Okay, pop quiz time.

Say you make pizzas for a living. An order comes in. The order specifies "light on the sauce."

What do you do. What DO you do?

A) Use less sauce that you normally would. The customer is always right, and even if they're wrong, they should at least get what they paid for.
B) Ignore the request and make a regular pizza. Fuck the customer. You're the goddamn pizza professional, after all. Who does the customer think they are?
C) Be an asshole and load the pizza up with twice the normal amount of sauce. Customers suck. You hate them all and you wish they would die. Or at least leave you alone.
D) Forget about the special request and use the regular amount of sauce, then try to hide your mistake and fool the customer by using additional amounts of all the other ingredients. Customers are all stupid, they will never notice.

This is not a particularly hard quiz. But I'll give you a hint anyway.

The letter corresponding to the correct answer is a vowel.

I'm pretty sure that this, like everything else, is going to end. I can accept that fact. I don't have to like it very much, but I know that I can live with it. Survive beyond the point where this thing can be mentioned in the present tense.

I've certainly lost more important things in my life. Not to say that this isn't important to me. Because it really is. It's just that I've kind of had perspective forced upon me over the last few years. So, when this ends, it will definitely be something, but it won't be something I can't handle.

I think the thing that irritates me the most about it is that I always find myself wondering if it has already ended. Like maybe I'm just no longer needed. If I ever really was. Or perhaps the last thing I did or said or wrote, or even worse, the last thing I didn't say or didn't do or didn't write, that maybe that thing is what ended it. Will end it. Is ending it. Whatever tense is appropriate.

I wonder about this a lot. I worry about it a lot. Because, like I said, I know it's going to end eventually. All good things do. I can handle it being over. It's just the actual ending that worries me. I don't want to miss it.

I do have thoughts, sometimes. Really, I do. Serious and deep thoughts. Problem is that, lately, I don't have them very often. And, when I do, it's almost always at the most inopportune moments.

Like when I'm driving. I'm always coming up with good shit to write about when I'm driving. But then, when I reach whatever destination I was driving to, it's all gone. Vanished in the proverbial puff of smoke. At those times, I can remember what I was going to write about, but it seems pointless. Because whatever clever turn of phrase or humorous metaphor it was that first put the idea into my head - it's gone.

So I end up not writing about whatever my brilliant idea was. Instead, instead I write drivel about nothing.

I don't think I've written anything worth reading in several days. Since last Tuesday. And even that entry was more of a reflexive brain fart than something I put any actual effort into.

Anyway, it's 1:39 Sunday afternoon, and I'm bored. I'm alternating shooting pool with watching a movie. A Simple Plan. I've seen it before. It's okay.

I'm thinking about maybe going to get something to eat, but frankly it just seems like too much trouble. I'd have to take a shower, then put on clothes, then figure out exactly what I was hungry for. All tasks too daunting for me right now.

I never said this would be interesting.

Last night was fun. Weird, but fun. A little disappointing, but fun.

I got to Rich O's at 8:00 or so. The place was packed with strangers. It was like I'd walked into the wrong bar or something. Not that I really paid that much attention to the crowd. I was on a mission. Checking the beer board to see if Rogue Chocolate Stout was really back, or if Roger had just been fucking with me again by writing it on the employee board.

It was there! Yay!

Inside Rich O's proper, there were more strangers. I didn't recognize a single person except GlassesGirl. She was sitting at the island, so I sat with her. She was very relieved to see someone she knew, and I immediately felt pressure to keep her entertained. But after a bit TremensGirl came in and joined us, so the pressure was off a little.

For the next couple of hours I talked with the girls and had a couple Rogue Chocolate Stouts (1706). I got a million text messages from various people, including HatGirl. I had a million phone calls from various people, including HatGirl.

After a while some other regulars started showing up and joining us at the island. I started to get a little claustrophobic, but there wasn't anything I could do about it because the fuckers in the living room area were still showing no signs of ever leaving. But NotHideousGirl came in for a bit so I talked to her and that made me feel a little better.

I think that's about when I had my third Rogue Chocolate Stout (1726).

After NotHideousGirl left, the strangers finally left the living room. So I high-tailed it over to the throne where I could get some breathing room. Everyone else, of course, followed me over there. Or maybe they were going there anyway.

Once MusicalYuppieDude came in and stole all the women from me, I had a fourth Rogue Chocolate Stout (1746) and then came home.

It really was fun. I got to talk to a lot of pretty girls. I got to see NotHideousGirl. I got text messages from HatGirl, and I got to talk to her on the phone. I was pretty disappointed that ArtGirl didn't come in. And BikerGirl had said that she might even come in, so I was pretty disappointed when she didn't show. I think it would have been funny to watch BikerGirl demolish some of the wannabe pickup artists at Rich O's.

