Last night was supposed to be completely different than it was. I was supposed to have a date with WeirdGirl, but it kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed because, well my theory is it's because her boss is an asshole.

So I went to Rich O's after all, at about 7:30. The parking lot was totally packed. I ended up parking on Mars. During the long trek back to Rich O's, I began to really dread the crowd that I was sure waited inside. But I was pleasantly surprised and very relieved to see that it wasn't that bad at all. The special people room was full of PBDs having a party or something - that's why the parking lot was so full - but Rich O's proper was only about a third-full.

I sat on the throne and ordered an Upland Wheat (123) and talked briefly to the makeout couple sitting on the loveseat.

For the next hour or so I kinda vegged out. My phone kept going off about various work emergencies and, because this is my on-call week, I had to respond to every text message that came in. But I got over it. I talked to MusicalYuppieDude. He says he's going to give me some doohickey which may allow me to mess with my electric guitar in my actual living room. Instead of in the far corner of my basement. So that will be cool.

At about the time PearlGirl came in with her hot friend from a few weeks ago, WeirdGirl texted me that she'd been delayed again. I was going to order another Upland, but the keg had blown, so I had a Pyramid Snow Cap (90) instead. It was yummy.

There was some dude at the kiddie table sampling all of the beers that NABC makes, and since I couldn't talk to PearlGirl's hot friend (she was busy talking to PearlGirl) I talked to him instead. It's nice when strangers aren't assholes. It's also quite rare, but that's part of what makes it nice.

At about the time I finished my Pyramid, and ordered a Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (2323), WeirdGirl texted me again to say she was going to have to work until closing. So that sucked. I'd turned down an invitation to go to my sister's because of my date, and now it wasn't even going to happen until at least 2:00. But then I remembered that I don't get cell phone reception at Dina's, so I couldn't have gone anyway, because of the being on-call thing.

Anyway, at one point I was wandering around talking to some of the PBD girls. We were talking about traveling the world and stuff like that. I said that I wished I'd done that stuff when I was younger, but that now I was too old.

StoreGirl told me, "You're certainly not any older than 30."

So I gave her a hug and told her I loved her.

Then this other PBD girl, who for some reason doesn't have a nickname (It's OldBob's wife) told me, "Well, you're definitely younger than 40."

So I have her a hug and told her I loved her.

The night became a little blurry for a bit. I was trying to decide if I wanted to go to Louisville to wait for WeirdGirl, or to just go home, or to hang out at Rich O's some more. I ordered a Diet Coke and did some mingling.

At one point I found myself in the special people room. I showed StoreGirl my drivers license. It was funny to see the look in her face when she saw how old I was.

I thanked PearlGirl for bringing her hot friend with her. I'm pretty sure that I talked to UPSDude for a bit. I ate an egg thing that wasn't too bad. A little bland, I thought.

Oh yeah, I told ElPresidente about running into that girl who used to ride our school bus. His first question was, "Is she still hot?"

I said that she was indeed.

At 10:30 or so, I found myself sitting at the island, talking with StoreGirl and some other PBDs about various fluff. I know that it was around 10:30, because it was way too late for LaptopGirl to be showing up.

But that's exactly what she did.

Yay!

This is the part where I have to be careful about what I write.

I'd gone out front to talk to LaptopGirl while she looked at the draft board, and when I went back into Rich O's proper, OldBob's wife had stolen my seat at the island. I said that was fine because I was moving back to the throne anyway.

This was about when the bartenders decided to crank the music up to level 10.

So LaptopGirl and I basically screamed at each other for several minutes. I couldn't hear more than every third or fourth word, though, even after she moved to the Loveseat.

So I asked a bartender, as politely as I could, if there was any way that the music could be turned down a little.

He turned the music completely off.

I'd managed to piss off a Rich O's bartender, and that's one of my rules. I'm not supposed to do that.

Anyway, so I picked up my shit, and I said goodbye, and I left. I sent LaptopGirl a text message to apologize. While I was driving home, PearlGirl texted me 500 times to ask if I was okay. LaptopGirl didn't reply at all.

After I got home, I ended up sending an email to LaptopGirl, apologizing again for my abrupt departure. I also texted WeirdGirl to let her know that I wouldn't me driving to Louisville after all.

Then I ate some chicken and went to bed.

I'm too old for this shit. My tolerance for idiots has been plummeting steadily for months, maybe even for years. And my tolerance levels for loudness and crowding were never very high to begin with.

