I'm no longer upside-down on my sleep schedule. I managed to get back to normal last night. That's a good thing because I wanted to be able to go out tonight and tomorrow night.

Speaking of tomorrow, some people are supposed to go to Rich O's to pre-celebrate my birthday. I'm oddly nervous about this, as my family and my friends do not often interact. Maybe I should just stay home and let everybody sit around Rich O's and tell embarrassing stories about me.

I'm having a hard time deciding where I want to go for my Easter trip this year. I'm pretty much sticking with East coast cities, but if I want to arrive at a decent hour on Friday, and get home at a reasonable hour on Sunday, well it just doesn't seem to be possible. Maybe I'll just drive to Cleveland instead. Or St. Louis. But I'd really rather choose someplace I have to fly to. I dunno.

Meanwhile.

This is one thing that is certainly not my fault. I am, for once, not the bad guy. So people really need to stop looking at me like that.

That's right, suckers! I got a new rock for my birthday! And this one I get to keep!

So, ha ha!

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Zinnebir XMas (25)

(bottle) The aroma was almost overpowering at first, but after that it was difficult to even detect. The flavor was mild and tasty. It was kind of strange to pull a cork from a bottle of beer and find something this generic inside. Good, but not great.

Really, I'm not.

I did this to myself, on purpose, with full awareness of what it was going to do to my mood. I knew what was going to happen, and I did it anyway. For several reasons. Eight or so that I've mentioned publicly, and at least one that I've kept private. I did it because it was necessary.

So I'm not complaining.

Just observing.

Observing that this can, and has, picked up exactly where it left off. I sort of thought that it might have faded a little bit after so many months. I sort of thought that, like a two-liter bottle of Coke, that things might have gone a little flat despite being so tightly capped.

Didn't happen.

The only thing that's different, the only thing that's different this time is that I seem to be able to withstand it better than I did before.

Which is, of course, not saying much, because before I couldn't withstand it at all. Because before, it was killing me.

Now, I think I just might survive. Whatever that means. However I might define who I am. What I am.

Lonely.

Heartbroken.

Empty.

Pussy.

But you know, that's okay. It's nice to feel something again. It's nice to just let things wash over me again. It's nice to just let these emotions flow through me and dictate my moods. It takes all the pressure off my brain when I let my heart run things for a while.

I'd thought that, once I'd proven my point, that I'd put those corks back in. I'd thought that, once I'd reassured myself that what was truly important to me hadn't changed one fucking bit, that I'd bottle these feelings back up and get on with my life again.

And therein lay the problem with my great plan. There might not be a life to get on with.

I once wrote these words:

For he died in the depths, and he was reborn in the depths. Without their cold embrace he cannot exist.

You know what? I miss her. I have no reasonable rationale for still missing her after all this time. I have no justifiable excuse for what happened to me when she left. I have no logical explanation for how these feelings can still flow through me so strongly.

And right now, right now I don't want any of those things.

Right now, I just want to lie back, and remember, and imagine, and wish, and smile, and hope, and cry, and long, and laugh, and wait, and dread, and hurt, and love.

What's a little insomnia if it gives me all that? That's a pretty small price to pay, if you ask me.

Well, I guess I'm sleeping better. I'm certainly sleeping more. Turning my schedule upside-down has allowed me to sleep when I want and/or need it the most - right after work. And, since I have TiVo, I'm not missing any of my favorite shows.

So the falling asleep problem has been eased quite a bit. The other problem, the waking up because a mouse farts somewhere outside problem is still there, and that is probably keeping me from enjoying the really deep sleep that I need.

Because of that, I'm spending a lot more time in REM sleep than normal. More dreams, and more weird dreams.

I was in my bed and I suspected that I might be dreaming, so I stuck my hand through the wall to make sure. I was indeed dreaming.

Like I usually do, I took off flying through the window and out into the world. Usually I'll just zoom around the neighborhood for a while, but this time I decided to go straight up. I went up until my house was nothing but a dot, and I hit my head on something.

The sky wasn't really the sky. It was like in the movie the Truman Show where it was just a painted dome.

