It's always interesting to see my counter go up, since this is all basically just my stream of consciousness naked journal of things I'm thinking about at the moment. I know a few of the people plopping in here, but I can't see how I can know every visit. Face it, a blog is the ass end of nowhere as far as the internet goes. I get more traffic in my secondary email boxes. Still, it is an interesting experiment.

I haven't gone to sleep yet tonight (today) since I spent all of that time after leaving T's writing my in-depth psycho-babble analysis of people I'd been around during the weekend and after that I decided that I just couldn't wait to finish the newest Jennifer Roberson book I bought on Friday. The problem was that I had to finish reading the book that came before this one first, but logistics were never my greatest selling point.

I guess the dreaded tropical storm that was supposed to call off returns to Mississippi might have been the cause of all the rain as the sun rose. Unless you're on the top of a building or planning a picnic or boating I've never seen the big deal about the tropical storm thing. Sure, the tornado thing is a big pain but somehow I can't bring myself to consider driving around in the ole' Taurus to be while a tornado or two are dipping down might be more dangerous than lounging around asleep in bed or on the crapper. The worst thing about driving in the rain is that everyone ELSE seems to drive like a complete idiot. Hurricanes are another story, but I wouldn't call the 5 mph pace of most evacuation route travel anything like driving.

I think that I would have been a better person if I had had a little sister instead of a brother. People want to take care of baby sisters, probably my best concession to having a younger brother was when I provided him with a a safer place to drink when he was too young to and let him pass out on my couches even when I was having a really big party. It even shows up in my terminology, I'm forever referring to my best and closest female friends as sisters. When I put it like that it sort of sounds like some lesbian/gay thing, and when I occassionally remind myself that some of those women are ones I've slept with there's the whole gruesome incest issue. All in all, it's pretty uncomfortable. Guys can't refer to his girl friends in mixed company properly without getting things confused or miscommunicated with girlfriends.

On a related note, it's really nice that Shannon is back in town. Besides my stepsister, whom I really only know from exasperated tales from my mother, Shannon is the closest thing I've had to a real sister - if only vicariously. After 12 years I've heard so many Shannon stories it's not funny, had mail read to me from halfway across the world, and one of the most painful snapshots from "the breakup" was on one of Trina's birthdays. It was already an awful day for me, the jewelry I'd bought was broken and lost and forgotten almost before Trina had gotten it out of the package, I'd watched with morbid fascination as Blix gave Trina the gift that I'd intended to buy her but he'd talked me out of, I was surrounded by people who screamed bad news at me in the whole party and then somehow for some reason I'd gotten exiled into a car going up to Crestview with Shannon and Sid. If I'd been shot with bullets at the party, Shannon took a pillow and smothered what was left of my ego on the way back. I'm not sure what she said, or even if she said anything. Just that the little kid sister who was always so happy to see me wasn't anymore. That was a blow, Trina's mother was happy to see me sometimes but it was sometimes a scary sort of happy to see me. Trina's dad made no bones about disliking me day one, and to this day he's hardly ever progressed past comfortably-willing-to-ignore-me. Even the animals pretty much didn't want this round white guy around, but for whatever reason Shannon was happy enough to chat with me when Trina wasn't around once she'd gotten past the "who are you sitting with us in front Delchamps" point. I guess I've lived past demonization finally, now when she's over at the house and it's full with neighbors Shannon sometimes can be the only familiar person to talk with. I'm not sure what Larry thinks of it, maybe a little annoyed and wary at worst. That's what's cool about Larry that I think I can tell, he might be the only guy I know laid back to live with on a continual basis with the only blonde-at-heart 1/2 Thai lady I know.

Larry: It's Joe!
Shannon: Joe? Joe who?
Larry: Joe-mama!
Shannon: ! LARRY!!!
(repeated at least THREE times in my presence last night)

Maybe some time this week I'll start digging into my old disks for the sound blurbs to make that Space Ghost song people started talking about last night.