Did you know that guys can have an Aunt Flo too?

Well, they can. And do. She just doesn't visit guys with the regularity that she imposes on women.

Think about it.

My Aunt Flo and my Uncle Ralph paid me a surprise visit last night.

I don't know if I've got food poisoning, or if there's some stomach flu going around that I haven't heard about, or what. I think that just about the only thing I know for sure, right now, is that Pepto Bismol doesn't work if you can't keep it down for more than ten seconds.

I feel like crap. I feel like puke.

And speaking of... I gotta end this entry.

She and three of her friends came in together. I saw her immediately, mainly because I was watching the door. I always watch the door in that place. I don't think she saw me.

They went straight to the bathroom to fix their hair or check their makeup or whatever girls do in there together. I like to think that they practice kissing on each other, like in the movie Cruel Intentions. That was hot.

I hadn't seen or even talked to MixedSignalGirl in months. I had no idea what to expect. The last time I'd talked to her, we hadn't been on very good terms. She'd pretty much freaked out on me. For good reason.

I then spent a few minutes trying to decide whether I should leave before they came out. I also thought about being sneaky and calling her from someplace where I could see the reaction on her face. Or maybe I'd buy the girls a round of drinks from "the gentleman at the bar" so I could see her reaction when she saw that it was me and not really a gentleman.

But what happened instead was that she tried to sneak around behind me when she left the bathroom. I pretended that I didn't see her. She came up behind me and put her hands over my eyes and put her lips up against my ear and whispered, "Guess who."

"Grandma?" I ventured.

"Wrong," was the whispered response. She licked my ear.

"Definitely Marilyn," I said with certainty. Marilyn is MixedSignalGirl's mom.

"Wrong, but funny," she answered.

"Miss, I saw you come in," I said. "But I'll keep making wrong guesses if you promise to keep licking my ear."

She removed her hands. I saw uninterrupted soft skin on all ten fingers. Whew!

I turned around and gave her a long hug and a quick kiss. Man, it was good to see her! She looked fantastic, and I told her as much.

By this time, her friends were looking at us in horror from their booth.

She asked me if I wanted to come over and join them, but she knew that I wouldn't do it. Crowds aren't my thing. Crowds are even less my thing when most of the people in it would just as soon slap me as look at me. So I declined. She didn't insist.

So I stayed at the bar and she went to join her friends. I did end up buying them a round of drinks. Some foo-foo things for $9.00 each. I had another beer myself and managed to enjoy it.

A while ago I remember being a little freaked out because LaptopGirl was sitting thirty yards away from me, with only two walls separating us at Rich O's. Well last night, last night MixedSignalGirl was thirty feet away from me, and I could see her, and I could hear her laughing, and I could still smell her perfume on my shirt.

It was surreal.

When I paid my tab and stood up to leave, our eyes met. I mouthed the words Hard Rock and she nodded. I'd meant it as an invitation, but she might have taken it as a warning, because I sat at The Hard Rock for an hour or so, and she didn't come in.

Later, while I was at Rich O's, I got a text message: Thanks for being nice tonight.

So I sent back: I came very close to asking you to come home with me.

After a half-hour that somehow lasted a million years, I got a response.

I'd have come. But thanks for not asking. You're still my hero. Later.

Later?

I hope so.

So a while back, I had my tongue in this girl's mouth. I had my tongue in her mouth, and I was struck by the realization that I was wasting my time.

I wasn't thinking that it was fun, that she smelled good, or that she was hot, or that it was a pretty good ego-boost for me at a time when I really needed it.

Nope, I was thinking that it was a waste of time.

Of course, that didn't stop me from slaking the shit out of that girl. I am a single straight guy after all.

Anyway, a couple of days ago I saw the girl again. I was eating lunch. She was working. She came up to me and, after the required Hi and How are you doing?, asked, "I'm embarrassed to have to ask, but what was your name again?"

Ouch.

Like I said, a waste of time.

For her too, apparently.

I'm off work until Tuesday!

Tomorrow is the start of the Bank Pool division of the Derby City Classic, which I play in every year. I'm actually looking forward to it this year. Unlike last year when I was sorta dreading the thing, and it showed up in my play. Or lack thereof.

