crap. it's been a couple of days since i've updated, huh? i had a long update that i wrote and then good sense got the best of me and i deleted it. some things just aren't worthy of a public forum, eh?

needless to say, i haven't really wanted to post to bipolar over the past couple of days. it's seeming to complicate my life in new and interesting ways, so i've been kinda loathe to allow this particular window into my life. but then again…no one really cares about who the fuck i am, right? i'm not gonna let one bad egg spoil the omelette.

preparations for my roadtrip continue. i got the brakes fixed yesterday, straightening out the persisting problem of "bad rotors." i then found out that the rear brakes on the car could stand a little work, but the guy at the place assured me it's nothing immediate. he asked "have you been needing to add brake fluid every couple of thousand miles?" i said "yep." he said "that's about the only pisser with those wheel cylinders right now. no big worries on the stopping ability, since you have a front-wheel drive car." and then i let out a sigh of relief. i plan on getting rid of this jalopy before it gets to the point where i'll need to fix those fuckers, anyway.

yeah…a new car may be on my horizon. please send me all of your "good luck vibes" that you can spare. like i believe in "vibes." can't hurt, i guess.

first he gets a g4 powerbook, now he gets a god damn cute puppy. i swear, bob nanna lives the life, ladies and gentlemen.

sometimes i'm really reaching out there for new material…

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sunday morning from the box. funny how it's cool to call somewhere "the box" if you don't really like it. making it seem like it's a prison. i remember an episode of the a-team where they were at some hick prison and one of them was stuck in "the box." it seemed like such a terrifying experience to me, at the time. i think they actually called it "the sweat box." either way, it didn't look like anything i wanted to fuck with.

regardless, i'm at work, sipping orange juice, staring off into space. it's always pretty slow in here on sunday mornings. there's never really anyone here…the lights are all low…it's like a whole other workplace. i would have to say that sunday ends up being my favorite workday because the atmosphere is so different. much less stressful, to say the least.

i need to get a couple of things taken care of on my car before i leave for a short roadtrip thursday night. i'm planning on getting the brake pads changed on tuesday, utilizing (much to the shop's chagrin, i'm sure) my lifetime warranty on the things. other than that, i'll probably dump some fuel system cleaner into the tank right before i fill it up to head out.

too much car business lately. this place is starting to sound like "shop talk."

matt came over for a little while yesterday. we went out for lunch at the kfc and then hung around the house for a little while. matt commented on the new decor of the room (spartan), and had fun visiting the couch. we shot the shit about everything that's been going on lately. i told him a little about the girl. things are going well for matt (except his numerous computer troubles) in the new place, he seems to be settling in okay.

then i drove around for a little while. i ended up at the comic shop and then i went out to see scott at work. i mentioned i was hungry, he mentioned not wanting to go out to eat. i stopped by q'doba on the way home and picked up my standard mammoth of a burrito. scott cruised by after work and we sat around watching the entire half hour of radiohead live stuff mtv was broadcasting. i was slightly let down, to say the least. they could have at least showed the entire thing…

my life is incredibly boring when i'm happy. well…boring to others, anyway…

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it's been a really lazy couple of days around here. i'm starting to settle in to the rhythm of living alone in this big space. the girl was in town for a couple of days earlier this week, so i'm still adjusting. at this point, i don't quite know if i should expect her to be laying there next to me or not. having that happen shortly after the transition to single living (note: living with jess isn't really like having a roommate. and if you saw my room…) was nice, to say the least.

and all of this space makes me feel rich, even when i'm broke as hell right now.

we really need to clean out the fridge. there's something alive in there that is starting to let off some horrendously stinky pheromones. it can't be allowed to mate.

yesterday i took the car out and did all that wonderful cheap maintenance that somehow makes you feel like the car is running better than it has in months. you know…changing the air filter, making sure the engine has enough oil and doing that whole tire pressure thing. i was surprised to find all of my tires really low. funny how that happens when you haven't checked them in a year… regardless, the car seems to be performing a bit better now. yee haw. i feel like one of the duke boys.

