As I've written before, I've heard that most people don't dream in color. As I've written before, I do dream in color, and I always have as far as I can tell.

Sight, even colored sight, is nothing to me, in my dreams. It's no big deal at all.

But, to have a dream so powerful, so real, that I can touch it, and smell it, and taste it?

I've been dreaming for a very long time.

Jostle me, holler at me. Scream "wake up" until your lungs bleed. I never want to wake up. Never. I would rather die.

Because sometimes, maybe once in a bazillion years, a dream will come true.

I'll take my chances.

So there.

So, this is what I wrote. One of the last things I wrote, will ever write. I'm not in the habit of making private conversations public, but I'm going to make an exception in this case. I hope that those of you who might choose to be cruel will read this, and know that it's the truth, and know that there is no cause for cruelty.

Most of the time, I'm very grateful. I got to feel something that a lot of people never get to feel. And I got to be important to you, albeit for a relatively brief time. Most of the time, I know that I'll be eternally grateful for all of this. So many people are zombies, or clueless. I'm neither, and that's all been because of you.

If I would just write. I mean really write. I know I could accomplish something with it. Even if the something was nothing more than the long overdue clearing of my head and my heart. These thoughts grown stale. These feelings wilted from lack of nourishment.

I can still do it, you know. I can still let my fingers tap-tap-tap away on my keyboard and watch words appear on my screen. I'm doing it right now, actually. But these words aren't me. These words are just shadows of who and what I am. My tap-tap-tapping fingers force the words into the light, and they disappear.

Where do shadows go when the light shines?

And what's left behind, when the shadows are gone?

I can't help but wonder. Just like you, my dear readers, can't help but wonder.

So what if we wonder about different things? We're still in this boat together, in a way. There is a difference, though. You can always jump ship, but I cannot. I'm the fucking captain, for better or for worse. I'll go down with this ship, or I'll keep it afloat and bring it into port. Time will tell, I guess.

I mean, you wonder about how long I can keep writing about the same old thing, the same old crap.

I, meanwhile, wonder about other things.

Like, tonight, exactly who am I even writing about?

The lying bitch who used me and then tossed me aside? Or maybe the sweet girl who felt genuine affection for me, only to have it evaporate before it could solidify? Was I a victim of indescribable cruelty, or were we victims of timing?

I wish that I knew. I really do. It would/should/could make all the difference in the world. To walk, or to run, or perhaps to stand my ground, at least a little longer...

I don't even write here anymore. Not because I don't need to write, or even because I don't want to write. I don't write because, what would I say? What good would it do? What would be the point?

I constantly look for the words to say to make everything right. I've been looking for so long. I'm convinced that the words exist. Such is my delusion, perhaps, but also such is my salvation.

I'm still met with disbelief, after all this time - and I meet it with my own disbelief.

Excuses after excuses, but never a reason.

Unnecessary.

Did I need a reason?

Nope.

So why should I expect one in return?

Answer: I shouldn't.

But, I do.

Something that I can believe. Something that's not clearly made-up bullshit. Something that's more than just an excuse.

Dammit.

So there.

It felt like I'd forgotten to wear pants.

It was Wednesday, I think. I was sitting in the throne at Rich O's. Or somebody was sitting there. I'm not convinced that it was me, despite numerous testimonies.

It was like one of those dreams. You're at school and everything is cool and then you notice that you're not wearing any pants.

I'd definitely forgotten something. Where was it? What was it?

Then, Thursday night, it felt like I had an itch. One I couldn't scratch. Not one of those annoying itches in the middle of your back that you can't reach, but deeper. Under the skin. In my heart or my brain or my soul - I couldn't pin it down. It was an irritating itch, but it wasn't unbearable.

Dammit, it should have been unbearable.

I'm not really sure what's happening.

HatGirl thinks I'm being stoic. But it's not that. It's something else. I'm something else.

Tonight was another weird night. I knew exactly what I was supposed to be feeling, but I couldn't quite get there. I was a needle on a record player, running parallel to the music but never quite in the right groove.

I hope I haven't become a pod person. I hate pod people.

I got some sleep. About four hours before my phone woo-hooed me awake. And then work called with some minor crisis. Better than no sleep, which is what I got Saturday night. I was so sad Saturday night. I made quite a spectacle of myself, I'm sure. Saying my goodbyes to everyone and everything that matters to me. Clinging to HatGirl and LaptopGirl as if my life depended on being with them. Which it does.

See, when I left for Washington in November, I suspected that it would be tough. But Saturday night, as I prepared to return for another month, I knew what it meant. There was no doubt. No hope.

But then there was a screw-up, and I didn't have to leave Sunday morning after all. I got myself an extra day. Not that I did much with it. Sat around dreading the feeling of isolation that was waiting for me in Bellingham, as far away from here as you can get, and still be in the continental U.S.

I leave for the airport in an hour and a half. Then ninety minutes to Chicago, then four hours to Seattle, then two hours driving to Bellingham. Each minute and each mile it will get worse and worse.

People try to help. They really do, and I really appreciate it, sometimes. They tell me to use my trip as an opportunity. To get better. To realize that I can, once again, enjoy my own company. But they don't understand. I don't want help. I need to miss them. I need to have a reason to come back, to get up in the mornings, to keep breathing.

People don't want me to be sad anymore. I don't know if it's so they'll feel more comfortable around me, or because of guilt, or out of genuine concern. It's probably a combination of those things. But they don't understand. It's not about the sadness. It's about the love. The sadness is a side-effect, thrust upon me by these circumstances. But it's not what's important. It's not what I cling to.

To get rid of the sadness, I'd have to get rid of the love. And that can't be done. Not by me. Every time I've tried, it's felt like I was putting a gun to my head, about to pull the trigger. This is so much a part of me, and has been for so long, that to end it would be to end everything that matters to me. It would be suicide.

Now, I fully support a person's right to end their own life on their own terms, but it's not for me. So I can't. I won't. Instead, I'll suffer. It's what I do. It's all I can do, for now. For the next month.

After that, who knows?

You know what's funny? Or maybe not funny, but I call it funny because it keeps my wrists intact and my brains inside my skull?

It's always the same thing. Every year on this date, I try to do one thing and I end up doing another. I try to reflect on the year's events, and I end up having a séance of sorts.

Well, except for last year. But last year was special.

Tonight, I spent midnight alone. After last year, I really and truly thought that I would never be alone again on New Year's Eve. But, I was.

Oh, well, right?

This year, instead of the usual fifteen minutes, I was outside for an hour and a half. Well, it was an eventful year, you might think.

Wrong.

Not about 2009 being eventful, but about that having anything at all to do with my being outside for seventy-five minutes longer than usual.

What went wrong? What went right? What progress was made? What setbacks were encountered?

How can I do better, in 2010? How can I be worthy, in 2010?

Hi! How are you? I miss you.

The year 2009 saw lots of things. But they're all irrelevant. All except for one thing. One person.

I didn't want to have a séance this year. But, I expected it to happen.

And, it did.

Funny, right?

Too many excuses. I'd say that there are a million of them, but I've already been called on using that number too often. It's just another excuse. So, instead, I'll say lots.

And when one or two or a hundred are disproved, there are scores more waiting to take their place. Or, even easier, memory becomes conveniently optional.

I'm supposed to be having fun. Everything is supposed to be a lark.

Tra-la-la-la-la-la-fucking-la.

But it doesn't work that way. Not for me.

For me, this is too important to take lightly. It's my life after all. The only one I have.

And this, this whatever-it-is that keeps me going. I don't even know what to call it sometimes. Stupid hope is usually the term that I employ.

But is hope ever really stupid?

Everyone On Earth tells me that it is, in this particular case. That doesn't make them right.

This is hurting nobody except myself. It's my choice, and I do choose it. Choice is something I didn't have for a very long time, but now I do. Now I have a choice and nothing else has changed.

Anyway, in a little less than 20 hours, this year will end for me. This year in which everything fell apart. This year in which everything continues to fall apart. Constantly crumbling into smaller and smaller pieces.

I can't fucking wait for this year to end.

This really blows. But you already knew that, didn't you?

Again, why are you here?

Oh, because you're stupid, that's why.

I almost forgot who I was talking to.

I'm not really sure what my mood is. I mean, I'm angry, but it kinda feels normal. Like this is how I'm supposed to feel.

Angry, and a little sad.

It feels like the real me.

Also, I seriously doubt that I'll sleep at all tonight.

Also, I should just stay home tomorrow night. No good would be served by my presence anywhere else. I think that's been proven enough times.

No, I really haven't abandoned this journal. No, I'm not dead. No, I'm not in prison.

I guess it's just the same old same old. The things I want to write, I can't. The things I don't want to write? Well, I don't.

This too, shall pass. Eventually one dam or another will break, and everything will start pouring onto my keyboard again.

But, for now, here's an entry from July 2007.

I've decided to try an experiment. I'm just going to type. Whatever comes into my head, I'm going to let it flow out through my fingers.

I don't expect this to be anything good. Or interesting. I suppose that I do expect it to be real, though. And that's gotta be worth something.

I'm a sucker for tears from a woman. Wait, that doesn't sound quite right. Because the word sucker implies that I'm being deceived. That I'm being naive. And I'm not. At least usually I'm not. Usually the tears are real.

They cut right through me. Make me want to drop everything else in my life and do something, anything to help make the tears stop. Even if I don't have a fucking clue what I should do or say, the need to do or say something is almost overwhelming.

That's pretty normal, I think. To want to help someone in need.

But then there's the other thing. The realization that something special is happening. The realization that I'm seeing a girl at her most open and honest, and that she feels comfortable enough to share that kind of intimacy with me. It makes me feel a little bit special, and a part of me actually wishes that it would continue for a while longer, so I could feel special for a while longer.

If I could somehow milk the tears. Control their pace and their ferocity to something manageable. Ride that wave for as long as I can, and carry the intimacy that we're sharing along for the ride.

I think that tears are a lot like orgasms. A woman is never more real to me than when she's crying, or when she's climaxing. At those times, she's her most primal self. Her most authentic self. No bullshit. No games. No doubts. Just her. The real her, and she's sharing it with me, of all people.

I want to help. I really do. To turn my back would be just incredibly selfish, and that's one thing I'm not. But what if I can't help? What if I shouldn't help? I mean, maybe I'm just supposed to listen. Maybe I'm just supposed to be there for her, offer a shoulder to lean on, lend an ear, say a kind word every now and then.

I want to help, I really do. But if I can't, if I shouldn't, then I'd still want to be there. I'd still want to share that intimacy. I'd still want to feel special for a while.

I don't think that makes me selfish. I think that makes me human.

Human. Imagine that.

...41 to go.

I know what's supposed to have happened by now. I get the emails. I get the texts. Questions, and reasonable questions all. I don't ignore them, even if I don't reply.

There are, despite the platitude, such things as stupid questions. Undeserving of an answer.

But I'm feeling cooperative tonight, so what the fuck?

What was supposed to have happened follows.

---

Wow, a little over a month by myself. With zero hope for a respite, for another forty-one days. With nothing to anticipate, for another forty-one days. That's what it took. When willpower wouldn't suffice, and when intelligence wouldn't further, and when experience wouldn't ease, a month alone has finally accomplished.

I'm not going to sit here, in my hotel room late on a Friday night, and write that I was stupid, or ignorant, or blind, or unrealistic. Perhaps I was all of those things, but I'm not going to admit to any of those shortcomings.

I'm going to admit to one thing. One and only one thing, which should excuse everything I've said and done and felt, and everything for which I've hoped and yearned and waited, for the last six years.

If only people would have believed me.

I was in love. Absolutely and beyond a shadow of a doubt, I was in love.

Now, the use of the past tense in that last sentence is interesting, to say the least. It hurt my brain to write that sentence. It hurt my heart even more.

But I'll survive. It seems that I always survive, even when I don't particularly want to do so.

Thirty-two days. That cured me. Who would have predicted that?

Besides Everyone On Earth, I mean.

---

Maybe that would be nice. Maybe you people could move on, go about your lives. Maybe I should lie.

But I won't.

I'm likening this to some books I've read which were written by prisoners. Incarcerated and isolated bodies and souls, forced to look inward for entertainment. Face to face with themselves. Finding themselves. Finally emerging better than when they went in.

That was supposed to happen to me. Everyone On Earth thought it would happen.

But I won't lie. I didn't expect it to happen, and it didn't happen. Not to me. Not to what's left of me, I mean.

I haven't found myself at all. For a simple reason. I'm not here in Northwestern Washington.

I'm almost two-thousand miles away. I'm in Southern Indiana. I'm with her.

...45 to go.

Today was a bad day. Not that they're not all bad, but today was especially so.

Abandoned by one, or maybe two. Ignored by both, certainly. Real or imagined transgressions have made me the way I am tonight. Alone. Physically and mentally and chronologically and emotionally.

I'll get over it, most likely. I always do. I always forgive.

But what if I don't want to forgive?

Huh?

What if I want to stay angry? Can I force that particular emotion upon myself when other, less selfish emotions, constantly claw and climb their way towards the surface of my mind? Can anger be strong enough to defend its position? It's never been strong enough before; that's for sure.

This bullshit I use instead of a life would be a lot more bearable if I could stay angry. At the lies. At the teasings. At the broken promises, both implicit and explicit.

I keep waiting, expecting even, for something to push me over the edge. To make forgiveness impossible, even for me, of all people. It's going to happen. Eventually.

I can't fucking wait.

I've always wondered what I would write if I were to give up.

Soon, perhaps, I'll find out. Soon, perhaps, we'll all find out.

I watch it happen, because that's all I can do. I cannot stop it, and I cannot slow it, and I cannot...

Uncoiling, unraveling, falling, piling in a haphazard tangle at my feet. The contents of me, the essence of me, they spill like...

I watch, because that's all I can do. And because it's what I must do.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

I die, but I live.

Why? To witness? To pay homage? To...

49 to go...

Almost.

That's the word I kept telling myself tonight. Over and over and over until I started to actually believe it.

Almost bearable.

See, I know who I am, and what I do. When I'm being myself, I sit at a bar, and I drink, and I think, and I smoke.

Last night, and tonight, I got to do all four things at the same time.

Washington, like most places these days, has an anti-smoking law in place. But Washington, perhaps unlike most places, also has Indian casinos in place. That's what they call them. Indian casinos. Not native-American casinos. Politically incorrect, maybe, but it's certainly their choice. They can call the things whatever they want.

Anyway, as near as I can figure it, these places and the reservations which contain them are not considered to be part of the United States. That's why the anti-smoking laws don't apply to them.

So tonight and last night I got to be more like myself than at any other time since I came to Bellingham.

It was almost bearable.

I'm 1954 - I looked it up - miles from home and from my life. I miss my friends and my family and my cats. I miss some people - they know who they are - more than I'd thought possible. More than is appropriate and more than I'm allowed. But even more than that, I've missed myself. Tonight and last night I found myself for a while.

All is certainly not perfect. I still search for that elusive writey mood. I dig around in my brain and my heart, my fingers grabbing and grasping at anything and everything. But when I pull my prizes into the light to examine them, they're never quite what I'm looking for.

I have so much to say. Too much to say, perhaps.

It sometimes seems that I'm needed the most when I'm unavailable. I was afraid this would happen. I even knew this would happen eventually, if I was gone long enough. Well, I've been gone long enough. And I'm needed. But I cannot help.

I'm too far away.

...50 to go.

I keep waiting, expecting, hoping to get into a proper mood. A writey mood, I call it. I doubt that's really a word, but I don't care. I'm going to use it anyway. It fits, and shit.

Besides, every word in existence was coined at some point.

But anyway, the writey mood eludes me. It's a slippery bastard.

---

It's all such bullshit. I've been told a thousand lies. A million lies. I want the truth. But nobody knows the truth. Not even the liars.

The truth, it's also a slippery bastard.

I get so sick of people tiptoeing around me. Treating me with kid gloves. Beating around the goddamn bush. Fucking protecting my feelings.

It's all such bullshit.

My feelings are nothing but scar-tissue. They're fucking indestructible.

---

Even now, even after everything, I don't matter even to myself. I will not, can not, put myself first. Second, maybe, but not first. Not before her. Or them. Whatever.

---

It was a horrible idea. I wanted it so much, but I wanted it for the wrong reason. So now, now I get to be alone over the holidays. I get to feel sorry for myself.

All will be as it should be.

---

This is my fault. I'm the one who messed up. I'm the one who can't or won't face reality.

Maybe they're really nothing. Nothing at all. Not leftovers of a reality almost gone. Not even echoes of a reality gone for months. And not even inklings of a future promised yet denied.

Maybe they're nothing.

Nothing at all.

Perhaps it's all in my head. Perhaps that's where it's always been. Perhaps that would make the most sense. Perhaps that would explain everything, to everyone but me.

---

He screams and he moans and he groans. Sometimes, he cries. His agony is as unimaginable as it is inevitable.

He will not die. He will not starve and he will not drown and he will not suffocate and he will not take his own life. He suffers and he endures.

Somehow, he survives.

I pity him, and I admire him. I worship him.

---

People like to spout platitudes to me. It makes them feel wiser and therefore superior to me. One such platitude is, "God will never give you more than you can handle."

My response to that is, "Tell that to my friend WomanRepellant."

---

They're not leftovers and they're not echoes and they're not inklings. What the fuck are they?

Seriously, I want to know. I need to know.

I fucking deserve to know.

This is my 14th day here. I guess the newness is really starting to wear off now. I’m feeling more and more homesick with each passing day. Some people told me that it would get easier. That I would get used to it. Some people were wrong. This sucks.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I have managed to enjoy myself, just not as often as I’d have liked. Going down to Kent this past weekend was a lot of fun. It was really great to see some of my old friends and visit some of my old haunts. I’ve really missed living there, even more than I thought.

I’ve noticed that I don’t like to write anymore. It always seems like such a chore. And when I do manage to bang out some sentences, nothing flows. Nothing has rhythm. This is especially true when I try to write about the mundane events of my days and nights. So I don’t write about those things. I hardly write about anything.

It’s all I can do to keep from packing up my stuff and flying home. Is this job worth it? I haven’t seen her for over two weeks. And it’s going to be another two months. How am I supposed to function with that knowledge constantly beating away inside my head? Breathing is a chore, and yet I’m expected to work, eat, sleep?

I just don’t know.

Who am I going to be when I finally return home? Will anyone even recognize me? Will I recognize myself?

It's gotten so bad that HatGirl is actually rooting for me to leave. To move away, or at least to find work elsewhere for a while. To just get away from all this pain. No matter how much she would miss me, she still says I should leave.

"It would do you good," she says.

Wrong.

There is no getting away. Physically, sure. That would be fairly simple. But emotionally, not so much. This is where I belong. This is where I am, and this is where I'll stay, no matter how far away my body might happen to be. I could travel to the ends of the Earth, and it would do me no good at all, because I couldn't take my heart with me.

So we have a disagreement, HatGirl and I. Even though she's very smart, there are some things that she just doesn't get. This problem that I have, it's not going to be solved by running away. It's not a physical entity from which I can hide. Nope, this is something that, if it's ever going to get better, it's going to have to happen right here.

Not that I expect anything to get better. I fully expect that this is going to kill me eventually. But, at least here, I have a fighting chance. At least here, I can be strong and brave. At least here, I can stand my ground.

I look death in the eye, and it doesn't blink. I wait for the killing blow, and it doesn't come.

What is it waiting for?

Records from that time are so spotty, and they're spread out all over the place. It took a lot of work, and a lot of memory, to accurately piece together those events.

May 12, 2007. The happiest day of my life, up to that point. After I got home, I sat on my swing until the Sun rose, my face cramping so much from smiling that I nearly cried from the pain. Not that anyone would have noticed. I was already laughing from being so happy, and in the dark it's hard to tell the difference.

I've been happy since, certainly. There have even been times when I've been happier than I was on that Spring day, nearly two and a half years ago. But that day will always be special to me, because it was so pure.

So much has happened since then. It's so hard, sometimes, to maintain the proper perspective on things. But I try. I really do try. I think about that wonderful night, reliving as well as I can the joy and the relief and the hope. Remembering what it was like to feel all those things again, after all those months that they'd lain dormant.

I've said before that I died on October 9th, 2004. Well, on May 12, 2007, I finally lived again.

I need to remember that. I am still alive.

My schedule, such as it is, has blurred together. It's now as meaningless as it is fluid. Night and day are just words, abstractions, faint memories, and nothing more.

The dark of night and the light of day have formed gray, as they always do. Gray is okay. I'm used to gray. It's the brightness of the light and the mysteries of the dark that bother me. Frighten me.

Am I tired right now because I'm actually tired, or merely because I feel that I should be tired?

I could ask myself the same question regarding every feeling that I've had lately.

I've mentioned before about how I like to go back and read my old entries. It's always interesting to see what's changed, and it's even more interesting to see what's the same. Plus, sometimes I find stuff that manages to remind me that I'm quite capable of being a pretty decent writer. When I want to be and/or when I've had enough to drink.

June of 2006 was a good writing-month for me. The following is one of my favorites from then. Except that the wall is now more of just a line in the sand.

"You're a fucking dumbass," I said.

"What are you bitching about now?" I asked.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, you stupid fuck, " I answered.

"Well, how about you pretend that I don't know, and you explain it to me."

"Okay fine." I paused for effect. "You had hope just now. Don't even fucking try to deny it. That person just walked in the door and you had hope that it would be her."

"Bullshit," I said.

"C'mon, I was right here," I said. "I know that you had hope."

"What if I did?" I asked defensively. "Besides, it was only for a second."

"I can't believe how stupid you are." I was getting frustrated. "How many times do you have to be hurt before you give up this bullshit?"

"It's not bullshit," I protested. "It's perfectly normal for me to miss a friend, and to hope to see that friend again."

"You forget who you're talking to," I said. "I'm the one person you cannot fool."

"I'm not trying to fool anyone. You're just being paranoid."

"Paranoid?" I was incredulous. "You think I'm paranoid, you dumb fuck?"

"That's exactly what I think," I said. "You forget that things have changed. I've managed to separate things in my head. I want to see my friend, that's all."

"Save that bullshit for your 'blog," I said. "Like I said, you cannot fool me."

"You suck," I responded. "You suck, and I don't have to listen to you if I don't want to."

"You are such a stubborn asshole," I said. "Fine, but let me ask you something."

"What?" I asked confidently.

"You say that you miss your friend, and that's all that you miss?" I asked.

"That's right," I responded.

"Well," I continued, "What about the potential for something else? What about the potential that you saw in the two of you as a couple? What about the potential that you saw in her as a person?"

"That's all in the past," I said uneasily. I was beginning to get an idea of what would come next.

"Oh, is it really?" I asked. "You don't miss that potential at all?"

"Um, well I guess I'll always miss that," I answered. "At some level at least."

"You try so hard to sound like you've got your shit together," I said.

"Hey," I protested. "I am a lot better than I was. Why are you being such a dick?"

"Because I'm sick of your bullshit," I answered. "That, plus I might be the only person on Earth that cares about you."

"You have a funny way of showing it," I pointed out. "I was in an actual good mood for once, and you had to go and ruin it."

"You idiot," I said. "You've actually managed to forget about it, haven't you?"

"Forget about what?" I asked.

"About The Wall," was all I needed to say.

I went numb for a precious second. "You asshole," I said as the pain came rushing back to me. "Why did you have to remind me? Why couldn't you just let me be content for a while?"

"Because contentedness is dangerous for you," I said. "You can't handle being content, and you always look for something more."

"And what's wrong with that?" I asked, though I knew what the answer would be.

"What's wrong with that, you dumb fuck, is that you always look for the same thing. Over and over and over and over. And you're never going to find it."

"Because of The Wall," I admitted.

"Right. Because of The Wall," I answered. "All of that potential that you saw - it's unreachable to you now. You've got to come to grips with that fact."

"You know," I countered. "I wasn't thinking about that stuff at all, before you butted in. I just missed my friend. You could have left me alone."

I sighed. I'd hoped that it wouldn't come to this. "Okay," I said. "I'll make you a deal. Let me ask you one more question, and if you answer it honestly and still want me to leave you alone, then I will."

"Great," I answered. "Ask your fucking question."

"Okay, here goes." This was going to be hard for me to ask, I knew that it would be exponentially tougher for him to answer. "Right now, you realize that all of that potential is something that you'll never see realized. Right now, you know it like you've never known it before. My question is this: Without that potential, with nothing except the opportunity for what you once had, and nothing more, ever, are you sure that you want to see her walk through that door?"

I knew what I was supposed to say. I sure as fuck knew what I wanted to say. But I decided, for some reason that escapes me now as I tell this story, I decided to answer the question honestly.

"If you put it like that," I responded, "then the answer is no. To simply go back to what there was would be impossible. It would hurt too much. I'd rather have nothing than try to go back to that while knowing that there would never be anything more."

"Thank you for your honesty," I said gently. "And now, as I promised, I'll leave you alone if that's your wish. You can hope and dream all you want, and I won't interrupt you again."

"That's okay," I said. "You can stay for a while if you want."

"Thank you," I answered. "Let's have a beer together, and let's miss her for a while."

"Sounds good," I accepted. "I'll try not to have any hope this time."

"I know you'll try," I said. "And if you slip up, I'll be right here for you. To smack you down once again."

I allowed myself a smile. "You're an asshole, you know?" I said.

"Yes I am," I conceded. "But at least I'm not a fucking dumbass."

"Maybe that's why we make such a good team," I ventured.

"Cheers!" we said in unison, as our glasses clinked together.

Look, I'm really flattered. Again. Really. And even a little bit tempted.

But, I'm not like that, and if you knew me at all you'd know that I'm not like that. It's perfectly normal for you to assume that I'm like every other guy on Earth, but I'm not, and I find it a little insulting when that assumption is made and made and made and made. There has to be a possibility of a future and, for us, there is none.

---

And you. I don't even know where to start. I've never known where to start.

Who are you? Do the girl I see, and the girl you are, do they have anything in common at all?

And who the fuck am I?

I keep finding myself wishing, more and more often lately, not that you would start, but that I would stop. This is a fucking huge shift, and I'm still trying to come to grips with it. My entire sense of self has blurred.

I'll probably try to go to sleep again in a few minutes. I don't expect much success, though. I find myself back in the same pattern I was in several months ago. Two hours, maybe three if I'm lucky, and then I'm wide awake again. I think I've averaged about two hours per night for the last week. Maybe four hours per night for the past two weeks. I slept really well on a couch a couple of weeks ago. I think that was the last time I slept well.

The main difference, this time around, is that I don't know what keeps waking me up. If there are bad dreams, they're evaporating as soon as they've done their damage. Maybe I don't need to have those bad dreams anymore. Nothing has changed, after all, from when I hit rock-bottom back in May. Maybe those dreams are implied, and so they don't need to actually appear.

And I feel okay, I suppose. I'm not constantly exhausted like I should be. Maybe I'm getting used to this, finally.

All of the days and nights are blurring together. They have no meaning to me anymore, for the most part. Oh, sometimes they matter. Last night mattered for a while, until it reverted to just another night. I'm disappointed about that, even though I knew it was a real long-shot. Stupid hope may be stupid, but it's better than nothing, and it still stings when it's dashed. Still reminds me that I'm alive.

And I think Wednesday night was pretty fun, or maybe it was Tuesday. I wish I knew for sure about that one. For a few seconds there, I was smarter than OddlyFamiliarGirl, and that almost never happens.

In nine days I get to leave and maybe enjoy myself for a while. At least that's the plan. I've been afraid that I'll get this damn swine flu and have to cancel my trip. Or, even worse, I could get sick while I'm in Las Vegas. That would really suck.

I suppose, for the sake of completeness, I should say that there's a chance that I'm not coming back. It's not a big chance, but it's greater than zero.

Hmmm, I feel really tired right now. It's probably a false alarm, but I've got to try to sleep.

It's such a nice night outside. It's warm, I mean. So even though the predicted thunderstorms look like they're a no-go, it's still nice.

