...I'm back home, and I still don't give a flying fuck.

Lot of that going around these days. Maybe it's contagious.

And another thing is that I don't care about this blog anymore. Not at the moment, anyway - my interest might eventually resurface. So the only reason I'm writing here now is so people don't think I'm dead. Like my sister today asked me if I was okay, because I'm not writing here anymore.

Today I drove to Covington, KY. Once I got here, I glared at my phone, and I had some Moerlein OTRs (360). Now I'm going to bed.

Oh yeah, I got a nice email from HatGirl.

This is going to be brief.

I just went to fark.com, and I saw a topic there.

In honor of All Souls' Day... who would you want to give your eulogy and what do you think they'd say about you?

I guess I thought about this for about .0001 seconds before I knew the answers.

I'd want it to be my most special friend RockGirl, absolutely zero doubt about it.

And I think she'd say something like, "Dave was one of those rare people who knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life, and even though he never got to do it, just knowing that he had a purpose and that he would spend his life trying to fulfill that purpose - it was enough to make him very special. He never wavered, not even for a second. He was my dear friend, and he will be missed."

Not that I'm planning on dying anytime soon, but it would be nice of RockGirl to acknowledge me like that.

It's like I live a secret life or something. I wonder if people are intrigued by my recent silence. It might be cool if they were.

But, as is so often the case, the truth isn't quite as interesting as people might suspect.

I get to see her almost every day, except on the days when I don't. And those latter days don't matter except to mark wasted time. And on the days when I get to see her, time always passes so quickly that I always end up feeling like I've been robbed.

So, almost every day, I get to be happy, albeit for a brief time. Then, on the rest of the days, I get to be miserable.

Usually, I think it's a pretty fair trade. And it's certainly not boring.

I remember when my life used to be boring. It sucked.

But anyway, it's not like there's anything going on between us. We continue to be lopsided. That kinda ruins the intrigue, but it's the truth anyway. I don't have to like it, but I'd like it even less if people thought something was going on when it wasn't.

I don't even know if I'm going to post this. Probably not. I'm just sitting here typing, trying to kill some time until I get to see her again. Shouldn't be too much longer, I hope.

Her kid likes me, so that's cool. But I keep trying to tell her that I'm here for her, not for her kid. That would be a real dick move, I think, winning over a kid to get closer to his mother. Maybe a lot of guys would do it, but I'm not a lot of guys.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Covington, Kentucky and spending the night. I'll be working in that area Monday. I suppose I'll have some fun, going to that one bar in Covington and drinking some OTR beer, but I won't get to see her at all tomorrow. Please reference the third paragraph above for what that means.

You know what?

I have absolutely nothing left to say.

I've said it all. Over and over and over, I've dissected myself.

My words were wasted.

As I'm clearly unfit for the world, and as the world is clearly unfit for me, tonight I'm just going to stay home and drink some fucking pumpkin beer. I was saving this, but oh well.

Jack's Pumpkin Spice Ale

(bottle) Clear medium amber in color. Small head. Aroma of pumpkin and spices. The flavor was more spicy and metallic than I was expecting. There was also some hop bitterness that I didn't care for at all. Decent is all I can say.

I can see it in my face, when I dare to look into the mirror. My eyes, they're so tired, so sad. And there is no real escape, even far away from any mirror. Escape exists in a pair of hazel eyes, and nowhere else. The rest of the time, this permeates my bones and my muscles and my heart. I can feel it, right now, weighing me down. Pulling me under. It's more a part of me than anything else. It's who I am, now. It's what I am, now.

---

I used to think that I knew how this would end. Not that it would end, I'm not quite that much of a pessimist. Yet. But if it ended, I thought I knew how and why. I was so sure. It was going to be all my fault, but I wouldn't be the one to end it.

Schlafly's Pumpkin Ale

(bottle) Clear copper in color. Small head that dissipated almost immediately. A very nice aroma of cinnamon and other spices. Medium mouthfeel. Very good flavor of all sorts of spices and, of course, pumpkin. The 8% ABV is hidden very well. A very good beer.

I watch this destroy her, and I feel it destroy us. There's nothing I can do. I've already tried my best, and it wasn't enough. My words may as well have been silent. My face invisible. My heart irrelevant.

---

Lately, though, I haven't been so sure. Maybe it won't be her. Maybe it'll be me who recognizes and does what needs to be done. Walks away. I hope not. There's nowhere to go.

Post Road Pumpkin Ale

(bottle) Slightly hazy amber. Smallish head. Aroma of pumpkin and spices. Thin mouthfeel, but the flavor is very good. There's a bit of a bite - not bitter - that is a pleasant surprise. Very good.

