Miracle man

So. That happened.

A routine doctor visit turned into a second doctor visit; that visit turned into an overnight hospital stay; that turned into a three-night hospital stay; and, on Friday, that stay turned into this:

Jacob Christopher, this is the world. World: Jacob.

Friday morning, Christy was amazing. I can't even describe. I put on my Brave Face^TM, but I was absolutely terrified. While they prepped her for the surgery, they dressed me up in Hospital Ninja scrubs and left outside the room to wait. I sat there for a hundred thousand years about twenty minutes, almost shaking in fear.

And then I saw the doctor walk past me into the operating room. He looked up at me, sort of gave me that I-am-acknowledging-your-presence head raise, then returned his gaze to his Blackberry. He held his fanny pack slung over his shoulder. He was the least impressed, calmest man I've ever seen. He might have been on his way to retrieve a bag of Hot Fries from a vending machine. I watched him walk by, unable to even speak.

A few minutes later, a nurse beckoned me in, and Dr. Nonchalant cut open my wife and removed our son, acting for all the world like this was the 17893rd of these he's done. Which it may have been.

"Okay then," he said, as though he hadn't just been a central figure in the most important moment of three different lives. Yeah, here you go, I've just brought life into the world, hope you like feeling the universe shift beneath you. *yawn*

But Christy...seriously, you guys. I don't know another word to sum it up, so I'll have to return to amazing. Something like six hours later, she was crawling back out of bed to go see our new son. She has no use for the hospital's recovery schedule. If it was me? I would be dead. No doubt. She's refusing help walking and grumbling that she can't drink as much Diet Coke as she wants. She's a goddamned superhero.

And then there's the little one himself, the tiny little thing. Jacob is here almost two months early, he just cleared four pounds, but he's a shocking bundle of life. The enormous incubator they keep in at the NICU makes him look even smaller than he is, really, but he acts for all the world like he wants nothing more than to break out of that plastic box and ride out of this hospital on a gigantic motorcycle, probably with flames shooting out of the back. Maybe I'm projecting.

I'm not used to this. Life-Changing Moments, for me, have happened gradually. My relationship with Christy has grown over these years, and there have been incredible moments to remember for sure, but they felt like the slow building of something much larger. This? Jacob was not here at 3:12 Friday afternoon, and at 3:13 he was. The entire world changed in that one minute while I was watching him. It's hard to explain how exactly, but...

Home Alone 2 came on some random cable network last night, and we watched it in Christy's hospital room. You know that part at the end, when Kevin's mom tries to get an NYPD cop to help find Kevin, and she goes into that sappy monologue about how he deserves to be at home for Christmas, with his family and his Christmas tree?

I almost completely lost my shit. I have no excuse for this.

Except for, of course, Jacob, who was probably smirking to himself in the NICU.

Yeah, Dad. Don't think I wasn't paying attention when you read me The Lorax last month, you sappy son of a bitch. You can fool everyone else, but you can't fool me.

He's been alive for all of a holiday weekend, and he can already see right through me.

I couldn't be happier.

The Living Years (or, Surely I Can't Fail at This Assignment, Too)

Happiness writes white.
 - Harvey Danger

There's much more to life than what you see, my friend of misery.
 - Metallica

This blog has been a strange animal.

When I was depressed, there seemed no limit to the topics I'd find for discussion, and no limit to the lengths at which I'd discuss them. In 2007, I posted 237 times, devoting thousands of words to barely-informed political diatribes and ill-temepered, bitter rants against the world at large. One would think this all-consuming depression was the fuel for the fire -- and one would have evidence to support this assumption. After all, the last two years (easily the two best years of my life) have seen little to no blog output whatsoever.

But the six months prior to me suddenly becoming the Happy Evil Genius were an unending parade of awfulness, and that saw even less output. I posted rarely, and when I did post, it would often consist of little more than a YouTube video and a few pithy sentences. So: too depressed means no writing. But no depressed also means no writing.

