Got a call from RealTrainGirl today. She was wanting to know if I was going to Rich O's after work.

Told her yes, and told her why.

The other night the beautiful girl told me she'd looked for me at Rich O's recently and I wasn't there. Not that she went in to look for me, but that she'd looked for me while she happened to be there anyway. Huge difference, but not important - she had not only remembered me, she had actually looked for me.

Please note that I'm not using my standard line about what she wants and where she wants it. The fact that I'm not trying to be funny here should say a lot. It does to me at least.

So I told RealTrainGirl that I'd be at Rich O's every day after work until either The End Of Time, or until I got to see the beautiful girl again. Whichever comes first.

Then, on the way there after work, I remembered something that RealTrainGirl had told me Saturday night. Something that had been buried under all the nagging and bitching and gay jokes that came later. Something pretty damn cool.

* drumroll *

TrainGirl is visiting! She is in Indiana! No longer as far from Indiana as is possible whilst remaining in the lower 48 states!

Yay!

I pulled into the parking lot, got out of my truck, and there she was! Not in my truck, in the parking lot. TrainGirl!

Yay!

So in we went, and there I sat. Inside Rich O's. With two of my favorite people, for the first time in a very long time. It was almost like the good old days. Better than those days actually, because if it had really been like old times another person would have been there and I'd probably have been sad.

Anyway, I had myself a Ettaler Kloster Dunkel (50) and talked with the girls. There was another girl there with TrainGirl but I didn't catch her name. Seemed nice though.

(I want to say at this point that I really do miss MisunderstoodGirl and being glad to see TrainGirl does not diminish that in any way.)

At one point TrainGirl asked about you know who. I was struck by the fact that she knows basically nothing about what I've been going through since the last time we talked about it, last October. I had a pretty strong urge to drag her somewhere private and tell her everything, but that would have been rude to RealTrainGirl and WhatsHerName, so I didn't. Plus it might have required me to unbottle some things and I certainly didn't want to do that and risk ruining my good mood.

Let's see, I had a half-glass of Guinness (944), then my food was ready so I came home.

It was very cool to see TrainGirl again!

Yay!

I was asked a question today.

Sort of. Maybe. Not really though. It was more like the question was asked, and I just happened to be there, and I was reminded of the times I've asked myself this question. Maybe. Maybe I was asked the question and everyone else just happened to be there.

I used to think I that knew the answer to the question. I guess I still do know the answer, but - what was the question again?

Was the question what I think, or what I want to think, or what I feel like I should think, or what the questioner wants me to think?

I'm probably over-thinking this. I do that a lot. I think.

So what's my answer?

Depends on the question.

I think my answer is wrong anyway. Maybe.

Throughout history, there have been some pretty good ideas:

• Sex


• Beer


• Reese's Peanut Butter Cups


• Porn Lesbians


• Those spinny things on car wheels that keep spinning even when the car has stopped

For the month of November, we can buy, for a mere $1.00 per day, the right to lose our stupid ties and our even stupider dry-clean-only pants. For a mere $1.00 per day, we can wear casual clothes to work.

But wait! It gets even better!

For the additional paltry sum of $15.00, we can wear actual denim to work on each Friday during the month!

We can actually be comfortable, and actually look good, at work of all places!

I may just piss myself.

Yesterday, after I got home, I went ahead and destoyed the feng shui in my bedroom.

Here's the before:

Here's the after:

Aside from the obvious consolidation of some laundry piles, the most noticeable change is the removal of the bed from the "correct" position on the wall opposite the door. Now it's on the wall next to the door so all of the harmony of the room is destroyed.

I didn't say this would be an interesting entry.

At one point under the bridge, there was this little "creek" that had to be crossed by hopping/walking across some strategically-placed rocks.

There was this kid, maybe fifteen or so, who would step onto the first rock, causing it to wobble, then he would get scared and jump back to dry land.

After watching this four or five times I told the kid to get out of my way and let an old man with a broken toe show him how it's done.

After that first wobbly rock everything else was steady, and I made it across easily.

The kid was still scared, still standing there afraid of the six-inch deep water. So I did what had to be done. I called him a pussy and left him in my wake.

I always wanted us to go, but she kept putting it off. "One of these days," she'd always say. She was never much of an outdoorsy person.

Well, today I realized that there was no point in waiting for that magical day any longer. We weren't going to be going anywhere anymore.

So I went to the damn place by myself.

Going with a broken toe? Maybe not so brilliant. But I had a fucking point to make.

Since I'd never been there before, I just parked at the first parking lot I saw. How was I supposed to know that there was a real visitor area just down the road? Anyway, here's the view from where I parked.

For some reason when I got here I had to pee.

Looking up at the old bridge. I think they're talking about making this a pedestrian walkway, but it may be a completly different bridge for all I know.

My cellphone camera couldn't handle the contrast apparently.

I was surprised, for some reason, to see sand on the river's bank.

Waaaay over there is Kentucky.

At one point I found that I'd left the beaten path, so I beat my own.

These rocks were pretty cool. I wish my toe had allowed pain-free jumping around on them.

Just a bunch of logs that the river has deposited over the years.

The tree was pretty much growing out of solid rock.

A view back toward the bridge from the real visitor center.

---

After I left the park, I went over to The Pub and had a Newcastle (1704) and then a Young's Double Chocolate Stout (243) with my lunch.

That Young's is a beautiful beer in draft form. Yummy.

Wait for something long enough, and eventually it just might happen.

Just wanted to say that.

I ended up getting to Rich O's about an hour earlier than I wanted to last night. RealTrainGirl called and made it sound like they were suffering greatly without my presence, so I dropped my grandiose Red Lobster plans and settled for Arby's, then got to Rich O's just after 8:00.

I don't know what the big deal was about getting me there so damn quickly. RealTrainGirl and GreenBeerDude were sitting at the island with about 8 million other people. I said hello and then sat at the bar and talked to a beautiful girl that I hadn't seen in months. Once she went back to join her group I talked with BamaCouple for a bit. My first beer was this:

Founders Black Rye (12)

(bottle) You know, I wasn't really expecting to like this. Most ryes are just too strange for me. But this one was actually pretty decent. There was nothing notable about it though, so I probably won't bother to have it again.

Actually, I felt like leaving. The place was just too damn demanding. I hadn't even been there five minutes and I was already exhausted. Plus my toe was hurting.

Anyway, what I ended up doing, once the 8 million people had dispersed, was go sit at the island and try to fit into the conversations they were having while at the same time sneaking looks at the living room area. It was too crowded over there as well. Not really, but I was feeling pretty claustrophobic.

My next beer was a Young's Double Chocolate Stout (223).

My friends at the island were carrying on and on about some gay bar that they wanted to go to. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay at Rich O's and look at the beautiful girl some more. So, to make a long story short, RealTrainGirl pissed me off my harping about it for an hour until a place finally opened up in the living room area so I moved over there away from the nagging and bitching and gay jokes. I can be pretty stubborn at times. Or maybe all the time.

Another thing about last night - there were several very hot girls at Rich O's - not just the ones I've already mentioned. There's this Russian dude that plays "music" out front sometimes. He was there last night, and I might have to give him some of the credit for the unusually feminine crowd. Way to go, RussianDude!

So, I was sitting on the throne. The beautiful girl was next to me but on the sofa, and SpikeBoy was next to me but on the loveseat. I tried to maintain a nice balance between the two, not so much because I gave a shit about SpikeBoy's feelings (he was busily trying to hit on this chick at the kiddie table) but because the beautiful girl had her boyfriend sitting right there and so I didn't want my fascination to be too obvious.

For my next beer, I went with something new again. Something that CoffeeDude had recommended:

Sinebrychoff Koff Porter (12)

(bottle) Highly recommended to me by a coffee lover, so I was expecting coffee flavor in the beer. This instead has a good chocolate base to the flavor. A little extra bite at the end, because of the 7.2 ABV, that I could have done without. Good though.

So SpikeBoy and I were joined by CoffeeDude (wearing a stupid Halloween hat) and that was the end of the night's excitement. I did have a half-glass of Ettaler Kloster Dunkel (30) at the end though. Then I got some White Castles and came home.

Yes, you.

It was wonderful to finally see you again.

It would have been even more wonderful if I'd actually been able to talk to you without you-know-who hanging on and scrutinizing every word we said to each other.

Maybe next time it'll be just the two of us?

I'd like that.

A lot.

First of all, before I could do anything last night, I had to do something about my toe situation.

After briefly thinking about wearing sandals, and briefly thinking about cutting the siding off an old pair of sneakers, and very briefly thinking about just staying home, what I ended up doing was this:

I took my oldest pair of sneakers and hacked away at the insides of the right shoe with a pair of sharp scissors to remove the padding around where my pinkie toe would be. I then unwrapped said pinkie toe and rewrapped it with about one-fourth the amount of tape that had been there.

After all that, my foot actually fit in the shoe, and while it was a little painful, I felt I was ready to take on the world. Or at least Rich O's.

I got there a little before 9:00 and sat at the bar. I've written before I think about sitting at the bar. I have to be in a certain mood to be able to do it comfortably. Last night I was in one of those moods, so I just sat and let my imagination take me back to happier times.

All of the beers I had last night were new to me. This was the first one:

Ettaler Kloster Dunkel (20)

(draft) Not what I was expecting, but a pleasant surprise instead. The main flavor I got was caramel, but there was really an awful lot of complexity behind that. Everything was subdued, but noticeable. Pretty good.

My next beer was this:

De Dolle Stille Nacht (Silent Night) (12)

(bottle) Poured an orange/red color, without the massive head I usually find in De Dolle beers. Aroma much more massive and much more complex than their other offerings. Along with the standard Belgian apple tones, I also got what I'll call cherries and apricots. Did not taste like it had 12% alcohol in it.

My third beer was this:

Anchor Porter (12)

(bottle) Didn't get much of a head with this one. Strong roasted malt aroma. Flavor was biased a little more towards coffee than chocolate, but malty sweetness was the primary flavor. Pretty good, but not great.

Here's a fun little experiment that you can do at home.

What you'll need:

• Two people besides yourself


• A shovel


• Some rope

Done? Okay.

Now, spend some time talking to the person that you didn't hit with the shovel. Try to explain to him just how much it hurts to be whacked in the head. Use the unconscious body of the whacking victim as a visual aid perhaps. Be sure to point out all the blood. Explain how shocking, how intense the pain is. Talk about how pissed off being whacked makes you, and how sad and betrayed you feel.

Note that your non-victim will try to understand the kind of pain that you're talking about, but for the most part he's just taking your word for it. A part of him probably thinks you're exaggerating a little. He'll get it, but only at the most basic level. He cannot fully understand, because he hasn't gone through it. His imagination can only take him so far.

Now wait for your whacking victim to regain consciousness. You may want to tie him up first, for your own protection, so use the rope. You remembered the rope, right?

Once the whackee is awake, talk to him about the pain and the sadness and the feeling of betrayal.

Note that you hardly have to say a word. He simply understands, because he's experienced it all. He knows all about the pain, the betrayal, the need for revenge, the desire to curl up and die, or at least heal a little. He knows it because he's living it.

---

I wonder, if Annie Sullivan hadn't been nearly blind as a child - would she have been able to understand Helen Keller's disabilities enough to help her the way she did? Or would she have simply pitied her?

Tonight, I thought about her. I talked about her. I talked about her some more. I talked about missing her. I talked about how she sparkled. I talked about how I'm concerned about what might happen the next time I see her.

I talked about a lot of things.

Yet I never, not even for a second, got sad.

