Something unexpected happened a little after 6:00 Friday evening. Something welcomed, certainly, just very surprising.

You know how sometimes you're just having a really bad time with things, but then you maybe start to get used to how horrible things are? And then you maybe start to think that there's a chance that someday you might want to live again, if you can only get through this rough patch?

And then something unexpected and welcomed and surprising happens and you forget all about the bullshit?

Well, me too.

And so now, I fear, it will all start over again.

Anyway, it ended up being a good night. One about which I should probably write.

But not now. Now I've got cabin fever. So I'm going to the local casino for a while.

Don't wait up.

UPDATE: I didn't get to go. Other surprising and unexpected stuff happened, and I had to stay closer to home. Oh well.

ALSO: I just extended my Las Vegas trip by one day.

Why did I do this?

Why, thank you so much for asking. That's really sweet of you.

I did this because I'm sick of being such a fucking pessimist all the fucking time.

I imagine that what I'll think about, if I ever get to the point of being able to think again, is just how quickly it all fell apart.

I really don't know what's going to happen. Hell, I don't even know what's happened already. I just know that it's happened so damn fast that it's made me dizzy.

Well, I've gone ahead and booked my trip to Las Vegas for my birthday weekend.

I'm already having a bit of buyer's remorse. It's a lot of money to spend on a two-day trip, even without having to get a hotel room.

StupidGirl is really excited. Maybe a little too excited.

I hope she doesn't murder me, chop me up, and make a stew out of me.

I think I'd taste better in a spicy chili.

I don't have any real idea how to describe it, and I'm not really going to try. Just in abstract terms.

Maybe it's a vase. Yeah, that should work. Just imagine a vase. A fancy one. Wait, maybe it's an urn, like one that might contain the ashes of a deceased loved one. Whatever. It doesn't matter what it looks like. It holds shit. I suppose it's waterproof, though that's irrelevant.

Man, I'm rambling already. Oh well.

So you take this thing, this vase or urn or whatever, and you drop a tiny grain of sand into it. Maybe it makes a tiny clink as it hits bottom, but if you can hear it your ears are a fuck of a lot better than mine. Whatever, it doesn't matter if it makes a sound. I was just trying to do something there. Build the scene or some crap like that.

You drop in the grain of sand, and the next day you drop another grain of sand. And maybe the next day is really fucked up so you drop two grains of sand. You keep doing this, day after week after month after year. You just drop your little grains of sand into your vase or urn or whatever.

At first, it seems like you'll be able to keep dropping sand forever. I mean, it's a big vase or urn or whatever. Did I mention before that it's big? Well, it is. And the grains of sand are tiny, as grains of sand are so wont to be. So it doesn't ever really hit you that there will ever be a problem. You keep having fucking grains of sand, but you've got a place to put them, so it's okay, and it seems that it will always be okay. You've got a system and shit.

And then one day, perhaps one day in January of 2009, you notice, to your great surprise, that your vase or urn or whatever is totally full of sand.

And you've got no place to put your grains anymore, and you certainly can't just stand there holding sand like an idiot, so you drop it on the ground at your feet, hoping that nobody will notice.

Oh, but they fucking notice.

Eventually, nobody remembers who you used to be. You become The Guy Standing In The Big Pile Of Sand and that's all anyone thinks of you as.

And then you're fucked.

So what do you do when something weird happens? Something so weird and unexpected that there is just no way to prepare for it ahead of time? And no way to react with anything besides reflexive babbling?

Like when you find yourself having a conversation that you'd been expecting to have six months earlier? A conversation that you'd thought was never going to happen, because so much time had passed, and so much trust had been earned and built?

Well, I now know what I do when something like that happens.

After the aforementioned reflexive babbling, I go to Rich O's, and I text OddlyFamiliarGirl to come see me. Then I talk to OddlyFamiliarGirl about various things for several hours.

Oh, and I also have four glasses of Marzen (7778) but three of those are gone before OddlyFamiliarGirl shows up.

Still trying to find some decent airfare to Las Vegas for my birthday weekend. So far the cost of airfare is more than eating away any savings I'd get from staying with StupidGirl.

I'm not giving up, though. I just might have to arrive later than I'd prefer.

And there's a very slim chance that HatGirl might be able to get away for the weekend, too. That would, of course, be totally awesome.

There's a place. It's not a physical place, though that's part of it. It's more of a spiritual place.

The place, it's where I belong. It's why I'm here, on this Earth, in this life. To be in the place. It's where I fit, and more than that, it's where the universe fits me.

Problem is, I can't get there. There's no navigable route, and even if there were, the place is already occupied, and even if it wasn't, I'm not allowed in the place.

I've come very close. I've stood next to the place and I've felt its pull so strongly that it's threatened to rip me apart atom by atom.

If I believed in God, I'd surely hate Him, for showing me the place.