I overslept this morning and, in my rush to get out the door, I forgot my rock.

This is the first time I've been further than ten feet from my rock since I got it.

I feel very guilty.

Plus, I'm going to Rich O's after work to see RealTrainGirl, so my guilt will only increase.

I bet my rock never speaks to me again. It could be a long and uncomfortable week in Las Vegas.

Like a needle stuck in the groove of an old album, my thoughts keep playing the same old tune.

I keep hearing this song, but it just doesn't move me the way it used to. It only irritates me as it inserts its relentless beat into the sounds of my world.

It used to be my favorite song.

I found, after many months, a way to stop the flood of emotion running through me. I find that I end each day just a little bit more content than I'd been the day before. I can pretty much pass for a normal person now, at least to those around me.

These feelings are still there. I know they are, because I can still feel the pressure as they boil away at my insides. I contain them, for now at least, but no matter how much I try I cannot contain my thoughts. My thoughts are the same as they've always been. Over and over and over again, just like the song.

These thoughts continue because of simple inertia. And unless I can do something about the vacuum through which they travel, they might continue forever. Like a needle stuck in the groove of an old album, they'll keep playing this song because they're incapable of playing anything else.

Clicking the image pops up a larger version.

So I'm sitting on my couch, watching tonight's episode of Las Vegas.

A normal Monday night, but not a normal show. I haven't finished watching yet, but I half expect it to turn out to be a dream episode or something.

Anyway, Ed has these Cuban cigars that they found on the floor after a fight, and he takes them out of this little case. Inside the case is a piece of paper. On the paper is written:

022065

The day I was born.

I have no idea what this might mean, but I think it's pretty cool.

Something's been bothering me lately.

No, I mean something besides that. Okay, maybe it's related to that.

Ask any woman that's been with me - I'm a pretty good person. I mean I am now, and I have been for the past fourteen years or so. I treat women with respect and affection, just the way I'm supposed to, but not because I'm supposed to. I do it because it's the way I want to be treated myself.

I'd bet, right now, that I could call up anyone I've dated since my divorce and have a nice friendly conversation. Nobody would just hang up upon hearing my voice. Nobody would cuss me out. Nobody would cry.

There's no trail of broken hearts behind me. There's no We Hate Dave club that all of my old girlfriends belong to and have meetings where they sit around making fun of my genitals. There's no www.daveisanasshole.org website devoted to bashing me around and warning women about me and my issues.

Even the most painful breakups, such as the most recent one, even that was all let's be friends and call me if you ever want to talk and you never know, maybe someday we'll try again.

I'm a pretty nice guy, as far as ex-boyfriends go.

Maybe too nice.

What I'm wondering right now is, if I'd made breaking up with me more difficult, would any of those relationships have lasted?

I don't know the answer.

I think about her, so stubborn. So determined to have another chance with me, then she just walked away. That old let's not ruin our friendship excuse turned out to be the most honest thought she'd ever had about me. And, because I felt the same way, I let her go.

I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't made it so easy for her to leave that night. I wonder what would have happened if I'd been a real dick about it? Should I have been less of a friend, and that way there'd have been less of a friendship to ruin?

Maybe I take the words boyfriend and girlfriend too literally. These girls are all still my friends, but they're no longer anything beyond that. Maybe I should stop letting friendship trump everything else. Maybe that's why I'm sitting here alone.

If you're just going to tell me that I'm right, I already know that.

If you're going to claim that I'm wrong, then you are an idiot and I don't care what you think.

I'm sort of kicking myself a little today.

Someone asked me when my flight out of Louisville was on Friday morning, and I had no idea, so I checked.

It's at 6:30. In the morning.

I don't know why I keep scheduling my Las Vegas flights for so damn early. I get to Las Vegas at 10:30 and I know that I'm not going to get a room until at least 2:00 in the afternoon. It would make much more sense to arrive in the afternoon so I wouldn't have to sit around with my thumb up my ass for hours.

Plus, if I left Louisville at a reasonable hour, I could even go out to Rich O's Thursday night.

I remembered all this in May, when I last went to Vegas. But this time I forgot, and in my excitement I booked the earliest flights possible.

The latest theories about the Moon's origins say that it was torn from the Earth long ago. If that's true, then the Moon must feel as I do. Forever orbiting. Forever contemplating what it has lost. Never able to look away. Never able to touch.

Does the Moon remember the pain of being ripped away?

If the Moon could somehow break free of the Earth's pull, it would truly become lost. Its own inertia would carry it forever, dark and silent, through the vastness of space.

I wonder, would the Earth look up, and wonder where the Moon had gone? Would it wonder why the Moon had left? Would the Earth even notice?

I actually had a pretty decent night. There was no surprisaphobia for the first time in quite a while. It would have been the perfect time for a surprise, but it didn't happen. So yay!

Let's see, I stopped and saw VigilanteGirl first. She's stopped being grouchy long enough to remind me to pick her up a shirt from "anywhere in Las Vegas" while I'm there. The girl is simply beyond cute. My intentions toward her are not entirely honorable, so buying her Hard Rock shirts and shit helps ease my guilt a little.

When I walked into Rich O's, SpikeBoy was sitting out in the loser area with some girl. I didn't recognize him with a girl.

Compared to Friday night, the place was dead. This Russian dude with a fucked up website was playing in the front area, with a half-dozen or so people listening.

Walking into Rich O's proper, I immediately saw HatGirl. Without the hat again. My peripheral vision seemed to detect that there were several cute girls scattered around, but, of course, none of them mattered, not with HatGirl in the room.

So I sat on the loveseat and ordered a Spezial (900) and talked with HatGirl and LuckyFucker for pretty much the entire night. After a while DooRagGirl came in. She also failed to distract me.

LuckyFucker was asking me for advice on what beers to try. I think that so far he's liked my recommendations, except maybe the Rogue Imperial Stout - that one may have been a bit too much for someone that's only been to Rich O's like three times.

My second beer was another Spezial (920). When this beer goes on tap I usually drink a lot of it, but after a week or two it gets a little boring.

My third beer was a Guinness (974) and then I switched to Diet Coke.

Oh yeah, I was asking DooRagGirl if she knows GlassesGirl, since they both know my sister Neisha from school. DooRagGirl wasn't sure if she knew her or not. Right after I asked, GlassesGirl walked in. She seems to be dating MusicalHippyDude.

By the end of the night, I'd started feeling a little bad that I chose LuckyFucker as a nickname for HatGirl's boyfriend. He's a nice guy. He actually reminds me of my sister's ex-husband, who used to be one of my best friends. But, he is a lucky fucker so the nickname will stay.

Anyway, once HatGirl and her boyfriend left I sat for a bit with DooRagGirl, just to foster the illusion that I hadn't stayed for as long as I did for the obvious reason, then I went to White Castle and came home.

Whew!

I made it though the last three nights, and this fuckwad of a month is effectively over for me. Tonight I'll get to enjoy a relatively stress-free Saturday.

It'll probably be boring.

Anyway, last night I got to Rich O's at around 8:30. The parking lot was only about half full, plus there were about 20 people all leaving at the same time. It looked like they were having a fire drill or something. So it was strange to walk inside and see that the place was completely packed. Not a place to sit anywhere.

