A year ago, I sat in this little bar at The Executive West hotel in Louisville. I talked for a while with a friend from the Internet, and I drank some BBC Dark Star Porter. After my friend left, I stayed for a while. I looked at the empty chair across from me, and I imagined that she was there with me, smiling at me, laughing with me.

Tonight, I sat in that same bar. At the same table in fact. I drank the same BBC Dark Star Porter (154). It was a different friend that sat with me this time. More of an acquaintance really. Just one of the local players. Most people think he's a jerk, but I think he's an okay guy.

After he had left, I stayed for a while, and I looked at the empty chair across from me.

She wasn't there of course. No more than she'd really been there last year at this time. No more than she's really been in my life at all since she moved away.

She wasn't there, but that didn't stop me from seeing her.

Just as an experiment, I loosened my grip just a little bit, and I allowed the slightest trickle of that which I'd so successfully stopped back in the Summer. Just to see what would happen.

It was good. It was a happy delusion.

An awful lot has changed in the past year, but some things remain the same.