I'm about to run into this truck stop and take a shower. I delivered yesterday afternoon. Naturally USX gave me a load that didn't pick up until this morning, and can't deliver until tomorrow afternoon. Total trip miles are around 500, so that's what I'll get out of two days. Not good.

Mostly I'm writing because of dreams and what they made me think about when I woke up. Nothing weird this time. In the dream Mama and I were wandering around this immense attic that was supposed to belong to our house. I kept telling her that our real attic was “really not this big,” telling her at one point “if it was really this big it'd include our house and the Russells' house” (which is across the street and few houses down from us). The gist of the dream was that we were looking at what I was going to do to fix things up. It was interesting because in the dream this immense attic was empty and it looked new; no ancient lumber here.

I woke up feeling ashamed of myself. There is so much that needs to be done at home. But whenever I'm there I don't lift a finger. Because of the problems I had when I was at home last, I was home for about three weeks. My God. In that time I could have done an awful lot. I could have finished the bathroom. How long has that been going on? But you know what I did? I played Everquest. That's really about all I did for three weeks. What is wrong with me?

I just thought about Dawg's bass. It's been sitting beside my bed since before Christmas, ready for me to take to him. All in all it's been over a year since I got the bass back from him to finish it. And in all that time all I need to do is get off my ass and drive about 10 miles to his house. I could have done this at any time during the three weeks I was home.

I need to find some motivation here. Not just about the bass, but about everything. I suppose first I should try to indentify why the hell I don't have any motivation. I also think I should stay the hell away from Everquest. It's too easy to sit down to check on something in-game and find yourself sitting there twelve hours later. If I'm going to invest my energy and the fleeting moments of my life into something, shouldn't it be something more concrete? When all is said and done, can I really point to my character, Neima, a level 29 monk, and claim her as an accomplishment?

These online games like Everquest II and Star Wars Galaxies provided a welcomed distraction when we were only getting the one day off a week and were exhausted all the time. I think maybe it's time to raise myself up out of the ether and return to having a real life. Fantasy was much needed for a while. Now it's started to distract from the very real necessities of life. There are things that need to be done in the real world. I need to stop neglecting them.