• So I'm taking my parents home from the airport, and they're talking to each other.  I don't know what exactly, but I heard something about, "Well, we need to go to The Store tomorrow," followed by, "Do we?" and then I heard, "Well, when is the 3rd, this Sunday?"  You know, I thought for some time that The Store was already closed, but now they're saying they're closed closed as of Sunday?  They didn't have much of a reason to go back to The Store after taking an eight-day vacation, but does that mean that they're not going back to The Store ... ever?
• I woke up at 11:30.  I was hoping that I could take public transportation to the Mall of America and finally see that Princess Diana exhibit before it leaves on the 10th.  But then I hear a sink running.  Shit -- my parents are still home.  My Father wanted to go to the doctor this afternoon because of a swollen right big toe, and so I didn't understand all this talk about going to The Store; why go instead of just cooling your heels at home and go to the doctor's from home?  Still, I wanted them to go to The Store because it's so awkward for them to be here, you know?  But they didn't immediately bolt out the door; instead, they went upstairs to eat.  I wanted to wait them out in case they were just rolling out slowly, but around 12:30 I couldn't take it anymore.
• No bitching, thank God.  After washing up I went outside to eat gruel.  And then Mother asked for my help to remove some plants tomorrow.  And then Father wanted me to get a birthday cake for Mother.  Today is her birthday, and I totally forgot.  At least I had an excuse to go to MOA.  (By the way, the exhibit wasn't bad.  It isn't just Diana's dresses that are on display, although seeing the 25-foot-long train of her wedding dress is flippin' crazy.  There are pieces representing all segments of her life, such as a looping video of home videos of her as a kid.  The most intriguing piece of the exhibit is a copy of the first draft of a statement made at her funeral by her brother, Charles.  A paragraph excoriating the paparazzi that hounded her throughout her life [and, let's be real, killed her in that tunnel in Paris on August 31, 1997] was omitted from the official statement.)  Got home at 6.  Father wasn't talking down to me, nor was he talking at all, because he didn't have much of an appetite after the doctor examined his ... foot, for some reason.

The Death Of My Freedom

Parents come home this evening.  In about three hours, in fact.  Picking them up.  No more tossing shit around and not caring where they land or when I have to pick them up.  No more walking around in my underwear.  No more masturbating in the bathroom with the door open.

My main task on my to-do list for my respite was to go through my shit.  And this morning, when I knew I had to start putting shit back into storage, I realized how little of a dent I made.  There is a huge pile of papers and a couple ESPN The Magazine issues that are now in the recycling bin.  But I think I only went through, like, two bags of papers.  I had at least two dozen I took out of storage.  Most of them stayed in my parents' minivan for a week.

I also tried to bag as many Entertainment Weeklys as I could.  I did a lot, a box's worth, which is more than I usually do in a stretch.  But excluding the waterlogged issues that I wanted to secure first, I skimmed, like, the top of one box full of EWs.  I have at least three that are so stuffed that I had to double-clutch when I tried to lift them up back into the minivan.  All told, I think I put back as many bags of shit that I took out.  I wanted to get my shit reduced by one bag, and I don't think I did that.

In anticipation of tonight, I decided I would treat myself to one last night of freedom last night.  I went to a stripclub that I hadn't been to in at least two years, just to see if anything changed and if I could draw some extras.  I got three regular lapdances.  One of them, a fine bomb-ass chick, I tried to take my dick out but she stopped me before the head appeared.  Another one told me to put it back or else "we both would be fired."  She intimated that there'd be a little sumpin'-sumpin' for me in the LD.  Liar!  The third one I didn't take out because she once danced at My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version), and that wouldn't be nice.  So the girls were great-looking, but they didn't do a whole lot.

Now they come back.  Worse, I am out of work because the project, as usual, ended by almost a week.  This company remains awful in estimating when we're going to be done.  So I will have a lot of time at home with my parents, unless I find shit to do outside.  Which costs money.  I don't know how long I can do this, especially after having, for the most part, a lot of fun with my freedom.

I think I have blogged before about one of my OCD things, catching the beginning of the evening national news.  I had just finished painting the shed (and finishing -- something I can say I successfully completed while my parents were gone!), and it just so happened that there were ten minutes before they were on.  Perfect timing.

I decided to focus on Channel 11, the NBC affiliate, because for the TV in the dining room, that channel comes in the best most consistently.  So I waited till the end, when the local 5 o'clock news transitions to the beginning of the national news.

But since it was Memorial Day, they decided to go out with the Star-Spangled Banner instead of their theme music, and they had a tableau of American flags that they focused on instead of a far shot of the set.  I then thought that the song will completely play out till the beginning of the NBC Nightly News, so I decided to look down and start taking my iPod, which ran out of energy while I was painting, out of its protective case.  I, unfortunately, forgot that songs like that are used to pad time, and that it could be cut out whenever they have to throw to the national news.

Which is what they did as I was looking down; I heard the beginning of the NBC Nightly News theme song and perked my eyes back up to see Samantha Guthrie give the rundown.  It doesn't matter if it's our national anthem, apparently, even that gets cut when it hits 5:30:00 CDT.  And since I did not see the very first frame of the news, I technically failed to see the beginning of the evening national news.

Honestly, I can't live it down, and it'll bother me for some time.

Do you know the best thing about my parents being gone?  That I can be as big as a fucking slob that I want.  I can throw shit around, be it empty food plates, my hats, my clothes, or my other shit, and I don't have to care because no one's here, so fuck it all!

But they're coming back in less than three days and I have to start cleaning up.  Well, I have to clean all the plates and pick up my hats and clothes and throw all the shit I'm not going to get around to back into storage, but that constitutes cleaning up.  Right now it seems like a monumental task, therefore I won't think about doing it till tomorrow at the earliest.  Till then, I just want to enjoy doing what I want to do without repercussions.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

Well, with Memorial Weekend on us, two things come.  The first is the more important: Summer.  The other is much less important: The fallow season of The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey.

And it will be even more fallow, in fact as fallow as it could be, this summer.  From now until Labor Day Weekend -- coincidentally the end of summer -- the WMNSS will feature only one team: The Twins.  They usually be ranked -1 because there will be no other team, but I could dip them into -Infinity (and subsequently call them the Twinks, although I call them the Twinks anyway) if they lose all their games in a week ... which, come to think of it, probably will happen.  And, of course, if they win all their games in a week (cough-cough), I'll lift them into 0 or even Positive Numbers.  But likely it'll be -1 from here on out.

I usually put the Lynx into the survey, but because they won the WNBA title and are thus the best team in the best professional and/or collegiate league for their sport in the world, I'll drop them off of the survey.  It'll at least be for a year; if they don't win the title, I might be perturbed enough to put them back on.  Or, I just might leave them off for three or even five years.  I mean, they won a championship, right?  They don't need my judgment.  Regardless and irregardless, they are out for 2012.  Also remember that the other Twin Cities teams may make a one-week cameo in the WMNSS if something happens.  I will guarantee you, for example, that the Timberwolves be back on the week of the NBA Draft.  Otherwise, it's the ...

-1: Twins (Last Week: -1).  The good feelings generated when they won four in a row have faded with a thud, to mix my metaphors.  They failed to sweep Milwaukee, getting quadrupled by the Brewers last Sunday 16-4, then have been pounded ever since, and not in a good way.  It's a 1-5 week for the Minnesota Nine.

These losing streaks (they have been vanquished four times in a row now), I'm surprised, are feeling worse.  By that I mean that I already felt shitty about this team, but then they do something good like win four in a row, I think that the organization is showing some improvement.  But then it looks like they're not improving because they go and lose four in a row, and all my hopes are dashed.  And that's the worst thing about this: Every loss from here on out means that there is no cavalry coming, that there is no hope for the future.  This is what we have, folks.  And to think that I thought they would win the division last year.  And to think we gave these assholes $360 million towards a new stadium with a promise they would contend year after year.

Any bright spots?  Well, the pitcher who threw the club's last win, P.J. Walters, is hurling for today's game at home against Detroit.  Maybe he can dazzle us with a second consecutive complete game shutout.  (That's it for pitching, though.  Free agent acquisition Jason Marquis was released this past week after yet another horrible showing where his sinkerball didn't sink.  I can blame a lot of things on the tenure of former Twins General Manager Bill Smith, and the new/old one, Terry Ryan, is someone I still believe in.  But he has to be accountable for Marquis because he brought him in.)  On the offensive side, Justin Morneau hit his ninth home run in Saturday afternoon's loss to the Tigers.  I am encouraged that the effects over his concussion are abating.  And I didn't realize until seeing last night's highlight that he really does have a sweet and distinctive swing.  On the downside, wither Joe Mauer?

The Memorial Day game, as well as the next two, are at Target Field versus the Bastard Philadelphia/Kansas City/soon-to-be-Santa Clara Athletics.  After an off-day, they travel to Seattle and play the Mariners for next weekend.

Analysis Halfway Through My Spell Of Freedom

I write this roughly halfway through my parents' week-plus-long vacation.  Right now it is raining outside.  Surrounding me is not just stuff that my parents would want me to throw away, but shit that we would all agree needs to be either cleaned or tossed: Plastic trays of food Mother prepared for me before she left, cans of Sprite that belong in the recycling container, old Entertainment Weeklys that were waterlogged in my storage unit that I'm drying out by pulling each page apart from each other (and a few times failing).

I want to be productive while they're away without sensing their prying, judgmental eyes on me.  Scratch that: I want to get a handjob before they come back.  But that didn't happen, and with work stopping earlier than they said again, I don't know if it's wise to spend more money beyond going to seeing another All-Time Favorite in the sticks tonight.  I so, so need a hot girl to wank my dick till I cum, but I don't think I can afford it.

