I guess that one of the fun things about being me right is that, for some goofy reason that I've yet to comprehend, I'm no longer drowning in my own imagination.

Instead of each and every action revealing million of possible reactions in my head, I only see one or two steps ahead. This might be, some could theorize, because things are so complicated that one or two steps is all my mind can conjure.

But I don't think that's what's going on here. I think that what's happening is that I only have to go one or two steps for something good to happen.

I'm that close.

No longer does my mind need to imagine generation after untold generation of unhatched chickens before I find a scenario I can live with.

Sorry about throwing the chicken metaphor back out there. I just couldn't think of anything better on such short notice.

This is pretty cool. I actually find myself enjoying the act of being me. That hasn't happened in a long time.

My Blackberry sucks.

Something has happened to its ability to save SMS messages.

Like tonight. Right before I left Rich O's, I drunk-texted NotHideousGirl. The gist of the message was that it sucked that there's nobody who'll miss me when I'm in Las Vegas this week.

Lo and behold, she responded. Something about how she missed me.

I replied back with some crap.

But now, when I go to look at my Blackberry to see what she said, and to see what I said in response - there's no record of any messages at all.

My Blackberry sucks.

I feel a little bit selfish.

I've been told, a few times now, that I've been given what you might call a green light.

Not yellow. Certainly not red.

Green. Maybe tinged a bit toward yellow because I'm such a doofus.

But anyway, I just can't seem to be able to justify it to myself. Something stops me from even considering it, except at times like right now. As I sit alone in my house, when there's not a thing I can do about it except think and wonder and ponder and imagine.

Like I said, I feel a little bit selfish. Because the only thing stopping me seems to be me.

And since when did I become so damn important? I never got that memo.

I think I cleared the air a little bit tonight. At least I tried to clear the air. I hope I didn't make a fool of myself.

Given about five more seconds, and I probably would have done just that.

And that would have been selfish, too.

Happy Birthday to LaptopGirl!

Take that, universe!

This year, I got to say it without any hesitation whatsoever!

One day this dude was going to ask a hot girl to have lunch with him. But then he got irritated with her, so he was going to ask this other hot girl to lunch instead. But then he remembered that he doesn't like sluts, so he ended up going to lunch by himself.

The moral of this story is that Red Lobster has yummy food.

So Wednesday, after WeirdGirl left, I headed on down to Rich O's.

The night before Thanksgiving is typically one of the busiest nights of the year there, and Wednesday night started out looking like it would be terribly crowded. People were double and triple parked in the lot. I parked in Chile and hiked in.

The loser area was packed, and the front area was packed. Rich O's proper actually had a couple of open seats. Yay! First thing I noticed was GlassesGirl on the sofa. So I sat on the loveseat and talked to her and her husband and TallLady for a while. I had myself a Cone Smoker (2396). GlassesGirl kept trying to talk me into writing a novel, and I kept trying to protest that fiction is hard and stuff.

After a short while, LaptopGirl came in looking very pretty in shades of brown. She sat at the kiddie table and I pretty much forgot about everyone else. Eventually there was some shuffling of seats, and LaptopGirl moved to the throne and I moved to the kiddie table. We messed with her laptop for a while. I was very disappointed that an initial scan didn't turn up any spyware. So I'm kinda stumped as to what might be wrong with her computer.

Oh yeah, PlantDude smoked a clove cigarette. The smell made me hungry, and it made LaptopGirl queasy, so we split a pizza. I'm sure that, by then, I was on my second Cone Smoker (2416).

Crap, I almost forgot! At one point I looked over at the sofa, and half of TeamHotness was there! Specifically, UnbearablyHotSingleGirl was there! So I of course talked to her for a bit. She looked fantastic. I asked her where ImprobablyHotMarriedGirl was, and she said she was over at the Sportstime side of the building. So I skipped over in that direction, and I met ImprobablyHotMarriedGirl coming my way!

Yay!

Very cool to see them both!

After my tearful reunion with TeamHotness, I went back to the kiddie table and talked with LaptopGirl some more. The dude who's name I'd gotten wrong had shown up at some point. I talked to him a little just to be polite.

LaptopGirl didn't want to finish her beer, so I choked it down for her.

Barley Island Black Majic Java Stout

(draft) Black with brown foam. Strong coffee aroma. Flavor not as intense as the aroma led me to expect. Not very good at all, but I dislike coffee flavor in beer so I didn't expect to like this. I gave this beer a decent rating (instead of swill) because they seem to have at least tried, and I can imagine some people might like it.

The whole night was very nice.

First, I want to say that I was mostly right about something. I had the date and the time and the circumstances right. All I got wrong was the name of the person. That's forgivable, I think. He was a very minor character in our little show, anyway.

Second, I've been such a big slacker about my Rich O's entries this week. As in, there haven't been any. As in, I've been there the last three nights.

I'll start in the logical place. Monday evening. I'd just left work, and my phone vibrated. My first instinct was that some coworker had some last-minute question or problem for me. So I was very pleasantly surprised when I looked at the phone and saw SassyGirl's picture.

She and JauntyGirl had finally come back to visit! Yay!

So of course I went to Rich O's to meet up with them. It was very cool to see them. SassyGirl hasn't changed. JauntyGirl is a blonde now. We sat around for a couple of hour and talked and did some catching up. I emailed LaptopGirl that SassyGirl was in town. I had two Cone Smokers (2316). When we all left, there was much hugging as they were going off on another of their adventures Tuesday.

Tuesday was virtual Friday for me, so I went to Rich O's at 8:00 or so. I was pretty sure that it was a bad idea to go. I wasn't in the best mood. I told RockGirl that I'd probably end the night either sad or very sad - depending on what actually happened.

I sat at the island and had, of course, a Cone Smoker (2336). I had the island to myself, so that was kind of nice. I waved at OddlyFamiliarGirl, who was sitting with some gay guy at the kiddie table. She was wearing her DaveFest shirt.

Then these three girls came in and sat with me at the island. I didn't know them, but they all seemed nice. At about the time I'd decided that I'd end the night sad instead of very sad something cool happened. SassyGirl and JauntyGirl and SassyBoy came in! The girls had decided to postpone their new adventure for another night. Very cool.

I ended up having another two pints of Cone Smoker (2376) while we all bullshitted about various stuff. At the end of the night, there was, once again, much hugging. I ended the night in an actual good mood.

Wednesday I was off work. I slept half the damn day away, and so I was a couple of hours late for AlliDay at The Pub. But I made it there eventually. I had a couple Newcastles (8201) and talked to BikerGirl for a couple of hours. The place was fairly dead, so that was a good thing for me - more time with BikerGirl!

There. That brings me up to Wednesday night. I think I'll give Wednesday night its own entry.

Happy Birthday to my sister Dina!