Sometimes I miss having unmarried male friends nearby. You just can't have the same type of friendship with a married guy as you can with an unmarried guy. I mean this in a completely platonic way, of course. I miss my friend Jason, from college. I'm whiny.

1 hour and 44 minutes and I can leave. I have no tolerance for work lately. It's not that I mind doing the work, at all. I just don't want to be here. I think it's all the sitting still. Maybe it's just this freakin' dysthymia. My new medicine isn't working so well. I should probably inform my doctor of this at some point. I've only been taking it for a week, though. Blah. Blah. and.. Blah.

Pictures pictures pictures!!!!


Click here for pictures of the house, cats, and more!
(er.. more house and cats, that is.)

Jay's training someone at work tonight, so I'm home alone. This is the longest I've spent in this house by myself ever. hehehe. (Not that I have a problem with being alone; it doesn't bother me in the slightest. That's why I guess I find it odd that I hadn't noticed a lack of solitude.) Although now I will leave the house to buy batteries and whatnot.

Today I helped Jay's sister Lizzy move into her dorm at Transylvania University here in Lexington. It's her freshman year, and she moved in a week early to do a service-based "getting to know you" kinda thing. It was weird being back in a dorm again; it was a flashback to my freshman year. (although, to be fair, UK's dorms are nicer than Transy's, which is odd considering it costs $25,000+ to go to Transy, and under $8000 to go to UK. Lizzy got a full ride to Transy, though, so don't look a gift horse in the mouth.) I knew how Lizzy felt, though. In some ways you just want your parents out of there, so you can get started getting used to being on your own. On the other hand, you don't want them to ever leave. We left her, though, and I think she'll be ok. She's barely five miles away from us, which I like. It'll be fun.

Coming soon: Pictures. hehe. Lizzy loaned us her new digital camera, and it kicks ass. I'll post some soon.

Goodnight!

Jesus. I think I have the title cat of the song "Smelly Cat". Murray, that's just putrid. Anyhow.

I'm in a big Tori mood now, which sucks, since I've seen her all I'm gonna on this tour, and she's not touring again until 2005. Oh, well. Wah.

I hope Beth and Nathan had fun at the Ben Folds/Tori Amos show tonight. They got "Landslide" (which she played on her birthday when I saw her in 1999) and "Sweet Dreams".

I had this weird fluoride stuff put on my teeth today, and I can't brush my teeth tonight. Ewwwwwww.

The more I listen to it, the more I dig Upside Down with the band. Download it here.

This weekend Aimee and I went to Cleveland to see Ben Folds and Tori Amos at the Tower Center Ampitheatre in Cleveland.

We left on Saturday morning, stopping in Florence, KY to eat and drop Jay off. We drove the remaining four hours and checked into our hotel (The Sheraton. I love Priceline.) We grabbed some dinner from a very small selection of open fast food stands in the mall across the street. After dinner we headed to a CVS across the street for an emergency Bonne Bell purchase (mmm. Strawberry.) We headed back to the hotel with about half an hour to spare before we had to leave for the show.

We're ready to go. Down nine floors, and up six floors to the car. Oops, I forgot the directions. Down six floors and up nine floors to the room. Pick up directions. Down nine floors and up six floors to the car. Oops. I forgot the parking pass. Down six floors and up nine floors to the room. Pick up parking pass. Down nine floors and up six floors to the car.

Head over to the interstate like the directions said. Take a split, and whoa! We're stuck on an on ramp because of a wreck on the interstate. 20 minutes go by, when a very nice policeman had us turn around and get back on the interstate, only to get off the exit where we originally got on. Stupid directions. Grr. There was never any reason for us to get on the interestate, the venue was not more than a few blocks away. As we're parking we hear Ben Folds playing "Zak and Sara", and walk in while he's playing "Give Judy My Notice." The setlist that was posted online says we also missed "Best Imitation of Myself." Someone was conspiring over all that, to make us miss it. However, the parts of his show that we did see were wonderful. He needs a haircut, though.

Tori Amos came out about half an hour after Ben Folds was finished. Her set was ok, but definitely not my favorite one of the fourteen Tori Amos concerts I've been into. I really liked "Upside Down" with the whole band (although I love it solo, too.) Here's the setlist. It's hard to believe that's she's nearly 40 years old. She doesn't look it.