Also, I do have a lot of things I want to get done.  I feel awful, but I just don't feel I can get them done with my parents around.  Unfortunately, I'm not really doing these things without them around, either.

Now there are a few things I have done.  I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Version), and my folks sent me to The Store to continue dumping their old product.  I think I did it as much as I could, so I'm happy to a) please my parents and b) accomplish something fully.

The downside to having eight days to do your to-do list, at least for me, is that I can't decide what tasks I should do.  I let circumstances what I can and can't do.  For example, I decided to start painting the shed, a project that's going into its third year, yesterday because the forecast called for rain today.  The shed is backed into a corner of the backyard, and I wanted to crawl around to the backside and paint that.  Also, the shed is so high that I would need a chair to stand on to reach the top.  For some reason, painting that part of shed, let alone painting the high parts, is something I didn't feel I could work on till my parents were gone.  (There's one side of the shed that's so close to the neighbor's fence I just can't paint that.)  I painted after coming back from The Store (I thought about dumping my parents' stuff at The Store on the way to work last night, but I decided not to because a] I didn't know how early I would have to leave for the western suburbs when the main highway from where The Store is downtown is very clogged going out for evening rush, and b] I didn't want to smell going to work or anywhere I decided to go afterward) and after a good, well-deserved nap, and so I did enough that I won't need to use the chair to stand on and paint.

I often look at tasks through opportunity; that is, if I have two or more things I could do, I ask myself what can I put off till tomorrow and what I should do today because I won't be able to do it tomorrow.  I painted the shed instead of, say, storing my EWs because I could do that today, now, indoors, while it's raining outside.

Except that I'm not.  I'm blogging, which is something I was intent on still doing.  However I'm also playing Mafia Wars on facebook; I hadn't played it in a long time, so I have a lot of catching up to do, but that was not something on my list.

Look, I'm not going to get done.  I have so much shit to do, and for most of them I have no idea how to even start.  I'm still not done with that shed, for example.  I have to paint the rest of the back.  And I'm not even done with the chair, either; there is a tree that prevents me from just going behind the shed, so instead I have to put the chair on the other side of the fence to climb over to the other side, take the chair again, put it next to the back of the shed, then climb back over to our property.  I guess I could just leap over it, but I'm old, and when I needed to use the chair and realized I didn't have to worry about my foot slipping or my testicles landing on the chain-link fence, I knew I could just put it away.

I can't put many things away right now.  Instead of dancing around to Bob Seger in my shirt, underwear and socks like Tom Cruise in Risky Business (although I walk around in my boxers only and sleep naked in my sister's room because I can and don't have nobody here), I decided to swamp myself with the sundry items that my folks think I trashed but I instead am trying to sort and archive.  I have tons of boxes here.  I have gone through none of them yet.  If my parents surprisingly came home, they would see these boxes, harken back to the days I had boxes everywhere and immediately ask me where the fuck these boxes came from.  And they would be pissed.

I want to box as many magazines as I can.  There are special items, such as game even programs and lineup sheets, that I want to sort out.  And there are papers that I want to read and, believe it or not, throw away.  I just have no idea if I'll have the time to pull it off.  Maybe not going to a stripclub every night will help.  But already I'm hesitating because I already feel overwhelmed.

And that's not to mention all the other things I want to do: Have my parents' minivan detailed ... spray-protect the house ... give Grandmother's diapers to my sister's best friend's mom ... look into changing the house's phone plan ... try to make spaghetti ... write my sports columns and strip club reviews (goddamn, I haven't written either in weeks!), etc.  On Monday I made out the to-do list.  I'm looking at it right now.  I have crossed out four of my 16 things, and one of them I crossed out (a party where I could have gotten a handjob) because I couldn't make it because of work.

I'm a failure.  On Wednesday I'm going to have to pack up all the boxes I brought inside without even touching them and take them back to the storage unit, where I'll have to frantically shove them back in and surrender them to the elements.  I want to enjoy this spate of freedom, but all I can think of right now is how this is going to end, and whether I will be productive by the time the 'Rents come back.

Wish me luck.  And pray for me, if you're so inclined.

You know, I'm usually disappointed when I go to a strip club where I expect to get extras and don't get them.  Now, I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Cover Division) yesterday and I didn't feel I was entitled to some, but I was hoping to get my rocks off.  Unfortunately, of the two that were there, one of them was a surefire dick-pleaser who has turned into a cocktease, and the other seems to be a ripoff bitch, and she kind of smells, too.

Thank God for the other one.  Just to clarify, no, I did not get any extras for her.  But I was going to take anything good out of this trip, and her honest conversation and kisses on the cheek still sent me home happy without any ejaculation whatsoever.  I'll take it.

The Best Commercial On TV Right Now: Apple iPhone Featuring John Malkovich

I don't mind the first two celebrity iPhone commercials.  But I could see how the one with Zooey Deschanel could make you gag with her preciousness.  And the one with Samuel L. Jackson seems kind of false, you know?  I don't buy him cooking dinner for his wife.  I half expect him to shout, "I WANT THESE MOTHERFUCKIN' BEANS OUT OF MY MOTHERFUCKIN' GAZPACHO!!!" take out his gun and put a cap in the pot like he was Jules.

But whether or not this is the real John Malkovich or the John Malkovich persona we are all creeped out by and love, this perfectly captures how we know the actor and how we would think he would play around with his iPhone (the first time he's decided to pimp a product in a commercial, I believe).  With his typical breezy attitude with a hint of sinister foreboding underneath the surface and his laconic one-word requests of Siri that sounds like he's flirting with it/her, this is the perfect mesh of product placement and actor brand reinforcement.

RIP, Flip-Flops

It's typical me, rushing headlong into things even though I know I should stop and think.  I do neither and thus pay for it.

That's what happened on my first day of My Reverse Vacation.  With the folks gone, I have the run of the house, so I could bring all the shit I have in storage back home to ... uh, sort, store and/or throw away.  At least that's the plan.

I have a lot of shit in storage.  A lot.  And since it is storage, it's not really organized.  For an hour over lunchtime I climbed and picked through my unit, taking all the bags and boxes that have Entertainment Weeklys, newspapers and other papers that I planned on going through.

I was in the middle of the unit and wanted to get out.  Either I stepped into the slat of the pallet or the slight incline up into the unit because I stumbled on my way out.  That's when the right flip-flop gave way; the, uh, thingy that goes between your big toe and the index toe, that string that attaches to the flip-flop so your entire foot can walk with the flip-flop, broke.  It was coming loose for a while, but that trip was the final straw.  My flip-flop was just there, resting alongside my right foot because that string didn't keep my foot in it.  I limped that flip-flop home.

I knew I was going to do some serious lifting at storage today, so why didn't I just put my socks and shoes on?  I knew I should have, but I spent 20 minutes on the Internet as soon as I woke up instead of just going.  Inclement weather was coming, and I would have spent more time on the Internet if the sky didn't look like it was going to open up at any time.  That's when I yelled at myself for goofing off online and shot out the door, stopping only to put my flip-flops on.

I had them ever since I visited my sister out in L.A., oh, seven or eight years ago.  She took me to Third Street Promenade's Quiksilver shop.  She told me to buy them because they would make me look cool.  I don't know about cool, but I wore them because they were easy to slip on when I had to rush out the door, which is often. I did notice that the string thing was fraying and coming loose; with the hard work I wanted to do in the afternoon, those should have been signs not to wear them for this task.  Oops.

Let it be said that yesterday, on Tuesday, May 22, 2012, I finally used the Cinnabon punch card I had punched and had filled up for a long, long time.  It's an old card, so old that I don't even remember where I got it from.  Even though I had eaten lunch with my folks before I took them to the airport, I thought this was as good a time as any to use it at the restaurant at the Mall of America; I didn't take any dinner with me to work, so the earliest I would have gotten food in my mouth was after I went to the stripclub, so around 12:30.

The girl looked at it and said, "This is, like, five years old."  Older, trust me.  Literally, it could have been a decade since I first got it.  There aren't a whole lot of Cinnabons in the Twin Cities, and the ones here are on the other side of town from me.  Plus, do you know those fucking things are now $4.50?!?!  But I had managed to buy six Cinnabons over the years, and after I did, I just put it in my wallet and forgot it.  Till yesterday, when I thought, hey, I'm charging so much money to my credit card and I don't know if I'll be as hungry for this for the intermediate future, so I might as well use this now.

Luckily the girl took it.  After she got done with me and the card, she just tore it in half and threw it in the wastebasket below the cash register.  I wish she had a bit more reverence to something that was in my life for ten years, possibly more.

I asked her if she had another card where I can rack up the Cinnabon purchases.  "We had some, but we ran out," she said while not making eye contact once and not wavering her voice one bit.  Which means: Bitch is lying.  Which also means I can't afford to ever eat Cinnabon again.

So my parents and I woke up late this morning, around 10.  I thought we needed some distance, so I decided I was going to say some bullshit about running errands.  I figure I can come back a bit before I have to take them to the airport and maybe even have lunch with them.

So what do they say before I leave?  Why don't we eat around 11:30, even though they don't have to really go until 2:30.  And by the way, can you swing by the hardware store to return these items?  Sure, I said, I have time.

No, I don't.  And now I have to go.

When The Cat's Away ...

Assuming that our huge blowup last week is now behind me -- IhopeIhopeIhope -- I can now look forward to my parents' upcoming vacation to Vegas not as a final hurrah before they force me to leave but as a weeklong staycation of freedom, of safe freedom, since I can do anything while being able to still reside at home.  Ever since I helped my folks book this trip I've been looking forward to it.  I can do whatever the fuck I want or do nothing and they won't be around to judge or correct me.  Therefore, I am planning to do a lot of both.