That's got to be worth something, right?

Right?

I imagine that a lot of people, even those who won't admit to it, have seen the movie Shallow Hal starring Jack Black.

For those of you that haven't seen it, or who have repressed the memory of it for some reason, here's a summary from imdb.com:

Following the advice of his dying father, Hal dates only women who are physically beautiful. One day, however, he runs into self-help guru Tony Robbins, who hypnotizes him into recognizing only the inner beauty of women. Hal thereafter meets Rosemary, a grossly obese woman whom only he can see as a vision of loveliness. But will their relationship survive when Hal's equally shallow friend undoes the hypnosis?

I suppose that, like most people, I'm a lot like Hal. The first thing I see in another person is their physical appearance. At that point, there's usually either attraction or there's not.

I also suppose that, like most people, I wish I could look beyond the physical and see the person within. This can happen, and has happened, but only after I've spent enough time with the person to get to know them better. This makes me shallow, and I know it. I don't like it very much, but there it is anyway. I don't even want to think about how many wonderful people have been absent from my life simply because I wasn't initially attracted to them.

I used to think that Hal was given the perfect gift. The ability to see only the inner beauty (or lack thereof) in a woman from the very beginning.

There was a time when I thought I'd been blessed with that gift.

I looked at her and, though she was quite beautiful, I hardly even noticed that. What I did notice was that she sparkled. Call it inner beauty, call it her soul, or her aura, call it whatever you wish. She was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. And she could have had the face of a troll - my assessment would not have changed one bit.

Was this love at first sight? I didn't think so at the time. But I'd never experienced anything like it before, so what did I know? Whatever it was, it was important. She was important.

Those of you who've been reading carefully know that this, this so-called gift wasn't, in the end, a gift at all. It was a curse. For meeting her was like having my picture taken with a very bright flash. Her light seared into my flesh, into my heart, and even though the source of that light is long gone, I've been partially blind ever since.

Afterimages of her float through my consciousness, and at times I cannot see anything except the memory of her beauty.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to see anything clearly again.

Sometime I wonder if I would even want to.

Several years ago, one of my cousins missed three days of work because he threw out his back.

I'm pretty sure he told the people he worked with that he'd injured himself doing something manly. Bullriding, perhaps. Or maybe anvil juggling.

Not the truth, though. Certainly not the truth, that he'd taken a mighty swing while playing wiffleball and that's how he'd hurt his back.

He'd have never lived that down.

At least his injury was a real one. Back problems can be truly incapacitating, as my cousin has pointed out to us at every opportunity for the past several years.

Nobody's going to make fun of you for having an injured back. So, as long as you have a good story about how you got injured, you're safe from teasing.

Not quite the same situation as the one I'm in.

My injury is quite possibly the most pathetic one possible.

I bwoke my widdlest piggy.

It's amazing how such a tiny appendage can cause so much pain. Why do we even need our pinkie toes? I think that, if the doctor had offered, I'd have allowed him to snip the thing off yesterday.

So I'm working from home today. I'm doing this because my toe is taped up and I cannot put a shoe on over it. Actually, maybe I could, but it would hurt. A lot. So I'm not going to chance it.

This is the most pansified reason for staying home that I've ever heard of.

I wonder, if someone reads something here that they've already read, are they disappointed? Suppose I mention something in a personal e-mail, then I make an entry about it. Does the e-mail recipient yawn because they've read it before, or, like someone working backstage at the theater, can they still manage to enjoy the show even though they know what's coming?

My first real bout with insomnia came when I split from my ex-wife for the first time. It seemed like I'd go days at a time without sleep. Eventually, I could find no solution except the one that so many others in my position had already made a cliché - I drank until I passed out.

Well that got old very quickly. It also got expensive. So I stopped doing that. Fuck, it was almost 20 years ago.

These days, when the sandman is late for his visit, I don't drink. I imagine.

I run through scenarios in my head, so I won't be taken completely by surprise. I have conversations with people that aren't there, so everything is nice and rehearsed in case they ever are there.

This is my version of counting sheep.

Even when my mind won't let me imagine anything except the terrible, I still find some comfort, some relaxation, in playing these little scenes and conversations out in my head.

Lately, it's almost always the same thing, this little playlet that I run through my mind late at night. I'm not going to describe it because I want my e-mail recipient to remain privy to some things that only belong to us. I will say though that it's a happy, yet poignant, little scene, and one that's becoming increasingly less-likely.

Like I said, it's almost always the same thing. Almost always.

Last night it was something different. Last night I welcomed a new costar into my nightly drama. And the two of us acted out what's probably the most unlikely scene I've ever imagined.

And I went to sleep right away. I wonder what that means?

The potential problem with running these scenarios through your head is trying to keep from being disappointed when they don't come true. The one I thought about last night has a shelf-life of three days. So, by Sunday night, I'll have to be ready to accept that it's not really going to happen.

And then I'll have to find more sheep to count. Probably the same old sheep. I've gotten used to them. They're like pets.

And this metaphor is breaking down very quickly, so I'm going to stop typing now.

If Jordan screws that reporter guy I'll never watch that show again.

This one kind of blows, but it's better than the one it replaces.

(I put this up on my JS blog last night. I've had one response, and it was wrong. I told those JS people that I'd get a half-dozen correct responses if I posted it here. So here's your chance to prove your stalking supremacy.)

I guess I'm supposed to write something here.

That's what people do, right? They write stuff. Sometimes other people read the stuff. Hell, sometimes they even respond.

Well I have nothing to say right now, but I'd still like to appear normal, so I'll fake it.

And you can help.

I'll write this entry, and you read it, and maybe even respond.

I know, let's have a pop quiz:

1. I recently picked up some keys. What were they for?
__ __    __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

2. What did I hope for?
__ __ __    __ __ __ __ __ __ __

3. What was the tsunami?
__ __ __ __ __  by  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

And, since I'm such a nice guy, here are the answers:

a a c d e e g h i i i i l l m n n o o o p p p p r s s s s s t t t v w y

Apparently I've broken my pinkie toe and the one next to it. Either that or I've just jammed the fuck out of them.

They are both a lovely brown-purple-black color.

So, ouch!

I rarely drink at home, believe it or not, but tonight I decided to try a bottle of this stuff:

Bells Batch 7000 Ale (12)

(bottle) Very intense aroma as soon as the cap was removed. No head to speak of. After the first few sips that were nothing but alcohol burn, the rest of this went down quite nicely. Too much coffee and too little chocolate for it to ever be a real favorite. I got some cola from this too, especially in the aroma.

I don't know why I even bothered to try.

There was no way that I was ever going to be able to handle this.

So I'll deal with it the same way I've dealt with everything else since early September. I'll bottle it up.

By an odd coincidence, all of the labels on the bottles start with the same letter. Loss, Longing, Lust, and Love are now joined by a fifth bottle: Liability.

Guilt would have been better for this last one, but I wanted to stick with the L-words because I like that TV show. Jennifer Beals is hot.

It started last night.

I was typing an email, and a door in my head opened up. And I remembered something.

But that was just the beginning. Similar memories have been bombarding me ever since.

This dam has burst.

I don't think I slept at all.

I am such an idiot.

I am such an asshole.

I can feel myself shutting down now.

Well I've gone and rearranged most of the files in this site today, putting things into subdirectories and such.

I don't think that any of the internal links are broken, but if you find any please let me know.

External links to this site, such as those from google, will probably be messed up for a while.

Most of the time, the water simply exists, lapping at my feet. I hardly notice it anymore. But for the last few days, every now and then, there have been larger waves. Every now and then a rogue wave will just wash over me, and knock me off my feet, and soak me to the bone.

And then there's nothing, and I'll stand up and I'll wonder, "Where did that come from?"

Was it one of the last remnants of the storm that's passed, or one of the first hints of a new and more powerful tempest, forming out beyond the horizon?

Yes, I really said this. And yes, I really thought it was a compliment at the time. What with horses being her favorite animal and all.

Over here at barenada.com, that whooshing sound, the sound of everybody leaving very quickly, has lessened a bit today.

One of my stalk, er, readers has come back to me and sent me a PM.

I'm very excited. More than is warranted, I know, and I also know that she will be quite embarrassed to be mentioned here.

I'm irresistible I tell you!

(UPDATE: I've added a new example, thanks to Sensorium for reminding me, and I've added comics! Everybody loves comics!)

Now I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect. I've screwed up many times in the past, and I'll screw up in the future. I fully expect that there will be times when a significant other will be upset with me, and that I'll either fully deserve or at least understand what's bothering her. And I'll probably apologize, and then we'll have make-up sex or something.

But sometimes, sometimes there can be no apology. How do you express regret for something that you never did? Consider the following:

The Misunderstanding
The other day VigilanteGirl and I had a misunderstanding over a potential date. I thought she was blowing me off by not answering my invitation, and she thought I was being an asshole by not following up on her acceptance.

Like I said, it was a misunderstanding. A communication failure. I simply didn't get her message. Once I realized this, I stopped being irritated with her. Once she realized this, she for some reason decided to stay angry at me.

The Preemptive Pout
MixedSignalGirl was the queen of this. She'd imagine some time in the future when I'd anger her or make her sad, so to save time she'd just go ahead and get mad or sad right away. Asking a woman in this condition what's wrong will get you the standard "nothing" for an answer, but in this case it's actually true. There is nothing wrong, but there almost certainly will be at some point, so she's just beating the Christmas rush.

The Dream
Probably my favorite. This is where a woman is allowed to punish a man for something he did wrong in a dream that she had. In my life, I've been punished for everything from calling a woman fat to murdering and eating her parents, and for everything in between. Apparently my dream-self is a real asshole. But does he have to pay for his misdeeds? No way. I have to pay for them. Over and over and over.

The Old Wound
This is when something you do reminds her of her last boyfriend, husband, or whatever. The only way to be sure to avoid this situation is to only get women by rescuing them from convents.

So, what's a guy to do when faced with these situations?

Easy. You've basically got a free pass. You're already being punished, so you may as well earn it. Go out drinking with the guys all night. Eat a shitload of White Castles right before bedtime. Flirt with her sister. Call her precious poodle a yapping rat-dog. Give her something real to be upset about. You'll feel better, and she'll feel justified.

And then you'll have something to apologize for, and then you can move on to the make-up sex.

Okay, I'm plagiarizing myself here, but it's okay - I gave myself permission.

I hate the Fall.

Too many things have happened to me at this time of the year. There are very few good memories, only memories of death and dying and loss and pain.

I look out my window, and I see that everything around me is dying. The sky is gray, the grass a dull brown. My yard is littered with fallen leaves.

The only things giving color to the world are the leaves. Many of them still cling to their branches, but inevitably, they too will fall and join corpses of their brothers on the ground below. And when they fall, when they spin or glide or spiral through the air, that is when they're at their most beautiful. The death of each leaf is a dance.

I like to stand outside my building at work, when the ivy leaves are falling. Sometimes, a leaf will get caught in the winds swirling around the buildings. Sometimes, a leaf will take a long time to fall, and it will dance in the air for me. If I'm quick enough, and if the winds are just right, I can catch a leaf before it hits the ground. Before its dance is over forever. My grandmother used to tell me that it was good luck, catching a falling leaf. I'll hold the stem between my thumb and forefinger, and I'll twirl it for a bit, then I'll open my hand and let it finish its fall. Let it finish dying.

Sometimes I envy those leaves. Their most beautiful moment comes at the end of their lives. They don't have to keep living and remembering how wonderful things used to be. And when they fall, they don't have to get back up.

You know what my problem is?

