Last night I got to Rich O's late, and I should have just stayed home.

The only good thing about last night was that I had two pints of yummy Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (1331).

I could have stayed home and done that.

I was bored (obviously) so I took some quizzes this morning. I stole the first one from GoGo.

What Your Soul Really Looks Like

You are a warm hearted and open minded person. It's easy for you to forgive and forget.

You are not a very grounded person. You prefer dreams to reality. For you, it's all about possibilities.

You see yourself with pretty objective eyes. How you view yourself is almost exactly how other people view you.

Your near future is a lot like the present, and as far as you're concerned, that's a very good thing.

For you, love is all about caring and comfort. You couldn't fall in love with someone you didn't trust.

What Your Face Says

At first glance, people see you as warm and well-balanced.

Overall, your true self is passive and thoughtful.

With friends, you seem dramatic, lively, and quick to react.

In love, you seem like a huge flirt.

In stressful situations, you seem selfish and moody.

What Sign Is Your True Love?

Your True Love Is a Sagittarius.

Why you'll love a Sagittarius:

Deep and philosophical, you'll love getting lost in hours of conversation with your Sag.
Your Sagittarius is curious and adventurous enough to keep you interested... not an easy task!

Why a Sagittarius will love you:

You're passionate about a few important issues, a kind of depth that Sagittarius finds very attractive.
You're outgoing, flexible, and up for almost anything. You and your Sag will have tons of adventures together.

How Happy Are You?

You Are 28% Happy

You're not miserable, but you could stand to be a lot happier.

Focus on what's right in the world, and you'll be happier than you ever thought possible.

What's Your Ideal relationship?

Your Ideal Relationship Is Marriage

You've dated enough to know what you want.

And that's marriage - with the right person.

You're serious about settling down some time soon.

Even if you haven't met the person you want to get hitched to!

8:30
Pretty crowded, but I wanted to sit at the bar anyway, and there's a seat open. Some dude wants to buy an XL DaveFest shirt, but I'm out of that size. I order a Bluegrass Jefferson's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout (234), which is back after a brief absence.

8:41
I'm in a shitty mood already.

8:45
FutureDude tells me that he can't find any DaveFest shirts. There should be several of them left. Maybe Roger needed some rags to wash his car.

8:49
I've been on a Saltine-only diet all week. I should keep that in mind when I order beer tonight.

8:51
This one fucker thinks he's so smart, so deep. He's deep all right. He has to be to hold all that bullshit.

8:56
Meanwhile, there's been a hot girl in the red room all this time and I didn't see her until just now. I'm such a slacker.

9:04
They're having an art thing here tomorrow, and I just found out that MisunderstoodGirl will be here. Yay!

9:07
I think that if nobody tries to talk to me tonight, then I'll be able to maintain my mood at merely shitty.

9:09
Ugh. Fucking PBDs.

9:13
People keep telling me that they like this kind of entry, with the times and the mundane thoughts and shit. I don't know why they like them. Are they living their lives vicariously through me? Well, if so, then I've got bad news for them. This is no life. This is just me wondering if anything will ever happen ever again.

9:19
The PBDs at the island are leaving. Maybe I should move over there. That hot girl's blouse may accidentally fall to the floor. Or maybe she could trip and fall and accidentally impale herself on my dick.

9:20
Too late. Some strangers just took over the island.

9:26
Another BBC bourbon thingy (254).

9:28
The geeks at the right end of the bar are leaving. I'm moving over there.

9:30
I have this scenario that keeps running through my head. The perfect scenario. The only scenario that I can imagine that would allow me to move past this bullshit. Fortunately, it's no longer the least likely scenario that I can imagine. Unfortunately, it's still pretty fucking unlikely, and I don't have a backup plan.

9:34
Fucking PBDs.

9:47
People are hovering all around me again. I hate it when this happens.

9:52
I'd try. I'd really try to be strong. But I'd fail, and my eyes would give me away and reveal my weakness.

10:00
King Kong Bundy just sat at the other end of the bar.

10:03
Piss time.

10:04
Holy shit! Eric and Teri are here! We go and sit in the red room. This is very cool.

