter Solstice ceremony where they'll name the outgoing year.

One year might have been The Year of the Lions, another I think was The Year the House Fell. Things like that. Just a name, usually suggested by the children, that would be easier to remember than Year One or Year Sixteen would be.

Then one year the people in the community just couldn't decide what to name the year. There had been good times and very bad times, and they just couldn't decide.

So they just named it Year Twenty-Two and left it at that.

I don't make up names for the years but, like most people at this time of year I suppose, I will spend an amount of time remembering the year past. I've written before how I'll usually reserve some time for myself right around midnight for this purpose, and I'll usually end up saying "It was a good year overall" or something like that.

Well this year it looks like I may be busy as the new year arrives. I may not have the luxury of wandering off by myself. So I spent some time last night trying to decide what kind of year 2004 was for me.

Like the community in the book, I've been unable to reach a decision. It was a very good year and a very bad year, and if I choose one label over the other I lessen the importance of both.

Well I'm not going to do it. I wouldn't have one without the other.

So, this has been The Year 2004, and I'm not likely to forget it.

Actually not much to say about tonight's Rich O's trip. I had a Delirium Noel and a Fantome Saison. I've had both before and liked them both.

Rich O's was moderately crowded, though not as much so as I was expecting. I was able to grab a seat on the sofa right away where I talked with a few people I don't know.

After a while CoffeeDude and ElPresidente joined me and we bullshitted for an hour or so.

Oh yeah, DooRagGirl came in at one point. CoffeeDude seems to know her better than I do. She was looking very pretty, but I didn't talk to her as CoffeeDude was pretty much monopolizing her time.

I left fairly early so I could catch VigilanteGirl before she left work.

(I suppose this entry would fall into the if you don't like it don't read it category)

(Update 12/31/04: Slight edit for clarity and to say that I was actually in a good mood when I wrote this, and that I remain in a good mood. I just told the people what they wanted to know.)

The other night I posed some questions in this 'blog:

Who are you people? What do you want?

Much to my chagrin, but otherwise not surprising at all, the overwhelming thing that people want to know is this (I paraphrase here):

What's going on with you and that girl you were so tore up over?

I wasn't even going to respond to this line of questioning. It's still a little too recent after all. A little too private.

Even as late as tonight I was telling CoffeeDude that to bring the subject up at all was to risk reopening those wounds, and that wasn't something I wanted to do.

Nevertheless, inspired in part by a couple of good beers and a couple of good friends, I sit here picking at scabs.

My sister is concerned about me. She saw, too late, what LaptopGirl's leaving had done to me. To her, I suppose, I just wasn't the type of person that would let myself be so affected. I'd been living all over the country every other time anything close to this had happened, and so my sister, my entire family in fact, had barely noticed my turmoil.

I got through those times on my own, just as I've been getting through the last few months. I do it because I have to. You play the hand you're dealt, and you don't waste too much time and energy wishing for a redeal.

My sister has, for the first time, seen the vulnerable side of me. She's concerned about what might happen next. She sees me writing about someone new and worries that I'll just end up being hurt again.

She may be right. I am on the rebound after all. On the rebound from what exactly I still don't know. I mean, how do you define the end of a one-sided relationship that wasn't even a relationship? More than nothing, less than something.

To answer the question of what's going on, the answer is nothing. No contact whatsoever for weeks. A couple of calls to make sure I wasn't going to surprise her with a visit, a near-frantic plea to refrain from sending Rich O's pictures, an ignored Christmas greeting, and that's been it.

I think the thing is - I lost two people when she left. I lost the most fascinating person I'd ever known, a person that, by her very presence, made me feel more alive than I'd felt in years. That person was my friend, and I miss her dearly.

The other person, the person I came awfully close to falling in love with, is a person that doesn't even exist. Perhaps she never will, but the loss of that person, that potential, simply devastated me. I don't know if I can explain it, even to myself. I wanted to watch that emergence, know that person, just be in her life. Not in a romantic relationship. That's what everyone's been assuming all along, but everyone's been wrong.

My sister is worried about my heart getting broke. She's a little late. Pieces of my heart lie scattered in the parking lot of the Burger King on Grant Line Road. They lie where they fell when I realized that not only was LaptopGirl going away, she was already gone. The things I needed to say to her would not be said in person, and most of those things remain unsaid to this day.

