It is a long and winding path, this one that I stand before. That we stand before.

Every now and then, bolstered by alcohol and desperation, I test my footing, just in front of where I stand. But it's just a test. I place my foot forward, and I brush the ground with my toes, and I almost shift my weight forward, but not quite.

Never quite.

I am afraid, you see. Afraid of tiring, and afraid of making a wrong turn, and afraid of losing my concentration and my footing. Slipping and falling. But mostly, afraid of finding myself on this path alone.

See, this is not a journey that I can make by myself.

I try. Every now and then, I really do try to fix things between us. Or to at least define things between us.

I try, and I fail, every time.

I will keep trying.

I will.

My Monday night started out pleasantly enough. KittenDamsel bought me dinner (Wendy's) in exchange for me hooking her DVD player up correctly. I'd told her last weekend that she could get a much better picture and 5-channel sound just by using the proper cables and connections, but she played the girl-card, and so I offered to fix things for her.

Besides eating dinner and crawling around behind her entertainment center, I spent a lot of time poking my finger into her spiffy new sunburn and watching it change colors. Mesmerizing.

Then I went to Rich O's. While there, I alternated between glaring at my phone and glaring at the door. Neither activity proved fruitful. After PearlGirl and her boyfriend left, there really wasn't anyone there I felt like talking to, so I picked up my shit and moved to the bar to finish my Marzen (11138). By 9:30 I was really bored, and my eyes were kind of tired from all the glaring, so I left. But then I remembered that there was no place to go, so I went back to Rich O's.

I was having a nice glass of Franziskaner (39) when OddlyFamiliarGirl came in. So that was nice. We talked and whatever. I switched to Diet Coke. I left again at midnight when Rich O's closed.

That's when it got annoying.

I got pulled over. Or, actually, I went to the haunted Burger King and the cop followed me with his lights flashing, so maybe that doesn't really count as getting pulled over. I'm sure he would have pulled me over if I hadn't been stopping anyway.

The guy came up to my truck and asked for the usual paperwork. I gave him my license and, while I was fishing for my current registration, he told me that I hadn't used my turn signal when turning onto Grant Line Road. I felt like calling bullshit on that. I always use my turn signal, even when I'm leaving my own driveway, but I figured it would be his word against mine. Plus, he was the one with the gun.

He asked me, of course, where I was coming from. I said Rich O's. So he asked me, of course, how much I'd had to drink. I said a Marzen (11138) and a Franziskaner (39). Upon seeing the quizzical look on his face, I clarified that I'd had two beers.

I realize that "two beers" is probably the standard answer given by people under suspicion, so I wasn't surprised at all when he had me take off my glasses and follow his pen around with my eyes. I guess that test didn't yield the result that he wanted, because then he went back to his car for five years, and came back and had me blow into a thingy. As I was not immediately arrested, I knew I'd passed that test as well.

I will admit, however, that for a few moments there I was concerned that I might have grossly miscalculated.

And the guy was just doing his job, helping to keep us all safe. I have a lot of respect for (most) cops.

He ended up giving me a ticket for not using my turn signal, and then he sent me on my way.

I'd originally stopped at the haunted Burger King to get something to eat. But the crap with the cop had lasted just long enough, and they were closed by the time the cop left. So I came home instead.

As the subset of the universe that makes up my readership prepares to roll its collective eyes...

Not this shit again?!?

Yes, indeed. This shit again.

Something else. That's what we've become. Something undefined, and perhaps undefinable. Not friends, not acquaintances, certainly not lovers. Neither strangers nor enemies. Ghosts who haunt each other from time to time.

We give life to lies by pretending they're true, but we fool nobody but ourselves, and only then through luck and stubbornness.

Everything that was and everything that could have been, replaced by this, this something. Blindness. Deafness. Numbness.

We have become something else. A round peg searching desperately for purpose, but finding itself in a universe full of square holes. Definition eludes, cowers.

In flux, perhaps.

Three hours ago, I was going to write something and then I was going to go to bed. I was going to go to bed at a normal hour, like a normal person.

See, I've got a lunch date with HatGirl and I want to be refreshed and shit. So I was going to go to bed at 12:30 or so, right after I wrote something.

And here I still sit.

Better late than never, perhaps?

There is a quote by Ernest Hemingway on NakedGirl's blog.

There's nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.

Anyway, I was thinking today that I need to stop this bleeding.

Or not.

Maybe, instead, I should slice the veins in my soul and just let myself pour.

How long would I bleed? Forever?

That would be gross.

Okay, so now I'm home again. It's 3:14 in the morning as I type this sentence, for those of you keeping score.

I just, like right this minute, got an urge to type something. Once again, unfortunately, I haven't the slightest idea what I can/should/will write.

So I'll just let my fingers twitch against this keyboard, and then I'll see what's produced.

I think I've figured out what it is that I want. Something impossible, of course, but that's never stopped me before. And the nice thing about impossible dreams is that I'm not disappointed when they don't come true.

The thing is, like it or not, I'm still pretty much the same person that I was two months ago, six months ago, five years ago. Recent events have shattered my hopes and derailed my desires, but they've done absolutely nothing nothing nothing nothing nothing to me.

Only the direction has changed. This compass that once pointed true now spins wildly, seeking a North that no longer exists.

Or does it?

This is an important question.

I've got so little patience these days. I run around and I grab heads and I peer into eyes, and if I don't see what I want within the first few seconds, I release my grip and I move on.

I know what I'm looking for, and I know where to find it. I just can't look there, not anymore. So I look for it elsewhere.

It exists. I know it does. It's out there somewhere, somewhere else I mean. I will find it. Or maybe I'll die trying, but if so, then I'll die fucking trying instead of sulking.

Hmmm, I just read the drivel that I've written so far. It sucks. I know exactly what I'm trying to say here, but my fingers aren't cooperating.

Maybe my fingers are tired. I know that the rest of me is.

5:35. AM. In the flipping morning.

Sleep tries to elude me, but I always manage to catch it. Eventually. I do sleep. In fact, I get more sleep now than I did before all of the shit hit the fan in my personal life. Figure that one out, and then explain it to me because I don't get it.

Things are way too calm inside my head. It really doesn't feel right. I should be devastated, and I always feel like I'm right on the verge of devastation, but I never seem to cross that line.

I keep saying that I don't know who I am anymore. That's an absolute fact. I mean, for years I was that guy. You know, the one who had hope for something wonderful with someone wonderful. The one who gave up his life to spend as much time as possible with someone wonderful. I may have mentioned some of this from time to time.

Anyway, I'm no longer that guy, and I'm almost always alone, even in a crowded room, and so I'm not sure just who the fuck I am.

So, after you figure out why I'm managing to sleep, maybe you can figure out who I am, and let me know that as well.