Tonight, I am awake. For the first time in years, I'm fully awake.

I don't like it. Not even a little bit.

---

I wasn't wrong. I was as right as anyone has ever been. Validation has nearly drowned me.

It's just that sometimes people change, and right can become wrong as reality shifts and transforms.

---

It's so easy for me to revert to being that guy who did nothing but miss her for years. It was easy to be him, after all. Comfortable like a warm fuzzy blanket. It's so easy to go back. So tempting to just go back to where I feel safe. To where I feel like myself.

---

I censor myself in this journal. And now, more and more often, I censor myself in my life. This is not me, this shell that pretends and lies and laughs that fake laugh to hide the sound of sobbing. It's not me at all. I don't know what it is, this thing I've become. Some ridiculous caricature, perhaps, drawn by the same drunk retarded blind child who one day suddenly found himself in charge of my feelings, and now finds himself in charge of everything that I am.

---

Tonight, for a while now, I've gone back even farther than I usually go. I've reverted to another life. A life devoid of emotion, and therefore a life devoid of meaning.

I don't like it. Not even a little bit.

And getting more and more pissed with every passing minute.

People need to leave me alone today. I'm not in the fucking mood for any more bullshit.

I guess things even out sometimes, or they at least try to even out.

Like, I felt like crap all day yesterday, but then I slept like a baby last night.

I even had some good dreams, so there.

Lots of people tell me that I'm stupid, retarded, whatever. Lots of people tell me that I'm wasting my time.

Usually, I can ignore it when people tell me these things. Because they just don't know. They're not in my situation, and so there's no way they can really know.

Most of the time, I can ignore it when people tell me these things.

And then, then there are days like today. Days like today when I suspect that all those people are telling me the truth.

It snowed a little last night. Enough to make things pretty and to make the roads slick for a while. I liked it.

---

Spent some time this morning looking at pricing for flights to Las Vegas. I want to go there over my birthday weekend, I think. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have to worry about a place to stay.

---

Last night we had a nice dinner at Sam's. I always end up getting the blackened chicken alfredo, and it's always a little disappointing. This time it was much better than normal. Quite yummy.

---

Then I went over to HatGirl and LuckyFucker's house to drink a couple beers and play some cards.

HatGirl!

Yay!

We played spades, and I destroyed them. That was weird, because I usually suck at that game.

---

I wonder if Sportstime is open today. I'm craving a little pizza for lunch.

You know what's weird.

(censored)

That's what's weird.

I like it, though.

Na-na-na-na-na-na!

Na-na-na-na-na-na!

Spiderwoman!

---

That is all.

It's kinda like I might be holding a winning lottery ticket for a gazillion dollars.

Except that there's a slight catch. I have to walk across the country to find out if I've won.

No big deal, I think. Totally worth it if I win.

Except then there's another slight catch. The prize could expire at any minute, without warning, before I get there.

Oh, and it might end up being Monopoly money, too.

Oh yeah, and I've already been walking for a very long time.

I think that what really gets me is that nobody gets me.

I mean, I know exactly what I'm trying to say, and I usually manage to blurt out the correct words, but nobody really understands. Being an eternal optimist, I choose to believe that people don't want to understand, instead of that they're all just idiots.

Remember this dude?

You know what's worse than screams?

He stays down there almost all of the time lately. Down in the dungeon of my mind. The doors are not locked. He's free to come and go as he pleases. But he seems to prefer it down there. Or, at least, he prefers the darkness to the light.

His screams were so loud. They cut straight through me.

I feel for him. I really do. After all, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for him. Faced with that which neither of us could survive alone, the two of us together somehow pulled through. An unbeatable team bound, for a while at least, by parallel goals.

To endure. To live. To persevere. To exist.

To wait.

His screams were so piercing, but at least they showed strength. A will to keep trying, to keep fighting. His screams reminded me of those long-ago days and nights when we screamed together in horrible harmony.

You know what's worse than screams?

All I hear now is soft sobbing. And it keeps getting softer.

Well, that asshole grew himself a pair of balls or something. He started venturing into the open, becoming more and more bold. Rambling on and on and on about his damn feelings and desires and hopes and expectations.

He damn near ruined everything, the fucker. For both of us.

Fuck that.

I had to do something. So, the other night after he got drunk, I dragged his sorry ass down to the dungeon. I threw him into his cell, and then I locked the fucking door.

Maybe I should have just shot him in the head, put him out of our misery, but I didn't. Some weird sense of loyalty overcame me at the last minute. Some leftover feeling of brotherhood, perhaps, or maybe just plain old pity.

That poor wretched stupid asshole.

He'll probably rot in that cell.

Better him than me, though.

It was supposed to snow last night. They said it was supposed to snow.

Damn no-snow-having waste of cold weather.