I bought the new Ben Folds EP, Speed Graphic. Aimee and I were listening to it on the way home, and she was reading the back cover. "All of the other songs were written by 'Folds', but this first one is by 'Smith.' Weird." As we're listening to the song, the realization that this is a Cure cover dawns on us. It was rather amusing. It's a neat cover, although it seems much less tragic than the Cure cover. Yes, I realize at the bottom of the page it says it's a Cure cover. I guess I just didn't pay attention. hehe.

When we got to the hotel on Saturday, it was hazy and foggy. We looked out the window and said, "Oh, great, a view of the top of a parking garage." When we got up on Sunday it was a beautiful sparkling day, and we learned we had a very nice view of Lake Erie. We were going to go to the shorefront and look around, but lack of free parking prevented that. We went to lunch with Scott at Fat Fish Blue. I had some really good crabcakes, but the rest of my meal was ick (really dry hard rice. Leftover from the night before? Maybe it's my own fault since I ordered off of the regular menu rather than the brunch menu.) The sweet potato chips that came with Scott and Aimee's meal were interesting. I really liked downtown Cleveland, it was very pretty. The architecture was beautiful. I loved the Loraine-Carnegie Bridge. Here's the library. Another building. It was all great. I'd like to go back to Cleveland sometime and just look around. We thought about going to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (two blocks from our hotel), but it was like $18, and we didn't have time to really appreciate it.

While I think northern Ohio is beautiful, I'm allergic to it. Ick ick ick. It wasn't fun waking up on Sunday morning.

So that was our trip. It was a lot of fun (which I needed.) Jay's threatened to make me a t-shirt for my next Ben Folds show. It will say, "My boyfriend isn't Ben Folds, but I wish he was." hehe.

My mom's out of the hospital now. She's back home and will start rehab again to try to make some of her dizziness dissipate and help her learn to get around on her own. I know she hates being trapped in a wheelchair or a chair and unable to do anything without someone's assistance. But I'm sure she's a million times happier out of the hospital.

Did anyone catch tonight's Daily Show? It was a Stephen Colbert retrospective, and they showed the clip about the mayor of Jefferson, WV trying to dissolve the town. That kills me. hehe. Jefferson is right outside of St. Albans, my hometown. Aimee, Craig, and I played pool at the bowling alley every weekend for a few years. And it really is just as sleazy as it looks. Stripbars and porn stores (and one bowling alley.) Is there any question why I left? hehe.

Happy 22nd Birthday to Jay!

He's old. But still cute.

So yesterday I was making meatloaf in a glass dish. I took it out of the oven to put a ketchup glaze on. I put it back in using a potholder that was both insufficient and poorly held on to. As a result I started to drop it, and in trying to catch it gave myself first and second degree burns on both hands. They hurt most of last night, but they're much better today (although it kind of concerns me that a good portion of my left index finger is numb.) Yes, I'm a wee bit clumsy.

For the record, I have no problem with France.

Evidently, I'm in the minority at my workplace. This headline was on the screen of a co-worker: French heat wave claims 3,000: CNN. The co-workers were acting like the French were inherently stupid for dying in 100° F weather. Is the weather usually like that in France? Do they have the proper cooling units and ventilation? If it happened in Chicago it would be a tragedy. Just because France said, "Hey, we don't like your fixation on war!" is not a reason to hate and berate. I hate the stereotypes there. No, they don't all smell. The level of xenophobia in this country just pisses me off.

End of rant.

A sign I saw at Subway today (verbatim):

We cant except anything larger, than a $20 after 2:00 pm. Sorry for the inconvience.

Blech. Stupid dreams.

I've had a few really weird dreams in the past few nights. Last night I dreamt that I had bought a new house (with Aimee, not Jay), but I had no idea where it was. At first I thought it was the house to the left of my parents' in WV. I go in there, and there are crosses everywhere, and the former neighbors stuff is all still there. Someone had delivered all of Aimee's boxes to it, but it turned out that wasn't really the house we bought. Then the owners came back as we were leaving, and we had to rush out of the house not to get caught. I go next door to my parents to ask my dad where the house was, and discovered he was having an affair with one of my friends from high school (not graphically discovered, I just knew it.) She runs into the yard trying to explain herself, which I would have none of. In the dream, I knew the address of my new house, and occasionally I would remember it was in Lexington, not St. Albans, and suddenly realize it was the house I live in now. It was disturbing.

