Today I had an idea to start something the likes of which I haven't done in a while. A series of flash-fiction entries, similar to the old peril series from 2005.

This is as far as I got.

Twirling and dancing as thin ice groans and cracks under his feet. Not oblivious to the dangers, but spiteful of them.

(This is the stupid survey that I was going to answer one question at a time. I changed my mind because I got bored tonight.)

Are you anything like you were at this point last year?
Very similar. Maybe identical.

What's the 8th text in your inbox say?
HatGirl telling me she was going to the beach.

What are you wearing right now?
Same thing I always wear. A crotchless Imperial Stormtrooper costume. It's all I can really relax in.

What are you most looking forward to tomorrow?
Getting off work and taking a nap.

Have you ever been awake for 48 hours?
Don't think so. I think about 36 hours is my personal best.

Are you friends with any of your exes?
Some of them.

What are you listening to?
Nothing

Do you like your first name?
Sure.

Baseball or football?
Baseball been berry berry good to me.

Do you like the color gray?
Does gray really count as a color?

Are you jealous of anyone right now?
Perhaps envious would be a more suitable term. It seems less whiny.

Last time you ate grilled cheese?
I dunno, maybe about February.

Do you regret doing something today?
I overslept by about a half an hour. That always pisses me off.

When you think of the rainbow, what pops in your head?
Which rainbow is THE rainbow?

Have you lost contact with someone you wish you didn't?
Most of the people I've lost contact with, I wish I hadn't.

Do you think you're old?
I sat behind Jesus in second grade.

Are you afraid of the dark?
I like the dark. It's the stobors that lurk in the dark that frighten me.

Have you got a tan?
Stupid question. I'm kind of a dark peachy color.

What are you looking forward to in the next month?
Fourth of July weekend. I want to take a trip somewhere.

When is the last time you talked to number 1 on your top friends?
On myspace, the first friend listed is NotHideousGirl. I haven't seen her in a few weeks. On facebook, it's LaptopGirl, and I talked to her Saturday night.

What color is your hair?
Blonde.

Do you like pancakes?
Sure. I never have them, though.

Have you told anybody you loved them today?
Not out-loud.

Do you miss anyone?
Always.

Are you growing apart from someone close?
Yes, and it pisses me off.

Have you ever liked anyone on your top friends?
No, they all suck.

Do you have a facebook?
Yes.

Who do you trust with EVERYTHING?
I think Dina and RockGirl.

Are you living a lie?
Do lies of omission count?

Sometimes, do you wish you were someone else?
There's a dude I was reading about. His job is to brush the sand off the models during the Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoots. It would be cool to be that guy for a while.

Do you think anyone in general out there loves you?
I hold out hope.

What is one thing you miss about your past?
I miss hanging out with all my friends in Omaha and Seattle.

Can you see yourself ever being with someone you've been with before?
I suppose so, because it's happened before.

Do you talk a lot?
With one person I can't shut up. In a group I'm pretty quiet.

Can you play pool?
Better than you.

When was the last time you cried really hard?
A long time ago.

If you could change your eye color would you?
I'd like to have two differently-colored eyes. Just to see if anyone would notice.

Ever had a song written about you?
I seriously doubt it.

Ever kissed your number 10 on myspace?
My number 10 is my sister, you pervert.

Are you self conscious?
I am aware of, and I acknowledge my existence.

Last bed you slept in and with who?
My own bed with my cat Buddy.

Slept with someone you dont know in a bed?
Don't think so. Oh, wait there was the one time. I knew her pretty well by the time morning arrived, though.

Ever danced infront of the mirror?
No, I'm straight.

How many hours sleep did you get last night?
About four I think.

What do you currently hear right now?
Nothing but keys clacking.

What did you do today?
Worked. Went to Rich O's and got a pizza. Took a nap.

Would you ever forgive someone if they cheated on you?
I've done it before, and it was a waste of effort. I don't think I'd do it again.

Is there anyone you hate?
See the previous answer.

You like the color green?
Stupid question. Depends on what's green.

Last person who told you things were going to be okay?
Probably WeirdGirl. We had a bit of a scare a while back.

Does the number 19 have any significance to you?
What's with all the stupid questions?

Be honest, do you like people in general?
People, in general, suck big ones.

Who was the last person that left you a comment?
At barenada.com, it was somebody I don't know at all. At journalspace, it was this Tammy chick.

Its 4 in the morning, your phone rings who do you expect it to be?
Somebody with bad news.

What do you think your best friends doing right now?
Probably sleeping, if she has any sense.

How old do you think you will be when you finally have kids?
I haven't a clue.

Who was the last friend in your house?
WeirdGirl. Or maybe NotHideousGirl. I dunno, it's been a while.

