there went the 23 day mark.

today was the day for kegging of the SPA, the infamous scorched plastic ale, hapless victim of an insufficient amount of stirring during the steep phase of extract brewing. that's right: my grain bag scorched on the bottom of the brewpot, spilling grains into the brew and leaving a frightfully nerve-wracking scorch mark on the stainless.

now, as if that weren't enough, this beer -- brewed to a recipe that i've made at least 3 times before, with no changes at all from the last time i made it -- smelled different during fermentation. like rotten eggs, in fact. yum! that was my first rotten eggy beer and for the entire two weeks of fermentation i worried about it, ceaselessly nagging my homebrewing pals to get them to commit to something more than a "probably nothing."

the good news is: the beer is fine. no sulphur, no taste of burnt plastic. in fact, it tastes -- and especially smells -- great!

and that, dear reader, is good news, for i suspect i'll be smelling a lot of this beer.

as i siphoned the SPA into its keg, i neared the bottom of the fermenter, and called to 203. when she's around for siphoning, i have her handle the output end of the siphon tube as we approach the yeast bed. on my mark, she can redirect the flow into the sink so we don't get too much crud in the new vessel. also, when kegging, she can put some in a cup for me to try. that was the plan and we'd done it nicely before.

now, when i keg/bottle/brew or pretty much any time i use the kitchen, the floor is covered in liquid. tonight, the liquid of choice was sanitizer fluid. good stuff. i called 203 a second time, since she had made no response the first time, and the beer level was getting pretty low. i ended my call with a "now" to signify that if she was to help me, it would have to be... wait for it... "now". well, "then", at this point. but "now", then.

now then. the trouble, you see, is that we had an urgency mismatch. i thought i intoned the "now" with the sort of inflection that indicates "now, but if you can't make it, i'll manage, since i've done this before", or "now, but it's not really emergency now, because i didn't shout it in emergency voice," or even, "now, but you know, not like 'immediately' or 'right this microsecond' because i wouldn't leave it till then since i always call with time to spare". but there was beer in the air (amazingly, in light of what i am about to reveal, none in either of our systems -- the following events happened entirely soberly).

apparently, somewhere between the kitchen and the patio, there exists in my apartment an Urgency Amplifier, and someone had cranked it all the way up to 11. the "now, please" passed through the UA and came out the other end as "OMG NOW I'VE DROPPED A KNIFE THROUGH MY EYE SOCKET" or something of that nature. 203 came racing into the kitchen with a speed that would have been envied by Superman, but with, alas, a lack of traction that would have been envied by the Astroglide corporation.

i missed most of the action because i blinked, but it seemed her feet went right into the dishwasher, her arms flailed around and smacked into my all clad (read: stainless steel) sanitizing bucket, and lord knows what her head did.

a "holy crap" escaped me, i think, and as i moved to panic, 203 suggested, through both laughter and proto-tears, that i continue what i was doing. actually, i think she got right up and offered to help. she didn't seem to be in the right shape for it, and she certainly wasn't in the right frame of mind. i tried to figure out just what the hell was happening, and gave up. i got my cup of beer, but decided that that was enough and left perhaps a pint in the fermenter as i chased 203 out of the kitchen to see if she was actually all right.

not exactly. fortunately, it seems as of now (an hour later) she has no major injuries besides a large bruise and a split toenail.

once i'd decided that 203 was more or less okay, i went back to panicking about my beer. i'd shaken the fermenter at that point and dropped the siphon tube into the dirty sink, so there was no way to recover the last pint for a while. so i decided to seal the keg and get it into the kegerator.

i sealed the keg and got to work cleaning the beer line. that went uneventfully enough. i pumped some CO2 into the keg, released the pressure valve (to remove excess atmosphere) and pumped more CO2 into the keg.

the beer lines cleaned, i brought out the beer line quick disconnect.

(somewhere in there i got reprimanded with my very first "you're not my father!" when i suggested, eveidently in a fatherly tone, something along the lines of "dont do that again". perhaps i won't ;)

i attached the beer line quick disconnect. with the CO2 connected at pressure.

"i think we're learning something" i commented, anything but dryly, as fresh beer spewed forth at tremendous velocity from the pressurized keg all over my DVD collection.

