I did the stupidest thing today.  I couldn’t find my damn van!!  I went to where I thought it was, it wasn’t there.  I took a look down the other street, my 2nd choice parking spot, and did not see it.  I started freaking out a little and walking in random directions.  I started walking in bigger and bigger circles around where I live trying to find the fucking thing.  Wracking my brain trying to remember where I’d put it.  Could not find it.  Started thinking the worst, either that it had been towed for some wack reason, and then concluded it couldn’t have been towed, it had to have been stolen.  What the hell was I going to do?  My amp is in that van, I have to get it fixed and go on tour with that amp!!  I started crying.  And it was snowing, but the wet kind of snow that’s just gross and cold, SLOPPY snow.  So finally I decide to take one last whole circle around the block by my apartment.  And there it fucking was, right there where I’d put it on the 2nd-choice street.  It was parked a little closer to the far corner than it usually is, and behind another (bigger) van so I hadn’t seen it the first time I peered down the street.  Stupid, stupid me.  FUCKING Friday the 13th.  Yes.  So now I’ve made a little series of signs to put on my stupid fucking door inside my apartment.  With the names of the streets around me, and "North of…", "South of…" "East of…" "West of…" I figure if I go to the effort to tell my future self where the FUCKING van is, my retardo brain will not forget.  Ay yi yi.

I went to the gym yesterday for the first time in, like, ages and ages.  It had been so long that they sent me a postcard saying "We Miss You!!" And, "we know it’s more fun to work out with a friend, so here’s a coupon for 2 weeks free for your friend.  Please come back!" So I talked to Sarah and she was into it, and came with me.  I showed her around, we worked out and at the end they gave her the little schpiel about the different membership plans they have.  When we first got there I told her they might do that, and she said there was no way she’d join.  But when we walked out, she was all "I think I might do that!" She’s thinking about it.  I’m excited, it would be so cool if she joined.  Not because we’d always be going together or anything — I mean, you’re kinda on your own in there even if you do arrive with a friend, since each machine only holds one person, you know?  But it would be so good if we could bug each other to do it as often as possible.  "Did you go today?  I did, where were you?" etc. etc.  The guilt factor would be ratcheted up a notch or two for me, and that can’t hurt.

After all the walking around like a damn fool looking for my van, I sure didn’t want to go to the gym!  My foot hurt, I’d been pushing it too hard.  It’s been getting a teeny bit better every day I think.  I’m not HOBBLING anymore, just slightly limping, but all that walking made it pretty sore again.  When I was at the gym yesterday I tried to use my favorite little treadmill, my BABY, and it was okay for about ten minutes but then started hurting too much.  So I got on an elliptical machine, and that was fine, so that’s where I stayed for the rest of the workout.  I guess it’s the BONK-BONK-BONK foot-pounding action of the treadmill that doesn’t do me right, whereas with the elliptical you’re pretty much only using your legs, not your feet.  So that’s good, there is at least one machine there that won’t exacerbate the injury.  I should talk to the trainers there, but I’m shy… I know what they’ll tell me.  Just don’t use the machines that hurt, dum-dum!!  Why don’t you use these upper-body worker-outers?  Why don’t you get a mat and do some damn sit-ups or something?  WHY DON’T YOU GO TO THE FRICKIN’ DOCTOR?  I know, I know, tell me something I don’t know.  So… I’m not going to say anything, I don’t think.  It’s just good that I’m going back at all.

We’re getting more and more dates in for the 2nd leg of the U.S. tour with the Zincs… just need to get the final confirms before I post them here.  Also got a rough draft of the European tour… lookin’ good, lookin’ very very good!  If it goes the way it’s looking like it’s going, it will be in May, the whole month of May.  Soooo many countries, it’s pretty nuts.  I don’t want to talk any more about it because it’s too early in the game, too much could change, but I’m really excited.  I think with a tour this size I’ll be able to afford to bring at least one person with me (that would be my bassist Ryan) and maybe even two — my #2 man would be my drummer Jason if he can do it, or some other drummer maybe.

But back to the U.S. tour… when was the last time I blogged?  Did I talk about the rehearsal we did on Tuesday?  No I did not!  It went GREAT!!  It was the first of many rehearsals with the Zincs guys.  Or guy rather, since their singer Jim is out of the country until February.  Their guitarist Nathaniel came though, and of course Ryan and Jason (who is also the Zincs’ drummer — Ryan is going to be their temporary bassist for this tour).  Nathaniel is so, so, soooo good!!  We might as well have been playing a real show, he was that good.  I didn’t even know all this but he teaches guitar at the Old Town School, he’s in all these bands, he plays Afro-Pop music and all this shit.  So he can do my pansy-ass pop songs in his sleep.  He was just basically watching my hands and following along like a champ.  I was so impressed… this is gonna be a *great* fuckin’ band.  Very exciting.  A lot of the songs are turning out to be a lot more rockin’ than they are on the new album, but whatever… I like it that way.  It’s better for the show, because the album is soooo sleepy and dreamy — some songs are still going to be like that, but some of them aren’t, and that’s a good thing IMO.  Oh, and all 3 of them can do the show with me next Sunday, the benefit for Gary Schepers.  So, yayy!!  Full band.  W00t!!

I’ve been killing time and procrastinating on doing things I should really be doing — things like getting my TAXES together before I leave! — by playing around with OkCupid.  I talked a bunch of my single friends into joining so now it’s even more fun than it was before.  Not that I’m finding dates or anything; that was never the reason I liked it anyway, it’s just fun to fool around with taking the tests and answering their questions.  Damn, I can’t explain it but it’s a lot of fun.  If any of you guys join you should let me know and we can bookmark each other’s profiles.  I don’t want to add people as friends unless I know them in real life though.  Because I’ve gone too crazy doing that on Friendster and MySpace, I want to have a place where it’s just my real-life friends in my network.  Well, Matthew is on my friends list and I’ve never met him yet, but he’s different, I’ve known him for so long we might as well be real-life friends.  And we have talked on the phone a lot back in the days when I had free Canada calls as part of my phone plan.  I had to get rid of that because my bills were getting up over $100 a month with the internet service and all, had to cut some corners wherever I could.  Sorry Matthew… when my ship comes in I’ll be able to call whoever the fuck I want, wherever I am, and it won’t matter.  :-) Or I’ll use Skype or something.

Speaking of friends, I had dinner with Laura the other night.  She made really yummy curry soup with veggies, and homemade biscuits.  We sat around and basically talked about DOGS for a couple of hours.  It was a lot more fun than you’d think, the talking about the dogs.  :-) And tonight I had dinner with Eric and his housemate Donna, at Panera.  Because of the cold grody weather, it was the perfect thing.  Yummmm.  Souuuuup.

They just released another mini-upgrade to my blogging software ExpressionEngine, so I’ll be doing that upgrade sometime this weekend.  Hopefully for y’all’s sake I won’t be BLOGGING about it and boring everybody to death.  If I do a test post I’ll just delete it, okay?  Okay.  I only want REAL content up here, see.

That’s all I can think of for now.  Hope y’all’s Friday the 13th wasn’t too horrible, and you all found your vehicles and didn’t start bawling and aren’t totally on the rag like me (metaphorically speaking of course).