Can a girl and a boy be besfriends with out having feelings for each other?
I think it will always be lopsided, in varying directions at varying times. The hope is that the friendship is strong enough to handle it.

Of course I could have just gone back to Dina's. And maybe I should have. It would have been the brotherly thing to do, if nothing else.

But see, the thing was, I hadn't seen LaptopGirl in a million bazillion asstillion years, and there was a chance that she might go to Rich O's. So, that's where I went.

I guess I got there a little before 9:00. It was pretty dead - kind of a typical Summer Saturday night. Fine with me. The throne was open, so I sat there and talked with PirateDude and a couple of his friends for a bit.

My first beer was an NABC Flat Tyre (969). This choice, as it turned out, was stupid.

After PirateDude and his friends left, I was alone in the living room. Just the way I like it. But then these two uberhot blonde girls showed up. That was nice of them.

MusicalYuppieDude came and joined us shortly afterwards. In fact, for the rest of the night there was a fairly constant stream of guys coming to sniff around at the uberhot blondes.

My next beer was a Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (2390). It was good, but at about the time I got it, I found out that Marzen was on tap.

D'oh!

So I spent the next hour or so just vegging out. I talked to the uberhot blondes for a bit, but my heart wasn't really in it.

I did have a Marzen (3816) for my next beer. OMG it was yummy. I let one of the uberhot blondes have a sip. I don't think she liked it, but VPs almost never like smoked beer.

At 11:00 or so, LaptopGirl showed up, and so of course I promptly forgot about the uberhot blonde girls. I think they were still there, though, because random guys kept sniffing around and the air became tainted with testosterone.

I talked to LaptopGirl for an hour or so.

Yay!

Some ugly old bitch plagiarized her shit. That sucked.

We supposedly split a Guinness, but I ended up drinking most of the thing in one gulp (1869). I was thirsty.

Then somebody suggested that we all go to Jack's. I wouldn't have bothered, but LaptopGirl wanted to go. So we went to Jack's, and LaptopGirl and I "split" a Miller High Life( 8).

Then LaptopGirl got bored, so I walked her back to her car, and we each went to our respective houses.

---

I used to do this thing where I'd migrate between rooms and beds throughout the night. I haven't done it in months, though. But last night I went to sleep in my master bedroom and woke up in my guest room It's kinda scary, that sleepwalking thing. I hope it's not going to become a regular habit again.

I don't know if this is going to be one entry or two or three. I'm not sure that it really matters what it's going to be, but it seems like it should matter. So I can pace myself properly, or something like that.

'Cause there were three Saturdays. And if I seem to skimp on any of them, somebody somewhere is going to think I'm a dick.

Well, I'm not a dick, just so you know. I only portray one from time to time. If I seem to skimp, it's only because my priorities are what they are.

Actually, maybe there were four Saturdays, but I'm not going to count the first one because it was just me sitting at home, glaring at the clock on my computer, waiting for the time when I could go see HatGirl.

---

I ended up leaving home an hour early. I was just too excited. So to kill some of that extra time, I went to this computer store, right next to Famous Dave's, and I bought some cooling fans for my computer.

So, that was pretty exciting.

Then I went into Famous Dave's and grabbed a table. I drank Diet Coke and I watched a boring soccer game (redundant, I know) and a couple of text messages from HatGirl came in.

HatGirl!

Yay!

She was going to be late.

Boo!

This was weird, because I'm pretty sure it was the first time in the history of the universe that any woman has ever been late for anything.

But she did eventually show up, and we got to have lunch and go shopping. It was a really nice time, and HatGirl is pretty and charming, even when she's as clearly stressed-out as she was. I could see it in her face, in her body language, and hear it in her voice. Poor HatGirl!

When I'm in charge of the universe, I will have a rule that HatGirl will feel no stress.

Next, I went to my sister Dina's house for her husband's birthday party. I think he's 308 now. Something like that. I don't ever seem to quite fit in with those huge crowds at Dina's. So I pretty much kept to myself. I talked to SpoonsGirl for a bit. I talked to BadPickleGirl for a bit. I talked to various other people, always for just a bit.

Oh, and I petted Dina's kitties. Two of them, anyway. The other one is scared of me.

So then, because I had to work at 6:00 this morning, I left Dina's at 6:30 or so and came home to try to take a nap.

That didn't work for shit. It was weird - I was completely exhausted until about two seconds after I laid down on my couch. After that, I was wide awake.

And now I think I'm going to split this into at least two entries.

This will get me into trouble.

The things I do write for you people.

Anyway.

I remember when I couldn't take a fucking piss without hitting a Mexican.

But tonight, when I really needed them, were they around?