last night was pretty uneventful. i sat around and read some of a book that was a gift to me from that special someone. let me just go on record as saying that this girl has impeccable taste in literature, even if, for some reason, she thinks i'm a good writer. we can forgive her that one indiscretion, right?

word around the campfire is that i'm gonna be having a letter show up in viewer mail over at as the apple turns. i would like to go on the record as saying that this doesn't have a damn thing to do with me being best friends with the head writer of the show. i'd like to be able to say that, anyway…

molly and i are plotting out a new little publishing venture. right now it's on a very "need to know" basis. expect to hear more about it sometime soon.

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i woke up in a good mood, this morning, despite it being a rather grey day outside. despite the fact that i'm basically broke for the next week. strange how you can put your life in order and gain a new perspective after so long of looking at things from a skewed angle. for once that glass is half full (if not more so).

i finally remembered to take my cds out to the car with me, this morning. i've been forgetting all week, and every time i got to the car i'd get in and realize "shit…they're still in the house." ironically enough, i brought all the cds down and ended up listening to one that's been in the car the entire time.

on the way into work, once i was getting close to my exit, i noticed a pretty bad snarl in traffic. luckily enough, my exit was right on the outside of all this hullaballoo, so i escaped the maw of the evil morning traffic beast. what i saw when i topped the hill of my exit made me realize what most of us are able to escape on a daily basis…an army of flashing lights lit the bottom of the hill, shooting strobes running straight through the grey morning and heading up all the traffic. an army of buzzing bees coming between all of these cars and an open, empty road beyond. i got into work and matt ended up showing up late (we chit chat on aim throughout the day). i know his route to work runs straight through all that traffic, so i asked if he got stuck in it. he acknowledged that he did and indicated that a semi truck had basically crushed a little car.

once again, perspective comes into play.

chances are looking up for radiohead tickets. they had a lottery that began last night and runs through the 10th to get tickets from their own merch company. we've got confirmation that we've been entered into the lottery, but we won't have word on our success until the 13th, three days before the general on-sale date. consider our fingers crossed.

i'm glad i make you laugh, molly.

i'm sitting here, writing this, writing email, and chatting with a couple of the random people in my life (guy and matt…hardly random). i'd like to point out that none of these things are even loosely defined as "work."

i'm looking forward to an uneventful weekend…

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the last couple of days have been like a whirlwind. hastily planned trips have ended up paying off better than expected. she showed up monday night (it felt like it had been a lot longer than a week since we last saw each other) and passed my house. i grabbed my board and skated down the street, chasing her down. i eventually got her turned around and back on the right block. she arrived in one piece. that's all i could have ever asked for.

a lazy night at home. a beautiful dinner at ramsi's.

kentucky bourbon and coke in the newly amazingly clean upstairs…high life on the front porch swing. pizza from wick's. even my cat likes her.

i don't really know what else to say.

her stay was too short. i know we'll see each other again soon.

i'm probably going to remain quiet on this one for a while. i have jinxed myself way too many times to know better, at this point.

trust me. i'm happy.

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how depressing is it to be sitting at work for 8 hours with absolutely nothing to do? let me tell ya, it's pretty damned depressing. the only positive side of it is that i've been able to finally chat with nathan since his girlfriend convinced him to get on ICQ long enough for me to convince him to download a jabber client. now that Nathan's on jabber, we've also convinced paul to try it out so we can all do a group chat thing and seriously defeat any productive potential we have while at work.

not to mention the fact that, in the process of having an absolutely great time last night, i stayed up way too late, got a little tipsy, and today am just completely bushed. apparently, we're about to get our first home-cooked family meal in the new place, as paul's just informed me that brax will be fixing up some spaghetti. and damn, it's comics day! i've been frickin craving my traditional wednesday Denny's Big Texas BBQ burger all damn day.

