You can go here if you're bored. There are old entries.

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Looks like several months of not even touching the guitar did absolutely nothing to help my playing.

Weird, huh?

But now I've got myself a doohickey. An Effects Processor or some such. MusicalYuppieDude gave it to me. It looks like a pretty complicated piece of gadgetry. I'm pretty sure I'd need a pilot's license to fully understand everything it can do, but the main thing that it can do for me is that it can let me play my electric guitar with headphones.

Before, in case you've forgotten, I couldn't play the thing because my amp always had this very loud hum. For a while I had everything shoved into a corner of my basement where the hum was more tolerable, but it really was never acceptable. Plus, I wanted to mess with the guitar in my living room while I watched some guitar-lesson DVDs.

Now I can do that.

And there's a chance, I'm thinking, that I might be able to hook my amp up to the thing as well. Before I can try that I need to get another cable, though.

And then maybe I'll learn how to play. Would that be something?

Watch out, I'm in a mood.

Sadness finally decided to take a break from constantly kicking me in the guts. So that's cool. Or at least it would be cool, if futility hadn't stepped right in to take over the job. To finish the job, perhaps.

But hey, who am I to complain? I keep saying I like this crap. I keep saying that it's better than the fucking nothing I felt for so many years.

I keep saying those things. Every now and then I even believe one or both of them.

Besides, some things deserve to be felt. Not distracted away or bottled up or ignored.

One of the things I keep catching myself thinking, even though I know that thinking is a really stupid thing for me to be doing, is that if things were different, things would be different.

Why I keep thinking that, I have no idea. I mean, there's absolutley zero evidence that things would be different just because things were different.

In my more lucid moments, I think that things will be exactly the same, no matter how different things are.

That's depressing to me. Because I don't exactly enjoy things all that much. Things suck, to be honest.

I think this was the third time I've been in the newspaper. At least the third time. One time I drove my car off a cliff in Seattle. Another time StoreGirl and I were at Rich O's when a local paper came in to do a story about the place.

The third time was today. Click the picture for the entire article, while it lasts.

This was an article about Rich O's and its owner Roger. I was mentioned in the first sentence and I was quoted a couple of times.

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Also today, I got to talk to SassyGirl for a while! We'd been texting back and forth, and eventually I got sick of that and just called her ass up. She and JauntyGirl are doing well, but they're far away from here, so it's a very mixed blessing.

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The rest of the day was kinda disappointing, except I got a sweet email while I was taking a nap. Maybe I'll have more to write before I go to bed. Don't hold your breath, though.

Sometimes, I get myself into the perfect mood.

That's why I go there after work, to search for that mood. To search for myself.

It didn't start that way. I used to go there after work for a stupid reason.

But now, it's to find myself, and to remember who it is that I truly am.

Because even if I'm a selfish asshole, I'm still me.

A couple of hours ago I got a rather unsettling email.

"Yikes!" I exclaimed.

Then I had 15 heart attacks.

Luckily for me, I thought to ask for clarification, or the heart attacks might be ongoing still.

Anyway, I'm wondering about the etymology of the word "yikes."

I know I could just look it up, but that would be hard and stuff, and the answer would probably be boring.

I'm wondering if there's such a thing as a single yike, or if it's like pants and only exists in plural form.

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I like puns. The punnier the better.

Today I thought of a really punny pun. Now all I have to do is wait for an opportunity to spring it on some unsuspecting soul.

Do you think they have puns in other languages?

They probably have them, but I might not like them as much. All those damn foreign words sound alike anyway.

So two freakazoids just rang my doorbell.

I don't know what they wanted, because I didn't answer the door. I just glared at them through slitted blinds as they shambled away, on foot.

Boo Radley's got nothing on me.

I used to notice this totally stupid and juvenile thing, play this stupid and juvenile game.

The first time was when I was in basic training. Every Sunday we'd go to chapel, mostly because it was something to do. We'd get to basically dick around for a couple of hours before returning to the discipline and the rigors that made up our normal itinerary.

This one time, I was sitting in chapel, and for some reason I turned around. My hot girl radar, perhaps, but I'm not sure I even had hot girl radar back then. I mean, I was an 18-year-old, a walking bag of hormones, stuck with 49 other guys for almost 24 hours a day. Every girl was hot.

Anyway, this one Sunday I turned around for some reason, and I saw her. The most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. And she was a black girl, which was weird to me back then. Not that she was black, but that I found her so attractive. And attractive wasn't even close to the proper word.

I remember thinking, then and there, that girl is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

Then, about six years later, I was at the rec center at Offutt AFB shooting pool with my friend Paul. This girl came in. She had blonde hair, and she had a little baby with her. She was wearing sweats and no makeup and her hair suggested that she'd just arisen from a nap.

But she glowed. Oh, how she glowed.

I remember thinking, then and there, that girl is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

A few years after that, it was a girl I saw at the mall in Omaha. A few years after that, it was a bartender in Seattle. Next was a girl pumping gas in Louisville. Each and every one somehow outshining the ones before them. Each and every one becoming the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, up to that point.

Ahem.

It was almost five years ago, the last time I mentally crowned a new beauty queen. Since then, it's always been the same girl. Each and every time I've seen her, since the first time, she's managed to outshine my memory of her. Each and every time, I've thought to myself, that girl is the most beautiful girl I've ever seen.

That particular stupid juvenile game is over. It was pointless and silly to begin with, and now it's even moreso. What's the sense in playing when the winner is predetermined?

This entry is going to get me into trouble, even though I say nice things in it. Even though I say true things in it. But the situation is already fubar, and I'm getting a little tired of tiptoeing around.

This blog is supposed to be my outlet, dammit. Well, I'm outletting something right now.

One of the really fun* things about being me, being in a mood like I'm in tonight - not sad, not happy, resigned is probably a good word - is trying to imagine some scenario wherein all this ends well.

I used to be able to come up with such scenarios, and sometimes I'd even manage to cough up a smidgen of hope. But that was before and this is after.

Also, I seem to have lost the ability to predict, with any accuracy, my own reactions to certain events. This really blows**, by the way. I envision certain events happening, I'd guess, at least three or four more times. Each time will be tough, to be sure, but what I don't know is if they will be easier or harder than this time. Harder would suck, because I'm barely surviving this time. Easier would still suck, just not as hard. I worry about this a lot.

Man, I'm in a weird mood. I wish I could write instead of ramble.

Remember that damn kite? I'm like that tonight. But last time it was a good thing, this time it's not. Last time it was strength that made me that way. This time it's fear and denial. It's necessary denial, if I want to get through this. But the fear is pissing me off, because I don't know what to fear. If I fucking knew what to fear, well then maybe I could wish for something else. Sacrifice a chicken*** or something to help it happen.

I guess if I really were that kite, I'd want my string back. It may have been an anchor, but it was also a lifeline.

Man, I'm in a weird mood.

But seriously, if there's a way out of this, I'd really really love to know what it is. Because I can't think of shit.

* - That was sarcasm.

** - That wasn't sarcasm.

*** - I'd never really do that.