I'm not really sure when I crossed this particular line. Sometime between two years and two months ago, if I had to guess. Sadness became a hard thing to muster, and anger became the easiest thing in the world.

I don't like it, but there it is. Things are, as always, what they are.

The quiet contemplative moments are what I crave and relish, but they're too few and too far between for any semblance of normalcy. There is very little silence within me. I just have to feel something, and feel it strongly, and that's all there is to it.

So I turn my back on the anger that the world expects, and I face the sadness that only I truly understand. Because the thoughts that rise from anger, deserved as they may be, don't fit. They don't fit my heart or my head or the world or the universe. I don't want them. I don't want to think those things about her.

So, I choose to be sad.

Funny, she was right about that. I didn't know it at the time, but she was right. Faced with the choice I've been given, I choose sadness.

The last time CartGirl was at my house, she sat on the couch while I sat on the loveseat. Buddy watched her cautiously from the coffee table, probably in case she had food in her purse. Nugget, of course, hid under the couch and made sure his will was up-to-date. After a couple of hours, CartGirl left, and Buddy jumped onto the couch, curled up right where she had been sitting, and went to sleep.

That was sweet.

I've been wanting, for a long time, to write an entry - or even a series of entries - describing sweet as I see it. Regarding girls, not cats, though the example above certainly fits my definition of the word. Or at least one of my definitions. I seem to have several. I find a different one every time I rummage through my head.

Eventually, I hope to write definitively about what sweet means to me. This is not that time, but eventually.

Tossed and turned all night. Too damn hot. Too damn much second guessing of everything.

The birds and the crickets outside my open windows squawked and chirped their disappointment all night, scolding me. The lightning bugs flashed their disgust. The stars blinked in disbelief at what I'd said.

I needed more time to find words, but there was none to be found. The time was upon me, the questions asked, and I had to answer with the inadequate and jarring words I had. Silence, though, would have been worse.

I would have liked to have been able to offer solutions instead of just problems. I would have liked that very much. But I didn't, and I still haven't. Solutions evade me, if they exist at all. I look for them, but all I find are increasingly-unlikely miracles.

There was a time when I'd simply stay quiet. Then there was a time when I'd just walk away. Those times are in the past. Now is the time to speak up. For, if anything is to be saved, it won't be saved by my turning the other cheek. If anything is to be saved, that salvation will have to start with honest words.

My words have always been honest. I only wish they'd been more tactful.

I kinda feel cruddy this morning. I slept too long, for one thing. My alarm went off at 4:00, and then I reset it to go off at 5:00. I didn't need that extra hour. I also didn't have any particular reason to get up at 4:00, though.

I hope it's just too much sleep that's got me feeling cruddy. I hope it's not allergies coming on. I have, after all, been sleeping with my windows open for the last several weeks.

I also feel bad for venting yesterday. But I'll get over it. Stuff needed to be said, and this is a better place than most.

Talked to StupidGirl for a bit last night. Things are looking much better for her. She's accepted responsibility for what happened, and they're giving her another chance. I'm so glad, even though it means she won't be coming here anytime soon. It really sucked when she was so sad and I couldn't do anything about it or even give her a hug.

Nugget is still hanging in there. Poor kitty is so skinny now.

This is shaping up to be the hottest week of the year so far. Not having air conditioning is pretty rough, but it's not as bad as I'd feared. The whole-house fan really does a lot of good. The main problem is that, because of the humidity, everything in my house feels like it's coated in a layer of slime. Gross, I know.

I guess that's it for now. Time to take a shower and go into work.

I actually managed to get to sleep fairly quickly last night. That was weird, because I'd really been expecting the day's events to keep me tossing and turning.

I had a dream about me and this one certain girl going to some house and breaking in. It was all her idea. Some Christmas thing, I think. The dream turned into a horror/thriller kind of thing. A cross between The Shining and The Blair Witch Project. When I woke up I was creeped out for quite a while. I wish I could write fiction, because it would make an awesome short story.

Another dream I had was more in the sci-fi/action genre. It was pretty interesting to be in the dream, but it probably wouldn't make a compelling story. Something about a house with lots of hidden rooms, and some pod-people with blue blood. Then I woke up right as the big lesbian scene was about to start. So that sucked.

Let me make sure I've got this straight. I'm stupid, and I'm a liar, and I'm crazy, and I'm a drunk. But I'm a stupid lying crazy drunk with a truck, so that makes me useful?

Well, as sweet as that is, I'm afraid that I have to decline.

I wish I could make myself believe that this was simply being used as a convenient excuse to see me for some other, nicer, reason, but I can't. And I don't.

Reconciliation is what's needed. Rebuilding is what's needed, if it's even possible, for I may have been irrevocably destroyed. We may have been irrevocably destroyed. Even if it's somehow possible to fix things between us, nothing is going to happen without major changes. Changes that I can't make on my own.

And attempting to take further advantage of my feelings does not count as a major change. And neither does name-dropping another guy eight sentences into a conversation. It's just the same old crap. Problem is, I'm no longer the same person, and I won't put up with it anymore.

Especially not when I'd fully expect to be tossed aside as soon as my services were no longer needed.

Act like a certain kind of person often enough and, eventually, I'm going to believe you're that kind of person. And then, eventually, I'm going to treat you like that kind of person.

