And now it's February already. And I haven't written anything here in almost a month. But that's okay. Nobody cares. I certainly don't care, so I can't imagine any of you readers giving a shit.

The same words, after all, can only be expressed in so many ways. A thesaurus only goes so far.

Except for an irrelevant interlude spent at CornerGirl's house, eating a yummy dinner, today has been uneventful.

I've felt distant today. Distant from all of this bullshit that I use instead of a life. The last time I felt this way for any length of time, I wondered if I'd died in my sleep, and I was naught but a ghost waiting for a bright light to guide me to a better place. Or, at least, a different place. Well, no such luck, then or now. I'm still here. Still muddling through. Managing as well as I can.

Armed with my new-found distance, I've been able to ask myself how and why. I've been doing that a lot today.

How?

Why?

No matter. It is what it is. I keep saying that. Saying and accepting are two different things, by the way, in case you were wondering.

I'm able to ask myself these questions, but the answers remain as elusive as ever. This should be over, but it's not. I should know better, but I don't. I should have moved on, but I've instead remained rooted here. In this fucking gray place.

For the last couple of hours, I've been downstairs. Watching a movie. Shooting pool. Then I had an idea. An idea to write something. What, exactly, I didn't know. Still don't know. I don't really think this counts. Fingers banging into keys. Words emerge, if I'm lucky.

Sometimes, that's all you can do. Gasp for air, and then do it again and again. An act of will, every time, and also an act of desperation.

I remember the first time I had to gasp like this. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. What had just happened. What this portended. Everything had changed, and I only needed to live, to keep gasping for air, until it changed again.

Sometimes, things don't work out.

To be so lucky, and still so cursed.

Words didn't work. Actions didn't work. Precious comfortable promising moments didn't work. Even the fucking magic wand didn't work.

My gasps aren't much more than exclamation points now. Screams from a voice that's gone hoarse.

I just had a dream that I was in Las Vegas playing a slot machine I never saw before.

First spin, I got some thing called "Jack be Nimble" and it showed a little computer movie where this Jack outran some monsters for a random amount of time. I won $4500 on that spin.

The next spin, I won a thing called "Tyrant's Choice" where a King dude just made up a random amount for me to win.

He decided that I had won $65,000,000,000.

That was nice of him.

Then I woke up.

People would say it was a stupid thing to do, if people knew. I don't tell them, though. It's none of their business. It's only for me.

I poke the sleeping beast, to awaken it, to be reminded of the danger that I face.

It's so easy to forget. To be distracted by fleeting glimpses and wispy remnants of fading dreams. By facades and lies.

I poke the sleeping beast. I bare my chest to its claws.

It slashes. Rips. Tears.

And I remember.

Wrote an entry last night and it's not showing up. This is a test.

See, there's no segue at all. I've tried to think of one. A way to smoothly and eloquently transition from woe is me I miss LaptopGirl to anything else. Anything at all, really.

I've got a lot of topics, but I've never had a segue.

Oh well. This will have to do.

Anyway...

Wednesday after work, because I'm stupid, I went to Sportstime (AKA The Weird Side). Just in case, you know? Last time I went there on a Wednesday was, um, interesting.

While there, I realized that I was there for a stupid reason, so I texted OddlyFamiliarGirl to give me a non-stupid reason for being in that area. Like maybe we could meet at stupid Jack's¹ or something. Kind of a virtual Sunday.

Well, she said she could-ish meet me, then she flaked, then she said she could meet me after all, but by that time I was home already. We ended up saying we'd do it Thursday night instead.

First thing Thursday morning, OddlyFamiliarGirl texted to flake again. I didn't let this bother me, because there was plenty of time left for an unflaking. I remained confident.

After work I went straight to stupid Jack's and texted OddlyFamiliarGirl. As I'd expected and hoped, she unflaked and said she'd be there at 6:00.

As I had over an hour to kill, I grabbed a table and shot pool for an hour or so. I was using my Predator SP, the one I bought in Omaha in 2004 and just had shipped to me. I kinda like it, but the main reason I had it with me was because it's the only cue I feel halfway good about leaving in my car.

