I don't like it. I'm not entirely sure why I don't like it, but I don't.

It's just been too long. Too much water under the bridge, as they say.

I'm concerned, I think. I don't know what's going to happen next. Could be good, could be bad, could be nothing. I don't like this uncertainty. It, like I said, concerns me.

Plus, I'm a different person now than I was back then. I think I'm a better person now, though anyone who knew me back then might disagree. I'm certainly not the same person. Not even close.

And I don't really like being reminded of how I used to be. Oh sure, I might have eventually gotten around to doing the right thing, 20 years ago, but I should never have let it come to that point. To where the right thing was so fucking painful, I mean.

Could have been worse. I could have stuck around, kept hiding things, eventually exploded.

That would have been gross.

He clings. To whatever is left of himself, he clings.

I go down there, every now and then. Just to check on him. We were friends once, after all. I go to see if he's still breathing. Or if he'll say something. Or if he'll fucking eat something.

Over three months now since I made the toughest decision of my life. That's how long his hunger strike has lasted, and how long his voice has been silent.

He makes no sound when I approach. He shows no emotion or even recognition. He simply stares. At me, or maybe through me. I can't tell. His eyes. His fucking eyes. So much hate in those eyes. And so much sorrow.

So much determination, to outlast me, to outlive me.

To win.

You know what's worse than screams?

He stays down there almost all of the time lately. Down in the dungeon of my mind. The doors are not locked. He's free to come and go as he pleases. But he seems to prefer it down there. Or, at least, he prefers the darkness to the light.

His screams were so loud. They cut straight through me.

I feel for him. I really do. After all, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him. Faced with that which neither of us could survive alone, the two of us together somehow pulled through. An unbeatable team bound, for a while at least, by parallel goals.

To endure. To live. To persevere. To exist.

To wait.

His screams were so piercing, but at least they showed strength. A will to keep trying, to keep fighting. His screams reminded me of those long-ago days and nights when we screamed together in horrible harmony.

You know what's worse than screams?

All I hear now is soft sobbing. And it keeps getting softer.

Ready to die, in fact, but not until he knows that he'll outlive me.

To love so strongly, no matter what, to never stop...

I admire him as much as I pity him. That poor magnificent bastard...

I think I've said something like this before. I always think that, though. I might be wrong. I know I've thought about it before, at least. And then Saturday I was reminded.

At my cousin Jamie's funeral, his sister (also my cousin) Danielle stood up and spent 15 or 20 minutes reading about her brother and his life and what various people had meant to him. I thought she did a great job, and I'd like something like that to happen at my funeral in the unlikely event that I die someday.

I want to nominate RockGirl for the writing assignment. She's by far the best writer I know, and she knows me pretty damn well even though we've never met. The thing is, RockGirl doesn't attend funerals. So it might be that one of my sisters will need to read RockGirl's words. That would be acceptable, I think.

I thought I'd make an attempt to standardize temperature descriptions. Please feel free to print this out and keep it with you at all times.

110: really fucking hot
100: fucking hot
95: too damn hot
90: hot
80: warm
70: nice
60: cool
40: chilly
25: cold
15: really cold
10: too damn cold
-10: fucking cold
-20: fucking arctic
-25: you've got to be kidding

I'm hopeful that this will be a nice weekend.

It should be, except for the funeral Saturday and then having to work Sunday afternoon. The nights should be good, especially tonight. I get to meet her daughter. I hope she likes me, and isn't a brat.

It used to be all so effortless, even to the point of bothersome. But it was okay. It was who I was. How I was. What I was. I was that guy.

This morning it's taking an actual effort. I can do it, sure, but it's quickly wearing me out. It's worth it, though. To feel like myself for a while.

Last Sunday was magical. My mind would return there, as always, but those thoughts didn't hold my interest at all. For the first time in years, my mind wandered.

Just found out that one of my cousins died. Weird. That's the second person from my generation, I think.

Happy birthday to my dear friend RockGirl!

I was just reading about how they think they have the technology to clone a mammoth, and there could be one born (using a regular elephant as a surrogate mother) within four or five years.

I think it will be cool when there are enough of them for me to go on a safari and hunt them with spears, just like I did in my youth.

So, on Monday I called and yelled at my trash pickup people because they hadn't picked up my trash since November. After they said they were sorry and they'd make sure to get it this week, I also asked for a second container since I now had a big backlog because of them. I've got at least 20 bags of trash in my garage.

Today was trash day.

When I got home, I found that they didn't get my fucking trash again. But they did drop off a second container.

What's wrong with those people?