But can I ever be happy, being so close and yet so far? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. All I know is that I want to try. With everything that I am and everything I ever will be, I want to try. I don't ever want to give up.

So many people advised me to lie to her. To keep living my lie of omission. "Don't tell her everything," they said. "Just be happy with what you have," they said. "Don't rock the boat," they said.

But the damn boat was already sinking. So I sounded the alarm. I stopped lying.

And then, yesterday, she said that nobody ever says what's on their mind, except for me. I took that as a compliment.

---

She keeps using the f-word to describe what we're doing. But I don't think of it that way at all. It's not a friendship, at least not from my perspective.

Nope, from where I sit, it's a one-sided love affair.

A million times better than a friendship, and a million times worse.

---

Considering how I started missing her before I'd made it halfway out of her parking lot last night, of course I wanted to go back later and see her some more. But, considering how I actually started missing her before I'd gone three steps out of her door, I didn't think it would be a good idea.

---

Yesterday the only beer I had was about half a Schlenkerla Marzen (6016) at 1:00 or so. I have some pumpkin beers in my fridge, but I'm saving those for something.

---

This was funny in real life. Not mean at all.

The problem was the dust. It got into everything, onto everything. The color of brown sugar, the consistency of baby powder, it settled and stuck to everything it touched, Which, like I said, was everything.

So many of my stories begin and end the same way. I sit at the bar, I drink, I pay, and I leave. But sometimes there's more to it than that. Hiding in the crevices, there might be much more than that. The first problem is noticing. The second problem is giving a shit.

But seriously, where did all that fucking dust come from? I think I'd have noticed getting so lost in Wyoming that I ended up on Mars.

My beer tasted like dust. My cigarettes tasted like dust. Luckily, I wasn't hungry, or I'd have ended up with a burger that tasted like dust.

This particular day, I wasn't in much of a hurry. I had a week to make it to New Orleans, and I figured it would only take a couple more days at most. So I decided to stop at noon, in this little dustbowl of a town in Wyoming. There was no particular reason that I picked that particular town. No charming name or majestic scenery caused me to veer off the highway where I did. Or, I think that maybe I just had to pee. I wish I had a better reason, but sometimes you've got to take what you've got and try to be happy.

I liked that little town, though. And that little bar. It was pretty much the opposite of every place I'd ever lived, and that had a definite appeal to me. I could even see myself living there for a while, if the opportunity presented itself, and if it wasn't for that damn dust.

"After I lived here about five years, I stopped noticing it," the bartender told me.

He had a little black nametag pinned to his brown flannel shirt. That nametag might have been the most expensive decoration in the entire place.

"Dusty," it said.

So she asked me if I was mad. I'm not mad, I'm retarded. Big Difference.

And then, I went to lunch at The Pub - Newcastle (11498) - and surprise! It was a bonus AlliDay!

And then, desperately craving interaction with a girl who doesn't make me crazy(er), I arranged to have lunch with HatGirl this Friday. That should be very nice, as it's been a long time since it's just been just me and HatGirl. What with the whole her-getting-married and stuff.

Also, I can't follow my own fucking advice, so why should it bother me that nobody else follows it? I'll tell you why. Because I don't have a choice in the matter.

I've got all this damn pumpkin beer in my fridge, and now I don't know what's going to happen with it. Worst case would be that I'll drink it, I suppose. By myself. Like a chump.

Also, I think I'd be pretty pissed if I were a pigeon. I mean, being able to fly would be cool. But the rat with wings nickname would get old very quickly, and I'd really be pissed off about not being able to take a step without my head jerking back and forth like I was having a seizure or something.

Also, I really and truly don't think there's any cruelty behind any of this. I don't think my strings are being yanked just to watch me dance. Unfortunately for me, the results are exactly the same no matter what the intentions might be. I end up looking like a jackass, and everyone gets a good laugh out of it. Everybody except me, that is.

I need a nap.

And a vacation. Mustn't forget that.

Today I had what I thought was a pretty good idea for an entry. I even started to write it, in my little notebook while I sat at Sportstime waiting for my sister to call. But then some loud idiots took the booth next to me, and all concentration was lost.

I still know the gist of what I wanted to write, but there's a problem. I wanted to write about being in a weird mood, but I have to be in a weird mood to write about it coherently. A weird mood like I was in today, at about 1:00.

Now, not so much.

The thing is, about the weird moods that I get into, the thing is that there's always an element of detachment about them. I know I've touched on this before.

Like everyone else, I get sad, I get happy, I get worried, I get optimistic. Just normal shit, I suppose. But the thing I like about my weird moods is that I can notice my feelings, and even reflect on them for a while. They don't overwhelm me, the way that they are so wont to do.

I like that. I find myself very interesting, I guess.

Somebody has to do it.