Yeah, Flash, It's All Good.

Thanks to Flash, who wondered whether I was all right. I am; I've just spent a misguided week forcing other priorities on myself. And I do mean forcing. I've created a system for myself which involves rolling dice to define which pieces of housework I have to do on a given day. (Yes. I am a dork. I thought I mentioned that quite a while ago.) And for the most part I stuck to it all week.

Then I realized: this is my house. It's supposed to make me happy, not tyrannize me. And so I said Screw it. I'm going to do what I want to do, not what I think I supposedly should do.

Of course, last night that involved eating a big fat burger and watching "The Apprentice". I'm okay with that. (I'm NOT okay with the fact that J.D. won Rock Star:INXS. I am VERY MUCH not okay with that. INXS was absolutely my favorite band in high school--I was the first of my friends to be up on them--and I remember sitting in a Denny's with Debbi talking about Michael Hutchence's death and how sad it was that we were getting older. So to see an asshat like J.D. get the lead singer job--and over MARTY, of all people, Marty who grew up in a suburb where I once lived with David, who now lives in the neighborhood I lived in with JP, and who totally fails to suck in all the ways that J.D. does not fail to...oh, and for whom I would rearrange my personal life in a moment, were it to come to that...No. Michael Hutchence would NOT approve. It does, however, continue my streak of having my favorite reality people come in second: Bo Bice on American Idol; Kris and Jon on Amazing Race...There were others I thought of when Marty got robbed, but they escape me now. Debbi, my partner in Rock Star, is currently out of town--the lucky beeeotch is on a cruise, for which she is paying almost exactly nothing because her friend who's with her is a travel agent, which almost makes me reconsider the whole antisocial thing--but when she gets back I trust we will share a long disconsolate phone call full of outrage, and also some margaritas.)

My plans for this night, however, have been grossly derailed, and I do mean GROSSly.

LJ staggered in at 5:30 this morning and proceeded to rob me of my final two hours of sleepy bliss. I knew he was drunk; when he's drunk he snores louder, farts more, and flops around like a beached carp. I took an elbow to the eyesocket at one point; had he not been emitting noises that would shame a chainsaw, I'd have sworn it was intentional.

The Water Department called me this morning. I've been trying to get them out to my house since literally February, when I discovered that they've been billing me about $40 a quarter for a water connection that doesn't exist. So needless to say, since I would be at work, LJ would be the one to let the inspector come in and see what they need to see. As I got ready for work, LJ got up to pee and I took advantage of his brief moment of wakefulness to remind him that the water guy was due between 11 and 1. He mumbled vaguely and returned to snoring. I was fairly sure he'd wake up in time...maybe.

Well, the water guy called at 11 to tell me he'd be there at 12:45. And just on a thought, at about noon, I called LJ's cell phone to let him know.

Voice mail.
I called again. Voice mail.
I called the house line. No answer.
House line again. No answer.
Cell again. Voice mail.
I said many bad words.

I hadn't been to lunch yet, so at about 12:15 I said Screw it and headed for home. It takes me 20 minute to get to work in the morning, on the average, and about 35 to get home at night. I was pushing it, I thought, but not by much.

I did not, however, take into account the idiots at IDOT. Apparently the best time to do roadwork just in front of the onramps to a major expressway? Is lunchtime. On a FRIDAY. Because no one would go home early on a FRIDAY. They had Cicero Avenue--normally 3 lanes going north--down to one lane. It was backed up for well over a mile, with no signs to indicate where the problem was or why. My 20-to-35-minute trip took nearly an hour. And just as I pulled up to the end of the traffic jam--they were fixing a fer-cryin'-out-loud POTHOLE, because nobody would need to get on a major expressway, etc.--the water guy called, to let me know he was there and nobody was home. I told him "Oh, somebody's home all right--he's asleep and I'm gonna kick his ass when I get there--but meanwhile I'm about ten minutes away." So the guy said he'd wait, and when I got there I found that LJ had woken up and let him in after he banged on the door a few times. I gave LJ some hell about making me have to come home like that and take up my whole lunch hour and burn all that gas, and then I left to go back to work and called my boss on the way to let him know I'd be about 30 minutes late.

By the way--there was no water connection, exactly where I'd said there wouldn't be one. The water department owes me some money.

About an hour before I'm supposed to go home, I call LJ to ask him something, and he answers the phone sounding like boiled hell on a plate, telling me he's sick. About twenty minutes later he calls back, and asks me to bring him home some chicken soup and "a bottle of that pink shit". (That would be Pepto-Bismol, for those of you who don't speak LJ.) Then on the way home, as I'm pulling out of the parking lot of the store, he calls again, PLEADING with me to bring the pink shit A.S.A.P. Now LJ does many things, but he does not often beg. I knew he was in bad shape.

I get home: no LJ. I call him and he says he's on his way home. He walks in about forty minutes later, shirtless, trailing The Pimp behind him (The Pimp has been staying with us since Tuesday). His first words: "Where's the pink shit? I threw up all on my shirt," he says. "We was in traffic and we couldn't even get over to the side..." The Pimp finds this all very amusing. I fix LJ some soup, of which he eats a few bites, then goes upstairs to sleep.

I'd feel worse for him if he hadn't brought it on himself, but I still hate to see him all miserable. (He's been acting different towards me lately--earlier yesterday, he actually APOLOGIZED for being short with me before he left for the night. "Yeah, I just called to say my bad if it sounded like I was snappin' at you..." And he wasn't really snapping, either--just a little brusque--which made it even stranger and sweeter. I think he's starting to believe that I really do care about him, which...about time, you know?)

My plan for the evening, though, involved solitude, a steak, and a long restful bout of doing nothing. Mostly solitude, meaning the presence of LJ and the Pimp was not on the agenda. Not that they interfered, per se; I just wasn't expecting them to be here. I didn't let it stop me, though; once they were both safely upstairs, I baked a potato and pan-fried my steak and had a grand old time watching NASCAR qualifying. (The steak was really yummy, too.)

So yeah, I'm fine; I just haven't been being very good to myself lately. I have to let myself do the things that matter to me--things like this blog, for example. I can't remember when I've gone so long without updating, other than when I was in the hospital, and I don't think I plan to go so long again.