To be fair, though, I was writing again, and pretty consistently, last year, right up until October. That's when we moved, and we had no internet for a week or so. And my habit of posting -- because that's what it had become, a habit -- was interrupted.

I never got the knack again.

But in the next couple of months, things are changing quite a bit. Our son, Jacob, will be born. (He's due in October, but we get the feeling he's likely to show up whenever he damn well pleases.) This afternoon, I was installing the baby seat in my car, feeling a collision of feelings and memories and emotions, and I thought, I want to write about this.

Trouble is: I'm out of practice.

The parts of my brain that let get the words out is very much like a muscle, and it's out of shape. You can't run a mile without doing some stretches, and you can't run the Boston Marathon without running a whole lot of miles.

So here's the plan: look at this here 30 Day television meme. Each day for thirty days, you answer a prompt. 30 days, 30 posts.

Consider that my training regiment. A month from now, I'll be back in shape and ready to write about important things.

Like this new Arcade Fire record. It's great!

Or, you know, our new son. Whatevs.

The Happiest Blog Post I've Ever Written

Christy and I are getting married.

Yeah, the enormity of that is still tough for me to get my head around. The idea that we're engaged still seems outrageous to me, and I was there.

And sure enough, it happened. I proposed. I had a ring, even. She said yes. I don't know how many Biggest Moments of My Life one gets in a lifetime. But I gotta tell you, that was a good one.

I am elated. I'm happier than I've ever been, and I mean that quite literally.

April 23, 2010. Our wedding day.

I can't wait.

There's dancing behind movie scenes

Six months, it's been. Six whole months.

You could see the changes coming, if you read carefully -- the posts about despair and angst slipped away, replaced by images of light. Happiness, sorta. In one piece, I made an off-hand mention of the fact that I was so happy I could barely stand myself; in another, I was coasting on joy to the degree that I didn't mind admitting that I liked Fall Out Boy. In two separate posts, no less.

Six months later. Still going. I still have a smile on my face.

I'm writing a year-in-review thing that's kinda required if you have a blog. I plan on publishing it in early in the new year, as a way of clearing the cobwebs and starting this thing anew. For reals, this time.

In the meantime, here's a song that's been playing over and over in my head for the last six months. If you want to know exactly how I've felt for most of that time, just have a listen. In particular, listen to the way the strings come in on the line "Seventy-seven thousand piece orchestra set." That's it.

Happy new year, everybody.



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Now playing: Cornershop - Brimful of Asha
via FoxyTunes

Oh, how it's been so long/We're so sorry we've been gone...

I woke up this morning next to the woman I love. It was the first time we slept in our new apartment, which is magnificent. We stayed in bed together, watching television and combing the internet for adoptable puppies. (She wants a Saint Bernard. Actually, she wants five. Or seven. And a whole menagerie of other creatures: "I want to be like Noah," she says. But we're gonna start with a puppy. And, of course, Rufus, her guinea pig, who's hiding underneath the bed lining in his little house as I write this.) We stayed there until nearly five in the afternoon, watching Animal Planet and celebrating when the new BCS standings were released. (I have become a fan of Alabama college football by proxy, and thus I say to you, Roll tide!) Eventually, we went out in search of food. We ate delicious hamburgers at Fuddruckers, returned to her old apartment for a few items, stopped to pick up a football game for my PS3 we can play together, and then came back home. I set up her DVD player, and the two of us watched an entire disc's worth of episodes from the second season of 24 -- have to catch up before the two-hour movie event airs in a few weeks, and there's a lot to get done.

A few months ago, when I was mired in bleak, hopeless depression, a friend asked me to imagine what a perfect day would be like. I couldn't do it.

This day, though? I'd have to say this day was pretty close.

My blog missed me. I missed it, too.

Posting continues now.

I tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn't even matter

The inevitable -- and, yet paradoxically, seemingly impossible -- happened last night.

I quit Pizza Inn.

The story is long and will be told at another time.

I should feel jubilant, and I do, sorta. But mostly, it's just...

...why didn't I do that a long fucking time ago?

