In case anyone hasn't read it on the Vagrant Cafe board or wherever else yet, my computer was stolen this past weekend. I'm sick of repeating the details (and I'm sure most of you have seen the thread on the board, anyway), at least what's gone on the past few days, so for right now I'll leave it at that. I did go to the police station last night to add to the report and it hadn't been filed yet. That's understandable -- anyone who has to patrol the area of town we recently lived in has a lot going on and paperwork probably isn't a priority. They just did a prostitution-related sting and hauled in 13. On the other hand, I really would like to work with my insurance company and get a new computer ASAP. I'm sure we're in for a nice long drawn-out situation here. If only I could throw my Christianity aside for half an hour and just beat my former roommate into confessing and getting it back for me (though for legal purposes, I'm not necessarily accusing him here, understand?) along with the money he owes Ben and myself. I've been looking forward to finally having some time to write this semester I'm taking off, and the new office in the apartment is perfect...so it only figures something like this happens to knock everything off. After this is all over I'll probably use some of that eventual writing time to describe exactly what sort of person that former roommate is (and it's not Ben or Dean, just to avoid confusion).

Since Stacey works out at a school way out west and has a class (two days a week) here on campus that gets over half an hour after I get off work, we're just carpooling on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I do enjoy having the extra nearly an hour before work to just sort of ease into things and do various Internet-related things I can't do anywhere else for the time being. On the other hand, I can't really truthfully put a happy face on waking up before 6am.

Now that I think about it, today would have been much better spent locking myself alone in a room and listening to various Gram Parsons projects. When variety would become a factor, I'd summon Son House, Skip James, Blind Willie McTell, Charley Patton, Mississippi John Hurt and a few others to the rescue.

Stay tuned for an incoherent ramble that pits my feminist ideals versus my suppressed warped misogyny.

Our landlord called me Tuesday afternoon and said we could officially begin habitation. We love the new place and hopefully I'll have some pictures in a couple weeks. We're still moving in a few more things from our old places, getting utilities and internet and such switched over, and arranging everything so my time after work finds itself full of these maneuvers.
With this being the first week of school (and last week sorority recruitment, which I won't discuss here), work is fairly busy and interesting as well. My boss and I somehow managed to squeak in time to do my 6 month evaluation. We agree I'm not necessarily the best fit for the job; most of my talents aren't put to use and the job requires talents I don't necessarily possess in more than tiny quantities. While I'm "trying very hard," the job is pretty conflicting with my personality and that shows up. I'm still good enough to be taken off the 6 month probation (that everyone is under their first six months) and not in danger of losing my job, but we both agree it shouldn't be any big surprise when sometime in the next few months I'm at least actively looking for a better job for me. It's refreshing to have a nice honest talk to a boss about this sort of thing. The key here is to find a job that capitalizes on my ability to "be creative" and "analyze," and preferably one that doesn't have anything to do with a deep fryer. In the Bush economy, a BA in General Studies doesn't mean much (if it ever did).

Switching gears back to the first topic for a sentence or two...
Once I'm nicely moved in and have my little home office set up, the Vagrant Cafe zine is actually going to start happening again. I'm bursting with the need to write; let's hope it's still there when the time comes.

Thanks for reading the most boring paragraphs you'll read this week.

First thing first: weddingphotos.

Second, update on relocations.
This is from an email I wrote earlier tonight. I'm tired and when I'm tired, I get lazy and slip into parenthetical bliss (ie self-indulgent rambling) far too often.

"Well, today Stacey and I rented a U-haul and moved all the big (as in, won't fit into the car even with the back seat taken out and lubricant applied to the nearly crushed object) stuff. Our landlord and one of his contractors were out there putting on some finishing touches on some window screens. He said that he scheduled an appointment with the inspector (the final one!) for Monday at 3pm. So...Lord willing and the roof don't leak (because while we live by a creek/river, the Missouri River in fact, it would still take quite a rising for us to be affected) or whatever else, we'll be able to actually stay there and such on Monday night or Tuesday (depending on how soon the water gets turned on). We'll be sleeping on a sleeping bag and blankets the next couple nights but we've got good things in sight so it makes things easier. We still have a number of things and miscellaneous items to move from both places, but the corner is turned.
Speaking of moving, a lady in our church named Linda is moving this next week...tomorrow's her last day. Her husband got a job as a principal in a Christian school waaay up in Minnesota somewhere up near the Canadian border. She and her husband both go to our church but she a lot more regularly...she's been very involved in our little choir (another gentleman just joined the other two of us so at least there will still be 3), is on the parish council, and was head of the Christian Education department and also taught the younger kids (which as far as Sunday School is concerned, is almost always just one little boy named Phillip) and occasionally filled in for me with the older kids. Stacey's going to take over her Sunday School duties (she's very excited about this and her high-level CEF training will be put to great use, hopefully we can get more kids coming) so it's kind of cool that the two of us are basically the Sunday School (well, not adults) teaching department, but Linda will definitely be missed. She's a very good friend to Stacey and myself and, obviously, a very important part of our church. Anyway, things do go on and we all have our seasons. Some little church way up north there is about to be very blessed, I know that much.
Anyway, please pray for safety and acclimation on their behalf..."