I'm glad that TallLady was in the throne when I arrived. Otherwise I might have reflexively sat there. That would have been bad, because I'd have lasted about ten seconds before I'd have moved again. And I'd have had some explaining to do.

What I ended up doing was sitting at the kiddie table. I tried my best to ignore the incredible noise level coming from the living room area while I enjoyed an Upland Winter Warmer (280). It was pretty good, but I decided that I just wasn't in the mood for anything strong.

When TallLady left, she offered the throne to me. I declined. No fucking way was I adding myself to that obnoxious mix. I could barely hear myself think as it was.

When PhotoDude left the bar, I moved up there. It was still way too loud in the place, but having all of the noise at my back did help a little.

There's this ridiculous pattern that keeps repeating itself.

1. People tell dick jokes very loudly.
2. The bartenders turn the music up so the entire bar doesn't have to listen to the loud people tell dick jokes.
3. People get even more loud so that others can hear their dick jokes over the music.
4. The bartenders turn the music up even louder, so that people in other states don't have to hear the dick jokes.
5. I wonder what the fuck happened to the quiet place I'd grown so fond of.

Anyway, my next beer was a yummy Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (2296), which I hadn't had in a long time for some reason. It really hit the spot.

I spent a good part of the next couple of hours trading text messages and emails back and forth. I asked MusicalYuppieDude the first question. His answer neither surprised me nor bothered me. Eventually, I expect it to bother me.

UPSDude kept asking me if I was mad at him. He does this all the time, but last night he seemed unwilling to take "no" for an answer. Eventually, he did manage to annoy me by pressing the issue so much.

At about the time I started my second Weihenstephaner (2306), the second question was asked. Then, right after that, MusicalYuppieDude and I got to talking about guitars and amps and headphones, and the third question was asked.

I didn't finish my last beer. It was getting late, and I was in a crappy mood by then, so I paid and came home.

At about 2:30, a fourth question was asked. It was a very welcome question. An invitation, actually.

My answer was, "Try and stop me."

The first question tonight was asked by me.

It was a stupid question.

The answer was, "Wednesday, for a while."

I suppose that a small part of me must have expected such an answer. Otherwise I don't think I'd have ever asked.

But, I did ask.

Because I am a dumbass.

---

The second question tonight was asked to me, in response to a question I'd asked.

I paraphrase slightly.

"Where is she? Is she okay?" I'd asked.

"I don't care," she answered. "I'm mortified," she answered. "What was I supposed to do," she asked, "just leave the bill and the mess behind?"

"Fuck yes," is what I should have answered. "The bill will still be here tomorrow, and the mess will be taken care of. Go make sure she's okay."

Everyone on Earth knew the answer to her question. Everyone except her, apparently. I myself was too shocked to answer at all.

---

The third question tonight was also asked of me, as part of a discussion I was having.

The answer is, "The plugs are exactly the same, but I get no sound whatsoever. I guess you need some kind of power source. It was a good idea, though."

...if I suddenly found myself faced with the brutal possibility that I just don't care anymore? That all of these ups and downs, lifting me up and throwing me down, that they've become boring to me?

The same old news, rehashed and recycled and respun so many times that there's just nothing left.

It's weird, that I'm in this mood tonight. It's certainly not the mood I was expecting. Or even wanting. But there's a calmness about it, this mood of mine. I can't remember the last time I felt this calm.

Like a normal person, if I remember correctly.

I can almost feel a little tingle inside me. A tiny spark of hope, that, maybe, this mood will last for a while. And I won't care tomorrow, either. Or the next day. Or the next day.

Wouldn't it be funny if, after all this time, this roller coaster ran out of track, and I found myself flying through the air?

I feel like people are starting to assume things about me.

This does not necessarily mean that I'm being paranoid. It might mean that, but it's not a rule or anything. It could be that I'm just having regular thoughts, and I just happen to have a lot of similar thoughts at the same time.

Kind of like, or so I've heard, all of the air molecules in a room, bouncing around the way they do, I've heard that it's at least possible that they'll all find themselves crammed into one corner at the same time.

And then anyone unfortunate enough to be in an other corner would explode or something, because nature abhors a vacuum.

The thing is, I've pretty much got one thing on my mind. Or at the forefront of my mind at least. There are other things. Really, there are. Seriously.

