::dies::

You guys? I need a vacation. I'm going to settle for a long weekend, but a vacation would be ideal.
Much like business over at Steve Brady's, it's been largely hurricane-related around here this week. There's not much humor (okay, no humor) to be found in the situation. There's much outrage to be felt-- the fact that the government has been slow to respond, the icky feeling that may be because a large number of people stranded in New Orleans may be poor, black, old or a combination of the three. Also, there's this article on the Yahoo! front page. Hey, Hollywood? Not about you right now. Our celebrity worshipping culture should take a time-out. Do your little telethons this weekend, then go back to pulling each other's hair out.
Not much humor to be found in my day-to-day life either. I'm still astoundingly behind schedule on my freelance work. Things with the Whatever are great. New neighbors moved in upstairs and immediately began assailing us with their loud bass. It's the last official weekend of the summer, which is a sad thing. I try to enjoy the fall-- I do like light sweaters, crispy leaves underfoot, and apple pie, but the fall means winter is coming, which makes me homicidal. I hate the six months I spend kicking sludge off the bottom of my pants every time I come inside and spending ten minutes every morning looking for my other mitten. But, I can't complain, because, well, my mittens aren't awash in a flood and my house is still standing. I've got problems, but nothing like some people have problems. It's odd how it takes something so huge and tragic to remind us of how good we've got it. We're assailed with ads, television shows, stories of how great other people have it-- we're not cool without the new Lexus, Johnny Damon has a closet bigger than my apartment-- and then you realize that you really only need a place to stay, some clothes for your back and the people you care about.
I wish you all a great long weekend-- I've got some fun stuff to do, but also have to work on the freelance stuff, which always seems to fuck up my holiday weekends. Maybe if I didn't procrastinate so damn much...