Got off work a couple of hours ago. At least I got off my day job.

The real work begins in about an hour.

I just got out of the shower. My clothes for the night are dewrinkling in the dryer. My hair is still damp but I don't have much so it'll dry soon enough.

Before too long, it'll be time to really go to work.

Don't try to tell me that pretending to be a person all night isn't work, 'cause it is. Hard work.

Now I know why all those actors and actresses in the movies get paid so much. They get paid for pretending to be somebody they're not, and they do it well.

Now me, I don't usually do such a good job. I don't fool many people, I don't think. My performances are just too wooden - too obviously choreographed.

Because of my lackluster performances, I don't get paid all that much. Every now and then somebody will buy me a beer or something, but that's about it.

RealTrainGirl called me this evening to see if I wanted to meet her and MisunderstoodGirl at Rich O's. Duh. Of course I do. Those two are good at pretending that I'm giving a realistic portrayal of a person. Actually, they're better at pretending than I am. Maybe I should buy them beers.

You know how every time you run water you start thinking that the phone's ringing?

:cricket chirping:

Okay, fellow crazy people only: You know how every time you run water you start thinking that the phone's ringing?

:pin dropping, coyote howling:

Well maybe it's just me. Every time I get in the shower I start imagining that the phone's ringing. So I turn off the faucet and it's nothing. Then when I stand at the sink shaving I start imagining that the phone's ringing. So I, once again, turn off the faucet and it's, once again, nothing.

Except for tonight. Tonight when I was shaving, and I imagined that the phone was ringing, it really was ringing. It was my friend Eric.

So I guess I'm only crazy 99% of the time.

The moral of this story is that I'm bored, and I don't really want to go to work tonight.

I don't really know if I'm going anywhere with this entry. I'll probably decide that it's too stupid to post. If you're reading this, then I suppose that I decided otherwise.

The other day I was clicking around JournalSpace. I don't remember if I'd hit "Random Journal" from the front page or just followed a favorites link from another 'blog. Doesn't matter.

At one point I landed on a journal I hadn't seen before. This journal, like so many, had a profile photo displayed at the top. This wasn't much of a photo, as photos go. You couldn't even see her face. Just the top of her head behind knees and folded arms.

But still, the resemblance was uncanny. My heart actually skipped a beat or three. Was this actually her? I quickly clicked over to her profile.

Hmmm, nothing identifiable there, so back to the journal.

I read entry after entry, moving backwards through time, and with each entry that I read I became more and more convinced. Convinced that I'd chanced upon her journal.

I also became convinced that I'd been right all along. She was brilliant, and passionate. She did have actual feelings, and she was able to express them with an eloquence that surpassed even my inflated expectations.

This girl, who'd always seemed so guarded when it came to her own life and her own feelings - this girl had found a place to express herself, and I had stumbled upon it.

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but while reading those entries, my feelings for her grew stronger than they'd ever been.

Of course all good things must come to an end, and this was no exception.

About a dozen entries into this girl's mind I read something that shattered the illusion I'd thrown together so quickly. A reference to an area of the country. The wrong area of the country.

It wasn't her.

I must have reread that sentence a dozen times, hoping that, like in a dream, the words would change with each reading. That they would change to something that would allow my illusion to continue.

The words never changed. It really wasn't her, and it never had been.

I've got that journal open right now as I write this entry. Maybe it'll inspire me or something. That photograph is burned into my brain. I was just so sure!

I'm having a tough time, right now, coming up with the proper words to express the disappointment I felt. In fact, I've given up, and I'll just list two choices. You see if you can choose the correct one:

I was disappointed because, as it turned out:

• The girl who writes the journal is not the girl I know.


• The girl who I know is not the girl who writes the journal.

The voicemail message was not encouraging. There was no real news, but this was one of those situations where no news wasn't necessarily a good thing.

Something bad was happening. Something terrible was potentially happening - may have already happened during the time between when the message was left and when I finally noticed my blinking phone.

Before I returned the call, I took a few minutes to start preparing for the worst. Planning my reaction. Rehearsing my lines. The show must go on and all that crap.

It was, as it turned out, a false alarm. As false as it could have been I suppose. I felt myself exhale, finally, mercifully.

I would not have to feign humanity tonight.

So Rich O's is selling this Abita Purple Haze for $10.00 a glass, and sending the money to Katrina victims.

Yes, I though it was a nice gesture as well, until I drank the beer.