I know that things will never, can never, be the same between us. I've said too much. I've hurt too much.

I do miss her though. I miss my friend. If I didn't miss her I might as well be dead, and it was she that had reminded how to be alive.

The last three months cannot be undone, and I wouldn't undo them if I could. For along with the potential I saw in her, I found a new potential in myself. The potential to be happy instead of simply content. My heart may be mostly scar tissue now, but it beats faster when I kiss a girl. It warms me more when I hold her hand. It hurts more when I think about sad things.

It reminds me that I'm alive.

And now, to quote one of my favorite movie characters,

And that's all I've got to say about that.

In the Summer it was innocent. Just a quick peck, the first and last. It was not what I was expecting after the night I'd had. Suddenly and inexplicably desperate, I searched her eyes for, I don't really know, an invitation, a promise, anything. But her eyes were too deep, and I got lost in them, and I found nothing, and then the moment was over.

It's Winter now. Different girl, different circumstances. I actually just wanted to clear the air. People were watching, so I grabbed her hand and went to find some privacy. A hug lasted a moment too long, and our lips met. After a second, her lips parted, and I pulled away. Her eyes, those amazing eyes, searched mine for something, anything, but there was nothing there, and then the moment was over.

Still trying to play catch-up with Rich O's Saturnalia list, I actually had two different beers after work today. The first was a Bells Third Coast Old Ale. Here's what I thought.

(draft) Cloudy brown, with a nice long-lasting head. The taste was malty and nutty, with a fairly bitter finish that became more tolerable as the glass became emptier.

Next I had a De Ranke Pere Noel. I actually thought I'd had this a couple of weekends ago but I was wrong.

(draft) A nice cloudy copper color that was quite intriguing. Nothing particularly special about the taste - actually this beer seemed a little too well-balanced. All of the flavors seemed to cancel each other out.

Tomorrow is virtual Friday (the next two days are holidays for us) so I was tempted to stay for a third beer and continue my conversation with ExBartender but, in the end, I figured that three strong beers on a stomach that'd only had a Twix bar in it all day would not be the best move I'd ever made.

People at work give me a hard time about my Post-Its.

They're all important though. Really.

One of the most boring things I ever get to read in peoples' 'blogs are the entries about their dreams. Thankfully most 'bloggers know how boring these entries are so they don't ever waste their readers' time with dream entries. If only all 'bloggers were so aware.

Anyway, I had a pretty interesting dream tonight.

I was messing around with my new girlfriend at my grandmother's old house. We'd gone there looking for some privacy, but people started showing up. And my people I mean relatives. My grandmother came home from somewhere and before too long almost everyone on my mom's side of the family was there having some kind of family dinner or something.

So I got to take my girlfriend around and introduce her to everyone.

The interesting part was that when I introduced her to my grandmother I referred to her as my dead grandmother. Just like dead relatives show up for dinner every day.

Then, when I introduced my girlfriend to my cousin Chris she was like, "I think I've met you before. You're dead too, right?" Chris answered, "Yes, I'm afraid so."

Then, I got frustrated because my parents weren't at the dinner, and I really wanted them to meet my girlfriend. We decided to walk down to my parents' house but I woke up before we got there.

I continue to be astounded by the amount of traffic I'm getting here.

Looking through my weblogs, I see of course the traffic sent my way via google and the like, but I'm also seeing a big increase in traffic that seems to have no referrer at all.

It's what I'd see if you just had me in your favorites list, or if you just had my site name memorized.

Yesterday 213 of you came to my home page. And 182 never went any deeper into the site. I like to think that you're just checking for my latest 'blog entries and then moving on.

I know who some of you are. You're my sisters, my coworkers, my friends from wherever. People from the bar. At least one of you may be obsessed with me as I continue to see that same ISP hitting me several times each day.

My enemies. I don't know that any of you even exist, but if you do - you're checking my 'blog too.

Who the rest of you are, I have no idea. I like to think that you stumbled your way here via some obscure search, and that you liked what you read anough to become a regular reader/fan/enemy/stalker.

Many of you, I'm sure, go away disappointed. My new entries bore you, or they're not what you're looking for. But, often enough, you come back anyway.

Hey, I wonder what that Dave dipshit's brain has vomited onto the Internet today. I wonder what kind of mood he's in. I wonder if he's ever been laid in his life. I wonder what he looks like naked.