I waved at SpikeBoy, who was looking quite miserable on the throne surrounded by weirdoes, and went and stood at the end of the bar. I had myself a Spezial (880) and talked with GlassesGirl for a few minutes, then LibertyGirl, and then RealTrainGirl came in so we moved four feet and stood in the annex for a while.

After a bit, MisunderstoodGirl came in, and actually talked to us. No, really. She was in a talkative mood. That was quite a nice surprise.

Finally, some idiots left the island. About fifty people scrambled for the seats, but only six people succeeded. My friends and I were three of them, the others were some PBDs that I don't know.

So we spent the rest of the night just drinking and talking. My second beer was a Rogue Imperial Stout (36), available on tap. Yummy, but deadly.

My last beer was something new for me:

Schneider Aventinus Weizen Doppelbock (20)

(draft) Good, but not as good as everyone else seems to think. Nothing noteworthy at all. I'd describe some details but there really aren't any. It's just a beer.

When my voice becomes weak and raspy, is it because I've gone hoarse from screaming, or is it because I no longer have the strength to shout?

I can still whisper my thoughts, but there's nobody close enough to hear.

The thing about jigsaw puzzles is this: it can be the most beautiful puzzle ever made, but if there's a piece missing it's nothing more than a pile of cardboard, capable of bringing nothing but disappointment.

For those of you with lives, those of you that don't have the great beers of the world memorized so you can recognize them simply from the bottle, this is Delirium Tremens. One of the world's finest beers.

This is my desert island beer.

And it's fitting that I'm drinking this now, because while I often feel like I am very much alone on an island, this day, with its crowding and its socializing and its obligations, this day magnifies that feeling more than any other. You can be completely surrounded, but if the right person isn't there, you're still alone.

That's an official Delirium Tremens glass, too. I used to have two of these glasses. This one's mate is far away now.

Part of my problem is that I read too much into things. I look for hidden signs everywhere. And not just signs. I have to look for the bad in everything I see. And I keep looking until I find it.

I can take the most heartfelt compliment and twist it into an insult. I can take the simplest greeting and turn it into a goodbye. This is my super power. But I don't use it to ward off evil, I use it to ward off everything and everyone.

Well, almost everyone.

Why, I wonder, can't I ever recognize good for what it is? Why is it that I can immediately see the bad, but when something good presents itself I must transform it into something else?

I dunno. Probably because I'm a dumbass.

So I'm drinking my symbolic beer (379), my second of this night. Later I'm going to have a third. Good thing I'm staying home tonight. After I drink my beers I'm going to go downstairs and shoot some pool. Maybe make some movies if I can remember to turn the camera on.

It's midnight now. November 24th is over. Good riddance.

President Bush's aide said, "Mr. President, I've afraid I have some bad news. Something terrible has happened."

"What's happened?" the President asked.

"There's been an uprising in South America, and over a thousand Brazilian people have been killed," the aide told him.

The president buried his face in his hands for a few seconds as he tried to come to grips with this news. In his head he was already preparing the statement he'd make to offer his sympathies. But he needed more information.

He raised his head and asked his aide, "How many people are in a brazillion?"

When you're concerned about having a nervous breakdown, then merely being irritated all night could almost count as having a good time.

Almost.

Last night was Virtual Friday because of Thanksgiving.

Yay!

The night before Thanksgiving is, traditionally, one of the busiest nights of the year for bars.

Boo!

I've seen bigger crowds at Rich O's, but not very many. I don't think that I've ever seen a more irritating crowd though.

So I didn't do much in the way of socializing. Talked for a while with this one dude who doesn't get a nickname.

To drink, I had a couple pints of Spezial RauchBier (860) then a half-pint of Smithwick's (630).

It was all quite dull. It definitely could have been better. It absolutely could have been much worse.

Well I struggled with this decision for a long time, but finally I made my choice.

I'm not going to write about what this date is. Was. Could have been.

Not because I don't remember, and not because I don't care.

Nope, I'm not going to write about it because that would be a privilege, not a right. And it's a privilege that I haven't been granted.

So I won't be writing a thing.

There's this one chick.

I'm not going to embarrass her by naming her here. She'll know who she is.

I think she's a fantastic writer. I've felt that way since I first discovered her, what seems like years ago, but I wasn't really able to say why I liked her writing so much. I mean, I was physically capable of saying it, and there was never any prohibition against saying it, I just couldn't find the proper words to describe my reasoning.

I may have found the words.

When I first read her journal, for a few joyous minutes, I thought she was someone else. Too quickly, I learned the truth, and I was a little disappointed with that knowledge. I wanted the person I thought she was, I wanted her to be the one writing those beautiful words.

Since then, I've gotten to know the real person behind those flowing phrases and I'm no longer disappointed. I'm blessed, and I'm glad that I was wrong when I thought she was someone else.

But the thing is, even though I know who's really doing the writing, when I read her words they go straight to my heart and, for just an instant, I forget what I know. For just an instant, I imagine that someone else writes those words. Sometimes I even imagine that I write them myself.

Her writing does that for me. It speaks the words that my heart wants to speak, but cannot. Or, it lets my heart hear the words that it's dying to hear, but which would not be spoken otherwise. That's why I think she's a fantastic writer - because her words, once written, don't need her anymore. Her words, once written, go to where they are needed the most, and they give voice to what would otherwise be silent.

Her words fill the silence in my soul with music that it can dance to. Even when it's a sad song, it feels good to dance.

Earlier I was irritated, but now I'm pissed.

Why am I pissed?

It's simple.

I'm pissed about being pissed at myself over my expected reaction to something that isn't going to happen anyway on a day that shouldn't mean a thing to me regarding a girl that shouldn't mean a thing to me.

I'm pre-pissed.

I'm irritated now, but I don't know why. Maybe I just needed a longer nap.

Tomorrow is Friday for us, so that's good, but tomorrow night is also when my stress will peak, or if not then, Friday night. If I make it past Friday night, I should be okay for a while. Like a week maybe, but by then I'll be in Las Vegas.

Monday after work I met up with RealTrainGirl and GreenBeerDude. I had myself a half-glass of Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (155) and then a half-glass of this stuff:

Belhaven Wee Heavy (10)

(draft) This was decent, but there was just something strange about it. Some fruity characteristic that I couldn't identify. There was also a bitterness that came out of nowhere at the finish.

I should probably be more willing to open up to the people that offer to help me. I guess I just don't feel like explaining everything all over again.

I should write something better than this. I hate it when a crappy entry is the first thing people see.

Happy Birthday to my sister Dina!

Sometime, in the next few days, I've got a decision to make.

Nothing Earth-shattering, except to me. It's just one of those things that, if I choose one way, I'll probably regret it for a very long time. But if, on the other hand, I chose the other way, I'll probably regret it for a very long time.

Hence my dilemma.

Of course, I could get lucky. I could die sometime in the next couple of days, thus sparing myself the burden of this impossible decision.

Yes, I'm kidding about the dying part.

A little bit anyway.

This fucking deadline is fast approaching, and yet I continue to procrastinate. This is not the way I used to be. Not the way I want to be. I want to be able to, simply and calmly, weigh the pros and cons of each choice, and then make a choice. Belly up. Be a man. Even if it's nothing more than the proverbial lesser of two evils, it's at least a choice that I make. Even if I choose incorrectly, at least it's an actual decision instead of another fucking cop-out.

This should not be that difficult. Chances are that nobody but me would ever even notice which choice I ended up making. So then why is it so damn hard to fucking decide?

