Apparently, anyway.

Part of the problem is that the things that are funniest to me, they're funny only from my perspective.

For example, probably the most hilarious thing ever in this journal was something that I didn't write, back in early August. See, it was the omission that was funny. Like if I won the lottery or something, and then decided to never mention it. Not out of privacy concerns, but just because to neglect mention of such a life-changing event is, well like I said, funny to me.

Then I had to go and ruin the joke, a couple of weeks ago, by rambling on and on about that same topic which I'd so carefully avoided for over two months.

Oh well.

Another problem is that, when I try to write something funny, it never works out for me in the long run. I mean, I can go back and read the entries that were supposed to be funny, and I barely crack a smile most of the time. So attempting to write anything funny is never self-reinforcing.

But some of the stuff I write is, apparently, funny to other people. I get compliments on some stuff. I get told how I made someone's day. Shit like that. I usually just say thanks and dismiss those people as humor-impaired because the stuff they're chuckling over or maybe even wetting their pants over just isn't that funny. And it never was, except when it was still being brewed inside in my head.

I was going somewhere with this entry. I have no idea where.

Yesterday, I went driving.

First, I went to get my oil changed in my truck.

Then I went out to my sister's house to see her new kitten.

Then I hit the road.

After about six hours of driving, I ended up in downtown Louisville. A mere five miles from my home. I obviously took the scenic route.

So at a little after 7:00 I was sitting in this place called The Dark Star and I was eating a yummy cheeseburger and drinking a yummy BBC Jefferson's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout (314), and the cast of all the Batman movies walked in.

There was Batman, and Catwoman, and The Joker, and Two-Face, and some harlequin chick that I guess was one of the Joker's henchmen.

Catwoman and the harlequin chick were hot. All of the costumes were great.

After I'd finished my meal and my beer I walked up the street to The Pub and had a couple of Newcastles (2626) and I wrote down all of the costumes that I saw. You should be aware that some of these might not have been actual costumes. Those characters marked with an * are the ones that might have been real:

• The Blues Brothers


• Pirate


• Stupid Hairstyle Guy *


• Active Herpes Outbreak Girl *


• Joe Dirt


• Kermit (or, Green Tights Dude with Frog-Shaped Tumor On His Head)


• Terrorist (had a bomb in his turban, how original)


• Hot Rasta Girl


• Security Guard *


• Prostitute *


• Fireman


• Hot Pirate Girl


• Fat Bumblebee Girl


• Assorted Zombies


• Living Crocodile Hunter


• Dead Crocodile Hunter


• Nacho Libre


• Assorted Faeries


• Stick Up Her Ass Girl *


• Cute Devil Girl (my waitress)


• Rambette (like Rambo but a girl)


• Green Dude In A Suit (maybe an alien?)


• Vampire Couple


• World's Gayest Guy *


• Assorted Sexy Nurses


• World's Ugliest Cheerleader


• Goth Girl


• Orange Pants Faggot *


• Joe Dirt (another one)


• Fatass Ex-Jock Guy *


• Assorted Evil Clowns


• Assorted Non-Evil Clowns


• Striped Shirt Girl


• Skinhead Punks *


• Gay Black Uncle Sam (his description)


• Really Tall Skull Dude


• Little Miss Muffet


• Bloody Surgeon


• Hot Navy Girl


• Hot Army Girl


• Hot Burkha Girl


• Assorted Cute Princesses

At 10:00 or so, my phone vibrated.

HatGirl!

Yay!

They were at Rich O's.

So I went there. Out on the street there were a gazillion more people in costumes, but I didn't stop to write any of them down or I'd still be writing.

Oh yeah, I'd talked to this one zombie at The Pub and he gave me a beer shirt and a free glass to give to HatGirl. I had to lie and say that they were for my girlfriend, but the sheer joy in HatGirl's eyes when I gave her those gifts - well it was certainly worth a little fib.

When I got to Rich O's I got to sit on the throne because TallLady had just left. I knew this because I'd talked to her in the parking lot. There were some girls I didn't recognize scattered around the living room. They might have been cute but I wouldn't know because HatGirl was at the kiddie table.

Yay!

I had myself a Diet Coke and talked to HatGirl and LuckyFucker for a while. I got NotHideousGirl's phone number from HatGirl, but it might have been a fake number because I sent a test text message and I've recieved no response.

Then after HatGirl and LuckyFucker left I talked to WomanRepellant for a while.

Then I came home.

Now I'm going to actually leave my house.

During the day.

I'm going to drive. And drive. And drive.

I'll probably come back, but not because I'll want to come back.

And certainly not because there's a reason to come back.

8:00
I haven't cheated on a entry like this in a while. By taking notes. Tonight seems like it's going to be one of those nights though. Boring and irritating and disappointing.

I got here about 15 minutes ago. There are fuckers sitting and eating in the living room, but I had to sit with them for a bit because there were no other seats available. Now I'm at the kiddie table - the people who'd been here left for a table out front. Good riddance.

I'm having a Rogue Smoke (460) and I'm already regretting coming here tonight.

8:05
I hope this fat fucker leaves the bar so I can move up there. I hate this little table. That picture of me and SassyGirl is right in front of me, reminding me of all of the people who don't come in here anymore. Plus the ghost never sits at this table with me.

8:10
There are three semi-hot girls sitting at the island. I bet if I drink enough I can promote them to fully-hot.

8:17
I managed to stay awake through HatGirl's ringer, and I left a message.

8:23
This is stupid. What am I doing here?

8:26
I think these fuckers might be leaving!

8:32
Nope. They ordered another round. I hate them.

8:40
I hate this fat fucker at the bar too.

8:42
Oh fucking boy, that one shithead is here now. I hate him as well.

8:43
I think I hate most people tonight.

8:45
Damn, it just got crowded in here!

8:46
Notice how I haven't used any variant of the word fuck in four minutes? I must be slipping.

8:49
Another Rogue Smoke (480). Yummy.

8:51
That one shithead started talking the second he walked into the room. I predict that he will shut up no earlier than 11:00.

8:56
The guy finally left the bar. Yay! I'm moving up there.

9:00
I have drunk-texted BadPickleGirl.

9:08
Piss time.

9:14
I never said it was a good idea, I just said it was different.

9:29
This is a shitty night. No responses to anything. And, for those keeping score at home, that shithead has not closed his mouth even once.

9:36
This one dude is pissing me off, carrying on like he didn't just throw something wonderful away.

9:44
This was a waste of time. I'm outta here.

9:56
I'm at this Mac's place that I don't like. I'd thought that NotHideousGirl might be here, but she's not. This place sucks.

9:57
I'm having a Newcastle (2602).

