Like a Bad Penny...

Yeah, I'm back.

I wish I could say I was gone due to some great mind-expanding sojourn to find myself, but the truth of the matter is I was just really depressed about a lot of stuff, and I wasn't sure how to even begin to explain myself. Strange things were afoot at the Circle K.

Yeah, myopic, you say to yourself. Whatever. So what the hell have you been doing for the past six weeks?

First off, an update on the kitty crisis. Apparently, Elvis did sneak out of the apartment as I had feared, and managed to get himself stuck in the hallways. There are several fire doors in the hallways, which are closed most of the time. He got stuck in between two of them, which meant he had 25-30 feet of carpeted nothingness to prowl up and down. After the novelty wore off, I imagine he got panicky. By the time he was found, he was hissing and attacking anything that moved. The SPCA was called, he was carted off. Since the SPCA has a policy about not keeping "vicious animals" (which he was considered at this point), he was euthanized upon arrival.

I cried a lot when I found out. Actually, I can't remember doing much else for those first few days. Go to work, cry. Go home, cry. Go to visit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, cry. The apartment seemed so empty without him, and now that I knew what had happened to him, it became unbearable. I packed a bag and went to visit JohnnyB for the weekend. Probably not the brightest idea in the world, since it involved driving through a snowstorm for 4 hours to get there in my sad sad little car. But I arrived safe and sound and spent the entire weekend doing nothing but watching bad TV and playing with the family dog.

Just a side note here. Over the Rhine is not good driving music. Pretty, but after following a salt truck through construction for 25 miles, Karin Bergquist's voice starts to make you sleepy. George Clinton, on the other hand....

I went to Louisville with my parents for a family wedding. Not much to note here, except my father snores louder than anyone on the planet. I kid you not. It was funny at first, but after a few hours, not so funny. (Of course, this is the worst thing I can think of to say about my dad. He's a fine man. Who snores really really loud.)

I finally got around to seeing Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Wow. If you haven't seen it yet, go. Go now. Don't let the subtitles scare you. Stop reading this and go see it.

Didn't I just tell you to go see a movie? Oh well.

Went to visit JohnnyB again over President's Day weekend. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern joined us, and a good time was had by all. Only problem was I came down with a nasty cold, which turned into a sinus infection and bronchitis. I spent the entire weekend sitting on the couch, doped up on cold medication and demanding tea.

On the way home, my exhaust system decided to go kablooey, and I spent the last hour of the drive dragging a pipe. My car was louder than the Mack trucks that were passing me. And after I got home and did a quick check of my finanaces, I realized I couldn't afford to get it fixed. Fine. I'd just leave it in the parking lot and bus it for a week or so.

This would have been a good plan, except I was on a timetable to get the car fixed. My registration was up for renewal, and I had to pass an emissions test before I could do so. Crap.

I arranged to borrow some money from Zappagirl to get my car in working order, and drove off to CarX for necessary repairs. After waiting for something like 20-30 minutes, the mechanic came back in to tell me that my car was fixed and there was no charge. Yes, you read that right. No charge. A few bolts that held a bracket in place had come loose, so they replaced the bolts, put in a new gasket, and wrote the whole thing off. To quote Eric Cartman, "SWEEEEEEET!"

I love CarX. They have my business forever.

While all this was going on, I found out that Angie, a girl I knew from the clubs, passed away. I wasn't especially good friends with her, but we knew the same people and had gone to the same bars for ten years. I'd had a few good conversations with her, and somewhere in the back of my head, I'd always wished I knew her a bit better. The last time I ran into her at the Warehouse, she seemed happier than I had ever seen her. A few weeks later, she had a pulmonary embolism and died.

The Warehouse had a moment of silence for her last week, and while I was there I found out that another person I knew had died in a house fire over the weekend. After the moment of silence, the DJ played "Return to Innocence" by Enigma, which he played every Wednesday night after the mosh pit. The song was a favorite of our former barback, Eric Orendorff, who passed away a year ago from a heart condition. (After playing it for one year, the song was retired last night.) His death was very difficult for me, because I had been his mother's secretary 10 years ago, and he used to hang out in my office when he got off school. I had know him since he was 16. He was the first person in my peer group to pass away.

All of these people were younger than me - less than 30. Add to this the most depressing episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer ever (which I know sounds incredibly trite, but anyone who saw it would understand - Buffy's mother died from an aneurysm, and the resulting hour was possibly the best representation I've ever seen of dramatized grief on television or film. I sobbed uncontrollably for the majority of it, and went through half a box of Kleenex.), and suddenly I found myself rather drunk, contemplating the meaning of life and the possible existance of an afterlife vs. the theory of reincarnation. I found myself wondering why (to paraphrase Billy Joel) the good ones die young. Wondering if I would ever listen to Enigma without thinking about my friend and co-worker. Realizing that all the "under construction" signs on Angie's website would remain there, never to be updated.

Yeah, that was a fun night out.

But life goes on, and we put aside our grief to move through our lives. I'm attending a memorial service for Eric on his parents' farm this Sunday, and it will be difficult, but it will be good to be among friends, people who chose not to mourn his passing, but celebrate and remember the great times we had with him.

Some good stuff has happened in my absence. Musashi finished his revamp of Destroy All Monsters and added a bulletin board as well as some nifty Cafe Press schwag. Check him out, drop him a line.

Diamond Doug finished his latest chapbook. It's a collection of vignettes rather than poetry this time out, and it's hilarious. Sometimes he makes he really jealous, because he's a prolific and talented writer, while I've been kicking around the same hackneyed plot outline for my novel for what seems like a million years. Doug doesn't beat around the bush when he has something to say, no matter what anyone else thinks or who he offends in the process. (I'd pimp the Black Hoody Nation label with a link, but he doesn't have one. Dude, we gotta talk about this....)

My sister and her husband just bought a new house and, more importantly, sold their old one. My niece is enthralled with the stairs (the old house was one story), and spends all her time going up and down them. Ah, to be easily amused.

My mother's business website went up today. If anyone needs wedding invitations or stationery, now you know where to go. C'mon kids. Make my mommy a rich woman.

And oh yeah. My birthday's this weekend. Presents and the like will be graciously accepted. Kidding! I am looking forward to a big dinner with friends, with cake and ice cream to follow. JohnnyB will be driving down to spend the weekend with us (partially for my birthday, partially for Eric's memorial, and partially to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon since it will never play in his Small Northwestern College Town). And I am taking Monday off. Just because the government hasn't realized my birthday as a national holiday doesn't mean I can't.

It's good to be back. I don't know if any of you missed me, but I missed you.