(for thems of you that have never operated a cornelius keg system, word of advice: the beer line quick disconnect opens the beer-out valve and so if the CO2 valve is open and the keg is pressurized, beer comes out. quickly. with great velocity.)

i yanked off the QD and shut the CO2 off.

then we took out many dvds and dried them, all while 203 was limping around with an icky sore toe.

i released the pressure from the keg, kept the valve off, connected the QD, and attached the beer line to the disconnect.

"all righty," i probably said, as i then proceeded to turn the CO2 pressure back on, since, of course, i'd have to do it again soon anyhow, so why not now?

recall the above where i cleverly said "we're learning something!"

i was just joking!

the faucet was not attached to the beer line, it was still being sanitized. pressurized beer shot through the open beer line and straight out the beer tower at 203's head.

203, thinking fast, extended her finger and plugged the line. once we finished laughing, i again shut off CO2 and released the pressure valve. the faucet was assembled, attached, and closed.

beer everywhere.

lost at least 3 pints just putting the gorram thing in the keg.

and then i went and broke my siphon starter trying to get the tube off.

that went well!

teflon tape is magical.

more magical than duct tape.

it's like liquid schwartz, only it's solid! and in tape form! and doesn't summon mel brooks when opened!

other than that, exactly alike!

i can't quite put my finger on it.

all i can say is that i was banging my head harder to "sweet child o mine" with the grados than with the beyers.

maybe i was just trying to get the fuckin things off my ears.

the thing i most look forward to is coming home.

i'm tired, my audio gear is at home helping to break in the new 225s, and things are going just not as well as they might be going today.

i'm in a reflective mood. that's good for writing and bad for everything else, i've come to realize.

i wondered earlier today, if i didn't have the difficulties that i had, but instead had other difficulties, would i be better or worse off? i suppose i'll really never know -- at the moment, the difficulties that plague me most pointedly are the ones i'll likely never conquer, so from here on out, i'll only be gaining difficulties, since it's a given that i have N permanent ones, and N + M is greater than N for all M greater than 0.

it occurred to me as i was bringing my lunch back to my desk that the combination of a sufficiently broad world view, coupled or replaced with a creative imagination, glued together with an objective analytical mind, is the deadly enemy of happiness.

the more i think about things "objectively" the worse off i gather i am. throw in a good dose of imagination, and i can visualize a universe of improvements to my life.

this thought, i suppose, was the culmination of this morning's grumbly ruminations, spawned from waking up too early, unhappy dreams (themselves born of the usual unhappies that flutter unstoppably through my mindscape now and again), unhappy allergies, and unhappy annoyances with my landlords and brewing setup (heh).

ironically, though, a dash of imagination, a splash of objectivity, and a hash of worldliness, real or imagined (and still, considering, i'm not convinced that one outshines the other), tempered by mood or will, combine and reveal the exact opposite of the conclusion i reached above: the more i think about things "objectively" the better off i gather i am.

how can it be that both are true?

it simply is. i may never be rid of my troubles, or at least, if i rid myself of some, the void will be filled with others. and yet, at the same time, i live a life of above average happiness, and so if i fail to reach some arbitrary level of joy above the above average level, that's not so bad overall, uber alles.

i used to think (really recently, on the cosmic sclae) that this was a "settling" attitude. now i think, perhaps, it is simply reality. it's an old truism that the more power one acquires in life, the less freedom one has. as a simple example, consider wealth. there's a sweet-spot, i suppose, but i'm not there. i'm hardly poor, but yet, to "get the most" out of my money requires constant attention, research, and careful tracking. and still, i'm just basically making it up as i go along. were i poor, i wouldn't have to worry about what effect the housing bubbleburst will have on the stocks in my 401k. at the same time, i'd be poor, with all the problems that brings.

i recently told 203 that life is too short for any person to do all the things they want to do. that used to be something i could say or think without a painful, internal cringe. that used to be something that didn't grate back when there really wasn't anything i wanted to do. and now, i have so many things i wish to do, and i'm so far behind, it's rather irritating. i'm not a patient person, and yet i've waited almost my entire life to have my life. and sometimes, more often than i'd like, when i consider 203, who occupies my thoughts with frightening consistency, i am reminded not only of how long i had to wait to find her, but of how much longer she didn't wait to find me -- because she didn't so much know she was looking for me, just as i didn't know i was looking for her, but she got started in the search a lot sooner.

and the irony of it all (second only to the greater irony that i find my poor little mind constantly deadlocked by such tangled twists of irony) is that, of course, these qualities in each of us are among the milieu of qualities that brought us together, and bring us together, and keep us together.

