So I've been thinking about having a midlife crisis. I suppose I'm about due, as I haven't had one since I first moved to Seattle. I tried to have one a few years ago, but it never did catch on.

That Seattle midlife crisis was fun, maybe I could have fun again.

Anyway, I remember seeing a video on the internet, a long time ago. This dude was sitting on a motorcycle in a driveway, revving it up and showing off or something, and he did something wrong and smashed into the garage door.

I think it killed him, so it probably wasn't as funny as it would have otherwise been.

I'm pretty sure that, should my new midlife crisis hold a psychological gun to my head and force me to buy a motorcycle, I'm pretty sure that I'd at least do better than that guy did. I don't think I'd crash into my garage door. Nope, I've always pictured myself as being one of those guys who'd run over an acorn or something and that would cause me to wipe out and kill myself.

I'd probably be better off with a Corvette. I think a Corvette would be pretty much acorn-proof. Unless there was a whole shitload of them. Part of some vast conspiracy, perhaps.

Plus, I think chicks dig Corvettes even more than motorcycles.

(Update: I've been informed that motorcycles are more attractive, in general. But I think I'll stick with my opinion, because I believe that the attractiveness of being a living person vs. being a corpse would far outweigh that of having two wheels vs. four.)

Went to Rich O's today, after work. And, for the first time in a long time, I saw absolutely nothing appealing on the board. I'd been kinda craving a Weihenstephaner, but that keg had blown. I'd kinda been craving a draft Marzen, but that keg hasn't arrived yet. Yesterday I had an NABC Flat Tyre (1009), but I didn't feel like having another one today.

The beer board looked so uninteresting to me that I actually considered having an Arrogant Bastard. But then I remembered that I don't like Arrogant Bastard all that much.

So I ended up just driving home.

At least tomorrow is AlliDay, so I'll get to have a yummy Newcastle.

Is it weird, that I have this urge to publish, but not to write?

I think it's weird.

Anyway, here's what I wrote about a dream I once had. This was in 2006, a period otherwise known as an asstillion years ago.

I only turned my back for a second, and they all died. All of the hot girls, dead.

This party had suddenly taken a very bad turn.

What could I have been thinking? Rat poison is, by definition, poison, and who was I to say which small amount might be safe and which would not? Which would bring a nice high and which would bring death?

As I moved my hand over their bodies to check for any remaining signs of life, of hope, it was as if darkness flowed out from my fingers and onto everything around me.

I could no longer see their faces.

This might normally have been considered a good thing, what with them being dead and all. But this time, this time it was not. For as I reached to check for a pulse, I instead found the toothy grimace of agonizing death, seemingly about to bite down and rip at my flesh. Instead of the faintest of breaths, I instead found hands contorted by pain into claws that seemed to grasp at me, as if to pull me in with them.

But it was only my imagination. The dead do not bite. The dead do not grasp.

The darkness flowing from me continued to spread. The lamp in the corner served only to illuminate itself - its light no longer reached the walls, or the floor, or the ceiling. Or the grotesque scene on the bed.

I knew that I had to get away from there, from that macabre display, from the darkness.

So I ran.

I ran, and the darkness continued to flow from my body. It became an expanding wake of nothingness which I pulled along behind me.

I ran faster.

I ran as fast as my legs would carry me, but it was not fast enough. I bent forward, and I began to use my arms as well. I dug my fingers into the ground and I pulled with my arms as mightily as I pushed with my legs. I became something else. Something no longer human. A beast. Running from darkness that I myself had created, that I myself continued to spread.

A moment of clarity struck me.

I stopped.

The darkness caught up with me, surrounded me, enveloped me. It began to contract and flow back into me.

As I stood, panting, in that shrinking circle of darkness, I saw lights in the distance.

Then I woke up.

I miss dreaming.

I still don't feel like writing anything new, but this old entry from January is pretty fucking apropos. Or however you spell that.

I deny this new reality, and it slams into me.

---

Today was, of course, AlliDay.It wasn't too bad at The Pub. A little more crowded than I'd have preferred, and one shithead took my seat while I was outside making a phone call. But I got to talk to AlliGirl in little snippets, and her sunny disposition helped to brighten my mood a little. Also, it was freaking cold today.

---

I refuse this new reality, and it slams into me.

---

I also found out something pretty interesting and a little intriguing. Some little gestures, which I never really paid any attention to at all, back when they were happening. I've always admitted that I have a problem taking hints. This may have just been more of that, but I really think that it was more of a timing problem. Like, six hours earlier, and everything might have turned out quite differently. But, by the time the gestures started happening, it was too late. I was utterly distracted by then. Oh well. I'd have only given us about a week, anyway.

