Today I have worked on composition, talked to my brother about his upcomming trip (see below), made up another quote sheet for my desk, and taken many of my wife's old shoes to Goodwill. I am also currently kittylapped. And yes, I know that I lead a charming life.

Cold damn! Sorry, I got Mother's a/c fixed yesterday, and the result is glorious. I am now able to bask in the conflict between the sun and my overworked engine and condenser. Speaking of overworked engine, about two weeks ago, I hit 250,000 miles. Way to go, Mother.

Last week, I activated my new phone. I'm no stranger to Palm products, but this whole "smart phone" thing is a bit odd. I like having a camera though, no matter how strange and small the resulting photos are. Later this week, I'll probably share some more of them. Really, the only issue I'm currently having is that my typing is a bit messy. And I kind of miss Graffiti.

Next week I have my brother coming to visit. My smart, younger, cuter-than-me, and much different sibling will be in town for six days. Whatever should I do with him, aside from the usual constant torment? I'm still operating under the assumption that he doesn't drink, so the bars are out.

Anyway, having whiled away the past hour, I suppose I should get back to being a professional composer and all that.

Today has done its best to piss me off.

Got up early to take the car into the shop: I was informed that my car is too old to have its a/c recharged by the auto shop in my back yard. They didn't even look it over to double-check: they simply have a policy not to work on any cars older than 1995 models.

Now, I have a check-up scheduled for Friday.

The maintenance staff finally showed up to fix the leak in the bathroom ceiling. And though this is wonderful, I felt obligated to stay; I've always been a little weirded out by having people in my house when I'm not there, and there's no one else there I trust. It probably has something to do with all the break-ins we had when I was younger.

So with my self-imposed obligation to stick around, I got very little composing done. Especially since I spent at least half an hour searching for wonderful, magnificent, heart-wrenching, and slightly impossible movies.

Once the gentlemen finished up their job in the bathroom, I had to go in and clean up what mess was left. Having looked at what was involved beforehand, I'm quite happy that I had to do as little as I did. Now both our kitchen and bathroom floors are mopped!

I now have a not-quite brand-new red Palm Centro. I even got my phone service transferred over.

And work was . . . well, trying is a good word. Driving home coworkers who I can commiserate about work with is fabulous: I cannot put a price on the amount of good they're doing for my marriage.

Lastly, I need to get to bed; I have an audition tomorrow for a new church job in Newtown, PA.

This post was brought to you by the "colon" family of punctuation.

. . . because I keep cutting them on random things. Today it was a minor nick on my thumb that I received while replacing my car's wiper blades.

This is the same hand that is now revealing my "bagel scar" from last month. Heck, the scar is still tender and smarts when smacked (yes, I keep finding this out the hard way).

Speaking of my car, I re-assert that I am nearly too poor for a free car.

( Car troubles go here )

But to be forgiving and sound a lot less gripe-y, my mother in-law gave me the car for free, it has 240,000+ miles on it, and this is the most trouble I've had with it. And I am very, very, very grateful to have a car at all, so it's good that I can afford it, even if I do have to put out a few large expenditures for it every once in a while.