This damn journal just won't fade into oblivion. I'm still lurking here on and off, enjoying the giggling perversion that informs the comments littered about the off-topic board. There's really no other place like the IRC.

Too bad I'm not funny.

So what's worth writing about? What do I want to read in a year to help me remember? I guess I should start with the mundane list of notable events. I have the same job. My car's transmission died while simultaneously everybody I live with lost their jobs. So I paid all the bills and drove their cars. That was 3 months ago. I'm still saving to get my trans rebuilt. They are still unemployed.

I went to the Barack Obama rally the night before the most disappointing election of my electoral life. Obama won, and I felt like I was was really close to a rock star when Obama spoke. First time I've felt like that since I met Moby before he became a VH1 category semistar. The other Illinois senator, Dick Durbin, was there too. My Congressman, Rahm Emanuel, and Jesse Jackson Jr., also. I'm a politics geek. Damn the optimism informing my passions and the crushing hollowness of November 4th.

That Christmas party I mentioned a few posts back, nearly a year ago? Same thing, same family, this Saturday. Rosalita died two weeks ago. I wonder what mentally absent elderly person will be non-threatening enough for me to spend my time listening to this time. Some of this family knows about my politics now, and they're been talking. I expect to take a lot of shit. Hopefully the food doesn't taste like corpse in a blender this time. Next year I had better be far, far away from this godforsaken lot.

I eat beans. I am a now a grand master of deploying dehydrated Zatarain's packets into both cold or boiling water. I am also addicted to the fiery death of Buffalo Wild Wings blazin hot wings. I had to stop at three gas stations on the way to work this morning because of them.

I am considering quitting drinking and drugs. My consumption has tailed off considerably in recent months, particularly alcohol. Somehow it stopped being fun, so I started doing cocaine on Saturday nights, which lasted a month. Then I started getting headaches. I never get headaches. Dehydration and nausea from alcohol consumption, but never headaches. So no more coke. Since then I also haven't had any alcohol. 2 weeks ago. That's millenia for me. Yes, plural intended. I ran out of pot three days ago, and apart from some trouble sleeping, I have no desire for that either.

I think I'll try some excersize. I hear that's some pretty good shit.

Hmm, what else. So much has happened, yet little of consequence. Not good. Saving for my car repairs has instilled a sliver or fiscal discipline in me. Just a sliver. Should be enough, if I can continue the pattern, to get me saved up and moved away from Tom and Sandy. They really drive me batshit.

Oh yeah, there is one other thing. If you're one of the two or three inhabitants who've read this thing from the start, you may remember my buddy Steve that was running an FOP charity scam. I don't know if I mentioned this, but he had stolen employees from a "legit" operation that actually gave the FOP about 10% of their take and was licensed and all that. He did this by offering a higher commission. His thing lasted over a year and all together they raked just over six figures. Some of his guys were doing prank calls on the side, and they began calling Frank, their former employer, owner of the "legit" FOP charity and also part-time corrections officer at Cook County Jail at 26th and California. He's fat, I guess. I never met him. But they'd leave message after message when he stopped picking up the phone. All they would say were different foods and dishes. "Turkey tetrazini. Broccoli cheese soup. Fuckin pork n beans, you fuck. Banana chocolate sherbet, godamnit." He figured out who it was, used his police connections to trace their unlisted numbers, and sicced plainclothes detectives on them. Combine that with Steve's DUI charge two months ago from fishing in the middle of the night on the Fox River in Lake County, and he's got a whole swarm of badge wearing angry people looking for him. I helped him get his stuff out of his apartment and office before they came for him. I guess they were dumb enough to call and threaten him two days before they showed up with handcuffs. Which was the same day he was supposed to report to serve 14 days on the DUI. He's tiptoeing from shadow to shadow around Chicago now. I hope he's okay. His folks are pissed. They're still not going to apologize for kicking him out 9 years ago when he was 16. When we were teenagers we all knew Steve was trouble. I'm the only one who didn't mind.
8:12 PM - Bottle Rocket Fire Alarm