If you keep coming back, you're looking for something. So just let me know. Use the little Say Something, Dammit! form and let me know who you are and what you're looking for.

Maybe I'll try to oblige.

Today, Rich O's was finally open again, so I stopped by after work and sampled a Three Floyds Alpha Klaus Christmas Porter. Here's my ratebeer.com review:

(draft) Of all the beers at Rich O's, this one is perhaps the one that's been recommended to me most often. Frankly, I don't understand all the hype. It is a good beer, but not a great one. I think my main problem was the gritty feeling I got in my mouth while drinking it. It almost seemed like there was something that hadn't quite dissolved all the way. By the end of the glass it was better. Other than the gritty mouthfeel, this beer smelled and looked fantastic, and it had a really good flavor - one that wasn't nearly as sweet as I was expecting. A very drinkable beer, but any place that has this probably has something better as well.

While at the bar, I spent a little time talking with the owner about 'blogging, and I got an idea for a post in my head. The title for the post would be If you don't like it, stop reading it and it would contain an awful lot of venting.

We also talked about something that's been on my mind for a while - the importing of old (in my case paper) journals into 'blog form. Roger's concern seemed mainly about how to deal with grammar and euphuism, while my main concern would be whether to import the things at all.

Anyway, I guess that's it. I had a nice end to a very boring day at work.

I think VigilanteGirl is psychic or something.

I hadn't got two feet inside the door before she was all "What's wrong with you? You're such a grouch."

I never thought of myself as a person that wears their mood on their sleeve. I used to be told that my eyes would change color depending on my current state of anger, arousal, boredom, or whatever, but I was nowhere near close enough for anyone to tell me what color my eyes were.

So she must be psychic, because she was absolutely right.

I'm in a crappy mood.

There's no particular reason. I guess the bullshit's just been piling up, sort of like the snow, and it doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon, sort of like the snow.

I can feel that I'm closing myself off again, and I don't particularly like it, but I do understand it. I reach out and find nothing, so I stop reaching out. The next logical step is to prevent people from reaching out to me, so I start rebuilding the castle walls.

And if that doesn't work maybe I'll put in a sniper tower or something.

Or maybe I just need a real vacation where I'm not stuck at home listening to the snow pulling my gutters loose.

The weather did its best to wreak havoc on my family's holday plans, but only suceeded in shuffling things around.

Instead of my sisters and I meeting and Dina's house, we went to Neisha's and trudged through their unplowed driveway.

Instead of having my grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins to my house for Christmas Eve, we all ended up at my grandmothers house. The official reasoning for that was to make it so my grandmother wouldn't have to go out in the cold, but I think the unofficial reason was that Christmas Eve has been at my grandmother's house for the last million years - except for last year when it was at my house - and it just somehow feels right to be at her house on that night.

Afterwards, my cousin Mike and I played pool until nearly 4:00 AM, and I'm feeling pretty sluggish from my halfassed attempt to get a decent amount of sleep.

Right now I'm sitting here pretty bored. I want to go out and do something tonight, but I'm not sure what. Rich O's is closed (for the holiday, not because of the street conditions). VigilanteGirl is working. Maybe I'll make the trek to Jeffersonville in search of Newcastle at Hooters.

Oh yeah. Mike and I split a bottle of Delirium Noel last night. A very good beer for such a cold night. After that I had my last bottle of Mad Bitch and Mike tempted fate by drinking some canned Guinness that'd been in my fridge for either months or years.

It's supposed to get fucking cold tonight. Of course that's not exactly what the weatherguy said, but I'm sure that's what he was thinking.

Because of the fucking cold and the even more fucking cold (fuckinger?) forecast for tomorrow night, I've made a little bed/house/fort for this stray cat that lives under my deck.

She's just the sweetest thing, but I cannot allow her into the house as I'm afraid that she'll get my cats sick.

Normally I don't worry too much about her, but it's supposed to be so fucking cold for the next two nights that I just had to do something.

I took my cat carrier, stuffed a pillow into it, wrapped it in a beach towel, and put it in my garage. My back garage door I propped open about six inches so Spook (the cat) could enter and leave the garage as she saw fit.

So now Spook is laying in her new little shelter, just purring like crazy when I went to check on her. She's just such a good cat. I wish I could find a home for her.