And I can't even call them to yell at them because they're closed until Monday. Actually they're probably closed Monday because it's a holiday for some people.

Grrr.

I kinda want to write something today. I know what I want to write about, but I'm unsure as to how I should approach the subject. Misinterpretation is, after all, rampant.

I try to be nice about this. Even though I know it's probably pointless. Even though I know that niceness has been and will continue to be twisted into something bad more often than not. Something has poisoned her opinion of me. Every word is a lie. Every action is sinister. Every motive is evil. But being nice still seems like the right thing to do. So, aside from a few moments of anger and a few more moments of despair, I do try to be nice.

Plus, there are things that still happen, every now and then. I don't know why these things happen. I have to guess. And, what I usually guess is that I haven't been forgotten. I try to be nice, to honor those lingering memories.

I tried to be nice the other day. It got twisted into something mean, as I should have known or at least suspected it would. But sometimes I still lose sight of the truth. Sometimes I still do stupid things. Trying to be nice the other day was stupid, as it turned out. But I never have any way of knowing ahead of time how my overtures will be received, if they're received at all. It sucks, but I do what I can when I can. I do miss her, and the kid. Things would be a lot easier, for everyone, if I'd stop missing them.

It would also help if I knew what I wanted to happen. I have no clue anymore. I only have a vague fuzzy sense that I want things to be okay between us. I can't define what that word means. It's a ghost haunting my head, glimpsed only rarely and only for an instant.

I kinda wish that I knew what I wished.

People I know who's names start with each letter:

Amy, Andy
Brandi, Bill
Chuck, Carla
Dina, David
Eddie, Emily
Fred, Fran
Gina, Gehrid
Harry, Helen
Irina, Ike
Jackie, Jeff
Karen, Keven
Lisa, Larry
Mike, Michelle
Neisha, Nate
Oscar, ???
Peter, Patty
Quin, ???
Rachel, Ron
Suzy, Sam
Tim, Tiffany
Umar, ???
Vince, Vicky
Wayne, Wendy
Yunier, ???
Zia, Zack

So, (a) I was bored, and (b) what's up with X? Nobody at all?

So, I finally had to ask. It had been nagging at me. The guy had three weddings bands all on his official ring-finger.

I'm sorry I asked.

He's on his third marriage. His first two wives died. The first in a car accident when she was 23, and the second from breast cancer when she was 32.

So this poor guy's a widower twice over, and he's younger than me.

I hope this is the saddest thing I hear about today.

I'm sick of this windchill bullshit.

They say it's 26 ourside, with a windchill of 18.

Well, a couple of weeks ago it was 18, and it felt a fuck of a lot warmer than it does now.

That is all. I'd type more but my fingers are frozen.

Note: This was just a generic conversation. Not about anyone in particular. No need to be paranoid.

Found myself in a conversation with OddlyFamiliarGirl last night about sluts. Specifically, my own standards for deciding if a person is a slut or not.

I'll be the first to admit that my thinking is pretty old-fashioned and conservative regarding the subject. I mean, behavior that most of the, especially younger, population would consider acceptable, I'd reject. This is a problem for me, obviously, being so out of tune with a lot of the girls I'd otherwise be attracted to.

Because, I think I've mentioned this before, I don't like sluts. To me, they rate just slightly better than whores, and that's not saying much. Snot may be better than shit, but do you really want either poured over your pasta?

As an aside, my definition of whore has changed. It doesn't have anything to do with profession, nor does it require intent to cause pain. To me, a whore is someone who cheats on their significant other, or someone who is involved in that cheating from the other direction.

So, let's say I was sleeping with a married woman. That would make us both whores, assuming that I knew her situation.

Anyway.

Trying to describe slutty behavior is a lot tougher. It's not nearly so black and white.

I think that a lot of it comes down to frequency. An occasional one-night-stand is different than a lifestyle. Or you can get into the gray area of friends with benefits. I know some people who've tried to make that work. It seldom does. Sooner or later, it will become lopsided and therefore untenable. But friends with benefits aren't sluts, I don't think. It depends on whether you're really friends, or whether you just pretend so you can screw with an ostensibly clean conscience.

Another determining factor I use is intent. I like for there to be some, I mean. To go to bed with someone, knowing that it's just about the sex and there's no intention or desire for anything more later on? Well, to me that's dangerously close to slutdom.

This is why sex on a first date can be, while societally ambiguous, much more acceptable to me than a lot of people might suspect. You meet a person, you get along with them, there's attraction, and most importantly you want to see them again. Why not have yourself some sex on that first date?

