I get flashes of snippets, all the time. Ideas for short scenes, poignant scenes, great scenes. Problem is, they all stand alone. Context would stitch them together, but I have no context other than my own life, and I don't want to use that. Fiction is suppose to be fiction, after all.

And, more often than not, my little scenes end up more like speeches, or soliloquies, than actual scenes. The one guy talks and rambles and blathers and the other guy just says, "Uh huh" every now and then. Or maybe he nods or shakes his head, depending on the circumstance.

I dunno. I'm probably over-thinking things. I do that a lot.

THREE WAYS I AM STILL A KID
1. I have a pretty juvenile sense of humor sometimes.
2. I have a strong sense of wonder.
3. I get really excited about stupid things sometimes.

THREE WAYS I AM ALREADY OLD
1. I'm actually old.
2. I think more about the past than the future.
3. When I see a hot young waitress, I often wonder what her mom looks like.

THREE THINGS I WANT TO DO
1. Duh.
2. Write something profound and moving.
3. Be appreciated.

THREE WAYS THAT I’M A STEREOTYPICAL GUY
1. I can be very competitive.
2. I'm a vertical thinker.
3. I like muscle cars.

THREE WAYS THAT I’M A STEREOTYPICAL GIRL
1. Kitties!
2. I'm very emotional.
3. I have a lot of empathy.

THREE NEW THINGS I WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS
1. Add another state to my list.
2. Get my pool game back to where it was.
3. Get back to a normal sleeping schedule.

THREE THINGS I LIKE ABOUT MYSELF
1. I have a good sense of humor.
2. I'm honest and trustworthy.
3. I'm true to myself.

THREE THINGS THAT SCARE ME
1. Spiders.
2. Messing up something really important to me.
3. Things staying the same as they are now.

THREE OF MY EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS
1. My computer.
2. My phone.
3. My rock.

THREE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX (OR SAME) THAT APPEAL TO ME
1. Sweetness.
2. Intelligence.
3. Humor.

THREE THINGS I JUST CAN’T DO
1. Dance.
2. Play guitar.
3. Lie.

THREE CAREERS I’M CONSIDERING
1. Writer.
2. International playboy.
3. Pool player.

Hmmm, that doesn't seem very nice. Maybe I'll try to soften it up a little. After I pack and shit stuff.

I slept about four and a half hours. Now I'm up. Once I finish waking up the rest of the way, I get to pack and shit stuff. I hope to leave my house at 4:00. Then I fly to Houston for a one-hour layover, then to Las Vegas.

I want to take a nap when I get to Las Vegas. I'm excited about the prospect of taking a nap. RockGirl says that means I'm weird. I think it just means that I'm tired.

I'm going to ramble for a bit. Get over it. Or not. I don't care. It's my blog.

She's always been nice. Always. Not just when she's been drunk, or when she's wanted something, or when she's felt guilty. Despite the bullshit of two months ago, I can truthfully say that she's always been nice.

And, she's always been sweet. Always. Not just when she's been drunk, or when she's wanted something, or when she's felt guilty.

Tomorrow, I'm going to see her. After almost six months, I'm going to hold her.

But who am I going to miss? Who am I going to continue to miss?

Same person I miss right now.

Someone who's nice, at least when she's drunk, or when she wants something, or when she feels guilty. Someone who's just incredibly unbelievably sweet, at least when she's drunk, or when she wants something, or when she feels guilty.

(That last paragraph reads a lot meaner than it was intended. There were other times. Lot's of other times.)

I'm going to miss her, as I've always missed her, for a lot of reasons. Inertia, partly, but also because I was telling the truth that night. The night after the hurricane, when I took her hand, and I took a breath, and I finally told her that she was the love of my life.

Last time I checked, I was still alive. My life was ongoing.

Barely.

So my statement still counts. To me at least, it counts. For something.

For everything.

Remember how, that one day, I came home and my house was almost 90 degrees, and the only way I could turn off the heat was to flip the circuit breaker?

And remember how, the night before, I'd flipped my heat-pump to electric supplemental heating?

