I'm too fat (and heterosexual) to jump from an airplane.

The Mom celebrated her 60th birthday yesterday by kicking my ass at golf... again.

Naturally, for such a landmark birthday, I wanted to get her something special. The Mom has been dreading this birthday for awhile so The Girl and I discussed getting her a skydiving trip or a Harley-Davidson tattoo, or something along the lines of making her feel younger.

Kicking my ass at golf seemed to help, but I ended up getting her golf lessons with her favorite pro, too

Smart move. Now she's beating me by 4-5 strokes instead of 1-2.

I did decide to help her celebrate, and feel younger, by drinking a bunch of wine, and getting stinkin' shitfaced on her back porch with her and her friends. Then I invited her to go skydiving with me and she nodded happily and said she'd go.

I knew she would.

---

My 30th is coming and, along with the thought of freaking-my-monkey-shit out, I want to go skydiving.

I did some research and found out that a \"Tandem Jump\" can be done for around $120. This means I get to jump out of a plane, free fall for about 45 seconds, and then have some dude I don't know, strapped to my back (loosely, I hope), control my fate.

I'm not crazy about this idea.

I don't get to buy him a beer first or anything.

Then, I found out that you can't be over 210 lbs, so I don't have to worry about that anyway as I'm 242 and there's no way I could pull that off by the 7th.

I checked out the AFF (Accelerated Free Fall. I think it's \"accelerated\" because I wouldn't have some dude dry-humping me all the way down) and found out that I can knock out some classes over a weekend and be jumping all by myself, without being clipped to somebody I don't know with his hand on the cord and his junk on my ass.

I've got nothing against this method of sky-diving, nor against homosexuality but, if he's got my life in his hands, I think I'd almost want for him to have some feelings for me. I'm not saying actual mid-air penetration would have to occur, but I'd go for some gentle petting if it would mean he'd be a little more interested in my welfare.

No. No petting, I'll do the AFF.

Then, I read the fine print.

Goddammit, another fucking weight limit.

This limit's only 225 lbs, though, so I'm thinking I can lose a quick 17 pounds, in two weeks mind you, and be plunging to the Earth on my own terms.

I'll let the Mom get strapped to the stranger's crotch.

I'm all prepared to start \"counting carbs\" and to double my riding times on that goddam exercise bike.

I'm even going to stop drinking beer.

I KNOW.

Beer.

This shit is serious.

It's punishment time.

I want to cause intense punishment to my body until it sheds it's cute little Buddha it's been growing for the last 4 years.

I want to punish my body by denying it beer and ice cream and pizza and Good Times burgers.

Then, I want to take my newly svelte body up into the sky, and punish it yet again by terrifyingly flinging it out of a perfectly good airplane.

I will further punish it by plummeting toward the ground, from a mile or so up, at 125 mph, screaming insanely all the way.

Then, I'll tease it about whether or not I'm pulling the cord.

Heh, stupid body.

It deserves it for having the audacity to turn 30.

Fucker.

---

The Girl and I came home from the Mom's last night and decided to continue the evening's wine-drinking, bullshitting activities on our back porch.

We were having such a good time that we somehow forgot that we both had to get up in the morning. You know, Work and School and all that rot.

We went to bed way late.

After an hour and a half of sweaty-animal-sex, we still didn't figure that we'd have a problem getting up in a mere 4 hours.

The Girl even made me promise to kick her out of bed on her 2nd alarm. I slept through 3 snoozes until I reached around behind me and started punching her in her left asscheek until she got up.

She got up, took a piss, then came straight back to bed.

My little trooper.

I got up as late as possible, fought the fucking timpanic thunderings in my cranium and fell over in the shower twice before giving up and leaving the house with suds still in my hair and crotch.

The usually sedate drive to work was even more sedate, as I don't even remember getting there. It just seemed as if I miraculously gained consciousness at my desk and blotted out the queasy stumbling into the truck and, eventually, the elevator at work.

I figured I was good then, as I had all I needed. Chocolate, coffee, Mountain Dew, and a full can of chew. All of life's more wonderful hangover remedies. If I'd had quiet, chocolate milk and a greasy burger, I may have been okay.

Instead I got bombarded, in my own goddam cube, by two of my Bossguys. They want to talk schedules and resources and project management and all I can think of is that, if one of them doesn't move at least a foot to the left, then I'm never going to be able to get the trashcan out from under my desk in time.

One of them makes the mistake of asking how I'm feeling.

\"Like hammered shit.\"

\"Oh, you going to be alright?\"

\"Yeah, but you've got... (checking my watch) ...about a minute and a half before I vomit all over you, so we better wrap this up.\"

They didn't find this amusing.

I would've laughed, but that would've significantly shortened the given time-estimate.

I didn't hurl, but I ran in there and sat on the toilet, just sat for about 10 minutes, seven different times.

I was fucking hating life, and that is not an understatement.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to die or just not be conscious anymore. Either would've made me happy. Happier than I was at work anyway.

I got some promised e-mails sent, made a few phone calls and left.

Bossguy's were in meetings or at lunch, so I sent them a 2 word e-mail explaining that I wasn't fucking around earlier about being sick and that I was outta there.

I was at work for 2 hours and got approximately 10 minutes of work done.

Sweet.

The drive home was much more interesting, as the sun was now up and burning twin holes into my skull through my eyesockets.

Greasy fast food is rarely an answer for anything in my life, but I felt like it should be today. Thank Dog, BK takes Credit Cards, speaks Mumble, and is 3 blocks from our house.

I came home to 3 brown gentlemen, in orange vests, pouring concrete and asphalt into the trough they dug at the end of my driveway and the Girl snoring away in our bed.

Mildly annoyed, I went outside to see if anyone had any idea why in the Blue FUCK they were tearing up my driveway without telling me, when I noticed that they'd poured an actual indentation for our driveway instead of the 45-degree-angle-sidewalk-that-never-ends shit that runs the length of the block.

I told them my truck's shocks thanked them.

Blank looks.

