...was that a blacksmith will temper metal by repeated cycles of heating and cooling. Heated until it's glowing, then plunged into cold water, over and over and over, the metal will become stronger with each iteration.

But there is a price that the metal must pay.

It loses flexibility.

It becomes brittle.

It may shatter.

She forged me, made me stronger than I was before. But then, then she either dropped me or she flung me away from her or she simply failed to take care with where she placed me. It made no difference to me why I struck the ground when I did.

I fell, or I was dropped, or I was thrown.

And I shattered.

I never end up writing what I think I'll write.

Sometimes I get lucky and end up with something decent anyway, but not often.

The thoughts are there, running around inside me, but they flee when I try to capture them. They hide behind trivia and inane bullshit, and they snicker among themselves about how easily they evade me.

Only the weakest among them are ever at risk.

Sometimes I manage to catch one of these lesser thoughts. Then I'll dissect it and expose its innards to the world. And its brethren watch in horror from their hiding places, and they stop their snickering, for a while at least.

It's only a matter of time.

They can't hide from me forever.

I suppose that I haven't been completely honest with myself.

I mean, I haven't really been lying, but I haven't quite told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth either.

The thing is, everything was not wine and roses. Or, to put it into words to which I can better relate, everything was not beer and jasmine.

There were good times, certainly. But for every time I smiled, there was another time when I frowned. For every time I laughed, there was another time when I fought back tears.

Things were hot then cold, or cold then hot. Never warm. Never comfortable enough that I could just kick off my shoes and relax.

Hope would be overshadowed by fear would be trumped by joy would be shattered by disappointment.

Nothing ever lasted.

Except this.

I suppose that, since I've been posting American Idol reports lately, it will come as no big surprise to any of you that I'm a bit of a reality show junkie.

One of my all-time favorite reality shows, surpassing even Survivor, is The Amazing Race.

The 9th season or so started tonight, and I settled down to watch. After, of course, My TiVo had captured enough of it so that I could skip past the commercials. I love my TiVo.

Anyway.

For the past few seasons, I've caught myself, more times than I can count, imagining myself as part of a team competing in the show. But not for the money, and not for the adventure. Nope, I imagine it for the company.

The thought of being with that special person for the weeks that the race takes to complete, to get to know her as she gets to know me, to end our race with something better than any amount of money or pseudo reality show fame could ever buy - that's what I find myself imagining.

And it's always been the same (you get one guess) person, my imaginary partner in The Amazing Race.

Until tonight.

Because tonight, tonight I tried to imagine us together, flying over the streets of Sao Paolo, Brazil. I tried to imagine us together, and it just didn't work.

Her image didn't fit in my head. Not in that context anyway. So my imagination kept searching until it found someone that did fit. Someone else.

This was, fitting for the show I suppose, amazing to me.

I had a similar experience last Summer, and it surprised me then just as it surprised me tonight. Actually, surprised is too weak of a word. How about astonished?

Yeah, that's better. As-ton-ished.

Tonight's imaginary teammate was a different girl than the one I imagined last August. But now, as then, it's not important who it was. The simple and inescapable fact that it was anyone besides you know who is just hugely important. Incredibly telling. Massively phenomenal. Really Fucking Cool. I cannot stress this enough.

And you know what makes it even better?

Do you?

Okay, fine. I'll tell you.

Back in August, the last time I caught myself in a situation like this, I was actively fighting, valiantly trying to control my feelings for her. August, in fact, was just before I bottled those feelings up completely out of the fear that they could not be controlled, only contained, and that they were slowly but surely killing me.

But now, for various reasons, now I'm letting them flow freely again.

I'm letting them flow, and I'm letting them wash over me and through me, and I'm letting them pretty much have their way with me.

I'm letting them control me, as much as they can, but that control has weakened. Weakened to the point where I can imagine another pretty girl sitting beside me in that helicopter. Who knows? Maybe, eventually, I'll be able to imagine some other girl beside me in some other contexts. Maybe, eventually, I'll be able to imagine some other girl that, oddly enough, isn't completely wrong for me. Maybe, eventually, I'll even - get this - act upon my imaginary thoughts in hopes of bringing them to fruition.

Wouldn't that be something?

For the most part, this was a boring and safe week for the girls. I think that reality may have set in after seeing two girls get sent home last week.