(This entry brought to you by Delirium Tremens.)

It's been said, mostly by me in this 'blog, that I cannot take a hint.

Or, to be more specific I guess, I do not recognize hints, and when I (rarely) do, I do not take whatever action the hint is urging me toward.

Tonight I recognized a hint. Hell, astronauts in the space station, were they to have trained their spy scopes on Southern Indiana tonight, would have recognized the damn hint.

Well I saw it, and I recognized it. I just thought it was a really bad idea, so I pretended I didn't see it.

I pretended I was incredibly, absurdly dense.

And you know, it really wasn't that tough. I had a really good role model to look to for inspiration. And for justification I suppose.

Well we all ended up driving to my completely snowed-in sister's house for gift exchanges.

Down the road from my house there's this overturned snowplow. Not the best omen.

This is my sister Neisha's road. Actually this is the good part of the road. What doesn't really show up in the picture is that the "plowed" part of the road is still over a foot deep.

An added bonus in this picture is a part of my finger.

They say Floyd County got 14" of snow. It's really hard to tell with all of the blowing and drifting, but I'd guess that my house got closer to 20".

Just thought I'd put up some pics of what I'm trying to deal with here.

This is as far as I got trying to shovel my driveway out from under the multiple layers of snow and ice. Usually one of my neighbors will bring a plow and clear my driveway for me. I'm still hopeful that they'll do it again.

I did, however, manage to shovel a path down my walkway. Because of the drifting the snow here was up to 36" deep.

The prints I left this morning going to the detached garage to get my snow shovel and look at my useless snowblade mower attachment.

My deck always seems to be a magnet for snow.

The snow piled up against my basement door - at the North end of the house.

Multiple Christmas activities are being either cancelled or postponed. One that's still on is that I'm supposed to have a lot of people over tomorrow night. If I don't get that driveway cleared visitors should have a real adventure.

We got about 5" of snow today. Now there's sleet and freezing rain. Supposed to be another 6-10" of snow later tonight.

Pretty damn cool.

We had a brief lull at around 5:00 so I (of course) went to Rich O's and had a beer. Didn't really feel like experimenting so I just had a Great Lakes Christmas Ale.

I guess that's it.

So Rich O's is having this pagan/christmas beer festival yet, because of the unfortunate holiday timimg, they're closed for the next two weekends. I'm a little afraid that I won't get a chance to sample the 35(!) beers scheduled to be on tap over the next couple of weeks.

Accordingly, I went back after work today to cross another beer off my list.

What I had was a St Feuillien Cuvee de Noel - I'd provide a link but their page seems to be broken.

Here's what I thought:

(draft) One of those beers that takes a long time to pour. Once in a glass, the head faded fairly quickly. I detected a strong oak smell until the head had gone, then lots of malt and alcohol with some fruit. The alcohol-bitter aftertaste reminded me strongly of bourbon. I liked this, but I'd recommend it to close out a session instead of beginning one.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting here semi-depressed about the holidays. I've never been one of those people, and I'm pretty sure I won't really become one. I'm just a little more aware this year of things that might have been, and things that used to be, and things that almost were, than I've been in recent years.

I do know what I want for Christmas though. About two feet of snow between now and tomorrow morning so I can skip work.

I don't know if I've been good enough to deserve that present though.

False alarm.

That's good, right?

Of course it is.

Stopped by Rich O's after The Day Of Hell at work. Had a Corsendonk Christmas Ale while talking with DooRagGirl's ex-husband, who I suppose needs a new nickname. One that's not so much of a downer.

(draft) Smelled better than it tasted, but it smelled fantastic. Nice and malty with some spice aroma that I couldn't identify. Taste was very similar to the Great Lakes Christmas Ale - if you like that, you'll like this.

With a name like Corsendonk, it has to be good, right?

VigilanteGirl didn't make it to the doctor today. She's supposed to go tomorrow. I find myself concerned, but I am in a pessimistic phase.

My nap, which was supposed to be one hour, turned into a four hour affair, so now it's after midnight and I'm not even close to tired. I should probably try to sleep anyway as I don't expect tomorrow (today!) to be any better at work.

How shortlived memories can be.

I just got off the phone with my sister, who was all excited/nervous about the SNOW that they're predicting for Wednesday.