I tried out some of phrases from my vast multi-cultural repetoire, but I'm fairly certain I asked why no one informed me that I had a house of party cats instead of asking why they didn't inform me that they were digging up my driveway today.

They were kind of amused by this, but had no reply. Hell, they were almost done and it was looking so good, I left them to their noisy machinery and their shovels-full of smelly black nastiness.

Thick, black smoke, noisy, clattering, hammering, and shouting in disjointed Mexican all add some new and exciting things to the Mother-of-all-hangovers.

Fuckin' Party Cats.

I'm going nappy-time now.

Please, for to not you be making the fun of my speaking.

My first \"real\" job in my chosen career came to me during my last year in college. I started as an intern with a small web company, rode the rise-and-fall-of-the-dot-coms wave and, in March, ended up at the job I currently have.

I still miss the people I used to work with though, very much. There were 5 of us developers in the basement of a small office building, each at our desks, building web stuff and taking breaks every 20 minutes to either play foosball in the breakroom (old receptionists office) or Nerf basketball in between 3 of the desks. It never mattered if anyone didn't care to play because, once we got a game going, it was impossible to work anyway. We were a relatively eclectic mix in such a small group.

There was Geekboy, who would develop highly complex applications on the weekends for \"fun\" when he wasn't wearing robes and casting spells with 20-sided dice, or some shit. Over the years, Geekboy eventually went to a \"hairstylist\" instead of a barber, got contacts instead of glasses, and spent another $100 at Wal-mart on a wardrobe to last another 10 years. He emerged from his cocoon to meet a great woman, got married last summer, and they are doing wonderfully, even after the miscarriage of their twins a couple months ago (yeah, he's the guy I hugged even though I smelled so bad). He just started his own business selling his software to colleges for use in their online classes. He'll probably make his first million sometime next summer.

There was AssJack, whom I call that because I called him either, \"asshole,\" or \"jackass\" daily, even though he is really a great guy. He's just one of those people that, given a line in the sand and a dare to cross it, will take a running fucking leap over that bastard, cackling all the way. After dropping out of CSU to go touring North Carolina with his Punk/Metal/NoIdeaHowToCategorizeMusic Band, he took out massive loans and got a tech degree. He was our best programmer, and is now also working as a partner in a successful business. He'll never make a million, but just bought a nice house, and is playing his guitar again.

There was the Rasta, a dredlocked, heavily accented, slow-moving dude from Trinidad. He didn't talk much, unless he was on the phone, but he could play foosball like a champ, and frequently told jokes that I'm sure are really, really funny, in the Caribbean... maybe. He rounded out quite the colorful group when we would walk into downtown Denver for lunch as he only wore the multi-colored knit caps, tunics, and baggy pants from his home. He knocked up a girlfriend and is spending nights cleaning offices in downtown Denver.

There was the CurryCobra, a 5'1\" Indian girl from Madras, who would teach me bits and pieces from one of her native languages, and whom we teased incessantly. I could never imagine any female I know tolerating the kind of shit we said, and did, to her. That basement was worse than any hockey or football lockerroom I've ever been in, but she either ignored us, or gave as good as she got. We would use the Apu voice on her, and stuff her in the kitchen trashcan, but she still drove us for lunch everyday and would help you for hours if you were stuck on some code. Over the years she became like a little sister to us. We almost bar-brawled with some idiot redneck when he said some offensive things to her in the days following 9-11. We saw her marry her childhood friend and have a child that, while assured it was full-sized for an Indian baby, I'm sure I could've fit in my hat.

We all grew together like a family.

At least that's the best reason I can come up with for half the shit we would say to each other.

And for stuffing someone in a trashcan.

---

I just received an e-vite from the Cobra to her little girl's first birthday party. There are 53 people on the list and, aside from Me, AssJack, and Geekboy, they all have names like, Venkatramankalyanaraman and Lakshmanan (I'm not kidding, I didn't even change 'em to protect anybody, so sorry Venkatramalallalalalalalamamallallamamamman, or whatever, but your shit is too damn funny to pass up).

I love parties at her place because all of her friends want to sit around and listen to me and the other white guys talk, just because they think it's freakin' hilarious.

\"Ditoo heeyer vot he juss sed? He calt her a 'brown girl' and 'curry cobra,' thet isso funny!\"

Then I impress them with my extensive knowledge of their language (literal translations) by:

Asking them if their mother knows that they only left the house to die today

Thanking them for chickens

Welcoming them to the desk

Telling their women to give me something (or for them to give me their women, I can never remember which)

Telling them to excuse me because there is a monkey in my pants

Calling them fat donkeys

At first, they seem kind of honored that I'm attempting their language but, after I butcher it repeatedly, they do their best impressions of Apu as well and ask me \"for to not being the talking anymore.\"

---

My life has gotten busy lately. I've barely had time to write in this diary, let alone read any of them (although I have managed to stay current with my absolute favorites, you know who you are).

Things are good with the Girl, although school just started for her again, and I'm afraid that I'll be saying goodbye to her attention span for another 4 months. What this will do to our efforts at this relationship remains to be seen. Meh, no more whining. I said I wouldn't and I won't. I'm done whining.

I wanted to tell you I'm writing a book.

Seriously, no shit. A real book. I figure it's a book if it's over 3 pages, right? Hm. Seven pages? Fuck it, I'm calling it a book just so I can call myself a writer and smoke a pipe and wear tweed and/or something Autumnal.

It'll be funny at the very least. My effort that is, if not the book.

While my imagination can get me into bed with a blonde, a redhead, and Milla Jovovich simultaneously, it can't, for the life of me, come up with a good fictional story, so I've decided it would be easiest to write about my life. I figure I'll just start writing down stories from my life, as many as I can remember, and then I'll string them together, in order, later. Then, I'll probably edit parts of it so that, if it ever does get published, no one will ever know stupid shit like the fact that I used to pop the zits on my brother's back or that I told my High School Guidance Counselor, in all seriousness, that, when I grew up, I wanted to be a Ninja, or at least some sort of professional assassin.

Crap... probably shouldn't write that stuff in here then, eh? Oh well.

