I swear, I really need to manage my time more effectively.

This Week (and last): Fear 1, Me 1
Current Score: Me 28, Fear 15

During Week 24, I had one of my weird, existential “Life’s going by too quickly and we’re all going to be dead soon” moments in the middle of the night, laying in bed. I talked myself off of the ledge eventually, but it wasn’t all that pretty until I did.

This past week, I had to deal with a huge amount of bullshit involving my car. Brakes went sideways on it (fixed now), oil change people forgot to put oil in it (I shit you not; amazingly, it handled about 45 miles between two trips on what was left in the engine and the car’s fine after all of that, but the last few miles of the 2nd trip made me feel like Han Solo holding the Millennium Falcon together with duct tape), and then some poor schmuck kid fell asleep at the wheel and hit it at 1:30 in the morning when I was parked on the street on Saturday (kid’s OK, car’s a little less pretty but the damage was minimal and cosmetic). With the exception of that one trip that ended up being without oil (and anyone would’ve been nervous about a trip like that) I was actually as cool as a cucumber and in fairly good spirits when it came to all of this nonsense. I’ve dealt with worse on all fronts with cars, so while stuff like this sucks, it’s not the end of the world.

Looking ahead at the remainder of week 26, I’ll be trying not to stammer like an idiot when meeting 2010 Baseball Hall Of Fame inductee Andre Dawson tomorrow (I actually saw him on the street in Cooperstown during ’05 induction weekend, and FROZE…). Stay tuned!

I’m thinking that we should replace umps and referees with robots. Tired of all these bullshit calls.

GWAR.

New rule: anyone who calls me before Noon or after 10 PM (Eastern Time) better be telling me someone’s dead or injured.

God help me. I’ve spent 3 + hours watching #devocats, and made a fan page for one of them: http://bit.ly/asyuLQ

This Week: Me 1, Fear 1
Current Score: Me 28, Fear 15

Kinda freaked out Thursday night when I thought that my still-pretty-crappy but consistent for nearly a month sleep pattern (by far the longest period of relative stability since I started keeping track 3 years ago; still pretty regular late wakeups and a ton of naps, but it’s been mostly “normal” day-night) was about to go into the toilet, but I managed to come down from the ledge and not throw the current pattern into the toiletski somehow. I honestly can’t decide if the fear makes me lose a point or overcoming it makes me gain one. Given that the supportive folks who comment will probably vote for the latter, I’ll grudgingly do the same, but the level of panic that a grown man who’s been down this road before had over being up until 5 in the morning really kinda bugged me.

I’m also kinda panicked about my car, which may be starting the 100,000 mile fuckups a few thousand miles early. That shit could be expensive. Trying to be Zen about it all, but there are definite limits to my ability to do so. Point off there.

Tune in next week for more of the same shit! Hey, at least I was on time this week.

Idea of the day: giving the Tex Avery “Symphony In Slang” treatment to Ice Cube’s “Death Certificate” album.

Wow, I totally dropped the ball there, didn’t I? Shit.

This Week (and last): Me 1, Fear 1
Current Score: Me 27, Fear 14

Aside from money worries, which are pretty much constant (and probably not that unusual for anyone), I’ve really only run into 2 things in the past couple of weeks that’d qualify for my little experiment, and I had to think about them. No wonder I didn’t update.

The first was yet another in the long series of “This seems awesome, but do I want to put the effort in and go to this?” struggles. Was it worth the effort? Yes, it was. If I ever sound like I’m waffling about a free Morris Day & The Time/Biz Markie show again, slap me upside the head. Holy crap.

Second item was just me struggling to get my sea legs, now that I’m involved with someone again. (Normally, I do not discuss these things on the site, as you know, but this experiment and that policy clash somewhat.) Still trying to find my stride there, and my insecurity shows through kinda often lately. Something to work on and grow into, I suppose.

Tune in next week (on time, ideally), when I deal with getting old and return to dealing with my hatred of bureaucracy!

OK, fine. Maybe his baseball card is worth 16 grand.

I wonder how many other adult couples watch iCarly in the nude.

And, as I predicted, Jobs has done more to sell me the EVO in one presentation than Sprint has done in 6 months!

Yay, almost time for Apple’s “Fuck you, Steve, I’m getting an EVO!” presentation!

“Jerome, bring me my mirror!”

BP boycotters, please come up with something different. You’re mostly hurting mom & pop stores, not CEOs. Good intentions, but misguided.

So, as some of you know, I’ve got a birthday coming up in a week. Normally, I make a big to-do about my birthday (and maybe this post is that big to-do, I don’t know), but over the past year, I’ve been thinking that I’m kind of a dick about birthdays. I’m not great at remembering other peoples’ birthdays, wishing them a happy birthday, celebrating their birthday with them or (this one’s a little beyond my control because of my money situation) getting folks birthday gifts these days, and I feel bad about that, but doubly bad that I trumpet “Holy fuck it’s my birthday stop everything!!!!11111″ every year. I mean, granted, I do like celebrating my birthday, but I think I’ve been kinda one-sided about it for a long time, and am not entirely sure how to correct that consistently, especially since, in my defense here, I do know a lot of people, and could spend a good chunk of my day wishing people a happy birthday just about every day. Suggestions are of course welcome. Really feel a strong need to work on this.

