I like sitting in my car before work. Weird, perhaps, but it's nice there. It's the closest thing I have anymore to sitting on my swing or in my garage and thinking.

One of these years I'll have to get my swing fixed. It pisses me off that I haven't been able to get anyone to help me with it. I guess I'll have to tackle it myself, and probably manage to burn down my house in the process.

That would suck.

Another thing I've noticed is that I don't really want any distractions when I'm trying to sit and think. It's a little surprising, given the inordinate amount of time I spend glaring at my phone during those times, But I don't think that counts. I love the emails and the texts.

What I've noticed is that my time in my car is a lot more enjoyable if I leave my radio off. And, while I thought it was cool for a while to have Picklepie keeping me company in my garage, he ended up being just as much of a nuisance as a pleasure. I mean, I couldn't really do any serious navel-gazing if I had to stop and pet him every ten seconds.

I dunno. I'm feeling a little writey today.

I need to get something off my chest now.

I think I'm hoping that, by writing this, I'll defuse my emotions a little. I'll imagine that it will be read, and that way I'll be able to make my point without any confrontation.

Speaking of confrontation, I'm pissed.

I thought that things had been exaggerated. I was, after all, being assaulted with false accusations; it didn't seem like much of a stretch to assume that other details were being at least skewed and perhaps even fabricated wholly to better match my accuser's anger.

But now I've heard pretty much the same story from several different sources, and it turns out that there was no exaggeration at all.

She absolutely didn't provoke the situation. And she didn't do anything to move things to where they went. She stayed calm and non-confrontational even as you escalated to threats of physical violence against her.

Seriously, you threatened to beat her face? Why? Because you don't like her?

That's the exact same reasoning that assholes and bullies use. Which one are you? Or maybe you're both?

On what planet did she deserve those threats? Certainly not planet Earth.

Look, you're allowed to dislike a person. Nobody is perfect, and I'd venture that everyone has at least one person that just rubs them the wrong way. Hell, most people I meet rub me the wrong way. But adults don't go around threatening physical violence. Adults don't resort to any form of intimidation at all. Adults simply choose to not interact at all with the people they can't stand. That's a hell of a lot easier, and more civilized, for everyone.

Are you not an adult, is that the problem?

Or are you going to blame alcohol?

Oh, that's original.

I don't expect this particular exercise - writing this entry in this journal at this time on this day - to do any good. But neither do I think it will particularly hurt. I think it will waste time, and that's something that I'm very good at, it seems.

I'm trying to make sense of nonsensical things. Why things are the way that they are. How things are, period. It's like there's a part of me that can understand and accept with cold calculated precision, and another part that can only sob. Somewhere in the middle of those two extremes, I sit with my head bowed and my shoulders slumped, and I wait.

I don't know what I wait for. Release from all this, probably. I don't know what this is, maybe it's everything.

I'm angry at myself all the time. For hanging on for too long. For not hanging on long enough. For waiting too long. For not waiting long enough. For closing my eyes to the truth and to the lies. For wondering all the time about the future and regretting all the time about the past, and not spending nearly enough time in the present.

I'll never truly know, none of us can, what would have could have might have happened, if I'd just done a better job of things. If I'd just been a better person in her eyes. I fear, though, that I'll always wonder, and that will be it for me. That will be the rest of my story; a seemingly endless series of ellipses, until it finally and abruptly ends.

Dammit...

I know that it's a cliché for some people that people never change but I think that's bullshit. I know that people can change. I'm living proof, for one thing. There are other proofs, but I don't want to get into that right now.

I've been having a lot of flashbacks lately. Just weird random thoughts and remembrances of times far in the past.

I've remembered taking my stepson to watch fireworks on the day that his sister was born. I've remembered driving through South Dakota as I moved to Seattle. I've remembered my first night of basic training. I've remembered the first time I made love to MixedSignalGirl, and I've remembered the first time I laid eyes on LaptopGirl. I've remembered taking a piss in the middle of the night in the Nevada mountains, and being awestruck by the stars.