Anyway, as women are so wont to do, OddlyFamiliarGirl was late. But, as most women are totally not wont to do, she texted me to let me know that she'd be late.

So I killed some time talking to this one dude who's also an outcast from Rich O's, and to this other dude who's pretty much an outcast from society.

Once OddlyFamiliarGirl showed up, we pretty much just did our usual thing. Sat and talked and drank and smoked. Fun and educational. She is trying to help me with this one conundrum so I don't fuck it up and make it even worse than it already is. I think she can help. OddlyFamiliarGirl is really smart and stuff.

Also, that one girl was really hot. I did an admirable job, I think, of pretending to ignore her while I continued my conversation with my friend. Had that girl been wearing glasses, however, then all bets would have been off.

I had myself a couple GumballHeads, then I switched to Diet Coke for the rest of the evening. I'm such a lightweight.

Then, around 10:00, I came back home and eventually went to bed.

It was a nice night.

1 - I don't think I've ever really explained why I call the place stupid Jack's. Instead of, you know, Jack's, which is its real name. It's stupid Jack's because I used to go there to be closer to LaptopGirl's apartment, in case she invited me over. It wasn't stupid Jack's at the time - it was all efficient and shit - but once the invitations stopped it became stupid. This is not the same reasoning behind the name stupid Bearno's when referring to the Floyds Knobs location of that chain.

I had it all figured out, what I was going to write in another month.

I had all the words corralled in my head.

Waiting. Ready. Eager.

A year would have been awesome.

But noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

I don't get to release the words.

Fuck, I don't even get to write eleven in four minutes. I'd really been looking forward to that.

I have to start all over again.

Good thing I have patience.

I'm not going to jinx myself here. What will happen will happen, whether or not I write anything or even notice anything. It will either come back or it won't. I'm not going to worry about it either way.

I remember reading that old people often have moments of clarity right before they die. A few precious minutes to be themselves, with their thoughts and their emotions and their memories. A few precious minutes, then they die.

I don't remember where I read that. I don't know if it's true or not. I also don't know what it means that, for the last three days, I've had almost perfect clarity.

RockGirl says I'm probably not about to die. She's usually right about that sort of thing, so I'll go ahead and believe her.

In 2005 and 2006 and even a couple of times in 2008, I found clarity. I stopped being distracted by the context of my life, and I started actually living that life. As well as I could, anyway.

Each of those times, I thought and hoped that it might last forever, but it never did. Each of those times, it only lasted for a few hours before the context rose back up to drown me.

This is a pretty crappy time of the year for me. I've written before about how I hate the Fall and November in particular. It would be so easy to lose focus. It would be so expected to lose focus.

So far, though, so good.

I'm pretty sure I'm repeating myself. I think that a lot lately. The thing is, see, I've written 194,201 words since this all started to end or whatever it did. Things I've written there haven't been censored at all, but neither have they been me because they've been anonymous.

Okay, so those words aren't here. They're elsewhere. You just have to know what to Google. Good luck finding them.

Anyway.

In ten days I'll write a quickie called Eleven or something like that. It will happen. Unless it doesn't.

I don't know what I want. I know I've written that before. It's just a fucked up situation. It's a problem with no solution, at least not a solution that I have any control over.

People can change, but it's rare. People can give a shit, but it's more rare. People can admit the truth to themselves, but that's the most rare of all.

There was another site, not mine. I can't think of the name of it for sure. Some place for anonymous venting. I wrote one thing on that site, once, well over a year ago.

I'm in love with a girl I can't stand. I miss her constantly, but then as soon as I'm with her I can't wait to get away.

And the funny thing is, it doesn't end. My feelings haven't changed one iota. My thoughts have run the gamut, but my feelings, my feelings are still the same as they've been for over eight years now.

If I believed in God, I'd become an atheist just to spite the cocksucker. No way no how do I deserve this. Nobody deserves this.

I'm actually in a decent mood right now.

I'm pissed about that.