One of the things I'd like to work on this year (to call it a resolution would imply a stronger, um, resolve than I actually have) is my ability (or the lack thereof) to take a damn hint from the fairer sex.

Nearly every unpleasant thing that's ever happened to me (and there have been a lot) in my dealings with women (wife, girlfriends, friends, drinking buddies) was undoubtedly preceded by a series of hints. Hints that grew stronger and more obvious until even I couldn't help but recognize them.

Most times I can think back (I do a lot of thinking back) and clearly see the trail left behind (the crumpled grass and the bent twigs and the footprints and the discarded cigarette butts) marking the path that led me to whatever mess I'm currently in. It actually seems like the more fucked up things are, the more I should have known ahead of time. Girders do not generally fall from the sky to land on a person's head, there's almost always a warning - contruction area - hardhat required sign around somewhere.

I know I absolutely could have prevented a lot of my past turmoil if I'd just been better at seeing the damn hints.

So turmoil-prevention is one thing I'd like to accomplish with my newfound hint-spotting skills, but there's actually another (and much more important in the long run) benefit that I could gain.

Not all hints are bad.

I remember sitting in a bar quite some time (many many years) ago with a friend of mine. This person was perhaps the most beautiful person (inside and out) that I'd (up to that time at least) ever known. So wonderful was this person (and so far out of my league I knew) that (though the physical attraction I felt was quite strong) I never even (seriously) considered that kind of a relationship with her.

So anyway, I'm sitting at the bar, and (out of the corner of my eye) I keep seeing her looking at me. I'd turn to her and ask, "What?" Her response (invariably) would be, "Nothing."

This happened several times (over the course of several weeks) and I remember feeling quite self-conscious. Besides, whenever she was looking at me I couldn't be looking at her and that's what I really (craved, needed, required, longed for) wanted.

Well time passed by and as relationships (even the best ones) often do, ours eventually ended. She found a (lucky bastard) soul mate and I moved on (though not for the same reason) as well.

Some time later I was talking with a (mutual) friend about the old days and the people we'd known. He hadn't known the girl as well as I had, but he did know (or claimed to know at least) something that I didn't.

She had a crush on you, you know.

My initial (and the safest) instinct was to simply laugh this off. People like that simply do not have crushes on people like me. I'm not a male model, and I'm not an asshole. I'm neither a rock star or a billionaire, or any of the dozen other types of men that women say they're not looking for but you still see them with the same types of guys again and again.

But I digress.

I told my friend that he was nuts. He countered with some very good arguments. He told me that I'd apparently been the only person in our circle that didn't (or couldn't, or wouldn't) see that she wanted (to at least try) a deeper relationship with me.

With me, of all people.

I've since talked with a few other of our mutual friends, and they actually all agree - I did have a chance at something more with that beautiful person. Nobody (at the time) could figure out why I was holding back.

Funny (ha ha, real fucking funny, Dave) thing is, I remember seeing hints from all of my friends back then, trying to push us together. I'd thought that they were trying to push her to me but it was actually the other way around. They were trying to help her by pushing me.

I wish they'd tried a little harder. A baseball bat to the head might have done the trick. I just didn't know. I hadn't dared to hope.

I didn't see the hints then, but they were there. I can almost list them in my mind as I sit here writing this entry. The coy glances, the hair shakes, the touching. Even when she began to pull away from me and my (obliviously indifferent) lack of responses, that was a hint too. That was a hint that time was running out for me. For us.

And I still didn't see it.

I started this entry writing about a certain kind of hint. The Pain-Avoidance hint, I'll call it. I need to work on my ability to recognize those. Even more, I need to work on my ability to see this other (rarer) type of hint. The Chance-For-Happiness hint.

I don't know what my old friend is doing these days. For all I know, she's googled my name and is reading this entry.

If you're out there, know this:

I had no idea. I'm sorry for your hurt feelings, and I'm sorry for my seeming indifference. I think it would have been wonderful.

(response to a message)

Is that TrainGirl's last name? I don't think I ever heard it, and with her gone now I never got a chance to ask her.

This little survey has been popping up all over the 'blogs I've been reading.

Yay! Now I'm an official 'blogger because I posted this silly survey!

