"I am waiting, I am waiting/Oh yeah, oh yeah/Waiting for someone to come out of somewhere..."

The Rolling Stones - "I Am Waiting" (from their 1966 album Aftermath) as performed on the Rediffusion London Network program Ready, Steady, Go!, which thanks to my dad taping reruns of it off the Disney Channel - yeah, by the way, what the Hell happened to Disney? They used to do cool shit like this! - no doubt impacted my affinity for British rock from the 1960's. It's how I first saw The Kinks.

(Mick Jagger you may all know as the lippy lead singer, and it's still a shock to see young, wrinkle-free Keith Richards, but the frog-faced drummer is Charlie Watts, the stalwart-looking fellow with an interesting teardrop-shaped bass is Bill Wyman, and the baggy-eyed blonde on the dulcimer is Brian Jones, a man whose genius I can say truly only exists in the minds of those who deify dead rock stars. If he hadn't played the dulcimer on this track, they could have - and would have - gotten a session man to do it. The Beatles did it on "For No One" with Alan Civil on French Horn, never mind the constant presence of George Martin on keyboards.)

The beach is so close I can hear the waves, smell the sea breeze, see the oil rigs off in the Gulf horizon, taste the booze, and feel the sensation of pissing myself in the water.

This is one of those weeks that can't go by fast enough, and yet there's a lot going on:
+ Shelley is getting her semiannual "about-to-go-home" cold.
+ I won't see her for a week and a half (I know, it's nothing, but it still sucks. She has NOTHING to do down in Dallas, while I'll be living it up at the beach.)
+ I had an interview this morning for one of my articles for Culture Week.
+ Another one tomorrow morning. (About a production of The Diary Of Anne Frank. How groundbreaking...I need to start thinking of a way to get out of doing theater pieces. It bores me to tears. I'd rather just see the damn shows than squeeze out 500 words about it.)
+ Another article, for my column. (And I'll go ahead and call Squalus' pseudo-stalking bluff of finding it and reading it by saying you can find my work at Culture Week's website.)
+ Laundry.........................
+ Packing.........................
+ Coming home to no doubt an empty house Thursday afternoon (Squalus, you're more than welcome to come over for lunch if you'd like, seeing as you probably know where I live and all.)
+ Finishing my chapter on Muswell Hillbillies.
+ Getting my articles done by Friday.
+ Driving down to New Albany to stay at Eric's overnight.
+ BEACH.

My last day at Spencer's for the next two weeks was today.

m@ dropped by this weekend. I can't say I see him enough, but it goes from intellectual discourse to jokes and back again. I like it.

My friend Tyler decided to steal my lighter and set some garbage behind my apartment on fire. Daniel and I put it out - I used a fire extinguisher, which wasn't half as cool as how I thought it would go...and as soon as the cardboard boxes were reduced to smoldering rubble we both got to meet some of Bloomington's finest police officers and firemen. I'm not kidding, either, they were actually really nice. We were completely honest and told them what had happened: my friend took my lighter and did something stupid. He got fined for starting a fire in town without a permit, but not before the police quite literally scolded him for how stupid that was.

The fire was as tall as me and the size of a sofa, but it was all cardboard boxes burning.

Also, I completely agree with m@'s comment regarding Squalus. I think the time has come for you to mosey on into someone else's life and dispense too-little-too-late greeting card advice to them. You're like Dr. Phil, but somehow you manage to be dumber. It's funny to read what you say since it's either painfully obvious or the complete opposite of what I should do, like advising someone to lift weights with their back and keep their knees rigid.

And yes, enough of this shroud of mystery, only to attempt to plant a seed of paranoia in my head by mentioning the beach, or Shelley's parents' names, or my family, or whatever. Congratulations, Squalus, you know how to read my blog and retain the information within my entries. You have proven your reading retention skills to me, Shelley, m@, Forrest, and whoever else reads this.

In other words: there's the door, and don't let it hit your ass on the way out. Enjoy being in the so-called periphery of my life as my "embedded benefactor," which you still haven't taken the time yet to explain to me (or my regular comment-writing readers) just what the fuck that's even supposed to mean.

Also: I know who you are.

Alex