I'm so very sorry that it's turned out this way, but I didn't get here on my own. I was pushed and dragged. And I was kicking and screaming all the way here. Remember? I certainly do.

Sure, I worked hard, and sure, I put up with a lot of shit, but it was worth it. Or it was going to be worth it. My payday was going to be huge. I was, in fact, going to be set for life.

Didn't work out that way.

Oh well, right?

Sometimes I manage to find that attitude inside me. That oh well attitude that the world expects me to be displaying by now. Sometimes I throw in an at least I tried but not too often because it's usually followed by but I obviously didn't try hard enough

And that sucks, because I really don't know if I was capable of trying any harder.

---

Yeah, so I've pretty much shut down my life. Work and home are pretty safe, for now. Stupid Jack's on Sundays, stupid Bearno's or Korner Pub on others days - they feel fairly safe, for now. Eventually, that safety could be revealed as an illusion, and then I'll retract even more.

It's not the same as it was before. Now, there's too much overlap causing too much paranoia and fear. Places and people and circumstances, huge chunks of my life, are off-limits to me. Not quite six months may as well be not quite six seconds or not quite six centuries. There'll never be enough time for this to become a part of my past. It's a part of who I am, and so I carry it through time with me.

I've made progress, that's for sure. But there'll never be enough. I cling to this slippery slope. Resting is hard enough, climbing is almost impossible, but I do make progress sometimes. Every now and then, I lose purchase and begin to slide back down. So far, I've been lucky. I've managed to catch myself and halt my descent. But my luck won't last forever. Only this slope lasts forever.

This is my life now. Clinging for life, when it would be so easy to let go, and so exhilarating to slide back down.

I remember what I said, the words that I chose, when I finally said what I'd waited so long to say.

There have been no lies, before or since, but truer words than those seven have never been spoken.

So there.

So I've been driving my Intrepid to work all week. Partly because it's got an automatic transmission, and therefore it's easier to drive in traffic, but mostly because my truck was almost out of gas and I was too lazy to put gas in it.

Well, this morning I saw that my Intepid was almost out of gas, so I decided to go ahead and drive the truck to work. Imagine my surprise when I got in the truck and saw that it had a full tank of gas.

That was really nice of the gas fairy to fill my truck up for me when I wasn't looking.

Anyway, gas is killing me with the new job. Not only is gas at least 50% more expensive that it was when I worked downtown, my commute is at least three times as long. On a full tank of gas, I can make it to work and back four times. I'm spending around $250 for gas every month. I used to spend around $50.

I need to find a car that gets better mileage. One that I can pay cash for. I haven't had to make a car payment since 2001, and I don't have any desire to make any more.

Back in my day, we didn't have all your fancy multi-color radars and tornado sirens and SMS alerts. You know what we had? Flying debris, that's what we had. And actual tornadoes. Flying debris and tornadoes, those were our warnings. That's all we had, and we were damn glad to have them. You kids today with your fancy technologies, get off my lawn.

Anyway.

The meteorologists have gone insane this Spring. I suppose this is somewhat understandable, because the weather has also gone insane. And usually I tolerate crazy people. Some of my best friends are, after all, crazy. But the meteorologists, in their never-ending quest to get ratings help save lives, are in danger of hurting a lot more people than they help.

For at least two storm systems in a row now, they've hyped the potential for dangerous storms to the point of saturation. Yesterday, it was like they were pretty much guaranteeing a long series of violent tornadoes, baseball-sized hail, incredible straight-line winds, and resulting death from one or more of the above. There was non-stop coverage on every television and radio. We were all going to die, and the only chance we had to stay alive was to stay tuned to their coverage.

They built things up so much that anything short of Armageddon would be a letdown, and so a letdown was what we got.

For at least the last two storm systems, they've gone a step further. They've issued actual tornado warnings when all they've really done is decided that a tornado is more likely than it had been a few minutes ago. This is not the same as the Doppler-indicated tornadoes that they used to issue warnings about. Nope, this is nothing more than half assed guesstimation.

A storm 50 miles to the west looks scary. It looks like there could be a tornado there at some point. So they go ahead and issue a tornado warning, not just for that area (which would be bad enough) but they also issue one for areas up to 60 miles away. It's like, maybe a tornado will form there, and then that tornado might last long enough and travel straight enough to endanger people 60 miles to the East, so they issue a warning for the people 60 miles to the East.

Meanwhile, 60 miles to the East, absolutely nothing is happening. The tornado sirens go off, people start to freak out, but then (as was the case for the last two storms here) absolutely nothing continues to happen. Maybe it gets a little windy. Maybe is starts raining. But no tornadoes.

Eventually people are going to stop freaking out when the tornado sirens go off. They'll know that, odds are, those sirens mean nothing. This is the danger that our meteorologists are putting us in. Those warnings are supposed to be, duh, warnings. They're supposed to mean that a tornado is coming, not that maybe a tornado is coming so be extra careful and stay tuned.

The meteorologists are becoming boys who cry wolf. And it's going to be a damn shame, when they have a real warning to give, and nobody believes them anymore.

Why not just go ahead and issue a worldwide tornado warning right now? Throw in warnings for blizzards, earthquakes, and alien invasions while you're at it.

I know there's a fine line, between providing as much warning as possible, and jumping the gun. Lives are at stake, after all. Ratings, too. I hope the former aren't being risked to boost the latter.