(Part two)

Up to this point, we'd all still been sitting in the red room, but maintaining watchful eyes for any other seats to open up. I still didn't know who was going to show up, and the red room - even with both tables - will hold about ten people and that's it.

Once a couple of strangers (ha ha, take that, FutureDude!) left the island we moved there and took advantage of the more compact grouping to bullshit about various fluff.

I showed everyone my new rock.

My next beer was a yummy Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (510), which has I guess switched to twelve-ounce bottles for now. I actually had two more of these (534).

At one point my friend Eric came in. I hadn't seen him in like a million years. His wife had to stay home with a sick child, so Eric ended up completing the attendee list. So, to review:

1. My lovely self


2. SpoonsGirl


3. SpoonsGirl's husband SirTalksALot


4. My sister Dina


5. Dina's Fiance Kenny


6. My oldest friend Eric

1. MusicalHippyDude


2. GlassesGirl


3. HotRedHead


4. This other hot girl that turned out to have the worst taste in ex-husbands I've ever seen

1. HatGirl


2. LuckyFucker


3. SassyGirl


4. SassyBoy


5. TacoBell


6. SpikeBoy


7. My cousin Jeff


8. DooRagGirl

Eventually, as nights tend to do, this one wound down. Eventually it was just me and Eric. I had myself a half-pint of Guinness (1092). We were joined, at various intervals, by NoNicknameDude and ElPresidente and FirstLady, though they were there for their own reasons - not for my pre-birthday thingy.

Several people wanted to go over to Jack's once Rich O's closed. Eric was one of those people, and because it's so rare to see Eric anymore I agreed to go as long as nobody tried to force me to drink shots.

(SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: There's still only one person one Earth that I'll do shots for, and her name is Holly, and she wasn't there last night. I miss Holly.)

So Eric and I and NoNicknameDude and HotRedHead all went over to Jack's. I had a couple of Diet Cokes, and we played a few games of pool. We ended up closing the place down. I'd planned on going to White Castle but the temperature was in the single digits so I came straight home instead.

One of the more unpleasant, but not at all unexpected, repercussions of having friends and family gather at Rich O's for an occasion like last night's pre-birthday thingy is that I'm roped into being the beer guru for the evening. At least for those VPs in the group that are, as Roger would say, flavor-impaired.

Of course, I'm the logical choice for this assignment, but that doesn't mean that I have to enjoy it.

So, first things first. DooRagGirl left me a voicemail at about 6:00, suggesting that I call Rich O's and tell them how many people I was expecting and ask them to reserve some seating for me. I didn't do that because (a) I didn't know how many people would be there, and (b) To ask for reserved seats, in last-minute fashion, for a Saturday night, in that ever-shrinking smoking section, well it's just not something I'd do. I may be evil, but I'm not an asshole.

I arrived at about 7:30, sporting my new WTF? t-shirt that RockGirl had included in my birthday package. It did shrink quite nicely, RockGirl. Anyway, the only people from my group there were SpoonsGirl and her husband, who were sitting in the red room. I was immediately asked to choose a beer for SpoonsGirl that was not bitter, or hoppy, are those the same thing?

Having my priorities in order, I went up to the end of the bar to order myself a beer first. ActualGeorge was sitting there, and we talked for a bit. I mentioned that it was my pre-birthday thingy, and that there were an awful lot of strangers clogging up the living room area. This is my standard gripe lately, as you all probably know, but for whatever reason FutureDude decided to give me shit about it. He told me that those people were there all the time, and that it pissed him off when I called people strangers. Gee, I wonder how he'd have felt if I'd called them assholes or fuckers like I usually do. My definition of a stranger is a pretty basic one: If I've never seen them before in my life, then guess what? They're strangers.

(SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: Also, if you crowd into the living room area, and you pile several hundred coats onto the throne, thereby eliminating that seat from the already small number of seats in the place - if, in other words, you don't have enough people to completely take over the area so you use coats to prevent anyone from sitting there and breaking the flow of your little circle-jerk or whatever you're doing - then you most definitely deserve to be called something worse than strangers.)

So, that was just great, FutureDude was on the rag, and I'd managed to piss him off, and I still hadn't even ordered my beer.

Still having my priorities in order, I took care of the biggest problem first. I ordered myself a t Smisje Mustard Ale (54).

By talking to SpoonsGirl and FutureDude, I gathered that she had already asked for a sample of almost everything Rich O's had on tap, and that she was probably about to send FutureDude out to the local liquor store to pick up more stuff to sample, when I came in.

Okay, so the problem wasn't me. Or it wasn't all me. SpoonsGirl was sampling them to death. I pitched a couple of proposals to her - she had already sampled and dismissed them. So I had her try some of my mustard ale and she liked it enough to order her own glass. So, yay! One down.

