it's been a wild week. we went to new orleans last weekend and experienced drunken debauchery, which is always fun. we saw many interesting outfits and even took a field trip to a local cemetary.

on another, less enjoyable note, work has been nuts. i'm not usually that busy but we started the conversion in ernest last week. and the schedule has been stepped up, so instead of doing ten hard drives in five days, we're doing five hard drives in one day. that doubles our output. we'll be done much faster. like one month instead of two. that's cool.

nothing else to report except to plead with my readers to bear with me. i'm so swamped that my output has slumped to an all-time low. i know that and i beg forgiveness. keep up the faith, though. i'll be back. i promise.

i am the amazing organization machine. i have set up the inhouse portion of the computer conversion to the point where a lot of the procedure comes from my plans. i like that fact. the fact that i was able to sit down and figure out what needed to be done and then take care of implementing it. that's pretty durned cool.

interesting weekend. i saw my grandfather on saturday, which was nice. didn't talk about much, but it was a nice visit all the same. shannon and i went down to the octupus garden on sunday just for the hell of it. i'm not going to say what she bought at the octopus garden, but i will comment that the saleslady seemed to know an awful lot about the products she was selling. verrrry interesting.

what a very busy day. our computers were s'posed to be delivered on monday, but for some reason we got them today at one. as a result, i spent most of my afternoon running around, moving computers. i must've moved twenty computers today. blech.

we picked up a copy of a vargas print tonight at the mall. very nice. we also got a frame for it. now if only we had a place to hang it...

and now shannon is intently watching iron chef. so over the top that it hurts.

for some reason, my heartbeat won't calm down. it's been pumping faster since sunday morning. i've also been feeling lightheaded, which is something that i get from time to time when i don't eat enough (low body fat) but it's been happening almost every day. that's not good. the accelerated heartbeat makes me restless and adreneline-giddy while the lightheadedness makes me feel like i'm going to pass out at any minute. i hate it when my body reminds me that i'm at it's mercy. i may be intelligent and creative and stuff, but i'm also nothing more than a bag of meat that is internally supported by a skeleton. and when that bag of meat goes, so do i.

this sort of goes over one of the points of thought that has been on my mind for the past few months/years (sort of an on and off thing, you know?). i'm wrapped up in the pleasures of the flesh. i like feeling what my body can do. walking is fun. sex is a lot of fun. but i don't like eating because it reminds me of how vulnerable a body i have. if i don't eat regular meals, my body lets me know about it. i don't like feeling sick because it's a demonstration of the fragility of my vehicle - sort of ironic, because i'm pretty much sick all the damned time. shit. i can feel the liquid building up in my lungs while i sit here.

feeling maudlin is one of things that hits all at once. either you are or you aren't. but when you are - hoo, boy!

ouch.

i wish shannon would sit down and tell me what was on her mind.......

ah. so we untied the knot this morning. it was fairly hassle-free, which is always a good thing. i understand that it's more difficult to get divorced if you have things like property and children. fortunately, we were young so we had nothing. nothing but our memories (which is cliche, but there you go).

i have a lot of conflicting feelings and emotions about the whole end-of-the-marriage thing. on the one hand, it was meant to be forever. on the other, she wouldn't talk to me at all. no communication = not much fun to be around. there were a lot of things that we should have said to each other but didn't and a lot of things we shouldn't have said to each other that we did. fingers were pointed. accusations were thrown. much umbrage was taken. anger and frustration were expressed in the wrong proportions. (mind you, this is leading up to the end.) it all seems trivial now, but at the time it was all very serious. this was our life. it was not an easy decision to make, but we both knew it was coming.

and, in the end, it came down to a conversation about the first novel i was really proud of. and she was too proud to read it. or scared. or something. she wouldn't read what i had written, which is one of those cardinal sins when you're living with an author. "i'll get around to it" pretty much means "i'm not going to read it so stop pestering me." as catalysts go, it was a doozy.

anyway, the chapter is closed. in a way, it will always remain present, a memory that i'll cherish (as i should) and anguish over (as i shouldn't). the anguish will fade with time but i'm hoping the memories won't. they were good times. (sure, there were bad times, too, but i don't like to think of them. that's the nice thing about memory - it's selective if you want it to be).

the past is the past and the present is the present and i must face the future if i ever plan to get anywhere in life. but for right now, just these few minutes, i'm going to sit and remember the way things were. and sigh.

the march of progress brings the bad with the good. remember that, children. it's an important lesson. the sooner you figure that out, the better off your life will be.

i'm having one of those days where i'm not entirely certain what day it is. i know it's tuesday, but i just typed the word wednesday. temporally confused. great. maybe it's because yesterday was one long, yawning expanse of nothing. or maybe it's because tomorrow is the final cut in the vicki and matt saga. dunno, to tell the truth.

