So.

One week. Seven days. One hundred sixty-eight hours.

How could I up and disappear like that? How could I be so insensitive? Don't I know that I have readers?

Yeah, well, my readers will just have to deal with it. It happened, and it's ongoing, despite any evidence this entry may present to the contrary.

Anyway.

It just wasn't working. Too many temptations. Too many reminders. Too many opportunities. For self-pity, and failure, and stupidity.

My life was broken.

So the first thing I did was send an email. One that was long-overdue.

After that, I stopped.

I stopped as much as I could. I stopped going to facebook, lest I be reminded. I stopped going to Rich O's for the same reason, and also so that I wouldn't be coerced. I stopped drinking, hoping that I wouldn't get into one of those moods. I stopped writing here, so I wouldn't be tempted to scream.

I stopped all of these things, and more, in an effort to...

I don't really know.

Not to forget, that's for sure. I'll never forget, no matter how badly I want to.

Not to get on with my life. There's no point to that. Humpty Dumpty cannot be reassembled.

Not to get over it. There's no way I'll ever get over it as long as I know that, the next time I see her face, or hear her voice, or even the next time I get an inane email or text message, it will all come rushing back.

I guess, if I have to give a reason, I guess I'm just tired.

This image illustrates that point. Click on it for a larger version. It makes me grin. Especially number three. Yes, I'm a child. Tee-hee.

Anyway, the other night I had a brilliant idea. I was sitting at Jack's with OddlyFamiliarGirl, as that has become something of a Sunday-night habit lately, and I found myself in a familiar dilemma.

See, OddlyFamiliarGirl is very smart, and very talkative. This is a brutal combination. Quite often, I find myself listening intently to what she's saying, but listening so intently that I'm constantly forgetting the things I want to say. Then, when OddlyFamiliarGirl pauses to take a breath, I'm left with nothing with which to fill the silence.

Hence, my brilliant idea.

Frustrated with my nonexistent short-term memory, I asked for a piece of paper and a pen. With those things, I was able to jot down little notes to myself, and those notes were enough to remind me of the things I wanted to add to our discussion when the opportunities arose.

And, this past Sunday, one of the things we discussed was the clitoris.

I think it was Jay, and not Silent Bob, who once asked, "The female clitoris?"

Yes, that's the one.

Then we talked about dreams and other random stuff. It's all in the notes.

I wish...

And then my mind just sort of trails off.

I don't know how to finish that thought. Not anymore. I don't know what I wish. What I want. I used to know exactly what I wanted.

I guess...

For this to end, one way or another, that would be nice. But how?

To stop being toyed with, to stop being tortured, those things would fantastic. But I don't really see those things ever happening. There may be some sick pleasure involved, some twisted motive that I could never understand.

Or maybe...

Just maybe there's still something good, and it will eventually make itself known.

Meanwhile...

I wait. For what, I have no idea. Not anymore.

Once or twice or a million times every week - it used to be much more often - I get the urge to say something. To initiate communication.

I don't do it, though, not anymore. I resist those urges, with whatever amount of effort is required at that particular time.

I have my reasons.

My feelings had become unwanted background noise to every word I said. Always inferred even when not consciously implied, even when explicitly dismissed.

I think that the thing I wanted to say, when I first had this thought earlier tonight, is that I haven't gone anywhere. But that wouldn't be quite true.

The truth is, I have moved.

But I've moved only as far as I've been pushed, and not one inch farther.

I'm still here, dammit.

Just one the other side of this damn line in the sand. Wishing that I knew what had happened. Wondering what would happen if I took a step forward.

Maybe I'll just repost old shit today. I feel like posting thing, but not like writing things. Because writing would be, like, hard and stuff. Plus, I've got some stuff I want to say that probably wouldn't be appreciated, so I'm keeping myself in-check.

Anyway, I'd forgotten that I'd even wrote this entry, back in 2006. It's a little negative, but that's how I rolled back then. Now, of course, I'm not like that at all. Now, I shit flowers.

Meanwhile, I'm tired.

---

Anyway, I've been sick for a few days. Nothing major as it turns out. Just a bit of a fever. I missed a couple of days of work, but that was mostly because I didn't want to infect everyone there. If I'd had the plague, as I'd originally feared, and I'd infected someone at work and they'd subsequently died - well I could kiss my annual performance bonus goodbye.

A while ago I was at SassyGirl's going away party, and at one point I found myself out on her deck with a bunch of kids. Teenagers mostly, though a couple of them might have been in their early 20s.

I found myself all alone with these kids because everyone else, everyone I knew and might have had at least one single solitary thing in common with, they had all taken off to pull some chick's car out of a ditch or something.

I don't remember what we were originally talking about. Probably something stupid. But at one point some of the kids started rambling on and on and on about their various thoughts about love. Such as they were.

Each time one of them would finish making a statement that they thought was profound, all of the kids would look at me. I guess because I was twice as old as any of them, they had subconsciously chosen me as some kind of spiritual leader. Their love coach, if you will.

I think I spent most of the time rolling my eyes.

Kids are so stupid.

Or maybe naive is a better word. Yes, I think it is.

Kids are so fucking naive.

With their fucking hopes and their dreams and their stupid ideals, it's really a wonder that they've managed to live for as long as they have. I mean, most of them seem to think that they can fly. It's truly miraculous that the ground isn't littered with broken bodies.*

I think back to when I was that age. No way was I that fucking stupid. By the time I'd graduated high school, life had already been feeding me shit sandwiches for years. By the time my marriage had ended, I'd learned to enjoy the damn things. By the time LaptopGirl moved away, I craved them like they were manna from Heaven.