2/28 (Girls)

Katharine: She sang some song I never heard before and sang the fuck out of it. Wow. Maybe a little too safe? (85 points)

Kinnik: I don't like her. Nope, I don't like her at all. (0 points)

Lisa: Another song I never heard before. She sang a little too quietly - the music and the background vocals drowned her out a little. What I could hear was great though. (80 points)

Melissa: Hot. The song choice was stupid, and the performance was painful to listen to. (50 points)

Heather: Looked hot. This week, her voice matched her face. A flawless but safe performance. (80 points)

Brenna: She kept forgetting what key she was supposed to be singing in. Some keys were good, but most weren't. (45 points)

Paris: She started with this artificially low voice that I don't like, then she kept reverting back to it for random syllables. I can't believe I didn't like her tonight. (65 points)

Ayla: She's got that Disney vibe again. A little shaky in parts. (70 points)

Kellie: Still smoldering hot, but the performance seemed shaky and/or uninspired. I gave 5 bonus points for being so damn cute. (75 points)

Mandisa: She started out a quarter-note behind the music, but once she caught up she did pretty well. A perfect song for her. (80 points)

Even though Mandisa did much better this week, I still stand by the elimination choices I made last week. I think that Mandisa and Kinnik need to get off my TV.

I think that if I could pick a mental illness to have, I'd pick Tourette's Syndrome.

That way, when I thought some girl was a whore, I could just scream out, "WHORE!!!!" and then when she got mad I could say, "Sorry, I got this Tourette's thingy. Whore. Slut. Bitch. Oops."

Then maybe she'd feel sorry for me and then the whore would give me some pity sex.

On Wednesday, SassyGirl and TacoBell are flying to Peru.

This seems like a strange thing to do, but then again I might just be jealous.

I asked them what their plans are for while they're down there, and I was told something like, "Ride a llama, sleep on a llama, have sex on a llama, and eat a llama."

So that settles it. I'm definitely jealous.

Hasta la vista, chicas!

This chick at work has gotten into the habit of bringing me the daily Jumble puzzle to try and stump me. I don't know why.

This morning, I took a look at the first set of letters, endom, and for some reason the first word that popped into my head was monde. The second set of letters, snifi, looked like finis.

I told the chick that I didn't think both words were correct (The first one turned out to be demon.) because both were more or less foreign words. I said that she might have accidentally bought the wrong paper.

She then asked me, "Are you Catholic?"

I answered that I wasn't.

That was the end of the conversation.

Where the fuck did that come from?

Women are strange.

BamaGirl: One of the newer regulars at Rich O's. Married to BamaGuy. She used to have a terrible nickname but I changed it after I'd spoken to her a few times. Very sweet. This nickname is because of where they're from.

BigWheelGirl: One of LaptopGirl's friends. She drove us to see Screech. The nickname is because of a story that LaptopGirl told me.

Bubbles: A Rich O's regular. She just has a bubbly personality.

CanadianGirl: She used to work at my company, and she'd show up at Rich O's every now and then. She moved to Omaha. The nickname is because she's from Canada originally.

CannonGirl: Another name for TrainGirl. She used to work at this historical place with cannons.

CuteAsFuckGirl: She grew up in Washington County. She wants me. The nickname is self-explanatory.

CuteBlonde: One of the regulars at Rich O's. She's married to some guy who's name I can never remember. Another nickname that needs no explanation.

Dina: My sister.

DooRagGirl: FutureDude's girlfriend. DooRagGirl was also one of the first people I ever met at Rich O's. She was friends with my sister Neisha back in High School. She used to wear these scarves on her head all the time. She hardly ever does anymore though.

EnglishGirl: I spent several hours talking with her in Boston. Extremely nice. I should have given her my email address. She's from England.

EwokGirl: Our cubicles are next to each other. Sometimes she brings me free germs. She told me to use EwokGirl as a nickname.

ExoticGirl: A smoldering hot girl that comes into Rich O's sometimes. She's married. She's got sort of a Middle Eastern look to her, hence ExoticGirl.

FilleFransaiseSexy: One time, CanadianGirl brought some French people into Rich O's. I asked one of the French dudes how to say "hot French girl" in French, and this nickname is the result.