Cheezus, \"my memoirs\"... Seeing it written out makes it sound terribly gay. Come to think of it, \"gay\" is probably an incredibly good thing, as two of my favorite authors are homosexual dudes that published memoirs, and both are bestsellers.

I'll probably throw some stories and shit in here, that will also show up in the book, a la Trance-baby. In fact, that may be all I write in here for awhile, at least until something cool happens in my life.

Things are busy, but uneventful, although I am turning 30 soon and planning on freaking-the-ever-livin-ever-lovin-fuck out.

I guess we'll see if it'll be a story worth telling.

Wish me luck.

Posted by JuddHole

This blog was the one that changed everything in my life, so it stands to reason that it continue to do so. I hope it starts with my underwear.

Filed under: "H" for "Toy" No Comments

Montana on my mind.

Apologies for not updating for awhile, things, needless to say, have been in a state of flux, and have also been quite busy. Those condescending snobs at work have finally deigned to put me in charge of a project that I am not only expected to complete in a timely manner, but to their satisfaction. In short, no more Diaryland whilst at work.

The Girl and I are also working on a lot of shit right now. It ain't fun, but we're learning. We're also growing as individuals and, though it doth sucketh, it's been good for both of us.

We also just got back from a short trip home to pristine Podunk, Montana.

There is a reason that our rural home is sometimes referred to as \"the Last, Best Place,\" as it is one of the most amazingly beautiful, stunningly peaceful places on the planet.

Our tiny hometown is nestled in a conjunction of two narrow, half-mile wide, valleys. There is only one main road into, and out of, town and, when it departs from the mainstream Interstate 90, it twists and winds its way 15 miles along one of the pine-covered sides of the valley until it crests a hill and gives a breathtaking view of the Beartooth Mountain Range, before dropping down into our humble town.

This shot is from the opposite side of the valley, just before entering town.

This highway, comprises the Main street in our town and is one of only three that run North/South, spanning about a mile and a half.

Our town, our home, is more than just the assorted buildings and businesses inside of those shrunken city limits, though.

It's a place where it's not uncommon for two pickup trucks, going opposite directions, to stop next to each other in the middle of the Main street, so that the driver's can chat. Almost every truck has at least one dog in the back, hasn't been washed in years, if ever, and has an array of tools, shreds of hay and manure, and assorted ranching equipment littering the floor and truckbed.

The blocking of the main road causes very few traffic problems though, because even if someone is needing to get by one of the pickups, that person almost certainly knows the other two drivers and will wait, and will most likely stop and chat with the other truck once the first has pulled away.

Our town is a place where a visit to someone else's home is usually accompanied by a gift, an offering, of some sort, be it beer, meat, baked goods, tools, or equipment of some kind. These visits always take longer than one would think, but the time elapsed is never noticed until you have already left, and are on your way to visit someone else, with the wax-wrapped packages of elk steaks on the seat beside you.

It's a place where you feel comfortable, almost serene. No one seems to be in much of a hurry to do anything, but anything that needs done always gets done. No task ever really feels insurmountable when you realize that you won't be doing it alone and, despite the miniscule population, you're almost never really alone.

You won't ever really need to ask, you'll just start patching the hole in the roof of your garage, and soon notice that your neighbor is climbing your ladder, wearing his stained, beaten, old coveralls, carrying a roll of tar-paper he had left-over from the summer before, when you helped him re-roof his garage.

You may be heartsick and worried about your 70-year old husband, lying in a hospital bed after his 3rd heart attack, not realizing that you hadn't eaten all day and it's nearly dinner time, when your doorbell will ring and you'll find the retired teacher from across town, wearing oven mitts, holding a steaming, fresh-baked casserole, who just heard through the grapevine that you were having a tough time and figured you shouldn't have to worry about making dinner.

It's a place where you can find yourself on any number of patios, porches, living rooms, or driveways and never worry about how long you've been there, bullshitting about nothing and everything, and never worry about what's for dinner or who's making it. Your biggest concern, at that point, is usually running out of beer. Even that turns into a visit though, as you can go to either of the two bars, the gas station, or the grocery store, from as early as 6 A.M. to as late as 2 A.M. and buy whatever you may need, and you'll almost always run into somebody who wants to visit and may even want to share a beer or seven.

It's a place where everyone knows almost everything about you and, while it can be maddening at times, it's comforting at other times, because there's just that much less explaining to do.

It's a place where the pristine, untouched, natural beauty of the mountains spills down over everything, and the fast-paced, high-tech world, that threatens to run us over sometimes, is forgotten almost entirely.

The world that I currently live in, the life that I'm currently living, is forgotten within moments of my arrival in that sleepy, little town, and I become comfortable... relaxed.

Having drink after drink handed to me on the sun-drenched beaches of tropical Mexico has never brought me to the level of relaxation I reach the instant that I am home.

This relaxation, of course, can never last, but it held on tightly to me last weekend, even when I attempted to bludgeon myself repeatedly into a more painful, stressful state.

I use, \"bludgeon,\" as a metaphor, but it's true meaning will soon be clear.

Saturday, my \"adopted\" brother, his wife, and some of their friends came down from the city to go river-rafting (city, meaning the only town with over 100,000 people in the whole state).

One of the best things about the Girl's old house, her father, Caveman's house, is that it is situated almost perfectly on the banks of one of the most beautiful rivers in the state. Rafting said river only entails dragging the boat from the garage, across the lawn, through the weeds, over a couple rocks, and into the river.

Oh, and beer.

A fucking ton of beer.

We always seem to go rafting in August, when the mountain's peaks have sweated off their snowy blankets, and the underground springs can barely keep the water flowing down their respective valleys and their rivers. This means that a trip that usually takes a little over 2 hours now takes anywhere from 4 to 6, as there are multiple points in the river that all the occupants of the boat will have to get out and pull the rubber raft over a stretch of rocks, where the water is only a few inches deep.

This also means that there is much, much more drinking, as said occupants of the raft also have less whitewater and paddling to worry about, and can turn their attention to drinking copious amounts of beer.