10:30
Now DooragGirl is here. Yay!

10:45
DooragGirl is avoiding me, or she's at least picking the PBDs over me. Either way, that's just fucking fantastic. Not.

10:48
Piss time.

10:49
WomanRepellant is here. He owes me money.

10:55
Time for another BBC thingy (274).

11:20
Teri thinks that I should have done what MixedSignalGirl asked me to do. I could not disagree more.

11:35
Eric and Teri are leaving.

11:36
Diet Coke time.

11:37
Hey! ActualGeorge is here!

Then I went to White Castle (and ended my Saltine diet) and then I came home.

I like storms. I really do. I've been fascinated with them since I was about four years old.

Right now, there is lightning and thunder, and I'm freaking out a little.

The thunder - it just isn't normal thunder. I mean, it's not one of the two normal kinds of thunder. It's not the kind that's a loud bang indicating a nearby lightning flash. And it's not the long drawn-out rumble associated with a distant flash.

It's something else.

Something strange.

Something a little scary.

It's kind of like a machine gun. A series of very loud noises spaced impossibly close together. It's definitely not the result of hundreds of lightning strikes all occurring in a row. It's one sound, one sound that lasts maybe five seconds or so, but a sound that's almost interrupted ten times a second.

You know what it sounds like?

A giant zipper.

An incredibly huge and incredibly loud zipper, being pulled across the sky.

I wonder, if I were to look out my office window right now, would I see God's wang?

I don't think I want to look. I mean, I'm pretty sure I can't compete with that thing.

They're right at the tip of my brain, these ideas and thoughts, but they'll go no further than that. It's like there's a disconnect between my brain and my fingers.

Move me away from my keyboard, away from pen and paper, and I'm a fucking fountain of creativity. But now, now all I've got are snippets.

---

I think I'm worrying too much about what I write these days. Too many people that know me are reading this thing. If I ever disappear from here, it will be for that reason, and I'll probably be somewhere nearby.

---

Every Thursday night I decide that I'm not going out over the weekend. Every Friday and Saturday night I go out. I don't know if this reflects too much apathy or too little determination. All I know for sure is that most nights I come home in a worse mood than I was in before I left my house.

---

It's coming up on a year since that meteoric near-miss that left me trembling like a rabbit during hunting season. I still tremble. I'm doing it right now. Sometimes I remember what it was like to feel safe, but that memory is like a hazy dream that I'm not sure I ever really had.

---

It would probably do me some good if I would allow myself to get pissed at certain people, but I don't expect it to happen anytime soon. It's just a lot easier to get pissed at myself. Plus, I'm used to that.

---

People that know the situation should also remember that I didn't start it. It was all her idea to act on what was happening. I would have been perfectly content to let it end before it ever started. I had enough drama in my life already.

---

It pisses me off that the thing that opened my heart to the possibility of happiness is the same thing that stands in the way of my finding it. Some would probably call this irony, but I have harsher words for it.

---

One of these years I should think about getting my truck back home. It's been in the parking lot at work since Monday evening. I wonder if everybody thinks I'm all gung-ho now. Go team!

---

I would make a terrible evil genius. For two reasons.

---

I have a date for Sunday. People will probably think we're staging a remake of Beauty and the Beast. I sure hope nobody expects me to sing.

---

I could do these snippets all night, but I won't. You can thank me later.

I was just now going to write that I saw SassyGirl at Rich O's after work, and that I had an NABC Artemsia (120). Then I was going to write that I gave SassyGirl a ride home and we talked and it was nice. I was probably going to write that I had a Blue Moon (270) at SassyGirl's house and that I got to pet her cat. I probably wasn't going to mention that SassyBoy was at Rich O's too, even though I should mention it because nobody had seen him in months.

Then, I think I was going to elaborate on how nice it was to see SassyGirl, especially to be able to spend time with just the two of us. If I'd written that, then I'd also have felt compelled to write that I have absolutely nothing against JauntyGirl at all (she's really nice and cool) but sometimes I just want to see my friends without their significant others there. I'd have written something about how I'm always a third wheel in those situations. Then, I might have started to allude to other friends that I rarely (or never) see without their significant others, but then I'd have thought about it, and decided against it because, you know, sometimes you just have to take what you can get and stop being such a baby.