Tonight I wrote down a list of shit I want to do.  Most of them, believe it or not, are chores, things my parents want me to do but I feel I can't do unless they're in another part of the country.  It's weird that way.  Even disrespectful.  But I need them, just not in that way.  I'm doing that right now.  I am currently working nights, but I stay out longer, usually till after they retire to bed, because I just don't want to deal with them.  It is quite hypocritical, not having any contact with them and yet living with them.  I just think bad things happen once I come home and start talking to them.  Wednesday of last week is the perfect example.

I want to take advantage of all the time I have by myself.  I think I can be productive, but I'm afraid I'll just slack off.  The shed needs painting and it's about time I go through my Entertainment Weeklys and house them, but there's a definite possibility I'll just wake up, turn on the computer, and beat off to online porn.

Oh, and speaking of porn, one of the things I'll still hit hardcore is stripclubbin'.  I have no money, but goddammit, as long as they're gone, they will never know what weird shit I'll do.  Moreover, since I have the whole to myself for a week, I'm wondering if I can entice my ATF to come over.  She promised me she'd sew up the porno pants I gave her.  If she's done, maybe she can drop it off at my place.  I can then give her a tour of the house ... and then my pants, if you know what I mean!  Well, she's already seen my dick, so no tour needed.  But maybe she'll get aroused about it being just the two of us and, who knows, maybe we'll fuck.

OK, maybe wishful thinking.  This is how inordinately disproportionate I've been looking forward to this.  I now just have to survive the morning.  They will not be going to The Store, so I can't just sleep in till I have to go and pick them up.  But will they leave me alone to sleep through the morning?  Will they not bother me and instead just judge me?  I thought about waking up and going somewhere in the morn; I actually told my folks that I had "errands to run."  But I think I'm sleeping in, and maybe they won't care.  It'll keep me refreshed for tomorrow night's shift.

The only downside to all this is that I have not planned for the days after, when they come back.  There's a good chance they won't go to The Store at all after their vacay.  Then what?  Will I just stay out all hours of their waking days?

Stripper Illusion Shattered

A long time ago, I had a hang-up over strippers being single mothers.  I swear that, like, 80 percent of all the strippers I've ever encountered have kids and are raising them alone.  But since there are so many, turning away from them basically means that I drop my hobby of stripclubbin'.  No way.  And besides, some of these single moms are hot, so I started to warm up to them.

In the back of my mind, I have always wondered how good they could be as moms.  I mean, think about school, when they go around the room and ask each kid what does your mom do.  I've asked the strippers about such a scenario, and they usually say they tell their kids they work in bars.  And although I understand a mom has to find a way to put food on the table, I've always kind of felt that women who decide to take their clothes off for money have a mindset that doesn't totally have their kids' best interest in mind.

What I overheard last week, however, shocked me.  This in fact goes beyond any fear I had that a stripper would exhibit bad mothering skills.  This is a mom being a bitch.  And this happened at my usual Monday night house party, with the host, *e**, a woman whom I've fingerbanged and who has given me a handjob.

I came over because my ATF, ***e*, was working, and I wanted to tell her that I have the run of the house this week (more on that next blog).  While I was waiting for her to get done with her lapdances and for the LD area to be clear so that we could do a lot of shit in private (and trust me, we did a lot of shit up there in private Monday), I was hanging out in the kitchen, eating the snacks and eavesdropping on *e** talking to the other pathetic losers at the party.

She then started talking about her son on Mother's Day.  She said that she was expecting a big gift that day, which was the day before this party.  What he gave her was a can of Mountain Dew.  *e** likes Mountain Dew, but since this was Mother's Day, she expected -- expected -- him to do something better, like giving or making her a card.

I think she got on what sounded like a trip of self-pity based on a topic she went on about in a drunken state before talking about her son, her own upbringing.  Apparently she and her dad didn't get along, and she moved out of the house early.  So she's had a tough life.  However, it appears as if she thinks that's a good lesson for her son to have.  Anyway, she said that she confronted her son about just dropping off a Mountain Dew in her chair.  She told him about how life is hard and that if he didn't like how things were done around his house, he could leave just like she did as a teenager.  And then she said she took his phone away.

She took his phone away because he did not give her a gift appropriate for Mother's Day?  Really?!  Fucking really?!?!?!  I was offended.  I didn't say anything (to their credit the guys she was talking to tried to tell her she went off the reservation with that move) but I was pissed off.  And now that I'm writing about this incident, I'm getting all mad again.  I am angered that she thinks she's owed a Mother's Day gift.

Just to let you know, I am arguing this from a childhood where we never recognized Mother's Day.  Shit, I didn't even know my mom's birthday till I was a teenager.  Why?  They decided they didn't give a shit about those days, and so they wouldn't tell us about it.  And so I'm still not 100% sure when her birthday is.  But it means little to me, at least a hell of a lot less than *e**, who thinks she's entitled to a gift she deems is proper.  Because she didn't clue her own son in what was good enough to give for her, that a can of pop wouldn't cut it, she decided he needed to be punished because he was insufficiently gracious.  Fuck that, and fuck her.

The hard-on I had at the time was gone.  I became so flaccid that my penis turned inward and became a vagina.  I don't care, I will not get aroused for a woman who would abuse her son like that.  She is wrong and cruel, and I am so upset that I seriously am wondering if I will ever go back to her parties again.  I cannot do perverted shit to someone that treats her kids like that.  Believe it or not, I have principles.

Pisses me off. ...

Expenses Without Receipts

Starting from the 12th:

• Went to the Swarm playoff game that night at the X.  Ticket from my friend (with food and beer free because the first-row ticket that I got gave me access to the first-row bar): $20.
• No coffee tonight because the game started at 8:30 and I decided to drown the sorrows of the Smarm blowout loss with another drink after the game.  Instead I just went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version), where I spent money for coffee, tips and finally a dance from this petite, non-tattooed chick named Stella: $30.
• Finally I went to My Favorite Late-Night Italian Place, where I got a pizza.  With tip: $14.
• Sunday I went everywhere.  If I'm right, one of the two times I spent money this day was when I hit the gym: $3.
• And the other time was when I went to Caffetto.  Large iced mocha with tip, which was ten pennies, the only change I had in my pockets: $4.35.
• Oh yeah, that afternoon I was doing my laundry.  When I went to stuff my clothes in the dryer, I found, I think, a quarter and a dime on the floor.  Was it mine?  Well, it is now.  An infusion of: 35 cents.
• Monday, my All-Time Favorite, ***e*, called me over the weekend and told me there was a spate of parties she was working this week.  I decided to see her at the regular Monday party.  Some stick-shifting, some finger-banging, and for all of that hanky-panky I only had to pay: $20.
• Tuesday I found a penny at, I think, the ground while getting creamer at the grocery store.  An infusion of: 1 cent.
• I then went to Caffetto for some late-night coffee.  With tip: $1.75.
• All the way to Friday.  Although I didn't need to work that morning, I decided to keep up appearances and go.  Besides, I had an excuse: To once again map out how long it would take to go from my house to Apple Valley, the place where my next scoring project will be next month.  (Verdict: About an hour.  Shit.)  After I made it I parked and tried to take a nap.  I then deposited some checks and tried to take a nap again.  After I couldn't I went to the Mall of America and tried to take a nap again.  Didn't work.  Had plans to go to Hooters, but staying there for 2 1/2 hours and eating shit didn't interest me.  Then I remembered that I haven't seen The Hunger Games yet (it was good) and realized it would have been a better use of my time before going to my eye appointment/study.  I actually got a receipt for the popcorn and Coke, so this is only for the ticket I bought: $6.
• Had some time before my night scoring job, so I went to the nearby Caribou.  Cold press.  With tip I think it was: $2.75.
• Lovely Creatures Cabaret.  Cover, coffee and tips for an unfortunately gay-centric show: $13.50.
• Saturday I went to Lavvu for some coffee.  I was a bit more generous with my tip this time 'round: $2.
• That evening, after going to a friend's housewarming/birthday party, I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Edition).  Two new strippers and a brand-new waitress.  What gives?  Tips and coffee: $10.
• Then, Late-Night Italian.  Had a small salad and onion rings alongside my Coke.  With tip: $8.
• Today (Sunday) I went to the Lynx home opener.  Beat the hell out of Phoenix.  Watch out for them. Anyway, I didn't know the ticket my friend bought for me was $20.  That's expensive!  So the money I gave him for that, plus the cash I spent for a hot dog (which was surprisingly distinctive, specifically how salty it was) and a souvenir Coke, came out to a pricey-for-women's-basketball: $31.25.
• That was half of the money I took out of my ATM.  I didn't have enough cash to use it for the gym, so I charged it.  But I did have enough to go to Caffetto and get a medium coffee.  I'm writing these words while at Caffetto right now.  With tip: $2.25.

Caught up to the present day.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -1).  Well hell's bells, break up the Twins!  After they got swept in their two-game series at home to Cleveland, they went on the road and have been rude guests.  With Saturday's 5-4 11th-inning win over Milwaukee (which I heard on satellite radio, at least the call where Burton gave up that two-run home run to, I think, Aramis Ramirez in the 6th), they have now won four in a row.  I think they're still the worst team in Major League Baseball, but at least they now have 14 wins.

What's changed?  Well, for one thing, their bats have heated up; they scored 11 runs twice in this winning streak.  Also, minor league pitching prospects, namely Scott Diamond and P.J. Walters, have immediately stepped in and have become the best players in the starting rotation.  There is no way that keeps up, so enjoy this before they regress back to the mean.

This week: They go for the sweep in Milwaukee this (Sunday) afternoon, then have a day off in transit to Chicago, then have a three-game set against the White Sox, and then immediately fly home to the Bullseye and play against Detroit, the team they swept in their two-fer the middle of last week.

