Just in case this was legit, though I really doubt that it was:

---

(Now the subject changes completely.)

Anyway, tonight I was supposed to go out to the BBC and help usher CanadianGirl out from Louisville. She's moving to Omaha, one of my all-time favorite places, and a bunch of people from work were supposed to meet there tonight to get her drunk and maybe talk her into dancing on the bar or something equally embarrassing.

Well I did make the longish drive out to Shelbyville Road, and I did (eventually) find my way to the BBC brewpub. What I didn't do was stay there for more than about five minutes.

I looked around for anyone I knew and didn't see anyone, so I left. I probably could have done a more thorough search, but there was this asswipe playing a guitar and if there's one thing I really wasn't in the mood for tonight it was live music.

So I left Louisville's East end and went to Rich O's.

The place was really crowded, and I ended up sitting at the bar all night. All I had to drink were a couple pints of Smithwick's and then I came home. I'm pretty fucking tired still from last night's supernap and the resulting sleep deprivation.

So now my plan is to go to sleep and get up before 10:00 so I can buy Kelly Clarkson tickets.

This week's Pisces horoscope from Free Will Astrology:

I invite you to try an exercise in creative pretending. Ready? In all the ways you can imagine, stop thinking that you're outside, and instead visualize yourself as inside. In other words, suppress your tendency to fantasize that the good stuff is out of reach and hard to get. Picture yourself as being right in the midst of it. End your sense of exile and come all the way in to the heart of every matter. If you do this meditation ten minutes a day for the next seven days, by this time next week the world will already be changing to match the vision you've been building.

Okay, so what Captain Tofu is basically saying here is that if I imagine good shit happening then good shit will happen.

The power of positive thinking, right?

What I want to know is: What about those times when your own internal definition of what constitutes "good shit" changes every 10 minutes?

If I fucking knew what I wanted, and if I could fucking hold on to that desire for any length of time, then maybe this mumbo jumbo bullshit would be worth a try. But as things stand, I'd hate to use my mental powers to veer the cosmos towards a particular goal only to realize 10 minutes later that it's no longer what I want at all, and that the cosmos has too much inertia to allow me to just keep steering it around.

Okay, I'm at my childhood home except it's present day and it's somehow my house now. My mom and my sister Dina and I are discussing arrangements to take care of my cats because I'm going somewhere for work or something.

There are somebody's kids running around interrupting that they don't like the front door - they want to come in another door while I'm gone. I try to explain that only some of the doors are designated as "entry doors" by my alarm system and any other doors being opened cause the alarm to go off immediately. The problem is that I cannot remember which doors, besides the front one, are designated as entry doors.

While I'm trying to recall my security schematics Dina is harping on and on about something coming up on TV that needs to be tivoed. She doesn't remember which channel for sure and I say that I think it's channel 25. She reads something that indicates that 25 is the wrong channel. This is apparently the closest that Dina's ever come to proving me wrong about anything in about a gazillion years so she starts gloating and rubbing it in. She even called me "Dumbass McStupid" at one point.

To get away from the gloating, and the screaming kids, I decide to take off for Lanesville. I start walking towards my grandmother's old house because for some reason that's where my truck is parked. As I leave my house I ponder the fact that there's a pretty nice deck and wheelchair ramp in front now.

Dina tries to follow me so she can keep taunting me, but I shuffle my feet on the driveway and pretend that it makes so much noise that I can't hear her and, eventually, I leave her behind.

Now, once I get to my grandmother's old house I for some reason decide to take my grandfather's old Plymouth something or other instead of my truck. The car's a complete piece of shit but I've been driving it every now and then. With my grandfather dead I figure that somebody should make use of the car. It might be a piece of shit, but it's a classic piece of shit.

One of the many things wrong with this car is that it's got baloney rinds for tires so it can't make it out of the driveway. The tires just spin in the loose gravel and walnut husks. While I'm trying to get enough speed built up to get out of the driveway my uncle Carl pulls up and I remember that he's been driving the car as well, and he kind of thinks of it as his own. I manage to put the car back into its parking place which is tough because the car has no brakes either.

What Carl is doing there is having somebody install this bright red girder about 15 feet up between two telephone poles. One of the guys has a very large hand tool that seems especially designed for this purpose - it allowed him to tighten the bolts at both ends of the girder at the same time.

My uncle Ron is there and he starts complaining about the cost of putting the giant red girder between the telephone poles, but Carl assures Ron that he'll take care of the costs himself.

So I get in my truck and turn right out of the driveway. I realize that I'm very thirsty and decide to stop at Polly's for a soda. There's something wrong with my headlights and while I'm adjusting them I see that the people who own Polly's have cut down all of their trees. This, plus fiddling with my lights, manages to distract me enough that I drive through Paul and Donna's front yard to get to Polly's.

I pull into a parking spot and Paul comes running out. He's just livid that somebody just drove though his yard, and he's beyond livid when he sees that it was me. This guy has spent millions of dollars putting up fences, signs, and sniper towers to keep Polly's customers off his property and then I, who should know better, drive my fucking truck across his front yard.