Man, I'm saying fucking a lot in this entry. Hi, Grandma!

Seriously, wtf?

I was thinking today about eyes.

I love eyes. I love how they're the window to the soul.

There's just something primal about looking into the eyes of another living being.

Look a wild animal in the eyes, and it will either run away, or it will attack.

Look a child in the eyes, and some of their innocence and enthusiasm crosses over to you.

Look into the eyes of the one you love, but use caution, because you may not like what you see. Sometimes, that affection that you see, it's nothing more than your own feelings, being reflected back at you. Sometimes those feelings you glimpse are nothing more than pity or concern or even fear, twisted into something that's not really there, an illusion born of your own desperation. Sometimes, though they seem to be looking at you, their eyes are in fact focused a million miles away.

But every now and then...

If you're lucky...

Sometimes you meet the gaze of the one you love and what you see in their eyes, it combines with what they see in your eyes. It multiplies. Like feedback from a microphone placed to close to a speaker, it quickly overwhelms you with its intensity. You each feed off the emotions of the other, and for every moment that your eyes are locked together, your bond becomes stronger. You get lost, but it's okay because there's someone there with you, sharing it all with you. You're where you want to be. In their eyes. You never want to leave.

I love eyes. I love how they're the window to the soul.

All of the times I think about her, I think about holding her hand more often than I think about anything else. It was like we were separate, but when we held hands some circuit was completed and the energy within each of us became our energy instead. There's just something sweet about holding hands.

As a child, we hold our parents' hands, and it makes us feel safe and loved.

As we get a little older and enter grade school, holding hands is that first timid step towards romance, even when we're too young to know what romance is, and would be grossed out if we ever discovered the disgusting truth about what hand holding can lead to.

Older still, and hand holding is often replaced with making out, sex, and all of the other "adult" activities. Holding someone's hand seems to become a burden, an intrusion into our personal space. Besides, it's what kids do.

Then, at the end of our lives, if we're lucky, we find ourselves sitting on a porch with some special person who's shared their life with us, holding hands. It makes us feel safe and loved.

We spend our entire lives reaching out. Every now and then two people will reach out at the same time, and their hands will find each other.

When I think about her, I miss just about everything. But holding her hand, I miss that most of all.

Walking into Rich O's last night, I did my normal survey.

Hot girls in the front area? Check, check, check, check.

Hot girl on the sofa? Check.

Hot girls at the island? Check and check.

Hot girl on the loveseat? Check

Wait a minute.

Where the fuck was I? This couldn't be Rich O's. Doesn't Roger have some kind of rule about hot girls? Oh, I guess it is Rich O's, because there's SuperShitHead being all supershitheady over at the stand-up bar.

I thought for a second about grabbing the throne, but the hot girls in that area were with guys, so I sat at the bar and turned sideways so I had a view of the whole room. I had myself a Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (125).

There was this very LOUD 200-year-old man at the bar, and I almost immediately regretted my seating choice. I was contemplating the throne again when SpikeBoy came in and grabbed the seat next to me.

I showed him my rock, and we talked about what a douchebag SuperShitHead was, and we went ahead and divvied up the hot girls in the place. I got dibs on the brunettes and SpikeBoy got everyone else.

I'd just finished striking up a cooperative wingman deal with SpikeBoy. He could have first shot at every girl that ever came in except for two. First was LaptopGirl, and second was HatGirl. This struck SpikeBoy as a perfectly fine arrangement because like he'd ever have a chance with either of those girls anyway. In return for my generosity, SpikeBoy agreed to immediately call me if either of those two girls ever stepped foot in Rich O's again.

Eventually the couple on the sofa got up and left, so we grabbed our shit and moved over there. I sat on the sofa and looked across the coffee table into the eyes of... HatGirl.

She'd been sitting there the whole time, I'd checked her off when I first came in and did my site survey, but I hadn't recognized her without her hat. This isn't the first time this has happened either.

Of course she was with her boyfriend, who I like to call LuckyFucker. Doesn't seem like a bad guy actually. I ended up talking with him and HatGirl for the rest of the night.

I showed her my rock.

After a bit, I moved to the throne because (a) the couch is in really bad shape and (b) having HatGirl directly in front of me was a little disconcerting.

I had another Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (145).

Eventually HatGirl and LuckyFucker went home. SpikeBoy had already left, so I was left alone again. I had a half-pint of Guinness (954) and left at about 10:30.

This proved to be a bad time to leave, because VigilanteGirl was still working at Gas-N-Stuff. She grouchily denied being grouchy lately. And grouchily accused me of being grouchy.

Whatever. Grouch.

The other day I crossed a line.

Actually I crossed it, and then hung out on the other side for a while, then finally realized where I was and jumped back to the other side.

That there is called a metaphor. I use them a lot. Some of my readers don't seem to get the concept. Perhaps they should find a less challenging 'blog to read.

The truth is - there was no actual line. What actually happened is that I went from whining about certain things to whining about certain other things, and the latter things were things that I'd never whined about before. They were things that no halfway self-respecting person would ever whine about in public.

I whined about them. In public. In this 'blog. So, in metaphorical terms, I crossed the line.

The pansy line.

What happened was, I was writing about how I was irritated with certain things, and the next thing I knew, I was actually listing those things. This was wrong. I should not have done this. For those of you that saw me, standing there like a dork on the other side of the line, and for those of you that felt uncomfortable seeing me there, wondering if I was there because of you, I apologize.

So my hiatus ended about a day earlier I'd thought it would. I'd expected to last until Sunday morning, but before I'd even fully awakened on Saturday I found myself typing away.

This was nothing, this little break I took. But a few people noticed that I was gone. For those of you that offered your help, thank you. For those of you that didn't seem able to deal with my silence, get a life. And for those of you that took the opportunity to chastise and belittle me for showing an actual human side of my personality, fuck off and die slowly and painfully.

I almost didn't go out last night. Not because I didn't feel like going out, but because I took a nap after work and didn't wake up until almost 9:00. Much later and I'd probably just have stayed home.

But I really did want to go out. I wanted to take my rock to Rich O's. So that's what I did.

The front area was very crowded. It was full of sk8tr bois and other assorted idiots. This did not bode well for what Rich O's proper would be like, so I was pleasantly surprised to see the entire living room area open.

I sat at the throne and ordered a Great Lakes Christmas Ale (120). I'd only had about two sips of the beer when DeadLady and her son/boyfriend came in and sat on the loveseat. So I grabbed my shit and moved over to the island.

After a while, WomanRepellant came in and joined me. We bullshitted for a while. I had a Corsendonk Christmas Ale (50) which was quite yummy and WomanRepellant and I made fun of all of the strangers that had suddenly taken over the living room area. I'm glad I'd moved when I did.

At one point Bubbles came in so I went over and showed her my rock.

Yes, the night really was as boring as I'm making it out to be.

Contemplating what my last beer would be, I told the bartender that I wished that the Bell's Kalamazoo Stout was on tap. He pointed out that it was indeed back. Yay!

So I had a half-pint of the Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (105). Yummy.

That was it for me. That Corsendonk is like a time bomb or something, so I got out of there before it went off. I stopped at this little bar on the way home, hoping to talk with VigilanteGirl, but she was busy with some trivia game, so I just listened to some karaoke and had a Diet Coke, then I came home.

Stolen from cawfee.