#-Infinity: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  They won yesterday (Saturday), at Illinois, in the final game of the regular season, 8-3.  But that snapped a five-game losing streak, a slump that pushed them out of the Big Ten Tournament for the first time in ... I don't know.

In the conference, the top six teams advance to next week's tournament, which is being held this year in Columbus.  The Goofs actually finished in a tie for sixth place with Illinois and Ohio St., but the tiebreaker is record against common opponents, and the Buckeyes claim that spot and thus the right to play at home.  And once again, I don't remember the last time Minnesota didn't make the conference tournament.

And so ends a dynamic year for Manager John Anderson and the team.  They finally closed down Siebert Field in the middle of the season so they can build a brand new stadium.  And although I don't know what the preseason predictions were, I don't think the Gophers were picked to win the league.  And they didn't, far from it.  So another season of falling short of claiming their fourth NCAA title (but first in 48 years) is in the books.  And once again, we wonder why the B1G continues to fund baseball when a) no one here cares and b) the power conference are from the Sun Belt and points south.

Major Damage Control

And so the fight not to get thrown out of the house began Thursday night.

All day I couldn't help but think that my parents were conspiring to get me out.  After all these years, we have switched roles finally: I am now working day and night while they're at home chillin'.  Of course, when I was at home I wasn't thinking up ways to throw them out.

I was imagining them so much that it was affecting my work.  I had to do something, so after rolling some thoughts around in my head, I decided to try and pre-empt any anger they may have for me spending another night out "working" (I work till 9:30 but most of this week I came back at 1.  The one time I came home was Wednesday, and all hell broke loose) by calling My Father.  There were some things I wanted to talk to him about, such as the ink cartridge he wanted me to change was wrong and that I will be busy (legitimately busy) this weekend.  Although he yelled at me a lot, he seemed to be more willing to talk to me calmly than Mother.  I was right; he was fairly quiet and had an easygoing tone, and the only thing he said was he received a call for my eye appointment on Friday.

When I came home I was scared that I they would drop signs of their intention of throwing me out.  If My Father was still up and wanted to "talk," that would've been a bad thing.  If they laid brochures for apartments in the area, that would be worse.  And if the stuff that is in the bedroom of Grandmother before she was thrown out is out in the living room, well, that would be a really, really shitty sign.

But there was none of that.  The only thing I saw was the light coming from Mother's office.  Of, shit.  The only goddamn reason she would be at 1 in the morning is she is researching apartments for me to move into, like she said she would as she was yelling at me Wednesday.  I'm fucked.

I went around the top floor of the house to see what My Father fucked with while I was gone.  When I went to my new bedroom (which was Grandmother), Mother came up the lower stairs and reminded me of the eye appointment.  And that was it.

Still, I was paranoid.  What was she doing down there?  I bet she was looking at apartment-hunting websites.  I had to know, goddammit.  So after I took my shower and Mother was asleep, I went downstairs into her office and snooped on both of her laptops.  I brought down a 401(k) letter with me as cover; if she or My Father comes in, I can say that I was helping her with figuring out how to get her money out of her 401(k) after promising her I would weeks ago.  (And actually, that was something I promised I'd do and should have done sooner.  Once I got done I was going to tackle the problem.)  I also could say that I was going to help her find a way for her to watch movies on the flash drive my uncle (her brother) gave to her.  That was the thing I was helping her with Wednesday, minutes before she melted down on me.

She did come in, after I looked through the history of her big laptop but not her little one, dammit.  So I played along, telling her about the 401(k) and telling her I was taking another shot at the flash drive.  She told me that she asked friends to help her with the flash that day, and she now can watch her movies because she was told to download a different media player.  So QuickTime doesn't rule the universe.

Throughout all of this she wasn't mad at me.  In fact, she acted really nice to me, like she didn't yell at me Wednesday night after I complained about her adding a third slice of bread in the middle of a sandwich she made for me.  I don't like it, but that doesn't mean she should just go off like that.  Maybe she wasn't mad anymore because I basically begged for my goddamn life after she told me to leave.

And you know what?  Even though everything seemed OK after Thursday night, I'm still kind of scared that they're still planning on getting me out.  I have yet to look through her new, smaller laptop for her web history.

Car may be giving me problems again, or I could just be paranoid.  This feels like the first real hot day of the year, even though we've been warm virtually since the New Year.  The Twin Cities set a record high to day, breaking the previous mark of 91 degrees.

And I'm scared my car is reacting badly to it.  It sounds like it's wheezing when I try to accelerate.  It also makes this gurgled noise it has made after I run the air conditioning on it.  And now I'm afraid the radiator's going.  There's no smoke or leaking fluid or anything, I just remembered I haven't put in any antifreeze in some time.  Need to do that tomorrow.

And haunting all of this is the fact I need to replace the timing belt on my car soon.  It's the most expensive and yet most important part in my car.  I thought I had several thousand miles before I needed to replace it (assuming the number of miles I ran on the old belt is about the same mileage I should give the new one, although of course I'm trying to push it), but it's possible that all the running around I've done this year has accelerated that timetable.  If so, I'm in in a very bad way because I don't have a whole lot of extra money laying around for that repair.  All the money I make scoring could be going to fixing my car.

Man, have I stepped in it now.  A couple hours ago my parents just gave me the ultimatum to move out of the house.

It started when I went back into my old bedroom and saw that My Fucking Father moved my night table.  He could only do that by emptying the magazines in the drawer -- Playboys.  I considered that an invasion of my privacy, and I bellowed downstairs at how he infantilized me.

I was ranting and raving, and hungry, and I was mad that My Fucking Father not only moved my mags but also the sandwich Mother, sweet Mother, made for me for work.  I then complained that there was a third slice of bread in the sandwich.  And that pretty much was it from her end.

Like one time before, after I announced that I was flying to Switzerland to see my sister get married, she ordered me to leave.  And that wasn't the end of it; she said she was serious.  And for about an hour she just yelled at me at how ungrateful I was.  And then My Fucking Father came up to yell at me about how dirty I was.

Man, I just hate it when My Fucking Father moves my shit.  I'll shower and brush my teeth, but he never tells me goddamn anything, he just does it.  Plus I was tired from work, and I just let off some steam.  My parents do it all the time; goddamn, I learned it from them!  But I paid.

Mother seems serious.  June 1, get out.  They made a whole new bed for me in Grandmother's old room, but my anger that they threw her out and my complaining just once about bread seems to have convinced them to fuck all those plans to shit.  I'm typing in this new room now.  I'll be sleeping in it too, in just a few minutes, in a possibly futile attempt to change their mind.  The blinds aren't even on yet, and the neighbor has a huge flood light that goes directly into my bed's line of vision.  But I will sleep here nonetheless.

Stay tuned.  I am in big, big trouble.

Eyedrop Study Fail

This week marks the last week of a 63-day project where I am supposed to put these anti-allergy eyedrops in my eyeballs twice a day.  The study ends when I come in for examination Friday.  For two months of this (and not using any allergy medication to alleviate my runny nose because that'll interfere with the effects of the eyedrops), I am getting paid three installments of $25 each.  That seems a little low, but for the most part my eyes have not itched throughout what experts say is the worst allergy season in generations.

However, I feel bad that I haven't been vigilant in either putting in the eyedrops or writing them down in the journal.  I'm supposed to take them every 12 hours, but because of work, the changing of my schedule on weekends, and forgetfulness, I am officially one dose behind.  I have tried to catch up by shrinking the time between drops to 10 (which the coordinator said I could do, although she doesn't like that), but I continually fail to keep up with that compressed schedule.  For example, I had to take my drops as soon as I got up this morning, but hearing My Fucking Father outside totally sucked up all my attention.  Combine that with a freak traffic back-up going to work this morning -- goddamn, I'm still pissed off over that because it cost me 15 minutes' worth of wages that I'll never fucking get back -- and I left the eyedrops in my trunk.  I took them a bit past noon on my lunch break; that means I took them at 10:40 tonight and (hopefully) in the 8 o'clock hour tomorrow morning.  Unfortunately this means that Thursday morning I should take them around 4 in the morning, which probably won't happen because I'll be dead asleep.  (Being asleep is the main reason I miss eyedrop sessions.)  Pushing out my drops means there's a very good chance I will be one behind when I come in on Friday afternoon.

One even worse secret: I forget the times I take the eyedrops.  I have a journal but I don't carry it around with me.  Instead I leave at it home and try to remember when I take them.  I think I've done a good-enough job, but early on, in the middle of the third week, I was filling out the blanks and saw that I had several blanks still empty.  I had no fucking idea what the times were, so I just bluffed and put times down.  I'm an idiot, a liar and an asshole, I know.  And I feel bad that this journal does not have the integrity a serious, rigorous study like this requires.

Co-Worker Apparently Can't Stand Us

The workplace at my day job consists of a large room.  It's split in half, even though there is no barrier separating us.  One of them does one grade, the other another.  Within each half are six or seven rows.  Each row has three tables set up end-to-end.  Each table has enough space for a laptop and chair.

My row has only five people ... and as of today, there are only four.  The guy sitting next to me decided he wanted to move to the back table.  I would be crushed by the rejection, but the guy seems to be kind of a creep.

We helped each other score some tests.  I, naturally, am fast.  I didn't know he was deliberate/slow.  At one point this man, who usually wore an untucked polo and shorts and has close cropped hair and a poker face, stopped me and said that he wasn't reading as fast as I was.  I apologized, but the way he said, the tone, grabbed my attention.  He didn't say that with any undercutting humor.  He seemed a bit peeved.

