I can’t stop laughing about this damn thing. He’s so sweet and good intentioned.

After slicing off the tip of my thumb at work, I had to avoid typing for awhile because I hadn’t realized I used it on the keyboard as much as I do. The nerves are starting to grow back, so it hurts quite a bit, but the scabs have all fallen off now.

We’ve moved into our new house.

Two days after moving out of the apartment, the unit diagonal from ours exploded in a gas fire. Two of the five units in the building are now condemned. The two dogs that lived in that unit, and the cat that lived in the unit below it, all died. Humans all lived. There’s terrible smoke damage to the whole building. I still had a few things in my unit and still had to clean it out. Every time I returned there, I became violently ill (migraine with vomiting) from the smell. I feel bad for the four people and two dogs that are still living in the two units there. Fortunately, that landlord is supposedly trying to find them units elsewhere so he can get their units cleaned out.

Three days after moving out of our apartment, there was a shooting during a robbery at the convenience store half a block from our house. There hadn’t been a shooting in this neighborhood in a long time. It was a great welcome to the neighborhood moment, because it made me feel like home!

A week after moving in, I got to carve my pumpkin for Halloween. Despite our house having been vacant for eighteen months prior to us moving in, we still got twelve trick-or-treaters! A lot of others walked right past our house, probably because I failed to make it seem safe enough for the NIMBY crowd.

I can’t remember if I mentioned that we adopted a puppy from our favorite rescue. He’s now fourteen weeks old. He may or may not be a Shar Pei-Hound mix; we just bought a DNA test (Prince George’s County, which is where we just moved to, requires exact breed information for licensing) so we’ll know for sure in two weeks. We named him Jonesy. He is major trouble.

Photos of the house, eventually. We’re still doing a lot of work on it. The basement is still under construction, for example.

I keep forgetting about the internet.

Life’s a little overwhelming right now. Amazingly, my medication levels haven’t had to be increased to handle it. That’s pretty amazing for me. Too bad I can’t say the same for, say, school, or a full time job.

Now that everything is truly in working order for the first time in years (at least on here!), it’s full speed ahead. I’m really jazzed to have this live again, as well as a new skin on thecounterculture.org. I picked up one new hostee last week and it looks like I’ll have another coming in soon, all of which makes my computers excessively happy. If only it could always be like this, eh?

Oh, and Ray — just for you, I’m working on updating my old bio. Will be putting it live later tonight, if I don’t fall asleep first.

Got a little something new for my portfolio, courtesy of one of my former co-workers at the bar. Thanks, Tristan!

© 2009 Tristan Spinski.

I love these shots, but damn, I need to lose forty pounds. Getting off the Abilify should help. Can’t stay on it, unfortunately, as I’ve developed facial twitches.

tinyurl.com/botlove takes you to the flickr set with photos from the courthouse wedding, three from Chris Young from the nightclub party, and the rest are from the big family event.