6/16/04 5:33 AM: Through some miracle of discipline and/or laziness, I have managed to not kill anybody ...

THE SHOW MUST GO ON: I used to work Thursday nights at Mel's Drive-In from 11PM-3AM. Due to client request, I've now been transferred to Fridays from midnight to 4AM. This alters some existing things, but has thus far not been too much of a problem. The inaugural show was last week, and it wasn't quite what I expected for reasons I'll go into momentarily, but I was able to get through the night with few complaints from the staff (a common problem for Laura, the old Friday night KJ) and no casualties. Yay. I guess.

THE YEAR OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY: The photo you see here is of broken glass on the southwest corner of Coliseum Avenue, in front of a Methodist church. Last Friday night, after missing a planned appointment and coming home to do laundry, somebody broke into the truck I'm driving (belonging to one of the principals at the karaoke company I work for). As near as I can figure, they broke the right rear glass and sliced the screen, only to find the bed of the truck empty. They then jimmied the passenger door lock, and took the CD walkman within and my backpack. Containing my iPod. Containing all 74 of my eight-months-worth-of-collecting karaoke CDs (including two I'd just gotten and never even used). Plus mic cables, sign up slips, et cetera. It devastated me for a while. I was furious. I'm gonna pay to have the truck fixed, but it was something. I still had to do my aforementioned inaugural show, a bit more subdued than I'd like to be, but cosmically OK. I've since come into an agreement that should get me 90% of my music back, which is all right. The iPod will be an eBay gig, which is a pain and an extra expense i don't need, but que sera sera. I'm actually mostly over it now, but it was my own stupid fault it happened. I parked the truck a block closer to my house (therefore the crime-ridden gang territory) so I could save myself some time. I left the backpack and all of that in the car because it was heavy and I didn't wanna lug it home and back. I spent a lot of the weekend kicking myself for my laziness. The truck doesn't even have a freakin' alarm. But I'm better now. Mostly.

Still, if you'd like to donate some money to me (there's a button on my Kwanzaa Gift Guide), it'd sure help and I wouldn't turn you down. One way or another I'll get through it, despite, as my boss Nigel said, me having a string of remarkably bad luck.

Because it's not my truck, I filed a police report (gotta drive a print out of what was stolen over to Southwest, which is weird) and took the truck downtown for fingerprinting. Nobody, it seems, wears a wedding band -- men or women. Anyhoo, a very normal looking Asian guy got all CSI on my truck ("Everybody likes to watch me work, now that show came on," he said) and took a mess of prints. The idiot who broke in slapped his dirty hands down on a piece of white paper in the passenger seat, providing some really good evidence against him. Judging from the style, I'd assume it was somebody who'd done it before, and will be in the system. They won't tell me unless they find my crap or need me to testify against the guy. I'll never hear back otherwise, which is great -- if he cops to the crime but doesn't have my stuff, they won't call. Heh.

BOND. SAVINGS BOND ...: Speaking of money, while I was looking for the title to my Monte Carlo (more on that in a sec), I found three $100 savings bonds my biological father bought in 1994 and gave to me. I've spent maybe 72 hours with the guy in my memory, through little fault of his own, but that's another story. Anyway, I call around and find out they can be cashed at a bank. I swing by Wells Fargo, and she sees my dad's name on 'em. I'm walking out with no cash a minute later. Now, remember, my dad is a fugitive from the law, and hides in Rockford, IL. The relatives of his I knew are not close to me -- I haven't spoken to any of them in more than five years, and have some active bad blood with one or two (after meeting them all in 1994, I worked fast, heh). There's no way to contact him, and he isn't likely to contact me, making these three useless pieces of paper for me, and three hundred bucks thrown away for him. Funny ol' life.

BYE BYE LOVE: I managed to get the salvage company to come get the Monte Carlo on Monday. But somehow I didn't notice that my ex-wife still has the pink slip for the car. Ha. Left her a voice mail on Monday and an email in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Yeah, that's just what I wanted in my life.

I really loved that freakin' car. I miss it already. I'm gonna try to use the settlement (whenever that comes) to buy a similar-year Chevy Lumina, because they're basically four-door Monte Carlos (200.7" length on Monte Carlo, 200.9" on Lumina). A change, it seems, might do me good. But not too much of a change. I actually looked at some Jeep Cherokees and all, until I remembered gas is seventy billion dollars a gallon. Sheesh. C'mon Mercury Insurance, I'm getting tired of your mess!

THE MOUTH RITUAL: For the first time in more than a year, I lit the candles on my shrine. I've finally collected all the necessary incense, for each day or the week, and took time to meditate and really center myself spiritually. That component of my life has been lacking for a long time, since I lost a lot of my ability to believe in virtually anything in the last year or three. But given that I personally overcame a lot of things that seemed impossible, I'm making good music (the track for "The Pie Song" is done, just gotta get lyricizing), and I'm still moving forward on every possible front, I remembered that I can still trust myself 75%, I can still believe in my own ability to overcome and succeed. That helped. The day after I relit the shrine, the car got towed, I got word on how I can replenish my collection, and I had a really nice phone conversation (and I hate phones). I'm glad to be moving back in the right direction.

I originally intended on going on for a bit, but really, why?