The woman on the other side of this guy talked to him a little more than I did, so she went back there and asked him what's up.  She told me he just wanted to move back there, where there is only one other person working, and she too left her original workstation (which was the front row, the row ahead of me, in fact the laptop right in front of me).  I actually worked with her a little bit, and she said she moved back there because it was too noisy where she was.  That excuse I can understand.  What he told her?  No.  I'm pretty sure he was just sick of me and the guy next to me constantly getting up to pee or get food or just walk around.

He's a standoffish character.  He's got the same mien of a guy who kills and dismembers prostitutes, or at the very least goes home and beats his girlfriend.  It's the quiet ones that you have to watch out for.

I'm Moving! And I Didn't Even Know It!

You know those bags I talked to you guys about yesterday, the ones that I was supposed to throw all the stuff on my desk into?  Well, that was for moving the desk to Grandmother's room.  You see, My Fucking Father has this grand masterplan that I only inferred Sunday.

When I was at a shoot Saturday afternoon, I called him to let them know what was going on.  (Well, I didn't tell them I was volunteering to be an extra in a movie, but I said I was coming home to eat.)  That's when he told me that he needed me to pack all my stuff into those bags because he planned on moving my desk into her room.  Which means that I eventually was going to take over Grandmother's bedroom as my own.  His idea, not mine.  Stupid.

What I did not surmise -- or maybe I did, I just didn't give a fuck -- was that wanted this done soon.  Like, today/Sunday.

I woke up at 1 in the afternoon.  Blissfully, they were gone.  If I was lucky, I would mow the lawn and get the laundry done while checking out Game 7 of the series between the Los Angeles Clippers and Memphis.  Once that game was done, I'd go out to Target and buy so milk and peanut butter.

But just about a half-hour later, before I could even go out to the garage and get the lawnmower, they came home.  I was so stunned that, as I stared down at them and Mother asked me if I wanted to eat some Vietnamese sandwiches they just bought, I couldn't say anything.  Mother then said I looked like I wanted to fight.  I kind of did.

So all my fucking plans were ruined.  As I thought, I wasn't able to sit down and watch the end of the game (which the visiting Clippers won, by the way) because My Fucking Father wanted to busy himself.  I helped him assemble the frame on which Grandmother's old bed would rest; it would then go into her old room, where My Fucking Father deems that I will use.

And that wasn't all.  He wanted the desk moved today as well, because there is urgency to his need to make shit new and different.  I did not clean out my desk.  I did not even take back the bags that he threw down on the floor.  I didn't even budge last night (Saturday) when he tried to find me, opened the door to my "old" room, saw that the desk was as cluttered as I wanted it to, and then yelled at me as soon as I got up from my sister's bed (I was napping) to see what the fuck was going on.  I figured I had time.  No, I didn't.  He gave me a gray tray and told me to empty everything that was on the desk into that, take out the shelves, and get him to we could move it.

I will say that I have a lot of shit on my desk.  The tub wasn't enough; I had to go and get the bags.  I cleared out my desk in protest.  I mean, why in the fuck do I have to move again?  Completely goddamn unnecessary.

This brought up another problem.  I could not take out one of the shelves because it is a locked, secure one.  In that one are all my old Playboys.  I have lost the key to that droor, so I just said to My Fucking Father that we would have to move it with it intact.

We managed to get the desk out of my "old" room by tipping it on its side.  But as my desk was sitting out where the dining table used to be, I saw him fiddling underneath it.

"There's a spare key down here," My Fucking Father said.  There is a middle shelf, right above where your legs would go if you were at your desk.  Behind the drawer, screwed into the back of the desk, is the key.  Ingenious and clever ... and totally potentially dangerous if he found out what was in the secure drawer.

Luckily for me, he didn't pry when I said I would handle it.  I took the key from him, turned my back to him as I opened up the shelf, then quickly took it off its rail and scurried into my sister's room.  After we finished moving the desk and did all this shit with Grandmother's room was done, I went back outside to finish mowing the backyard.  (I stopped midway through to catch the end of the game.)  I realized that My Fucking Father could be nosy and go into my sister's room and see the shelf, so I turned off the mower, went back inside, took the shelf from my sister's room, put it back in the desk, and locked it.

Was good to see a PB from 2000, by the way.  The Girls of Conference USA still look masturbatable.

Let's see how long I have till My Fucking Father insists I move into Grandmother's old room.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#-1: Twins (Last Week: -3).  On Thursday, the same day the Minnesota Senate passed the conference committee bill for a new Vikings stadium, thereby virtually assuring that the ViQueens would get the new home they've wanted for about a decade, the Twinks illustrated the danger, indeed the folly, of giving a professional sports team the new building they've bitched about for for years and promised would guarantee successful teams.

Toronto beat the Twinks 6-2.  This is what happened:

• Yunel Escobar scored from second on a grounder to third.  Alexi Casilla made the forceout, but he fell and didn't notice Escobar streaking around third.  Suffice it to say that professional teams would never let that happen.
• Edwin Encarnacion popped up right in front of home plate.  Both Catcher Ryan Doumit and the Starting Pitcher, Jason Marquis, got under it, but neither of them caught it.  A run scored.
• Josh Willingham could have scored from third on a ground ball, but Trevor Plouffe just put his head down and ran to second, straight into the ball and the tag.  The double play was completed before Willingham crossed home plate.
• Doumit couldn't hold on to a strike.  The ball skipped out to the right, but Doumit just stood up and looked at his feet.  The Blue Jay, whoever the fuck he was, went all the way from first to third before Doumit found the ball.

The Twinks were booed off the field after the game.  Serves them right.  They should've gotten Target Field taken away from them.

Don't forget Monday.  Jered Weaver of the Angels was pitching, the first time since he hurled a no-hitter ... against the Twinks.  How little fans regard this team that there was actual talk/fear that Weaver would be the second pitcher ever to throw back-to-back no-hitters, and the first to do it against the same squad.  Some of us just flat out believed it was going to happen.  Thankfully a Twink made a hit in the third inning.  They still lost that game, though.

And still, with all that, this club tops the WMNSS.  They lost five games, most of them in completely give-up fashion, but they did win three times, including this afternoon to salvage a split with Toronto.  My God, Minnesota is Loserville, USA again.

This week is Two-Fer Week, the time of the season where teams play two-game series, for reasons I still don't know why.  The Twinks finish their nine-game homestand Monday and Tuesday against American League Central Division-leading Cleveland, then they visit Detroit for a pair, then they start interleague play at Milwaukee for the weekend.

#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -2).  Awful.  They were swept this weekend at Nebraska.  All three games were losses by a single run.  Kick to the balls, man.

Only a series-salvaging win at home against Penn St. last Sunday prevented the Goofs from going winless this screening week.  Nevertheless they sit at 10-11 in the conference and in danger of missing the B1G Tournament.  (They currently sit 7th in the standings; if the regular season ended now, they would not make it.)  This week, to finish out their regular season, they visit the team that is currently 8th, Illinois.  The Fighting Illini have an outside chance of making the tournament, but since they're only one game worse than the Goofs in the standings, this series should be very close.

#-Infinity: Swarm (Last Week: 0).  I intended to go to last night's Western Conference Championship Game.  That day I volunteered to be an extra in a student film, where I ran into a friend of mine who is an extra a lot.  He is also a huge sports fan, as well as an avid scalper.  He sold me one of his season tickets, first row, right on the glass, and with access to The Ice Lodge, the downstairs, season ticket-holders-only bar that offered free beer, wine, pop and popcorn.  Thanks, by the way.

Too bad I was there for the most pathetic performance in Smarm history.  They not only got lost to the Edmonton Rush, they were introduced to a little bit of prison sex, 15-3.

15-3?  There are two ways to look at it.  If you've ever been to an indoor lacrosse game, one of the first things you'll notice is that the goaltender is dressed up like a box for a huge TV.  The fucker has so much padding on it's a wonder how he can walk around before his heart gives out from all the weight.  Meanwhile, the goal he's protecting seems much smaller than a hockey goal.  That should mean that no one can score in box lacrosse.  And yet it happens.

Unfortunately, last night it happened for only one team, the wrong one.  That brings up the other way to look at it: If goals are scored in spite of the big goalie and small goal, how in the fuck did the score come up so unbalanced?  I have never seen as big of a rout in a Major League Lacrosse game ever.  I've never seen a team score as few as three goals ever.  I've never seen a team score only once in three quarters, even if my eyes say that has to be the case, ever.  And I have never seen a team get completely shut out of a quarter ever, like the Smarm were in the second.  An absolute fucking embarrassment, made more shameful by the lack of answers for such a "performance."

I still don't know what the fuck happened.  I got there late because I my folks decided to surprise me by saying we were having Mother's Day dinner last night instead of today.  Five minutes were gone, but the Smarm were only down 2-1.  But then the Rush scored two goals, both stoppable.  Goaltender Ryan Kirk, despite being a rookie, should have made the saves.

And then with the score 4-1 I saw a couple breakaways.  Now the defense is failing.  Kirk was pulled for Kent (is it Kent?  Who cares) Carlson (is it Carlson?  Who cares), but he was just as much of a sieve as Kirk was.  Too many times Rush players were fed on pick-and-rolls close to the goal, and with a second to size up the shot, both Carlson and Kirk (was he put back in the game?  Who cares) guessed wrong and allowed the ball to get past them.

The nadir came at the end of the first half.  With the shot and game clocks virtually identical, typical box lacrosse strategy dictates that you pull the goalie for an extra attacker.  The Smarm did just that.  But they failed to score; more damning, they turned the ball over with time left on the clock.  Players were caught napping, because Edmonton threw the ball down to the open net for another goal, making it a 11-1 game at halftime.  Despite the Pollyanna-ish hopes of the vendor, the game was over by then.  I have never seen a team come back from that many goals down.

