Kind of a dull day so far. I'm working from home today because I'm waiting for the TV repairman to arrive. It'll be nice to have a working TV in my living room again. That flashing green light is pretty and all, but it doesn't have much of a plot, and the suspense is non-existent.

Besides getting a bunch of actual work done (no distractions) I've removed every cable from every A/V component in my entertainment center, just so I could get back there and be able to push my TV away from the wall. It was all overdue for a recabling anyway. A couple of the components are broken, and some of them I don't use anymore. So I'll take this opportunity to straighten everything out.

I never said this would be an interesting entry.

I just said no to HatGirl.

Let me rephrase that.

I just fucking said no to HatGirl.

It was just for a little favor, but it was one that I couldn't do.

I'm a dick. I never thought I'd ever say no to HatGirl for anything.

Maybe next I'll go out and step on baby ducks or something.

I thought of one possible new nickname. Or maybe it's more of a theme than a nickname. But she won't like it, I bet.

Today was kinda boring, until 1:00 or so, when a series of fortunate events found me having lunch with her at some hippie place in Louisville.

It was pretty weird, even for a hippie place, because instead of sitars and chanting, the music was things like Queen and Led Zepellin.

I think I did a pretty good job. Keeping my eyes in their sockets has become almost second-nature for me, and holding my jaw in a less-than-agape position is something I've been working on. There's still room for improvement there, I think.

I like being perfectly happy, even when it's only for a little while.

It's nice.

The first and second times, I described here. The third time was last night.

I found myself locked out of my house. Again.

Because keys to my house keep disappearing, I've been back down to a single key again for quite a while. I think my cat Nugget eats the keys. But it's one key for one person, so it's usually okay.

But yesterday was my cleaning day, so I took my key off my keychain and left it in its usual hiding place so VacuumLady could get into the house.

Then, when I got home, I retrieved the key from it's hiding place, let myself in, and sat the key on the washing machine.

Several hours later, I went to the store, and when I came home I realized that I'd never put that key back on my keychain.

I'd done it again.

Fuck!

My sledge hammer was still there in my garage. So I knew I could get into my house. I didn't have to worry about sleeping in my truck.

But for some reason I decided to check all of the outside doors and see if, by some miracle, any of them were unlocked.

The second door I tried - the door from my living room to my deck - was unlocked.

Yay!

Except that I wonder how long it's been unlocked. I can't remember the last time I used that door. Several days ago at least.

woohoo!

woohoo!

I'm pretty sure that, should my phone be somehow situated on the far side of the Moon, and myself at the bottom of some deep well or cave here on Earth, I'm pretty sure that I'd still manage to get to it before it could woohoo a third time.

So taking a nap, with my phone not even two feet from my side?

No problem at all. I could do that in my sleep. And I often do.

The strange thing is, my phone checks for new email every 20 minutes. This is hard-wired at the factory or something. I have certainly been unable to figure out how to change that setting.

So how, I wonder, how does it sometimes manage to announce a half-dozen emails in the space of 15 minutes?

It's a mystery, I tell you.

Eventually, of course, I gave up on my nap. Too many woohoos. Too many occasions to pry open my eyes and fumble a one-thumbed reply. Too many protests from my cat Nugget, wondering no doubt why he once again picked my left shoulder on which to sleep.

I'm not complaining. The emails are coming from her, after all.

But as soon as I arose from my couch, as soon as I cleared the fog from my head, the emails stopped. The woohoos stopped.

Okay, so maybe I'm complaining just a little.

I mentioned that my TV is broken. That's not entirely true. Only parts of it are broken. The parts that cause it to display moving pictures and emit sounds synchronized with those pictures.

There's a little green light on the front of the thing. That light's been flashing since Saturday morning. So that light works just fine, thank you very much. And there may be other, more subtle components that also remain unbroken.

Meanwhile, I've got my diminutive 36" TV down in the basement. So when I absolutely have to watch something on TV, I can just go down there.

And sit in my basement with my technology like a damn Morlock. Hasn't happened yet because I hardly ever watch TV in the Summer.

I guess LaptopDad thinks the problem is likely a bulb. He's probably right, but those bulbs are expensive and I don't want to spend that kind of money unless I know for sure that it will allow the TV to be a TV again. Instead of what it is now, which is a 600-lb, $3500, flashing green light.

So I called a TV repair shop today. They'll be out on Wednesday to diagnose the problem, unless I cancel on them.

