Happy birthday, Stacy DLM-F'nK! I trust you lived up the weekend appropriately with Meesta Lovva Man (that would be Dan. Or Shabba Ranks). Hell, keep up the partying all this week, and then you guys can keep going in Fiji. When and if you get back, you'll both have that very mod, cool heroin chic thing going.

And we just saw Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later yesterday -- a must see for fans of zombie athletes everywhere!

Woooow, after a good cigar and a couple of glasses of wine, anything is possible! You know it!

Happy 113th, HPL! We all love ya, dead guy!

Yay! Some may accuse me of doing nothing at all today, but do something I did! I sat around and thought of stories to write, then I started writing them! While this may be seemingly prosaic news to some, to me it's quite cool -- I haven't actually written anything in the way of fiction for years, and finally getting around to exercising my right hemisphere is, well, good. See, I've quite a way to go, but a journey of a thousand miles blah blah blah.

So now I'm writing a rousing tale of artifact variability in southern Arizona Chinese settlements around the turn of the century. Or maybe something else. Damn that left brain!

Mocked up an application for a position in Albuquerque today, which will go in the mail tomorrow, and I'm still waiting to hear about some of the other positions I've already applied for. All I can say about Albuquerque off the top of my head (having spent a summer there) is they have some remarkable barbeque. I mean some F***IN' GREAT barbeque (oh, the memory haunts and torments me. One of those gastronomical moments where you let out little sqeaks of joy as you eat) -- that's an incentive by itself. We are trying to get back a little further east, but... man, I may never find barbeque like this again, and I hate to find myself in the position of gazing longingly at the western horizon from Virginia or something and thinking, "oh, what meat was that! I shall never again taste its like!" But then I'd think, "they ship!"

Ooooo, just found a job posting for a cool position in Alaska. Just got my first "no, thanks" letter back from a potential employer, the first, I'm sure, of many before I find something more than temporary digging around town. One idea has crossed my mind recently: stick all of our accumulated furniture and assorted crap in storage for a while and set off, shovel in hand, across America, wandering from dig to advertised dig as I gain valuable experience and archaeological insight into the cultures of the past. I'll grow grizzled in the withering sun, my skin leathery and callused. I'll start appreciating Lynard Skynard (or however the hell you spell it) and regale my digging fellows with tales of my outdoor exploits -- getting shot at by ornery ranchers on whose land I'm trespassing, and wrestling mule deer. Or whatever.

I think I'll send off a few more resumes for actual jobs, first, but I'll keep it in mind.

Sigh. Just found out my old junior high school geography teacher, Bill Gallagher, died. I wasn't as close to him as a lot of others were, but I do remember him trying to get me to try out for the football team. How different my life may have been: lots of broken bones, lots of jock friends, cheerleader girlfriends. I coulda been somebody! I shoulda listened to ya, Bill! Sad to see you go.

Janine's been away for a few days, visiting friends and family in Boston, and I've realized that I've become so completely unaccustomed to the single life that I'm kind of weirding myself out. I'm definitely sleeping a lot better (HAR HAR!) -- no, I mean that I'm not having to share the bed with another person and a dog and a cat -- just the dog and the cat now -- and rolling-around room is abundant. As I noticed the last time she was gone, my diet reverts to beer and whatever else strays into my line of sight (Ramen, burritos, and last night it was some kind of generic Chex mix sprinkled with nacho dust). That part's getting better, though. I had a salad today, and some more nacho Chex for dinner. I told myself earlier that I'm going to lose some weight, so now that the Chex bag is empty, I'm not buying another one.