I got so pissed off that I actually stood up and booed the team.  I never do that.  I've wanted to do that a lot, but this is the first time I had the balls to do it, so made I was that this team decided to not care about playing when it mattered most, in front of their fans in a game whose winner would be playing for the title.  (And to rub salt in the wound, they allowed Edmonton to score on an empty-netter again to end the third quarter.)

Smarm Captain Andrew Suitor was just as pissed as I was.  Early in the fourth, knowing they were going to lose, he picked a huge fight with an opposing Rush player.  He was given a game misconduct and a shower of high fives as he was sent to the showers.  I understand Suitor's frustration, but hey, I'm just a paying customer; what the fuck did you do (or not do) in this loss?  You wanted to kick someone's ass because your asses were getting kicked.  Suitor tried to pick a fight with other Rush players as he left the field; if they were smart, they should've just told Suitor, "Scoreboard."

This team had a lot of rookies, and so they were picked to be the one team of the nine in the league not to make the playoffs.  They also switched coaches in the middle of the season, too.  So in that respect, this finish was a success.  But this was a shit performance -- almost Twins-like.  They shit themselves when they had a chance to host the title game next weekend.  And they lost to a team that was below .500, and will still be below .500 even if they win next week's Champion's Cup game at Rochester Saturday night.  Bottom line: Every team's ultimate goal should be to win the championship.  The Smarm did not do that, and therefore they failed.

After the game my friend and I were hanging out In The Ice Lodge.  I don't know him that well, but I had never pegged him to be that into sports.  But he was slowly getting more and more pissed off reflecting on the putrid Smarm loss.  He said he'd be OK if they lost 11-10.  Not me; close or blowout, if my team loses, I'd be mighty pissed off.  But honestly, I wasn't that mad last night.  Why?  I was enjoying the fact I had free beer and wine.  Don't know if I'll ever get to go down there again.  Besides, seeing the Smarm suck shit is a damn good reason to drink.

Got home tonight and what did I see under my desk?  I bunch of fucking paper bags.

My Fucking Father has continued to harp on me to clean up my stuff.  I think it's totally fine and that a little clutter, even on my desk, isn't the worst thing in the world.  Typical passive-aggressive bullshit from him -- do it, I'm watching you.

And to think I fucking listened to him when he said my clothes were dry last week.  He just wanted to use the fucking machine himself.

Goddamn, it's fucking on now.

Expenses Without Receipt

Starting with the 29th:

• We go all the way to Friday, May 4, where I finally stopped in to exercise at the gym.  Fee: $3.
• Late-Night Coffee.  This time I got an Americano with tip because they just ran out of coffee and it was an hour before closing and the owner frowns upon wasting coffee.  It was OK.  With tip, I think it was: $2.75.
• Saturday I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Version).  Coffee and tips: $10.
• Then to the Late-Night Italian Place.  By the way, is anybody digging Louie?  I'm really starting to get into his show.  I mean, really.  With tip: $9.50.
• On Sunday I went to the coffeeshop at the mall closest to me.  I need to give this place a nickname.  Coffee with tip: $2.
• Tuesday I surreptitiously visited Grandmother without my parents' permission.  Like I need their permission.  Anyway, I got so depressed that I went to The Other Late-Night Coffeeshop, The One I Try To Go To Weekend Nights (wow, that's not a bad nickname ... sorta).  Went all out with a large mocha, and with tip: $4.75.
• Thursday I went back to the same place.  I think I only asked for coffee, small.  With tip: $2.
• Today, Friday, I went to My Favorite Stripclub (Non-Cover Division) for coffee and tips again: $10.
• Late-Night Coffee, where I am currently typing these words.  I didn't realize I usually nowadays get large coffee.  I got a small coffee this time around, and even with tip it comes out to a price that is reasonable, which is rare at My Favorite Coffeeshop (Late-Night Edition): $2.

Lord, I hope that's all.  Caught up to the present day.

• ETA that I think I found a quarter on Friday the 11th.  Somewhere.  Infusion of: 25 cents.

Death Of A Run-Over Gosling

There are fucking geese everywhere in Minnesota.  I love the wildlife (such as it is), a reinforcement that the state's nickname is "The Land Of 10,000 Lakes."  There aren't lakes but bodies ... well, pockets of water around the area.  It's great for the quality of life.

It also attracts geese.  What I've learned is that geese aren't copacetic with just staying by the water.  They frequently walk to other places.  I don't know where, whether it's home or another lake or something.  But they travel.  Sometimes across busy roads during rush hour.

Several times throughout my life I have seen a goose, and sometimes a trail of goose and their kids, walk across a street.  I've stopped for one, maybe several, a couple times.  I don't think I've ever seen cars in the middle of traffic just stop, even back up traffic, to let a line of goose and goslings cross.  I have, however, seen a couple of geese, adult geese, lying dead on the pavement.  I don't ever remember running over a goose.  I think I've run over a squirrel that was dumb enough to dart across the road right in front of me.  But I don't ever want to get into a situation where a goose or goose with children in tow come steps in front of me, and I am on a road and situation where I can't stop.  I don't want to get into or cause an accident, yet knowing that I ran over one of God's creatures will kill me, even if I know I couldn't help it.

Last night, after work, with a few hours to kill before I had to go to a meeting that I didn't know was cancelled until I went to the restaurant where we usually meet, I decided to check how long it would take to go from the detoured way out of the test scoring site where I will be working all day next week to the main highway that will eventually take me to the test scoring site where I will start working part-time at nights next week.  (Let's just say that I'll have about 90 minutes to go from place to place, and I'll need every one of those minutes.)

I was getting onto the on-ramp that led me to the highway that leads me to the main highway.  Remember that this is the middle of afternoon rush; the car just ahead of me jerks over to the left side of the ramp, and if he's trying to avoid something.  I don't have the greatest reaction time, so I just kept going straight while thinking, "What could he be avoiding?"

Then I look down, understandably risky during rush hour.  I see something on the ground.  Of course it's an animal, I thought.  But as I got closer and starting to move past (and not over) it, I see that it's yellow, and moving.  And then the image becomes clear: It's a little chickadee, not walking, not really moving, just writhing. I could be wrong, but it looks like it's looking up, therefore it has its back on the ground ... which means he probably is thrashing around in pain because it got run over.  Of course, I could do nothing for him.

I also saw a goose, apparently its parent, on the side of the road, just watching.  And this is where I start to anthropomorphize these two beings.  I started to feel really bad for the goose, which I decided was a mother, and she's thinking, "NO!!!!!!!!!  MY BABY!!!!!!!!!!!  YOU BASTARDS KILLED MY BABY!!!!!!!!!!!"  And then I thought, "No, they're not humans, they're geese."  And then I thought that this goose was just watching its offspring's (possible) last seconds of life because she or he just couldn't watch, and after the motion stops and the life is taken out of him or her, she or he will just walk away, because it's a goose.  It's how I sometimes think my parents will act if I ever die in front of them.

Oh, Mother's Day is Sunday???

The Verdict Is In: I Suck At Making Chocolate-Dipped Fruit

Just spent the last three hours making six chocolate-dipped strawberries and 11 chocolate-dipped slices of banana.  It sucked, all around.

I followed the instructions on all the sites that had recipes.  I did the double-broiler method, where I boiled a pot of water, then laid a glass bowl of the chocolate chips on top of it.  I mixed it till it melted, then I dipped.

I asked my sister how to do it when she called from Europe on Monday.  Shetold me that I couldn't screw it up.  Well, I did, sis!  I did the white chocolate first.  What I did wrong, I guess, was immediate turn off the heat to let it cool (just like most of the recipes said).  When I started dipping I noticed it began to harden.  After the sixth strawberry I didn't think it was worth going on because it became this gelatinous cakey mass.  I then tried heating it up in the microwave, but I didn't notice that it was burning from the inside.

So I tried again with the dark chocolate.  This time I made sure I would not turn the heat down and just work really quickly.  Also, I had two bananas' worth of slices that I just prepared, and I was damned if they were going to waste.  But as I worked with the heat on, it too started to congeal.  You could see it in the smoothness of the bananas.  The first three look great.  The second three, well, it had some, uh, marks on them.  It really started to get bad on the third three, and the last three, well, they look like turds.  I tried for a twelfth slice, but the chocolate had solidified to the point where it wasn't sticking to the banana.  So I turned off the heat and called it a night.  I ate that banana slice and the one before it because it looked heinous.  Sugary-sweet as hell, but I could not make any more.

I've seen my sister dip strawberries and she had no problem.  I had to throw two batches away?  Making chocolate-dipped fruit sucks.  And I am terrible, too.  I knew I wasn't much of a cook, but this confirms how awful I am at making food that requires heat.  Room temperature peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for me from now on.

Man, is it going to be pathetic when I come in with 17 pieces for a workforce of 70.

Going to try and make dipped bananas and strawberries for work tonight.  Wish me luck.

Never done this before.  Don't know why I'm doing it.  Actually, I do; has to do with one of the questions at work.  But I'm just I'm going to fuck this up.  What is a double boiler, for example.  Also, I have spent an disproportional amount of angst on how am I going to hold the fruit, store the fruit, and serve the fruit.  For all those I bought wax paper and a serving tray, but I just found a serving tray downstairs.

How much money I've spent on all this has crossed my mind as well.  With all the money I've spent on this, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to serve the guys on Tuesday, and the expensive chocolate I plan on ordering for next week, I wonder how many days' worth of working am I giving back to the team.  I don't mind it -- I guess I'm just a whore when it comes to pleasing people -- but if it's, like, three days' worth, I might regret it later.