Right now I'm watching a Music Choice hour program of Nelly McCay.

I was watching the Cubs, who mounted a lovely 9th inning rally against the Houston Astros. Unfortunately their bullpen has made a habit of blowing leads lately and it happened again.

Funny what shows up here when I'm in a writing mood but my head hurts and I know I've no more creativity to offer as long as we're partially moved. I have half-thoughts wafting about up in there but lack the energy to really do much with them but mumble, nod, and emit the occasional definitive "HMM." The job has a big effect, admittedly, but I'm trying to whine less and look around more. I recently took one of those "what kind of job should you have?" tests and while I didn't feel like plunking over the $15 just to find out specifics that I probably already know, it said my job match type is one in which I can be "creative and analytical." They're right and we all, I mean I and my boss and my co-workers and my wife and my friends, we all know it. The question now is to figure out how to get there.

Other things I could write about, just to do it...
*The Cursive (and Criteria opening impressively) show the other night
*The breakfast sandwich the Perk Ave. Cafe makes with eggs, cheese, hashbrowns all mixed together and placed in an English muffin
*Alvarado's, an incredible and inexpensive truly authentic Mexican joint (well, they have several) here in town
*How exciting it is for Smile to finally be formally and officially released
*My recent delve into reading Kafka and wondering how I never read him before now
*Why 8 inches is an appropriate size for a sub-style sandwich (6 inches too short, 10+ too long!)

Here's something. This commercial on is about how the cable company is SUPER because they sponsored a bunch of kids from the Boys and Girls Clubs to go to the Cox Classic. That makes no sense to people not from here, so let me explain...they're taking a bunch of inner city kids to go watch a local golf tournament. I suppose it's nice that they're at least not oblivious to the community, but pointless "philanthropy" doesn't seem much more desirable. Treating inner city kids to a golf tournament, giving homeless people tickets to amusement parks, bestowing upon the toothless to a T-bone steak, the record labels sending 800 copies of the same cd to libraries (this really happened recently)...it's like expecting a president and vice president in bed with oil companies to allow anyone but their pals to set oil industry regulations or do much of anything about health standards when their campaign benefited from millions donated by junk food industry executives.

It's now 10pm and my body is sore and I'm not going to get much farther without becoming absolutely unglued in my ramblings, so there you go.

The first thing I needed to do this morning when I got to work was make copies of papers. Not a tough job, even for me. However, a mysterious sticky brown substance was all over the copier when I went to use it. People wonder why secretaries are absolute nazis sometimes...things like this are why. I don't mind cleaning at all, but being given a project with a deadline (and being told about it as you're leaving the night before, no less) of early the next morning and arriving to a mess gets me pulling out the depressing job search page again. What blows my mind isn't that someone somehow spilled whatever on the copier -- most likely someone was just sloppy with his or her soday -- but that they didn't even bother to wipe it up. Amazing.

Now playing: The International Submarine Band. Not nearly as lush or harmonic as Sweetheart of the Rodeo and one doesn't get the impression that the singer is flirting with destruction in the same way as rings through on Parsons' solo albums, but sweet listening nonetheless.

In other news, supposedly one of the inspectors is going through the new place this morning and the final inspector is pretty quick and easy once that's over. We might actually be moving by the end of the week, which is a pretty exciting prospect. I'm woefully out of shape and this could be a real challenge but the truth is that perhaps the road to recovery sometimes begins from undesired necessity. I've now been living out of a duffel bag for nearly a month and for a year and a half before that, I've been letting other people use my dresser while I lived in the basement and kept clothes in boxes both plastic and cardboard or hung them from pipes overhead. I mind that sort of thing a whole lot less than one might think and certainly less than most Americans but all the same I'll enjoy the ability to actually keep my clothes and other things in some sort of order.

The big music news buzzing across the 'net (so why mention it here?) is that a few artists are joining together for a brief "Vote for Change" tour that will be sort of the "headliners" amongst other artists (and some smaller shows won't feature the headliners; in other words, there are several "Vote for Change" tours going on)...the main one being Bruce Springsteen, Bright Eyes and R.E.M. (and for some reason, John Fogerty tacked on there). I guess the Pearl Jam and Death Cab for Cutie tour is big-name...I'd love to go see My Morning Jacket again if they weren't opening for Dave Matthews (though Jurassic 5 on that tour is tempting). The closest tour to me is the Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt, Keb 'Mo one. Nebraska is as far from being a battleground state as it gets, so none of these are coming to Nebraska or Lincoln.

