I had a couple of firsts today. I've been riding the Vespa to work every day. I'm currently averaging 85 miles per gallon and I went an entire week without driving my car once. I'm over the learning curve hump and am actually starting to relax a little bit on my hog and enjoy the open air. I'm still cautious, though, because I check the weather every morning before I ride to make sure it isn't going to rain. Today's forecast said a 30% chance of rain, so off I went putting down the street. By lunch time the sky was starting to darken, so I ran out the door, hopped on my scooter and sped off as fast as I could toward home. My plan was to get home and drive my car right back.

I made it as far as Midway before the sky all around me turned black. Gale force winds blew leaves high in the air in swirling patterns and threw me from my balance a few times. I was already going slow, but I kept having to slam on the brakes and put my feet down. Not just to catch my balance but to then brace myself against the blast. It was so scary. And yet for some reason I was laughing and enjoying myself. When it finally started to rain, I pulled into the first parking lot I came to and ran inside. It was a delightful office furniture store with a very friendly staff. They advised me to park under the alcove of the front door so my scooter wouldn't blow over. One tree fell on a guy's car when I was there. It was an insane storm that only lasted about 30 minutes. But we all were like away from the windows and fearing the worst. When it cleared a bit I ran the gauntlet back home and all was well.

But it was the first time I've ridden my Vespa in a tornado. And hopefully the last.

My next first was when I got home from work. I decided to go by myself to a hip-hop dance class. My gym offers a different class every night and they're all free. So I've decided to attend them all. I have kick boxing on Thursday. Hip-hop dance was pretty fun. It was basically an instructor trying to teach me and 3 fat women how to do a dance routine. Only we were all terrible so it easily filled the entire hour. I wasn't too too bad, even though the kick-ball-change took me a while to get down. I'm definitely not a hip-hop dancer by trade. It doesn't lend itself well to my clear-a-one-arm-radius-in-front-of-the-mirror dance style. Even so, I still warned Daniel that when I got home, he was getting served.

She said next week we should bring a friend because we're going to be battling. Who's in?

I'm really diggin' this ClustrMaps thing I have going on. I want to thank Joseph for emailing me about it. Looks like the Sidesho is a lot more popular on the east coast than the west. Should I mold my brand of humor to benefit my already strong demographic? You know, make jokes about the Atlantic ocean n stuff. Or maybe I should be focusing on trying to bring up the readership in states I don't already have an uncompromising strong-hold on. Perhaps I'll start with Utah. Haha, fucking Mormons. They're all insane, did you know that? It's like the perfect blend of xristianity and Scientology. They think jebus will fly them a spaceship and drop their asses off on their own planet where they'll be free to engage in secret handshakes and secret tacky underwear without being under the watchful eye of rational people. joey smith bless 'em, they're all fucking mad!

Well that was tangential. My hungover posts tend to be a bit more random than the sober ones. My brother's wife's brother was supposed to come get my old couch, oh, 6 weeks ago. I was going to donate it but as a personal favor to him, I held onto it. It's totally cluttering my apartment. He couldn't find a truck so I gave him 3 weeks to do so, after which my brother's wife had to go to the hospital for a bit and her brother went to Houston to help out. So then I felt bad and had to give him an extension on picking it up. But that was like 3 weeks ago, so I've had this shit for a WHILE. On Thursday, the Salvation Army is coming by to get it. I can't wait to get my entryway back.

Went out on the yacht again on Thursday. I left work early and met the troops. They pulled into port to pick me up and were just gonna swing by the dock, I'd make a running leap onto the boat and we'd speed out of there. No need to park or any of that nonsense. So they pulled up, I jumped on and we sped off ... right into a sandbar. Luckily the lake was deserted, because we were fucking stuck. It was pretty funny but we couldn't laugh because Alexander was getting pissed. After about 20 minutes of revving the engines in reverse and kicking up a ton of dirt in the water, we finally got out on the lake. They had blown up a little 3-seater raft and were dragging it behind the boat. I rode it for a while. It was hella fun but I'm not much of a thrill seeker so I got back on the boat and let Kelly take my place. Next time we do that, I'm gonna go ahead and suggest we all have life vests on. As much as I'd hate a life vest tan, Jordan almost died. We hit this huge wave, Daniel threw up, and Jordan went limp, airborn, and under. It was scary and funny. He said he didn't remember falling out and woke up in the lake. Luckily he was okay. Not too much else happened -- oh, except that I can officially say I've been skinny dipping in Lake Lewisville. No details!

So I haven't worked out in like a month. Don't know why, I'm just lazy and can't get back into it. I was really concerned when I went the other day (isolated incident) that I would have gained back all that weight I worked so hard to lose. But I weighed myself ... and I lost three more pounds!!!1! Do you believe that shit? This "eating right" malarky must really work. g*d, I eat so much more than I used to. I usually have at least 6 meals a day and they're all packed with nutritional goodness. That makes a grand total of 21 pounds lost from the time I started eating right. I don't think you could have looked at me a few months ago and said "hey fatty mcfatfatfat fuckfat, lose some weight." Like I don't think I looked that fat, but fuck me, I look good now. I don't even think I weighed this little when I graduated college. Rawk.

