I see that, as of this writing, I'm number 6 (out of 2,220,000) in the google results for the search term drunken rambling.

On the left, my lovely self, trying to make SassyGirl regret taking my picture.

On the right, the DaveFest t-shirt design.

Uncanny, isn't it?

I could have done without the jowls, but I've got my likeness on a t-shirt, and that's more than I ever thought would happen to little old me.

If you don't know what all this is about, you can go here and read Roger's explanation.

I'm going to be all famous and shit.

T-shirts will be available over the Internet to any of my readers that have nothing else to wear. When I find out pricing I'll post it. I'll pay for shipping on Internet orders.

If you have GIF animations disabled, then this won't make much sense.

I had too much invested.

I could afford to lose one, and I could afford to lose the other.

Both to lose both was just too much.

Fuck, I miss her.

Roll your eyes all you want.

It won't change a thing.

They keep saying on the radio how they're hopeful that Barbaro can have a career as a stallion.

Having held that job for a while, I can say that it's not all it's advertised to be. And I can't imagine that mares are much less demanding than human women.

Also, wouldn't the offspring of a horse that shatters its leg in three places, simply because it was running, be worth about the same as, I dunno, something else that's obviously useless?

I'm just saying.

There are maybe three people on Earth that can hurt my feelings.

I'm one, and neither of the others are you.

So you can keep playing your little game if you want, but only if you really enjoy making an ass out of yourself.

Just trying to keep this old engine running for a little while longer, that's all.

If it sputters and stalls, I'm afraid that I'll never get it started again.

I hate that commercial.

You know, the one where that chick asks about windows that her uncle bought five years ago for $189. She wants to know how much they are now, and she's told that they're still $189.

She splashes her panties she's so excited.

What a fucking stupid bitch.

What she doesn't seem to realize is that (a) her uncle got ripped off, and (b) she's about to get ripped off.

If the fucking things were so overpriced five years ago that they're still the same price, then why does she find it reasonable to assume that said price is now all of a sudden a good one?

It's like they told her, "Sure we robbed people for years, but you're just in time for this new honest-price thing we're trying. It's your lucky day!"

I hate her. I hope she buys a zillion of the damn windows and then has no money left for crack and has to suck the assholes of homeless people just to get something to eat and she has to blow old men on holiday from the old folk's home for spare change so she can buy more crack every six months or so.

I need times like this.

Because the cold hard fact is that, no matter how much I protest, I am getting better.

These days, these days I have to force myself to be sad. I have to invent elaborate lies. Lies which I then allow myself to believe because I know that when those lies evaporate my mood will plummet.

I do this because I need proof. Proof that it was all real. Proof that it's still real because I know that as soon as I stop believing in it - it will cease to exist.

Fuck that, I say.

Because as soon as this stops being real, that's when I'll know that I've truly wasted so much of my time, so much of myself, for nothing.

It was not nothing.

It is not nothing.

Read my words. Look into my eyes.

All the proof you need is there.

This entry brought to you by Rogue Chocolate Stout:

So I'm clearly losing my grip on reality here.

Not that it was ever that tight to begin with, but I can feel it slipping away from me a lot more lately.

Eventually it will slip away completely, fall to the ground and shatter at my feet. Probably cut me and give me tetanus in the process.

I have such a convenient memory. Such a nice fancy pair of rose-colored glasses. Such a fucking idiotic way of seeing only what I want to see and completely ignoring anything that doesn't fit into these delusions that I use instead of hope.

I should be dead, you know. For a while I thought that the fact that I'm still alive might be a sign that I'm actually getting better. That maybe this long dark Winter was coming to an end.

Hell, I've even managed to convince myself, for short periods of time, that it was all nothing more than overblown hysteria.

But then I look at this picture that I've found. To be fair, the resemblance is fucking uncanny. Her own mother would look at this picture and smile because her daughter looks so pretty in it.

Problem is, it's not her daughter.

It's nobody at all. Just a pretty girl. Just a pretty brunette with glasses who would completely freak out if she knew that, right now, I'm looking at her picture and my eyes are filled with tears.

It's not her I'm looking at. It's not her I see. I'm looking at a fake. An imposter who from that angle, under that lighting, with her expression just that way, coincidentally happens to look like someone else.

But do I care that she's a fraud? Fuck no. My mind won't accept the truth enough for me to care.

That picture is the best link I have to a past that never really existed. To a future that will never happen. I guess it's fitting that it's a fake.

Besides, Beggars can't be choosers, right?