Graceland Ninja in The eye of every storm

The month of May was mine to do with as I pleased. I was off of work from the 4th-29th, had to go back to work for two days, and am currently off for another week. It’s amazing that I can have this much time off and still get a paycheck. I’ve only used one week of vacation for this, making it that much more impressive. We try to trade with each other and work together. My April was hell, but my May was worth it.

Katrina and I looked at wedding venues and found one. It wasn’t until that moment it became REAL to me. As in, “holy mother fuck this giant thing is about to happen in my life.” I’m 33 years old and have successfully avoided marriage up until next year. There’s even a DATE. A big final, solid line where at 11:59pm one night to 00:001 the next day I go from SINGLE to MARRIED.

I’m going to be someone’s husband. I don’t even fucking know how to husband.

We had a pretty great time in Oregon. We hiked to some waterfalls, dipped our toes in the pacific ocean, drank many a terrific beer at the Pelican Brewery over looking Cape Kiwanda. The last night we went into Portland and stayed downtown at The Benson, where I looked completely out of place. Whatever. My credit card slid like all of theirs.

I took a very late night walk in Portland and made my way to the Deschuttes Brewery, and caught some hockey. Afterwards I headed back to the hotel on some back street and passed the library, where one homeless punk rocker was sticking a needle into the arm of another girl. One block away, on the other side of the library, an man huddled in his sleeping back, shivering violently muttering to himself that he’s going to get off this shit, man, he’s going to get off this shit, and get off these streets.

That’s what walking one block in Portland is like.

We flew home back to Tornado land for a few days and then flew to Georgia to see my mother. It was her birthday and she was so grateful that both of us made the journey to see her. We watched movies, went out to eat at Mellow Mushroom, and she started teaching me to quilt. They had to go back to teaching life the following monday, so we checked into another SWANKY hotel in Downtown Augusta called The Partridge Inn. Our room had a porch on the third floor that over looked the river valley and it was nice.

The next day I crammed a ton of friends into one long day of meeting and drinking. It was fun, exhilarating, and ultimately exhausting. We flew home the next day and I’ve been here since. I was thinking about going to Minneappolis tomorrow to check out to the Mall of America, but I’ve got a full bottle of Wild Turkey at home, so I don’t see myself waking up in whatever they call “The Morning.”

My cable is out. There’s a new roof on our house and they knocked out our cable in the process. I’ve almost finished “24” in its entirety, and am one season through “Justified,” so I may just carry on with those.

No one cares about the fucking television I watch. Not even me.

I kind of want to go hiking, but again, I live in boring North Tejas; so much for that. I need to lose about a hundred pounds before I get married. It’s in about ten months. I think I can do it; lose 10 pounds a month. Sounds reasonable. I don’t do cocaine anymore, but I can see where it would help in this situation.

I’m writing this in a Starfucks and “Welcome to the Jungle,” just came on. Hardly.