About 30 miles from the house, heading south on I-85. All big talk aside, I didn't leave early after all (I had kicked around the idea of leaving Sunday afternoon). It's a long way to Montgomery, and I'm exhausted.

There are some things on my mind, in no particular order.

I met our new neighbors today. I think I mentioned that Mara and I met their dogs. I don't think I mentioned that they're a lesbian couple (the neighbors, not the dogs). It was never an issue for me. Mama is struggling with it a bit though, daughter of a Baptist preacher and all. I think Mama was pleasantly surprised to find rather nice human beings behind that word “lesbian.” So if nothing else our new neighbors are going to broaden Mama's horizons.

As for my great plans for the weekend, they played out like they usually do. A lot of talk and very little action. I did get some stuff up in the attic. I did not work on the bathroom, although I did browse the Lowes web site and price some things. I'm going to be sore from the effort, I'm sure. At least I'm forming an idea of what I'm going to do. Ceramic tile on the floor. Vinyl shower liner. I might tile the tub if I ever find any wall tile I like. But I'm really attached to the shower liner idea for some reason.

Mara and I didn't do anything I had planned over the weekend. No steaks on Saturday. No grilled fish on Sunday. We didn't go to the Battleground. Which was fine with Mara. She played Everquest II instead. I tinkered on my web site. Nothing fancy. I still haven't learned GoLive. I put up a blog for my “media collection.” There's not a lot there yet, but I did put in some video games, which I enjoyed. It was fun to revisit some of the old games like Kingdom of Kroz, Jill of the Jungle and the first Duke Nukem.

I re-strung my Alembic over the weekend. I ordered a standard set of Rotosounds last week, and had debated about whether to use them myself or put them on Dawg's bass (which I still haven't returned). Mara and I decided that it while I might not like the strings that are on Dawg's bass, he probably couldn't tell the difference between them and Rotosounds. So the Alembic got them. It was the first time Mara had ever heard the Alembic with my preffered strings on it (and we're coming up on our eigth anniversary?). When we met it had a set of those gold-plated Maxima Gold strings on it. Since Rotosounds had gotten scarce in my area, I tried various other strings. I hated them all. And when I finally found a source for Rotosound strings, what did I buy? Piano String Design! Which I obviously wasn't happy with. Anyway, the Alembic sounds like its old self again. Even Mara can tell the difference. Now I just need to string everything else.

Oh! I finally ordered an FM transmitter for my iPod. Gods, I have missed my iPod. Taking a dozen or so CDs with you on a five day trip can't touch the twelve whole days worth of music on my iPod.

The only other thing I can think of that I should mention would be Mama. She's started her hand-wringing again about whether she should move out. She says I've been really ill with her and she's decided it's because I'm disappointed that she didn't move out. If anything, I get irritated with her because she fucks with me all the time. She doesn't realize she does it, and you can't point it out because then she gets upset because she can't bear you thinking that she's doing anything. For example, she's decided that I don't eat right through the week, and so she hammers at me constantly on the weekends, trying to get me to eat things I can't eat on Atkins. Yes, that irritates me. This is just one example. I guess if I had to break it down to one basic thing, Mama nitpicks a lot. I'm also tired of wrangling over the samed damned issues over and over. Such as her moving out.

This is pointless. Mama's not going to change, nor should she. I need to make my peace here and try to be more patient with Mama. I have to admit that a lot of my problems with Mama stem from problems with Mara. If Mara says or does something to piss me off or hurt me, Mama doesn't have the good sense to leave me alone. She'll poke at me until I say something too sharply or roll my eyes or whatever, and then she obsesses about what I said or did. She reminds me of a pothead who does nothing but sit around and get smoked up and weave little threads of thought into some larger melodrama. I really don't know what to do about this.