A million years or so ago, I used to have my very own muse. Heck, she even kept being my muse for a couple of years after she stopped being my girlfriend. She'd call me or, more often, visit my site, around 11:00 PM each night. She'd see if I'd written anything new that day. And, if I hadn't, well she'd make damn sure that I didn't go to bed until I had written something.

Sigh.

I miss her. I miss her for lots of reasons. Not just because she was my muse. I guess she's doing okay. I haven't talked to her in at least 9 months. Weird how things change.

Today has been a very long day. I think I started yawning around 11:00 AM, and I haven't really stopped since. And I don't mean that I've yawned several times - I mean that I've let out one long yawn, for almost 10 hours now. I know that I'm tired. I only slept for 4 hours last night. But it might be something else. Something more. I kinda feel like my Fall seasonal allergies might be starting up. If so, then they're about a month early.

Last Fall, my allergies were so bad that my nose started bleeding from all the wiping and nose-blowing I did. There was a steady stream of snot and blood flowing from my face. Yes, it was gross, thanks for asking.

Meanwhile, I continue to wait for that killing blow. It hasn't come. Quite the opposite, in fact. I'm ashamed to say that I'm more than a little bit fooled by what's been going on.

Stupid hope...

I'm so tired right now. I need to go to bed.

Tomorrow I've got a thingy to attend. There might be some people from my old job there. That would be cool. Most of those people, I'd love to see again. A couple of them could drop dead on the way to the thingy and I wouldn't bat an eye. I guess I'll see what I'll see. I probably won't be bored, that's for sure.

In less than two weeks I'll be in Las Vegas again. It'll be different, this time. I don't really think there's a reason to go. Not anymore. Problem is, there's never really been a reason to stay in Indiana, either.

I guess that's it. Maybe I'll have a beer and then glare at my phone for a while before I go to bed.

Here's the most boring guy in the world, talking about the end of the world.

I think that all I want to say right now is this:

I don't care how fast you're driving. If people are passing you, in either lane but especially on your right, then you're going too fucking slow.

Please speed up, or die. Your choice.

Your cooperation in this matter is greatly appreciated.

There's this one word that I hate, at least recently. And don't even ask me to define recently because I don't fucking know. Somewhere between a couple of weeks and a gazillion years.

The word is deserve.

I was just thinking about that word, as I stood out on my deck petting her cat and trying in vain to ease its torture over whatever cats feel tortured about. Lack of mice, perhaps. Or maybe too many moths, so little time. I dunno.

This cat is distraught. It likes being here, and it likes hanging out with me on my deck or in my garage, but something is missing. The cat knows that something is missing but, being a cat, it cannot vocalize exactly what's missing. If it even knows.

Such is my life, even thought I'm not a cat. I don't think I am, anyway.

Meow?

But I digress, wildly.

Anyway, in an attempt to get back on topic, let me say that Everyone On Earth is wrong. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen. It's happening right now. I'm right and Everyone On Earth is wrong.

So there.

What Everyone On Earth says is that I deserve something. For my efforts. For my patience. For my craziness. For waiting for almost seven years when most people would have given up or killed themselves a long time ago.

It's not that big of a deal, to anyone except me. And it's not like I count for anything.

News flash: Nobody deserves shit.

We want what we want, and we need what we need, and, unfortunately, we get what we get. And then we die.

That's it. That's the boring truth.

So, sorry to disappoint you, Everyone On Earth, as you cheer for me to get what I deserve, or as you pity me for needing and wanting what I don't deserve.

I'll get what I'll get, and that will be the boring truth.

I have a serious question now.

Why is it so bad that I know what I want , and that I want what I want?

I don't get it. I don't run around trying to talk people out of wanting things or doing things. Yet my entire life for the past seven years has been as a target for these activities.

People tell me that they care about me, but they spend almost every second that we're together trying to convince me to change that one part of me that's impossible to change. Either explicitly through words or implicitly through lack of words, they try to convince me to strip away the most important part of me.

Like it's nothing more than a veneer or a fashion statement. Like she's nothing more than a pretty girl.

Fuck that.

Take me, or leave me. Stop trying to change me.

This sucks. Don't get me wrong. I hurt quite often, but I'll take it because it's better than the alternative. I'd rather hurt than feel nothing. I'll have plenty of time to feel nothing when I'm dead. Until then, I'll endure and I'll muddle through, and I'll at least know that I'm alive.

Today, we saw a weird thing.

In the middle of Bumfuck, Indiana, about halfway between Georgetown and the middle of nowhere, there was a dude. Walking fairly quickly along the side of the road. Dragging a mattress.

