I don’t know how I missed it in my last entry, but some ways leaving Antioch can’t come at a better time, as it feels like everything is physically falling apart there. In May, when I turned on the lights in the store to open one morning, two of the fixtures had mini-explosions (including one right over my head), and smoke came out. A couple of days after classes started, someone snuck into our backroom, while we were open, and took May’s deposit bag out of its hiding place. Thankfully, there was no cash in it, but we lost $1,200 in checks, and had to notify all of our customers who used credit cards in May that our copies of their credit card receipts were stolen so they could get new cards. Then, topping it all off, Memorial Day night someone set fire to the Free Box (a place where people put junk they are giving away). The Free Box is on the other side of the wall from my desk, and if the fire hadn’t been caught when it was, it would have spread into the back room of the store and *whoosh*…I guess I would have started work at Dark Star earlier than I thought. The back room still smells like barbecue, there are scorch marks on the ceiling above my desk, and some of the woodwork in the back looks like…well, like it was pulled out of a fire.

Clearly, all signs point to “Exit.”

I watched “Trainspotting” for the first time tonight. Pretty good flick. I accidentally taped over “The Limey,” but I think it’s going to be on again soon. Other taped and unwatched things include: “Throne of Blood” (Japanese do MacBeth, with samurai), “Monsters Ball,” “El Mariachi,” and “Swimming.” I’ll kind of be glad when the playoffs are over because I’ll have more time for watching movies. I got “The Rundown” on payperview so I could tape it, as it is great fun, escapist cinema. A programming note, they are showing “Nosferatu,” (the 1922 vampire movie)at midnight this Monday. My late Sunday is going to be packed, though. I’m working until 9, probably won’t get home until 9:30, there’s game one of the finals, Deadwood, and the Sopranos finale. Thank God for HBO West (where you can leap back three hours into the past and watch stuff).

Had a terrible bar night Friday night. Stuck next to a 40 something couple making out right next to me, and giant asses rubbing up against me on the other side, and people kept stealing my ashtray. I’m sitting right here, with a pack of cigarettes in front of me, of course I don’t need that ashtray, you can just take it. Then, I went to Antioch and bought a Christmas green jello shot for $3, not realizing it was a jello shot, and I ended up eating it with my hands like a kindergartener…a kindergartener who’s drunk and eating a jello shot.

I’m trying not to get sucked into nostalgia, but it’s hard not to think about severing myself from the place I’ve been a part of in one way or the other for the past ten years. That, coupled with the looming specter of my 10 Year High School reunion, makes me think about the decade gone by, and how it feels like everything in my life is coming to an end so I can begin Act Two of my life. It’s scary, but I don’t really have a choice in the matter, do I? Life moves on, things change, nothing is constant, and I just have to learn that I have to roll with it and adapt and change like a life-sized Borg cube hurtling towards Sector 001. Resistance is futile, your culture will adapt to service us.

“‘Cause I’m broken when I’m open
and I don’t feel like I am strong enough
‘Cause I’m broken when I’m lonesome
and I don’t feel right when you’re gone away.”
/whiny, self-indulgent lyrics…

I bought Ace bandages today so I can have my own handwraps for boxing. I was waiting for my laundry to dry at the laundromat and practicing wrapping my hands. I realized after a while it might look a bit odd, constantly wrapping and unwrapping my fists with Ace bandages in the middle of a laundromat. At least it may have seemed odd to the other guy in there, who seemed to keep his distance and gaze a safe distance away. I was tempted to get up and start shadowboxing inbetween the washers, but that might have just been cruel. They work well, although I still have a smattering of abrasions and such on my knuckles, but I think it builds character.

The writing is going well. I think this idea may be something. What, I have no idea, but something. I’m hoping that getting up earlier in the mornings will lead to more work being done on it. We shall see.

Oh, the comment feature was broken, but its been fixed, so if there was something you wanted to say, feel free. The phone lines are now open.

Shadowboxing with the Borg cube of life, I remain…