Well, today is October 29th and that means that I haven't had a cigarette in an entire year. A long, long fucking year. It's nice to have hit this anniversary because now if people ask how long ago I quit I can say, "A year," which sounds better than eleven months.

You know what I hate about this time of year? All these pinheads spend the first part of this week going, "Boy, it sure gets dark early now!" And what's worse, I'm totally one of those pinheads. Because it gets dark fucking early! 4pm it's dusk, 5pm the sun is down, and by 6 it's completely black out. It doesn't seem like I noticed it as much last year, but then again I was in that horrible apartment across the street from the stadium and the sun was actually only visible from my apartment for about an hour every day in the winter anyway.

I've been reading a lot lately. I was in a long stretch of not reading much, pretty much ever since I quit working phone jobs. Back when I was at Matrixx and it would be slow at night I would read and read and it was great, but after I quit that I just didn't make time in my life to read too much. In the last couple of months, though, we've discovered the wonder of the public library. I think I'd forgotten about libraries. I stopped going to the one in Ogden after I had a late fee to pay... about fifteen years ago. A couple of months ago we got library cards for the Multnomah County Library and it's fucking great. I keep putting books on hold and then they show up and I have to get my brain working to get the damn things read. I've been plowing through all of Chuck Palahniuk's books, a couple by Hunter Thompson, Steve Martin, and all kinds of other random shit. Sometimes going to the library and getting a bunch of new books feels almost as good as going out and spending a bunch of money on silly worthless shit, which I also really like to do.

Last tuesday I called in sick to work. I never do that, in fact I haven't done that since I've had this job. I just couldn't do it that night though. Couldn't picture myself driving around town and delivering pizzas and shit. Most of the time I'm fine with my job, but every once in a while I get in a slump where it really gets on my nerves. I just get tired of driving. I didn't think that would ever be possible, I generally love to drive, but I'm really getting a little burned out on it.

It's okay, though. I'm determined not to be stressed out too much this winter. I don't want to beat myself up for not painting or not doing "important" things with my life right now, I just need to chill, to get my mind away from it's normal panicked state of desperation.

Yup. Guess I ran out of things to say. I'm gonna go read now.