Damn, so much to talk about, where to begin? I guess my lack of updates started a week or two ago when I was sick. I don't have the proof yet, but I'm fairly certain that I was sick with a touch of Death. Had to take Thursday and Friday off of work - sick as hell. Every cough sent waves of pain down my arms and had I coughed up blood I wouldn't have been surprised one bit. It was a bad time. Eventually I recovered but I didn't go anywhere for most of the weekend, only out to get food or things like that. I did not, however, get smokes. I couldn't smoke a cigarette if I'd wanted to - and I did. Oh God how I wanted to smoke.

I decided to quit. This, of course, was folly. I returned to work on Monday still coughing and somewhat ill, but able to perform my duties. Oh, that Sunday night while I was out getting food I rolled my window down for the last time in the van. The window got busted and was stuck at half-mast. This meant that the drive to work (for someone recovering from Death) was very cold and windy. Tuesday was a bitter day at work - lots of things to do, lots of work to catch up on, lots if irritating computers and no nicotine to sooth my soul. I fought, yes, fought for a half an hour to put some plastic seran-wrap on the window so that I could both block the onslaught of wind and allow visibility. I hated the world. I hated everything.

Wednesday night while heading home with a new set of plastic on the window that Lily had to help me install was the culmination of hate. A mere couple miles from my exit the plastic began to tear. I screamed at it. I tried to hold it. It split more. I rushed off the highway to a gas station for just a foot of duct tape - they had none. Nor did the next gas station. The police officers there, being without duct tape were happy to instead issue me a citation for expired tags.

I hate.

That night I forced my lungs to accept sweet, sweet nicotine. My lungs needed to toughen up again and get used to cancer because god dammit without nicotine I will hate. I've got a garbage bag (complete with duct tape) on the window now and take my life into my hands each time I try to turn left, so it's all good.

So I got paid last week, and that's good because I owed one of my bosses for a loan he gave me to pay my speeding ticket from earlier this year. It was cute - I called the Newport Clerk to find out when it was due (having thought it was due on the 15th of November) but they informed me that no, it was due that morning. In one hour actually. Quick loan and off I'm headed to Newport and paid my dues to the state. With that paycheck I also paid rent and all that jazz.

Now, the Andrew tale.

See, Andrew needs a place to live, quick. He's getting custody of his daughter and we were going to get a trailer together, but complications have, as they always do, set it leaving me unable to move out. So we considered him moving into the MobileQ. He came over last Friday and talked things out. That Saturday was spent cleaning. I spent about $120 on cleaning materials for the place and Andrew applied the majority of the elbow grease (and blood). The place looks great now, definitely livable. Andrew did in fact lose a boxing match with my coffee table and has a nice gash under the eye show for it, but it's all good cause he loves his new facial scar.

So now we're up to this week. How is fate and my lack of money management shitting on me this week? Well, two fold. Firstly, I got a call from Dad that I will be getting propane this week; he's made arrangements. Yay! Today is the day of installation. Yesterday I stopped by the Mall and picked up my reserved copy of The Two Towers for enjoyment after work. I got home yesterday and found out that the electric company wanted to remind me that I hadn't paid a bill in quite some time. They did this, of course, my shutting off my electricity. I packed up a few things and headed to Lily's to spend the night.

Today, since I couldn't be there for the gas tank installation I'll have to pay another $40 on them to stop by again. But before that can happen, I have to buy parts (about $60) for a new gas line to install under the trailer because the gas tank isn't in the same location as last time. Further, electricity has to be reinstated before any of this can happen. Luckily I'm getting an advance from work that will pay for that, but it means that my paycheck next week will be close to nothing. I've been here at work since 9am (it's 8:30pm now) and will be working extra hours all week to get myself back on my feet. I have to head to the trailer now and empty out my freezer (all my meats are very bad by now, I'm sure), feed the cats and pick out clothes for tomorrow. By candlelight, of course. I sleep again at Lily's tonight and pray that when I get home from work tomorrow I'll have electricity.

Before any of you say it, yes, I know I should have paid my electric bill. It was one of the things that I was going to take care of this week actually, but the speeding ticket (yes, my fault too) kinda stole the thunder from that plan, as did the cleaning that occurred last weekend. So, for the record, I don't want to hear any comments about how I've brought all this on myself - I'm keenly aware of that and haven't taken a position otherwise. As far as money mismanagement, I spent $25 on a DVD that I'd had reserved for the past 3 months, so I don't think that that was all that outrageous. Well, I did buy Matrix Reloaded a couple weeks ago at $19 as well. (Hey, I'm just being honest here.) I plan to get Quicken reinstalled and do some rebudgeting and get back on track of recording where my finances are going. I'm hoping that if Andrew does move in we can both help each other getting by.

Oh, some more bad news. While Andrew was at my house last weekend he stepped on the scale in the kitchen and it told him he weighed 80 pounds. This, of course, is not true, despite how scrawny Andrew is. Turns out that the scale is off. How much is it off? Oh, about 30 pounds. So. I haven't lost as much weight as I'd thought. Thanks, God. That was a funny joke. I sure fell for it hook line and sinker.

Luckily, tomorrow's Friday. I haven't succeeded in getting really, really, really fucking drunk in quite some time. I believe that tomorrow's the night. I'm going all out. I'm going to go for this whole 'drink until you're blind' concept.