You went to sleep early last night, but you’re still tired this morning. Unusually tired. You reset your alarm so you can sleep for an extra 30 minutes. As if that’s ever helped. When you rise to start your day you’re disorientated. You can’t find your glasses. Oh well, you’ll deal with that later. You jump in the shower and start your routine. Programmed to maneuver and operate with eyes closed, you feel for the shampoo. It slides through your finger tips and lands on your toe. But there is no registration of the pain that you should be feeling. Not to mention, you lack the energy to react to the pain, had you felt it. At that moment you realize the day is going to be abnormal.

You’re not hungry but you manage to eat breakfast. You drink a Red Bull, your first smile of the day. You drive to the metro, blinking quickly to keep your eyes attentive and to stay awake. You sing along to the song blasting through the speakers, your first words of the day, muffled, broken, and raspy. You clear your throat and give your first words a second chance. You arrive at the metro and abandon your car for a crowded electric train. You pray they have the air conditioning in your train car maxed. You take a seat and turn up the volume on your mp3 player; loud enough to keep you awake but not so much as to annoy those beside you. You zone out. The train pulls into a transfer station; you switch trains; you zone back out.

I had an epiphany about an hour ago, which led me to Walmart where I purchased a bag of 300 dumdums for $6. Now that I’m back, eating dumdum after dumdum, I’m trying to figure out what triggered this epiphany. I heard a voice that said, “You really need to get a lollipop right now.” And I listened to that voice. My journey began. I dashed down the four flights of stairs, hopped in the car, and about 10 minutes later the mission was complete and I returned home; I was pretty excited when I got back to my place with the giant bag of delicious teeth-destroying madness.

It wasn’t until I reached into the bag and pulled out the first of many dumdums that my hopes and dreams were shattered. Banana. Seriously, artificial banana flavor? I forced myself to eat it. I lasted through every last bit of that nasty fake-banana hell. And then I got pink-lemonade. Things sure have changed since I was a kid. What happened to orange, grape, and watermelon? Did I buy the wrong stuff? I’d like to just have a bag of 300 orange flavored dumdums. Why do I have to suffer through flavors like bubblegum, cream soda, the ambiguous “mystery flavor,” and coconut-pineapple. Well, I’m actually eating coconut-pineapple right now and it’s exceptional. But that doesn’t excuse them from screwing up the other flavors in the lab and then labeling them “mystery flavor.” That doesn’t make flavors like banana acceptable.

So, as you know, I’ve been back at work for 6 weeks or so and I’ve fallen back into that normal routine. Wake up, get caffeine, go to work, get caffeine, eat lunch and make sure to drink something large, bubbly, and full of caffeine, crash around 2pm, suck it up till I go home, fall asleep on the couch, wake up and eat dinner, think about everything I should be doing for an hour or so, and then jump in the bed and fall asleep. That’s the life. Except now I’ve started a business. So sitting around and thinking about doing something instead of actually doing it has more consequences than just not doing anything. Especially since my ultimate goal is to work from home full-time. My house is like some sort of anti-work zone. Just ask anyone who’s been there. You try and accomplish something when there are 10 other more interesting things that can be done using little to no brain power.

Judging by my personality I’m pretty sure I was built for management. I work hard in small bursts and I’m great at knowing what needs to be done. Just not actually doing it. That part is best left for someone else. Not working for myself all the time is starting to get bothersome. While I’m at work, doing my job actually bothers me. Sure, it makes my day go about 5 times faster when I’m working. But when I’m not working I can just stare at my computer and think about all the wonderful things that I’ll be doing when my business takes off and I can work from home. Just as an example, I could have a few beers with lunch! Now doesn’t that sound exciting? There would be nothing to stop me, except that meeting at 1pm with a client that requires some driving. We’ll worry about that later.

Everything, everywhere, looks so comfortable. Is it because I’m so tired? Today I found myself wanting to use a Kleenex box as a pillow. (At least there is something soft on the inside?) Maybe I’m just delusional, but the space under my desk, on top of all of those cords, looks like it could fit a person easily. I got 8 hours of sleep last night too. What’s wrong with me?

