I keep seeing these little flickers in my brain.

I'm pretty sure that they're not symptoms of a tumor. And they're not quite entry ideas, but I think that someday they might be. The latter, I mean. Maybe, someday, they'll turn into entries. If they can get over their fear of the light. If they can come out and show themselves to me, so that I might do this writing thing that I seem to want to do today.

Or, if I can catch them before they scurry away again.

Cowards!

I've noticed these flickers, these little thoughts, before. I've written about them before.

The thoughts are there, running around inside me, but they flee when I try to capture them. They hide behind trivia and inane bullshit, and they snicker among themselves about how easily they evade me.

Only the weakest among them are ever at risk.

Sometimes I manage to catch one of these lesser thoughts. Then I'll dissect it and expose its innards to the world. And its brethren watch in horror from their hiding places, and they stop their snickering, for a while at least.

I'm in a fairly strange mood tonight. I don't know why. It might have something to do with the bottle of Ommegang Three Philosophers (49) that I've now almost finished. But I don't think that's it. I think it's something else. Something much deeper than alcohol.

I think that maybe I've just taken a good hard look at myself, and maybe I've started to suspect that I'm not as happy as I think I am.

That would really suck. Because I fucking like being happy.

But I've been noticing shit, every now and then.

I'm starting to suspect, if I look at things objectively, I'm starting to suspect that things aren't quite as fantastic as I've been thinking. There seems to be an underlying stress to my life. Just a touch of effort to interactions that should be effortless. I think it's like walking up a very long, very slight, upgrade. You don't really notice that you're putting any extra effort into walking, but your heart beats faster than it should, and your muscles get tired much sooner than they should. My life is kinda like that. It's harder than it seems.

I'm finding myself being extra careful about what I say. I'm finding myself paying extra attention to what I hear. I'm finding myself working hard during those times of my life that should be the easiest and the most enjoyable. Also, I'm sensing that extra effort in those around me, when they talk to me, they seem to be working harder than warranted.

Oooooh!

I just saw another flicker! I'm going to stop writing now, and try to catch the little bugger.

I've often lamented that I do a crappy job of writing when I'm in a good mood. I'll leave it up to the readers to decide for themselves whether my mood is irrelevant to the crappiness of my writing. I happen to think that it's highly relevant.

Good moods lead to crappy writing.

Bad moods lead to not so crappy writing.

Most of the time, anyway. But maybe not all the time.

Like, I was reading through some old stuff today, and I ran across an entry I wrote a little over two years ago. On one of those rare days, back then, in which I found myself in a good mood.

I like this entry. I think I did a good job with it. It's short and to the point.

gamut

You know what I like about my life right now?

I like the fact that, for the first time that I can remember, I seem to have the entire gamut of emotions at my beck and call.

This is really pretty cool, this place that I find myself in. Even though I complain about it what seems like all the fucking time.

Q: How do you know Dave is complaining about something?

A: Because he's awake.

Here's a little challenge for you. Pick an emotion. Give me a minute, and I can be experiencing that emotion.

Some are easier than others, of course. Some I might even call difficult. But not impossible.

A friend of mine asked me today if I ever felt hate. That's actually one of the tough ones for me. But I can do it. I have to reach far back - years and years - into my past, and think about things that I'd rather not think about, but I can do it. If I'm completely honest with myself, then I have to admit that I do hate her for what she did, over and over and over and over and over and over. Without remorse. Without anything that could even be remotely considered as being anything similar to regret. With nothing but pure selfishness. I hate that fucking whore.

Yes, I do hate her. For who she is, and for the coward that she turned me into.

Love, the one emotion that I always figured was impossible for me to feel - that's the one that turned out to be the easiest of all. That's the one that I live with, that's a part of me, that I cannot completely shake even when I want to do so. I try to run from it, and I try to hide from it, and I try to deny that I ever felt it. Feel it. But there's no use running, or hiding, or denying. It always catches up. It always finds me. It always stands right in front of me and does a little dance that always makes me laugh. This is what I feel when I let my mind and my heart relax and stop trying to escape the inescapable. That such a person can exist in this world. It's just so amazing to me. She is just so amazing to me.

I do love her. For who she is, and for the hopeful idiot that she turned me into.

And, between those two emotions, and between those two very different women, I have the full range of emotion available to me.

Like I said, it's pretty cool.

I think it's because when life sucks, I turn away from it, and when I turn away from life I turn toward my writing. But, when I'm happy with my life, I want to experience it, not write about it.

That's my theory, anyway.