People who annoy me:
1. Sk8tr Bois
2. Idiots
3. Cock teasers
4. Ass kissers
5. Corona drinkers

Places that annoy me:
1. Anyplace with a long line
2. Bars without good beer
3. Anyplace you have to dress up
4. Places where you're expected to interact with other people
5. Crowded places

Things that annoy me:
1. Other peoples' kids
2. Long lines
3. Cold weather without snow
4. Specials on piss beer but none on good beer
5. People who dial the wrong number and then just hang up

Personal annoyances:
1. Moodiness
2. Being a dick to people who don't deserve it
3. Opening up when I know it's a waste of time
4. Holding grudges for years and years
5. Being unable to let go

So I have this rock now.

I'm very excited to have this rock. I keep it in my pocket. It's the first one I've ever had.

Nobody else seems to understand, but that's okay. Maybe, unless someone has their own rock, they can't understand.

I'm just going to repost this entry that I made back in September. I'm not sure why. I guess because I found out that someone smiled tonight, and I think's it's been a while since she's smiled. It reminded me of this girl from the bar:

So there's this one chick, a semi-regular at Rich O's, who is perhaps the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Note, please, that I said seen and not known. Or even met.

She's maybe little too stocky. She's perhaps little bit on the "cuddly" side of slender. She's possibly a little bit bottom-heavy. Her hairstyle is a crew-cut, of all things. A girl that you might not notice at all, and if you did you'd probably figure she was a carpet muncher. In other words, a completely normal person for Rich O's. You probably wouldn't give her a second glance if you weren't a lesbian yourself.

Unless you got lucky, as I did when I first saw her. Unless you got lucky enough to see her smile.

This girl is possessed of what TallLady once called "Good bone structure." That's how she pulls off the crew-cut. So she is pretty, in a generic and unremarkable way.

Until she smiles.

When she smiles, angels in heaven claw their own eyes out because they cannot bear the beauty that's revealed.

When she smiles, flowers close their petals, and butterflies ground themselves, and sunsets halt their progress. They all know that they cannot compete, so they do not even try.

Her smile lights up a gloomy room the way a lighthouse does a rocky coast. It shows everyone that there is an unthreatening path, that there is a safe harbor, that there is something worthwhile at the end of the voyage. Whatever that voyage may be.

I don't know this girl at all. I talked to her for the first time tonight. I said something funny, and I made her smile.

That right there, that I could, if only for a moment, bring such beauty into the world, that should be enough to carry me for quite a while.

(I've deleted a bunch of whiny crybaby bullshit.)

I need a break from this. Probably just a couple of days. I doubt that I'd last much longer than that.

Until then, some of you know where to find me.

You don't see very many after work beer reports from me for a few reasons.

First, I kind of stopped going to the haunted bar after work.

Second, I hardly ever try anything unusual or new after work.

Third, I'm lazy.

Fouth, nobody cares anyway.

Well today I went to Rich O's after work. I went because I'm subscribed to this e-mail thingy that the owner sends out, and the e-mail thingy I got Monday promised a certain beer. I went, and I had some of the beer. I even updated the official description on my beer page:

Great Lakes Christmas Ale (80)

Another winner from this excellent brewery. Very complex but well balanced. Starts out sweet, followed by a surprising bit of cinnamon heat at the end. Nothing overpowering. Yummy.

Every day I climb a little higher. Every day I get a little closer to freeing myself from this dark chasm.

But I'm not out yet.

I look down at the swirling blackness below me, and I can't help but wonder, how much would it hurt if I fell to the bottom again now? Or now? Or right now?

I can't tell. The bottom is lost in the darkness. All I really know is that every inch of upward progress is another inch I could fall. Another inch closer to freedom, but also another inch closer to death.

I don't think I want to die. Not again.

But until that day when I finally claw my way out of here, and back into my life, the fear of falling will increase with every move I make.

The blackness follows me up, obscuring all of the progress I've made. It taunts me.

I'm already so terrified of falling that I can barely will myself to move, and I've still got a long way to go.

Sometimes I think I should just stop, but I can't. There are no ledges upon which I can rest.

Sometimes I think I should climb back down.

Sometimes I think I should jump.

Then, at least, I could stop being so afraid.

Tonight I was hoping to tell the tale of my exciting journey to The Land Of Oz.

No such luck.

The night was a complete waste, weather-wise. At least here at my house it was. All it did was rain.

And I was really looking forward to seeing some flying monkeys.

Tonight's one of those slight chance of severe weather nights, complete with a tornado watch. This is in stark contrast to the other night when, 75 miles West of me, two dozen people were killed by a tornado that supposedly had zero chance of forming.

So tonight I get to sleep fully-clothed, on my couch, with my weather alert thingy by my side, ready to run into my basement or into my front yard - whichever suits my mood, should severe weather threaten.

This is quite cool, having storms like this in November.

It would be slightly less cool to be killed by a tornado tonight, but at least it would get me out of work tomorrow.

Tomorrow's supposed to be our main threat. Fucking all Hell will probably come unleashed and I'll be stuck at work.

Okay, let's say you're stuck in rush hour traffic. Cars are lined up nose to ass as far as the eye can see. Traffic is crawling along, too fast to simply coast, but too slow to actually touch the accelerator.

Let's also say that someone in the next lane over wants to get into your lane. Maybe there's a wreck up ahead, maybe their exit is nearby. Whatever. They pull up alongside you, or maybe a little ahead of you, and they hit their turn signal.

(Turn signals, for those of you that don't know, are those doohickeys that stick out of the side of your steering column. You click the doohickey up to signal your intention and desire to turn right, and you click it down when you want to go left.)

So this person has signaled that they want to merge into your lane, ahead of you. I say let them in.

Stop or slow down, make a gap in front of your car, and let them into your lane.

Now, you may be asking, "Dave, you shithead. Why the fuck would I want to let them get into my lane?"

This is a reasonable question, and I understand why you're asking it. Except for the shithead part. That was really uncalled for.

Everybody wants to be a selfish prick when they're behind the wheel of a car. Shit, that's half the fun of having the damn thing. The other half is that you get to sing along to the radio without anyone hearing how horrible you sound.

But I digress.

The thing about letting that person cut in front of you is this: You get to be nice to them, but you still get to be a selfish prick to everyone behind you!

It's win/win!

Let's say, for argument's sake, that you don't let the poor sap in. What do you suppose he'll do?

Remember, he's a selfish prick, just like you.

He's going to drive even further ahead and he's going to try to cut in front of someone that's already way ahead of you.

Maybe that other person has read this entry, so he knows what to do. He slows down and lets the poor sap in.

What happens next is what I like to call a chain-reaction. I didn't make that term up. It's from a movie or something. I think Ted "Theodore" Logan and some hot girl were in it. That Leaving Las Vegas girl I think.

But I digress.

The guy way ahead of you taps his brakes to let the poor sap in. The guy behind him taps his brakes, and so on. By the time you get more than about four cars back from where the actual merge is taking place, those people don't know what the fuck is going on. All they see is a bunch of brakes lighting up ahead of them.

So they slam on their brakes and come to a complete stop. So does the person behind them, and the person behind them and so on and so on until you are forced to come to a stop and sit for a good thirty seconds until the traffic starts moving again.

And, while you're sitting there stopped, that merger and that mergee way up ahead - they've gone on about their merry way. They're probably already home getting laid, while you're still stuck in traffic.

You could have been that mergee!