Just a quick entry about Saturday night.

Rich O's was closed again, so I ventured to Jeffersonville in search of some good beer. They almost always have Newcastle on tap at Hooters.

I'd been hoping to meet up with my cousin Jeff (one of my resolutions is to see more of people from my childhood) but alas, he was trying to load up on as much college football as possible in preparation for the upcoming dry season.

While I sat and drank my Newcastles (I remembered to ask for an unfrosted glass), I had ample opportunity to check out the local talent. I came to the following three conclusions:

I am an old fart fast on his way to becoming a dirty old man.

Somebody in the area is making a very good living supplying breast implants to girls that undoubtedly looked a lot better without them.

Even though it's Hooters policy that their waitresses wear those skimpy outfits, some girls really should at least lose the baby fat before dressing up like that.

Each of these conclusions mangaged to get me in an irritated mood so I decided against my earlier plan to finally try a Blue Moon ale and left at around 10:00.

While I was contemplating my irritation I got a call from MixedSignalGirl who, as usual, promptly decided to attribute my irritation to her own actions of the night before.

I let her have her little fantasy.

When I was in Jr. High - I think it was eighth grade - first period was gym, and second period was history.

It was nice to have gym as the first class of the day because I'd get to shower after that class, and that meant I could skip washing my hair and sleep for a few extra minutes in the morning before school. A little gross, sure, but I was a kid.

Anyway, one day I guess I'd eaten something for breakfast that disagreed with me. Maybe milk that was a little past its expiration date, maybe cereal that was a little stale. All I knew for sure was that I wasn't feeling very well when gym class started, and that I was feeling even worse when it was over.

It'd been one of those dodgeball days, with a lot of running around trying to keep from getting killed. I ran around a lot when we played dodgeball. I never won, but I was always one of the last three or four people standing.

On this particular day my stomach was giving me fits. All that running around combined with whatever I'd had for breakfast - ugh.

I was sitting in history class when it happened. The contractions. The spasms. The taste of vomit rising ever higher in my throat. I felt my cheeks fill up, and I did what was necessary.

I got up, ran to the trash can next to the teacher's desk, and just let go into it.

I sold Buicks. I blew chunks, I did the Technicolor yawn, curled and hurled, introduced my friend Ralph to the class, had facial diarrhea.

Needless to say, this wasn't exactly what the teacher had in his lesson plan for the day, but he handled it with great aplomb. Calm as shit, like people turned themselves inside-out every day, he suggested that I might want to go to the nurses office. No shit, Sherlock. It was either that or spontaneously burst into flames and die, and that wish wasn't coming true. So I went to the nurses office, emptying along the way an estimated 200 gallons or so of my insides into fun little exhibits of modern art every few feet along the way.

Well obviously I lived through that day, but for the rest of the year I was The Vomit Kid in history class. Thankfully, none of the kids were mean about it. I suppose that they were all really grateful that it hadn't happened to them, but it was a stigma that stayed with me for quite some time.

I had a point here, what was it...Oh, yeah.

I got sick back then because of what I'd eaten and what I'd done that morning. Once that morning was over I felt fine. The breakfast and the dodgeball had no further impact on my life.

When I've gotten sick over the years, I have never once said to myself that I really wished I hadn't eaten that cereal or played that game of dodgeball back in Jr. High.

Nope, I can separate the past from the present. Even though I still get sick sometimes, it's always for a new reason. The Vomit Kid has been dead for 25 years.

Some of you, my dear readers, really need to work on that ability. For you see, the guy that was in all that turmoil in the Fall - that guy was erased with a single phone call in November. Just like The Vomit Kid, he doesn't exist anymore.

Believe it or not, I am quite capable of having a thought that's completely unrelated to my turmoil of the Fall. Believe it or not, I am quite capable of being in a bad mood, or a good mood, or an irritated mood, or whatever, without my mood being related her.

Also, and this is the part where those of you with weaker minds may want to look away, I can actually think about things that once made me sad without getting sad again.

This ability goes by many names. Gaining perspective. Learning from our mistakes. Moving on.

I just call it progress.