my life, so far, has been like a firework -- a long, slow, uneventful ascent punctuated by an explosion of bright sound and fire. what shape it will form i do not know, and how long the explosion will continue, i cannot say. but i can say that the fiery streamers of this hopefully long-lived burst of life, and the shimmering glow of the wandering star that i have somehow netted, bring into sharp detail the dullness of the ascent. in contemplating the as-they-weres, i see so many might-have-beens, from the earliest pre-teen years right up to the late twenties, and as i wallow and whinge in irritating gen-X self-fascination, i see concurrently how lucky i have always been to allow me to reach this point of (probably (i mean, i assume (or imagine, if you will))) enviable happiness. and so i get the hodge with the podge, as i indulge myself, tiredly, with boring familiarity, in the realization that my past was lived not as Jean-Luc Picard, but as the far less interesting Jeen Luck Pick-erd, if you remember that episode where his heart blows up (and i know you do).

quoth The Dude, "that's a bummer, man."

we've made it past the 30 day mark.

less than a month until i'm hitched. time flows with jitter: in fantastic spurts at times, and dragging painfully at others.

got the rings just today. finished half of my special project yesterday. the beer is good. the ceremony is set. we're pretty much covered, it seems. but planning my wedding is worse than departing on a backpacking trip: the nagging feeling that i've forgotten something is greatly amplified.

still -- it's creeping closer, ever closer, and plans and long range goals are falling into place. we're settling in.

(in a good way!)

after a (successful) struggle to lift 305 last wed, i spent the remaining days (sans thu night climbing) eating junk food, drinking beer, sitting on my deadlift-hardened but beer-softened muscular/fat ass, and generally not taxing myself in any activity not related to reading the meter.

as a result, today, as part of my new "attempt max deadlifts whenever i feel like it as long as it's before wednesday" routine, i lifted 310 without much struggle. it's a straight shot from here on out, to 400, no doubt, as long as i can adhere to my strict regimen of beer, pizza, and no longer being able to fit into pants.

hooray for goals and good health!

i appreciate weirdness in life.

right now i'm stuck in a time loop. this is the third time i've been here. i meant to blog about it the second time but discarded the draft because i got busy at work (no, really!).

sitting on the couch, headphones on, i went to go blog about my excellent word in scrabble last night, changed my mind, fired up bloglines, and was greeted by a post from soopaviv containing the words "scoring" and "drought". actually, that was the title: scoring drought.

that happened before, i knows it.

i scrolled down a little more to find "reasons why i blog", which was there last time (though the dates do not support this.) a quick use of the search engine reveals that "scoring drought" is the first post of that title.

i've had the old dejavu many times before (and even heard some fascinating theories on why it happens (cue retarted matrix jokes, durhur)) but this, i think, is the first time i've had it triple.

so here i am, listening to dick dale jam like nobody's business on "Unknown Territory", first track, and i figured out something else about "positioning".

i've been trying to get the whole "imaging" and "positioning" thing, but it dawned on my (secondarily to what really dawned on me, which i'll get to) that i'm listening to the wrong kind of stuff for that.

there is "soundstage" and positioning, but in the case of this recording, it's compressed, stacked, mushed. they didn't get the band together and put one mic in the room -- they got the band together and put one mic on each band member. so when the percussions from the drum solo rush on by from left to right, i'm not observing the drummer, i am the drummer. and when it's not a solo, when it's just the drummer banging away to support dick, he doesn't sound "apart" from dick, because he's "on top" (er.. heh) of dick as far as this recording sounds.

and suddenly it all makes a lot more sense. i'm not observing a performance, with this album and setup, i'm not "on the stage", i am each band member simultaneously. i get to do something that's physicially impossible. i get to feel like i'm "there" for a physically impossible value of "there".

cool.

last time i listened to yellow submarine, i couldn't get the title song out of my head for months.

it's back!

(and this time I can actually hear most all of the song).

what's with all the nasty weather? bleah.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY :
kegged the sullen beaver oatmeal stout.
drank the sullen beaver oatmeal stout.
drank the sullen beaver oatmeal stout.
drank the sullen beaver oatmeal stout.
brewed one last EPA.

