I don’t think I’ll count Sunday night’s sleep. I almost always get insomnia on Sunday night, so let’s just let that slide for now. Let’s talk about Monday.

M-O-N… (“N is the Number of times we’ve wanted to throttle someone today!”) D-A-Y… (“Y? Why do we put ourselves through this week after week?”) S-U-C-K-S…

Let’s see… it all started, I think, with the medium-sized brown spider in my bathroom, the one that was up in the corner above the shower until it decided that my side of the bathroom (the part with the toilet, where I was sitting) was MUCH more interesting. This brown, fast-moving medium-sized spider could tread water, I might add. (He ended up above the shower again, where I managed to knock him down from the ceiling into the tub of running water, in which the little bastard didn’t have the decency to drown for a full two minutes.)

Then there was the housefly (I’ve NEVER had one of those in my room, so why now?)… and the random bug I couldn’t quite identify, before OR after I squashed it with my shoe. All I know is that it had long legs and what looked sort of like mottled wings.

It was standing room only on the bus, which was late so I had the “pleasure” of running for the MAX… on which it was also standing room only. This morning’s commute also convinced me never to switch to taking my bike on the train; seven bicyclists jockeyed for position in the front car, and each car is only designed to carry four bikes reasonably. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to learn that some of the bicyclists in this town can be un-reasonable.

Work wasn’t awful, really, though almost every service call involved either something I couldn’t fix or something that someone broke through sheer stupidity. Well, that’s not true. I did make a laptop “all better” during the middle part of the day. That, folks, was my major contribution to humanity today.

Tomorrow, however, will be a better day: It’s my daughter’s birthday…

So, while it seems as though I’m out of commission lately, it would be more accurate to say that I’ve kept my energy focused on squaring away the other parts of my life (at least, the parts I have any control at all over) instead of writing about my life. Oh, wait. This was supposed to be a journal. Because I can’t remember things very well. Right.

Expect two things in the future: A design overhaul, during which things may look “broken” from time to time. And, some catch-up entries so that years later I can actually keep at least some of the facts straight.

The good news? Life, in general, is treating me fairly well. My silence hasn’t been on account of life sucking mightily, like it was back in the springtime. I thank you for your patience.

Vox sports an amusing feature called the QotD. Today’s was interesting enough that I’ve decided to cross-post my answer here, because not all of my loyal readership is likely to go over there and read the corresponding entry…

How many places have you lived in your life?

You’re kidding, right? Let’s see if I can remember them all:

• Ketchikan, AK (first three months of my life).
• New York City, NY (two apartments over the course of six years).
• Portland, OR (stayed with grandparents for a while).
• Vancouver, WA (two apartments over the course of about a year).
• Brewster, WA (grandparents’ place again… same grandparents, that is… then about five different house-like places in and around town over the course of one-and-a-half of Mom’s subsequent marriages).
• Bridgeport, WA (along the Bridgeport Bar, actually).
• Soap Lake, WA (during the stretch when Mom dumped us off for a few months with an elderly couple we knew from church).
• Back to Brewster, WA (just one place, still along the Bar, but going to school in Brewster instead of Bridgeport).
• Salem, OR (staying with aunt & her girlfriends, then two different apartments once Mom got out of rehab, for a total of three homes… within just three months).
• Back to Brewster, WA (yet again, and back to the same place as before, so maybe that doesn’t count).
• Hillsboro, OR (with a brief layover at some guy’s house, for a total of two places, one of which is mere blocks from where I now work!).
• Kent, WA (an apartment w/ the aforementioned guy, now stepdad #3).
• Bellevue, WA (one house, amen).
• Des Moines, WA (on a boat, no less, for part of the summer).
• Anacortes, WA (same boat, new location, for the remains of the summer).
• Concrete, WA (first living in tents at a campground site up in the hills, then crammed into a tiny hotel room, then finally in our house!).
• Back to Portland, OR (two apartments in the same building with my father, then living with my wife and her family in their house, then rooming with a friend in a house off of NE 82nd, then back to the wife’s family in a different house, then rooming with another friend in a house off SE Foster, then an apartment along SE Powell, then the house near SE Holgate where I lived in one place longer than anywhere else in my entire life, and… finally, my current residence near NE Broadway).

So, what does that all add up to? Thirty-seven “homes” in thirty-four years? That sounds about right. It probably wouldn’t surprise you to learn that I hate moving…