I like storms. I really do. I've been fascinated with them since I was about four years old.

Right now, there is lightning and thunder, and I'm freaking out a little.

The thunder - it just isn't normal thunder. I mean, it's not one of the two normal kinds of thunder. It's not the kind that's a loud bang indicating a nearby lightning flash. And it's not the long drawn-out rumble associated with a distant flash.

It's something else.

Something strange.

Something a little scary.

It's kind of like a machine gun. A series of very loud noises spaced impossibly close together. It's definitely not the result of hundreds of lightning strikes all occurring in a row. It's one sound, one sound that lasts maybe five seconds or so, but a sound that's almost interrupted ten times a second.

You know what it sounds like?

A giant zipper.

An incredibly huge and incredibly loud zipper, being pulled across the sky.

I wonder, if I were to look out my office window right now, would I see God's wang?

I don't think I want to look. I mean, I'm pretty sure I can't compete with that thing.

They're right at the tip of my brain, these ideas and thoughts, but they'll go no further than that. It's like there's a disconnect between my brain and my fingers.

Move me away from my keyboard, away from pen and paper, and I'm a fucking fountain of creativity. But now, now all I've got are snippets.

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I think I'm worrying too much about what I write these days. Too many people that know me are reading this thing. If I ever disappear from here, it will be for that reason, and I'll probably be somewhere nearby.

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Every Thursday night I decide that I'm not going out over the weekend. Every Friday and Saturday night I go out. I don't know if this reflects too much apathy or too little determination. All I know for sure is that most nights I come home in a worse mood than I was in before I left my house.

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It's coming up on a year since that meteoric near-miss that left me trembling like a rabbit during hunting season. I still tremble. I'm doing it right now. Sometimes I remember what it was like to feel safe, but that memory is like a hazy dream that I'm not sure I ever really had.

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It would probably do me some good if I would allow myself to get pissed at certain people, but I don't expect it to happen anytime soon. It's just a lot easier to get pissed at myself. Plus, I'm used to that.

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People that know the situation should also remember that I didn't start it. It was all her idea to act on what was happening. I would have been perfectly content to let it end before it ever started. I had enough drama in my life already.

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It pisses me off that the thing that opened my heart to the possibility of happiness is the same thing that stands in the way of my finding it. Some would probably call this irony, but I have harsher words for it.

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One of these years I should think about getting my truck back home. It's been in the parking lot at work since Monday evening. I wonder if everybody thinks I'm all gung-ho now. Go team!

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I would make a terrible evil genius. For two reasons.

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I have a date for Sunday. People will probably think we're staging a remake of Beauty and the Beast. I sure hope nobody expects me to sing.

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I could do these snippets all night, but I won't. You can thank me later.

I was just now going to write that I saw SassyGirl at Rich O's after work, and that I had an NABC Artemsia (120). Then I was going to write that I gave SassyGirl a ride home and we talked and it was nice. I was probably going to write that I had a Blue Moon (270) at SassyGirl's house and that I got to pet her cat. I probably wasn't going to mention that SassyBoy was at Rich O's too, even though I should mention it because nobody had seen him in months.

Then, I think I was going to elaborate on how nice it was to see SassyGirl, especially to be able to spend time with just the two of us. If I'd written that, then I'd also have felt compelled to write that I have absolutely nothing against JauntyGirl at all (she's really nice and cool) but sometimes I just want to see my friends without their significant others there. I'd have written something about how I'm always a third wheel in those situations. Then, I might have started to allude to other friends that I rarely (or never) see without their significant others, but then I'd have thought about it, and decided against it because, you know, sometimes you just have to take what you can get and stop being such a baby.

Once I'd written about my day, I was going to struggle for quite a while about another topic that's been on my mind. I would have had this long drawn-out internal debate over whether or not I should even mention it at all. I think this would have been a tough decision, because it would certainly make for interesting writing, but it would also open up a big can of worms that would probably be best left closed. In the end, I was going to decide that it just wasn't worth the trouble.

In fact, I ended up deciding that writing about anything at all would require more effort than it was worth, so I ditched the whole plan and just went and watched some TV.

I've had such a bad few days. I'm not really sure that I can describe it, or if I even want to, or if I should.

It takes such a small push, to tip me away from sadness and into something better. The tiniest of efforts can make me human again, for a while at least. But it's that tiniest bit of effort that still seems to be too much to ask for. Or hope for. Or expect.