THE DETAILS :
It was a dark and stormy morning. The drive up to castle rock was slow and aggravating, as the SO and I got stuck behind a blowhard who weaved in and out of the single lane. That wasn't a big deal, but what was a big deal was that he weaved in and out of the *passing* lane as I attempted to pass him, thus blocking me. I don't think he understood what the (very very short) passing lanes were for, so I clued him in by honking my horn -- something I rarely do. In fact, only the second honk was a proper honk, the first one, I had to spend time remembering how to do it. At last, he got the message and pulled to the side so I could pass, just in time to get stuck behind a slow moving truck.

We arrived at CRSP eventually, in the pouring rain, to meet Rictor-Veg for a nice, short, somewhat intense hike-in-the-rain, wherein i got soaked pretty thoroughly and all the contents of my backpack were soaked, which was fine, because my sandwiches were in tupperware, but not so fine for 203, whose bread was wrapped only in paper. oops.

we met up with some boy scouts who were learning to make fire. just as they got theirs going, and offered us its use, we departed. then we arrived at the parking lot, to make another, more lengthy departure. along the way home, we stopped at REI. then we stopped at another, and, on the way to our third, final REI of the day, we stopped at a going-out-of-business antique store that is situation next to an REI. inside, i found, quite by chance, a pub tap-handle (supposedly "antique" since it was in an antique store, though it bore no vintage markings) with a "BASS DRAUGHT" logo emblazened upon it. It was quite the find, and while it was not a steal of a price, it was reasonable, and Bass Ale is 203's preferred megabrew, and presumably the "ale" to which she is referring when she says such things as, "i don't like stout, i like ale".

sigh.

so after we got home and cleaned up and sanitized, i kegged the oatmeal stout. and then, because our kegging sample tasted a little carbonated, and decently cooled, i decided: why wait to hook up the kegerator? i hooked it right up, after a big PITA of cleaning the lines, discovering how to use the cleaning pump, some scary moments with the CO2 (oh shit!! there's no pressure! we let all the gas leak out!!!! -- oh, wait, it's just turned off at the source.), and after making a plethora of messes, i got it all hooked up and pulled a creamy pint! man, that rocked.

then all the other pints until this writing were undercarbonated and too warm, but that's just learning curve. need to get it properly adjusted and all that.

i did not find the kegging to be *greatly* easier than bottling, but then, i do assembly-line bottling with two or three assistants, so that's pretty easy. and 203 does all the cleaning either way. but i reckon once i get more experience with the kegging it will be a breeze. likewise with cleaning the kegerator.

anyhow, because i have one, I attached a digital temp controller to the kegerator, because then i can adjust the temp without opening the door, and also, it looks cool. that is, i can look at it and see how cool it is. inside the kegerator.

cool!

so then it occurred to me that my kegerator has a two-keg capacity and a double spout. and there was only one full keg in there, and no beer brewing in my closet. i wouldn't get to brew for at least another two weeks. that's half capacity for a month! (two weeks to brew, two weeks min to ferment). I realized that this would not stand. Also I realized that morebeer, while distant, is open on sundays.

BACKTRACK :
on the way back from one of the REIs, we stopped at "fermentation frenzy" in PA, which had, that very day, begun the conversion to "morebeer". alas, morebeer has no more bay area competition (outside the city) that i know of. that's a shame, because the FF guys were friendly, helpful, and usually more or less sober.

RETRACK :
So i decided I'd brew up another batch of EPA because hte last batch had come out so very nicely. Then I'd have a dark beer and a light ale on tap. Plus, the EPA would be ready to go in probably 10 days, 14 to be safe. So the next day I picked up Rictor-Veg and we went all the way to concord, where I bought the ingredients for an EPA and RV bought a lagering kit! He's on his way to becoming a brewmaster, huzzar for him.

I left out a lot about morebeer not answering their phone all morning, and making the drive to concord not knowing if they had my EPA ingredients, and icky mexican food, and all that.

Finally back home I got to brew the EPA. I boiled the hops for too long and burned the grain bag onto the bottom of the pot. Further, I broke my promise that my next brew would be all-grain. But I don't care, much. It is probably fermenting even now, though the yeast were still chilly when I pitched (no choice) and I have no clue how hot hte wort was (don't care) (also, it was 80F) and I made 10 dozen other mistakes.

I know by now to Relax, Don't Worry, Have a Homebrew. At worst, there will be some burnt-plastic funk in the brew. Overall it will be good. I'll drown out any funk with a shot of stout from the other tap :D

ow.

ow ow ow.

nothing's harder on my poor little quads than multiple sets of hindu squats followed by 10 solid minutes of ATG static squatting. crikey!