10:00
They're having a Halloween party here tonight.

10:04
You know who I hate? Whores, that's who.

10:08
There are three hot girls with spray-on pants standing right in front of me. Maybe my life isn't so bad after all.

10:12
Piss time.

10:25
They're starting karaoke now. It might be entertaining.

10:28
You ever think of a million reasons why something is a bad idea, but you don't care? I'm doing it right now.

10:37
Piss time. That's not the bad idea though.

10:39
A bunch of weirdoes have joined me at my table.

10:44
Having another Newcastle (2618).

10:47
This Pocahontas chick is an awesome singer!

11:30
I've been talking to Pocahontas. She's nice. Finally, the night doesn't feel as much like a total waste.

Today I got to take a half day off. This is my reward for putting up with being on-call last week.

So, yay!

Also, I got the pictures from BadPickleGirl. One of the pictures features flab oozing out of my shirt. And not in an attractive away.

So, boo!

This time, I thought, it will be different. This time, I will not cower inside the cell of my own doubts while fear and uncertainty stand vigilant sentry. This time, if I fail, there will be a reason.

Those might have been the last coherent thoughts that I had today.

I don't know how those turtles do it. Stick their necks out like that all the time.

But it's something that I had to do, if things were truly going to be different.

So I did it.

Too soon, people will say.

Better than too late, I will respond.

And now I wait.

You failed again, people will say.

At least I tried this time, I will respond.

Yesterday I was poking around The Dilbert Blog, which might be more accurately called The Scott Adams Blog but then it might only get a zillionth of the traffic it gets.

Seriously, this guy could trip over his cat, fall on his keyboard, and the resulting post would net ten thousand hits and one thousand comments.

Anyway, I really like it. Scott Adams writes the way I wish I wrote. He writes the way things sound in my head.

So I was reading an old entry about affirmations, which is this deal where you write down something that you want to accomplish and it comes true. Specifically, you write down your goal fifteen times a day for at least six months. And then it comes true.

You write, for example, I will cure cancer. You write that fifteen times a day for six months, and then you cure cancer.

Sounds pretty fishy, right?

Shouldn't that be Smells pretty fishy? I don't know. Or care.

I decided to give these affirmations thingies a try. What's the worst that could happen? That they wouldn't work. That I wouldn't achieve whichever goal I was trying to achieve.

Well, whichever goal I chose would be one that I wasn't achieving anyway, so there's no loss. Try to keep up please.

The decision to do the affirmations having been made, I had one final choice.

Which goal should I pick?

The cure cancer one is too obvious. I bet a lot of people are already doing that one. I'd hate to waste my affirmations on something only to find out that some prick had already achieved my goal.

In fact, I figured that most of the selfless goals like the cancer one and world peace were already taken. So I needed to find something more personal.

I toyed briefly with improbable goals like I will find a gazillion dollars, and seemingly impossible goals like I will understand women, and countless others, but none really jumped out to me as the goal which would be worth the effort of writing it down fifteen times a day for six months.

I was getting frustrated with myself, and I went to the kitchen to refill my soda.

And I tripped over my dick.

Again.

After that, I realized that the choice was easy.

So I grabbed my pen, and I opened my new affirmations-only notebook to the first page, and I wrote.

I will stop tripping over my dick.

I wrote that fifteen times.

I even wrote the date at the top of the page, though I don't think that's an official part of the affirmations rule. I just thought it made the whole thing look more official.

If this works for me, then I'll finally be rid of a curse that's plagued me since puberty.

I'll keep you posted.

I've got nothing to say tonight.

I'm all tapped out from another project.

Maybe tomorrow I'll write something brilliant.

Everybody can start holding their breath now.

I think what would be a good thing to do, if you were a car thief, would be if you always replaced the car you stole with a little Matchbox version of the same car.

People would be like Woah, somebody stole my car! And then they'd see the Matchbox car and be like Wait, it's not stolen, it's just been turned into a Matchbox!

And they'd never report it to the police because who'd believe that their car had been turned into a Matchbox?

Somebody told me today that I shouldn't censor myself here. This was well-intentioned advice from a person who, I'm assuming, doesn't have a blog out here for the world to see. A person who, I'm assuming, doesn't have to live with the fact that they're basically standing in a fishbowl with their pants around their ankles while friends and enemies and strangers all point and make judgments and assumptions.

As I said, well-intentioned advice. Just not particularly doable. Or not not doable, since I'm talking about not doing something. Wait, that makes no sense either. Where's a good grammar coach when I need one?

There are many reasons why I feel the need to censor myself here. All of those reasons have at their root, at their very beginnings, the same mistakes. I made mistakes here when I first started doing this. I made this my blog. I used my real name. I let people know about it.

And now they read the fucking thing. What could I have been thinking?

Joe Blow and Jane Doe in, say, San Diego don't know or care about the people behind the nicknames I use here. MixedSignalGirl is a love interest in a story to them. LaptopGirl is another, more mysterious, character. WomanRepellant is, to most of my readers, no different than Norm on Cheers. SassyGirl was a minor character who's contract ended and wasn't renewed. I could go on and on.

To Joe Blow and Jane Doe, none of those people are real at all. Hell, I'm barely real to them. I'm just the protagonist in this rambling story.

But guess what. All of those people are real. To me, and to themselves. Sometimes to each other.

And so I censor myself. Because some of the people reading are, get this - the same people I'm writing about.

The person who advised me to not censor myself?

BadPickleGirl.

There, see? I've already said too much. People will read that and know that I talked to her today. What if that gets her into trouble? It's none of the world's business that I talked to her today, but there it is anyway.

It's also none of the world's business that I kinda like BadPickleGirl but, now that information is available for everyone to read and know.

For her to read and know.

Oops.

I censor myself because it's the right thing to do.

I should, if anything, do a better job of it.

Maybe tomorrow I'll start working on it.

Women are strange.

They're also delightful and confusing and beautiful and aggravating and soft.

But mostly they're just strange.

I've mentioned before how I tend to migrate from room to room at night. Master bedroom to guest bedroom to living room to master bedroom, and so on.

I'm guessing that this behavior must be related to stress.

My cats and I have several little parades a night sometimes. MixedSignalGirl used to join in the parades, but eventually she wised up and she'd run on ahead to make sure she ended up with "her" side of the bed. Then she wised up even more and she just stayed where she was because, chances were, we'd all be back before the night was over anyway. Now she's wised up completely and wants nothing to do with me.

Anyway, I guess that last night I screwed something up. I remember going to bed in the guest room, and I remember waking up on the sofa in the living room. But I also remember waking up sometime during the night in my master bedroom sleeping on a pile of clean laundry.

