August 29
Monday, Aug. 29, 2016 - 17:12

I had a good weekend despite all the gloom and prognosticating of Friday. I won't bore you with too many of the details, but on Saturday night, after a good and long day, I came home and decided to rearrange the crap out of my living room. This is a large deal for me as I've been stuck and had started thinking about moving rather than dealing. I'm not done, everything's still torn apart, and if I die before I get home today the people who will have to deal with my place will be horrified, but when it's done, whenever that will be, it will be wonderful.

Yesterday was the puppy's birthday. He turned four years old. Next year he'll be off to kindergarten! For his birthday I got him a new screen for my screen door, which he will be excited to destroy by jumping all over it when he gets back.

I didn't get to read Gone with the Wind at all yesterday because I was busy and so the siege of Atlanta will continue for a while more. I am sure they're doing fine.

I went swimming in the river yesterday after boxing. Normally I avoid the river because of all the dead bodies in there. They haven't found any bodies yet this summer (which means they're all still in there) and the algae isn't being all floaty and gross anymore, and it's been hot, and yesterday was the last day of summer, so I decided to jump in. The water's cold! I might go again today unless it's too smokey. Mainly the reason I went in was to expose my swimsuit-clad body to the sun some more.

The spaghetti squash is taking over the wall of squashes. Not sure if there will be any butternut squash at all, although the plant seems to be doing fine. My one little watermelon is growing bigger every day and may be able to ripen in the next month. The pumpkins are doing their thing. I picked my first zucchini and will make some zucchini bread at some point this week. In all, the wall of squashes is exactly like I'd hoped but more than I'd dreamed. I can't imagine growing this stuff on the ground - so much space. I wonder if I'll be able to do this again or if the vine borers will find us out.

Oh, in the river, next to the shore, yesterday, I saw a dead goddamn lobster. What? A lobster? I had to go home to google it. It was a crayfish. I suppose I knew that there were crayfishes around here but I've never in my life seen one. I've been swimming in these freshwater lakes and rivers all my life and I ain't never seen no crawdads round here.

On Friday it's only going to get up to 60-something degrees!

Smoke rolled in last night around 7 or 8. I was outside finishing up the screen door, finishing up the yard work, laundry hanging on the line. After an hour my eyes were burning. The smoke came in bad, is still bad, is giving me a stomach ache.

TURNTABLE UPDATE: Today I'm torn between the TEAC TN-300 and the Audio Technics LP120. They are not similar turntables at all but one I want for form and the other I want for function. I've read that the pre-amp in the LP120 is shitty but can be disabled with a bit of work. If you do enough research the audiophiles will convince you that anything is shit other than one fucking $5000 turntable, and even that's probably shit if you do enough research. I just want a goddamn turntable, okay? Oh fuck it I think I'll get the TEAC. This is for my living room and I want the beautifulest that I can find.