Tonight, I thought about her. I talked about her. I talked about her some more. I talked about missing her. I talked about how she sparkled. I talked about how I'm concerned about what might happen the next time I see her.

I talked about a lot of things.

Yet I never, not even for a second, got sad.

That's got to be worth something, right?

Right?

I imagine that a lot of people, even those who won't admit to it, have seen the movie Shallow Hal starring Jack Black.

For those of you that haven't seen it, or who have repressed the memory of it for some reason, here's a summary from imdb.com:

Following the advice of his dying father, Hal dates only women who are physically beautiful. One day, however, he runs into self-help guru Tony Robbins, who hypnotizes him into recognizing only the inner beauty of women. Hal thereafter meets Rosemary, a grossly obese woman whom only he can see as a vision of loveliness. But will their relationship survive when Hal's equally shallow friend undoes the hypnosis?

I suppose that, like most people, I'm a lot like Hal. The first thing I see in another person is their physical appearance. At that point, there's usually either attraction or there's not.

I also suppose that, like most people, I wish I could look beyond the physical and see the person within. This can happen, and has happened, but only after I've spent enough time with the person to get to know them better. This makes me shallow, and I know it. I don't like it very much, but there it is anyway. I don't even want to think about how many wonderful people have been absent from my life simply because I wasn't initially attracted to them.

I used to think that Hal was given the perfect gift. The ability to see only the inner beauty (or lack thereof) in a woman from the very beginning.

There was a time when I thought I'd been blessed with that gift.

I looked at her and, though she was quite beautiful, I hardly even noticed that. What I did notice was that she sparkled. Call it inner beauty, call it her soul, or her aura, call it whatever you wish. She was the most beautiful person I'd ever seen. And she could have had the face of a troll - my assessment would not have changed one bit.

Was this love at first sight? I didn't think so at the time. But I'd never experienced anything like it before, so what did I know? Whatever it was, it was important. She was important.

Those of you who've been reading carefully know that this, this so-called gift wasn't, in the end, a gift at all. It was a curse. For meeting her was like having my picture taken with a very bright flash. Her light seared into my flesh, into my heart, and even though the source of that light is long gone, I've been partially blind ever since.

Afterimages of her float through my consciousness, and at times I cannot see anything except the memory of her beauty.

Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever be able to see anything clearly again.

Sometime I wonder if I would even want to.

Several years ago, one of my cousins missed three days of work because he threw out his back.

I'm pretty sure he told the people he worked with that he'd injured himself doing something manly. Bullriding, perhaps. Or maybe anvil juggling.

Not the truth, though. Certainly not the truth, that he'd taken a mighty swing while playing wiffleball and that's how he'd hurt his back.

He'd have never lived that down.

At least his injury was a real one. Back problems can be truly incapacitating, as my cousin has pointed out to us at every opportunity for the past several years.

Nobody's going to make fun of you for having an injured back. So, as long as you have a good story about how you got injured, you're safe from teasing.

Not quite the same situation as the one I'm in.

My injury is quite possibly the most pathetic one possible.

I bwoke my widdlest piggy.

It's amazing how such a tiny appendage can cause so much pain. Why do we even need our pinkie toes? I think that, if the doctor had offered, I'd have allowed him to snip the thing off yesterday.

So I'm working from home today. I'm doing this because my toe is taped up and I cannot put a shoe on over it. Actually, maybe I could, but it would hurt. A lot. So I'm not going to chance it.

This is the most pansified reason for staying home that I've ever heard of.

I wonder, if someone reads something here that they've already read, are they disappointed? Suppose I mention something in a personal e-mail, then I make an entry about it. Does the e-mail recipient yawn because they've read it before, or, like someone working backstage at the theater, can they still manage to enjoy the show even though they know what's coming?

My first real bout with insomnia came when I split from my ex-wife for the first time. It seemed like I'd go days at a time without sleep. Eventually, I could find no solution except the one that so many others in my position had already made a cliché - I drank until I passed out.

Well that got old very quickly. It also got expensive. So I stopped doing that. Fuck, it was almost 20 years ago.

These days, when the sandman is late for his visit, I don't drink. I imagine.

I run through scenarios in my head, so I won't be taken completely by surprise. I have conversations with people that aren't there, so everything is nice and rehearsed in case they ever are there.

This is my version of counting sheep.

Even when my mind won't let me imagine anything except the terrible, I still find some comfort, some relaxation, in playing these little scenes and conversations out in my head.

Lately, it's almost always the same thing, this little playlet that I run through my mind late at night. I'm not going to describe it because I want my e-mail recipient to remain privy to some things that only belong to us. I will say though that it's a happy, yet poignant, little scene, and one that's becoming increasingly less-likely.

Like I said, it's almost always the same thing. Almost always.

Last night it was something different. Last night I welcomed a new costar into my nightly drama. And the two of us acted out what's probably the most unlikely scene I've ever imagined.

And I went to sleep right away. I wonder what that means?

The potential problem with running these scenarios through your head is trying to keep from being disappointed when they don't come true. The one I thought about last night has a shelf-life of three days. So, by Sunday night, I'll have to be ready to accept that it's not really going to happen.

And then I'll have to find more sheep to count. Probably the same old sheep. I've gotten used to them. They're like pets.

And this metaphor is breaking down very quickly, so I'm going to stop typing now.

If Jordan screws that reporter guy I'll never watch that show again.

This one kind of blows, but it's better than the one it replaces.

(I put this up on my JS blog last night. I've had one response, and it was wrong. I told those JS people that I'd get a half-dozen correct responses if I posted it here. So here's your chance to prove your stalking supremacy.)

I guess I'm supposed to write something here.

That's what people do, right? They write stuff. Sometimes other people read the stuff. Hell, sometimes they even respond.

Well I have nothing to say right now, but I'd still like to appear normal, so I'll fake it.

And you can help.

I'll write this entry, and you read it, and maybe even respond.

I know, let's have a pop quiz:

1. I recently picked up some keys. What were they for?
__ __    __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

2. What did I hope for?
__ __ __    __ __ __ __ __ __ __

3. What was the tsunami?
__ __ __ __ __  by  __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

And, since I'm such a nice guy, here are the answers:

a a c d e e g h i i i i l l m n n o o o p p p p r s s s s s t t t v w y

Apparently I've broken my pinkie toe and the one next to it. Either that or I've just jammed the fuck out of them.

They are both a lovely brown-purple-black color.

So, ouch!

I rarely drink at home, believe it or not, but tonight I decided to try a bottle of this stuff:

Bells Batch 7000 Ale (12)

(bottle) Very intense aroma as soon as the cap was removed. No head to speak of. After the first few sips that were nothing but alcohol burn, the rest of this went down quite nicely. Too much coffee and too little chocolate for it to ever be a real favorite. I got some cola from this too, especially in the aroma.

I don't know why I even bothered to try.

There was no way that I was ever going to be able to handle this.

So I'll deal with it the same way I've dealt with everything else since early September. I'll bottle it up.

By an odd coincidence, all of the labels on the bottles start with the same letter. Loss, Longing, Lust, and Love are now joined by a fifth bottle: Liability.

Guilt would have been better for this last one, but I wanted to stick with the L-words because I like that TV show. Jennifer Beals is hot.