That's what did it, I'm sure.

I fubared my back.

I suspect that the advanced yoga position I must have attained to be able to sleep with the laundry and the cats did something to a nerve or something, since this morning I could barely walk.

So I shuffled in to work because I had some shit that couldn't be put off, then I took the second half of the day off. Once home, I mostly just took a very hot bath and then slept.

Now my back feels a little better. I'd like to get a heating pad for it. Or maybe I could borrow one of my grandmother's old walkers.

I want to say something now.

I shouldn't say anything. There are those who would say that I haven't yet earned the right to say anything.

Well, those people are wrong. Mostly wrong anyway. So I'm going to say something. But, out of respect for someone who hasn't yet earned my respect, I'm not going to say what I really want to say.

What I'm instead going to say is this:

I quit playing that particular game a long time ago. I lost every single fucking time, and I never once had fun. I have no desire to ever play that game again.

There, I feel better now. I guess.

And the really cool thing is if anyone asks me what the fuck I'm talking about, I can make up some bullshit. Or not. I guess it'll depend on how much bullshit I get thrown my way first.

I hate it when my most recent entry sucks, so I'm writing this one which hopefully sucks less.

Somebody last night - I think it was one of the PBDs in a moment of alcohol-induced pseudo-wisdom, made the following observation:

You should just follow your heart, and do the right thing.

Head started to nod up and down in unison like commuters on a bumpy bus ride - imagery which looks much better in my head than it does on my screen.

Such a sage suggestion! Such worldly wisdom! Such axiomatic advice!

Such babbling bullshit!

I had to put a stop to it before people started getting whiplash.

"But what if following your heart and doing what's right are mutually exclusive?" I offered. "Remember that hearts are stupid and selfish. It's very rare for them to be right about anything. What if you're always finding yourself being forced to choose between following your heart and doing what's right?"

That stopped the bobbing.

"Well then that's pretty fucked-up," someone responded.

Indeed.

After Friday's um, interesting scenery, Saturday was back to the same old same old at Rich O's.

Strangers and weirdoes. Assholes and idiots.

They were having some kind of fancy music thingy in the special people area, and society's elite took advantage of the opportunity to look down on us beer-drinking trolls. So that was fun.

When I arrived, a little before 8:00, It was pretty crowded. I didn't know anyone except at the island, which was full of regulars. But since it was full I had to sit on the loveseat and get gawked at by a couple of weirdoes who were sitting on the sofa.

I had a yummy Rogue Smoke (370).

After about a million years, during which absolutely nothing happened, some assholes came and sat with us in the living room area. Luckily a space had opened up at the island by then, so I picked up my shit and moved over there.

I had another Rogue Smoke (390).

I spent the rest of the night emailing RockGirl and talking with MusicalHippyDude. I tried to call HatGirl, to she what she was doing, but I fell asleep during the epic masterpiece that she uses instead of a ringer on her phone. Oh well. I would have called NotHideousGirl but I don't have her number on my new Blackberry. Oh well.

Let's see. I heard an interesting story about SuperShitHead which further confirmed the appropriateness of that particular nickname. I talked to one of the PBD ladies about this secret school for smart kids. MusicalHippyDude told me that I had "The gift of pen" which I decided to take as a compliment.

After several million more years during which nothing happened, I went to White Castle and then came home.

And now it's 7:45 in the morning and I have to work for another hour or so.

Yippee.

(continued from here)

Okay, I've decided on new nicknames for HotGirl and HotGirlsHotCousin. They shall now be known as BadPickleGirl and ForkGirl, respectively.

I suppose that every silver cloud has a dark lining. At least they do in my experience. But as I'm sure that nobody who'd ever read this would be able to summon even the tiniest smidgeon of pity for me, I'm going to keep this particular observation to myself.

At one point WomanRepellant came in and sat at the island with some PBDs. It turned out that ForkGirl knows him from like twenty years ago. Small world. So she went up to talk to WomanRepellant and I got to stay with BadPickleGirl. Courtesy might have required me to take advantage of some of the empty space that was then available on the sofa, but I wasn't going to move - I was going to make BadPickleGirl ask me to move.

She never did.

So there.

I found myself being irritated with my hands and arms. It was like I'd just got them on sale or something and they weren't quite under my control yet. So I kept my hands clasped together in my lap to keep them from doing anything stupid.

ForkGirl and WomanRepellant came back and joined us at about the time that I talked BadPickleGirl into trying a Rogue Smoke. She claimed to like it okay. It's always surprising to me when a VP likes a smoked beer. I had a half-pint (350) myself.

Let's see, BadPickleGirl told me a line to use if I ever again find myself in a situation like last weekend where I need to get away but I still want to maintain some dignity.

What I have to do is look the other person in the eyes and say, "I'm sorry, but I have to go take a shit."

The beauty of this line is that it's very unlikely that anyone will ever argue with it. So you can get away cleanly. Oh, and you can also go take a shit if you feel like it, but you probably shouldn't come back to the other person with proof of the shit. That would be overkill I think.

I think that's about it. One by one, most of the moths gave up and left. MusicalHippyDude came over for a while. Everybody just relaxed. BadPickleGirl and I waited for a million years or so while ForkGirl finished her beer.

Or maybe it just evaporated - it was hard to tell. But at any rate it was eventually gone, so we all left. I got a big kick out of the remaining moths and their last-ditch efforts.

I need to make up a couple of nicknames. I'm drawing a bit of a blank though. Maybe I should let them pick their own nicknames, if I ever see them again. For now, I'm going to go with HotGirl and HotGirlsHotCousin. Not very creative, but descriptive.

Friday I left work a little early so I could go buy some booze for HotGirl. I was buying some top-shelf tequila so I went to this Party Mart place because it has a huge selection. Even though I was there for tequila, I went straight to the beer section.

I ended up buying about $100 worth of Belgian beers, most of which I've never heard of, before I even got close to the tequila section.

So that gives me something to look forward to on the dark and lonely Winter nights.

The deal was that I was supposed to meet HotGirl and her cousin at Rich O's. After a quick meal at Wendy's I got to Rich O's a little before 5:00.

It was a typical after-work crowd except for one chick who I suspected might be HotGirlsHotCousin. She was at the bar fending off potential suitors. I sat in the throne and ordered a Rogue Smoke (320) which is finally back on tap after being in the bullpen for a million years or so. The damn hopheads and their damn hoppy beers had all the taps used up.

After a while, HotGirl called me to tell me that she was running late. She also said that her cousin might already be there. Since I'd already suspected that, I hollered out "HotGirlsHotCousin?!?" into the crowd. Sure enough, the chick at the bar turned around and it was indeed her. She came over and sat on the loveseat and we talked and got to know each other a little before HotGirl arrived. She described herself as being "just like SpoonsGirl" - SpoonsGirl being a mutual friend.

