Shaun of the (not quite) Dead

So there I was not feeling well last week, and even though I started turning the corner on that Thursday, my will to do just about anything was still drained from me like I was a dying car battery. But having now pulled myself together, let's try to catch up to as many of the dangling threads I've left in this blog as I possibly can. Ok, here we go.

Let's go back to last weekend. I did make a return visit to Massachusetts, even though I had a few reservations stemming from the first visit. There was a WWE PPV scheduled for Sunday night, and I'd already agreed to attend even before my first visit south. So I went down to Dan's on Friday night. We got out early that Friday, but I wasted the afternoon napping and got off to a later start than planned. There was still stuff I needed to do here before I left, and by the time I got out the door it was already almost 8 PM. I got there around 10ish. The nap probably did me well, as we stayed up past 4 in the morning watching wrestling dvds and playing X-Box. All in all, though, I felt more relaxed this time. I think the first weekend was somewhat mitigated by the years it had been since I'd last seen Dan, and not knowing what to expect, and so forth. Even so, I couldn't help but think about the things here that I wanted to do, and I couldn't help but worry about the slippery slope of him wanting me to come down every weekend, and what I was going to do about that.

Saturday I broke off for a while to go play golf with my dad. It was my usual decent but not spectacular game. But the point of it is not to kill myself over how lousy my golfing can be at times (like I used to do), but to hang out with my dad. Looking at it from that perspective, the outing was a success. After that we met my mom at Taylor's for dinner. They mentioned that they were going to Colleen's on Sunday, and I would have gone along, but I'd already committed myself to the PPV. Those kinds of choices used to kill me, but going by the Rule of Previous Committment gets me by without excess mental stress. I guess I'm getting somewhere with myself and my random foibles, huh?

On Sunday we went back to visit Amanda again. It was a nice visit, like the first one, and I spent a lot of time making goo-goo faces at her little baby. The boyfriend Mark, like the first time, spent the whole time out of sight. Since then there's been big developments to this story, but we'll get back to that.

So we got back to Dan's, his mom made dinner, and we watched Summerslam. It was a pretty good, if not outstanding, show, and I really enjoyed it. That was my first WWE ppv since that night Adam and I went and watched Wrestlemania 19 up at the Lebanon airport bar back five years ago. This could turn into a regular thing, but I don't know that yet. As I had to be at work the next morning, I took off right after the ppv. This was kind of a trial run for this. I didn't know if I was going to just stay up and go to work or try to crash for a few hours, and if this didn't work out ... future pay per views for me were probably not going to happen. I burned home quick and was in the door by 12:30, earlier than I anticipated. So I crashed and got some sleep. Good plan, because I was wiped.

When I left I told Dan I had to leave the next weekend open, depending on numerous factors, even though I already knew by then that I was going to take the next weekend off. He's just very eager to hang out, and I do feel guilty about there being such a long gap (even though that guilt won't last forever), and deep down I just really hate disappointing people. Of course, I didn't count on getting sick either.

I already covered that pretty much. I still don't know what sparked it, but by mid-Monday morning I was really feeling low. I turned the corner on it sometime Thursday, but I'm still not 100%. My focus on things, for instance, is still fuzzy at best. Thursday night, even though I was feeling better, I still didn't feel like doing anything, including posting in here, and I just browsed the Rama boards for a while, watched some dvds, and went to bed.

Friday we worked. It seems as though they're trying to work Fridays back in as a regular thing, and while I'd gotten accustomed to having that extra day off, I really really want the money. So no complaints about that. Hell, I'd come in Saturday mornings again, too, if they offered them. And what a slow day Friday was. Mike decided not to run our line, so I spent the entire day working on repairs for the 10/22 line. But wait, you say, I don't know anything about that line. True. But after a shaky start I started to pick up on switching out the bolts and/or guide rods, and got fairly decent at it. Still, though, very very boring day.

That night I felt so good that I just had to go out. I went over to Lebanon and enjoyed myself for several hours, got home very late, and went to bed.

I'd been incommunicado all week. On Thursday I think it was, I was out of it and missed Amy knocking on my door. I dimly remember there being knocking, but there was no way I was getting up to answer it. Sorry.

Saturday. I mostly kept to myself. I went out for a little while, did a lot of my own stuff, and tried to get myself back into the swing of things. While I've been mostly successful in that, the book has not come back into it yet. It's there in my brain, wanting to be worked on, but my focus hasn't sharpened up enough. Yet. I'm determined to hit it really hard this coming week, though.

That evening I broke the incommunicado via telephone thing when I called Dan back. Even though he knew I was sick, he had called several times during the week and I just never got back to him, because 1) I was sick, and 2) if he made me laugh anytime between Monday and Thursday I would have coughed myself to an early grave. There was something from one of his messages, though, that I really did want to have some conversation on. It concerned Amanda.

She and Mark are quits. On Thursday (I think; the week has all swirled together in my brain now) he got violent and beat the crap out of her. I'm talking like black eye, bruised arms, broken finger kind of assholery. She did fight back, though, because she's hardcore. If you can try and take on my ex-wife at seven years old, chances are you're going to grow up to be pretty tough. Anyway, he's in jail now and she has a restraining order on him. That girl just has shit luck with guys, I tell you, and it pisses me off. And she's a girl that I put up on a pedestal pretty close to where my sister is, so if that had happened when I'd been there I think I would have tried my best to put him in the hospital (and Dan ... Jesus Christ, there might have been nothing left but the fillings in Mark's teeth).

When I called, Amanda was out shopping with Dan's mom. They've started to get kinda close, which I think is good. Her relationship with her own mom is somewhat strained, and Dan's mom is just straight up awesome all the time. And it's good that she has people around to turn to. They came in and Amanda got on the phone with me. She sounded pretty good, considering, and we talked for about fifteen minutes. I wish I could do more for her, but I don't know what to do. If I can be like the one person she never has to worry about screwing her over, maybe that's what I can do. It's kind of like what Jen said once when we were summarizing our relationship before the first split: "Maybe you were there to prove to me that nice guys actually *do* exist." Without getting into a whole Jen thing, again, if that's what my part was in it, that isn't so bad.

Anyway, we're all the way around back to today. I'm posting in here again, talking to Guinevere on chat, and while the book hasn't yet come back ... that's more than enough for me today.

Things are almost back to normal.