I wonder, these entries, are they my memoirs? Is this blog going to end up being the means by which people finally get to know me and understand me? Will Neisha burn it all to DVD and hand out copies at my funeral? With Dina make a scrapbook? Will Teri overcome her loathing for funerals and show up at the thing? Will anyone else care at all? Will anyone else notice at all?

Will Rich O's stay in business without my constant support?

I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Hell, I could die of old age tomorrow and it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Is this going to be my legacy?

It'll be a pretty fucked up legacy, if that's what it ends up being.

Way more questions than answers. Lots more crypticism than clarity. And a fuck of a lot more silence than anything else.

---

"I had a fantastic year."

That's what I said. And I really did italicize the word fantastic because anything less would have fallen short. Anything less would have been a lie.

I had us stand up, and then I said those words, and then I kissed her. This was no surprise at all. I'd been giving fair warning for weeks. There was plenty of time for her to "get sick" or to "have other plans" or to "just not feel like it."

But there were no last-minute excuses. There was only that time, and that place, and two of us all alone in that crowded room.

People tell me all the time that it's all in my head.

Fuck people. I was there.

That was supposed to be it, see. I had no plans or intentions beyond the end of that kiss. I would have gladly died at the end of that kiss.

But that wasn't the end of it. There were another couple of minutes, the first two minutes of the new year.

When I was about 19, I was swimming at the pool at Scott AFB. There was a kid, maybe 7 or 8 years old, and he got himself into trouble in the deep end. I just happened to be there. It's not like I jumped in to save him or anything, though I like to think that I would have done exactly that. But, in this case, I just happened to be there and I just happened to be the closest person to that kid.

He grabbed onto me, and he clung to me. He clung to me for dear life, for salvation. Every instinct he had focused onto that simple action of clinging to me. Waiting for me to save him, putting his life into my hands and trusting that I'd do the right thing.

The next time that anyone clung to me so fiercely was years and years later, after I said those words to her, and after I had kissed her ever so gently. I was not expecting it. Like I said, I'd had no plans beyond the kiss. But then, suddenly and brutally, I found another person's life in my hands. And I found trust in the weight of a beautiful head against my shoulder. And I found that there's no limit to love, because just when you think you've reached such a limit, it explodes.

People tell me all the time that I'm exaggerating.

Fuck people. I was there.

People are wrong.

---

There.

Now that's worthy of being a fucking memoir.