What prompted me to write this entry was a series of messages I've received over the last few days. I wrote an entry about being unable to grade the year 2004, and an entry about how New Year's Eve didn't go quite the way I'd wanted. People sending me messages keep assuming that these are all related to my Wednesday entry. I can almost hear the gears turning in peoples' heads:

Dave's in a pensive mood. It must be because of that girl.

Dave's plans didn't work out. He must have been hoping to hear from that girl.

Wow, I thought Dave was getting better, but that Wednesday entry sure proves otherwise. He's still obsessed with that girl.

Well you know what? Fuck that girl.

Now of course I don't mean that, but I know what most of you, upon reading that last sentence, will be thinking:

See, he's just so emotional about her! I knew he wasn't over her!

What I'm trying to say here, in my roundabout way, is that I've put that pain behind me. At some point in the future, maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, I will be in a sad mood again. I'm sure of it. What I'm also sure of, however, is that my feelings for you-know-who will not be the reason. Just like I'm sure that the bad breakfast I ate in the 1970s will not be behind my next illness.

Now I'll type this next part real slow so everyone can understand.

Everything is fine. I have gained perspective, and I have learned from my mistakes, and I have moved on. I know exactly where things stand, and I'm at peace with it. Really and truly. Everything I wrote was the absolute truth at the moment I wrote it, but things do change over time. Feelings soften. New evidence comes to light. New people enter a life and fill the voids left by others. Some times you just build up an immunity for things.

A perfect example of the point I wanted to make with the entry is this:

I'm irritated right now. I'm irritated because I felt that I needed to write this long-winded entry. This irritation has nothing to do with LaptopGirl at all.

Damn this is a long entry. And the sad thing is that it won't make a bit of difference. People will continue to think what they want to think, and to hell with the truth.

The truth is boring, but it is the truth.

plan
n.
1. A proposed course of action or sequence of events.

I guess there's a reason we usually refer to our plans for the evening instead of something more concrete like agenda or schedule.

We do this because while we may know what we'd like or expect to do, we really don't know what's actually going to happen.

Last night, as I'd planned, I went to the home of the FirstCouple for their annual New Year's party.

I'm not really sure why I chose that venue instead of the party a friend of my sister was having. I just sort of decided sometime during the day which one I'd attend.

I drank most of a bottle of Delirium Noel while I mingled with the two dozen or so people in attendance. It was a nice time, but I still don't feel like I really know any of those people, so I didn't feel too bad when I left at around 10:00.

The second half of the night didn't exactly go as I'd planned, but I was pleasantly surprised and I enjoyed myself. It turned out to be exactly what I needed to close out 2004 and say hello to 2005.

Now I get to see what the aftermath is. The nice thing is that I'm invincible, at least for a while.

One of my all-time favorite books is Earth Abides, by George Stewart. In that book, the people have a Winter Solstice ceremony where they'll name the outgoing year.

One year might have been The Year of the Lions, another I think was The Year the House Fell. Things like that. Just a name, usually suggested by the children, that would be easier to remember than Year One or Year Sixteen would be.

Then one year the people in the community just couldn't decide what to name the year. There had been good times and very bad times, and they just couldn't decide.

So they just named it Year Twenty-Two and left it at that.

I don't make up names for the years but, like most people at this time of year I suppose, I will spend an amount of time remembering the year past. I've written before how I'll usually reserve some time for myself right around midnight for this purpose, and I'll usually end up saying "It was a good year overall" or something like that.

Well this year it looks like I may be busy as the new year arrives. I may not have the luxury of wandering off by myself. So I spent some time last night trying to decide what kind of year 2004 was for me.

Like the community in the book, I've been unable to reach a decision. It was a very good year and a very bad year, and if I choose one label over the other I lessen the importance of both.

Well I'm not going to do it. I wouldn't have one without the other.

So, this has been The Year 2004, and I'm not likely to forget it.

Actually not much to say about tonight's Rich O's trip. I had a Delirium Noel and a Fantome Saison. I've had both before and liked them both.

Rich O's was moderately crowded, though not as much so as I was expecting. I was able to grab a seat on the sofa right away where I talked with a few people I don't know.

After a while CoffeeDude and ElPresidente joined me and we bullshitted for an hour or so.