anyway, went to see the Reverend for the sixth time last night, and as usual, they were awesome. i'd have to say it wasn't their best show, but since their shows have progressively gotten better and better each time, i'd have to put it just below the last time i saw them. which is probably considerably better than most of the bands out there. another positive thing was the opening bands, who pretty much rocked the house. Death on Wednesday opened, followed by the Gotohells. It was pretty funny, just before the Gotohells came out and started playing, we were standing around talking about old Van Halen and other "hard rock" that we grew up with and really like (in retrospect, at least for me). Three chords into the Gotohells' set, i was surprised by how "classic rock" they sounded. I was thinking, listening to their set, that they sounded a bit like a good sized helping of Van Halen and other classic rock, mixed in with a little pinch of Mudhoney and grunge sound thrown in. We were all pretty impressed with the opening acts, which is very rare for us. In fact, let me see if i can remember opening acts i've actually liked out of all the concerts i've been to… the Cows, Engine, Deke Dikerson (much better live than the album that i was able to find)… and… uh… that's about it. I'm sure brax and paul could remind me of some other openers that i liked, but hey, if i can't remember them, they weren't that impressive were they?

then the Reverend came on stage and just rocked straight outta the box from beginning to end. they played quite a few songs off the first two albums, some stuff off the middle few and last albums, and some new (unrecorded) stuff as well. i think the highlight of the evening for me was when they played "eat steak" which is one of my all time favorite songs. after the Reverend made a comment to some person in the pit complaining they couldn't hear the lyrics, saying "next time, maybe i'll be more willing to work with you if you bring up a shot of jagermeister." brax then got the idea that we should take him a shot right then & there (this is a normal RHH show occurrence) and he dragged paul along to take it up to the stage. i hung in the back and just enjoyed the show. a few songs before their first break, paul came back and grabbed me and dragged me up into the pit with them. (thus setting up the next highlight of the night) at the end of the encore the Reverend came out to the edge of the stage and shook hands with people, me include. so, i got to shake hands with one of my idols.

i finally bought a new t-shirt, and met up with brax and paul who were hanging out and talking with Jimbo (the stand-up bass player). so i actually got to meet Jimbo as well, exchanged a few words with him, bordering on a conversation. Finally, as we were still waiting for the Reverend to come back out to mingle, i got to meet Scott as well. We had a great conversation about Louisville, Lexington, girls, the karaoke bar he'd gotten kicked out of the night before. and in the end, he offered to put us on the guest list for the Lexington show. damn. it's so tempting to go, but as tired as i am right now, i'd never make it staying up until three again and facing an hour plus drive home.

so, aside from Brax nearly getting in a fight with some chick because he was drunkenly dancing to the music, and aside from the fact that idiot-jerk (yes, the same idiot-jerk from previously told stories relating to an ex-girlfriend) was standing in front of me through almost the entire Horton Heat set, i had a wonderful time last night. i did spend considerable time trying to figure out if it really was idiot-jerk standing in front of me, and then, once i had figured it out, i spent considerably more time debating the value of jumping over the rail that was in front of me and pounding his face into the floor. thankfully, propriety and the desire for personal safety (who knows how many of his friends were there) won out and i left him alone. this was also part of the reason i hung back when paul and brax moved up to the pit. i wanted idiot-jerk where i could see him… just in case. but, once paul came back to drag me up there, i enjoyed the act of walking directly in front of idiot-jerk (even saying "excuse me.") on my way down to the pit. overall, i'd say the move to the pit was worth it.

i had a great night last night, and again, if you ever have the opportunity to see the Reverend Horton Heat, don't miss out. if i hear of any of you knowingly skipping out on a Horton Heat show without a very good reason, i'll personally find you and kick your ass… or at least give you a stern talking to.

3 for 3 baby, yeah.