IM's "suliman" + microstack + dt770 => now i understand "soundstage"

particularly, i understand the soundstage of the setup i have. i was wondering why i didn't get the "airy soundstage" the "right on the bandstand" experience. well, that's because this setup puts the band, as the amp manufacturer's slogan says, "right between your ears". mostly. at one point, i had "suliman"'s techno-buzzer instrument right where my pineal gland is, and drums a little behind my ears. monks echoing from all around. it was a neat moment.

if the grados ever get here i'll find out whether open cans will give me more air. i reckon they will.

thanks, lee!

fueled by the failure of this morning's 320 attempt, i drew out a plan/schedule to see if i could actually, reasonably make it to 400 by 30. and the verdict is: probably.

changes are in order. up to now i'd been on a 2 week repeating workout, MWF, with squat/bp alternating deadlift/dips. this meant I'd dl 2x in some weeks and 1x in others. now, i reckon i'll change that to W DL and pansy stuff on MF. starting next W i'm DLing 305, adding 5lbs per week, until i get 20lbs over the start, dropping 10lbs, and repeating. 2 sets of 5, and then 1 more set either of 5, or of 3 at +10lbs.

that's the basic gist of it. of course, right in the middle of it all, i'm getting hitched, and doing some flying and all sorts of other stuff, including, probably, lots of climbing and camping. that's probably okay, i have accounted for the forseeables in my schedule, and there might even be enough wiggle room in there for the unforseeables.

as is, my plan puts me at 5x370 the week before i turn 30, which, coincidentally, is a wednesday: the weekly DL day. so i guess on the morning of my 30th, the idea will be to get up and lift 400lbs.

and then lose a bunch of weight so i can float up the rocks without sweating.

forgot to mention yesterday the other thing on my mind: DEADLIFTS.

on monday i managed several sets of 5x315, which is a PR, i think, or at least damn close to it. i was so jazzed about that, and the progress i'm making toward my november goal (400 by 30) that i looked at my 1RM calculator and discovered that by the time i can do 5x355, i should be able to manage 1x400.

then i went climbing, and skipped a workout. then i went climbing again and drank some scotch. and then, this morning, after my warmup sets, i had 203 observe as i strapped in for my set of 5x320.

alas, someone had glued the gorram thing to the floor. there's an interesting mind thing that happens when failing to lift the first rep of a DL set (i never have much trouble with the second and third rep: it's 1, 5, and 4 that are hardest, in that order, with 1 being by far the hardest). normally, the thought process is this:

HYYRRRRRRRGAAAARGGGGHHHHHAAAAARRRRRDDDDDD oh, ok.

but today, as with previous failed-first-rep sets, the thought process goes like this:

HYYYR-no, that's impossible. in fact, all deadlifts are impossible, i dont know how i've ever done one.

it's easy to tell within the first split second that it's just not going to happen. kind of spooky.

kind of a bummer, too, especially since i'm fattening up from all the eating, resting, and low reps. i've steeled my mind against that, though, for a change, and i'm gonna take it till 400 or 30, whichever arrives first.

it's just a bit of a bummer to be jazzed about a DL for half a week and then find it impossible.

after my third attempt, 203 suggested, "well, you did 315 on monday, try that." sadly, i had to inform her, that's just not how it works. if i couldn't manage 320x1, i still wasn't gonna get 315 having tired myself out. i dropped to 295 and went from there.

i dunno how i'm going to change my routine now, since it must accomodate both climbing and lots of beer, not to mention travel, marriage, and lots of nookie. but time is mostly on my side. 85lbs in 7 months is aboot 10lbs a month, which i reckon i can manage, especially since i'm talking about going from sets of 5 to a set of 1 (although, see above re: which rep is hardest -- it may not matter dropping the sets since the body doesn't really know).

sigh. in any case: better luck next time, me.

i've been informed that the blog front page is empty because i've been remiss in my duties (haw haw haw! duty!) as a blogger. so, without further ado, a blog posting:

BEER BEER BEER COFFEE COFFEE CLIMBING BEER BEER KEGERATOR ALL-GRAIN COFFEE HEADPHONES HEADPHONES WEDDING BEER

and that's what's been going thru my mind lately.

daft punk sounds amazing.

there's so much here! and they move "here" all around up there, it's... fancy.

i wonder how they'd sound on grados? ;)

was all this there last night? both times??

it was, and it wasn't. rock.