I'm going to go out to my garage, and sit on my el-cheapo white plastic furniture, and drink at least one yummy Marzen, and I'm going to try to get out of this damn writey mood that I'm in.

How do I do that?

Well, I allow myself to be overwhelmed. So that thoughts refuse to line up like baby ducks. So that my mind is awash and aswarm with thousands of conflicting thoughts and emotions. So that I couldn't pick a single tree out of that forest if my life depended on it.

I make no promises, though. I might be able to keep my big fat mouth shut, or I might not.

There are things that I need to say, dammit. There are things that need to be said, dammit. There are thoughts that need to be expressed, dammit.

There are dragons that need to be slain, dammit, or at least acknowledged.

If I was Catholic, I think it would be funny to do that cross-myself thing whenever I was about to do something scary or stressful. I see baseball players do it all the time when they step up to the plate.

Or if I had asthma, I could use my inhaler thingy at those same times. I guess I could get one of those inhaler thingies even though I don't have asthma. For comedic effect.

Or maybe if I was a voodoo priest, I could sacrifice a chicken. But it would be a big hassle to always have to carry around live chickens.

Anyway, I'm not pushing my luck tonight. I'm going to Bearno's instead. It sucks and it's LOUD there, but at least it's not haunted, except by SneakyGirl, and her ghost isn't scary.

I thought I'd try to write for a bit before I tried to sleep. Some people probably think I'm just avoiding the inevitable insomnia, and maybe that's part of it, but I also feel like I've been a big fat slacker when it comes to this journal lately.

My brain is pretty tired, so I'm just going to let my fingers type for me. They usually do a better job than my brain, anyway.

People ask me stuff. The same things over and over and over and over. Typical questions include, "Are you fucking retarded or something?" and the ever-popular, "Why?" and the rhetorical, "Really?"

No, I don't think so. But if I were, would I realize it?

I'll get to that.

Yes, really.

Wow, I just caught myself reading what I'd already written. I'm not supposed to do that. It only complicates things when I let my brain get involved. Sometimes my brain doesn't like what my fingers have written and then they get into a big fight about it. It's not pretty.

The problem I've always had with the Why? question has been that I must be psychic. But I can't tell people that because then all they do is revert back to the Are you fucking retarded or something? question and it becomes an ugly loop.

How does anyone know the reason for anything? I mean the reason that they do something or think something or say something or feel something. A lot of the time life seems, to me, to be a series of after-the-fact vindications. I'm smoking a cigarette because I lit it. I lit it because I bought it earlier. I bought it because I was running low. I was running low because I'd smoked most of the previous pack. And so on and so on.

I'm smoking this cigarette because I was born. There, you happy now, or should I go further?

I'm smoking this cigarette because the Big Bang happened.

Whoa, I seem to have gone a little off-track.

I did that because of the Big Bang, too.

Vindication is what I was going to write about. I was going to use it in a sentence, as in: I don't fucking know why, okay, but everything I've learned in the past six years has provided vindication.

So there.

Nothing has proven me wrong, and so that means that I've been right. And, because I was right when I had absolutely no reason to even form an opinion, let alone the right one, then I must be psychic.

Not retarded.

Why is the sky blue? Why is the sun hot? Why is water wet? Why is grass green? Why her? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Just because, that's why.

The question of what I'll be doing tonight - it didn't even need to be asked. I'm going to miss her. I just am. I can feel myself hurtling towards stage one at breakneck speed. Before too long, I'm going to hit that wall, and I'm going to lie in a heap for a while.

The only question I have is where I'll be doing this. Either here at home, or maybe at Bearno's, or maybe at Jack's. I should go to Jack's, but I doubt that I will. That place is becoming haunted, and I'm not sure that I need any more ghosts right now. Maybe I'll go if OddlyFamiliarGirl wants to go.

But I'm not complaining. I've been so spoiled these last few days. I got to spend a lot of time with HatGirl Saturday night, and today SneakyGirl paid me a surprise visit. Hell, even LaptopGirl herself managed to communicate with me a couple of times.

So, I'm not complaining. There's a price that I have to pay for daring to be happy, even if that happiness is in scattered bits and tiny pieces and fleeeting moments. And that price, I'm hurtling towards it.

Tonight, I will miss her. Tonight, I will be back where I belong, in a heap at the base of a wall that I can never seem to break through.

I've been trying to figure out just what, if anything, he was trying to accomplish by telling me. Perhaps I was supposed to be scared away. Perhaps I was supposed to get angry. Perhaps I'm supposed to care.

But I wasn't. And I didn't. And I don't.

Or maybe it was to ease some guilty feelings. Not for what had happened, but for the secrecy that had followed. If so, then guilt was unnecessary, and there's nothing for me to forgive.

In truth, I'd suspected it for years. After all, why should he be different than just about every other guy? I know that I, given the opportunity, would have jumped at it.

Oh, wait. I was given the opportunity, more than once, and I decided to be a nice guy instead of just a guy. I decided to do what was right instead of what was expected. But, of course, my circumstances have always been different, and so I have always been different.

Anyway, this thing, this thing that may or may not have been revealed in order to anger or sadden me, or to unburden a chest, it was a long time ago.

And, like I said, I don't care. It changes nothing.

It's instinctive, of course, but that doesn't make it boring or robotic. Instincts are translated to thoughts and emotions by our brains, and so everything makes perfect sense and it makes us feel like we're in control of things.

I don't have any kids, that lived, that I know of, so maybe I'm not the right person to be spouting any words, let alone advice, about parenting.

But, it's my blog, and I'm not forcing anyone to read it.

We want to shelter our children in their own little Garden of Eden for as long as we can, so that they can stay innocent for as long as they can. We feed them, clothe them, protect them. We teach them about all of the wonderful and amazing things that the world has to offer, and we watch in awe as they learn and embrace the truths that we show them. But the bad things, we hide the bad things from them. So that they won't find out. Not yet, anyway. We don't tell them that, while the world is full of love and wonders, it is also full of fear and pain.

There are terrible things in this world.

But I'm not one of them.

I said that I'd understand, and I do understand.

But I don't agree. Not at all.

So many times, I've thought it might be the last time. Not every time, but often enough. Too often, I mean.

It wasn't always like that. There were good times, lots of good times. There were nights that would end with the certainly that there'd be another day. On those nights, I slept well. I miss those nights, that confidence that I had, that it would continue for at least another day. That maybe it would continue forever.

The last time wasn't one of the good ones. The last time, like so many other times before, I heard the voice inside my head. "This could be the last time," it whispered.

"Make it last," it advised.

"Remember this," it urged.

"Never let go," it pleaded.

I didn't want to let go, not ever. I wanted to have and to hold and to protect and to cherish, but mostly I wanted to hold. To just hold on to, well, everything that matters to me.

But I didn't. I let go. I released my grip, and I let my arms fall back to my sides.

I wonder, Was that the last time?

This entry is mistitled. I'm not even close to being drunk. Oh well, can't be helped now. I've already typed the title.

Well my plan of just sitting in my garage and drinking didn't work out. I got through a bottle of Barfly and then, when I'd had just a couple sips of a second bottle's pouring, my phone rang.

What followed was pretty much the exact opposite of sitting in my garage by myself.

Anyway, it was a good night. Not because of the way it turned out, but I guess because of the way I managed to hold myself together long enough to be useful. And, not only that, I also got to say some things that I'd really needed to say.

See, just like everyone else, there are reasons for my being the way that I am. Reasons besides pure insanity, I mean.

And we certainly had a good example of insanity tonight, didn't we?

But I digress.

The reasons almost always exist, even if they're not known. I, for example, still have no idea what reason(s) there might have been for what happened to me a little over six years ago. But I do know, boy do I fucking know, why I hit rock-bottom a few months ago, and why I'm still down here, wallowing in the muck and the mud of my own misery.

Tonight, I got to state those reasons. So that made it a good night. Even if nothing else had happened, I was able to finally unburden myself a little. And I didn't get any back-talk. That really meant a lot to me.

And I was able to stand up for myself a little. By stating the simple truth that I don't know if things between us can ever work. It seems to me that we tried to make it work, for a long time, and it seems to me that we failed.

That I failed, I mean.

I don't know if we broke up or not. Definitions will vary, as will intentions. And results are unknowable at this time. It certainly felt like a break-up to me.

But I'll tell you something: If it was a break-up, then it was at least a proper one. Finally.

So, there is a very real chance that I'm drunk right now. But that's okay. It's 3:07 AM on a Thursday morning. I'm safely at home, where I plan to stay for the next several hours and/or days and/or weeks and/or months, at least until I become sober again. I am no menace to either myself or to society.

And besides, it's not even my fault at all that I'm maybe possibly drunk. And it's not even OddlyFamiliarGirl's fault, even though before her kind invitation I'd been planning to go to sleep at 7:00 or so, and after her kind invitation I ended up having a nice Marzen (16022) and a nice Urbock (437) while at Rich O's.

It is, of course, LaptopGirl's fault. Who's else would it be? She is, after all, the root of all evil and the fountain of all goodness in my life. Why shouldn't she also be in charge of my drunkenness or lack thereof?

So I ended up buying a bottle of Avery Reverend to take home with me, and then, because of the aforementioned you-know-who, I ended up drinking the damn thing (716) while I glared at my phone and replied to emails and strived to remain useful whilst I died inside.

I will be fair, though. I will share the blame. It was me who poured the beer from the bottle into the glass, and it was me who then poured the beer from the glass into my mouth.

Did you ever wish that water wasn't wet? Or that the sky wasn't blue? Or that the Sun wasn't hot and bright?

Or that love wasn't real?

Anyway, it just doesn't fucking matter. None of it does. I can no more take my heart back now than I could have resisted giving it away so long ago. It no longer belongs to me, and it never will again.

And the truth is that I like this mood I'm in right now. I'm fucking focused, after all. The universe, and the room, and the inside of my skull - these things are all quite blurry and wavy, but everything that matters is still in perfect focus.

I'm in love with her.

So there.

A lot of the fucking time, I wish that I wasn't in love with her.

So there again. Take that.

But wishes are as useful in my life as, as they say, screen doors on a submarine.

I sit here and I sit there and I sit wherever I might happen to be sitting, and I wish and I wish and I wish and I wish, and then on the good nights I wish no more, because I realize that it's a waste of time and effort.

Things are the way that they are. Things aren't the way that they aren't. Not a single thing that I do or say or think or feel will ever change anything, because it's not up to me, and it never has been up to me.

I did not lie.

Not even once.

Not even a little bit.

Lot of good that did me.

So there.

I ran across this old entry, from March of 2006. It amazes me how little has changed over the years.

The nice thing about this is that it's giving me something to think about, but the bad thing about this is that it's giving me something to think about.

Too many things, actually.

My mind is aswarm with thoughts, my heart is teeming with feelings, all with their own agendas. Some will merge for a brief time, join forces in fierce battle against their enemies, swear allegiance to false alliances, but all the while only truly working toward their own vision of an idealized conclusion.

Others are adversaries from the start. Like dogs and cats, like Arabs and Jews, they are born into this war which began long ago and which will continue long after these individual skirmishes and battles and betrayals have become nothing more than forgotten footnotes in a history book.

And the individual combatants, so full of resolve and so possessed of purpose, they will become nothing more than patches of ground where the flowers, nourished by the blood-soaked earth, grow vibrant and strong.

And me?

Well, I'm Mars, The God of War.

And so, now I'm back. Where I belong.

Where breaths are lies, because I don't want to take them.

Where heartbeats do nothing more than mark wasted time.

Where moods and thoughts and musings are nothing more than faint textures fumblingly etched onto a terrible canvas.

Where I hold my tongue, as much as I can, because I cannot scream and because screaming is all that would be worthy. Where it doesn't make sense. Where there's no explanation. Where I can't be trusted.

Where it's all just too weird.

Where I pretend, all the time, that I'm moving toward something or away from something, but where I'm really just standing still. Rooted in this here and this now and this what and this why. Because there's nowhere else to go, and because there's nowhere else I want to be.

Where I belong.

Where I miss her.

I've been sleeping a lot lately. At least twelve hours every day. I've been dreaming a lot.

Goodnight, cruel world.

I haven't done one of these in a while. Probably because it's a hassle.

And, upon watching the video, I saw that I'd said MisunderstoodGirl when I meant to say MixedSignalGirl. Not that I don't also miss MisunderstoodGirl, it's just that she's not one of the first people who came to mind.

I'm sure that every who knows me would shake their head in some assholish combination of pity and disappointment over what I did late Friday night.

But, Oh well.

How could I refuse?

Answer: I couldn't fucking refuse.

And it's okay. It really is. I feel better now, because I got an explanation of sorts, for the way I've been treated lately. One that I can actually believe, if you can believe that. I needed that explanation even more than I thought. I needed it more than I needed to breathe.

And it's also okay because I got to be useful again, albeit for just one night.

Not that kind of night, you perverts!

And all that stuff about getting to be a part of her life again, and getting to be a part of the kid's life again?

Well, I knew it was bullshit all along, as it was being said, and she would have known it too, had she been sober.

I don't pity myself over what I did, and I'm not disappointed in myself. And I'm neither disappointed nor surprised over how it turned out. And my opinion is the only one that really matters in this case, so the rest of you can go tsk tsk over someone else.

So.

One week. Seven days. One hundred sixty-eight hours.

How could I up and disappear like that? How could I be so insensitive? Don't I know that I have readers?

Yeah, well, my readers will just have to deal with it. It happened, and it's ongoing, despite any evidence this entry may present to the contrary.

Anyway.

It just wasn't working. Too many temptations. Too many reminders. Too many opportunities. For self-pity, and failure, and stupidity.

My life was broken.

So the first thing I did was send an email. One that was long-overdue.

After that, I stopped.

I stopped as much as I could. I stopped going to facebook, lest I be reminded. I stopped going to Rich O's for the same reason, and also so that I wouldn't be coerced. I stopped drinking, hoping that I wouldn't get into one of those moods. I stopped writing here, so I wouldn't be tempted to scream.

I stopped all of these things, and more, in an effort to...

I don't really know.

Not to forget, that's for sure. I'll never forget, no matter how badly I want to.

Not to get on with my life. There's no point to that. Humpty Dumpty cannot be reassembled.

Not to get over it. There's no way I'll ever get over it as long as I know that, the next time I see her face, or hear her voice, or even the next time I get an inane email or text message, it will all come rushing back.

I guess, if I have to give a reason, I guess I'm just tired.

I wish...

And then my mind just sort of trails off.

I don't know how to finish that thought. Not anymore. I don't know what I wish. What I want. I used to know exactly what I wanted.

I guess...

For this to end, one way or another, that would be nice. But how?

To stop being toyed with, to stop being tortured, those things would fantastic. But I don't really see those things ever happening. There may be some sick pleasure involved, some twisted motive that I could never understand.

Or maybe...

Just maybe there's still something good, and it will eventually make itself known.

Meanwhile...

I wait. For what, I have no idea. Not anymore.

Once or twice or a million times every week - it used to be much more often - I get the urge to say something. To initiate communication.

I don't do it, though, not anymore. I resist those urges, with whatever amount of effort is required at that particular time.

I have my reasons.

My feelings had become unwanted background noise to every word I said. Always inferred even when not consciously implied, even when explicitly dismissed.

I think that the thing I wanted to say, when I first had this thought earlier tonight, is that I haven't gone anywhere. But that wouldn't be quite true.

The truth is, I have moved.

But I've moved only as far as I've been pushed, and not one inch farther.

I'm still here, dammit.

Just one the other side of this damn line in the sand. Wishing that I knew what had happened. Wondering what would happen if I took a step forward.

Maybe I'll just repost old shit today. I feel like posting thing, but not like writing things. Because writing would be, like, hard and stuff. Plus, I've got some stuff I want to say that probably wouldn't be appreciated, so I'm keeping myself in-check.

Anyway, I'd forgotten that I'd even wrote this entry, back in 2006. It's a little negative, but that's how I rolled back then. Now, of course, I'm not like that at all. Now, I shit flowers.

Meanwhile, I'm tired.

---

Anyway, I've been sick for a few days. Nothing major as it turns out. Just a bit of a fever. I missed a couple of days of work, but that was mostly because I didn't want to infect everyone there. If I'd had the plague, as I'd originally feared, and I'd infected someone at work and they'd subsequently died - well I could kiss my annual performance bonus goodbye.

A while ago I was at SassyGirl's going away party, and at one point I found myself out on her deck with a bunch of kids. Teenagers mostly, though a couple of them might have been in their early 20s.

I found myself all alone with these kids because everyone else, everyone I knew and might have had at least one single solitary thing in common with, they had all taken off to pull some chick's car out of a ditch or something.

I don't remember what we were originally talking about. Probably something stupid. But at one point some of the kids started rambling on and on and on about their various thoughts about love. Such as they were.

Each time one of them would finish making a statement that they thought was profound, all of the kids would look at me. I guess because I was twice as old as any of them, they had subconsciously chosen me as some kind of spiritual leader. Their love coach, if you will.

I think I spent most of the time rolling my eyes.

Kids are so stupid.

Or maybe naive is a better word. Yes, I think it is.

Kids are so fucking naive.

With their fucking hopes and their dreams and their stupid ideals, it's really a wonder that they've managed to live for as long as they have. I mean, most of them seem to think that they can fly. It's truly miraculous that the ground isn't littered with broken bodies.*

I think back to when I was that age. No way was I that fucking stupid. By the time I'd graduated high school, life had already been feeding me shit sandwiches for years. By the time my marriage had ended, I'd learned to enjoy the damn things. By the time LaptopGirl moved away, I craved them like they were manna from Heaven.

But those kids, those kids on that deck that night, there was not a single one of them possessed of a single clue about what love is all about.

Like I said, I spent most of that time on that deck just rolling my eyes. But at one point I did speak up. At one point the drivel being vomited out of a young mouth was just too much to take. At one point I saw the opportunity to say something worthwhile. I took that opportunity. All eyes were upon me. I'd been drinking. One of the girls was hot so I wanted to seem especially wise.

There are very few truly evil people in the world, I said. And, chances are, none of us have ever met any of them, or dated them, or given our virginity to them. But we're still fooled into seeing evil where it doesn't exist. This is a defense mechanism, invented by our hearts and backed-up by our brains. By demonizing those who have hurt us, we further isolate ourselves from the cold harsh reality of life. The reality that we will be hurt, time and time again. By good people. By people who are just like us. When we slap an "evil" label on someone who's hurt us, we fool ourselves into believing that it was a rare event. An anomaly. That it won't happen again, or at least not with the same intensity.

It's still better than the alternative.

* - If you took those last two sentences literally, then you are an idiot and you should go kill yourself now before you pass on your idiot genes to the next generation. If you've already managed to find someone as stupid as you to procreate with then you should probably kill your offspring first.

Here's another dog-themed entry. Damn, this one was written in November 2004, about a month after I died.

---

When I was a kid, maybe eight or nine years old, the neighbors across the street had this dog for a while.

The dog would bark constantly, and Mr. Hill would beat the dog. Then the dog would start yelping, and Mr. Hill would beat the dog some more.

I couldn't do anything about it (I was just a kid after all) but I do remember that somebody called the police one time and eventually somebody came and took the dog away.

One thing that's really vivid in my memory is that, even though Mr. Hill would beat the dog nearly every day, the dog would still get all excited and happy when Mr. Hill came home from work. He'd wag his tail so hard his whole body shook, and jump up against the truck door. He just couldn't wait for Mr. Hill to pay attention to him.

The dog had to know that he was going to be abused, but he didn't care. He still loved Mr. Hill and he seemed ever-hopeful that things would be different this time.

I remember hoping that the dog would fight back someday. Perhaps growl at Mr. Hill or maybe even bite him, but he never did.

That abuse was the only attention the dog ever got, and I supposed he had decided, in his little doggy mind, that if his purpose in life was to be a punching bag for Mr. Hill, then so be it. He'd be the bestest, most loyalest punching bag ever!

Even though I thought I understood what was going on in the dog's mind, I still thought it was pretty stupid. I knew I'd never let somebody abuse me like that. I knew I was smarter than a dog, after all!

Even if I can't fight back, I'm at least smart enough to run away.

Eventually.

So here's an entry from almost three years ago. I like to repost these old entries. For one thing, they help to squelch those who doubt me when I say how long this has been going on. For another thing, they keep me from having to write anything new.

Today I'm contemplating a last-minute trip. To where, I don't know. What I do know is that, if I had any brains, I'd go somewhere fast, and if I had any balls I'd stay put and not be so damn afraid.

Another thing I know is that, if I wasn't so fucking tempted to stay, then I wouldn't want to leave.

---

My grandmother used to have this little Pekinese dog. She had several of them over the years, actually. I don't know what this one particular dog's name was. It might have been Raindrop. I know there was a Raindrop at some point during my childhood.

One thing about this dog was that it was ugly. But that should go without saying. All Pekinese dogs are ugly with their squashed faces and their stubby legs and their weird compact torsos. Selective breeding gone horribly awry.

Another thing about this one particular dog was that it was terrified of storms. But not petrified. Whatever the opposite of petrified would be. Maybe frantic with fear.

Whenever thunder would rumble, this dog would start running. My grandmother's house was a big circle. The dog would run from the kitchen to the laundry room to the bedroom to the foyer to the living room to the kitchen - on and on and on until the thunder stopped. That dog, with it ugly little tongue hanging out of its ugly face, that dog would run that circuit nonstop until the storm had passed.

Unless somebody messed up and opened the kitchen door.

When that happened, somebody - usually me - would have to go out into the storm and chase the stupid little thing down.

It was amazing how fast those stubby little legs could propel that dog.

This past weekend I went driving. A lot. And I thought about that dog and how it would run and run without ever getting anywhere. How it would run for the simple reason that it was too terrified to stay where it was.

I wondered if I was doing the same thing. And not just with the driving around. With all of my traveling, and with all of my life, I wondered if what I was really doing was running.

Maybe.

And if I am, then that begs the question of whether I'm running from something that I cannot escape, or running toward a destination that I cannot see.

How badly am I fooling myself?

Am I as stupid as that ugly little dog, running simply because it's the only thing I can do?

Here's what I wrote three years ago on this date. Back then, it was only the second anniversary of the day I stopped fighting. So today, it's the fifth.

The minutes take eternities to pass, but somehow the years rush by.

Two years have passed in the blink of a teary eye.

I never thought it would happen. I fought for so long, I convinced myself that I was winning. I faked a smile for so long, I convinced myself that I was happy. I fell for so long, I convinced myself that I was flying.

I never thought it would happen. I never thought it could happen.

But it did.

Splat!

My world still reverberates from the force of that impact.

I don't want to say any more.

I've already said too much, yet I could never never never say enough.

Those two words would lead to those three words would lead to a billion more words, and still it would not be enough.

It was never enough.

The problem, or one of the problems, or the biggest problem, is that there are too many thoughts.

Oh, how I long for the days when a million thoughts would chase each other around inside my skull, like some bizarre merry-go-round, never ending. Never getting anywhere, but at least moving.

Now, not so much. Too many thoughts, competing against each other for attention and precious time, and my mind has ground to a halt.

I didn't really forget the anniversary. I only forgot the actual date of the thing. It's been on my mind for weeks, if not months. I really thought it was tomorrow. But it wasn't tomorrow, it was last Tuesday.

Oops.

I'd thought that I'd write about this. Maybe tell the story of that night. I dunno, maybe I still will. It's a good story, I think, even though the ending wasn't particularly happy. But I'm not going to write that story right now. Nope, right now, I'm going to make you people read two entries I wrote last year. Two days, and five days, after that night.

Maybe these two entries are enough. Maybe there's no need to tell the story.

everything

Well, I did it.

I said the most important words I've ever said, to the most wonderful person I've ever known.

I told her everything. Ev. Rey. Thing.

And now...

I just don't know.

I've got nothing left. I've done all I can do. I've said all I can say.

Maybe I've ruined everything. But if I did, at least it was with the truth. If those words turn out to be my final words to her*, then it's fitting that they were also the most important. The most real.

And the most overdue. Mustn't forget that.

---

It's so tempting to stop now. Writing. Talking. Communicating in any way with anyone at all.

It all seems so trivial to me now.

Lesser purposes and all that...

* - They were not.

dilemma

Sitting at Rich O's, at night. Stupid, I know. I was going to sit over on the weirdo Sportstime side, but they were packed. Over here, at least I'm able to sit.

Anyway, I kinda feel like I should be writing something about some thoughts that have been rattling around in the dark places inside my head. Thoughts that will neither go away nor venture into the light. Because these thoughts have never been fully illuminated, I fear that this entry will probably be disjointed crap. This is in contrast to my usual drivel, which is at least somewhat jointed, and sometimes it's not even crap. You have been warned.

---

The thing is, I only meant to make a statement. To finally get the entire truth out there. I'd say something like laying all my cards on the table, but this is no fucking game to me.

I realized that I was taking a very serious risk, but frankly, at the time, I didn't feel like I had much left to lose. I was rapidly dying anyway. So it was, at least partly, an act of desperation on my part, the statement that I made. I guess I wanted my dying words to mean something. More than that, I wanted them to be heard. And they were. They certainly were.

But all along, from the time I started considering it, through the time I was saying it, and even during the conversation that ensued, it was always a statement. Telling the truth, and nothing else.

It was never a question.

It was certainly never a request.

So why, I wonder, why do I wait so impatiently for an answer to a question I never asked?

Why, I wonder, do I long for a response to a request I never made?

This is my dilemma.

I could have asked the question, but the question wasn't the point. The statement was the point. Besides, deep down I knew that I wasn't ready for the pain that the answer might bring. I could have even made the request, but it would have been ludicrous to do so, without the answer to the question. I may be insane, but I'm not that insane.

The statement leads to the question leads to the request. That's just the way it works. And I stopped at the statement. I stopped myself, or she stopped me. I don't know. All I know is that I did stop, rather abruptly. Jarringly, you might say.

Which was fine with me. That had been my plan, such as it was, when I started. But I screwed up. I wasn't thinking clearly. I was distracted, after all.

See, I didn't need to ask the question, and I didn't need to make the request.

They were implied. Or inferred. Whatever.

And so, now I wait. For an answer to a question I never quite asked, and for a response to a request I never quite made.

This is my dilemma. This is my life.

I'm not there yet, not to that point where I can turn my back on this. At best, I sometimes manage to feel oddly detached. At worst, I miss her so much I can't think of anything else and I'm lucky that breaths and heartbeats don't require conscious effort.

Most of the time I'm somewhere in the middle. Sad, but resigned.

I suppose that's normal.

I have this thought, or this theme of interrelated thoughts - something like that - which find its way into the front of my brain every now and then. When there's time. When it sees an opening, a break in the nearly constant barrage of thoughts regarding you-know-who and you-know-what.

It goes like this:

There's something there. Really and truly, and weirdly and unexpectedly, and sneakily and secretly, and wonderfully and scarily, there's something there.

I like it. Nothing will ever come of it, but I like it anyway.

In an effort to keep my slackage from reaching epic proportions, I will now attempt an entry. I don't have a topic in mind, though, so I make no claims as to the readability or interestingness of this entry.

I'm still muddling through, trying to make some sense out of things. Coming up with excuses, basically, for the ways I've been treated and for the ways I've reacted. Sometimes the excuses I make up persist for a while, and sometimes they don't.

I keep trying to manufacture some kind of perception wherein everybody gets to be a good person. I used to try to make it so everybody could get along. I've stopped trying to do that. It was never going to work when I was the only one trying. I'm afraid that the good-person thing is going to fail as well. There's very little recent evidence to back up that particular claim.

I can probably still make it so everybody doesn't hate each other. Maybe.

Damn. It's been two months, as of today.

There are things! And they're happening!

Yay!

That's just about all I can say.

But I wonder, I can't help but wonder, even though I know it's stupid to wonder.

Am I finally awake, or have I merely shifted to a new dream?

What was I supposed to feel, four hours ago?

I ask because it's become quite clear to me that what I actually feel - this is so irrelevant that I'm the only one who even notices it anymore. And even that's only barely.

I ask what I was supposed to feel, because I have no idea.

