Got a PM, after that last brief entry, asking me what was wrong.

What's wrong is that there's nothing wrong. I feel nothing. Not a fucking thing.

I'm out of the water, but I'm certainly not soaring. Just drifting along. Again. Caring about nothing. Again. Forcing myself to write something. Again.

Last night, a little after 6:00, MisunderstoodGirl called me and asked me to join her at the bar. I declined, saying that I needed to take a nap before I went out. I told the truth. I always take a nap after work on Fridays. But just because I always do something doesn't mean it's mandatory. I should have gone to see MisunderstoodGirl. She's been working these screwed up hours and I think I've only seen her a couple of times in the last six months. I should have said "fuck the nap" and just gone.

But I didn't, and I felt bad about that. Still do actually.

Once I finally got my lazy and selfish ass off the couch I headed out the door a little after 9:00. I stopped to see VigilanteGirl who, true to form, took the opportunity to bail on seeing the exorcism movie with me this weekend. Maybe next weekend I'm told. Once again, I'll believe it when I see it.

So I went to Rich O's. Nothing but guys there as usual. I ordered a Spezial but the keg blew while it was being poured. It ended up looking like coffee in my glass. It tasted okay, but it was creeping me out a little so I only drank half the glass (720).

Spezial was blown, Baltika was gone, the place was a sausage fest again. There was just nothing for me at Rich O's. I did what I should have done hours earlier. I called MisunderstoodGirl to see where she was, and went to see her.

It was this Mac's place that I don't care for very much, but at least they didn't have live music last night. Just karaoke, and I can stand that. MisunderstoodGirl and I sat at the bar and bullshitted and caught up for a while. I had a couple Newcastles (1664).

After a couple of hours MisunderstoodGirl was ready to leave so I had no reason to stay there either. I went back to Rich O's and had a Guinness (861). The place was winding down, but there was still no place to sit. I just stood at the bar for a while and wondered what I was doing there. MisunderstoodGirl actually came into Rich O's - I guess great minds think alike - but she was, being a girl, able to squeeze into a spot on the loveseat. I had to stand at the bar until some idiots left the sofa. Once they'd left I sat over there and talked with MisunderstoodGirl and DooRagGirl for a few minutes before they started closing the place up.

Came home and watched The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I was afraid this might happen.

I've got nothing for you people.

Maybe later.

So I was talking with this girl today and she started babbling about something or another.

I don't know this girl's name. She's only been here for a few weeks. I haven't quite decided if she's pretty or not, but she does wear glasses and have brown hair, so that's a big plus. Like I said, I don't know her name, and we've never talked before. She probably knows who I am because I'm like famous and shit.

Anyway.

She's talking about some crap and how she was supposed to go out drinking last night with her friends but she didn't feel like it because she had to work today and because she's still upset about the situation with dad and her dog and...

Huh?

Filthy-minded degenerate that I am, I immediately jumped to the conclusion that she'd caught her dad and her dog in a compromising position.

I really think something like that would pretty much guarantee that I'd go out drinking.

Well, everyone can relax and get on with their lives now.

I found my book.

Where was it?

Why in my Intrepid of course, buried under some mail that I took out of the mailbox last week but never bothered to bring into the house.

How did it get there?

This is clearly the work of the liberal media. Or maybe it was part of some vast right-wing conspiracy. I guess it could be gnomes that sneak into my house every night to hide stuff.

It's most certainly not because I'm going senile..

I wonder what she's doing right now.

Is she sitting alone, trying to imagine me? Is she wondering who I am, what I'm like, and if she'll ever find me? Maybe she's looking at the stars and imagining that I'm looking at the same stars? If I went outside right now, would we share the moon?

I wonder what she looks like.

What color is her hair? Does she wear glasses? Is she tall or is she short? Do her eyes twinkle, and do they seem to change color with her moods? Does her face light up when she sees someone she loves? Does her hair swing and sway when she turns her head? Does that one strand keep landing in her mouth?

I wonder how we'll meet.

Will it just be one of those chance encounters? Will we be introduced by a mutual friend? Will we just know right away, or will it take time?

I wonder how she'll treat me.

Will she laugh at my jokes? Will she even understand my jokes? Will she mend my heart, or will the pieces slip like sand through her fingers? Will she be understanding of my moods, as I'll try to be understanding of hers? Will she be faithful? Will she learn my weaknesses and use them against me when we fight? Will she lay on the couch with her head in my lap while we watch a movie?

I wonder how it will end.

Well, that was exciting.

Stopped by to see VigilanteGirl on the way to the bar. She wanted me to stay but I'm afraid of getting her into trouble at work again, so I didn't stick around very long.

