After I left the bar last night I went up to listen to some karaoke. My uncle Wayne was there, as was my aunt Carol. The place was pretty dead otherwise.

At one point I remembered that National Treasure was out on DVD so I drove back to New Albany to pick up a copy at Walmart then I went to White Castle.

I guess Derby eve is some kind of cruising holiday or something. In Louisville I gather that this means jamming the streets and getting arrested, but in New Albany it means that everybody goes to White Castle and stands around in the parking lot.

It was pretty cool to drive my Monte Carlo in and park it among all those ricers. Nice to remind them what a real car looks like.

Walked into White Castle and, lo and behold, MixedSignalGirl was standing in line with one of her friends. We hadn't seen each other or even talked since things disintegrated back in February. I lied and told her I was doing fine, she lied and told me she was looking for a job. It was just like old times except that we didn't go home together.

Once I did get home I called her up and apologized if I'd seemed a little standoffish. We talked for a while and ended up agreeing that going our separate ways was the right thing to do. Between my baggage and her hangups it was just too much work.

She'd read here about LaptopGirl visiting but she thankfully dropped the subject when I told her I really didn't want to talk about it. I think she always knew she was competing with that ghost - even though I always denied it.

So I guess it was a nice way to end the night. I don't feel nearly as bad about her as I did when we broke up. Partly because I can tell she's doing fine, and partly because I now know for sure why I was not able to provide what she was looking for.

I only watched about half of my movie before I fell asleep on the couch.

I dreamed that the UPS guy had dropped off a package all the way out in the middle of my yard, and I had to go get it while I was naked. I don't know why I didn't stop to put clothes on first. I should have at least covered up my morning erection.

I bet some people would have a hard time cramming two day's worth of stuff into a 'blog entry.

For me it's easy: slept, worked, drank, watched TV, repeat.

You want more information? Fine.

On Thursday I was sitting at home waiting for Survivor to get tivoed when I realized that I only had a half-day of work Friday. This meant that I could risk going out to Rich O's for a bit, so that's what I did.

I had myself some Newcastles and sat in the living room area listening to these people around me argue about Star Wars and The Lord of the Ring trilogy. It was kind of nice to know for sure that I was by far the coolest person in that area of the bar. I usually suspect that it's the case but the geek squad there provided definite proof.

Oh yeah, I also apologized to ExBartender for doubting his ability to keep his mouth shut about things discussed last weekend. My estimation of him has certainly gone up a notch.

Friday night Rich O's was a lot more crowded, but there was a place next to this cute girl on the loveseat so I sat there and waited for her to stand up so I could check her out.

My first beer last night was a Fantome Saison. I've had this before and liked it. It tasted a lot more sour than I remember, but in a good way, so I had another.

It's been a while since I've actually had anything new to drink. For my next beer I had one of these:

Founders Red Rye

(draft) The first sip of this was just disgusting, but I vowed to drink a couple of inches to give it a fair test. At about halfway through the pint I decide I sorta liked it. By the end of the pint I wanted another one. An odd-tasting beer that just grew on me. Not sure I can describe the taste.

Once CuteGirl and her posse left (waiting for her to stand was worth the wait) PorterBob and some other PBDs whose names I don't know came and sat with me. We talked about various fluff, interrupted by the occasional head turns while WorldsHottestGirl or DooRagGirl would walk by.

WorldsHottestGirl is actually becoming a bit of a regular at Rich O's. I hope the air conditioning is in good working order or it may be a long hot Summer in there.

My last beer of the night was a Newcastle.

Guys engaging in raunchy locker room talk about their women friends.

Cleaned out some old pictures from my phone this morning.

With this one I was trying to capture how green the sky was after a storm. My grass, which obviously needed mowing, was practically glowing. The camera did not do justice to the green I was seeing.

This is some of the landscaping at work. I'd love to know what these bushes are and get some around my house.

A few days ago I took my phone out of its holster and saw that it was in camera mode and that it had taken this picture. I have no idea what this is a picture of, but I thought it looked pretty cool.

Just a quick follow-up to this old entry about my upcoming Las Vegas trip.

Got an e-mail this morning from the people holding the conference, and they indicated that they have secured a room for me on the 14th. This is the exact opposite of what I was told early last month.

So I called Mandalay Bay and had them double and triple check. I do indeed have a room reserved for arrival on the 14th and checkout on the 17th.

I called the Luxor and cancelled my reservation for the 14th, stressing that my reservation for the 17th through the 20th was still valid.

So now I only have to pack my shit and change hotels once during my trip.

I hate my phone.

I think the hate started back in February. I'd been carrying the damn thing everywhere I went for months, cursing myself for my inability to risk missing a call from her. One night I accidentally left the phone in the basement when I went to bed.

The next morning I saw that I'd missed an incoming message.

I'd lugged that damn thing around for at least a month since the last text message, and now I had nothing to show for it but a stupid blinking red light.

Blink blink. Ha ha. Blink blink. You suck. Blink blink. You lose.

I sent off a response, apologizing for missing the message, then got nothing for another month. Though you can be sure that my phone never left my side again, I began to loathe it and what it stood for. It became a little silver monument to my aloneness, a testimony to my fears and failures.

