And through it all there is still hope.

What's up with that?

I can't quite pin it down. I laid in bed for most of the night, staring at whatever my head was pointed at, trying to figure just what it was that was keeping this hope alive. More than that even, I spent a good chunk of time trying to see what it was I'm hoping for.

I mean, I've got everything I ever asked for. I've kept the pain, as much as possible, pointed squarely at me. Our lives have finally become separated to where I no longer live in fear of my phone. There are no more inane messages, spaced weeks apart, that seemed to serve no purpose other than to remind me of what I was missing. There are no expectations. No disappointment.

I've fucking got it made!

Yet through all that there is still hope. Hope for failure? Because that's the only possibility left open? Because that would serve to provide the closure that was sought, yet denied, in the Spring?

Sounds pretty selfish to me. I don't think that's what I'm hoping for.

Hope for happiness? For love eternal? For sitting together on a porch watching our grandkids play?

Not bloody likely. I gave up hoping for those things before I even started.

I think what I'm hoping for just cannot be put into words. At least not by me, but I'll try.

A man, going blind, hopes to see one final sunrise. A dying man hopes to take one last breath.

I hope for two more seconds. Two seconds, that's what it took last time. Those two seconds that elapsed between when she walked in the door and when I saw the horrible truth about what was inside me - those two seconds were bliss.

I just want two more seconds. I believe that I'll be destroyed in those two seconds, but it would be worth it.

Two seconds. That's what I hope for.

I've spent some time tonight reading back through my old entries.

• Reading about how much pain I was in.
• About how I had put that pain behind me.
• About how the pain had caught up once again.
• About how I'd finally been healed.
• About how much pain I was in again.

Monotonous, isn't it?

One of my favorite entries is the one in which I wrote this:

To cross one range, and see before me nothing at all between me and the next range, to know that the next hour or so of my life would mean nothing and would contain nothing of interest - that's a pretty good analogy for what's going through my head this morning.

I don't know what that has to do with anything, really. I'm just muddling through here after all. I think that paragraph about the Nevada desert may have struck a chord tonight because my mood has been like those hills and valleys.

Happy then sad. Excited then bored. Accepting then stubborn. Angry then furious.

Well that breaks the pattern, doesn't it?

I've always figured that I'm about average when it comes to forgiveness. Most people are able to apologize to me, and that's that. In fact, until recently, there's really only been one person that's ever mistreated me so badly that forgiveness is virtually impossible. It's been well over a decade and I'm still furious, still stinging. Nope, I don't think I'll be sending any Christmas cards that way.

Now there's another one. Now there's another person that has done their best to fuck me up for life. He's done a pretty good job of it too.

I don't really care if he meant any harm or not. It was obviously inevitable, and I tried very hard to get him to just butt out. To just leave well enough alone.

But this fucker, this unbelievably selfish asshole, he just had to keep on pressing. He just had to see just how far he could push things. He'd gotten this idea into his head and, by God, he was going to see this idea through to its conclusion.

Or die trying.

Or destroy me. Or ruin a friendship. Or upset an innocent person.

As much as my mood has fluctuated over the past several months, one thing has remained fairly constant.

The anger I hold for what this fucker did to me has not lessened one bit.

So I'm wondering if I'm ever going to be truly healed. I don't think that I can do it while this anger rages inside me. If I'm ever going to get over this, I think I'll first have to forgive him for what he did. I just don't know if I'm capable of it.

Some things are just too hurtful. Some wounds go too deep. Forgiveness for this may not be possible. I may hate him for the rest of my life.

I hope that's not the case. I hope that I can somehow find the strength to forgive him. He just fucked up, after all. There was no malice, just stupidity. Forgiveness seems like such a small price to pay if it helps me regain my sanity.

If I'm ever going to be able to live with myself, I need to first forgive myself.

So I went to this thing yesterday.

There was a lot of running. That's all I really want to say. I left at 6:00 and went to Polly's to eat something for the first time in 24 hours, then went home and slept.

After my nap I went down to Rich O's, successfully avoided the scene depicted above, and ended up sitting with PipeGuy and GrammarLady for a while. I hadn't seen these two in a while, and PipeGuy in particular seemed quite insistent on talking about you know what. I changed the subject as quickly as I could, but not before making sure that they knew that all of the things that they had imagined happening between her and me were just that - their imagination. Actually, theirs and about a million other people's.

After they left, DooRagGirl and FutureDude showed up.

I got the name FutureDude from an old Seinfeld episode, by the way.

