"Watch this, CoffeeDude. I bet I can get that girl to come sit with us."

CoffeeDude took a look at the girl at the bar, then took a look at me, then took another look at the girl at the bar, and then gave a little chuckle. "Go for it." CoffeeDude was skeptical.

He was more skeptical when I began flailing my arms and calling out "Hey you!" trying to get her attention.

He was the skepticism king of the universe when, having failed to lure her gaze with my flailing and hey-youing, I wadded up a napkin and threw it at her head.

Hey, girls like that stuff, right?

Right?

Well my aerial bombardment did indeed get her attention, as I'd known it would, and I patted the couch and told her that a seat was available. She got up and made her way over.

We couldn't very well turn CoffeeDude loose upon the world, thinking he'd discovered a new secret of chick-magnetism, throwing stuff at all the women he encountered, so after enjoying a couple of seconds of being CoffeeDude's hero, I introduced him to my sister Dina.

Dina's fiancé was out enjoying a boys night out so she came to Rich O's to have a couple of beers with her older brother. Awwww.

Other than this little bit of rarity, it was a pretty tame night. We all sat in the living room area and talked. I had a Gulden Draak and a Delirium Tremens. I introduced Dina to NABC Tunnel Vision, and she seemed to like it.

Also, I guess the place where my uncle and cousin have been doing karaoke has decided to stop for a while, so unless they get another gig somewhere I'll be going straight home from Rich O's.

That's what I did last night.

Somebody actually typed this into Google and got led to my site:

Can a Monkey come out the wood to surprised a human person to be seen standing in front of a human person then he will take the human person in his Monkey jungle to force the human person to change the human person to a Monkey animal?

Well I certainly hope they get their question answered somewhere. Then, I hope they take a class on grammar and punctuation.

It's sitting there now, in the middle of the room. I'd convinced myself that I'd driven it away, but as soon as I let my attention wander, as soon as I let my mind drift from all these trivial distractions, there it was. As hairy and smelly and ugly as ever.

I'm going to have to deal with this brute eventually. The other night I got right in its face and ordered it the fuck out of my house. Showed it the door. Gave it its walking papers.

It just sneered at me.

I wasn't going to get rid of it that easily.

The cats have been following me around the house all night.

I've been trying to figure out what they want.

Litterbox Clean: Check.

Food and Fresh Water: Check.

All Inside Doors Open: Check.

That's about all I can think of.

As I type this, Happy is laying on the floor right behind my chair, Buddy is on the bookshelf, and Nugget has stationed himself at the door to my office. All three are watching me type, like they're waiting for something.

Or plotting something.

I suppose they could be sensing my mood, the way Happy did, years ago, when I learned of my grandmother's death and he jumped into my lap before I could even hang the phone up, but neither of my other cats have ever behaved this way before, so I don't know what's going on.

It's actually creeping me out a little. Maybe we're going to have an earthquake or something. Maybe I'm about to drop dead.

Maybe I'm just paranoid.

As he nears the beach, he feels the rip tide beneath him, trying to pull him back into the depths. He struggles frantically, and finally, miraculously, feels solid ground beneath his feet. The waters, losing their grip, switch tactics. They send monstrous waves into his back, threatening to smash him into the rocks. He continues undaunted. His salvation is in sight, he will not die here. Not on this day.

He scrambles through the water that is neck-deep, then waist-deep, then suddenly he is free. He collapses onto the wet sand and crawls his way to safety.

From the jungle, glowing eyes watch.

Spent the better part of this evening crafting a long entry.

When I finally finished it, I read it to check for typos and such.

Then I read it again because, well, it was good.

No, scratch that. It was brilliant. It was insightful, funny, sad, and hopeful. It was easily the best thing I've ever written.

This was the entry I needed to write, the entry I've had building up inside me for a long time.

You, my readers, would have loved this entry. You would have laughed. You would have cried. Some of you would have offered yourselves to me sexually. Such was the power of my words tonight.

It explained with metaphor and analogy and humor and innuendo those things that I'd given up as unexplainable. In its mission to explain and describe the truth, it transcended the truth and revealed meanings and motivations inside me that even I didn't know existed.

There was, however, one problem. I couldn't post the thing.

There are things that I've tried very hard to put behind me. Topics that I've sworn to avoid. Though these demons still live inside me, I've resolved to keep them in check, to prevent them from ever hurting me or anyone else again.

I've gotten pretty good at it, for the most part.

