It has come to my attention that there have been no positive entries of substance for over two months. This is worrisome to me.

Maybe more chocolate and pizza will help.

I was going through some old archives and came across my favorite joke. It’s such a great, great joke I’m going to tell it again.

Two muffins are baking in an oven. One muffin says to the other, “Hey, man, it’s getting pretty hot in here.”Holy shit!” the other muffin replies. “A talking muffin!”.

Pretty good, huh?

I haven’t been feeling well lately. I’ve ben sulking, and then yelling at myself for sulking. Today I decided to spring to action and take myself out of the house. I put some clothes that I was meaning to sell on ebay in a bag and headed off to the Buffalo Exchange to trade them in. I got there and found some pretty Puma shoes to pull me out of my sulk. I put my bag down sometime in the shopping process. Instead of a good samaritan bringing it to the front of the store, some scruffy, greedy, hipster, thief picked it up. Geesh, the morals of these kids today. You’re supposed to steal from large corporations, not individuals.

My black, puffy shoulder bag, drivers licence, credit card, cell phone…CELL PHONE… marriage certificate, ten dollar gift card from the gap, fifty dollar gift card from Tower records, five dollars worth of arcade tokens AND…..my very favorite lip gloss and pen are gone. Looking on the bright side, my car and house keys were safely in my pocket. The nice manager at the store gave me a replacement thirty dollar credit slip to replace the one I had just gotten that was safely stored…IN MY BAG. They put the pretty Puma shoes behind the counter for me since they have to charge tax on the merchandise and I had no cash on me.

Andy has been having a bad run with poker. As poker support, I feel I must take some of the blame. It seems that no matter how much lunch or tea I make, or how much dancing around in my underpants I’m doing seems to make the run any better. I know these things, the good and the bad are only temporary, but when things are going good, it seems that they are as they should be. When they aren’t going well, it seems like a punishment.

I ate six bite size candy bars from a bag I bought for the trick-or-treaters. This may not seem like a big deal, but, I haven’t had chocolate for seven months. That dietary indiscretion made me bold and I ordered pizza….for Andy of course. I ate five pieces, another thing I haven’t had in about as long.

I’m out of control, and it seems to be working. I’m feeling better.

We’re back from Denver. We have been back from Denver for over a week.

That is all to report.

We made it to Denver.

I’m laying on Andy’s sister’s couch in Kansas. Monday night football is on behind my head. We are leaving for Denver after it’s over.

I’m laying on the floor at gate K8 in the Chicago O’Hare Airport. If I haven’t responded to your email, it was because I couldn’t get it. If I haven’t returned your calls, it’s because I don’t have my phone charger. We were in Green Bay visiting Andy’s parents. We were supposed to have purchased the Eurovan in Detroit and driven it to Green Bay, but there were delays because of a small leak. It was so small, that Andy now regrets mentioning it. The seller took it to the dealership to have it fixed. Since it was so minor, they didn’t want to do it, and made three different excuses as to why it would take at least a week for them to start the job. In the meantime, we had to be in Green Bay for my introduction to Andy’s side of the family. It was planned well in advance and catered, so rescheduling wasn’t an option. We we’re going to rent a car and drive the nine hours each way. That sounded horrible. I remembered that we had airline miles, so we used the rest of them to fly. The bright spots of the trip were, eating at my favorite sushi restaurant, seeing friends and buying XM radio for the soon to be had Eurovan.

The “coming out” party was relatively painless. Lots of extended family, small talk and small styrafoam plates with appetizers.

Our tickets were scheduled to return to Detroit on Tuesday the fifth. We thought this would be okay, because the tickets were totally changeable with no extra fee. The seller of the Eurovan was leaving for a week on Tuesday. This is something he probably told us in the beginning, or maybe he didn’t, but, whatever the case we needed to be back in Detroit on Monday the fourth, or wait another week in Detroit to make the purchase. There shouldn’t have been a problem.to call United and change the Flight. Believe it or not, there was a problem. There were no seats out of Miluakee, Green Bay or Chicago to Detroit on Monday, flying United. The ticket agent said she had never seen anything like this going to Detroit.

Fortunately, Andy’s sister, husband and two kids had driven from Chicago to Green Bay. If we could get back to Chicago, we could use Andy’s dad ancient airline miles to get back to Detroit. We all piled into a white Ford Mustang and drove the cramped three hours back. We played Moo Moo. One point for cows, three for horses and goats and two for all other four legged animals. If the other team spots a graveyard on your side of the car, it cuts your point score in half. If you spot a white horse, it doubles your score. I was lucky and saw a pen full of goats, which raised groans and protests from the right half of the car. You have to count fast, and out loud. I’m almost glad the trip worked out in that way. It was fun.