I don't blame Paul for being so angry. He tells me to leave and not come back until next Summer. I think that I'm lucky he didn't ban me for life. I try to explain that it was just an accident, but Paul is in such a rage of screaming and flailing about that I don't think he's even listening to me. I become afraid that Paul's going to have a heart attack or something he's so mad. Donna comes running out of the store to see what's wrong and Paul manages to sputter out what I've done. I tell Donna one last time that it was an accident and that I hope Paul calms down, then I leave.

As I'm leaving Polly's lot, I notice that it's closed and somebody has busted all of the windows out of the front like they're doing a massive remodeling project or something.

Then I wake up.

I read today in LEO that Kelly Clarkson is coming to Louisville!

VigilanteGirl and I are soooo going! I was actually surprised to find that she's a Kelly fan, but I'm sure she was more surprised to hear about how much I love Kelly. I think she had me pegged as more of a Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra fan.

Of course, tickets don't go on sale until Saturday, so I really need to be on the ball to make sure I buy two tickets at 10:00 AM before they sell out.

Also, the concert itself isn't until August 24th, and all sorts of things could happen between now and then, but for now I'm as excited as shit!

Does shit really get excited?

Just changed the beer page from a static page to a dynamically-generated one. Visitors shouldn't see any difference, but this will make it much easier for me to add new entries when I'm travelling.

I need to decide if I'm going to be concerned with the order of the entries. For now they're mostly alphabetical, but any new ones I add will just get stuck at the top.

If I decide that the order of the entries is actually important to me then I've got more work to do, and I'm not really sure where to begin.

(update: Okay, I've figured out how to keep the listing alphabetized. The beer page is actually a separate 'blog, specifically it's a single-page archive for all entries in a new "beer" 'blog.

Because this particular archive page doesn't include the date of the posting, I decided to use that posting date for sort order.

So what I did was go back and change the date on all of the entries to match their alphabetical order. I left plenty of blank dates between entries so that any new entries can just be added with the proper date to put it in its proper alphabetical place. Pretty snazzy.)

(response to message)

Ha ha, very funny.

While I seriously doubt that you are who you pretend to be, you do actually make a valid point.

I just might be a dumbass. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that I probably am a dumbass.

But not for the reasons that you imply.

The simple fact that so much time has passed pretty much has to invalidate that theory.

Nope, if I'm indeed a dumbass, it's for reasons that you and others of your ilk just don't seem to understand. Reasons that, were you to actually be who you're pretending to be, you'd almost certainly get. Maybe not like, but at least get.

If I'm a dumbass, at least I mean well. There have been far stupider things, done for far less altruistic reasons, than what I'm doing now. Or not doing now. Whatever.

In the end I may very well be proven wrong. Perhaps someday I'll look back at the results of my (in)actions and just weep. Perhaps someday I'll realize just what it is that I've done, and I'll simply be unable to live with that knowledge, and I'll throw myself off a cliff or something.

Perhaps someday I'll see these holes in my awareness filled with facts instead of conjecture.

But for now I have to go with what I do know.

And what I do know, right here, right now, is that I'm taking the only course of action available to me that keeps the vast bulk of the pain directed inward. Where it should be. Back towards the source.

And, if you happen to be who you pretend to be, that was a pretty callous and mean-spirited thing to say. But I forgive you.

That's what friends do after all.

Well, not really. But when I saw all of the rice in the parking lot at my old high school Sunday I did get a little sad for the future.

My niece Bethany graduated Sunday. This strikes me as odd because she's only eight or nine as far as I'm concerned. And she'll stay that way dammit!

That's her looking at the camera.

The graduation festivities were, as I pretty much expected, quite boring except for those brief seconds when (a) Bethany came in with all the other Seniors, (b) Bethany got her diploma, and (c) Some particularly hot girl passed by.

That last point does not mean that I'm a pervert. It means that I'm a dirty old man.

Huge difference. Dirty old men have the same fantasies that men throughout time have had. Perverts risk getting sent to Federal Pound Me In The Ass prison.

So the nice thing about attending a high school graduation is this: If they're graduating, it's a pretty damn safe bet that they're 18 years old and therefore not jailbait. This is important to me because I've often had a hard time deciding who is stare-worthy and who is just a cute kid.

Like every time I go to Polly's Freeze.

Bethany was the first of any of my sisters' kids to graduate. In two years Dina's son Cory will follow his sister into adulthood, then my sister Neisha's kids Devynne and Logan, then finally Dina's youngest son Gehrid.

By the time Gehrid graduates I expect I'll be too old to ogle the pretty girls.

Just seeing if anyone notices.

(update: Well that didn't take long. I've changed it back. If you don't know what I'm talking about, click here. Hard to tell I guess, but those are gorilla eyes. It's surprisingly hard to find a good picture of a gorilla looking straight at the camera.)

(I'm putting this in the travel category because I kind of felt like a tourist.)