Ha ha. Very funny. Shut up and let me write.

My problem is that I'm always in a hurry. To start things. To end things. I hardly ever want to actually do anything, so I rush through it and move on to something else.

See, that way I can pretend that I actually accomplished something without the hassle of having to work at it.

For example, I usually sit down here at my desk with an idea of what I'm going to write about, but instead of following through with that plan, I just start typing and once I figure I've got enough words strung together I submit the thing.

See, I've typed almost a hundred words already and I haven't said a damn thing. But it's still going to count as an entry when I'm done. It'll still bring in readers. Hell, it might even get some comments.

I was going to write this brilliant entry the other day, but instead I went off on a stupid tangent. I sat down here 10 minutes ago to write another brilliant entry but once again I'm out here in la-la-land, nowhere near the vicinity of my intended subject.

Back in 2003, it took me four days to write this entry about my dad. But it didn't take so long because I was carefully choosing every word and phrase. It wasn't because I wanted everything to be just right.

Nope. It was because it was painful to write the thing. If it hadn't been for that, I'd have rushed through it just as I rush through everything else.

I want answers. I want quick fixes. I want resolution, absolution, retribution, and evolution. And I want them now now now now!

What's that you say? Sometimes the best things are worth waiting and working for? Well fuck that. I ain't got time to wait and work. I'm in a hurry here, to move on to something else.

What happened to the best things in life are free? Huh? Answer me that.

But do it quick, 'cause I don't have all day.

I bet if I just start typing, then before I know it I'll have an entry to post. That's usually the way it works, anyway. I have no idea what I'm going to write then my fingers just start rambling.

So we'll see.

Seeing as how I was promised an answer to my date proposal by 3:00, and seeing as how it was 8:30 and I hadn't heard a thing, I used my incredible deductive reasoning skills to determine that VigilanteGirl and I would not be visiting the haunted sanatorium last night.

This meant that I was free to do whatever I wanted. So I decided to forgo Rich O's and spend the evening instead at Buckhead's in Jeffersonville. I had visions of yummy Weihenstephaner lined up in front of me, and lovely eye-candy to talk to while I drank.

But noooooooooooooooooo!

The phone rang, and it was SpikeBoy, wondering when I'd be at Rich O's. I thought about telling him that I wouldn't be going to Rich O's, but he just sounded so damned lonely as he told me how dead the place was. Sometimes I feel like SpikeBoy puts a little too much pressure on me to be interesting, but he's probably my best friend at Rich O's, so I told him that I'd be there shortly.

The place wasn't that dead. SpikeBoy and CoffeeDude sat in the living room area. BamaBoy and BamaGirl (new nicknames for those two) sat in the red room. Some dipshits sat at the bar. I sat on the sofa and ordered a Rogue FestivAle (40), then I sent the following text-message to VigilanteGirl:

So, I guess that's a "no" then?

I never got her message, so I assumed that she was blowing me off. She never heard back from me, so she assumed that I had changed my mind about going.

The moral of this story is: Text-messaging is unreliable. Make an actual phone call if it's something important.

So now I feel like a real dick for jumping to conclusions.

As the night wore on, more people arrived. BamaCouple were joined in the red room by a hot blonde girl. Speaking of blondes, CuteBlonde came in and sat at the bar with a friend of hers. At one point, lo and behold, LibertyGirl made an appearance. I guess we had all figured that she'd gotten married or went to jail or something, because she hadn't been seen in months.

So, with the gang more or less all there, we proceeded to yak and yammer about whatever single and lonely people yak and yammer about.

My next beer was a Smithwick's (600).

At one point, my friends bet me that I wouldn't go talk to BamaCouple's hot blonde friend. They don't know me very well at all apparently. I went over to the red room and introduced myself. I told them this joke I'd read in Jill Soloway's new book, and also the interrupting cow joke.

One thing was kind of funny. BamaGirl and I were talking about her encounter with SuperShitHead last weekend. I guess he was really trying to impress her and telling her how integral he was to the operation of the Brewery. I straightened her out on the SuperShitHead situation.

Anyway, because I'd gone and talked to HotBamaBlonde, that meant that LibertyGirl had to go talk to this dude that was sitting out in the loser area that she'd had a crush on for years. She did, and she may have actually gotten a phone number for her efforts. Good for her!

I'm going to wrap this up now as I'm getting quite bored.

My last beer was a yummy Weihenstephaner (199), which had snuck back into the draft rotation when I wasn't looking. After that was gone I stopped at White Castle and came home.

Another weekend gone.

Just some random shit here.

I don't believe in fate, but if there is such a thing, it is conspiring against me right now.

I had my 3000th JS reader today, but I haven't decided what to do about it yet.

I got my leather jacket back, finally.

I missed her tonight, first time in quite a while.

I wish I could draw, but I can't.

Last night I had a semi-sexual dream about a JS member. That was pretty strange, mainly because it wasn't who I thought the first such dream would be about.

I think there must be something in the water in Alabama that makes women beautiful.

White guys with huge afros suck.

That is all.

Question: Why now? Why this girl, and not the one before? Why is knowing so important all of a sudden?

Answer: You don't understand. It's not that she's important, but that she isn't. I don't care what the answer is, and for once I'd like to find out before I do care.

I started out last night not knowing what I was going to do. I was thinking about maybe just staying home for once and watching some movies that I've purchased but never watched. Just a nice quiet night, me and the cats, a preview of my old age.

Thankfully, it didn't come to that.

I don't know why I wrote thankfully there. I guess because I'm still of a mindset that staying home on a weekend night would imply a failure of some type. Wouldn't a real failure be going out and returning home alone, with no prospects, and nothing to show for your evening except a bit of a hangover?

Anyway, RealTrainGirl called last night and told me that they were all up at Cumberland, so I went out to see them. I sat with her, MisunderstoodGirl, and GreenBeerDude. I don't think we really talked about much. There was tension in the air, tension that was not my fault, but I think we were all affected.

I had a Cumberland Nitro Porter (100) and enjoyed it immensely. I wish the place were closer to my home, so I could get that beer, and enjoy the crowd, more often.

After a while the girls (ha ha) wanted to go to some place downtown. After much deliberation I decided that I was just going to stay. The tension was bringing me down, plus I wanted another porter.

So I moved up to the bar and ordered another pint (120). Yummy. After a bit, this cute blonde chick sat down next to me. She sort of looked familiar but I've met so many people that I'm never really sure. I was trying to think of something to say besides the clichéd "Haven't I seen you someplace before?" when she turned to me and asked, "You work at XYZCorp, right?"

Okay, so mystery solved. We work at the same company. I talked to her for a few minutes, letting her sample my porter, until her date showed up and gave me dirty looks. Then they went and got their own table, and I was left to finish what I'd started before the chick had interrupted me - assessing body parts of the cute bartenders and mentally taking the best of each and building The Perfect Woman. This is something I can never do at Rich O's. Only guys work there. Except this one chick that kind of gives me the willies.

After my two yummy beers, I'd been halfway planning to stop by The Pub and have something, but it was nearing 11:00 and I ended up going to Rich O's instead.

The place was about a third full, typical I guess for last Friday night. I had something new for me:

Rogue FestiveAle (20)

(draft) Poured dirty orange. Aroma was musty - reminded me of a lambic. Taste also reminded me of a lambic, except this wasn't particularly sour. There was quite a bit of complication behind the obvious mustiness of the aroma and the flavor. I liked this beer.

It was kind of boring.

(response to messages)

Got them and responded using your password.

The way this works is, I get an e-mail sent to me saying that somebody has left a message at my site. Once I get to a computer, I see the e-mail and then I read the message. Then I respond if I feel like it. None of this is instantaneous. Perhaps in the future I'll have a cattle prod up my ass that will shock me when someone leaves a message. But, until that glorious day, it may take time for me to respond.

I get anywhere between 50 and 100 of these private messages a day. I read them, and respond where appropriate, as quickly as I can. But I do have a life.

I wasn't going to write about this, but she told me it would be okay if I did, so I guess I will. I just won't say who she is.

Every Thursday morning one of our local radio stations has a Better Business Bureau guy on to do this Scam of the Week segment. This is where he talks about the latest scam to hit our area, and how people are being fooled.

Stuff like "Congratulations! You've won $235,245,233,344,344.87 in the Canadian Lottery that you didn't even enter! Just send $10,000 to our P.O. box and we'll give you your winnings! We promise!"

Or maybe "Pay us $15,000 and then we'll come back tomorrow and fix your storm-damaged roof! Really! We will!"

Whenever I listen to this guy I'm appalled that anyone would ever fall for this shit. I mean, what kind of a person would be so, so stupid?

I know this one person. A person who I never thought of as being particularly dumb. Until now. Now I'm rethinking some of my earlier opinions. This person fell for one of these scams.

The one that goes "Hi, this is PayPal. Please give us all of your personal information or some bad stuff will happen! Really, it will be terrible! The only thing that can save you is to click here and enter all of your information!"

So this person gets this e-mail, clicks the link, and happily enters all of her personal information. Bank account number. Debit card PIN. Social Security Number. Bra size. And more.

You might imagine what happened next.

Her bank account was cleaned out.

Now of course that's no laughing matter, but it looks like the bank will refund her money after all the red tape is cut through. She just has to prove that she was at Chuck-E-Cheeses last night, and not in Europe buying army surplus stuff.

And, as an added bonus above and beyond not having any money for a while and having to deal with the embarrassment of falling for this scam, she now gets to closely monitor her credit for the rest of her life, because she typed in her social security number!

Oh well, at least she's got a new hobby to enjoy.

I'm not feeling very interesting today, even though it was jeans day and three (three!) different girls commented on my weight loss. They, obviously, all want it up the ass.

I haven't written a boring entry about the boring TV I watch lately, and I'll rectify that now.

I've been watching three new Fall shows, and I'm becoming convinced that all of Hollywood is out of ideas. So they steal each others' ideas.

Surface
Something is in the water, and this hot brunette marine biologist tries to find out more while the government tries to keep it covered up. The worst actress in the world plays the mother of a kid in the show.

Threshold
Something appears above the water, and this hot brunette contingency expert leads a government team that tries to keep it covered up. The bad guys are pod people of some kind. The worst actor in the world plays the head of the whole shebang.

Invasion
Something is in the water, and this hot brunette reporter is part of a group that tries to find out more, while the government tries to keep it covered up. The bad guys are pod people of some kind. The second-worst actress in the world plays the hot brunette's husband's ex-wife.

A few more points because I feel like typing some more:

I hate it when movies and television shows resort to the pod people gimmick. They're basically shouting to the world that they have no budget for special effects, so don't expect to see anything cool, ever, unless it's CGI.

The government cover-up gimmick has been played out for decades. At least Threshold gives it a bit of a twist by making the government the good guys.

Surface was supposed to premier earlier than it did, but they postponed it because of Katrina. See, the first episode of Surface featured a hurricane ravaging Florida.

The acting by the black guy on Threshold and the kid's mom on Surface is absolutely atrocious. And I've seen the guy in other things and I don't remember him sucking. It could just be the writing and directing with him I suppose.

Invasion is a Shaun Cassidy production. Yes, that Shaun Cassidy. Weird, huh?

I only really expect one of these shows to last. I hope it's Surface because at least they don't have pod people. Plus that show's hot brunette is slightly hotter that the other shows' hot brunettes.

Nat always thinks I'm fishing for compliments, but I'm really not. Fishing for reassurance is about as close as I get.

Until now I suppose.

Tonight I was reading back through some stuff I've written, trying remember what I was feeling when I wrote it. I ran across a couple of sentences that really jumped out at me.

