You see, there's this girl ....

I was going to write out the whole story for y'all here, but as it's a really long and complicated story, and I'm tired, and I don't have the four hours I would need to do it full justice, and I still have to do a little e-mail after ... I'm just going to hit the highlights and get everyone up to date on the situation. Now, this may be the post where I alienate some of my audience (those I haven't already, that is), and depending on how this all goes it may be my last blog post for a little while. Seeing as I haven't seemed to have the time or inclination to regularly update this thing since like September, I doubt you'll be missing much. But for those few of you interested in reading, let's carry on.

Long story short, I have a girlfriend again. Her name is Amy. You might remember her from the 65 or so blog posts during the last year in which she was a featured character. Yes, it's that girl. The same Amy who told me about 12 months ago that she liked me. The same Amy I had a crush on that drove me crackers. The same Amy who spent a night on my couch while I struggled with trying to do the right thing. The same Amy who I've been sweet on ever since, and unbeknownst to me, continued to like me all along.

She and I are going out. There's a whole story to this, and it's a good story, too, one I could probably use as part of a book later on down the road.

But I'm not going to do it here.

I'm just going to say that it's been great so far. I don't know if it'll last two weeks or two months or two years, but I'm going to enjoy it while it's here. If anyone doesn't like it, or doesn't agree with it, or is for whatever reason mad at me because of it, well I'm sorry. But I'm going to see this one through.

And with that, Stray Bullets is closed for now. Toodles.

No Longer a Dry County

Tonight ended a dry streak that has been going on since the dawn of time. To put it another way, I have a sex life again for the first time in eight years. And it is with who you think it is. And it was worth the wait. Good god, was it worth the wait. On the subject of something that I was starting to believe would never again occur in my lifetime, it was frikking amazing ...



all seven times.



There, Brit. How do YOU like it for a god damned change.






(full story tomorrow.)

Virgorama

In 1952, renowned modern composer John Cage created the infamous "4'33"." It's a "song" that consists of four minutes and 33 seconds of pure silence. Recently a San Francisco performance artist, Jonathon Keats, did a remix of that tune and made it available as a ring-tone. I'd love for you to be inspired by those two geniuses in the coming week, Virgo. It'll be an excellent time for you to come to a perfect stop, fill yourself with stillness, and bask in the healing power of undiluted nothingness.

Sadly, I don't see this happening for a little while.

It's the Same Old Thing as Yesterday

So last night I was feeling the pressure. As things tend to do with me, it built to a crisis point where all I could feel was the weight of the world on my shoulders, crushing me underneath it. And while I can't say today that the weight of things or the pressure is all the way off of me, I have gotten to the point where I can start to plan and counterplan and devise how I'm going to go about tackling the problem, for good if that's possible.

Two weeks ago Cooter and Amy broke up. This is their third break-up just since I've known him, but this time it's pretty serious, and there's a very good chance that they are done and over. Now, it's those two we're talkin about, so who the fuck really knows if it'll ever really be done and over with, but just the same ... it seems pretty final this time around.

People who were around reading this blog last winter surely already have a guess where this is headed, and guess what? You're right! It was pretty quiet on the Amy front for the first week and a half of the split. She moved back up to her mom's house up on the mountain, and I didn't hear from her. I knew inevitably that I would, but I didn't know when. Meanwhile, I heard most of Cooter's side of things, because I work with him, but because I don't work right next to him anymore, I only got sketchy details -- she left, took kid, very angry. I did the sympathetic listener thing that I always do, while trying to share the benefit of my experience with relationships gone off the rails, and he listened to that (and to advice from others) about as well as he ever does, which is not at all.

And then came Saturday. She called. I talked to her. And she's coming after me. Oh yeah. She's coming after me, no doubt about it, no beating around the bush, and she's bringing her A-game along with her. Now, we can go through all the arguments about how this could become a huge disaster that'll lead to a whole lot of fighting and violence and anger and hatred, but nevermind. I know. I know. I know. I do know this.

Yeah, she does have that effect on me. She always has. You know, the Becky Effect. The thing that causes me to lose perspective and my common sense. Any intellectual thought about right or wrong goes out the window, and it's not just a lust thing. And don't make any mistake, there is lust in my soul for that girl. I thought it was gone, because I didn't know she was even still interested in me, but it was lurking. I beat it back before. I could probably do it again. But it's hard. So hard.

Because I'm talking to the both of them, I'm in the unenviable position of knowing more about the situation than either one of them, so every day I walk a tightrope of functional neutrality. They're getting into a custody battle over Allison, and it's set to get ugly -- real ugly. I know things that are going to happen, things that one or the other do not know about, and at some point the shit is going hit the fan, and when it does I don't want to be within 100 miles. So maybe I'll be in Massachusetts that weekend. Meanwhile, I'm in my own sort of custody battle with the both of them. They both want equal time, and it's driving me crazy, man. One or the other or both calls me every day. Sigh.... And if you don't already know which side of things I'm way more sympathetic to then you just haven't been paying attention to the blog for the last eleven months.

Today at work I was wound up. Last night I was crashing under the stress, but today I channelled it into straight hostility, mostly for Matt's and Jim's entertainment, due to a unprecedented ruthlessnes with my sarcastic remarks. I just decided to be angry, and I made sure Cooter realized I was angry due to being completely frikking stressed from the two of them. They are making me nuts.

And she isn't making it easy on me. To borrow a phrase from my best friend, she just puts it right out there. There is a very clear invitation right there on the table on a silver platter. Yeah. Oh yeah. I've spent most of a year imagining it, though, and thinking about all the horrible things I want to do to that girl. And in case you don't remember, it's been a very very long time for me. Jen and I never got to that point, and she was my first girlfriend in a godforsaken long time.

At the end of that conversation we decided that we are in fact going out. Yes, we are boyfriend/girlfriend just like that, lickety split, no beating around the bush. I was *so* nervous that I almost fucked the whole thing up, but yeah. I have a girlfriend again, and it's Amy, the girl I've had this horrifying crush on that y'all have been reading about. It's everything I wanted ... and I'm scared to death. I don't want to screw this up. I screw it up, I might as well just retire forever to a life of loneliness and isolation.

I'm not going to screw it up. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not.

Let's do it.

There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today

Oh, I'm stressed. God damn am I stressed out. And it was all starting to go so well again, too. I don't have the time to discuss it all right now, but it involves some old business (within the timespan of this blog, not the OLD old stuff) that's really bugging me. I'll get into it tomorrow.

:(


Oh, and computers FUCKING SUCK. Except for this laptop. This laptop is great.

































Bleh.