But those kids, those kids on that deck that night, there was not a single one of them possessed of a single clue about what love is all about.

Like I said, I spent most of that time on that deck just rolling my eyes. But at one point I did speak up. At one point the drivel being vomited out of a young mouth was just too much to take. At one point I saw the opportunity to say something worthwhile. I took that opportunity. All eyes were upon me. I'd been drinking. One of the girls was hot so I wanted to seem especially wise.

There are very few truly evil people in the world, I said. And, chances are, none of us have ever met any of them, or dated them, or given our virginity to them. But we're still fooled into seeing evil where it doesn't exist. This is a defense mechanism, invented by our hearts and backed-up by our brains. By demonizing those who have hurt us, we further isolate ourselves from the cold harsh reality of life. The reality that we will be hurt, time and time again. By good people. By people who are just like us. When we slap an "evil" label on someone who's hurt us, we fool ourselves into believing that it was a rare event. An anomaly. That it won't happen again, or at least not with the same intensity.

It's still better than the alternative.

* - If you took those last two sentences literally, then you are an idiot and you should go kill yourself now before you pass on your idiot genes to the next generation. If you've already managed to find someone as stupid as you to procreate with then you should probably kill your offspring first.

Here's another dog-themed entry. Damn, this one was written in November 2004, about a month after I died.

---

When I was a kid, maybe eight or nine years old, the neighbors across the street had this dog for a while.

The dog would bark constantly, and Mr. Hill would beat the dog. Then the dog would start yelping, and Mr. Hill would beat the dog some more.

I couldn't do anything about it (I was just a kid after all) but I do remember that somebody called the police one time and eventually somebody came and took the dog away.

One thing that's really vivid in my memory is that, even though Mr. Hill would beat the dog nearly every day, the dog would still get all excited and happy when Mr. Hill came home from work. He'd wag his tail so hard his whole body shook, and jump up against the truck door. He just couldn't wait for Mr. Hill to pay attention to him.

The dog had to know that he was going to be abused, but he didn't care. He still loved Mr. Hill and he seemed ever-hopeful that things would be different this time.

I remember hoping that the dog would fight back someday. Perhaps growl at Mr. Hill or maybe even bite him, but he never did.

That abuse was the only attention the dog ever got, and I supposed he had decided, in his little doggy mind, that if his purpose in life was to be a punching bag for Mr. Hill, then so be it. He'd be the bestest, most loyalest punching bag ever!

Even though I thought I understood what was going on in the dog's mind, I still thought it was pretty stupid. I knew I'd never let somebody abuse me like that. I knew I was smarter than a dog, after all!

Even if I can't fight back, I'm at least smart enough to run away.

Eventually.

So here's an entry from almost three years ago. I like to repost these old entries. For one thing, they help to squelch those who doubt me when I say how long this has been going on. For another thing, they keep me from having to write anything new.

Today I'm contemplating a last-minute trip. To where, I don't know. What I do know is that, if I had any brains, I'd go somewhere fast, and if I had any balls I'd stay put and not be so damn afraid.

Another thing I know is that, if I wasn't so fucking tempted to stay, then I wouldn't want to leave.

---

My grandmother used to have this little Pekinese dog. She had several of them over the years, actually. I don't know what this one particular dog's name was. It might have been Raindrop. I know there was a Raindrop at some point during my childhood.

One thing about this dog was that it was ugly. But that should go without saying. All Pekinese dogs are ugly with their squashed faces and their stubby legs and their weird compact torsos. Selective breeding gone horribly awry.

Another thing about this one particular dog was that it was terrified of storms. But not petrified. Whatever the opposite of petrified would be. Maybe frantic with fear.

Whenever thunder would rumble, this dog would start running. My grandmother's house was a big circle. The dog would run from the kitchen to the laundry room to the bedroom to the foyer to the living room to the kitchen - on and on and on until the thunder stopped. That dog, with it ugly little tongue hanging out of its ugly face, that dog would run that circuit nonstop until the storm had passed.

Unless somebody messed up and opened the kitchen door.

When that happened, somebody - usually me - would have to go out into the storm and chase the stupid little thing down.

It was amazing how fast those stubby little legs could propel that dog.

This past weekend I went driving. A lot. And I thought about that dog and how it would run and run without ever getting anywhere. How it would run for the simple reason that it was too terrified to stay where it was.

I wondered if I was doing the same thing. And not just with the driving around. With all of my traveling, and with all of my life, I wondered if what I was really doing was running.

Maybe.

And if I am, then that begs the question of whether I'm running from something that I cannot escape, or running toward a destination that I cannot see.

How badly am I fooling myself?

Am I as stupid as that ugly little dog, running simply because it's the only thing I can do?

Here's what I wrote three years ago on this date. Back then, it was only the second anniversary of the day I stopped fighting. So today, it's the fifth.

The minutes take eternities to pass, but somehow the years rush by.

Two years have passed in the blink of a teary eye.

I never thought it would happen. I fought for so long, I convinced myself that I was winning. I faked a smile for so long, I convinced myself that I was happy. I fell for so long, I convinced myself that I was flying.

I never thought it would happen. I never thought it could happen.

But it did.

Splat!

My world still reverberates from the force of that impact.

I don't want to say any more.

I've already said too much, yet I could never never never say enough.

Those two words would lead to those three words would lead to a billion more words, and still it would not be enough.

It was never enough.