Tonight, facing a mental block once again, I found myself calling for their help, and they gladly obliged. They scrambled through my mind, unlocking doors and reopening passages through which, until recently, they'd roamed freely. Tonight they were no longer my enemies. Tonight they became my allies - no longer tearing and ripping away inside me but instead providing only gentle hints and reminders of the truth.

Tonight they led me to where the truth was, but they didn't try to force it on me. They let me recognize it on my own.

Tonight they led me back to myself, and when I saw what had become of me I nearly wept from the force of that vision.

My fingers flew across the keyboard. I never doubted a single thought, a single sentence, or a single revelation. Everything was so clear. The thoughts just flowed out of me. It was an epiphany.

It was just so damn freeing!

Yet, still, I couldn't post the thing.

My wounds have finally healed, but there are people with their own demons, entwined at times with my own. I cannot, should not, will not awaken their demons just to show off what is, in the end, just a good piece of writing. They are not ready for their demons to awaken. They may never be.

So, I've saved this entry, this culmination of my brief experiment with writing, to my hard drive. I'll keep it available, lest I ever need it again, lest I ever find myself becoming lost again. I'll keep it handy, but I won't be posting it.

You would have loved it though.

Started out the night by journeying to Hooter's in Jeffersonville for some Newcastles. More and more I'm finding it to be a real shame that my regular bar, one of the best beer bars anywhere, pulled this fine beer from its draft rotation two years ago in favor of a much blander substitute that just happens to be more profitable for them. Per glass, anyway.

It's just sad, really.

But I digress.

There was this unbearably annoying guy working the kitchen at Hooter's. I don't know if he was some kind of manager or what. Whatever his official title, his job last night, as he saw it anyway, was to ring this loudass bell and scream at the top of his lungs, "WE'VE GOT FOOD AT THE WINDOW, LADIES!!! AMANDA! TIFFANY! JESSICA! AMBER!"

This happened approximately every 2.5 seconds from the time I walked in until...

At one point this dipshit decided that he wasn't getting the respect he deserved, so, instead of ringing his fucking bell, be took an empty tray and slapped it against the bar with great force. "LADIES, WE'VE GOT FOOD AT THE WINDOW!!! JULIE! BRIDGETTE! AMY! CARRIE!"

It's been estimated by scientists that when Mount Mazama exploded about 7,000 years ago, forming what is now Crater Lake in Oregon, it was the loudest noise ever heard by humans.

This guy slapping his fucking tray on the counter is probably in second place. A close second. It sounded like someone had fired off a cannon into an ammo dump in my head.

Half the place jumped, the other half had mild heart attacks. One of the former, a customer sitting about five feet from this jerk, rose to his feet and quite calmly said, "If you ever do that again, you're going to have that tray shoved up your ass, then we'll see how loud you can really be."

So now this guy is my fucking hero. And that of a lot of others I suspect, because loudass guy was much quieter after that.

Once that little drama was over I headed to Rich O's and sat at the bar talking with MusicalHippyDude while I enjoyed a Rogue Smoke Ale.

Rich O's was about two-thirds crowded. There were a bunch of strangers in the living room, and a bunch of PBDs at the island. Nobody I knew very well.

My next beer was an Orval, sort of recommended by a friend the other night.

Orval

(bottle) Huge head, bordering on the ridiculous. Taste, as I expected, was that of a fairly mild Belgian. A little less sweet and a little more hoppy than I'd generally prefer, but a very good beer anyway.

Bubbles came in and she and MusicalHippyDude went over to the island to talk with the PBDs. I ended up talking with some guy that I'm sure has a name, but I could not (can not) remember it, and I had myself an NABC Haggisdaddy Stout.

NABC Haggisdaddy Stout

(draft) First time drinking the non-bourbonized version of this stout. I got an almost overpowering sense of chocolate - both in the aroma and the flavor. Pretty good, but would probably be too much for me to wrap an evening around. I was pleased to detect no coffee or licorice at all.

After talking with MisunderstoodGirl for a few minutes I left Rich O's and listened to some karaoke with my cousin Mike for a while before heading home.

One of the things I enjoy doing is checking my web server logs to see what search strings are leading people to my site. Because my 'blog covers such a wide range of topics, I see a wide range of search strings in my logs.

Well today I encountered the search string of all search strings. One that may never be surpassed for weirdness:

I like to smell my own butt

There's nothing I can say about this - it speaks volumes all by itself.

As his feet touch bottom, he instinctively jumps. He is surprised - these waters had seemed a lot deeper the last time. His head and shoulders break the surface, and once again he gasps for air. A quick turn of his head reveals land, perhaps a small island, off in the distance. He dares to have hope, and once again begins to sink.