The mind is a funny thing.

And when I say mind I mean heart and when I say funny I mean stupid.

How quickly it forgets.

I can sit here and write about pain. I can talk about pain with my friends, my family. I know pain. I remember everything. But because I don't feel it anymore, it's become something else. Just a concept. Just a memory. It's not real anymore.

I read through my old entries and I try to imagine that pain. I try, in a way, to relive it. I try to feel that way again so I don't forget completely how fucking real it all was. So I don't unlearn the lessons I paid so much for.

This conversation last night surprised me. Scared me a little.

Is feeling pain really better than feeling nothing? Was I better off before than I am now? Is anything, even if it's bad, is anything better than nothing?

I don't think so. There are worse things than nothing. At least a part of me knows that. A part of me remembers, and that part of me screams out in shock and outrage when I make statements like the one I made last night.

I hear it cry out, but I don't feel its pain. I really wish I did. I really wish I felt something. Anything at all.

Saturday night was much more bearable than Friday had been. The place was only about half full, for one thing. For another thing, there were a lot of women. I actually think they outnumbered the guys for once.

RealTrainGirl was there so went spent the first part of the night bullshitting about various fluff. I had an NABC Cone Smoker (220) to start out. MusicalHippyDude joined us and the two of us waited very patiently for this girl in the red room to turn around or stand up so we could check out her front. RealTrainGirl kept telling us that it was a guy. RealTrainGirl needs glasses.

Let's see, DooRagGirl came in and after a short while her friend HatGirl joined us as well. I had myself a couple pints of Dave's Cherry Porter (60) while I did my best to keep my eyeballs in their sockets and my tongue off the floor.

RedRoomGirl did eventually stand up, and she was indeed cute, though way too tatted up for my tastes.

After RealTrainGirl left I stuck around and had a Guinness (660) then a couple of Diet Cokes to finish the night. I like sitting with women and joining, as much as I can anyway, in their conversations. Their perspective on life in much different than what I hear from most of my guy friends. Much more balanced.

Anyway, once all of the hot girls had left it was closing time so I left before the bartenders had to turn a hose on me.

Last night I saw a friend's car in a store parking lot, so I wrote a quick little note and left it under her windshield wiper.

I guess she drove all the way home with this note - never noticing it - and then saw it this morning.

So she calls me up wondering how I knew where she lived.

She must have been imagining me skulking around her house in the middle of the night, with my pants around my ankles no doubt, peering into her windows, only pausing long enough to leave my note.

Okay, I'm going to vent a little.

These all go out to different people.

• What, I'm not good enough for your precious list? Fuck off then.
• I tried really hard to miss you tonight, but I failed. That's good, right?
• You have no idea how good it is to have you in my life. You help ground me.
• I'm beginning to see what others dislike about you.
• You're coming on a little strong. Just ease off a little and I think we can still be friends.
• I have serious concerns about your taste in men, but you still intrigue me.
• Don't fucking ask the question if you're not going to listen to the answer.

Tonight Rich O's was incredibly crowded. There were a few people that I know, but it was mostly strangers. I actually would have left after just one beer but RealTrainGirl was coming and I wanted to see her.

To drink, I started out with a Smithwick's (420), then a Baltika 6 Porter (32). While I was drinking the porter RealTrainGirl came in. She and her roommate and GreenBeerDude and I talked for a bit, though GreenBeerDude left rather abruptly, and RoommateGuy I don't know at all.

For my final full beer I had this bottle of stuff from Finland:

Kataja Olut (11)

(bottle) Zero carbonation. Zero fizz. This lack of head reminded me of every NABC beer ever made. It was a very nice copper color, and it had a very nice and sweet flavor. I'd love to try this in draft form someday, but I don't really expect that to happen. This would get a yummy rating except for its flatness.

While we were wrapping up our evening, I sampled some of RealTrainGirl's beer:

Gaffel Kolsch (2)

(bottle) A fairly standard lager. Not as fizzy as some, but not as flavorful either. Nothing special.

