How do I leave without running away, scurrying to the relative safety of the unknown? It could be the greatest opportunity ever, but could I take advantage of it for its own sake? I want to stay, but how can I stand my ground when that ground has dissolved beneath my feet? How can I leave with any dignity at all?

How do I stay without clinging, with desperation and inevitable futility, to false hope? Do family and friends mean anything at all? Does my house mean anything at all? I want to leave, but how could I possibly leave my own life? How can I stay for myself, and for nobody else?

How do I change my life, and my habits, and my haunts, without hiding and cowering?

How do I show strength without being cold, without invalidating everything that I've said, and done, and felt?

How do I show emotion without being spineless and selfish, without shaking every time I hear a voice or, God forbid, see a face?

Everything I do is seen through these damn colored glasses. The ones that I've worn willingly for a large chunk of my life. It's no wonder that people are watching me, listening to me, reading my words.

She's reading my words.

How do I move on without rebounding?

I'm stuffed now. The food was fantastic. I should go to Denny's more often.

I told RingGirl that I'm in the middle of a very tough breakup. Funny how words can be both a bald-faced lie and the utter truth at the same time.

Oh, yeah - the ring is a prop, to scare away undesirables.

Trying not to think about the past, or at least not the recent past. It's just too damn depressing.

Also not thinking about the future, because for all I know there isn't going to be one. It's all amorphous and shit.

And the present?

Fuck the present.

So where does that leave me?

Nowhere. Or Nowhen. Whatever. Random firings of neurons in my brain that sometimes luck-out and form coherent thoughts.

Ahem...

It really bothers me that I censored myself so much these last several months. I mean, I didn't even write about New Year's Eve, for fuck's sake. That was a wonderful night. I still can't write about it, though. Except that it was wonderful.

And...

So many other times that I felt such incredible joy, and I still kept quiet. I hope that my silence was appreciated, because I didn't stay silent for myself. I wanted to not only write about my joy, I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

And...

Clearly, I waited too long to say those words. But really, was there a better time? An opportunity that I'd missed, a hint that I'd failed to see? Perhaps, but hindsight is 20/20, and foresight is maybe about 20/200 at best.

And...

I thought things were progressing naturally. Not in a weird way at all. I was wrong about that, and eventually I felt desperate and forced to say those words that I'd kept hidden for years. And I was too late. Or maybe still too soon. I haven't figured that out yet.

And...

Completely changing the subject, but what happened is that we ended up scaring the shit out of each other. The first time was back in 2005 when we first met. The second time was much more recent. We still scare the shit out of each other on a regular basis. But it's a good kind of scary, I think.

Oh, and also...

Changing the subject again. I don't know what's going on. I like to think that I know myself well enough to recognize those old danger signs, but it's very possible that I'm just lying to myself all over again. If so, then at least I think she's lying to herself as well, and that's why we make such a good team.

I managed to get eight hours of sleep. I don't think that I care that they were all during the daytime.

I'd probably have slept longer except my cat Buddy jumped onto the bed and began loudly singing his sad song about starving to death. I got up and dumped some cat food into the bowl - I don't know why they can't do that themselves - and so now I'm awake and up. And the cats are sated and asleep.

I'm thinking fairly clearly right now. It's almost like the human brain needs sleep to help it function properly. Someone should study this - I may be onto something.

Anyway, about that other thing. I'm disappointed, of course. But I got exactly the reaction that I was expecting, so at least shock is off the menu for today. And that's enough about that, I think.

I was going to write a blog entry tonight, I really was. But the damn thing morphed into an email. A personal email.

So I wrote and I wrote and I wrote the email, and then I sent it off. To be read, I suppose. To be believed, I hope. To be understood, well I can't say I'm very confident about that.

But still, two out of three isn't bad.

It is a long and winding path, this one that I stand before. That we stand before.

Every now and then, bolstered by alcohol and desperation, I test my footing, just in front of where I stand. But it's just a test. I place my foot forward, and I brush the ground with my toes, and I almost shift my weight forward, but not quite.

Never quite.

I am afraid, you see. Afraid of tiring, and afraid of making a wrong turn, and afraid of losing my concentration and my footing. Slipping and falling. But mostly, afraid of finding myself on this path alone.

See, this is not a journey that I can make by myself.

I try. Every now and then, I really do try to fix things between us. Or to at least define things between us.

I try, and I fail, every time.

I will keep trying.

I will.

My Monday night started out pleasantly enough. KittenDamsel bought me dinner (Wendy's) in exchange for me hooking her DVD player up correctly. I'd told her last weekend that she could get a much better picture and 5-channel sound just by using the proper cables and connections, but she played the girl-card, and so I offered to fix things for her.

Besides eating dinner and crawling around behind her entertainment center, I spent a lot of time poking my finger into her spiffy new sunburn and watching it change colors. Mesmerizing.

Then I went to Rich O's. While there, I alternated between glaring at my phone and glaring at the door. Neither activity proved fruitful. After PearlGirl and her boyfriend left, there really wasn't anyone there I felt like talking to, so I picked up my shit and moved to the bar to finish my Marzen (11138). By 9:30 I was really bored, and my eyes were kind of tired from all the glaring, so I left. But then I remembered that there was no place to go, so I went back to Rich O's.

I was having a nice glass of Franziskaner (39) when OddlyFamiliarGirl came in. So that was nice. We talked and whatever. I switched to Diet Coke. I left again at midnight when Rich O's closed.

That's when it got annoying.

I got pulled over. Or, actually, I went to the haunted Burger King and the cop followed me with his lights flashing, so maybe that doesn't really count as getting pulled over. I'm sure he would have pulled me over if I hadn't been stopping anyway.

The guy came up to my truck and asked for the usual paperwork. I gave him my license and, while I was fishing for my current registration, he told me that I hadn't used my turn signal when turning onto Grant Line Road. I felt like calling bullshit on that. I always use my turn signal, even when I'm leaving my own driveway, but I figured it would be his word against mine. Plus, he was the one with the gun.

He asked me, of course, where I was coming from. I said Rich O's. So he asked me, of course, how much I'd had to drink. I said a Marzen (11138) and a Franziskaner (39). Upon seeing the quizzical look on his face, I clarified that I'd had two beers.

I realize that "two beers" is probably the standard answer given by people under suspicion, so I wasn't surprised at all when he had me take off my glasses and follow his pen around with my eyes. I guess that test didn't yield the result that he wanted, because then he went back to his car for five years, and came back and had me blow into a thingy. As I was not immediately arrested, I knew I'd passed that test as well.

I will admit, however, that for a few moments there I was concerned that I might have grossly miscalculated.

And the guy was just doing his job, helping to keep us all safe. I have a lot of respect for (most) cops.

He ended up giving me a ticket for not using my turn signal, and then he sent me on my way.

I'd originally stopped at the haunted Burger King to get something to eat. But the crap with the cop had lasted just long enough, and they were closed by the time the cop left. So I came home instead.

As the subset of the universe that makes up my readership prepares to roll its collective eyes...

Not this shit again?!?

Yes, indeed. This shit again.

Something else. That's what we've become. Something undefined, and perhaps undefinable. Not friends, not acquaintances, certainly not lovers. Neither strangers nor enemies. Ghosts who haunt each other from time to time.

We give life to lies by pretending they're true, but we fool nobody but ourselves, and only then through luck and stubbornness.

Everything that was and everything that could have been, replaced by this, this something. Blindness. Deafness. Numbness.

We have become something else. A round peg searching desperately for purpose, but finding itself in a universe full of square holes. Definition eludes, cowers.

In flux, perhaps.