Relieved? Irritated? Hopeful? Hopeless? Frustrated? Loving? Useful? Useless? Guilty? Happy? Sad? Nostalgic?

Tell me what I was supposed to feel. Is it the same thing as yesterday, when almost the exact same fucking thing happened?

And, while you're at it, tell me what I'm supposed feel right now. Now that it's been four hours.

I go hours and days and weeks. In the past, I've gone months and years. Four hours certainly used to be something, but now it's nothing nothing nothing nothing.

Tell me.

Better yet, reach inside me and place the proper emotions into those empty places wherever you see fit.

My vote, if I'm allowed a vote, is for irritated. I was having a nice afternoon with HatGirl, and the woo-hoos of my phone were a distraction. Ironically, the lack of woo-hoos right now is proving to be a distraction from breathing. But I've been wrong before. I'm probably supposed to be feeling something else entirely.

Tell me what that was supposed to accomplish, and I'll do my best to comply. I've got nothing better to do, after all.

I can forgive a lot of things. I have forgiven a lot of things. More than anyone else would have forgiven.

But this?

How the fuck am I supposed to forgive this and still manage to maintain some semblance of dignity?

I am not a doormat, though I've played one in the past, when it seemed that a doormat was needed.

I did what was necessary, or at least what seemed necessary at the time, not because of what those things were, but because of who needed them.

Because of who needed me.

And I liked it. Loved it, even. I lived for those opportunities.

And now?

Summary dismissal.

Of whatever the fuck you want to call it. Friendship? Something more? Something less? Something else?

I don't care what you call it. Just pick something. And don't say nothing. Don't you fucking dare say nothing.

We may no longer exist, but I still do exist. Barely.

And what's left of me deserves more than this. Even the worst person on Earth would deserve more than this.

More than nothing.

I'm leaving in 20 minutes. I hope to get my hairs cut today. I also hope to beat the rain that's looming. This all got me to thinking (uh-oh) about timing. It really is everything, like I keep saying.

A couple of years ago, the car carrying my nephew and his friends, and another vehicle, had the worst timing possible. If the speed of either vehicle had been different by even one mile-per-hour, what was a tragedy would have only been a close call. If either vehicle's speed had been ten miles-per-hour different, it would have been a non-event.

Unbelievably bad timing,is what that was.

In February, StupidGirl asked me to move to Las Vegas. It was a very sweet and kind offer. But I didn't go. I didn't go, because I had a relationship here in Indiana that was very important to me, and also because I had a job here. Now, I know, I also had friends and family and a house and blah blah blah, but the reasons I stayed were because of LaptopGirl and, to a much lesser extent, my job.

Two months later, my job was gone, and so was my relationship. Both had gone the way of the dodo. And StupidGirl had gone and got herself a shiny new boyfriend.

So that was certainly crappy timing. Nowhere near as crappy as the timing that my nephew and his friends experienced, but crappy nonetheless.

I could list a billion examples. Like how I met MixedSignalGirl because a deer ran in front of her car just when I happened to be driving behind her. Or how I found RockGirl because the "random journal" button at journalspace.com took me to her journal. Or how StupidGirl just happened to be on the rag and be my waitress on the same night.

Anyway, speaking of timing, I've got to go now. Maybe I'll finish this entry later.

(This is a repost from 2006. I'm too tired to come up with anything new this morning.)

---

I hate it when my most recent entry sucks, so I'm writing this one which hopefully sucks less.

Somebody last night - I think it was one of the PBDs in a moment of alcohol-induced pseudo-wisdom, made the following observation:

You should just follow your heart, and do the right thing.

Head started to nod up and down in unison like commuters on a bumpy bus ride - imagery which looks much better in my head than it does on my screen.

Such a sage suggestion! Such worldly wisdom! Such axiomatic advice!

Such babbling bullshit!

I had to put a stop to it before people started getting whiplash.

"But what if following your heart and doing what's right are mutually exclusive?" I offered. "Remember that hearts are stupid and selfish. It's very rare for them to be right about anything. What if you're always finding yourself being forced to choose between following your heart and doing what's right?"

That stopped the bobbing.

"Well then that's pretty fucked-up," someone responded.

Indeed.

I can sense the eyes upon me sometimes. Looking for what, I don't know. Hoping for what, I don't know. Dreading what, I don't know. I really don't know much, it seems, but I do know that I can sense the eyes upon me sometimes, and I relish those times because (a) it's contact of a sort, and (b) it's all I have.

Anyway, I'm in a good mood again. Two nights in a row. Weird.

I take part of that back.

There are, actually, two people who I desperately want to understand me.

One of those people already does. And the fact that she lives over 700 miles away, and the fact that I've never met her - those truths change nothing.

There's another person who I wish would understand me. She doesn't. She probably never will. There's too much distrust, for some stupid reason that's out of my control. I plan to continue to live despite this. So there.

I think what I want to say right now is that it's okay that people don't get me. Fuck, half the time I don't even get myself.

If I try to be totally objective about things, then I decide that I'm a dumbass. That's one reason that I try to stay subjective.

I'd rather be a loser than a dumbass.

None of this is for me, and it never has been for me. If people would understand that, then they would understand 99.99999% of me.

I'm not holding my breath though. Partly because I can't hold my breath that long, but mostly because I don't care if people understand me or not.

It is what it is. It has been what it has been. It will be what it will be.

If you can take those last three sentences and not infer any meaning beyond what was written, then (a) I applaud you, and (b) Stick close to me - I may need someone to back me up at some point.

Tonight, I'm in an almost perfect mood. In love with being in love, and neither dashed hopes nor destroyed expectations can change that.

At least, not tonight.

I will feel what I feel.

So there.

I like it when I can just let my fingers fly and then I look at the screen and it's actual words and sentences and paragraphs. And sometimes those things even manage to dance well together, forming a sort of stage-show portraying my current thoughts and/or feelings and/or whatever.

This is not one of those times. This time, my words and sentences and paragraphs and all have palsy really bad, and they're just sort of twitching.

What's going to piss me off, I think, is when everything that everyone warned me about turns out to be true. My life will become a cacophony of I-told-you-so and You-should-have-listened and You-fucking-dumbass. I don't expect it to be very much fun. It's already started, and it already sucks.

Just because something turns out to be true, that doesn't mean that it was true all along. I think I've written about this before. Like, if I were to announce that I will win the lottery, and then I do win the lottery, that doesn't mean I was right with my prediction. It only means that I got lucky. This is kinda the same deal.

I don't care what people have said to me about this. I didn't want to hear about it then, and I don't want to hear about it now, and I definitely won't want to hear about it in the future.

First, some snippets from a February entry:

It changes a man, to see a beautiful face distorted by pain. To see it over and over and over and over and over. To stand helpless and watch the tears flow.

To watch a wonderful soul harden, and to feel your own soul harden with it. Not from pity or compassion or even love, but simply because your souls are irrevocably bound.

I failed her so badly. I failed myself so badly.

And my punishment for that failure is severe, but I deserve so much worse.

You either do it or not. There is no try. It's either there or it's not.

It's never off in the distance somewhere, so you can see it coming. Nobody ever says, "I don't trust you right now, but next Tuesday should be great."

Trying to trust is like trying to fly. No matter how fast you flap your arms, you're not going anywhere. And you look like an idiot.

It's one of the easiest things to lose, and one of the toughest things to get back.

Sometimes trust can be regained, but it will do so in its own sweet time. Don't bother trying to rush it, you'll only make things worse. Same thing with trying to use guilt.

It can't be reasoned into existence, either, because it's a heart thing, not a brain thing.

Oh, and everything I said about trust also counts for forgiveness.

Over the last several months, it has come to my attention numerous times, that I should have accepted the fucking offer.

Heh, the fucking offer. That's some funny shit, right there.

But, I didn't. Then, I didn't again. And, finally, I didn't again.

I think that's the correct count of the times I started out being a good guy and ended up being a dumbass.

And, after each episode of retardation, I resolved that the next time it would happen, and then I'd be able to deal with the consequences easier because I'd be wearing a big goofy grin on my face.

But, it never did happen. This was never about that, though. Not for me. There were bigger fish to fry and all that.

But, I ask myself over and over and over and over and over, since when did my desires matter?

Yep, I definitely should have accepted the fucking offer. Every time it was made.

It would have been good.

And now that my entire life has been reduced to nothing more than a series of memories, it would be cool to have those particular memories in my head.

Man, I was such a dumbass. A good guy, but a dumbass nonetheless.

I wonder what I would write, if I were to write anything relevant.

I dunno.

First thing I'd need to do, before I let myself get anywhere near my computer, would be to figure out exactly why I was writing in the first place. I mean, would it be something that I needed to write, lest the pressure of not writing explode me. or would it just me something that I wanted to write, in which case who the fuck cares what I want?

I can resist the latter urge. I usually resist it, anyway. But I'm not so sure about the former stuff. I don't have much success with suppressing my needs, unless you count when I bury them in metaphors and such.

I'm bored right now, in case you didn't guess that already.

Okay, now I'm not only reposting entries from years ago, now I'm reposting an entry from fucking July. And it was a repost to begin with.

This is what's become of me.

Anyway, I like this entry, and the one contained therein. And I was thinking about this stuff tonight, so there.

---

It's just a brief downward flicker, most of the time. A few inches. But enough for me to notice, and enough for her to notice, should she happen to be looking. So far, I think I've caught it in time. Caught myself in time.

Eyes to lips. Just a few inches of smooth skin, down a cheek, along the ridge of a nose. Physically, that distance is very small, but emotionally, it's vast.

Eyes may welcome and engage, but lips, they beckon.

---

Speaking of lips, I like this old entry from 2007:

I'm not really sure which was the first. I've got it narrowed down to two girls, two occasions, but the passage of time has blurred my memory to the point where I can no longer be certain about the order of things. Like, I'm pretty sure that I kissed both those girls after that comet killed all the dinosaurs, but I wouldn't want to bet anything substantial on it.

So I don't remember which was my first real kiss. But I do remember them both. They were passionate, each of them. And full of promises that neither of us was ready to keep. There was none of this sweet and gentle and perfunctory crap that I've been so wont to do lately. To show that I'm a good guy, at least at first. Back then, a kiss was all you were going to get, so you damn sure needed to make the best of it.

I'm pretty sure that I could remember all of my first kisses. I don't mean that I could list them right now off the top of my head, but if I thought about it long enough, I probably could. And if I heard a name or saw a face or had something like that come along to help jog my memory, then I definitely could.

I was thinking tonight about a few of my first kisses. From the drunken and playful and inevitable kiss of that night last Winter, to that fascinated experimental kiss a couple of weeks ago, to that romantic kiss in Las Vegas in June, to that initially timid kiss that somehow lasted an entire weekend in late 2004, to that incredible indefinable kiss a few months earlier that still makes me weak in the knees when I think about it.

I don't know why I've never written about kissing before. About lips. I've written about hands, and I've written about eyes, but not lips. I don't know why. Maybe, maybe kissing just seems too personal, even for me to write about. Maybe hand-holding and eye-gazing are just fine, but kissing belongs in the same realm as sex, and I never write about sex. Nobody wants to read about that - they only want to have it. Maybe kisses are the same way.

Anyway, I like kissing. It's my favorite. I just thought I'd share that little tidbit. You know, just in case anyone wants to make out or something.

I'm constantly bombarding myself with a million questions, but there is one that hits the hardest.

What to believe?

Do I believe the words? Do I continue to try to be a friend, or at least act like one, when I'm not being met anywhere close to halfway? Words can be lies, you know. The craftiest of words can even fool the speaker. When that happens, the listener has no chance. It's either ignore the words, or be made a fool.

Perhaps, I tell myself, I should believe the actions. But that can be folly as well. Actions may speak louder than words, but they often speak gibberish, and they're so very subject to misinterpretation. They never say anything, they only imply. And I, being the way that I am, I almost always infer the worst. It's only been my mind's own sense of self-preservation that's kept me from doing so recently.

What am I supposed to believe when the words say one thing and the actions imply the opposite?

And the part that's really fucked up is that one day's truth can be the next day's lie. Minds can change, or be changed, and all I can do is try to keep up. Watch and listen, interpret what I can, and try to do what's right. I seem to be failing at that, but I really am in the dark here. I don't know the rules, and I don't even know the name of the game.

I don't like games.

I like honesty, even when it's brutal.

I'd rather be stabbed in the heart than shot in the back.

I found myself for a while, Thursday evening. I was hiding about an inch below the fading head of my second glass of Marzen. I should have stopped drinking right then, or at least slowed down. But I didn't. I went ahead and finished that glass at a normal speed, and by the time that beer was gone, so was I. Like I'd never been there at all.

I've been very elusive these last few months. Sometimes I've gone weeks at a time, searching in vain. I really shouldn't squander opportunities like I did Thursday evening. It might be a long time before I get another chance. Hell, it might not ever happen again. I am changing, after all. That part of me which was destroyed in the Spring, and which is slowly being rebuilt, will almost certainly not be as it once was.

I'm not sure that I've ever really described myself with any detail. What I've meant for the last six years when I've said that I was looking for myself, or what I've meant when I've said, on those rare occasions, that I'd managed to find myself. It may be beyond description. I just know me when I find me.

The real me is able to cope with this, basically. To sit and think and just deal with it. Without being overwhelmed into insanity, and without resorting to stupid distractions which mask the pain but do nothing to lessen it.

Because, let there be no doubt about it, this does hurt. A fucking lot. And I need to hurt, and I want to hurt. I've gone through so much for the right to hurt. I've given up so much, of my life and of myself, for the privilege of feeling this pain. I want to experience it, but I don't want it to control me.

And this morning, as I write this entry, it's trying to control me. I have to stop writing now.

I want to get sad tonight. I want to sit in my garage and drink some Marzen and bring myself right up to the very edge of babbling and weeping insanity. But I don't think it's going to happen.

I think I'll just stay my regular kinda depressed self, but that true sadness will be beyond me tonight.

The guy treats her, from everything I've heard, like the princess that she is. Oh sure, I would have treated her the same way, and I did treat her the same way, but that brings me to my next point.

She's happy with him. And there's more to being happy than just being treated right. Whatever that something extra is, he has it, and I might not have it. Not for her, at least. Maybe.

It's very tough for me to admit - it's been six years after all - but I might not be able to make her happy. No matter how badly I would want it and no matter how hard I would fight for it, I might not be able to accomplish it. Intent and desire can only get you so far.

To try and to fail at that task would probably be more than I could bear.

Right now, she is happy. That's what's important. That's all that matters. My own happiness is less than trivial when compared to hers, and it always has been.

I wish them the best, I really do.

If she's happy, then she smiles. And when she smiles, then the world is a beautiful place. So what if that smile's not for me? And so what if I don't even get to see it? Beauty is beauty, beheld or not.

How can I really be sad in such a beautiful place?

I'm experiencing a dangerous urge now, and so I figured that I'd better write something here, where it's fairly innocuous, than in an email, where it would most certainly not be.

Plus, I'm killing some time by writing this. And perhaps the urge to write that email will go away soon. Maybe writing this here will hasten its departure.

I want to call someone out on some bullshit. Partly to show that I know about the bullshit, as I think my knowledge is a secret so far, but mostly to see what the reason might be. I really can't see any reasonable explanation for this particular bullshit, but that doesn't mean that such a reason doesn't exist. I'm curious, I guess.

I'd also really like to see this person's reaction to getting caught. That show would probably be worth any possible price of admission, unless spontaneous human combustion was involved. I certainly don't want to cause that much of a reaction.

I need to think about this some more.

I wonder, how am I supposed to be feeling tonight? This week? This month?

Since it happened?

Not that I'm planning to tweak my feelings to match anyone's expectations, or that I'm going to pretend to be something that I'm not, but I do wonder - maybe I'm normal now.

Under the circumstances, I mean.

That would really be something, to be normal. Even if it was only for a while.

I need to go out to my garage, have a couple bottles of Domaine DuPage, and contemplate this some more.

If I'm normal, then - by definition - there's nothing special about me at all.

I don't think I like the sound of that.

Yet another repost. This usually means that I'm feeling lazy, but this time it just means that I've already said it all before. And hey, building an entry about memories from an old entry seems quite fitting:

For a while, after she got her hair cut, her hand would still move to her shoulder, and her fingers would twirl hair that wasn't there anymore. She did it all the time, and then she'd laugh at herself because she forgot.

I remember how she looked in my bathrobe. How it would never stay closed. I remember hiding the belt so it would never close again, and how she laughed when I told her what I'd done.

She'd take her finger and trace soft circles on my arm, or on my hand, or on my chest. It wasn't enough for her to touch me - she always had to give it that little bit extra.

In my peripheral vision, I'd see her looking at me, and when I'd turn my head and catch her doing it, she'd always blush.

I remember how she'd fall asleep in the car, no matter how short the drive was.

She would grab my hand, and hold it tightly when we had to walk by strangers on the way back to our cars.

I remember the little dance she did once when a song she liked came on the radio.

One morning I woke up to her whispering my name. My cat had finally allowed her to pick him up, and she was standing by the bed holding him. She was so excited.

When she was struggling, trying to think of the perfect words to say, her face would get all contorted, and I'd mimic her expression until she caught me.

She was so very nervous, that first time, and when we were done the sweat glistened on her skin like a million tiny stars.

I remember all of these little things, and so many more. I think that I will remember them forever.

It's such a cruel world that let's me love every single thing about a person, but that won't let my heart take that extra step.

Such a cruel fucking world.

I remember trying so hard to look at her and see only her, but always always always fucking always looking beyond her, over her shoulder. Looking for someone who wasn't there.

I remember coming home that one night, and finding her sitting on my couch, with my cat Nugget in her lap. She'd had a bad day, and she'd known that I'd welcome her no matter what. I owed her that much, after all.

I remember welcoming her.

I remember how hard we tried to make it last, but how it always felt like we were just treading water. Staying alive, but not really living.

I remember that night last Summer. The last time I saw her, when everything was almost exactly as it had been before. Only the new ring on her finger whispered the truth.

I remember everything. This is my gift, and my curse.

I talked to her tonight, for a while. I wish I could say that it was just like old times, but it wasn't. Those old times are gone forever, and we both know it. We just like to relive those times, every now and then. It's nice, in a poignant way. It reminds us that there was once something that was important. And that, no matter how tough things get for the two of us as we struggle to live our separate lives, there is still something that's important.

I walked away from her, years ago. I know why I did it and, by now, so does she. I know it, but I still can't really believe that I did it. She knows it, but she still can't really accept that I did it on my own. That it wasn't her fault. That she didn't push me away.

There are so many things I wish I could forget, so many memories I wish I could erase from my mind. But, among those memories, there's not a single second that I spent with her.

I'm always looking for words, it seems. Magic words.

Mostly I've been looking for words to fix us, to undo some of the damage that's been done to us, or by us. Some turn-of-phrase that will somehow make everything okay. Or better than okay, when I'm feeling really ambitious, which isn't too often lately.

Speaking of lately, something's changing.

I'm still looking for magic words. I know they're in there somewhere, sneaking around in the dark, but quite often lately I've been looking for a different set of words. Lately, I haven't been looking for words to fix us, I've been looking for words to fix me.

These words may prove to be just as elusive as the old words have been. But I need to at least look. I need to dig around inside my head and, if that doesn't work, then dynamite may be necessary. I need these words.

I worry about myself sometimes. I see myself on my death-bed in forty years or so, and I see myself still glaring at my phone. I see myself wondering if she'll visit my bedside. I see myself wondering if she'll come to my funeral.

Sure, it's kind of nice to have all that to look forward to, and to believe that I'll never really go back to the emotionless robot that I used to be, a little more than six years ago. But I also realize that it's pretty pathetic. And I don't want my life to be pathetic, not any more than it's already been.

The words may not exist. Maybe it's time that I really need. That's what a lot of people have been telling me. Or perhaps I need a distraction that eventually becomes something more than a distraction.

Well, time has never done me any good before, and distractions, despite my best efforts, continue to be fleeting. So I'll put my faith in magic, because magic is real. That was proved to me, a little more than six years ago. Maybe, when time and distractions fail, maybe magic will succeed.

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.

Trying to figure out what I should write, if anything. I get so sick and tired of my mood flapping back and forth. I don't want to write anything and then have it turn out to be false by this time tomorrow. I hate it when that happens. It makes me feel like I should put a disclaimer at the beginning of every entry.

This entry, and the feelings and/or hopes and/or circumstances described herein, while accurate at the time of posting, may no longer reflect reality at the time of reading. For this reason, speculating or wagering as to my current state of mind, based on the information gleaned from this entry, is not recommended.

Today, I am struggling with the same old stuff. It just keeps getting worse and worse, and I'm having a really tough time maintaining anything even remotely resembling hope. But I keep trying, because I need to have hope in my life, at least for now. I don't want to go back to the way I was, but it's a very real possibility these days. Except that this time it will be worse, because I'll know what's missing. Back then, I didn't even know that anything was missing, let alone what that thing might be.

I had a nice conversation with MixedSignalGirl the other night. She had some opinions and theories that I hadn't thought of. Opinions and theories that might help me to get through all this, if I can cling to them fiercely enough. And if I can convince myself that they're not just another set of lies that I tell myself in a futile attempt to rush through this healing process.

I need to write more about this. Maybe later.

Okay, here's the deal.

My text messages weren't working tonight. So, while I got some, I don't know if they were from tonight or if they were from months ago, as they claimed.

In either case, my response remains the same.

This was not my goddamn choice, the way things have been lately. This was, in fact, the last thing I ever wanted.

I am not the bad guy here.

Reasons are reasons and excuses are excuses, but which is which?

This is not my call. It's out of my hands.

Weird annoying. I'm finding myself at a total loss for words. I mean, I know exactly what I want to say, as long as I don't have to actually say anything.

It's just so damn clear to me, but the words either don't exist or they're really fucking good at hiding in my head. I can think them and I can feel them, but I can't articulate them.

I need to say something, but I find myself unable to say anything at all.

And dammit, this is important. Way more important than anything I've written in a long time. Maybe ever.

"How can I give this up?" I want to write.

"I can't give it up, it's everything to me," I want to continue.

Those words are nothing nothing nothing. The tip of the iceberg. A hint of an inkling of a notion of the truth.

Infinite is only a small portion of the whole. Forever is just the beginning. Unconditional is much too restrictive.

The words that I've said, the things that I've done, the feelings that I've felt - they're all just symptoms of a much larger truth.

Maybe the words really don't exist, to describe this. Maybe you need to look into my eyes, read my mind, feel my soul.

Or, maybe I'm drunk.

Go ahead and think that's all it is. It's easier.

I like that word. It fits so well with so many things in my life. I should probably change my middle name to Inordinate. I never liked Shane that much anyway. Plus, then my initials would be DIS and so maybe I'd be all hip and shit. Or is that DISS?

I think I want someone to tell me that it's okay to be pissed about the way I'm being treated. I fall so easily into anger over it, but then I always feel guilty. I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling guilty.

Tomorrow another weekend begins. I remember when weekends meant going to Rich O's and spending an inordinate amount of energy watching the door. Those were such different times back then. Hope ruled my entire life. But this weekend I probably won't go there at all. It's no longer a good idea for me to go there at night, for lots of reasons. People think there's only one reason, but people are wrong. It's not only because I'm being a baby. That's not even the main reason. Maybe I'll write an entry about this stuff, some day.

And I heard from TremensGirl that MusicalYuppieDude is having a party this weekend. I can't go to that either, even if he does get around to inviting me.

Saturday I might get to see HatGirl, if she doesn't flake on me. She's so busy all the time, I'm incredibly flattered that she thinks enough of me to pencil me in. She's one of the world's best people, and I spend an inordinate amount of time wishing that I was a better person, so that our friendship might be better justified.

In fact, she should be the one I'm in love with. That would make sense to everyone.

I don't write about work in this journal. I think that most people know that. I don't want to get dooced, after all. But I started a new job this week, and maybe that deserves mention.

There, I mentioned it.

It's after 3:00 in the morning, and I'm not really sure why I'm still awake. I spend an inordinate amount of time being awake.

I should try to go to sleep now.

Tonight I don't know what it was that woke me up. Another damn dream, I imagine, but I don't know for sure. Maybe a mouse farted - sometimes that's all it takes. And, once I wake up, that's it. A thought or a series of thoughts gets into my head, and it gets into my soul, and it grabs and it twists.

As I once wrote:

Today, it's neither the pain of the past nor the agony of the present hammering away at my mood. Nope, today it's the future, of all things, that torments my thoughts.

The thing about the future is that I'm not really sure there's going to be one.

I don't think it would come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. I'm in a fucked-up situation these days.

I spend an inordinate amount of my time looking for, I dunno, something.

For what exactly, I can't say, because I don't know what it is. I think that I might be looking for what's left. Something that survived that terrible flood. A recognizable chuck of debris on the bank, perhaps. Just something to remind me, though I could never forget.

The rest of the time, I wait.

For what? Again, I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I'm waiting for it right now.

Back then, I survived that flood, and I found what I was looking for. I found much much more than I thought I'd find, and I was actually happy, for a long time. Me, of all people.

But then a new flood came. A more terrible flood. And this one is still flowing, rushing, ripping.

Last year, I was knocked to my feet, and I stood up, and I was knocked down again. And again. And again.

This time, there's no sense in trying to stand. There is no ground anywhere beneath my feet.

This time I'm trying to stay afloat.

I'm looking at these lines from a post I did a couple of months ago.

I lived in a place of hope, and dreams, and love. But it was all a lie.

I worry about the things I'll write when I feel like I have nothing left to lose. I wonder why I don't feel that way already. Perhaps there are still lies waiting to crumble.

I fear the vacuum, I really do. It was never there before. There was always something before, whether it was false or not, it was something.

Now, not so much.

First, the walls crumbled. That was bad enough. But now all of the air is being sucked away.

Isn't the point of living about having something you care about, that is important to you? Isn't it about having something left to lose?

If there is truly nothing left to lose, then what's the fucking point of living at all?

The other night I was thinking about fate. I've written before that I don't believe in fate, but then I also wrote this:

This series of events and emotions that was set into motion all those years ago, there is a reason. I just don't know what that reason is. Perhaps its purpose is to destroy me.

So far, so good.

I'd also guess that, on each one of those 12,000 days, I probably saw a pretty girl, or two, or three. On some days I saw the same girl(s) I'd already seen, and on some days I saw someone new.

So, maybe 12,000 different pretty girls that I've seen in my live.

And out of all those times, this happened once? When I saw her?

What the fuck?

Approximately 2,146 days ago, 2,146 girls ago, in the span of about two seconds, my entire life changed. It has never been the same since, and it will never be the same again. No matter what else happens, I will never be the same again.

I don't believe in fate. I think that fate is a silly concept, and that it implies things that I find unacceptable about the uselessness of life. I think that people use the concept of fate as a crutch, as an excuse for not having things turn out the way that they wanted, or as feeble justification for doing things that would otherwise have no justification at all except for stupidity.

I don't believe in fate, but I really want to know why that happened, approximately 2,146 days ago.

I'm trying to keep from knowing the time. So I don't know how late it is, or how early it is. I don't know if I'll sleep again tonight. I doubt that I will.

I did sleep, for some undetermined amount of time. I slept, and I had a dream, and I woke up.

That damn dream.

So I'm not looking at the time. I know it's there, down in the bottom right corner of my screen. I'm refusing to look. I don't want to know. Fuck, I start a new job sometime in the next undetermined number of hours and, instead of sleeping, I've spent two beers worth of time out on my deck with listening to the crickets and the owls and the stobors. I've spent the last two beers worth of time trying to forget the dream.

But it's a futile effort. It always is. I remember every word she said, in the dream. I remember every word I said, in the dream. I remember what happened next, in the dream.

That damn dream.

I mean, what if I look at the time and it's only 1:00 or some bullshit like that? Then I'll be so fucked. No way will I be able to function all day tomorrow until quitting time. Oh sure, maybe I could look and it's 6:00, and maybe my alarm is about to go off anyway. Then I'd know that I could survive. I've survived worse, after all.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. The truth always seems to be somewhere in the middle.