I'm so out of balance, on this imaginary scale of emotion I keep in my head. I used to be centered. Content was the word I used. Things would happen or not happen, and I'd swing to sadness or happiness for a while, but then I'd always spring back to the center.

I guess my center has shifted, because content is no longer the place where I come to rest. Content takes imagination and willpower that I no longer possess. Content is a goal I now seem to attain only with help from other people.

This is a bad thing, of course. Because, as a general rule, other people cannot be counted on.

To have my own mood hinge on, for example, another person's ability to reply to a text message - this is beyond ludicrous and I know it. I know it and yet there it is. And here I am. Trying not to feel insulted and isolated. Trying not to see that hint that I'm just positive is there.

Trying to will myself back to center, but all the while knowing that I'll need that push.

This goes much deeper than I'd dared to imagine.

It wasn't the work of just one practical joker, it was a collaborative effort spanning uncountable miles and untold months.

I found my keys.

I found them almost where I'd left them.

I drove my truck back to work tonight. My non-air-conditioning-having truck. Yes, it was hot. Yes, I roasted. I drove back to work and I talked to the guard about whether there was a lost and found box I could rummage through. He said that there was, over in the admin building. He'd buzz me in. I said that I wanted to check my cubicle and my laptop case one more time.

So I went back to my cubicle and pretty much turned it inside-out.

No keys.

But I'd already known that. I had a distinct memory of dropping my keys into my laptop case in the morning. Either they were still there, or they'd somehow fallen out, or someone had taken them.

I opened every pocket in that bag. I emptied out every paper and pen and loose coin from that bag. I picked that bag up and I turned it upside-down and I shook it.

No keys.

I reached my hand deep inside the bag, and my hand somehow found a pocket that I hadn't known was there. A deep pocket. So deep, in fact, that my arm wasn't long enough to let me probe its depths. So I placed the bag on the floor, and I climbed inside. There, I found the entrance to, I dunno, another universe is the only way I can describe it. A separate time and place, with neither light nor sound nor texture. Only emptiness. Nothingness.

I steeled myself, then I ventured inside ever further, and then I lost all connection with time and place and even self.

I drifted through that emptiness for what might have been a few seconds or what might have been a million years. I drifted through the darkness until I saw something. The faintest glimmer. The kind of glimmer that only small shiny metal things can make. By sheer force of will, I steered my drifting body toward the source of the glimmer, and then, after another few seconds or another million years, I heard a clink. The kind of clink that only small shiny metal things can make.

I'd found my keys.

Somehow, maybe through luck, or maybe because that dark and silent and empty place knew that I didn't belong there and forced me out, I made my way back into my universe, into my cubicle. Standing there and pondering the journey I'd just made, I was suddenly struck as to just how deep this conspiracy went.

It wasn't one person hiding my keys on a lark. It was a planned thing. That laptop bag is several years old, made God only knows where, yet that portal waited inside it until today. Someone, some evil genius, designed that bag with today in mind. To make me feel like a dumbass, someone went to an awful lot of trouble. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of planning and patience this took. I know that I could never pull it off.

Whoever it was that did this, that set this up, I applaud them.

Like I said before, Ha ha. That's a good one.

Okay, which one of you fuckers took my keys?

I thought for a while, when I was trying to leave work and couldn't find them, I thought that I'd locked them in my car. They were not in my laptop case where they were supposed to be, and they were not anywhere else in my cubicle. So I realized that in my Monday morning fugue state, I must have locked them in my car.

This realization sucked, but I hadn't done it in over fifteen years, so I figured that I was due.

I walked out and peered into my windows for a good five or ten minutes.

They're not in my car.

You sure had me going though. Ha ha. That's a good one.

But now the joke has run its course. I've already bummed a ride home from a coworker, so there are no more laughs for you to have at my expense.

So, can I please have my fucking keys back?

I seem to have picked up a new quirk over the last few days. An irritating thought process that can take me nowhere good.

I've caught myself several times, way too many times to count. I've noticed this in the past, and I've always been able to stop it before it became a problem. Before that annoyance became a habit became an obsession.

What I'm doing is wondering.

Not wishing.

Not denying.

Not even hoping or regretting or fantasizing.

Just wondering. Wondering what she's doing and what she's thinking and how she's feeling and dozens of other things that are not only none of my business, they're downright dangerous subjects for me to be wondering about.