When HotGirl arrived she was, as promised, wearing her DaveFest Shirt. That's still so damn surreal. I highly recommend that everyone reading this have their own beer festival and have t-shirts made. It's beyond cool.

For a while I sat on the throne and HotGirl sat on the sofa and HotGirlsHotCousin sat on the loveseat and a few random guys had been drawn moth-like to the area and were scattered about. At one point I returned from the restroom and HotGirlsHotCousin had taken the throne. This will hereafter be known as The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened Up To That Point. So I sat on the sofa between HotGirl and one of the moths.

This was probably about when I had a second Rogue Smoke (340).

I talked with HotGirl and HotGirlsHotCousin and had quite an enjoyable time watching the moths beat themselves senseless. I switched to Diet Coke for a while because I'm a lightweight, then I had a Smithwick's (1292).

There was much jostling of position as the moths tried to get as close as they could without getting burned. At one point during the jostling HotGirlsHotCousin moved over to my left side. This will hereafter be known as The Greatest Thing That Ever Happened Period as it left me squeezed in between two of the prettiest girls to ever set foot in Rich O's. It was totally a Dave sandwich.

There were pictures taken, so there is proof of this, but I doubt that I'll be posting said pics here because I somehow managed to look fat and stoned in every one of them.

I was so not stoned.

(to be continued)

Go ahead, take a look around. I've got nothing to hide.

You probably won't find what you're expecting to find, but that's okay. I doubt that, right now, I doubt that you even have any expectations except those given to you. I don't care about those, and neither should you.

Ask your own questions.

Find your own answers.

They're all here.

Scattered. Hiding in plain sight among the drivel.

I was dicking around with this today, showing a coworker the route to the expressway, and I noticed that the resolution seemed to have improved. Intrigued, I directed the application to a little town that had always been nothing more than a blur of pixels.

Now it's much better. I guess Google Earth has updated its database with new images.

Very cool.

I was just walking down the street, minding my own business, and two random hot girls stopped me.

"Excuse me," one of the random hot girls said in broken English. "Please where is Louiville Slugger?"

"Just start at my feet and work your way up," I said. "You can't miss it."

No I did not really say that. Years of experience have told me that random hot girls have no sense of humor, and I can only assume that random hot foreign girls are no different. So I gave them real directions to the place.

Tonight I was looking for something in my old emails. I didn't find what I was looking for, but I did find this:

Reminds me of this girl I dated briefly right after my divorce. She had the unfortunate name of [same as my ex-wife], and she was kind of a [use your imagination]. The latter is the reason that we broke up. Anyway, one night shortly after we broke up, I came home from pool league and [the girl] and her friend had filled my entire living room, kitchen, hallway, bathroom, and bedroom, up to a height of about four feet, with balloons.

It was really incredible. They must have started the minute I left for league and worked non-stop for several hours. I guess my roommate had let them in.

Ha, that just made me smile to think about. Maybe I should write an entry about it.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that were I to think back I'd be very hard-pressed to ever come up with anything that anyone has ever done for me that was as nice as that. I mean, it really lifted my spirits during a time which was up to that point the saddest time in my life. And the amazing thing was that it wasn't a ploy to get me to take her back. She did it just because she wanted me to feel better. We were finished before we'd ever really started, but it was still important to her that I be happy for a while.

It worked. Even though I had to spend a couple of hours popping balloons, and even though I had to buy a new vacuum cleaner after the first one burned out from trying to deal with all the balloon fragments, it really worked.

Thinking about this tonight, I tried to recall the nicest thing I'd ever done for someone else. And not just the nicest thing, but the most selfless thing as well.

I can think of lots of little things. I am a decent person after all. But I'm having a hard time coming up with anything that's nearly as impressive as those balloons.

This one time a couple of years ago I overheard an elderly couple getting bad directions from a gas station employee. I followed them to their car and told them that I hadn't been able to help but overhear, and that I was going their way, and that they could just follow me to their Son's wedding rehearsal. I then drove 30 minutes out of my way so they could follow me. They said I was a real good Samaritan.

Right now, that's the best I can come up with.

I can do better than that. Perhaps I have done better than that, but the memory eludes me. Either way, I want to do something nice. I want to do something for someone that makes them smile when they think about it in 20 years.

Maybe nice and selfless can't be done on purpose. Maybe, by stating this goal, I turn it into a selfish one.

I dunno.

Time for bed.

That's what Roger, the owner of Rich O's, told me I provide with my 'blog.

Apparently, if I bitch and moan about the crowd in his place, then Roger knows that he's having a lucrative night.

And, if I'm happy about the crowd, or if I don't mention it at all, then Roger starts worrying about how he'll fund his retirement if business doesn't pick back up.

I thought it was funny. I didn't say that anyone else would.

This entry brought to you by two fucking yummy bottles of fucking yummy Gulden Draak (237).

This is pretty long, but it's not drivel.

Do whatever you want with that information. Read it, or not. I'm fucking writing it anyway.

I was sitting in this meeting this morning, listening to this lady drone on and on and on about our personality test scores and how they relate to our happiness and our suitability for certain activities. At one point, the lady was talking about numerical reasoning or some shit like that. As I looked at the big bold numeral 10 on my sheet, and I listened to what the lady was saying about how the higher the score a person had, the happier one would be in a technical line of work, I was suddenly struck by the absurdity of her words.

Her words just didn't ring true to me. They just seemed wrong.

That's not right, I thought. I may work in a technical field, but it's not who I am. It's not what I'm most suited for. It's not what I want to be. It's not what I'm supposed to be.

This whole personality test exercise was supposed to give me insight about myself and how I think and interact with others. It was supposed to be a good thing, for me and for the team I'm part of, and for the company I work for. It was supposed to make me a better worker.

Oops.

I sat there and listened to this lady rattle on about team dynamics and the need for balance and blah blah blah, and I realized that none of it mattered to me. None of it was relevant to me, or to who I am.

I am not a technical person, my resume and training and experience notwithstanding.

I am a writer.

Stop laughing.

I didn't say I was a great writer, or even a particularly good writer. But does a person have to be good at what they're supposed to do, or is it important only that they do it?

The latter, I think.

Anyway, I used to write. I used to write actual meaningful entries. So what if they were only meaningful to me? I enjoyed the writing, and even more, I enjoyed reading what I'd written. To vicariously relive my own life and my own thoughts and my own feelings through my own written words - that's a pleasure that I've enjoyed for as long as I can remember. When I've allowed myself to do it.

