As, apparently, I'm still me and I can't really see any way around that dilemma right now, I'm still doing what I always do.

I pick and poke and I examine and evaluate and I analyze and appraise, and after a while I start to make some sense out of whatever the fuck happens to be wrong with me at that particular point in time.

Because if I can understand it, or failing that at least be able to describe it, then theoretically that puts me one step closer to being able to deal with it.

Theoretically.

Some things are tougher to deal with than others. Some things I've been dealing with for years, and if I've shown any progress at all, I assure you that it's been purely accidental.

The current thing that's wrong with me, this lack of motivation that I've been feeling for the past couple of weeks, this is really a simple thing, with a simple cause.

For what seems like a million years, for what is actually more like a year and a half, I've been running on inertia. The events of late Summer and early Fall of the year 2004 - they gave my heart and my mind a mighty shove. The force of that shove proved to be all that I needed to maintain some semblance of a life. To hang out with my friends. To write in my journal. To leave my house. To breathe.

But now, now that inertia is gone. It's run out. Too many outside forces have acted upon me. Hell, too many inside forces have acted upon me, as I strove to divert myself from the path I was hurtling down, to turn myself around, to at least fucking slow my progress, or maybe even halt it completely.

Careful what you wish for, asshole.

That inertia that served me for so long has gone. Now I've coasted to a stop and I don't know where I am. There are no breadcrumbs to lead me back home. There is no sunrise or sunset to give me a sense of direction. There is just me, and this gray place.

A part of me knows that I cannot stay here. A part of me knows that I need to pick a direction and just start walking. But which direction? They all look exactly the same.

I could end up in an even worse place than before, as unimaginable as that may seem. Believe me, I can imagine a worse place.

I should start walking though. I don't like it here. I should just pick a direction and start moving.

But I can't decide which way to go.

I need a sign. I need a landmark. I need fucking anything that I can point to in the distance and tell myself, that's where I'm going, and I'm closer now that I was yesterday.

I'd scan the horizon for such a landmark, but there's no horizon. There's just me, and this gray place.

I need a sign. Or a shove.

Yeah, I think that a shove would be better. That way if I once again found myself moving in the wrong direction, that way I'd have something to blame besides my own stupid heart.

I tell myself that I want to be shoved, guided, perhaps even carried away from this place. I tell myself that I wish I was moving again. I tell myself that I wish there was a destination in sight.

Careful what you wish for, asshole.

I've lost the desire to do this journal thingy.

I'm sure that this is just temporary.

Unless it's not.

I had a dental cleaning and checkup today.

I've decided that it's a good thing I'm not gay.

My gag reflex is much too strong.

I'd be the most miserable gay guy ever.

She is worth it degrades into I think she is worth it degrades into I hope she is worth it degrades into I doubt she is worth it degrades into She is not worth it.

Okay, so I try a different path, a different goal.

We are worth it.

Shit, that's even worse.

Because anything that includes me forces me to look at things from her perspective.

I am not worth it and no degradation is necessary.

Roger didn't really say this, but it would have been funny if he had.

Sometimes I worry that I might have lost the ability to write a coherent sentence. But if I really think about it, I know that if I really apply myself, and if I really drink some beer, I can still pull it off.

This, for example, is a coherent sentence.

There. Subject and verb. And some other crap that probably has some official grammatical name but I can't really be expected to remember everything from my school days. I think that the word sentence might be called an object or some such.

But I digress.

Is it really a digression when I haven't even mentioned what the real topic is supposed to be? Maybe the actual digression will take place only if and when I finally get to that real topic.

I don't know.

I don't care.

Imagine, if you will, two people. Could be a guy and a girl. In this new age of enlightenment I feel like I should also point out that it could be two guys, or it could be two girls. In the future ever-permissive societal standards might compel me to point out that it could be a guy and a chicken. A chicken wouldn't really fall into the people category though. Anyway, for the purposes of this entry I'm going to stick with the standard guy and girl.

Try to keep up, please. I know, it might not be easy. Or worth it. I know that I'm rambling.

You know what? Screw the hypotheticals. This is about me and you know who. Again.

