So this guy from work went to Las Vegas last week. I don't think he did it to piss me off, but I don't know him really well so maybe.

I haven't been to Las Vegas since my birthday weekend last February, and I was already getting antsy before my coworker went there. Now I'm at least double-antsy, or maybe even triple-antsy.

The next opportunity I'll have to take any long trip is after the first week of November. I'm seriously thinking about just going ahead and biting the bullet and buying airfare and reserving a room, probably at Luxor this time.

It might turn out to be a little irresponsible, but dammit I deserve a vacation after all this bullshit.

So I didn't go out of town over the weekend. Not unless you count my trips to Louisville on Friday and Saturday nights. And I don't count Louisville, just to be clear. Especially since I don't remember much about Friday night. I think there was Jager involved. Then last night I went to Jack's with OddlyFamiliarGirl, and Jack's definitely doesn't count.

I didn't go anywhere, but I managed to get myself a little refrigerator and some new shoes. So that was cool. Especially the fridge. Get it?

And now I'm faced with a decision. I spent eight months with basically no food in my house because I had no cold place in which to store it. Now I've got such a place, but there's very little room. After filling the thing with beer, there's enough room for maybe a couple of large pizzas, and that's it. The freezer part of the thing might hold a box of Hot Pockets, if I use a hammer.

Tonight I'm thinking that I'll go to the store and get some food. But I don't know what to get. Maybe some cheese.

I never said this would be interesting.

I'm constantly bombarding myself with a million questions, but there is one that hits the hardest.

What to believe?

Do I believe the words? Do I continue to try to be a friend, or at least act like one, when I'm not being met anywhere close to halfway? Words can be lies, you know. The craftiest of words can even fool the speaker. When that happens, the listener has no chance. It's either ignore the words, or be made a fool.

Perhaps, I tell myself, I should believe the actions. But that can be folly as well. Actions may speak louder than words, but they often speak gibberish, and they're so very subject to misinterpretation. They never say anything, they only imply. And I, being the way that I am, I almost always infer the worst. It's only been my mind's own sense of self-preservation that's kept me from doing so recently.

What am I supposed to believe when the words say one thing and the actions imply the opposite?

And the part that's really fucked up is that one day's truth can be the next day's lie. Minds can change, or be changed, and all I can do is try to keep up. Watch and listen, interpret what I can, and try to do what's right. I seem to be failing at that, but I really am in the dark here. I don't know the rules, and I don't even know the name of the game.

I don't like games.

I like honesty, even when it's brutal.

I'd rather be stabbed in the heart than shot in the back.

I found myself for a while, Thursday evening. I was hiding about an inch below the fading head of my second glass of Marzen. I should have stopped drinking right then, or at least slowed down. But I didn't. I went ahead and finished that glass at a normal speed, and by the time that beer was gone, so was I. Like I'd never been there at all.

I've been very elusive these last few months. Sometimes I've gone weeks at a time, searching in vain. I really shouldn't squander opportunities like I did Thursday evening. It might be a long time before I get another chance. Hell, it might not ever happen again. I am changing, after all. That part of me which was destroyed in the Spring, and which is slowly being rebuilt, will almost certainly not be as it once was.

I'm not sure that I've ever really described myself with any detail. What I've meant for the last six years when I've said that I was looking for myself, or what I've meant when I've said, on those rare occasions, that I'd managed to find myself. It may be beyond description. I just know me when I find me.

The real me is able to cope with this, basically. To sit and think and just deal with it. Without being overwhelmed into insanity, and without resorting to stupid distractions which mask the pain but do nothing to lessen it.

Because, let there be no doubt about it, this does hurt. A fucking lot. And I need to hurt, and I want to hurt. I've gone through so much for the right to hurt. I've given up so much, of my life and of myself, for the privilege of feeling this pain. I want to experience it, but I don't want it to control me.

And this morning, as I write this entry, it's trying to control me. I have to stop writing now.

I keep opening up a window to type something, then I close it. This, right now, is the farthest I've made it. Two - make that three - sentences. So yay for that, I guess.

I really want to get out of town this weekend. I haven't gone anywhere in like two months. I should just go, and then once I get there I can worry about what I might be missing back home. Drama and shit on at least two fronts.

And it's not like I'd be on Mars. If I go to Covington, or Noblesville, I'll only be a couple of hours away. And even if I go to St. Louis, that's only five hours.

I should just fucking go.

But I probably won't go anywhere. Just like I probably won't buy a fridge or new shoes. All of those things require motivation, and I'm using my entire supply of that just getting out of bed every morning.

I want to get sad tonight. I want to sit in my garage and drink some Marzen and bring myself right up to the very edge of babbling and weeping insanity. But I don't think it's going to happen.

I think I'll just stay my regular kinda depressed self, but that true sadness will be beyond me tonight.

The guy treats her, from everything I've heard, like the princess that she is. Oh sure, I would have treated her the same way, and I did treat her the same way, but that brings me to my next point.

She's happy with him. And there's more to being happy than just being treated right. Whatever that something extra is, he has it, and I might not have it. Not for her, at least. Maybe.

It's very tough for me to admit - it's been six years after all - but I might not be able to make her happy. No matter how badly I would want it and no matter how hard I would fight for it, I might not be able to accomplish it. Intent and desire can only get you so far.

To try and to fail at that task would probably be more than I could bear.

Right now, she is happy. That's what's important. That's all that matters. My own happiness is less than trivial when compared to hers, and it always has been.

I wish them the best, I really do.

If she's happy, then she smiles. And when she smiles, then the world is a beautiful place. So what if that smile's not for me? And so what if I don't even get to see it? Beauty is beauty, beheld or not.

How can I really be sad in such a beautiful place?

I'm experiencing a dangerous urge now, and so I figured that I'd better write something here, where it's fairly innocuous, than in an email, where it would most certainly not be.

Plus, I'm killing some time by writing this. And perhaps the urge to write that email will go away soon. Maybe writing this here will hasten its departure.

I want to call someone out on some bullshit. Partly to show that I know about the bullshit, as I think my knowledge is a secret so far, but mostly to see what the reason might be. I really can't see any reasonable explanation for this particular bullshit, but that doesn't mean that such a reason doesn't exist. I'm curious, I guess.

I'd also really like to see this person's reaction to getting caught. That show would probably be worth any possible price of admission, unless spontaneous human combustion was involved. I certainly don't want to cause that much of a reaction.

I need to think about this some more.

I wonder, how am I supposed to be feeling tonight? This week? This month?

Since it happened?

Not that I'm planning to tweak my feelings to match anyone's expectations, or that I'm going to pretend to be something that I'm not, but I do wonder - maybe I'm normal now.

Under the circumstances, I mean.

That would really be something, to be normal. Even if it was only for a while.

I need to go out to my garage, have a couple bottles of Domaine DuPage, and contemplate this some more.

If I'm normal, then - by definition - there's nothing special about me at all.

I don't think I like the sound of that.