Last year, we ran out. Caveman will never let me forget that the only raft trip he's ever been on when he ran out of beer, was my fault. The fact that I packed my weight in alcohol, gave several away to other floaters, and opened the last one within 100 yards of our take-out point after 4 and a half hours on the river, apparently means nothing to him, it's the principle of the thing.

This year I was determined not to run out. I bought an 18-pack for each person in that raft, knowing full well that two of them probably weren't going to drink half that together. I filled the BIG cooler, as well as the Medium cooler and, combined with ice, the beer accounted for another whole entire person in that raft.

Because we had more people and the water was so low, me and my \"adopted\" brother, another big boy like myself, tied off two tractor-tire inner tubes to the raft and were content to trail along behind the boat. This worked out well as the beer-wenches in the boat caught our empties and threw us full ones when we wished, and we never had to stop, or even move really, to take a piss. Ahhh, good times.

Of course, even with the intermittent warmer water hitting them, your boys can only take so much soaking in cold water before your internal body temperature dips to uncomfortable levels, so, after a while, we got in the boat and made others ride \"tug-style.\"

I was fine with this, paddling and sunning myself on the front of the boat, except for one thing. I was now way too close to all that beer. No longer needing anyone to get it for me, I found that it was taking me longer and longer to find a full one in the ever-increasing pile of empty cans inside the cooler. I was also getting quite drunk.

This would normally not be a problem on this relatively calm stretch of water, but we rounded a bend to find an ominous looking tree branch extending out from the shore, arcing head-level, directly over the point where the current was taking us.

As we neared it and realized that we weren't going to go around it, but under it, seemingly everyone in the boat used their individual common sense and ducked in expectation of the tree branch. I not only did not see this ducking, as I was in the front of the boat, but I did not duck, I stood strong and brave, and nobly attempted to push that tree branch up and out of harm's way, gallantly saving everyone in the boat.

I cried, \"I've got it!\" and placed both my hands on the underside of the 15-foot limb.

The surprising thing about tree branches, even dead ones, is not only their sheer tensile strength, but also their elasticity.

*Creeeaaaaaaak*

*WHAP*

I held the branch long enough for it to move about 6 feet, complain loudly, and then react with a vengeance, cutting a path back to its chosen spot on the bank directly through my head and the heads of Caveman and the Girl's mom, directly behind me.

Apparently they were the only ones to hear me say I had it and, very foolishly, believed me, so they raised their heads from their ducked positions just in time to have the branch hit them. The plus side is that it seems my head slowed the branch just enough to give the Girl's parents only a glancing blow each.

I'm told later that I was unconscious for that part and for the entire boat's \"gratitude.\"

I distinctly remember being asked things like, \"Are you alright?\" and \"can you hear me?\" and I remember attempting to answer them. There was a slight inhibiting factor to my answering though, in that my mouth and my eyes didn't seem to want to work for me.

A few minutes of \"quiet time\" and having beer opened directly under my nose, I got up and back in the boat, gung-ho for another crack at that dangerous river.

I was also told later that while Caveman and I were nursing our wounds on the shore, all 4 of the females with us walked back up the bank and wrenched the deadly tree branch from the river and out of the way of other floater's.

Hey, we could've got it, I just didn't want to waste my time on chopping that fucking thing into firewood, with sharp river rocks, in a wasted effort at revenge.

My head still felt quite silly, though I couldn't be sure if it was the Barry-Bonds-like hit that it took, or the 15 beers that I had drank, when we pulled into a quiet spot along a 10-foot rock-wall, popular with floater's for it's cliff-jumping.

The adventurous members of the crew, myself and the Girl included, hopped out and began scaling the rocks towards the cliff. At this point, I still had enough of my wits about me to know that I was going to have to be extra, super-duper, careful going up a cliff, as I was still wonky-in-the head and quite inebriated.

This is when I spotted a trail-like path to the right of where everyone else was climbing. It had nice, evenly-spaced, ledges and clear hand and foot holds for climbing. I remembered thinking on the way up that it didn't look very well-used and wondering why that was. As I hoisted myself onto the top of the ledge, I found out, painfully, why.

Cactus.

Not the fun, Coyote and Roadrunner, huge 3-inch-easy-to-see needles either. Not the simply-need-pliers-and-whiskey-to-pull-out kind that the Mom had to deal with. Oh no, these suckers were barely bigger than the average hair on your head, and there were thousands of them covering the palm of my left hand.

I yelped, I jumped, I danced around the cliff edge, cursing, as I tried to wipe those little suckers off, finding out that this was only embedding them deeper into my flesh. I couldn't even get my fingers in close enough to pluck some of them out as that only meant pushing the surrounding needles in deeper, as they were so tightly packed.

But, being drunk and having sustained a severe blow to the head, I got over it relatively quickly. I even succumbed to the peer-pressure and taunting of those in the boat, and attempting a front-flip off the cliff. Not having done this in a number of years, I quickly found out that, if you have around 10 feet to fall, you don't have to flip very forcefully to send your body into more than one rotation. I managed what Olympic divers would refer to as a \"one-and-a-half-FACEPLANT.\"

This managed to make my head feel only slightly worse, and my hand feel a touch better, so I kept drinking.

6 and a half hours after putting in, we carried the boat out, loaded it onto Caveman's flatbed pickup, climbed into the raft and went home.

And we had beer left over.

---

The next day we were milling around the Girl's parents house when Caveman asked me if I'd help him haul one of his riding mower's into town to his mother's house. Knowing that the Girl and her Mom would like some time alone together, I readily obliged, and heartily agreed that we should haul some garbage out to the dump as well.

Loading the mower was interesting as Caveman had a system for getting the mower onto the truck involving two 6 x 10 planks and a lot of grunting. We managed fitfully, but I didn't trust my shock-addled brain enough to question any of his maneuverings.

We drove into, and around, town, visiting like old friends (which we've never been even remotely close to), and it was very cool.

Until we got to his mom's house.

I was trying to be as helpful as I could about how to unload the mower without questioning Caveman's planning integrity, but I realized that I probably should have the exact instant that the mower started slipping off of the planks.