It was one of those air-filled mattresses. I don't know if that makes it more or less weird.

I wish we'd thought to stop and take pictures and ask the dude WTF.

I bet it was a really fascinating story.

Now we'll never know.

I dreamed about being in Las Vegas again. Every night I dream about being in Las Vegas. I can't remember the last time I dreamed about anything else. If this keeps up, by the time I actually go there in a month, I'll be sick of the place.

It hasn't helped that most of these dreams have been really frustrating.

In one, I won a $100 "jackpot" and then I had to spend the entire week doing publicity stuff before they'd pay me.

In another, I was there with some coworkers - they made us all share a room - and all those guys wanted to do was have meetings to talk about work stuff all the time.

In another, I was there for some kind of high school reunion and most of those people were annoying weirdoes who kept wanting me to drive them around.

In tonight's dream, I was there with my cousin Jeff and he'd never been there so I had to play tour guide all the time.

Not once, in any of these dreams, have I been able to see StupidGirl at all. She keeps calling me, but we can never find a time when I'm not busy.

What I'd like to do, see, is write at least one blog entry every day. This has proven to be extremely hard (that's what she said) because (a) I don't feel like it, and (b) I don't want to, and (c) I don't care.

I've always wondered what I'd write, when I didn't care what I wrote. I guess there have been a few examples of such indifference in the past. Mostly, those entries suck, but every now and then they turn out to be at least halfway decent.

This will not be a halfway-decent entry. Not even close.

That's what she said.

I scratch at the surface of my mind, and I try to uncover something, anything, that's not related to you-know-what. This effort is usually futile, and it's proving to be futile this evening.

Fuck. Stage one sucks.

But I still know that there's something worthwhile down there, hidden. A little diamond in the rough that will make it look like I know what I'm doing.

But I can't find it. I don't even know where to look.

That's what she said.

The problem with letting my fingers type, like I'm doing right now, isn't that they're incapable of stringing sentences together. Quite the opposite, in fact. Many times they do much better than my brain would do facing the same challenge.

The problem is that, by taking my brain out of the mix, the problem is that I'm also taking my thoughts out of the mix, and leaving my emotions to, um, anchor the entire recipe.

Okay, so maybe that metaphor was a bit of a stretch. So sue me.

Now, in the past I've often given one guess as to what my emotions might revolve around, but you people don't even need one guess. You already know, those of you who've been reading me for any length of time at all. The rest of you, you newcomers, well quite frankly I don't care about any of you. Not yet, anyway.

Speaking of anyway...

Anyway, it constantly amazes me that I'm not pissed off 7x24x365. Equally amazing is that I'm not constantly depressed. But, waaaay beyond those two amazing things, I sometimes manage to be happy.

Me, of all people.

I somehow manage to fluctuate, and I don't know how I manage to do that. And it hurts by brain when I try to figure it out.

I mean, seriously. Everyone On Earth knows that I've been used and abused and taken advantage of. I know these things myself.

But, do I care?

Fuck yes, I care. A lot more than I've been letting on but, it seems, not enough. Never quite enough.

Okay, so what am I going to do about it?

Not much, it seems. Just muddle through, like I always do. Wait for it to finally be enough. Meanwhile, after all, the good times are pretty fucking wonderful. Still fantastically surreal even after all this time. So I enjoy things when I can, and I endure the rest when I must. It doesn't even out, and it's become harder and harder to enjoy those good times, but oh well.

For a while there, I thought that maybe I'd survive this. At first, calluses formed, and it looked like they might protect me. But, after months and months and years and years of constant grinding, the calluses went away. Now there are only open sores oozing nasty smelly fluid which, while vile and disgusting, I'm still pretty sure I need because they're part of me.

I know, that was gross. Sue me again.

I really don't know if I'm going to survive this, or ever get over this. This wasn't just a huge blow to what self-esteem I might have had, it's something that's still going on. Every single second of every single day of every single week of every single month, it goes on.

The wounds ooze.

How can they ever heal? How can I ever heal?

I know, or at least I think I know, the answer to those questions. But I don't like those answers, so I feign ignorance. I lie to myself and to her and I perform in this stupid little play.

I hang onto this thread. I walk this thin ice. I endure blow after blow. And I pretend that everything is fine. I pretend that I'm fine, or at least that I will be fine.

But the truth is there, buried deep enough that usually I'm the only one who really sees it. The truth that I'm waiting and expecting to die at any minute. For the thread to snap, or for the ice to break, or for the killing blow to mercifully land and end this nonsense once and for all.

And the other truth, the one that keeps me awake at night, is that I don't know if I'll go quietly when the end finally comes. I fear the things I might choose to say as my last words.

So there.