I was just about going to write something about the last few nights, but I changed my mind.

Anything I might write would be either too boring or too cryptic.

Anyway, now I'm driving up to Indianapolis. Just for the night. I'll be coming home tomorrow.

Maybe the unfamiliar surroundings will stir my creative juices.

So I'm back on the market now. Not that I was ever really off the market. Not officially. I just kinda sorta felt like being exclusive. You know, just in case.

This morning I went and met WeirdGirl at work, and told her that I didn't think we should see each other anymore.

She looked surprised for a second, then smiled and said, "That's fine."

I think that those two words pretty much sum up her entire personality. The girl's never been hurt, never had to climb her way out of anything, especially not a pit of despair. And she certainly wasn't about to fall into one over me.

I asked her if she wanted to know why, and she said, "Not really. It doesn't matter. It's not like we were going to get married or anything."

So that was painless.

Now all I've got to deal with is the possibility that I've turned into an asshole. I've been dealing with that possibility for years. You'd think I'd be better at it by now.

"Perfectly understandable," people would say.

"Absolutely normal," they might add.

"Almost to be expected, even," some would chime in.

"Well, fuck that," I'd answer.

Not understandable for me. Not normal for me. And certainly not fucking expected of me, by me.

Now, tomorrow I've got to go do something. Not a big deal really. I mean, the doing of the thing won't be a big deal. But the reason for it, the reason for it pisses me off.

I piss me off.

She'll be fine. She will probably tell me that it's understandable. That I'm normal. She might even say that she expected this.

She'll let me off easy. But I won't.

I'd kick my own ass, if only I could bend that way.

I found this Face Transformer site that lets you do shit to pictures. Here are some of the manglings it came up with for my picture:

So now I'm off until Monday, so yay!

I put the word "so" in that sentence twice, didn't I?

I'm not going back and change it though. I mean, it's all the way up there.

Today was a decent day. Especially if you like cold horizontal rain first thing in the morning. And don't we all?

Apparently, some local college team participated in some kind of sporting event this afternoon. So everyone at work disappeared for three hours. Slackers. I guess the home team won, because there was much hooting and hollering. I hope they lose soon so everyone can get back to work.

Let's see, what else? Had lunch with NotHideousGirl. Spent a lot of my company's money. Paid my satelite and cable bills. Fed my cats. Took a shit.

I didn't say this would be an exciting entry.

Work really dragged today. Spent most of the day waiting for input from any of several directions. Input that never arrived. To make things worse, all day I had the sneaking suspicion that it was really Thursday, and that the universe had somehow managed to stick an extra Wednesday into the week just to fuck with me.

Lunch was okay. I talked to WeirdGirl for a bit, but not too much, as she was working. I'm not quite sure what's the deal with her/me/us, and I'm not going to ask. I'm thinking that maybe she should ask me. Also, I'd thought that NotHideousGirl was going to join me, She'd emailed me to say she was on her way, but then about 15 minutes later she reneged. Something about a heretofore unknown meeting where she works. Oh, well.

It was fucking stormy this afternoon. I hated having to be at work during that. I'd much rather have been at my house with a good beer watching the lightning. It would have been a nice way to spend a sneaky extra Wednesday.

Monday I have to be in Indianapolis first thing. So I'm thinking about driving up there Sunday and just spending the night. Actually I'm thinking about driving up there Saturday. But don't tell anyone.

Lately, more often than not, I find myself getting pissed when I think about you know who and you know who else.

(SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: I realize that Americans assign a different meaning to the word pissed than do people from most other English-speaking cultures. In this entry, I'm using the word in its American sense. In this entry, the word pissed means angry. It doesn't mean drunk.)

Not depressed or sad or melancholy or whatever the fuck other words your thesaurus has in it.

Pissed.

At myself.

I managed to completely fuck over two wonderful relationships. One because I wanted too much, too soon and for no apparent reason. And the other because I didn't want enough until it was too late.

So what if I tried my best to be a good person?

So what if I had good intentions?

Good intentions can suck my dick.

