And, so far, the change has been extremely positive. For one thing, I used to sit in my 4-wheel baking sheet on the 405 while sucking in toxic exhaust fumes...all to the tune of 40-50 bucks a week for that privilege.

But no more!

Even better, Spring has clamped down on my ass with its pearly white smile and motivated me to organize. Now, with a few exceptions, most of you aren't familiar with my 2 Resting Paws of Lazy Tiger technique when it comes to keeping things in (dis)order. For example, in my bedroom, I have two large chairs: one for clean clothes, one for full-dirty clothes, and the middle chair-arm space where iffy clothes go. Then there's this peasant class of clothes which have fallen between the chairs; they carry the tax burden of the bourgeoise clothes up top, waiting for a Karl Marx turtle neck to rally them to salvation.

While the revolution in my pants (and shirts) slowly rises up, though, I've finally cleared away a bunch of crap from this built-in table area near my door...and I've installed a cardboard cubby thing. I am muchly liking the cubby thing, and so are my pink slip and bank records.

But Spring hasn't stopped biting at my ass there, nein. I suddenly have this huge drive to lose at least 20 pounds/~1 1/2 stones. In the past, I just walked the hills around here a few times a week, for a little over an hour. I've been fast-walking up and down hill every day, though, and I'm liking it; the moderate incline isn't easy, but I like hovering just before you get that painful feeling. I also decided last week to cut out soda, coffee, half of the high fructose corn syrup I have (since that's linked to developing type-2 Diabetes), eat three or four small meals instead of just two, only drink my ale once a week, and take down having dessert from once in awhile to never.

I won't lie, it sucks sometimes. I take comfort in finding out that Whole Foods has lots of cheap Hummus and pita bread, though, and I figure I can still drink juice a few times a day.

So far it's worked out for a week. I'm going to stick to it mostly for health reasons--and teeny-tiny partly because there's someone who'll (I think) appreciate it.

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I guess the only drawback from not working in Discordia anymore is that unusual crazy shit isn't happening as much. But on some days, it comes back with a gleam in its' eye.

Take yesterday, which started out typical. Mom and I had breakfast at IHOP, we kibitzed and we drove back to the house. I was having fun being a geek and playing Final Fantasy X donwstairs, or reading this or that article on my cheeky 'Fair and Balanced' politics site.

Suddenly Scott's phone rings. For some bizarre reason, he wasn't inside the trailer (i.e. his den) parked in the driveway. I bring one end of my headphones down as I hear Mom on his answering machine, calling out loud for me to pick up his phone. He's doing his exaggerated "who wha huh?" thing, picking up his cordless and trying to talk to her--only his cordless wasn't patching through to her. Both of them decided to stop trying at about the same time.

Then I got the call from her. Apparently Scott's car (that mom was using) had stalled. Scott and Ma were both not liking this, Scott especially. She asked me to go down and rescue her groceries. Braving the idiocy of mid-afternoon LA housewife drivers, I pulled into the parking plaza, found her, saved the food and ferried it back up. She'd wait for the automobile club to jump-start the car.

Not 30 minutes later, though, I get another call. Apparently the car HAD been working after the jump, but then died when Ma was trying to throw the bastard into reverse. The car and Ma were unharmed and she sounded more pleasantly exasperated than pissed. This was good for me and my ears, since I had to go back down, pick her up, take her back to the house and wait for her to go down and park her truck right next to Scott's. I'm still fuzzy on the 'Why?' part of that one, but eh.

A few hours later, she called again. A new AAA service dude had come, bringing much bad-ass excellent service where the last guy had (I heard) sucked. They'd fired up Scott's car again--to have it run, then to die, and die hard. AAA dude then went with Ma to the local Buick repair place to get a new battery. The shop was near closed, with one of the clerks locking down. Ma explained the situation, but the guy wasn't budging. AAA dude then lept in and really pushed it with how much Ma needed to get her car back to "her boss". AAA dude even offered to install the battery and all, which made the clerk suddenly gung-ho for the whole operation. AAA dude installed the battery, oh yes--but it was fucked. Both he and Ma were puzzled/curious. A senior sales rep. came over and wondered why the hell the new battery wasn't working. Lo and behold, it was an OLD battery that shoulda been thrown out--and it came from a pile of other "new" batteries that all needed to be tossed; someone had screwed up moving in the new inventory. Senior sales rep. person was surprised as hell that the weekday crew had fucked up, but was sure as hell glad to find out they had--all because Ma and AAA dude convinced the shop to stay open. Ma now has a free 24-month warranty and permenant kudos at the Buick car shop.

After all that whole episode, she felt the need to indulge in some sushi--and who was I to complain. The tempura and raw fish rolls were delicious, as usual.

And so ended yesterday, Car Fun day.

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Only other happy note that comes to mind is hearing back from T. She had recently moved to Florida and got entrenched with bushels of work and school. Oddly enough, I heard from her at 3:30am her time yesterday morning--but as usual we had alot of fun talking. I haven't a clue how she stays ahead on all that stuff, but I salute her (with my hand, you ass)!

And speaking of salutes, I give many props to Cats for having her new baby girl, Ginger. That whole shell-game with this doctor or that doctor seemed confusing, but--like laundry--it all came out in the end.

Lovely metaphor, I know.

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I'm all about rambling tonight, let's see, let's see...

*Dork and I have had an arrangement for awhile, where I provide some photographs for his upcoming fictional autobiography. His usual..situation is brewing up over there the last time I checked, though, so I'm waiting until things have died down and he's got more book time.

*My wonderful benefactress of camera lenses, Seester, also mentioned that she knew how I could get discounted hardware. I'm all for getting a cheap laptop.

*I'm looking into making more prints out of the shots I have already, then seeing about marketting the bastards to some local galleries. Only problem with that plan is that, so far, I haven't found any galleries that showcase locals/unkonwns. I respect Ansel Adams and Dude Who Took National Geographic's Green-Eyed Afghan Girl Shot, but for fuck's sake.

On that note, if you happen to know of an art gallery that likes work from unknown photographers--please do leave me a note. I could cut you in on part of the profits.

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Photography

And speaking of shots and photography, my latest:

Outpost

Comment: I took this back when I was vacationing in Detroit with Dork. This is out near Zug Island. All the stories you've heard about the shitty industrial areas of Detroit are true--and if I could get an erection off of urban decay, this place would have been a 70's porn movie for me. The hopeless squalor, boarded-up storefronts and the emaciated, burned out houses were all excellent. If either Dork or I had had a .45 and a flak jacket, I would have done some of the neighborhoods. I settled for down by the Detroit River.

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