That damn truth.

Every single time, it happens. Every single fucking time. I see, and it happens. I hear, and it happens, I smell or I touch, and it happens.

And I can't describe it with any clarity, and I can't endorse it with any understanding, and I can't espouse it with any eloquence, and I can't dismiss it with any abruptness. I can't I can't I can't I just fucking can't.

It's just fucking there. It just fucking happens. It just fucking is.

Why?

That's the question that I ask myself every 10 seconds. That's the question that everyone on Earth asks me every chance they get.

"Why?" they ask.

"Fucking just because," I reply.

Eyes meet, and circuits close. Words are exchanged, and energy flows. Auras merge, and affection glows.

And, every now and then...

Hands touch, and desire grows. Skin slides, and lust shows. Lips meet, and love overflows.

Why?

Sometimes I wish we would just talk about all this. Not discuss and not debate and certainly not argue. Not lie and not predict and not dismiss and not make excuse after fucking excuse. Just talk.

I guess it's because I'm a man. I always think that things can be fixed. Even when they're not really broken. I constantly look for the words to make everything okay, and I constantly ignore the fact that okay may be too lofty a goal.

Lately though, more and more often, I've thought about eschewing words, and letting actions speak my volumes for me. For us. Words, after all, have done zero good.

Perhaps it's time for action. Perhaps it's too late for action. Fuck, perhaps it's too late for anything.

The way I see it, there are two times when I absolutely should not be writing here. One of those times is when I'm sad.

I know, I write when I'm sad all the time. It's par for my particular course, I guess. But the deep sadness that I sometimes feel, I don't write during those times. I'm too busy trying to breathe and keep my heart beating. So you guys are spared the really depressing stuff. You're welcome.

The second time when I shouldn't be writing anything is when I'm pissed.

Like right now.

There are so many things that I want to say. So many accusations that I want to level. So much pressure that I want to vent. So much truth that I want to fucking scream.

But, I shouldn't be writing when I'm pissed, so I won't. You're welcome.

My brain tells me that I should be writing something now, before I go back outside to cavort with the stobors. Of course my brain has no idea what I should write, so I guess it's up to the rest of me. My fingers, perhaps, because my heart is all tapped-out, and my dick isn't much for words. It's more of an action dick.

I'm not really sure when it was that I became wise. Sometime over the last few years, I think. It's like I stopped getting birthday presents and started gaining wisdom. Or at least a very good imitation of wisdom. Good enough to fool most people, including my lovely self a lot of the time.

I found myself today in the most unlikely of conversations, giving the most unlikely of advice. Unlikely, that is, unless you actually know me, and not many people do. Lots of people think that they know me, but they're wrong. I'm a better person than many people give me credit for, and I'm a worse person that many people suspect. I'm a person, is I guess what I'm saying. If I were 100% good I'd be some kind of supreme being, and if I were 100% flawed I'd be a dipshit, but I'm somewhere in the middle, just like almost everyone else.

Anyway, today I found myself in a conversation about relationships. Because I'm some kind of expert, I guess. It's like quitting smoking; I've done it a million times it's so easy. Well, I haven't quite had a million relationships, but I've had my share. So maybe that makes me wise in a way. I dunno.

I'll paraphrase from today's conversation, in which I pretended to be wise:

Every new relationship seems perfect. But then it turns out that everything isn't quite perfect, and people get disappointed and they start to question the entire relationship.

Every relationship in history has followed the same pattern. Sometimes they last beyond that initial disillusionment, and sometimes they don't.

I think back to the relationships that I've had. Not all that many, really, and except for the ones that were doomed from the start, they've all followed that pattern. Not many have made it passed that first round of disillusionment, but the ones that have, the ones that have lasted have all been something really special to me. They're still really special to me.

I'm in one of those relationships right now, and even though I know that almost everyone on Earth would say that I'm in no such thing, I will say without hesitation that almost everyone on Earth is wrong. We are in a relationship, and we've made it passed that first disappointment, and the second and the third, and the fourth.

But we're still here, in one widely varying form or another, we're still here.

Doesn't that mean something? Shouldn't that mean something?

Isn't this supposed to be the goal?

Because, as I said today in my unlikely conversation, Perfection doesn't exist, so shouldn't a relationship be more concerned with surviving imperfection than with seeking perfection?

Am I the only person who sees this?

So, just sit and let my fingers type whatever they want, huh?

That seems like it should be easy. One might think that I'd be a little worried about the words that might spring forth, but I'm really not. I've pretty much said everything already. Dropped my pants, so to speak.

There is one more thing, actually. One more thing to say, and then I might be done. Not that I'd quit, mind you, but I'd have to start repeating myself over and over and over even more often than I already do.

Not an accusation, though that's how it would be interpreted. I'm not sure how I'd get around that. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, after all. And this would be denied until the end of time, at least out-loud, when people were listening. There'd probably be umbrage. And outrage, even.

I'm also afraid that it would come off like a called marker. But that's absolutely not what it would be. This is not about something I've earned, and it's not about a favor owed; it's about an opportunity for honesty.

Would I get that honesty?

I seriously doubt it, and that makes me sad. Because if I've earned anything at all, if I'm owed anything at all, it's honesty.

I close my eyes, and I see it. It blinds me. In the stillness between heartbeats, I hear its defeaning roar. In the pause between breaths, I smell its intoxicating aroma. Between swallows, I taste its juices. And, every time I relax, I feel it. Caressing me. Massaging away the aches and the pains of living.

I stopped being overwhelmed a long time ago. Callouses formed. Strength developed. Resistance wilted and died.

Thoughts are stones. Feelings are rapids. Disturbing the tranquility of the stream, but not the flow. Never the flow. Take away the obstacles, and the stream will barely notice. It will flow as it always has. Try to dam the stream, and it will find a way. Nothing can stop it. Nothing.

I wonder what has happened to me. I wonder what is happening to me. I wonder what will happen to me.

(This is a repost from six months ago. I don't feel like saying anything new, because it would be pointless today, but I do feel like saying something.)

There's a place. It's not a physical place, though that's part of it. It's more of a spiritual place.

The place, it's where I belong. It's why I'm here, on this Earth, in this life. To be in the place. It's where I fit, and more than that, it's where the universe fits me.

Problem is, I can't get there. There's no navigable route, and even if there were, the place is already occupied, and even if it wasn't, I'm not allowed in the place.

I've come very close. I've stood next to the place and I've felt its pull so strongly that it's threatened to rip me apart atom by atom.

If I believed in God, I'd surely hate Him, for showing me the place.

Tonight I sat at Rich O's with a small group of people, and I noticed something. Before I say what I noticed, maybe you need some background.

I am smart.

Okay, that's enough background.

Anyway, tonight I sat in a group of five people, or to be more specific, I sat on the outskirts of that group, and I noticed that there was absolutely no way that I could consider myself to be one of the brightest members.

This was weird to me, but not unprecedented. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

At least two members of the group were obviously and immensely more intelligent than I have ever been or will ever be. One other was probably tied with me on the old IQ-meter. The last member, while not quite as bright as the rest of us, was still far above average, even for Rich O's. So we didn't ridicule that person, too much, and not intentionally. Subtle sarcasm and even more subtle innuendo sufficed, as it always does.

Besides, my dad always said, "Don't make fun of retarded people," and that advice scales quite easily.

See, there's a difference between intelligence and knowledge. Some people don't get that. Some people are incapable of getting it. We pity those people, but not too openly, because we all know that we're only a few ounces of beer away from becoming just like them.

There. This should count as an entry, shouldn't it?

I just don't have anything to write, but here I sit. I guess I don't like the previous entry being the most recent entry. Because, as I'd predicted and hoped, that particular mood did not last.

The other day LaptopGirl asked me if it would kill me to write a positive entry. I don't know the answer to that question. It probably wouldn't kill me, but why take the chance?

Oh, because she asked, that's why.

I'll certainly try. The next time I'm in a good mood, I'll try to write a positive entry.

I'm in a most unusual mood tonight. Not merely a "weird" mood, as I've so often said. This particular mood is one that I honestly can't remember ever having before.

I just don't care.

Now, this mood certainly won't last. None of my moods ever last. I'm amazed that this one has gone on as long as it has. Since about midnight, I think.

This is not a reaction to anything in particular, or to the lack of anything in particular. There's no anger, or sadness, or frustration, or disillusionment, or confusion, or longing or even lust or even love. Okay, maybe there's some disillusionment, but not a lot. Not enough to explain this mood, now of all times. And there's always love, but it usually defines me instead of simply punctuating me.

There was no impetus at all for this mood. One second I felt all of the above, and the next second, I didn't.

This mood won't last. I don't want it to last. Not forever. Not even through tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning I want to wake up as myself. I need to know who I am, what I am, how I am. I need to fucking recognize myself when I look in the mirror tomorrow.

This person sitting here at my computer tonight, typing this crap - he isn't me. He's just another asshole who stopped caring because it hurt too much. Another dickhead who stopped trying because it was too hard. Another, dare I say, dipshit, who quit the game because he couldn't cheat and get away with it.

Fuck that. That's not who I am.

It's fascinating, though, I won't lie. I never thought there'd ever ever ever ever ever be a time when I'd feel like this again. I walked two miles tonight, towards my old high school, and with every step I took I imagined myself getting closer and closer to...

Well, I don't know what. Something. Some place that I haven't seen in a long time, or maybe ever.

I never got there. Maybe there doesn't exist. Not for me anyway. I tried to explore outside of myself and I found emptiness and loneliness. So, disappointed, I turned around and I walked home.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be me again. I'll love again and therefore I'll hurt again. But I think that the memory of tonight will be with me for a long time. The memory, and the realization that it brings.

Anything is possible, even the impossible.

It always happens this way. I make it one thing or two things into the list of a gazillion things that I want to say, and then the conversation ends. Abruptly.

Questions and comments and opinions and predictions and more questions and more comments, left to smolder inside my head. To fester and evolve into a beast that I can no longer contain.

It's all about the same thing, though. The quest.

The never-ending search for the right words, the magic turn-of-phrase, that will end this bullshit and right these wrongs and, well, fix everything.

There are people who might venture that things aren't broken, but those people don't have my unique perspective, so their opinions don't count. I was right all along, and I will continue to be right, and dammit I'm right at the present.

Alas, long-gone are the days of clubs and caveward draggings. Today, we live in an ostensibly polite and sophisticated society. Today, words are important.

So, I search for the words. Sometimes, I think I find them. I send them forth and, far too often they, like so many of their fallen brethren before them, end up impaled upon the swords of deaf ears, and they are forever silenced.

I'm in a weird mood this evening. In case you couldn't tell.

Of course I can handle it. I'm stronger than people think. But I shouldn't fucking have to handle it. It's not supposed to be happening at all, and it's especially not supposed to be happening tonight.

I haven't seen SassyGirl in almost a year, and tonight, instead of getting to enjoy hanging out with her, I get to always keep one eye on the door and constantly be on pins and needles. I get to wait and wonder how many more seconds or minutes or hours I have until that wave of reality comes washing in to drown me.

I know, life isn't fair. I know that fact better than most people, I'd wager. But c'mon, sometimes it's just ridiculous. Sometimes it's a fucking joke, except nobody's laughing.

UPDATE: Well, reality was nice enough to call and let me know that I needn't expect it to show up Wednesday night after all. And then SassyGirl ended up making a short night of it, anyway, so I was able to come home earlier than anticipated. So, whew!

I spend a lot of time searching for words. I bet most people who do a lot of writing, professionally or otherwise, do the same thing. Oh sure, most of the time I'll just let my fingers pick the words for me, but every now and then they choose poorly. That's when it's up to my brain to get off its lazy ass, stop fantasizing about pretty girls, and do some work.

I've been in this mood since last Friday at least. One of confusion, but that's not quite the right word. One of concern, but that's not it either. My brow has been almost constantly furrowed. There was, I knew, a word for the mood in which I found myself mired, but that word was hiding from me.

I found it last night, about halfway between my house and the Highlander Point shopping center. I walked along the dark road, and I passed a deer. Just standing in a field, as deer so often do. Upon my approach, it turned its body away, but it did not run. It just looked at me, its head turning smoothly. When I'd passed behind it, the deer turned its head the other way, and watched me some more.

I kept an eye on it, of course. Just in case it decided to attack. Do deer have rabies? If the deer had attacked, I supposed I'd have used the time-honored defense method of shitting my pants to gross-out my opponent. But it didn't attack, it only watched me, and then when I was a safe distance away, it crossed the road.

Perhaps it had a date with a chicken. None of my business, and who am I to judge?

For years, my thoughts have been almost constantly churning, my heart has been almost constantly yearning. But for the last few days, there's been something else. I couldn't find the word for my mood, until I looked into the inky eyes of that deer. That deer, watching me walk down the road in the middle of the night, it was experiencing the same mood. The same feeling of confused concern.

That deer was perplexed.

And so am I.

It started out as a joke. A stupid game I'd play wherein I'd imagine and predict the worst thing that could happen.

It used to be funny, in a weird way. Until it all started coming true. Then it stopped being funny.

I wrote a while ago that I expect to be murdered. That was not a random off-the-cuff statement, it was a prediction. The end-result of a long list of bullshit mistreatment. A totally warranted extrapolation.

The cruelest and sweetest person I know will murder me someday. And I will like it, because I'll serve a purpose to her. An outlet of some kind, I guess.

I like being useful to the people I care about.

I'll probably be smiling when I die. I doubt that I'll be laughing, though, because that could be misinterpreted.

It's not stupidity that keeps me here. Nope, it's knowing the truth, even when everyone else fails to see it. It's speaking the truth, and living the truth, and waiting for beautiful eyes to open so that I'm not alone any more.

It's not cowardice that keeps me from turning away and facing the unknown. It's that the unknown holds no appeal for me. And why should it? The appeal of the unknown lies in its potential, and I've already found all of the potential I could ever want.

It's not weakness. I'm not here because I'm weak, but because I'm strong. I have persevered when others would have given up. I have pushed forward when others would have faltered. Time after time I have exposed my heart to the daggers of reality and, though I've been stabbed, I've never given up and I've never cowered and I've never ran away. I've been right here all this time.

And it's not insanity. Step inside me and look through my eyes. See what I see. Feel with my heart the things that I feel. Use my lips to speak, and use my ears to listen to the words fighting to be heard. Reach out with my hand and touch what I touch, and feel the tingling of a million touches yet to come. This is all very real.

It's not stupidity, or cowardice, or weakness, or insanity. It's something else.

I know what it is. So far, I'm the only one who really knows what it is. What it's like. What it means. What it portends.

So far, I'm the only one who really gets it.

But eventually, there'll be another.

Beautiful eyes will open, and they will see me, right where I've been all along.

Seriously, why am I still here? I was supposed to be gone weeks ago.

This is going to be bad. Maybe as bad as the last time, or maybe even worse. Probably worse, I bet.

What planet am I supposed to be from? What species am I supposed to be where I can just blow it all off and be okay with it? Handshakes and high-fives all around.

Bad news: I'm human.

Being okay would invalidate everything that I've said and done for years. But still, I would be okay if I could. Fuck, I might even fake it, if I could do that halfway convincingly.

But, I'm a terrible actor, it seems.

Why am I still here?

And the thing is, I can almost be okay with it. My own desires and priorities have, after all, changed, blurred, whatever. I could be okay, and I only asked for a little help. Like to not rub it in my face, and to not bend me over and fuck me up the ass with it.

Not too much of a request, I don't think. A little goddamn common decency and empathy.

em-pa-thy
noun
1. Identification with and understanding of, or at least acceptance of, another's situation, emotions, or motives.

I want to leave.

I need to leave, to get away from this fucking failed experiment before it sucks me in all over again. I don't want to go through it all again.

Where's the fucking payoff if I stay?

What's the reason for all of this? The rainbow is beautiful, but the pot of gold is forever out of my reach. Set aside for random others. Like they fucking deserve it. Like I haven't proven myself.

I try to be a good guy, and I think that I am a good guy.

But I'm not that fucking good.

Nobody is that fucking good.

The other night, MusicalYuppieDude told me that I should be knighted. I countered that perhaps I should be straight-jacketed.

Telling the truth has turned out to be the worst thing I could have done. How messed up is that?

I've got this problem. It's an incredible urge to write. But I sit down here at my computer, my fingers poised over the keyboard, and all that emerges is drivel.

I'm an ocean held back by a finger in a dike. There's so much in me straining to be released, but it never comes with anything approaching its potential. Just a trickle, every now and then. Just enough to frustrate the bejeezus out of me.

Eventually, I tell myself, something will give. My search for work may provide me with new surroundings. Maybe that will enable me to release this pressure. Or perhaps I'll find something that allows me to remain here at home, but circumstances will change. Or maybe I'll change. Maybe I already have.

Things end so suddenly, sometimes. I used to be kidded about how I was always afraid that each time would be the last. The last look, the last hug, the last kiss, the last word.

I'm looking at a word right now. It's the word "that" in black font on my screen. I'm looking at the word, and I'm terrified that it may be the last. And now, I'm thinking about the last look and hug and kiss, and I'm worrying that they're over forever.

I do worry about these things. I have to. I need to be prepared, because sometimes, I'm right.

It's just a brief downward flicker, most of the time. A few inches. But enough for me to notice, and enough for her to notice, should she happen to be looking. So far, I think I've caught it in time. Caught myself in time.

Eyes to lips. Just a few inches of smooth skin, down a cheek, along the ridge of a nose. Physically, that distance is very small, but emotionally, it's vast.

Eyes may welcome and engage, but lips, they beckon.

---

Speaking of lips, I like this old entry from 2007:

I'm not really sure which was the first. I've got it narrowed down to two girls, two occasions, but the passage of time has blurred my memory to the point where I can no longer be certain about the order of things. Like, I'm pretty sure that I kissed both those girls after that comet killed all the dinosaurs, but I wouldn't want to bet anything substantial on it.

So I don't remember which was my first real kiss. But I do remember them both. They were passionate, each of them. And full of promises that neither of us was ready to keep. There was none of this sweet and gentle and perfunctory crap that I've been so wont to do lately. To show that I'm a good guy, at least at first. Back then, a kiss was all you were going to get, so you damn sure needed to make the best of it.

I'm pretty sure that I could remember all of my first kisses. I don't mean that I could list them right now off the top of my head, but if I thought about it long enough, I probably could. And if I heard a name or saw a face or had something like that come along to help jog my memory, then I definitely could.

I was thinking tonight about a few of my first kisses. From the drunken and playful and inevitable kiss of that night last Winter, to that fascinated experimental kiss a couple of weeks ago, to that romantic kiss in Las Vegas in June, to that initially timid kiss that somehow lasted an entire weekend in late 2004, to that incredible indefinable kiss a few months earlier that still makes me weak in the knees when I think about it.

I don't know why I've never written about kissing before. About lips. I've written about hands, and I've written about eyes, but not lips. I don't know why. Maybe, maybe kissing just seems too personal, even for me to write about. Maybe hand-holding and eye-gazing are just fine, but kissing belongs in the same realm as sex, and I never write about sex. Nobody wants to read about that - they only want to have it. Maybe kisses are the same way.

Anyway, I like kissing. It's my favorite. I just thought I'd share that little tidbit. You know, just in case anyone wants to make out or something.

Maybe it's just a matter of reigning myself in a little. I've certainly been unable to stop myself, even though quite often lately I've wanted to do just that.

This is an idea I had come to me last night. Apparently this idea was hiding at the bottom of a glass of Marzen (12419). That's a weird place for an idea to be hiding, but I'll still take it.

Wanting something because you feel like you should want it, or because you used to want it, or because you can't think of anything better?

Smells like bullshit to me.

I've been so damn stubborn. I watched everything crumble and I refused to really accept that it was happening. Had happened. Whatever.

Trying to stay somewhat cryptic here, while remaining readable. I don't think I'm succeeding.

The other night I found myself smiling, when I had a realization that there was one thing that hadn't crumbled.

One thing that hadn't changed.

And it never will. And it's the only thing that matters. There need be no expectations to erode or desires to dull. Lust lessens and faith falters and wants wane and hope becomes hazy.

Fuck all that other stuff, all that icing. I really think I can do this. I've already been doing it for years, after all.

I'm not thinking very clearly. It's very frustrating. I can't even obsess over a single thought, like normal. Nope, all I can do is sit back and sort of watch the show, turn my gaze inward and glare.

Nothing fits. No ideas, no feelings, no resolutions, nothing will stick. I don't know what I want, and I don't know what I want to want. My mind rejects everything like water rejects oil.

Well, I guess I do still have that one thing. But I've been suspecting that it's running on inertia, so I don't trust it fully.

I think that I want things to be okay, but I don't know what that means. Its shape fluctuates wildly and it never stays the same long enough for actual desire to form around it.

Wow, I'm really rambling. Like I said, I'm not thinking clearly.

I'm irritated this morning. And worried. Not really sad, though, so that's nice.

I keep trying to write an entry, but none of the thoughts racing through my head will slow down enough for me to catch it and pin it down and dissect it.

I was just reading some old emails, from a year ago. Right before and right after I found out she was seeing someone.

I read one email wherein I said that I expected to have to go through it several times, and that each time would be tougher than the last, but that it would all be worth it eventually. I'd be the one who would always be there when she needed someone, and eventually I'd be noticed.

And now, a year later, I fear that it's all starting again. And I'm not there.

This really sucks.

Maybe it'll storm tonight. That always cheers me up. Must buy some beer, though.

I wish I knew how to fix all this, I really do. Maybe it's so hard because it can't be fixed. Maybe, even after everything that's changed, one thing is still the same. Maybe we're still too lopsided.

The thing that I need to do, though, is figure out what I want. Or, more precisely, what I want to want. Because things have changed, and not for the better.

The solution that keeps coming to me, time and time again, is to pretend that everything is fine. To act like I don't care. To lie, in other words.

I don't like that solution, but I'm starting to see the appeal of it. At the very least, it would give the appearance of balance.

I really want to write something relevant now.

But I won't.

Or can't.

Because I'm drunk. Or very tipsy. I'm at home though, so it's okay.

Hic.

It would have been awesome, though.

You ever get a desire and at first you don't pay much attention to it, because you figure it's just collateral damage, and then it grows and grows and sometimes threatens to consume you? And you can't think about anything else, even those things that are much more important and much more noble and even much more realistic?

Yeah, me too.

Most people probably think that I'm a pessimist. They're wrong for thinking that, but I guess I understand their mistake. It's just that I try to prepare for the worst.

The problem that I have is that "the worst" is an ever-changing thing. What was "the worst thing" yesterday is nothing but the fucked-up past today, and there's an entirely new "worst thing" for me to prepare for.

I've told RockGirl, several times, that I expect to be murdered someday. And, not only that, I expect that I know exactly who my killer will be. It's just common sense. A trivial extrapolation that a child could do while sleeping.

But that's in the far-off future. I won't have to worry about that until a million other bad things have happened. And I'll wait for each and every one of those things, and I'll endure each and every one of those things, because they must be important or they'd certainly have stopped by now.

I used to joke about the bad things, until they happened. After that, they didn't seem all that funny to me anymore.

I'm in a good mood. That doesn't make any sense at all.

It must be denial.

What will tomorrow bring?

I don't know, but I bet it will suck, whatever it is.

I could lose power at any second. That's kinda exciting to me. The lightning outside is crazy, like living inside a strobe-light. I want to vomit some words here and then I want to go back out to my garage and watch the lightning some more.

This probably isn't going to make any sense to anyone but me, but I don't care. I don't know why you people read this crap anyway. Inertia is my guess.

---

I can close my eyes, when I'm in the right mood like the one I'm in right now, and I can see.

A single bright point of light, directly ahead. It outshines, without even trying, the smudges to my left and the smears to my right, and even the fading spotlight behind me.

People think, people wonder, people question, people doubt, people question some more. But people just don't see. It's right there.

All I have to do is close my eyes, and everything is perfectly clear.

So I had that thought dangling from my brain. When I finally dislodged it, I sat down here to write an entry about it.

But, as it turns out, I've already written the entry. Over three years ago. Oops.

I was wrong about being okay, when I first wrote this entry. I might be wrong again this time - the bruising is much more severe, after all. Time will tell.

---

(January 2006)

The other night, I drank a bottle of yummy Alaskan Smoked Porter and wrote a bunch of snippets of boring crap. One of those snippets was this:

I think about a couple of my friends who've recently started reading my 'blog. I try to keep things light for them - but not too light. I want to come off as neither a lunatic nor as a child. This is easier said than done. Especially when I'm both. I want to come off as insightful at times, and as brilliant at others. This is easier said than done. Especially when I'm neither.

We'll see if I can write anything coherent without alcohol in my bloodstream. I have my doubts.

The problem is, I don't seem to be able to write anything that's either interesting or well-written unless that writing comes from my heart. My emotions are the source of everything I've ever written that I considered readable.

Because of this, I tend to stick with those same emotional topics and rehash them to death. Beat that dead horse into bloody pulp.

So someone new to my 'blog comes along, reads some of my drivel, and makes conclusions based on it.

Conclusions that are often less than accurate. Or at least not timely.

SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: This is the third time I've restarted this entry. I know what I want to write, but I'm having a hard time deciding how to write it.

But what are people supposed to think about me, when they read my 'blog?

Read something from the Fall of 2003, and you'll be so bored that you'll never read anything by me again. You'll probably volunteer for a lobotomy to prevent accidentally reading something I've written.

Read some of the later stuff, and you'll feel a little sorry for me. You'll think my writing is insane, and obsessive, and overly dramatic, but some of what I write is at least interesting and/or well-written and/or entertaining.

But what are you supposed to think about me?

I read back through my old entries, and there is of course one theme that keeps popping up. That fucking dead horse. I write about it because it's what I know, and it's what I feel, and it's - I guess comfortable would be a good word.

But it's not me. Not anymore. Not, at least, to anywhere near the extent that it used to be. That's what I want people to think about me when they read my 'blog:

I'm okay. Or I will be.

I get better all the time. Every day I wake up with a little less pain, and every night I go to sleep with a little less feeling that the day was wasted because she didn't share it with me.

I think I'm what you might call emotionally bruised.

But that bruise is fading.

So what should people think about me, when they read my 'blog?

I'd like people to think that I'm a person, a human being, just as capable of pain, or passion, or selfishness, or friendship, or stupidity, as anyone else. I'd like people to not be afraid of me, or of hurting my feelings. I'd like people to know that they don't need to tiptoe around me. That I'm stronger than I seem.

I'd like people to understand that there are some things about me that they may never understand, because I don't even understand them myself.

But that's okay, and so am I.

The problem is that, sometimes, it does no good. Pretending that the monster in the closet doesn't exist is both futile and stupid when it does exist. Lurking, waiting, salivating.

"Suck it up," they say.

"Suck this up," I so badly want to respond.

But, I don't say any such thing. I'm nice, after all. And people generally mean well, even when they advise stupid shit like that.

Some things simply cannot be dealt with by sheer act of will. Some things are, get this, actually hard. Some things, they take time, and too often time is a concession we're not given. So, too often, we find ourselves pressured into ignoring the problem, pretending that it's not as bad as it really is. Trying to fool the world and ourselves into believing that everything is okay.

And then one day we explode into a million pieces.

Ignoring problems doesn't make them go away. Acting normal might fool some people, but it never fools the most important person, the person doing the acting. So what's the point? The inconvenient truth is always always always better than the convenient lie.

And the thing is, I suck it up a little bit every damn day. How else would I get out of bed each morning? How else would I ever leave my house? How else would I breathe?

I do all I can to get through this, and that is, by definition, all I can do.

Okay, maybe I could close the closet door. Maybe I could turn on the lights and banish the shadows but, eventually, I'd have to sleep. And that's when it would get me. In my sleep.

No thanks.

I'd rather be awake, And see that monster coming. And hear the hinges squeaking and the floorboards creaking. And feel and hear the soft whimpers from my throat as my body tenses up from fear.