Because there's always the chance, however unlikely it may seem, there's always the chance that I'll be wondering and I'll be honest with myself at the same time. Don't laugh, it's bound to happen eventually.

One of these days or weeks or months or years, I'll allow that door that I've kept sealed in my head, that door that holds the truth at bay, I'll drop my guard and I'll allow that door to creak open. And all the monsters will come rushing out.

I wouldn't want to be around myself when that happens.

Yesterday was a pretty decent day. I actually left my basement and went out to shoot some pool. This was the first time I'd shot in a place other than my basement since January. It was also the first time I'd played an actual opponent since January.

So that was fun. My left leg is actually a little sore today. Need to work on my balance I guess.

On the way home I stopped at Taco Bell and grabbed a couple of chili cheese burritos. Shut up, I like them. I've liked them since they were called chilitos. Anyway, after I ate, I realized just how tired I was. It was 7:00 and I was too tired to even think about going out. So I wrote off my Saturday night and went to bed...

...and I couldn't sleep. My cat Buddy just would not allow it. So I went down to Rich O's.

The place was pretty empty, so I liked that. A bunch of strangers were in the living room, but I didn't feel like sitting there anyway. I grabbed my favorite seat at the island and ordered an NABC Artemsia (60).

There seemed to be a S.I.G.H. convention in the area. Several times girls would come into Rich O's proper, glance at me and the open stools around me, then veer around me to stand in the annex area. Whatever, whores.

MusicalHippyDude came and sat with me, and we were able to talk for a bit before we got interrupted. Then I managed to hurt said interrupter's feelings by picking up my shit and moving over to the (recently vacated) throne.

For the rest of the night I just sat and smoked and drank two more Artemsias (100). One note about that beer: None of the bartenders have any clue how to pronounce it. This may be an indicator that it's a stupid name for a beer. But that's just my opinion of the name. The beer itself is weird and yummy. Just like me.

(Note I've asked Roger, the owner of Rich O's, and he says it's ar-TEM-zee-uh.)

I also did something sneaky while nobody was looking. We'll see how that turns out.

After a while, LonerBoy came and sat with me, and we talked about various crap. He's going to Seattle, and I'm pretty jealous of that. I haven't been there since 2002.

Rich O's closed up early because it was so dead. LonerBoy and I went over to Jack's and I had a Blue Moon and wished I was about 20 years younger. It turned out that Jack's was where the S.I.G.H. convention was taking place.

The Blue Moon was a bad idea, and so I ended up staying at Jack's drinking Diet Coke until the wee hours of the morning, waiting for the alcohol to leave my body and talking with a bunch of girls from Logan's Roadhouse.

I'm a pretty stubborn guy sometimes. This stubbornness reveals itself in various ways. Like when I refuse to take a hint if I don't like what's being hinted at. Like when I'm completely wasting my time but I keep trying because I keep imagining that it could all be worth it in the end.

Friday night, it poured here. Floyd County got like 5 inches of rain in an hour. This is all my fault because I washed all three of my vehicles. It was raining so hard that the 20 yard sprint from my car to the GasNStuff left me completely soaked. I was wet for the rest of the night.

So I sloshed myself into Red Lobster. This is just more of my stubbornness. I was supposed to be in Indianapolis, but instead I was wasting my time back home, so I went to Red Lobster to make the night at least a little bit unusual.

The TV above the bar was nothing but weather reports. From the flash floods and the lightning. The sound was muted, so I can't be sure that they officially blamed me for all of it, but they probably did. Every fucking thing else that's ever happened is my fault, after all. Anyway, the TV was muted, but the closed-captioning was still on, but it's wasn't the text of the weather reports that was being displayed. It was instead the show that was supposed to be on at that time. That was kind of weird.

My food was good, as always. I like Red Lobster a lot. The waitress kept bugging me though. Asking if everything was okay. I said that it was, but I guess I wasn't convincing enough because then the manager came over and asked me the same question. I told him that the food was just fine, but that I kept getting interrupted by people asking me questions. He took the hint and everyone left me alone after that. I just make friends everywhere I go.

Next I went to Rich O's and sat with LibraryGirl and her friends for a while. I had myself an NABC Artemsia (40) and then a Rogue Smoke (250). I think there were people there and I think that I probably talked to some of them, but I'm sure that it was nothing important.