If I was Catholic, I think it would be funny to do that cross-myself thing whenever I was about to do something scary or stressful. I see baseball players do it all the time when they step up to the plate.

Or if I had asthma, I could use my inhaler thingy at those same times. I guess I could get one of those inhaler thingies even though I don't have asthma. For comedic effect.

Or maybe if I was a voodoo priest, I could sacrifice a chicken. But it would be a big hassle to always have to carry around live chickens.

Anyway, I'm not pushing my luck tonight. I'm going to Bearno's instead. It sucks and it's LOUD there, but at least it's not haunted, except by SneakyGirl, and her ghost isn't scary.

Because, apparently, I'll never sleep again, I found myself bored and looking for something to do. Also, because I'm easily amused, here's my last blog entry translated from English to Japanese and back to English again, all courtesy of Google.

Thought that trying to write for a bit before I tried to sleep with me. Some people are probably like me to avoid insomnia is inevitable, and perhaps it is I think that part, so even when I feel this journal has come a big fat slacker recently that.

Because my brain is pretty tired but I'm gonna let my fingers just typed. They are usually my brain to work better than anyway.

People ask me what. Over and over again and repeat the same thing. A typical question, "Are you retarded or what contains shit?" And, increasingly popular "Why?" And "rhetorical Really?"

No, I do not think so. However, I realize that I do is not it?

I should be.

Yes, really.

Wow, I just caught my own reading what I wrote it already. But if it is not a good thing. Give the complexity of the involvement of my brain that's it. My brain and my fingers sometimes, they do not like about it is that you get written a big fight. In not quite.

Past problems with me always, why? Question is that I must have been mental. However, for my people, they all can I just tell you shit back to the mentally retarded or something? Loop is ugly and a question.

How do I know anyone for any reason it? I have or something because I do not think what you mean and feel, or something. Many hours of life, a series that seems to me. Vindications of fact. I lit it I have smoked a cigarette. Because I bought it before I lit it. Since I had bought it running low. Because I smoked almost a pack that I was running low before. And so on.

For me this tobacco, smoking but I was born. There is, I'm happy now I'll go first?

This is the Big Bang happened is that I smoke this.

Oh, I seem to track a little turned off.

Why you do that if the Big Bang, that too.

What was it that what I write about vindication. I was going to use it in a sentence like: I have a reason not to shit, okay, I know that over the past six vindication and lessons learned from all available years.

So.

Has been proven to me anything wrong, I have gained the right means. And the right to form my opinions, but I had no reason at all, let alone asked to be correct, then I must be mental.

Failure not.

Why is the sky blue? Sun is hot or why? Why is water wet? Why is grass green? Her? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Just because it's reason.

I thought I'd try to write for a bit before I tried to sleep. Some people probably think I'm just avoiding the inevitable insomnia, and maybe that's part of it, but I also feel like I've been a big fat slacker when it comes to this journal lately.

My brain is pretty tired, so I'm just going to let my fingers type for me. They usually do a better job than my brain, anyway.

People ask me stuff. The same things over and over and over and over. Typical questions include, "Are you fucking retarded or something?" and the ever-popular, "Why?" and the rhetorical, "Really?"

No, I don't think so. But if I were, would I realize it?

I'll get to that.

Yes, really.

Wow, I just caught myself reading what I'd already written. I'm not supposed to do that. It only complicates things when I let my brain get involved. Sometimes my brain doesn't like what my fingers have written and then they get into a big fight about it. It's not pretty.

The problem I've always had with the Why? question has been that I must be psychic. But I can't tell people that because then all they do is revert back to the Are you fucking retarded or something? question and it becomes an ugly loop.

How does anyone know the reason for anything? I mean the reason that they do something or think something or say something or feel something. A lot of the time life seems, to me, to be a series of after-the-fact vindications. I'm smoking a cigarette because I lit it. I lit it because I bought it earlier. I bought it because I was running low. I was running low because I'd smoked most of the previous pack. And so on and so on.

I'm smoking this cigarette because I was born. There, you happy now, or should I go further?

I'm smoking this cigarette because the Big Bang happened.

Whoa, I seem to have gone a little off-track.

I did that because of the Big Bang, too.

Vindication is what I was going to write about. I was going to use it in a sentence, as in: I don't fucking know why, okay, but everything I've learned in the past six years has provided vindication.

So there.

Nothing has proven me wrong, and so that means that I've been right. And, because I was right when I had absolutely no reason to even form an opinion, let alone the right one, then I must be psychic.

Not retarded.

Why is the sky blue? Why is the sun hot? Why is water wet? Why is grass green? Why her? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Just because, that's why.

The question of what I'll be doing tonight - it didn't even need to be asked. I'm going to miss her. I just am. I can feel myself hurtling towards stage one at breakneck speed. Before too long, I'm going to hit that wall, and I'm going to lie in a heap for a while.