See, Caveman was standing behind me, holding both planks on either side of me, level with the back of the truck, so that I could pull the mower onto them, thus clearing the truck bed, and then I could hold the mower while he lowered the planks to the ground, when we would both back it gently down.

The problem with this was, the mower is really fucking heavy and, when I had it out onto both planks and Caveman started lowering them, I slipped a little. There was no real problem with this as I was planted firmly, but, this time, Caveman ignored my cry of, \"I've got it!\" and tried to come to my aid. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that the best thing he could have done for me would have been to simply lift the planks back up.

Oh no, he was going to help me catch that mower, so he moved towards me, still holding the ends of the planks. Simple geometry tells us that if he's got a plank in each arm, and is moving forward as his arms spread further from his body, the planks are going to separate as well.

This meant that the mower's back wheels, which were at first precariously perched on the planks, were now completely off the planks and the full force of the mower came barreling directly off the truck and the planks.

And into my head.

Exactly where the branch o' death caught me.

My head and my shoulder, to be fair, as I caught that fucker and only dropped it when Caveman tried to grab it too and simply yelled, \"don't worry about the fuckin' mower, just get out of the way!\"

His saintly old mother came wandering down the walkway, staring at the cloud of dust and the two cursing idiots, muttering that she should have waited in the house for another minute as she came out just in time to see us put ourselves in bodily peril in her driveway.

She then turned a ghastly white as she saw that the right side of my forehead was bleeding... AGAIN.

As determined as I was to not relent in my quest for fun and relaxation on this trip, I was quickly figuring out that maybe the relaxation part was what I should focus on, so we headed home and I made my way onto the back patio to visit with the Girl and her Mom. I had the new Harry Potter book with me, but also my pliers and tweezers, in order to have another go at the palm of my left hand, still peppered with microscopic cactus needles. I also had a beer to aid in this task as well.

Their back patio is quite picturesque, with it's view of the river, the mountains, and it's newly installed, electronically extendable awning.

I was quite impressed with the job Caveman did installing the awning but, at this point, I should have at least taken note that the fact that no one that visits that house is over 5'8\" and I am almost 6'3\".

I didn't, and when I sauntered outside to see the women-folk, I walked around the low edge of the awning to give the Girl a smooch.

*WHACK*

For the 3rd time in 18 hours, the entire right-front part of my head caved in, focusing in a 5 square-inch-area, and my brains smashed against the inside of my skull.

I managed to say that I was fine this time, even though my right eyelid shut halfway and stayed there, unblinking, for a minute or two and the bleeding had started yet again.

After I settled the women back down, I walked out into the middle of the backyard, carrying my HP book and beer, and relented to what Montana was not-so-subtly trying to tell me...

Relax.

And don't move for a while.

I didn't, and it was wonderful.

---

I'm now saddled with the prospect that my yearning for the peacefulness and tranquility of my rural mountain home, as compared to my whirlwind of a life here in Denver, is either a sign that I need to return for good someday in the not-so-distant future...

...or the fact that I've got severe brain damage and shouldn't even be operating this keyboard.

Tough call.

I sure miss my home, though, so I'm inclined to believe the first one and not the idea that I'm permanently mentally disabled.

Even if I did forget my own phone number yesterday.

And my underwear.

Actually that last one's not so bad as I didn't have the kilt on.

When the Orchestra plays, it will be heard.

\"Because you love each other so deeply, you are able to hurt each other so deeply.\"

It sucks, but it's true.

But, we're working on our own shit, as well as learning about the other. It ain't fun, but we're learning.

Okay, now I'm done whining about my love life.

My thanks to all of you that have not only suffered through my interminably long entries about this shit, but especially those of you that took the time to contact me.

I appreciate you very much.

---

In an apparent burst of nostalgia for my pre-school years on the ranch, I decided to make grilled cheese sandwiches last night. I forgot the tomato soup and applesauce, but I dipped them in ketchup just like the old RanchMom taught me.

Then I lay down for a nap, as I had a late hockey game (10:30) and needed to stockpile as much sleep as I could.

During my slumber, the Rocky Mountains and Mother Nature decided to get together again in order to remind us puny humans just how insignificant we are. This is something they do a few times a year, whether it's a mountain's worth of snow in 3 days, or an ocean's worth of water in a few hours, they seem to enjoy the power of unleashing in excess.

I woke up to the Girl, staring at her new car, fretting about hail-damage, and a white-noise that filled the house.

Do you remember the days before all-night programming on television, where a station would sign off with the National Anthem, and then go to static? Remember falling asleep to a late-night talkshow, then waking up at 3 a.m. to the white-noise of that static, and it's disorienting effects? This was similar, but had engulfed the entire outside world. I was a bit freaked.

I briefly believed that the world may be coming to an end or, at the very least, the sky was falling, until I threw the blanket off of me and realized that, while napping, I'd become quite gassy.

This doesn't mean that the sky was no longer falling, I just decided that some serious stinky ass is to be enjoyed, especially if the world is ending.

Even though the gas was sure to be a good time in a locker-room with 15 sweaty, nasty dudes with gaseous problems of their own, the noises in my stomach were somewhat comparable to a conductor tapping his baton on his stand in order to gain everyone's attention.

Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap.

The orchestra that occasionally is my stomach began to tighten in anticipation. I started realizing why it had been so long since I'd had just grilled cheese sandwiches with ketchup for dinner.

I paid it no mind though, because I'm a stubborn idiot like that, and left for my game.

Still rubbing sleep out of my eyes as I loaded my goalie bag, I had a brief moment of post-nap retardness when I started to shout out to the Girl that her fears of hail-damage were indeed valid.

\"Hey honey, look at this! There was hail alright, Golf-ball sized hai... Oh. Nevermind.\"

Apparently, I forgot to zip the pocket on my golf bag last Sunday. The white spheres in the back of my truck were golf balls.

Idiot.

I pulled onto the street, whose previously sun-baked asphalt looked alive with it's smoky tendrils of steam from the freshly fallen rain. Combined with the construction a few blocks away, with the majority of it's bare dirt now blowing about in the air, it was a very surreal scene.