My Fucking Father Is Driving Me Nuts Lately

He sounded perturbed I was out late Sunday afternoon.  Actually I was about to head back home, but when I saw that my parents hadn't returned, I decided to trip myself to coffee at the mall.  I do not want to be home when they come home.  I avoid it at all costs.  I fear what My Fucking Father will say and/or think when my parents come through the front door and he sees me doing something he doesn't approve of.

He was already pissed me off over last night's dinner when he nagged at me to mow the lawn.  He got back at me when he had me check the dryer not once, but twice.  I guess he needed to use it and wanted me to get my clothes out of there as soon as possible.  But this is a cheap shit knockoff dryer, one so rudimentary that it only has two dials, one that you wind to start and one that has a couple notches, only one of which is labeled ("less dry" -- why would you want less dry clothes coming out of your clothes dryer?), and Grandmother frequently said that the machine wouldn't dry.

This time I was able to see for myself.  And you know, Grandmother is right -- the dryer doesn't work.  I told My Fucking Father this after he sent me downstairs, saying "Oh, it's done now!"  When I told him it wasn't, he said "OK, OK," only to repeat himself about 40 minutes later.  None of my clothes were dry, but I was so fucking tired of hearing My Fucking Father hector me about bullshit chores that I just took my goddamn clothes out of the dryer to fucking make him happy and to shut him up.  They're cooling in my clothes hamper now.

My Fucking Father just fuckin' aggravated me even more when I came home from work tonight.  There was this huge mop and industrial/janitor's bucket right in the middle of the quasi-living room (what used to be the dining room).  I then saw the doors to both of my bedrooms were wide open.  I now make it a habit to close them completely when leaving in the morning.  Since My Fucking Father was in Grandmother's room painting and/or sanding and/or whatever the fuck he was doing, I knew he kicked them open.

The invasive son-of-a-bitch moved my shit around my old/real bedroom.  There was a huge empty spot right in front of me at the door, so I think My Fucking Father was guided by his fastidious demons, took that industrial/janitor's bucket and, while cleaning all the floors on the upper floor, pushed through and mopped up my bedroom.  (I just noticed as I typed this that the black marks made by the rollers of the chair I am sitting on right now are completely gone.  So the guy was on his hands and knees, in my bedroom, wiping away all those marks.)  I would thank him, but I honestly believe it was completely unnecessary.

I was waiting for him to bitch about the work he thought he needed to do for me, and sure enough, before dinner he told me yet again to throw all my shit away.  I did a lot of that on Sunday, but no, goddammit, he is not going to be happy until every single room consists of just a mattress on a floor.  I really believe that, he is that motherfucking crazy.  So I yell back: "What else in my bedroom do you think I need to remove?  The chair?  The pillows?  The desk?"  He dropped the subject because the chicken was ready, but this will not be the end of it, goddamn.

Facebook Has Disabled My Account

Maybe the warning that I could not friend request people for a month for a second time led to this.  As I've said before, facebook doesn't weed out people who have already rejected my friend requests when they pop up on your page as "People You May Know."  And now they want to block me?

But what I discovered tonight has been more disheartening.  I tried logging into my facebook.  I got that wrong password message, so I typed it in again.  But it kept popping up, so I thought it was something else, like my caps lock was down, or maybe some asshole hacked into it.

But then I actually looked at the screen.  Maybe somebody didn't hack into my account though my password, because it said my account has been disabled.  I clicked where it said how to restore it, and facebook is saying that I not only have to use my full name, but to make sure that I gave them my real name I have to upload a legal document containing my name.  Jigga-wha???????????????????????

This is a private company, right?  Do they have a right to do that?  I guess you have a right to say no, but when has a social media company demanded legal national documentation that you are you?  Why can't I continue to do shit on facebook under my alias?  Is it a new policy?  Are they cracking down on a current one?  Is it the friend requests, where they decided to renege on their 30-day warning and give me something harsher out of the blue?  Or is it my constant pervo comments towards the Playmate models, porn stars and other sexy-as-fuck models I'm "friends" with over there?  Some of them wrote back to me, and that always made my day.

I don't know what to do.  Maybe it's a 30-day cooling-down period.  Maybe I'll just hang back for a month and then sign in again after it blows over.  Or, maybe they're serious about knowing who I really am.  If that's the case, I'm out ... and going back to MySpace.

The Weekly Minnesota Sports Survey

#0: Swarm (Last Week: -2).  For the first time in franchise history, the Minnesota Swarm have won a playoff game.  And they upset a team on the road to do it.  Rookie Goalie Evan Kirk stopped 35-of-45 shots as they beat the Colorado Mammoth Saturday night, 14-10.

Even though the Mammoth finished two games better than the Swarm in the regular season, Minnesota had most of the momentum stats.  They beat the Mammoth to finish the regular season last Saturday.  This victory stretches their current winning streak to five games.  Meanwhile, Colorado finishes their year with a record of 11-6 ... with all those losses coming in a six-game losing slump.  And probably the most telling statistic: They are now 10-0 when leading after three quarters.  For a team with a lot of first-year players, that shows that the Swarm have a lot of gumption when it matters most.

So, next Saturday is the Western Conference Championship Game, with the winner going to the Champion's Cup.  Even more amazing, the Swarm will play the game at home.  That's because the Edmonton Rush, with a record of 6-10, defeated not only the top seed in the West but the team with the best record in the National Lacrosse League, the Calgary Roughnecks, Saturday night.  And it wasn't close: The Rush trounced Calgary in Calgary 19-11.  (This is how screwy things got last night: Calgary and Colorado were the two best teams in the NLL, with 12-4 and 11-5 regular season records, respectively.  The next best were Minnesota and Toronto, both at 9-7.  Those two teams are now the remaining ones with the best records, but with 10-7 composite records neither team has more wins than the Roughnecks or Mammoth.  By the way, the Rock will host the Rochester Knighthawks for the Eastern Conference Championship.  That's a matchup between the top two seeds, so there were no upsets in the East.)  Because the game will be televised, it will start at 8:30 at the X.  I now know what I'm going to do next Saturday ... and I can even have a proper dinner at a proper time before leaving for St. Paul.

#-1: Gopher ... oh, I'll say football (Re-Entry!).  I should have done this last week, but the hiring of Norwood (Young America) Teague to replace Joel Maturi as the U.'s Athletic Director about ten days ago kind of slipped through my mental cracks.

All in all, not a bad hire.  The main thing Minnesota President Eric Kaler needed to find was a guy who could fundraise.  Teague can do that: At Virginia Commonwealth, the university from which he's ditching for the Goofs, he raised enough money to give its basketball program a new practice facility.  Of course, winning opens up the wallets more than anything, so do not overrate an AD's glad-handing in the face of a young coach like Shaka Smart knowing how to succeed.  But who hired Smart?  Teague.  So he should get credit for hiring the right coach.  And he could repeat hiring Smart if (when?) Tubby Smith moves on out.  That would get the boosters' pee-pees hardening.

That VCU has no football program shouldn't be too much of a problem.  It's true that the football program needs more tending than any other on campus, but it's not as if Teague looks at a football and goes, "Der, what is dis?"  Before taking over VCU's athletic program, he worked in the athletic departments in Virginia and North Carolina (his alma mater), as well as heading Arizona St.'s media arm.  They have football programs (although, to be honest, none of those schools are football schools), and I'm pretty sure Teague knows that in college, football pulls the train.  He is not stupid, and he will do all he can to resurrect U. football from the dead.

Football is not a reservation for me.  But I do have two.  One is another program, hockey.  After years of listing, both the men's and women's programs have resumed their rightful places as power teams in Division I (the women won the NCAA championship, the men reached the Frozen Four).  Minnesota is one of those rare top-flight schools that have a third revenue-producing sport.  But some people think that there is so much support for the hockey programs that they virtually run themselves.  So how will the relationship between the hockey teams and Teague be?  He is a Raleigh, N.C. native, definitely not hockey country (and no, the Carolina Hurricanes don't count).  Will that deter him if he's the controlling type, and if so, will the hockey contingent in Dinkytown chafe?  Conversely, will he defer to the braintrust already in place if he doesn't believe he needs to provide input?  If so, what will happen if the women stop winning titles and the men begin missing the postseason again?

My other concern jumps off of my hockey concern.  Minnesota remains a very provincial state.  Norwood Teague (who is gay single, by the way) is not One Of Us.  There are people who think the booster club, the M Club, wields too much power and promotes local people to the college's detriment, such as the impotent Maturi.  How willing is the M Club going to compromise to Teague's initiatives?  I'm not saying he won't fail to raise the money the U. needs to get the b-ball program a new practice facility, sign Smith to a contract extension, get Siebert Field fully instead of partially rebuilt, and reinvigorate the football season ticket base.  But if the M Club automatically rejects his overtures -- and that's something I can see -- the honeymoon is over quick, and the U. is stuck in neutral, like they seem to be now, for longer.

#-2: Gopher baseball (Last Week: -3).  Oh, and speaking of Siebert Field ... the last game ever at the old place, a 9-2 win over St. Thomas, is the only one of the four games the team this screening week.  There was no fucking way they were going to lose the last game ever at Siebert Field; that's why they scheduled a small school like St. Thomas.

I thought about going to the game, but two things dissuaded me: The opponent and the fact that they are going to rebuild right about on the same plot of land.  Can you really say goodbye to an edifice if the new edifice is going right on top of old one?  I don't think so.  Now if it were going to be built in an entirely new place, I could understand the sentiment.  But I don't know if Siebert Field is really going to be "gone" after they tear it down, you know?