But nooooooooooooooooooo! You couldn't take one second out of your precious life to help a fellow human being. So instead, you're getting thirty seconds stolen from you. Karma is a bitch, isn't it?

If you'd just let the poor sap in when you'd had the chance, your inconvenience would have been minimal, but you'd still have had the satisfaction of knowing that everyone behind you would suffer.

Like I said, it's win/win.

I hate Mondays soooooooo much.

But this one just got a little tiny bit better. Maybe even a lot better.

I came in this morning and checked my calendar and saw that the entire afternoon was full of stupid meetings.

Imagine, if you will, my glee when I checked my calendar again just now and saw that all of the stupid useless meetings were last Monday, and that I have this afternoon open.

Yay!

You know what the highlight of my day was?

I went to Target and bought some clothes hangers. Twenty-six regular ones and four of the clippy kind for hanging pants.

I also bought The Fog on DVD, just so it wouldn't look like I'd made a special trip to Target just to buy hangers.

Then to rest up from that adventure, I took a nap and had this dream:

I was in Chicago or New York or some other big city for some boring work thing. I decided to sneak out and do some exploring.

For some reason I didn't have any socks on, and my shoes were hurting my feet, so I figured I'd try to buy myself some socks if I saw any stores.

I got into this elevator and tried to push the top button (floor 101) but it wasn't working. Then some Hispanic guy came in and slid his card into the elevator control panel and the 101 button worked for him. I guess he was special or something.

The elevator, when it got to the top, turned into a sort of slow-motion roller coaster or something. It wound around the top of the city for quite a while. All of the walls were glass and I could see that there was all kinds of touristy shit up at the top of whatever city this was. The Hispanic guy kept pointing out all of the good stores and bars that I should check out. I thought it was nice that he was so down to Earth even though he was special enough to carry the magic elevator card.

Once the elevator/ride stopped, I got off and saw this building that looked like it was from the Flintstones cartoon up the hill. The building and its landscaping was molded out of some yellowish plasticy stuff that felt like it had a five o'clock shadow, plus it was pretty greasy feeling.

I climbed the very steep hill to the Flintstones building, but once I got there they were charging admission to go in and I didn't want to spend my sock money so I just sat with some lady and her kids and we watched the goings-on there at the top of the city.

Stolen from forgottenfriend

How evil are you?

Tonight, I was in a strange mood.

Not good, not particularly bad. I guess nostalgic would be a good description. Makes sense, anyway.

I tried a couple of times to call SpikeBoy to see if he was in the mood to do something besides Rich O's tonight, but I couldn't get in touch with him. Oh well, can't say I didn't try.

So what I ended up doing first, to help make up for not going to the cemetery today, was go to The Hitching Post and have myself a Falls City (24) in Dad's honor. Straight from the can like a real man would drink it.

Disgusting.

I talked to the bartender for a bit, told her what I was doing there, but she'd only been working there for a couple of years so she didn't remember Dad. On the way out some dude initiated the brief conversation depicted two entries ago.

Next, big surprise, I went to Rich O's. There, big surprise, I had a Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (95).

I started out sitting at the island, talking with ExBartender and CoffeeDude, but then this old fuckhead sat with us and he pissed me off so I went and stood at the bar and talked with FutureDude for a while.

My next beer was an Avery Old Jubilation Ale (50), which I haven't had in a year and which was quite yummy.

After a while DooRagGirl (FutureDude's girlfriend) came in so I went to White Castle and then came home.

The kitty wasn't at White Castle tonight, for those of you who care about that sort of thing.

Just fucking do it.

It would be okay of you did. Really, it would be good.

It's not like I'm stupid. I can tell you're thinking about it.

Just do it.

Please.

I won't hold my breath though.

I feel like I should write something before I go out tonight, but what I was planning to write about didn't happen.

Maybe I'll write about it not happening.

I didn't go to the cemetery today. I'd been kinda sorta planning to, but I ended up not going.

It's not like it's a big tradition of mine or anything. I haven't been since last October, when I went to a wedding across the street from their graves. I stopped by after the ceremony and sat and told them about all of the bullshit that was going on with me. I told them, even though I don't think I really knew what was going on yet.

I've written here several times, and anyone who knows me at all knows this already, but I'm not comfortable in crowds. Give me one person to talk to and I'm golden. Add a third person and I'll start to let myself fade into the background. Add any more people and I may as well not be there at all.

That cemetery is too crowded.

My parents' graves are, of course, right next to each other. Then, about 20 feet away, lie the graves of my maternal grandparents.

There all right there.

So I can't just go visit Mom, because Dad's there too. I can't talk to just one of them. I have to visit them both. Then, I have to go visit my grandmother. And by the time I'm ready to leave what was supposed to have been a cleansing experience has instead left me emotionally exhausted.

The thing is - there are things that I'd like to discuss privately with each of them, but there's no way. Forget the fact that they're all dead and they can't hear me anyway. I mean if one of them could hear me then they all could. I can't tell my dad about the latest hot sex I had because my mom's right there and I can't talk to Mom about how much I miss LaptopGirl because Dad would call me a pansy, and I certainly can't talk about any of that stuff with my grandmother listening in anyway.

It's all pretty silly, and I know it is. Those bodies in the ground, they stopped being the people I loved the moment they died. Whatever was left of them, if there was anything left at all, it didn't go into the ground. So why does this culture of mine place such significance on rest in peace and why do we visit graves and leave notes and flowers?

I guess it gives us someplace to go, when we miss them and we want to be near them. I guess a gravesite is as good a place as any. Until it gets too crowded.

November 12th. Again. The first, and the worst, of many days on November which suck ass. The Day Dad Died.

It's a pretty strange thing to realize, that I'm catching up with my father. Every November 12th I'm 365 days older, yet he stays the same. Eventually I might catch up with him completely, or maybe even surpass him.

Weird.

My sister always reads this every year on the 12th of November. I think she likes that it makes her cry.

Today I slept a lot.

I slept from about 10:00 until 7:00, then I decided that going to work would be stupid.

So I slept from 9:00 until 1:30.

Then I had to do some work. I had a conference call with some vendor support people. It was quite trippy trying to deal with technical issues with a fever.

Next I slept from 4:00 until 9:00. I had the strange dream.

After that I took a long, hot shower and I actually felt better. I felt halfway normal actually.

So I went down to Rich O's.

All I did there was have myself a Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (70), and talk to BamaCouple for a while. Once they left I had part of another glass of the stout (75) and then I went to White Castle.

Here are some pictures of the cat at White Castle, which I have named Slider and which I hope to be able to actually pet some day.

Did nothing all day but sleep and sweat and dream, so I've picked the most interesting of those activities for my daily entry. Proceed at your own risk.

There was this old abandoned school, a big one, like from the seventies or something. A sprawling one-story affair.

There was an older dude with us, a Brian Dennehy type, and also a girl that looked like Jennifer Aniston but was named Neela. She was my girlfriend or something.

There were some kids with us too, but I think they were with Brian Dennehy more than with us.

We broke into the school and went to this one part where somebody had painted a Neela mural on the wall. There was door there so we went in.

The place beyond that door was something besides an old school. It was this huge mansion or castle or something. We ended up splitting up and doing some exploring.

There was this one room that had two beds set in an "L" shape and raised up on antique dressers to make what I told Neela was the coolest bed I'd ever seen. She found this plaque on the wall that said some lady had built the bed so her grandkids could share her bed without kicking her all night.