In case you were wondering, I'm in a weird mood right now.

I'm in a pretty weird mood today. Lack of sleep I guess, the blame for which is shared equally between a bout of insomnia keeping me awake and a thunderstorm waking me up.

I want to write today. More than that, I want to be a writer. Whatever that means. Vomiting words and somehow having them splatter into readability. A Rorschach test to reveal things about the writer, and maybe about the reader as well.

You ever just have one of those lives?

I'm waiting again. That's what I do. The present holds little interest for me, and the past is annoyingly immutable, so I wait for the future. I hope that, once I finally catch up with that elusive asshole, that this will all make sense. That I'll understand why I've endured.

I need to get out of this house, and out of this mood.

It was one of my big concerns, actually, that I wouldn't let this end quietly. That, once this beast was no longer looming ahead of me but was instead standing beside me, that I'd lash out. Or at least try to defend myself.

I haven't really done that, I don't think. Nope, I'm just letting it beat the shit out of me, and hoping that it'll tire before I die.

---

Another concern is that the end will never be a part of my past. That I'll pick it up and I'll carry it with me for the rest of my days. Burdened by its weight, encumbered by it's size, but unable and unwilling to let go because it will be all that I have left to prove that I ever existed in any way that mattered.

---

I lie awake, and I doubt the truth of every word that was ever said to me.

And the amazing thing was the rapidity with which it all took place.

I never in my life saw anyone sober up so quickly, and then, once the crisis has been dealt with, I never in my life saw anyone go back to being so drunk so quickly.

It really was uncanny. I looked around for Allen Funt, but he wasn't there. I think he might be dead, come to think of it.

Anyway, I really do like to feel useful. It's all a matter of perspective, of course. What to one person is an obvious manipulation, a blatant advantage being taken, to another person - my lovely self in this case - it's nothing more than an opportunity to feel useful. These opportunities are especially welcome because I never thought they'd happen again.

HatGirl says that I should stop defining myself by what I mean to others. My response to that is that I can't think of a better measurement.

I'm just rambling now. I went to Denny's after we left Jack's, and I thought it was a lot later than it was. So now I'm wired because it's only 2:16 instead of 5:16.

If time flies when you're having fun, I guess that means it drags when you're miserable?

I didn't think I was miserable. I thought I was in a pretty good mood - it's the feeling useful thing - but I guess I was wrong. Maybe I was so miserable that I somehow looped back into a happy place.

Weird.

The thing that I can't seem to get to stick in my head is that there's nothing I can do.

I didn't do enough before. No matter how hard that is for me to accept. Even though I did so much, more than I'd have thought possible and more than most people would have done, I simply didn't do enough to be good enough.

During, I did too much. I was honest and forthcoming. Too much of each, because I was also hurting. In shock by the suddenness and the brutality of what was happening. I should have taken the time to let things digest. But, I didn't. I screwed up and I let my emotions take over. Oops, right?

And after? After, I don't know what's been going on. I've either been doing too much or too little or the exact right amount, but it doesn't matter, because it's been out of my hands, and it's still out of my hands, and I wish I could accept that fact instead of forgetting it every 10 seconds. Instead of always trying to do something, anything at all, to fix this.

I'm doing it right now, with this entry. Trying to fix things.

Wasting my time, some would say.

Standing my ground, others might counter.

I get so damn impatient sometimes. You'd really think, after all these years, that patience would be something I'd be really good at.

You'd be wrong.

I remember writing something, a long time ago. It wasn't here in this blog, I don't think. I think it was somewhere else. Somewhere that no longer exists.

There's a lot of that going around these days.

I went, in an instant, from feeling useful to feeling used, from feeling needed to feeling taken advantage of. That instant is when it happened. It was a Monday night when the walls of my false reality crumbled and crashed at my feet. March 23rd, 2009.

I lived in a place of hope, and dreams, and love. But it was all a lie.

I worry about the things I'll write when I feel like I have nothing left to lose. I wonder why I don't feel that way already. Perhaps there are still lies waiting to crumble.

I'm sure it doesn't seem like that big of a deal, to anyone close enough to me to know what's going on, or I guess what went on would be more accurate. These hypothetical friends and theoretical stalkers heard or read my tale, and they probably yawned a little.

Well, I was there. And I didn't fucking yawn.

It's all about context, see. One person's distraction can be another person's reason for living.

And now, those same friends and stalkers would probably expect me to be angry today, having been ever-so-briefly shown the light, only to be (apparently) thrust again into darkness.

Perhaps, soon, I will be angry again. But not today. Today, I'm mesmerized by the afterimages of what I saw.

I've got this annoying urge to write something this morning. I just feel like I should write something. Shit happens, and I write about it. That's the way it's supposed to work.

Well, some shit happened. And, like I said, I feel like I should write about it.

But I don't want to, at least not until I figured out exactly what happened. And definitely not until I figure out if it was a good thing or not.

I guess I can say that I don't think I'm as sad as I was a couple of days ago, and a couple of weeks ago, and a couple of months ago, and a couple of years ago. At least, I don't think I am. I dunno. Maybe I'm worse.

Oooh! I just thought of something!

There's a tornado inside my head!

So there.

The last few times that I've awakened so suddenly and been unable to get back to sleep, it's been a little different. The last few times, I've known exactly what it was that woke me up.

Either a stray thought, or a snippet of a dream, about the one person in all this who is truly innocent. I have my thought or my dream-snippet, and it latches onto my brain and simply will not let go. Its claws grab hold and, for minutes or hours, my brain simply isn't capable of any other thought.

Maybe this is progress, this knowing. Hard to tell, maybe this is just the eye of the storm.

I'm not sure. It feels better to know, even though these thoughts keep me just as awake as all of the unknown torment did before it. At least this is reasonable. At least this is expected. At least this is normal.

I think that the thing is, out of all the anger and the sadness and the longing that I've done, there's one thing that I don't think anyone could begrudge me for doing.

I miss that kid, and it's perfectly reasonable for me to do so. If I didn't miss him, I don't think I'd be human.

I can't help but wonder, When am I going to say that enough is enough?

When will I stop? When will I give up?

It's the most annoying thing, being so stubborn and blind, and knowing that I'm being stubborn and blind, and relishing in it because the alternatives are unacceptable.

My eyes are wide open, and still I don't see. Still I cannot see. Still I refuse to see.

When will I stop? When will I give up?

When will I die?

This is not a life. This is a death. Prolonged and stretched almost to the point of indiscernability, but a death nonetheless.

When?

I'm at Denny's early today, or maybe I'm here late last night. Whatever, it's 3:49 right now, so it's something fucked up.

It's very crowded here right now. And LOUD. At least 90% of the noise is coming from the corner booth, and at least 99% of that noise is coming from one person, a somewhat round girl who I shall call Loudy McLoudandfat. Her cackling is threatening to liquefy my bones. That would be gross.

The remaining 10% of the noise, itself almost ear-splitting, emanates from a group of guys dorks playing some kind of trivia game at the center table. I'm fairly certain that sexual favors are being wagered, and that they don't really care who wins the game, because they'll all get to "win" later in the parking lot. Hint hint wink wink.

And finally, over in the corner, is an old guy, as quiet as I am and probably as miserable as I am because of these auditory assailants.

My plan, such as it was, was to come here and scribble out a quick entry, then have breakfast with DoableGirl. My plan, such as it was, did not include arriving at 3:45 in the flipping morning. So now I've got to improvise. I've got at least another hour to kill, and I don't know if I've got an hour's worth of words inside me, straining to escape. I guess I'll find out.

It's hard to stay in a writey mood in this place. Usually it's too quiet. Sometimes, like this morning, it's too loud. It's weird, though, that I can sit in a bar and write for hours but in this place even 15 minutes seems too long. It's not that different from a bar.

Anyway, earlier tonight I was thinking about my readers. Not any of my specific readers, but my readers in general. My generic readers.

Some of you people have stuck with me for years. Out of habit, possible, the inertia of interest that's long since faded. Or maybe that's not fair. Maybe there's still genuine interest out there somewhere, a curiosity, perhaps, about what exactly the fuck happened.

Those readers, the curious ones, are owed something. There's a debt there. There's always been an unspoken agreement. I write about my life, and people read it. Well, I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain lately, and I know it. The more that people read my irrelevant drivel, the more into the red I sink.

I fear, however, that this is a debt which will never be repaid in full. There are too many things about which I simply cannot write. Too many feelings to be hurt, too many fingers to point, and too much blame to assign.

See, this blog isn't about me, and it hasn't been about me for a very long time. It's been about something else. A feeling or a desire or a question or an answer, all intertwined and all pervasive. Everything that I wrote was about that. Everything, even if it didn't seem that way to those of you reading. And now it's got too stop. It's become just too damn intense.

Luckily, this blog is no longer about that thing at all. Now, it's about trying to survive even as I wonder if I want to survive.

And, as long as I'm being forthcoming, nothing I've written has been written for me, or for you generic readers out there in Internetland. Nope, all of it, every single word that I've written in the last half-decade, has been written to and for one very specific reader. A reader who is probably wondering, as she reads this sentence, "Is he talking about me?"

Of course I am, silly girl. And that also has to stop. Again, way too intense.

Now, where was I going with all this drivel?

Doesn't matter, because my date is here. It's about time. I'm starving.

I'm such a damn hypocrite sometimes. Like when I claim to not believe in fate except regarding this one tiny thing, and regarding this one tiny thing I base years of my life on faith that it's meant to be.

Make up your damn mind, Dave.

So here's the deal. Maybe I've been wrong. Maybe I've been wrong about fate, and maybe I've been wrong about this one tiny thing. Maybe it's all been random, or existing only in my head, or maybe there is fate, and what's happened is exactly what fate had in store for me.

It's a tough pill to swallow, being wrong. Wrong about a life. Wrong about a love. Just flat-out wrong about the only thing that has ever mattered to me. The only thing that, I fear, will ever matter to me.

So, having accepted the possibility that I've been wrong, what am I supposed to do about it?

Nothing. Not a damn thing.

Wait to die, or maybe wait to live. Maybe I've been right, and I just need even more patience, and maybe I've been wrong, and patience is irrelevant. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that I do nothing, because that's what she wants from me right now.

Nothing.

And I hope that others will follow my example. There's been too much meddling and too much drama already.

It's time for peace to prevail.

I've had this thought sliding around in my head for a few days. It's a slippery bastard, though, and I never can seem to maintain a grip on it. Long enough to recognize it, but not long enough to really get a good look. I suspect that, eventually, this thought will be captured and dissected into a blog entry. But not today.

---

I'm at Denny's again this morning. I got here late, for me. It's 7:15 as I write this sentence. I guess I timed things just right, as I pretty much have the place to myself. I see an elderly couple out front. I bet they're going to church when they leave here. I hope they find what they're looking for.

---

KittenDamsel and I were supposed to go to Covington last night. But then I was reminded that there was a party at my sister's house, for my niece and her fiancé. So I went there instead. KittenDamsel didn't want to go because, she said, she wouldn't know anyone. Well, out of the 7.5 million people there, I only knew perhaps a dozen. Maybe I'll go to Covington today. Maybe she'll take Monday off and come with me. Maybe pigs will fly. We'll see.

---

I wonder what time Home Depot opens. I could buy some 4x4s and some Quickrete and work on my swing. I can't believe I've let it go this long, but I guess I've been distracted. I've never done anything with concrete before. I'm afraid I'll make a mistake and get trapped somehow. A permanent monument to my own ineptitude.

---

I guess there's just no way that I can go anywhere without running away from here. I'm coming to grips with that. I can run, perhaps because I must run. The thought of running away is not what's giving me pause. Nope, it's the stark realization that, by running somewhere else, I'd also be giving up on here. That's what scares me. I'm just not ready to give up, and I fear that I never will be ready.

I've written before that I think fate is a silly concept, but I just can't shake this feeling, this certainty, that there's a reason for all this. A reason that I'm sitting at a Denny's early on a Sunday morning and thinking about her, missing her. This series of events and emotions that was set into motion all those years ago, there is a reason. I just don't know what that reason is. Perhaps its purpose is to destroy me.

So far, so good.

---

The crowd is starting to pour in now. More church people, I bet. I guess it's nice to have faith in something. I can't say that their faith is any more misplaced than my own.

It's too early to be writing this. I should wait. I should go back out into my garage and have another Marzen and then write this drivel.

But I'm inside now. And my garage is all the way out there.

Screw it. I'm going back outside. Nobody wanted to read unpolished bullshit anyway.

I have this thing that I used to do, years ago. I used to write something every night, before I went to bed. MixedSignalGirl was my muse, back then, though my own thoughts and feelings certainly put their two cents' worth in whenever the pressure became too great.

Now, I'm certainly not saying that I'm going to go back to writing something every day. I've said that before, and I've always failed to live up to that promise. But what I am saying is that I'll do better than I've done in the recent past.

---

Tonight I was thinking, as I'm so wont to do. Thinking was, as it has always been, a bad thing for me to do.

I was thinking about invitations. Invitations that I've received and invitations I've merely wanted to receive. And I was thinking about what my responses would be. And I was surprised and irritated at some of the realizations I made.

I would still, for example and after everything, rather simply hang out with the girl I love than fuck anyone else.

I've known this, on a subconscious level, for months. But tonight, it really seemed like a choice I might have to make. And, tonight, I once again realized that there would be no real choice.

---

I tried to be nice. I actually think that I was nice. But it was for naught. I was accused of being mean, basically. Of being an asshole. That same old assumption still ruled, and fuck the truth and the horse it rode in on.

Well, news flash; I'm not an asshole. And neither is the horse. It's a really nice horse, actually.

---

So then I made a phone call. I asked KittenDamsel straight-out. Her answer surprised me very much. If I go, then she'll go. She'll go and then we'll see what transpires.

There's this thing called faith, see. Not the religious kind, but faith in a person's goodness. I have it. KittenDamsel has it. HatGirl certainly has it. And certain others don't have it. Oh well.

That old saying, better safe than sorry, is all well and good except when it becomes the primary driving force for a life.

Safe, far too often, leads to sorry.

Failure to take any kind of real chance is, quite simply, a failure to live.

I decided sometime this afternoon that I needed to write something relevant. Something to, perhaps, entice the last stragglers into sticking around this blog a little longer. One such entry follows. Don't read it if you don't like relevant things. This means you, by the way.

It should have been me.

I've said and wrote and felt those words so many times over the last several months, and it's pretty much the one thought that's remained consistent throughout all of this bullshit that I've used instead of a life.

It should have been me. Never before and, I hope with all of my heart, never again, will I ever be so certain about something. Certainty is fine and good, by the way, until it blows up in your face and splatters god-knows-what (certainty guts?) all over you.

I want to know where I messed up. I want to know what I did wrong. I want - no, scratch that - I need to know what was wrong with me.

There. That's relevant.

But wait!

There's more.

I see four options, if I squint my eyes just so and tilt my head at just the right angle. Four.

There should be one. That's all I've ever had, after all, since that unknown evening in the Fall of 2003.

Anyway, nothing, less, same, more.

Those are the options.

We've tried nothing. I've lived with nothing for almost two months now. It's damn near killed me. It may still kill me, if I'm lucky. Better that than to die alone and unloved in my fucking sleep in forty fucking years. A broken heart is a pretty noble way to die, I think.

More, well that is the only option that my heart has ever let me consider. Unfortunately, it's not up to me, or the choice would have been made a long time ago.

Same simply cannot happen. It was an untenable situation, and we witnessed the proof, as everything that we had toppled and shattered and scattered at our feet because of our stupid feelings and our stupid prides and our stupid fears, despite our stupid blindness and our stupid lack of acceptance and our stupid stubbornness

So now we're stuck with less. Exactly how much less isn't up to me, and I'm glad that it's not. Because I'm not up to the task of deciding. I'm still, after all these minutes and hours and days and weeks and months since everything fell apart, I'm still not capable of separating the fantasy of what I feel from the reality of what I see.

And I really don't think that I'll ever be capable. Nor do I want the job.

Cool. A relevant entry with not just one, but two relevant subjects. That ought to keep people around for a while longer.

How do I leave without running away, scurrying to the relative safety of the unknown? It could be the greatest opportunity ever, but could I take advantage of it for its own sake? I want to stay, but how can I stand my ground when that ground has dissolved beneath my feet? How can I leave with any dignity at all?

How do I stay without clinging, with desperation and inevitable futility, to false hope? Do family and friends mean anything at all? Does my house mean anything at all? I want to leave, but how could I possibly leave my own life? How can I stay for myself, and for nobody else?

How do I change my life, and my habits, and my haunts, without hiding and cowering?

How do I show strength without being cold, without invalidating everything that I've said, and done, and felt?

How do I show emotion without being spineless and selfish, without shaking every time I hear a voice or, God forbid, see a face?

Everything I do is seen through these damn colored glasses. The ones that I've worn willingly for a large chunk of my life. It's no wonder that people are watching me, listening to me, reading my words.

She's reading my words.

How do I move on without rebounding?

Trying not to think about the past, or at least not the recent past. It's just too damn depressing.

Also not thinking about the future, because for all I know there isn't going to be one. It's all amorphous and shit.

And the present?

Fuck the present.

So where does that leave me?

Nowhere. Or Nowhen. Whatever. Random firings of neurons in my brain that sometimes luck-out and form coherent thoughts.

Ahem...

It really bothers me that I censored myself so much these last several months. I mean, I didn't even write about New Year's Eve, for fuck's sake. That was a wonderful night. I still can't write about it, though. Except that it was wonderful.

And...

So many other times that I felt such incredible joy, and I still kept quiet. I hope that my silence was appreciated, because I didn't stay silent for myself. I wanted to not only write about my joy, I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

And...

Clearly, I waited too long to say those words. But really, was there a better time? An opportunity that I'd missed, a hint that I'd failed to see? Perhaps, but hindsight is 20/20, and foresight is maybe about 20/200 at best.

And...

I thought things were progressing naturally. Not in a weird way at all. I was wrong about that, and eventually I felt desperate and forced to say those words that I'd kept hidden for years. And I was too late. Or maybe still too soon. I haven't figured that out yet.

And...

Completely changing the subject, but what happened is that we ended up scaring the shit out of each other. The first time was back in 2005 when we first met. The second time was much more recent. We still scare the shit out of each other on a regular basis. But it's a good kind of scary, I think.

Oh, and also...

Changing the subject again. I don't know what's going on. I like to think that I know myself well enough to recognize those old danger signs, but it's very possible that I'm just lying to myself all over again. If so, then at least I think she's lying to herself as well, and that's why we make such a good team.

It is a long and winding path, this one that I stand before. That we stand before.

Every now and then, bolstered by alcohol and desperation, I test my footing, just in front of where I stand. But it's just a test. I place my foot forward, and I brush the ground with my toes, and I almost shift my weight forward, but not quite.

Never quite.

I am afraid, you see. Afraid of tiring, and afraid of making a wrong turn, and afraid of losing my concentration and my footing. Slipping and falling. But mostly, afraid of finding myself on this path alone.

See, this is not a journey that I can make by myself.

I try. Every now and then, I really do try to fix things between us. Or to at least define things between us.

I try, and I fail, every time.

I will keep trying.

I will.

As the subset of the universe that makes up my readership prepares to roll its collective eyes...

Not this shit again?!?

Yes, indeed. This shit again.

Something else. That's what we've become. Something undefined, and perhaps undefinable. Not friends, not acquaintances, certainly not lovers. Neither strangers nor enemies. Ghosts who haunt each other from time to time.

We give life to lies by pretending they're true, but we fool nobody but ourselves, and only then through luck and stubbornness.

Everything that was and everything that could have been, replaced by this, this something. Blindness. Deafness. Numbness.

We have become something else. A round peg searching desperately for purpose, but finding itself in a universe full of square holes. Definition eludes, cowers.

In flux, perhaps.

Three hours ago, I was going to write something and then I was going to go to bed. I was going to go to bed at a normal hour, like a normal person.

See, I've got a lunch date with HatGirl and I want to be refreshed and shit. So I was going to go to bed at 12:30 or so, right after I wrote something.

And here I still sit.

Better late than never, perhaps?

There is a quote by Ernest Hemingway on NakedGirl's blog.

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Anyway, I was thinking today that I need to stop this bleeding.

Or not.

Maybe, instead, I should slice the veins in my soul and just let myself pour.

How long would I bleed? Forever?

That would be gross.

Okay, so now I'm home again. It's 3:14 in the morning as I type this sentence, for those of you keeping score.

I just, like right this minute, got an urge to type something. Once again, unfortunately, I haven't the slightest idea what I can/should/will write.

So I'll just let my fingers twitch against this keyboard, and then I'll see what's produced.

I think I've figured out what it is that I want. Something impossible, of course, but that's never stopped me before. And the nice thing about impossible dreams is that I'm not disappointed when they don't come true.

The thing is, like it or not, I'm still pretty much the same person that I was two months ago, six months ago, five years ago. Recent events have shattered my hopes and derailed my desires, but they've done absolutely nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing to me.

Only the direction has changed. This compass that once pointed true now spins wildly, seeking a North that no longer exists.

Or does it?

This is an important question.

I've got so little patience these days. I run around and I grab heads and I peer into eyes, and if I don't see what I want within the first few seconds, I release my grip and I move on.

I know what I'm looking for, and I know where to find it. I just can't look there, not anymore. So I look for it elsewhere.

It exists. I know it does. It's out there somewhere, somewhere else I mean. I will find it. Or maybe I'll die trying, but if so, then I'll die fucking trying instead of sulking.

Hmmm, I just read the drivel that I've written so far. It sucks. I know exactly what I'm trying to say here, but my fingers aren't cooperating.

Maybe my fingers are tired. I know that the rest of me is.

5:35. AM. In the flipping morning.

Sleep tries to elude me, but I always manage to catch it. Eventually. I do sleep. In fact, I get more sleep now than I did before all of the shit hit the fan in my personal life. Figure that one out, and then explain it to me because I don't get it.

Things are way too calm inside my head. It really doesn't feel right. I should be devastated, and I always feel like I'm right on the verge of devastation, but I never seem to cross that line.

I keep saying that I don't know who I am anymore. That's an absolute fact. I mean, for years I was that guy. You know, the one who had hope for something wonderful with someone wonderful. The one who gave up his life to spend as much time as possible with someone wonderful. I may have mentioned some of this from time to time.

Anyway, I'm no longer that guy, and I'm almost always alone, even in a crowded room, and so I'm not sure just who the fuck I am.

So, after you figure out why I'm managing to sleep, maybe you can figure out who I am, and let me know that as well.

Sometimes I find myself in a weird mood. But not a regular weird mood, where I feel like writing something deep and moving and relevant, instead a mood where I feel like plagarizing myself.

So much of what I've written over the years has been the absolute truth. So true, in fact, that it remains true to this day:

The thought that a pretty face, or a sexy body, or a friendly personality - the thought that any or all of these things might be enough for me - that thought borders on hilarious.

There's always something missing, it seems. That thing which is intangible and all-important. That's the thing for which the need permeates me. I've found something to fill that need once, twice, maybe three times. I may never find it again. That would be sad, I think.

Desire is more important than satisfaction. Because you can never really have the latter without the former. If you try, it inevitably feels hollow and empty. It feels like a lie, and for good reason.

WeirdGirl and I talked about this stuff for a while, our breathing still synchronized, in the late hours before sleep took us. We've discussed it before, and it's starting to sink in, the things that I say. She's finally starting to understand me, and her understanding will probably signal the end of this. Whatever this is.

I could have lied to her. Either explicitly or implicitly, I could have been much less than honest and therefore been a much better boyfriend. But that's not who I am, how I am. I will not change. The truth is all that I have sometimes. All that I have left.

I want to write something now.

I want to write that I'm done with trying to be nice, with trying to salvage any semblance of civility from this mess. I want to write that I get it, that I'm going to stop denying the harsh truth and that I'm going to accept it even if I can't embrace it. I want to write that I realize that it will take more than my own feeble efforts to resurrect any hope for anything at all, and that my efforts, unaccompanied as they are, cause more harm than good. I want to write that I see no way that this can be fixed.

I want to write all of those things, but I won't. I won't write them because they wouldn't be true.

Not yet, anyway.

So I've been thinking a lot lately. That's not really anything new. I do it all the time. Lately, however, it's been so damn futile that I don't know why I'm even bothering to think at all.

Problem is, I don't know what I want. And it's not that I keep changing my mind. I don't even seem to have a mind to change.

My resolve is strong, but what exactly is my resolution?

I don't know what I want because I don't know who I am, and so I don't know what to do. I'm living on reflex, and I don't like it.

Very frustrating. For years I knew exactly who I was, and what I wanted, and so I could act accordingly.

Now, I look in the mirror and I see a stranger with some hidden desire, and I wish he'd let me in on the damn secret.

I don't know what it is about this early hour on this early May morning that suddenly finds my brain aching to write something. Neither do I know what it is I'm supposed to write. I think it just has to be something but the actual topic is irrelevant.

Irrelevant.

That's a word that I've used a lot over the past several weeks and months and even years.

So something has happened. Something bad. A beast bore down upon me, and I saw it coming and I stood my ground and I fought with everything I had.

I lost.

People tell me that I should have never bothered to fight. That I should have ran at the first sign of trouble. That it was futile from the start. This is their way of telling me that they think I've been stupid for a long time.

It's easy for people to cower safely inside their own lives and pretend to understand. It's easy to smirk and shake your head when you've never had anything worth fighting for. Worth living for. Worth dying for.

People tell me that this is a good thing. That now I can finally move on.

Those people are irrelevant. Their opinions are irrelevant. Their advice is irrelevant.

Maybe I could never see the forest through the trees, but at least I was in the damn forest. And now, battered and bloody, I struggle to crawl my way out.

Funny, I really thought I'd be in the mood to write something tonight. And I suppose that I was, about six hours ago. But now I'm home and I don't feel like writing anymore.

Sometimes, things happen. That's what I was thinking I'd write about. Sometimes, things happen, and I feel pretty guilty, especially about the things that the things imply.

No, scratch that. There's no implication, there's a big fucking spotlight shining onto my shortcomings.

But, as I told myself Wednesday night, when some things happened, "You get one life, Dave. Try to enjoy it every now and then."

That's the same line of reasoning that I've used to justify a lot things lately.

Hmmm, I guess I did feel like writing something after all. No much, to be certain, but something.

It's a surreal feeling, and I'm not sure how to describe it.

Waking up, and realizing that you've just been thrown out of an airplane. Falling because you must, and because it's effortless. You twist your body so that your head will impact first.

Touching a fence, and finding out too late that it's electric, as your hands seize into claws unable to let go. Your fingers ignite and you relish the pain because it's better than nothing.

Blinded, deafened, numbed. All senses overloaded and dead, but no matter. Lesser purposes and all that...

Living for that which no longer exists and wondering if it ever did. Questioning, doubting everything you know and everything you feel and everything you are. Answers elude and evade.

It's a surreal feeling.

I remember what I said. I said that I'd leave. I said that, if I had no reason left to stay, then I'd leave.

Well, maybe I didn't think that through all the way. I mean, how am I supposed to know when there's no reason to stay? It must be a feeling, because facts are piling on top of me, and I still can't decide.

About every hour, I flip-flop between wanting to leave and wanting to stick it out. I bounce between excitement over the prospect of starting over and dread over the same prospect. There's a line between perseverance and stupidity, and I live on that line, right where it intersects the line between cowardice and acceptance.

Whatever I do, I know what I want it to be for me, and not for anyone else. I want to end up doing what's right for me. Wow, that seems like a selfish thing to want.

It's not really that black and white, of course. It never is. I'm not the only one, even though it sometimes seems that way.

I've been dewrinkling my shirt while I type this stupid entry. My dryer just dinged, so it's time to go. I'm going to this Jack's bar and drinking some Rogue Dead Guy Ale. I like that stuff.

Maybe I'll write something when I get back home. I feel like I might be in a writing mood tonight.

I tried to write something this morning, as I contemplated the day and the weather and the life that I find myself living. I tried to write, I even managed to write a few hundred words. All drivel, of course. What else would there be? I deleted those words.

