Atomictumor

Damn, its been hot.

Now, I know its hotter other places, but damn, its hot. Not quite now, this morning has had a lovely breeze, but this time of day its got a breeze, but you can feel the humidity in there, like a friendly guy who you kinda suspect is all coke’d up with something ugly in his back pocket, just waiting for you to turn around so he can crack you upside the head with his brutal beating stick of 100 degree heat, steal your money, your shoes, your Bonnaroo hat, kick you a couple of times in the ribs just for spite, and then burn holes in your clothes.

Its friendly now, at 10 in the AM, but its got a vicious streak, and that thing’ll come out like a drunk uncle on game day. Best to hide inside, people. Lemme tell you.

Except we don’t have that option, do we? So we get to see all the fun ways that heat just screws with people over time.

Like yesterday, on the way home, where I saw a pickup truck loaded down with furniture cut off the car in front of me, and then proceed to flip them off. My stare of incredulous disbelief was kinda thwarted by the hat and glasses, but it was a bit of a trip. And then the old guy at the other side of the red light on Tennessee Avenue, as soon as the light turned green, frantically waving me on so he could turn left. Now, it’d make sense if I were a 10 second delay red light guy, but I’m a “try not to squeal the tires but still be the first off the line” red light guy, and the Mazda has my back. Still, old guy’s got his cigarette in his mouth, flapping his arms around like I’m some confused, stoned beatnik, wandering blindly across his right of way.

The incredulous stare, once again, blocked by the glasses and hat as I drove by. He was too busy flapping at the car behind me by then.

But damn, its hot, and that brings out the worst from some of these weird people in Oak Ridge. And everywhere else, I guess. I don’t think the Sunnis and Shiites would have too big a beef if they grew up in Scandinavia.

They’d just have to deal with the vikings.

I’m about sick of the antibiotics.  30 minutes after eating one, my stomach gets all gurgly.  Yes, gurgly.  Look it up.

One more to go… I can do it.

Man, the Violent Femmes are all in court and pissed off at each other.

Can’t we all just get along?

I haven’t really been living in my house much lately, been spending a lot of time at friends houses, or out and about, and all that kinda stuff, and over the month of July and the first part of August, the house has been in a fairly constant state of trashed.

It drives me crazy to have a messy house. I get stressed, I’m in a bad mood, I snap, and it makes me lazy, because I see this big ass mess, but its so daunting that I just don’t know where to begin, so I pick up a book, or beat a hasty retreat, or bang my head on the wall until blissful sleep comes to me (which doesn’t help the mess at all, what with all the bloody head marks on the walls in the house).

I guess I’m lazy, but its so much nicer to spend the days that we wind up at the house unwinding, or decompressing, or something else, because cleaning up is an ordeal. Pigpen requires constant supervision and micromanagment to get jobs done, and MastaG requires a lot of patience, because he tends to whine about how hard his life is when he’s cleaning, which quietly infuriates me. If I yell at him, it makes for an ordeal, because now he’s sullen because I yelled at him, and I’m kinda seething because yelling at MastaG, well, its like crack. I mean, that first time you yell at him, its so nice. You get all this pent up stuff about how your little baby is growing up and turning into a (very occasionally) whiney assed little guilt wielding 10 year old, let it out on the boy, and it kinda just wants to keep coming out.

I’m good at yelling at kids, and for that reason I don’t like to do it very often. I guess I’m a sucker for the guilt thing.

I digress.

So, anyway, point is yesterday it came to a head, of sorts. It was made perfectly clear to me that the house looks like 3 boys live there. The bathroom was, well, ugly. Toys, clothes, trash, scattered all over the bedroom and living room, and the hall, and the playroom, and the kitchen. Week old dishes were sitting out.

It was time for action. Time for men (and boys) of true grit to get out there and clean it the hell up.

And we did. I picked MastaG up, met his band teacher to find out what path of instrumentation he’ll be going on (trombone, just like his old man, woot), and brought the boys home, under the understanding that IT WAS ON.

3 hours later, it was. The needful had been achieved. I scrubbed out the bathtub, even. Something that hasn’t been done since, well, before November (I’m not gross, I mean, I washcloth it down before Pigpen’s baths, but we’re talking scouring the bastard with some Ajax).

The result? Its like another freakin place. The immense peace I got, just from going to bed and waking up in a house that doesn’t look like 3 boys live there, was undescribable.

And then I managed to catch a showing of “Gorillaz: Live in Harlem”, with Dennis Hopper presiding, on the high def music channel, at damn near the beginning. Ahh, rewards.

So here it is for you people:

Now I don’t mind inviting you people over…

I’ve screwed up three times at work within the past week.  Two of the goofs were relatively minor and have been resolved.  The third is potentially a big headache, and I’m avoiding directly dealing with it, even though its unresolved status further stresses me out.

Yep, that’s about it.