Hello. Dr. Peter Swilling here with you again to provide updates on your friend Berhardt Goats (who you know as Friend Behr) and to share my insights with you on various things as they occur to me.

I asked Mr. Goats to write down the names of three friends. I found a disturbing thread in these names in that they all seem to be homoerotic in nature. "Big Dick" Johnson, William Manhammer, and Jet-Poop were three of the names he shared with me. However, he could not give me their contact information or any details about them at all. I found this to be curious.

Space is said to be the final frontier, but I beg to differ. I really do. There are many other frontiers to explore. Some of them are inside of you, like an onion waiting to be peeled. Others involve secret societies and the nature of reality itself. These are things to look into in your spare time, should you have any. More than a passing glance I would say is due them.

Wasn't able to get an MRI machine up here to take a look at Mr. Goats' brain today. Perhaps tomorrow. Will keep you updated as this is a concern, re: holes he attempted to drill in his head and potential brain injury as a result.

Mr. Goats has told me that "most people on the everything2.com brand website are mental midgets." I am taking that with a grain of salt as he also claims to be a "genius" and I see little to no evidence of this being true. Everything with a grain of salt. Try it sometime. Unless you are on a low-salt diet, in which case, choose another metaphor. Thank you.

Was this website designed in the 1980s? Does anyone know?

Let me just say, as an aside, that Mr. Goats' care isn't cheap and his friends appear to be figments of his imagination (see above). If there is any way that some of you could get together and send a cashier's check for $70,000 to me every month, that would take care of it and keep me very happy. Look into it. Not forcing you to send money, just suggesting it. Thank you. It would help a lot.

Say you are sitting in your room. There you are. You aren't somewhere else. You are in your room. Or are you? This is the question you have to ask. Looks can be deceiving. Think about it.

Sometimes I think about back in the 1960s when we first heard about craters on the moon. No one knew where they came from, but the astronomers had answers. They really did. We need to listen to the teachings of science. There is a lot to be learned from science. I did well in most of my labs, except for the frogs. Didn't do so well with the frogs. I wasn't sure what the point was. It was poorly explained by the teacher, who was very old at the time. Astronomy is something to look into if you need a hobby or something to immerse yourself in during a difficult break-up or demotion at your job.

We had some people come by and look at Friend Behr today. They were impressed that he was alive. These were medical people and they noted that several of his internal organs were missing and that he was doing fine without them. Many of the scars left from the surgery he apparently did on himself got badly infected. There is some consensus that these infections might have spread and possibly spread all the way to his brain. Interesting.

Speaking of astronomy, there are a lot of stars in the night sky. This is especially true if you go out to the country where there isn't as much pollution from filthy factories and chemical processing plants. There are also a lot of people in the world. Different kinds of people. I'd like you to spent two to three hours tonight, uninterrupted, thinking about this. Then you can write an essay for me on the subject. I'd like to take a look at it. At least a glance.

Do you kids enjoy movies? Sure are a lot of them out there. I don't think I could choose only one (if I had to choose only one, which is a bridge I haven't come across since 1987). I'm sure you can relate. There are sometimes a dozen movies playing at one time. What do you do with this? Not much would be my conclusion. Is it yours? Tell me about it.

"An educated man is not necessarily a smart man." Someone I used to know used to say that a lot. He passed away a couple of years ago. Was sorry to see him go. Have you ever lost someone you cared about and years later something causes you to miss them again or anew? This is not unusual. Everyone grieves in a different way. Grieving is a lifelong process. You'll never feel as good as you did yesterday. From this point forward, it will all be very bad for you. This is not necessarily true. I hope I didn't scare you. I really hope I didn't. That was not my intention. My intentions were other than that. Try to understand this. Try to understand it now. If you served in the military, let me take a moment to thank you for your service.

We will run some more tests on Friend Behr tomorrow. Hopefully we'll be able to get that MRI machine all up in here. I really hope so. I honestly do.

Medically yours,

Dr. Peter Swilling

For anyone who was interested in the followup to July 21, 2020, I haven't heard from him which I'm taking as a no. But I do not regret extending the invite because now I have closure, and perhaps that's what I needed. I like to think about things like this as learning experiences, but it's too fresh to really have any major takeaways at the moment. I called in sick, this had nothing to do with him, my stomach was bothering me yesterday, and I woke up at five in the morning feeling worse. I spent most of the day laying around, mostly napping, and reflecting. I'm excited to move because that will give me something new to think about, and I really need that right now. Last night when I was dropping off the note of which I no longer want to think about, I ran into a guy I used to work with, shocking at a former employer to be sure, but we started talking, and even if the only bright spot in this whole thing was seeing him, and hearing how his life was going, I'll take it.

