First, about my last entry - I've decided that I shouldn't write shit. So I won't.

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I said today, in an email, that I rarely get angry.

That was the truth. I don't get angry very often. Oh, I wish I could get good and pissed* at times. I think it would make life easier for me. Sad is hard to do, day after day after day after fucking day. Anger would be easier to deal with, I think.

But, anger is usually beyond me. Except when it's directed at me. And I don't want to write about that. I think I've done enough of that over the years.

What I want to write about is being irritated.

I've got that down pretty well, I think.

The thing that I'm irritated about right now - or I guess it was last night but I'm thinking about it right now - is that simple expressions of simple affection are denied me. Not, I don't think, because there's nothing to express. Nope, I'm pretty sure that there's some affection there. Boring platonic affection, but still pretty fucking awesome, considering the source.

But that same source won't give me a hug. Not unless I force the issue. And it always feel like force. Like I'm doing something wrong. Taking unwanted advantage of simple boring platonic affection. Copping a feel or getting some perverted thrill or something.

I'm not doing any of those things, but I know why the concern is there. The concern is there because of these more-than-friends feelings that I have. The concern is there because of that sobbing wretch down in the dungeon of my mind.

Well, the thing is, that guy can barely breathe, let alone participate in a hug.

Anyway, that's what's irritated me lately. And now, by writing this entry, I'm only going to make things worse.

* - American meaning, not British meaning.

Still trying to absorb last night, and still trying to figure out what I can write and what I should write.

I think it's perfectly safe to say that it was the best night I've had in a long time.

It usually hits me at night, like most things. I'll be downstairs shooting pool and it'll hit me, and I'll nearly drop my cue. I'll be out on my swing and it'll hit me, and my swing will coast to a stop. Or I'll be reading a book and it'll hit me, and I'll read the same paragraph a dozen times.

I am so incredibly blessed. That realization hits me, and I can think of nothing else.

It might seem like an odd thing, to have a best friend that you've never even met. I suppose it seemed odd to me, back when I first found her. She has become such an integral part of my life, but if I saw her walking down the street I might not even know her. If I spoke to her on the phone it might take me a few seconds to recognize her voice.

It might seem like an odd thing, but it doesn't. Not to me. To me it's as natural as breathing. And just as involuntary.

Three years ago today, that's when I found her.

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Just got an email from her.

Told her that I'm trying to write this entry, for our anniversary, but that I'm experiencing writer's block.

I think the problem is that nothing I could ever possibly write would be enough. Not enough to even come close to describing how important she is to me. I don't have the words, and even if I did, I don't think I have the strength to put those words together.

I know that whatever I write will fall short of the mark. Trivialize the emotions. Marginalize the gratitude that I feel when I think about her being in my life.

I needed something, three years ago. I needed it so badly that I was dying from the lack of it. And she gave it to me.

Understanding.

Not pity, or doubt, or advice. She didn't try to rationalize what I was going through, and she didn't try to make it all better, and she didn't judge, and she didn't mock.

She understood.

And I went from feeling completely alone in this world, to having an ally. A kindred spirit I called her. And that knowledge, that wonderful knowledge that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't a freak, that I wasn't any of the things I'd been labeled as...

Wonderful.

I began to heal, three years ago on this day. I stopped waiting to die, and began struggling to live, three years ago on this day.

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Sometimes I think that we take each other for granted.

I relish those thoughts, because they're absolutely true. We take each other for granted because that's exactly what we are.

We will always be friends. We will always be there for each other.

We are granted to each other.

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Happy anniversary, my dearest friend Teri.

For some reason I just dreamed that I'd bought another house. Same house that, a couple of months ago, I'd dreamed that I'd looked at with a realtor.

I didn't even like the damn house very much. It was way too white, and there was no basement. And there was a weird front patio that didn't even face anything except a rock wall. And you had to go through a tunnel to get from the driveway to the front door.

But, in this dream I just had, I bought the damn place. Possibly because I'm retarded, though that subject didn't come up in the dream. What did come up was that I was totally unmotivated to move into the new house. The thought of packing up all of my shit, renting a truck, recruiting helpers - it was all way too daunting a task.

So I decided that I wasn't going to move at all. I was going to keep living right where I was, and also have another house. One that was way too white, but that I'd never go into.

Good thing my dream self is so damn rich, I guess.

A couple of weeks ago - right now, it feels like it was a couple of thousand years ago - I guess I said something weird.

"It's weird that you remember that," she said.

Well, guess what?

I remember every single time.

Just don't ask for details, because I was in a daze, every single time.

1. On the way home last night, I stopped at a gas station for some Diet Pepsi. Sitting at a gas pump, about to leave, was BadPickleGirl.

What made this weird was that I never, ever, recognize BadPickleGirl right away. It's always that my hot girl radar goes off, and then I look over at her, and then it takes a few seconds before I realize it's BadPickleGirl.

Anyway, she gave me my two beer glasses back, so yay!

2. I was out on my swing last night emailing this chick from JS. I managed to get into a very bad mood because I wanted to be emailing you-know-who, but that didn't seem to be an option.

What made emailing the JS chick weird was that, after a couple of hours, she confessed that she'd been naked for like two hours while emailing me. I think she was trying to cheer me up, and it might have worked if my imagination worked better than it does.

And now the JS chick has a new nickname, and it's NakedGirl. I hope she likes it.

Those are supposedly monkeys. Giant inflatable albino monkeys. In blackface, for some strange reason.

I'm told they're supposed to be art, and that they're affiliated with the 21C museum/hotel across the street.

I don't know whether giant inflatable albino monkeys in blackface are art or not. What I do know is that (a) They seem kinda rascist to me, and (b) That's a busy interstate highway behind them, and (c) If I were driving down the highway and saw giant inflatable albino monkeys in blackface, I might just cause a 50-car pileup.

Maybe that's where the art would really be.

Why is it beforehand and afterwards?

Why not beforewards?

Or afterhand?

I feel like I'm missing something here.

I had this idea for an entry last night, right about when I went to bed. Usually, when I have these late-night ideas, one of two things will happen. Either I'll get up and type up some quick notes to myself, or I'll fall asleep and then not remember anything in the morning.

Well, last night I did consider getting up and typing some notes. But my computer was all the way down at the other end of the hallway, so I just stayed in bed and went to sleep.

Imagine my surprise when, this morning at the crack of 10:30, I awoke with that same idea still rattling around in my head.

Now all I've got to do is figure out if I should write the thing.

It's kind of a two-parter, I think. The first part I could probably get away with, except for the fact that the first part leads quite obviously to the second part.

It's like a movie or a book that ends in a cliffhanger. You just know there's going to be a sequel, and you hope it doesn't suck.

This particular sequel, while it probably wouldn't suck, would almost definitely be taboo. Unless I can dress it up in metaphors so as to make it unrecognizable to anyone but me.

I need to think about this some more.

Beforehand, I drove.

Specifically, I drove to Indianapolis. See, there's this guitar doohickey that I want. MusicalYuppieDude has been telling me for months that he'll give me one for free, but it's never happened. So I found one on the internet. And today I drove to the closest store that carries them.

Well, I drove to Indianapolis to buy the doohickey, and the stupid store is closed on Sunday. So, I drove back home.

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Afterwards, I drank a little.

After dinner, I went to the bar at Sam's. I talked briefly with MusicalYuppieDude (should have told him about my trip to Indy) and PhotoDude, then they left and I sat at the bar and had a Blue Moon (817).

Next, I went to Sluttopia and had a Newcastle (10676) before coming home.

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The beforehand and the afterwards weren't as much fun as the during.