Something has died in my Monte Carlo.

Because of all the rain I haven't driven it for several weeks, but Friday morning I decided to take drive it to work.

Bad Idea.

There's the faint, but unmistakable, odor of rotting meat coming fom somewhere in the car.

My brief inspection couldn't locate the source. The only real clue is a little bit of seat insulation laying on the floor of the trunk.

Today I will perform a much more detailed inspection.

Please ignore the previous entry.

I think I might be drunk.

hic.

ob-sta-cle
n.
1. That which opposes, stands in the way of, or holds up progress.

hin-drance
n.
1.
a. The act of hindering.
b. The condition of being hindered.
2. That which hinders; an impedenance.

Friday was a strange night. All the way home from Rich O's I tried to figure out what made it so different from all the other nights I've spent there.

I figured it out.

I ended the night in a good mood.

It took me a while to figure this out because it was such an unusual feeling for me.

The night was, despite factors that could have caused stress, quite relaxing.

So anyway, first off I got to Rich O's very early. I'd left home at 7:30 hoping to catch VigilanteGirl at work, but alas she wasn't there so I got to Rich O's well before 8:00.

I did no experimentation with beer, prefering to stick with my regular indulgences. I had two NABC Beak's Bests, an Alaskan Smoked Porter, and a Guiness, in that order.

Keeping me company tonight were LaptopGirl, CoffeeDude, TallLady, and GrammarNazi and her husband.

For most of the night LaptopGirl and I talked about various fluff that I'd rather not broadcast to the world.

That brings up a good point.

I write this thing for myself - not for anyone else.

Because I write for myself I think I should write mostly ABOUT myself and what's going on with me and in my head.

At times, just to keep things in context, I need to mention things that are going on with my friends, but lately I've been feeling a little guilty whenever I do that.

I mean, it's not the world's business that one friend of mine is getting a divorce. It's also not anyone's business that another friend is contemplating a move, or is in trouble at work.

As I get to know these people better I get a desire to protect their privacy that I didn't feel before. Making up nicknames for the people I write about can only go so far, and lately I've felt the need to go a little farther - to be less candid and less specific in my entries.

All of this new secrecy can make for some pretty boring entries I know, but since the only intended audience is myself I'll try to deal with it.

Back to Friday, such as it was.

LaptopGirl and I spent most of the night sitting in the living room area with the other aforementioned regulars. I got a strange vibe from LaptopGirl that was difficult to identify. Once I did identify it I was quite pleasantly surprised.

I mattered to her.

It amazes me how much that little realization meant to me - and how much it still does. I've spent so much time these past several months waiting for the inevitable InvisibityFactor to kick in that to realize that tonight it wouldn't come was like a kick in the teeth.

In a good way though.

At some point during the recent past I seem to have been promoted, in LaptopGirl's mind, from mere acqaintance to friend.

That word, "friend," can often be a bummer. Guys get placed into the "friend zone" and there's no escape - no matter what the guy may actually want.

This time I'm actually okay with it. I'd absolutely rather be in the friend zone than the acqaintance zone. Any higher promotions would be fraught with peril and I know it.

Would it be worth the risk? Perhaps.

Do I expect that opportunity? Not at all. And I'm okay with that.

I'm 39 years old. I've been through a spectacularly failed marriage, and a handful of other serious relationships, none of which have worked out.

This is quite weird to be writing this, but nobody in my life - not my ex-wife, any of my old girlfriends, or any of the women I've had crushes on - have ever occupied my thoughts the way LaptopGirl does.

Something about her just fascinates me, and I catch myself thinking about her several times each day.

Not all of these thoughts are good ones. I've become quite perturbed by the InvisibilityFactor several times. Some of her opinions are so different from my own that I think we must be from different planets. Her not recognizing my voice on the phone last weekend bothered me much more than I'd have thought it would.

It's very strange. I've had crushes before, but they've all had at least some element of hope. In this case I've never had any indication whatsoever that there could ever be the slightest interest in me.

But I don't care.

This fascination, not quite a romantic one, not quite a platonic one, has kept my mind more occupied than it's been for a long long time.

I'm writing this entry on a Friday night - actually early Saturday morning - and I've suddenly become timid. I found out tonight that LaptopGirl has indeed checked out my 'blog, so there's a decent chance that she'll read this entry as well.

Perhaps I should delete it.

Don't want to scare her off after all - to make her think I'm some kind of stalker or something.

But that's the thing; there's nothing to be scared off from. I'm really content with the way things are. I'm not scheming for anything more.

That just blows my mind.

How could I meet such a beautiful and intelligent woman and NOT want more?

Perhaps it's because I've been hurt several times in the past. Perhaps it's things like the InvisibilityFactor. Perhaps I just know better than to try to become involved with someone so different from me.

Perhaps I'm just kidding myself and I don't know what I want at all.

I don't know, but I'll keep enjoying the ride while it lasts.

A conversation I overheard today:

PetaGirl: That's just so mean the way they treat those chickens!

InstigatorGuy: Well what about cotton plants? They hack those plants up just to make your clothes.

PetaGirl: But that's different!

InstigatorGuy: Why is it different? Plants are alive too you know.

PetaGirl: But they can't talk!

Finally fixed the bug in my code that was supposed to automagically fill in my age at the top of my main page.

I left the bug in for a long time because I thought it was funnier when it just said "error: value too large."

Now I realize that this is no laughing matter.

On Saturday, for whatever reasons, I found my myself in a mood for the apple taste of a Belgian ale.

