I was struck by a small series of thoughts today, as I sat hunched over my liquid lunch (Schlenkerla Fastenbier - 553) contemplating this ridiculous series of rejections that I use instead of a life, and because sometimes I just feel like writing something, I thought I'd write about my series of thoughts.

I guess most of us were young and obnoxious once, except those of you who are still young and obnoxious - get off my lawn, by the way - and even though most of us have outgrown that phase, we still remember what it was like.

Remember how, on warm days, how good it felt to roll down the car windows and crank up the volume on the radio? Or the tape player or CD player or whatever; you know what I mean.

It was impossible to not feel really cool, cruising down the street with your music blaring all around you. People would turn their heads as you drove by, and you'd imagine them thinking, "Now there goes a cool person. He's bringing music to the world. Livening up my boring life. Thank you, cool person."

But the problem is, never once in the history of the world has anyone ever thought those things. The people who drive around with their music blaring so loudly that everyone within a five-block radius can not only hear it, they can feel in their bones and in their teeth as the bass notes vibrate their fillings loose - those people are assholes. I'm also pretty sure that they blow dead goats when they get home.

I never said this would be an interesting entry.

If I could write something, something that would express my current mood as accurately and completely as possible, if I could write something relevant right now, I bet it would be good.

I bet people would like it, the way the phrases flowed and the sentences sang and the words wound and wound around the central core of inescapable truth that, for now, I'm happy.

I bet people would like it, but I can't write it. Too much of anything, even the truth, is still too much.

Anyway, fuck you, universe!

I may be down, but I'm not out.

I don't know how many steps there are - I think about sixteen - because I've never taken time to count them. Hell, I've never had the spare brain capacity to count them because I'm too busy being happy or sad during those times when I use those particular stairs.

The coincidental part is that my mood parallels my altitude.

I always run up, sometimes two steps at a time, my ever-widening smile betraying the calmness that I strive to project just because I feel like it's expected and not weird, and I always trudge down, my frown broadcasting my defeat to the world.

In case you didn't guess already, I'm really bored right now. So I'm babbling, albeit in written form.

Last evening, for an hour or so to anyone unfortunate enough to notice me but a million years from my own perspective, I glared at my phone and I waited to die. It may have seemed that I did other things during that time - I appeared to chain-smoke and breathe and blink my eyes and all sorts of other mundane things - but those were mere illusions. Reflexive and involuntary actions, and nothing more. Nothing mattered to me except my phone, and the fact that it was silent.

My phone was going to ring, see. Actually, it was going to woo-hoo if you really need to know that small detail. My phone was going to woo-hoo, and then I was going to answer it. And then I was going to listen for a few seconds. And then I was going to say four words, assuming that I'd be able to speak at all, and then I was going to die.

I found myself wondering what my next reincarnation would be, what the next version of Dave would be like. The last one, the current version of myself, had gone on a fairly decent run. Decent, but not good, and certainly not great. The old saying is that nice guys finish last, and while I may not have been bringing up the absolute rear, sometimes second place is just as bad. Sometimes second place is the worst thing that could ever happen. Like when you've dedicated your entire life to a single race.

It was a false alarm. My phone made its woo-hoo sound, and I saw that it was a text message, and I sighed with relief. My death would not, I knew, be delivered via such an impersonal conduit, it would have come via voice. I've earned that much, I'm sure.

So, I'm still here. For now.

Despite all initial indications - despite, at times, hundreds thousands of latter indications - some people are just not nice, at least not when it really matters.

It doesn't make a difference, though, even though every spare instance of logical thought screams at you that it should make a huge difference, it simply doesn't. Not in the long run, anyway. You know what you know, and you feel what you feel, and the sad truth is that the two are not always complimentary.

You find yourself forced to choose between the truth and the fantasy, but it's not such a daunting task, because there is no choice. The heart wins, every time without fail or even much hesitation, the heart wins.

In summary, I'm fucked.

Fingers fumbling finding feeling fondling finally forcefully fusing firmly.

Looking over the fence. Admiring the green grass. Barely noticing my neighbor, my mirror-image, coveting my lawn.

Some forces attract and others repel. Sometimes there's a balance, and this bullshit I use instead of a life makes a little bit of sense.

Tasting the sour grapes. Wondering if I can ever love them. Realizing that I already do.