I'd Go Out Of My Mind But For You

There are lots of things to complain about when you awake at 4:30 am, on travel, with a painful throat and nose thing going on.

What is wonderful and fully incapable of being conveyed through standard photography is the enchanted domed sky in the still-dark backyard. There, in the last slice of shadow before the day awakes, the moon is a razor thin crescent and Orion sprawls across the sky and it is like the whole universe has been spun into a ball and laid at your feet as the ultimate gift.

And because it's too damn beautiful you can't accept the gift, so you give it right back. Later, after the dazzle of starshine has faded, you will think how lucky it was to dodge the bullet of being responsible for all that glory.

Labor Day Weekend at the Cats, part the first

11:36 AM to 4:49 PM

344 miles

Trip time: 5 hours, 13 minutes

This angers me, as it is over Google Maps estimated time. And I was hauling ass   driving quite well.

Also: this is a silly place.

Fuck Verizon

Seriously.


This problem exists for a service I never even had. Verizon just skipped past that little bit of info and turned me over to a collections agency that's been calling my house constantly.

Complete idiocy under the cut. Names were changed to protect the incompetent and bitchy.

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck those fucking fucks.

And the asshole hung up on me.

You Stop To Wonder But You Never Know

How did I screw up my life so thoroughly?

Definitely hitting a slight bump on the NFG Tour.

It's funny how one thing tips over and causes an avalanche and you realize you are in Deep Shit. When stuff like this happens it makes me believe that shit was fucked up before and I was just too stupid to notice.

So yesterday I received a letter from my bank, with whom I have two credit cards.

In this letter, dated March 4th, they informed me that my credit had been reassessed and due to this my APR would now be 17.99%, effective May.

Please note: I received this letter August 11th. There was a small note attached saying they had tried to mail it before but the item was returned.

I moved into my new place on April 1st, with forwarding service left at my old place (all 5 miles away). I got the addresses changed on all my accounts over the next 2 months.

So, I go check my account, bewildered and still figuring everything out. My "amount due" came in at about 1.5 times the normal amount. There are suddenly these "payment counseling" options next to my accounts.

I can't even express how fucked up this is without descending into a Black Rage.

So, they reveiwed my history, which would show that I've been unemployed for quite sometime, but have never missed payments and usually pay Over the amount due. Sooooooo.... the logical thing is to assess a person's state, and if they are in financial distress then charge them more???!!

I've seen this before. It happened to my parents, twice. People who don't pay are written off and people who pay are hounded and penalized. This is what happened with the Houston oil market crash and to a lesser severity but wider area during the recent housing bubble.

I don't even want to get into how the bank failed to contact me about this thing that I'm legally supposed to have the choice of rejecting (cancelling the cards and paying off the debt at the original rate).

I keep opening up to the Universe and trying to foster positivity, and the Universe responds in pretty much the same way these days.

Whatever. The world continues to piss on my dreams and hopes. It's not even newsworthy. Will update when I replace my self pity with no F's being G'd.

Checking In

The almost white noise of traffic, one street off a main drag, filters in the screen door along with sunlight and a light breeze.

It's another ridiculously beautiful day in SoCal, with Handy J singing an interestingly Country/Western themed melange as he does the dishes in the kitchen.

Returned from a trip to Denver--another location with beauty and nice weather to spare. I was lucky to escape there with my possessions intact, as my compatriots were of the rascally sort.

On this trip I learned it is incredibly hard, if  not impossible, to make sexual harassment charges stick against people below the age of five.

Which is a shame, because those little buggers know it and there's some real shady stuff going on out there.

If she no lika your answer, she eata your face!

I'm sure everybody has seen this, but just in case. This is we can show the aliens to stop them from wiping us out. He's Earth's only hope:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-collections/428467/surprise-guests

That's one damn catchy song. Save us SCobie,  you're our only hope.

Visiting with the Woosters made me realize how much I like kids and cats. I actually love them.

I miss them when they aren't around. I just don't love them enough to have my own. Other people's will suffice.

The Wolverine was a fun movie. Hugh Jackman is so immensely likeable and pushes the limits of belief with the physicality he brings to the role. (Physicality = 889793243234j937 lbs of muscle).

I continue to be delighted and a little awed by how Marvel is pulling all the threads of their movies together. Their universe is so disjointed, in terms of who owns rights to what. And yet. . . there's always that cameo or that end credit scene or that Stan Lee appearance.

By the way, did Stan Lee appear in The Wolverine? I don't remember seeing him. The movie itself was a competent update to the original Wolverine mini series involving his time in Japan.

I would like to take a moment to protest, again, that the Origins official back story of Wolverine blows. I was so disappointed when I got those comics. They got it all wrong, destroyed the mystery, limited his experiences, etc. Fanboy wank.

But seriously, how much cooler would The Wolverine been if set in feudal Japan(AS THE BABY JEBUS INTENDED) and he was a samurai? If you don't think that's cool, then we probably shouldn't hang out.

I'm on a new med regimen which has me pinging between hibernation sleep and carsick jitters. Bleh. I'll document my travails for posterity some other time. For now, I find myself in the wacky world of self medication and monitoring. Which, as I pause to reflect on it, has kinda been what's been going on all along. Hmm.

I have so much to do, and you know what?

The NFG Tour continues!!!!

 In a world. . . where no Effs are Geed. . . what becomes possible?