On Friday night, one person was stupid, and another person was mean.

Yet another person, I'm convinced, continued to avoid me. Not that I blame her.

It's like there was a secret meeting wherein these people all got together and worked out the best way to give me a disappointing and shitty night.

Also, I had three Rogue Chocolate Stouts (696).

Also, I went to White Castle.

And now I'm going to Cleveland.

I had the strangest dream.

I hope I can remember it later, when I have more time to write.

But not now, because now I've got to get ready for work.

plant
n.

4. A person or thing put into place in order to mislead or function secretly, especially:
   a. A person placed in a group or situation to influence behavior.
   b. A person stationed in a given location as a spy or observer.
   c. A person who will pretend to be an ally to solicit incriminating evidence.

Phone rang a couple of hours ago, waking me from a sound sleep.

The screen said Private Number but since it's my cell phone, and work pays for it, plus you never know, I answered it.

Some chick. Wrong number.

It was quite exciting for a couple of seconds, though.

My life had purpose, for a couple of seconds.

I was thinking about writing something today, but I changed my mind. If any of you are really curious, you can just go back and read some of my old shit. The thing that I was going to write about, I'm sure that I've already written about it before.

---

So on Monday I got this email from The Luxor in Las Vegas telling me about some special room rates they were offering me because I'm so awesome. It was $79 per night, which seems like a pretty good price to me. Since I've been missing Las Vegas recently, I went online to see if I could maybe take a trip there in August. Yay! August in Las Vegas! But I don't think it's going to happen because, while the room rates are good, the cheapest flights I could find were $8,000,000 or something like that. I think I'll have to wait until November as I'd originally planned so work will pay for the trip.

---

I think that I'm probably going to be miserable for the rest of the Summer. Maybe for even longer. I don't really see any way out of this funk. I am starting to get a little excited about my trip to Cleveland this weekend, but I doubt that even this pseudo-good mood will last very long.

---

Dammit, I really wish she could have been here for DaveFest.

---

I kinda feel like everybody around me is just standing in my way, blocking me from where I'm supposed to be going. This irritates me. Mostly because it's an illusion. There's no place to go.

---

I used to be annoyed by people trying to make me feel better when it was obvious that their only real goal was to feel more comfortable around me. Now I'm annoyed by people because they're being nice to me, but it's nothing but another illusion. Don't be nice to me. You're not the one. So stop. Just stop distracting me. I do not want to be your good deed of the day. Let me be miserable for a while. I've earned it.

---

My sleep schedule is upside-down again. It's kinda nice. It seems like there's more solitude after midnight. Instead of just having the house to myself, it seems like I've got the whole world.

---

I've deleted another girl's number from my phone. It really bothers me that it came to this. Not that there was ever any real potential there, but it was fun to pretend for a while. Now my messages are ignored, and I don't trust myself to stop trying, so I deleted her number.

---

Seriously, I don't want to do this any more. I'm sick of putting on a brave face and forcing a smile.

I doubt that I'll ever be able to look at her the same way again. It might have been just a dream, but my subconscious doesn't know that. To my subconscious, it was incredibly real.

So now, now I know how she kisses. I know how the weight of her body feels when it's pressing down on me. I know what she tastes like. I know how soft her fingers are when they lightly stroke my skin. I know how she sighs and smiles after she's climaxed.

I know what becomes of distractions after that distraction becomes unnecessary.

They move into my head, and they inhabit my dreams.

I can still feel her tongue against mine.

I'm not a bad person. It was, after all, just a dream.

I finally shipped those DaveFest shirts you ordered. They should arrive Wednesday.

There, now I've accomplished three things today.

Firstly, I've let you know that I'm not completely useless - I'm just a procrastinator.

Secondly, I've managed to sneak in yet another advertisement for DaveFest shirts.

Thirdly, I've written an entry in my journal. This counts. Yes, it does.

It's win-win-win!

It could have been twice, it could have been fifty times. When your mom's heart stops beating, you don't really bother keeping an accurate count.

That last night, that last night before that last morning, they'd called. They'd called and they'd told us about the first time her heart had stopped. They'd told us that we might want to come in. Just in case, you know.

Mom had been in the hospital for over a month, and had been unconscious for at least a week. The doctors and the nurses, they kept trying to prepare us for what was going to happen. One nurse in particular had been a friend of Mom's for thirty years - even she admitted that there was no hope.

But we didn't listen to any of it. Death was something that happened to other people's mothers. Not to ours. Ours was going to wake up, and she was going to be okay, and she was going to go home and everything was going to be fine again.

That last night, before that last morning, they called. And Dad and I went in to the hospital. And we waited. When we could, we went into the room where Mom lay. They'd given her a private room in Intensive Care, so that was nice. We went into her room and we watched the number that tracked her heartbeats. We watched that number shrink and shrink and shrink and fucking shrink.

Then we'd watch it plummet to zero, and the doctors and the nurses would usher us back into the waiting room.

And we'd wait some more.

Sometime in the early morning, about 3:00 I think, the nurse came and told us that it wouldn't be long. She said that if there was anyone that we wanted to call, we should do it right away.

It could have been twice, it could have been a hundred times. When your mother is dying, and you're trying desperately to let your sisters know before it's too late, you don't really bother keeping an accurate count.

Dina's phone rang and rang and rang. It was after 6:00 when my brother-in-law finally answered the phone.

"Mike," I said. "It's happening. You need to bring everyone here."

Timing is everything.

It really is just like in the movies. You sit in a room, and you wait for somebody to come and give you an update. Always before, it had been a nurse, or a doctor. Always before, it had been one of them, but never two. Never ever two.

At 6:30 or so, two people left my Mom's room and walked toward Dad and me. I wonder now, were there two of them because there were two of us?

The nurse was crying. I'll always remember that the nurse was crying.

I don't remember what they said to us. I mean, I remember the gist of it, but not the details. When people tell you that your mother has died, you don't really bother memorizing their words.

I remember sitting down. No, scratch that. I remember a hand reaching down from above and pushing me down.

I remember my dad, after the doctor has finished telling us. Dad said, "So she's dead then." It wasn't a question. It was a simple statement of fact. It was also a silent scream that will haunt me forever. Some things you don't get over, and that was one of those things. My father, upon hearing that the only woman he'd ever loved was gone, my father kept himself in check. For me, and for my sisters, he stayed strong.

I remember that he put his hand on my shoulder, and that I put my hand on top of his, and that we just sat like that for the longest time. We sat that way until the doctor and the nurse left us, until they left us to go back into Mom's room so they could disconnect the wires and the tubes and do whatever else needed to be done. After a patient has died.

My sisters arrived too late. Dad and I were standing out in the hallway when they rounded the corner. They were actually smiling. Forced smiles, to be sure, but smiles nonetheless. That was the last time I'd see smiles for a very long time.

Somehow, somehow we managed to tell them that Mom had already died. Dad told Dina, and I told Neisha. Hell, I didn't even know Neisha, and there I was telling her that her life would never be the same again. It was hard, of course it was hard. But I did it. I did it for Dad, who was putting his own grief on hold so that he'd be better able to help his children.

You know what I wish? I wish that I believed in the afterlife. I wish that I believed that Mom could have been there in that hallway with us on that morning. She would have been so proud of Dad.

I know I was.

I still am.

I dreamed that I wrote a pretty good entry.

I knew it was good because half my readers got pissed off, and the other half were saddened.

Me?

I was both.

I was pissed that I'd written such cruel things, and I was saddened that it was all true.