Today I slept a lot.

I slept from about 10:00 until 7:00, then I decided that going to work would be stupid.

So I slept from 9:00 until 1:30.

Then I had to do some work. I had a conference call with some vendor support people. It was quite trippy trying to deal with technical issues with a fever.

Next I slept from 4:00 until 9:00. I had the strange dream.

After that I took a long, hot shower and I actually felt better. I felt halfway normal actually.

So I went down to Rich O's.

All I did there was have myself a Bell's Kalamazoo Stout (70), and talk to BamaCouple for a while. Once they left I had part of another glass of the stout (75) and then I went to White Castle.

Here are some pictures of the cat at White Castle, which I have named Slider and which I hope to be able to actually pet some day.

Did nothing all day but sleep and sweat and dream, so I've picked the most interesting of those activities for my daily entry. Proceed at your own risk.

There was this old abandoned school, a big one, like from the seventies or something. A sprawling one-story affair.

There was an older dude with us, a Brian Dennehy type, and also a girl that looked like Jennifer Aniston but was named Neela. She was my girlfriend or something.

There were some kids with us too, but I think they were with Brian Dennehy more than with us.

We broke into the school and went to this one part where somebody had painted a Neela mural on the wall. There was door there so we went in.

The place beyond that door was something besides an old school. It was this huge mansion or castle or something. We ended up splitting up and doing some exploring.

There was this one room that had two beds set in an "L" shape and raised up on antique dressers to make what I told Neela was the coolest bed I'd ever seen. She found this plaque on the wall that said some lady had built the bed so her grandkids could share her bed without kicking her all night.

There was this other room where there was a painting of a cat's face on the wall. If you threw a cracker or something at the cat's mouth the painting would come to life and catch the cracker in mid-air, then it would go back to being a painting.

Just beyond that cat face room was a room with a little miniature coffin - like a kid's coffin would be - with a Batman sticker on top of it. A sign leaning against the coffin read "Do you dare to open the box of doom?"

So of course I opened the coffin right away. There was a smaller box inside, along with a record player and a record. Neela played the record and it was Adam West's (the dude from the 1960s Batman series) voice talking on and on about how opening the smaller box would unleash evil upon the world. It was all very cheesy like a county fair haunted house attraction.

Not deterred at all by Adam West, I opened the smaller box. Inside there was a mirror, and a pinkish sheet of plastic the same size as the mirror, and a big paper key, and a small metal key.

I was trying to figure out how to unleash the evil upon the world - mainly by spinning the metal key on the mirror, when this guy that looked like Steve Guttenberg came and told us that his best friend in the world has just been killed. Eaten by the cat in the cat face room I think.

Then all this rumbling started and Neela and I knew that we had to get the hell out of there. So we took off running back the way we'd came in. Once we reached the original part of the building - the part that just looked like an old abandoned school - the walls started moving around and trying to block us from leaving. I, of course, can just walk through walls in my dreams but I forgot that I hadn't taught Neela how to do it so we got separated.

I made it outside just in the nick of time, but I never saw Neela or the kids or the Steve Guttenberg guy again.

The cops showed up and while they were trying to figure out what to do one of them hollered out for everyone to look at the sky.

Instead of stars, the sky was full of comets. It was very pretty. We also saw that a couple of airplanes were leaving contrails that stretched across the sky. We also saw that the Batman symbol was being projected onto the Moon.

So I just kind of played it dumb because I didn't want the cops to know that it was me that had unleashed the evil upon the world.

The next day I broke back into the school to look for Neela. I was up in the cool bed room and I looked out the window. I could see that, one floor up and one window over, was the Brain Dennehy dude, but he didn't see me so I couldn't ask him what had happened to Neela.

101.2F

38.44C

311.59K

That's how hot I am.

Fevers always knock me on my ass.

EwokGirl has been coughing and sneezing in the next cubicle all week long, proudly announcing to everyone how she still comes in to work when she's sick.

What she doesn't seem to realize, what I have been trying to tell her, is that sick days are provided for the coworkers as much as they are for the person that's sick. So they don't get contaminated.

Oops.

Not having a thermometer at work, I'm forced to rely on the feel of my eyelids against my eyes to judge my temperature.

I have a fever.

Thanks a lot, EwokGirl.