At least partly. I'll offer up other examples in an attempt to make my point. If I can ever remember what my point is supposed to be.

Oh, yeah.

I've written before that I've had fairly good success at staying friendly with my ex-girlfriends. Some more than others, to be sure, but overall I like to think that I've done a little better than average. That's just a guess. It's not like I took a survey or anything.

SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: I think it's funny that I've written all this crap so far and haven't said a single thing.

Anyway, I never fucked her. Not even close.

And, be assured, this is not some trick wherein I'm now going to be all sensitive and shit and say that what we really did was make love. We never did that either. Not even close.

Not even close.

Nobody ever believes that though. I don't know why they don't believe it. I mean, look at her, then look at me. Or, since looking at the two of us to make such a comparison would be costly in both time and money, just take my word for it. She and I are member of two completely different groups of people. I guess the more common term is leagues.

We are not in the same league.

Now, where was I?

Right, I was somewhere that was not inside her. I really cannot stress this enough. It's kind of the basis for my whole point that I may actually get to someday.

So there I was, not inside her, yet I developed feelings for her. Strong feelings. Overwhelming feelings. I may have mentioned them from time to time in this journal.

And there she was, going about her life without me inside her, and also - and this is the part that really sucks for me - without any feelings for me.

SCRIBBLERESQUE PARENTHETICAL THOUGHT: This is kind of weird. It was really pretty tough for me to write that last sentence. It's even tougher to read the thing. Funny how you can know something is true but it gains all those extra bonus validity points simply because it's been written out.

I know a girl. A different girl. I've never been inside her either, but that's not relevant right now. What is relevant is that this girl, what this girl has been going through - it's the same as what happened to me.

She knows a guy. She developed strong feelings for the guy, yet the guy would not or could not or at any rate did not return those feelings. And then the guy left her life. Perhaps wihout the totality with which you know who left my life, but he did leave.

So this girl and I have a lot in common, and we've become friends over the Internet. We email each other and discuss our mutual woes because we each know that the other will understand those woes and not be a judgmental asshole about it.

By doing this, we sometimes we even help each other get through the sadness that we're dealing with.

I think I've digressed again.

One of the topics of conversation that my friend and I have shared recently is the question of whether a guy and a girl (or two guys, or whatever - you know the drill) can ever be friends when the feelings are so lopsided.

I've been thinking about this a lot. For like a year and a half. I keep thinking about because I don't like the answer that I keep coming up with.

I don't think, if I'm completely honest with myself, if I'm as objective about all this as I can possibly will myself to be, I don't think that friendship is an option.

It's just too difficult.

It's just not worth it.

Because, you see, it's not the same thing as breaking up with a girlfriend. There's never anything to break up. There's never anything but pain and longing and holding things back and letting some things slip out and watching for reactions that aren't there.

It's disappointment. Pure and simple. Forever. And ever. And you try to tell yourself that just having that person in your life is enough for you, and you try to tell yourself that the pain you feel when you're near that person is nothing compared to the pain you feel when you're not near that person, and you try to tell yourself that you can be strong enough to keep the friendship intact.

You lie to yourself.

I lie to myself.

I never fucked her. Not even close.

If I had, then that would have at least been something. That would have been proof that the feelings weren't completely lopsided, that there was something there, simmering between is, something that we both at least tasted. Something that we had in common. Something that we shared. Even if it didn't work out, we would always have the memory of that physical intimacy and all of the emotional intimacy that accompanied it.

We would have at least known that we'd tried.

And that knowledge, that knowledge just might be enough to ease the pain, to lessen the disappointment, to put things into a better perspective.

To make the whole let's still be friends thing a viable plan.

Without that knowledge, without those memories, I don't think a friendship could work.

I hope that I'm wrong. I really fucking hope that I'm wrong.

If all or nothing are the only choices, and if all isn't available, then all that's left is nothing.

UPDATE 04/20/08: I have updated this entry on this date. I removed some of the crudeness, but the main thing that I want to say is that I was indeed wrong. And I'm glad that I was wrong.

This should be a brief entry. I don't feel like typing anything.