Abita Purple Haze (5)

(draft) A cloudy beer with a slightly pinkish tint. If it had any actual flavor I'd decribe it here, but alas, there was none. A waste of time.

I could have finished the glass, but why on Earth would I want to? So I had a Spezial Rauchbier (640) to remind myself what a good beer tastes like.

When somebody comes into my house to clean it and leaves the thermostat set at minus 61 degrees when they leave.

Well, my muse has been nagging me once again to write something. I've tried to explain that feeling nothing is often quickly followed by thinking nothing, and that thinking nothing is inevitably followed by writing nothing. But she'll have none of that nonsense apparently, so I'm going to write.

I'm going to write about this dream I had last night.

I tell you this now so, if you're like me and hate reading about other peoples' dreams, you can leave now before it's too late.

Still here? Well don't say I didn't warn you.

I was at a party at ElPresidente's house. Just about everyone I knew from Rich O's was there, including a certain girl that I may have mentioned from time to time in this 'blog.

I was sitting on a couch, talking with this certain girl about something or another - I don't remember what exactly. What I do remember is that, in a single sentence, she said the word "kiss" four times. There was just something about the way she said the word. The way she drew it out and added syllables.

She wanted me to kiss her.

My dream self is quite a bit more brave than my awake self. I leaned over to her and gave her the softest kiss I could manage.

I was instantly hard, and so I instantly regretted the kiss. I'd tried to do something sweet, to be a good guy, and my body was trying to turn it into something completely different. I pulled away and started to stammer out an apology.

But she, she would have none of that nonsense apparently, because she followed me as I pulled away, and she followed me as I leaned back as far as I could. She kissed me several times, then we kissed each other several times. Tentatively at first, like we were both just feeling things out, but after a bit our lips parted in unison.

I got to first base with her, and I was nearly weeping from the relief and the happiness - the joy of it. She was crying openly, and telling me that I had no idea how long she'd been hoping that this would happen.

So at that point, we both knew that things were going to progress beyond the point where the middle of ElPresidente's living room would be the appropriate setting. Luckily for us, the FirstCouple had planned ahead, and were taking reservations for the numerous bedrooms in the house.

Unluckily for us, we were told that we had at least a two-hour wait. Must have been a randy bunch at the party.

We spent the next two hours waiting, cuddling on the couch, sneaking kisses when we thought nobody would be looking. It was both the happiest, and the most frustrating, period of my life. I got some under the blouse second-base action, but I wanted to SEE.

Eventually, FINALLY, one of the bedrooms opened up. RealTrainGirl and MusicalHippeeDude came down the stairs looking disheveled and holding hands (WTF?!?) and ElPresidente told us that it was our turn.

We stood up...

...and I woke up.

SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!

Now this damn dream kept me awake for the rest of the night. I could (and still can) remember every touch, every smell, every taste, every emotion. I've had very few dreams in my life that were this vivid and that had so much feeling in them.

I think what got to me though was not so much the specific content of the dream as the fact that I'd never had that type of dream about her before. Only a handful of times has my dream self ever even encountered her, and those times had never included anything romantic or sexual at all. Unless you count the time that I was seven and she was five or six.

Now, if I believed in this shit at all, I'd figure that maybe the girl in my dream was nothing more than a metaphor. A metaphor for the girl that even now continues to scale the walls of my fortress.

The girl that told me I had to write something.

My lovely muse, who is always forced to take a back seat. Even in my dreams.

But I don't believe in this shit, so I'm interpreting the dream as a true representation of what my heart wants.

I wish things were different. I really do. For her sake and mine.

One of my little weekly rituals as a 'blogger is to read back through the previous week's entries and see if there's anything worth putting into my quotes file.

There are usually a few things that manage to catch my eye as being funny or moving or insightful or ludicrous, so I add them to the file and they go into the random rotation on my main page.

Today I went through last week's stuff, and I selected a few things that I deemed quote-worthy. I put them into the file, and then I view them all in a browser to make sure everything still displays okay.

Viewing the page with all the quotes, it's kind of neat for me. I remember how I felt, what was going on with my life, when I wrote all of those things, so just viewing those little snippets never fails to bring it all back. I get kind of a 10,000 foot view of my own life and my own feelings and how they've progress (or not) since I started doing this 'blog stuff. Like I said, kind of neat.