This year my mental state is much better than it's been for a long time. Problem is, my actual game is pretty shitty.

My practice sessions have lately taken one of two distinct flavors. Either I don't miss a ball for several hours, or I don't make a ball for several hours. Unfortunately, the latter outnumber the former by a fairly wide margin.

Oh well though. It should still be fun. And it will almost certainly be better than going in to work. I will miss going to the bar and seeing my friends *coughHatGirlcough* though.

It continues to amaze me that you still function in public. If I'd done what you did, I'd never show my face again. You make me ill, but I've been asked to stay friendly with you, so that's what I'm doing.

---

Never, ever, ever, show me crap like that again. If that was a plea for pity, then it fell on deaf ears. Or blind eyes. Whatever. I tried to help, before it was too late. I was ignored. Also, grow up.

---

You should know that I will never answer the fucking phone if I don't know who you are. Since I don't know who you are, that means that I will never answer the fucking phone. So give it up. Find another way to contact me if it's that important. If you know me, then you can probably guess why I'm like this.

---

I just got tired of playing whatever games it was. I didn't know the rules, and I didn't know what the winning goal was supposed to be. Why not try the honest approach next time? Neither of us are twelve years old.

---

I gave you the benefit of a doubt for a long time. I even defended you from your critics. Well, I was wrong, they were right. Your sole purpose in life is to make every other man seem like a true gentleman by comparison.

---

I know what you're considering. Do not do it. I am not that type of person. Perhaps you should be seeking the company of the guy in the last paragraph.

So today sucked.

No real symptom of the suckage really stood out, but I've, over the years, become quite an expert on these things. So, trust me. Today sucked.

On a completely unrelated note, I keep catching myself thinking that I would make a better significant other for a certain person than another certain person, both of whom shall remain unnamed here.

For one thing, I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be such a shithead. For another thing - well I guess the non-shithead thing is all I've got. But that's enough for me to keep thinking about it.

This is not a very productive exercise for me to be engaging in so I've been trying to switch my train of thought to another, slightly less useless track.

What I've been trying to think about is the almost undeniable fact that, if a girl were considering me as a potential boyfriend, I'd almost certainly be better than nothing. This is actually a big realization for me. My self-confidence has obviously been skyrocketing lately. I cannot for the life of me figure out why that might be.

I'm thinking of having a t-shirt made with the words almost certainly better than nothing printed on the front.

Women are strange.

Take a good hard look at where you're at. At what you're doing. You can do so much better. They say that familiarity breeds contempt, but it can also breed apathy - and that can be much worse.

---

Don't fool yourself into thinking that you have something that's not really there. It was there once. I'm sure of it. But it's gone now. Open your eyes.

---

I see in you what I have too often seen in myself. Do not follow my example, for I am not a leader. I am as lost as you are.

---

It is completely unfair, that I should dump so much responsibility upon your shoulders. It is absolutely magnificent that you accept that burden with so much grace.

---

I was perfectly happy. I really was. Until I found out you were a whore. Then, not so much. You knew it all along. You should have warned me.

---

Can this really be reshaped into something that we both can accept? I hope so.

---

Every day, I miss you. Every fucking day.

I wish we had our own code. Or our own secret language that only the two of us knew.

Then I'd be able to say what's really on my mind. Then I'd always be able to speak the whole truth, instead of the watered-down pussified version of the truth that propriety and decency force me to use.

There would be no secrets between us.

I wish she could read between the lines.

I guess I've been fooling myself, pretending with so much effort that there for a little while I actually believed it. I actually believed that it might be different this time.

But the hour looms nearer. The alcohol in my body fogs my senses even as it magically makes things more clear. I can see the truth. I know what's about to happen.

The same thing that happened on the past two occurrences of this date.

This little annual ceremony of mine has been polluted and corrupted. It's not even close to what it once was. It used to be something I'd look forward to. Ring out the old, usher in the new. Crap like that. It was kind of fun.

And now, now it's nothing more than a séance. Intensified, surely, because of the date, but otherwise no different than any of the dozens that preceded it this year.

In less than an hour, it begins again.