(response to message)

I think that's interesting because I spent the last few years of my Seattle time missing New Albany and feeling stranded in Washington.

Rich O's is awesome though, so we agree on that much. Look me up there sometime - we'll compare notes.

I miss The Mountain.

My sister's fiance has this truck that cracks me up.

It's a Dodge, extended cab, dually wheeled, long bed monster that will come in quite handy if he ever needs to, I don't know, maybe tow my sister's house a few feet to the right or something.

Watching him pull into my driveway yesterday was like watching the Queen Mary pull into port.

Right off the bat, I need to make one thing perfectly clear.

This was all my fault. She did nothing wrong. She was always a lady. She was the perfect wife.

She just wasn't my wife.

She was married to one of my best friends. A friend who trusted me enough to ask me to keep his wife company while he was away serving our country.

It still amazes me how quickly it all happened.

For months I kept my word to my friend and, in the process, gained an even stronger friendship. For months we talked and hung out and drank and smoked together. It was the best period of my life.

Then it started. A nagging little feeling in my heart that began to grow each time we were together.

I tried to shake it off. I told myself that there was no way I could have those kinds of feelings for someone I'd never even kissed. There was no way I could betray a friendship (two friendships!) like that. I kept telling myself that it wasn't real, that it was just a phase.

I was kidding myself, and I knew it.

I'd been trusted with that which my friend prized most in the world, and, even if it was in mind only, I'd betrayed that trust. I had to get away before my terrible secret was exposed.

Those last few weeks when I rushed my Air Force discharge through, and prepared to move away - those weeks took all of the willpower I had in me. If I could just keep my feelings to myself for a little while longer, if I could just get the hell away before I blurted them out in some drunken soliloquy, I could limit the pain to myself.

It hurt to leave, but it would have hurt far more to stay. My betrayal would never have become our betrayal, and it was only a matter of time before my secret would be exposed or guessed.

For a while, after I left, we wrote each other. I even went to visit once, partly as a friend, but mostly to see if my feelings remained.

They did.

Once I returned to Seattle, I told her in a letter. I told her the words I'd only told - and meant it - two women before her. I thought she deserved a reason for what came next...

Later in the same letter, I told her goodbye.

Ours was a relationship based on sex.

What a strange realization that was!

I was freshly off my marriage, she was - well I'm not quite sure what her story was. She was looking for a place to stay for a while. Whatever, I figured there was a breakup in her recent past as well.

A place to sleep became a person to talk to became somebody to hold me became God I need an orgasm so bad I can't stand it!

I was there to provide all those things. She in turn helped me to get through what was, at the time, the toughest trial I'd ever faced.

For several weeks we led completely separate lives. I had my work and my pool league. She had her work and whatever it was she did after work. Our lives did not touch each other's at all - except at home. In bed. Our fumbling attempts to fill the gaping holes in our relationship only proved how completely different we were.

When the bills started getting too high and I had to move to a cheaper place she didn't come with me. We didn't even discuss it. We both knew that it was time to move on, to get on with our lives.

A couple of years later I saw her at a convenience store. I was with my ex-wife, in the middle of my second and final disastrous attempt to build a life with her. She was alone, but several months pregnant. We exchanged phone numbers but that was just for show. Just to be polite and to pretend that we had our shit together.

I can't even remember her last name.

I did an awful lot of driving around town this weekend.

On Saturday I managed to get myself totally lost twice while trying to retrace a shortcut I was shown a while ago. I had no luck except that I nearly freaked out when I thought I saw a familiar car in a driveway.

On Sunday I found myself back in Lanesville. I usually make it down there every month or so. I'll drive up to the old house at the top of the hill, hoping to see someone out in the yard.

"Hi, I have home movies of your house being built," I'll say. "Let me and my sister come in and snoop around and I'll make you a copy."

In the 25 years the I've been doing this, I've never seen a single person outside.

I've also never got up the nerve to actually knock on the door, though a friend of mine did just that a few months ago to no avail.

Anyway, yesterday there was something very different about the old neighborhood.

The house that had sat behind my old house for nearly 40 years was gone. Only a foundation and a pile of rubble remained.

I saw some sk8er boiz down by the school and I asked them what had happened to the house.

"It burned a few weeks ago," one of the kidz conceded.

Pretty weird to see just a pile of rubble where my best friend Kelly used to live.

George Bush, as the Republicans keep saying over and over and over, got more votes than any presidential candidate in U.S. history.

This is certainly true, but who has received the second most votes?

John Kerry.

It's called voter turnout, people, and guess what? More voters means more votes.

George Bush not only got more votes for him than anyone in history, he also got more votes against him than anyone in history besides Kerry.

Bragging about popular votes is like bragging about how the 2004 Superbowl had (guessing here) 10 times more viewers than the 1967 airing.

It means nothing except that you're a dumbass.

Resolve is a funny thing. And by funny I mean it's a joke. Especially when it comes to ending relationships.

It starts out strong. The very word is synonymous with decidedness and determination. Yet no matter how firm it seems it can vanish in the blink of an eye.

The smile of a face, the ring of a phone, a tear, or simply the mind's simple tendency to focus on the good in a relationship, can cause a bad relationship to continue well beyond its useful lifespan.

I knew for a long time that we wouldn't last. For the better part of a year I fought within myself two conflicting urges. Two conflicting resolutions.

Would I honor my commitment to make it work, no matter how hard it seemed, and regardless of her own (lack of) effort?

Or would I take the easier way out and allow a relationship that was already dying to finally end?

Let's face it - there's a little martyr in all of us. Which is more noble, to quietly suffer mistreatment or to get the hell away from it? The latter may be the correct action but it doesn't always seem that way.

I quietly suffered for a long time. I decided to break it off more times than I can count. On those occasions when I actually tried to break it off, all it took was tear, or a promise, and my resolve would evaporate again.

To reuse a metaphor from a previous entry, would I stay on that ledge forever, or would I just fucking jump already?

Eventually I jumped. Or maybe I was pushed. Whatever actually happened I know for sure it was a snap decision and had nothing to do with resolve on anyone's part.

Step one: Say you'll call him later.

Step two: There is no step two.

Just thought I'd get both Friday and Saturday out of the way with one entry.

Friday night was boring. I had an NABC Tunnel Vision and an NABC Beak's Best. The night was a complete bust as far as conversation went. Nobody I knew was there, and nobody called.

Tonight (Saturday) it was equally boring at Rich O's. The only person I knew was ExBartender and he was in full-blown obnoxious node.

I had a Delerium Nocturnum first. Here's what I thought of it:

(bottle) Very dark, very fruity aroma. Taste reminded me of cherry wine. The second half of my glass - once the head had dissipated - was much better than the first half.

Next I had a Gulden Draak.

(draft) My first tasting of this rather famous Belgian. Not at all what I was expecting. I got a lot of fruit that I'll call raspberry. Too sweet for my taste.

The entire time spent at Rich O's was pretty much a waste of time. I left at around 10:00. This is what happens when you base your happiness on a single possibility, and that possibility doesn't pan out.

I will shut up now.

There.

I feel better now.