And now it's fifteen hours or so later, and I'm back at this keyboard, once again searching for words and phrases which might, when strung together in a certain way, serve to illustrate the wonder that is me at this particular time and date.

12:26 AM, April 26, 2009.

You know what thought jumped into my head a little while ago, as I drove back home from an aborted trip to this stupid Jack's bar that was charging a cover for a stupid band that nobody ever heard of?

Go ahead, try to guess.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

Wrong.

The thought that crept into my head was one from an old beer commercial.

Great taste. Less filling.

And that started me thinking about emptiness. And that started me thinking about wasted time. And that started me thinking about wasted effort.

I see it all the time, all around me. I see it in myself, when I dare to look in a mirror.

Waste.

If it looks like a duck and walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck - guess what, it's a fucking duck. Call it a cherry pie all you want, but it's still a damn duck.

It's such a bullshit situation, this one in which I find myself. Not only have I been conclusively and irrevocably convinced that I must turn my back on the most important relationship I've ever had, I've also been sworn to secrecy about my reason.

I hope that, someday, somehow, I'll be released from this particular gag-order, but I only wish that for the sake of my own conscience. Though this did certainly end and it is certainly over, I don't like the way it happened, simple as that. The relationship, however one wished to define it, deserved more. But I will not break my word.

As it is, I haven't been asked, and I don't expect to be asked. Assumptions and rumors will serve as facts, because facts are unavailable, and because facts can be cold and hard.

One thing I've noticed today. Just one thing out of a million things that swarmed through my head as I continued my struggle for clarity and my desperate grasping at resolve. One tiny trivial tidbit that's stuck with me.

For months, either too many times or not enough times, I would say, "I wish things were different."

But today, those words are no longer appropriate. Today, those words are no longer true.

Today, I'm imagining saying, "I wish things had been different."

Slightly different tense, for an incredibly different reality.

If I were a real writer, I could write about anything, and make it legible, maybe even enjoyable.

Well, I'm not a real writer, even though I fancy myself as one from time to time. I doubt that I fool anyone except maybe myself.

Remember how I used to write about beaches and islands and oceans and crap like that? Well, tonight I'm going to write (briefly) about a lighthouse.

It was so fucking bright - blindingly so, one would think - but it never once hurt my eyes at all. And, even though that coast was fraught with danger after peril after hazard, I never once doubted that I would be safe. That light was everything to me. My guide. My inspiration. My target, for not only safety, but for paradise.

And then some dipshit had to come along and extinguish the light.

I miss the light. Not only for everything that it did for me, but for everything that it stood for.

Already the memory of it fades from my mind, already the blobs fade from my vision.

I was just thinking about the past. Two years ago, to be precise. April of 2007.

Back then, I had several things going for me in my life. I had what seemed like millions of unanswered questions, a few choice untold secrets, and I spent my life kicking my own ass because of fears and uncertainties that had held me back two years earlier. And I also had a stupid little spark of hope for the future.

Now it's two years later, and everything is different. I've told my secrets, and I've had my questions answered, and I no longer loathe myself because of those fears and uncertainties.

And that stupid little spark of hope?

It's gone now. That's another thing that's changed. I miss having hope, that's for sure. But good riddance to all that other crap.

I need to say some things.

1. This was my decision.

2. I don't like it even a tiny bit, but it still needed to be done.

3. I am a man, after all.

4. Some things can neither be excused nor ignored.

5. You people who thought I was being stubborn before - you haven't seen anything yet.

6. I'm sure that I will second-guess this for the rest of my life, but I will not regret it.

7. Nobody can ever say that I didn't try my absolute hardest.

8. This is not my loss. My loss happened a long time ago.

I must say that I never really saw that coming.

Though perhaps I should have.

And now I get to live with the consequence of my blindness.

If I can.

---

It's so weird to feel myself functioning via reflex.

A car passes my house, and a stray photon from its headlights strikes my phone and bounces into my eye. My brain interprets this peripheral vision as my phone lighting up. Reflex takes over. I jerk my head.

False alarm. It's nothing. I sigh with relief.

---

This, of course, shall pass eventually. The friction of daily life will inexorably wear down the inertia of emotion with which I've lived for so very long. This will stop. I will stop.

I don't know who I am.

I guess I'm about to find out.

I hope I'm not a dick.

What I think, and I've thought this before, is that this is a really good stopping point.

Not ideal, certainly, but is there really such a thing as an ideal stopping point? And this is about as good as it's going to get, I'm afraid.

And, of course, the question is - will we take advantage of this opportunity, or will we squander it as we've done with all those that have preceded it?

And the other question is - if we do squander this opportunity, why?

I'm not sure what to call it when this happens, when I wake up like this after only a couple hours of sleep. I don't think it's insomnia - that's for when I can't fall asleep in the first place - but it should certainly be called something. I'd nominate bullshit but that word is already over-used.

Tonight I'm struck with the urge, more than on almost any other night I can remember, to vent. To just let it all out and say everything that's on my mind. To just start typing and not stop until I've said it all. To tell this entire story.

Because people don't know. They only see the shadows.

I'm trying to write tonight. I'm trying to write well. I've sat at my computer for two hours. I've written two thousand words, and I've deleted almost all of them. None have been good enough, and that's been the problem all along. None have ever been good enough for this.

Understanding, acceptance, even belief have been denied me, because my words haven't been good enough.

It's possible, even for me, to see clearly. If I squint my eyes in just the right way, if I cause this illusion to be distorted by just the right amount, the truth appears.

But if I feel something strongly enough, if I believe something with enough conviction, if I know something with enough confidence, then does it really matter if it's real or not?

If it's absolutely real to me, doesn't that count as reality for me? If the truth differs from what I know with all my heart, then doesn't the truth become irrelevant to me?

I've written before that hope is self-defeating - it exists only to disappoint because, once fulfilled, it vanishes - and I still believe those words. But beyond hope lies belief, and beyond belief lies knowledge.

And this one thing, I know. I just know.

I am here for a reason.

People can, and do, say that I'm crazy and stupid and childish and stubborn and blind and weird and any number of other derogatory adjectives they can come up with. People say these things and they think these things and they pity me and sometimes they even pray for me, that I might open my eyes, or squint them just right, and see clearly.

Well, my eyes are wide-open. I see just fine, thank you very much.

I am crazy and stupid and childish and stubborn and blind and weird, but those are merely symptoms. Shadows on the wall lacking enough dimensions to ever be more.

The truth, as I see it, is all that matters.

I know the truth. It's my truth and nobody can take it away from me.

I fucking know.

Sometimes, you're told a lie, or even a meticulously-crafted series of lies.

I am an honest person. I do not like liars.

Sometimes, the truth sucks, but it's always better than a lie.

Except when it's worse.

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to be writing now. It just seems that I should be writing something.

It's 3:05 in the morning. Sleep has, once again, managed to escape from my grasp after struggling for only a couple of hours. Now it dances around me, taunting me, daring me to try again.

The gentlest of tugs, that's all it would take. It's so weird to be writing that. Even more weird to be thinking it. Knowing that it's true.

Note that I do not and cannot count the oh-so-kind offer that StupidGirl made in February. That wasn't a gentle tug - it was a mighty yank - and instead of moving me in the desired direction, it simply broke off yet another piece of me, leaving everything else stationary.

Sometimes, even for the intangible, slow and steady can work when fast and sudden don't.

I should write that down. It seems important.

Oh wait, I just did write it down.

I can't sleep tonight. Not anymore. Had a stupid series of stupid dreams, and I can't get them out of my head.

So I gave up and I got up and I went for a drive at 3:30 or so. It was kinda nice. I wish I wasn't on-call this week, or I might have just kept on driving. Gotten away from here, tried to evade reality.

It wouldn't have worked, of course. After all, reality easily followed me to Las Vegas in February; it certainly could have kept pace with me tonight. But I'd like to have tried, I think. If nothing else, it would have given me something to do besides glare at my phone.

I can't really be sure, of course. I could be wrong. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

But we talked about it for a while last night. First time we've really discussed it at any length. I think she brought it up, or maybe she just said something that awoke the topic from its fitful slumber inside my head. Hard to say for sure why we discussed it. It just seemed necessary, I suppose. The emperor had appeared naked before us and we simply couldn't ignore it.

The thing is that we get along insanely well. I think we both agree on that. Never has a harsh word passed between us, and I can't really imagine any circumstances where that would change. Humor, temperament, intelligence, morality - all nearly identical. At least that's the way I see it, and she'd probably agree.

So we discussed it tonight while I sat at the bar glaring at my phone and she sat next to me glaring at her phone. We discussed that What if? scenario that's way too big to be encompassed by a single hypothetical. It would need something more like What if this and that and the other thing and oh yeah that one thing too and then some more things? to even come close.

But, strip away all the impediments and the question is laid bare.

What about us?

Because we would certainly try. I don't see how we could avoid trying. We get along too well to live the lies that would allow us to avoid it. Ridiculously compatible, I think I called it. We agree on that too.

The thing is, I think that we'd try, and I think that we'd eventually fail. We'd run into some of the incompatibilities that we discussed tonight, and probably some other, heretofore hidden obstacles, and eventually we'd fail. We'd have a lot of fun trying, and it would be really good for a long while, but in the end, we'd fail.

But the friendship would survive, and that's all that would really matter in the end.

We agree on that, too.

They don't really snap.

It's more like they stretch and stretch and then eventually they just sort of dissolve.

So then suddenly they're just not there.

And I try to make do, with whatever's left. I shift my grip, and I try to hang on.

If they snapped, if they made a sound when they broke, I think that would make more sense. And maybe it would have more impact that way, instead of just sort of sneaking me up to this inevitable fall.

I don't know why I think that, though.

Maybe for the same reason I keep trying to hang on in the first place.

Maybe because I'm weird, or maybe because I'm in love, or maybe because I'm retarded.

It's all a matter of persepctive, I suppose.

Every now and then, I get something.

A certain look, or a word, or a touch. It's never much, or almost never much, but it's always something.

People ask me why. All the time, people ask me why.

Because, every now and then, I get something.

Wow.

I'm fooling myself, of course. Sitting here acting like I'm in control of things for a change. Pretending so hard that I have a choice, and then actually believing it.

Anyway, my dreams these last eight days have all been the same. Oh, not exactly the same - the details vary - but the theme stays the same.

In my dreams, I'm so happy. But then, all of a sudden, something happens, and I want to die. Sometimes, in my dreams, I get to die, but usually not. Usually I just want it, but I wake up instead. I suppose that waking up from a dream is a form of death, at least for the dream version of myself.

And they're not really all that disturbing, as nightmares go. I know it probably seems that way to someone reading about how I want to die and stuff.

But they really are just dreams, after all. A consequence of the random firing of neurons which my sleeping brain tries to interpret. Usually with some current events thrown into the mix for context, and maybe some metaphors for added color and intrigue.

I'm in a mood right now, of course. Lying to myself, saying that everything's going to be okay. Which is ludicrous, seeing as how I don't even know what okay means anymore. I mean, maybe this is it, glaring at my phone, waiting for that little red light to illuminate. Maybe this is okay.

Wow, the damn thing just lit up. It's so pretty.

So many problems, waah, waah, waah. I get so fucking sick of it. Sick of every moment of happiness being spoiled by the knowledge that it will never last, because I'm not a cocksucking douchebag and that's apparently what's required.

Doubly-sick of the fact that I haven't even been able to write about those times when I've been happy, not even a little bit. And I have been happy, dammit. I've been happy a lot these last several months.

I also, of course, can't write about being sad, but I've still managed it from time to time. When it's too much to bear alone, I share it with you readers. Like right now. Spread it out or something. But still no specifics, still nothing telling.

I am a good person, after all. Not a cocksucking douchebag.

Lot of fucking good that's done me.

I wonder what would happen, if I just wrote right here, right now, about those things which have been bothering me lately. Especially this past week.

Would it be read?

Would it be understood?

Would it be believed?

Because I've been right here dealing with it, and I sure as fuck can't believe it.

I'm not going to write shit, though. It's not my place, not my job.

And I am a good person, like I said. And I will die alone and unloved despite that fact.

I need some goddamn resolve, that's what I need. So if any of you have any resolve to spare, can you help a brother out?

I'll pay you back double in a couple of months.

Go here and read that old entry, then come back.

I'll wait.

La-la-la...

Ho hum...

Okay, what took you so long?

I wrote that over two years ago, and not a fucking thing has changed. The opinions I expressed back then are still my opinions.

And they're still right.

Okay, so in my last entry I said that I didn't know what I wanted anymore.

Now, I know.

I want to wake up and find that it's 2003, sometime before the Fall of that year.

I keep pinching myself, but I can't fucking wake myself up.

This has to be a nightmare.

It can't be real.

I wonder, what's supposed to happen next?

The future, it was always so clear to me before. I didn't know when and I didn't know how, but I knew what and I fucking absolutely knew why.

For years, I've been focused on one ideal, to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. Skimming above the surface of life, never quite letting myself pause and just enjoy things. Not with that wonderful future somewhere up ahead. For me, there was nothing but patience and desire, bound together.

Now, suddenly, it's different. I find myself back in that gray place I left so long ago. It hasn't changed, and I find, to my surprise, that I haven't changed that much either. I still, after months of happiness peppered with sorrow, I still average-out the same. I still belong here, alone with my own thoughts and feelings. It feels like home to me, and now I'm back, because my vacation is over.

I don't even know what I want anymore. The universe has once again shifted around me while I've stood transfixed. That which was beautiful has twisted into something ugly. That which was wonderful has transformed into something horrible. That which was desired has turned into something...

Now that's the weird thing.

It's still desired.

I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what to do. Or say. Or feel.

Simply waiting to die seems like a bad idea, as well as a boring one. I wish I could think of a better idea, but I'm fresh-out.

If I could write something, something that would express my current mood as accurately and completely as possible, if I could write something relevant right now, I bet it would be good.

I bet people would like it, the way the phrases flowed and the sentences sang and the words wound and wound around the central core of inescapable truth that, for now, I'm happy.

I bet people would like it, but I can't write it. Too much of anything, even the truth, is still too much.

Anyway, fuck you, universe!

I may be down, but I'm not out.

I don't know how many steps there are - I think about sixteen - because I've never taken time to count them. Hell, I've never had the spare brain capacity to count them because I'm too busy being happy or sad during those times when I use those particular stairs.

The coincidental part is that my mood parallels my altitude.

I always run up, sometimes two steps at a time, my ever-widening smile betraying the calmness that I strive to project just because I feel like it's expected and not weird, and I always trudge down, my frown broadcasting my defeat to the world.

In case you didn't guess already, I'm really bored right now. So I'm babbling, albeit in written form.

Last evening, for an hour or so to anyone unfortunate enough to notice me but a million years from my own perspective, I glared at my phone and I waited to die. It may have seemed that I did other things during that time - I appeared to chain-smoke and breathe and blink my eyes and all sorts of other mundane things - but those were mere illusions. Reflexive and involuntary actions, and nothing more. Nothing mattered to me except my phone, and the fact that it was silent.

My phone was going to ring, see. Actually, it was going to woo-hoo if you really need to know that small detail. My phone was going to woo-hoo, and then I was going to answer it. And then I was going to listen for a few seconds. And then I was going to say four words, assuming that I'd be able to speak at all, and then I was going to die.

I found myself wondering what my next reincarnation would be, what the next version of Dave would be like. The last one, the current version of myself, had gone on a fairly decent run. Decent, but not good, and certainly not great. The old saying is that nice guys finish last, and while I may not have been bringing up the absolute rear, sometimes second place is just as bad. Sometimes second place is the worst thing that could ever happen. Like when you've dedicated your entire life to a single race.

It was a false alarm. My phone made its woo-hoo sound, and I saw that it was a text message, and I sighed with relief. My death would not, I knew, be delivered via such an impersonal conduit, it would have come via voice. I've earned that much, I'm sure.

So, I'm still here. For now.

Despite all initial indications - despite, at times, hundreds thousands of latter indications - some people are just not nice, at least not when it really matters.

It doesn't make a difference, though, even though every spare instance of logical thought screams at you that it should make a huge difference, it simply doesn't. Not in the long run, anyway. You know what you know, and you feel what you feel, and the sad truth is that the two are not always complimentary.

You find yourself forced to choose between the truth and the fantasy, but it's not such a daunting task, because there is no choice. The heart wins, every time without fail or even much hesitation, the heart wins.

In summary, I'm fucked.

Fingers fumbling finding feeling fondling finally forcefully fusing firmly.

Looking over the fence. Admiring the green grass. Barely noticing my neighbor, my mirror-image, coveting my lawn.

Some forces attract and others repel. Sometimes there's a balance, and this bullshit I use instead of a life makes a little bit of sense.

Tasting the sour grapes. Wondering if I can ever love them. Realizing that I already do.

I have this word that keeps emanating from my lips.

It's not a nice word, and it's certainly not an earned word.

I wish the word would stop being the sound that my lips make when they decide to make an ostensibly random sound.

I wish the word would go back to hiding inside my head, with its brethren, until the day when it's really needed.

Not that I expect that to happen.

I heard about this open-mic thingy the other night. I didn't go, but I heard about it. One of the things I heard was that there were some "real" writers there.

I like to imagine myself as a real writer. Not now, I mean, but someday, in the future, maybe. I think I have it in me; that combination of passion and creativity that's so necessary. I've certainly got the passion, and the creativity is in here somewhere, rattling around in my head like a quarter you've left in your jeans when you did a load of laundry. Now it's in the dryer, banging and clanging.

Trying to take the chaos inside me and distill it into something that's both meaningful and interesting. It's tough sometimes, impossible at other times, but it feels downright effortless on nights like tonight. Nights when I've fucked up and it feel like this keyboard is absolutely all I have left. Every part of me, every iota of anything and everything that makes me who I am and how I am - all escaping by the only path available, flowing down through my fingers and onto my keyboard.

It has to escape. It fucking has to, because it's unbearable to be inside my head on nights like tonight.

Nights when I've fucked up.

Nights when I'm sorry.

Anyway, I know that this entry sucks. Just because something seems easy doesn't mean that it's any good.

I'm in here somewhere. I just know I am. I can almost, when it's late at night and I'm all alone, I can almost sense my presence. A flicker crosses my mind, but I notice it an instant too late.

I am, as I've said so often lately, fucked.

Dammit, I know I'm in here somewhere.

I defy anyone to live with this much pain for this long. I have no idea how I'm coping at all, if this can even be called coping.

I know what needs to be done, but I cannot do it. Time and time again, I turn around and I take one or two or three purposeful strides, and then my legs betray me. They turn to rubber, and I cannot take another step.

Efforts to push me away have seemed to be tests more than anything else. Tests for which I'm ill-prepared, and for which the results are beyond my control. Am I passing? Am I failing?

Lately there have been attempts to pull me away from this mess. To save me. Offers of something different, perhaps even better. I resist these attempts, though I no longer know why. I mean, why fear the unknown when the known is so terrifying?

I am most definitely fucked.

Once or twice or a hundred times, every day, I forget.

It's a self-defense activity. My mind knows that, alone and unarmed as it is, it cannot withstand the constant onslaught. So, it does what it can do. What it must do. It retreats. It runs and cowers beneath the rubble of destroyed dreams. It hides from reality.

During those times, I can almost pass for a normal person. Unless you look too closely into my eyes, or let your gaze linger on my face for too long, or ask me a question.

It always me pisses me off, when people ask me if I'm okay, or how I'm doing. Sometimes, people even ask me what's wrong, or if they can help. All those same questions over and over, and always the same answers.

The truth is not always in my words, but the truth is always there. The truth always forces my mind out of its hiding place, out into the open.

Once or twice or a hundred times, every single fucking day, I remember all over again.

(This is a entry from December 2005. I like this entry. I wish it had come true.)

It starts with a sound.

Not just any sound, but the sound of a voice from an almost forgotten past. Just a word or two, snaking their way through the din of the crowd. It's not much, but it's enough. I prepare myself, as much as I can anyway.

I think that I'm ready. I believe that I've steeled myself for what will come next. I tell myself that this is what I've been waiting for, that I'm prepared. That I will be strong.

I'm wrong.

I see the sparkles long before I see her. Walls inside me begin to crumble almost immediately. Pressure that has been bottled up for months is suddenly free and unrestrained. Something deep within me is exploding. I cannot prevent it, and I'm suddenly not sure that I want to.

I see her face.

For a fraction of a portion of a second, I am afraid. But the fear is quickly overwhelmed by something else. By desire. By determination. By relief. By the knowledge that the world is finally right again.

I stand up.

My knees are shaking. My heart is pounding. My very soul is shattering and rebuilding at a frantic pace inside me. I take a step, then another. My legs, miraculously, are still amenable to my will. They are no longer a part of me, for I am naught but a heart on fire, but they obey my will nevertheless.

Our eyes meet.

Time stops.

A million eternities pass by in an instant.

I reach out the hand that I somehow still control, and I take hers into it. The circuit between us completes, and it flows with ferocity. Our fingers fuse together.

But it is not enough.

Suddenly aware of the eyes upon us, I crave privacy for what will come next. I pull her through the crowd, then away from the crowd. She resists shyly, more from surprise than anything else. By the time we reach our destination, a dark and empty room, I'm unsure as to who is doing the leading.

We stop. We breathe. We exist. Together. Alone. The heat from her body warms my very bones.

But is it not enough.

I pull her to me and I embrace that part of myself that's been missing for such a long time. I am finally complete. I am finally whole.

But it is still not enough.

I pull my head back, and I open my eyes.

In her eyes I see, not myself, not her, but us. I see everything I've ever sought, and I see a future filled not with pain, but with desire, and with passion, and with hunger for each other.

In her eyes, I see love. Mine. Hers. Ours. It's all the same.

But still it's not enough.

I move my head towards hers.

Our lips meet.

It was the strangest feeling, to not care. So surreal. Like watching myself up on stage, and knowing that I was forgetting all of my lines.

At 5:00 today, my phone woo-hooed. It started blinking.

I answered, of course, but I still didn't care.

Much later my phone woo-hooed and blinked again.

This time, I cared. Even though I pretended not to, I cared as much as I've ever cared about anything.

But it was too late, and I knew it.

It changes a man, to see a beautiful face distorted by pain. To see it over and over and over and over and over. To stand helpless and watch the tears flow.

It changes a man, to feel so much and to give so much and to offer so much more, and to know that it's just not enough.

To drain away. To feel the very ground beneath your feet seem to dissolve as you struggle to remain upright. To feel betrayed and abandoned by the universe itself.

To hate yourself.

To look into the eyes of a child and find something you never thought you'd find again. To feel something you never thought you'd feel again.

To look into a mirror and see impending death, not from old age or disease or injury, but from heartache. To feel a dark hope that it will all end soon.

To fear sleep, for the nightmares that always accompany it. To fear wakefulness, for the reality that pounds away.

To watch a wonderful soul harden, and to feel your own soul harden with it. Not from pity or compassion or even love, but simply because your souls are irrevocably bound.

It changes a man.

I can't shake this feeling that we're expecting way too much from this. I talked to StupidGirl on the phone for three hours last night. It was, just like always, a friendly and funny conversation. An easy conversation. The hard part never comes until later, when my racing mind digests everything that was said and, more than that, everything that wasn't said.

I haven't been on a pedestal in a long time. Not since MixedSignalGirl. I'm not sure that I like it. Maybe I've developed a fear of heights. Maybe I don't feel like I'm worthy. Gee, I can't imagine why I might have a self-esteem issue.

Mostly, though, I think it's just that we still don't know each other very well. Not the way we should. We only know the best parts, the fun parts, the easy-going parts. I worry about what will happen if we're faced with the darker sides of each other's personalities.

I'm doing something very similar, I know. I'm pinning so much hope on this trip that there's no way I won't be disappointed. These feelings I'm suffering cannot be pushed aside for an entire weekend. Pushing them aside for even a few hours usually requires more strength than I possess. StupidGirl will surely do a fine job of distracting me, but it won't change who I am on the inside. The suffering I feel on the inside.

I can't let my guard down at all. I can't let her see who I really am.

I think we're both expecting that everything will be perfect. I think we're both going to be disappointed. I can only hope that we can rebound from that disappointment.

I just want to say something now.

I'm not retarded. I know that there's a 99.99999999999% chance that I'm wasting my time and that I'm going to die alone and unloved because of it.

But, what if that 0.00000000001% chance is the one that becomes reality?

It's my fucking life, and if I want to keep waiting, well then it's my fucking right to keep waiting.

It's totally worth the risk to me. That's the thing that nobody seems to understand.

How do you explain the inexplicable?

You don't.

You might try and try and try and try and try, but sometimes a thing cannot be explained. Sometimes not even to yourself.

So instead, you demonstrate it, at every possible opportunity, and you hope with all your heart that eventually it's understood before you die.

Although that can be kind of tough, because sometimes you died a long time ago, and you're just too fucking stubborn to admit it.

Sometimes, I really wish that I was stupid. Then maybe I wouldn't always be thinking about stuff, and things.

It's the things that are the worst.

I do manage to shut my brain down, every now and then, but not nearly often enough. I did it tuesday, and it was really nice. But then Wednesday I started thinking again, and in doing so I became retarded again.

Thinking about stuff and things keeps getting me into trouble. It's would be so nice to just tra-la-la through life, without a care in the world beyond what I'd next put into my mouth and where I'd next put my dick.

Like a caveman, or something. They never thought about stuff and things. They just went and fucking did whatever they wanted to do.

Well, I know what I want to do, but I can't. It's a bad idea, I think. It's inappropriate, I think.

And the only thing worse than thinking, is worrying about what other people think.

It should be perfectly clear to anyone who knows me that I don't know what I'm doing here. Just trying to muddle through, like everyone else. Trying to make the best of out the situations presented to me. Especially this one situation which keeps trying to kill me.

It's weird for me to realize this, but this really is all new to me. I mean, I've lived with it for the longest time, and today I'm no closer to understanding it, no closer to knowing what to do, than I was when it started. It's very probable that I'll never understand it, never know what to do. And so, I muddle.

Muddle, muddle, muddle...

What a funny word.

I wish I could, for just a little while, know what was right. If I knew what was right, I'd do it. I really would. This is too fucking important to always be second-guessing myself.

Of course, I want to write something tonight. I'm actually in the mood to write, but I have no stupid power in my stupid house, so I'm typing this thing into my Blackberry. It works, but it's a hassle.

Both of my cats sensed my mood tonight, and both stayed close to me. Nugget stayed on my lap, and Buddy camped-out on the back of the couch, behind my head.

My fire, in its weird way, also kept me company. It's gone out now. I haven't decided whether I want to burn another log or not. That decision will go hand-in-hand with whether I want to have a third Marzen or not.

I was thinking about something I read once. Back in the olden days, before I was even born if you can believe that, they'd chop peoples' heads off. Criminals, mostly. But also, I like to think, people who were just assholes.

Anyway, I read once that some weird dude decided to conduct experiments with the recently beheaded. Right after the *thud* he'd pick up the head and look into the eyes. He was looking for some sign of consciousness, I guess.

Wait, maybe that's not quite appropriate.

There was a movie I once saw. This one dickhead pulled the heart out of some poor dude. He then showed the dude the heart, still beating in his hand. What a dickhead, right?

So the dude knew he was dead, and he also knew there wasn't fuck he could do about it.

Damn, this entry seemed like a much better idea before I started typing it.

I think it's time for another beer and another fire.

Okay, so I'm going to be honest for a minute or two.

Not that I'm not always honest, or at least as honest as I can be in this public venue, but sometimes I hold things back.

Sometimes, we all hold things back. Because we live in a society and shit.

But not me, not right now. I'm not holding anything back.

Right now, I am fucking livid.

I'm no longer convincing myself that I'm angry, to keep the sadness at bay. Nope, right now, it's fucking real.

Livid.

Not because something happened.

Because nothing happened.

But, more than that, because I wanted so badly for something to happen, and it didn't. Hasn't. Whatever.