For a moment, I wondered if I was really awake and not still prone on the couch.

That's when the stomach conductor tapped again. Then he started counting time as the orchestra began a slow and measured pace.

I was thankful that it was still only the woodwinds (\"winds\" get it, like breaking wi... nevermind), but it was the lower woodwinds and the quickening of their pace was foretelling of the rest of the orchestra joining in relatively soon.

I was trying to get to the rink early to stretch my ever-complaining back and realized that the Forces of Nature had also combined with the Forces of Stupidity to measurably slow traffic. This was not slowing the Orchestra's pace however, and I was weaving in and out of the sheeplike drivers like a madman.

I cursed them and they only seemed to say, \"Don't you understand JuddHole?!? Water! It fell from the sky!\"

The fact that there was no longer this supernatural occurrence of water falling from the sky, everyone around me still felt the need to go a good 5 miles under the speed limit.

It eventually opened into a stretch of highway with no stoplights and I felt like I could speed enough to at least match the Orchestra's tempo.

I had a two-door Ford Speck (about 8 feet long, 4 feet high, gets 243 miles to the gallon, you've seen 'em) in front of me that was zipping along fairly well until we went under the Evans Underpass or, as it is referred to after a hard rain, Lake Evans.

The SpeckDriver apparently paid no attention in Driver's Ed Class to the part about \"Not hitting your brakes when hydroplaning\" and locked 'em up after blasting into the 3-feet of standing water.

I knew not to brake but could either do that and risk control of the truck, or blast right into, and probably over, SpeckBoy. Enticing as that idea was, I struggled the truck into a mild crawl and we both began fording the Highway River.

I was feeling calm again and went to flick ash off my cigarette when I saw the 18-wheeler.

He was in the lane to the right of me, but wasn't stopping, wasn't even slowing down. He hit the Amazonian puddle going about 45.

GOOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHH!

I expected the water to go sheeting over my truck, but there was such a quantity of it that, for a moment, I was in a mid-sized blue submarine, navigating my way through the muddy Nile, looking at bits of leaves and confused aquatic life.

Then the water found the 3-inch gap in my driver's side window. All I could do was fight to keep the vehicle straight as the entire left side of my body was drenched in cold, muddy, rainwater. For a moment, I could only imagine that I looked like Cruella DeVille after the Dalmations had knocked a storm drain loose above her head. My face was frozen in shock and my soggy cigarette hung limply from my fingers.

I laughed out loud at this thought until the Orchestra picked up it's tempo yet again, and this time the horn section was featured. Occasionally the flutes, and even the piccolo, were playing quite loudly, but the brass was definitely more insistent.

The guy on the radio advised me to avoid the interstate, at least for a few on-ramps, so I thought I could just take the parallel highway a little further North. There are no gas stations, or other places offering shittery, but still I retardedly figured I could make it to the rink.

I was making good time when the railroad arms started coming down in front of me.

*Ding* *Ding* *Ding*

Not wanting to get hit by a train because I knew that any part of me they DID find would be coated in ass-syrup, I stopped and waited.

And waited. And waited. And waited.

4 and a half minutes passed (you bet yer ass I was counting) and no train came. It was then that I realized that this is the section of track that always thinks a train is coming when it rains.

Super.

Luckily, the guy behind me knew this and reversed the 100 feet to the last intersection, then took off on yet another side street. I followed, pleased that the Orchestra had backed down to a moderate Clarinet solo.

I made it onto the Interstate where, yet again, everyone thought that such phenomena as water, was falling from the sky meant \"drive like a stoned old lady.\"

I was about 3 miles from the rink, isolated on the Interstate, when the conductor snapped his baton sharply to the left, and cued the Percussion section.

It would start slowly, with the bass drums and the snares, and then it would back off. Then, it would come back stronger, with some Timpani thrown in, then it would back off.

There was something vaguely familiar about it, almost like it was the theme from 2010: A Space Odyssey:

daaa, Daaaa, DAAAAA, DA-DAAAAAAA

Bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum-bum

I made my exit, clutching the wheel with both hands and gritting my teeth so hard I thought they would explode, sending enamel shrapnel through my cheeks. Naturally, there is nothing resembling a place for crapping anywhere on my short, but excruciatingly painful, drive to the rink.

The Timpani came back with a vengeance, only this time, the rest of the Orchestra began to crescendo as well. All of them together, growing increasingly louder, holding their notes long and high, waiting impatiently for the conductor to signal the end.

I was about a half-mile away from the rink now and, even though it was a residential area, I strongly considered just pulling over and risking a court-date for Public Indecency.

I didn't though. I knew that the gravel road through the construction site to the rink wouldn't have any other cars on it, and I could drive so fast that my wheels may leave the ground occasionally.

I forgot that a gravel road also means rough travel, especially at high speeds.

The Orchestra played on, louder and louder, keeping time with the rutted gravel road, ignoring my pleading cries and the tears welling up in my eyes.

I spotted breaks in the chain link fence lining the road, but I was always too late to make the turn into them and finally get the Orchestra to finish their Concerto from Hell. I vowed to take the next turn into the giant dirt piles and then realized that, simply by noticing them, there would be no more of these options. There weren't, of course.

I would still have to go for the rink.

Parking at the rink always sucks, especially with the construction, and I knew that if I had to park more than 25 feet from the entrance, there was no way that the Orchestra would hit a refrain and spare me the indignity of a pants-full of something I had foolishly tried to ignore.

I slid to a stop directly in front of the main entrance, half-on, half-off the sidewalk, in the clearly labeled \"Fire Zone,\" left my equipment, the truck running, and made my way inside with the grace of an 80 year-old man, wrestling with early rigor mortis, fleeing a burning building.

I made it, and all parts of the symphony were very clearly heard and given equal amounts of time. It was the opus of their lives.

When they were done, I went out, parked my truck, got my equipment, came back in, and took a bow for the bemused front desk staff as well as a couple of my teammates who were wondering why my truck was left so haphazardly on the front steps.

Thank Dog there wasn't an Encore, because I was already late for my game.

That 12 miles was the longest drive of my life.