So, I'm going to put those two sentences here, and I'm asking you, dear reader, to tell me the first opinion you have of them.

You looked at me, and your eyes burned straight through the shell I'd constructed like it wasn't even there. They then sought out my heart, and set it aflame.

Thanks.

For the first time in a couple of weeks, I went to Rich O's after work today.

I met up with RealTrainGirl and MisunderstoodGirl. I had a Baltika 6 (241) and we sat around and shot shit for a while. It was very nice. I really miss the old days at Rich O's when I had actual friends that would actually go in there.

I haven't been going there after work for a while because, as part of my bottling process, I'm supposed to be staying away from the scene of the crime as much as possible. I guess that's working out pretty well, but there's a gotcha there too.

Going there during the weekdays was always supposed to be my early warning system. It didn't do me a bit of good in August, but I can really see it saving my ass at some point. I really don't want to be afraid of the place, but without any warning system I'm not sure I can avoid at least a little bit of fear. As much as I glossed over what happened in August, it really did do quite a number on me.

Oh yeah, at Rich O's there were about twenty of the LOUDEST MOTHER FUCKERS I've ever seen. I really really really REALLY hope they never come back. I hate them so much.

I'm having a hard time finding balance in this 'blog.

One day, I'm a writing about boring bullshit like what beer I drink or what TV show I watch. In other words, I write about what I do. Nobody cares about that shit. Hell, I barely care about it myself.

The next day I'll overcompensate by writing about how annoyed or depressed or whatever I am. I write about what I feel. The writing seems to be a little better, but all that whining has to get old very quickly. If I'm tired of it, I know everyone else must be sick and tired of it.

So, one day I'm a boring person that nobody wants to read, and the next day I'm a whiny baby that nobody wants to read.

And then, then you have those really special days like today, when I whine about being a boring nobody.

Buying show tickets today reminded me of one of my more deranged fantasies.

This is one that I had back in May, the last time I was in Las Vegas, the last time I went to a fancy show.

I went to see Ka at the MGM Grand. I sat in the front row, next to the aisle.

The seat next to me was empty.

Kind of strange. The thing was sold out, and had been for weeks, but that seat was empty.

I figured that somebody must be running late, or that they'd made other plans. Changed their mind about the show. It was a single empty seat, so whoever had it reserved was in the same boat I was in. Alone. Or at least they were alone when they bought the ticket. Now, who knew?

At about ten minutes after the show started my fantasy began.

(I'm not really sure how to go about styling this part. Should I italicize and indent it, or just describe it like a normal person? The former I think. I can always go back and change it later.)

The house lights have dimmed, and the stage has become frenzied. All eyes are on the performers as they go through the first scene. I, like everyone else, am mesmerized. A form crosses in front of me, briefly distracting and annoying me. The form takes the empty seat beside me.

Wait a minute.

I turn my head to the right and try make out the shape next to me. It's pitch dark, but I know who it is. Her perfume is hinting, her body heat leading, but her presence - her presence is unmistakable.

I smile in the dark. I reach over and find her hand. I entwine my fingers with hers, and I never let go.

Found this incomplete document when purging some old files from my computer today.

AGENT CODENAME: KOKO
MISSION: INDUCEMENT TO ACTION VIA PSYCH. HARASSMENT (STANDARD)
MISSION STATUS: FAILED

CHRONOLOGY

15 JUN 2004: Initial assessment of subject vulnerabilities indicates that an adjustment of projected timeline would be feasible. Adjusting estimated mission completion to 1 AUG 2004.

19 JUN 2004: Subject proving to be more amenable to suggestion than previously calculated. Adjusting estimated mission completion to 15 JUL 2004. Requesting additional agents to eliminate secondary target.

20 JUN 2004; Secondary target eliminated. Subject and primary target may be beginning to suspect my presence. Primary objective attainable but subject did not repeat did not achieve.

26 JUN 2004: Mission has suffered a setback. Subject has definitely noticed my presence, and is beginning to actively fight my influence. A frontal assault may no longer be possible. Adjusting estmated mission completion to 15 AUG 2004.

12 JUL 2004: Subject is attempting to veer from defined mission objectives. Will attempt to correct. Requesting additional agents to eliminate secondary target.

24 JUL 2004: Secondary target eliminated. Adjusting estimated mission completion to 1 SEP 2004.

8 AUG 2004: Requesting additional agents to stabilize primary target.

8 AUG 2004: Primary target stabilized. Final objective in sight, but subject continues to fight my influence, and does not approach target. Adusting estimated mission completion to 15 SEP 2004.

According to the date on the file, I started writing this just after my gorilla friend left.

Stolen from rebunting.

After minutes of indecision, I've decided on my Las Vegas itinerary.

I have decided that, while in Las Vegas, I will drink beer.

For the most part, this means that I will be at The Tilted Kilt at the Rio. At other times I may be at Main Street Station enjoying some of their brews, or I may be at The Freakin' Frog. Between those three places I can get anything I'd want to drink.

Sunday night, I'm seeing this La Reve show at Wynn Las Vegas. It's not Cirque du Soleil but it seems to be the same type of show. Music and stunts and skimpy costumes and shit. Wynn Las Vegas may not have any good beer - seems more like a wine place to me.

Tuesday night, I'm going to try again to see the Cirque du Soleil show Zumanity at New York New York. Diehard stalkers will remember that I had intended to see this show in May but couldn't because I'm retarded. Before and after that show I'll be found at either ESPN Zone or Nine Fine Irishmen.

Other than those two nights, I have no plans. Hopefully something will come up and I'll have enough money to take advantage of it.

Everything should be all set. I've got my flight tickets, my hotel reservation, and my show tickets. Now I just have to wait. Six weeks is going to seem like forever.

(Edit: Duh. Arrive morning 12/2, depart morning 12/9)

You know what would be funny?

Me neither.

I've been sitting here trying to think of something funny to write, but I'm drawing a blank.

I remember a joke that I saw a kid at Target tell his mom. It's kind of one of those jokes that you have to hear instead of read, but here goes anyway.

You say "Knock knock."

They say "Who's there?"

You say "An interrupting cow."

They say "An interrup..."

And you interrupt them by saying "Mooooooooo!"

That never fails to get a chuckle out of me.

Meanwhile, I'm noticing that Neela hasn't posted about her new job yet. I wish I had a new job.

Actually that's not right. I wish I'd just hurry up and win this powerball thingy so I didn't have to work at all. It's apparently a lot harder to win the lottery than they make it seem.

I may have to rethink my retirement plans.

Meanwhile, this chick told me today that she liked my haircut. This is exactly the same haircut I've had for at least ten years. Maybe she wants it up the butt.

Hey! Neela just posted! I gotta go!

• People that are so-called experts, get paid five times more than I do, and know about half what I know.

A little boy torments his sister in the back of the car. He hovers his fingers over her arm. "Not touching you!" he proclaims.

His sister complains to Mom.

He waits for a reaction, and he gets - nothing.

So he does touch her arm. "Mom, he's touching me!" his sister shouts.

He waits for a reaction, and he gets - nothing.

Next, he pinches her, causing her to shout out in pain. "Mom! He pinched me!"

He waits for a reaction, and he gets one. "Leave your sister alone," his mother admonishes.

The boy settles back. He is satisfied, for now.

---

Thirty years later, that boy, now a grown man, writes in his 'blog. He writes mostly about mundane bullshit but, every now and then, he writes about something else.

He writes about her, how he thinks she's kind of cute.

He writes, and he waits for a reaction, and he gets - nothing.

His writing becomes bolder. He writes about how fascinating he finds her. He compliments her intelligence.

He writes, and he waits for a reaction, and he gets - nothing.

As the weeks and months pass, he continues to push the envelope. With each entry he writes he tells himself that surely, she'll notice this, she'll have to say something.

He writes, and he waits for a reaction, and he gets - nothing.

For a brief time he switches tactics. He writes about how unenamored he's become. He writes about the frustration she's causing him. He even writes about other women.

He writes, and he waits for a reaction, and he gets - nothing.

His writings become more and more frantic. He writes of his developing feelings and his struggle to contain them. He crosses the line of propriety several times. He hates what he's doing. He knows that it's wrong, but he cannot stop.

He writes, and he waits for a reaction, and he gets - nothing.

He pours everything he has into his words. He doesn't care about the consequences, or even think about them. He knows that she's reading. In his 'blog, he writes to her. He writes to her about those things that he cannot bring himself to speak of. He has become obsessed with getting a reaction. With just being noticed. With every word he writes he screams for attention. Good or bad, it makes no difference. He is invisible to the one person he most wants to be seen by.

He writes, and he waits for a reaction, and suddenly, without warning, she is gone from his life.

Was that because of me? he wonders. He's afraid to know the answer to that question, but he must know. So he continues to write. He writes about his pain.

He splays his emotions out for her to see. He arranges the pieces of his broken heart in a tableau vivant for her perusal. He writes of incredible longing, of indelible pain. He writes of his own death, and of the torture of his reanimation.

He writes, and he waits for a reaction, and he gets - nothing.

Time, as it is wont to do, passes. After over a year, he eventually, mercifully, stops. He has almost run out of things to write. He has given this nearly everything he has, more than he ever thought possible, and in response he got nothing.

Not a fucking thing.

All that is left in him is suppressed. To stem the tide of pain, surely, but also to keep something safe. That tiny nugget that, he feels, would guarantee a reaction. Through all his writings, he's kept this hidden. Now he clings to it and smothers it. It is all that he has left, and it is the only hope he has left.

Hope for what? Not much, actually. Nothing specific, certainly. Hope only for a reaction. To be noticed. To be, if only for the briefest instant of time, visible.

---

This is not the entry I sat down to write. That one will have to wait.

The other day I had an idea for entry, then I forgot it.

Thursday I was reminded, then I forgot again.

Last night I was reminded again, then I forgot again.

Today, finally I remembered what it was I wanted to write about.

I am teh smart!

* unscrews top of skull, exposes brain *

See? That's not chopped liver in there, but an actual brain. Not pretty to look at, but it gets the job done. Eventually.

So now I figure that after all of the trouble I've had remembering this topic, it had better be a damn good entry. Shit, to make up for all of the hassle it gave me, this better be the pinnacle of my literary endeavors.

Great, Dave. Put a little pressure on yourself, why don't you? Why not cure cancer while you're at it, you dickwad?

* replaces top of skull, sticks thumb in mouth, hides in closet *

After MixedSignalGirl left, I moved up to the bar. I had myself a yummy Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel (173) and thought up ways for the night to get worse than it already was.

My mind jumped to one thing, one possible event that would be the perfect cherry to sit atop this fucked up sundae of a Saturday. My mind jumped back to what had happened on August 19th. The Day The Meteor Hit.

But hey! I figured, if I don't go to Rich O's then I'm at least safe from that. It's a zillion to one against, but why take that chance? I ordered another Weihenstephaner (189) while I contemplated my next move. I didn't want to stay at Buckhead's for fear that MixedSignalGirl would come back and catch me in my lie about my "plans" for the night. I wasn't ready to just go home. I tried to get in touch with RealTrainGirl but that didn't work. Fourth Street Live was not an option for the same reason as Buckhead's. Ditto for the Cumberland or BBC brewpubs.

So I went to Browning's. They never had any beer that I really liked, but I recently heard or read that they had a vanilla stout. Now that sounded intriguing, so I went.

All they had on tap was their regular stuff. Oh well. I left and walked the short distance to the Bluegrass taproom.