My sister Dina and her fiancé came in at about this time, and I was once again pressed into service. Dina didn't want to like anything either, but she was eventually, no thanks to me, able to find Lindemann's Peach tolerable enough to drink.

(SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: When trying a new beer, it is sometimes necessary to do more than simply dip your tongue into it. Beer is meant to be experienced, from the aroma through the flavor to the finish. And sometimes it takes more than one drink before the full experience can be appreciated. To dismiss a fine beer like Bell's Kalamazoo Stout after only a token sip, well it just seems wrong to me.)

My next beer was what was left of Dina's Kalamazoo Stout (354).

(To be continued)

I don't know why the picture turned out so small. I guess the guy that took the picture messed something up.

Got out of the shower to the sound of my ringing phone.

It was MisunderstoodGirl!

Yay!

I haven't talked to her since forever. She was sitting at Rich O's talking to a couple of PBDs, and they told her that they were there for my pre-birthday thingy. She won't be able to stay, but she wanted to call and wish me a happy birthday. That was sweet.

Anyway, besides the coolness of hearing from MisunderstoodGirl, there was another thing I got out of that phone call.

There are people that are there already. At 6:00.

I won't get there until after 7:00 myself, so they'll just have to wait.

The other, more general thing I got out of that phone call is kinda scary.

There are going to be people there. To see me.

I used to, back when I was playing pool publicly, I used to enjoy being the center of attention. Now, not so much. Or not at all.

Plus, I've got a mild case of surprisaphobia going on.

I told RockGirl that I should just stay home, but she told me not to be a dork. So I'm of course going.

I'll just keep an eye on the exits, just in case.

It's snowing like a mother fucker right now.

Do mother fuckers really snow?

What am I, a piece of meat?

The bar was pretty crowded last night, but there was an opening at the left end of the bar. I sat and ordered one of those mustard beers that I like so much (44). There was a chick standing at the end of the bar smoking a cigarette, and she kept poking her head around the wall and looking at me.

So after about five minutes of this, the girl stepped two feet to her right, which put her right next to me, and just stared. After a few seconds, which to me seemed more like a million years, she asked me if I was okay.

I told her I was just ducky, and asked her why she wanted to know.

She said that I looked like I was deep in thought.

I told her that I'd be sure and stop that.

We told each other our names, and she began rubbing my arm while we talked for a few more minutes.

When she left to go rejoin her friends in the front area, she told me that it was nice to meet me.

That's what she thinks.

Weird.

The annoying part was that she was standing like a foot away from me, so all I could see of her was her face. She had a pretty face, but I couldn't check out the rest of her without being obvious about it.

Anyway.

I spent the next hour or so just sitting at the bar. I like sitting there sometimes. With my back to crowd, I can let my imagination out to play for a bit, and travel back to a time when Rich O's was a much happier place for me. To a time when she was there. It's a nice feeling.

WomanRepellant came in and took the seat next to me, and we talked for a bit.

I had a Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (315).

After a half-hour or so, I noticed that there were about twenty people completely surrounding me. They were all talking to WomanRepellant. I don't like being closed in, so I picked up my shit and moved over to the throne.

Then, some people came and sat around me and started yakking, so I picked up my shit and went and sat at the island.

I had another Bell's (335), and eventually made my way back to the throne where I talked for a bit with FutureDude and ExBartender.

Came home a little before midnight and shot pool for a while.

I got a PM today, basically telling me that whoever it was liked me better when I'd been drinking because, and I'll go ahead and quote here, "You write much more good stuff when you have dranked alot and your drunk."

Okay, so I'll be a nice guy and ignore the obvious problems with this statement, and I'll instead focus on the underlying message.

Such as it is.

You, whoever you are, you are right, for the most part. I do write better when I've been drinking. I know this, and anyone that's been reading me for any length of time knows this. When I've been drinking, words flow out of me much more easily. When I've been drinking, my inhibitions are either lessened or completely neutered. When I've been drinking, what I write is always a lot closer to what I want to write than it would be otherwise.

So, I have no problem with anyone thinking that I write better when I've been drinking. Hell, I agree with them when they say that.

What I have a problem with, what I take slight umbrage with, what I simply must disagree with, is that I write better when I'm drunk.

The problem I have is this: I've never written a single word here when I was drunk.

The reason for this is simple. I don't get drunk. I am waaaaaaaay too much of a lightweight to ever get drunk, and on those very very rare occasions that I do drink too much, I find myself too busy trying to cope with the swirling and spinning world around me to even consider writing anything.

So there.

And thanks for reading.

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!

This entry brought to you by:

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.