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1999

Isomnia

This sucks.

It’s 5:00 in the morning. I haven’t slept yet, even though I went to bed at 11:30. I have to be at work at 9:00. Calling in sick is not an option today.

Unlike some past sleepless nights, there were no particularly disturbing thoughts keeping me awake this time. I just couldn’t get to sleep. I was awake at 2:00. I was awake at 4:00. And now I’m just waiting for a little more daylight so I can go into work early, finish up early, and maybe come home and grab a nap.

Which, of course, will throw me off schedule when I try to go to sleep tomorrow night. Or is it tonight? I’m not realy sure anymore.

Dammit, even on my worst and most angst-filled nights, I usually go to sleep eventually. This sucks. But I already said that. I guess I’ll switch from Citra (so I can go to sleep) to Coke (so I can stay awake) now…

On a completely unrelated note, for those of you who are keeping score, it was a year ago today that I revamped the site adding these journal entries to the front page. Apologies for a less than stellar anniversary piece.

Thunder and Lightning

Thunder and lightning for the second time in two weeks. Imagine my surprise. That’s more than we’ve had in the past seven years here.

Of course, I was able to experience it first hand at 3AM, as I was enjoying yet another insomniac moment at the time. But today, I was able to stay home and “enjoy” feeling like crap, although it was a little hard to sleep through the construction noise and the earthquake.

Yes, another little baby earthquake. I almost didn’t notice it. Frankly, the quake didn’t shake the house nearly as much as the pile drivers have been doing for weeeks. However, since there was no pounding noise accompanying this particular quiver, I realized it must be a natural phenomenon.

The earthquake only lasted a couple of seconds. I get to listen to the pile drivers for two years, while the freeway nextdoor is repaired, a mere ten years after it was damaged by a real earthquake.

But I’m babbling. Back to bed now. More about job interviews, road trips, and why my neighborhood is going straight to hell coming soon…

Here’s the Story

Damn, do I feel old…

It was thirty years ago this week that the Brady Bunch made its primetime debut on ABC. And I remember watching it that first year. I almost never missed it. The few times I did usually involved a trip to the brand new mall in Burlington. I was usually grumpy the whole time.

The number one song in America on this important date in American history was “Sugar Sugar” by the Archies. It was a bubblegum universe, to be sure. No Vietnam, civil rights issues, or junkies in sight.

At one point, by the time I was 11 or 12 (a year or two after the Bradys had moved into syndication heaven), I remember catching upto four episodes a day. Must have been a special slice of heaven for my mom and dad.

Unrelated…

  • I had a job interview last week. Imagine my delight at not being asked one single question which started with something like “you are trapped on a desert island with two rubber bands and a piece of gum…”
  • Why did I pick the hottest day in two months to hover over the stove making gumbo?
  • Am I some sort of freak? My voice never cracked when it was changing.
  • Yes, that last rhetorical question was inspired by the Brady Bunch marathon I’m watching.

Happy Monday.

Bugs

I asked my vegan friend today if there was an approved way to kill mosquitoes. I knew this was, at best, a rhetorical question. Firstly, and most obviously, vegans don’t approve of killing anything. Secondly, it’s damned near impossible to kill the little bastards without living under a perpetual toxic cloud anyway.

So Shawn told me there’s some smell which mosquitoes really hate, but he couldn’t remember what it was. Do you? And do you know if it comes in a roll-on?

I don’t really understand what’s up with all these bugs lately. They seem to have appeared last summer as a reaction to El Niño. Apparently they liked it here. I’m not amused. If I wanted mosquitoes, I’d still live in North Carolina.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m sleeping with the windows open thanks to the miserable weather we’ve been having lately. Of course I don’t have screens. Until last summer, I didn’t have bugs.

It was 92°F (33°C) today, the hottest it’s been here in two years. I hate it. But the fog’s coming back in tonight. There is hope.

Things I love today:

  • Bay TV.
  • The ceiling fan in my living room.
  • Maude and All in the Family from 11-12.

Things I hate today:

  • The weather.
  • The bugs.
  • The weather.

October 1992

Seven years ago today, I was in Denver for the first time. It was the middle of a pretty exciting week for me. I was 28 years old. I had just said goodbye to my friends and family in North Carolina. I was driving across the country for the first time, headed for a new life in an unfamiliar place.

I had no idea what I was getting into. I’d been here exactly one time before and decided on that two-week visit that I needed to live here. I had a grand total of five friends on the west coast. Four of them were in San Francisco. I would be living with two of them in a studio until we found a bigger place.

I was a long-haired malcontent working for a retail chain making eight bucks an hour. I’d just bought a 1990 Chevy Cavalier for the trip, which took me through Nashville, Kansas City, Denver, Salt Lake City, and Winnemucca. I liked Denver so much that I considered staying there. Strangely, I haven’t spent any significant time there since.

Of course, I ended up living with another of my four friends for over six years. I shaved my head. I went on to become a manger with said retail chain, making significantly more money, until I eventually quit to become the marginally-employed freelance type you know today. Someone torched the car. I started a little personal website which became a big personal website. San Francisco has lost most of its mystery.