I enjoy it, so I'm fucking going to do it right now.

If you don't like it, then stop reading. But, I have to ask, if you don't like it then what are you doing here in the first place?

---

I've written about how it began. The struggle that had been lost before it had even started. The stubborn refusal to accept that there were things inside me that I could not control. The night that I died. How I was reborn into a world of pain.

I've written at length about how it progressed, and about how it stagnated and withered and regained strength. About how it seemed to abandon me in a gray place or on a lonely beach.

I've written about the beginning, and I've written about the middle, but I've never written about the end.

That is something I'm about to change. That is an injustice I'm about to correct.

If you don't want to know, then stop reading. I don't know how I can be any more clear than that.

---

I was sitting on the couch at Rich O's. I'd just arrived a few minutes earlier, and I was still getting settled. My first beer and cigarette of the night had barely been touched. I was talking with UplandWheatDude.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked me.

"Nothing," I replied.

"You seem pissed," he said.

"No, just a little tired I guess," I answered.

"Oh," he said. "I thought you might be pissed because LaptopGirl is in town."

I went numb.

"Oh. Is she in town?" I asked. I wanted to run. I wanted to run and never stop running, but I didn't know where to go.

"Yeah," he answered. "At least, she was in here on Monday."

Twenty seconds later, she walked in the door.

Later that night, in another journal, I wrote this entry:

If I don't write something tonight, I'll probably never forgive myself.

Problem is, I'm not sure what to write.

Anything I write will be inadequate to describe what I'm feeling. Even though I'm feeling nothing, the depths of the nothingness that I feel cannot be expressed in words.

Not by me, anyway.

I had a bad feeling about tonight. This is somewhat normal for me. I'd like to say that tonight, that tonight I felt especially apprehensive, that I knew before I even left my house that tonight would be special. I'd like to say those things, but I won't.

I won't lie to you. Tonight, it was just a regular bad feeling. No better and no worse than all of the other bad feelings I've had every night for almost two years. Just a feeling, a knowledge, a certainty, that I wasn't ready for what might happen. But there was nothing special about tonight. Nothing at all.

I saw you tonight. I saw you tonight for the first time in almost a year. I saw you tonight, and I didn't even know it was you until you turned around and someone pointed you out to me.

We never spoke. We never even looked at each other at the same time, as far as I was able to determine. We simply existed in the same place at the same time.

Strangers.

No, wait. That's not right. Not strangers. Something else.

Something else, because I didn't just carry on as if nothing unusual was happening. I tore my eyes away from you, and I bit my tongue, and I fought back my tears.

Something else, because you didn't fail to see me. You sat five feet away from me, and you ignored me.

I looked at you, when I could. You're a bit heavier now. You're tan has faded. Your hair is shorter. Your smile is as beautiful as ever.

But something was missing. I looked, when I could, and I never did see what I most expected to see. I never did find what I most wanted to find and needed to find.

There were always sparkles before.

Tonight, there weren't any sparkles.

Tonight, there was nothing.

And that's what I'm feeling after seeing your beautiful face again after being denied it for so long. And that's what I'm feeling after hearing your voice after being denied it for so long. And that's what I'm feeling after missing you and needing you and loving you for so long that I can't remember a time when I didn't miss you and love you and need you.

Nothing.

This will change. I'm told that you'll be in town for several weeks. I will not hide from you, so I will see you again. Perhaps, one of these nights, you'll see me. Perhaps you'll acknowledge me. Perhaps you'll speak to me. Perhaps I'll get lucky and die at that moment, while the sound of your sweet voice still reverberates in my head.

Perhaps there'll be sparkles.

The next time I saw her, I apologized for being such a baby.

The time after that, she sat next to me, because there was no other place to sit, and we talked for a bit. We talked about DaveFest. I told her that I wished she could have been there for it. I told her that I missed her.

The next time I saw her, I wanted to talked to her like we had in the old days. But it wasn't meant to be. There were too many other people, too many complications, too many obstacles. I watched and I waited for an opportunity, but none ever came.

She said goodbye to me while she said goodbye to everyone else. I was incidental. A face in the crowd.

But you know what?

It was okay.

I'd gotten what I needed.

What I wanted, that had fluctuated over the days and weeks and months and years. What I wanted had waxed and waned far more often than the Moon which I used to imagine us sharing ever had. But what I needed, what I needed, that never changed. And what I needed, I was given on a wonderful night in September of 2006.

Fuck all that other stuff. It's too late for any of that. Sometimes I think that it was always too late for any of that. But the thing that I needed, I got.

I got a little piece of that friendship back. Not all of it, for all of it is probably impossible. But I got enough. An inkling of a hint of a suggestion is all I got. But it was enough. Enough to make it all worthwhile.

I once wrote, I just want two more seconds. I believe that I'll be destroyed in those two seconds, but it would be worth it.

When I wrote those words, I meant them. Two seconds would have had to be enough, because I felt that two seconds was all I would ever get. I would not live to see a third second.

Well, things change. Circumstances change. People change.

Tonight, in October of 2006, I still want those two seconds. But tonight, in October of 2006, I don't see them as the poignant and overdue end to a sad story.

Tonight, I see those two seconds as the continuation of a new beginning.

I'm getting my friend back, and that's all that really matters. And the thing is - that's all that's ever really mattered. Every hope and dream that I'd ever had about anything more just muddied the waters and clouded my judgement. Beneath everything else, and towering over everything else, I missed my friend.

---

It's been tough tonight, writing this. To put a label on something brings, after all, a risk of error and exposure. I've been wrong before. More often than not, in fact. I suppose that I could be wrong again, but I don't think so. Not this time.

This time, there is a calmness about me that I haven't felt for a very long time. It's pretty disconcerting. Like I was born in a maelstrom and I'm suddenly facing clear skies for the first time in my life. It's pretty fucking weird is what it is.

This long nightmare is over. What a strange and wonderful and frightening thing that is to say.

The end. What a delightful tragedy those two words are.

Had to update the Friday plans part.

Stolen from Ella

When was the last time you shaved?
This morning before work.

Explain what ended your last relationship.
She wanted me to violate my principles and hurt someone that I care about. When I refused, she took it as proof that I loved the other person more than I loved her.

What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.?
That was just about when I was pulling out of my garage.

What were you doing 15 minutes ago?
I went to this break area outside. To get back in, you have to badge yourself into the building, then push a button to get through a door, then badge yourself into the elevator, then badge yourself into another building, then take another elevator up to where I sit. It's easier to break out of jail than it is to get to my desk.

Are you any good at math?
I guess I'm pretty good at it. It interests me a lot more now that it did when I was in school.