Fuck you, universe. Fuck you up the ass.

I imagine that what I'll think about, if I ever get to the point of being able to think again, is just how quickly it all fell apart.

I really don't know what's going to happen. Hell, I don't even know what's happened already. I just know that it's happened so damn fast that it's made me dizzy.

I don't have any real idea how to describe it, and I'm not really going to try. Just in abstract terms.

Maybe it's a vase. Yeah, that should work. Just imagine a vase. A fancy one. Wait, maybe it's an urn, like one that might contain the ashes of a deceased loved one. Whatever. It doesn't matter what it looks like. It holds shit. I suppose it's waterproof, though that's irrelevant.

Man, I'm rambling already. Oh well.

So you take this thing, this vase or urn or whatever, and you drop a tiny grain of sand into it. Maybe it makes a tiny clink as it hits bottom, but if you can hear it your ears are a fuck of a lot better than mine. Whatever, it doesn't matter if it makes a sound. I was just trying to do something there. Build the scene or some crap like that.

You drop in the grain of sand, and the next day you drop another grain of sand. And maybe the next day is really fucked up so you drop two grains of sand. You keep doing this, day after week after month after year. You just drop your little grains of sand into your vase or urn or whatever.

At first, it seems like you'll be able to keep dropping sand forever. I mean, it's a big vase or urn or whatever. Did I mention before that it's big? Well, it is. And the grains of sand are tiny, as grains of sand are so wont to be. So it doesn't ever really hit you that there will ever be a problem. You keep having fucking grains of sand, but you've got a place to put them, so it's okay, and it seems that it will always be okay. You've got a system and shit.

And then one day, perhaps one day in January of 2009, you notice, to your great surprise, that your vase or urn or whatever is totally full of sand.

And you've got no place to put your grains anymore, and you certainly can't just stand there holding sand like an idiot, so you drop it on the ground at your feet, hoping that nobody will notice.

Oh, but they fucking notice.

Eventually, nobody remembers who you used to be. You become The Guy Standing In The Big Pile Of Sand and that's all anyone thinks of you as.

And then you're fucked.

There's a place. It's not a physical place, though that's part of it. It's more of a spiritual place.

The place, it's where I belong. It's why I'm here, on this Earth, in this life. To be in the place. It's where I fit, and more than that, it's where the universe fits me.

Problem is, I can't get there. There's no navigable route, and even if there were, the place is already occupied, and even if it wasn't, I'm not allowed in the place.

I've come very close. I've stood next to the place and I've felt its pull so strongly that it's threatened to rip me apart atom by atom.

If I believed in God, I'd surely hate Him, for showing me the place.

Resolve is a problem, of course.

It never lasts forever, so it never lasts long enough. Bad memories fade away and good memories rush in to fill the gaps, and resolve becomes a vague notion of a silly inkling, and nothing more.

And another thing is that there's always something else that I want to say. Not magic words that will fix everything - I've given up on finding such words - but instead an extrapolation of words I've already said. A clearer explanation as to why I am the way I am and why things are the way they are and why things must be the way that they must be.

I guess, just like everyone else, I want to be understood.

After all this time, I'm still met with doubt and disbelief. I'm still assaulted by accusations of exaggeration, still cut by cruel words that would mean nothing if not for their source.

I tried so hard, but I failed. There should be no shame in that; at least I did finally try. There should be no shame, but shame is all I feel sometimes.

And now I'm trying to give up. As if that makes any sense. I'm trying to accept my failure and I'm trying to stop trying.

I keep failing at that, too.

Because resolve is a problem, of course.

Okay, so I'm pissed. BFD.

It's my right, and I seriously doubt that anyone would try to tell me that it's without reason.

This fucking bullshit. This situation, as I keep calling it. I got fucking tired of being sad about it, and so now I'm pissed.

It's strange how anger and sadness are perceived, especially when displayed by a man.

Both are certainly perceived as negative emotions. But it's sadness that's seen, much more often (as in every fucking time) as a sign of weakness.

After all, only little kids and women get sad.

Men don't get sad. Men are strong. Men don't cry. Men don't even want to cry. It's not even an option for men.

Besides, it's easier, being pissed. And it make more sense.

I am a man, after all.

It's about fucking time that I started acting like one.

I'll tell you exactly what it was like for me.

It was like looking at the Sun, and realizing that it was no longer blindingly bright. Then it was like looking at the Sun some more, and wondering what the big deal was.

Boring, really.

I don't know how long this will last. Probably not forever, though, and I think that's too bad.

It's kind of nice, not being blinded.

---

Wow, this was a fucked up week. Even by my standards.

---

What I want now is nothing.

I need to be clear; it's not that I don't want something, or even that I don't want anything.

Nope, it's just like I said. I want nothing.

I doubt that I'll get it.

Tonight, I am awake. For the first time in years, I'm fully awake.

I don't like it. Not even a little bit.

---

I wasn't wrong. I was as right as anyone has ever been. Validation has nearly drowned me.

It's just that sometimes people change, and right can become wrong as reality shifts and transforms.

---

It's so easy for me to revert to being that guy who did nothing but miss her for years. It was easy to be him, after all. Comfortable like a warm fuzzy blanket. It's so easy to go back. So tempting to just go back to where I feel safe. To where I feel like myself.

---

I censor myself in this journal. And now, more and more often, I censor myself in my life. This is not me, this shell that pretends and lies and laughs that fake laugh to hide the sound of sobbing. It's not me at all. I don't know what it is, this thing I've become. Some ridiculous caricature, perhaps, drawn by the same drunk retarded blind child who one day suddenly found himself in charge of my feelings, and now finds himself in charge of everything that I am.

---

Tonight, for a while now, I've gone back even farther than I usually go. I've reverted to another life. A life devoid of emotion, and therefore a life devoid of meaning.

I don't like it. Not even a little bit.

Lots of people tell me that I'm stupid, retarded, whatever. Lots of people tell me that I'm wasting my time.

Usually, I can ignore it when people tell me these things. Because they just don't know. They're not in my situation, and so there's no way they can really know.

Most of the time, I can ignore it when people tell me these things.

And then, then there are days like today. Days like today when I suspect that all those people are telling me the truth.

You know what's weird.

(censored)

That's what's weird.

I like it, though.

Na-na-na-na-na-na!

Na-na-na-na-na-na!

Spiderwoman!

---

That is all.

It's kinda like I might be holding a winning lottery ticket for a gazillion dollars.

Except that there's a slight catch. I have to walk across the country to find out if I've won.

No big deal, I think. Totally worth it if I win.

Except then there's another slight catch. The prize could expire at any minute, without warning, before I get there.

Oh, and it might end up being Monopoly money, too.

Oh yeah, and I've already been walking for a very long time.

I think that what really gets me is that nobody gets me.

I mean, I know exactly what I'm trying to say, and I usually manage to blurt out the correct words, but nobody really understands. Being an eternal optimist, I choose to believe that people don't want to understand, instead of that they're all just idiots.

Remember this dude?

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.

Well, that asshole grew himself a pair of balls or something. He started venturing into the open, becoming more and more bold. Rambling on and on and on about his damn feelings and desires and hopes and expectations.

He damn near ruined everything, the fucker. For both of us.

Fuck that.

I had to do something. So, the other night after he got drunk, I dragged his sorry ass down to the dungeon. I threw him into his cell, and then I locked the fucking door.

Maybe I should have just shot him in the head, put him out of our misery, but I didn't. Some weird sense of loyalty overcame me at the last minute. Some leftover feeling of brotherhood, perhaps, or maybe just plain old pity.

That poor wretched stupid asshole.

He'll probably rot in that cell.

Better him than me, though.

We talked about it a little, the other day. How effortless it had all been. Our hands exploring bodies that we seemed to already know. Our mouths tasting flavors that seemed oh so familiar. Always just the right pressure. Always just the right balance of passion and intimacy. It really was like we were made for each other.

And then, in stark contrast, our minds fumbled. They refused to interlock the way our bodies did. Soon enough we found that our only comfort was in silence, because anything more would say too much.

It ended, eventually, as these things often do. Age differences and education differences and lifestyle differences were the excuses that we used to soften the truth. The truth that there simply was no real future between us. The truth that she was too wild for me, that I was too stable for her. And, of course, the awful truth that my heart already belonged to another.

She didn't understand that last truth. But how could she? I barely understood it myself. Sometimes you just know.

So we decided to end it with a bang, so to speak, as these things often end. One last night doing the things at which we excelled together.

In silence, of course.

More words would have ruined it.

I suppose that I'm pretty good at waiting. As I should be, what with all the practice I've had.

But still, I'd like to be better at it. I know that I can be better at it, and I'm not really sure why I suck so much sometimes. Probably something to do with the difference between impatience and anticipation. It's a thin line there, I think. Like the proverbial you-know-what hair.

Anyway, now I find myself waiting. Maybe for nothing, maybe for something. I asked, and now I wait for a response. I do that a lot, it seems.

Worth the wait?

Certainly, as long is this newfound pseudo-patience of mine pays off.

And if it doesn't?

Well, then maybe tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.

It's not like I've got anything better to do.

I was going to say please stand by, but that would be mean if I end up never writing here again.

How do I write about the end of something, if I never really wrote about the thing itself?

Somehow, that's all, folks just doesn't seem appropriate.

How do I write about the end of a life, if that life turned out to have been meaningless?

Somehow, ta-da! just doesn't seem to cut it.

I need to stop writing now. I've got too much to say.

For weeks and months, people have been telling me things that I already know. Well, guess what; I already know those things.

My odds are abysmal, but as soon as I give up, as soon as I walk or run or crawl or swim away, my odds will reduce to zero. Can't have that. No way. Can't wait this long and come this far and then just quit.

This is my choice.

I will have my regrets, certainly, but never again will I have to ask myself, What if I'd tried harder? What if I'd given it everything I had? What if I'd laid everything on the line?

Fuck that. No regrets. Not this time.

I have done and said everything I could do. I've been totally, almost painfully honest. I've been loyal and attentive and generous and caring. I've given every ounce of my being to this, and there's only one thing left that I can do.

Wait.

I still have some patience left, believe it or not. Sometimes it wears thin, and sometimes it even seems to run out completely. I always seem to find a reserve, though, welling up from some dark place that I didn't know existed.

Good things come to those who wait, huh?

Well, I'm waiting. Been doing it for a very long time now.

People keep telling me things that I already know.

This is my choice, to wait.

To die trying, or to simply die? Or, perhaps, to live?

This time, if I die again, this time I will do it standing up.

So the challenge, as I see it, is to see if I can sit here and write an entry. Despite being very tired. Despite being fairly distracted. And, as an added challenge, can I write an entry before the battery on my laptop runs out?

I fell asleep a little while ago. Right there on her couch. Very strange. I mean, I had a whole four and a half hours of sleep last night. That should be plenty for me.

Oh, shit. I hope I'm not coming down with something. That would suck. I have had the sniffles today. Crap.

My fingers are willing to type, but my brain doesn't seem ready hold up its end of the bargain. I'm having a hard time thinking of my own name, let alone an idea for a hastily written blog entry.

I could, I suppose, try to condense the last few weeks of my life. Strip out all of the things I can't write, tone down some of the emotions, respect everyone's privacy as much as I can. I could do those things, but then what would be left?

I and to what when kitties beer cold.

Another thing I could do is make something up. Write some fiction. I get this bug up my ass every now and then to write some fiction. There are two problems with this idea.

Problem the first, I don't know if I can write fiction.

Problem the second, I don't have any ideas for fiction, either.

So, I'm basically fucked.

I wonder, does this count as an entry yet?

Sometimes I imagine timid peeps. A rabbit peeking out of its hole, or a tortoise poking its head out of its shell. Curious, but wary. Oh, so wary.

Other times I think it's more forceful, purposeful even. Eyes illuminating. Searching for something. Expecting something. Maybe a little disappointed when it's not there. Maybe a little relieved.

I wish I knew what to do here. What to write. I could make everything better, or I could make everything worse. But I don't know, so instead I do neither. I write nothing.

Nothing at all.

That comic has nothing to do with anything. It's just something I thought of that was funny to me.

This entry brought to you by Alaskan Smoked Porter (773).

Recently - it might have been Monday or it might have been some earlier night, as the last months of my life have quite blurred together - OddlyFamiliarGirl told me that I should write more often. She talked about the things that had first drawn her to my blog; the honesty and the passion that I felt, which would so easily flow from my heart down my arms through my fingers and onto my keyboard. She wanted to read that kind of entry again.

I replied that I couldn't do it, that some things were just too hard to write about.

Like how an important question can seem to go unanswered, but it's not really. Refusal to answer is an answer all in itself. Evasion is taking a stand.

And like how unwillingness to choose is really just choosing to leave things the way that they are. To maintain the status quo, no matter how unstable it is. No matter how untenable the universe is.

And how Patience is a virtue, as some dillhole once said. I suppose I agree with that, most of the time. But sometimes, sometimes patience is a hindrance. Like when it's running out, and you can feel it draining away from you like dirty water spiraling down a drain. It's going away, and you know that you don't have much left, and all you can think about is, What will be left of me when it's gone? Will there be anything left at all?

And how sometimes the only way to be happy is to lie to yourself. To fool yourself into believing, even if only for a few hours, that it's the universe around you that lies, and it's not you lying to yourself.

And how it breaks your heart every single time you're reminded that sometimes love is irrelevant.

And how love can spring from the most unlikely connections, but you can't even come close to writing about that, because it's

What's nice, sometimes, is being able to just surrender. To stop worrying about things that are wrong or have gone wrong or could go wrong. To stop worrying about those things, maybe even forget about them for a while, and just surrender.

Perfect moments don't come along very often. Perfect nights, even less frequently. We all seek perfection, but we never find it. Instead, perfection finds us, when we least expect it.

Out of the ashes of despair can rise the phoenix of joy, or some shit like that.

I managed to surrender for a while. I managed to stop worrying for a while. And, when I did, perfection found me.

I'm awake again.

I got about three hours of sleep, this time, before I awoke drowning in this flood of reality. Gasping for air that's forever out of reach, so that I might be able to scream for help that's forever out of range.

This is so hard. I'm so tired. Waiting for rescue that's never going to come.

You know what? It's just too much to write about. It's too fluid, and too real, and too uncertain.

My life is about to end, or it's about to begin.

I fear the former while I fervently hope for the latter. But it's out of my hands. All I can do is wait and see.

Five years, and it's coming down to this.

Will I live, or will I die again?

How do I handle this?

I don't know how, I only know that it needs to be handled.

I did everything I could do, and it wasn't enough. I tried my absolute hardest, and I failed. I was the best person I could be, and I didn't measure up. I went as far as I could go, and I fell short.

However I want to say it and however many times I say it, the sting doesn't lessen.

How do I handle this?

Same way, I suppose, that I've handled everything else.

I'll just muddle through.

I went to the grocery store tonight. I bought cat food and kitty litter. Weird, I was standing there in the checkout line, and it struck me that I had no idea how long it had been since I'd done something as simple as going to the store to buy groceries.

Weeks, at least. Maybe months.

For all of the recent past that I can recall, my personal shopping has been at convenience stores and gas stations. My meals have taken place at bars and restaurants or, more rarely, at someone's home.

Where has my life gone?

A few weeks ago, ActualGeorge cautioned me to not let my current situation take over my life. Well, what if it's too late? And, not only that, what if it's replaced my life?

Oh, well. It's not like my life was all that great to begin with. Maybe this new life will be better. I hope so.

Yeah, that's right, I said it. I have hope.

I bet none of you saw that coming.

Rome burns, and I stand helpless against the flames. I can do nothing to stop or even slow their progress. I could run away, but I do not. Instead, I stand my ground. I watch all of this beauty being consumed, and I try to commit every graceful line to memory, so that it will never be really lost. Not as long as I'm alive to remember.

But that is, of course, the problem.

I can not allow myself die in this blaze. Eventually, my skin blistering and my hair singeing, I will have no choice but to flee. So that I can stay alive, to remember and to mourn. So that somewhere in the world, this beauty will live on, even if it's only in my head.

Rome burns all around me. I can not allow myself to burn with it. No matter how much I want to stay here forever. No matter how much I want to die with it, my ashes intermingled.

This is silly.

It's 2:18 in the morning, as I type this sentence, and I'm glaring at my phone.

Now it's 2:19 in the morning, and I'm hitting Send/Recv on my email client.

This is so silly.

Just because I feel like we left things unsaid tonight, that doesn't mean she's going to call me or email me. Just because I think this would be the perfect time to pick up where we left off, that doesn't mean that she shares that sentiment.

Now it's 2:22 in the morning, and I'm glaring at my phone again.

Just because I've given up on sleep for the night, that doesn't mean she's lying in her bed, eyes wide open, wondering if she should contact me.

Nope, she's asleep by now. Probably dreaming.

I hope her dreams are sweet.

Now it's 2:26, and I'm checking my email again. In a couple of minutes, I'll probably go unlock my front door.

Just in case.

I remember how I survived those dark times. It wasn't luck, and it wasn't strength - it was calculated insanity.

This is from a Saturday night in September, 2005, in a blog that I kept anonymous:

You always hated sitting at the bar.

But you would sit there, if there were no other seat available.

You would sit there, if I was already there.

Tonight, I sat at the bar. Not because there were no other seats available, but because at the bar, you're not expected to join in any conversations. You're not under any pressure. You can just sit, and drink, and everyone else in the place can enjoy their Saturday without your input.

I wasn't in the mood for company tonight. I wasn't in the mood for anything, really. I just wanted to have a couple of beers. Relax a little. So I sat at the bar to ensure myself some privacy.

You know the layout of the place. As well as anybody, you know how the room is set up. If you're at the bar, your back is to the room. Your back may as well be to the rest of the world. All sorts of things can happen behind you and you'd never even know it.

In fact, if you don't bother to look beside you, you won't even know what's going on at the bar.

It's just you and your beer. And your thoughts.

---

Very rarely, I find myself in a decent mood. Not good, not bad, just decent.

I cherish these times, and I cherished tonight.

For tonight, with my back to the world, with my attention focused on the beer and the ashtray in front of me, I could let my imagination out to play for a while.

I imagined that you were sitting next to me. Just like the old days.

I could almost feel the heat from your body. Hear your voice. Feel your fingers as they touched my arm to emphasize a point.

I miss you so much.

I miss what we had. Nothing more. How could I miss the other stuff? How could I miss what never happened? People just don't understand. I loved you first as a friend. That's what I miss. If I'm sad, it's because of what I lost, not because of what I never had.

The person I was back then, the person who wrote that tortured drivel - I'm still that person. But tonight, as with so many other recent nights, I didn't need my imagination. Instead, I could simply turn my head a little bit to one side, and open my eyes, and let reality overwhelm me with its intensity. Let beauty carry me far away from the gray place that has been my home for so long. Let the simple sound of laughter vibrate my bones into putty.

It's not that I don't want to write about the joy that I sometimes feel, it's that I can't. It's simply not possible. Sufficient words do not exist.

I used to have this thing, back when MixedSignalGirl served as my muse. More than a habit, it was, but less than a rule. I'd write something, every single night. Whether good, or bad, or indifferent, I'd always write at least one entry.

I liked it, back then. I always felt like I was accomplishing something, each and every day. Even if my so-called accomplishment was nothing more than vomiting drivel onto the internet, it was still better than nothing. And it made me feel like I was better than nothing.

I'd like to be able to feel that way again.

People are getting fed up with me. Grudging respect has morphed into disdain and pity. Impatience and frustration rule every interaction. I hear it in their voices. I read it in their emails and in the comments they leave on my blogs.

I see it in their eyes.

I see it in my eyes, when I dare to look into a mirror.

It's almost time, I think.

This used to be about me. I could say whatever I wanted to say, because nobody was listening. I could feel whatever my heart compelled me to feel, because nobody cared. Not really.

But it's not about me anymore. Now that emotional and physical separation has been taken away, there are others. Wonderful, amazing others.

To most people, this has been naught but a show. A one-man play, with one improvised scene that has continued for years. Audiences have come and gone, interest has waxed and waned, and I have continued my performance, oblivious. The hero and the villain and the comic relief, all rolled into one.

When do I stop? When do I take a bow? When do allow the curtain to close?

This is coming to an end, I think.

It's almost time, I think.

Is that what I'm supposed to do? Just settle for the next girl who I like that likes me back?

Opportunities for true happiness are rare for me, and they're only going to get more scarce.

Am I supposed to just give up and give in? And put out?

I could make someone happy, and I could be happy myself. But should I settle for happy, knowing that the love of my life is a kiss away?

Is happy supposed to be good enough?

Doesn't the girl who unlocked my heart deserve special consideration? Incredible understanding? Extraordinary patience?

Shouldn't I wait forever?

I know of at least one person who's probably getting a huge kick out of all this.

Reading my blog, between the lines, the things that I cannot and will not say. Imagining the pressure building up inside me. Gleefully imagining the day that I'll explode into a million pieces.

"It's what he deserves, after all," she says to herself.

There are too many similarities. There are too many parallels.

It's like my life is preordained, nothing more than a grotesque reflection of my own immutable past. I am living the nightmare that I once caused for another. My silent screams do not awaken me, they only push me deeper into terror.

I hand out advice like acid at Woodstock, but I ignore it when it's given to me. Even when it's the same advice.

I tell myself that things will get better, even though my own experience tells me that this can only end in sorrow.

I have become the victim of my own desires. They stalk me, they toy with me, eventually they will destroy me. But not until they're tired of their games, and I fear that will be a very long time from now.

To pass the time, I surround myself with hypotheticals. What would I do, if? What should I do, when? How should I prepare, just in case?

But it's all bullshit. There's no if and there's no when and there's no just in case. There's only reality, closing in inexorably, crushing every possibility except the one that leads to an end. To our end. To my end.

I know of at least one person who's probably laughing her ass off about this. It's what I deserve, after all.

I suppose that wondering can't really be held against me. I mean, I get pissed at myself, for wondering. But it's a pretty normal human activity, I suppose. Not evil at all, and not really stupid, either, as long as it's kept in check.

I wonder if it ever bothers her when I leave. If she ever thinks, just for a second, that things would make more sense if I stayed. That something is wrong, something just doesn't add up, and that maybe if I stayed it would make things right.

I wonder if it ever pisses her off, when I leave, the way it pisses me off when I come home and face yet another night alone.

Okay, so I think I'm starting to get a handle on what's bothering me.

Maybe I'll even write about it later, after a couple of beers.

Or maybe not.

I'm in a fairly strange mood this morning. Strangeness brought on in part, no doubt, by an almost total lack of sleep last night.

I feel like I'm waiting for something, but I can't figure out if I'm anticipating it or dreading it. Oh, and I also don't know exactly what it is.

Sleep continues to be a serious problem for me. Ever since July 19th, I bet I've averaged three or four hours a night. But it's a weird problem. It's not regular insomnia, where I just can't get to sleep. Nope, it's that I can't get back to sleep. I mean, I fall asleep pretty easily, most of the time, but then what happens is that I wake up drowning, and then I can't get back to sleep.

That happened again this morning. Went to bed at 1:00, had a really nice dream, and woke up drowning in reality at 4:30. And I'm still up, of course. Thinking about what a bad week it's been. One of the worst I've ever had, I think. The problem with the highs is that they make the lows so much worse. Sometimes I just want things to flatten-out for a while, but I don't expect that to happen. I'm addicted to the highs, after all.

Now people are starting to get concerned about me. I can't really blame them. I see what this is doing to me. I see it every time I look in the mirror. I feel it every time I wake up in the middle of the night, drowning in reality.

I keep telling myself that I need to be strong for a little while longer. That I just need to be a little more patient. But those lies are losing their effect on me. So I tell myself that my near-constant sadness is worth it, because I'm so incredibly happy every now and then. I know this to be true, when I'm able to look at my life objectively. Problem is that objectivity is a fleeting thing for me lately.

I need to try to go back to sleep. Maybe I'll continue the nice dream I had earlier tonight. Maybe I'll have a good day. Maybe reality will change. Maybe my patience will pay off.

Everyone always talks about logical conclusions to some series of events or circumstances. But I almost never hear about the illogical conclusions.

I think that people just like things that make sense, and things that don't make sense - they're either not discussed at all or they're briefly mentioned and then quickly dismissed as aberrations.

Well, fuck that.

Tonight had an illogical conclusion. I shouldn't be sitting here in my home at 1:04 in the morning, typing this entry. It makes zero sense. I should be somewhere else.

Today had an illogical conclusion, as did this week, and did the past month, and did the past year. Every single moment in time rushes insanely helter-skelter from my future into my past, not even pausing as it imprints itself onto my memory. And those memories do nothing but thumb their metaphorical noses at everything that's logical, everything that makes sense, everything that should be and could be right in the world.

No wonder I'm fucking crazy. The world in which I live is crazy. I'm just trying to fit in.

This tiny ember, so small and insignificant, I can hold it in the palm of my hand. It doesn't burn. It barely even glows.

It's all that's left of a once mighty blaze. Soon to be ash, and nothing more.

I've tried so hard to keep the fire going. I've tried like my life depends on it, because that's exactly how it feels. But I can't do it anymore. Not alone. I'm so tired of alone.

This evening, I asked for help. I asked for the truth. A single honest answer after months of evasion. A breath of air to feed this ember, or a more forceful blow to extinguish it forever. Something. Anything.

I asked a question, and I wait for an answer.

It's fading. I could crush it so easily.

I think it took a single email, to start me down this path tonight. It doesn't take much, after all, to right that which is wrong.

Three bottles of Gumballhead (494) certainly didn't hurt, either.

I imagine good things, when I'm in this kind of a mood. I imagine them and I let the feelings - the feelings that always accompany such imaginings - wash over me. Wash away the debris from my heart and let it beat freely for a while.

I imagine fitting together. I imagine hands, arms, legs, intertwined. Of course I imagine those things. I'm not a eunuch, after all.

I imagine kissing lips, softly at first. I imagine that a lot.

But I imagine so much more. I imagine my heart, my mind, my very soul melded with those of another. Two people functioning together. So much stronger than the sum of their parts. Unbreakable. Indestructible.

Invincible.

People tell me that my heart, having been awakened by chance years ago, is now something rare and precious. That's just so very strange to me, when I realize just how true those words are.

Unconditional.

Boundless.

Devotion.

My heart is a fountain, longing for someone to take a drink.

Well, that might just be the cheesiest sentence I've ever written.

I am in a very nice mood. I hope it lasts for a while.

I just had to go and be in a good mood. And, not only that, I just had to go and announce my mood to everyone.

Four hours later the universe started punching me in the gut again, and it hasn't stopped, and there's no end in sight. Not that there ever was an end in sight, but I'd allowed myself to forget that for a while.

That was stupid of me to forget. But, apparently, not impossible. Because I keep fucking doing it.

Also, I got to have lunch with HatGirl today.

HatGirl!

Yay!

This was our third attempt since Friday to do this. Friday she was sick, and Monday I was swamped at work, but today everything worked out just fine. We ate at While Castle. She made me forget my troubles for a while. I think I might have actually smiled, once or twice.

HatGirl thinks I'm awesome. That's nice of her to think that. I wish I believed it.

Once upon a time, a wise man wrote, "One of the fun things about being a crazy person is that I get to fool myself into thinking that good things might happen."

That wise man was, of course, my lovely self. I wrote that statement back in January 2007, about something completely stupid and irrelevant, but the truth of that sentence has withstood the test of time since then.

Like today, I made a casual mention of next Thursday. Then, later, I made another casual mention, in an email this time, of next Thursday. Now, I have zero idea what's going to happen nine days from now, but I'm not going to let that stop me from enjoying the fun I'm currently having.

I'm imagining the perfect day, and fooling myself into thinking that some of the good things I'm imagining might actually happen.

It's fun, sometimes, being crazy. Much better than facing reality all the time.

I'm kinda irritated right now. Big huge shock, right?

I'm irritated, as usual, with myself. And maybe with Everyone on Earth, but mostly myself.

