the 34th week

Introducing to the hot mess that is Claypole Avenue:
Andy Waugh!

Monday. I ran late to work, thanks to being stuck behind a garbage truck on our narrow street for a solid ten-fifteen minutes. When I got out of work I had a flat tire, but the evening got better: Brandy came over, and we watched The Walking Dead and played Black Ops, and after she left Amos, Blake and I watched Super Troopers till we were wading in the night.

Valentine's Day. Anna's back to working a few days a week (and maybe even more, we'll see!), so I didn't have to go in at 7:30. I slept in and went to The Anchor for breakfast. They commented on having not seen me for quite some time, and I told them I'd been working nothing but food prep shifts for the past two months. It really cut into my pre-work Anchor rendezvous, because there's no way I'm getting up at 5:00 A.M. to do it. Amos and I got out at a decent time, and we spent the evening hanging out in the Dungeon, and Ams came home from work and Josh came over, and we all hung out in Ams' room till about midnight. Ballin' V-Day.

Wednesday. Cold and rainy for most of the day. Work went well, and I went to the library downtown and got a couple books I've been itching to read, books by philosophers and scientists such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Dan Dennett, and Christopher Harris. Lord of the Rings is on hold for more pressing matters. Ams was sick all day, some sort of viral bug, and I made a couple trips to the store to get her bananas, Gatorade ("Not orange, Anth. Not orange."), crackers, and applesauce: the works. She's my sister, so it's no bother. Amos and I hung out for most of the evening, and Andy joined us. They played Magic and I started reading Dawkins' "The God Delusion." Interesting, to say the least.

Thursday. I was scheduled to close, but Anna couldn't work today so I was shifted back to food prep. I trained the new guy Michael on most of the salad bar tear-down (I'm so awesome, aren't I?), and then I found Isaac passed out on our sofa when I got home. I quickly followed suit, and after my nap I went to hang out with Gabe and Emily for a bit in Northside, and then when I got back home Amos and I played Black Ops, and then I migrated to Ams' room to watch "90210" with her and Josh. Andy went to bed early, and Amos and I hung out for a while in the Dungeon before bedtime rolled around.

Friday. I enjoyed The Anchor before closing shop with Amos. Michael--the new guy--was a 'No Call, No Show.' And then Anna left early, so it was pretty crazy. Somehow we busted our asses off and got out by 6:00. We went to see Gabe and Emily for a bit at their place, and they begged us to come see their show. Not really begged, just made it clear they wanted us to come. Emily's in a band with three other girls, they're called "The Apricots," and they're playing in Rabbit Hash later this month. Cat and I--and hopefully some other people--are probably going to go. I took Amos to a friend's, and Brandy came over when I got home. She's staying at the house all weekend since she has to work (usually she goes to Bracken County); she'll be sleeping in Blake's bed. Blake, sadly, is in Bowling Green for the weekend. Brandy's awesome because she loves playing shoot-'em-up video-games, and we played Black Ops downstairs until Amos got home, at which point we played Black Ops for a solid several hours while smoking mint hookah spiked with champagne. Before bed I hung out with Ams for a while: she's all healed up!

Saturday. I went to The Anchor to meet up with Isaac, but he slept through our scheduled breakfast. No big deal: I had a book handy. Andy and I went to lunch at Dusmesh, and he went to work at Carew and I headed home and took one of those 'almost-a-regular-occurrence' 'something-furious' Indian naps. I woke groggy and ran to the bank, and I went downtown to see Andy & Ashley, and they hooked me up with an iced soy latte. It made me feel much better, but the drive back was irritating: for some reason downtown's flooded with people. It looked like downtown Manhattan. Cincinnati's the perfect city because it's never crowded, perfect for an awkward "socialite" such as myself. Amos and Brandy went to BW3s to watch the game, and I decided to stay home and do some writing. When Andy came back from work we swapped music, and when Brandy & Amos got back from watching the game, we replayed Friday night: Black Ops late into the night. We had two Joshes at the houses come 1:00 A.M., lots of drinking and shouting, and a "fight" that blew up when two people started wrestling. I played only one round of "Circle of Death" before stepping out, but by the third Amos had puked and Andy was passed out, and that wasn't even before the "fight." We smoked a bunch of cigarettes on the porch, and I called it a night super early (around 2:00 A.M.).

Sunday. I woke to a quiet house, people nursing their hangovers. I went to The Anchor and drank coffee and read for a while. I was going to go to Crossroads with Brandy & Amos, but I overshot my time at The Anchor with my nose in a book. The afternoon was spent writing: (a) updating my blog and (b) working on The Procyon Strain: Book One. I finished the last Act, just need Ams to look through it for me before revising it for the last time. Amos and Brandy returned, and we hung out in Blake's room before Brandy headed back home. Amos, Andy and I played video-games and I had leftover pizza for dinner. Amos and I watched a show on Conan O'Brien, and when Blake returned from Bowling Green, we watched Arrested Development.