(There was this survey thingy that my sister posted. I started to repost it with my own answers, but then I decided to just use the survey's questions to maybe give me something to write about. So that's what I'm doing. Maybe one interesting survey question a day - that should keep me writing for quite a while. And I won't have to do that annoying thing where I think up my own topics. Unless I want to.)

Are you friends with any of your exes?
I suppose it depends on how you define friends and also on how you define exes.

I'm on friendly terms with all of my ex-girlfriends, I think. But it's not like we're still friends as I understand the term. I mean, it's not like we're always calling each other up and hanging out all the time. This is partly because most of them don't live anywhere near here, but I think that's only part of the reason. Things change, and people drift apart. It sucks, but it happens.

I'm pretty sure that, if I wanted to, I could call up most of my ex-girlfriends, and have a nice talk or whatever. I Iike to think that those relationships all ended on good terms. But the fact is that I don't contact them, and the other fact is that they don't contact me. That's gotta mean something, right there.

What's happened lately, more often, is that relationships deteriorate into purely sexual ones. I don't like it very much when that happens. I like to think I'm good for more than that, and I know that these girls are good for much more than that.

I liked Friday night, for the most part. I was in an inexplicably good mood. One that didn't change to the more familiar feeling of foreboding until I was walking into Rich O's. So that was cool.

They were having a sausage festival in the living room area. I needed to eat so I sat at the kiddie table. Before I'd even ordered my beer and pizza, ArtGirl came in and joined me. That was really nice of her, and very good timing.

So I sat with ArtGirl for the next couple of hours, talking about various stuff. I had a couple pints of NABC Cone Smoker (4158) and then about half a pint of NABC Flat Tyre (949).

Once ArtGirl dumped me to go talk to FutureDude, I was faced with a choice. I could either (a) join the continuing sausage festival, or (b) go home, or (c) stay at the kiddie table and stare at the door on the off-chance that LaptopGirl would show up.

I ended up going home, and apparently missing LaptopGirl by about five minutes. So that sucked.

What's kinda funny is that, if ArtGirl hadn't dumped me and I'd stayed for five more minutes, I'd have dumped her to talk to LaptopGirl.

(There was this survey thingy that my sister posted. I started to repost it with my own answers, but then I decided to just use the survey's questions to maybe give me something to write about. So that's what I'm doing. Maybe one interesting survey question a day - that should keep me writing for quite a while. And I won't have to do that annoying thing where I think up my own topics. Unless I want to.)

Are you anything like you were at this point last year?
My first thought, upon reading this question, was that a year ago I was but a hint of my current self. Like all the pieces were there, they just hadn't been assembled yet. I was just starting to rise from the depths of the gray place that had been my home for such a long time. I wasn't quite ready to believe what was happening, but I was beginning to accept the possibility. I was beginning to have hope. Me, of all people. Hope, of all things.

But things change, tides ebb, perspectives shift, hues fade.

The thing is, right now, I'm exactly the way I was a year ago. But now, now it's like I'm being disassembled. Now, I'm falling again. Now, hope is dissolving and gray reality is coming back into stark focus.

I'm living my life in reverse.

In my mind, I pass that old version of myself, as I slowly sink and he rises ever so gently. We're both accelerating. Me with this growing look of dismay, he with the timid beginning of that stupid grin that I saw so often in the mirror.

But do I wildly wave my arms at him? Do I shout warnings that it's all just an illusion? Do I try to grab hold of him, so that he might arrest my fall?

No, because I might end up stopping his ascent, and that would be cruel. Instead, I will let him have his fun. Instead, I will let him continue to grow that stupid grin. And I will look up at him for as long as he's visible. And I will remember what it was like to fly. And I will try not to weep.

In a year or so, I'll try to catch him as he plummets back home.

There's this thing, this life lesson I suppose you could call it, that I just can't get to stick in my brain for any length of time. Certainly not long enough to ever be useful.

I suppose that, were I to give this life lesson a semi-serious attempt at expression, it would go something like this:

Things are as they are. Things may change, either over time or instantly, but I have little control over the form those changes may take, or of their timing. Also, anytime I attempt to coerce a change, it usually makes things worse than they were before.

