1.16.02

Hey all. Man, this is going to be the most boring update ever. Why? Not a damn thing has happened to me in the last week.

Don’t you just hate being broke? Since last Thursday or so, I’ve been calling on the “Spaghetti Reserve Corps” so I can eat. If you don’t know what the SRC is, you’re apparently never short on cash for a week at a time. Thank God for Prego and Ragu, is all I’m saying.

Because of my broke-ass state of existence, I had yet another boring weekend at home. However, again, I spent my Sunday wisely. I went into the office around 12:30, screwed around on the internet until about 2:30, then wrote virtually non-stop until after midnight sometime. 30 pages in 10 hours – not too shabby. You’ll be able to read the fruits of my labor this Friday on The Boundry; its called “The Tales of The Midnight Avenger” (tentatively, anyway). Although, I’m considering splitting the story up into two chapters to spread out over the next two weeks. There’s a lot of dialog, but I do know that 30 pages is a lot for some of you folks to read in a lifetime. We’ll see what I decide tomorrow when I’m converting the story to PDF. Will it change your life? No. But I hope you get a kick out of it.

Oh, I did join a writer’s circle with a few friends of mine. We’re randomly choosing a word from a book one of us is reading and using that word as a springboard to…something. For example, last week’s book was J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Two Towers”, the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the word was “undefended”. Well, after struggling for a while on something different to do with the word, I finally came up with “The Battle of Miller’s Creek”, which will probably be debuting on The Boundry sometime soon as well. This week’s word is “plain”…still trying to figure out what I wanna do with that one.

I started my writing class last Thursday. It should be interesting and give me a bit of a challenge. I have to write poetry - 3 poems to be exact. Poetry has never been my thing, so that one worries me a little. For our final grade we can either write 2 short stories or 1 short story and a one-act drama. I think I’m going to try for the one-act. That’s definitely something I haven’t done before, but I think could be a lot of fun. If I feel its worthy, I’ll probably publish that somewhere too. I’ll let you know.

Did you happen to notice I got a haircut? That was quite an experience. The day I got it done was one of the creepiest experiences of my life. You have no idea what its like to have hair down to your chin one minute and then…not, the next. The worst part of all this, besides the constant comments from co-workers even a week later, is that my head is freezing when I go outside now. The ball cap I bought at the Cubs game this fall is definitely coming in handy since my Illini hockey hat got stolen (damn Mick). Although I’m just waiting to get beaten down by wearing a hat that reads “WRIGLEY FIELD” in big, bold letters and a Cubs symbol on the back. These Cardinal’s fans are serious down here.

Turbotax.com. That’s my big advice this week. Once you get your W-2’s and if you’re able to use the 1040EZ, man, that is the way to go. 15 minutes and I was done with my 2001 taxes. 10-14 more days and I’ll have my $265 directly deposited into my checking account. Even better – they’ll take the money they charge you for this convenience out of your refund if you want, so there’s no credit card number necessary. Pretty sweet deal. Oh, and yes, they do ask you about the $300 you got earlier this year from Uncle Dubya as a “tax rebate” or something. Sadly they didn't forget.

Got signed up for a gym on Saturday. A place called Club Fitness here in town. I just felt like I'd sort of hit a brick wall with my training at the apartment complex clubhouse where I can do nothing but four weightlifting exercises on the Universal machine, run/walk on the treadmill, and do the stairmaster thing. I need more variety in my workouts or I'm afraid there's no way I could stick with it forever. So, this new place has tons of cardio - three kinds of stairmasters, two kinds of bikes, three kinds of treadmills and a Danny Bonaduce in a pear tree - plus a ton of weight equipment. And at $25/month I think its quite a steal. The only downside - I won't be able to watch Dawn of the Dead on the VCR anymore like I could in the clubhouse. Damn people who get offended by the site of pig intestines and stage blood.

Ok, that’s it. I’m outta here. Wish me a better weekend than I’ve had the last two, please. Lord knows I could use it.

Space Monkey X