---

I ignore this new reality, and it slams into me.

---

After work, I stopped at Rich O's for a beer and a pizza. I had several insane minutes when I first arrived, but it really wasn't that big of a deal. Just me, being weird. Plus, I had PearlGirl look, and she verified what I'd been babbling about.

The resemblance was really uncanny.

---

I reject this new reality, and it slams into me.

---

I might get to see HatGirl this weekend. It's been a million gazillion years. Seems that way, anyway. I hope hope hope I get to see her.

---

I doubt this new reality, and it slams into me.

---

Tomorrow is Thursday. VacuumLady will come and clean my house and terrorize my cats for a while. I'll come home and immediately start slobbing the place up again. It's the kitchen that I can't seem to keep up with. And my bedroom. Those damn piles of laundry are back with a vengeance.

---

I am riddled with holes, yet I still stand. It's not that I'm particularly strong, I don't think. That's not why I'm, successfully so far, refusing to let myself fall. Again. Over this. It's just that I know that my falling would serve no purpose except to make things worse than they already are. And it would also prove Everyone On Earth right. I refuse to fall and, by refusing, I laugh in the face of Everyone On Earth. The fuckers.

---

I've been having a problem with sleep lately, and I think I've figured out why. Because, waking up to this new reality, that's the worst time for me. This is something that's certainly different, this time around.

My mind still clouded by the fading fog of sleep, only the most powerful thoughts shine through. And I feel myself falling, sliding, de-evolving into that past version of myself that nobody liked very much. That I didn't like very much. So I fight with everything that I have, and it always seems touch and go for those first few minutes while the fog fades away. Then, somehow, so far anyway, I emerge triumphant.

So, I don't think it's really sleep that's the problem. It's the fear of waking up that's getting to me.

---

I accept this new reality, and still, it keeps fucking relentlessly slamming into me.

Okay, so I've lost all motivation for this journal. For a lot of things. I need to step back for a while.

As anyone who's read me for any length of time knows, I write more goodly when I'm in a bad mood.

Now, it's been a while since I've written anything goodly. Over a year, I think. I say, I think, because to actually go back and check would be hard and stuff.

This past January sucked - maybe I wrote goodly in January.

Anywhozit.

Crap, what was I going to write about?

Oh, yeah. My previous entry.

I wonder who knows what the fuck that's all about. I've written the same kind of entry three times now. They have all meant the same thing.

I'm not ashamed.

This time, I went almost 1,200 days, but then I cried. Like a fucking baby. Saturday afternoon to be precise, a little before 5:00 PM. I had a good fucking reason, and anyone who disagrees can feel free to blow me. And maybe trade lives with me for a while. To see if he/she can stand it as well as I have.

One thousand one hundred and ninety-six days, seventeen hours, eleven minutes and four seconds...

One thousand one hundred and ninety-six days, seventeen hours, eleven minutes and five seconds...

One thousand one hundred and ninety-six days, seventeen hours, eleven minutes and six seconds...

...

...

...

Damn.

One second...

Two seconds...

...

...

...

Damn.

The thing is, I don't. Not any more. Not for a long time now.

My reasons were, and are, myriad.

Mostly, I just knew that it was wrong. I knew it was a lie. I knew it was a betrayal. I knew it was a waste of time.

So, I stopped. A long time ago.

It was a long time ago. Probably right after that comet smashed into the Earth, and while the remaining dinosaurs were wondering, with their walnut-sized brains, What the fuck was that noise? And what happened to the Sun? And why is it so cold?

Back then, I had kids. They were my ex-wife's kids, to be specific, but I counted them as mine. Fuck, my daughter I got to see being born, so blow me if you don't think I had the right to count myself as a parent.

Anyway, my kids, and all kids I guess, they had this thing they'd do. This warning of sorts. Whenever they'd be hurt or upset, they'd start to scream. But it was almost never immediate. Nope, they'd inhale first. And, the longer they'd inhale, the more piercing the inevitable scream would be.

A couple of seconds? A normal scream.

A minute? A terrible, horrible scream.

My daughter would, I shit you not, inhale for an hour and a half sometimes. And then she'd let loose. And everything good in the world would wither and die, after briefly wishing it had never been born in the first place.

I think I started inhaling a few weeks ago.

I can feel this scream building within me.

I wouldn't want to be around me when I finally let loose.

I, unfortunately, have no choice. I have to be present. But everyone else? Everyone else should stay the fuck away.

It's coming.

You know the ironic thing about silence?

It's fucking deafening.

And darkness?

Blinding.