Yep. I'm not at work today because I'm at home with a head cold. It's been raining and cold all day. Both those things feel like they're never going to end. What a recipe for depression. So I'm trying to fight it off...the cold and the black mood. At least with the rain, I can say to myself that it's for the best because we need it. It's been a long time since I posted. I thought it was a good idea because as I was typing a letter to my friend I found it was taking my mind of things. 

But that's enough gloom. I have to say something happy now. Waffles! Doctor Who! Jellyroll Morton! Sam Tyler! Catwoman! Ah, that's better. I think I can even breathe better now. Catch ya'll later.

So...the spouse and I went to the NC State Fair 2 days ago and I've got to say that everything I though could be fun about a State Fair happened and then some.  I could say how much livestock we got to see from around the state and the sheer variety of it and someone listening could be confused why it was so cool, but it was. We left the spectacle of rides, games, and fried food to commune with various animals and for some of them, watch them compete in races. I didn't even know Mt Olive was in NC, but they had a booth, and a highlight was not only eating two huge pickles at the Fair, but leaving the Fair with a gallon jar of sours, which is not even sold commercially, for $4. All in all, I'd say we got the best of the Fair all around.

I didn't have any GREAT ideas for Halloween costumes this year. The party we're going to is happening about a week and a half before Halloween but I'll be going as the Corinthian from Sandman. I'm skinny and I got the right haircut for it now. It could be considered a cop-out costume, but it's an original cop-out costume. I don't know if anyone will get it. The problem with having an original costume is it's usually kind of an inside joke.

...and I say this because days ago we were in a Hot Topic store in Durham. Since, the thought has remained with me along with the thought of a killer T-shirt they had bearing the likeness of Gary Oldman as Sirius Black. Too bad it wasn't in my size.

It sort of escaped me what I wanted to say here. I think it had something to do with buying a house and how the spouse and I are ready to, y'know, do it. We almost did this week, but someone got to it before we did. While I know that it's what I'm ready for, I think my thoughts were more along the lines of fundamental life change. When I started the first grade, I got through the first day just fine. It was a long day to be away from my mother, who stayed home with us, but it wasn't until a few days into it that the full implications hit me. I was going to be coming here every day! My teacher was compassionate but strict. I cried a lot that first week and didn't want to go back. 

To this day, at the tender age of 29, there are times when my insides squirm because I feel that everything is going to become really strange to me. It's just a gut fear and it passes quickly. Things are never anywhere near as strange as they seem. The last time I started a new job, by the end of the day I thought of coming home to my wife the same way I thought of coming home to my mother in the first grade. Things went well. It was all just unfamiliar. 

In the end, when I choose to confront fear, it vanishes.

So, the spouse and I went to thrift stores on Tuesday. I had almost become too jaded on checking boxes of old LP's, thinking, "There's never anything in those things." They're almost invariably full of stuff no one's ever going to buy; you know: Frampton Comes Alive; Organ and Chimes; Lawrence Welk; Music for People Who Hate Music, vol. 6. Petroleum companies would do well to just gather them all up and turn them into gasoline.  

But, no! (ah, the romance!) I found Tom Waits' Nighthawks at the Diner. Needless to say, I did not expect that. 

So, my mother-in-law is coming to visit in a week and a half for my Girl's birthday. She tells me men aren't usually excited about this. I don't know what the actual statistics are, but I am excited. She's a fun person.

Speaking of things happening in the near future, within the next week we will have seen movie #5. I think enough of the book-to-movie disparities have been revealed to me that I can accept them and be entertained.

The other day I went to the library with a killer list of GN's to look for that my friend Louis had given me. What happened was I left the library with two book, both of them sequels to things I'd already read, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol. 2 and Sandman vol. 7, specifically. I had to think why I'd done this and remembered that the last time I'd been there, I saw some guy, just as I had gotten there, with a big stack of GN's. I could tell by the spines that some were Sandman, and probably included the one I had come for. He was well within his rights of course but part of me growled and said, "this town isn't big enough for both of us."

I had another wait-a-minute moment about Harry Potter #6 later on that day. Why would the Room of Requirement facilitate Draco in doing something that is deleterious to Hogwarts? The Spouse let me know that I was far from the first to ask that question but to me it felt like a breakthrough.

I sodered yesterday! I was pretty thrilled to get over the initial fear of very, very hot things and the result was pretty cool. I also thought of a name for my first ever jewelry project: Tulip 9mm, because when i measured between the two tips of the "petals" on either side of the tulip, it was 9mm on each.

It's time for a drink. Today was a boring day at work but, really, I'm thinking of it as just a long study hall as I had ample down time to research fibromyalgia, something I have long needed to learn more about. I probably wouldn't have gotten that done under any other circumstances so hey! Accomplishment! Yay! Mythbusters is on! What? Oh? Sorry. I haven't thought about study halls since high school.

We preordered Book 7 today; you know, Harry Potter and the Book There's Gonna Be a Big Party for and is Gonna Be Released Anyway so I Might As Well Read.

Wow. I'm tired. What a time to try and post my first entry in this journal. In order to get inspired, I looked up "abstemious" in the dictionary. I got the words "leprechaun" and "necronomicon" confused so it became something like "leprononicon." Anyway...I just started an art class and also taking the class is a guy who was in my KINDERGARTEN class. Did I mention that that was 24 years ago and 2 U.S. states away. He said his name at the beginning of class and it just rang a bell. I told him, and it was at least twice that he said i have one hell of a memory. 

Yep. I still don't know how this thing is supposed to work so I guess I'll write what's eating me at the moment which is that I didn't do so well in the class. If you have taken a drawing class you may have done a drapery study. In this case it consisted of drawing a white sheet pinned to a bulletin-board. The point of it was to draw it in terms of shadows. By the end of class, mine looked the least like a sheet  out of all the class' drawings. My wife thought it looked like fabric but she must not have been convinced because she didn't want to say so in case it was supposed to be a vase or something. Another student said it was churchlike. Okay.  That's a fun way to see it. I guess this means I need to practice drawing more. I know I haven't done that enough. Here's to getting back on that bicycle.