Maybe they should study me while I sleep, and see what goes on. And I could get paid for it. I know you’re thinking, “Gee Dave, I’ve never thought of that.” Well guess what. I hope someone punches you in the face in the next few minutes. Grumpy? Who’s grumpy?

I’m tired. I can’t be held accountable for saying things (that I hope happen) when I’m tired. Normally my brain would stop such a negatively directed comment from leaving my thoughts. (I’d still think it though.) And I hope you’re not thinking, “But Dave, what if someone actually did punch me in the face? You’d feel terrible right?” Haha. No. I’d only hope a third person was hiding in the background with a video camera so I could catch the action on YouTube. Preferably, the video would start at the exact moment you decided to be a smart-allick-snob and then got punched in the face.

Anyway, if you weren’t thinking any of that, then I’m sorry. I’m just tired. And trapped in some sort of time paradox. How is it that the last 15 minutes of work feels longer than my hour commute home? How can I sleep 8 hours and feel like I’ve been awake for 36 after I wake up? Am I having really epic dreams? Maybe I should read some articles about sleep and see what I can come up with. It doesn’t make too much sense. I mean, I’ve been sleeping my whole life. You’d think I’d be good at it by now.

Eating breakfast at 5am is certainly a new thing for me. I’m never hungry when I wake up so I have to force myself to eat, or I’ll be starving by 8am. It’s hard to get a reasonable amount of food down, because everything seems to taste awful at 5am. It’s got nothing to do with toothpaste, I brush after I eat. It’s just that nothing tastes good. (I havn’t tried sushi though, but where would I even get it that early in the morning?) Does anyone know what I can eat that won’t suck?

Possibly the worst part about it is that I still get hungry at 8am anyway. Every morning someone on my floor at work brings in McDonald’s for breakfast and it fills my nostrils with joy and desire. But the lingering smell makes my tongue cry, sends throbbing pains to my stomach and daggers to my heart. I can only fantasize about McDonald’s breakfast. There aren’t any on the way to work, and I’d probably die very young if there were. Smelling hash browns every morning kills me inside. I salivate just thinking about those greasy morsels rolling across my tongue, and grinding between my teeth. The fantasies never stop there though. I find myself craving pancakes, sausage, mcgriddles, egg mcmuffins, steak bagels, and cinnamon buns. I’m so deprived.

No one can deny that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull provided everything an Indy fan would expect from the last Indiana Jones movie that will ever be made.The movie is a true fan service, as any conclusion to a series should be. Everything that is Indiana Jones--witty lines, daring escapes from impossible situations, fearlessness in the face of countless enemies, fist fighting and whip lashings,archaeological puzzle solving, and of course at least one snake---is in this movie. But this movie had something that the others in the series didn't have; an ending that was such complete shit, utter garbage, barf inducing, angry review producing,give-me-my 10-bucks-back rioting---an ending so bad that it ruined the entire movie. It played out something like this...

Last week I would wake up and start my day by rolling out of my bed to the right and extending my feet to make contact with the floor before I fell. Then I’d make my way to the bathroom with my eyes closed and turn on the shower. Well, as you may know, I’ve moved since then, and now I have to roll out of the bed to the left. And my bed isn’t as high off of the floor as it used to be, so extending my legs doesn’t really do anything except stop me from leaving the bed. But that’s not that big of a deal I guess, I’ll get used to having to sit up before getting out of the bed. It’s just a little hard for me to get used to things when I’m ridiculously tired.

For example, I woke up this morning and couldn’t find my alarm, because it was in a different location than my body remembers. After finally turning the alarm off, I let out an exasperated sigh. Going to sleep late and waking up early the past few days culminated in a sort of disorientation that led me to rolling off of my bed and into the closet. When you open your eyes and find yourself inside your closet I think it gives you a pretty good outlook on how the day will be. I spent a few minutes on my back just marveling the fact that I had made it into the closet instead of the bathroom. Either my technique was off, or I was in a different room and my bathroom was a few rolls to the left instead of the right. Obviously it was the latter; my mostly-asleep-rolling technique is unmatched in case you were wondering. Ordinarily I would be able to wake up to my alarm, fall back asleep, and wake up again but be in the shower. I’ve only perfected my ability to accomplish things in my sleep in recent years. I can’t really explain it; it’s just a talent of mine.