Okay, fuck you if you don't believe me when I say that I think about other things. There's no rule for that either.

When I'm in charge of things, there'll be a fucking rule. It'll be right after the "No pain for HatGirl, ever" rule.

Anyway, I try pretty hard to not write about this one thing that's on my mind. Sometimes my abstention is easy, sometimes it's pretty much the opposite of easy.

The opposite of easy would be hard, for those of you having a tough time keeping up.

It bugs me, though, when I don't feel like I'm in control of myself. See, there's all this stuff that happens, all this stuff that I do and think and say, and I hardly ever write about any of it. Because, I fear, once my fingers start their little tappy-dance on my keyboard, I'm liable to type just about anything.

Anything could, by definition, be bad.

---

There was a dude at Rich O's, Tuesday night. I'm pretty sure I never spoke to him before in my life. He told me, "Dave, for what it's worth, I enjoy reading your blog."

So, "Hi, DudeINeverTalkedToBeforeInMyLife! I'm glad you enjoy the blog!"

---

Also present, Tuesday night, was the girl who, as near as I can figure, was my third crush ever. I'm pretty sure that, in some strange subliminal subconscious way, I'm pretty sure that I've had a crush on this particular girl since the second grade.

So, basically, Pangea split into separate continents, and right after that I got a crush on this girl.

I do not believe that those two events were related.

---

Today was, of course, AlliDay. So I went to The Pub for lunch and I talked to AlliGirl for the first time since the New Year's Eve fiasco. She's just so damn cute, no way can I stay mad at her.

---

And now, I can feel my self-control slipping away. So I'm going to stop typing now before I start typing about how much I...

The last couple of nights have been nice. It's been so warm that I've been able to sit out on my swing, enjoy a tasty beverage, and contemplate things for a while. Life and love and the lack of both, mostly.

Things might become interesting here in a few months, around Derby time, as StupidGirl has hinted at making a trip here. But a lot can happen between now and then. I certainly don't want to be pinning too many hopes - or fears - on something that's still in such early stages of planning.

Not even planning, really.

More like thinking about.

Which is totally fair, because that's pretty much all I've been doing for the last couple of hours.

Should I look at this as an opportunity to be saved from this quagmire I'm in, or as more of a temporary distraction? Perhaps I should see it as a giant turd, and my life would be a fan.

Meanwhile, I can't even believe that it's almost 2:00 in the flipping morning. I need to learn how to sleep.

So, I quit my job.

I'm not really sure what led me to make the decision, I just did it. I was in a staff meeting, a meeting no better or worse than the dozens of other meetings I've endured every week for six years, and I'd suddenly had enough.

I got up, and I walked out.

Luckily, I got a new job right away, with a start-up company specializing in outfitting corporate jets for Internet and video conferencing. A couple of my old bosses from Seattle were running the thing, and they were glad to have me. They knew my value, from before. So that was cool.

My first day, I met a few other people. There actually weren't very many people to meet. Only about six of us total. This gave me some cause for concern, but I figured that maybe they were still looking for other hires.

The thing that really freaked me out was when I remembered that I'd left all of my pictures at my old desk. Some of those pictures, I realized, were irreplaceable.

I tried to think of a way that I could go back to my old desk and get my pictures, but I knew there was no way they'd ever let me in. I'd burned that particular bridge too thoroughly. There was no going back.

Anyway, tomorrow I go back to work, after nine days off.

Yes, it will suck. Mainly because my sleep schedule is all screwy, and I probably won't sleep tonight until after 3:00.

My recent absence hasn't been caused by any great drama or anything like that. I've just been busy doing boring stuff. There's this pool tournament that started on Friday. I usually play in the thing, but this year all I did was go watch for a while. On Friday, and on Saturday, and on Sunday.

It's cool to be around pool players for a change.

Anyway, I've gone to the tournament, and then I've gone to Rich O's, and then I've come home. That's been my life for the past three days and nights. Like I said, boring.

Oh yeah, last night after Rich O's I went to this Mac's place that I don't like. I wanted to listen to some karaoke for a while. It was fun I guess. Nobody was any good, though. Also, I think I'm going to stop calling that place Mac's and start calling it Sluttopia. Or maybe Whoreapolis. I haven't decided.

I never said this would be an exciting entry. Or maybe I did, in the title of the thing. Oops.

...will actually not be complete until tomorrow.

But, that's okay.

It's still a good deed.

So there.