Another long one, but a turning point.

I sit once again on the back patio, laptop poised in front of me, fully accepting of all of my thoughts, fears and feelings. After 6 straight days, my body is finally starting to react to the nightly barrage of alcohol and cigarettes.

I look like hell. I don't know that I've ever had that thought before, and I don't know that I've ever cared, or care now, but, I know that I look like absolute shit.

My life never seems to falter too terribly much, when I'm in times of great pain or emotion. Somehow, I never fail to function and, while it may not be at my optimal capacity, it somehow seems like it's still more than enough for what is typically asked of me.

Though I spent quite a bit of time emoting, at my job, during the drive to my work, during my hockey games, and I was still able to function, I was still ignoring parts of my self.

She emailed me on Monday and asked if we could talk on Tuesday night, after my game. I agreed, and the full weight of the life-changing decisions that were impending was felt squarely on my shoulders. I was not looking forward to it.

I spent all of Monday and Tuesday seeking validation in my thoughts and actions. Bless those that care about me and their advice, but I purposely chose to distance myself from everyone else's input in the matter. This is my life and, since I'm the one who's living it, I figured I needed to make the decisions concerning it on my own.

I would never claim, for one second, that I don't appreciate and embrace the love that I felt from so many people. I did and I do. So many wonderful, caring people have contacted me over the last week that I am truly astounded and humbled at the idea that all of this energy and feeling was directed simply at me, for me. I typically have no idea that people care about me until they prove it. I'm cynical, wary, cautious, like that, but prove it they did and it's an amazing feeling.

I came home Tuesday night and found her on the back patio, sitting where I am now. She was scribbling pensively in a notebook and I had to wonder how many pages she'd written in the last few days. I was fully ready to believe that she had written hardly any, and that she'd spent her \"exile\" feeling self-pity and remorse as is her tendency.

I was very wrong.

Obviously, she'd been thinking, and writing, and thinking, and soul-searching. For the first time it felt like she'd finally taken a good look at who she is, and who she was.

Something was still missing though, something that I felt like I needed, and the tortured part of my soul ached for it.

An apology.

A tearful, Heartfelt, sobbing, totally penitent, outpouring of remorse.

It was not to come.

Instead, I perceived a wounded person who was seeking, for the first time in her life, to understand who she is, and why she is who she is. Remorseful? Of course. But, our interaction took on a familiar tone of defensiveness when we discussed what we were going to do with this life we now have. When it was suggested that we take a span of 6 months apart to learn, truly learn about ourselves and each other, it was met with grudging agreement.

It was not fun, but I did my best to try and listen, and to try and learn. When she left, my heart felt like it was being ripped from my chest, and it was all I could do not to collapse in a heap, and sob myself into unconsciousness.

As I prepared for bed, I noticed her notebook sitting, suggestively I thought, on the laptop. So, I read its contents. When I finished, I realized that the first part was a diary entry.

Yes, she has a diary, and no, I'm not ready to link to it yet.

I also realized that the second part was not meant for my eyes.

The tone of defensiveness that I felt earlier suddenly made much more sense. An itemized list of items for the evening's discussion were written out, as well as several things that I can only describe as \"coaching tips.\" At first, I turned incredibly defensive, wanting to shout at every point that I wasn't like that and had never been like that. I simply wouldn't DO any of the things that it felt like she was expecting. I then started thinking that she hadn't changed her ways of thinking towards me at all, and that our decision to separate was extremely valid. The anger I felt then turned inward, and I started to question who I really am, and was. Did I really DO those things? Do I really attack her? Make her question her thoughts? Come down on her too hard? I certainly didn't think so, but I tried to assuage my feelings with the idea that, if I had done these things, I certainly didn't know it, and if she confirms all that she wrote about me, I will certainly do my damnedest to not be that person anymore.

Wednesday night came, with its wine and its cigarettes, as well as the constant tapping of this keyboard. I fully meant to try and capture some forms of coherent thought, as opposed to my tearful ramblings, in the hopes that I could post an entry and lay to rest some of the fears of the more motherly readers of this diary. I'm not suggesting that anyone thought I would off myself, but some of the worries I felt for myself were echoed in many of the emails I received.

I decided to just let myself feel. I mean really feel. I wanted it all out, because it was turning my insides into a place of confusion, anger, hurt, and mistrust, and no one should have to walk around in their life feeling that way. No one should feel that all they can do is just walk around in their life, period. Life is for living, and I needed to get on with it.

I let my Head talk first. I analyzed and examined every angle of our situation to exhaustion. I came up with only the idea that what I'm doing isn't wrong. It isn't going to be fun, but it isn't wrong.

My Heart had a few more things to say. I thought about all the love that we had, the life that we shared, and the life that we were building. I realized that her absence would cause more than just a \"void,\" it would be an absence of the love that we've grown together. A love, I've come to realize, that has brought my life, my whole being, to a higher place. A better place. A place that I'd never even glimpsed in my entire life. A place I never thought possible.

My Heart also hurt. My Heart was fighting with my Head over the idea that I was still acting like that hurt little boy. A notion I had spurned just a few days ago. That same little boy, who wanted only to be left to his own, yet was constantly picked on, who had supposedly grown into a man that had learned how to forgive, was still there. And he was acting out. He had been wronged and now he wanted retribution.

I began to question why I was throwing her out of my life again. I understand that there is a mountain of reasons that backed me up, but I truly began to question whether or not I was just being spiteful and/or self-protecting.

Then, I turned to the part of myself that is my savior. The part of me that never lies, is rarely, if ever, wrong, and seems to know more than I ever give it credit for.

My Gut.

I have an old friend who I don't keep in regular touch with yet still manage to connect with every time we're together. At a particularly low point in my life, he told me, \"I was once told some very wise words. 'You have to listen to your Head, and let your Heart act as its advisor. But, you should always, always trust your Gut. If it had ever steered you wrong, you'd be dead.'\" I remember staring at him in disbelief, as he'd never been one to quote anything overtly profound. I asked him who it was that told him this piece of wisdom, expecting a fortune cookie, a popular book, or that crazy, black lady in the turban who speaks to me in a funny accent late at night on the television.