There was this other room where there was a painting of a cat's face on the wall. If you threw a cracker or something at the cat's mouth the painting would come to life and catch the cracker in mid-air, then it would go back to being a painting.

Just beyond that cat face room was a room with a little miniature coffin - like a kid's coffin would be - with a Batman sticker on top of it. A sign leaning against the coffin read "Do you dare to open the box of doom?"

So of course I opened the coffin right away. There was a smaller box inside, along with a record player and a record. Neela played the record and it was Adam West's (the dude from the 1960s Batman series) voice talking on and on about how opening the smaller box would unleash evil upon the world. It was all very cheesy like a county fair haunted house attraction.

Not deterred at all by Adam West, I opened the smaller box. Inside there was a mirror, and a pinkish sheet of plastic the same size as the mirror, and a big paper key, and a small metal key.

I was trying to figure out how to unleash the evil upon the world - mainly by spinning the metal key on the mirror, when this guy that looked like Steve Guttenberg came and told us that his best friend in the world has just been killed. Eaten by the cat in the cat face room I think.

Then all this rumbling started and Neela and I knew that we had to get the hell out of there. So we took off running back the way we'd came in. Once we reached the original part of the building - the part that just looked like an old abandoned school - the walls started moving around and trying to block us from leaving. I, of course, can just walk through walls in my dreams but I forgot that I hadn't taught Neela how to do it so we got separated.

I made it outside just in the nick of time, but I never saw Neela or the kids or the Steve Guttenberg guy again.

The cops showed up and while they were trying to figure out what to do one of them hollered out for everyone to look at the sky.

Instead of stars, the sky was full of comets. It was very pretty. We also saw that a couple of airplanes were leaving contrails that stretched across the sky. We also saw that the Batman symbol was being projected onto the Moon.

So I just kind of played it dumb because I didn't want the cops to know that it was me that had unleashed the evil upon the world.

The next day I broke back into the school to look for Neela. I was up in the cool bed room and I looked out the window. I could see that, one floor up and one window over, was the Brain Dennehy dude, but he didn't see me so I couldn't ask him what had happened to Neela.

101.2F

38.44C

311.59K

That's how hot I am.

Fevers always knock me on my ass.

EwokGirl has been coughing and sneezing in the next cubicle all week long, proudly announcing to everyone how she still comes in to work when she's sick.

What she doesn't seem to realize, what I have been trying to tell her, is that sick days are provided for the coworkers as much as they are for the person that's sick. So they don't get contaminated.

Oops.

Not having a thermometer at work, I'm forced to rely on the feel of my eyelids against my eyes to judge my temperature.

I have a fever.

Thanks a lot, EwokGirl.

My sister Dina, always the organized one, today asked me what I wanted for Christmas.

I've given this a lot of thought, and I know what it is that I want more than anything else in the world.

A time machine.

But I don't want the el cheapo time machine. Nope, I want the deluxe model with the paradox inhibitor. I wouldn't want to go back to November 14, 2003 and murder myself before I went to Rich O's, and then immediately vanish because I'd never lived long enough to get a time machine to use to go back and murder myself. That would just be embarrassing.

Come to think of it, I doubt that it's called murder when you kill a past version of yourself. It's not really a suicide either. Maybe the time machine owner's manual will have a glossary in the back or something.

So please, spring for the deluxe model. It may cost more, but it's soooo worth it.

Infer whatever you want from this, but I'm now being stood up by lesbians.

This, aside from the obvious ego-bashing that goes along with it, also has the unfortunate effect of leaving me sitting by myself, at the haunted bar, for an hour and a half.

Not good.

As I sat at the island, trying to stay upright while wave after wave of emotion washed over me, I decided to have myself a beer.

This wasn't written on the board, but the bartender became my new Best Friend In The Universe when he knew enough to pour me one of these:

Bells Kalamazoo Stout (20)

(draft) Oh, Bell's Kalamazoo Stout, where have you been all my life? This is as close to the perfect stout as I've ever had. All of the flavor of an imperial, but without the high ABV and without the alcohol burn. My new favorite stout in the entire world. Yummy.

I don't think I have anything to say. Today, absolutely nothing happened at all. Maybe tomorrow something will happen. Probably not though.

Today I was telling someone about this stupid childish game I've been known to play.

I'll call The Reverse Staring Contest.

The goal is to be the last one to look. To be the last one to care. The last one to acknowledge the other. If you can hold out the longest, then you win.

What do you win?

Not much. Maybe a little satisfaction. Maybe a little information - perhaps knowledge that the other person has less willpower than you do, or cares more than you do.

Maybe you learn those things, but maybe the other person doesn't even know the game is afoot. Maybe you're just being a jackass because it's your basic nature to be one.

I just finished a round of this game, a round in which I won. I'm pretty sure the other person didn't even know we were playing, but we play this game almost every day. I lose almost every day.

But not today. Today I kept my eyes averted until the other person looked my way.

I am the winner! Yay for me!

It's a dangerous game though. Sometimes the other person gets tired of it and goes to find someone else to play with. Someone that's not a jackass.

This entry brought to you by:

Rogue Imperial Stout (26)

(bottle) Hard to find anything wrong with this beer. If I had to pick something it would be the high ABV which limits the amount that can be consumed. A yummy chocolately flavor with a fairly intense alcohol burn. Quite good, and I will be buying more bottles which I will try to let age.

I can think of a million reasons why I've been putting it off, and I'll list them right now, one by one.

No, I'm kidding. I'd never do that to you.

Instead I'll just start typing and hope that the main reason reveals itself quickly before I die of boredom.

This entry will close out the period from October 9th, 2004, until middish/lateish September, 2005.

I will call this period The Wasted Year for reasons that are probably already evident to some of you, and which will become evident to the rest of you.

If you don't die of boredom yourselves before I finally get to the fucking point.

So, where was I?

Oh yes, I was dead. I died on October 9th of last year. I'd call my death a metaphor. Some may call it an exaggeration. Others may call it whiny crybaby drivel. But whatever you call it, it's all the same thing.

When I found out that she had left, I was devastated. Obliterated. I'd waited 39 years to meet someone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but I fought it and denied it and ignored it until that veeeeeeeery moment when I couldn't deny or fight or ignore it any longer. That very moment when I brilliantly figured out that I'll probably only meet the love of my life but once in my life so I should probably stop being so fucking scared and just take a fucking chance for once. So, I decided to take that chance, and I was too late. She was gone. And every last bit of anything and everything that she'd inadvertently reawakened inside me died.

(I have this yummy beer I'm drinking to thank for that last paragraph. I'll probably read it tomorrow and delete it.)

You know what really pisses me off about the past year?

There was a girl. A girl that was everything I ever wanted. In a companion. In a girlfriend. Maybe even in a wife. She was everything I ever wanted except for one thing. She wasn't the one I was in love with. I tried so hard, I tried for so long, to divert my attention toward her, but it seemed like the harder I tried the more resistance I met. And, and this is what really pisses me off, all of that resistance was coming from inside me. My own heart betrayed me on a daily basis. Every minute, every fucking second, my heart waged war against me.

I could spend the rest of my life telling MixedSignalGirl how sorry I am that I didn't love her. I probably will spend the rest of my life at least thinking about what a colossal failure I was when it came to her.

