A couple of days ago when that Georgia chick went missing, after hearing her boyfriend interviewed on CNN or one of those stations, I turned to M. and said, “She’s not missing, she ran the fuck away from that loser.” Or something to that affect.

(I don’t know if he’s a loser, but all of the talk about love and prayer and Jesus and how close they were and talking with their minister, I thought, “Man, this guy doesn’t have a clue.”)

Then last night, as we were going to bed and she had called home to say she was “abducted,” I said something like, “Yeah, right, ‘abducted,’ which means she ran away and had a last fling of partying before marrying.” (Did you ever notice that almost all talk of “strangers” and “abductions” and that kind of thing turns out to be a lie? Didn’t Charles Stewart’s 911 call educate us?)

I dunno, but, if I were having a wedding in which the whole fucking town was involved, 600 guests were expected and the wedding party was 28-folks strung, I’d fucking run away. Throw in a groom who keeps invoking prayer and Jesus and the minister and looks like a bit of a pussy, and I would have run away well before this week.

I almost forgot, and I can’t believe I almost forgot, to post about this fine piece of journalism.

The anti-grass gardener is one of my oldest and bestest friends. Don’t let his speaking of native plants and gardening throw you. He grew up with a regular old lawn in the suburbs of Boston, far away from the sage and sunshine of the East Bay.

It’s funny reading in a paper about his garden, since it’s a bit interwoven in my head with Pat’s dying, and at the time of cultivation I missed some of the details. When Kevin was house shopping and then moving, and my mother had died, he called regularly to discuss home-owning and whatnot.

Since I know that behind his math-ish/professor-ish/repressed Boston Irish Catholic exterior, he’s actually sensitive, and, I know that he knows first hand how losing a parent feels, I suspect advice on home buying was a ruse for calling. He was just making sure I wasn’t wallowing too deeply in the abyss of mourning.

So, I’m vaguely aware that he was up at all hours tilling and weeding and doing whatever gardeners do, when he first moved in to his house. But, the details and reasons were lost.

It is a beautiful garden. I’m envious of the Meyer lemon tree, and the scent of the mixed spices of various sages is rather lovely.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to show up on the tour and mock him (or support him, depending on our moods), since it’s the same day as M. and my first ever barbeque. Ah well.

I forgot to set up redirects so that if anyone went to my old directory structure before switching hosting, they would end up here.

D’oh.

Here’s either how sick my mind is or how obsessed or nervous or otherwise engaged: I had a dream last night/this morning about hearing back from a job lead.

I’m fucking dreaming about my job search. I guess Freud was onto something with that “wish fulfillment” shit. I’m going crazy.

I hope to hear today from the assistant to someone who is looking for a one day a week project manager and who called me the other day and said we should set up an interview. That job actually seems to have potential, and I don’t mind the one-day-a-week thing. It facilitates my master plan of diversifying my soul, so’s not to be owned by one company. But, I do hate waiting for a call.

Next week, I’m having my first interview ever for a retail position since I left my 20s. I’m only applying for jobs at stores where I love their stuff. For this one, all I’ll say is I love French-milled soap, especially the stuff that is trop cher for me to buy.

As for temping, it’s bumming me out that that well seems mighty dry. Right now, I’m waiting to hear about a possible data entry stint for one month. But, they need to do a criminal background check, understandable in these bleak times. Worse, they probably will want to set up an interview. A fucking interview for one month of tap-tap-tapping in their little bits of data.

I remember the good old days of temping. When I would show up fressh-faced, clean and bright, and the clients would audibly sigh that I seemed in compos mentis and shit. I swear anything short of prison tattoos on your face back in the day, and temping was easy.

Other than that, I’m a tad mad at myself for not pushing harder to drive to open mikes and whatnot. However, it is damn hard settling in and figuring out where to go and what to do. Most especially when I want to make sure I’m in sync with M. (Not like so in sync that it’s creepy and co-dependent, but caring and cognizant.)

Right now, he’s in the middle of working out the new VC-funded version of his job and pressure abounds. He probably doesn’t need the nut-kick of my forcing him into going to late night open mikes. At the same time, if I go alone (which is the likely course), until life seems more comfortably settled, I’m not in love with the vision of my taking off after a day of relative leisure while he comes home after dark to eat Raman noodles alone and go to bed.

I’m sure it will all shake out, but I guess my big fear is obtaining the right balance of rationalizing how I’m currently spending my time and being honest. I’m impatient to get a job and get started in the “comedy scene,” but when I breathe, I realize there’s time.

Yesterday’s rationalization to stay home and work on a ton of web stuff actually was vindicated by the local news. I went outside and checked the mail in rain that poured in drenching sheets I had never seen. I thought to myself, “Fuck that, I ain’t driving to SF for a crappy open mike in a fucking monsoon. I’d start crying in fear the minute I was out and exposed and on the much-discussed and very intimidating California freeways.”

Later, I’m watching the news, and they mention that San Jose was severely hit by the freakish weather, and somewhere nearby a funnel cloud was looking ominous.

I doubt I’d be sent to Oz, if the tornado formed.

Since I’m boring as shit and discussing the weather, I got to say this — Fucking New Englanders don’t know shit about “severe weather.” Sure you got all your seasons and all, but since leaving home, I’ve seen some weather.

Hailstones battering my car in Tecumcari, snow falling so deep so fast it closed highways in Santa Fe, where 18-wheelers gave up and parked on the side of the disappearing road, rain drops so big they hurt and wind sheering so hard off the prairies, you have to white knuckle your hands at 10 and 2 to keep your car pointed straight.

Comparably, New England weather seems so manageable. You can put on a sweater and maybe light a candle if the power fails, but you’ll probably live to talk ad nauseum about that last big storm.

Well, I have the dutifuly ironic, but actually not since it was a true vision on the highway of my cross-country trek, symbolic photo and most, but not all, of my page re-created on a new server.

Whew. Pain in my ass.

But, there should be some new fun things afoot as I get settled in, since Bluehost.com has more than a few scripts and doohickies with which to destroy this site.

If all goes well, this puppy will show right up.

If all goes poorly, just look away.

Fuck iPowerweb’s hosting. Between inexplicable delays on loading, weird glitches of PHP stuff spontaneously not working (and their swearing there had been no server-side changes), the email SPAMcop problem and the non-technical prowess of their support, I’m done.

If all goes well, there will be no down time as I switch hosting companies to BlueHost (as recommended by WordPress), and I come back with the new and improved (or at least different) dee-rob.com.

I just got this SPAM:

What are Soft Tabs that everyone is talking about?
A Soft Tab is an oral lozenge, mint in flavor, containing pure
Tadalafil Citrate that is placed under your tongue and dissolved.

This is most modern and safe way not to cover with shame!

I have to admit, I was intrigued. I’m always in search of modern and safe ways not to be covered in shame.

Less interesting is that tadalafil is the generic form of Cialis. I guess it’s good, though, if the guy with the rock-hard, chemically induced woody has minty fresh breath.

You know the scene in a movie version of a Steven King story where the sky darkens and suddenly the trees are buffeted by forceful leave-stripping winds? Looks like San Jose is in for one hell of whatever the native word for Nor’easter is or my neighborhood is about to be visited by evil.

Nothing like running a few errands and coming out of Target to find the hot day has turned chill and the skies ominous. An invigorating top-speed bike ride home to beat a drenching sure cleared some cobwebs. I think I have enough energy to slog through another dozen replies to job listings.