Your prom night?
My girlfriend and I went to different schools, and they had stupid some rule where people from other schools couldn't go to our proms. So we just went down to the river and fucked.

Do you have any famous ancestors?
Noah?

Have you had to take a loan out for school?
Nope. The Air Force paid for my schooling.

Do you know the words to the song on your myspace profile?
No, I'm straight.

Last thing received in the mail?
I hardly ever check my mail. I got a book from RockGirl a while ago.

How many different beverages have you had today?
Just a bottle of Diet Vanilla Pepsi.

Do you ever leave messages on people’s answering machine?
Sometimes. Do you always ask such stupid questions?

Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to?
Is that the same thing as my first concert? Uncle Ted, sometime around 1977 I think.

Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach?
No, I'm straight.

What’s the most painful dental procedure you’ve had?
Had a tooth pulled a few years ago. Getting an injection in the roof of my mouth was the most pain I've ever felt, dental or otherwise.

What’s out your back door?
My deck. Dead hookers.

Any plans for Friday night?
I usually like to just do what comes naturally. That usually means that I go to Rich O's. But this weekend I'm on-call so everything's up in the air. UPDATE: This one hot girl just called me and so now I'm going to Rich O's after work to see her and her cousin. The hot girl has promised that she will wear her DaveFest shirt.

Do you like what the ocean does to your hair?
You mean like get it wet? Comes with the territory I suppose.

Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns?
We've had them at work a couple of times. Does that count?

Have you ever been to a planetarium?
My high school had a planetarium in it. So yes.

Do you re-use towels after you shower?
I have like five towels. Usually I do laundry often enough that I don't reuse dirty towels.

Some things you are excited about?
I'm going to Las Vegas in six weeks. Yay!

What is your favorite flavor of JELLO?
Jell-O is disgusting.

Describe your keychain(s)?
It's a metal thingy with keys on it. It jingles when I shake it.

Where do you keep your change?
I keep it in multiple piles all over my house. This is to deter thieves. Sometimes I put it all in a big water jug, then at other times I take it all to the bank and turn it into real money.

When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people?
Probably back when I was running a pool league and I'd meet with potential players.

What kind of winter coat do you own?
A green one. I usually wear a brown leather jacket though.

What was the weather like on your graduation day?
I think it was a pretty nice day, but the wind coming off the glacier was chilly.

Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed?
My cats do not allow closed doors in the house. They barely tolerate closed cabinets and drawers.

Last night, because I'd had two pints of Smithwick's after work, and because I'd then had half a pizza, and because there wasn't shit on TV that I wanted to watch, I went to bed at 8:00 and slept for 11 hours.

Now my head feels like it's full of hardening cement.

And now I get to go to a work meeting where we'll all get to find out how screwed up we are. We all had to take these personality profile tests a while back, and this is the meeting about the results.

Should be loads of fun.

Not.

But the good thing is that I'm on-call this week and my phone didn't ring once after 6:00 last night.

It's been cold here for a week, and rainy all day long, so I started a fire. My first one of the season.

It's a fake log, but still a real fire, so I like it.

There is no sound.

One thing that was strange, apart from the utter weirdness of having her walk into the place on a night when I happened to be there, was this scene that popped into my head.

At one point during the whatever you want to call it, I realized that I was thinking about doing something. Fantasizing actually, about doing something.

To her.

Like grabbing her and kissing the hell out of her.

It wasn't because I felt particularly attracted to her. Though the passion with which she tore at my heart was certainly admirable. it wasn't enough to make me forget the facts that (a) She's married I think, (b) She's not my type anyway, and (c) It would have started the biggest shitstorm in history.

So I didn't want to do things to her because of a desire for her. It was because I knew that, with our tongues fighting for supremacy inside her mouth, she'd have to shut up for a while.

Please stop sucking dead donkey dicks.

Thank you,

Dave

Happy birthday to my sister Neisha!

Saturday night was fucked-up.

Saturday night I was fucked-up.

It started out okay. I went out to The BBC. I had a yummy BBC Dark Star Porter (228) and spent some time talking with this one chick that I went out with about five years ago. So that was nice.

Then the text messages started coming in. From HatGirl.

Yay!

NavelGirl wasn't quite as thrilled as I was that I was texting HatGirl. Not that I really cared. There was, after all, a reason why we stopped going out. Besides, it was HatGirl!

After my beer I said that I was going to The Pub at Fourth Street Live in downtown. NavelGirl must not have been too upset about the HatGirl thing because she followed me there, and we had dinner together. After a while she left though, so I was free to text HatGirl to my heart's content.

I had three Newcastles (2566) while I just sat at the bar and vegged out. I was trying to decide whether I wanted to go home or to see if HatGirl was still at Rich O's when this other chick came in.

And that's when things got fucked-up.

I learned some things, I guess. Confirmed some others. Most of what I learned I could have lived without learning, and most of what I confirmed was that I'm an asshole.

I had another Newcastle (2586) while BlondeGirl raked her fingernails across my soul. It was like driving by the scene of a terrible auto accident. I just had to slow down and look at the carnage. Problem was, I was the carnage.

So after a while I just couldn't take it anymore. I told BlondeGirl that I was going to go home and kill myself but instead I went over to The Hard Rock and talked with CoolHairGirl and some dude that works at The Pub. I had a couple pints of Blue Moon (302) and listened to PubDude tell a never-ending series of jokes. Most of them seemed to be funny, but I can't remember any of them as I was getting pretty fucked-up.

I took a cab home because I'm a good citizen and stuff. I'm still an asshole though.

Last night I was really craving a Newcastle, and I was sitting at home trying to decide where to go for one. Like, I could have gone to The Pub in Louisville - they have the best Newcastle I've ever had - but I wasn't really in the mood for the crowd that's always there. I could have gone to Hooters in Jeffersonville but that was an even longer drive. I was seriously thinking about going down to our local riverboat casino and sitting in the bar there, but then I got a text message from HatGirl.

HatGirl!

Yay!

It seems that they were at Sportstime, which is the sister business to Rich O's. I texted back that I hadn't decided where I was going, but that was a fib. HatGirl was at Sportstime, so I was going there. But, since I wanted to try to preserve my image of casual indifference, I didn't immediately run out the door still naked from my shower and continue running all the way to Sportstime.

I probably should have though.

Because by the time I'd dewrinkled my clothes and gotten dressed and driven to Sportstime, I was too late.

HatGirl was already gone.

Boo!

So I went in Rich O's proper and sat at the kiddie table with MusicalHippieDude. I talked to HatGirl for a bit on the phone and learned that they'd just arrived back at their home. So that sucked.