But it was still a fun night. I think that I might have been a tad too honest in a couple of the conversations I had. I'll just have to wait and see if there are any repercussions.

I'll admit it. I'm not ashamed. I'm not embarrassed.

I like girls. Especially hot girls.

I will go out of my way to see them. To talk to them. To do other things with them, when the chemistry and timing is right. This does not mean that I'm an asshole, or a bastard, or a player, or a male chauvinist pig.

It means that I'm a normal straight single guy.

Like today, I went to lunch. I had a yummy meal, and two yummy Newcastles (6479), and I talked to a pretty girl. If BikerGirl hadn't been working, I might have turned around and gone somewhere else. If BikerGirl was an 800-lb geriatric paraplegic with bad body odor, I'd probably have gone somewhere else in the first place. Like to Lucky Strike maybe. There are pretty girls who work there every now and then.

Appreciating female beauty and company is not a fucking crime against humanity.

It feels good to vent sometimes.

There's not really a whole lot to say about Friday. Though I guess I issue disclaimers like that a lot, and then I ramble on for hundreds of words anyway. I'll try to restrain myself.

Because I had to burn a day of vacation for some stupid thing, I spent a very long lunch at The Pub. Had a couple Newcastles (6439). I was going to eat something. I was going to order fish and chips, eat the fish, and give the chips to NotHideousGirl, but she didn't have time for lunch. So we just met outside for a while. Then I went back in and talked to BikerGirl. Then I went and did the stupid thing.

Later, at Rich O's, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn't too crowded. The throne was empty, so I sat there and talked to a couple of regulars about various crap. I'd thought that maybe Rogue Chocolate Stout would be back, but it wasn't. I had a bottle of Avery The Reverend (476) which was quite good.

HatGirl texted me a couple of times. She's out of town, so that sucks. NotHideousGirl texted me that she didn't didn't feel like coming to Rich O's, so that sucked. Really, the only thing notable about last night was that there was a moderate infestation of hippies in the red room, and they provided some amusement for me. Other than that, it was a pretty boring night. I ordered a Paulaner Hefeweissbier next, but I only drank a little bit of it (152) because The Reverend had pretty much used up my alcohol intake quota for the night.

I came home at 10:30 or so and IMed StalkerGirl for a couple of hours. Then I emailed RockGirl, then I went to bed.

See? I just used 290 words to pretty much say nothing.

Wednesday night, when I was waiting to see if BikerGirl was going to join me for dinner, I took this picture. On the left is the building where NotHideousGirl works. On the right is a building where irrelevant people work.

Today was the first day of the latest phase of this construction project they have going on here. They're closing a stretch of Interstate 64 in Louisville. It'll be closed for a month and, if this morning was any indication, it'll be a pretty shitty month for commuters like me.

I'm hopeful that, after a couple of days, people will start to settle in to their new routes. If traffic stays this bad, I'll have to start leaving a couple of hours early. It'll be like living in Seattle all over again.

Anyway, this morning the Interstate leading up to the closure zone consisted of stopped traffic. Not stop and go traffic. Stopped traffic. For at least five miles. So I took an alternate route. Me and about a gazillion other people. Including the girl who decided to crash into the back of my truck while I sat at a red light.

She didn't really hit me that hard. Didn't even spill my soda. Her hood got crunched a little, and one of her turn signals broke, but my truck emerged unscathed. Because the girl was cute, and also because nobody got hurt and because my truck was okay, I told her that it was up to her if she wanted to bother with filing an insurance claim. I doubt that she will.

My first prediction is that I will wake up tomorrow full of resolve. My second prediction is that my resolve will evaporate by 11:00 or so.

I know what I should do. Or, more accurately, what I shouldn't do. It's perfectly clear in my head. It would be perfectly understandable to anyone, if I felt inclined to explain it.

You ever just get sick and tired of being taken for granted? Of being lied to? Of being used and then discarded? You ever just want to turn your back and walk away?

Yeah, me too.

Tonight, I sat on my swing and drank a yummy Schlenkerkla Marzen (484) while all around me neighbors shot fireworks into the air.

I wrote to my friend that it was like my life in a nutshell. The Reader's Digest version of Dave. Every now and then the sound of laughter would make its way to my ears, adding insult to injury.

My second Marzen (501) went down as smoothly as the first.

Tomorrow, I will wake up full of resolve. By 11:00 or so, that resolve will be gone. Because, by 11:00 or so, I will have remembered three things.

Sometimes, I'm appreciated. Even if it's for one tiny little thing, for one tiny little moment, those snippets of appreciation still give validation to this thing I use for a life.

Sometimes, I'm told the truth. It's happened before, and I'm certain that it will happen again. Eventually. If I can just be patient, and hang on long enough.

Sometimes, I'm merely set aside instead of discarded, and the possibility of being needed again is palpable, and it keeps me breathing.