Apparently she's forgotten the last six winters.

Apparently she's forgotten how, week after week, all of the local stations start hollering "Snow! Snow! Snow!" every time their ratings drop.

They know that this will get people to tune in for the latest forecast, the latest school closings, the latest bullshit.

For me, this all came to a head last Winter, when the forecasts for snow were so persuasive that there were several preemptive school closings.

Before a single flake had fallen.

Then, surprise! it turned out that the forecasts were wrong after all, there was no snow at all.

But tune in tomorrow, as a new system is making its way out of the Rockies. Will we see a white weekend? Find out at 6:00, 11:00, and noon!

I'm not buying their crap anymore.

I like snow. I missed it a lot when I lived in Seattle. I'd like to see it snow.

So I hope I'm wrong, and I hope the professionals are right.

But I'm not counting on it.

Now I don't ever fish, at least not since that time when we were kids and my sister and I caught the same bluegill a dozen times each, but what I understand about it is that after you get a bite, you're supposed to jerk the line.

This is to "set the hook" and make sure that the fish doesn't get away.

Oh, I suppose you still have to worry about the occasional line break, but for the most part once the hook has been set, that fish isn't going anywhere.

The point that I wanted to make here, in keeping with my metaphorical bend, is that I'm already hooked, there's no need to keep jerking that line to make sure I'm still here.

Whether you view this as a catch and release situation or whether I'm going to be dinner, that doesn't really matter to me right now.

What does matter is that I took the bait and now I'm at your mercy.

Just stop jerking the line. It hurts, and it accomplishes nothing.

Coming home from work this morning was sort of interesting.

We've had a little snow, maybe a half-inch, and the idiots are out in full force.

After successfully avoiding the SUVIdiots who think slick roads are irrelevant to them, and the PussIdiots who reduce their speed to a single-digit number at sight of the first flake, I made it to the bottom of the big hill on my road.

My house sits atop that hill, and between me and my house this morning were an estimated 114 cars and trucks strewn about in varying states of crashedness.

So I turned around and went back to the only alternate route available to me - through Edwardsville.

When I got to within a quarter-mile or so of my house I ran into a different problem.

Georgetown's Finest had, upon noticing the 114 cars and trucks strewn about, had decided to park in front of my driveway and block traffic to the hill.

I was stuck in this backup, but I was able to use the (empty) oncoming traffic side of the road to get home.

Notice that I said the trip home was sort of interesting, nothing more than that.

If most of the women I'm attracted to turn out to be secret psychos, and most of the women who are attracted to me turn out to be secret psychos, what exactly does that say about me?

I don't think I'm a psycho, but would a psycho know that they're a psycho?

Saturday night at Rich O's had much less of a madhouse atmosphere. I was actually able to grab a seat on the sofa fairly quickly.

Based on several Friday night recommendations, my first beer was a Gouden Carolus Noel. I liked it, but not as much as I was expecting given the rave reviews.

(draft) Highly recommended by all who'd had it at Rich O's. Definitely a Christmas Ale - all sorts of complex flavors. I thought the fruitiness was a little bit too much but I suppose it was needed to mask all of that alcohol.

Got to meet some of the other ratebeer.com people. I'm pretty horrible with names but there were two cool guys and one hot girl that had made trips of varying length to enjoy Saturnalia.

My next beer was a Pyramid Snow Cap Ale.

(draft) Nice and smooth, no particular flavor jumped out and grabbed me. This kind of reminded me of Pete's Wicked Winter Ale.

My last beer of the night was a draft of Spezial Rauchbier Lager. I've had this before, from a bottle, and don't really have any updates to that old rating.

I liked it a lot, but I could detect no smoke whatsoever.

Aside from the beer, I spent the night talking with one of LaptopGirl's ex-boyfriends about nothing in particular.

I got text-messaged about a dozen times by someone asking if I was pissed off. By the end of the night I was a little pissed - because of all the damn text messages.

I left fairly early as I had (have!) a rare Sunday morning work appointment.

Tonight was the beginning of the Saturnalia Festival at Rich O's.

Unlike Gravity Head and the Hop Festival, I've really been looking forward to this festival. Nearly every beer on the list is one that intrigues me.

As a special bonus, interspersed with my beer ratings in this entry will be some pictures!

