Stone Said:
Sometimes when I'm unhappy, I feel like running headfirst into a wall to punish myself for being ungrateful for all the good things that are available to me.

I just don't get you some of the time, Stone. I remember at that going-away party where you felt you drank too much and then decided to punish yourself by walking home. It makes no sense, dude. "Being ungrateful for all the good things that are available," to you? What, exactly, is meant by that? Are you like, sitting there bitching about not going out even though you have a car? I can't even begin to fathom what you mean. It's not like anything on this planet that's available to you is provided specifically for you, or by someone other than the owners of bars or guys who pave the road or whatever. I get unhappy sometimes, but I don't see how that ties in with being able to go out and do things or use my computer or snuggle up with Sapphire or whatever. When I get unhappy, I cheer myself up. Does running headfirst into a wall cheer you up? I think I'm missing something here. Let us know what's up.

So Sapphire and I added three members to our household: two hampsters and a kitten. The hampsters are both female because we didn't want additional hampsters beyond them. One's name is Sunny because her fur looks like the color of a sunset and the other's name is Butterscotch because her fur is that color. I don't really like Butterscotch all that much but Sunny is like a little peach-colored mouse with no tail. She runs in her wheel all the time and is really attentive and sweet. The kitten is a little boy and he's interesting. He's clearly a mix of American Shorthair/Tabby, but his fur is the color of a Siamese cat with the dark brown/grey ears and paws and tail. In addition, his tabby markings are coffee colored. He's got ice-blue eyes, which are interesting and will probably change as he gets older because he's only a month old. His name is Siro, pronounced "sear-oh". The "r" is soft, not trill. Cute little guy. Energetic and all that, really friendly. It's so funny to be able to pick his whole body up safely with one hand and no effort, while knowing that in a few short months I'll need both arms to pick him up and I'll need to actually put some effort into it.

My parents are coming to visit me at the beginning of June for a week. It will be good to see them again and good to have them here. My sister will be coming with them but not the lousy boyfriend. She doesn't understand why we don't like the kid, but you tell anyone else that he lives with his parents still, has been to jail already, doesn't have a job, etc. and they understand. Feh.

My boss has been making really good headway with the marketing and whatnot. Business has really been picking up and I'm getting involved in helping him make some choices pertinent to the company. If things really pick up, I might see if he'll spring for a Long Beach store I could maybe run. That would certainly be a good thing. I don't know if we'll be able to garner that much capital anytime soon, though.

I miss all you folks out east. I sometimes talk with you guys and everything seems okay except for the fact that we've formed into these little groups instead of being one big group anymore. I wish that we hadn't all been dicks to one another so that we could all get along, but what's done is done I guess. It doesn't change the fact that I like all you folks, it just makes me sort of sad.

In other news, I'm really getting bothered by where this country is heading. Pretty soon, the government's going to be enforcing censorship without actually censoring anything and the Senate just passed a bill basically giving rights to fetuses. (If that's even the proper plural.) It's like these religious folks who are normally content to sit by and let us sinners do our thing have decided that they're going to abuse their influence on President Bush and the rest of the government and turn this country into some Taliban-like theocracy, where people who say things that Jesus doesn't like get fined and people who aren't responsible with no financial stability pump out kids for tax breaks while gay people watch from behind barred windows. It's really getting out of hand. Kerry's not that great, and I really don't like the fact that independent parties have no real political standing unless they have hundreds of millions of dollars to spend, but I have to vote for the guy. Yeah, he may turn out to be crappy, but there's no way to convince me that our current President is doing a good job nor that he will make an effort to even consider my concerns. I don't care about the past, I care about the present and the future, and I fear that we are beginning the first terrible steps that the people of Germany saw back in the 1930's, no matter how ludicrous that sounds. Perhaps I am worrying too much, but that's how I'm feeling.

Seacrest, out!