plan
n.
1. A proposed course of action or sequence of events.

I guess there's a reason we usually refer to our plans for the evening instead of something more concrete like agenda or schedule.

We do this because while we may know what we'd like or expect to do, we really don't know what's actually going to happen.

Last night, as I'd planned, I went to the home of the FirstCouple for their annual New Year's party.

I'm not really sure why I chose that venue instead of the party a friend of my sister was having. I just sort of decided sometime during the day which one I'd attend.

I drank most of a bottle of Delirium Noel while I mingled with the two dozen or so people in attendance. It was a nice time, but I still don't feel like I really know any of those people, so I didn't feel too bad when I left at around 10:00.

The second half of the night didn't exactly go as I'd planned, but I was pleasantly surprised and I enjoyed myself. It turned out to be exactly what I needed to close out 2004 and say hello to 2005.

Now I get to see what the aftermath is. The nice thing is that I'm invincible, at least for a while.

One of my all-time favorite books is Earth Abides, by George Stewart. In that book, the people have a Winter Solstice ceremony where they'll name the outgoing year.

One year might have been The Year of the Lions, another I think was The Year the House Fell. Things like that. Just a name, usually suggested by the children, that would be easier to remember than Year One or Year Sixteen would be.

Then one year the people in the community just couldn't decide what to name the year. There had been good times and very bad times, and they just couldn't decide.

So they just named it Year Twenty-Two and left it at that.

I don't make up names for the years but, like most people at this time of year I suppose, I will spend an amount of time remembering the year past. I've written before how I'll usually reserve some time for myself right around midnight for this purpose, and I'll usually end up saying "It was a good year overall" or something like that.

Well this year it looks like I may be busy as the new year arrives. I may not have the luxury of wandering off by myself. So I spent some time last night trying to decide what kind of year 2004 was for me.

Like the community in the book, I've been unable to reach a decision. It was a very good year and a very bad year, and if I choose one label over the other I lessen the importance of both.

Well I'm not going to do it. I wouldn't have one without the other.

So, this has been The Year 2004, and I'm not likely to forget it.

Actually not much to say about tonight's Rich O's trip. I had a Delirium Noel and a Fantome Saison. I've had both before and liked them both.

Rich O's was moderately crowded, though not as much so as I was expecting. I was able to grab a seat on the sofa right away where I talked with a few people I don't know.

After a while CoffeeDude and ElPresidente joined me and we bullshitted for an hour or so.

Oh yeah, DooRagGirl came in at one point. CoffeeDude seems to know her better than I do. She was looking very pretty, but I didn't talk to her as CoffeeDude was pretty much monopolizing her time.

I left fairly early so I could catch VigilanteGirl before she left work.

(I suppose this entry would fall into the if you don't like it don't read it category)

(Update 12/31/04: Slight edit for clarity and to say that I was actually in a good mood when I wrote this, and that I remain in a good mood. I just told the people what they wanted to know.)

The other night I posed some questions in this 'blog:

Who are you people? What do you want?

Much to my chagrin, but otherwise not surprising at all, the overwhelming thing that people want to know is this (I paraphrase here):

What's going on with you and that girl you were so tore up over?

I wasn't even going to respond to this line of questioning. It's still a little too recent after all. A little too private.

Even as late as tonight I was telling CoffeeDude that to bring the subject up at all was to risk reopening those wounds, and that wasn't something I wanted to do.

Nevertheless, inspired in part by a couple of good beers and a couple of good friends, I sit here picking at scabs.

My sister is concerned about me. She saw, too late, what LaptopGirl's leaving had done to me. To her, I suppose, I just wasn't the type of person that would let myself be so affected. I'd been living all over the country every other time anything close to this had happened, and so my sister, my entire family in fact, had barely noticed my turmoil.

I got through those times on my own, just as I've been getting through the last few months. I do it because I have to. You play the hand you're dealt, and you don't waste too much time and energy wishing for a redeal.

My sister has, for the first time, seen the vulnerable side of me. She's concerned about what might happen next. She sees me writing about someone new and worries that I'll just end up being hurt again.

She may be right. I am on the rebound after all. On the rebound from what exactly I still don't know. I mean, how do you define the end of a one-sided relationship that wasn't even a relationship? More than nothing, less than something.

To answer the question of what's going on, the answer is nothing. No contact whatsoever for weeks. A couple of calls to make sure I wasn't going to surprise her with a visit, a near-frantic plea to refrain from sending Rich O's pictures, an ignored Christmas greeting, and that's been it.

I think the thing is - I lost two people when she left. I lost the most fascinating person I'd ever known, a person that, by her very presence, made me feel more alive than I'd felt in years. That person was my friend, and I miss her dearly.

The other person, the person I came awfully close to falling in love with, is a person that doesn't even exist. Perhaps she never will, but the loss of that person, that potential, simply devastated me. I don't know if I can explain it, even to myself. I wanted to watch that emergence, know that person, just be in her life. Not in a romantic relationship. That's what everyone's been assuming all along, but everyone's been wrong.

My sister is worried about my heart getting broke. She's a little late. Pieces of my heart lie scattered in the parking lot of the Burger King on Grant Line Road. They lie where they fell when I realized that not only was LaptopGirl going away, she was already gone. The things I needed to say to her would not be said in person, and most of those things remain unsaid to this day.

I know that things will never, can never, be the same between us. I've said too much. I've hurt too much.

I do miss her though. I miss my friend. If I didn't miss her I might as well be dead, and it was she that had reminded how to be alive.