Again, just their regular stuff. Plus they were having a poker tournament or something and the place was packed to the gills. Oh well. I left and went to Rich O's. Meteor be damned.

I'm always complaining about Rich O's being full of strangers. Last night it wasn't that full, but the utter strangeness of the people who were there more than made up for their lack of numbers.

At the bar we had HippyOldCouple. They looked like they had passed out during Woodstock, woken up last night, and walked into Rich O's. Plus, they'd decided to eat at the bar and that always pisses me off.

At the island, there were three couples. Not much to say about them except that they sucked because they wouldn't leave.

In the living room area, well it's kind of hard to describe. Actually it's not. The words white trash are a perfect description. You know the kind. The 100-pound meth addict guys and their 400-pound girlfriends? A white trash couple had taken possession of the sofa, another had the loveseat. And in the throne, reigning supreme, was JabbaTheHo.

Look, I don't really care if you weigh 400 pounds. Maybe you have a medical reason for it, or maybe your boyfriend likes big girls. I also don't care if you dress like a slut. Sometimes I even like it.

But please, for the love of all that is holy, pick one! Either weigh 400 pounds, or dress like a slut. Please don't do both. Think of the children! Think of me! Show some fucking compassion!

As a general rule, the more skin you have, the less you should show. So if you have, say, enough to repair the Superdome's roof several times over, you should probably look into getting one of those nice burqas that are all the rage in the Middle East.

Oh yeah. Beer. I had some. Specifically I had a yummy Baltika 6 (224). I sat in the red room, by myself for a few minutes until SpikeBoy arrived and gave me someone to complain about women and white trash to.

After a while a bunch of PBDs came in. They were also forced into the red room by the crowd of stranger-than-usual strangers. I got a little claustrophobic, but I had myself a Guinness (934) while I engaged in an odd little text-message conversation with VigilanteGirl. My Guinness was yummy too. All of the beer I had last night was yummy in fact.

When I left Rich O's, I was halfway planning to go see VigilanteGirl, but decided instead to just get some White Castles and call it a night.

First thing I did last night was deal with the situation. I called MixedSignalGirl up. I told her that I wasn't angry anymore. That I just wanted to hear her side of the story.

That was a lie. I was still angry, but the longer I waited the worse it got, so I just wanted to get it over with, and see what kind of damage control was needed.

So we agreed to meet at Buckhead's. I got there early, she got there late. This was always one of our trademarks. When she arrived, she just happened to be wearing the top that's always been my favorite on her. She said that she was going out with some friends later, and had already picked that outfit before I'd called.

That was a lie. She never really liked that top, but she'd wear it because I'd bought it for her.

The tension between us was just incredible. I couldn't believe that I was having this conversation with her. That it had come to this. To my having to smile and say that it was okay. To her saying that she was sorry.

Two lies, one from each of us.

In the end, I guess it wasn't as bad as I'd first been told. I guess I understand why she did it. I sure as fuck wish that she hadn't, but I've done one or two or a gazillion stupid things myself.

She said that she did it to try to make me happy. To give me that little push and force me to cross that line that I'd been afraid to cross.

That was a lie.

The real reason she did it was so that she and I would be having that conversation. She wanted to see me, but she didn't want to just call me up and say she missed me. She couldn't do that, not after she'd so efficiently and coldly left me at Sully's three nights earlier. So, in her drunken state, she did something that was sure to get my attention. Something that would result in me calling her.

Well it obviously worked. There we sat.

After a while, the tension decreased a little bit. We tried to talk about other things, but no words would come out. We spent most of an hour just picking at our food. In the past we'd joked that it's felt like we'd been breaking up for months, and we should just get it over with. Last night, it didn't feel that way. Last night, the breakup was an immutable part of our past, and it loomed behind us like a shadowy figure in a dark alley.

I knew what was coming. It was inevitable. The question.

You wanna fuck?

I turned down her eloquent offer. Told her that I had plans.

That was a lie. I had no plans other than going to Rich O's. Going home with her instead just seemed pointless. We've had more sex since we broke up in the Winter than we ever had when we were an actual couple. I never wanted a fuckbuddy. Like I said, pointless.

*** Warning! Boring dream description ahead! Proceed at your own risk! ***

I was at some kind of campout except it was in a house. I don't think I knew anyone there.

At one point this girl had snuggled up against my back for warmth, and I ended up sleeping with my arms around her.

The some time passed, and the girl and I slept together every night. Literally slept. We were very happy together. There was no hanky hanky but eventually we started trying to mess around.

Problem was, it wouldn't fit. No matter what position we tried, no matter what lubricating oils we used, the damn thing just wouldn't fit.

So I got frustrated and went to take a shower.

When I came out of the shower it was dark, and the girl was under the sheets, and I tried to wake her up, but when I moved the sheets I could tell that there were just a decomposing body there. I tried to turn on some lights, and I tried to put a floor lamp near her face, but no matter what I did she was still in darkness.

By this time I'd realized that the house was my grandmother's old house so I flew outside to explore. It was raining very hard, and the entire neighborhood was completely flooded.

I was trying to decide between the decomposing body and the cold and flooded Earth when I woke up.

The second moral of this story is don't mess up a good thing by trying to turn it into something it's not meant to be.

The third moral of this story is not to take such long showers.

When you live your life in total darkness, it doesn't take much.

The smallest spark, the slightest flash of light, can capture your full attention. Even after it's gone, the memory of that flash lives on.

Sometimes that flash is welcomed, but most times, most times it's only reminding you of what's missing.

A man gone blind does not always wish for sight, for there can be comfort in the dark.

Acceptance. Tranquility. Peace. All erased by a spark, a glimmer, a splash of light that does nothing but burn the retinas and leave ghost images floating and intruding.

A flash is nothing by itself. It's over in an instant. But the memory of it lingers, and the blind man sometimes wishes he could forget.

I was almost going to stay home tonight. Took a nap after work and I didn't set the alarm. I thought I might sleep all night.

But I didn't. I woke up at 9:00 and reflexively jumped into the shower and got ready to go out.

Rich O's was pretty crowded for 10:30 at night, which was when I got there. I soon found out why. MusicalHippyDude pointed out that an actual attractive and single girl was present. She was sitting on the loveseat, surrounded by about 10 guys who were all old enough to be her father.

I stayed away from that shit.

What I did was stand at the bar and have a Smithwick's (580).

After a while SpikeBoy came in and I sat at the island with him while I had a Baltika 6 (207).

Oh yeah - MusicalHippyDude told me that ButterFace was in earlier - sans Nerdlinger - and that SuperShitHead spent a lot of time trying to put the moves on her. Yeah, right. Like that fucker would have a chance at anything with two legs.

(response to message)

My favorite [censored] song is [censored]

Happy birthday to my youngest sister Neisha!

Sorry to leave the three people who know what's going on perched on the edge of their seats but, as I said yesterday, it can't be helped.

I need to hear the other side of this story before I can really do or say anything. And I'm not going to hear other side of the story until I'm a little less angry and a little more open-minded.

...

I just deleted a bunch of boring drivel that nobody wanted to read anyway.

(Oh, hey! This is my 1000th entry here! Yay!)

I'll probably give this some major tweaking, but it took so damn long to render that I don't feel like messing with it anymore tonight.

Now this is one of those entries that will probably just confuse people. Oh well, can't be helped.

The good news is that I can stop holding my breath.

The bad news is that the message was this:

Please tell your girlfriend to stop calling me.

I guess I'll find out more later, but right now, based on what I do know, I'm furious.

I'm actually so pissed off that I'm going to stop writing now. I'm sure I'd say something that I'd later regret.

(This entry makes reference to the journalspace version of my 'blog. JS has this dealy where they show a graph of how many visitors you have on any given day. That's the green bar I'm talking about.)

It's all Nat's fault.

Yesterday, she sent zillions of her readers over here. My ranking probably jumped 500 places in one day. Like from 3000th place to 2500th or so.

It was kind of neat, seeing that green bar that indicates the number of visitors stretch all the way across the screen. I actually felt like a real 'blogger for a while.

But today, I'm back to normal.

All those pinguicularians, and none of them came back?

Talk about a buzz killer.

I've seen the same thing happening at barenada.com, too. Readers are leaving the building, and starting to picket outside. They carry signs demanding bring back the pain! and we want misery! They chant lap top GIRL! lap top GIRL! you miss HER! write about THAT! or we'll LEAVE!

But those are my long-term readers. Most of them have never known me when I wasn't tormented. They are finding out just how boring I can be. They know that I can do better, and that's why they march outside instead of simply going home. They know that I could snap, any minute now, and start rambling. Just like the good old days.

The new people, the pinguicularians - they know nothing of that. Nat tells them to come over here, and they do. Then they ask themselves, "Why the fuck should I read this bozo? He's fucking boring!"

And I am. And I know it. What I don't know is if it's temporary or not. What I don't know is, if it ends, how it will end.

See me tomorrow, I just may have a story to tell. I'll at least be able to stop holding my breath, and maybe that'll be worth writing about.

I have no idea what's going on.

Not really cabin fever I guess. More like Southern Indiana fever.

Whatever it you want to call it, I've got it. Bad.

I think I'm just looking forward to my Vegas trip, but that's not for another eight weeks.

So I want to go somewhere this weekend. Somewhere close enough to drive there on Saturday, spend the night, and drive back Sunday.

Indianapolis? Columbus? Nashville? St. Louis?

I didn't list Cincinnati because I just went there this past Summer.

All I really know for sure is that I have zero desire to spend (waste) yet another weekend here.

I probably won't go anywhere though. What if an actual girl came into Rich O's and I missed it?

When you decide that it would be a good idea to throw your cell phone into the woods, turn the ringer all the way up first.

This way, when you're stumbling around in the morning trying to find it, you can just call the cursed thing from your home phone, and listen for the ring.

Just remember:

In a meeting = Vibrate good
In the woods = Vibrate bad

Feel free to print this out and keep a copy with you at all times.

I sent this in a e-mail to a fellow tortured soul, and then realized that I liked it.

Sleep is better than real life, because at least you can wake up when you have a bad dream.

The question is, can I hold my breath until Thursday?

Somebody did it again.

They went to google and typed "eating human testicles" into the search box.

This is actually the second time this has happened since I started tracking this shit.

I don't know what's more disturbing; that somebody typed it in, or that I'm listed fourth in the results.

Imagine, if you will, a dog.

Every day the dog's master comes home from work and kicks the dog, and the dog yelps with pain.

Is it so hard to believe that, no matter how much the dog loves its master, no matter how much it longs to be with its master, is it so hard to believe that one day the dog will run and hide when it hears that doorknob rattling?

friend
n.
1. A person who will do stupid favors for you in the middle of the night, not because they understand your need, but because they recognize your need.

Fuck.

I should just end this entry right there. In fact, I think I will.

This sucks.

I can't remember what I was going to write about.

I remember thinking about it after work. I was talking with VigilanteGirl in the parking lot where she works, and I had an idea for something to write about. Something original, at least for me.

Problem is, I was so shocked at having an actual original thought that I forgot what it was.

Now it's six hours later and I still can't remember.

So, instead of whatever idea I had this evening, I'll be writing about the fact that once again I've got nothing to say.

I ran across a quote this morning.

No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see. - Taoist proverb

Stolen from becomingkate.

Dave
Beloved : Hebrew

Very intelligent, broadminded and a good listener. You are an ideas person, with a wonderful creative imagination who is always seeking practical applications to apply this to. Your intelligence means that you have great potential for business success if you can apply some discipline and caution. You enjoy sensual pleasures and with a natural restless nature and liking for adventure life is rarely dull with you around.