That having been said, I’ve had folks ask me what I’d like to do on my birthday this year, and also had folks ask me what I want for my birthday, so it’s not just me bugging you guys to make a fuss about my birthday. If anything this year, it’s been quite the opposite, but it keeps coming up, so here goes.

As for the first part, the “celebration” thing, I’m really thinking that I want to keep it quiet this year. It’s not that I want to punish myself for being The Birthday Dick or anything like that, but the idea of doing very little at all on my birthday proper tickles me pink at the moment. If there are any surprise parties in the works, though I don’t think there are, throw the brakes on and don’t put yourselves out, folks. I’m good.

As far as the second part goes, the gift-giving thing, there are a few answers that are self-indulgent in a variety of ways, so please accept my apologies in advance for that.

Right now, I’m actually trying like crazy to pare my belongings down, and I am making some progress, so random stuff, unless it’s the best random stuff ever (the Batman vs. Hulk Treasury Edition I got last weekend, that my friend Vassilios was holding for me from my last birthday does qualify) is probably a bad idea. I do have a Wish List that I’ve revised recently and added some things to (despite the fact that I rarely get to reading books, there are a lot of them I’d like to read), and that’s probably the best bet if you want to get me “stuff” as I’ve put a lot of thought into all of it (Yes, even the “Norbit” Blu-Ray; seriously, the car washing scene BEGS for hi-definition!), though if one of you has a working Rom The Spaceknight doll with all its accessories, I’ll probably hump your leg for it. That’s basically the last Holy Grail for me among toys that you’d find on the collector market, barring me losing my mind and replacing all my Megos (I have pictures, memories, and The Mego Museum to keep me from doing that).

Being that I’m broke and am probably a year and a half from a hearing in my SSI case, judging by what I’m hearing about the backlog, money’s hugely helpful too (there’s a donation button, as always, on the top left corner of My Big, Black Cock, but I understand peoples’ aversion to just giving folks cash (in person or via PayPal, whatever the case).

OK, here’s where things get fun and slightly less self-indulgent. If you want to do something else awesome for my birthday that involves neither giving me money or buying me stuff, I’ve got a few options, all of which would make me very happy and also proud of you for helping out those in greater need than even my sorry ass is. No need to make a huge public fuss over the fact that you’ve helped these folks in any way. I strongly believe that the best kind of help is given quietly, though I do feel like it’s important to at least get the word out for the causes I mention below. However, if you’d like me to know that you did, you can drop me an email, that’d be cool.

First up, my pal George Tabb is still in very bad shape, and could really use any help you can give him. George is one of the kindest guys I know, a talented musician, writer, and all around good person who’s been stricken by a litany of illnesses since 9/11 (he lived in lower Manhattan and volunteered at the WTC site). The government is still doing everything they can to avoid taking care of George and other heroes like him who risked everything to help, so for the time being, he’s barely able to take care of his food, medical expenses, and living expenses for himself and his 2 dogs, Scooter and Jett (who work as therapy dogs, with George bringing them around to hospitals to cheer folks up; even now, with George pretty seriously ill and being screwed over by our government, he’s still volunteering to help people however he can). I’ve been doing whatever I can to bring George’s situation to yours and everyone else’s attention for a good long while now, but he still needs our help, as do the other folks suffering from 9/11-related illnesses (he’s been trying to establish a charity for them for a good while, but he kind of has to be healthier to do the heavy lifting there). Anything you guys can do for George is greatly appreciated.

Second, my friend Deb McGee‘s annual charity race, The Race For McGee, is happening on June 19th, 2010. It’s a 10K run to benefit the ALS Association. Deb is a terrific lady, regular commenter on My Big, Black Cock and a distance runner who has ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. ALS is a disease with no known cure that claimed my grandfather’s life, as well as the lives of Catfish Hunter (one of my favorite baseball players) and of course Lou Gehrig, whose name the disease commonly bears. Even if you’re not local and not a runner, you can support the Race For McGee. Donate via the race entry form (warning, PDF), or online at Deb’s local chapter of the ALS Association.

Finally, my pal Brad Meltzer has been throwing the support of his awesome charity organization, Ordinary People Change The World behind another charity called City Year of late. According to their site, “City Year unites young people of all backgrounds for a year of full-time service, giving them skills and opportunities to change the world.” Beyond the fact that Brad’s endorsed them, I am not too familiar with City Year, but I do trust Brad’s judgment, and if they sound like a group that you’d like to help as part of my birthday celebration, feel free.

That’s about all I’ve got on this subject, beyond that I thank you in advance for being happy that I was born, and that I’ll try to be a lot less of a dick in the future about showing you that I’m happy you were born, because I really do feel like I’ve been one.