My list of table waiting topics has grown considerably over the last two or so months when I didn't write much of anything.

Most of the ideas are minor, stupid things that guests do, but each relates to waiting tables. The reason these ideas have piled up lately (instead of appearing here) is I had one non-waiting table idea taking up all my writing time, but I didn't feel like writing about it, if that makes any sense.

It's interesting how it's difficult to write or talk about events when they're happening, but once they're over you wonder what the hell you were so upset about. Before the blood tests and all the needles, I get a bit squeamish, sure, but that night I hardly think about it.

It's like Hitchcock said, "There is no suspense in the firing of a gun, only in the anticipation of it."

My girlfriend and I broke up on Saturday.

What's more, it was my doing. I got the whole "let's split up" ball rolling a couple weeks ago. I know I sprung it on her as something of a shock, but how do you go about saying that sorta thing without springing it on someone?

Our schedules lined up on Saturday so that we could have The Final Talk. Now it's all done with. Not totally done with--few things ever are--but close enough, and I'm no longer writing that stupid-ass depressing shit that has filled my little notebooks since early October.

Lots of people break up with other people, and it's really no big deal, but for me (us), it is different, in that we've been living together for twelve years and she's the only girlfriend I've ever had.

There was that time we had a long distance break up and I went off with that other actress for two months, but as soon as I came back (to "get my stuff"), we got back together.

That event alone was over ten years ago. We have been together a long time.

The final conversation took about eight hours. All sorts of emotions were dredged up and put shoddily on display. Accusations, denials, buried truths. All of it. A quarter of the things I said were bullshit and she knew it. I was just angry, and sometimes emotion has a bad effect on rational thought.

In the end (discounting the bullshit, which she was smart and cool enough to disregard, even before I said it was wrong of me to make those not-quite-true statements), she understood my reasons for feeling the way I did. In the end, everything worked out as well as could be expected.

Yes, there was break up sex.

There will never be a point in my life when she won't be my best friend. There will never be a time when she won't tell me how stupid I was to leave her. There will never be a time I don't agree with her.

But some things you just have to find out yourself. For real. And a safety net only hurts your best intentions.

I had planned to go back to Missouri soon for another extended visit. I've been averaging almost half my time out there for the last few years. I have a better talent pool out there, odd as that may sound. Most people around here picture hicks, shotguns, and inbreeding when they think of Missouri. I think of unpretentious creative people who know how to use drugs properly and put much less of an emphases on money in their lives.

It's not one of their better traits, but many Missourians also know how to beat the shit out of people who need it.

I'm flying to Minnesota to best man a pal's wedding next weekend. I'll come back here and work at the restaurant until at least Christmas.

(I used best man as a verb.).

After that--and this is the strange part--I'm not sure what I'm going to do next.

There hasn't been a time since Clinton first took office that I haven't known what I was going to do next. Maybe not exactly what, but I always had a pretty strong guideline.

You know how weird it feels to say "I'm single" after twelve years of saying "my girlfriend?"

Very.

For the last few days, I've experienced everything from optimism to the point of euphoria to extreme depression, sometimes changing moods in seconds. I have thoughts like, "I'm gonna get my own place and hang out with all the freakoid artists in the world and create so much cool shit!" But then I think "What if the only thing that changes is that I get really, really lonely?"

I keep picturing Bill Murray sneaking out of the army in "Stripes" after his fight with Sgt. Hulka. "I call Anita. She has to pick me up at the train, right? I go back into an apartment. I see if I can get my cab job back..."

That could be me, six months from now.

I wouldn't feel any shame in doing so, honestly. I'm going through one of those odd phases where I need to gain a new perspective. Preferably, a few new perspectives. And after I have it (0r them), if life as it was turns out to be better than it is, then I'll certainly appreciate it a lot better.

Sort of a combination of "What doesn't kill it makes it stronger" and "If you love something, set it free..."

I had to start watching "Stripes" again when I realized I didn't know the whole "Bill Murray leaving" quote (Not that anyone has to search for a good reason to watch "Stripes."). In addition to Sean Young and P.J. Soles being really cute, this is a great movie.

"There's something very, very WRONG with us!"

And what's the moral of the story? If you stay true to yourself and keep a positive mental attitude, pretty soon not only will you succeed in whatever you want to accomplish, but most of the people around you will go on to star in a lot of moderately successful eighties comedies.

So I got that goin' for me.