Lil' Jon, he always tells the truth

A police officer woke me up at eight this morning, knocking on my door.

"Are you the owner of a green Nissan Sentra?"

I told him I was. Actually, I just grumbled my assent. I couldn't really talk yet.

"We've had some break-ins," he said, "and it looks as though someone may have gone through your car. Could you come take a look for me?"

I woke up a little. "Someone went through my car?"

"Maybe, sir," the cop said. "Your glove box is open, and there's stuff everywhere on the seats and floorboards. It's a mess."

I groaned. "That's...kinda how it looks anyway."

I followed the cop out to my car, shuffling through the parking lot in my bare feet. Another officer was talking to one of my neighbors, huddled around a red Mustang. That neighbor didn't look pleased.

We arrived at my car, and I looked inside. The glove compartment was open, revealing a mess of papers and books. Assorted junk filled the floorboards, and paper and garbage were strewn everywhere. The car looked like a tornado had formed inside.

"Yeah," I said. "That's how it looks anyway."

"So...you don't think anyone broke in?" the cop said. He didn't sound like he believed me.

"I'm pretty sure," I said. "Even if they did, they didn't take anything." Not that there's anything to take, I thought.

"Um, okay," said the cop. "Sorry to have bothered you."

Yeah. Sure. I returned to my apartment, which looks pretty much like my car.

If someone broke in here, I probably wouldn't even notice.

And now here's a college choir performing a rather awesome a cappella cover of Vampire Weekend's "Oxford Comma."



Good stuff, huh?

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Now playing: Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
via FoxyTunes

Just what the Dr ordered

In January, I swore off caffeine. I did this because I was a rampant insomniac, and only getting 3-5 hours of sleep a night and then trotting to two jobs every day was kind of killing me from the inside. I thought -- hey, if I stop drinking soda, maybe I can sleep some more.

It's June now, and I don't get any more sleep than I used to. And I've descended into foul, pissy depression. I mean, even more than usual. So last night, I said fuck it: I drank Dr Pepper for the first time in half a year. And it was like someone took a broom inside my head and brushed out the cobwebs. Sunlight flooded my soul, I think.

My gods! I can see! I can see again! I can feel again!

I'm drinking Coke right now. Life feels so much goddamned better I can't begin to tell you.

Have a nice day!

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Now playing: Death Cab for Cutie - You Can Do Better Than Me
via FoxyTunes

Nice one, Mom

FRINAN was called for jury duty today. Stunningly, our even-handed, fair-minded friend didn't make the final cut. I can't imagine why.

But I'm reminded of the time my Mom got called for jury duty. She actually found herself seated: it was a drug charge, a guy arrested for dealing drugs in a school zone. Oops. So they picked her, and she prepared to do her job as a decider of his fate.

One problem: the defense attorney realized the entire jury was made up of white people. The defendant? Hispanic. He made a plea to the judge, who agreed and dismissed everyone, starting over with a new set.

Mom came home furious. She hadn't wanted to spend a few days on a jury, but she felt she'd been personally insulted. In the kind of impassioned rant you've probably heard from me, she railed against the defense attorney and the judge, screaming about the implication that she was somehow unable to make a fair and impartial judgment of the evidence simply because of the color of her skin.

"And besides," she concluded, "I knew that kid was guilty just by looking at him."

Uh-huh.

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Now playing: The Tragically Hip - Three Pistols
via FoxyTunes

There was also that time he and I spent twenty minutes in his front yard trying to draw the Undertaker's logo in the grass...in fire

So, Stephen is trying to get into the Houston Police Academy. I fully support this. Apparently, he put me down as a personal reference, because I received a call from the HPD this evening, running background. I got the typical questions: how long have I known him (I said ten years, but later realized that was wrong -- it's been twelve years, kiddies, no shit), how did we meet (high school, which honestly seems like time spent on another planet right now), that kind of stuff.

After providing decent background and acceptable information, the guy hits me with the final question: "Can you think of any reason why Stephen wouldn't make a good police officer?"

