So I actually got a little sleep last night.

How do I know? Because I had a dream. I haven’t had one since that half-lucid nightmare I wrote about the other day.

I the dream I was in the game Katamari Damacy. It’s this weird little import game for the PS2 where your character, in order to replace the stars his father knocked out of the sky, must roll everything he comes across into a huge ball of junk.

Well I was rolling a ball, but the only thing that would stick to it was shit.

Yeah.

So I’m rolling this huge ball of shit and I come to a hill. So I’m rolling this shitball up the hill and it keeps rolling back down, but I keep trying.

Just as it’s about to crush me I wake up.

I don’t think I need a shrink to analyze this one.

I love it when that happens because it snaps me wide-awake.

I also hate it when that happens because I sometimes have to change my sheets because of it.

I’d be afraid that I’d shared too much about myself with that last statement, but if you’ve been coming here for a while that damage has already been done.

So, I made a deposit into the bank account so I’d have enough money to pay the electric bill today, but the bank made one of it’s surprise $6 service charges which left me $3 short of the $55 I needed.

There’ll be an interesting post the day I visit the bank.

But the crisis has been averted. I spoke to the electric company today and got them to give me till Monday to pay. On Monday I have a meeting with my caseworker at the DHHR and I might be able to get her to pay it instead, so the bank’s ass-fuckery might actually work out in my favor.

Something fucking had to.

I actually got up early today and went to my health club, the Ren Dor Lanes bowling alley on south side. I bowled four games today. My best was a 107. The rest aren’t worth mentioning.

How out of shape do you have to be for bowling to be considered exerscise? Pretty fucking out of shape lemmietellya.

I’ve pretty much got my strength back. It’s my stamina that’s lacking.

Just ask Rich’s Mom…

I went to bed at 8 this morning and got up at 12.

I say 'got up' instead of 'woke up' because I didn't get any sleep.

So I went with my sister to take my Mom's dogs to the vet.

Got back at my place at 3 and tried to sleep till 8.

Still didn't get any sleep.

I'm nervous about the state of my finances.

I'm working on it, and most of the time I feel fine, but when it comes time to sleep I get the fear.

The fear is an irrational paranoia that you just can't reason away. At least, not enough to let you sleep.

So here I am on an insomnia-bender.

I have an appointment with my caseworker on the 10th, but some of my bills are due on the 7th.

Due meaning they'll shut them off.

I have enough to keep them from getting shut off, but just barely.

However, I can't remember if my phone bill is one of the ones I got a shut-off for. I don't think it is, but since I'm staying at my brother's place tonight and the bills are at home where I can't check them I figure I'm looking at another sleepless night.

The DHHR has helped a little, but I'm sick of waiting on the government to help me, so I've started looking for a new job.

I don't suppose any of you are hiring?

I guess there's always trucking school.

Anyways, I ought to be fine if I can just keep everything turned on till the 10th.

Wish me luck.

So we went to the Mountaineer tonight.

We tried to go on New Years eve, but the place was packed. Every parking space full. Shit, there was a limo in the front and a tour bus out back.

I mean, we like the ‘Eer and all that, but it’s not the sort of place where you wait on a table to open up, and it damn sure isn’t the sort of place you take a limo to at 2 AM on New Years day.

The waitress we had tonight said it was nobody important.

Jeremy seems to think it might have been country singer Toby Keith.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other if you ask me.

Anyways, the place was nice and deserted tonight. Just like we like it.
Over dinner Nate regaled us with his latest tale from the land of Crapoli’s. Seems he took a transfer call. That’s one where someone that can’t place a regular phone order; I-E can’t speak or can’t hear, types the message and some guy at the transfer service relays it to the restaurant.

It went something like this:

Transfer guy: I have a transfer call for you. Have you done one of those before?

Nate: Yes, many times.

Transfer guy: The order is as follows: I would like one large pizza with extra cum. Will you please suck my cock?

Now, using an inhuman control of oneself that only Nate can muster, he transferred the call to his supervisor and then, I’m sure, laughed his balls off.

Crapoli’s was prank called by a proxy service.

If I could make shit like that up I’d be a fucking millionaire.

New Years went OK. It was certainly far from being the worst one I ever had, but then any holiday where I don’t flatline is better than the 2001/2002 changeover.

Wasn’t the wildest one either.

No, there were no hookers or firetrucks or flaming toilets hurled from the tops of apartment buildings (at least, not by me). Just a few of us playing HALO 2. We took a break long enough to watch the ball drop and for me to ask where the hell Dick Clark was, then right back to HALO 2.

Does it mean I’m getting old? Maybe even, maturing?

Perish the thought.

It just means I had a lack of resources.

Next year will be different.

Oh, I made it to the DHHR today. Sat there for two hours and they paid off the overdue portion of my gas bill, which was substantial. They couldn’t help me with the ones that I had partially paid and gotten out of shut-off status on my own.

See where maturity will get you?

I also made it to my brother’s place to tend to the dogs. Looks like I’ll be staying there the next two nights as my brother is going out of town.

Granted, it would be a lot easier if I just brought the dogs back here, but that would make too much sense.

But it’s not like I have anything better to do.

Didn’t make it to the bank or the cable company though, but those can just as easily be done tomorrow.

Looks like another month with full utilities.

I hope to have a job before the next wave.

I know, hope in one hand…

God you people are fucking cynical.

So I’ve got shit to do tomorrow.

Actually, I’ve got shit to do later today.

Why am I still awake at 5:30 AM?

Because the shit I have to do today is important shit, and important shit means that I can’t fucking sleep.

It doesn’t help that I didn’t sleep last night.

I went to bed. Hell, I went to bed early. And I was tired too. In bed at 4 AM, to wake up at 6:45 AM wide fucking awake.

I tried to go back to sleep but instead was treated to some weird-ass, half-lucid, semi-nightmare till 2 in the afternoon.

Fortunately, I managed to not crack another tooth grinding them together.

I’m up to five now.

Anyways, first, I need to go to the DHHR with my bills to try to get them to give me money to pay them. Or failing that, just get them to not shut the utilities off.

Then I need to go to the bank to cash a check I received in the mail from a generous reader for some artwork I did.

Then I need to take care of the past-due ammount on my cable bill. Yes, I know cable is a luxury, but it IS my entire budget alotment for entertainment.

Then I need to come home and call the plasma center and see if I can donate. Given my history of infections and the blood transfusions I received a while back and the medication I recently finished they probably won’t want me though.

Then I need to take Nate to work and while I’m out I need to walk my brother’s dogs (and while I’m there make myself a sandwich), come back home again, hopefully finish some more artwork for the above-mentioned reader, and start on a political cartoon for the guy at Graffiti for the job that they MIGHT consider paying me for.

It’s gonna be a full day.

One that I will surely fail to fully achieve any part of, but I will fail with implacable aplomb.

And that’s why I’m the coolest guy you know.

Peace out homies. I’ll write about New Years Eve later.