I moved to a 4th floor apartment. I’m not sure what prompted that. In theory, it doesn’t sound that bad. But once you start carrying couches up the stairs, the pivoting, and then up more stairs, you start to question your judgment. Why in the world did I choose to live on the 4th floor? I guess the “worst decision of my life” is a little bit of an exaggeration, but it sure did feel like it today. After moving the couches yesterday I was slightly sore, and it’s only worsened today.

Walking up the stairs with my 21” CRT monitor was probably one of the most painful experiences of my life though, truthfully. More painful than the spring incident and the dumpster incident (you’ll have to ask me about that some other time if you don’t know). Half way through I just wanted to throw it over the banisters but I lacked the strength to get it above the bars. After recovering some strength I did the same thing with my 19” monitor, lighter, but after the 21” my muscles were exhausted. I ended up dropping it flat on the glass side. It’s actually a shame that it didn’t break, that would have saved me the effort of bringing it all the way up the stairs.

Next I broke my desk down into four pieces so that I could make it as easy as possible to transport and as soon as all of it was in the new apartment I put it back together and started setting up my computers. Because, well, that’s kind of a priority. I can’t blog if I don’t have a computer. You should be thankful that I wasn’t too tired to do that.

Oh, I forgot to mention I fell asleep on the couch for four hours after work. That’s kind of the reason I haven’t passed out yet. Except that I already passed out prior to this and now I’m post-passed-out. Basically I don’t plan on passing out again till it’s actually time to go to sleep. But apparently I’m not awake enough to make sense, so I apologize.

So, last Monday I started working down at the DEA. But, by working I mean I’m waiting to get an account so that I can log into the computers. And there’s the matter of my ID badge, so I can walk around the building without an escort. I don’t have one yet. For three days I’ve been unable to do any work. What do I do then? Well, allow me to go into my day today.

I got into work around 7:30AM, I didn’t bring anything with me except today’s Express. Immediately upon sitting down I began reading. I read every single article and then started on the crossword puzzle. Crossword puzzles are way out of my league though; I filled in two words in about 30 minutes, and then gave up. After, I started the soduku and like always I started out strong but I made a mistake and I was using pen, so I just threw out the whole paper.

I stared blankly at my desk for about an hour or so and then decided that I should make a flip book on the pack of post-it notes. I thought long and hard about what I should draw on there and didn’t come up with anything. Also, that would require some effort, so instead I started folding the post-it notes into little cubes. Each side of the cube was one post-it note and I made three cubes, so I used 18 post-it notes and killed about an hour (folding those little things isn’t easy. Plus the sticky edge makes it a hassle.) Due to the incredible amount of work required to produce little cubes out of little paper, I decided it would be best if I took a break from that.

Around then I got online, on a separate computer that has internet connection, because our personal computers do not, and I read google news. Google news turned out to have a lot of the same things that the newspaper had, so I went back to staring at my desk. I drew a picture, and then stared at my desk some more.

It's been almost 6 months since I last updated. I suppose you'd like to know what's kept me so busy that I couldn't post even one entry over such a long period of time. Fortunately, I have a good reason.

Starting in January, I was being considered for two full-time gigs - one at an alternative station in San Diego, California and the other at a Hot AC in Spokane, Washington. I'll let you guess which one I was pulling for. However, I very happily ended up getting hired at 92.9 KZZU-FM in the good old inland Northwest. That was March. Yes, that's how long I was in talks with both stations. Yes, it took up a lot of my time and energy.

As did driving across the country. And settling in. Moving, essentially.

And having to go home three weeks after my start date for two weeks when my Dad was admitted to a hospice due to suffering two strokes in less than twenty-four hours as a roundabout side effect of the lung cancer and later passed away the day after my 23rd birthday.

So, yeah. It's been ... a very eventful half a year. And I thought 2008 was going to be better than 2007.

To be honest, I don't really know what I'm trying to say here. I guess I wanted to start writing again but wanted to explain my absence first. I think it was a valid excuse.