The first line of the first song I heard today

"Imagine the surprise"

Busy again. Day off but I'm doing more before noon than I usually do on most days. Laundry, pizza dough, beer stuff-which I won't go into detail on because I have a blog for that.

Still, busy day.

"Oooh, tell us what you waited for and we will see, if we can make it real"

Ugh.

Bossman: "Where can I find the applications for X?"

Me: Pretty sure I put them on the HR drive, A, in a file marked Applications.

Bossman: "unnn....I can't find it. Can you send me a link?"

Me: Sure.

Me: Open directory, A (HR drive) and there, first thing, is a folder that says APPLICATIONS FOR X 7.8.11.

Jesus.

"I can't get to sleep"

It's weird what happens to me when I can't sleep. 4am is not a good time to be up unless it's by design and I certainly hadn't drawn up that plan.

Still, 'twas a pretty good day manning the booth at the Oregon Brewers Fest. And by manning I mean, fucking around and fetching beer for other people at the booth.

Things people didn't know about me: that I had a girlfriend, that I was a metalhead (they attempted to suggest closet metalhead but I don't hide my love of everything louder than everything else.) Which is a little strange but fuck it; this is how we make friends.

Nonetheless, after sampling I don't know how many beers, it kinda torqued with my sleep and I found myself on the couch, huddling in a blanket with Men at Work in my head. So here we are.

I've been arguing with fools online about the merits of treatment for drug users vs suspending benefits for them.

I have woken up to find out that the whole debt ceiling thing has bent the country over.

Fuckin' fuck. No wonder I have a headache.

"The cheap cocaine, the dry inhale"

After an hour of attempting to ignore the conversation, high-pitched humming and general noise coming from outside my office, I have resorted to the glory of iPod isolation. It may not be enough. It can't be normal to want to throttle someone for humming.

(Initial typo; 'I can't be normal...'

Transition; Sole-Da Baddest Poet. Line 'You want your money come and get it, but you better bring 200 guns and 100 men"

It's also going to be a day of fucking meetings. I think the meetings I attend now may be the most useless meetings in America. I have never seen so much talk by one human with a result of so little action on the part of...everybody.

Then again, I am looking for work. Is it so strange to want to do things?

Also from Da Baddest Poet-'Say you want blood but drink piss all day'

Handy article on taxation in America. Essentially: poor people pay taxes, corporate taxes are absurdly low, and taxes in general are low.

We are getting what we pay for, I suppose.

Spent the weekend micromanaging my finances. As lower middle class, I can imagine how much more stressful things are for people who are actually poor. No wonder most people divorce over issues stemming from money.

People who have bounty tend to have no reason to clash. Then again, bounty could use some redefinition, at least in 'Murica.

Still. That shit is stressful. Can I afford the pint when I go out for the blog? Is it worth it to knuckle down and overpay/plan for expenses? (Fuck yes it is but the short term losses can make it hard to enjoy long term gains.)

Then again; the source of suffering is desire. Perhaps this is a sign to recollect what I need myself. Really, I just miss friends who are faraway and at least a chunk of my expenses (Magic, for example or an XBL account or high speed internet) is about being able to play games/associate with people.

Of course, I value those things pretty highly. When they are absent I can feel it pretty keenly.

The internet brought (and keeps) a lot of good people into my life. Finding them in meatland has been a bigger challenge--game night at Red Castle is fun but hasn't paid off much, just yet. Perhaps it is the impatience of a child that I need to revisit. Friendships take time, in addition to effort and good ones do not spring up from the aether.

That all said, it would have been nice to have a little more to do than clean the fridge, watch Red Cliffs (which was pretty good) and tweaktweaktweak Magic decks.

I guess I really should get on writing that vampire story.

"I've got my green eye"

I tried, I really did.

But I just woke up and felt like 'fuck all this' and despite a shower and breakfast, my body ached and felt like shit and basically insisted that I say the hell away from work today.

So that's what I'm going to do.

"Bearing the weight of a trick we had traded"

Random selections on the iPod do not always help. I settled for this song-after paging through 3 others-but it has bequeathed more melancholy than perhaps it ought to. This morning was slow to rise and exercise did not help much.

I was up a little late playing Portal 2. It happens. New favorite line: "If the laws of physics no longer work in the future, God help you."