Fuck, no.

Not a single Mexican to be seen.

Anywhere.

(There was this survey thingy that my sister posted. I started to repost it with my own answers, but then I decided to just use the survey's questions to maybe give me something to write about. So that's what I'm doing. Maybe one interesting survey question a day - that should keep me writing for quite a while. And I won't have to do that annoying thing where I think up my own topics. Unless I want to.)

Are you friends with any of your exes?
I suppose it depends on how you define friends and also on how you define exes.

I'm on friendly terms with all of my ex-girlfriends, I think. But it's not like we're still friends as I understand the term. I mean, it's not like we're always calling each other up and hanging out all the time. This is partly because most of them don't live anywhere near here, but I think that's only part of the reason. Things change, and people drift apart. It sucks, but it happens.

I'm pretty sure that, if I wanted to, I could call up most of my ex-girlfriends, and have a nice talk or whatever. I Iike to think that those relationships all ended on good terms. But the fact is that I don't contact them, and the other fact is that they don't contact me. That's gotta mean something, right there.

What's happened lately, more often, is that relationships deteriorate into purely sexual ones. I don't like it very much when that happens. I like to think I'm good for more than that, and I know that these girls are good for much more than that.

I liked Friday night, for the most part. I was in an inexplicably good mood. One that didn't change to the more familiar feeling of foreboding until I was walking into Rich O's. So that was cool.

They were having a sausage festival in the living room area. I needed to eat so I sat at the kiddie table. Before I'd even ordered my beer and pizza, ArtGirl came in and joined me. That was really nice of her, and very good timing.

So I sat with ArtGirl for the next couple of hours, talking about various stuff. I had a couple pints of NABC Cone Smoker (4158) and then about half a pint of NABC Flat Tyre (949).

Once ArtGirl dumped me to go talk to FutureDude, I was faced with a choice. I could either (a) join the continuing sausage festival, or (b) go home, or (c) stay at the kiddie table and stare at the door on the off-chance that LaptopGirl would show up.

I ended up going home, and apparently missing LaptopGirl by about five minutes. So that sucked.

What's kinda funny is that, if ArtGirl hadn't dumped me and I'd stayed for five more minutes, I'd have dumped her to talk to LaptopGirl.

(There was this survey thingy that my sister posted. I started to repost it with my own answers, but then I decided to just use the survey's questions to maybe give me something to write about. So that's what I'm doing. Maybe one interesting survey question a day - that should keep me writing for quite a while. And I won't have to do that annoying thing where I think up my own topics. Unless I want to.)

Are you anything like you were at this point last year?
My first thought, upon reading this question, was that a year ago I was but a hint of my current self. Like all the pieces were there, they just hadn't been assembled yet. I was just starting to rise from the depths of the gray place that had been my home for such a long time. I wasn't quite ready to believe what was happening, but I was beginning to accept the possibility. I was beginning to have hope. Me, of all people. Hope, of all things.

But things change, tides ebb, perspectives shift, hues fade.

The thing is, right now, I'm exactly the way I was a year ago. But now, now it's like I'm being disassembled. Now, I'm falling again. Now, hope is dissolving and gray reality is coming back into stark focus.

I'm living my life in reverse.

In my mind, I pass that old version of myself, as I slowly sink and he rises ever so gently. We're both accelerating. Me with this growing look of dismay, he with the timid beginning of that stupid grin that I saw so often in the mirror.

But do I wildly wave my arms at him? Do I shout warnings that it's all just an illusion? Do I try to grab hold of him, so that he might arrest my fall?

No, because I might end up stopping his ascent, and that would be cruel. Instead, I will let him have his fun. Instead, I will let him continue to grow that stupid grin. And I will look up at him for as long as he's visible. And I will remember what it was like to fly. And I will try not to weep.

In a year or so, I'll try to catch him as he plummets back home.

There's this thing, this life lesson I suppose you could call it, that I just can't get to stick in my brain for any length of time. Certainly not long enough to ever be useful.

I suppose that, were I to give this life lesson a semi-serious attempt at expression, it would go something like this:

Things are as they are. Things may change, either over time or instantly, but I have little control over the form those changes may take, or of their timing. Also, anytime I attempt to coerce a change, it usually makes things worse than they were before.

I think things are good, then I get punched in the gut. I think things are progressing, and I get kicked in the nuts. I struggle to move beyond those events, and I finally start to feel better again, and I get slapped in the face. And I just keep taking it. I withstand it all, and I never fight back, and I pretend that I'm not reeling from the pain and the shock. I pretend that I'm not livid.

Things are as they are. I have no control. I am a willow in the wind. I must learn to love the wind, even though it may uproot me and send me tumbling into death.