I went to the site to pay my bill just now.

$1193.

For a bill that's usually around $250.

And then, sometimes, I'm thinking fuck it. If those eyes want to keep prying, then how is that my fault?

Oh, that's right, because I'm an asshole who, at any second, is bound to write something mean. Or something like that. If there's a different reason, I'd sure like to know it.

Anyway.

It's supposed to be fairly warm the next couple of days. I'm moderately excited about the possibility of going out to my garage with a beer or three so that I can do some navel-gazing. I haven't been out there since the weather got cold in the Fall. I miss it. I miss my swing even more, but that's a different story.

My mood has been mostly weird lately. My thoughts, unfettered. The things I used to think about all the time, they no longer hold my interest like they used to. So, if I go out to my garage and do some serious thinking, there's no telling where my thoughts will go. It's a little scary, sure, but it's also quite interesting to me. There was a time, not too long ago, when my thoughts always went to the same place.

Now, not so much.

I kinda feel like I should be writing something now. I'm at work, though, so it will be something short. And, probably, something stupid. But that's okay with me.

Clearly, I'm sick of doing this. Writing censored versions of my thoughts, lest certain eyes become upset. I don't want to upset those eyes. I've done enough of that over the years. But my thoughts, they aren't watered down and pussified. They're just as intense as they've always been, even moreso regarding some things and some people and some circumstances.

Hence, my dilemma.

If I can't write what I want and need to write, then why bother to write at all?

I watched this movie the other night called Moon. I've seen it once before, and I like it pretty much. I don't want to spoil the movie too much, but I kinda have to say one thing, because that one thing leads to the subject of this entry.

In the movie, a guy finds himself hanging out with, well, himself.

This got me to thinking about what would happen if I was in that situation. I mean, would I get along with myself? Would we like each other at all? Would we beat the shit out of each other?

We'd certainly have a lot to talk about. And we'd laugh a lot, because we'd have the same sense of humor. We'd enjoy drinking good beer together, and shooting pool. Finally, I'd have someone able to challenge me at pool!

But I think I'd get pretty irritated with myself before too long. I'm pretty sure that the constant sadness about LaptopGirl would get old very quickly. I'd just want to choke him and scream at him to get over it already. But he'd be both unable and unwilling to do that, and so we'd be at an impasse. And, of course, I'd get into moods of my own, and we'd make each other miserable. Sadness feeding sadness.

Another thing would be that I really need a lot of alone time, and having a doppelganger around would probably make that tough. We'd probably start to get on each other's nerves before too long, and go our separate ways to preserve our respective sanities.

I dunno. This is a weird entry.

I wrote this five years ago today. I guess it's stood the test of time pretty well.

I still think about the same girl on this day, that's for sure.

Everybody's knocking Valentine's Day.

It's The Big Thing, being all noncommercial and shit. Plus, some people think that they're being nonconformists by ripping on this holiday, so that makes them feel special.

Well, I just want to say, even though I haven't felt this way every year, I just want to say that I wish I had a special someone with whom I could exchange little tokens of affection and maybe take out to a nice dinner.

So what if it's become a Hallmark holiday? That doesn't erase its underlying message. That doesn't mean you have to stop observing it. That doesn't have to mean that your feelings for that special person are superficial as well.

Get over yourselves with your jadedness and your superiority.

I wish I had someone to share this day with, and I bet most of you, that don't already have someone, I bet most of you do as well.

My foot squeaks when I walk. My right foot, specifically. The heel of my right foot, more specifically.

When I take a step, the heel of my foot rubs against the inside of my shoe, and it squeaks.

It's driving me crazy. Not just the noise, which I'm convinced everyone in the building can hear, but also that it's only my right foot.

I mean, why not my left? Why not both?

I must walk weird. Or maybe my right foot is horribly misshapen or something.

I've heard that sometimes freaks like me can get jobs at carnivals.

So, I write.

I'm still here, you know. This poet, hiding behind feelings behind thoughts behind words. Clutching to the truth lest it be stolen away from me.