Once I'd written about my day, I was going to struggle for quite a while about another topic that's been on my mind. I would have had this long drawn-out internal debate over whether or not I should even mention it at all. I think this would have been a tough decision, because it would certainly make for interesting writing, but it would also open up a big can of worms that would probably be best left closed. In the end, I was going to decide that it just wasn't worth the trouble.

In fact, I ended up deciding that writing about anything at all would require more effort than it was worth, so I ditched the whole plan and just went and watched some TV.

I've had such a bad few days. I'm not really sure that I can describe it, or if I even want to, or if I should.

It takes such a small push, to tip me away from sadness and into something better. The tiniest of efforts can make me human again, for a while at least. But it's that tiniest bit of effort that still seems to be too much to ask for. Or hope for. Or expect.

I'm so out of balance, on this imaginary scale of emotion I keep in my head. I used to be centered. Content was the word I used. Things would happen or not happen, and I'd swing to sadness or happiness for a while, but then I'd always spring back to the center.

I guess my center has shifted, because content is no longer the place where I come to rest. Content takes imagination and willpower that I no longer possess. Content is a goal I now seem to attain only with help from other people.

This is a bad thing, of course. Because, as a general rule, other people cannot be counted on.

To have my own mood hinge on, for example, another person's ability to reply to a text message - this is beyond ludicrous and I know it. I know it and yet there it is. And here I am. Trying not to feel insulted and isolated. Trying not to see that hint that I'm just positive is there.

Trying to will myself back to center, but all the while knowing that I'll need that push.

This goes much deeper than I'd dared to imagine.

It wasn't the work of just one practical joker, it was a collaborative effort spanning uncountable miles and untold months.

I found my keys.

I found them almost where I'd left them.

I drove my truck back to work tonight. My non-air-conditioning-having truck. Yes, it was hot. Yes, I roasted. I drove back to work and I talked to the guard about whether there was a lost and found box I could rummage through. He said that there was, over in the admin building. He'd buzz me in. I said that I wanted to check my cubicle and my laptop case one more time.

So I went back to my cubicle and pretty much turned it inside-out.

No keys.

But I'd already known that. I had a distinct memory of dropping my keys into my laptop case in the morning. Either they were still there, or they'd somehow fallen out, or someone had taken them.

I opened every pocket in that bag. I emptied out every paper and pen and loose coin from that bag. I picked that bag up and I turned it upside-down and I shook it.

No keys.

I reached my hand deep inside the bag, and my hand somehow found a pocket that I hadn't known was there. A deep pocket. So deep, in fact, that my arm wasn't long enough to let me probe its depths. So I placed the bag on the floor, and I climbed inside. There, I found the entrance to, I dunno, another universe is the only way I can describe it. A separate time and place, with neither light nor sound nor texture. Only emptiness. Nothingness.

I steeled myself, then I ventured inside ever further, and then I lost all connection with time and place and even self.

I drifted through that emptiness for what might have been a few seconds or what might have been a million years. I drifted through the darkness until I saw something. The faintest glimmer. The kind of glimmer that only small shiny metal things can make. By sheer force of will, I steered my drifting body toward the source of the glimmer, and then, after another few seconds or another million years, I heard a clink. The kind of clink that only small shiny metal things can make.

I'd found my keys.

Somehow, maybe through luck, or maybe because that dark and silent and empty place knew that I didn't belong there and forced me out, I made my way back into my universe, into my cubicle. Standing there and pondering the journey I'd just made, I was suddenly struck as to just how deep this conspiracy went.

It wasn't one person hiding my keys on a lark. It was a planned thing. That laptop bag is several years old, made God only knows where, yet that portal waited inside it until today. Someone, some evil genius, designed that bag with today in mind. To make me feel like a dumbass, someone went to an awful lot of trouble. I can't even begin to imagine the kind of planning and patience this took. I know that I could never pull it off.

Whoever it was that did this, that set this up, I applaud them.

Like I said before, Ha ha. That's a good one.