Rich O's was pretty dead. I sat on the sofa and a couple of strangers, who came in at the same time I did, sat on the loveseat. I didn't talk to them because I'm pretty sure that they were idiots. The girl drank coffee and the guy asked for something lighter than Upland Wheat. What a pussy.

Rich O's is out of Baltika 6 Porter. Waaaaaaaaaaaah! Why does everything I love go away? Waaaaaaaah!

So I had a Spezial Rauchbier (710) and then a Young's Double Chocolate Stout (166).

It was pretty boring there, so I left after the two beers and went to Wal-Mart to buy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I also picked up a new computer game and a CD. I can't remember the name of the guy on the CD, and it's all the way in the kitchen so it's too far to go look. It's got that song Beautiful Soul on it. I love that song. If I ever do karaoke again it'll probably be that song.

There was a yellow tabby kitty in the parking lot when I left the store. I followed it around for a few minutes calling "Here kitty kitty kitty!" but it was too timid to let me get too close. I really should carry cat treats in my pockets for occasions like this.

Dewrinkling a shirt, letting it run through the dryer, and I have a little bit of time to kill. Figured I'd pass some of this boredom on to you readers.

Anyway.

One of my friends - I call her my lesbian girlfriend actually - seems to think that I'm gay. She seems obsessed with the idea actually. At first I thought she was just trying to break me out of this funk by getting me all riled up. Now I'm not so sure. Perhaps she actually thinks that I am the gay. This is the kind of thing that would have really bothered be back when I was younger and more closed-minded. Now I'd just kind of like to prove her wrong. So I'll be taking volunteers to help me demonstrate my non-gayness at Rich O's this weekend. Please, ladies, no pushing and shoving. Everyone will get their turn.

Tomorrow I get to re-register all of my cars and get them emission tested. As an added bonus, I get to run by the courthouse and pay some of my property tax bill. Woo Hoo!

I'm driving to Cincy Friday for this vendor demo thingy. It would be even better if I didn't have to drive back to Louisville and work afterwards. I could have probably used a night in Cincy.

The people at work are all into this fantasy football stuff, and I have to listen to them yack and yammer about it all day long. One of the few things I hate worse than actual football is fantasy football.

I had this incredibly stupid idea for an entry this morning. I actually wrote quite a bit of it before I realized just how stupid it was. Then I came up with slightly less stupid idea, and started writing it out, until I realized that it was mostly about the shit that I'm supposed to be bottling up. Now I kind of have this idea for a new series of entries, but I haven't gotten passed the initial idea stage yet.

They seem to have stopped making Diet Vanilla Coke. This makes me very sad. Now I have to choke down Diet Vanilla Pepsi or *gasp* regular non-vanilla Diet Coke.

It's almost Fall. I've got several anniversaries coming up. People dying. People leaving. A few birthdays too, but mostly sad stuff.

*ding* *ding* *ding* *ding* *ding*

Well, that's my dryer signaling the end of its cycle. Time to take my wrinkle-free self to the bar.

I wrote this as several different entries, over the course of several months, in reaction to some things that were happening in my life. I kind of like it except for the ending. The ending sucks. I've since realized that the ending was nothing but an illusion.

It's all a metaphor, of course. I like metaphors. You can hide behind them and still get your point across.

I'm not really sure why I'm combining them into a single entry like this. Probably just boredom.

--------------------------------------

(January 25)

Chest heaving and heart pounding, he fills his lungs with sweet, sweet air. All of his senses activate at once. He relishes the sight, sound, and smell of his brief surfacing into the world of light. Before going under once again, he uses the last of his precious air to scream out a name. The depths are peaceful, but he knows they will kill him eventually. He begins to sink, smiling.

(January 29)

As his feet touch bottom, he instinctively jumps. He is surprised - these waters had seemed a lot deeper the last time. His head and shoulders break the surface, and once again he gasps for air. A quick turn of his head reveals land, perhaps a small island, off in the distance. He dares to have hope, and once again begins to sink.

(February 1)

As he nears the beach, he feels the rip tide beneath him, trying to pull him back into the depths. He struggles frantically, and finally, miraculously, feels solid ground beneath his feet. The waters, losing their grip, switch tactics. They send monstrous waves into his back, threatening to smash him into the rocks. He continues undaunted. His salvation is in sight, he will not die here. Not on this day.

He scrambles through the water that is neck-deep, then waist-deep, then suddenly he is free. He collapses onto the wet sand and crawls his way to safety.

From the jungle, glowing eyes watch.

(February 7)

The jungle envelopes him, claws at him. He doesn't know where he's going anymore. There is no sense of direction. There is - nothing at all except the sound of the twigs snapping under his feet and the rustling as his trail heals itself behind him. Even the sound of the ocean has become lost in the past.

He runs, as well as he can through the thick brush. Something is following him, some thing has been following him since he left the beach. And it's gaining on him.