I was supposed to be her hero, and instead I was the dragon and the black knight all rolled up into one.

Almost an entire year. Wasted on a dream that I never wanted to have in the first place. Almost an entire year, searching for answers to the questions I was afraid to even ask. Almost an entire year, hurting someone that truly cared about me while I longed for something that was simply not meant to be. Almost an entire year, wasted.

I think I was supposed to make a point here. Why has it been so hard for me to write this entry? To close out this chapter of my life?

For a while, I thought that perhaps some hidden part of me was actually still clinging to hope.

Wrong.

For a while, I thought that perhaps some small part of me was still waiting for some answers. For some closure.

Wrong.

What's been holding me back from writing this entry, what's been holding me back from closing out that period of my life when all I did was mourn and hurt and miss and long, what's been holding me back is that...

...I died, and whatever it was that arose from death wasn't me anymore. It was something that only existed to feel pain. If I let the pain go away, there will be nothing left, and I'll have to once again start over.

So that's one reason. The other is...

...The last time I had to start over, it wasn't a choice. Oh, I thought it was a choice for a while. I thought I could control my own emotions and my own destiny and my own happiness. But I was either lying to myself or fooling myself. Probably both. There was no choice in the matter. At the moment that I first looked into her sparkling eyes, the number of paths available to my heart dwindled to one. I would love her.

But this time, this time it is a conscious decision on my part. The things that I've finally done and finally found to stop the flood of pain - I could switch them off in an instant.

It's ironic really. This 'blog is to blame for a lot of the problems I've had. If I'd been able to restrain my writings way back in the Summer of 2004, things might be a lot different for me now. The irony is that it's this 'blog that has enabled me to be sitting here writing this entry.

There's this one girl. A regular reader of mine. She is the one that pointed out to me that the pain was killing me all over again. She's the one that suggested that I had to try something different. Instead of trying to deal with the pain, she asked, why not try bottling it up?

And then there was this other girl. My kindred spirit. A series of coincidences led me to her, and she has given me what nobody else has been able to give. Understanding. Not judgment. Not argument. Not even pity. Simple understanding, from someone going through the same thing I'd been going through.

I don't know which girl deserves the most credit for curing me. I suppose they're equally responsible. On the Internet, everybody is secretive, but these two girls have shown me trust and understanding that I never could have found anywhere else - not even from my family and my closest friends. I've already said this, to each of them, many times, but I feel compelled to say it here:

To T and to N, what you have given me can never ever ever be repaid, but I vow to do the best that I can, for as long as it takes, to repay it anyway. You have helped me to get my life back, and I seriously didn't think it was possible.

Oh yeah, the choice thingy. This time, ending this era, this wasted year, this pain-filled period, this time it's a choice. And with this choice comes responsibility. What if I'm fooling myself once again? What if suppressing these emotions and getting understanding isn't enough? This hasn't been tested, after all. I will be tested again. Eventually.

I sit here right now, and I know that I'm not ready to be tested. How can I truly consider myself healed, how can I honestly feel like I'm ready to close out this past year, when I know that all of that pain is still there inside me, building up pressure, ready to explode the next time she walks into my life?

I dunno. It just feels like I should close it out, this past year. Even if I'm not ready to be tested, everything else has changed over the last few weeks. I was in pain every day. Every single fucking day, I missed her. And now I don't. Even if it doesn't last, even if this turns out to be yet another false sunrise, and even if the darkness returns, this is still the end of an era.

I wasted a year, missing her. But I no longer fear spending the rest of my life missing her. I know that I can feel better, because I feel better right now. If I, reborn into pain, can still manage to live for a few weeks without that pain, then anything is possible.

This leopard can change its spots.

This scorpion can change its wicked ways.

This once broken man can have a life worth living.

And now I've got to go out onto my deck and finish this beer, to complete my little stupid tradition.

On the way home tonight I stopped to see this girl I know. She has recently been diagnosed with a thyroid disorder, and apparently the medication is causing her to gain some weight.

So far, all that the weight gain has done is (a) Make her look human, and (b) Give her really nice tits.

First of all, before I get into my regularly scheduled Saturday beer report, I want to say that I'm a little bit irritated right now. I'm too nice of a person to single anyone out and state publicly why I'm irritated, but that should not be taken as any kind of acceptance or understanding of the transgression. This should not have been done, and I hope that it's not done again.

I will accept any apology that you wish to offer. Like I said, I'm a nice person. I'm just not a doormat.

Anyway, tonight seemed like about the gazillionth weekend night in a row that I didn't want to do anything. It also seemed like the gazillionth weekend night in a row that I went out anyway, despite my misgivings.

I think the thing is, I'm becoming quite fearful. I feel okay, but my mood hasn't really been tested, and I'm not certain that I'm ready for that test.

Man, I've just started this entry and I'm rambling already. This does not bode well.

Because I'm mainly afraid of Rich O's, tonight I went way out East to the BBC Brewpub. I was hoping that they'd have some of their smoked porter available, but they didn't. I ended up having one of the regular Dark Star porters (130) with my burger and fries.

After I finished eating and drinking my beer, I stopped by Buckhead's in Jeffersonville where I had a yummy Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier Dunkel (235). This is rapidly becoming one of my all-time favorites.

While sitting at Buckhead's, and getting frustrated because Coweena kept blocking my view of HotBlondeGirl, I had two realizations:

• There is perhaps nothing sadder in the world than a pitcher of Bud Light.


• I actually hate the Foster's and Corona drinkers more than I hate the BudMillerCoors drinkers. Bunch of fucking poseurs is what they are.

I had one of these:

Goose Island Hex Nut Brown Ale (20)

(draft) I know I've had this before, but it was a long time ago. I'm not sure if "roasty" is a word, but it should be because it would be the perfect word to describe this beer. Not bad, but not great.

So we talked for a while. They were killing time before they went to boogey down to some disco band at a nearby bar.

Once they left I talked with BamaCouple for a bit then came home.

All in all, I think I'd have been better off staying home tonight and drinking my Rogue Imperial Stout that I still haven't had any of.

For the past couple of years, the Fall has been the period when things change the most for me. I think I'd like it better if it was the Spring instead. It would seem a little more optimistic. But I suppose I understand that endings are much more obvious than beginnings, so in that way the Fall is appropriate.

I've written about my end of year tradition before, but for those of you too lazy and/or uninterested to go read this and this, what I basically do is set aside a brief period at the end of each year to reflect and remember and anticipate. This used to be something I did every New Year's Eve, but like I said, it's the Fall that's been seeing the most changes lately, so I've been forced to rethink the timing on my yearly tradition.

That first link points to the entry I wrote to close out the period from November 14, 2003 until October 9th, 2004.

I just read through that entry, and I didn't do a very good job with it. I was holding too much back. I was still actually hoping that things would work out for me, and I didn't want to mess anything up more than I already had. So I wimped out and didn't give the year the full recognition it deserved.

I'd like to correct that now, because another year has passed, and I don't feel like I can close it out until I properly close out the one before it.

On November 14, 2003, I fell.

I fell so slowly at first that I wasn't even aware of it, but from that first moment, my fall was inevitable because it had already begun.

I picked up speed as the months passed by, but for the longest time I refused to see the danger I was in. I actually enjoyed the feeling of free-fall. I was falling through clouds. I couldn't see the ground below me, so I didn't know how far away it was. I guess I just assumed that I'd land soon, and that I'd on my feet. I'd always done it before.