Okay, now we're down to the final twelve. This is usually the part where I start to lose interest. Some shitty singer will keep advancing week after week, and one or more of my favorites will be eliminated, and I'll stop watching.

This year, I expect that the shitty singer in question will be that Sanjaya fucker. I hope I'm wrong.

Anyway, this week they sang Diana Ross songs. Gee, do you think the producers might have some favorites in mind already? Maybe some black women? Time will tell.

Brandon: Nothing really terrible, but he's just so damn boring. Plus, how do you forget the words to a song that's been famous for forty years? (30 points)

Melinda: She always manages to make whatever song she sings seem like the perfect song for her. She's an incredible talent. (100 points)

Chris S: Great song. He seemed to be drifting in and out of tune a lot. I usually really like Chris, but not this week. I didn't hate it nearly as much as the judges did. (65 points)

Gina: I like her hair. I don't like her song choice. She kinda seemed like she was singing with a gun to her head. She's still better than most though. (80 points)

Sanjaya: I didn't listen because he sucks. Please get him off my TV. (0 points)

Haley: She looks beautiful, and she picked a great song. She sang well. She forgot some words, but I'm inclined to forgive her because I'm so nice. (80 points)

Phil: Started out really flat, but finished strong. I like Phil, but I fear that I've already heard his best performance, and it's not good enough. (75 points)

LaKisha: What a stupid song. She did the best she could with it, I suppose. She sang like she was under restraint or something. Zzzzzzzzz. The judges loved it, so I may be wrong. (40 points)

Blake: Please, get this fucker off my TV. (negative 215 points)

Stephanie: Good song. Performance was decent, but a little boring and predictable. (71 points)

Chris R: Sang through his nose. He sucks. (25 points)

Jordin: Stupid Disney song, but she nailed it. I took off three points for the stupid song choice, but otherwise perfect. I think I adore Jordin now. (97 points)

Okay, if Sanjaya and Blake aren't voted out this week, then the viewers are stupid.

Just got back from the store, where I purchased the following:

- Two pounds of ground chuck
- Two boxes of taco shells
- Two packs of finely shredded cheese
- Two packets of taco seasoning mix
- One bottle of shampoo

Okay, so the young cutie running the checkout scanned all this stuff through and, in a leap of deductive reasoning that would have made Arthur Conan Doyle proud, asked, "Are you making tacos?"

Now, as blown away by her intelligence as by her beauty, I nonetheless managed to regain some of my composure. She was a real treasure, this girl. And one I couldn't let get away.

"Wow," I stammered. "Beuty and brains? Where have yo bee all my life?"

Yes, I actually spoke with typos. I was that unsettled.

The beautiful genius blushed and said, "I've been right here since 5:00. You're not going to put the shampoo in the tacos, are you? I never heard of that."

Sunday, during lunch, I wished I could draw. I'd have drawn us. Except we'd have been the only ones who knew it was us. Me because I drew the thing, and you because I'd tell you.

I was wishing that I could draw a couple of railroad tracks, starting out far apart but converging and running parallel in the middle of the picture. Farther away towards the hazy horizon, I'd have drawn a man and a woman. One on each of the tracks. They'd be walking in the same direction, at least for the moment, but still not quite walking together.

And they'd have their hands outstretched towards each other, but they couldn't quite reach.

But I can't draw, and I know I can't draw, so I didn't even try.

Besides, I don't think I like the railroad track visual anyway. It seems to me that it implies fate, and I don't believe in that. We're not on tracks. If we are, then what's the point of any of this?

I like to think that it's not fate that steers us. That it's much more random than that. Faced with millions of choices and opportunities during our lives, we choose our own paths. Right or wrong, it's up to us.

Sometimes, to be sure, inertia takes over for a while, and our choices seem to dwindle, but I think that's as close to fate as we get.

To me, the concept of fate is a crutch. An excuse for the mistakes that people make, and justification for the bad things that life seems to throw our way. After all, saying, "It was meant to happen that way" is a lot easier than admitting, "Boy, I sure fucked that up. My bad."

I forget where I was going with this.

Oh yeah, wherever I wanted to go.