Proverbs for Paranoids

I finally managed to coerce a roofing contractor to come out to my house this afternoon and make an estimate on the damage done from the storm. The insurance said it shouldn't be much, and it fact it's minimal to where I don't have a claim because my deductible will cover it. All I care about is having it fixed before the next rain fall, which luckily might not be this weekend since it's looking to be sunny and nice. Needlessto say I'm feeling wonderfully assured right now. Someones coming to fix it, and I might just have enough to cover the whole shebang. Go Team Melp.

I tried to blow off some steam by going on an old-fashioned power walk last night with Joe's iPod, which I haven't done in ages and it was one of the many things I had planned to do this week as part of my attempts to regain my former grip on my heath regiment to lose weight again, and boy to say that I am out of shape is an understatement. After 12 minutes down the street and back I was suddenly seized with a dizzy spell that was so severe I would up returning home and sitting in the living room chair for over an hour with my eyes closed, and still the world would not stop spinning. I couldn't understand it. I mean, I'm a shell of my former self athletically, but I'm running on my feet 8 hours a day five days a week at work until my stems are ready to snap. Twelve minutes of walking shouldn't give me the vapors as I repair to my fainting couch as it felt as if I had last night. Then again I wasn't walking so much as.... well, dancing, I suppose. I had a little bit of a butt-wigglin' moment when Ram Jam's "Black Betty" popped up on the shuffle, but at least my casual-walk-turned-obnoxious-iPod-commercial was done under cover of night where the neighbors couldn't see me. Unless I passed under a street light. Then it's showtime. I think one passing guy could tell what I was listening to since I was lipsynching along to the rudimentary lyrics into my fist at one point. Still, no reason to get all swoony after. Or during. Maybe that's why Ram Jam never had another hit.

Speaking of good weather weekends, my old friend Lee is turning forty tomorrow and his girlfriend invited Joe and me to a barbecue at their new house out in Greenbrier. Wow, forty. That's gonna be me in a little over nine months myself. And it's funny how I met Lee just a few months shy of my own 21st birthday back in 1990 when we were all hanging out at Friar Tucks bar when Joe was DJing his "alternative night", which back then was one of the only clubs in town where you could hear punk or ska or techno, or anything that wasn't what was popular back in 1990 by and large. Tuesday nights at Tucks. Back when we used to dance to Nine Inch Nails and Nirvana almost year before the rest of the world had even heard of them. Happy little pretentious Dadaists were we. I think I still have a photo of Lee dressed as an old man, and me in a tool belt trying to break into a public telephone outside of the club. And Mike was there too. And I remember Alvin showing up a few times as well. My God, does everybody I know really date back to 1990? Is my life still comprised of hopelessly stunted music nerds still living out our romantic rock star dreams?

Rock stars probably don't have to wait a week to get the holes in their houses fixed. Which I've just been told is probably how long it will take. And it's going to rain tonight, too, I've just discovered.

So much for being wonderfully assured.