And in that nanosecond, my mind flooded with a very vivid memory: Stephen portraying a hitman in a stupid movie we were trying to make. We'd been watching Good Will Hunting a lot around that time, so we decided his character needed a thick Boston accent. He also said the word "fuck" every five seconds...only he was Bostonian, so it came out fahk.

Then I remembered a few months earlier, and Stephen taking his frustrations out on a hopelessly scratched copy of WWF Warzone...with a BB gun. He blasted that fucking disc to pieces.

I remembered other stuff, too. All in a fraction of a second, mind you, because before I was even done thinking about it, I was already talking. "Not at all," I said. "He'd make a terrific police officer."

And he will, too. Good luck, buddy.

(And if I'm ever accused of murder in the city of Houston, I will expect the evidence against me to become, ahem, "inadmissible," if you follow me, sir.)

(That was a joke, by the way.)

(No, it wasn't.)

(Yes, it was.)

(Ahem.)

(Seriously, though, dude.)

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Now playing: Jonathan Coulton - Millionaire Girlfriend
via FoxyTunes

Count your blessings

1. Ah, yes: it's baseball season again. And the Astros' pumped-up new starting lineup got things going exactly the way you'd expect them to -- by losing their first two games, scoring all of one run in the process (and that came on a bases-loaded walk). But then last night, they blasted four home runs off two future Hall of Famers, made Trevor Freaking Hoffman blow a save, and won 9-6. So clearly they can hit when they need to. Which is a relief. And I like the way they're playing so far, despite the lack of scoring in the first two games. (And in their defense, they were up against two excellent pitchers in Jake Peavy and Chris Young. But still.) I remain cautiously optimistic, especially because we still don't have our full lineup out there yet (Kaz Matsui is still out with...um, an unfortunate injury), and we also play in the National League Comedy Central, the worst division in all of baseball. It's a total crapshoot.

2. I bought Beth Kinderman's album, All of My Heroes Are Villains, and you should, too. I've talked about her music at length before, but this is a real record -- recorded in a studio with a band and everything. It sounds phenomenal, particularly "Hannibal Lecter" and "Valley." So you should buy it. It came with a free bumper sticker, too. Here's a rundown, in my patented iTunes-screenshot review style:



3. I also bought Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings, the new Counting Crows album, and it's probably their best record since Recovering the Satellites over ten years ago. Trust me: the catharsis to be found in singing the last verse of "Come Around" at the top of your lungs cannot be understated. "And one of the million lies she said / Is, 'Everything you love is dead' / But I've seen what she thinks is love, and it leaves me laughing / So we'll still come around."



4. Rock Band is the single greatest multiplayer game ever made. It's also the best music game ever made. It is impossible to describe how fun it really is. Our band, Scott Tenorman Must Die, broke the 500,000 fan threshold last night and earned our spot in the Rock Band Hall of Fame. Our best song? "Epic," of all things. We own these setlists. Except for "Green Grass and High Tides," which we have yet to complete. Not even once. But it's getting there.

5. For serious this time: I've restarted work on my Saying Story for this month, "Miles and Miles and Miles and Miles and Miles." It's about vampires. And ghosts. And the Who. What's not to love? You can check my progress with Regina Spektor in the sidebar.

6. Though most of it isn't written down, I have almost the entirety of the next Revolver episode in my head. So as soon as "Miles" is out of the way, that'll be coming.

7. My friends are surprisingly patient and supporting of my problems. (Though one of them, of course, laughs in my face when something bad happens, he sends very considerate e-mails.) Everything fell apart for me at once last month; on Tuesday, I think I made the first step toward building them back up again. And they'll be there when I do. Breathing a sigh of relief, I'm sure -- I'm insufferable when I'm depressed. Thank you, guys.

That list was longer than I thought it would be. But then, that's the point in counting them, isn't it?

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Now playing: Beth Kinderman - Princess
via FoxyTunes

April's fool

Have you ever done something stupid? No, I mean stupid.

Like: before you did it, you were thinking, "This is stupid." While it was happening, you were thinking, "This is stupid." And after it was over, as you stewed in the aftermath, you thought, "That was stupid."