Let's see, let's see, what else can I brag about. Oh! I think I might be an amazing cook. The other day I was in the grocery store and randomly decided to cook dinner for Daniel. I think all he ever eats is fast food junk food, and he's been having problems with his stomach so I thought a home cooked meal would be good for him. I roasted a g*ddamned chicken! Do you believe that shit? I like stuffed it with onions and celery and put a dry rub on it of salt, pepper, all spice, and cinnamon. And I baked it for 2 hours, and basted it every 20 minutes. It was so insane. I'm a masterbaster. It came out like perfect. Its the best chicken I've ever had. And on top of that, the whole bird was 6 dollars, and I got two very large dinner portions and a whole heaping plate of leftovers. I'm going to roast a bird once a week from now on. If we'd stop going out for oysters and wood fired lobster maybe I'd actually get a chance to eat some of my chicken delight.

I think that should be enough for now. I'm heading to my parents' house to watch World Cup Soccer with my brother Michael. He is in from California. His daughter Kelsey is THE cutest thing on Earth (perfectly tied with Kaylyn and Ann Marie). Then I get to have dinner with Miss Allison "Google" H■■■■■■. What a great day. Oh and my sister called. She is having a boy! Two nephews coming soon! Later skillets.

I hate working. I mean, while I'm there, it's not so bad. Sometimes the hours absolutely drag by and sometimes I'm done before I realized it was getting close to quittin' time. I have another piece of flair the Nazi's make me wear. This one's a cell phone. My whole life I have hated cell phones clipped to belts more than I hate Jessica Simpson (and her little sister now too). But, in keeping with the theme of turning myself into all the things I've always despised, I wear it obligingly. It's way too big to keep in my pocket because its one of those Nextel walkie-talkie things -- which I also hate.

Some other things that suck, and then we'll move on to more fun topics. We're getting this etiquette class three times this week and basically all they needed to do was hand out a piece of paper saying, "David you don't belong here." They presented themselves as this ultra-hip, young cultured company, but now they're impressing on us the need to look like mission control engineers from the 1960's. Fuck that. I'm not taking out my earrings. That's ridiculous. All I do all day is sit in a cubicle. And they keep saying things like, "If you're not married yet, when you do get married you'll want to eat with proper etiquette. And guys especially when you take a girl out." I know that's petty, but they make comments like these all day long constantly ... everyone does. It would be nice to not feel alienated for like five minutes.

So the fun topics I promised: This weekend, my first weekend in Dallas, could not have been better. Ryan S■■■ was having a party Saturday night, and I was on the ol' invite list. I went over to his house early so I could get ready to go out without the criticism of the matriarch. I helped him put lids on the obscene amount of jello shots and then people started showing up. JonS■■■ from College Station just happened to be in town and called me to see if I was doing anything, so I invited him to join me. I was grateful for him being there since I only knew a few cats and it was a little intimidating. There were like 70 queers sardined into Ryan S■■■'s apartment. It was great. But it did get a little stuffy and hot (I should take a look at his HVAC system) so we moved the party to the bars. Starting off at JR's, JonS■■■ and I proceed to drink Pink Cape Cods like they were goin out of style. Then we stumbled over to the Village with a couple strangers and danced and drank some more. Neither of us remember the rest of the night clearly but I think it ended with us buying a shot and not having enough money, so we left.

Not much else of note happened, but hazy stumblings and drunken ramblings with people we did not know. We made it back to Ryan's where he and his brother were waiting for us to take them to ... where else? ... Whataburger! Fantastic. I spent the night at Ryan's cause I'm a lush and my mother didn't want me to drive home if I'd been drinking. I was happy to oblige. The next day we woke up and went to visit Ryan S■■■'s friend, Greg, who lives in Addison Circle, where Ryan thought I might like to live. He was RIGHT! I fell in love. That's totally where I'm moving when I can afford it, which should be shortly. My first paycheck comes tomorrow -- can't fuckin wait. After we ate lunch and toured Greg's apartment we went and met up with Brent to go to a movie. So Ryan, Greg, Brent and I all rode to Stonebriar and met up with Chris Jones to see Stepford Wives, which I did not want to see, but I did want to meet new friends so I went. IT SUCKED. Real bad. Don't see it. Anyway, I just wanted to graciously thank Ryan, Greg, Brent and Chris for such a great time.

So that is what has been going on. Once I move out of my parent's house and get my own dedicated internet connection, I'll probably be more prone to get back into the updating swing of things, but as it is, I have precious little time to plug in and I don't always want to spend it narrating the past. But do keep checking back and emailing me and stuff, all the contact with my former life is a good thing. Peace out, have nots.