Okay, at the top of the picture is the exit ramp from I-265 to Grant Line Road in New Albany. It's a one-lane ramp, but people are in the habit of driving on the right shoulder if they're going to turn right. The people who are going straight or turning left usually get backed up at the stoplight when traffic is heavy, so people use the shoulder to get around those assholes.

I do this myself all the time, usually when I'm going to Rich O's after work. I was doing it last night on the way to Rich O's after Tumbleweed.

So I looked in my rearview mirror and there were two trucks behind me, at about where the 1 is on the picture. There was a newer truck directly behind me, and a shitty truck passing the newer truck on the shoulder.

Problem was, the dillhole in the newer truck was also moving onto the shoulder.

I don't think he actually hit the shitty truck, but he at least nearly ran him off into the ditch. Then both trucks swerved back onto the pavement. Then both trucks swerved in the other direction. Like ShittyTruckDude had decided to repay the favor, and was trying to run the DillHoleDude off the road.

I watched all this in my rearview mirror, then I turned right at the intersection. Both of the other trucks turned right as well. I guess they were about 50 yards behind me, at about where the 2 is, when they both stopped their trucks right in the middle of the road. ShittyTruckDude opened his door and, I'm assuming, loudly told DillHoleDude to have a nice day or something.

By the time I got to the intersection at the bottom of the picture, Both trucks had started moving again. DillHoleDude pulled into the gas station at where the 3 is. I was stuck at a red light, so I turned my head to watch. ShittyTruckDude went by me, turning right at the intersection, then he turned right again into the gas station parking lot.

This was getting good!

By this time, I could see that ShittyTruckDude had a business placard on the door of his truck. Larry's something or other. So I'll call him Larry from now on.

Larry parked his truck directly behind the dillhole, blocking him in. Then they both got out of their trucks and started yelling at each other. It only took a second for them to come to blows. I really couldn't tell who threw the first punch, and I couldn't tell how the fight ended because my light turned green and I had to start moving lest I cause my own road rage incident.

I'm sure that somebody called the cops. They were in an extremely public place.

Also, readers may have been wondering whether that's the haunted Burger King at the bottom of the picture.

Indeed it is.

Remember back when the supercontinent Pangea split, and the flora and fauna of Africa and South America were left to develop and evolve independently?

Well, That's about the same time that my sister Neisha last came into Rich O's. Until last night.

I'd been told, earlier in the week, that both of my sisters were coming to Rich O's, but I very nearly forgot. I guess it was just so unlikely that my brain refused to waste valuable memory space with it. So, I nearly forgot and took off for Nashville Saturday morning.

I'd been thinking about going to Nashville because it's fairly close and I wanted to get away from Rich O's for a night. LaptopGirl had said she wasn't going to be there Saturday night, so it seemed like a perfect opportunity.

But I was late for my truck appointment, so I didn't get its alignment fixed. And then on the way home I remembered about my sisters.

What I ended up doing was talking them to Tumbleweed. This was the first time I'd been in there in a very long time. It will probably be a very long time before I go back. The food just wasn't that good.

After that we went to Rich O's. My sisters got to put several names and nicknames with faces. It was fun. I had an NABC Cone Smoker (3517) and tried to decide what I was going to do after my sisters left. I didn't see any point in staying at Rich O's if LaptopGirl wasn't going to show up.

But what happened was, MusicalYuppieDude and I split a bottle of yummy Malheur 10 (65), and it was so damn yummy that we split another bottle (78). By the time that second bottle was gone, I needed to stick around for a while to sober up. So I had some Diet Cokes and talked with various people about various crap.

Then LaptopGirl emailed me to ask about what she was missing. I asked her to please come. And so that's what she did. Yay!

We sat on the sofa and talked about how she made the front page of a local alternative newspaper. So now she's all famous and shit. I hope it doesn't go to her head.

We split a Guinness, and then she ended up pouring most of her half into my glass (1851).

After LaptopGirtl left, I came home.

Oh yeah! There was a fight when I was on my way to Rich O's!

Let me see if I remember clearly. Just in case I'm ever called as a witness or something. I'll put that in another entry, because I want to have a picture.

I know, I suck. You don't have to remind me. I need to update this thing more often. Even if I only have boring things to write about, I still need to do it.

Thursday was another virtual Friday for me, so I went to Rich O's for some stupid reason. The fucking Thursday weirdoes were there, of course, and they made my life miserable with their existence, of course.

I sat at the kiddie table and had three yummy glasses of Delirium Tremens (1187) and they were yummy. I didn't really talk to anyone except WomanRepellant, and even that was just for a while.

I got really really bored and left once I'd realized that nobody interesting was going to show up. Also, now there are three of the Thursday weirdoes wearing those stupid hats. Before, it had been just the one uberweirdo. But now there are three of them doing it.