And I mean a real thing. With consequences. Lasting ones. Bad ones. All of which you saw coming.

But you did it anyway. Because you knew -- well, you thought -- that no matter how badly it hurt while it was happening, no matter how much it scarred in the aftermath, you'd be better for it in the long run. Your future self -- your far future self -- would benefit from your pain. You thought of Pink Floyd's The Wall -- specifically the end, when Pink's wall is torn down, accompanied by a primal scream of anguish. It hurt him so badly, but, in the end, it was what he needed. You thought of forest fires, of volcanic eruptions, and how the wildlife eventually returns to normal. Of the darkness that must come before the dawn.

So you did your stupid thing anyway. And you hated yourself. But you put your head down and forced your way through it. Because it was what you needed to do.

Have you ever done that?

No?

Um. Me neither.

Just a hypothetical question.

On an unrelated note, here is a song by Tool. I place this here for someone who will most likely not see it. And who, ironically, does not have an "h" in their name. At least, not that I know of.



What's coming through is alive.
What's holding up is a mirror.
But what's singing songs is a snake
Looking to turn this piss to wine.
They're both totally void of hate,
But killing me just the same.

The snake behind me hisses
What my damage could have been.
My blood before me begs me
Open up my heart again.
And I feel this coming over like a storm again now...considerately.

Venomous voice tempts me,
Drains me, bleeds me,
Leaves me cracked and empty.
Drags me down like some sweet gravity.

The snake behind me hisses
What my damage could have been.
My blood before me begs me
Open up my heart again.

And I feel this coming over like a storm again now.
And I feel this coming over like a storm again now.

I am too connected to you to slip away, to fade away.
Days away I still feel you touching me, changing me,
And considerately killing me.

Without the skin,
Beneath the storm,
Under these tears
The walls came down.

And the snake is drowned and
As I look in his eyes,
My fear begins to fade
Recalling all of those times.

I could have cried then.
I should have cried then.

And as the walls come down and
As I look in your eyes
My fear begins to fade
Recalling all of the times
I have died
and will die.
It's all right.
I don't mind.
I don't mind.
I don't mind.

I am too connected to you to slip away, to fade away.
Days away I still feel you touching me, changing me.

And considerately killing me.

Normal posts will resume tomorrow, I promise. I'll talk about baseball. Go 'stros!

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Now playing: Tool - H.
via FoxyTunes

Sail on, silver girl

And the hits just keep on coming.

Last week, I told FRINAN that I had heard from a friend of my sister's that she was thinking of moving to Oklahoma. Kalynda went up there when Granddaddy died, and felt revitalized. So she was considering moving there for a while.

"That would suck," FRINAN said.

"No," I said. "She needs a fresh start. She's miserable here, and can't get away from the people that are making her that way. She needs to start over."

"Um," FRINAN said. "I meant it would suck...for you."

"Oh."

But Kalynda said nothing of it to me when she returned. And I forgot about it. Until Friday night, when my cell phone started blaring at one-thirty in the morning. She was in tears. She was wailing and sobbing, and wasn't making a great deal of sense. But one thing came out clear: "I'm moving to Oklahoma." And soon: "I don't know when, but sometime next week."

But she didn't just call me. She also called our cousin, and our aunt and uncle, and scared the hell out of everyone. I won't elaborate on the specific situation that precipitated this mess, because I'll get so angry I won't be able to see to type this. Suffice to say, the big board flashed DEFCON-1, and "Next week" became "tomorrow."

They drove down here from OKC straight away, rented a Budget truck and showed up to take her away, all at a moment's notice. (Do you remember what I said about despising my father but loving his family? I'm convinced now more than ever that my father was the result of some twisted, Once Upon a Time in America shenanigans that stuck him with his family. There is just no way he and his brothers are actually related to each other.)

So this morning, we loaded everything she owns into a truck and sent her on her way. And now she's gone.

