I've decided to cut out the fat and streamline the blogging experience... now I'm so efficient that I've cut my update needs from two months to four and a half months! OK, so maybe a little bit of sarcasm.

Let's see, since August things have been very boring. In September I had another birthday, they keep coming despite my reluctance to acknowledge them... oh well. I'm finally 29 <wink>. In October there was Halloween. I went out as a cowboy, with a sailor "girl", and a um, a, well, a guy dressed as a girl with frilly underwear one. We got drunk and had a great time! (Duane stayed behind). In November Duane and I spent Thanksgiving with his family in Pennsylvania. His mom had a pretty bad fall. Broken bones, black eye, etc. She looked rough, but she's pulling through. Then we went back up for Christmas. I got a post card that my 20 year high school reunion is coming up. I have successfully moved on with my life... but this tiny little peice of paper has really stirred up a lot of memories and wonderings in my mind. I've fallen into a little bit of a nostalgic mood lately. -- some people think that means I need therapy to deal with my past <!> It's not all sad or upsetting. Plus it's a new rite of passage I didn't even know existed. Everyone 37-38 years old is doing it! Which makes me feel much better.

January 1, I went to Phoenix to visit my mother. I say visit what I should say is dictate how life ought to be, yell some, and leave. I feel bad about it. It's gotten to the point that I make an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix, clean my mother's house, fix her big problem of the season - this year it was health insurance scam, then I head out to "Roscoe's on 7th" and try to pretend it didn't all just happen.

It's so disturbing when parents turn into those people you can't stand to be with. How and why does that happen? I love her, but I love her more when she's in Phoenix and I am at home. I avoid telling her many things about my life - and don't worry, she can't get how to "run" a computer... she'll never see this blog - then I slip and say something like "Duane's up in Penn taking his mom to get her cast off..." then it's a load of explaining. OK, so more in six months or so... I hope you (my one avid reader) can wait.

Oh yeah, wait! If you haven't yet... and I don't know why you haven't, Go out and get Kylie's new ablum "X" it's absolutely freakin fantastic...