Oh yeah, DooRagGirl came in at one point. CoffeeDude seems to know her better than I do. She was looking very pretty, but I didn't talk to her as CoffeeDude was pretty much monopolizing her time.

I left fairly early so I could catch VigilanteGirl before she left work.

(I suppose this entry would fall into the if you don't like it don't read it category)

(Update 12/31/04: Slight edit for clarity and to say that I was actually in a good mood when I wrote this, and that I remain in a good mood. I just told the people what they wanted to know.)

The other night I posed some questions in this 'blog:

Who are you people? What do you want?

Much to my chagrin, but otherwise not surprising at all, the overwhelming thing that people want to know is this (I paraphrase here):

What's going on with you and that girl you were so tore up over?

I wasn't even going to respond to this line of questioning. It's still a little too recent after all. A little too private.

Even as late as tonight I was telling CoffeeDude that to bring the subject up at all was to risk reopening those wounds, and that wasn't something I wanted to do.

Nevertheless, inspired in part by a couple of good beers and a couple of good friends, I sit here picking at scabs.

My sister is concerned about me. She saw, too late, what LaptopGirl's leaving had done to me. To her, I suppose, I just wasn't the type of person that would let myself be so affected. I'd been living all over the country every other time anything close to this had happened, and so my sister, my entire family in fact, had barely noticed my turmoil.

I got through those times on my own, just as I've been getting through the last few months. I do it because I have to. You play the hand you're dealt, and you don't waste too much time and energy wishing for a redeal.

My sister has, for the first time, seen the vulnerable side of me. She's concerned about what might happen next. She sees me writing about someone new and worries that I'll just end up being hurt again.

She may be right. I am on the rebound after all. On the rebound from what exactly I still don't know. I mean, how do you define the end of a one-sided relationship that wasn't even a relationship? More than nothing, less than something.

To answer the question of what's going on, the answer is nothing. No contact whatsoever for weeks. A couple of calls to make sure I wasn't going to surprise her with a visit, a near-frantic plea to refrain from sending Rich O's pictures, an ignored Christmas greeting, and that's been it.

I think the thing is - I lost two people when she left. I lost the most fascinating person I'd ever known, a person that, by her very presence, made me feel more alive than I'd felt in years. That person was my friend, and I miss her dearly.

The other person, the person I came awfully close to falling in love with, is a person that doesn't even exist. Perhaps she never will, but the loss of that person, that potential, simply devastated me. I don't know if I can explain it, even to myself. I wanted to watch that emergence, know that person, just be in her life. Not in a romantic relationship. That's what everyone's been assuming all along, but everyone's been wrong.

My sister is worried about my heart getting broke. She's a little late. Pieces of my heart lie scattered in the parking lot of the Burger King on Grant Line Road. They lie where they fell when I realized that not only was LaptopGirl going away, she was already gone. The things I needed to say to her would not be said in person, and most of those things remain unsaid to this day.

I know that things will never, can never, be the same between us. I've said too much. I've hurt too much.

I do miss her though. I miss my friend. If I didn't miss her I might as well be dead, and it was she that had reminded how to be alive.

The last three months cannot be undone, and I wouldn't undo them if I could. For along with the potential I saw in her, I found a new potential in myself. The potential to be happy instead of simply content. My heart may be mostly scar tissue now, but it beats faster when I kiss a girl. It warms me more when I hold her hand. It hurts more when I think about sad things.

It reminds me that I'm alive.

And now, to quote one of my favorite movie characters,

And that's all I've got to say about that.

In the Summer it was innocent. Just a quick peck, the first and last. It was not what I was expecting after the night I'd had. Suddenly and inexplicably desperate, I searched her eyes for, I don't really know, an invitation, a promise, anything. But her eyes were too deep, and I got lost in them, and I found nothing, and then the moment was over.

It's Winter now. Different girl, different circumstances. I actually just wanted to clear the air. People were watching, so I grabbed her hand and went to find some privacy. A hug lasted a moment too long, and our lips met. After a second, her lips parted, and I pulled away. Her eyes, those amazing eyes, searched mine for something, anything, but there was nothing there, and then the moment was over.