She was upset about leaving. During that first phone call, she kept apologizing. She didn't want to leave me. She wanted me to reassure her, to tell her it was a good idea. And I wanted to scream, "No! No, it's not a good idea! You can't leave me! You're the only sister I have! You're pretty much the only real family I have left here at all! Are you crazy?"

But I swallowed all that. I choked it down and said, "Don't worry about me. You have to do what's best for you right now." God, how that burns. If you love someone, set them free -- easier said than done, my friends. In practice it sears like drinking battery acid.

We packed it all into the truck, wrangled Jabba the Hutt her cat into his carrier, fastened her car to the tow dolly. They drove away and left me alone.

I got into the car and started back home. My iPod -- sleek, black, evil, sentient -- was set to shuffle, and spat out "Bridge over Troubled Water." And not the original, either, but Johnny Cash's haunting duet with Fiona Apple. Her voice covers his like a silk sheet. I was fine for the first verse. And the chorus. And the second verse. And most of the second chorus. But then came the third verse. And I lost it.

Sail on, silver girl
Sail on by
Your time has come to shine
All your dreams are on their way
See how they shine
If you need a friend
I'm sailing right behind
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will ease your mind



Sail on, Kalynda. I love you. And I hope you get better. You deserve better.

If anyone needs me, I'll be trying to clear out whatever it is that's making my eyes water so much. Gee, they've been going for a while. Must be allergies.

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Now playing: Johnny Cash - Bridge over Troubled Water (with Fiona Apple)
via FoxyTunes

There was a HOLE here. It's gone now.

Lookit:



That's my hallway.

At its largest, the hole was deep enough for the plumbers to crawl in and completely disappear under the bathroom. I half-expected Andy Dufresne to jump out of it. They're filling it in as I speak, but I wanted to document the wreckage before they completely repaired it.

Oh, by the way -- breathing the dust particles kicked into the air after someone jackhammers through the concrete foundation under your apartment? Bad. Very bad. A woman at work today asked if I had SARS.

[And though almost certainly no one did, anyone who spotted the reference in the title of this post is my bestest friend forever.]

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Now playing: Jim Rome - Wed, March 19th, 2008 Hour 1
via FoxyTunes

The definition of "suck"

The time is 9:27 am.

I was awakened an hour ago by a knock on the door: plumbers, here to fix my bathroom sink. The one that's been broken for two weeks. Finally, they're here. They woke me up because I didn't know they were coming, because the wind ripped off the note the landlord left on my door last night.

And so now they're taking a jackhammer to my bathroom floor. About, oh, eight feet from where I'm sitting right now.

Whenever I complain about things, FRINAN always chides me, "Hey, it could be worse." Yes, it can. It can be worse. And it keeps getting worse. Is there a bottom, FRINAN? Because surely we're approaching it now.

I hope.

Ow

The time is 12:39 am.

I have a headache. What adjective shall I use to describe it? Hmm...let's try screaming. Yes. It feels like a tiny, tiny man is screaming just behind my eyes. Not just any scream -- this is a blood-curdling, spine-chilling, hair-raising, Kurt Cobain in "Scentless Apprentice," wake the dead kinda scream, you dig what I'm saying. A bad fucking headache.

Excessive noise + frustration = headache. Remember this -- it will be on the final, which is sixty percent of your grade.

Service: I got home a few minutes ago, planning to take some Aleve so I could sleep. I could've taken something at René's, but elected to wait. And of course (you can finish this sentence faster than I can) I don't have any here. I have an empty bottle I forgot to throw away, possibly because my past self wanted to fuck with me.

I'm not going to remember writing this post in the morning. Which is why I have to write it now. So that I can be reminded. Like Sammy Jankis.

I'm really not sure why I'm writing this. I'm even less sure why you're reading it.

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Now playing: René Alvarado - III - Wallowing Redemption
via FoxyTunes

Right next to godliness

A gaggle of friends came over last night. We played various games on the Wii until the, uh, wee hours of the morning, and a good time was had by all.

When they arrived, though, René let out a startled cry. "Jesus H. Christ!" he yelled as he walked into my living room.