But this time, by the time I finally broke through the clouds, and saw the ground still so far below me, I knew the truth. I would not survive this fall. It was just too far. I was moving too quickly.

I fell for over ten months, and I hit the ground on September 24.

Every bone was shattered. I suffered in ways I'd never imagined before. I wished for my suffering to end, but some small part of me still wanted to live. Some small part of me clung to life, even clung to the pain because it was proof that I still lived.

After a while, the pain became so much a part of me that I dared to believe that I could live with it. I dared to believe that I could actually survive. I dared to open my eyes, and I dared to look around.

The real end didn't come until then, when I saw that there was nothing left to live for.

On November 14th, 2003, I fell. I fell for a long time. And on October 9th, 2004, I died.

I don't think tonight was quite as bad as I'd expected it to be. Not that it was a good night, but it didn't completely suck.

I started out in the red room with RealTrainGirl and GreenBeerDude and TrainGirl and WhatsHerName. I had myself a Stone Smoked Porter (134).

After a while, those people all left to go to this Mac's place that I don't like, so I stayed.

I spent some time sitting on the loveseat, and some time talking with BamaCouple at the island.

My second, and last, beer was something new for me:

Sierra Nevada Porter (12)

(bottle) I've never been a big fan of this brewery, and this beer did nothing to change that. A decent coffee flavored porter with the typical Sierra Nevada lagerish finish. It got better the more I drank, but it never quite reached the point of being good.

It was a pretty dull night, actually. I think the highlight was going to Walmart and buying some movies.

I'll probably think of some other stuff to write about tomorrow morning.

I'm just going to go ahead and predict that tonight will suck.

I'm not in the mood for going out, but I know that if I stay home then Rich O's will have The Most Exciting Night Ever and I'll feel worse for missing it.

My fucking toe hurts today. I stepped on Happy's stupid slipper that he stole from me, and it bent my toe back about a half inch. That may not seem like much, but it was plenty.

What I should do is stay home, drink this lovely bottle of Rogue Imperial Stout that I bought the other day, and write my entry to close out the year. That's what I should do.

Well, my shirt is dewrinkled so off I go.

Yay.

I'm wondering.

Just because I feel like I could put the pieces of myself back together, does that mean that I should do it?

It really wasn't so bad, being rubble. Once I got over the indignity of it all. There's wasn't a whole lot of pressure to stand up when everyone around me could see that I simply wasn't capable of it. There was also very little fear that things could get worse - how could it? I was already laying on the ground.

Well, one way things could get worse would be if I rebuilt myself and then got knocked down again. For with every fall the debris left scattered across the ground gets smaller and smaller. Eventually, I fear, I'd be reduced to a pile of dust. Dust that the first strong wind would spirit away, leaving nothing behind to show that I'd ever even existed, let alone that I'd lived, and that I'd loved, and that I'd lost.

Sometime over the next few days I need to write something to close out this past year. I really should have done it weeks ago. But I didn't. I didn't because it's scary to reassemble a life that was never really that great to begin with. Am I supposed to be happy that I finally have a chance to go back to that bland, boring, fucking content person that I used to be before I met her?

I used to think that it was all I wanted - a chance to stop being sad. Now I've actually got that, and it isn't enough. Not even close. I don't want the sadness back. I could get it. Easily. I could just pop these corks that contain the pressures inside me and let everything wash over me again, further eroding the softest parts of myself and eventually leaving nothing but hard, stony chunks of hatred and bitterness behind.

I certainly don't want that.

What I want, what I want is to be someone I don't think I've never been. Someone I'm not even sure I'm capable of being. A person both capable of, and deserving of love. If I try to rebuild myself, I'll try to do it right. I'll try to make myself into the person I want to be, but I really don't know how to proceed. I don't even know where to start.

It should be an easy choice to make, but for some reason I'm really struggling with it. The chance for failure is very real to me, more real than it's ever been before. The pain of my last fall is mostly gone now, but the memory of it sends chills down my spine.

If I turn my gaze from the past I'll either have to look to the future, or shut my eyes forever.

Okay, this is a little embarrassing.

Since my electric company finally joined the 21st century last year, I can pay all of my bills via the Internet.

All of my bills but one.

My damn water company, with its miniscule monthly bill, still clings to the antiquated, dilapidated, and outdated bill-paying system of having to write an actual check and mail it to them.

This is beyond annoying. It's barely worth the effort - and the cost of the stamp - to make the stupid payment. So what I do is I send them a check for $100 every few months. Then I'll have several months in a row with a positive balance so I don't have to bother with them.

Every once in a while though, as in twice in the past six years, I procrastinate to the point where I get my water cut off.

The first time this happened was May 2003.

The second time was today.

Grrrrr.

I dug through my pile of mail, and the bill is for $14.66, and the due date was October 15th. Yes, my water company has cut me off for being three weeks late on a $14.66 bill.

So tomorrow I get to go to my sister's house and use her no-water-pressure-having shower, then go pay my water bill (I should pay in pennies, but I won't) before I go to work.

On the bridge, on the way to work this morning, I saw something funny.

Eight cars in a little mini-pileup. The first guy had been rear-ended, then the guy that did the rear-ending had been rear-ended himself, and so on until there were eight cars occupying the space of what five cars should take.

I thought this was funny because (a) even though no police or ambuli had arrived yet, everyone was out of their cars, meaning nobody got hurt seriously, and (b) I'm sure they all deserved it because THEY WERE FOLLOWING TOO FUCKING CLOSE! and (c) it just looked funny because each car had its nose buried under the ass of the car in front of it and (d) because I was in the right lane so I didn't get inconvenienced very much.

This is one of those times when I have nothing to say, so I'll just sit here and start typing, and hopefully I'll think of an actual topic before the Sun swells into a giant red ball and sears the Earth to a crisp.

...

...

Not working yet.

...

...

Well, shit.

This was a bad idea. I want to write something good to help counteract some of the crap I've written lately. But I'm having the same problem I've had for weeks now - A complete lack of, I don't know, whatever it is that I seem to need to be able to write anything worthwhile.

Passion? Sorrow? Longing? All bottled up. They can't hurt me, but neither can I use them for inspiration.

I read other journals and I see that it is possible to write entertaining entries about mundane everyday events, but I've never been able to do it. It is possible to write creative and engaging fiction, but I've never been able to do that either.

All I've got, all I've ever had, was this intermittent ability to write about pain and loss and longing and sorrow. Those things used to be what drove me to write. But that was okay, because they also backed up the words that I wrote. Now, now the words look hollow on my screen because they are hollow. Hollow words written by a hollow man.

I'm not complaining, really. Being hollow is in many ways preferable to being filled with the searing hot ashes of a thousand broken dreams.

See what I mean? Drivel. Pristine, unblemished drivel. There was only one dream.

I wonder if I have Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Can you get that from the stress of realizing that you're a complete moron and that everything you've done for almost two years has been the wrong thing?

I need a vacation. In one month I'll be in Las Vegas having one. But before that I've got to get through this fuckwad of a month.

I got through about half of this survey thingy I found on thomas-sister's journal, and I saw that there were still at least a zillion questions left, so I stopped.

What would be the point of it anyway? To make an entry just because it's been a while since I made one?

Firstly, that's a stupid reason to make an entry.

Secondly, I've accomplished the same thing without having to answer two zillion questions.