One by one I see the old ghosts rising . . .

Today is truly a weird day. I've had this line from the John Fogerty song playing in my head since morning, even though I haven't listened to the song in ages.

Anyways, as I was not feeling like crap after a long time, I was eagerly waiting to start wasting my day, as usual, when I got a call from an former classmate. Dude was standing outside my alma mater and gave me a ring-a-ding for ol' times sake. After the momentous effort it took me in trying to place him, and having what can only be described as a one-sided conversation, wherein he reminisced about the good times we supposedly had and I pretended to remember and made all the right noises, we hung up with the usual empty promises to meet again for a beer. Yeah, sure. That's so gonna happen.

I also got a call from a college friend of mine who told me that the only girl to ever break my heart. Okay. That's a stretch. She obviously didn't break it. She just took it out of my body, made a little smoothie out of it, added a sprinkle of nuts and chocolate, drank it in one gulp and then came running back for seconds. As I said, nothing dramatic. You know I hate being dramatic. Okay. She is getting married to her boyfriend of seven years who was once caught cheating on her, screwing another girl in the powder room . Classy, I know. It was a total if-that-doesn't-keep-kids-in-school-then-what-will kind of moment.

Although, I'm glad she did what she did to me. It helped me grow and fine myself.

Who am I kidding, I would have found myself anyway.

I'm was gay as Tom Cruise in that scene from Risky Business.

(Which begs the question, whatever happened to Tom Cruise? When did he turn into this crazy psychopath who keeps babbling about some crazy religion which has totally untrue and unreal notions about life. I thought that's what the Pope was supposed to do? I'm confused now.)

Alright, I'm digressing. Now, she also made me read her diary. And though I'm not the one to read and tell, she was once in love with her cousin.

Yes, her cousin.

Who she made out with.

On TWO separate occasions.

And that's not even the worst part.

That boy was ugly as hell. He looked like a pre-pubescent Joe Pesci.

Okay. Let's all calm down. No harm, no foul.

I'm just glad that all of us have moved on and bear no ill will towards each other.

I hope her fiance loses all his hair before he's thirty. Serves her right, the little shit.

Hey, she's the one who kissed a blood relative and is marrying the cheater. What are you judging me for?

Okay. Focus. Moving on, as I was trying to read my book, which coincidentally is also called The Ghost, picking up from where I left off the day before, suddenly my phone rings again. It's a very familiar phone number. A number from which I have received more than a thousand calls and messages over the past few years. Most of which have gone unanswered. No, not trying to be rude or anything, but that's what you do to a former stalker. No, I don't think she's crazy. Of course not.Are you kidding me? She's just stark raving mad. A absolute lunatic.

So I was shaken a little bit, but still determined to do at least one constructive thing in the whole day, I tried to distract myself by trying to concentrate on some good food. But before I sat down to eat a scrumptious meal, I remembered that I had an important email I was supposed to send. So, in the spirit of a post-procrastination existence, I logged into my email account and was preparing to send that email.

Lo and behold!! Who do I see signed into chat for the first time in four years? Yes, the chat status of he-who-shall-not-be-named, was set to "available".

I stared at the screen in disbelief and horror for a few minutes. I tried to come up with a plan of action. There was a tug-of-war taking place inside me. The self-hating-glutton-for-punishment part of me wanted to try to say something to him. The sober part of me (which rarely speaks up) wanted to log off right away. The medicated part of me was wondering how much time remained until the next scheduled dose.

Anyways, as a truce, I opened the chat window, typed "Dude ...", waited forty seconds for a reply that didn't come and then immediately logged off. I don't know if I suddenly turned into a 17 year old or that upping you dosage without consulting a medical practitioner is harmful, but right now, I can't feel my legs and my hands are still shaking.


Seriously, it's like Deja Vu all over again.


Okay. I know some of you may feel sympathy for the other people mentioned above. But remember, you don't know them. You know me. So, take my side when the lawyers call.

Capiche?