I got to thinking this morning, wondering actually - What will this quotes file look like in 10 years? Will 'blogs still exist in 10 years? Will I still exist in 10 years? Will I still be fucked up? What will my life be like?

Of course I don't know the answers to any of those questions, but I know what I'd like to see in that quotes file, 10 years from now.

I turned 50 this year, but that's the physical me. I often feel like I'm just 10 years old. I remember being born a decade ago, and it was more painful than I could imagine. But if that's what it took to get me where I am today, with this beautiful person next to me, sharing my life with me, if that's what it took, then it was all worth it.

Last week I tried this new BBC beer. I promised to try it again, and tonight I kept that promise:

Bluegrass Smoked Porter (34)

(draft) The first time I saw this, they were calling it "Smokey the Beer." What a stupid name. This beer tasted terrible for the first few ounces, then once my palate had been beaten into submission, it tasted pretty damn good. A lot like their regular, non-smoked porter. It's probably the same beer. Just a touch of smoked malt, a little chocolate. I liked it.

I ended up having two glasses (a 20oz. and a 10oz.) of this beer. I talked to the bartender for a while (see previous entry). I also attempted a couple of conversations with the people sitting near me at the bar, but they would have none of that. If the place wasn't so damn far from my house I probably would have just stayed there for the entire night. There were a lot of pretty women there. Women that have no idea what a dork I am. I felt like a tourist, and I liked it.

But I did end up driving back to the world after just the two glasses, and I went to Rich O's, where something strange happened.

When I first walked in, there was this incredibly hot girl sitting with a bunch of people in the loser area. She locked eyes with me and licked her eyebrows. Or maybe she just smiled. Doesn't matter which - the result was the same. I got weak in the knees and transformed into a shy schoolgirl. As my powers do not normally work inside that building I just smiled at her and then went into Rich O's proper.

NotGeorge was there at the bar, so I sat and had myself a Spezial Rauchbier (620). I bullshitted with him a for a while, pausing about 10 times to go to the bathroom so I could lock eyes with the hot girl again.

I still wanted to do something with my Saturday, and the living room area was full of loud people, and there seemed to be no chance that they'd be clearing out anytime soon, and NotGeorge was leaving, and I was obviously incapable of actually approaching the hot girl in the loser area. I remembered that DooRagGirl's ex-husband's band was playing at this Mac's place, so I decided to go there.

Oh yeah, while NotGeorge and I were sitting at the bar this dude came and sat with us. It was one of the guys that had blown me off at the BBC earlier! He swore that he wasn't stalking me, but I couldn't be sure.

As I was leaving Rich O's, the hot girl smiled at me and said "Bye, Dave." I managed to sputter out that I was going to Mac's Hideaway if her and her friends wanted to come, then I left.

I have no idea where this girl knows me from.

So I went to this Mac's place and ordered a Newcastle (1620) in a non-frosted glass. There was a wedding reception going on (how classy is that?) and so there were a half-dozen pretty girls in their bridesmaids dresses. It was fun watching them all dance, and I had a couple Diet Cokes to finish out the night.

Taken from faymow.

7 things I plan to do before I die:
1. Visit all 50 U.S. States.
2. Visit Europe.
3. Find a two-sided relationship and nurture it.
4. Grow a spine.
5. Be understood by at least one person.
6. Explore Alaska some more.
7. Get some fucking closure.

7 things I can do:
1. Play pool.
2. Juggle.
3. Solve a Rubik's Cube in under two minutes.
4. Carry a conversation with just about anyone.
5. Win at Blackjack.
6. Enjoy my own company.
7. Hold a grudge.

7 things I cannot do:
1. Handle rejection.
2. Wait.
3. Take a hint.
4. Be cruel, even when it's necessary.
5. Dunk a basketball.
6. Eat hot peppers.
7. Read minds.

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:
1. Sense of humor.
2. Friendliness.
3. Intelligence.
4. Eyes.
5. Smiles.
6. Soft touches.
7. Empathy.

7 things I say most often:
1. Who are these fuckers?
2. I have no plans.
3. Yummy.
4. Yay!
5. That's a brilliant idea. Not. (I say this to myself)
6. Buddy, stop shitting on my floor!
7. Anyway...

7 celebrity crushes:
1. Piper Perabo.
2. Elisa Dushku.
3. Evangeline Lilly.
4. Liv Tyler.
5. Amy Lee.
6. Patricia Velasquez.
7. Kate Beckinsale.

7 people I want to do this:
I don't care.