(February 18)

Once again a claw rakes his skin, and he cries out. His refuge is not solid - there are small openings everywhere, and it is taking full advantage of them. Sharp talons reach in and grab at him, not able to get a firm grip but doing plenty of damage anyway. He tries to steel himself against the pain, but it always comes without warning. He begins to contemplate the impossible. He doesn't want to die like this, bleeding and cowering in the dark.

(March 1)

The dawn light snakes its way into his refuge, and he opens his eyes to the new day that he thought he'd never see. It is gone, but the deep gashes covering his body tell him that this was no dream - no terrible nightmare from which he has mercifully awakened. Cautiously, carefully, he picks himself up off the ground, pries himself loose from the sticky grasp of his own coagulating blood. The pain is nearly overwhelming, but he does not cry out. He emerges from his hiding place and warily surveys his surroundings.

He is alone, and, to his astonishment, he is no longer afraid.

(April 8)

His strength has been slow in returning. His wounds are healed, but he knows that the scars will last a long time. He wanders aimlessly about this, his island, and reflects constantly how lucky he is to at least be alive - to at least be safe.

He doesn't see it coming.

The tsunami roars in from the West, and sweeps him back out to sea. Back to where he'd started.

The depths welcome his return. The depths are so beautiful.

He opens his mouth to laugh, and his lungs fill with water.

(April 18)

There is...Nothing.

Blackness and silence surround him, seep into him.

He wonders how long it has been. A minute? A day? A million years?

Even the familiar thump thump of his heart has stopped. He ponders this, and reaches his hand to his chest, but he finds that he has no hand, and that he has no chest.

He simply exists, seeing, hearing, feeling nothing.

He waits for something to happen, and wonders if he is dead.

(June 5)

It starts as a tickle. An itch. An inkling of a sensation so faint that he hardly recognizes it. When he finally notices it, this faint ghost of a feeling, it explodes. He suddenly feels his body again, and it is on fire. For a million eternities he has felt nothing, and now he relishes in the pain.

For the pain tells him that he lives. That he exists.

Through the pain, he feels his body rise.

(July 6)

His reawakening complete, his body restored, his pain faded, he begins kicking furiously, driving himself upward. His head breaks the surface, followed by his torso, his legs, and finally his feet.

He continues to rise.

Looking in wonder at the waters below him, he realizes that he is finally free of their grip. He soars, free and safe.

But only for a moment.

For he died in the depths, and he was reborn in the depths. Without their cold embrace he cannot exist.

He is smiling when he evaporates.

It was so worth it.

The end.

(July 7 - Epilogue)

Yeah, I know. I don't really like it either. The ending sucks, and so does the writing.

I just couldn't leave the poor guy in pain forever, so I had to end it somehow.

A happy ending was not an option. Never was, really.

I could have done a better job of wrapping things up, but I decided that it would be better to just get it over with.

Anyway, thanks for reading!

---------------------------------------------

As it turned out, I could have let the guy live, but the metaphor would have broken completely down before too long anyway.

You ever just know something, even when there's nothing to support your theory?

Maybe you even get some new evidence, and it completely contradicts what you believe. But you still know that you're right.

I think that the faithful would call this, um, faith.

Dammit, I'm right about this, and there's not a thing that you can tell me or show me to convince me otherwise.

"But what about all this evidence to the contrary?" you might ask. Probably planted. All of it. Or maybe just imagined. Either way, it's not real.

I find myself faced with two choices. One, I'm insane. Two, somebody is fucking with my head by planting conflicting evidence.

I think Occams's Razor would apply to this situation.

Meanwhile, back in the outskirts of Normalville...

I broke the electric window switch on my Monte Carlo today. The part will cost me over $100. For a little plastic switch with chrome paint on it. Good thing I've got all this spare money laying around and burning holes in my pockets. Not.

I've got to burn a day of vacation on Thursday so I can take all three cars to get emission tested and get new stickers for my license plates. I'm so not looking forward to it, but at least I'll be able to go out on Wednesday night.

I've heard from several people that the new exorcism movie sucks. I kind of still want to see it, but that's mainly just to spend some time with VigilanteGirl. She hasn't bailed on me yet, but the week is still fairly young.

I got halfway through this Dead Lines book and now I've lost the damn thing. I really hate losing stuff. It's even tougher when I consider that I live alone, so it's all my fault.

Well, guess I've killed enough time. Going to go watch Big Brother now.

I've been struggling with how to respond to these accusations. Not just how, but if I should respond at all.

It's just so absurd. Nobody who knows me at all would think me capable of this.

You know what, I'm not going to bother crafting a long response. She and I both know that it's not happening that way, and that should be enough.

I'll just say one thing - She calls me.