My first selection from Rich O's pink Saturnalia menu, and this is no big surprise when you consider my love for Delirium Tremens, was this:

Delirium Noel

(draft) Dark brownish red with a very dense head that lasted forever. A very nice completion to the Delirium triad. Not as much spice as I was perhaps expecting, but very drinkable. More similar to Delirium Nocturnum than to Tremens.

This first beer was consumed while standing at the end of the bar waiting for anyplace to open up where I could sit.

One funny thing during this time - some girl forced her way through the crowd and ordered two glasses of wine! The bartender's eyes rolled so far back in his head I thought he'd turned into a zombie for a second.

Just a couple views of how crowded Rich O's was. These pictures were taken from the kiddie table - the only place I could sit for the first two hours.

Once I'd managed to worm my way onto the sofa I was ready for my next selection, a Grottenbier Bruin, or Grotten Brown as the menu listed it.

(draft) A nice spicy aroma that led to a fairly tame-tasting beer. There was a slight mustiness to it that didn't exactly thrill me. By the second half of the glass the head had dissipated so both the spice and the must had gone. What was left was good but not great.

One annoying thing - at one point I looked to my left on the sofa and saw an empty space. That empty space beside me in such a crowded bar reminded me that I'm supposed to be sad, so I got a little sad. Then I moved to the loveseat so some friends of DayShiftDude could have the sofa.

More idiots - but not the people on the loveseat - they are actually pretty cool.

My third beer was something which I can't for the life of me remember.

(draft) Fruity and spicy and citrusy. It was the citrus that turned me off this beer.

By the end of the glass I'd warmed to it a little but not enough to have another one of whatever it was as my last beer of the night.

At around 10:00 it got crowded again. This lady's ass didn't help matters.

My last beer of the night was a Great Lakes Christmas Ale. I've had this before and like it a lot.

DayShiftDude and I talked for most of the night.

My lovely self, with ElPresidente in the background. I'm drinking a half-pint of Great Lakes Christmas Ale here. Yummy!

Take a group of people, say a dozen or so, all chronological adults.

Have one of these people behave in a mature manner and the effect on the group is: nothing.

Now have one of these people act like an immature jackass and at least half the group will start following suit.

I'm just sayin'.

Went to a little project completion party at Louisville's new Lucky Strike Lanes today.

We bowled three games.

It didn't suck as much as I'd expected. There were several people from HR and PR that I didn't know - and couple that I kinda wish I did know.

I actually won the first game with a pretty shitty score, and I think I might have tied for second in the second game.

Oh yeah, the place had Smithwick's on tap. That was a pleasant surprise so I had three of them.

It's funny how the simplest things can sometimes have the biggest impacts.

Tonight I said something nice to someone, and her response what that it was the nicest thing that anyone had said to her in five years.

While I seriously doubt the time span - the girl is quite hot and probably gets tons of compliments - I still feel pretty good about making her smile like that.

On a completely unrelated topic, I found out this evening that TrainGirl has moved to New York or some other far away place. I will miss talking about books with her.

At least I know I didn't drive her away. I don't have the proper equipment.

I did answer your very strange question.

Go here.

Forgot to mention...

I didn't like the new phone that work gave me the other day, so I talked them into letting me go and buy one I do like.

So now I have a camera phone and it's pretty cool.

Drove through snow flurries on the way to work this morning.

First snow of the season here, as far as I know.

Hopefully not the last though.

Last night Rich O's was actually sort of dead. There were only a few idiots there, sitting at the island, and I took a picture of them with my new camera phone.

To drink, I had some Goose Island Christmas Ales. I'd had this last December and didn't see anyting special about it, but last night they were very good. Here's my ratebeer.com review:

(draft) Had this a year ago and didn't see anything special about it. Had it again last night and really liked it a lot. I thought I detected roasted nutmeg but don't see that mentioned anywhere. Very much a Winter ale, and very much a good one.

Spent most of the night talking with NotGeorge about not much in particular.

I had some small samples of Thomas Hardy Ale and some new Belgian Quad called Urkel or something. Both were good enough that I'll be getting them again, but both were also strong enough that I couldn't safely have any last night after my Christmas Ales.

(This entry is brought to you by Mad Bitch Belgian Ale.)

Okay, so that last entry was just a bunch of whining with no real substance.