I think things are good, then I get punched in the gut. I think things are progressing, and I get kicked in the nuts. I struggle to move beyond those events, and I finally start to feel better again, and I get slapped in the face. And I just keep taking it. I withstand it all, and I never fight back, and I pretend that I'm not reeling from the pain and the shock. I pretend that I'm not livid.

Things are as they are. I have no control. I am a willow in the wind. I must learn to love the wind, even though it may uproot me and send me tumbling into death.

I'm just trying something here. I got a new webcam.

I don't care what weather.gov says, it's cold tonight. Too cold to comfortably enjoy sitting on my swing with this Marzen (3779), that's for sure.

Maybe it would have been better if I'd put some more clothes on, but it's June. I will not get all layered-up in June in Southern Indiana.

But the cold isn't why I came back in to the house. Nope, I came back into the house because there are fucking stobor outside.

The first one, I thought maybe it was a cat. It was way too dark to see anything more than an indistinct blob of darkness of indeterminate size. Like the last time, I asked the hopeful, "Kitty kitty?" But, like the last time, it wasn't no kitty. It was clearly a stobor which ran into my garage and started tearing into the crap piled therein.

I sat and listened to it, trying to gauge its size from the racket it was making. I was estimating somewhere between a racoon and a Tyrannosaurus Rex, when I heard another stobor. Out in the front yard, as near as I could tell.

Imagine that you take an animal that almost never makes a sound. A rabbit perhaps, or maybe an opposum. Now, imagine doing something horrible to that animal. Step on it. Skin it alive. Fuck it up the ass. Something painful enough to cause that normally quiet animal to make the most terrible sound in the universe.

That's what that second stobor sounded like.

But seriously, if you really thought about fucking that poor animal up the ass, then please seek professional help. Because that's just sick.

Anyway, it must have been a mating call or a challenge or something, because the stobor in my garage answered almost immediately with that same awful wailing sound. And then I saw it, or rather its accompanying blob of darkness of indeterminite size, exit my garage and zoom into my front yard.

You know what's worse than the most terrible sound in the universe? Well, I'll tell you. It's two sources of that sound, joined together in an unholy harmony.

And that's the next sound that invaded my ears, as the two stobor began to mate or fight with each other.

Whatever it was they were doing, I didn't care. I took that opportunity to retreat into my house.

I'm actually shaking now.

So the other day I was asked to provide an example of my weirdness. I provided an example at that time, and I wrote about it here.

And now, at great risk to my already fragile reputation, I will now give another example of my weirdness.

This was Wednesday night. I got this really stupid fantasy in my head. I was sitting out on my swing, enjoying a lovely Marzen (3579), and I thought that my phone might ring. Never mind that it was very late at night - it was my really stupid fantasy, and so the time was pretty much irrelevant.

Anyway, my phone never rang. So I got more and more antsy about it, and I did something stupid.

I sent an email.

Surely, I thought, Surely now my phone will ring to either indicate an incoming email or a text message or a phone call.

But alas, my phone sat silent beside me on my swing. Mocking me with its silence. My phone is so mean sometimes.

Then, at about 2:30 in the morning, I began to feel tired. I needed to go into my house and get some sleep, but I still had that really stupid fantasy in my head. And in that really stupid fantasy, see, I was outside when my phone rang. So, I figured, if I went inside my house, I'd be giving up on my really stupid fantasy.

Well, I didn't want to give up on the thing. It was a nice really stupid fantasy. I didn't want to go into my house and go to bed and give up on it.

So, brilliant tactician that I am, I went and got my tent and my sleeping bag and my pillow. I set up camp in my backyard, and I slept out there.

Weird, right?

But I never gave up on my really stupid fantasy. Because I'm all stubborn and shit.

Okay, so it wasn't so much a limb that fell Tuesday morning. It was more like half the tree fell.

A crappy picture of how the stupid thing ended up straddling the property line.

Another picture, taken from my neighbor's driveway.

This thing defied all attempts to locate a good shooting position.

Here we see what I meant when I said it wasn't a limb that fell. It was more like the tree split apart at the crotch. Like a whore in a hurry.

Since this break is about 30 feet in the air, I can't tell if attaching a rope and yanking with my truck will be good enough. It looks pretty dubious.