Saturday night I was irritated. The girl at the Gas'N'Stuff had put me in a bad mood, and I never really got a chance to improve my mood because my fucking phone kept vibrating.

That's how my Saturday night went. Pleasant conversations at Rich O's interrupted every half-hour by MixedSignalGirl calling or texting me about how pissed she was at me for what happened in Las Vegas.

Because I'm such a selfish asshole, I didn't return any of the calls until this morning.

Because I'm not a complete selfish asshole, I called her right after I woke up.

To make a very long story short, we agreed to meet up at this place called Sully's for dinner so we could, once again, hash things out and, once again, decide that we are completely wrong for each other and/or our timing sucks.

LaptopGirl used to call this place Fourth Street Dive but I actually kind of like it. It reminds me a little bit of Fremont Street in Las Vegas. There are good bars and lots of neon. Pretty damn cool for Louisville if you ask me.

I arrived at Sully's about five minutes late, and had myself a Smithwick's. I'm really really starting to like this beer. It just goes down smooth. I feel like I could drink it all night.

I like the layout of this Sully's place. A long and narrow room with a bar running the length of one wall and tables and booths for eating scattered about. The entire wall opposite the bar was glass so we could see out into the street.

MixedSignalGirl arrived about a half-hour late, and I suppose I should say that if she was late because she was busy making herself up, then it was worth it. I've never seen her look so pretty.

So despite the near-frantic calls Saturday night, she decided tonight to completely ignore the burning issue of her being pissed and we proceeded to have a fairly standard date. I had a burger and fries that were very good and she had some chicken fingers and fries. We mostly just talked about how cool the bar and Fourth Street Live was, and how it'd be nice if they did something like it in New Albany.

Eventually our conversation became more serious and I'm not going to get into it here except to reiterate what I told her, more or less:

I'm very sorry that you were hurt. I've never meant to cause you any pain at all. I really didn't think you'd care. We broke up months ago, and you told me you were doing fine. I told you that I wasn't ready for a relationship, and that's still true. What happened in Las Vegas was a simple one night stand. I don't even have her number, and I don't expect to hear from her again. It was not about you, or because of you, or in spite of you. I wasn't about anyone. Just two people that happened to hit it off and decided to enjoy each other with no strings or baggage to worry about.

During all this I had myself another Smithwick's. MixedSignalGirl was drinking some foofoo thing that was green and brown.

Once we left Sully's we went briefly to the Red Star Saloon and then into the Hard Rock where I bought us t-shirts, then we went to this place called The Pub.

This was another very nice bar. They also had a pretty impressive draft beer selection. I had myself a four-beer sampler:

Whitbread English Ale

(draft) No head at all, but somehow managed to have very good lacing. A hint of caramel in the flavor. A slightly lagerish finish but not too fizzy. Not bad at all.

Young's Double Chocolate Stout

(draft) Good head, good lacing. Subtle chocolate aroma and more subtle chocolate flavor. Nothing else to distinguish it at all. It did kind of grow on me though.

Black Sheep Monty Python's Holy Grail

(draft) No head. No aroma, No flavor. A very dry and fizzy mouthfeel. Probably good for an upset stomach but little else.

Tetley's English Ale

(draft) Good lacing. No detectable aroma, flavor, or aftertaste. There was just a hint of bitterness that faded before swallowing was complete. Not bad, but very boring.

So the beer, while new to me, turned out to be pretty boring. I'd like to try the Young's again someday though. It was intriguing. This place had at least a half-dozen other beers that I've never seen on tap at Rich O's, but I think most of them were IPAs so I wasn't interested.

At The Pub I bought another t-shirt. The staff was all wearing shirts with the bar's logo on the front and different bits of English culture on the back:

• Bollocks!
• Abbey Road
• Another pint, love? (Something like that anyway)
• Piss off! (I really wanted this one)
• Wanker! (MixedSignalGirl made me get this one)

We ended up having a pretty good night together, getting along great. That was never our problem when we were together. Our problem was that at different times one or both of us would have our minds someplace else or with someone else. We were always just using each other as placeholders, as safe havens against the unknown, as crutches to help us get through the tough times.

Tonight, we said goodbye and once again went our separate ways. I hope I managed to smooth things over a little. I think I did. She's very sweet, and her feelings are important to me. It's just that, like I've said before, those things she sees in me are not meant for her. In the end, I have to be true to myself. I cannot lie my way through a relationship. It wouldn't be fair to either of us.

I will, however, admit that I've often caught myself imagining a deeper relationship with MixedSignalGirl. Hell, I caught myself doing it tonight. I see in her eyes something I haven't seen in many others - genuine affection. For me of all people. But I also see something else. My own eyes reflected within hers. That's what gives me pause and reminds me that there's a reason we're not together.

My own eyes remain focused a million miles away.

(I'm going to update this to say that there are real reasons that things would never work out for us. It's not all because I'm insane. We both know what those reasons are, and I'm not going to get into them here. Hell, I wouldn't have even written about tonight if she hadn't asked me to.)