I have a carpet!

The cleaning process took about three hours, and was executed with extreme prejudice. Old mail, old trash, pizza boxes, cellophane wrappers from DVD cases, and other shit that was sitting on the floor for months because I'm a lazy bastard for some incomprehensible reason -- all gone. Under the filth, I found that table, and I don't even know who that belonged to. FRINAN, I think.

Of course, there's still the unsightly Ethernet cord stretching across the floor, but I can't do anything about that unless I move my computer into the living room...which I might end up doing. I also found an old Empire Strikes Back poster in the mess, and I'll probably put that on the wall over the bookshelf.

And if I should backslide? If I should let the garbage start to pile again?



Altaïr will take care of that.

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Now playing: The Kinks - This Time Tomorrow
via FoxyTunes

I wish you'd known me when I was alive (The good, the bad and the ugly)

The good: Dave Matthews Band made a couple of announcements today -- the dates for their summer tour (which does include a stop at the Woodlands -- *fist pump*), and the producer for their next studio album: Rob Cavallo, who produced Green Day's American Idiot, one of the best albums ever recorded. In fact, he's produced everything Green Day's done since Dookie, with the exception of their mediocre Warning, and he also produced the Alanis Morissette song "Uninvited," which has an astounding sound. Good news!

The bad: Patrick Swayze has pancreatic cancer. Swayze is a strange case, in that he's not a great actor, and never really made any good movies, but everyone loves him anyway. My mom and my sister used to have an enormous crush on the guy -- you have no idea how many times I was subjected to Dirty Dancing growing up. And how can you not like a guy fearless enough to take the lead role in To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar? Here's hoping for the best.

The ugly: My car repair bill: $541. And I've lost my cell phone. I thought I had lost my cell phone. Turns out I'm a dumbass, and it was sitting on my living room floor. Not even underneath something, just sitting there. I looked for three hours, tore apart my sister's house looking there, went to every place I'd been yesterday to see if I'd left it there, and placed a panicked call to FRINAN (who was even nice [!] enough to ask René if I'd left it at his house). Yes, ladies (?) and gentlemen: I am a dumbshit. Yay for me.

And now, Elvis Costello sings a song that sounds exactly the way I feel.



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Now playing: Elvis Costello - God's Comic
via FoxyTunes

This post is a perfect example of why I can't manage to get any writing done in my house

I just redid the Links section of this here blog, which you can see down there on the right. Great websites, all.

And damn Tycho to hell -- I read about Garfield Minus Garfield in someone else's blog post yesterday, but he got around to hyping it before I got a chance. Bastard!

In addition to buying the new Beth Kinderman album, this weekend will probably also find me purchasing the Lost video game. As previously discussed, I simply cannot help myself: I am a Lost whore. Nothing can be done.

I just remembered that I bought Stephen King's Duma Key, like, two weeks ago, and haven't really started reading it yet. I'll get to it. Some day.

Is that enough procrastination for you? Can I actually get some work done now?

*shakes Magic 8-ball*

Very doubtful.

Figures.

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Now playing: Dave Matthews Band - Cornbread
via FoxyTunes

Typical situation

A timeline of this afternoon:

1:30 PM. Returned home from Job Number Two. Checked e-mail, checked my RSS reader for website updates. Decided to work on my short-story-in-progress, "Stealing Signs."

1:45 PM. No work done.

2:15 PM. No work done.

2:25 PM. No work done.

2:35 PM. Did some mild reorganizing of my 100 Favorite Albums list, worked on a new version of my 100 favorite songs list, read the Wikipedia articles on a few Modest Mouse albums. Designed an awesome Modest Mouse playlist for my iPod. No words written on the short story.

2:45 PM. Grabbed my notebook, left the house. Went to Village Pizza and Seafood. Ordered a sandwich and some onion rings. Alone, with no distractions, wrote three pages in fifteen minutes.

Same as it ever was. My apartment is the enemy of productivity.

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Now playing: Modest Mouse - The Stars Are Projectors
via FoxyTunes