So there is flooding, but that doesn't affect my house, because I live atop Mt. Dave.

But something happened. A strong rumble of thunder or something, because the large framed picture that I keep above my fireplace is lying on the floor.

And that's not all. I really wish that was all, but it's not.

Also - and it's going to be hard to write this - also one of my Marzen glasses is broken. It shattered into a couple-dozen pieces.

That glass was given to me by LaptopGirl last Christmas.

So it's priceless and irreplaceable.

Just like she is.

Weird annoying. I'm finding myself at a total loss for words. I mean, I know exactly what I want to say, as long as I don't have to actually say anything.

It's just so damn clear to me, but the words either don't exist or they're really fucking good at hiding in my head. I can think them and I can feel them, but I can't articulate them.

I need to say something, but I find myself unable to say anything at all.

And dammit, this is important. Way more important than anything I've written in a long time. Maybe ever.

"How can I give this up?" I want to write.

"I can't give it up, it's everything to me," I want to continue.

Those words are nothing nothing nothing. The tip of the iceberg. A hint of an inkling of a notion of the truth.

Infinite is only a small portion of the whole. Forever is just the beginning. Unconditional is much too restrictive.

The words that I've said, the things that I've done, the feelings that I've felt - they're all just symptoms of a much larger truth.

Maybe the words really don't exist, to describe this. Maybe you need to look into my eyes, read my mind, feel my soul.

Or, maybe I'm drunk.

Go ahead and think that's all it is. It's easier.

I got a whopping hour and a half of sleep tonight, so I was all energized and shit. Now I'm bored and I took a quiz thingy.

I like that word. It fits so well with so many things in my life. I should probably change my middle name to Inordinate. I never liked Shane that much anyway. Plus, then my initials would be DIS and so maybe I'd be all hip and shit. Or is that DISS?

I think I want someone to tell me that it's okay to be pissed about the way I'm being treated. I fall so easily into anger over it, but then I always feel guilty. I spend an inordinate amount of time feeling guilty.

Tomorrow another weekend begins. I remember when weekends meant going to Rich O's and spending an inordinate amount of energy watching the door. Those were such different times back then. Hope ruled my entire life. But this weekend I probably won't go there at all. It's no longer a good idea for me to go there at night, for lots of reasons. People think there's only one reason, but people are wrong. It's not only because I'm being a baby. That's not even the main reason. Maybe I'll write an entry about this stuff, some day.

And I heard from TremensGirl that MusicalYuppieDude is having a party this weekend. I can't go to that either, even if he does get around to inviting me.

Saturday I might get to see HatGirl, if she doesn't flake on me. She's so busy all the time, I'm incredibly flattered that she thinks enough of me to pencil me in. She's one of the world's best people, and I spend an inordinate amount of time wishing that I was a better person, so that our friendship might be better justified.

In fact, she should be the one I'm in love with. That would make sense to everyone.

I don't write about work in this journal. I think that most people know that. I don't want to get dooced, after all. But I started a new job this week, and maybe that deserves mention.

There, I mentioned it.

It's after 3:00 in the morning, and I'm not really sure why I'm still awake. I spend an inordinate amount of time being awake.

I should try to go to sleep now.

When I was driving to work(!) this morning, there was a storm. It's been all over the news, even the national news. Louisville even made the front page of weather.com.

It rained. A lot. Like six inches in an hour, I think I heard. There was a lot of flooding.

But not in my basement.

So that's cool.

Tonight I don't know what it was that woke me up. Another damn dream, I imagine, but I don't know for sure. Maybe a mouse farted - sometimes that's all it takes. And, once I wake up, that's it. A thought or a series of thoughts gets into my head, and it gets into my soul, and it grabs and it twists.

As I once wrote:

Today, it's neither the pain of the past nor the agony of the present hammering away at my mood. Nope, today it's the future, of all things, that torments my thoughts.

The thing about the future is that I'm not really sure there's going to be one.

I don't think it would come as a surprise to anyone who knows me. I'm in a fucked-up situation these days.

I spend an inordinate amount of my time looking for, I dunno, something.

For what exactly, I can't say, because I don't know what it is. I think that I might be looking for what's left. Something that survived that terrible flood. A recognizable chuck of debris on the bank, perhaps. Just something to remind me, though I could never forget.

The rest of the time, I wait.

For what? Again, I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I'm waiting for it right now.

Back then, I survived that flood, and I found what I was looking for. I found much much more than I thought I'd find, and I was actually happy, for a long time. Me, of all people.

But then a new flood came. A more terrible flood. And this one is still flowing, rushing, ripping.

Last year, I was knocked to my feet, and I stood up, and I was knocked down again. And again. And again.

This time, there's no sense in trying to stand. There is no ground anywhere beneath my feet.

This time I'm trying to stay afloat.

I'm looking at these lines from a post I did a couple of months ago.

I lived in a place of hope, and dreams, and love. But it was all a lie.

I worry about the things I'll write when I feel like I have nothing left to lose. I wonder why I don't feel that way already. Perhaps there are still lies waiting to crumble.

I fear the vacuum, I really do. It was never there before. There was always something before, whether it was false or not, it was something.

Now, not so much.

First, the walls crumbled. That was bad enough. But now all of the air is being sucked away.

Isn't the point of living about having something you care about, that is important to you? Isn't it about having something left to lose?

If there is truly nothing left to lose, then what's the fucking point of living at all?

The other night I was thinking about fate. I've written before that I don't believe in fate, but then I also wrote this:

This series of events and emotions that was set into motion all those years ago, there is a reason. I just don't know what that reason is. Perhaps its purpose is to destroy me.

So far, so good.

I'd also guess that, on each one of those 12,000 days, I probably saw a pretty girl, or two, or three. On some days I saw the same girl(s) I'd already seen, and on some days I saw someone new.

So, maybe 12,000 different pretty girls that I've seen in my live.

And out of all those times, this happened once? When I saw her?

What the fuck?

Approximately 2,146 days ago, 2,146 girls ago, in the span of about two seconds, my entire life changed. It has never been the same since, and it will never be the same again. No matter what else happens, I will never be the same again.

I don't believe in fate. I think that fate is a silly concept, and that it implies things that I find unacceptable about the uselessness of life. I think that people use the concept of fate as a crutch, as an excuse for not having things turn out the way that they wanted, or as feeble justification for doing things that would otherwise have no justification at all except for stupidity.

I don't believe in fate, but I really want to know why that happened, approximately 2,146 days ago.

I'm trying to keep from knowing the time. So I don't know how late it is, or how early it is. I don't know if I'll sleep again tonight. I doubt that I will.

I did sleep, for some undetermined amount of time. I slept, and I had a dream, and I woke up.

That damn dream.

So I'm not looking at the time. I know it's there, down in the bottom right corner of my screen. I'm refusing to look. I don't want to know. Fuck, I start a new job sometime in the next undetermined number of hours and, instead of sleeping, I've spent two beers worth of time out on my deck with listening to the crickets and the owls and the stobors. I've spent the last two beers worth of time trying to forget the dream.

But it's a futile effort. It always is. I remember every word she said, in the dream. I remember every word I said, in the dream. I remember what happened next, in the dream.

That damn dream.

I mean, what if I look at the time and it's only 1:00 or some bullshit like that? Then I'll be so fucked. No way will I be able to function all day tomorrow until quitting time. Oh sure, maybe I could look and it's 6:00, and maybe my alarm is about to go off anyway. Then I'd know that I could survive. I've survived worse, after all.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. The truth always seems to be somewhere in the middle.

That damn truth.