Had a nice dinner with HatGirl (Yay!) and her sister at Sportstime, except for that one five-year stretch when HatGirl went outside to talk on the phone. HatGirl's sister and I don't know each other well enough to sit comfortably in silence together.

Oh yeah, and there was a group of very LOUD girls in the next booth, and one of them looked enough like NormalGirl that I managed to convince myself that (a) it was her, and that (b) she hadn't said hello to me for some reason.

So I didn't acknowledge her either.

As it turned out, she had a very good reason for not saying hello. It wasn't her. I became certain that it wasn't her when she stood up. NormalGirl has a much nicer ass.

Anyway.

Tonight it's kinda nice outside. I'm going to go sit in my garage and drink some Barfly and glare at my phone.

It'll be fun!

I'm a little hung-over, thanks for asking. It's just the dehydration kind of hangover, though, not the kind where my hair hurts. So I'm drinking water, and then I'll be okay.

The wasps are back. Not the actual wasps from the Spring. They're all dead. These are new wasps. They're still assholes, though.

So, there is a very real chance that I'm drunk right now. But that's okay. It's 3:07 AM on a Thursday morning. I'm safely at home, where I plan to stay for the next several hours and/or days and/or weeks and/or months, at least until I become sober again. I am no menace to either myself or to society.

And besides, it's not even my fault at all that I'm maybe possibly drunk. And it's not even OddlyFamiliarGirl's fault, even though before her kind invitation I'd been planning to go to sleep at 7:00 or so, and after her kind invitation I ended up having a nice Marzen (16022) and a nice Urbock (437) while at Rich O's.

It is, of course, LaptopGirl's fault. Who's else would it be? She is, after all, the root of all evil and the fountain of all goodness in my life. Why shouldn't she also be in charge of my drunkenness or lack thereof?

So I ended up buying a bottle of Avery Reverend to take home with me, and then, because of the aforementioned you-know-who, I ended up drinking the damn thing (716) while I glared at my phone and replied to emails and strived to remain useful whilst I died inside.

I will be fair, though. I will share the blame. It was me who poured the beer from the bottle into the glass, and it was me who then poured the beer from the glass into my mouth.

Did you ever wish that water wasn't wet? Or that the sky wasn't blue? Or that the Sun wasn't hot and bright?

Or that love wasn't real?

Anyway, it just doesn't fucking matter. None of it does. I can no more take my heart back now than I could have resisted giving it away so long ago. It no longer belongs to me, and it never will again.

And the truth is that I like this mood I'm in right now. I'm fucking focused, after all. The universe, and the room, and the inside of my skull - these things are all quite blurry and wavy, but everything that matters is still in perfect focus.

I'm in love with her.

So there.

A lot of the fucking time, I wish that I wasn't in love with her.

So there again. Take that.

But wishes are as useful in my life as, as they say, screen doors on a submarine.

I sit here and I sit there and I sit wherever I might happen to be sitting, and I wish and I wish and I wish and I wish, and then on the good nights I wish no more, because I realize that it's a waste of time and effort.

Things are the way that they are. Things aren't the way that they aren't. Not a single thing that I do or say or think or feel will ever change anything, because it's not up to me, and it never has been up to me.

I did not lie.

Not even once.

Not even a little bit.

Lot of good that did me.

So there.

It's hard to tell from this crappy blurry photo, but that's my cat Buddy chillaxing again. It's even harder to tell that, once again, he's lying atop a pair of my blue jeans.

I ran across this old entry, from March of 2006. It amazes me how little has changed over the years.

The nice thing about this is that it's giving me something to think about, but the bad thing about this is that it's giving me something to think about.

Too many things, actually.

My mind is aswarm with thoughts, my heart is teeming with feelings, all with their own agendas. Some will merge for a brief time, join forces in fierce battle against their enemies, swear allegiance to false alliances, but all the while only truly working toward their own vision of an idealized conclusion.

Others are adversaries from the start. Like dogs and cats, like Arabs and Jews, they are born into this war which began long ago and which will continue long after these individual skirmishes and battles and betrayals have become nothing more than forgotten footnotes in a history book.

And the individual combatants, so full of resolve and so possessed of purpose, they will become nothing more than patches of ground where the flowers, nourished by the blood-soaked earth, grow vibrant and strong.

And me?

Well, I'm Mars, The God of War.

This is a snippet of an email I sent RockGirl just now. I don't know wjhy I'm posting this here. Probably because I want to post something but I don't feel like writing anything.

...

So now guess the scenario that my brain has conjured up.

You don't even have to guess. You know me well enough.

And I really was thinking about going to Wick's. Even though it's gay, they have good pizza. I've been craving about 10 things all day, and I haven't made up my mind, and I haven't eaten anything at all. I'll probably starve to death before I decide what I want to eat.

The thing is, I think, that if I go to Wick's then I'll have a beer with my pizza. And if I have a beer with my pizza then I won't feel like going to Jack's. And I kinda think I might want to maybe go to Jack's tonight. I could just go to stupid Bearno's, but I really don't feel like getting food there again.

I went to Rich O's for a bit last night, after HatGirl and I parted company. I wasn't there very long. Just long enough for one beer, but it was long enough, I suppose.

Long enough to get me back into my old habits of flinching every time I'd hear a female voice, and of never ever turning my back on the door.

I'd been planning to just go to the Sportstime side of things, but a glance into the window had revealed that Sportstime was packed. Rich O's wasn't much better, but I was able to sit in the throne while I wondered (a) how stupid I was for being at Rich O's, and (b) who all those people were.

I didn't recognize a single person in that crowd. It was like I'd entered the wrong bar.

Anyway, I had myself a Marzen (15943) and then I left a little before 9:00.

Speaking of dreams, I just had a dream in which I spent a huge portion of time vacuuming. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Before that is the really weird part, though. My mom and I got into an argument, and she said something like, "Well your family would just buy you a new mansion!"

And I said, "Wait, aren't you my mom? Isn't this my family?"

"That's what we've wanted you to think," she replied.

Weird.

And so, now I'm back. Where I belong.

Where breaths are lies, because I don't want to take them.

Where heartbeats do nothing more than mark wasted time.

Where moods and thoughts and musings are nothing more than faint textures fumblingly etched onto a terrible canvas.

Where I hold my tongue, as much as I can, because I cannot scream and because screaming is all that would be worthy. Where it doesn't make sense. Where there's no explanation. Where I can't be trusted.

Where it's all just too weird.

Where I pretend, all the time, that I'm moving toward something or away from something, but where I'm really just standing still. Rooted in this here and this now and this what and this why. Because there's nowhere else to go, and because there's nowhere else I want to be.

Where I belong.

Where I miss her.

I've been sleeping a lot lately. At least twelve hours every day. I've been dreaming a lot.

Goodnight, cruel world.