Hey gang! I’m sitting on the tarmac at Chicago O’Hare International Airport, waiting to take off to head to Seattle. We were late arriving in Chicago, so we missed our initial flight. Fortunately there was another flight leaving an hour later that was far from full. My boss has a wireless internet hookup on his laptop, so I’m using it to update my journal from there.

I sure do love technology.

I’m kind of worried that the car rental company will be closed when we finally arrive in Seattle, but I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Chicago is nice. Good food. At least in the airport. Ok, so the food was crappy and I didn’t see much of anything, but now I’ve been in Chicago.

Well, time to sign off before the plane leaves!

Well, I’ve got a few minutes left on my lunch break, and then two hours until I leave for the airport to head to Seattle for the weekend. Next weekend, I’ll be in Atlanta for Dragon Con. All of this travel in such a short time! I feel like a jet setter. Of course, jet setters are usually wealthy individuals and I’m doing these by the absolute seat of my pants, but other than that I’m the man! Of course, the journey on the plane is going to be an interesting one. My boss wants to continue working on the auction demo that we are giving tomorrow, so it might be an 8 hour working flight. We shall definitely see.

One of those question thingys…Snatched from Khep and Faeriegrrl

I AM: certifiably insane.
I KNOW: that I have the capactity to be happy.
I WANT: to not struggle anymore
I HAVE: the greatest friends a person could ever hope for
I WISH: it could be real for just one day.
I HATE: feeling week.
I MISS: My Father, Ann and Beau
I FEAR: Something happening to my son
I HEAR: that someday that gum I like is going to come back in style.
I SEARCH: for meaning where there is none.
I WONDER: how I got so fucked up
I REGRET: not taking advantage of what I had in front of me
I LOVE: far too easily.
I ACHE: when I dwell on it too much
I CARE: more than I should
I ALWAYS: try and make them laugh
I AM NOT: as nice as everyone thinks I am
I DANCE: a lot less than I used to
I SING: more than I talk
I CRY: more than I’m comfortable with
I DO NOT ALWAYS: appreciate what I have
I FIGHT: with myself
I WRITE: when I’m inspired
I LOST: a big chunk of my life
I CONFUSE: situations by overanalyzing them
I LISTEN: more than people think
I CAN USUALLY BE FOUND: when I’m needed
I NEED: to figure out what i need
I AM HAPPY ABOUT: the fact that they still haven’t committed me
I SHOULD: quit being so whiny

Last night, Karen, Alex and I went shopping at Wal-Mart so that Karen and I could get some new clothes. I love shopping for clothes at Wal-Mart. LOVE it. Why, you may ask? BECAUSE I CAN. Because before I lost the extra poundage, the only place I could shop was Casual Male. For what I would have gotten one pair of pants and a shirt for at Casual Male, I got two pair of shorts, a pair of jeans, two button up shirts, two pair of workout shorts, a swimsuit, a belt and a pair of shoes. What’s even better, is that I am down yet another size in my pants and my shirts. Size 40 pants were purchased last night, and I’m wearing XL shirts now. Truly getting into “normal” sizes. For those of you who don’t know, when I started this I was wearing size 60 pants and 4X shirts. And the pants were getting tight.

I haven’t heard anything about Titus Andronicus yet, but I’ve decided that really doesn’t mean a damn thing. The director did contact me yesterday, and asked about the conflicts that I listed on my audition form. I’ve been wondering if that meant I would be cast in one of the minor, multi-character roles. I realized that wouldnt’ be such a bad thing, though. Honestly, I know who I would have cast in the 4 major parts male parts that are not pre cast from the auditons on Monday night, and I wasn’t one of them. “ranney” is already in the show as Aaron, and if David casts the way I would have the other night, he could have one hell of a show on his hands, and it would be a genuine honor to work with those individuals (Brian Shea in particular. I’ve become a really big fan of his work, and would love to see him in the rehearsal process). So, in any case, if David offers me a part I’ll be accepting it gladly. I just hope I have more lines than “Yes, M’lord.” 🙂

This next bit will only make sense to those of you who know what the Bad Girl Swirl is. Please feel free to skip this part if you don’t.

I’m starting to drift from the Swirl again. Yet another Don Juan thread has started, and of course this has brought all of the Don Juan defenders out of the woodwork. I’m sick of them. I’m sick of seeing them be accepted so readily, to be honest. I may sound a bit whiny about it, but it’s not fair. The entire time I’ve been on the swirl, I have respected the fact that it is a bulletin board for women, and that I am a guest on their turf. I have tried to conduct myself accordingly. I have not tried to use it as a dating pool, or as a place to find out how to more easily score with chicks. I guess there’s just a new breed of swirler out there, and I’m from the bad old days when boys weren’t trusted. Whatever. I’m also sick to DEATH of some new Don Juan posting how he’s “defecting” from there every other week, and his thread causing all the Don Juan apologists out of the woodwork to spout yet again about how wonderful their methods are.

It’s a bunch of crap, it’s detracted from what the Swirl was, and it’s made me want to go away. I’ve been pulling back slowly. I might be gone altogether soon. I use Bulletin Boards as a fun place to go, not something I want to go to every day and get sick over. I’ve made a ton of friends from the swirl, and I’m thinking it’s time to cut my losses and walk away.