They dropped us of at my parent’s house and my mom drove us to the airport in the morning.
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After we got back to Detroit everything went relatively smoothly. We bought the Eurovan and commenced cleaning. It cleaned up really well. I was particularly impressed with the Armor All on the bumpers. I kept making Andy get out of the van and look each time I put a coat of it on.

A fantastic side effect of the Eurovan is the attention that we seem to be getting. If you know me, you know I like the attention. Yesterday as I was walking through the front yard from the Eurovan to the house I saw a pick up truck stopped at the corner. I looked over and tone of the two guys inside yelled out, “That is the coolest van I have ever seen!” I yelled, “thanks!” back, and walked jauntily into the house. We had the upholstery cleaned at the car wash. When we looked out the window to check the progress, it looked like every employee at the place was crawling in and out of the doors, standing in groups and pointing at some feature.

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We left Detroit at ten pm, drove a few hours and stopped at a rest area to sleep. It’s Wednesday, and we’re driving. I woke up this morning, brushed my teeth and ran around in the fall Michigan grass and trees while Andy finished a chapter in his book. We should be in Chicago in a few hours.

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insert mentally painful, but uneventfull Chicago trip/family visit here.
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Central Illinois is beautiful for ten minutes. Then it becomes monotonous and uniform. Maybe if you aren’t from the midwest it might hold your interest for eleven to fifteen minutes longer. We’re on our way to visit Andy’s other sister in Kansas. We spent yesterday at his Illinois sister’s house driving around the Fox River in a pontoon boat, climbing a big tree and playing frisbee with their energetic dog. We left at 11 pm after we had gone to a marginally funny Second City show at a local high school. We drove for a few hours and parked in a Wall Mart parking lot to sleep. I hate Wall Mart, but their policy of allowing RV’s, vans and trucks to camp there overnight is nice, even though their motives are alterior.

Now we are driving in flat, flat central Illinois after our stressfull breakfast at Kountry Kitchen. I have never in my life stiffed a waitress for a tip…..until today. I’m not going to go into a long and boring story about the service. Just imagine that it was not good and know that even though we were in the right not to leave a gratituity, I feel bad about it.

I feel like I should be telling funnier stories or embellishing the details to make things sound interesting. All I can really think of is that we’re driving across the country. We’re listening to XM radio. The sky is blue with white puffy clouds. The temperature is in the low 70’s. All is well.

We’re in Chicago. I have other, better stories to tell, but once again, they are locked away in hibernation. I have been here less than two hours and I feel the urge to run screaming into the late afternoon sun. My mom is depressed. She’s been on anti depressants for a while. Her husband was a burden to start out with, and year by year he’s been getting worse. Not that she’s a saint, or even easy to have a conversation with, but, she’s my mom, and I feel a certain amount of protection and worry for her that I don’t share as much for my step dad.

She refuses to get help in any form besides taking anti depressants, and upping the dose whenever she feels like it. I’m not going to re hash it all. It’s the same thing that’s been going on as long as I’ve known her. She gave me a folder of tax papers, drawings and letters from the late 80’s. Here’s an excerpt:

….when you’re saying nice things, they are always preceded with negative. i know that this isn’t what you mean. I’ve learned to decipher your language. Instead of trying so hard to make up a complex system of notes, why not just learn how to read music? maybe these are the points of art that your saying you don’t understand. I feel that art is a way to stop and look into yourself and out of yourself at the same time. Sometimes I think that you have a problem making people feel important and needed because you don’t feel important and needed yourself. you are important to me. I am glad I know you, outside of being my mother.

There were other similar letters. She never responded verbally or in print.

As she was giving me the folder of papers she said “I think I’m depressed. Sometimes I sleep for six hours a day”. I told her that I knew, and that I felt that all of the normal things that she’s done as coping mechanisms that have worked up until now, aren’t working anymore. I told her that it didn’t have to be like this and there are other options. She said something to the effect of my step dad being gone soon, and then her time would come too. I don’t think she’s actively suicidal, but she definately doesn’t have much desire to live.

I’m powerless in this situation.

We’re in Detroit. To all of my Detroit peeps that I haven’t visited or called….sorry. We just don’t have time and are too tired. I should have called. I could have been a better friend, but right now, I’m not.

I wrote a long winded, detailed, over descriptive, painstaking account of our journey so far. It’s on Andy’s computer locked away in the dream state of machine hibernation. The thought of waking it up, finding the power cord, and getting it connected to the net is just too much to bear right now.

We’re at Lainstar’s house eating her food, using her shower and abusing her high speed internet connection. Tonight we’re leaving for Chicago for a few days. We’ll be driving off into the cold Michigan sunset in our beautiful, beautiful Eurovan.