My sister Dina, always the organized one, today asked me what I wanted for Christmas.

I've given this a lot of thought, and I know what it is that I want more than anything else in the world.

A time machine.

But I don't want the el cheapo time machine. Nope, I want the deluxe model with the paradox inhibitor. I wouldn't want to go back to November 14, 2003 and murder myself before I went to Rich O's, and then immediately vanish because I'd never lived long enough to get a time machine to use to go back and murder myself. That would just be embarrassing.

Come to think of it, I doubt that it's called murder when you kill a past version of yourself. It's not really a suicide either. Maybe the time machine owner's manual will have a glossary in the back or something.

So please, spring for the deluxe model. It may cost more, but it's soooo worth it.

Infer whatever you want from this, but I'm now being stood up by lesbians.

This, aside from the obvious ego-bashing that goes along with it, also has the unfortunate effect of leaving me sitting by myself, at the haunted bar, for an hour and a half.

Not good.

As I sat at the island, trying to stay upright while wave after wave of emotion washed over me, I decided to have myself a beer.

This wasn't written on the board, but the bartender became my new Best Friend In The Universe when he knew enough to pour me one of these:

Bells Kalamazoo Stout (20)

(draft) Oh, Bell's Kalamazoo Stout, where have you been all my life? This is as close to the perfect stout as I've ever had. All of the flavor of an imperial, but without the high ABV and without the alcohol burn. My new favorite stout in the entire world. Yummy.

I don't think I have anything to say. Today, absolutely nothing happened at all. Maybe tomorrow something will happen. Probably not though.

Today I was telling someone about this stupid childish game I've been known to play.

I'll call The Reverse Staring Contest.

The goal is to be the last one to look. To be the last one to care. The last one to acknowledge the other. If you can hold out the longest, then you win.

What do you win?

Not much. Maybe a little satisfaction. Maybe a little information - perhaps knowledge that the other person has less willpower than you do, or cares more than you do.

Maybe you learn those things, but maybe the other person doesn't even know the game is afoot. Maybe you're just being a jackass because it's your basic nature to be one.

I just finished a round of this game, a round in which I won. I'm pretty sure the other person didn't even know we were playing, but we play this game almost every day. I lose almost every day.

But not today. Today I kept my eyes averted until the other person looked my way.

I am the winner! Yay for me!

It's a dangerous game though. Sometimes the other person gets tired of it and goes to find someone else to play with. Someone that's not a jackass.

This entry brought to you by:

Rogue Imperial Stout (26)

(bottle) Hard to find anything wrong with this beer. If I had to pick something it would be the high ABV which limits the amount that can be consumed. A yummy chocolately flavor with a fairly intense alcohol burn. Quite good, and I will be buying more bottles which I will try to let age.

I can think of a million reasons why I've been putting it off, and I'll list them right now, one by one.

No, I'm kidding. I'd never do that to you.

Instead I'll just start typing and hope that the main reason reveals itself quickly before I die of boredom.

This entry will close out the period from October 9th, 2004, until middish/lateish September, 2005.

I will call this period The Wasted Year for reasons that are probably already evident to some of you, and which will become evident to the rest of you.

If you don't die of boredom yourselves before I finally get to the fucking point.

So, where was I?

Oh yes, I was dead. I died on October 9th of last year. I'd call my death a metaphor. Some may call it an exaggeration. Others may call it whiny crybaby drivel. But whatever you call it, it's all the same thing.

When I found out that she had left, I was devastated. Obliterated. I'd waited 39 years to meet someone that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but I fought it and denied it and ignored it until that veeeeeeeery moment when I couldn't deny or fight or ignore it any longer. That very moment when I brilliantly figured out that I'll probably only meet the love of my life but once in my life so I should probably stop being so fucking scared and just take a fucking chance for once. So, I decided to take that chance, and I was too late. She was gone. And every last bit of anything and everything that she'd inadvertently reawakened inside me died.

(I have this yummy beer I'm drinking to thank for that last paragraph. I'll probably read it tomorrow and delete it.)

You know what really pisses me off about the past year?