On Saturday night I dreamt that one of my co-workers died. He and his fiancee were trying to learn some circus stunt, and she fell on him wrong. It didn't end with that; it followed through to his whole wake and funeral. I remember one of my other co-workers asking, "Is the wake going to have an open bar?" I wasn't going to the wake, but for some reason my Mom was, so I had to find the funeral home. Unfortunately, I wasn't sure which one it was, so I drove around for awhile. The dream went on forever, and once again, it was really disturbing.

That's all.

Bleah. I had a sizeable entry written when my computer restarted itself. I'll start over.

1) Aimee's got an apartment in Lexington again. It's about a block from me. It's cute, very Brady Bunch era. One bedroom, it'll be perfect for her. Ha! You can run from Lexington, but you can't hide! It draws you back like heroin.

2) When Aimee and I were out at Target shopping for said apartment, Jay was home alone. Someone came to the door to try to sell us a security system. Jay answered it. "Hi. Are your parents home?" Ha haha. Jay had to tell the guy that this was indeed his house.

3) I did yardwork yesterday. Grandma loaned me her hedge trimmers via my dad. I trimmed our hedges out front, and then tackled the backyard. The previous owners had some bird feeders out in the middle of the yard. The birdseed sprouted, and there's a ton and a half of what I thing is millet growing, about three or four feet high. I cut down what I could, but some of it was too hearty for hedge trimmers. Jeez, I don't own a chainsaw. Fun.

4) We had a lot of fun with my niece this weekend, the little ball of energy she is. She loved the zoo. She loved the swimming pool (it had a slide and a kids' play area.) I convinced Jay to get in, and he loved it too, although we all suffered pretty bad sunburns. Jay's going to find out what it's like to peel. hehe. I need some better sunscreen. Anyhow, she was really well-behaved. My brother's getting off way too easy. Mom always said, "I hope you all have three children just like yourself." That curse did not take, evidently.

5) My mom's still in the hospital. It's been three weeks today. She's on the renal floor still. They biopsied the thing in her throat, but as of Tuesday hadn't heard anything back. They have to remove it, which is going to suck, because they'll have to put a feeding tube in her stomach, and she can't do peritoneal dialysis during that time. They'll have to do hemodialysis, which is harsher on your system, I think. More warm thoughts needed for all of us.

6) I've been depressed off and on lately. I'm ok most of the time, but sometimes I just get down. I have no energy or no urge to clean, decorate, or unpack, which still needs done. It's been a long year.

7) The world's nuzzliest kitty is growing fast. He goes to the vet tomorrow for a checkup. I can't decide if he's playing with or terrorizing the other cats. Hmm. Time will tell.

Ok, there's a puppy downstairs (here at work) that I need to go visit. It will make me happy. :) How could it not?

From Top Five:

Rumination of the Day

If Anthony Hopkins ever decides to open a
restaurant for cannibals, I bet he calls
the house special "Remains of the Day."

(Bob Van Voris)

I think they fed my niece speed before they left her here for the weekend. If I had a quarter of the energy she had, I'd be set.

We went to the Zoo. We saw everything in the world. Noah's whole freakin' ark. And tomorrow we're set to go swimming, if the weather cooperates.

That's all I have to say for now.

The Friday Five:

1. What time do you wake up on weekday mornings?
8:00 am.

2. Do you sleep in on the weekends? How late?
I used to sleep in very late; noon or later. When I started dating Jay and going to Florence on a regular basis, I started getting up at about 11 am. Then when we started looking for a house and furniture, etc., I started getting up at about 10 or 10:30 am. *sigh* Gone are the weekends where I sleep until 2 pm.

3. Aside from waking up, what is the first thing you do in the morning?
Listen to the news on the radio. I have my alarm set so it comes on about 30 seconds after my alarm goes off.

4. How long does it take to get ready for your day?
Not very long. I'm not high-maintenance. I take my shower at night, so all I have to do is get up, brush my teeth, wash my face, and get dressed. Lately I've been *gasp* making my bed every day, and giving some attention to Murray, the stripey kitten. I also check my email. I'm outta the door before 8:30 am, most days.

5. When possible, what is your favorite place to go for breakfast?
Cracker Barrel. Blackberry pancakes, mmmm. I also like McDonald's hotcakes and sausage. Most of the time I eat something small (and sweet): granola bar, breakfast bar, brownie, etc.