All sorts of memories have made their way to the surface of my brain lately.

I don't know why. Not really. I have some theories, though. Maybe I'm suppressing the really important things. The current things. Or maybe I'm focusing on the past because I can no longer imagine a future.

I'm not the same person I was, not twenty years ago, and not four weeks ago. I used to be so full of hope and excitement for the future. I used to think that there was a future.

Now, not so much. Now, I just sit here, and I wait. Every now and then, I breathe. I don't know why. Something to do, I guess.

Fuck it, I'll write something. Nobody's doing any real work here today, anyway.

There's a certain appeal to it. Mainly, I suspect, because it's the easy thing to do. I mean, nothing is always easier than something, right?

Right?

So maybe I'll just do nothing, and then I'll stay like this.

I'll be that guy.

You know that guy - he tried to give himself away, and then when his offer was rejected, he didn't want himself back.

Or something like that. It's hard to write sometimes. I know what I meant, though, even if I'm only rarely able to translate thoughts and feelings into words anymore.

There, I managed to kill ten minutes out of my day by writing this crap.

And the whole process of guesstimation is fraught with guesswork.

When does a dude stop simply acting like an asshole and become an actual asshole? When does a girl with loose morals become a raging whore? When does a child go from misbehaving to being a brat?

These are the kind of questions that we all ask ourselves all the time.

And there are no easy answers.

I've advised several people, over the years when they've been angry or sad, to just hold off a little. To not do anything in the heat of the moment. To take some time to think about what's happened and to consider what they're really dealing with.

It's the person who matters. Not the actions.

And sometimes I take my own advice. And sometimes I take it far too often, and far too many times.

Until something snaps and it no longer matters what kind of person I'm dealing with. The actions become all that matters, because everything else seems like a lie.

And so, here I am. Wherever this is. Nowhere, I suspect.

In a perfect world, I don't think anyone would care about how someone used to be. It should be obvious, after all is said and done, that it's how a person actually is that's more important.

A guy could have been, for example, a real asshole in high school but be a great friend now.

And even more important than how a person is would be how a person will be.

Like, a girl could be a total slut now but eventually she could settle down and be faithful.

There are three problems with all of this.

1. It's not a perfect world.
2. We can't see into the future, so we have to make guesstimations based on present and past behavior.
3. Sometimes past and/or present behavior simply cannot be ignored. See numbers 1 and 2 above.

To summarize, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

I get up. I go to work. I go to Rich O's. I go home. I sleep. On the weekends I might mix things up a bit. I don't work, for one thing. And maybe I'll go to stupid Bearno's and hang out with an old spark for a while. On Sundays maybe I'll meet OddlyFamiliarGirl at Jack's.

I go through the motions of life, just like everything is normal. But, what is normal? I mean, I'm a guy who dreamed for years and suddenly I found myself living a nightmare from which I refused to awaken. Who am I to even pretend to know what's normal?

I glare at my phone not out of hope but out of paralysing dread. Out of dread that it will remain silent, or out of dread that it will sound. My motivation varies with my mood.

I've not awakened from this nightmare. Things are not normal. I pretend because I don't want people to worry about me. I pretend because I don't want people to blame her for my problems. I pretend because maybe, just maybe every now and then, I'll fool myself.

It hasn't happened yet. I may be too smart to believe my own lies, but I'll keep trying. For a while, at least.

Happy birthday to my sister Dina!

I see denial and I see fear. I see timidity and I see delusion.

I see uncertainty and I see anger and I see sorrow and I see regret.

Closing my eyes, that's not an option, no matter what everyone on Earth thinks. It's already burned into my brain.

I'm really tired. Of being deemed useless and insignificant. Of being invisible. Of everything.

That first step?

It was a doozy.