Arjuna, having had plenty of time to ruminate upon the mouth-droppings of the Disenlightened One, replied, "Pray tell, Master, are you telling me that I should not look with wistful sadness to the roles that the shortness of life prevents me from ever playing, because, in my great fortune, I am better off than some for whom life provides few opportunties?"

The Master smiled, and said, "You are a fast student, quick of mind and sharp of insight."

"Well fuck that," said Arjuna. "That's a fat steaming load, right there."

The master blinked, and a strange look came over his face, a crooked mask of midlife horror with blank eyes staring at a million invisible, rotting opportunities missed in a life too short to ever live fully; eyes wide with regret, staring at the never-lived other halves of a lifetime's collection of decisions and choices.

"Quick of mind," the master whispered, "and sharp of insight."

i'm well into second thousandth thoughts. reality checks, really. the old brain, bless his heart, sends them occasionally. and when i get them, i send them back, marked: "return to sender."

reality is for suckers.

so there i was, standing in the can, johnston in hand, preparing to let flow with a mighty river of digested tea, when i glanced into the bathroom sink and observed a disgusting little beetlebug. beetlebugs are disgusting enough on their own, but our grody little apartment has been having backflow problems in the bathroom sink, so this disgusting little beetlebug appeared to be preparing to make with the feasting on some crud that had been upchucked into the sink by our grody building's piping system.

ick.

thinking quickly but not quickly enough, i sent my right, unoccupied hand faucetwards and turned on the water. i manipulated the adjustable stream tip on the faucet, in an effort to hose and drown the disgusting little beetlebug. unfortunately, while concentrating on my act of insecticide, i managed to forget about the adjustable stream tip still in my other hand which had, at some point after i began my rampage, quite of its own accord, activated, and was at that moment operating at full capacity.

my johnston, unfortunately, is not equipped with any automatic targeting systems, and the manual targeting system, while engaged, was not operating at full concentration. at some point, the other, smaller brain upstairs caught on to what was happening and directed the stream back into the proper place, but not before, alas, i had made a mess.

but i did manage to kill that fuckin beetlebug.

the new IM album has grown on me.

that was fast.

and i havent even heard it thru the good speakers yet.

climbing face

normal face

cold face

normal face

class iv face

normal face

needs beer.

working on it ;)

"In the end," said the anti-buddha, "all we have is a pile of corpses, slung about our necks."

"But Master," said Arjuna, "do we not also have the One That Got Away?"

The Master stroked his beard, closed his eyes, and considered his student's query. As he pondered, Battle raged from all around, and the screams of warm corpses filled the air. Beyond the closed sight of the Master and his fondled whiskers, worlds were born and devoured, lives were ignited and extinguished, ages and aeons were shaken, stirred, and dislodged from the very heavens. At last, the anti-buddha saw fit to open his eyes and speak.

"It is not the lot of honest men to ever know even a single answer," spoke the Disenlightened One, "and yet, is it not seemly to believe that You are privileged to be afforded so many corpses of your very own, when so few of these --", here the Master gestured at the bloodied fields surrounding, "depart with any but their own?"

but then, so was "i'm the supervisor" until i grokked it and embraced its brilliance.

while i and the FW were out having the time of my life climbing around pinnacles and not plummeting to our poison-oaked deaths, we managed to miss BOTH the red elvises AND infected mushroom, who played in the bay area the very evening we returned to it.

sigh.

so much for planning!

still : KEGERATOR.

KEGERATOR KEGERATOR KEGERATOR.

dual taps. in the words of the prophet: I AM BENDER, PLEASE INSERT LIQUOR!

"I could have done a lot of things differently with my life," I said.

"What are you, dying?" said Victor. "Your life's not over."

"In a lot of ways, it is, yeah," I said. "That's what I've been trying to say."

I turned my gaze to the heavens and closed my eyes. Through the skin of my closed eyelids I felt the flash and tremble of the fireworks as they blossomed against the ashen backdrop of a cloudy night sky. I inhaled the heavy air of celebration and held it in my lungs as I considered my words.

When I opened my eyes, Victor was gone. Or, he wasn't. The actual, physical Victor, was gone, and in his place was a stack of grinning corpses. They stared at me with the lifeless eyes that I had tried, moments ago, to imitate. The Victorcorpses managed a much better job of it than I had been able to muster. As they stared at me with a silence more solemn than any silence the real Victor could affect, they multiplied. Dozens and dozens of new Victorcorpses appeared and crammed themselves into a finite space, as they multiplied into infinity, all within the span of a few breaths.