There was a girl. A girl that was everything I ever wanted. In a companion. In a girlfriend. Maybe even in a wife. She was everything I ever wanted except for one thing. She wasn't the one I was in love with. I tried so hard, I tried for so long, to divert my attention toward her, but it seemed like the harder I tried the more resistance I met. And, and this is what really pisses me off, all of that resistance was coming from inside me. My own heart betrayed me on a daily basis. Every minute, every fucking second, my heart waged war against me.

I could spend the rest of my life telling MixedSignalGirl how sorry I am that I didn't love her. I probably will spend the rest of my life at least thinking about what a colossal failure I was when it came to her.

I was supposed to be her hero, and instead I was the dragon and the black knight all rolled up into one.

Almost an entire year. Wasted on a dream that I never wanted to have in the first place. Almost an entire year, searching for answers to the questions I was afraid to even ask. Almost an entire year, hurting someone that truly cared about me while I longed for something that was simply not meant to be. Almost an entire year, wasted.

I think I was supposed to make a point here. Why has it been so hard for me to write this entry? To close out this chapter of my life?

For a while, I thought that perhaps some hidden part of me was actually still clinging to hope.

Wrong.

For a while, I thought that perhaps some small part of me was still waiting for some answers. For some closure.

Wrong.

What's been holding me back from writing this entry, what's been holding me back from closing out that period of my life when all I did was mourn and hurt and miss and long, what's been holding me back is that...

...I died, and whatever it was that arose from death wasn't me anymore. It was something that only existed to feel pain. If I let the pain go away, there will be nothing left, and I'll have to once again start over.

So that's one reason. The other is...

...The last time I had to start over, it wasn't a choice. Oh, I thought it was a choice for a while. I thought I could control my own emotions and my own destiny and my own happiness. But I was either lying to myself or fooling myself. Probably both. There was no choice in the matter. At the moment that I first looked into her sparkling eyes, the number of paths available to my heart dwindled to one. I would love her.

But this time, this time it is a conscious decision on my part. The things that I've finally done and finally found to stop the flood of pain - I could switch them off in an instant.

It's ironic really. This 'blog is to blame for a lot of the problems I've had. If I'd been able to restrain my writings way back in the Summer of 2004, things might be a lot different for me now. The irony is that it's this 'blog that has enabled me to be sitting here writing this entry.

There's this one girl. A regular reader of mine. She is the one that pointed out to me that the pain was killing me all over again. She's the one that suggested that I had to try something different. Instead of trying to deal with the pain, she asked, why not try bottling it up?

And then there was this other girl. My kindred spirit. A series of coincidences led me to her, and she has given me what nobody else has been able to give. Understanding. Not judgment. Not argument. Not even pity. Simple understanding, from someone going through the same thing I'd been going through.

I don't know which girl deserves the most credit for curing me. I suppose they're equally responsible. On the Internet, everybody is secretive, but these two girls have shown me trust and understanding that I never could have found anywhere else - not even from my family and my closest friends. I've already said this, to each of them, many times, but I feel compelled to say it here:

To T and to N, what you have given me can never ever ever be repaid, but I vow to do the best that I can, for as long as it takes, to repay it anyway. You have helped me to get my life back, and I seriously didn't think it was possible.

Oh yeah, the choice thingy. This time, ending this era, this wasted year, this pain-filled period, this time it's a choice. And with this choice comes responsibility. What if I'm fooling myself once again? What if suppressing these emotions and getting understanding isn't enough? This hasn't been tested, after all. I will be tested again. Eventually.

I sit here right now, and I know that I'm not ready to be tested. How can I truly consider myself healed, how can I honestly feel like I'm ready to close out this past year, when I know that all of that pain is still there inside me, building up pressure, ready to explode the next time she walks into my life?

I dunno. It just feels like I should close it out, this past year. Even if I'm not ready to be tested, everything else has changed over the last few weeks. I was in pain every day. Every single fucking day, I missed her. And now I don't. Even if it doesn't last, even if this turns out to be yet another false sunrise, and even if the darkness returns, this is still the end of an era.

I wasted a year, missing her. But I no longer fear spending the rest of my life missing her. I know that I can feel better, because I feel better right now. If I, reborn into pain, can still manage to live for a few weeks without that pain, then anything is possible.

This leopard can change its spots.

This scorpion can change its wicked ways.

This once broken man can have a life worth living.

And now I've got to go out onto my deck and finish this beer, to complete my little stupid tradition.