las vegas, nevada :: 1998

Thanksgiving was very nice. We cruised down to Santa Cruz, giving ourselves *way* too much time to allow for traffic, and ended up wasting a couple hours taking weird backroads, going down to the beach at high tide, and driving through a dead downtown to find an open coffeehouse. When we finally arrived at our friend's house, I was happy to get out of the car, and even happier to eat the feast they had prepared. So, good. I had thirds, then walked down to the local elementary school and played some whiffle ball, headed back and ate TWO pieces of pie, listened Miss Rodeo America's father tell stories, drank some coffee, and drove home with the Smiths on the stereo.

Not bad, eh? Yesterday, as previously mentioned, we had Thanksgiving at my work, which means I've had two T-days in a row, and tomorrow is the much anticipated Friendsgiving (tm), the day in which our many groups of friends come over to our clean house, sit around drinking, watching movies (Showgirls anybody?), play games, chat, eat non-Thanksgiving food, and hopefully get along. I'm really looking forward to it actually.

After we watched The OC last night, Oscar the cat came inside filthy with mud, shaking, and limping. He's spent the last 24 hours mostly sleeping and avoiding the annoying tackling moves of Bunny, but whenever we pick him up he makes a noise like he hurts inside. I have no idea what happened to him. An awful cat fight? Hit by a car? (which wouldn't explain the mud, it hasn't rained in weeks), Got harrased and injured by neighbor kids? (never out of the question). No matter what the cause, my little guy is hurting, and we might have to take him to the vet ($$$) tomorrow to get x-rayed. Damn. Even though I work at a pharmacy, I don't have an x-ray hookup yet. I think I'm in the wrong business.

Wow, my room is a mess.

I've been at work since 9:00, and it's now 2:00. I have done a grand total of less than ten minutes after actual "work," and I'm not counting talking to my boss on the phone about turkey for ten minutes. About an hour ago we all ate a small office Thanksgiving feast, all the good stuff (potatoes, bread, cranberry sauce) and someone snuck in a couple bottles of wine. I'm on my second glass, and I'm about to head to the dentist. Whee!

Last Communique show for at least two months + bad Swedish rock + PBR + jagermesiter + sushi (maguro) + bob dylan + red jug wine from sonoma county + friendster = time for me to go to bed!

Working in a closed down pharmacy is very, very dull. My day is punctuated with the occasional person returning my call, but other than that it's sit and browse the boring old internet. I know everyone else in here, well, the four of us or so that left anways, are bored as well because whenever the phone rings, we all race to pick it up. Hey, it's something to do at least.

I've found myself daydreaming a lot in my little empty cubicle, staring at the calendar on the wall, the tape dispenser, or the stereo. But I have thought of a great many things I'd like to do while I'm unemployed:

• buy a new turntable, one that doesn't play records at about 35 1/3 RPM.
• put all my good vinyl onto minidiscs, finally listen to Hank Williams in the car.
• upgrade my computer, it's still running the same system it was in 1997. it's very slow and embarrasing.
• get DSL, again.
• sell the hundreds of vintage and otherwise "cool" t-shirts that I no longer wear.
• sell my reel to reel tapedeck. it's collected dust for years and still hasn't been used.
• four-tracking.
• clean up the yard, throw away all the old paint cans that are rusting under the stairs.
• send out new years cards.
• track down old friends, send them odd, oversized postcards i find at the santa cruz flea market.
• learn how to cook soups and perfect my pasta sauce. make daily trips to trader joes.
• make mix CDs with nice covers, send them to friends for the holidays.
• fix the speaker on my homestereo that cuts out if you turn the volume down too low.
• wash my car, every week.
• clean out the freezer. this should be #1.
• take the dog at miss rodeo america's work to the dog park, make him happy so that he won't bark all the time.
• keep selling books and CDs on amazon.com, scrounge for packaging, and ship books all over the country.
• not starve.

the zombies: bad sweaters, great songs.

Yeah, give it a listen. Such a good beat, and a bitchin' organ solo to boot.