They stared at me, each one of them, and as I watched them, they opened their mouths to speak.

"We might have been," they said in mournful unison.

"You might have been," I said, "but you are."

The corpses had nothing further to say. I did.

"You might have been," I repeated, "but you are. I know Victor can see you just as plainly as I can see my own dragging corpses. I'm stuck with a room full of corpses wherever I go -- the rotting reminders of my lives that might have been."

Still, the corpses stared at me, multiplying again and again without comment.

"I used to feel like I was 'faking it', pretending to be, for instance, a software engineer," I said. "I felt like I was just aping what I figured a software engineer ought to do. I was pretending to fill a role."

"We are roles," said the corpses. Simultaneously, the all of them looked down at the green grass, shuffled their feet a little, and seated themselves. I think they figured I'd be a while.

"Yep," I said. "You are roles that Victor never got to play at. You are the roles that Victor never even realized he could play at. It took me a long time but I eventually figured something out: if you play a role long enough, a number of interesting things can happen. You can become that role, or you can realize that it's just a role -- as easy to shrug off and replace as a dusty jacket."

"We are dusty," said the corpses, "but we are not jackets."

"Oh, but you are," I said. "You are the jackets that Victor chose never to wear, every time he opened his mouth to speak a thought, every time he chose to drive left instead of right, every time he made a commitment of any sort. You are the remains of a mass-murder of Victor's future."

"We like murder," the corpses said. "It keeps us from being lonely."

"How can you be lonely," I asked, "when you outnumber us infinitely?"

"We miss him," said the corpses, "the one who got away."

"Ah," I said. "The real Victor. The one that keeps on going while all the others get sloughed off, eh?"

"Yes, that one."

"That's how it goes," I said, and then I thought about what I'd said. That's how it goes is really all that can ever be said, about anything at all. That's how it goes, or as the blessed Mister Vonnegut said more succinctly, so it goes.

"We are the tragedy of the living," said the corpses. "Our laughter is the birthplace of gods."

"And your visage is maddening sorrow," I said, "and with all Man's power, nothing can ever be done to be rid of you."

"We persist," said the corpses. In unison, the infinite span of corpses, sitting hipbone to hipbone, an infinity ranks deep, snapped their heads back and "ooohed" as a fantastic explosion of pyrotechnics illuminated the crowd on the grass.

"You've just got to stop worrying," said Victor, "and get on with things. You only get one chance to live life."

"No," I said, "sometimes you get a second chance."

"I might have been a painter," I said. "Or a guitarist, or an astronaut, or a cowboy."

"I might have been a porn star," said Victor.

We stared for a while at our beers.

"No," said Victor, "probably not."

Victor and I shared a nod.

"I might have been," I said.

"Oh hell," said Victor, losing his affect of nonchalance, "you're not going to give it up, are you?"

"Of course not," I said, grinning.

"And you're not going to come right out and say it plainly, are you?"

"Wow," I said, "it's almost as if you know me."

"We're dragging around corpses," I said.

Victor blinked, catlike, his entire body immobile except for the movement of his eyelids. By now I knew I wasn't going to get much more of a reaction out of him. I continued.

"We aren't corpses ourselves, like I said a minute ago, we're simply dragging around old corpses. Our very own collection of our very own dead bodies," I said.

"A metaphor," said Victor, "is like an unbearable stench."

"No," I said, "that's a simile."

"No," said Victor, "that's your BO."

"We," I said, pausing dramatically for effect, allowing the chattering non-silence of our environs to envelop us as I waited for the moment of resumption to descend upon me, "are the walking dead."

As evidence for my assertion, I presented Victor with a cold, even stare, unblinking in the smoky haze -- a feat of unusual difficulty for me, since my eyes water easily and abundantly when exposed to smoke.

With his usual indifference, Victor endured my corpse-like stare. The moment of dramatic punctuation arrived and left, unmourned. I frowned at Victor.

"Dude," I said.

"Wha?"

"You fucked it up, you peckerhead."

"Fucked what up?" said Victor.

"I had this totally cool thing to talk about and I set it all up dramatically and whatnot, and then you went and ignored it, you bastige."

Victor shrugged.

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