Saturday night started out weird. The first reason it started out weird was that I arrived at 7:00 instead of my usual 8:30ish time. The second reason it started out weird was that I went into the Sportstime side instead of the Rich O's side.

Both these bits of weirdness had the same cause. My sister Neisha, and her husband Chris, and her friend that was visiting from up North, were all there.

That side of the building is just strange, but at least they have the same beer list. I started out with a Guinness (1137) which I drank while everybody else had pizza. I had already eaten, plus I've pretty much given up on the pizza at Sportstime.

Three people that I know from Rich O's had expressed interest in seeing Neisha if she ever came in. The only one I knew how to contact was DooRagGirl, so I texted her. HotRedHead came in on her own, so she got to see Neisha, and I guess she also called GlassesGirl.

After everybody was done with their pizza we went over to Rich O's, stopping on the way to say hi to my cousin Jamie. He was sitting out front.

So, this is boring.

We sat in the living room area and talked and drank some. I had myself a Gravity Head beer:

Christoffel Werelds Winterbier (10)

(draft) Poured a lot darker than I expected. A pretty good beer. No spices or adjuncts that I could detect, so I'm not sure that I completely agree with the "Winter Beer" classification. Good though.

GlassesGirl arrived about two minutes too late. I tried to call Neisha to see if she wanted to turn around and come back but I guess I fat-fingered my phone and I ended up leaving a message at her home number. Duh.

I think that it was about this time that I had another Guinness (1157).

I talked with DooRagGirl and GlassesGirl for a while. Eventually I had myself a Weihenstephaner (618).

I came home fairly early myself because I had to work early Sunday morning.

I could write about more shit from Saturday but I'm not going to.

I remember when I used to be able to come home from the bar and write out halfway decent crap. Tonight makes two nights in a row in which I'm afraid to write anything for fear of making things worse than they already are.

Yeah, like that's fucking possible.

Yesterday we had to go to our local Caesar's for this work thing. I really don't get the purpose of these things. It's like there's this perception that nobody likes each other, but that would all change if we could somehow be forced to spend time together away from work.

Brilliant.

Not.

The people that I like I still like, and the people that are assholes are still assholes.

Actually, I think I like most of the people that went yesterday, so if there was an asshole among us it was probably me.

Anyway, I turned my $10 into $110 playing blackjack. It was quite boring though. My dealer's name was Chance I shit you not. What a stupid name, but if you're going to be a casino dealer I guess it's not too bad.

I'd considered just staying at the casino Friday night, because Rich O's has been so full of idiots lately, but by the time we got released from our team-building stuff I was just too tired. So I called SassyGirl and let her know that I'd be at Rich O's later if she got off work and wanted to come by.

Then, then I got home and I had an email that put me in a bad mood for the rest of the night.

I got to Rich O's a little after 8:00. It was of course standing-room-only. So I stood at the end of the bar and ordered my first beer. I had a sip or two of this a long time ago, but this was my first official tasting:

Urthel Samaranth Quadrium (12)

(draft) This beer is evil. Pure evil. To taste the way it does, which is actually fairly mild, but to pack that much alcohol - well like I said it's evil. As I said, a fairly mild (and fairly standard) Belgian taste. A slight alcohol finish is the only thing that hints at the wolf underneath this sheep's clothing.

"That Guinness, it's only for little girls and pregnant women. I can't stand that stuff," he said to his posse of fuckwads. They all chuckled of course, and I decided that I hated them all.

So, of course, I ordered myself a Guinness. I looked all the fuckwads in the eyes and waited for one of them to say something. They didn't though, because they're all fuckwads.

I drank my Guinness (1117) fairly quickly, and I was considering ordering another one just to push the fuckwads over the edge, but some strangers left the loveseat so I picked up my shit and went over there.

That was, in retrospect, a stupid thing to do, but I guess it was at least better than standing. Maybe.

I finished my Samaranth, and ordered another Gravity Head beer:

Founder's Blushing Monk Belgian Razz (5)

This really sucked.

Some other shit happened. There were idiots all over the place. I did my best to keep to myself, and I came home fairly early.