I told him about my condo adventures. He would like to buy a place, but doesn't have much money, and I feel for him, as well as many others who are in a similar situation, if not worse off. Food, shelter, clothing, we think of these as necessities, but none of them are guaranteed. Compared to millions, I am living the dream, and even when I contemplate my life on my own terms, I have it pretty good. Things could be better at work, but I have a job, and found one in the midst of a pandemic. I have my health, and after years of living in various degrees of pain, whether that was mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological, etc..., a lot of that has diminished, or I manage it to the best of my abilities. I can write, and do so, it's probably one of the things I take for granted at times like this, words come so easily to me, and while there are many who are not fans, I write for me, and the process does so much for me I consider it a form of therapy at times. I can lose myself in it for hours at a time, and it's a relatively inexpensive escape, although anything taken to an extreme needs to be watched closely.

My friends are amazing. I bet a lot of them have secret thoughts and feelings about what I did, and thankfully, I haven't heard anyone say anything such as - 'I told you so'. I refrained from telling anyone in my family, and I'm glad even though it might have gone okay had I shared. My car is paid for, I love it, and it's still fun to drive. I took it out later in the afternoon, I felt like I needed to get out of the house, and took some long country roads that I haven't driven in decades. I can't remember if I wrote about going to food club when my children were younger, if so, I could go back to those writeups, and see what I had to say about that at the time. I took a picture of the building and sent it to both of my children. Tomorrow will be the birthday of my youngest, and I'm better able to forgive those that needed forgiving on that day. I'm so happy I picked up some magnesium at the health food store yesterday. It really helped contribute to feelings of greater calm and tranquility on a day where my emotions were running high.

There's always a thought in the back of my mind, what could I have done differently? My new motto is as follows: Trust God. Be yourself. Have fun. I didn't trust God the way I should have, so I guess I did learn something more quickly than I thought I might have after going through this ordeal. If someone likes you enough, they will ask you out, and if they don't, maybe that is all the answer I need in the future. There is a time to be brave and bold, and a time to sit back, and let whatever will be, happen, or not. Would I ask someone out again? I'm not sure. I've done it before and been rejected. One of the things I like about myself is that in some areas, I feel resilient. So one guy said no, it's really no different than not getting a job I wanted, being let go from a place I enjoyed working at, and I think that was another part of the problem. I am hanging onto something that is no more, and this time, I really do need to let it go. It will be hard, and I am not looking forward to parts of it, but the freedom will be beautiful.

I was tempted to go back online and try the dating website once again, instead I forced myself to sit down and write. I also gave myself some time to work through my feelings. Anger, at myself, and him, sorrow, rejection, hurt, a desire for revenge which I get is petty, but I invested a lot in that relationship, and if there is a silver lining, I guess it is that I don't think this will really damage anything going forward. I think that if I ever do see him again, which I probably won't, I think we will both have an awkward moment or two, and move on from that. It will probably really sting, and hurt more than the disappointment I am feeling now, but like a friend of mine says, rejection is a form of protection, and if there was a reason we were not meant to be, then I accept that, and I do wish him happiness going forward. I still love and care for him, I probably always will, I like that about myself too. He has the right to say no, and I need to respect that. A small part of me wants to hope that he ultimately regrets that decision, but a wiser, more mature side also knows that you can't force something onto someone else, and even thinking that way is a terrible mindset.

So tomorrow I will be back at work despite my stomach still not feeling the greatest. I will think about the gifts he gave me, and be grateful for them. I will also use this time, and my status as a single person to do the things I should have been doing all along. Getting into a routine that ensures I take better care of myself will help, moving is stressful, but I will be thankful to have this whole thing behind me, and I suspect that it will have many unknown benefits besides the obvious ones. I was able to get my utilities switched over, and that's one more to-do item crossed off the list. And despite my current emotional state, I can see that he had flaws, I do, and that there were several reasons it's probably for the best that we did not end up getting together outside of work. I sat through difficult and uncomfortable feelings, managed them, and am emerging with a sense of awe that I was able to do that. Naming them, enduring them, that seemed impossible at the time. I didn't cry into too many literal or figurative shoulders, perhaps that is on the horizon, who is to say what tomorrow holds for any of us.

If you have read this far, I thank you, and if you were able to take anything of value from lessons I had to learn the hard way, then I will be glad about that too. It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good. I did some painting, and am really happy about how several of them turned out. There was one painting I did with him in mind that I painted black, it wasn't great, and now it is a fresh start of sorts. I will know what lies beneath it, but not all secrets are worth sharing although you will know, and if you ever spot it, you are now in on the collaboration. Not long ago I was thinking about Man reading a book, and now I wonder if there was a foreshadowing of sorts, I will always be the fanciful type, the one who believes the love songs on the radio were meant for my ears, and the person who can see the connection between two things, or people, that many others would doubt exists, and they might be right. Still, I love myself, I like myself, and whatever else you want to label me as, I feel I was brave, and that helps.

Until next time (if there is one),

J

P.S. Broken hearts make for interesting art, this is my observation of the day.

Xoxo,

j

Log in or register to write something here or to contact authors.