GlassesGirl: Another friend of Neisha's from childhood. Now she's dating MusicalHippyDude. She wants a new nickname because she doesn't wear glasses any more.

HatGirl: A smoldering hot girl that I have a bit of a crush on. She has a boyfriend named LuckyFucker. The nickname is because she likes to wear hats. Bet you didn't see that one coming, did you?

HotBartender: She worked at The Great Lost Bear in Portland Maine when I was there. The nickname is self-explanatory.

HotEuchreGirl: Just this girl that I've talked to a couple of times and that played euchre with us one night. I think she's dating LonerBoy. She's hot, and she plays euchre.

HotRedHead: GlassesGirl's friend. She's dating one of the bartenders. The only girl with red hair that I've ever found attractive. Self-explanatory.

HotRedHeadGirl: See HotRedHead.

KidneyGirl: Just this weird girl that may or may not have tried to pick me up at The Pub once. The nickname is because of the old urban legend about waking up in a tub of ice with your kidney missing.

LaptopGirl: Sigh. There's nothing I feel like writing here. The nickname is because she was typing into a laptop the first time I saw her. Great, now I'm sad.

LibertyGirl: A semi-regular at Rich O's. She has a 'blog, but she never updates it. The nickname is a bit of a play on her real name.

LibraryGirl: A friend of SassyGirl. She works at the library.

MaineGirl: A really cool chick that I spent several hours talking to in Portland last Spring.

MisunderstoodGirl: One of my good friends that I never get to see any more. She used to work at Rich O's, and she used to be SassyGirl's girlfriend. Now she never comes around at all and I miss her. I call her this because many people don't make the effort to get to know her, and so they never understand her at all.

MixedSignalGirl: Sigh. My ex-girlfriend. I really let her down I'm afraid. The nickname is because of a malfunctioning traffic light we encountered on our first date.

Neisha: My youngest sister.

OddlyFamiliarGirl: This is DooRagGirl's sister. That's why she looked familiar.

PictureGirl: I had a fling/thing with her in Las Vegas. Just cute as hell. The nickname is sort of from how we met.

PigtailGirl: I had a one night stand with her in Las Vegas. She's from Portland Maine. She had pigtails.

ProbableLesbian: This girl used to come in to Rich O's all the time, but I haven't seen her in months. A self-explanatory nickname.

RealTrainGirl: See SassyGirl.

RedHairGirl: See HotRedHead.

RedRoomGirl: Just this chick that was hot that sat in the red room one night.

RioGirl: We went swimming together, and she told me that she liked my hair when it was mussed up. She worked at The Rio in Las Vegas.

RockGirl: My kindred spirit. I've never met her in real life though - I just know her from the Internet. The nickname is because she sent me a rock.

SassyGirl: My lesbian girlfriend. She used to be TrainGirl's girlfriend, and she was MisunderstoodGirl's girlfriend for a while. One of my best friends at Rich O's. Her nickname is because of this new short hairstyle she's sporting.

SpoonsGirl: My sister Dina's friend. The nickname is from a very dark day in her life.

StupidGirl: Just this waitress in Las Vegas. She was stupid.

SunburnGirl: See MisunderstoodGirl. One night I changed everybody's nicknames, just to mix things up a little.

TacoBell: SassyGirl's new girlfriend. Works at (duh) Taco Bell. Has a very pretty smile.

TallLady: One of the regulars at Rich O's. Very nice except when she's trying to get me to smile, then she's too pushy. The nickname is because, duh, she's tall. Like over six feet I think.

TracingGirl: See VigilanteGirl. One night I changed everybody's nicknames, just to mix things up a little.

TrainGirl: She used to be SassyGirl's girlfriend. She was really nice to talk to, but she moved away so I don't get to see her any more. When I first met her, I got her and SassyGirl mixed up, so I thought she worked for the railroad. Once I found out that I'd mixed them up it was too late to swap nicknames.

VigilanteGirl: We used to flirt with each other a lot. Now, not so much. The nickname is from a story she told me when we met about chasing down some gas thieves from where she works.

WorldsHottestGirl: She used to come into Rich O's a lot, but she stopped. The nickname is self-explanatory.

ZodiacGirl: See LaptopGirl. Sigh. One night I changed everybody's nicknames, just to mix things up a little.