Unfortunately, the three losses are all in-conference.  Two of them went to extra innings.  The one that wasn't was Saturday's special game at Target Field.  I said last week I was going to go to the game, but two things happened.  First, I was asked to come into work for some overtime Saturday, and we could work until 2, which is when the game was supposed to start.  I wanted to see the game, but hey, I couldn't pass up time-and-a-half.  Second, the weather forecast wasn't entirely clear, and after work, after 2, and as I drove towards downtown, the drizzle became a storm, then became a deluge.  By the time I got to the stadium, all I saw were people finding any shelter they could from the storm.  I felt like shit because the day before I told him I was going to be late to the game but I promised him I would go.  But I had no idea how long we would have to wait till the storm blew over, and frankly, I did not want to hang out in the rain, even with a friend.  So I went down to the Mall of America and ate at Hooters instead.

They didn't call the game.  The storm stopped in the early evening, and they finally began the game (they didn't even manage to start it) after three fucking hours.  Three hours?  That sucks.  And my friend left me a voicemail tonight that he stayed through the whole goddamn thing because he already paid ten bucks to get in.  And by the way, they lost to Penn St. 5-1.  Shit man; I feel so bad for my friend that I feel like I should pay him back.

By the way, they are now 9-8 in the Big Ten.  They, and the rest of the conference, are behind Purdue, which is ranked in the Top 15 (maybe as high as 11).  A Big Ten team that highly ranked?  That's like spotting a unicorn or something.  The Gophers should be glad they don't face them this year.  They do, however, play Penn St. tomorrow (at the Metrodome) trying to avoid the sweep.  That will be the last home game of the year for them; they start a three-game series at Nebraska next week.

#-3: Twins (Last Week: -4).  A 2-4 week -- a better percentage for the week that the Goofs, but it was the way the Twinks lost that puts them again at rock bottom.

Such rock bottom had to be the midweek series against the Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of Los Angeles Angels Of Anaheim Angels Of ..., where they were swept by a combined score total of 17-3.  And oh, the no-hitter by Jered Weaver.  That came in the series finale, where the squad was crushed 9-0.  Usually in a no-hitter there is one spectacular catch or throw that you can point to and say that that was the play that saved the no-hitter.  I heard this secondhand, but in the Twinks' post-game show on FOX Sports North, Anthony LaPanta said that there was no such play.  Every out came easy.  And that is the no low this club, for which we paid $360 to build a new stadium, slums in.

Manager Ron Gardenhire is not in Seattle for this weekend's series with the Mariners.  No, he doesn't need to get away from his players; he is spending time seeing his daughter graduate.  I would not blame him if he never wanted to come back.  Hell, I wouldn't blame the front office for firing Gardenhire, either.  I don't know who to blame, it's that this team is so awful, I want somebody to pay.

At least they beat Seattle on Friday, even though they had to hang on, 3-2.  But on Saturday night they went back to their dominated ways, getting shut out 7-0 to a bad Mariners ballclub.  This marks the third time this screening week where they were shut out.

So the offense sucks.  Joe Mauer is hitting around .300, too low for a guy who's supposed to be one of the best players in the league.  Justin Morneau is hurt, again.  The starting rotation blows big chunks because they can barely get through five innings.  Closer Matt Capps is unreliable.  They can't hit for shit.  They can't bring in runners in scoring position.  They cut Clete Thomas, a man they rescued after he was cut from Detroit, because they no longer could stand seeing him strike out every other at-bat.  They replaced Thomas with some guy with a Japanese-sounding name.  They are just throwing warm bodies into the lineup while keeping their best guys down in the minors so that they don't waste their at-bats for a shitty team, all the while trying to seed the farm system with draft picks that will drag this organization out of a morass of its own making.  It's going to be a long, long season.

This week: Finish up in Seattle, then a nine-game homestand, staring with a return engagement by the Angels (Weaver is on track to play the Twinks either on Monday or Tuesday), followed by Toronto.

Thank You, Sirius XM: Your New Online Player Now Actually Works!!!

Please note that at a quarter past the witching hour last night, I was at My Favorite Coffeehouse (Late-Night Edition) and tried to listen to satellite radio online.  Unlike before, I was not given a choice if I wanted to try the up-till-now broken beta player or the old one; now, I was automatically sent to the login screen for the new player.

Well, beta testing must be over, because on a whim I tried it, and the damn thing actually works!  It remembered my username and password, and I got on like a snap.  And better yet, the interface is vastly better than the version I've been forced to use.  No more vertical lines as slender as a model; they went back to the old school, the old-old version of the online player I used when I first got XM.  The channels are fat and horizontal.  Moreover, they have small graphics showing the albums of the songs currently playing on each channel.  I haven't figured out all the new quirks; I think I was automatically sent to recorded music because I had to switch to a "Listen Live" button, for example.  But I love it!

Laziness was the only reason I didn't complain to Sirius XM; only if I couldn't listen online for, like, a week would I call or contact them.  But good things come to those who wait, I guess.  I think I'm going to like this new online satellite radio player.  Finally, I don't have to bitch about Sirius XM anymore!

Ruining The Good Vibes At Dinner

So yesterday was a good day for family relations at the house -- little arguing, no nagging, had to take a shower before eating, but hey, compromises, right?

Just as we assembled for dinner and I internally noted the comity of the place, I realized something: I had to break the news to my folks that the rebate for the anti-virus software they made me buy (for $60) was no good and that they had to eat the full price of the thing.

I did blog about this.  But to recap: I was just chillin' in my room when My Father called me from downstairs and wanted me to get this great deal for him online.  His friend said that this anti-virus software would actually pay him one penny once you send in the rebate.  The $60 was charged to his card and the software came and I installed it even though it was unnecessary and it's all bullshit, and then he was being an asshole and I didn't give two shits about this software, and then one day he reminds me to send the rebate in.  I look and the rebate had to be in by New Year's Eve, thereabouts.  Moreover, to be eligible for the rebate you had to send in proof of a previous anti-virus software.  We were late and ineligible.

I didn't want to tell him I fucked up and he fucked up, however.  So I took advantage of the customary two-to-three-month lag time for getting your rebate money and held off My Father's repeated questioning with, "They're not done yet."  I told them it'd take up to three months.  And three months is about now.

He last reminded me earlier this week.  Couldn't delay it any longer.  So now we're at the dining table and the first thought I have is, "Yeah, this is a great time to tell him the rebate's no good!"  But then I thought, "Wait, this is totally going to fuck up the mood of the table."  And then I thought: "Great, now My Fucking Father is going to be mad at me."  But then I had my final thought: "Might as well tell him; he'll get mad at you about something anyway."

So as we sat down I said, "Bad news. ..." and then I told them about the rebate.  I said they needed proof we (or him, since this is My Father's idea) bought previous anti-virus software, so it's not completely lying.  He became silent.  Mother, as is her wont, started asking questions, then started asking stupid questions, the ones that usually start with, "Well, why didn't you ... ?"  In this case it was, "Well, why didn't you know you had to have anti-virus software before???"  I totally threw My Father under the bus: "I didn't know what the rules are when Father made me buy it.  I just bought it!"  That, thankfully, shut her up.

The mood chilled incredibly after that.  They spoke a little, even heard a chuckle coming from both once or twice, but the light mood that probably was there was gone.

We haven't discussed the rebate ever since, so I guess that subject is over.  Whether they get mad at me at this by transferring their anger to something remains to be seen.

Having No Bed Is Fucking Up My Style

This shit is also pissing me off.  It's been just over a month since My Fucking Father woke me up on a Saturday morning and made me help him steal my bed almost literally from under me.  Ever since I've been sleeping in my sister's large (and, actually, quite comfy) bed in what used to be her room (which used to be a room my brother and I shared, which was originally intended to be my room only when the addition to the house was built, but that may or may not be another story), I've had to divide my team between my actual bedroom to watch TV and her room to sleep.

Watching TV and sleeping: The two things in my life I need the most.  One of the great joys I have is getting into my jammies, rolling into bed, turning on the TV and just laying there, wasting my day away.  I can't do that now.  Either I pass out in my bed without being able to watch television, or I watch television but have to sit upright on my chair that has no support for my back.  I don't like being forced to choose this way.

Using my computer has also turned into a quandary.  I usually use it in my bedroom, and it's OK, though the desk I put it on isn't wide enough for the end of the laptop, where I usually rest my hands, so I'm always afraid I'll push down on it and tip it over and have it injure my groin or something.  I can and have also used my computer in my sister's room, right next to my bed, but the arrangement there is a bit different.  There's an ottoman I actually sit on; there's a pink chair where I lay the laptop.  But I have to put the mouse and pad on the bed right next to me.  Whenever I have to use the mouse, I have to lift my arm up to my side to use it.  The arrangement is not ergonomically sound, and after I use it my hand and wrist hurts a lot.  Thus, I have limited the times I use my laptop there, and I haven't gotten around to using it somewhere else in my sister's bedroom.

What I've tried to do to is use my blanket and pillows from my old bed.  My Fucking Father did not take them to the nursing home, using her blanket and pillows from Grandmother's old bed instead.  (By the way, her old mattress and bedspring are now in the living room while My Fucking Father is busying renovating Grandmother's old bedroom.)  Right where my bed used to be I put the blanket down on the floor and arranged the pillows around it.  I then framed a nightstand and a box filled with newspapers, so that if I ever do turn on the TV and manage to fall asleep on the floor, my head could eventually rest on either backstops if the pillows don't do the trick.

I have yet to manage to fall asleep, though.  I'm still having trouble getting the antenna in the right position to get Channel 11.  I can't really get Channel 9, either.  That means that late night I get Letterman and then Kimmel.  Not too bad, but if Fallon or even Daly are good, I would to have the option of watching that instead.

This will all change in August.  That's when my cousin gets married.  My sister and brother-in-law will come from Europe, and they'll have to get their bedroom for the weekend.  I assume My Fucking Father has some damn plan for where I can lay my head, one that's good enough to use permanently.  I assume. ...