But, on the other hand, say you go out with someone, you find them physically attractive, but during the date you find that there's just nothing there and that you have no desire to see this person again. Take them home and screw them anyway, and that pretty much makes you a slut, in my book.

One point that was made to me last night, one that I couldn't really deny even though I wish I could have, is what I'll call the me factor. What that means is, if the sex is with me, then my mental definition of what makes a slut tightens up, usually just enough so that the girl I'm with evades that label. This is juvenile and self-centered of me, I know, but I am a guy, so don't be too surprised.

I guess, if I had to sum my feelings up, I'd say that it can't be just about the sex. There needs to be something more, even if that something is only a hope or an expectation. Sex is supposed to be the icing, not the cake.

It was a pretty good conversation. I'm not sure that I ever managed to fully describe my thoughts on the matter. But, I know it when I see it. And, when I see it, I know that don't like it.

This morning I was thinking about my parents. Specifically, their ages. When I was born, my dad was 23 years old, and Mom was 22.

Weird.

I guess that the bulk of my formative years started when they were both around 30. The vast majority of my memories of them came from times when they were younger than I am right now.

Weirder.

Now, I know people who, right now, are parents around the age of 30. And they can barely manage their own lives. I don't see how they're supposed to be able to raise children when they can't even get their own shit together.

Hell, I know people in their late 30s with kids they have no business raising. And I know a lot more people who don't have any kids but they act like kids themselves. Immature and selfish and whiny and so full of a sense of entitlement that it makes me sick.

I was going somewhere with this. I really was. Just got a touch of writer's block at the moment.

I have to be careful. This is a fairly pivotal point in my life.

I'm in real danger, I think, of reverting back to how I was in my 30s. I wasted my 30s. I felt safe and secure and fucking content, but I wasted them. It wasn't until 2003 that things changed. That I changed.

These last several years might not have been safe, or secure, but I was never bored. And there were quite a few moments of genuine happiness in there, sprinkled atop the misery. And the hope, the hope was beyond awesome.

I miss the hope.

Amyway, this last week, for the first time in a very long time, I've felt safe. Except for the occasional bullshit which I hope will eventually taper off to nothing, I can live my life without fear.

Problem is, I don't think it's really living. Lack of fear is one thing. Lack of hope or ambition or desire is a totally different thing. Contentedness is not an option for me. Not anymore. I can't let it happen.

I want joy, or I want misery.

I do want to live. I just need a new definition, I think. New meaning.

On the other hand, I was a much better pool player back then.

If somebody held a gun to my head and said that I had to move back to somewhere I'd lived before, my second choice would be to go back to Juneau. Alaska.

My first choice would be to let him pull the trigger.

I just really liked Juneau. Of all the places I've lived, I think it fit me the best. The perfect mix of city and country. Of hippie and intelligencia. And it bugs me that I haven't been there since 1997, AKA a gazillion years ago.

My third choice would be Seattle. It would have been Omaha except there's this one whore there that I never want to see again.

Las Vegas would trump everything except that (a) I've never lived there before, and (b) I don't know what is going on. StupidGirl is being evasive and shit. I don't know why.

Would I move to Las Vegas even if there was no StupidGirl waiting for me?

I don't know. Maybe. Probably. But it wouldn't be as fun.

Places I'd never move back to include Memphis and New Orleans. The latter is a nice place to visit, but that's all. The former is a racist shithole of a city. I hated Memphis.

Oh, I'd also never move back to St. Louis, mainly because the same whore that keeps me from Omaha might show up in St. Louis. Plus, it's not really that different from here, nor that far. I doubt that St. Louis would be allowed by my hypothetical gun-wielder.

What I really want to do is move to this one particular little town in Arizona, to see if I can figure some things out. Maybe my answers are there. They're sure as fuck not here.

I can already tell that this isn't going to work.

I'd decided that I'd just do one of those entries where I just started typing, and see what happens.

Problem is, I have a specific topic that I want to write about, and I kinda want it to be a good entry. I have so few good ideas that I allow myself to write about - I don't want to waste an idea with random finger movements.

I had a dream. In my dream, something bad happened, and it caused me to give up. I gave up on everything. Work. Family. Friends. Love. Life. Everything.

I cast loose all of the ties that bound me, and I literally walked away from it all. I lived an anonymous life after that. No friends. No job. Certainly no love. And none of the obligations that come with those things. I touched nobody, and nobody touched me. I may as well have not existed at all.

And you know what?

There was actually a certain appeal to it.

Once I woke up, I felt all of the weights and responsibilities come back to me. I felt all of the ties cinch themselves more tightly around me.

They choke me.