I didn't drink anything worth noting last night. I think I was still reeling a little from the night before. Smithwick's and Spezial. Nice and tame.

FutureDude told me that my Monte Carlo doesn't really seem like a Dave kind of car. I'm not really sure how to take that.

I'm starting to feel another implosion coming on.

(Refer to the earlier entry for pictures.)

You know, people are going to read this and start to worry about me. There's really no need.

I arrived in Cincinnati a little after 2:00 in the afternoon, and pretty much immediately grabbed a cab to Newport. I certainly could have driven there but I was a little confused by the street layouts.

I had the cab take me to the Hofbrauhaus. Looking at their beer list, I was not particularly fired up, but I did manage to choose two beers, and both were surprisingly good.

Hofbrauhaus Newport Altmunchner Dunkelgold

(draft) Not a thing wrong with this beer. Not a thing noteworthy about it either. A little nutty, a little malty, a little tasty. Not my favorite style, but one of my favorites in this style.

Hofbrauhaus Newport Munich Weizen

(draft) There aren't many hefeweizens that I can say I actually like. This one I like. Sweet and fruity, with none of the citrus that usually ruins this style for me. Yummy.

While I was drinking my beers, and eating my lunch, I talked with the bartender about other places for good beer in the area. One of the places that he said was a "must see" was The Beer Sellar on the river.

I walked the two or three blocks to the place, and it was indeed quite nice. When I first walked in it was hard NOT to notice the huge array of taps. My erection quickly dissipated, however, when I realized that about 2/3 of the draft selection consisted of watery lagers. I ended up having a Young's Double Chocolate Stout, and then I selected the following from the bottled list:

Belhaven St. Andrews Ale

(bottle) Nobody else has said it, so I will. This beer had a greenish tint to it. There, I've said it. Aside from the odd coloring, this was a pretty decent beer. The bar had it listed as a smoked beer, so I was a little disappointed to find an ESB instead, but it was quite decent. Actually reminded me more of a Alt than an ESB.

Okay, so after two beers at the Hofbrauhaus, and two fairly strong beers at the Beer Sellar, I was kind of glad that I hadn't actually driven to Newport. I walked across this purple bridge (very cool to walk across the Ohio river) and back to my hotel to grab my Reds ticket.

Not much to say about the game itself. The Reds suck, and they lost. I was a huge baseball fan when I lived in Seattle, but since I've moved back to Indiana this local club just hasn't fielded a team worth rooting for.

So after the game I walked up to the Rock Bottom brewpub and had a little sampler array.

Rock Bottom English Mild

(draft) Smelled pretty good. The flavor and mouthfeel brought creamy bananas to mind. A pretty strange beer, but decent.

Rock Bottom White Tiger Wheat

(draft) I'm convinced that this is the same wheat beer that Hofbrauhaus is selling. Quite a good beer in a style that I don't normally care for.

Rock Bottom Cincinnati Porter

(draft) No aroma. Very faint coffee flavor. Very fizzy mouthfeel. Not very good.

Rock Bottom Brown Bear Brown

(draft) More malty than sweet, so a little unbalanced. Good head and lacing. Pretty good.

At this point things got a little surreal.

I was walking around downtown Cincinnati, looking for this Nicholson's place that I'd heard about, and I was having no luck at all. This homeless guy - a black man about fifty or so, and carrying a large flowery PURSE, approached me.

The first thing this guy said to me was "I promise I'm not looking to rob you, but I could really use some money. I want to buy myself a beer."

So what I ended up doing was enlisting this guy to help me find this Nicholson's place. I promised him that I'd buy him a beer if he kept to his word and didn't rob me.

So we struck a deal. He'd lead me to beer, and not rob me, and I in turn would buy him a beer.

His name was Leroy, and he was actually a pretty cool guy. He kept saying that he knew where Nicholson's was, but it soon became apparent that he had no clue. He did remember this place called O'Malley's, so that's where we went.

I had myself a Guinness, and I bought Leroy a Bud Light.

It was a little scary. Not because I was hanging out with a street person, but because I'm pretty sure that Leroy was the first black man to set foot in O'Malley's since its founding. We got a lot of pretty strange looks.

Leroy's purse probably didn't help matters either.

The O'Malley's bartender gave me directions to Nicholson's and, after we'd finished our beers, Leroy and I parted company. He said that he was seriously grateful to me for trusting him. I guess that trust between whites and blacks hasn't been that common in Cincinnati lately.

So I walked up to Nicholson's. I had myself a couple pints of Smithwick's then I went back to the hotel and slept.

In the morning I drove home.

