In yet another attempt to maintain some semblance of normalcy, I present this entry. Don't expect much though as I haven't slept since Saturday morning.

I got to Rich O's a little after 9:00. The place was packed. FutureDude told me that Friday had actually been fairly dead. Well that makes sense - I wasn't in there on Friday so nobody really saw any point in showing up.

So, like I said, the place was packed. There were some people that I know in the living room area, but I really didn't feel like squeezing myself in there, and I really didn't feel like having to entertain anyone, so I just stood at the end of the bar and had myself a BBC Jefferson's Reserve Bourbon Barrel Stout (60).

After a short while, the strangers sitting at the end of the bar left so I sat there and basically didn't move for the next two hours except to piss and call SassyGirl to see if she was coming out after work.

My second beer was another of the bourbon thingies (80).

My third beer was a Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier (718).

I was enjoying a nice quiet evening, and nobody bothered me.

SassyGirl came in a little after 11:00 and we talked for a while. She told me the news that prompted my last entry. I came home at about 12:30 and stared at my ceiling until about 5:30, then I had to go to work.

I'm sitting in a protective bubble. It cannot be seen, and it cannot be felt, but it is there nevertheless. For proof of its presence one need only recognize one simple fact.

I am not crying.

I should be crying, but I'm not. I should be devastated, but I'm not. I should be so upset and heartbroken that even the reflexive tapping of my fingers against this keyboard should prove to be impossible for me.

But I'm not.

Where this bubble came from, I don't know. It certainly wasn't any of my doing. The last time I found myself in what I thought was a safe haven, what I perceived to be a secure harbor, the last time I thought I was protected from harm - well that turned out to be the biggest lie I'd ever told myself.

And when that bubble burst, when that bubble burst is the day that I died. And I vowed that, if I could somehow manage to bring myself back from the dead, that I'd never lie to myself again.

For now though, I'm still here. This bubble still somehow manages to protect me. Though the monsters of this new reality rage all around me I am somehow, miraculously, still here. Still safe.

I don't understand it.

I don't believe it.

I don't trust it.

This bubble will burst, and then the monsters will claw me to pieces, and I will die once again.

This will happen. It's only a matter of time.

Last night, I did not go to Rich O's. I did not, in fact, go to any bar at all.

Weird, huh?

That's what I thought.

What I did was I went to a surprise birthday party for my friend Eric. Though I'm not sure how much of a surprise it was, what with all of the cars in the driveway. Maybe seeing all of those cars was the surprise.

First things first, though. I went to the liquor store. I was planning to pick up a six-pack of Weihehstephaner, but they were out. So instead I bought a six-pack of Upland Chocolate Stout, then came back home and constructed my own little party pack consisting of two bottles of the Upland (286), two bottles of Winterkoninkske Winter King (136), and two bottles of Weihenstephaner (701) that I'd forgotten were in my fridge.

Thusly armed, I went to the house of this dude that graduated with Eric for the party.

It was a nice quiet affair. We talked. We played some euchre. My brother-in-law Chris and I won about 800 games in a row I think.

I actually managed to drink all of the beer I'd brought with me. And I didn't die.

That's simply amazing to me, mostly because that Winterkoninkske is some pretty strong stuff.

One other thing that was nice was that my phone kept ringing. People wanted to know where I was, why I wasn't at Rich O's, when I was coming to Rich O's, how they were supposed to keep on living if I wasn't at Rich O's. I assured them all that I'd be there on Saturday night.

What I didn't tell them was that I have to work Sunday morning so I may not stay for very long.

I suppose that I could accept certain things as normal, given the circumstances, but what fun would that be?

So, instead, I choose to be offended. Like this:

You stuck up bitch! You think you're so special? I got your "special" hanging right here!

Ha ha.

Just kidding.

I truly could not expend any less effort toward caring about your stoicism. Please get over yourself, and do it quickly before you truly become the person you are, right now, pretending to be.

Nobody likes that bitch very much.

I think that what I fear most, right now, is that she will come back into my life and she and I will become...

I don't even know if there's a word for it.

Unable or unwilling to discuss those things that lurk between us, joining us together yet still keeping us so separate. Unable or unwilling to be friends. Unable or unwilling to be enemies. Unable or unwilling to be anything at all beyond a silent sigh or a stolen glance or a flash of anger or a skipped heartbeat or a twinge of regret or a little bubble of hate or love that rises to the surface and then pops with an almost audible sound because it cannot exist in this artificial world.

And endless, countless moments of wondering.

Am I alone in this place, or does she inhabit it with me? If I search long enough, will I find her here?

My heart has become an old sponge, readily absorbing anything that gets too close, but unable to hold on.

I feel myself soak it all in, then I watch in dismay as it seeps away from me once again and spreads out in a widening stain of color across this gray plain.

I think I've been wrung out too many times.

10. I'll wait for you.

I never saw her again.

9. As soon as I'm ready, you'll be the first to know.

I was maybe the second to know, after her new boyfriend.

8. I miss you.

She missed my money.

7. You can trust me this time.

No, I couldn't.

6. You're imagining things.

No, I wasn't.

5. It was tough, but I'm doing fine now.

She killed herself.

4. But we're friends!

Whatever we were, it wasn't friends.

3. I think that we can make this work.

She was already plotting her escape.

2. I won't leave without giving you a chance to say goodbye, not again.

She did it again.

1. I do.

No, she didn't.