The last three months cannot be undone, and I wouldn't undo them if I could. For along with the potential I saw in her, I found a new potential in myself. The potential to be happy instead of simply content. My heart may be mostly scar tissue now, but it beats faster when I kiss a girl. It warms me more when I hold her hand. It hurts more when I think about sad things.

It reminds me that I'm alive.

And now, to quote one of my favorite movie characters,

And that's all I've got to say about that.

In the Summer it was innocent. Just a quick peck, the first and last. It was not what I was expecting after the night I'd had. Suddenly and inexplicably desperate, I searched her eyes for, I don't really know, an invitation, a promise, anything. But her eyes were too deep, and I got lost in them, and I found nothing, and then the moment was over.

It's Winter now. Different girl, different circumstances. I actually just wanted to clear the air. People were watching, so I grabbed her hand and went to find some privacy. A hug lasted a moment too long, and our lips met. After a second, her lips parted, and I pulled away. Her eyes, those amazing eyes, searched mine for something, anything, but there was nothing there, and then the moment was over.

Still trying to play catch-up with Rich O's Saturnalia list, I actually had two different beers after work today. The first was a Bells Third Coast Old Ale. Here's what I thought.

(draft) Cloudy brown, with a nice long-lasting head. The taste was malty and nutty, with a fairly bitter finish that became more tolerable as the glass became emptier.

Next I had a De Ranke Pere Noel. I actually thought I'd had this a couple of weekends ago but I was wrong.

(draft) A nice cloudy copper color that was quite intriguing. Nothing particularly special about the taste - actually this beer seemed a little too well-balanced. All of the flavors seemed to cancel each other out.

Tomorrow is virtual Friday (the next two days are holidays for us) so I was tempted to stay for a third beer and continue my conversation with ExBartender but, in the end, I figured that three strong beers on a stomach that'd only had a Twix bar in it all day would not be the best move I'd ever made.

People at work give me a hard time about my Post-Its.

They're all important though. Really.

One of the most boring things I ever get to read in peoples' 'blogs are the entries about their dreams. Thankfully most 'bloggers know how boring these entries are so they don't ever waste their readers' time with dream entries. If only all 'bloggers were so aware.

Anyway, I had a pretty interesting dream tonight.

I was messing around with my new girlfriend at my grandmother's old house. We'd gone there looking for some privacy, but people started showing up. And my people I mean relatives. My grandmother came home from somewhere and before too long almost everyone on my mom's side of the family was there having some kind of family dinner or something.

So I got to take my girlfriend around and introduce her to everyone.

The interesting part was that when I introduced her to my grandmother I referred to her as my dead grandmother. Just like dead relatives show up for dinner every day.

Then, when I introduced my girlfriend to my cousin Chris she was like, "I think I've met you before. You're dead too, right?" Chris answered, "Yes, I'm afraid so."

Then, I got frustrated because my parents weren't at the dinner, and I really wanted them to meet my girlfriend. We decided to walk down to my parents' house but I woke up before we got there.

I continue to be astounded by the amount of traffic I'm getting here.

Looking through my weblogs, I see of course the traffic sent my way via google and the like, but I'm also seeing a big increase in traffic that seems to have no referrer at all.

It's what I'd see if you just had me in your favorites list, or if you just had my site name memorized.

Yesterday 213 of you came to my home page. And 182 never went any deeper into the site. I like to think that you're just checking for my latest 'blog entries and then moving on.

I know who some of you are. You're my sisters, my coworkers, my friends from wherever. People from the bar. At least one of you may be obsessed with me as I continue to see that same ISP hitting me several times each day.

My enemies. I don't know that any of you even exist, but if you do - you're checking my 'blog too.

Who the rest of you are, I have no idea. I like to think that you stumbled your way here via some obscure search, and that you liked what you read anough to become a regular reader/fan/enemy/stalker.

Many of you, I'm sure, go away disappointed. My new entries bore you, or they're not what you're looking for. But, often enough, you come back anyway.

Hey, I wonder what that Dave dipshit's brain has vomited onto the Internet today. I wonder what kind of mood he's in. I wonder if he's ever been laid in his life. I wonder what he looks like naked.

If you keep coming back, you're looking for something. So just let me know. Use the little Say Something, Dammit! form and let me know who you are and what you're looking for.

Maybe I'll try to oblige.

Today, Rich O's was finally open again, so I stopped by after work and sampled a Three Floyds Alpha Klaus Christmas Porter. Here's my ratebeer.com review:

(draft) Of all the beers at Rich O's, this one is perhaps the one that's been recommended to me most often. Frankly, I don't understand all the hype. It is a good beer, but not a great one. I think my main problem was the gritty feeling I got in my mouth while drinking it. It almost seemed like there was something that hadn't quite dissolved all the way. By the end of the glass it was better. Other than the gritty mouthfeel, this beer smelled and looked fantastic, and it had a really good flavor - one that wasn't nearly as sweet as I was expecting. A very drinkable beer, but any place that has this probably has something better as well.

While at the bar, I spent a little time talking with the owner about 'blogging, and I got an idea for a post in my head. The title for the post would be If you don't like it, stop reading it and it would contain an awful lot of venting.

We also talked about something that's been on my mind for a while - the importing of old (in my case paper) journals into 'blog form. Roger's concern seemed mainly about how to deal with grammar and euphuism, while my main concern would be whether to import the things at all.

Anyway, I guess that's it. I had a nice end to a very boring day at work.