I tried several times to pass through that dome, but it just wasn't working. This disturbed me a lot. My ability to pass through solid objects is one that I've spent a lot of time perfecting, and it's given me an awful lot of freedom. So I became angry, and started scratching at the ceiling, and I managed to dig into it a little.

Encouraged by this, I started ripping at the drywall and eventually had a fairly large section of it removed. Next there was a very thick layer of insulation to tear away, and after that there was a grating to pry loose.

Finally, I had a hole big enough to get through. I climbed up through the hole, and it was like being above a suspended ceiling. There was ductwork and machinery all over the place. There was no room to stand up, so I just started crawling. Eventually I reached another wall. Once again, I couldn't simply pass through this wall, so I had to kick away at this grating until it fell away.

I crawled through the new hole, and I fell into the snow.

Snow?

I found myself in a large open field, laying in about a foot of snow. There were trees off in the distance. It was pretty damn cold. I stood up and turned around to check out the hole I'd just come through.

On a railroad flatcar, there were a dozen or so suitcases. The carry-on kind with wheels and extendable handles. At the base of the suitcase nearest to me was a small hole, no bigger than my fist. I knew that this was the hole I'd just come out of. I also knew that there was no way I was going to be able to fit back through it.

A small part of my brain also registered that my entire world was apparently contained in a suitcase on a railroad flatcar in a snowy field in some kind of uber-universe, but that wasn't important at the time. What was important was that it was cold and I just wanted to get to someplace warm.

There was a passenger car in front of the flatcar, and a bunch of people got off. Nobody would pay any attention to me except this one guard. When I told him that I'd gotten there by accident, he asked me where I was from.

"Earth," I said. Then I added, "The year 2006."

So the guard nodded and pointed to a little shack off in the distance. He told me to go there and warm up, and somebody would stop by to help me later.

I went over to the shack, and I opened the door.

It was my bedroom.

I went in and crawled into bed, and I knew that I'd never really left.

It was really a riveting dream to be in the middle of. I remember thinking that they should make a movie out of it.

Not much of an entry tonight. It's mainly notable because I hadn't seen SassyGirl in about a million years.

Since I've turned my sleep schedule upside down, getting to Rich O's right after work meant getting there right at my bedtime. So I was pretty tired.

I had myself a t Smisje Mustard Ale (34) and then a half-pint of Flying Dog K-9 Cruiser (44). I'm really liking both beers, so they'll be gone soon.

I got a little Valentine's donut coupon from SassyBoy. This was the only thing I got this year except for an e-card from one of my readers that was quite sweet.

Anyway, we sat around and talked to this chick from Cincy that had made the drive to Rich O's just to buy some Dogfish Head beer that I've never heard of.

Then I came home and went to sleep.

Sleep. What a concept.

Everybody's knocking Valentine's Day.

It's The Big Thing, being all noncommercial and shit. Plus, some people think that they're being nonconformists by ripping on this holiday, so that makes them feel special.

Well, I just want to say, even though I haven't felt this way every year, I just want to say that I wish I had a special someone with whom I could exchange little tokens of affection and maybe take out to a nice dinner.

So what if it's become a Hallmark holiday? That doesn't erase its underlying message. That doesn't mean you have to stop observing it. That doesn't have to mean that your feelings for that special person are superficial as well.

Get over yourselves with your jadedness and your superiority.

I wish I had someone to share this day with, and I bet most of you, that don't already have someone, I bet most of you do as well.

Because (a) I was bored, and (b) I really appreciate the response these things get, I've gone and put all of my comics on a single page.

I still have some tweaking to do though.

Tonight I'm trying something new to get through this insomnia bout.

Everybody at work keeps telling me all of these drugs I should take, but I really don't want to become reliant on pills to sleep. I came very close to becoming addicted to sleeping pills back when I was going through my divorce, and I don't want to do it again.

EwokGirl, who knows me pretty well for a coworker, had the only sensible suggestion: Beer.

But that won't work either, because (a) It carries the same risk of addiction, and (b) Alcohol has never really made me sleepy because I'm too much of a lightweight to drink enough of it.

So tonight, like I said, I'm trying something different.

I came straight home after work, and I went to bed.

I slept for six hours. That's the most I've had in any one day since last Tuesday morning.

Now I'll just stay up until after work tomorrow, and see what happens.