I had this brilliantstupid idea to relieve some boredom by writing an entry. The one I was going to write was that I was going to pick November 18th - I picked today's date because it seemed as good as any - for the last several years, and say what I was doing and thinking and so on.

It was a terrible idea. I've been too fucking sad for too fucking long, and I don't want to write about that anymore, but that's all there is.

There is more to say. More that I need to say. Wants went out the window a long time ago, and all that's left are needs.

You might think that I've said everything. You might think that I've run out of things to say and so I've simply repeated myself over and over and over and over.

But, you would be wrong.

There's so much that's been left unsaid.

As the walls go up, the truth makes a panicked and desperate dash toward freedom, lest it be trapped forever.

There are reasons for all of this. Reasons, I mean, besides the obvious.

If the truth is hidden away and silenced, does it even count? Is it still true?

There is more to say.

(During a morning re-read, the above came off as slightly ominous. That was not the intent at all.)

I know I know, things change all the time. What I say one day might not be truth on the next day. But, this is my journal, and I'm going to make use of it.

This is what is true today and this is what's been eating at me.

I fucked up. I've managed to lose the two most important people in my life. One was my best friend, and the other was most definitely not a friend but she was something. Something both above and below friendship. I truly fear that I'll never hear from either of them again, and quite frankly that's probably the fate that I deserve.

And just because the loss of one of these people might have been overdue and necessary and perhaps even desired, that doesn't lessen the sting at all. Losing her stings like a bitch, and the only thing that's keeping me somewhat afloat is the feeling that this will be the last time I have to go through this.

Because there will never be another like her. I won't let that happen.

And the other one I've lost? My true and faithful friend? Well, my brain just cannot process that particular loss. Every time I try to think about losing her it's like a safety valve somewhere in my head snaps shut.

What's true today may not be true tomorrow, but today the truth is that I feel more alone than I ever have before, and it's my own fucking fault.

This isn't going to work. I can't write anything now. I'm too fucking tired. I'm pretty sure I slept Wednesday night, but I'm equally sure that was the last time.

I just watched a movie. And in that movie a plane was about to crash. And on that plane people held hands when they thought they were about to die. I know, it was just a movie, but those people in their last moments of life touched another person. If they were lucky, they got to touch a person they loved.

I can't write this. There's no point.

Welcoming even the slightest distractions these days, I couldn't help but notice this.

We have a weirdo at work. One of several, actually, but this particular weirdo is at least being original about it.

For one thing, he spends a lot of time standing in his cubicle. His job is to sit at a computer and talk on the phone, but he chooses to stand. A lot. His head poking above the cubicle walls always reminds me of prairie dogs sticking up out of their holes.

Anyway, this morning I was in the breakroom and the weirdo came in. He stopped in front of the Coke machine, whipped out his phone, and took a picture of the machine. Then, he left the room.

So, thanks, weirdo standing picture-taking dude! You managed to distract me quite well this morning.

I'm in a weird mood. Weird, huh?

I should go somewhere this weekend. I should go to Covington. I say that every weekend. It's become a bit of a tired joke with RockGirl:

I should go to Covington this weekend.

Then, sometime Saturday evening:

I should have gone to Covington.

I never go anywhere. I always want to go, but then I don't. I don't know why. Lack of motivation, I suppose.

I'll go see StupidGirl in February. That seems like a million years from now. A lot can happen between now and then, so it's kinda hard to get excited.

I could die between now and then, for instance. Or StupidGirl could get married or something. I'd still go to Las Vegas if that happened, it just wouldn't be as much fun.

I think that, if I had to pick a word to label this mood I'm in, that word would be conversational. I want to have a couple discussions and try to sort some things out. It probably won't happen, though. People, including my lovely self, get too defensive and accusatory. It makes rational conversation almost impossible.

I just can't help but think about the .0000001% chance that things could work out. That tiny chance makes me feel like a jerk and it keeps me awake at night and it keeps me from lowering my foot.

Anyway, I guess I should get ready for this meeting.