He then open-handed slapped me across the side of my head.

\"YOU, you idiot. YOU fucking told me that years ago, when my life was shit and I thought I'd never love anyone again.\"

After listening to my Heart and my Head, I decided to acquiesce to his advice. The fact that the side of my head tingled in memory, helped push the idea as well. I decided to see what the Gut had to say.

The Gut, barely stifled all night, was now being heard in full force.

\"Don't be a self-righteous asshole,\" it said, \"if you want to run with certain feelings or thoughts that she's a piece of shit and you're so sure of that because of thoughts of feelings that you're so sure she's had, then sit her down and ask her instead of crying and resenting her in your solitude.\"

In a moment of spontaneity, I called her. She was on her way back to her temporary lodging from her pool league, but seemed to hear the pain and pleading in my voice, and pulled up in front of the house less than 3 minutes later.

The evening didn't go as I had expected. I had expected a defensive, passive/aggressive, shitheel to make a feeble attempt at an apology or an explanation of her actions, in an effort to lessen the blame on herself. I had expected a nominal level of accountability. Which is not to say that I didn't think she'd accept the fact that our life is fucked because of her actions, I simply thought that she would act like she'd always acted before, and hang her head in quiet resignation with a statement along the lines of, \"I know I'm a fuck-up, and I deserve to not have you love me anymore.\"

That wasn't the person that sat down with me that night. She was more than up-front about what she'd done in the past, she had honest, thoughtful, theories and ideas on why she had acted that way. She'd done a lot of thinking on who she is and why it is that she does hurtful things to me, let alone things which are terribly self-destructive.

When confronted about the words in her notebook, the thoughts that I thought so clearly represented her true feelings towards me, she admitted that she hadn't meant for me to read that, but that what she had written in no way reflected how she truly thought about me. Her words were for herself, to assure her that the worst-case scenario wasn't the end of the world. A pessimistic view at best, she had prepared herself for my worst possible reactions, knowing, deep down, that I would never, could never, hurt her in those ways, and that even if I did, she wouldn't run away from it, but face up to it, and confidently proceed with what she thought was right by me, by us, and by her.

The fact that she always runs away from pain was also something that she'd never considered before last week. An almost certain Catch-22 is that if you never examine yourself and all of your weaknesses, because it is so painful, and end up running away from it, you never know that you will always run away from pain.

She quoted one of Clarity's entries that said something along the lines of, \"When it starts to hurt, you just have to dig deeper, or you'll never truly heal.\" She admitted that she was digging, and it sucked, but that it had been ignored for too long, and it needs dealing with.

I sat there thinking about how good it felt that she was finally being honest with me, until I realized that this was probably the first time she'd ever been that honest with herself.

She sat there, for the first time possibly ever, and sincerely told me that she doesn't think that she's a bad person. Quite the opposite, she knows that she is a good person. A good person who runs from her problems instead of dealing with them and ends up shitting all over the one person that she loves most in this world.

Drugs, alcohol, promiscuity. None of these has ever been her real problem. She's just never dealt with whatever pain she's been feeling. Pushing it away and invalidating it, she's found, only made it build up into a self-destructive episode and it was played out using what she had available. It may as well have been gambling, excessive tattoos, or biting the heads off of Prairie Hens.

While she could offer no reason why it was partially directed at me as well, she promised me that she would devote her energy into finding out.

And I believe her.

And I asked her to stay.

---

Things, understandably, still aren't great. A part of me still waits for some great gesture to demonstrate her remorse and seeking of forgiveness.

I realize though, that the part of me that needs that may never get what it wants. Partly because it's not something that she can do right now, and partly because I've started questioning whether or not that wounded little boy will ever be satisfied. Whether his need for \"justice\" will ever be met. It's not fair to expect that since he's been so wounded so many people, one person can make up for a lifetime of abuse.

It's not an easy task to get him to grow up and move on. I may be able to talk about forgiveness when referring to my family or my friends, but I don't know that I ever forgave the Girl for all that she's done to me.

One thing I'm sure of, though. That hurt little boy will never shut up until I learn to forgive her.

I can sit and feel self-righteous and superior, waiting for that grand gesture, for that blubbering apology, but somewhere, in the back of my mind, a part of me is telling me that I need to recognize her for who she is. And me, for who I am.

While she is someone who has hurt me, she is also someone that I love with all of my Heart. With all of my Gut. My Head is going to need some convincing, but it is learning to operate on a little bit of faith, tempered by the ever-present, rarely silent, Gut, and it's incredibly-difficult-to-fault inclinations.

There are so many things that we have yet to learn. About each other. About ourselves.

I'm finding that it's difficult to deal with situations where she seems so seemingly carefree, when I feel that she should be tentative and pensive, like I am recently. I misinterpret her feelings and judge her, thinking that it's only natural that she be happy as I chose to let her back into our house and into my life, and that she'll go back to her half-assed attempts at improving herself, myself, and our relationship, now that she doesn't feel like we aren't in any danger anymore.

The difference is though, I now tell her these things. I no longer hide my misgivings in an effort to avoid her feeling pain and running away. She hasn't run away either. She's listened and understood why I feel this way and has not chosen to take the easy path and just tell me what I want to hear. She's been honest with me and told me that she was someone who used to do exactly that. Fuck up, and then forget about any attempt at atonement once our life was \"back to normal.\" She's told me that she isn't someone who is going to do that anymore, and I believe her.

And I'm going to hold her to it.

I'm fond of saying that I try to live in the Now. Right now, I've still got pain and resentment, and that pisshead little boy, to deal with. But, so does she. The fact that the source of this, for both of us, is mostly her only makes it more difficult as I don't seem to have my tasks laid out in front of me as clearly as she does.

I can only continue to be the best person I can, and to try and give her what she needs. But, for probably the first time in my life, I'm learning to put my needs first. It feels wrong, at first, but my Gut tells me that it's right, and I believe it. Someday, I'll learn to forgive her too, although not without her help.

I'm sure I'll figure it out. It just takes time.

Wish me luck.