RIP Rocket

Not to be a downer, but our hamster Rocket went to the big wheel in the sky sometime last night/this morning. I'll wax poetic about him and my love of hamsters in general later, but I wanted to take a second to honor his memory. We got him at a shelter last year, and he was a "senior" hamster at that point (meaning he was about a year old or so), but we adopted him anyway. This is one of my favorite pictures of him - if you look closely at him, you'll notice there's a piece of poo stuck on his head. I found this hilarious, especially when he got annoyed and resisted when we tried to get it off of him.

We were blessed to have this little old guy for over a year. Your mommies will miss you and never forget you!

[Shit I'm crying again and I'm out of Kleenex. ANYway, back to my usual stupidity shortly - I want to finish blogging the damn roadtrip by the end of the holiday weekend]

My Personal Academy Award

I rarely talk about work on here, for several reasons - a) I try not to give away too much information about my real life persona, even though I'm sure almost everyone who reads this knows me personally anyway, b) blogging about work can be tricky - I would never say anything remotely controversial about my workplace, knowing I could could get in trouble if I did. Which I have issues with in general, but that's not a topic for here nor there, c) I know I bore everyone enough as it is, so I don't need to wax poetic about the place I spend 50 hours a week at.

That being said, something important today that I should share - not to brag or boast, but more to put my memories and feelings down before the moment has passed. But first, I feel the need to tell everyone about all the jobs I've worked. So if you're sleepy, this should work better than an Ambien.

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

If I could accomplish even half of what I set out to do, I think I'd be quite pleased with myself. Unfortunately life tends to get in my way - work takes out a significant portion of my time during the week: I leave my apartment at 6:30 every morning, and get home between 6 and 7 at night (depending on traffic and when I can pry my ass out of my office chair). So by the time I settle in and eat, it's usually close to 8pm which leaves me about 2 hours or so of free time. I think I may be slightly manic as I tend to have short intense bursts of inspiration and desire to work on my aspirations. Unfortunately, those bursts tend to happen at inappropriate times - like when I'm at work, or at 10:30pm on a weeknight when I really need to go to bed. On the weekends I tend to try to squeeze in all the errands I was too lazy/didn't have time for in the week (i.e. laundry, grocery shopping, naps) which leaves me only sporadic blocks of time of which to work with. Add what I think is a slight case of ADD (I swear I would have been medicated as a kid had I been born twenty years later) which I'm noticing is getting worse as I get older, and I'm shocked I can finish any kind of artistic endeavor.

AnyWAY, the point of this post was not to bitch about how I don't have time to do the things I want, but to tell you what those things are. Like the essay you'd always be stuck writing that first week back to grammar school in the fall ("This summer I wrote my bike to White Hen for Slush Puppies every day and bought baseball cards from Roadway Pharmacy" [this is seriously what I did]), here's a list of what I hope I can accomplish this summer. Please note I am a realist and know there's no way I can get all of this done. I will put these in order of what I feel is doable, and also because ordering lists soothes me. Hey, I can't help that - I'm anal retentive.

Calgon Take Me Away!

I know I should be writing two Hawks recaps (have I mentioned how much I hate back-to-backs?) but I am way too grouchy and out of sorts to put forth the effort. So you'll have to wait - I'm sure everyone is just waiting with bated breath.

Work has just been too much this week. Not anything particulary *bad* has happened, but I am in no mood for bullshit and annoyance and I've been getting extra helpings of both since Monday. I haven't been sleeping well (or much) this week either, so I basically feel like a sack of potatoes that's been sat on by a sumo wrestler.

I'm trying to be productive at home by doing the dishes and four loads of laundry so I can go out and "play" this weekend. At this point, my ideal would be lying in bed with covers on watching DVDs on Saturday and Sunday, but I'm going to make an effort to be social.

OK, enough bitching - here's something amusing I found on YouTube recently (it repeats itself so you don't have to watch the whole thing). I have to go fold some more goddamn clothes.

Why “The Mel”?

I'm sure some folks (maybe all two of you) wonder why I go by the moniker “The Mel.” It’s really not because I’m conceited – honestly for those who have met me in real life, you should know I have the self esteem of a fruit fly. But because I’m long winded about everything here, of course I must now tell you a story.