Ok…that’s done…thanks for the indulgence.

i am extremely intelligent and very wise. i think logically and rhetorically in order to get problems solved. if i’m not mad now, i’m getting very close.

how mad are you?

this quiz was made by piksy

I quit smoking on Saturday. Cold Turkey. I had my last cigarette shortly after midnight on Friday night, and I haven’t had one since. Saturday and Sunday were fine.

Today was hell.

I’ve never felt that bad from an addiction before. One of my friends online, Dr. Deb Hunka, offered that it was likely the result of my having lost so much weight. The last two times I’ve quit for real, I was significantly bigger. Now that I’m not, the nicotine to body weight ratio is much higher. It sounds good anyway.

Whatever the reason, I was a WRECK today. I was shaking and pale, I felt sick to my stomach. I was dizzy. I felt like I was going to pass out at times. I felt claustrophobic. Basically, I felt like utter and complete shit.

I made it through the day, though. I made it through having some serious problems getting the washing well wenches site up. I made it through some potentially ugly news at work (paychecks looks iffy for Wednesday). I made it through my audition for Titus Andronicus, where I was surrounded by people who smoked and would have gladly given me one. I made it, damnit.

So I feel pretty good about my chances for continued success.

Not sure how to feel about my Titus Andronicus audition. I read once, about 4 lines, and not for any of the leads in the show. Which leads my over-analyzing mind to one of two conclusions. Either David has confidence in my abilities and doesn’t need to see any more, or I wasn’t what he was looking for in any of the major roles.

At this point, I’m hoping for the former, but feeling it’s the latter. That’s what I do though. Welcome to my mind.

One of these days I’m going to learn to keep my mouth shut. I have this habit of saying the wrong thing in front of the wrong person, and having it jump back up and bite me in the ass later. Mind you, it’s not always a horrible backlash, but it can be really humiliating.

Ugh…I can hardly see straight right now.

I’ve been working on the Washing Well Wenches site for the last two hours, trying to get a mad dash done so I can have some pictures on their site by (hopefully) the end of the weekend. Dani called me the other day, and in her very non-aggressive way explained to me that Michigan (where they currently are) is where they get the most requests for pictures and products. So now I have a fire under my ass to get this thing up as soon as possible. Oh yeah, she’s also sending me some money. That doesn’t hurt the cause, either.

Last night, Alex and I got into a discussion about tornadoes. He was very worried that the storm that was coming was going to include a tornado. After much grilling, I finally got to the heart of his concerns.

He is afraid of dying.

He started crying on me, because he doesn’t want to die.

Why does a six year old have to start having these thoughts? Is this the “gift” he’s blessed with because of his high intellect? Is he going to start questioning God by the time he’s 10? We’re talking about the same child who told me once that he knew God was real, because “I was standing on the mountain and I looked out and saw how everything was beautiful and I knew I was looking at God.” This was almost a YEAR AGO.

I guess it just reminds me that he’s getting older. That’s he’s going to start worrying about this kind of thing. That, already, that veil of innocence is getting lifted from his eyes and he is realizing there are scary things in the world.

I see this, and I hate it. I’m afraid he’s going to become a bitter and cynical son of a bitch like his old man.

Edited on August 28th, 2002

Alex’s soon-to-be Step Father read this and informed me that the place where Alex “saw God” was Chimney Rock in North Carolina. This is a picture of what it is that Alex saw.

So, I’ve been talking to my friend Lee Lee tonight, and she’s just about got me convinced to start running Vampire : The Masquerade again. Keep in mind, here, I haven’t run a game of Vampire in about 4 years. I’m not even sure if I remember all the rules anymore. I have to admit, though, the thought is very appealing. I’ve been playing in a GURPS : Supers game every Sunday for the last month and a half or so, and I’ve really been enjoying it. My friends used to rave about how good of a game master I was, but I’m feeling so rusty now. It’s almost like I’ve let myself get too “old” to let go of the apparent silliness of sitting around a table and pretending to suck the blood out of people.

I’ve still got all my notes, though. Hours and hours of research into the history of the Tampa Bay area. I had a great campaign lined up. I guess it really wouldn’t be all that hard to get things rolling again, would it?

The more I think about this, the better the idea sounds.

Well, I “outed” myself to the person I mentioned in my journal yesterday. For those of you who were wondering, it was indeed opheliasphoenix. I really couldn’t stand to sit back and watch the hateful things being said about her without piping in my two cents.

AND completely making light of the situation. Which is, of course, my style.

Make ’em laugh, Mikey.

So I’ve been REALLY cranky today. I guess I partied a bit too hard this weekend. A big group of AIM users thought it would be funny to start warning each other (for those who don’t know, a warning is something you can do to someone who is annoying you on AIM. If they get too many, you get logged off). It really got under my skin. I had people IM’ing me all day asking why I was warned. I almost got to the point of yelling at Eve when she was laughing about it to me. Quite uncharacteristic of me, for sure.

I guess I just need some sleep, so on that note….