I used to notice this totally stupid and juvenile thing, play this stupid and juvenile game.

The first time was when I was in basic training. Every Sunday we'd go to chapel, mostly because it was something to do. We'd get to basically dick around for a couple of hours before returning to the discipline and the rigors that made up our normal itinerary.

This one time, I was sitting in chapel, and for some reason I turned around. My hot girl radar, perhaps, but I'm not sure I even had hot girl radar back then. I mean, I was an 18-year-old, a walking bag of hormones, stuck with 49 other guys for almost 24 hours a day. Every girl was hot.

Anyway, this one Sunday I turned around for some reason, and I saw her. The most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. And she was a black girl, which was weird to me back then. Not that she was black, but that I found her so attractive. And attractive wasn't even close to the proper word.

I remember thinking, then and there, that girl is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

Then, about six years later, I was at the rec center at Offutt AFB shooting pool with my friend Paul. This girl came in. She had blonde hair, and she had a little baby with her. She was wearing sweats and no makeup and her hair suggested that she'd just arisen from a nap.

But she glowed. Oh, how she glowed.

I remember thinking, then and there, that girl is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

A few years after that, it was a girl I saw at the mall in Omaha. A few years after that, it was a bartender in Seattle. Next was a girl pumping gas in Louisville. Each and every one somehow outshining the ones before them. Each and every one becoming the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, up to that point.

Ahem.

It was almost five years ago, the last time I mentally crowned a new beauty queen. Since then, it's always been the same girl. Each and every time I've seen her, since the first time, she's managed to outshine my memory of her. Each and every time, I've thought to myself, that girl is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

That particular stupid juvenile game is over. It was pointless and silly to begin with, and now it's even moreso. What's the sense in playing when the winner is predetermined?

This entry is going to get me into trouble, even though I say nice things in it. Even though I say true things in it. But the situation is already fubar, and I'm getting a little tired of tiptoeing around.

This blog is supposed to be my outlet, dammit. Well, I'm outletting something right now.