Rich O's is having their hoppy beer festival, also known as the fuck you Dave festival, so the draft board out front was pretty useless to me. I did see Founder's Red Rye listed though, so I had one of those (120). FutureDude was shocked that I ordered that beer, but I've had it several times before. It's pretty good, in a weird way.

The place was packed with strangers and PBDs - all hop-heads. So I didn't do much except just talk with MusicalHippieDude and WomanRepellant for a while. Eventually I ordered another Founder's but I only drank a little of it (124). I'd decided that my Newcastle craving wasn't going to go away, so I left Rich O's and went to this Mac's place that I don't like. I'd thought that NotHideousGirl might be there doing karaoke or something, but they had a stupid live band so I didn't stay there long enough to look for anyone I knew. I just went to White Castle then came home and shot pool for several hours.

I remember reading somewhere that it's 90% mental.

That sounds about right to me.

The body, it just dances in the background. The mind is the real star of this show.

It's not even a very good show. Full of deceit and trickery. Empty promises and false praise. It drags on for far too long, and there's not really an ending. The lights just fade, ever so slowly, until you realize that the show is over.

It's not a very good show, but it can still mesmerize you and suck you in, if your amenable to that sort of thing. If you're not careful. If you're weak.

But, as they say, The show must go on.

They're right.

...on Lost! are real dicks.

Except for this chick. I have a massive crush on her:

Probably in part because she used to be this girl on Malcolm in the Middle and she's the one that started the whole perverted brunettes with glasses thing for me.

If only there'd been a dorky girl like that when I was in school.

After work today I stopped by Rich O's. Mainly to get a pizza, but then they had a new beer for me on tap:

t Smisje Halloween (10)

(draft) Cloudy yellow/orange. A nice head that faded quickly. This is a very citrusy Belgian when it first enters the mouth, but then the pumpkin takes over and coats the mouth with sweetness, then there were some nice spices in the finish. Just yummy. It seemed like it had a high ABV, but its 10.5% still surprised me.

Then, then as I was walking out the door Roger (the owner) called out to me.

"What?" I asked.

"I can get Harpoon now," he answered.

My head immediately started swimming. And here's why:

Harpoon Winter Warmer (100)

The web page says cinnamon and nutmeg. I got none of that. What I got was ambrosia. The most unusual beer I've ever had, and it took me a while to pin down what I was experiencing. Copper colored, good lacing, and an actual flower aroma. The flavor was incredibly indescribable, but I'll try anyway. Take a beautiful woman, have her bathe in lilacs and Mr. Bubble. Now perform oral sex on her. That's how good this beer was.

Then Roger said something about how he's getting Harpoon IPA for this hop festival thingy they're having. It starts this Friday. But I don't care about that. All I could think about was that their Winter beer festival (Saturnalia) is coming up in December. I always look forward to it, but this year it goes beyond that. This year it gives me something to live for, because Harpoon Winter Warmer could be there.

Astute readers may have noticed that I drink beer from time to time.

Very astute readers may have noticed that I will sometimes put little beer reviews in my journal entries.

Psycho stalkers have probably noticed that all of my beer reviews also appear over here. If you don't believe me, go there now and see for yourself.

I'll wait.

* looks at watch, taps foot, whistles, considers masturbating, balances checking account *

Okay, that's long enough. You were just supposed to look. Not memorize the thing.

There are, as of this writing, 301 entries there. I had planned to make entry number 300 a special one, but it didn't work out that way. I screwed it up last night by trying two new beers. So now I'm at 301 instead of 299, and the special review that I'd wanted to be number 300 will be number 302 instead.

What I did is I combined two of my all-time favorite beers. I am a fucking genius.

Dave's Weffentremens (28)

(mixture) I mixed Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier and Delirium Tremens in the 16.9:11.2 ratio dictated to me by the bottle sizes. Mixing what are perhaps the ultimate representations of German wheat and Belgian strong ales, I'm not quite sure what I was expecting to accomplish. One thing that I definitely wasn't expecting was to create a beer that would make me believe in God. Well, so much for expectations. Way beyond yummy.

In this entry I will, once again, try to be funny in such a way that only one person on Earth will get the joke. But that's okay, because she's the most important person.

But first thing first. After work this week, on two occasions, I had this beer:

Regenboog Guido (20)

(draft) Very good. Cloudy brown color, little head to speak of. Taste of apples that have almost gone sour. There were a couple of other, more subtle flavors. Maybe raisins and honey. I wanted more right away.

Last night I got to Rich O's fairly late for me - about 9:30 or so. Before I'd even left my truck I could tell that something special was happening. It was like a tingle that went down my spine. Except it wasn't my spine.

The place was full of hot girls!

By Rich O's standards, anyway. There were at least a half-dozen of girls in various states of hotness scattered around. One in particular, with dreadlocked hair, really got my attention when our eyes met as I walked in. She smiled at me from her seat at the island, and I ended up walking kinda funny to the bar.

My first beer of the night was one of these:

t Smisje Blond (10)

(draft) Cloudy dark urine in appearance. No head to speak of. A very citrusy aroma, but the flavor was quite similar to a German wheat except for the thinner mouthfeel. A decent beer.

My second beer was one of these:

Dogfish Head Pumpkin Ale (10)

(draft) Clear bronze. A thin tan head that faded quickly and left nice lacing behind. Besides the unusual (for me) pumpkin flavor, there was a strange bitterness that came and went before the finish. Once my tastebuds had become numb to the bitterness this was a pretty good beer.

Right after I sat down another hot girl came in with some gay guy and they sat in the loveseat. I didn't talk to them though because by that time I was in a bit of a mood.

My next beer was one of the aforementioned Guido beers (30).

I spent a lot of my time on the throne trading text messages with RockGirl. LonerBoy came in and sat with me for a while but we didn't talk much.

Then RockGirl told me to grow a pair, so I did, and I went home.

You can find ghosts in the most obscure places.

Especially when you're looking for them.

Last night was, as I wrote yesterday, the occasion of the thing in the place with the people. It was supposed to be a surprise, so I didn't say anything more than that. Well the surprise is over so I have free reign I suppose.

The thing was a comedy show, the place was The Comedy Caravan in Louisville, and the people were my friend Eric, his wife Teri, my sister Dina, her husband Kenny, Eric's brother Todd and his wife, and some people I don't really know - except that one of them may be Dina's only hot friend. The whole deal was because it's Teri's birthday today. Happy Birthday!

I'm pretty sure that it's also my grandmother's birthday today. Happy Birthday!

The show didn't start until 8:00, and I got there early, so I walked across the street to a little bar. A little haunted bar as it turned out. I hadn't recognized the place, but I'd been there before, back near the beginning of the end. Back when I broke through the clouds and caught a glimpse of just how far up I was. How far I had to fall.