I'm curious how (or if) the Bush Administration will counter. Maybe a Toby Keith, William Hung, Ted Nugent tour? Omaha can only hope. Anyone who's seen Fahrenheit 9/11 knows Britney is probably a Bush supporter, but that would be a pretty lousy move on the Republican part on a number of levels.

As of last night, two inspectors still need to go through our new place before we can move in. A couch at Retro has our name on it and the management insists we get it picked up this weekend...unless things get pushed through in the next two days, we'll have to rent a truck or van just to get the couch and I have no idea where we're going to put it. Not Good.

Just for fun I think I'm going to start posting my updates to both my regular site and on Xanga and LiveJournal as well. That way those who read my comments on their blogs can just click and read if they choose. Presumptuous and self-indulgent, I agree.

Thank you, Michial...I don't know if anyone's, you know, perfect perfect perfect...but for sure, she's great for me and I love her a ton.

Update on the discs and whatnot...I think I found them, so we're all off the hook for now. This time it was a case of my memory being somewhat shoddy.

Still no news on the moving front yet. We have, however, determined that Flannery's the one having the most difficult time adjusting to the present situation of cramming into the efficiency. While she's not the one who has to leave most of his stuff to the trust of strangers and has to watch Cubs games and use his computers in a place other than where he sleeps, she also has no concept that this is only going to be for a short time, not to mention she's the one who keeps getting touched just after she bathes herself. Flannery and I both wake each other up far too often, but at least she gets to sleep during the day while I'm gone.

Let's start this positively:
(1) Married life is wonderful. Stacey is better for me than anyone would probably be able to realize. Not that some people don't know me, but I myself keep finding ways she's exactly who balances me out, adds those little (and big) things that make things much better. I realize in reading this that it's probably typical schmoopy drivel, so I'll scrape a little deeper. See, I tend to be a neurotic, paranoid, self-centered person. I come off to most people as pretty laid back, but I'm terribly moody and often pretty tense. Some of this may even come off later in the post. Anyway, right now situations are pretty far from where we'd like them to be regarding various stations in life, and that's being very euphemistic and nice about things (both for brevity and just in case others at my job stumble on this)...and she's really kept me in rein, talked me down from doing stupid things, been a calming influence when I've needed it but also given me spark when needed. As selfish as I can be, I can also be lazy and sometimes need a little urging when it comes to actually taking care of myself. So there you have it, vague, somewhat euphemistic and evasive.
(2) I decided not long ago that high atop the list of authors with whom I need to become familiar is Franz Kafka. In Chicago I found a nice collection at a good price (used, at BookWorks on Clark) and am starting to read a bit here and there when I can. The short stories I've read so far have really buzzed me. I'm hoping to get to more of it as time goes on.
(3) After our Indiana reception we brought back some of the homemade breads with us...pumpkin bread, I forget what else. It's in the freezer and we eat it sometimes for breakfast. Anyway, for some reason it's really hitting the spot this morning.

Now on to other things...
(1) We're still waiting to move into our new place. Because it's undergone quite a few (quite nice, in fact) changes and remodeling and renovation it has to be inspected by various city inspectors. The plumbing inspector has come through, apparently, but the electrical and general inspectors are dawdling, it seems. We were hoping to start moving in this past weekend and were fairly frustrated that we couldn't. So many other things are leaning on this before we can take care of them...all those crazy things you have to take care of when you get married and/or move, like insurance, school stuff, auto information, utility switchovers, etc. Living in a tiny efficiency with boxes stacked everywhere (that's where we sleep) and also kind of living in my old townhouse because that's where most of my stuff and the computers are...it got old about the second day we did that, which was...a week ago. Now it's just plain driving me insane, both for obvious reasons and for what will be discussed in #2.
(2) I ran by the townhouse early this morning to burn off a disc with some files. My blank discs are nowhere to be found. I'd not used any since before the wedding but I know I had quite a few left. Granted, the area where they would be is a bit messy, but they're on a spindle and rather hard to miss. I keep them in one of two places all the time (unless they're all on top of my desk) and they're not either of those places. Realistically, I could just have bumped them somewhere while in the process of finding something else or something but...I have more than a slight suspicion that they went the same place the batteries did. The batteries irritated me, but if later tonight I can't find the discs, I'm going to be very upset. If only we could just start moving today...
(3) Rather than be vague and euphemistic, I'll just otherwise leave this one blank.