I remember, but I wish I could remember more.

I remember Dad getting Dina and me out of bed, carrying her and half-dragging me to the living room.

I remember the TV, and the grainy pictures thereon. White-suited men bouncing around a white rock-strewn plain. An oddly-stiff flag neither waving nor sagging nor flapping. I remember Mom giggling about something or other, almost uncontrollably.

When they showed that flag, that was the first time I ever saw my dad cry. And it was the last time, for almost nineteen years. Until my mom's funeral.

I wish I could remember more about that night, forty years ago.

But I was just a little kid, after all.

Tonight I sat at Rich O's with a small group of people, and I noticed something. Before I say what I noticed, maybe you need some background.

I am smart.

Okay, that's enough background.

Anyway, tonight I sat in a group of five people, or to be more specific, I sat on the outskirts of that group, and I noticed that there was absolutely no way that I could consider myself to be one of the brightest members.

This was weird to me, but not unprecedented. It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen.

At least two members of the group were obviously and immensely more intelligent than I have ever been or will ever be. One other was probably tied with me on the old IQ-meter. The last member, while not quite as bright as the rest of us, was still far above average, even for Rich O's. So we didn't ridicule that person, too much, and not intentionally. Subtle sarcasm and even more subtle innuendo sufficed, as it always does.

Besides, my dad always said, "Don't make fun of retarded people," and that advice scales quite easily.

See, there's a difference between intelligence and knowledge. Some people don't get that. Some people are incapable of getting it. We pity those people, but not too openly, because we all know that we're only a few ounces of beer away from becoming just like them.

There. This should count as an entry, shouldn't it?

I've noticed. Of course I've noticed. I've just been waiting for others to notice.

I am no longer allowed to complain that I don't have anything about which to write.

It's all there. All those damn quickies that I write. Up to a dozen or so each day, perhaps. Each one is basically a topic sentence for an entry waiting to be written. Straining to be written.

I need to stop whining, and I need to start writing. Or maybe I should do both.

That's what people expect from me, after all.

So I went to the thingy. I went by myself, though that wasn't my preference. I'd invited KittenDamsel, but she was being weird. Then I'd invited LaptopGirl, but she'd thought I was being weird. This latter situation almost made me want to just stay home and pout, but then I called BadPickleGirl and she was going. Plus I was pretty sure that SpoonsGirl would be there, so odds were pretty good that I'd have someone to talk to at the thingy. Even better would have been if Eric and Teri would have gone, but they had some reunion to go to. Oh well.

I'd decided that Gumballhead would be my beer of choice for the evening. I was going to drive to Clarksville to get some, but BadPickleGirl said that the store right there in Greenville carried it. Even though I was doubtful, that's where I ended up going. BadPickleGirl was right, Gumballhead was available. So I got a warm six-pack of that and also a twelve-pack of Fat Tire and went to Dina's.

There were, of course, a million people there. Most of them I didn't know. But that was okay. I talked to BadPickleGirl and SpoonsGirl and SpoonsGirl's husband for most of the night. Over the course of about nine hours, I had a couple Fat Tires (1354) and four Gumballheads (1190). I talked to the aforementioned people. I watched the other people. I didn't glare at my phone too much.

And there were kitties all over the place. I got to pet some of them, and the youngest kitten did a decent job of shredding my hand as I played with it. I like kittens.

Usually I like to make an early Batmanesque exit from Dina's parties, so I have time to go to Rich O's. But last night I stayed until midnight or so, and I was one of the last people to leave.

I guess that's it.

I just don't have anything to write, but here I sit. I guess I don't like the previous entry being the most recent entry. Because, as I'd predicted and hoped, that particular mood did not last.

The other day LaptopGirl asked me if it would kill me to write a positive entry. I don't know the answer to that question. It probably wouldn't kill me, but why take the chance?

Oh, because she asked, that's why.

I'll certainly try. The next time I'm in a good mood, I'll try to write a positive entry.

I'm in a most unusual mood tonight. Not merely a "weird" mood, as I've so often said. This particular mood is one that I honestly can't remember ever having before.

I just don't care.

Now, this mood certainly won't last. None of my moods ever last. I'm amazed that this one has gone on as long as it has. Since about midnight, I think.

This is not a reaction to anything in particular, or to the lack of anything in particular. There's no anger, or sadness, or frustration, or disillusionment, or confusion, or longing or even lust or even love. Okay, maybe there's some disillusionment, but not a lot. Not enough to explain this mood, now of all times. And there's always love, but it usually defines me instead of simply punctuating me.

There was no impetus at all for this mood. One second I felt all of the above, and the next second, I didn't.

This mood won't last. I don't want it to last. Not forever. Not even through tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning I want to wake up as myself. I need to know who I am, what I am, how I am. I need to fucking recognize myself when I look in the mirror tomorrow.

This person sitting here at my computer tonight, typing this crap - he isn't me. He's just another asshole who stopped caring because it hurt too much. Another dickhead who stopped trying because it was too hard. Another, dare I say, dipshit, who quit the game because he couldn't cheat and get away with it.

Fuck that. That's not who I am.

It's fascinating, though, I won't lie. I never thought there'd ever ever ever ever ever be a time when I'd feel like this again. I walked two miles tonight, towards my old high school, and with every step I took I imagined myself getting closer and closer to...

Well, I don't know what. Something. Some place that I haven't seen in a long time, or maybe ever.

I never got there. Maybe there doesn't exist. Not for me anyway. I tried to explore outside of myself and I found emptiness and loneliness. So, disappointed, I turned around and I walked home.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be me again. I'll love again and therefore I'll hurt again. But I think that the memory of tonight will be with me for a long time. The memory, and the realization that it brings.

Anything is possible, even the impossible.

It always happens this way. I make it one thing or two things into the list of a gazillion things that I want to say, and then the conversation ends. Abruptly.

Questions and comments and opinions and predictions and more questions and more comments, left to smolder inside my head. To fester and evolve into a beast that I can no longer contain.

It's all about the same thing, though. The quest.

The never-ending search for the right words, the magic turn-of-phrase, that will end this bullshit and right these wrongs and, well, fix everything.

There are people who might venture that things aren't broken, but those people don't have my unique perspective, so their opinions don't count. I was right all along, and I will continue to be right, and dammit I'm right at the present.

Alas, long-gone are the days of clubs and caveward draggings. Today, we live in an ostensibly polite and sophisticated society. Today, words are important.

So, I search for the words. Sometimes, I think I find them. I send them forth and, far too often they, like so many of their fallen brethren before them, end up impaled upon the swords of deaf ears, and they are forever silenced.

I'm in a weird mood this evening. In case you couldn't tell.

As it's looking more and more like I'm not going to be finding anything in Louisville anytime soon, it's looking more and more like I'm going to be leaving here for a while. Currently, I guess Cincinnati has the highest probability. That wouldn't be bad at all. It would allow me to come home whenever I felt like it.

Anyway, I'm checking out lodging costs up there. Not good. If I choose something like an Extended Stay, I'm effectively doubling my monthly housing costs. It should be possible to just get a furnished apartment for less money, though that brings more hassles.

I simply don't want to sell my house. I'm being quite stubborn about it. I can be that way.

Plus, the only reason I need to look elsewhere for work is to make my mortgage payments. If I were to sell my house, then I could just get a lower-paying job right here locally. So wanting to keep my house is what's making me need to leave my house. Pretty screwed-up, I know.

I could maybe accomplish the same thing by just refinancing and getting a lower mortgage payment. Problem with that, of course, is that getting refinanced without a job might be tricky.