There was a day, not too long ago, when I really thought my phone would ring. I'd asked for a favor. For a chance to say goodbye before she left again. I was sure that it wasn't too much to ask for. I was sure that she'd call.

When my phone finally rang, late in the afternoon, my heart leapt and my breathing stopped. I snatched my phone up and looked at the screen.

It was my cousin Mike.

I may never forgive him for calling me on that particular day, but I know that the phone is my true enemy.

These days my phone plays a different kind of game with me. These days it rings a lot. My friends call. My sisters call. I don't know if people are checking up on me or what. I did endure a pretty hard blow after all.

These days when my phone rings, my heart leaps, and my breathing stops, and I snatch up the phone, and I look at the screen.

TrainGirl calling from her new home.

My sister telling me about her new deck.

CoffeeDude calling from Rich O's.

MisunderstoodGirl calling me all drunk.

VigilanteGirl discussing plans for the night.

These days, when my phone rings, I don't get excited. These days, when my phone rings, it scares the shit out of me. Every time I move to look at that screen I know I'm not ready for what could be displayed there. I seriously doubt that I'll ever be ready.

My phone knows this too. It knows that every time it rings, I'll be afraid.

Afraid of what I'll hear, but mostly afraid of what I'll say.

And afraid that the progress I've made over the past couple of weeks, the good mood that inexplicably continues to permeate my being even as I write this entry, that it all will be shattered the instant I see her name on the screen and realize that I've just been fooling myself once again.

The point I wanted to make here is that when you call me the reason that I sound grouchy isn't because of you. It's because I'm irritated with my stupid phone playing this mind game with me and getting me all worked up over nothing.

Okay, go here and read the opening sentence.

Done? Good. Now read the second and third full paragraphs.

Done? Okay.

I wish I could express what I've been going through half as well as this lady can.

(update: Okay, after quite a few private messages, and a bit of reading, I'll grudgingly admit that some of my stuff has been decent. Thanks to those of you that gave me encouragement.

That first sentence really did grab me though.)

Back in the olden days, after the dinosaurs died off, but before video games, I was a toddler.

One of the toys I had was this little play workbench where you had all these differently shaped holes and matching pegs. The idea was to put the pegs into the holes with the matching shape.

With me so far?

Doing it correctly required almost zero effort, and it got very boring very quickly.

So I remember trying to cheat. Trying to fit the star-shaped peg into the oval hole, or whatever.

It never worked, but I had more fun trying and failing than I ever had doing it correctly.

Remember, I was a toddler. It didn't take much to amuse me.

What got me thinking about that old toy was an e-mail conversation I had with one of my readers the other day.

We were talking about soulmates and perfect matches and bullshit like that, and she told me she felt like her heart was a round hole in a world full of square pegs.

Whoa.

That's pretty deep right there.

Tonight, I missed her.

I thought for a while that my good mood was coming to an end, but then I realized that the reason I missed her was that I wanted to share my continuing good mood with her. Never mind how impossible that would be. Kind of like a snowflake wanting to spend a day at the beach with a magnifying glass.

VigilanteGirl got her hair cut. I guess that her boss and I are the only ones who noticed. Bonus points for me!

Today is MisunderstoodGirl's birthday, so I broke a long-standing tradition by going out on a Tuesday night. I also broke a recent vow by going to this Mac & Cheese bar to help her ring in her new year.

To drink, I had a couple of Newcastles. The first one came in a glass that was encrusted with at least 1/8 inch of frost. The second one I had the girl pour into the old glass.

In attendance tonight besides MisunderstoodGirl, RealTrainGirl, and me, were about a half-dozen people that I didn't (and still don't) know. One girl was fairly hot.

MisunderstoodGirl talked me into taking a sip of this Jager Bomb or some such. A sip is all it took for me to know that I wouldn't be finishing it. There's still just one person in the world that I'll drink a shot with, and she's in Washington state, and she's named Holly.

Hi Holly!

Anyway, I figure that since I'm to the point of feeling nostalgic it's about time for me to be shit upon again so I can go back to being irritated.

Now it's 11:30 and I know it'll take me another several hours to unwind enough to sleep. This phone sits here taunting me but I will control myself. There's nothing to say anyway.

(response to message)

A year and a half ago I complimented you.

Big mistake.

The compliment on your game was deserved, but I'm afraid that you may have read too much into it.

I'm not in love with you.

You are not allowed to suck my dick.

You know, every gay person I've talked to, male or female, has professed to being much happier once they finally came out of the closet.

I suggest that you do the same. I can tell that your secret is eating away at you. It doesn't have to. It's the year 2005, people are much more accepting now.

But honesty about your gender identification will only get you so far. I myself am straight, and there's nothing that you can do about it. You'll just have to settle for a lesser man.

So, climb to the top of the Space Needle and shout out I LOVE BIG GIANT COCKS for all the world to hear. There's somebody out there willing to let you slobber greedily at his genitals.

That somebody is just not me.

Was this what you meant when you complained that I never wrote about you?