My initial attempt to satify this craving was a Great Lakes 15th Anniversary Ale. Yummy, but I still wanted more apples.

The second beer I tried was a Mad Bitch - I'm sure it has a real name but everyone just calls it Mad Bitch.

This was as close to drinking hard cider as I think I could stand. I liked this beer, but at a whopping 10% alcohol I know that one will always be my limit.

Once the Mad Bitch as gone I got a little bored with Rich O's Nobody I knew was there except for ExBartender and he was involved in a loud conversation with some tatooed guy.

I ended up leaving and going to Jillian's of all places.

VigilanteGirl had mentioned earlier that she would go there after work, so I went and had a couple of Newcastles while I waited.

I guess we had a misunderstanding as she didn't show up. Actually as it turns out she was there for a bit but her and her friends didn't stay - they had gone by the time I got there.

Once I left Jillian's I went back to Rich O's, got talked into going to a party, got bored at the party, and went home.

com-pas-sion
n.
1. Deep awareness of the suffering of another coupled with the wish to relieve it.

fu-til-i-ty
n.
1. The quality of having no useful result; uselessness.
2. Lack of importance or purpose; frivolousness.
3. A futile act.

dis-miss
v.
1. To end the employment or service of; discharge.
2. To stop considering; rid one's minds of; dispel.
3. To refuse to accept or recognize; reject.

Tonight was certainly interesting.

I spent the night talking with LaptopGirl, CoffeeDude, and CoffeeDude's brother.

I had a couple of Guiness pints, and an NABC Beak's Best. The only experimentation I did was to have a SkullSplitter.

It was quite disgusting at first, but after an inch or so it started to taste pretty good. I suspect that my initial disgust was caused by the Beak's Best still coating my mouth. At 8.5% it was too strong for me to risk getting a second opinion.

Tonight I basically tried to be a nice person but apparently failed. Not only was I blown off, I was told that I was being blown off as it was happening. People sitting across the room were like, "Dude, you just got DISSED" and I was like "gee like thanks for letting me know as I am like stupid and would never have noticed otherwise."

They say nice guys finish last.

CoffeeDude did try to stick up for me but it was clearly a lost cause at that point.

Also, it was pretty cool that LaptopGirl took one look at this stranger at Rich O's and guessed that he was CoffeeDude's brother, and it turned out she was right.

I've noticed a pretty odd side-effect to my owning a 65" television.

Because the screen dimensions are 16:9 instead of the normal 4:3 most shows need to be stretched horizontally so the picture fills the screen.

This makes everyone look short and fat.

I've become so used to this that the women that are hot are STILL hot when they look short and fat.

So now in real life I've become much less critical about chunkier women than I used to be.

So while I still have pretty high standards, I now find myself looking at, and appreciating, women that six months ago I wouldn't have paid any attention to at all.

The next thing you know I'll be stocking up on midget porn.

I've been spending some time trying to decide who to pine away for.

I generally feel most like myself when I'm obsessing over some girl that is (a) completely inappropriate, (b) wholly unavailable, (c) way out of my league, or any combination of the above. Then I also have the standard requirements like attractiveness, intelligence, and personality.

There also has to be an inkling, however slight, that some slight change in circumstances could allow a real relationship. Perhaps if she wasn't married, or if I was more attractive, or if I moved to France - that kind of change.

For the last few months that niche was filled by LaptopGirl, but for reasons best left unsaid she no longer meets enough of the requirements.

So I've been thinking about a replacement.

I've got it narrowed down to a trio of candidates.

VigilanteGirl
Her main qualification has to be her age. I'm old enough to be too old for her mother. While that's fine by me, in a dirty-old-man kind of way, I'm sure that the age difference would make her completely unavailable to an old coot like me.

There also the issue of her workplace competition. VigilanteGirl is not the only candidate that I considered from that establishment. To truly pine for her, I'd have to stop thinking about some of her coworkers; notably TwinSisters and NeighborsDaughter.

There's also the issue of the flirting. At least a small part of me has to suspect that there may be something behind her innuendos, and of course if there's any chance that she's available for me then that blows that deal.

FilleFrancaiseSexy
The hot French girl that came into Rich O's last weekend would at first glance appear to be perfect. The age factor is there, making her quite inappropriate for me. She's possibly third or fourth on the list of the most beautiful women I've ever laid eyes on, so she's so far out of my league that, as they say, she can't even see my league. And oh yeah, she lives in France, so availability should never be a problem.

I'm concerned that I've never successfully pined away for anyone that I couldn't see on a semi-regular basis. My limit seems to be about a month - after that much absence I'm usually out looking for someone else to torture my soul over.

HotWorkGirl
I'm hesitant about even writing about HotWorkGirl here. I'm not sure that she meets ANY of the requirements I listed earlier. Her only real chance to be inappropriate or otherwise unavailable is to be a LOT older than she appears or to be a lesbian. She's just too new for me to have categorized her yet.

I can't decide. Perhaps I should widen the list of candidates.

There are several likely women - each more beautiful or young or married or gay or drugged-out than the last - that could possibly step up and occupy enough of my thoughts that a full-scale crush COULD ensue.

I suppose I'll just wait and see how things play out.

There are millions, maybe billions, of ineligible bachelorettes out there. I'm sure I'll find the worst possible one someday.

For reasons that I cannot fathom I haven't honored my July 11th Hottie of the Day until now.

Paige Davis is the host of TLC's Trading Spaces, one of my favorite shows.

Paige's perkiness would likely get old very quickly, but her sexiness may just make up for it.