...there was resentment.

I resented her for illuminating the dark places within me, and revealing that which was hidden. For distracting me from my pain. For putting me on a pedestal. For being everything I ever wanted except the one thing I wanted the most.

She resented me for not living up to the expectations born on the day we met. For giving her hope. For making comparisons in my head, comparisons in which she always came up short. For giving her all of me except my heart, for it was my heart that she craved most of all.

None of this is new. We've gone over all this before.

The new thing, the deal-breaker, was that she asked me to make her a promise. She asked me to promise her that it wouldn't happen again. That these feelings I've so carefully bottled up wouldn't come rushing out the next time I saw her or heard her voice. That I'd forever stop thinking of her as a distraction instead of as a focus.

I couldn't make that promise. All I could do was tell her that this time, this time, I really thought I was ready. All I could do was promise to try.

That wasn't good enough, and I don't blame her for feeling that way.

She has, after all, heard it all before.

*** Warning! Boring dream description ahead! Proceed at your own risk! ***

There was this house. Can't really say what the house looked like, because it was always changing. Every few minutes all of the walls and siding would sort of slide down into the ground, revealing a completely different house underneath. One minute it would be a castle, the next a log cabin.

After a while, I noticed that there was a huge stadium, and the house was in the center.

Thousands, maybe millions of people had crowded into the stadium to see the house. It was a huge party. A "house-party" you might say. Ha ha.

Apparently, the house was going to run out of new forms to take very soon, and that's why everyone was there. Everybody wanted to see what would happen when that last facade sank into the ground. Everybody wanted to see what the house would look like after its illusions had all been stripped away.

As the house's end neared, the dropping of the veneers sped up considerably. One, two, even three times a second the exterior would slide into the ground and briefly reveal a different house before it too would start to slide.

Near the end, the house became a blur. The very ground shook from the constant falling of the house's exterior. The noise got louder and louder.

At the very end, the house was a white two-story farmhouse. It kind of reminded me of my grandmother's house. It paused in that form for three or four seconds, and the crowd held its breath.

The walls started to slide, revealing...

...nothing.

Those white walls slid into the ground, and when they were gone, there was just a big empty square patch of grass in the middle of a stadium full of people.

Then I woke up.

...and contrary to my own words sometimes, I'm not an idiot.

For example, I know what denial is.

I'm the fucking mayor of denial.

Last week, I wrote that Louisville's Fourth Street Live area was IDing everyone because of this OktoberFest thingy. Well I guess I was wrong. They apparently ID people Thursday through Saturday nights. I was also wrong about the swill booths in the street being because of OktoberFest. They apparently are there whenever the street is closed to traffic.

And that's only the tip of the iceberg, as they say, of things I've been wrong about lately.

Friday night, MixedSignalGirl and I decided that we wouldn't be getting back together. It was a mutual decision. Really. There's just too much bullshit that we'd have to overcome. I may want to write about this later, so I'll just leave the subject for now.

We'd met at Sully's. I had a Guinness (891).

After MixedSignalGirl left I went over to The Pub and had a couple pints of Young's Double Chocolate Stout (206), and finally a small sample glass of the Old Rasputin (44). Yummy on both counts.

The place seemed pretty dull as compared to the previous weekend. Might have been the cool weather. I ended up heading over to Rich O's a little after 10:00.

All I did there was have a Smithwick's (560) while I talked with Nerdlinger and Butterface. I really have to give these two new nicknames. They are really nice people. I'll think of something I'm sure.

Also, the place, the front area at least, was having some kind of hot blonde convention. None of them came into Rich O's proper though.

So, that was Friday.

Saturday night, after I arrived to my nephew's gig too late to do anything but stand outside and listen through the window, I walked around New Albany's Harvest Homecoming for a while. This was the first time I'd been there in over twenty years, and I don't think anything has changed at all. Crowds consisting of married couples and giggling school girls, both serving to remind me of what I'm missing. So I left and went to Rich O's.

They're out of Spezial. I knew that this was coming, but it still disappointed me. I had a Baltika 6 (270) while I sat at the bar and talked with WomanRepellant, but then SpikeBoy came in and he and WomanRepellant talked amongst themselves while I stared at my beer and contemplated the significance of the date that was fast approaching.

At about the time WomanRepellant left, I ordered a bottle of Stone Smoked Porter (112). SpikeBoy and I talked about various crap. CuteBlonde came in and said hello, but then she moved over to the living room with some idiots.

I came home a little after 11:00, intending to watch the movie Saw but instead responding to a lot of PMs and reading journals.

By the time October 9th arrived I realized that I didn't even care. Just another day.

(response to message)

have you ever been truthful per this site?

Everything I've written here has been the truth, at least at the moment I wrote it. I've often held things back though. Obvious things like names and other specifics, but also deeper feelings.

Like I said, I don't understand the question. I'm trying to decide if I should be offended or not.

(response to message)

are these based on real veiws(sic) of scenery

I'm supposed to be in New Albany in three minutes.

Seeing as how I'm still sitting here with wet hair, I don't think I'm going to make it.

I woke up from a nap, and I thought it was 5:30, so I've been dicking around for an hour and a half.

Oops.

One of my nephews is playing in a band or something. They're not supposed to start until 7:30, but supposedly they could start early. I hope not, or I'll miss it.

Me so stoopid!

(This is taken from my memory of that day. The dialogue is not exact, but I think it's pretty close. You'll get the gist anyway. This is also very long. Just remember that I hate writing dialogue, and maybe that'll make you feel better for having to read this monstrosity. This is killing me at least as much as it's killing you.)

First, I want to say how we met. I want to say it first because it has a lot to do with how we ended.

Fate is a silly concept to me. The idea that everything is preordained, that our lives are mapped out by some higher power, that free will is only an illusion - this just strikes me as ludicrous.

So I don't think it was fate that caused us to meet. I think it was mere random chance. That deer, no hand reached down from the heavens and pushed it onto the highway. It was probably running from a hunter or something.

The deer was struck by the car in front of me. Struck hard. Hard enough to send it flying. Hard enough to make me wish I hadn't found its body when I went to check on it.

The car in front of me screeched to a stop on the side of the road, and I pulled over as well. I ran up to see if the driver was okay.

I don't believe in fate. Fate is a silly concept.

A girl, her knuckles white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. A girl, her eyes clenched shut, tears running down her cheeks, her mouth moving constantly. A silent prayer perhaps? Nope. As I got close I could see that she was mouthing the same word over and over.

fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck...

She turned to me, and gave me a funny look. "Was that a deer? Please tell me that was a deer!" she cried as she rolled down her window.

"It was a deer," I answered.

"Did I kill it?" she asked.

"I don't know. Probably. Are you okay though?"

"Will you please check on it? Maybe it's just hurt?"

"If I can find it," I answered.

I'd thought the girl was going to stay in her car, but after I'd walked 50 yards or so back the way we'd came, back towards where the deer was, I heard her walking behind me. I turned and waited for her to catch up.

"What did you think it was?" I asked her when we started walking again.

"What do you mean?"

"You said, 'Please tell me that was a deer.'"

"I did? I mean, I guess I hoped it was a deer and not something worse," she said.

"You mean like a person?" I had to ask.

She nodded. "Or a dog. I thought maybe I'd killed somebody's dog."

"Oh. I thought when you said 'please tell me that was a deer' that maybe you just really hate deer."

She allowed herself to smile. "After this, I might just start hating them!" Her smile contrasted sharply with her tears.

"Really though, are you okay? You're not hurt?" I asked. She seemed fine, physically anyway. More than fine. Hot in fact, I was a little ashamed to catch myself noticing.

I don't believe in fate. Fate is a silly concept.

When we got to the place where she'd stuck the deer, she stopped walking, and I kept going. The deer had been knocked down the hill at the side of the highway. Its body lay about 30 feet down. I could already tell that it was dead. What was left of it was dead.

"I see it," I told the girl. "I'm going to go check it out. Wait here."

"Okay." She didn't seem capable of going any further anyway.

The car had struck the deer about halfway back its body. As a result, everything from its ribs back was completely smashed. Its rear half looked like an empty sock. As a result, it was dead. Its eyes were open. I stood for a second, just to make sure it wasn't breathing, then started back up the hill.

"Is it dead?" she asked when she saw my head reappear.

"Yeah. I don't think it suffered," I answered.

We started walking back. When we got back to my truck a state trooper pulled in behind me. I guess somebody passing by had thought to call them.

"Everything allright here?" the cop asked, walking up to us, with his hand on his gun for some reason.

"I killed a deer!" the girl was crying again.

"But you're okay? Do you want me to call an ambulance for you? How about a tow truck?"

The girl hadn't even thought about her car. "I'm fine. I don't know how bad my car's hurt. I didn't look at it."

"Let's go take a look, okay?" the cop asked.

They walked up to her car. I leaned against the front of my truck. The leftover heat coming from the radiator felt good.

They got to the front of the car, and the girl screamed. She ran back towards me. I saw the cop pull out something reddish-brown and fling it to the side of the road. He then started to inspect the car.

The girl ran to me, leaned partly against my hood, and partly against me. She was crying quietly. I put my arm around her loosely, and she turned into me and laid her head against my chest. Like it was the most natural thing in the world for her to do.

"What happened?" I asked.

"The deer's tail was stuck in my grill. It was so gross!" She was shaking a little.

The cop came back to us. "Your car seems okay to drive, but you'll have to get that headlight replaced before you drive it at night," he said. He noticed me for the first time. "And you are?" he asked.

"I saw it happen. I stopped to help."

"Okay." He sounded dubious. "Ma'am, I'll need to take down some information. Would you please come sit in my car?"

The girl pulled away from me, an oddly disconcerting feeling. She asked me, "Will you please get my phone and call my brother? I don't want to drive. His number's in the memory. His name's Jay."

"Okay," I answered.

"And then you'll wait for him with me." It was a statement, not a question.

"Of course I will."

So, I went up to her car and found her phone. I used it to call her brother.

"Hello, Jay? Your sister asked me to call you. She hit a deer, and she's pretty upset and she doesn't want to drive. She wants you to come and get her."

"I'm just a guy that stopped to help. My name's Dave."

"No, I don't think she's hurt, she's just upset. She's talking to a cop now. The cop says that the car is okay to drive."

"We're just before mile marker 88 on 64 Eastbound."

"An hour? Okay, I'll tell her. Bye."

I don't believe in fate. Fate is a silly concept.

So I went back to my truck and I waited. After a bit, the girl and the cop came back.

"You saw the deer?" the cop asked me.

"Yes."

"It's dead?"

"Yes."

"Where is it?"

"Just on this side of the bridge back there. It's down the hill," I said, pointing.

"Is there anything else I can do for you, ma'am?" he asked the girl.

She had resumed her place at my side, and was once again crying softly. She shook her head against my chest.

"I called her brother, and he's on his way. I'll wait with her until he gets here," I translated the head shake.

"Okay." He still seemed dubious. "I'll just go check on that deer and then I'll be on my way."

"Okay, thank you," I said as he started back toward his car.

The girl shook herself gently, and pulled away from me. She gave me that same funny look she'd given me when I first saw her.

"I need a cigarette," she said. "Will you go get them? They're..."

"In your car," I finished for her. "I already got them." I took the pack and the lighter from my pocket and handed them to her.

"Now you're really my hero!" She allowed herself to smile for the second time. I liked her smile.

She leaned back against my truck, not touching me this time. "Thank you for doing this. Stopping and helping. Waiting with me."

"It's not a problem," I said. And it really wasn't. It was taking my mind off my own problems for a while, if nothing else.