yahoo's exchange server was doing strange things yesterday. an entire conversation happened and all i got was fragments and oddments. i knew that there were posts floating around that hadn't been delivered, but i wasn't ready for the fifty that arrived in one solid lump at 9:30 last night. very strange.

shan and i are talking about taking some art photos of mel (our friend, not my cousin). mel seems to be up for it, but we want to take the whole thing very slowly; give her a chance to look at richard kern's photos to see what we'd like to do. we like kern a lot and think he does some good nudes without getting salacious or creepy. i'd like to avoid creepy. shan's a much better photographer than i am, even though she won't admit it. i want to do the photoshop afterworks and possible manipulations. i like that aspect of it. plus, i'd be able to do photoshop work on photos that began with my own sources. i'm going to leave the voyeuristic thrill of the whole enterprise alone for now. no need to dwell on that.

and it's monday again. i realize that i din't post all weekend, but it wasn't an especially interesting weekend for posting, really.

we went to the catacomb second anniversary party on saturday night, which was fun. we got drunk and talked to joe (and his girlfriend(!) who we now have photographic evidence of), lori, mel and a host of other people. that was actually a lot of fun. shannon even got a picture of mel's girls, which we can't ever show to anyone else. heh.

we had planned to go see monkeybone with keith on sunday. the film started at 1:45 and we wanted to get up in time to eat breakfast and generally be ready to go. unfortunately, there was no sunshine on sunday and we woke up at noon. aaah! we hurried up and ate lunch with keith at mcdonald's. monkeybone wasn't a great movie, but it wasn't bad, either. i put it in with saving silverman and dude, where's my car? funny but not especially smart. good entertainment, though, which is always important.

the big news on the east coast is the snowstorm that didn't happen. everyone spent the weekend waving their arms and doing their best chicken little imitations. and, lo and behold, there was no snow this morning when we woke up. i looked at the maps and thought rationally. philadelphia and new york are already getting their snow. all we have is rain. hmmmm....

it's snowing now, though. if this keeps up, the afternoon rush hour is going to be a mess. i'm glad that i take the metro. it makes things very easy....

nothing terribly exciting to report. i had an interesting conversation with my grandfather last night. we didn't say much to each other that was new, but it was one of those reality-affirming conversations that friends should periodically have with one another. i don't know if i've said this before, but i'm eternally grateful that most of my closest friends are also members of my family because it takes some of the pressure off. i don't have to worry about dropping out of touch because i know that i can pick up a phone six months from now and give one of them a call and pick up where we left off. more or less. i've done it before and i'll probably do it again.

one of the things that my grandfathed did say was that he's happy that i'm enjoying my writing and the life choices i've made that enable me to write. "nobody in the family has ever said that you should give up and become a stockbroker or an accountant. everyone knew that you were cabable of writing novels if you just applied yourself." the applied yourself comment stings a bit, but it's true. i have the raw, naked ability. it's just a matter of figuring out how to make it work for me.

and the funny thing about being a happy writer is that being a writer isn't about happiness at all. it's about being unhappy that you can't write or don't have time to write or that the story isn't doing what it's meant to be doing or that nobody's reading it or any one of a million tiny things. it's about harnessing that inherent dissatisfaction that sits at the center of your being and transforming it into something other.

one of the reasons i liked the novel version of the wonder boys so much (and i liked the movie, too - but for different reasons) was that michael chabon captured the sense of futility that writers have about silencing the inner voices that drive us to write. by page nine, he'd written so many truths that i'd already elevated the novel to the status of one of my all-time favorites. i'd even decided that i wanted to read some of his other books - this was just after i saw the ads for the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay. what can i say? i'm a fan.

i like writing. i like the act of changing a potential story into something real and tangible and solid. i'm always sad when the potential is sucked out of an idea, but the result of the alchemical process can be worth the effort, if you're willing to invest your time and imagination. when i think about it, why else do we have an imagination? what other possible purpose could it serve than to create entire worlds, people, situations, events and moments of tenderness that could never happen - that maybe should never happen. to explore the possibilities inplicit in existence and life.

huh. i like having a rich fantasy life. it makes me feel complete. usually.

okay. some minor changes to the format, but i think i've found the right balance. again, let me know what you think.

i'm currently enjoying the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay. it's about two cousins writing comic books in 1939 and it's very good. i'm torn because i want to read it as fast as possible and i want to slow down and enjoy every word. to this point, it's been worth the wait.

we went to a tiki bar called honolulu last night with jenna and andrew and some friends of theirs. not much to look at from the outside, but the inside was full of kitsch hell. giant shells on the walls. coconuts carved to look like monkeys. giant wicker chairs. scary.

i think that's it for now. i have to backlog my calls from february so i can put an accurate count into the monthly progress report. sounds fun, doesn't it?