I think I wantneed to expand a little on the quickie I just posted, "My brain is stuck in a groove today."

This has happened before. A couple of times over the last few years, it's happened. I somehow go from thinking about the same thing (you get one guess) every few seconds to thinking about nothing else at all. I somehow still manage to breathe and stuff, but it takes a conscious effort.

In the past, this has usually led to constant sadness or incessant giddiness. But today, today it's not really leading anywhere. It just is.

To paraphrase something that was recently said to me, "I should be more upset about this, but I'm not."

Very, very strange.

Odds are very good that I'm simply in denial, and that once my subconscious recognizes the harsh reality of this mess, I'll fall apart. But that's okay. If that's what it takes for this to be over, then that's a price I can pay. I've wanted this to be over for a very long time.

Besides, I've fallen apart before, and maybe this will be the last time it ever happens.

Yeah, right.

There was an unanticipated side-effect of writing that drivel yesterday. I really should have anticipated it, though. It's happened before, it's just been a long time.

The ability to just vent a little, albeit in written form, did wonders for my mood. There have been so many things I've wanted to say over the years, but I've stayed relatively silent.

That's still going to happen, in most cases.

Right now, I'm battling on two fronts. It kinda sucks.

In one case, I want resolution like I want to breathe. In the other case, I want it to be over, one way or another, no matter the cost. I may not get what I want in either case. Like I said, it kinda sucks.

Anyway, people will say whatever it takes to make themselves feel better about themselves regarding a bad situation. Even when they have to lie to themselves to say it. Making the other person the "bad" one is far more important than truth and personal responsibility.

Just kind of trying to get my thoughts together now. No easy feat; they're running and jumping around inside my head like they saw a spider in there or something. Maybe they did. That would be weird, but it might also explain some things, like the cobwebs that have been impairing my judgment lately. It would also explain the screams.

I had such a bad day Saturday. I'm still in shock from it. Both because of the complete meltdown I witnessed, and because of the way I reacted to it. Maybe it was necessary. Maybe I needed something to push me out of this place. This place I've been shown over and over and over. This ever-shrinking place. This terrible and wonderful place that's been my home and my cage for over seven years.

I'm trying to take a step. That's all it should take. Just one little step in any direction, and I'll be gone. Somewhere else. It has to be better, right?

Right?

Oh, here's a thought.

Maybe I really did die back in 2004. Maybe it wasn't a metaphor at all. I've heard stories about how sometimes, when people die, their ghosts are trapped and left to wander and moan and stuff.

Maybe I'm a ghost, stuck in this place because I have unfinished business here. Not that I know what that business might be. I used to think that I knew. I was wrong.

Anyway, boo!

It shouldn't be this hard. Nothing should be this hard.

Just take a damn step, Dave.

Okay, good, you picked up your foot. Was that so bad?

Now, just put your foot down somewhere else. I don't care where, just so long as it's outside this place.

Just do it, you pussy! Be a man and put your foot down!

I think the same thing so many times. I wonder so many times. I think that this is the love of my life, and I wonder what the fuck I'm doing. I wonder what I could possibly be doing, with my foot hanging in the air like this.

There will, by definition, never be another. So as soon as I leave this place, as soon as I put my foot down outside of this place, I'll might be nowhere at all. I wonder if it's an illusion. I think that maybe nothing exists outside of this place. I wonder if I'll simply disappear. I wonder if that would be a good thing.

It shouldn't be this hard.

That one thing: Nope.
That other thing: Not anymore.
That really unlikely thing: Never, really.

Without trust, everything else is irrelevant.

This is just a quick story about how my brain works. If you nod your head while watching this, you must know me pretty well.

(This is a flash video that I don't feel like converting and uploading to YouTube. It was pretty boring anyway.

The other day I was at this gas station, and this chick was holding up the line yakking with the cashier. Instead of murdering her, I eavesdropped.

She was talking about one time she'd gotten so mad that she'd driven all the way to Atlanta.