Anyway, I had myself a yummy Newcastle (2506) and did a bit of catching up with the ghost of my own innocence. Then I went back across the street to the comedy place. Dina and Kenny were already waiting, and everyone else showed up shortly afterwards.

I hadn't been to the Comedy Caravan since this night, even nearer to the end. I don't suppose things have changed very much. Some of the people were funny, and some of them weren't. I think the highlight of my time there was when I went out to the lobby to have a smoke and got to talk to Dina's hot friend for a while. Talking to pretty women always lifts my spirits. For a while at least.

Oh yeah, I had two bottles of BBC Alt (282) which were a little skunked. It was also very strange to be drinking straight out of the bottle.

After the show was over, I went over to Cumberland Brewing with Eric and Todd and their wives. I had myself a yummy Cumberland Nitro Porter (180) and we all just sat around and talked for a bit. Eric told me a very funny story about his dad, but I won't relay it here because you'd really have to know Paul to see how funny it was.

After my friend left, I moved up to the bar and had another Nitro Porter (200) and thought about the times I'd gone to that place with MixedSignalGirl and SassyGirl.

Speaking of SassyGirl, nobody has had any word from her and JauntyGirl since they left. So that sucks.

After I left Cumberland, I stopped by Rich O's for a second, then I went to White Castle and came home and watched the new X-Men movie.

Tonight, I get to go to a thing at a place with some people.

I'm looking forward to it, which means that I'll be disappointed.

I only turned my back for a second, and they all died. All of the hot girls, dead.

This party had suddenly taken a very bad turn.

What could I have been thinking? Rat poison is, by definition, poison, and who was I to say which small amount might be safe and which would not? Which would bring a nice high and which would bring death?

As I moved my hand over their bodies to check for any remaining signs of life, of hope, it was as if darkness flowed out from my fingers and onto everything around me. I could no longer see their faces. This might normally have been considered a good thing, what with them being dead and all. But this time, this time it was not. For as I reached to check for a pulse, I instead found the toothy grimace of agonizing death, seemingly about to bite down and rip at my flesh. Instead of the faintest of breaths, I instead found hands contorted by pain into claws that seemed to grasp at me, as if to pull me in with them.

But it was only my imagination. The dead do not bite. The dead do not grasp.

The darkness flowing from me continued to spread. The lamp in the corner served only to illuminate itself - its light no longer reached the walls, or the floor, or the ceiling. Or the grotesque scene on the bed.

I knew that I had to get away from there, from that macabre display, from the darkness.

So I ran.

I ran, and the darkness continued to flow from my body. It became an expanding wake of nothingness which I pulled along behind me.

I ran faster.

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, but it was not fast enough. I bent forward, and I began to use my arms as well. I dug my fingers into the ground and I pulled with my arms as mightily as I pushed with my legs. I became something else. Something no longer human. A beast. Running from darkness that I myself had created, that I myself continued to spread.

A moment of clarity struck me.

I stopped.

The darkness caught up with me, surrounded me, enveloped me. It began to contract and flow back into me.

As I stood, panting, in that shrinking circle of darkness, I saw lights in the distance.

Then I woke up.

So after my sole reason for even being in the place left in an understandable huff, I left Rich O's myself and went out to the BBC or Bluegrass Brewery or whatever the fuck it's called. There are two of the places, and they used to be the same company but now they're not and nobody fucking cares because we all have enough drama in our lives without our bars getting into the act. Anyway, I went to the one way out in East Louisville because they have hot girls there.

I had two main reasons for going to the BBC - besides the hot girls. The first was the yummy BBC Alt (258) that I'd had at Rich O's. I'd actually ordered a BBC Dark Star Porter but oh well. The second reason was the yummy BBC Dark Star Porter I had at Rich O's (188). Both of these beers are among my favorites, and Rich O's only had them in bottled form. I wanted drafts. So I went.

It was, as usual, quite crowded there, but I found myself a seat at the bar and had myself a Dark Star (208).

Do any of you remember that one stalker guy that followed me from the BBC to Rich O's a while ago?

That same fucker was at the BBC again. I don't think he saw me though. Whew!

Next I was going to have a BBC Alt but they'd just blown the keg or something so instead I left and went to The Pub in downtown Louisville.

While I was there I had a couple pints of yummy Newcastle (2492) and I talked to some uberhot girls who were there for a bachelorette party. So that was fun until one of the girls asked me why I was in a bad mood and I said that men are insensitive pigs who only think about one thing and that started all of the girls agreeing with me a little too enthusiastically. Plus they wanted me to do shots with them and none of them were Holly so I declined. At one point I realized that I was surrounded by estrogen so I left the girls and went down the street to this Sully's place and had a Diet Coke.

Then I came home at around 1:30.

That's the subject of some SPAM I got today.

I have no idea what my zwinky might be, and I don't think I want to know.

Sadly, that was the highlight of my day. I did manage to kill one of the servers at work. I think that it was justifiable homicide, but I have to await final judgment from the jury of my coworkers. We'll see.

Other than those two things, that's it. I think my brain is empty.

I don't like to write entries when I'm pissed. I do it every now and then and I never like the way it reads.

I suppose that I'm not really pissed right now. Just irritated. But it's been going on for almost 24 hours now, and it shows no signs of abating, so maybe it'll grow into being pissed if I don't write about it.

Also, maybe two people will know what I'm talking about here. My sister has accused me of writing in code lately. She's admitted that, lately, all she does is skim my journal for anything resembling coherency and then turn away in disgust when she finds none.

But I digress.

I wonder, what the fuck were you thinking? Were you thinking at all? With your head?

The first time was slightly amusing. Akin to one of my comics perhaps. Juvenile and predictable yet harmless.

The next 8,000 times were overkill.

Guess what? She knows that she's hot. She knows it without needing to hear it from you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over inside of about 15 minutes.

That's what her boyfriend is for. He gets to tell her that she's hot. Not you. Not me. Nobody except her boyfriend.

I really don't get what you were thinking you'd accomplish.

Was she supposed to say, "Well gee whiz! I never suspected that you thought I was pretty! Thank you so much for letting me know! I must have sex with you right now on the coffee table, you stallion!"

It was really a pitiful display you put on. To be ignored must not sit very well with you. Otherwise why would you choose to say the same thing over and over again? Isn't one of the signs of insanity to keep doing the same thing and expect differing results? Shouldn't you, of all people, know this?

This was the second time that your mouth ran someone I care about out of that place. You are on notice now. I will no longer wait for them to defend themselves, or for their boyfriends to defend them. Before there is a third time, I will defend them myself.