"I'm cold," she declared.

"Do you want your jacket from the car? I'll go get it." It was a little chilly, now that she wasn't leaning into me.

"No, that's okay. Let's just sit in your truck and run the heater."

I don't believe in fate. Fate is a silly concept.

So we climbed into my truck. I was very thankful that I'd just given it its annual cleaning, the empty Coke bottles and Twix wrappers weren't too bad. I started up the truck and we just sat for a while, not saying anything.

She put her cigarette out, and started crying again. She was looking away from me, out the window, like she was trying to hide her tears from me.

"You know, I've already seen you cry, and my shirt is already soaked. We've got an hour before Jay gets here. If you want to cry, go ahead and cry. And if you want to soak my shirt some more, go ahead and do that too."

She smiled for the third time, and she scooted over next to me. I put my arm around her, and she just started bawling.

We stayed like that for a long time.

Her hair smelled like heaven.

I tried very hard to keep from looking down her shirt.

Her bra was black.

Every now and then, she'd look up. Every time she did it, I wondered if I should kiss her. But those moments never lasted. She'd look up at me, and then she'd put her head back down and cry some more.

One time she did look up and ask, "So, you got a name, hero?"

"My name is Dave."

She put her head back down on my chest, then quickly looked back up.

She said, "I can't believe you called me 'Miss', and then she cried some more.

After about an hour had passed, an hour in which I felt like both the most useful and the most useless person on Earth, a car pulled in behind me.

Her brother, I presumed. And some other guy that I, for a horrifying instant, thought might be her boyfriend.

She pulled herself away from me and wiped her face with my shirt. She gave me a little smile...

That was the fourth time.

...and got out of the truck.

The three of them walked up to her car and stood around looking at it, digging around in it. The guys, every now and then, would cast a glance in my direction. I wondered what she was telling them. They probably figured I was some ax-murderer or something.

I just sat and waited. Two's company, but four is definitely a crowd.

The one dude that wasn't her brother got in her car and drove off. The girl and her brother walked back in my direction. They stopped at my truck.

I got out.

"Hi, I'm Jay," the guy said as he extended his hand. "Thanks for your help."

I shook the guy's hand. "Dave. It was really no problem," I said.

He looked at the girl. "Well, we should be going," he told her.

Then he just stood there, watching us.

The girl pulled her hand out of her jacket pocket and extended it to me.

Okay, fine, I thought. After all that now we're going to get all formal and shit?

I shook her hand. There was a piece of paper folded into it.

"Thank you so much," she said. "It was really great, what you did."

"Not a problem," I said. I say that a lot, it seems.

I watched them get into his car and drive away. She held her hand up to me as they passed, and I waved back.

I got back into my truck, and I opened the piece of paper.

I used to have that note somewhere. If I could find it I would just scan it in. But I can't find it, so I'll just quote it:

My name is [private]. What you have done for me today will probably make me cry every time I think about it, and I plan to think about it often. I know I can never thank you enough, but I would like to try. My number is [private].

PS: My last boyfriend's name was Dave and I don't want to call you that, so I will call you Hero, because that's what you are.

PPS: I still can't believe you called me Miss! I liked it though.

And me, well I was always Hero. Even when I made her cry. Even when we'd broken up. Even when we said goodbye.

So. Here I am again. Just before bedtime, and trying to think of something to write about.

I had what I thought was a pretty good idea for an entry earlier. Problem is, it really is a good idea, and I don't want to waste it now, semi-inebriated as I am.

I could, I suppose, just put in a standard Friday beer report, but there was a lot more than drinking that happened tonight. I don't want to blow what may well be the last bit of drama I ever experience by rushing through a description of it.

I think the only thing I want to say right now is this:

I am, for the first time in a very long time, both available and vulnerable. Women of the world, consider yourselves warned.

If you're pretty, watch out. If you're passionate, be careful. If you're smart, stay vigilant. If you're pretty and passionate and smart, well, just hope that I don't find out. Because my heart is looking for someone to latch on to, and you could end up being my next victim.

Okay, maybe that was a little too melodramatic. I am not Son Of Sam (sorry Nat), but I am not Sir Galahad either. I, like almost every other man on Earth, am somewhere in the middle.

Awkward ending to a pointless entry.

Seems that every night at about this time I find myself sitting here. Trying to come up with something to write.

I don't know why it's so important to me that I write something every day. It's just something that I've done lately. Like for the past year or so.

If I don't write something tonight, I predict that the Sun will still rise in the morning. People will go on with their lives, I'm pretty sure.

Is this enough for today? Does this even count as writing something?

It should. That writing contest was won with an entry, a wonderfully written one, about a writing contest. If that can happen, then me writing about writing should at least count as writing.

I have three problems here.

Problem the first. I've got nothing.

Problem the second. When I do get something I don't want to write about it.

Problem the third. When I do get something and I do want to write about it, I find that whatever creative juices I've possessed have dried up.

Being creative would be a lot easier if I were a painter. You should see some of the crap they have hanging on the walls at work. One giant atrocity has sixteen chickens arranged in a checkerboard pattern. Another looks like somebody took a real painting and sprayed it with a garden hose for a week.

My favorite, my favorite though is get this - a huge (8'x8') square with blue on top and gray on the bottom. At the bottom of the canvas, on a little brass thingy, it says "Untitled."

No shit, Sherlock.

Hey, I have a title! You could call it "I can't paint for fuck." Or maybe "This may be pointless but at least it's big." I think, however, that the title the artist was really going for was "You may not be smart enough to understand this, but trust me, it's art." It's the Emperor's new clothes, in canvas form.

Painters have it so fucking easy. Even the more traditional works, the ones that contain actual scenes - they're worth a thousand words, right?

A good writer with a thousand words is just getting started. A great writer will say more in a single paragraph than the greatest painting could ever say.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd. - William Shakespeare

Okay, this has to count as writing something. I quoted Shakespeare. I said "fuck." This has to be enough. What else could you possibly ask for?

Stolen from empressotterpop

Well davethepa has inspired me to have a drink and write something intelligent.

Step one: Have a drink.
Status: In progress. I'm drinking a glass of my precious Baltika 6 (253).

Step two: Write something intelligent.
Status: Undetermined.

I'm feeling a little drained today. I've spent some time thinking about things that, in all honesty, would probably best be forgotten. Things that, until recently, I simply couldn't think about without my memory quickly degrading into a mess of confabulation and self-pity.

I was thinking about a day last Fall. On that day I learned that pain is relative. That sometimes feeling a little bit of pain can be a wonderful thing. Like when you've spent the past two weeks in complete misery. When you're flying to another city, and sort of hoping that the plane will crash, then five hours later your pain is eased. Not erased. Just eased. But you don't care about the pain that's left, because you know that it could be a lot worse. That it was a lot worse.

I learned that lesson last Fall, then I almost immediately forgot it.

But this is not what I wanted to write about.

What I wanted to write about was how, when I think about that day, specifically about that two minute conversation, I remember everything.

Everything.

I remember what I was wearing.

I remember that the magazine on the table in my room had a picture of a showgirl on the cover. A girl that looked like my sister Dina.

I remember that I let the phone ring three times before I answered it, and that I waited three seconds before I said "Hello."

I remember that there was traffic in the background, behind her voice. I heard a horn honk. Twice.

I remember that I lit a cigarette, then realized that I already had one lit.

I remember every word that we said.

I remember putting the phone down on the table.

I remember starting to laugh.

Why my brain has decided to store all of these details, I have no idea. I'm not normally possessed of such a memory. That day, that conversation, they were certainly important, but c'mon. I remember how she stressed each syllable when she spoke. Almost perfect iambic pentameter. What possible good does that memory do me?

Now don't get me wrong. I'm glad that I remember. It was important after all. I don't want to forget, and I don't think I ever will.

But is remembering that a couple walked down the hall outside my room discussing their plans to go see Mystere that night really more important than remembering what I did with the fucking registration sticker for my truck?

Stolen from Cawfee

1. When you look at yourself in the mirror, what's the first thing you look at?
I dunno, my face?

2. How much cash do you have on you?
Maybe $80.00, then about eleventy gillion in change on top of my dresser.

3. What's a word that rhymes with "TEST"?
Best.

4. Favorite plant?
I'm a guy. Plants are irrelevant.

5. Who is the 4th person on your missed call list on your cell phone?
My sister Dina.

6. What is your main ring tone on your phone?
The default one that came with the phone.

7. What shirt are you wearing?
White t-shirt.

8. Do you "label" yourself?
Stupid question. Next.

9. Name brand of your shoes currently wearing?
Just socks.

10. Bright or Dark Room?
Dark.

11. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?
She's probably hot.

12. Do you know what an 8-track is?
Duh.

13. What were you doing at midnight last night?
Erasing drivel.

14. What did your last text message you received on your cell phone say?
"R u at rich os"

15. Do you ever click on Pop-ups or banners?
Nope.

16.What's a saying that you say a lot?
Why can't they come up with original questions for these things?

17. Who told you they loved you last?
Does it count if they take it back right away?

18. Last furry thing you touched?
My cat Nugget is in my lap right now.

19. How many hours a week do you work?
I try to keep it at forty.

20. How many rolls of film do you need to get developed?
It's the digital age now, haven't you heard?

21.Favorite age you have been so far?
Favorite age, I dunno. My happiest age, 27.

22. Your worst enemy?

I hate this one guy, but I don't think he hates me back. Does that count?

23. What is your current desk top picture?

24. What was the last thing you said to someone?
I said "thanks" to this chick at the grocery store after work.

25. If you had to choose between a million bucks or to be able to erase all of your regrets, what would you choose?
A million doesn't go as far as it used to, but I think I'd take it. My regrets help make me who I am.

No pressure. That's the saying, right?

I hope so, because that's what I've been saying to myself all day. Not as a suggestion, or as encouragement, but as a simple observation.

You readers, you might find it hard to believe, reading some of the bullshit I've written, but it was nothing nothing nu-uh-uh-thing compared to what I held in. Those of you unfortunate enough to know about my other 'blog, you may have an even harder time believing it, but I held back there too. A lot.

You see, if I hadn't held anything back, if I'd just unclenched and let loose, my writing would have looked quite different. I think it would have looked something like this:

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!

The pressure that I put on myself to just shut the fuck up already was almost, but not quite, enough to keep me in check. To keep private thoughts where they should be. In my head. Instead of spewed all over creation.

I guess I got lucky. I managed to get 500 visits today to barenada.com, and the only price I had to pay was to die inside. That, plus whatever dignity I had. Oh yeah, and a special friend, or whatever the fuck she was. Mustn't forget her. That would just be so wrong.

It's quite strange to be pressure-free. Is that supposed to be hyphenated? I can never remember? I looks better with the hyphen than without, so I'll leave it in until someone corrects me.

But I digress.

No pressure.

No pressure telling me to feel a certain way about a certain person. No pressure telling me to stop feeling a certain way about another certain person. I can, for the first time in a very long time, feel whatever the fuck I want to feel.

And what do I choose to feel, having finally been granted this gift of freedom, after months of torture?

You should know this. You've been reading me religiously, right?

Right?

Fine. The answer is: Absolutely nothing.

Okay, maybe there's something there. Let's play.

Get one of those Nerf basketballs. I'll wait while you find or purchase one...

...

Got it? Okay, now smoosh it up in your hand until it's as small as it can be. Go ahead, cram it in your hand. Use your fingers of your other hand to push it in even tighter.

