Today was supposed to be the day I posted the third (and last, I hope) part of the Carolyn story. I started writing it because it was something different and because the woman I'm writing about is someone I feel like I know. Simple as that.

The plan was to write it Sunday night and post it Monday, but over the course of the weekend and since Friday, so much has happened that I felt like if I didn't write about it now, I'd just forget and would end up having that much more to catch up on later in the week.

So, hi! Here I am. Carolyn will return tomorrow (yes, tomorrow! More on why that is in a little bit). For now, you're stuck with me. Omar.

Kisses, love.

 

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First thing: I'm on vacation! But instead of jetting to Cozumel or traipsing through Europe, I'm staying right here, in sunny/cloudy Austin to enjoy a week of low-key activity.

For the last month or two (especially since all the work ambiguity since the section I edit was altered), I've really needed to just take a break from work. For some odd reason, it showed up on my time card since the beginning of the year that I had 135 hours of vacation time. I've only taken a day of that up to this point (to see Radiohead in Houston week before last). So here I am with all this vacation time that I wanted to take, but I never felt like I could leave work because of the way things have been so up in the air. I had these irrational fears that I would go on vacation and find that my G4 computer had been replaced with an abacus or that the entire building would have been paved to make way for a Starbucks.

Finally, the dust settled a bit and I committed to take this week off. And with the 4th of July holiday, that means I still have roughly a kajillion hours of vacation left. Still plenty of time to backpack through France or go to Disneyworld if I choose.

One other interesting thing this week: My parents are taking a trip to Las Vegas right now. In fact, my mother called a few hours ago to tell me they just got off the plane, arrived at the MGM Grand, and did their first bit of gambling. I think they're afraid to leave the hotel because it's about 130 degrees outside and they're afraid they won't make it across the bridge to the other side of the strip. And they ate a legendary Las Vegas buffet for dinner, so I don't think they're in any great rush to get back.

With my parents in Vegas, my brother P.J. is staying here at my place. I had a crazy idea on Saturday before we met up so they could transfer "the prisoner" to me, as my dad called him. "Hey, why don't you bring your computer?"

Not only did P.J. bring his computer with him: He brought his 17-inch monitor, his speakers and subwoofer and my dad's router and hub. I have an extra small desk in my home office, so now we have two computers sitting cattycorner to each other. The cable modem lights blink constantly as either he's downloading music, I'm checking mail, or one of us is instant messaging. In one absurd moment, we were IM'ing each other. I believe the exchange went like this:

 

 

A few weeks ago, I talked P.J. into buying a copy of Worms World Party, which is the single most addictive video game I've played in ages. You basically have these little cute animated worms and they use weapons of mass destruction to kill each other. It's lots of fun and you can play it online.

The first night P.J. got here, we played it against each other, then got online and started trash talking anyone we could find to play against us.

So, to recap: I'm sitting here at home in the little office. We have a 300-watt halogen lamp going and the light fixture above. Two computers, monitors, router, cable modem, shared printer and two sets of WinAmp playlists going. It looks like we're late in starting a dot-com company.

Oh and the kitty litter box is in here, too. I think, somehow, that this is all a recipe for some huge disaster.

 

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This vacation, which is only half a vacation because I'm performing in an LCP skit on Wednesday for a fundraising thing and we've been rehearsing, also means that I have lots of time to write this week.

I'm planning on updating Terribly Happy every day.

I haven't done this before because updating is a lot of work, and I'm not always particularly inspired (witness this bold entry for an example of that). But I figure if I can't produce something halfway interesting on a daily basis when I'm not even leaving town for vacation, then, well... then, I guess that would be an admission of suckage.

Bonding over Coffee Bean.

The other reason, though, is that Pamie ended Squishy last Friday.

If you didn't read Squishy (and I urged everybody I knew to read it for the two and half years or so I was aware of it), you missed out. Pamie pulled her archives, so you don't even have the luck to be able to go through them.

Just know this: She was huge in the online journal community and beyond for a good reason: She was funny, she wrote great stuff and she fostered a fantastic community on her site.

'Nuff said. We will miss her. She's the reason this site exists. And now that she's gone, it's left me a feeling that all of us who are left have to give a little more just to try to fill the void she's leaving.

That's not possible, of course, but it can't hurt to try.

 

Continued: Neighbors and fuzzy vacation plans on Page Two ==>