This one will be whining with an attempt to put something behind the gripes.

I know what's really bothering me.

Actually it's two things.

Back in June I wrote about how I felt I needed/wanted some companionship during that Las Vegas trip. Back in June I did have a specific companion in mind, but that's not really important now. Look it up if you want.

During my most recent trip I had zero motivation to do anything at all. There I was, in perhaps the most exciting city in the world, where fun lurks around every corner, and all I wanted to do was watch TV and drink beer.

The reason I had zero motivation is that I was alone, and I knew it. I wanted someone to spend time with, to do the fun things with, but there was nobody there. I didn't, this time, have anyone specific in mind - just an idea of what would make things interesting.

That I'm noticing this aloneness - this has been nagging at me for a couple of weeks now. If I find myself no longer able to enjoy my own company, just where does that leave me? I don't get along casually with just anybody. Hell, I spent the week avoiding my coworkers so I wouldn't have to hang out with them. It takes a special person to make me feel really comfortable just being myself, and that person used to be me. What if I'm no fun anymore?

If I find that I need companionship to have a good time then I'm in big trouble, because I don't make close friends that easily, and the women aren't exactly beating a path to my door. Some of them are even getting the hell out of Dodge, er, New Albany.

If I can't keep myself entertained then I'm basically screwed. I'll become a lone wolf, howling at a moon that doesn't care about my torment.

So that's one thing that's been bothering me.

The other thing is a little strange, even for me.

When a certain person left I became pretty screwed up. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think, I couldn't do much of anything except keep breathing and hope for some kind of relief. Once I'd finally become somewhat accustomed to that, the situation changed for the worse. My mood sank lower that it had ever been in my life. That's what it took for me to regain some perspective, and now I can with some confidence say that I'm through letting myself be tortured. Annoyed, yes. Pained, maybe. Tortured, no. I'm much better now.

Really, I am.

Good for me, right?

That's what I thought.

Now, and this sounds really silly to me as I type it, I find myself bored. I actually miss the sadness and the heartbreak. That empty space beside me at Rich O's was not much, but it was something I could count on being there each and every time I went there for two months. That numbness in my chest did not feel good, but it reminded me that I was alive. That phantom vibration in my hip was not announcing an incoming phone call - it was snapping me out of my funk, however briefly, and giving me hope, however slight.

Now there's nothing. It's just me again, and like I said earlier, I may not be enough.

This Fall was a very interesting time in my life, to say the least. Now I feel like the interesting times are over, and it may be a long time before they come again.

If they ever do.

I've just astonished myself with my fragility.

First of all, I've lost my glasses somewhere. How I manage to lose things when I live by myself I'll never know. I don't really need my glasses to function but driving without them does make me feel a little out of sorts.

Second of all, there were no less than a half-dozen Jeeps in Rich O's parking lot when I arrived. Each of these must, of course, be checked out for the telltale stickers. All proved themselves to be innocuous, but not until each had taken a second or two to pick me up and then slam me back down.

Third of all, Rich O's was crowded with strangers again. This is really starting to bother me. As I told CoffeeDude last week, if Rich O's turns into a date bar then I'll stop going there and then there'll be no place for the likes of me.

Fourth of all, there was a new batch of one of NABC's beers. I won't say which one because the guy who invented it is a friend of mine. What I will say is that this new batch is absolutely the worst example of its style that I've ever had. I don't even know what style it should be in - bitter horse piss perhaps. I can't believe that someone actually sampled this before unleashing it on the consuming public. I paid and left after about two sips.

Fifth of all, some asshole nearly ran me off the road on the way back home.

Sixth of all, some other asshole in front of me drove fifteen MPH all the way down my road.

I guess that's it for now. I'm sure something else will piss me off before the night is over.

Got my new phone today and it is not a picture phone.

Sorry ladies, but all that picture trading we were planning will just have to wait.

You'll just have to continue using your imagination.

After sleeping for over ten hours on Tuesday, imagine my surprise when last night, at around 7:00, I felt myself getting tired again.

I slept until about 6:00 AM this morning.

Now I'm the guy that went for nearly two months without getting more than a couple hours sleep per night. Now I sleep twenty-one out of forty-eight.

This week sure has seemed to fly by.

It is nice to not feel tired though. And the mental ramblings have settled down.

I may be going sane.

