Forgot to mention...

I didn't like the new phone that work gave me the other day, so I talked them into letting me go and buy one I do like.

So now I have a camera phone and it's pretty cool.

Drove through snow flurries on the way to work this morning.

First snow of the season here, as far as I know.

Hopefully not the last though.

Last night Rich O's was actually sort of dead. There were only a few idiots there, sitting at the island, and I took a picture of them with my new camera phone.

To drink, I had some Goose Island Christmas Ales. I'd had this last December and didn't see anyting special about it, but last night they were very good. Here's my ratebeer.com review:

(draft) Had this a year ago and didn't see anything special about it. Had it again last night and really liked it a lot. I thought I detected roasted nutmeg but don't see that mentioned anywhere. Very much a Winter ale, and very much a good one.

Spent most of the night talking with NotGeorge about not much in particular.

I had some small samples of Thomas Hardy Ale and some new Belgian Quad called Urkel or something. Both were good enough that I'll be getting them again, but both were also strong enough that I couldn't safely have any last night after my Christmas Ales.

(This entry is brought to you by Mad Bitch Belgian Ale.)

Okay, so that last entry was just a bunch of whining with no real substance.

This one will be whining with an attempt to put something behind the gripes.

I know what's really bothering me.

Actually it's two things.

Back in June I wrote about how I felt I needed/wanted some companionship during that Las Vegas trip. Back in June I did have a specific companion in mind, but that's not really important now. Look it up if you want.

During my most recent trip I had zero motivation to do anything at all. There I was, in perhaps the most exciting city in the world, where fun lurks around every corner, and all I wanted to do was watch TV and drink beer.

The reason I had zero motivation is that I was alone, and I knew it. I wanted someone to spend time with, to do the fun things with, but there was nobody there. I didn't, this time, have anyone specific in mind - just an idea of what would make things interesting.

That I'm noticing this aloneness - this has been nagging at me for a couple of weeks now. If I find myself no longer able to enjoy my own company, just where does that leave me? I don't get along casually with just anybody. Hell, I spent the week avoiding my coworkers so I wouldn't have to hang out with them. It takes a special person to make me feel really comfortable just being myself, and that person used to be me. What if I'm no fun anymore?

If I find that I need companionship to have a good time then I'm in big trouble, because I don't make close friends that easily, and the women aren't exactly beating a path to my door. Some of them are even getting the hell out of Dodge, er, New Albany.

If I can't keep myself entertained then I'm basically screwed. I'll become a lone wolf, howling at a moon that doesn't care about my torment.

So that's one thing that's been bothering me.

The other thing is a little strange, even for me.

When a certain person left I became pretty screwed up. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think, I couldn't do much of anything except keep breathing and hope for some kind of relief. Once I'd finally become somewhat accustomed to that, the situation changed for the worse. My mood sank lower that it had ever been in my life. That's what it took for me to regain some perspective, and now I can with some confidence say that I'm through letting myself be tortured. Annoyed, yes. Pained, maybe. Tortured, no. I'm much better now.

Really, I am.

Good for me, right?

That's what I thought.

Now, and this sounds really silly to me as I type it, I find myself bored. I actually miss the sadness and the heartbreak. That empty space beside me at Rich O's was not much, but it was something I could count on being there each and every time I went there for two months. That numbness in my chest did not feel good, but it reminded me that I was alive. That phantom vibration in my hip was not announcing an incoming phone call - it was snapping me out of my funk, however briefly, and giving me hope, however slight.

Now there's nothing. It's just me again, and like I said earlier, I may not be enough.

This Fall was a very interesting time in my life, to say the least. Now I feel like the interesting times are over, and it may be a long time before they come again.

If they ever do.

I've just astonished myself with my fragility.

First of all, I've lost my glasses somewhere. How I manage to lose things when I live by myself I'll never know. I don't really need my glasses to function but driving without them does make me feel a little out of sorts.

Second of all, there were no less than a half-dozen Jeeps in Rich O's parking lot when I arrived. Each of these must, of course, be checked out for the telltale stickers. All proved themselves to be innocuous, but not until each had taken a second or two to pick me up and then slam me back down.

Third of all, Rich O's was crowded with strangers again. This is really starting to bother me. As I told CoffeeDude last week, if Rich O's turns into a date bar then I'll stop going there and then there'll be no place for the likes of me.

Fourth of all, there was a new batch of one of NABC's beers. I won't say which one because the guy who invented it is a friend of mine. What I will say is that this new batch is absolutely the worst example of its style that I've ever had. I don't even know what style it should be in - bitter horse piss perhaps. I can't believe that someone actually sampled this before unleashing it on the consuming public. I paid and left after about two sips.

Fifth of all, some asshole nearly ran me off the road on the way back home.

Sixth of all, some other asshole in front of me drove fifteen MPH all the way down my road.

I guess that's it for now. I'm sure something else will piss me off before the night is over.

Got my new phone today and it is not a picture phone.

Sorry ladies, but all that picture trading we were planning will just have to wait.

You'll just have to continue using your imagination.

After sleeping for over ten hours on Tuesday, imagine my surprise when last night, at around 7:00, I felt myself getting tired again.

I slept until about 6:00 AM this morning.

Now I'm the guy that went for nearly two months without getting more than a couple hours sleep per night. Now I sleep twenty-one out of forty-eight.

This week sure has seemed to fly by.

It is nice to not feel tired though. And the mental ramblings have settled down.

I may be going sane.

I've had this subject in my head for a while and I've been struggling with how to express my thoughts without sounding like I'm lecturing. I don't think it's worked.

I've known women that have never gone more than a few weeks without a boyfriend or a husband.

I've known people that have changed jobs like they've changed underwear, and I've known some that move back and forth across the country several times, never quite settling down anywhere.

These people are searching for their happiness, and I think they're looking in the wrong places.

You're not going to find happiness in any person, or at any place, or in any situation, until you find it in yourself.

If you're not happy with the person that you are, well that trumps everything else.

So stop looking outward for something to cure your sadness. The cure is right there inside you. Accept who you are and learn to get along with yourself. You'll never find a better friend.

Others have certainly said these things much more eloquently than I ever could. I've just had them in my mind lately and felt the urge to purge a little.

So for the past couple of days the things going on with me have not been worth the effort required to write about them, but I figure I'll try to play catch-up here anyway before people start getting concerned.

My mood is essentially back to normal, and I suppose I'm a little surprised and/or bothered by that. I feel like I should be feeling worse than I am, if for no other reason than less than two weeks ago was one of the low points of my life.

Lost power Monday night so I went to Rich O's and enjoyed a couple of Gulden Draaks. Nobody I knew was there except one of a certain person's ex-boyfriends and I didn't talk to him. By the time I got home my power was back on.

Last night I became extremely tired at about 8:00 so I went to bed and slept until my alarm went off at 6:30 this morning.

My cousin keeps calling me because I tried to call him the other night for some stupid reason. I haven't bothered to call him back.

My cell phone is broken (it eats batteries in just a few hours) so I'm getting this fancy new one with a camera built in.

As I said, nothing's really been worth the effort it takes to describe it. Pretty boring.

I'm sitting here noticing one thing and wondering two others.

What I'm noticing is that I still cannot sleep. I can blame anti-jet-lag a little for this but there are certainly deeper issues.

What I'm wondering is - was that really necessary? Did I really need to fall to the very bottom to know that things weren't so bad when I was only halfway down?

I'm also wondering - why do I feel guilty?