Crazy. Stupid. Drunk. Liar. Those labels have been flung at me time after time in desperate cruelty. None of them have stuck. I may as well be called a Giraffe. I'm not one of those either.

How do I love someone like that, someone who's so convinced that she's unlovable that she knows, just knows, that there must be something wrong with anyone daring to try?

I don't, that's how. Not anymore.

Instead, I gave it everything I had and then, after a while, I gave up. I buried what was left and now I pretend that there is nothing. That maybe there was always nothing. That maybe it was all just a mistake, or a misunderstanding, or a delusion.

But, deep inside, a part of me still knows the truth, and I cling to it.

I cling to the truth that only I will ever truly know, and I try to hold myself together.

Sometimes, no matter how tight my grip, a little bit of truth escapes.

And those prying eyes, they see.

Sometimes, I write.

It's been snowing hard all day today. But that's okay. It's melting as soon as it hits the ground. It's all the prettiness with none of the dangers.

I seem to remember reading or hearing that all(most?) precipitation starts as snow, up in the clouds where it's cold enough for that sort of thing. It's just that, during warm weather, the snow melts way before it hits the ground and so we get rain.

I think it would be really cool if water would take a little longer to melt. Just long enough that it would always snow. It would never rain. Even in the hottest part of the Summer, precipitation would fall as snow, and then melt after it had hit the ground.

It would be very pretty all the time. Rain is so boring and depressing to watch.

Somebody should look into making this happen.

I had an interesting conversation with OddlyFamiliarGirl a couple of weeks ago. I think it's worthy of a blog entry, it's just that I don't feel particularly worthy to write the entry. But, you've got to work with what you have, and I've got me.

Speaking of worthy, that's kinda what we were talking about. Self-worth, specifically. Everyone has a sense of self-worth. Sometimes it's right, and sometimes it's wrong, but everyone has one. And most of us get clues or validation for that self-worth from other people.

I say most because there are certainly some people who neither need nor want nor consider any external sources when they think about their self-worth. Those people are a minority, I think. Mostly Buddhists and/or assholes. Most people don't live in a vacuum. Mostpeople live in a society.

First, I'll briefly write about the normal people. The stable ones. The ones who are perfectly reasonable about their sources. These people look to their significant others, maybe to their immediate family, maybe to a few very close friends.

If one of these people has a falling-out with someone close to them, they feel bad. But they don't start questioning their worth as a person. They've got others who still think they're great.

If those normal people occupy the middle ground, there have to be people on both sides. The second group of people I want to write about is the group of which I'm a member.

One person. That's it. One person, whether he or she wants it or not, or whether he or she is deserving or not, gets the honor/privilege of determining the entirety of the sense of self-worth for you. If that one person likes you, then you're golden. But if that one person has a problem with you, well, it's pretty much devastating.

It's like I was telling OddlyFamiliarGirl, if she and I had a falling out and she started hating me, I'd feel sad about losing a friend, but I wouldn't suddenly start to think I was a horrible person. I'd get over it. Because she's not the one person for me. She's not my mirror.

The trick is choosing the right person. I, myself, have chosen poorly over the years. No wonder I'm such a mess.

At the other extreme, there are people who get their clues from literally everyone they've ever met. These people have a desperate need to be liked by everyone, no matter what. They try to stay friends with people who they should loathe, lest that person dislike them otherwise. A girl could be Miss America, but let her go home and hear from her boyfriend that she looks fat, well then she's fat as far as she's concerned. Any disparaging remark from anyone, and these people crumble. Their self-worth becomes their worst enemy.

This last group, I can't help but pity them. They' have the toughest time of all. Because it's a no-win situation. Nobody is loved by everyone. Nobody. And so these people are doomed to hate themselves simply because they're not universally loved.

I wish I knew some solutions. I really do. Both for my group and for this third group. But, I don't have any solutions. I'm just muddling through like I always do. And, right now, I seem to be looking for someone new to tell me what my self-worth should be. I sure as shit can't figure it out on my own.