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yesterday was the first day i actually drove straight to my new home after work. i've been living in the new place since Thursday, and there really hadn't been any adjustment difficulties at all. it didn't seem strange to be waking up in a new place, or altering established routines to fit the layout of the new apartment. but yesterday, when i didn't take the normal I-64 to Watterson expressway exit (the one i've been taking for over two years now, on an almost daily basis), that weird feeling hit me that i was living in a new place. it didn't last too long, but it was enough to color the rest of the evening. of course, then once i got home, i fixed myself a sandwich and trudged up the steps to the living room to sit and watch some TV with paul, and these actions again just added to the weird feeling i already had.

we're getting settled in. i got several boxes of books unpacked and shelved in the upstairs "library." i held back my extensive collection of star trek novels to put in my room so that (as i explained to paul) it doesn't "negatively reflect on you and brax." i figured i'd just keep my intellectual literature up there, and keep the trek stuff safely hidden away. i still have a few things to pick up from the old place, but since brian has his visitor here and i don't want to intrude, i'll just get them in a few days.

tonight at least brax and i will be heading to phoenix hill (a place i generally try to avoid) in order to catch the reverend horton heat show. if you're in the louisville area, you should definitely go check it out. i think it's a 21 & over show, so if you can get in, do.

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i've been to hell and back. i was overly optimistic about my moving experience. thursday we got the u-haul with no problems–if you don't count the customer in front of us in line who was cursing and yelling up a storm and in turn getting cursed and yelled at by the guy behind the counter…
it was quite an experience. and made it all the more fun to walk up to the counter and respond to the question "may i help you?" with a big smile and "i'd like to rent a truck!" while barely containing my laughter. really, i think a normal person (read: normal being the average joe human with force-fed christian morality) would have probably walked out and made a big scene; i just thought it was funny.

so, we get back to the old place and, according to plan, start trying to get the couch downstairs. brax and i fought with it for almost an hour, trying every different angle we could think of, but for some reason, despite the fact that it fit through the door to go UPstairs, it just wouldn't go out the door trying to get it DOWNstairs. we decided to postpone the couch until we could get paul over there to help us with his superior spatial reasoning skills. of course, at this point, we were completely bushed having basically held up a 300+ pound couch for almost an hour. we got a few of the smaller things moved… some bookshelves, the chair, my filing cabinets, the mattresses. then we took a break and went for sodas. as we were hanging out on the front porch, paul drove up, and we almost immediately put him to work helping us with our 2nd attempt at the couch. after another hour of struggle in which the walls of the stairwell were even further gouged and maimed, they finally convinced me to give up. feeling frustrated and beaten by an inanimate object, they finally convinced me to just accept brian's offer to buy the couch from me. that couch has been with me for over seven years. i'll miss it, but brian's granted me visitation rights. in fact, i think i'll go visit it tonight, under the pretense of getting the last few things i inadvertently left in the house.

and, of course, thursday wasn't the only day. we also spent several hours friday, and saturday lugging things out by the carload. sunday we spent a few more hours in a last mad dash carrying out the bulk of what was left. thankfully getting done and home in time to then go for our first grocery shopping excursion and still make it home in time for Iron Chef.

we've managed to organize our living room to some extent excluding unpacking of books, videos and cds. our kitchen is on it's way to organization, again with some minor unpacking. but unfortunately, my room is still a big pile of boxes. i'm still not sure how the furniture layout will go, and i probably won't figure that out until i get those boxes out of the way. but it is very nice to have my own room. i can now walk in my room, shut the door, and prance around naked without fear of someone barging in on me. naked time to me is important time. everyone should enjoy a little naked time every day. and i don't mean just getting in and out of the shower, but lazy lounging around naked time.

of course, because of the move, i've been without DSL since Thursday. I spent the entire weekend without internet access (though i could have used paul's computer if i'd wanted) since i don't have a regular modem in my computer. it was actually kind of nice. it seems that the net has somewhat taken over my life lately. so, i didn't get a chance to check email, read any of my daily sites, or, of course, update bipolar (though i did get the itch a couple times). i'll still be without for at least a few more days, but i'll try to keep up from here at work.

brian's comments in his post from thursday were touching. over the past year, brian and i have spent quite a bit of time together and gotten to know each other quite well. i'd say i've pretty much gotten him figured out. it's probably those fundamental similarities he mentioned that have made it possible for us to not kill each other, and the fundamental differences that made it just dynamic enough for us to not die of boredom with each other.

i imagine that bipolar will probably change and grow again, with this new chapter in our lives starting. it should be interesting.