Transition: AC/DC-Back In Black. Interrupted by a co-worker who insists on checking in with me every morning. I have become her security blanket (she actually says this to everyone) and she feels unnerved if I'm not here. A potential lift warped by the need for pleasantries. The pig in my office (a squeeze item that I got from some investment presentation) is now Anna da Pig.

Breathe. Sit up straight. Pull some oxygen into your brain.

Transition: Pelican-Glimmer. Suddenly it's all good when the main riff kicks in. I figure it'll last until I have to go to a meeting for our annual 'event'. Which, so far, seems like a disaster because nobody knows what needs to be done and so no actual work is being pushed along. Date for event: July.

Plus, they will serve Domino's pizza. Is it just a little weird that an organization that exists to help the disadvantaged is getting pizza from a place like Domino's-who, last I heard, contributed to organizations that want to deny women access to healthcare?

Just sayin'. (Also, I know Domino's sucks as a pizza maker.)

I have decided to skip pizza as a personal thing. I can't support that shit.

Transition: 'Can't Say No' and I can't remember the group. Next song is by Against Me! and I don't know the name of that one because it's from the new album.

Nothing is working like I would like. There are days when I feel isolated and sad and I know I'm invisible and I miss like nobody's business but none of that actually does anything.

I should've called in today. Now it's too late; I'm here and the day feels unrecoverable.

Transition: Poison the Well-Sparks It Will Rain. This suits me better. It's a metal day, I think. General growling vs despair is certainly one way to confront gray skies and ineptitude.

Yay, Type O Negative! That doesn't exactly cheer me up but at least my day is starting to make more sense. As much as it ever does, anyway.

No first line again, but instead a link to And So I Watch You From Afar's newest, Gangs:

http://www.nialler9.com/10243-albu…

So far I like it, though I think they're the kind of band that one should see live. The music is really high energy but it isn't super catchy. On the other hand, it's not really annoying either, so I feel like if I was seeing them on stage, everyone would be a lot more bouncy and having a good time and that always adds to the experience.

I'm going to apply for a job today at PSU. You'd think that now that I have a job, applying for a new one wouldn't be a big deal but I feel exactly the same as when I didn't have one; fucking awful. It's all about my own mental bullshit I know but this does not seem to change the fact that I'm feeling mighty grim about the whole process.

That said, I like learning and new jobs are all about that. Goodness knows I'm not challenged in the current job, nor empowered or encouraged to do tasks so while I still like coming here, I'd better get on the horse now.

I don't remember, exactly, but it came from the new Beastie Boys' album:
http://blog.beastieboys.com/post/4…

It appears, from the looking over my budget, that I need to stick to it a little better.

Good to know.

"Open up, let it bleed"

Well, last night was a bit of a clusterfuck.

First, some sincere apologies to baeza for not completely reading his email, which told me he wouldn't arrive until after 6.

But no, I was assuming 5 and by 6 I couldn't stand the location anymore, due to a Blazers game in progress. baeza called-and we were able to meet up and play at my house but because I'd fucked up the time/place to begin with, time was short.

And then at 7 thedrowningman shows up--and neither of us are there. "All jock and no nerd" as he put it.

In at least one regard, I am glad the whole thing misfired because while I like Migration's food and drink, the place is fucking intolerable when a Blazer's game is on.

So I apologize for that inconvenience as well. I realize that both of these things are small issues in the larger scheme of things but I also know that this was partly my fault and everyone's time is precious.

The night ended with a long talk with the girlfriend about buying a house and not getting in over our heads. After about half an hour, I started to get a little sharp because, you know: the money. Fortunately, I was able to head myself off at the pass; nothing terrible was said, I just had to take a break.

And bottle beer that I made on my birthday. New twist this time, hopefully it will bring carbonation to the beer-an issue I've been having way too much difficulty with.

"Well I once knew a man who was going insane"

Just got back from Spokane. For the most part, it was a pretty good trip. My niece, who is 7 and nephew, who is 5, were spastic and amusing in the way that small children tend to be and I got to read a story by my niece about the adventures of a chameleon cat named Zooby. The nephew has become fixated on Star Wars.

Plus I got to see some old friends and that's pretty much goodness no matter how you want to cut it.

I also got to take the girlfriend around to all the old haunts, as well as discover a new one called Jones's Radiator.

Being back in Portland is better, though.