I had a good time on this trip. I've got some thoughts in my head as to why. Maybe I'll put those thoughts into words later this weekend.

DooRagGirl and FutureDude just came over and took my old washer/dryer unit.

Nice to finally get that thing out of my garage. The place seems positively cavernous now.

I don't have time right now to get into my trip too much. I had fun. I drank beer. I'll post more later, but for now, here are some pics.

This is just a picture of the interior of Buckhead's in Jeffersonville that was in my phone.

The last three pictures are of the new Rich O's expansion area. Roger was kind enough to take us on a little tour the other day.

Rich O's has been using these glasses a lot lately. The freak me out because they look frosted. But they're not.

The Hofbrauhaus in Newport. Pretty decent place, but LOUD.

These are what they call half-servings. These are 20 ounce glasses. The full-servings are like 5 gallons or something.

This polka band is why the place was so damn LOUD.

The Hofbrauhouse guy told me about this place called the Beer Sellar on the river.

They have 60 taps. Wow.

I walked back to Cincinnati across this purple bridge. First time I've ever walked across the Ohio river. Pretty cool.

Looking down from said purple bridge.

Just a couple of views of the Reds' new ballpark. Not nearly as impressive as I'd been hearing, but shitloads better than Riverfront/Conergy was.

This Nicholson's place has a couple of dozen good beers on tap and what's touted as one of the best scotch whisky selections anywhere.

Okay, I'm leaving for Cincy now.

I'd thought about updating my little location map, but it's such a short drive that I could probably be there in the time it would take to update the map.

No entries tonight. Maybe tomorrow when I get back. There'll probably be pics as well.

Go Reds!

So last weekend I had this brilliant idea.

And when I say brilliant I really mean, once again, that I'm retarded.

Luckily, the universe decided to conspire against me, and so this particular idea will not be coming to fruition. The expense of fixing my air conditioning ensures that I will not be doing anything incredibly stupid this weekend.

I don't know what I could have been thinking. I saw that guy, how pathetic he was with his hopes and his dreams, how disappointed he was when they were smashed with those words:

Well that's, um, interesting.

Yet here I was preparing to become that guy. What an idiot I am.

Last night I kicked off my long holiday weekend by (surprise!) going to Rich O's. To drink I had a Mad Bitch and then a couple Guinnii. I spent the better part of the night with Koko in the living room area, but after a while I moved over to the island and talked with some PBDs for a while.

Just going through the motions, really. Relying on reflex to mimic social interaction.

I can really feel myself pulling away from everyone. Nobody is going to make me feel better, so what good are they? They ask me what's wrong, but they don't care - they just want the dirt. They tell me to smile, but they only want that so they will feel more comfortable around me. They tell me things that are supposed to make me feel better, but they're telling me the opposite of what I need to hear.

These people don't know me. Hell, I don't know me anymore.

But I don't think that's why I'm pulling away. I think I'm pulling away because that damn meteor is coming. That volcano is rumbling. Eventually my isolation will no longer be a choice. It will be a necessity. So I think I'm trying to lessen that blow by pulling away gradually. On my own terms and at my own pace.

I'm also pulling away from myself, if that makes any sense. I can't stand this sad fucker that I become sometimes. So I look for distractions. I read a book every day, I spend time with MixedSignalGirl. I flirt with VigilanteGirl. I walk around Disney World taking pictures. I go to a Reds game in Cincinnati. I do whatever I can, whatever I can think of, to fool myself into thinking that I have other things on my mind besides you know what.

I wonder if this is how crazy people are born.

I just hate this.

I've got a four-day weekend fast approaching and I don't want to feel like I'm wasting it, but it's pretty much inevitable that I will feel that way once it's over.

Tomorrow I'm driving up to Cincinnati to catch a Reds game. I'll check out some bars, spend the night in a hotel, and drive back Saturday morning.

Then I've got this Survivor party to attend. For some unknown reason, I'm just not looking forward to this. I guess I've been hoping for a better offer, but none has come. So I'll go and try to enjoy myself.

Sunday is wide open. I imagine that I'll end up at Fourth Street Live.

None of this is what I really want to do this weekend.

What I really want to do is get into my truck, pick a direction, and just start driving. And keep driving until I find whatever it is I've been missing.

But some things are too far away for even a four-day weekend trip.

And some things are hidden so well that even I don't know what they are.

And some things don't even exist.

I just hate this.

(Update: Several people have reminded me that back in December I wrote this. To those people I respond that it's (a)Completely appropriate, and (b)A lot harder than it seems.)