I've had this subject in my head for a while and I've been struggling with how to express my thoughts without sounding like I'm lecturing. I don't think it's worked.

I've known women that have never gone more than a few weeks without a boyfriend or a husband.

I've known people that have changed jobs like they've changed underwear, and I've known some that move back and forth across the country several times, never quite settling down anywhere.

These people are searching for their happiness, and I think they're looking in the wrong places.

You're not going to find happiness in any person, or at any place, or in any situation, until you find it in yourself.

If you're not happy with the person that you are, well that trumps everything else.

So stop looking outward for something to cure your sadness. The cure is right there inside you. Accept who you are and learn to get along with yourself. You'll never find a better friend.

Others have certainly said these things much more eloquently than I ever could. I've just had them in my mind lately and felt the urge to purge a little.

So for the past couple of days the things going on with me have not been worth the effort required to write about them, but I figure I'll try to play catch-up here anyway before people start getting concerned.

My mood is essentially back to normal, and I suppose I'm a little surprised and/or bothered by that. I feel like I should be feeling worse than I am, if for no other reason than less than two weeks ago was one of the low points of my life.

Lost power Monday night so I went to Rich O's and enjoyed a couple of Gulden Draaks. Nobody I knew was there except one of a certain person's ex-boyfriends and I didn't talk to him. By the time I got home my power was back on.

Last night I became extremely tired at about 8:00 so I went to bed and slept until my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning.

My cousin keeps calling me because I tried to call him the other night for some stupid reason. I haven't bothered to call him back.

My cell phone is broken (it eats batteries in just a few hours) so I'm getting this fancy new one with a camera built in.

As I said, nothing's really been worth the effort it takes to describe it. Pretty boring.

I'm sitting here noticing one thing and wondering two others.

What I'm noticing is that I still cannot sleep. I can blame anti-jet-lag a little for this but there are certainly deeper issues.

What I'm wondering is - was that really necessary? Did I really need to fall to the very bottom to know that things weren't so bad when I was only halfway down?

I'm also wondering - why do I feel guilty?

a-dor-a-ble
adj.
1. Delightful, lovable, and charming.

a-bra-sive
adj.
1. Harsh and rough in manner.

cor-nu-co-pi-a
n.
1. An overflowing store; an abundance.

Just to get the beer report over with, I had a Delerium Tremens, which I really like, and followed that up with a couple pints of Guinness. All were good.

I also sampled a little of CoffeeDude's Anchor Porter. I liked it enough to resolve to have a full pint next weekend if Rich O's still has it.

Rich O's tonight was the site of, apparently, a meeting of Southern Indiana Girls that are Hot (S.I.G.H.). This is otherwise known as a bachelorette party. Never before have so many nubile young cuties gathered at Rich O's.

Once they had all left Rich O's became boring, so I went and talked VigilanteGirl into going to a bar where my uncle and my cousin were doing karaoke.

VigilanteGirl is adorable, and it was quite nice to have some time to talk with her away from her work distractions.

I guess that's about it. When I'm in a good mood it's harder to think of things to write about.

Oh yeah, I did tell VigilanteGirl about the tracing and about the jealousy and about LaptopGirl. These were things she needed to hear from me before she read in my 'blog.

Ten points to whoever can name the source of this:

There are kisses and kisses. Some are given in sport and some in passion. There are formal kisses of greeting and departure, and there are perfunctory pecks of accustomed affection. Once in a great while lips meet and two spirits merge for a time and the universe is right and complete and the planets wheel in their proper places. Once in a while the lonely, broken spirit of a man is healed and made whole. For a while his quest is over and his questions are answered.

An additional ten points to whoever can name the Armstrongian flaw which I took the liberty of correcting.

Once in a while the lonely, broken spirit of a man is healed and made whole.

Now that's what I want. That's what we all want.

Statement: The Internet access at the Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas sucks donkey balls.

Question: Which is worse, anticipation followed by disappointment, or dread followed by relief?

Question: Am I supposed to be pissed at this fucker or not?

Statement: Delerium Tremens is a very fine beer.

Question: Just how stupid do you think I am?

Statement: SURPRISE!!!

Question: Call me, will you?

Statement: Those who say that sex is overrated are either having it often enough to be jaded or having it seldom enough to have forgotten its beauty. The rest of us would never say that it's overrated.