what a crazy week this has been. i realize that i tend to think of myself as someone with little to no "real" life, a layabout, a lazybones, an anti-social bastard. for the most part, that's probably true, but the events of this past week have hammered home to me just how active my inactive lifestyle really is… throw one wrench in the works, and i'm struggling to hold on.

my parents let me know somewhere around the 21st or 22nd that my sister would be home (their home in Princeton, KY, not mine in Louisville) that weekend and would need me to pick her up and to take her to the airport. unfortunately, her arrival and departure schedules were timed just poorly enough to potentially interfere pretty seriously with my work week. now at work i've been just busy as hell. i can barely take time out to chat with my friends, though i do try. and we've got a couple projects i'm knee deep in that have semi-unrealistic deadlines so i really can't afford to take off work for an extended period at this point. my sis was trying to get me to take off a monday & a tuesday, then a half day on thursday to take her to the airport. i managed to convince her to get in touch with some friends and make arrangements to minimize my time away from work, but of course in the process i was really just compressing three days worth of activity into 1 and a half.

on sunday (when i had been planning for and looking forward to a cookout at a friend's house) we decided to cut the day's activities down to just band practice so i could leave at a decent hour. practice ended up running a little long, but it went pretty well so it was worth it. i think i finally left town around 6:45.

another odd thing that i've noticed is that it seems like every single time i go home, it always manages to be during a storm of some point. it always rains on me either on I-65 south, or somewhere along the first half of the western kentucky parkway. this time it managed to do even better than that. it pretty much rained on me down the majority of I-65, and all of the first half of the wk parkway. it was a very impressive storm system that stretched the entire length of that parkway, from Elizabethtown to Princeton, and i really enjoyed trying to catch some good looks at the huge, breathtaking lightning that was going on. i really wished that i had a camera and more time… i would've loved to just pull off the road and try to get some pictures of the sky.

i finally managed to make it home around 9:00pm. the drive through the old hometown was pretty surreal. i go home so infrequently these days that it's just very odd to see all these familiar things from which i'm so far removed. but i did make it home, and hung out with my parents for a little bit since my little brother and big sister were out at the moment providing me what would most likely be my only opportunity to really talk to them. (my little brother tends to monopolize my time when i'm there, which i assume is just a normal little brother thing). almost the first thing out of my mom's mouth was her asking me if i'd permed my hair. i explained to her as i pointed a finger at my dad that no, unfortunately i had, in the genetic crapshoot that is human reproduction, inherited it from him. this got us started talking about other things i'd inherited and from whom, and about family and family history. as it turns out, it is generally believed that i have some melungeon blood from my mother's side, and that my… is it great-great-great grandmother?… was Native American…. there may be another great in there, i obviously don't have any native american features…

anyway, so i helped my little brother (once he got home and i had to quit talking to my parents) dismantle some pieces of his old computer in preparation for the computer parts he was expecting on Monday. another reason for me to go pick up my sister was so that i could help him put his new system together. he showed me his fish which had spawned two separate broods, so there were somewhere around 100 barely macroscopic little fishies swimming around one of his tanks. he played me some of the songs he was writing with the little band thing he's doing, and i showed him a few tricks i'd picked up recently (namely simple things like the blues scale, and how to know what key you're in…) as well as some older tidbits of guitar knowledge.

the next day i took my car to the local repair shop to get the front brake pads replaced and ended up tooling around town until the work was done. i walked up and down the courthouse square area and ended up in front of sharon's parent's business. i went in and had 15 or 20 minute conversation with sharon's mom, and found out that i'd missed seeing sharon by about an hour. i didn't even have any idea she was going to be in town, or i'd have forwent band practice on sunday… ah well. i guess that's the way things work out sometimes, but sharon, if you read this, i'm sorry i missed you.

once i finally got home from that outing, i helped my bro set up his new machine (thankfully, all the parts had arrived.) of course, we ended up having to run out to radio shack twice to pick up some extra parts that he hadn't known to buy beforehand. but we did finally get the beast up and running at around 7:30 or 8:00, and i got the windows installation started for him.

sara and i left town much later than we should have, and ended up getting into Lexington around 1 in the morning on Tuesday. she gave me some crazy directions to get back home to louisville that i ended up screwing up briefly, and i ended up getting home around 3:30. i slept a couple hours then went through most of the day at work pretty much zombiefied. then that night i had band practice again. nice little bookend to the trip home since being at work for 8 hours didn't really help me feel like the whole weekend ordeal was over.

my bandmate's wife had brought home the kittens she'd told us about, and he surprised us with them (since they hadn't told us they actually HAD them yet…). we ran out after practice and got the necessary things, litterbox, food dish, food, litter, and then took them to their new home. we'd called paul to let him know we were bringing them, so he was still up to see them and play with them a bit.

it was amazing. after climbing out of the carrier, the little things were just wandering all over the house, in full-on explore mode. of course, brax and paul were waving their toys around effectively forcing them to postpone their explorations for some play time, but it was all alright. they adjusted so well and so quickly it was just really surprising. no accidents, no complaints, not even any hiding under the bed. they were just kind of walking around like "ok, let me figure out where the hell i am and what all this stuff is, then i'll come hang out and play with you all." they went to their litter box like it'd been in this house in that location for all 12 months of their lives, and they found the food and water and ate with no hesitation. and boy are they cute.

so i ended up staying up with them until around 3:30am. another night with little sleep. yipee.

wednesday is the traditional comics/denny's day, which was good, as usual (it's nice to have those routines, sometimes). and a little later (like around 9:30pm) my sister finally showed up. she stayed with us that night so that i could take her to the airport on thursday. i think i finally got to bed around 3:00am. (keep in mind, i have to wake up at around 7:45am every day…)

i worked straight through until 2:00, left work early and picked up my sis at home. we grabbed some lunch and then headed out to the Cincinatti airport (near Florence, KY and at least 30 minutes outside of Cincinatti). after nearly falling asleep throughout most of the drive, we finally got to the airport and i helped her carry in her bags and kept her company for a while. we stopped and had drinks (coffee for me, diet coke for her) at the "cafe", and just kind of hung out and talked for a while. we said our goodbyes and she headed back to france for another good year. me, i headed back home. thankfully the coffee had done the trick and i didn't have as much of a struggle with sleep on the way back home.

once i got home, i took a little time to relax, then called up brian to see if he still wanted to hang out. he came and picked me up and we headed out to fazoli's for some italian fast food. he had to show me his new musical equipment, so i got to play around with his nice new Gibson and his crazy pedals for a while. and, as he pointed out, we hung out for a while on the back porch (the main feature of the old apartment that i really miss) drinking bourbon and just chatting. a pretty pleasant night, overall.

and that was pretty much the entirety of my week thus far. so much for not having a life, eh? now, it's friday, i've got a three day weekend, and i've been sitting here at work for an extra hour to write this blog entry… i've gotta get out of here and start the maxin' and relaxin. i feel like maybe this time, i actually deserve it.