So, it's been a while since I"ve posted. I realize that. Let's just get over it and move on, shall we?

I've been working at the new job for just shy of 2 months, and I think I'm doing okay at it. It requires a massive amount of time-management, and seveal main chunks of the actual work are of completely different types of stuff. There's interpersonal work dealing with mentally ill people, then there's paperwork around a ton of largely administrative things, then there's scheduling appointments, providing transportation, and administering medication. I'm pretty psyched that I seem to be doing adequately well at it. I'm not confident that I"m doing a fantastic job, but at this point, I'll settle with an "adequate" on my self-evalutaion.

So I've been on MySpace a bit lately, largely because an old friend from high school managed to find me there. I'm very happy to be back in contact with him, as he was a good friend who I just sort of lost track of. That's happened with a significant portion of the people I"ve called friends over the years. Luckily, between Myspace and Friendster and randomly meeting people in the grocery store, I can now at least have sporadic contact with people who may have thought I fell off the planet. There is an odd side of this, which I"ll try to explain in terms of superheroes. (Last weekend was an awesome-super-fun time of geekiness, so there's a little superheroicness still on my mind, I guess.)

Imagine that there's a superhero called MellowMan. His defining superpower is that he can get along with pretty much anyone. He doesn't fight supervillains, he mostly just ignores them or avoids them, or acts civilly at parties where the only mildly evil ones show up. Imagine also that MellowMan has had a Very Nearly Arch Nemesis (referred to as VNAN Man), whose superpower was to be mildly irritating and grimy in a kinda pretentious way. So now imagine the existential quandary that arises when MellowMan finds that VNAN really isn't as bothersome as he had thought. Is MellowMan even more super because he has no one to mess up the idea that he can get along with anyone? Or is MellowMan less super because he has lost the weakness that made his rather mediocre talent stand out in the first place?

What an annoyingly self-absorbed paragraph that was. Maybe I'll be my own nemesis now.

Maybe I always was.

So I started my new job today. Here is their website, in case you're interested. It should be an awesome opportunity, although the health/dental rates kinda suck. Why must insurance be so expensive? Between the added cost of healthcare and the cost of commuting, it's possible that I might even take home less money than at my old job. We'll just have to see. And if that's the case, ..."we'll manage." (as Tricky says, very much out of context)

But anyway, I have more orientating to do tomorrow, then I'll be at the actual program on Wednesday. From there I'll begin to learn the wonderful world that is case management. Oddly enough, the other case manager for the same program is also starting now, and is orientating with me. That's not really that odd, actually. However, he does live in the small city right next to my small town, and both are about an hour's traveling time away from the big city we're working in. Is that at all odd? Probably not.

The other day I set up an online schedule for myself at Planzo. It looks like it might or might not be a useful tool for keeping myself organized.

and in still other news, I've added a few more journals to the links over to the right.

As a result of some unfortunate family events, I've had lots of time to myself over the past few days, and for another two after today. As a result, I've been staying up late and getting up late in the morning. That's not a good habit to get into, as the new job I'm starting at the end of the month will require me to be out of the house before 6AM in the morning... That'll take some getting used to. Congratulations to me, by the way, for getting the job. Also, I'm probably going to spend some time tomorrow updating the site. I plan on revamping the archives, and possibly adding lots of music. Most of the time when I'm working with my music, I'm not working on a specific project. I save all of the little bits and pieces as individual "daily tracks," titled with the date. I think it might be fun to start putting these bits online, as some of them are kinda cool sounding. Nothing really approaching what I'd call a song, but some fun sounds and rhythms and whatnot. Anyway, it might be coming online soonish.

To satisfy the dual purposes of saving money and satisfying my geeky desires, we have transferred sparklej.com and saplingcommunity.org to a insidealexandria.net) for half of what we were paying to host two domains previously. I've had to do a lot of behind-the-scenes geekery to get the sites up and running, but it's been fun and largely trouble-free.

And in other news, I'm expecting a call either Monday or Tuesday to let me know whether or not I get a new job working up in Boston as a case manager. The pay won't be any better, and I'll be out of the house longer because of the commute, but it'll be great professional development and I'll have nights and weekends free. Whether I get it or not, I've at least been encouraged by the relatively pleasant interviewing processes.

Still have to finish making some business cards for Electric Monk Computers.

So it's now officially Autumn. That's kinda cool. Lots of stuff coming up soon: Creative Sugar this Friday and Saturday, then a wedding, then my birthday, then my anniversary, then another wedding, then Halloween, then another wedding, then thanksgiving... and so on.

I just woke up from a nap. I got up early to help SJ off to school, then I went back to sleep. I slept for longer than I meant to, partly because of a dream I had while napping. When the alarm went off, I kept snoozing it in the hopes that I would fall asleep again and have more weird dreams.

Today's dream about the aliens
I don't remember the dream all that well, it's mostly fragments. At the beginning of it, there was announcements on the news that aliens had arrived on earth and might be trying to take over. Confusion ensues, along with some brief segments on the news about past American Presidents and speculation about whether or not they knew about the aliens. I think at some point there was a picture of Ronald Reagan on the TV wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. He probably didn't know about the aliens.

More confusing stuff followed in the dream. I think at one point there was a weird-looking cat that had a face that was slightly human, and people thought it might be an alien. Eventually the dream settled down and became a little more consistent. I was with a bunch of other people at this big house in this neighborhood. Everyone was running around inside and outside the house trying to keep a lookout for the aliens. It turns out that the aliens were these weird greenish moth-like creatures that were about six or nine inches long. And they could control your mind. I never figured out if there had to be eye contact, or if they had to touch you to control you or what, but I do remember running around trying to kill these big moths. Oh, and we had to fight these alien-controlled zombie type people too. A few of the people in the dream that I knew got taken over and we had to fight them. I think I fought Steve Urkel too... he's stronger than you'd think at first. I think at one point I had some weird cutting/spreading/cheese-slicing/paint-scraping utensil made by Cutco that I weilded as a weapon. Even in the dream, I thought that thing was odd.

I never figured out of those moths were the main alien force, or if they were being used by the real alien masterminds as the tool of their invasion. Last night I watched the season premiere of lost and part of the premiere of invasion. And the moths were like something I saw in a commercial for this. All that stuff combined to influence my freaky dream, I guess. It was pretty cool, though.