Well, I beat that feat easily. I got so mad in March that I drove all the way to Charleston SC. And the only reason I stopped driving was because there was an ocean in my way.

Stupid ocean.

It's not that I don't care, it's that I wish that I didn't care.

Because there's just no point to caring. To any of it. It's all a waste of time and emotion. To care and wish and yearn and desire. To fucking know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it will all be worth it in the end. And then to be dismissed over and over and over and over and over.

To hurt just for the sake of hurting, because that's all there is, and because that's all there will ever be.

It's all pointless. Nothing good will happen. Not for me.

It's not that I don't want to reply, it's that I wish that I didn't want to reply.

Being a good person feels wonderful, for a while. I live to be useful to the people I care about. Until I start to feel like I'm being taken advantage of. Once that happens, once that really starts to sink in, that's when being a good person feels pointless, like everything else. Friendship. Love. Everything. Pointless.

It's not that I don't want to be there, it's that I wish that I didn't want to be there.

Maybe even worse than pointless.

I feel like a fucking doormat. Again.

Dammit.

It's not that I don't care, it's that I wish, with all my heart, that I didn't care. That I would stop. That this would all just stop.

I had a bad day. It fit in nicely with all of the previous days.

Blow after blow land square and hard. He stands, somehow he's remained standing. His knees, however, have become weak. He wobbles. His mind wanders to escape the pain. He forgets why he stands. Soon, he will fall, and the count will begin.

I thought that I felt like writing something. I really did. I even had a couple potential topics in mind. But then, when I sat down at this computer, I lost all interest in writing.

So what I'll do instead is what I always do. I'll repost an old entry from back when I used to write.

Okay, I'm plagiarizing myself here, but it's okay - I gave myself permission.

I hate the Fall.

Too many things have happened to me at this time of the year. There are very few good memories, only memories of death and dying and loss and pain.

I look out my window, and I see that everything around me is dying. The sky is gray, the grass a dull brown. My yard is littered with fallen leaves.

The only things giving color to the world are the leaves. Many of them still cling to their branches, but inevitably, they too will fall and join corpses of their brothers on the ground below. And when they fall, when they spin or glide or spiral through the air, that is when they're at their most beautiful. The death of each leaf is a dance.

I like to stand outside my building at work, when the ivy leaves are falling. Sometimes, a leaf will get caught in the winds swirling around the buildings. Sometimes, a leaf will take a long time to fall, and it will dance in the air for me. If I'm quick enough, and if the winds are just right, I can catch a leaf before it hits the ground. Before its dance is over forever.

My grandmother used to tell me that it was good luck, catching a falling leaf. I'll hold the stem between my thumb and forefinger, and I'll twirl it for a bit, then I'll open my hand and let it finish its fall. Let it finish dying.

Sometimes I envy those leaves. Their most beautiful moment comes at the end of their lives. They don't have to keep living and remembering how wonderful things used to be. And when they fall, they don't have to get back up.

Sometimes I want so badly to reply, but that's not allowed. It's not real communication, after all. It's just an illusion, like everything else.

I've been having a really tough time getting my thoughts together lately. That's one of the big reasons that I don't write very often anymore. Another big reason is self-censorship, of course. And there's also the fact that I'm sick and tired of announcing to the world that I'm sick and tired. And I don't like to write when I'm in a bad mood. Fuck, it's a wonder I write at all. You people should be grateful for what little you get.

So, last night I was talking with OddlyFamiliarGirl and the subject came up of the worst things we've ever done. She went first, and I told her that I was going to go pee and when I came back I'd tell her what my worst actions had been.

It wasn't too tough to come up with some very bad things. Maybe it wasn't as tough as I'd have liked, but oh well.

I'm basically a pretty good person. I keep saying that. Maybe eventually it will be believed. I get so fucking tired of being accused of lies and manipulations and cruelty.

But I digress.

And now I'm in a crappy mood, again, so I need to stop writing, again.