The only question I have is where I'll be doing this. Either here at home, or maybe at Bearno's, or maybe at Jack's. I should go to Jack's, but I doubt that I will. That place is becoming haunted, and I'm not sure that I need any more ghosts right now. Maybe I'll go if OddlyFamiliarGirl wants to go.

But I'm not complaining. I've been so spoiled these last few days. I got to spend a lot of time with HatGirl Saturday night, and today SneakyGirl paid me a surprise visit. Hell, even LaptopGirl herself managed to communicate with me a couple of times.

So, I'm not complaining. There's a price that I have to pay for daring to be happy, even if that happiness is in scattered bits and tiny pieces and fleeeting moments. And that price, I'm hurtling towards it.

Tonight, I will miss her. Tonight, I will be back where I belong, in a heap at the base of a wall that I can never seem to break through.

I've been trying to figure out just what, if anything, he was trying to accomplish by telling me. Perhaps I was supposed to be scared away. Perhaps I was supposed to get angry. Perhaps I'm supposed to care.

But I wasn't. And I didn't. And I don't.

Or maybe it was to ease some guilty feelings. Not for what had happened, but for the secrecy that had followed. If so, then guilt was unnecessary, and there's nothing for me to forgive.

In truth, I'd suspected it for years. After all, why should he be different than just about every other guy? I know that I, given the opportunity, would have jumped at it.

Oh, wait. I was given the opportunity, more than once, and I decided to be a nice guy instead of just a guy. I decided to do what was right instead of what was expected. But, of course, my circumstances have always been different, and so I have always been different.

Anyway, this thing, this thing that may or may not have been revealed in order to anger or sadden me, or to unburden a chest, it was a long time ago.

And, like I said, I don't care. It changes nothing.

It's instinctive, of course, but that doesn't make it boring or robotic. Instincts are translated to thoughts and emotions by our brains, and so everything makes perfect sense and it makes us feel like we're in control of things.

I don't have any kids, that lived, that I know of, so maybe I'm not the right person to be spouting any words, let alone advice, about parenting.

But, it's my blog, and I'm not forcing anyone to read it.

We want to shelter our children in their own little Garden of Eden for as long as we can, so that they can stay innocent for as long as they can. We feed them, clothe them, protect them. We teach them about all of the wonderful and amazing things that the world has to offer, and we watch in awe as they learn and embrace the truths that we show them. But the bad things, we hide the bad things from them. So that they won't find out. Not yet, anyway. We don't tell them that, while the world is full of love and wonders, it is also full of fear and pain.

There are terrible things in this world.

But I'm not one of them.

I said that I'd understand, and I do understand.

But I don't agree. Not at all.

So many times, I've thought it might be the last time. Not every time, but often enough. Too often, I mean.

It wasn't always like that. There were good times, lots of good times. There were nights that would end with the certainly that there'd be another day. On those nights, I slept well. I miss those nights, that confidence that I had, that it would continue for at least another day. That maybe it would continue forever.

The last time wasn't one of the good ones. The last time, like so many other times before, I heard the voice inside my head. "This could be the last time," it whispered.

"Make it last," it advised.

"Remember this," it urged.

"Never let go," it pleaded.

I didn't want to let go, not ever. I wanted to have and to hold and to protect and to cherish, but mostly I wanted to hold. To just hold on to, well, everything that matters to me.

But I didn't. I let go. I released my grip, and I let my arms fall back to my sides.

I wonder, Was that the last time?

This entry is mistitled. I'm not even close to being drunk. Oh well, can't be helped now. I've already typed the title.

Well my plan of just sitting in my garage and drinking didn't work out. I got through a bottle of Barfly and then, when I'd had just a couple sips of a second bottle's pouring, my phone rang.

What followed was pretty much the exact opposite of sitting in my garage by myself.

Anyway, it was a good night. Not because of the way it turned out, but I guess because of the way I managed to hold myself together long enough to be useful. And, not only that, I also got to say some things that I'd really needed to say.

See, just like everyone else, there are reasons for my being the way that I am. Reasons besides pure insanity, I mean.

And we certainly had a good example of insanity tonight, didn't we?

But I digress.

The reasons almost always exist, even if they're not known. I, for example, still have no idea what reason(s) there might have been for what happened to me a little over six years ago. But I do know, boy do I fucking know, why I hit rock-bottom a few months ago, and why I'm still down here, wallowing in the muck and the mud of my own misery.

Tonight, I got to state those reasons. So that made it a good night. Even if nothing else had happened, I was able to finally unburden myself a little. And I didn't get any back-talk. That really meant a lot to me.

And I was able to stand up for myself a little. By stating the simple truth that I don't know if things between us can ever work. It seems to me that we tried to make it work, for a long time, and it seems to me that we failed.

That I failed, I mean.

I don't know if we broke up or not. Definitions will vary, as will intentions. And results are unknowable at this time. It certainly felt like a break-up to me.

But I'll tell you something: If it was a break-up, then it was at least a proper one. Finally.