Everything was so exciting during those three days in Denver. Everything was new and different. I had a sense of direction and I was looking forward to the future.

Now that I’m bored with almost every aspect of my existence and too damned lethargic to do anything about it, I really miss those days and that thrilling, wonderful, frightening trip across the country. I wish I could get that feeling back.

Train Wrecks

Horrible “like watching a train wreck” show of the season: Blind Date. The premise involves an intimate first date between a cloyingly unpleasant man, an annoyingly unpleasant woman, and a camera operator. There are two men and two women per episode. I have no idea how many camera operators are involved.

These people are just plain awful. They’re boring. They’re the sort of people with whom you’d prefer not to have even a fleeting chance encounter, much less an entire date. They talk in clichés and giggle a lot. The most exciting moments are seen outside their cars as they drive from one bland L.A. nightspot to the next.

And it’s sucked me in twice this week. I start watching to see just how much worse the first couple can get. I keep watching to see what idiots the second couple will be. It would be almost hypnotic if not for the slight queasiness I develop after the first ten minutes or so.

The only thing which might be even more grating would be watching two West Hollywood muscle clones on a first date. But I wouldn’t count on seeing that particular sort of coupling on this particular show anytime soon anyway.

And speaking of train wrecks, check out this site.

Finally, thanks to everyone who wrote in about things mosquitoes hate. Citronella candles came in as the number one choice, followed by Avon’s Skin-So-Soft lotion. Other suggestions included thiamin, peppermint oil, and Bounce fabric softener sheets. Fortunately, the city has cooled off, the windows are closed again, and the problem seems to have disappeared.

Time for a quick wank and a little sleep now…

Recipe du Jour

Classic Planet SOMA Tuna Melts:

  • 1 can of chunk light tuna in water (Bumblebee suggested)
  • 1 can of Campbell’s cheddar cheese soup
  • 4-6 slices of white bread, toasted

Heat tuna and soup together into a very unappetizing-looking glop. Pour over toast. Eat, while watching Mary Tyler Moore Show re-runs. Serves two. Or one, if you’re really starved.

Consider Ex-Lax for dessert.

Tomorrow, look for an exciting entree involving Ritz crackers, Vienna sausages, and slices of sharp cheddar cheese. Later this week, we’ll be featuring a collection of recipes using Underwood Deviled Ham.

Or maybe not…

Love/Hate

One big thing to love this week is this site. Go there. Now. First website which has made me laugh out loud in a long time. And believe me, I need it this week.

More things I love this week:

Things I hate this week:

One thing I’m neutral about (if bemused);

And no, I’m not saying where the parking spaces are…

October 1984

I found it tonight while looking in a box for something else: a scrap of paper which apparently never made its way into my 1984 journals. Coincidentally, I wrote it fifteen years ago, almost to the day. It fits my current state of mind startlingly well. Such timing:

9 October 1984:

Life never gets any easier, no matter what I may do or how I may change. It just brings different problems given different situations.

“Coming out” was not the catch-all and end-all I believed it to be during high school. The biggest change I see now, at age 20 and in my third year of college, is that I have no more idea where my life is going than I did in high school — perhaps even less. My dreams and my idealism (as well as my motivation to work for what I want) seem to have disappeared. What happened to all those things I was going to do? I hope they’re not gone forever.

I try to blame it all on a bad couple of months, but everyone has rough times. Those times, however, don’t cause them to lose sight of life. There’s something deeper involved. I don’t really know what’s wrong with me, and quite frankly it scares living hell out of me.

But I’ve got to go to class now. There’s not much I can do about it at the moment.

Self-analysis or self-pity? You be the judge. Either way, it hits pretty damned close to home for a 15-year-old piece of paper ripped out of a composition book…

Pork Sausage Nuggets

It sounds vaguely like something from the Homer Simpson family of fine foods. Pork Sausage Nuggets. The tasty new snack treat marketed toward English kids. Anyway, if you happen to live in the UK, they’re on sale at your neighborhood Safeway this week. Yummm. Something tells me they probably don’t even require refrigeration.

Ever notice that you don’t find a large number of “traditional British restaurants” among the fine ethnic eateries in major cities around the world? Maybe the one remaining of the Two Fat Ladies should start a franchise, although last week’s devilled kidneys were a bit off-putting.

As far as way of updates for today, I continue to do nothing of any interest to much of anyone (myself included) lately. But I’ll give it a shot anyway:

  • My upcoming fall road trip remains up in the air, and may well become a fall plane trip with a somewhat reduced scope. I still want to make it to the Piggly Wiggly museum in Memphis, though. Imagine the T-shirts!
  • No submissions yet to the exciting new Did You Bring Bottles, which remains in beta because I haven’t had much time to work on it.
  • One of Irma’s kids passed away this week.
  • I’ve been reading the Chicago papers a lot lately.

Anybody wanna give me a long and moderately painful neck and back massage in exchange for a plug on this page?