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remember when i mentioned my cute cat that can be a pest at times? yeah..well…her waking me up at around 6 this morning would fall under that "pest" category, i'd say. i don't really recall what time i fell asleep last night, but i think getting up at six (and not being allowed to go back to sleep right up until my alarm went off at 8:15) wasn't really in my plans. needless to say, clyde got a stern talking to. not like it really helped…she's a cat.

'the girl' is coming to visit today. i spent most of yesterday furiously cleaning the apartment, eventually stuffing almost everything (neatly) into the huge walk-in closet. i still have yet to vacuum, even though the vacuum is sitting in the middle of my floor, beckoning to me…waiting for me to get home. hopefully i can get out of work a little early…last minute preparations…thanks for mentioning the dishes, kerry.

paul, matt…you guys wouldn't recognize the place. i'm really missing the little refrigerator, though…

sitting at work, munching on some dunkin' stix. they truly are a breakfast treat.

my favorite quote from the simpsons has to be when homer referenced bob dole by saying "whatsisname…you know…mumbly joe…"

guy and i were bored this weekend, so we drug ourselves out from in front of bands on the run to go out and buy one of those polaroid joycams. damn that thing is fun. the film is expensive as hell, but it's still a lot of fun. on the way home, we rode by one of those little church carnivals that have those crappy little rides. we took pictures. they turned out nicely. as soon as i scan some, i'll post them. there is a picture of clyde sitting on my desk now. viva la joycam.

we haven't gotten the dsl hooked up on the new phone number yet. matt took the dsl service with him when he left, so we'll have to wait for them to ship us a modem and all of that boring business. i'm starting to get really fed up with this whole dial-up thing. i feel like i'm back in the dark ages or something. right maybe the stone age. right around the time of the invention of the wheel. god damn it…it's starting to suck my brain out…

i have too many things to do today. if you could please excuse me…

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"brian hall! thank you for playing 'chump of the year'! here's your lovely parting gift…a lump of coal!"

"now eat it, you fucking bastard."

so i'm operating on about two hours of sleep right now. i picked my cat (clyde. a girl. don't ask.) up from my dad's house on friday. my sister had been watching her until she recently moved out, so since then it's just been clyde and my dad. i've been waiting until matt and brax move out to go get her, mainly because with so many people around, i thought she might be a burden. she can tend to be a bit of a pest. now she has plenty of room to roam around in.

and now she won't shut the hell up about being home. if i leave for five minutes, she freaks the fuck out. god forbid i might fall asleep at some point.

as if i wasn't losing enough sleep, as it is.

i met this beautiful girl. the most amazing girl i could ever imagine existing, let alone getting to meet her. it was a completely chance meeting and it has continued to blow me away, every step along the way. the big pisser in this situation is that this girl doesn't want a serious relationship right now. i really can't articulate what this girl means to me. the time i've spent with her, up to this point, was like a dream. i'm not going to lie and say that the fact that she doesn't want a relationship with me doesn't hurt. i'm feeling the familiar pangs of everything going down the wrong path. i'm suffering my "doom vision." and this time…i want to drop those feelings to the side. leave them behind me. i want to look on meeting this girl as a good thing. maybe we can be together at some point. maybe this is just a temporary thing. but until then, we have to be to each other whatever we can be, whenever we can.

i have a house guest tomorrow…i need to clean that warzone up, for once…

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