Doesn't look like much, does it? I mean, it wouldn't look like much if you could see it, but you can't because it's all squished in your hand. Just imagine it, okay? While you're at it, imagine how it would feel, being squeezed so tightly. Put yourself in its place. Be the ball.

Now this is the fun part.

You're the ball. You're under all this pressure. Now, open your hand, but continue to be the ball.

Did you see that? Did you feel that?

The damn thing expanded like a, uh, uh, like something that expands! It may be a little misshapen now, but in a few minutes it will be as good as new.

Oh, yeah. You can stop being the ball now if you want.

Remember how, like three sentence ago, you were being the ball while it expanded so quickly? Remember? Wasn't that cool?

That's what I felt the other morning, when the pressure finally left me.

And remember how the ball expanded almost back to it's original shape while you were still being the ball?

That's the way I feel right now.

Was Geisel a great writer?
Perhaps, in his own way.
But all his subjects ever did,
was sing and dance and play.

I doubt that he'd have done as well
with more realistic themes.
Like that cat being hit by a car,
or getting raped up the ass by one of those damn brats.

So I just deleted about 100 lines of drivel. Usually I post the drivel, but this time I changed my mind after I fell asleep while reading it.

Change blah blah apprehensive blah blah blah choices blah blah.

This morning I stood next to a waterfall, and so of course now I have to take a piss.

I like using the word piss in my journal. It's a funny word, and a popular one. My old entry pissing on the inside gets more google hits than any other, just because of that word.

But I digress.

By an unfortunate coincidence, or a cruel twist of fate, their names are very similar. One right after the other in any alphabetized list that I've seen.

Such was the case in my phone. My heart's desire, followed immediately by my mind's logical choice. Bound together simply because of the spelling of their names.

Back before June, before I deleted LaptopGirl's name and number from my phone's memory because I no longer trusted my resolve, I'd always see their names together. I'd highlight name after name as I scrolled down the list. Each time I highlighted a name that person's number would pop up, covering the name of the person listed above them.

What I'm trying to say here, and I'm not having much luck, is that MixedSignalGirl's entry would cover LaptopGirl's entry. MSG was highlighted, but LG was still there, in the background. Out of sight but never completely out of mind.

And so it was with everything else in my life. MSG might have physically been right there in front of me, she might have hidden LG for a while, but it never lasted. As soon as my attention wandered from MSG, LG was right there again. Front and center, in every way but one.

And again I digress.

MixedSignalGirl and I - I don't know what's going to happen with us. We talked for a while, early this morning, but I don't think we've resolved anything. LaptopGirl may no longer lurk behind MixedSignalGirl in my mind and my heart, but this change will take some getting used to, for both of us.

The questions we've asked each other for all these months have not been answered. All that's happened is that the doorway to those answers has been opened. Whether we'll decide to step through or not, we just don't know. It's too soon. We don't want to act impulsively. Actually that's not right. I want to, but she's possessed of a pretty level head.

Meanwhile, I have a new question. One that only I can answer:

Now that I know what I'm really capable of feeling, will I ever be willing to settle for anything less?

Hmmm, I would have sworn that I started typing this before I went out earlier, but it's not here so I'll start over. Strange.

All day yesterday I tried to make up my mind what I'd do that night. The only thing that I knew for sure what that I didn't feel like going back to Rich O's.

I toyed with the idea of making a little circuit of the four brewpubs in Louisville. I thought about going to Jeffersonville and hanging out with my cousin. I even thought about just staying home and catching up on the television that's been tivoed over the last couple of weeks.

In the end, I went over to Fourth Street Live, which is part of Louisville's downtown revitalization vision. I kind of like it there. It makes me feel like a tourist. Like I'm on vacation or something.

So they were having this OktoberFest thingy, which in Louisville at Fourth Street Live, means that they ID you when you enter the block, and they have booths with BudMillerCoors beers in the middle of the street.

I wandered up and down the block a couple of times, looking to see if there was anyone I knew. I seemed to remember RealTrainGirl talking about OktoberFest recently. I don't think this is what she was talking about, but I figured that it would be a nice surprise to run into them.

I ended up at this place called The Pub. They have the best beer selection at Fourth Street Live. I ordered myself a Newcastle (1684).

While I was drinking my beer, I sent out a couple text messages, and I looked around the place to check out the local talent, as they say. There was one girl that sort of looked familiar, and she caught me looking at her and smiled. Yikes.

After about 15 minutes the girl started inviting me over to join her and her friends on their side of the bar. I declined politely because (a) Her friends were two guys and I figured that at least one of them was probably her boyfriend (maybe both of them from the dirty looks they were giving me), and (b) I'd texted MixedSignalGirl and was hoping that she'd show up, and (c) Normal girls do not invite me to join them in bars. I did not want to wake up in a tub of ice missing a kidney.

Seriously, what is it about women and their radar for when a man is vulnerable?

Anyway, after my Newcastle I had a new beer for me:

North Coast Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout (20)

(draft) A wonderful beer. Intensity everywhere from the aroma to
the flavor to the finish. Dark chocolate and quite a lot of roasted malt. A sweet burning finish that made me want another sip right away.

I had another of the Rasputins (40).

At one point I got a call from RealTrainGirl. There weren't at Fourth Street Live, but they'd be at Rich O's later. She and GreenBeerDude were going to "show me something." Yikes!

I hadn't heard from MixedSignalGirl since the early evening, so I figured that she wasn't coming. I shot off a message telling her where I'd be, and that I wanted to talk to her, then I drove back to Indiana and to Rich O's.

When I got there the usual assortment of idiots was in the living room area. I stood at the bar, ordered a half-pint of Guinness (871) and talked to Bubbles for a while until RealTrainGirl, GreenBeerDude, and MisunderstoodGirl arrived.

Here's what they had to show me:

Matching tatoos of what looked like a logo for a pizza place or something. I'm just guessing here, but there was probably alcohol involved in their decision to have them done.

So we just hung out for a while. RealTrainGirl and GreenBeerDude were quite animated, probably from the pain or something. MisunderstoodGirl was busily plotting revenge on the world or something, so she didn't say much.

It was a nice end to the weekend festivities, and it took my mind off MixedSignalGirl, who I still haven't heard from as I type this entry.

One of the things that I very rarely ever mention here is my life when I was married. There are several reasons for this, not the least of which is that I have zero desire to revisit those days and reopen those wounds.

I need to mention one event from those days now though, because it's relevant.

I had a stepson, and when he was I guess about 18 months or so old, I woke from an afternoon nap and went to get him up from his own nap. I opened the door to his bedroom.

The first thing I noticed was that he wasn't there.

The second thing I noticed was his window.

He'd managed to push out the screen and, I knew right away, had fallen out the window.

From his window to the ground outside was about eight feet. Coincidentally, that was the same as the distance I had to walk from his bedroom door to get to the window.

Walking to that window, expecting to see my baby's broken body laying on the ground outside - well I probably don't have to describe how terrifying that was. I probably couldn't describe it anyway, not with any kind of accuracy. Easily the scariest eight feet of my life.

So I stuck my head out the window, and I looked down.

There was nothing there. There was nobody there. There was no body there.

We lived in a mobile home, and the skirting wasn't completely installed yet, so I thought that he might have rolled, or crawled, or bounced, under the house. I went out the front door and around the house, trying to imagine what I'd tell my wife if the worst had indeed happened.

I got to the back of the house and looked under it.

Nothing. I remember checking the ground for blood. Nothing.

At about this point I guess I started to panic, because I don't remember much else.

I ran back into the house and grabbed the phone. I called the base police and told them my baby was missing and probably injured. I called my wife and told her all I knew - that he'd fallen out his window and I couldn't find him. I pounded on my neighbor's door and managed to convey to him that I needed him to get in his car and drive through the trailer park while I looked on foot.

I don't remember calling his name, as I ran through yard after yard. I'm sure that I did though. I'm sure that I was screaming his name. I flagged down the policeman that had responded to my call. He was going to drive around and search, just like my neighbor was doing, but he wanted to meet me at my house first.

I ran back to my house, and I sat on the steps, with my face buried in my hands.

When I looked back up, the baby was standing in front of me.

Just as I can't describe the terror I'd felt walking towards that window, what I felt when I saw him alive - there are just no words.

He didn't have a mark on him. Shit, he wasn't even particularly dirty.

I don't remember talking to the policeman when he got to my house. I don't remember calling off my neighbor's search. I don't even remember when my wife arrived. What I remember is clinging to that kid.

Sometimes life provides its own metaphors. I may be the only one that recognizes this one, but that's okay, because I'm the one that needed to recognize it.

I'm awake now, but while I slept she fell out the window. I need to find her and make sure she's okay.

So. I guess my experiment worked.

I spent so much time trying to understand what was happening to me, I lost sight of the real problem. The real problem wasn't that I couldn't understand it, or how absurd it was, or even how much I missed her. The real problem was that it was killing me. Slowly but ever so surely, I was dying from the pain and the torment and the confusion. Once I finally stopped trying to figure it out, once I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I was able to do what needed to be done. I fought it. I fought myself to get my own life back, and I won.

What am I supposed to do now? Why, nothing I guess. Just muddle through. See what happens.

This will take some getting used to, but I've got time now. I've got my whole life ahead of me.

Well I don't think this one needs much in the way of interpretation at all.

The bus is old, like a Greyhound from the 1950s or something. I enter the door and climb up the steps. The bus is about half full. It's all of the people from the bar. I wonder where we're going, and I sit nine rows back, on the driver's side, next to the window.

The living room area was a study in contrast. On the loveseat sat MusicalHippeeDude, Nerdlinger, and ButterFace. The sofa and the chair held a bunch of strangers/assholes/idiots.

I sat at the island with WomanRepellant and OldBob's wife. I had a Spezial (800) to start the night.

The doors creak closed, and the bus shudders to a start. Everyone seems pretty excited that we're finally on our way. Conversations start up all around me, but I can't make out what they're saying.

CoffeeDude came in at about the same time that WomanRepellant left. He joined me at the island and we bullshitted for a while about nothing in particular.

The shitheads ordered another round of beers.

I still don't know where we're going, but wherever it is, we're taking all these backroads instead of the expressway. The bus leans crazily with every turn we take.

One of the bartenders was in a shitty mood. That's pretty normal, but it's usually not this guy that's like that. I wondered what was bothering him while I waited 15 minutes for my beer to arrive. I guess it was probably all the strangers running around out front. I'd be in a bad mood too I suppose.

I look around the bus, and I don't see any of my friends. It's just a bunch of people that I recognize from the bar, but there's nobody I feel like talking to.

Oh, great. Now the shitheads finally decided to leave. MusicalHippeeDude was left alone in the living room area. Meanwhile, CoffeeDude and I had been joined by several PBDs, so I was feeling a little claustrophobic. I grabbed my shit and moved over to the sofa.

The bus pulls into the Rich O's parking lot. Some people get up and leave, but I can't leave because there are new people getting on that are in my way. The doors close and I settle back into my seat.

So the four of us sat and drank our beers and rattled on about nonsense. We could have been any four guys sitting in any bar in the world. I wondered, for about the zillionth time, just what the Hell I was doing there. I left the sofa and went to stand at the bar while I finished my beer. Then I paid my tab and left.

I make my way to the front of the bus and ask the driver to take me home. He takes me to a ranch house in a subdivision. I try to tell him that I don't live there anymore, but he's not listening to me. He keeps looking at his watch, and tells me to either get off or stay on. He's got a schedule to keep.

I get off the bus, and I start walking home.

*wakes up*

*takes a piss*

"Wow, that was kind of fucked up."

*picks up keys*

*gets on with life*