I wanted to blog today when I got home but as we've only slept for about 4-5 hours a night for the past week I took a nap when I got home. I think I'm doing a better job at not pushing Toni as hard as I tend to push myself, and I think I'm doing a better job at not pushing myself beyond of what I'm capable of working. Our big order is about 1/2 done, and the rest of the orders coming in are getting shipped within 24 hours. It feels better not to have our clients waiting.

-> insert two hour Taco Cabana break

Hah - I put in a 16 hours day at the theater yesterday. I left at about 2:45AM and I think I spent the last two hours singing at the top of my lungs in an empty movie theater. I think next week I'm going to bring my trumpet again.

I think that writing has become somewhat of a hobby for me, though I think I'm just now coming coming that realization.

And as a quick and short aside, I'd like to re-assert a long-held belief that I've had, and rarely speak of: I think the Beastie Boys are the best rap group, hands down. That stuff just as about original as you can get, and it never gets old, man. Even the videos are great.

Anyway, back to writing as a hobby for me. I'm sure a lot of it taps into my own weird need for self-introspection and expression, but the plain fact is that I enjoy it. I* also admit that I like to have a venue where I can communicate pretty freely, and for some reason typing at a keyboard seems to free me up a bit. I guess the fact that I can now type faster than I can write is a plus, too. I think my Facebook account has been relegated to a high-tech phonebook.

I was thinking as I drove home today about how I always tell people that the Internet is Forever. I suppose a part of me is a bit concerned that stuff I write here is one day going to come back and bite me in the tail, or at is at least being stored somebody to use against me later or to try to show my kiddo what a messed-up guy I am. Odds are I'm just being terribly paranoid, but at the end of the day I think I'd rather face the consequences of being real, open and honest and open than to go on living living the lies I spent so many years living.

I spent a couple of dollars and entered a raffle to win an M-1 carbine. It looks like this:
I have to tell you - I have no interest in this gun whatsoever, man. Unless my brother or Dad wants it, if I win it I'm just gonna sell it. I never thought I'd see the day where I didn't want another gun. (I'm on a five-year no-new-guns moratorium, just so you guys know. Upgrading existing guns is OK, though the only upgrading I'm interested in retrofitting my Glock's grip frame with rails and a longer magazine tube for Toni's shotgun.)

I feel like a lot of the tension between me and Toni has slacked off a lot. I think that recognizing that emotional injury that the divorce gave me and lancing that infection has made a huge difference, at least for me. I admit it's still hard for me on occasion - any time that Toni (or anybody else) does (or did) any action identical to (or even remotely similar to) something (or even anything) my ex-wife did I got (OK - still sometimes get) tense, short, and/or and angry.

For example, several weeks ago (before we began counseling), Toni was talking about getting another job. In my mind - and I swear this is true - I really thought that she was going to get another job so that she could financially prepare herself to leave me. Toni told me that she was only doing it so that we could pay down our bills and get caught back up financially. I told myself "Hah - that's the same thing that my ex-wife told me, and then she left." And it doesn't (didn't) matter how many times she'd insist that she A) wasn't leaving and B) wasn't my ex-wife it didn't matter one bit. Apparently I had one hell of a wall built up, man, and that's just one example. And I've been doing that - to everybody - since about 2004. What a mess, huh? But it's geting better, one day at a time.

I was also thinking about how you can't ever really let your guard down against your addiction, too. I mean, the steps you consciously take to actively attack or defend against eventually become second nature and/or habit eventually, but you can't ever completely cut off all your defenses. And that thought makes me tired, man - so very tired. I (probably) have decades of fighting in front of me. These past three years have been a gold-plated bitch a lot of the time, too. But I suppose that's why you have to take it one day at a time. I guess that's the only way to spare yourself from what seems like an incredibly tiring (if not impossible) task.

And in the summertime it gets trickier and more difficult, as the gals tend to wear less. Which I hate (and also love, and hate that I love it.) So far it's been OK; I haven't been full-out triggered at work, where visual stimulus is impossible to avoid, especialy when the stimulus is wearing shorts. I look at a lot of eyes. Toni is always a big support, too.

OK - I'm gonna wrap it up. I'm going to replace the starter on my Bronco (again) in the morning.

Oh - and as I am codependent, I need suggestions for new glasses. I don't have to look at them, just through them, so you guys chime in, especially you ladies, as you have a much more keenly developed sense of aesthetics than I do.

For the record, my existing glasses have a big chip out of the right lens, a large scratch on the left lens, both nose pieces are held on with super-glue, the tips of the earpieces are gone (chewed off by Oscar in the night), the clear, scratch-resistant coating that covers both the lenses has begun to pit and flake off, the left earpiece is snapped in two and held together with tape, which is hidden under one of those glasses straps that is necessary to hold them to my head. In the event I did get an interview for a new job, I'm going to have to drag out my contact lenses for it, as whatever cool professional factor I might have had has now been completely driven from me like the snakes of Ireland. Personally, I'm leaning to something a bit clunkier or more retro-looking, or at least with fewer parts to break. Chime in, please, because if I'm left to my own devices it'll horn-rimmed glasses in no time.

Please.

835 for Saturday.