It seems that Everyone on Earth has opinions. Can't really fault them for that, but what I can fault them for is that they seem determined to have opinions that are in direct opposition with the opinions I want them to have.

And, not only that, they're actually starting to sway me. They're actually starting to make me lose hope that things will ever get any better. They're actually starting to make me question whether I'm wasting my time or not. Whether I'm wasting my heart or not.

What right does Everyone on Earth have to pry my eyes open like this? I was doing perfectly well, groping around in the dark.

But it's my own damn fault. I might have to hear the things that Everyone on Earth keeps saying, but I don't have to listen.

I need to stop listening. No good will come from listening.

Well my cat's appointment has been pushed back to 11:45, and he's sleeping at my feet. So now I've got an extra hour to kill.

What to do? What to do?

Oh hey, I'll try to write something!

---

She keeps saying that I'm bored. Not really accusing me, more like, "I'm sorry you're bored, Dave."

Like it's a foregone conclusion.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Hmm, let's see what the opposite of bored is.

Encarta says it's fascinated. Sounds good to me.

And Thesaurus.com lists exhilarated, excited, interested, and enthusiastic.

Not sure I like those antonyms that much. They make it seem like the opposite of boredom is always a good thing. I mean, if you're on a plane that's crashing, you're probably not bored. But are you enthusiastic? Or if, like me, you're taking your beloved pet to the vet, and you're afraid that you're going to have to have him put to sleep, you're probably not bored, but are you excited?

I doubt it, unless you're even more weird than I am.

I have some words that I think of when she says that I'm bored. I think that I'm enthralled and mezmerized, or sometimes I might go with dispirited or pessimistic.

But not bored. Never bored.

Tonight I'm struck by the absurdity of all this. What's happening. What's not happening. It just doesn't seem right, for things to be the way that they are. While I was distracted, some kind of bizarro world materialized around me. I don't fit here, in this strange place. This absurd reality.

A movie about my life wouldn't make any sense. It would be impossible to figure out what was happening. Or who the protagonist was, or the villain, or the comic-relief. I think I might be all of those things.

You get told certain things as a child. Maybe you don't pay much attention, but you're told those things so often that the words sink deep into you, become a part of who you are, or at least who you want to be.

This isn't right. It doesn't make any sense at all. I don't fit here.

Good is bad, and bad is good. Love brings indifference, and indifference brings love.

I keep hoping that I'll wake up some morning, and things will be normal. The way they should be. That things will make sense. So I can feel like I belong.

It's a stupid and pointless thing for which to hope, I know. The world isn't going to change; it's going to have to be me.

I think I'd probably leave. I don't know where I'd go, or what I'd do once I got there, or whether I'd ever come back, but none of that would really matter. What would matter would be that I got away from here, from all of this. The pity. The laughter. The reminders. The ashes.

Someplace warm would be nice, I think.

Maybe it'll never come to that. Maybe I just need to have more patience.

Today I get to have lunch with HatGirl. Maybe she'll renew my faith, remind me of the value of patience.

Sometimes, I can just start typing. And then, I'll stop and decide that I've written something worthy of posting. I don't know if that's going to happen tonight, but I guess it's worth a shot. I'm in a semi-weird mood, after all.

Something happened to me, a long time ago. I really wish I knew the date, but I don't. It was a little over five years ago, when I'd just started this blog, but before I really had any purpose in mind for it. Before I really had any purpose in my life, as it turned out.

Well, on that unknown date about five years ago, even though I didn't recognize it at the time, I went and found myself a purpose. I wasn't even looking - it was thrust upon me - but I haven't been the same since. Not even close to the same.

I gave my life to that purpose, and though I've strayed from that path every now and then, I've never strayed very far. And I've always come back.

I think about these last five years, and I know that most people would tell me that I've wasted them, but that's not what I think at all. Nope, I think I wasted the nearly four decades that had passed before. There was literally nothing in my life that was worth living, until that mysterious date in 2003. But, as of that date, my worth as a person was suddenly very clear to me. My reason for being here was obvious to me. My purpose was unmistakable.

But, as sometimes happens, I fucked up. Either through bad timing or luck or fear or genetics or whatever, my reason for existing was taken from me. That's a date I fucking remember. November 9th, 2004. Almost four years ago. Everything I'd spent my life waiting for was lost on that day. Everything I was, died on that day. Everything, that is, except for one tiny spark.

And I persevered. Against all reason and logic, I kept that tiny spark of hope burning in my heart. It hasn't been easy for me, or even intentional some of the time, but I somehow managed to hold myself together. Long enough to have another chance.

I got that chance, and I'm fucking that up as well.

What am I supposed to do now?

Die?

Sometimes I hope for that.

Tonight, I sit here in my office late at night, and I try to prepare myself for the unknown that I find myself hurtling toward. I imagine the worst, and I steel myself as best as I can. I imagine the best, and I nearly weep from the joy of it.

To my detractors, I say that this time has not been wasted. Sometimes the journey really is more important than the destination. And sometimes the journey is all you get.

I forget where I was going with this entry, but I'm pretty sure that I've strayed again.

Oops.

I've had this stupid little nagging thought in my head for the past couple of days. I've had it before over the years, but I've always been able to ignore it until it went away.

This time, the damn stupid little nagging thought is being stubborn, and I'm not sure that it's going to go away. Because it might be right.

---

Today it's supposed to be really nice outside. Like 76 degrees. I'd walk to The Pub for lunch, but there's no point, because there are no beer sales until the polls close.

---

Sometimes I have to ask myself how things should proceed, if they proceed. I mean, if they're allowed to proceed to their logical conclusion, how should it happen? Slowly and deliberately, or as quickly as possible, to get the inevitable out of the way?

Sometimes it's really surreal that these aren't completely hypothetical questions.

---

Damn, I was supposed to pick up a case of Moerlein OTR when I was in Covington, but I forgot. Oh well, it's close. Maybe we can go up there together some weekend.

---

I forgot to set my clock back, so I got up an hour early this morning.

This is going to be brief.

I just went to fark.com, and I saw a topic there.

In honor of All Souls' Day... who would you want to give your eulogy and what do you think they'd say about you?

I'd want it to be my most special friend RockGirl, absolutely zero doubt about it.

And I think she'd say something like, "Dave was one of those rare people who knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life, and even though he never got to do it, just knowing that he had a purpose and that he would spend his life trying to fulfill that purpose - it was enough to make him very special. He never wavered, not even for a second. He was my dear friend, and he will be missed."

Not that I'm planning on dying anytime soon, but it would be nice of RockGirl to acknowledge me like that.

It's like I live a secret life or something. I wonder if people are intrigued by my recent silence. It might be cool if they were.

But, as is so often the case, the truth isn't quite as interesting as people might suspect.

I get to see her almost every day, except on the days when I don't. And those latter days don't matter except to mark wasted time. And on the days when I get to see her, time always passes so quickly that I always end up feeling like I've been robbed.

So, almost every day, I get to be happy, albeit for a brief time. Then, on the rest of the days, I get to be miserable.

Usually, I think it's a pretty fair trade. And it's certainly not boring.

I remember when my life used to be boring. It sucked.

But anyway, it's not like there's anything going on between us. We continue to be lopsided. That kinda ruins the intrigue, but it's the truth anyway. I don't have to like it, but I'd like it even less if people thought something was going on when it wasn't.

I don't even know if I'm going to post this. Probably not. I'm just sitting here typing, trying to kill some time until I get to see her again. Shouldn't be too much longer, I hope.

Her kid likes me, so that's cool. But I keep trying to tell her that I'm here for her, not for her kid. That would be a real dick move, I think, winning over a kid to get closer to his mother. Maybe a lot of guys would do it, but I'm not a lot of guys.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Covington, Kentucky and spending the night. I'll be working in that area Monday. I suppose I'll have some fun, going to that one bar in Covington and drinking some OTR beer, but I won't get to see her at all tomorrow. Please reference the third paragraph above for what that means.

As I'm clearly unfit for the world, and as the world is clearly unfit for me, tonight I'm just going to stay home and drink some fucking pumpkin beer. I was saving this, but oh well.

Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale

(bottle) Clear medium amber in color. Small head. Aroma of pumpkin and spices. The flavor was more spicy and metallic than I was expecting. There was also some hop bitterness that I didn't care for at all. Decent is all I can say.

---

I used to think that I knew how this would end. Not that it would end, I'm not quite that much of a pessimist. Yet. But if it ended, I thought I knew how and why. I was so sure. It was going to be all my fault, but I wouldn't be the one to end it.

Schlafly's Pumpkin Ale

(bottle) Clear copper in color. Small head that dissipated almost immediately. A very nice aroma of cinnamon and other spices. Medium mouthfeel. Very good flavor of all sorts of spices and, of course, pumpkin. The 8% ABV is hidden very well. A very good beer.

---

Lately, though, I haven't been so sure. Maybe it won't be her. Maybe it'll be me who recognizes and does what needs to be done. Walks away. I hope not. There's nowhere to go.

Post Road Pumpkin Ale

(bottle) Slightly hazy amber. Smallish head. Aroma of pumpkin and spices. Thin mouthfeel, but the flavor is very good. There's a bit of a bite - not bitter - that is a pleasant surprise. Very good.

So many people advised me to lie to her. To keep living my lie of omission. "Don't tell her everything," they said. "Just be happy with what you have," they said. "Don't rock the boat," they said.

But the damn boat was already sinking. So I sounded the alarm. I stopped lying.

And then, yesterday, she said that nobody ever says what's on their mind, except for me. I took that as a compliment.

---

She keeps using the f-word to describe what we're doing. But I don't think of it that way at all. It's not a friendship, at least not from my perspective.

Nope, from where I sit, it's a one-sided love affair.

A million times better than a friendship, and a million times worse.

---

Considering how I started missing her before I'd made it halfway out of her parking lot last night, of course I wanted to go back later and see her some more. But, considering how I actually started missing her before I'd gone three steps out of her door, I didn't think it would be a good idea.

---

Yesterday the only beer I had was about half a Schlenkerla Marzen (6016) at 1:00 or so. I have some pumpkin beers in my fridge, but I'm saving those for something.

---

This was funny in real life. Not mean at all.

So she asked me if I was mad. I'm not mad, I'm retarded. Big Difference.

And then, I went to lunch at The Pub - Newcastle (11498) - and surprise! It was a bonus AlliDay!

And then, desperately craving interaction with a girl who doesn't make me crazy(er), I arranged to have lunch with HatGirl this Friday. That should be very nice, as it's been a long time since it's just been just me and HatGirl. What with the whole her-getting-married and stuff.

Also, I can't follow my own fucking advice, so why should it bother me that nobody else follows it? I'll tell you why. Because I don't have a choice in the matter.

I've got all this damn pumpkin beer in my fridge, and now I don't know what's going to happen with it. Worst case would be that I'll drink it, I suppose. By myself. Like a chump.

Also, I think I'd be pretty pissed if I were a pigeon. I mean, being able to fly would be cool. But the rat with wings nickname would get old very quickly, and I'd really be pissed off about not being able to take a step without my head jerking back and forth like I was having a seizure or something.

Also, I really and truly don't think there's any cruelty behind any of this. I don't think my strings are being yanked just to watch me dance. Unfortunately for me, the results are exactly the same no matter what the intentions might be. I end up looking like a jackass, and everyone gets a good laugh out of it. Everybody except me, that is.

I need a nap.

And a vacation. Mustn't forget that.

Today I had what I thought was a pretty good idea for an entry. I even started to write it, in my little notebook while I sat at Sportstime waiting for my sister to call. But then some loud idiots took the booth next to me, and all concentration was lost.

I still know the gist of what I wanted to write, but there's a problem. I wanted to write about being in a weird mood, but I have to be in a weird mood to write about it coherently. A weird mood like I was in today, at about 1:00.

Now, not so much.

The thing is, about the weird moods that I get into, the thing is that there's always an element of detachment about them. I know I've touched on this before.

Like everyone else, I get sad, I get happy, I get worried, I get optimistic. Just normal shit, I suppose. But the thing I like about my weird moods is that I can notice my feelings, and even reflect on them for a while. They don't overwhelm me, the way that they are so wont to do.

I like that. I find myself very interesting, I guess.

Somebody has to do it.

Man, I was in a mood when I wrote this. Go read it. I'll wait.

............

I happened across that entry this afternoon, looking for something else entirely. But that old and irrelevant entry made me wonder.

With all this groping around that I'm doing, what if I found that broken handle for that broken switch?

Would I try to make repairs, so that I could switch it off again?

It's an interesting question, certainly, but the answer is indistinct to me.

Maybe if I'd open my damn eyes, I could see more clearly.

Another repost, again from about three years ago. I think I'd have written something like this today, if I hadn't already written it.

Being the type of person that I am, I don't seem to be capable of having an idea and simply letting it solidify on its own.

Nope, once something begins to form in my head, I'll obsess over it until I have it properly defined and categorized. If I can't do that then I'll at least come up with a metaphor for it.

I've read that when Titanic was struck, a lot of the passengers gathered up on deck to see what had happened. Some of them reported hearing a noise, but they couldn't describe what the noise was. It turns out, or so I've read anyway, that they hadn't heard anything at all. The sound that they thought they'd heard was actually the silence that fell upon them when the engines were shut down.

They'd simply noticed that something was different, but they didn't know what.

And that, my dear readers, is probably as close as I'm going to get to what I've been feeling lately.

I've noticed a change in the noise level within me. Something LOUD, I think, has either gone silent or is at least running more quietly than it has in a long time.

What does it mean? I don't know, but I have my suspicions.

We'll see.

I'm going to enjoy it while I can, though. Maybe catch up on my sleep.

Sometimes, you slam your eyes shut. As quickly as you can, but not quickly enough.

It's too late. You've already seen the truth. And that truth, it burns itself into you. It sets up residence in your soul.

And it eats away at everything. It devours everything. Nothing is safe.

Eyes squeezed shut, you frantically grope the darkness, looking for something, anything.

But there's nothing to find. There's nothing left. It's all gone.

Devoured by the truth.

This is a repost from three years ago. I like knowing that I used to be able write this kind of drivel.

When you live your life in total darkness, it doesn't take much.

The smallest spark, the slightest flash of light, can capture your full attention. Even after it's gone, the memory of that flash lives on.

Sometimes that flash is welcomed, but most times, most times it's only reminding you of what's missing.

A man gone blind does not always wish for sight, for there can be comfort in the dark.

Acceptance. Tranquility. Peace. All erased by a spark, a glimmer, a splash of light that does nothing but burn the retinas and leave ghost images floating and intruding.

A flash is nothing by itself. It's over in an instant. But the memory of it lingers, and the blind man sometimes wishes he could forget.

Have you ever stepped outside of yourself for a while, and then looked back, and wondered why you would ever want to return?

Me too.

Have you ever wanted, with all of your heart, to just give up, but known that you didn't have the strength?

Me too.

Have you ever had someone tell you the most asinine thing you've ever heard, and made you think that you don't matter at all?

Me too.

Have you ever want to quit, everything?

Me too.

Have you ever given everything you are to an idea that only you thought of?

Me too.

Have you ever been invisible?

Have you ever wondered how much of your life is simple inertia, and how much is real?

Have you ever wasted your time?

Have you ever wanted to turn back the clock, or the calendar?

Have you ever loathed yourself, and not known the reason?

Have you ever realized the truth, and wished with every ounce of your being that it was a lie?

Have you ever been in love?

For a second or so, there was something. An accidental touch. Not a lie but a mistake.

I think she forgot who I was, and in doing so, made me forget who I was.

Then she remembered, and jerked her hand away, and in doing so, made me remember.

For a second or so, I was somebody else. It was nice.

I had a really good day today.

Now, this little voice in my head tells me that I'm not supposed to be saying that, but fuck it. I keep censoring myself and censoring myself and censoring myself, and then every now and then I'll have a really crappy day. And, when that happens, I sometimes let my mood slip into this blog.

Well, today, I had a good day. And I'm in a very good mood. And I shouldn't be afraid to write about those facts. There are, after all, no more secrets between me and her, and I should stop acting like there are.

Look, this bullshit I use instead of a life isn't a very good one. I do still hate myself, after all. And most of the time, I feel like I'm drowning, and I'm not sure why I'm bothering to struggle.

But every now and then, like today, I find air. When that happens, I get to breathe for a while.

Times like this, times like today, I remember why I struggle. It's because of the joy that I am somehow, miraculously, still able to feel, when I breathe that sweet, sweet air.

I had a really good day today.

Today was the fifth day in a row that I've gone to HatGirl's house to take care of her critters, but I still haven't seen the kitty even once. I do, however, know that the kitty is still alive because I set treats out each day and the next day they're gone.

---

I get so sick and tired of people trivializing my problems and expecting me to act normal all the time. I do good to get out of bed in the mornings. Anything more than that is a bonus.

---

Tonight I had a nice long talk with my dad's ghost. It took some doing, and a couple bottles of Three Floyd's Gumballhead (215), to conjure him up, but I eventually succeeded.

It was a really nice conversation.

---

Every now and then I'll be driving - it's usually in Louisville - and I'll see some random young man walking down the sidewalk, using one hand to keep his super-loose pants from falling down.

I always wonder what kind of a terrible life that must be, the constant pressure that must involve.

Stretching an analogy almost to its breaking-point, I kinda do the same thing as those random young men.

Except that it's not modesty that I'm trying to preserve. Nope, it's my sanity.

I walk through life desperately clutching to pieces of myself that threaten to fall to the ground.

And shatter.

The shattering part is where the pants analogy breaks down. Because pants don't shatter, unless they haven't been washed in a zillion years, and that's an entirely different problem.

---

You know what's really nice to hear from the love of your life?

"Well, I wouldn't say you were the worst person ever."

That's what's nice to hear. Hope springs eternal, and all that.

---

Also, people who don't like the way I am should stop trying to guilt me into being something else. It won't work.

Empathy does not require understanding or agreement. Those are common misconceptions, but those things really are irrelevant to empathy.

Empathy can stand on its own and do just fine.

---

For those keeping score at home, I still haven't renewed any of my vehicle registrations. They were already closed on Saturday when I got there. They were closed today, and they'll be closed tomorrow. So I get to drive around illegally until Tuesday.

Fun!

---

That's it for now. I need to go out to my garage and glare at my phone for a while.

I think all I want to say about tonight is that I was held captive by two hot young women, and that I had fun.

---

Oh shit! I totally forgot to renew any of my vehicle registrations. All three expired the 15th of September. I'll have to see about at least renewing the registration on my truck tomorrow, if I have time.

---

I think what's happened is that I've crossed some kind of sleep-deprivation wall. Kind of like marathon runners will reach a certain point and then running is supposed to become effortless. Well I should be very tired right now, but I'm not at all.

---

My brain is really rambling. You readers are lucky that so little of the rambling is making it to my fingers.

---

I want to go to Antarctica, and I don't want to take myself with me. I don't know how to do that. Or, maybe, I want to go to Antarctica with myself, but then return without myself. I don't know how to do that either. Either way, though, I want to go to Antarctica.

---

Another thing about tonight is that I had a Shiner Bock (17) and a Barley Island Barfly (56). Or maybe that's two other things about tonight.

---

Sometimes a helping hand is exactly that, and nothing more. Sneering at it will only lessen the probability of it ever being offered again.

---

If I had any sense at all, I'd do something. What, exactly, I don't know. Because I don't have any sense at all.

---

I suppose I should go stare at my bedroom ceiling for a few hours. Goodnight, world.

Had a really crappy day.

Irritated, almost angry at times. One of those days when I really had to wonder why I was even bothering with anything.

Lots of things are wrong. Fuck, everything good in my life is tainted. I may be surrounded by silver linings, but today all I see are dark clouds. And, the thing is, it all boils down to one feeling. One simple emotion that trumps everything else on days like today.

Self-loathing.

For living in this cage, I hate myself. For being unable to take my own damn advice, I hate myself. For my stubborn refusal to accept reality like a man, I hate myself. For whatever it is that's wrong with me, for whatever it is that keeps me invisible, that makes me unworthy, I loathe myself.

I am so fucked.

Maybe I'll feel better tomorrow.

I guess there are about 6,700,000,000 people on Earth. Most of them are probably assholes, but I only wanted to write about one person tonight. So this entry won't be long as it could be. In fact, it will probably be quite brief.

I've kinda had these thoughts rattling around in my brain for a while. I know that they're worthy of a blog entry, but I've never been sure that I'm worthy to write that entry.

Well, I'm still unsure of my worthiness, but I'm in a very strange mood, so fuck it. I'm going to write something relevant.

The thing is, I think, that it only takes one person to change everything.

If just one person thinks that you're beautiful, you can never truly be ugly. If just one person sees the good in you, then you can never be a completely bad person. If just one person loves you, then you can never be unlovable. If just one person sits enthralled, dumbfounded, by how special you are, then you can never be ordinary. If just one person cares about you, then you fucking matter and you can never be irrelevant.

Going by the above, I am a beautiful, good, lovable, special person who matters. Seemed kind of silly to type that sentence. Seems even sillier to read it, knowing that it's about me, of all people. But there it is, and here I am.

I forget where I was going with this entry.

Maybe, if I were to issue a hearty fuck you to this little censorship demon or whatever that lives inside my head and eats delicious words before I can get them written, maybe I'd write something like this.

Yesterday I spent a lot of time thinking about some overlaps between what are otherwise two very different thoughts.

My thought
If I can just keep from ruining everything, and keep being my wonderful self in the meantime, then eventually she'll come around. And hey, even if she doesn't come around, then at least we'll get to keep hanging out.

Her thought
If Dave can just keep from ruining everything, and keep being his wonderful self in the meantime, then eventually he'll get over it. And hey, even if he doesn't ever get over it, then at least we'll get to keep hanging out.

See the overlaps? See them?!? Aren't they cool? I mean, except for the part about me ruining everything. I don't know why it's assumed that any ruination will necessarily have to be my fault.

I could probably write a long entry about this. But I won't.

Been trying to figure out what to write about this. My ability to think coherently is gone, but not my urge to write. This is a problem.

Sometimes I can just start typing and when I'm done it's halfway decent. Not usually, but sometimes. I'm trying that right now - just letting my fingers do whatever they want. Looks like words are stringing along, so maybe it's working.

Anyway.

I became invisible tonight. To three different people. Each among my favorite people on Earth, but to them, I am an afterthought. Compare me to anyone else - a random bar asshole, a bum from the street - anyone at all, and I'm going to fall short. And I'm going to be ignored.

Wait, ignored isn't the right word. That implies intent and effort, and most of the time I don't think I warrant either.

Sometimes I do think that I'm being purposefully reminded of my place in the hierarchy of things, when this happens. Sometimes I think it's done on purpose, but usually not. Usually I think it's subconscious and unintentional. I'm not sure which is worse. I mean, would you rather have someone tell that you're only useful as a last resort, or simply imply it through their actions?

It's not exactly fun, either way.

A wise man once wrote, "Hope is a strange thing. It exists only to disappoint, for once it's fulfilled, it vanishes."

I'm not exactly sure what that (clearly drunk) wise man was getting at, but I have a theory.

The thing about hope, I think, is that there's only one way to completely destroy it. And that's to fulfill it. Anything else, anything less, and it's going to survive.

Disappointments will devastate, but a spark of hope will survive, and then grow. Setbacks will shatter, but a tiny glimmer of hope will survive, and then grow. Failure will, um, do something bad that starts with "f" but hope will still survive, and then grow.

Frustrate, perhaps?

Anyway, NakedGirl told me tonight that, "There's nothing wrong with a little hope."

I tend to agree with her. Good thing, too. Because, even after everything I've seen and heard and felt, I still have hope. And, more than that, I like having hope, misguided as it may be.

It's at least something.

I tried living with nothing, and it sucked. Big ones.

I cannot imagine going back to a life without hope. If such an existence could even be called life. But I suppose that I'd give it a shot, if I had to.

If all my hopes were fulfilled, and they all vanished, I guess I could try to live with that.

The first time, I was in a crappy mood, and I did my writing elsewhere.

The second time, I was in a weird mood, and I wrote this:

The minutes take eternities to pass, but somehow the years rush by.

Two years have passed in the blink of a teary eye.

I never thought it would happen. I fought for so long, I convinced myself that I was winning. I faked a smile for so long, I convinced myself that I was happy. I fell for so long, I convinced myself that I was flying.

I never thought it would happen. I never thought it could happen.

But it did.

Splat!

My world still reverberates from the force of that impact.

I don't want to say any more.

I've already said too much, yet I could never never never say enough.

Those two words would lead to those three words would lead to a billion more words, and still it would not be enough.

And now it's the fourth time, that this date has come around. I finally feel like I've said everything there is to say. But it's still not enough.

Sitting at Rich O's, at night. Stupid, I know. I was going to sit over on the weirdo Sportstime side, but they were packed. Over here, at least I'm able to sit.

Anyway, I kinda feel like I should be writing something about some thoughts that have been rattling around in the dark places inside my head. Thoughts that will neither go away nor venture into the light. Because these thoughts have never been fully illuminated, I fear that this entry will probably be disjointed crap. This is in contrast to my usual drivel, which is at least somewhat jointed, and sometimes it's not even crap. You have been warned.

---

The thing is, I only meant to make a statement. To finally get the entire truth out there. I'd say something like laying all my cards on the table, but this is no fucking game to me.

I realized that I was taking a very serious risk, but frankly, at the time, I didn't feel like I had much left to lose. I was rapidly dying anyway. So it was, at least partly, an act of desperation on my part, the statement that I made. I guess I wanted my dying words to mean something. More than that, I wanted them to be heard. And they were. They certainly were.

But all along, from the time I started considering it, through the time I was saying it, and even during the conversation that ensued, it was always a statement. Telling the truth, and nothing else.

It was never a question.

It was certainly never a request.

So why, I wonder, why do I wait so impatiently for an answer to a question I never asked?

Why, I wonder, do I long for a response to a request I never made?

This is my dilemma.

I could have asked the question, but the question wasn't the point. The statement was the point. Besides, deep down I knew that I wasn't ready for the pain that the answer might bring. I could have even made the request, but it would have been ludicrous to do so, without the answer to the question. I may be insane, but I'm not that insane.

The statement leads to the question leads to the request. That's just the way it works. And I stopped at the statement. I stopped myself, or she stopped me. I don't know. All I know is that I did stop, rather abruptly. Jarringly, you might say.

Which was fine with me. That had been my plan, such as it was, when I started. But I screwed up. I wasn't thinking clearly. I was distracted, after all.

See, I didn't need to ask the question, and I didn't need to make the request.

They were implied. Or inferred. Whatever.

And so, now I wait. For an answer to a question I never quite asked, and for a response to a request I never quite made.

This is my dilemma. This is my life.

Well, I did it.

I said the most important words I've ever said, to the most wonderful person I've ever known.

I told her everything. Ev. Rey. Thing.

And now...

I just don't know.

I've got nothing left. I've done all I can do. I've said all I can say.

Maybe I've ruined everything. But if I did, at least it was with the truth. If those words turn out to be my final words to her*, then it's fitting that they were also the most important. The most real.

And the most overdue. Mustn't forget that.

---

It's so tempting to stop now. Writing. Talking. Communicating in any way with anyone at all.

It all seems so trivial to me now.

Lesser purposes and all that...

* - They were not.

Somebody needs to say it. I shouldn't be the one. My objectivity would be doubted, and with good reason.

But just because I can't be totally objective doesn't mean that I can't be right.

Abusive relationships take many forms. Some are easier to recognize than others. The symptoms vary, but they all have the same solution.

I would say the same thing to anyone.

This is what has become of me. I exist for one reason.

To search, forever, for something that isn't there.

I need to stop searching, but I don't think I can.

It's too late. I'm in too deep. I can't stop. I can't give up. I won't.

Maybe there's nothing, but it's all I have.

I don't think it would come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. I'm in a fucked-up situation these days.

I spend an inordinate amount of my time looking for, I dunno, something.

For what exactly, I can't say, because I don't know what it is. I think that I might be looking for what's left. Something that survived that terrible flood. A recognizable chuck of debris on the bank,