I got an email from donwaughesq yesterday, gently prodding me to give some kind of update. I guess it’s been fairly quiet from the Gothopia Moon Base Bravo front, although some people might be fooled into thinking that it was a sign we got some kind of life beyond our computers. Ha! No such luck! We just haven’t been updating. Heh.

So. Update commences now.

Over the weekend we made our first pilgrimage back to Jacksonville since K. and J. moved down here last June. All in all, it was a pretty damned good time. I finally got to meet semiprecious, which was an absolute delight. I also got to see many of my friends in that area. Not all that I would have liked to have seen by any means, but it was a good number of them. Finally got to see the inside of the “famous” Eclipse on Friday night, and I came to the conclusion that the majority of men in Jacksonville don’t dance unless they are trying to get laid. This, obviously, annoys the shit out of me because they only seem to be able to “dance” with a lit cigarette in one hand, a bottle of beer in the other, and their eyes firmly focused on the set of tits that gyrate in front of them. The temptation to break out with some old school stomping was mighty, my friends. Fortunately for us all I managed to restrain myself and get quite a bit of booty shaking done while K. caught up with her old chums. The big dissapointment of the weekend was the fact that, due to really crappy weather, we had to cancel our day trip to St. Augustine. I think it’s safe to say that we managed to fill that time with entertaining activity, but Auggie would have been better. We ate too much, but that was pretty much expected going in to it. I had a little “oh christ I’ve torpedoed my diet” moment on Monday when reality settled back in, but K. managed to slap me back into reality.

And yes, there was hotel nookie. Huzzah.

In health news I have continued my workout routine with Maya, and she continues to beat my ass. The upper half of my legs are killing me today. To the point where standing up is a pain. A good pain, though. Obviously I’m working muscles that haven’t gotten much work in the last few years, but dayum does it hurt sometimes. I also haven’t had a cigarette since Sunday night. Still coughing my fool head off, but I think that’s a combination of whatever cold I was prolonging by my continued smoking and my lungs clearing themselves out (boy have the colors been interesting). Despite these positive healthy things, though, my stress levels are still way too fucking high. On edge? Fuck that. I’m dangling over the edge by one hand. The slightest bit of distress is totally locking me up. Heart racing, neck stiff..the works. This is not good. Stress exists. It happens every day. Nobody can prevent stressful situations from arising. My ability to cope with them right now seems to have completely vanished. I’m trying the deep breaths thing, and that is working to an extent, but I’m still physically suffering from the tension in my body.

I suppose all I can do is rest, continue taking deep breaths, and just try to work myself through it. I can’t think of anything else that would help.

sips coffee

What? What? What are you looking at?

Speaking of stress, I think I’ve reached a breaking point with the cats in the household. Their behavior is out of control. I accept responsibility for some of that, but at this point figuring out who to blame is pointless. The fact remains that I am tired of chasing cats off of areas where food is prepared, tired of walking in cat litter with bare feet, tired of my house being covered in cat fur, tired of not being able to have a rug in my bathroom because it will get peed on, tired of cat puke, tired of cats using places other than the cat box as a toilet, and most of all I’m tired of yelling at them (or hearing them being yelled at) when they fight. It gets old. They have had the better part of a year to cut it out, and they haven’t. I see no indicators that they are going to any time soon. If anything, they are getting worse. Not only that, but the gray one is starting to pick up some of the bad habits that my cats had (climbing on the counters, namely).

So we had a big talk with the boys last night. Basically told them that this was the final straw. That K. and I were done. I honestly don’t see them putting forth the effort necessary to properly train and care for the cats, so I strongly suspect we will be trying to find them homes soon.

Anyone want a cat? They’re all fixed. Separately they are much nicer to deal with. Peepers in particular is one of the best “bed” cats I’ve ever had, and I’ll honestly miss that. Unfortunately, due to repeated instances of the cat box here getting too full, she has used our bedroom as a toilet. Now she associates our bedroom as being a place to go. Same problem with bathroom mats. Once they’ve done it, it becomes “ok” to go there.

Sad, really.

Mom offered to let me take over the payments on her mini-van. Can’t afford it, unfortunately. I really need to get the AC replaced. So much so that I’ve made an appointment with Action Air (based on the reccomendation of etcet) to come in on Tuesday and give me an estimate. Hopefully I can make up in savings on my insane summer electric bills what I’ll be paying in monthly finance payments. It’s really gotten to the point where I have no choice, though. The heat is completely gone, and the compressor will trip the circuit breaker if it shuts on and off too often (meaning the only way to guarantee it stays on is to leave it on all the time).

Not much else to report on, really. But hey, there is your update. 🙂