I have this nearly overpowering urge to do something to break this silence, to see what's going on. But I won't.

I don't know what I'd say anyway.

So I guess I'll go to the tournament and watch for a while.

...is that I'm a little bit too honest sometimes.

For this, you can blame MixedSignalGirl, for showing me the value and freedom of open and honest communication. If you want, you can also blame the fact that the last time I was anything less than completely honest, it didn't particularly end well for anyone involved. Especially not for me.

I paraphrase here:

Dave, I have flung shit into the fan. Brace yourself for the splatter.

And what really sucks is that there was nothing to follow that up. There I was, wearing my best raingear in hopes of weathering the shit storm that was about to hit, and nothing else happened. Nothing at all.

And what sucked even more was that there was nobody that I could whine about it to. None of my friends were at Rich O's - unless you count CuteBlonde and her husband, who I don't count, or DooRagGirl, who was there with some kids for a brief time - and I ended up bracing myself for nothing.

While I waited, and braced myself, I had some beer. Specifically, I had a couple of bottles of my beloved Baltika 6 (298) and a bottle of Weihenstephaner (378).

And now, now I wait.

What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do? What to do?

I don't know.

Last night I wasn't supposed to be at Rich O's. I was supposed to be over at the tournament.

Didn't work out that way. I plan to write more about it, but for now I'm still coming to grips with it a little. Plus, I don't want it to sound like sour grapes. So maybe later.

Anyway, after a nap, I went to Rich O's.

The place was so fucking crowded. I really just wanted to leave, but I stayed to keep up the appearance that I wasn't as bothered by things as I really was.

The draft list didn't have anything that interested me, but the bartender recommended one of these:

New Holland The Poet Sweet Stout (4)

(draft) Recommended by the bartender. I didn't really give this beer a fair tasting. It was very roasty, and tasted a little burnt to me. Past experience tells me that if I'd finished the glass I'd probably have liked it better by then. I'll attempt to have this again someday.

After I'd stood at the end of the bar for an hour or so, the island opened up and I went and sat with DooRagGirl and LuckyFucker and this dude that doesn't have a nickname yet.

I switched to something I know and like for the rest of the night. I had three bottles of Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (362) and all were yummy.

Eventually all of the strangers left the living room area so we went over there. LuckyFucker and his friend left soon afterward and I just spent some time talking with DooRagGirl and making fun of this one fucker who was wearing a leather cowboy hat.

Okay, so I'm home again.

Today was a giant disappointment.

I didn't want to be there, and that lack of interest eventually showed up in my game.

I need to write more about this, but now right now.

Maybe tomorrow.

...is missing a fucking message, that I've been waiting for, simply because I'm downstairs.

I really really really need to figure out a way to have my doorbell ring or something whenever I get an e-mail from people on a certain list. It shouldn't be that tough. I've got all this X-10 shit all over my house, and I can already control my lights from my computer.

I should be able to do this.

Once upon a time, something inside me snapped, and a part of me that I didn't even know I had screamed. And it screamed, and it screamed.

Echoes of those screams still reverberate inside me, bouncing around to and fro off the walls of this hollow shell that defines the place where I used to keep my soul. The echoes are softer now. Usually, I have to really concentrate to be able to detect them at all. And, even if I do think I hear something, I'm usually able to ignore it. To dismiss it as a memory of a memory, not relevant at all.

Usually.

But sometimes, like tonight, one of those echoes manages to bully its way close enough to the surface, close enough to the surface that I simply cannot ignore it. So I have what might be called an anxiety attack, or on bad nights, a panic attack.

Tonight was a bad night.

It started when I was about halfway through my glass of Delirium Tremens (409). There was a time when a good Belgian ale would actually calm my stomach down. But not tonight. My hands started shaking and my gut started doing flips, and I knew right away that this was not a good night for me to be at Rich O's.

Trooper that I am, though, I did try to tough it out. After my Tremens, I had a half glass of Upland Bad Elmer's Porter (42) and enjoyed that while I kept my eyes locked on the entrance to Rich O's proper. I don't know who I was expecting to walk through that door. The grim specter of death might have been a welcome sight - that would at least have explained the anxiety, the incredible sense of dread that was washing over me.

No such luck.

By the time my porter was gone, I knew that there was no way I could stay in that place for another minute.

So I left.

Eventually, hopefully, I'll stop shaking, and then I'll go downstairs and shoot some pool. I really need the practice.

From rebunting's journal:

I want you to remember that you don't have the whole story. You don't know everything that happened, you don't know what it was like to live what I lived.

Nobody knows the whole story of what happened to me. Only two people really even come close, and they only know what I was able to describe. Most of what went on defied description even while it was happening, and now it's all blurred by the passage of time and the imperfect memory a brain has for what a heart feels. Felt. Whatever. Fuck.

So people roll their eyes at me, or they chuckle at me, or they shake their heads at me.

And I bite my tongue, and I wish I shared their ignorance.