I need to try a couple more things. I'll unplug it from the wall for two minutes, cross my fingers, and then plug it back in. My cable company will be so proud - that's exactly the advice they give me every time I complain that my cable modem isn't working.

My next step might be to find myself a line conditioner. I think I can get a good enough one for around $200. And I've needed one for quite a while anyway.

If I have the repair guy come out, he'll charge me $95 just for showing up, but at least after he's done I'll know what's wrong and how much money I'll need to throw at the problem to make it go away.

I had such a nice dream.

It bothers me that I can't write about my dream. Because it wasn't a dream at all.

I had such a nice evening.

So most of my plans fell way short of fruition.

I didn't take my cousin his memorial shirt.

I didn't stop at HH Gregg to inquire about a TV repairman.

And I didn't even get to pretend-marry HatGirl and LuckyFucker as the latter, I believe, chose this opportunity to pretend to have cold feet. Maybe next week, I'm told.

But the most important thing, I did get done. I got LaptopGirl's memorial t-shirt from my sister, and then I delivered it.

Any day wherein I get to see LaptopGirl is a damn good day as far as I'm concerned. Even though her son was eating pretzels and it made me really crave pretzels.

Oh yeah, another thing I didn't do was have dinner at the place where NotHideousGirl works. Nor did I, as I'd halfway planned later in the afternoon, make it to where AlliGirl works. Instead, I went to this Sam's place that I'd never been to before.

While there, I had a couple glasses of heterosexual Blue Moon (761) and some blackened steak tip thingies that were surprisingly good.

On the way home I bought a bag of pretzels. They were yummy.

Never did hear back from AlliGirl about her birthday party. I guess I'd be annoyed by that if I didn't already have a gazillion other things on my mind.

I spent Saturday night as I'd spent Friday night, at home on my swing. I did make one brief trip down to see what all the damn sirens were for. There were sirens wailing nonstop for at least an hour. I went down and asked this girl at the gas station what had been going on. She said she saw a million fire trucks go by. It must have been a pretty big fire, to need a million fire trucks.

All of the local dogs were still howling when I went to bed at 12:00 or so

Let's see, I had my last two bottles of Moerlein OTR (262), even the bottle I'd been saving for MrPopular - it just jumped down my throat before I could stop it. Not that I really wanted to stop it. And so now I'll definitely have to go back to Covington. I should have gone yesterday. I can't go this coming weekend because I'm on-call for work.

I had a couple Newcastles (10444). I drunk-texted BadPickleGirl and she actually responded for once. I had a few email conversations. In one, I got accused of what I think is a class III misdemeanor, and that conversation was the highlight of my week.

I got to go to sleep in a good mood. It's been a while since that happened.

---

Today it seems like I've got a million things to do, but I can't think of what they all are.

I know that I'm going to dinner, probably where NotHideousGirl works. I think that, either right before or right after dinner, I'm pretending to marry HatGirl and LuckyFucker. I should probably call HatGirl to make sure we're still on for that.

Hmmm, I know that I've got to get LaptopGirl's memorial shirt from my sister.

Oh yeah, I've also got to take my cousin Jeff his memorial shirt.

I guess I should stop at the place where I bought my TV and see about getting a repairman out to look at it. I'm afraid that it's going to cost a million dollars, but it's got to be done. Can't really have a 65" TV that doesn't work, can I?

A long time ago, I was in a conversation. Actually in it, as the words being said were directed at me and me alone. I remember thinking just how ridiculous they were, those words that I was hearing. Words of inadequacy and low self-esteem, from the lips of the most wonderful person I'd ever known.

I tried to help, back then. I said what I imagined she wanted to hear. Encouraging and soothing words that also happened to be completely true words. I tried to help, but I failed.

Perhaps I should have screamed.

More recently, there was another conversation. But this time I wasn't in it. I just happened to be in the room, a bicycle's superfluous third wheel. I heard the same words, from those same beautiful lips, and though I cringed and laughed inside at the ridiculousness of what I was hearing, I said nothing. It wasn't my place to say anything. It wasn't my conversation to join.

Perhaps I should have screamed.

Then, a few days ago, I found myself reading words of inadequacy and low self-esteem. Words typed to me in an email by the beautiful hands of she who is still most wonderful person I've ever met. I replied. Once again, I replied. But I remembered the first time, when I'd failed, and so this time I pussed-out. I replied with a stupid platitude that probably did more harm than good.

Perhaps I should have screamed.