Me and my simple updates are starting to good and piss me off...

but it's all I've got.

After two good weeks or so of writing pretty consistently, I have had to be back at the school this week in preparation for summer camps. I won't go into any detail here about the nature of the work involved. I will simply say that this gig is a lot of work compressed into a very small period of time. I have been absolutely wiped out every night I have returned home. This is not an entirely bad thing.

In spite of the notable busy-ness of the week, we did have time to run to Marietta and settle on the apartments in which we will live next fall. We will be where I told you we will be, though the decision was complicated by what appeared to be a bait and switch. After walking out of the leasing office in frustration, we signed paperwork thirty minutes later as the "misunderstanding" was "resolved" by the leasing manager "calling corporate." Screw it. We like the apartments, the location, and the rent.

I'm falling asleep at the keyboard. More soon.

Stream of Conch's-ness...

... in the form of bullets, the singular version of which is somewhat close in spelling to "bullshit." Coincidence? I think not...

• Meghan and I have "found" an apartment complex in the E.C. which we think will become home to each of us in late July. Assuming all goes as planned over the next five days or so, you can look for us right here...

... but really, you should call first.

• Summer camps begin one week from tomorrow, which means that the real work begins on Tuesday (even though we've been in the office fairly consistently for the last week-and-a-half).

I recall a particularly interesting spring some eight-or-so years ago, when the Diamond Dawgs were in the post-season. Gunner had just moved in next door, and we were still doing three weeks of Sunday-to-Saturday camp. Several of us got together to watch Georgia vs. Tech on television and enjoy our last hoorah before a month of enslavement to The Man. In the process we got absolutely liver-hardeningly drunk at 3 in the afternoon. Just thinking about it makes me slur my speech.

These days we do that afterwards.

• Last week, I reached the point in the year when I am finishing shows rather than starting them. This is a relief. The time of year during which the arranging gig falls does not make for a very streamlined process. Though I had once hoped to spend a great deal of time writing while doing my travel job, the truth is that that doesn't happen very much. I am able to write a fair amount in the middle of the weeks of summer camp. It would be nice, however, if I could simply sit for two weeks at a time and write each show without having to leave town for a month.

• Barring any clearly obvious signs (severe misspellings or complete inattention to punctuation), do you think you can tell when someone has emailed you drunk? I think I can, and I suspect that is less because of some sort of intuition I have and more because I have done it more than my fair share of times.

• While in Gatlinburg a couple of weeks ago, my Civic endured the hailstorm from hell. I will be putting it in the shop early next week to have the 40+ dings removed at a total cost of about $1400, $1000 of which will come from my pocket. Who's excited?

• I am as politically frustrated right now as I remember. It feels like there is no one with any control who is on my side, and that sucks. Some of that is the $4.00 gas (which you would have to be asleep not to have seen coming). Some of it isn't.

• On the other hand, I myself stuck it to The Man this afternoon when I received three (3) free subscriptions to magazines in return for my pittance of American Airlines miles. Now who's excited!!?

Clarence Darrow posthumously defends Senator Obama, in a quote on my Google home page today: "Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak it to?"

To Cobb

It was noted some time back that the location of my residence for the next year was undecided. Since then, you may have been among those who have been told that Meghan got a job in Cobb County. And thus, that will be my home for the next year.

When I was growing up in Nashville, I used to hear these vague references from my father about locations where he used to live. Once distinctly vague reference was somewhere on the west side of Nashville.

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I recall that my sister-in-law lived in the neighborhood near the end of her time at Vanderbilt. One day my dad pointed west across I-440, and told me that he used to live in blah blah blah just beyond that bum bum-ba blah blah. He sounded like he had been running from the law.

I don't know that I ever envisioned myself moving quite this much. Between the ages of two and sixteen-years old I had lived in two permanent dwellings that were within one mile of each other. Since sixteen, I have lived in nine (9) other places. That doesn't particularly bother me in the current context, since some sort of ease in the habit of moving appears to be in the not-too-distant future.

While I am not terribly excited about leaving Athens again, I am tickled to be moving to a place that will be near dear friends, still in Georgia, and within three-and-a-half hours of Nashville. The five-hour drive has made getting to Nashville difficult. It is time to jump back on that horse.

Most importantly, Meghan has found a very interesting job in a place that appears to provide a steady but challenging job. She is excited about it and I am too.

So, put your friends in the 30062 and surrounding ZIP codes on notice. We're coming arriving sooner than you think, and one of us doesn't like onions.

The Preposition Candidate

Even if my politics were aligned with those of Senator Obama's, I don't think I could vote for a candidate whose campaign slogan ends with a preposition.



At.

The Event IV

If you haven't already been invited by email or Facebook, or seen Russell's blog, here is the information you and your loved ones will need regarding The Event. Be there or be sober.

My Coat of Arms

Meghan received a wedding invitation the other day. On the top of the invitation, the bride-to-be's family elected to include its family coat-of-arms. Something about that, in light of my knowledge of her life, seemed, um, unusual. I dunno. I usually associate coats-of-arms with duchies and people with Roman numerals after their name. The woman in question is great, but simply doesn't strike me as the type.

So I wondered to myself, "Self, why don't you have a coat-of-arms?"* The answer was that there was no good reason. So Meghan, Molly, Matt, and I got out the crayons and Jack Daniel's, and got to makin' ourselves a by-God fam'ly crest.

Here is my result (click to enlarge... again, if it were only that easy).



Here is Meghan's...




* - Phrasing in tribute to Meghan's now past-professor, Dr. L, who was also mine, and for whom I maintain great affection.

It was pointed out to me today that my blog has too much orange in it. So I did something about it. But in the process I lost my links and my sitemeter. A leaner meaner Links section will be up in the near future, so don't think I have forgotten about you... unless you don't post once a month, then I have forgotten about you. Dead to me.