While I'm listing beers, I'll go ahead and describe a couple that I tried in Chicago:

Bells Oberon (5)

(draft) Bright and fizzy. This would probably be good if it was a hot enough day. Like a million degrees or something.

Goose Island 312 Urban Wheat Ale (5)

(draft) Take a light American wheat and spray lemon pledge in it. Not the worst thing I've ever tasted, but far from the best.

What the heck, I'll also list the new NABC beer that I've now tried twice:

New Albanian Phoenix Kommon (8)

(draft) No matter how hard I try, I cannot detect any aroma or flavor. All I get is a slightly drying finish.

Tonight was one of those nights that make me wonder just what the hell I'm doing. It's one thing to drift through life, but a completely different thing to live by habit and inertia. If I actually gave a shit I might start looking for other things to do on my weekends.

Fucking Hostess for putting fucking raisins in their fucking cinnamon rolls without fucking listing them on the fucking ingredients list.

God I hate fucking raisins.

People forgetting to set my ice dispenser back to cubed when they're done getting ice.

I look down at my fortress. The newly-rebuilt walls. The gleaming metal protruding from the sniper towers. The moat, and the drawbridge. The main doors, long rusted shut.

All useless, for now. Protecting nothing more than an old dream.

I see her trying to scale one of the walls. Striving to gain purchase and pull herself just a little bit closer to her goal. Inch by inch, day by day, she's actually making progress. She's doing much better than I'd have ever expected. Most have given up by this point.

I don't know what she's expecting to find. Back when we used to talk about that sort of thing I never got the same answer twice. If I had to guess, I'd say that she just wants to share this haven I've constructed. To be safe for a while. For I am, if anything, safe. Good old safe and boring and reliable Dave.

So she climbs. Every now and then she falls into the moat. But she gets right back out, shakes herself off, and tries again. Stubborn. I like that. Foolish perhaps, but who am I to judge foolishness?

What will she find when (not if!) she makes it over that wall?

I think she'll be disappointed. My courtyard is bare except for one thing. A statue. Of a girl that isn't her. But that's not what will disappoint her, or surprise her. What will be a shock to her is what's not there. Who's not there.

She'll spend all this time and energy and still find herself alone. For I'm not there. I'm up here drifting.

I suppose that she'll look up eventually and catch a glimpse of me. Then she'll start working on a flying machine.

Stubborn. I like that.

Meanwhile, I continue to drift.

People and events call out to me as I pass by overhead, and I may look down upon them with interest or even compassion, but I lift my feet away from their grasp. I'm not ready to care. Not just yet.

I should have let the poor sucker live. How could I have known though? How could I have known that survival was even an option? It sure didn't feel like it at the time.

Is this survival?

So I drift along with the wind. I've been looking for a place to land, but when I do come down I want it to be on my own terms. I don't want to be pulled back down into a world that I'm no longer ready to face.

Of course, I don't really expect to have a choice in the matter.

Here's my horoscope for this week from Free Will Astrology:

Wasting your time and getting caught up in trivial details might feel like the most natural thing to do in the coming week, but I'd love to steer you away from doing that. Please please pretty please take heed of this proverb from ancient Rome: "The eagle does not catch flies." In other words, avoid lowering yourself to pursue rewards that don't really interest you or nourish you. And please please pretty please also listen to the advice of this Nepalese proverb: "Conduct short rituals for minor gods." Translation: Acknowledge the second-tier powers-that-be, but don't prostrate yourself in front of them for hours.

If I were to believe in this kind of thing, this is another horoscope that would freak me out a little. See, I fully expect to be asked (even required) to focus on trivial shit over the next few weeks. I'd just love to be in a position to refuse these requests, but I'm not there yet, and may never be.

The second part of the horoscope doesn't have any relevance to my current life. At least none that I'm aware of.