Dateline: Amesbury

That's right, I'm back in Amesbury for the night. I guess it's not the worst thing in the world to go home and chill for a bit. The reason why I'm home this evening is two-fold, one I had to pick up my license (which was mailed to me by an annonymous person from Eclipse.com -- a company in Boston) and the other reason was I had to do laundry.

Aside from the walk to the parking lot, the sucky thing about our apartment is that it has no washing machines, thus Aly and I are laundry nomads. About a month ago, I actually brought my dirty cloths to New York to clean them because Danna and Rick have a washer. I should be used to it because I didn't have a washer and dryer in Somerville either, but it still sucks.

Jay and I went for to the Sylvan Street Grille for a few beers, mom had already come home, so she wasn't there when we bellied up to the bar. Jay is enjoying his new job, as a manager at Pizzeria Unos. The one that sucks, at least it sounds like it sucks, is that his hours are insane. He has to work 11-hour shifts every day for five days a week. For those who suck at math, that's 55 hours a week and he's also working at the pizza place.

Add the 40 minute commute both ways and he's actually working more hours than he's not. He's also having a rough go of it in the sleep department. As the child who got Mike Magrane's insomnia genes, he's up until 2 am each night, which isn't so bad if he didn't have to wake up at 5 am. That would push me over the edge. I remember when I worked the 2 pm - 10 pm shift at the Alden Merril cheesecake factory when I was in college and I used to regularly stay up until 3, I was on the verge of a breakdown until the mercifully switched my hours. I don't know how he does it.

Aside from the long days, he seems to like it. He and a couple of his buddies found a place to live on Salisbury Beach today. Sounds like they got a decent place, though it is Salisbury Beach. We'll see what happens.

It's strange, there is probably no other place on earth that I've done more writing than in the room that I am in right now (my old bedroom), but I still don't feel completely at home. I don't feel like a stranger, but this isn't my desk or my computer, yet the surroundings are mine. Surreal is probably too strong of a word, but it definitely feels bizarre.

Tomorrow I have to go to a conference about conferences in Salem, MA at the Hawthorne Hotel. Aly and I were going to have our wedding there, but we decided on the Longwood Towers instead. The Hawthorne is a beautiful place, but I've had so many work functions there that it would seem uneventful.

Speaking of Aly, she's in Franklin tonight visiting her parents and taking care of her dog. The pup is getting old and is getting arthritis in it's hind legs. I'm not sure what can be done about this, but I hope something can, it's really tearing Aly up.

We had a busy few days this weekend past, first we went up to Kim and Jamie's house where we met up with Skaus and Sara and Reddish. Not too bad of a time. We were all beat, so there were lulls in the conversation, but I hadn't seen them in a long time. The really cool thing is that I saw their new daughter Lia, very cute kid.

Saturday, Aly's folks came up for dinner after she was out with them all day. That was a good day for me because it allowed me to do some work on my cartoon and also get done some other stuff. Aly made a tremendous meal (spaghetti and panchetta for the first course and then filet mignon under a port wine sauce for the second). I'm telling you, she can flat out cook.

After her parents left, we met Stacy and Anthony at Finale in Havard Square. I didn't really want to be there, I was tired and just wanted to go to sleep, so I was in a pretty shitty mood. It's not that I didn't want to see those two, I did as I like them both very much, but between the drive and the check ($100 for dessert and drinks ... it's a restaurant that specializes in dessert) it wasn't the best night I ever had. Whatever.

On Sunday, Debbie surprised Nick with a 30th birthday party. Most of the Merrimack crew was there except for Colleen, Kim and their SOs. Though it was Nick's party, Debbie was the star as everyone was fawning over her ring. We had a good time. Nick asked Skaus and I to be ushers in his wedding, which is tentively set for next September.

Hopefully by then I'll have a new job. I've just been in a funk lately, which seems to occur once a season now. I hate my commute, I hate that I am not doing something more meaningful with my life and I hate that I'm not making more money. There has to be something close by where I can make a difference and get paid a good wage. I'm not looking to break the bank, but I do need a couple more sheckles.

Wow. Rereading this I can tell that I'm tired because I'll I'm doing is listing shit and bitching. I plan to write a bit on Thursday, hopefully then I'll do another comic review and maybe I'll review all of the MLB parks I've been to. I bet you can't wait. Also, I have to review a book I just finnished and I may be redesigning the Blog.

That won't be done for Thursday though.