So then Friday morning we had us some earthquakes.

When the first one hit, all three of my cats jumped off the bed and hauled ass down the hallway. I woke up and wondered for a second if my cats were really fat enough to cause the house to shake like that. When my mind cleared a little, I thought that a tornado must be barreling toward my house. But when I turned my head and looked out my window, I saw stars in the sky. That's when I figured that it was either an earthquake or a plane crash or something.

The thing about earthquakes is that you don't know how long they're going to last or how strong they're going to get. So I put on some pants in case I had to run outside.

The other thing about earthquakes is that you don't know anything. I mean, it could have been a .01 earthquake right under my house, or it could have been an 11.5 earthquake in St. Louis. I didn't know, and I wanted to know, so once the shaking had stopped I went and checked the USGS site. I was very impressed that they already had information about the quake - it had only been a couple of minutes.

The second earthquake that I felt was at 11:15 or so. I was in my kitchen, and all of my bottles started rattling together, or I might not have even noticed it.

Anyway.

Friday afternoon was fun. I went to Polly's Freeze for lunch. There were 18 million high school kids there, but they arrived right after I did, so I didn't have to wait for my order. So, haha stupid high school kids. Then I got an email from LaptopGirl. Then I went and had the oil changed in my truck, then I bought new tires for my truck. The old tires were 9 years old, so I got my money's worth.

Friday night I got a couple of text messages from TremensGirl. She seemed to want me to be at Rich O's, for some reason. But of course by the time I finally arrived there were people more interesting than me there. Hard to believe, I know. But that's okay, I have enough to worry about, and I'm sure it's all my fault anyway.

I sat at the island and watched the door all night. The place was pretty packed, mostly I think because some dude nobody ever heard of was playing music in the special people section, and so anyone who didn't feel like paying the cover charge had to use whatever space they could find and/or manufacture in the remainder of Rich O's.

So I sat at the island and I had a couple pints of NABC Cone Smoker (3497) and then after LaptopGirl arrived (yay!) we split a Smithwick's (1688) and talked mostly about babies and murder-mystery stuff. I had a brilliant idea for a Rich O's murder-mystery. Maybe someday it will actually happen, but I'll have to write it myself because LaptopGirl doesn't like my idea.

Then when I came home I sat in my garage and had a bottle of Schlenkerla Marzen (3431). It had been raining earlier, or I'd have sat on my swing.

Then today I was supposed to have the wheels realigned on my truck, but I got there too late. Oh well.

Okay, I'm all caught up with this blog thingy now.

Another fucking earthquake!

EVERYBODY PANIC!

This is starting to remind me of my days in Alaska. We'd have two or three of these things a week. I once heard a little kid tell his sister that, "The ground was shivering."

You know, because it was Alaska, and it was cold. I thought it was cute.

Hmmm, this looks to be the fifth one this morning, though only two have been strong enough for me to feel.

Maybe, if this keeps up, I'll get to fullfil my dream of owning beachfront property.

Did anyone else feel that?

It certainly woke my ass up.

Clicking the image takes you to the USGS page.

My email is messed-up tonight. Sometimes I can send, but not usually. I haven't been able to recieve since about 7:00.

I feel like a caveman must have felt.

I think it's only natural, to become frightened at times like this. Times when I'm feeling both alone and lonely. Times when my thoughts do nothing but oscillate between regrets about the past and nervousness about future.

I almost never see the present anymore. It's frustrating as fuck. I get caught up in the perfect moments, mesmerized and hypnotized, overcome by fascination, enthralled and entranced and enchanted, bewitched and bewildered. Spellbound. Possessed.

I ignore everyone and everything and I do nothing but surrender myself to the preposterous joy that has confronted me.

Then, later when the perfect moments pass, I get scared.

It's too much. The moments are too perfect. This cannot last.

I really need to start paying attention to the moments. So that, when they inevitably end, when the duct tape and bailing wire that hold my heart together find that they can no longer do so, when I break, once again, at least I'll have something.

I would look forward to the memories, except that I'm not sure that I'll have any. It's all just a surreal series of beautiful blurs.

I forget where I was going with this.

Oh yeah, something about being frightened that I might once again find myself with nothing. Not even memories, because I'm too busy being happy to remember the miracles even as they happen right in front of me.

Wouldn't it be just about the most fucked up thing ever, if all this came to a crashing halt, and all I had to show for it was a fading smile and a confused look on my face?

I think it's only natural, to become frightened at times like this.

An email conversation I had tonight, paraphrased very slightly:

I already drink, or stuff like this would drive me to do so.